Gaming Play It---For a Premium

[Charles]

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Downloadable in-game content is going to be a big deal across all next generation platforms. In theory, microtransactions can contribute to video games. The developer can go back and expand on their product by adding new content for a nominal fee. Bungie, for example, seemed to have the right idea when they released moderately priced map packs for Halo 2, each of which became free later on. Hardcore players would immediately fork out the cash to get the content early, while those who wanted to wait until it was free--waited. Either way, the map packs, in addition to downloadable gameplay tweaks actually improved Halo 2 in a meaningful way.

Microtransactions on the next generation systems, on the other hand, are leaving me a little jaded. While I enjoy downloading Xbox Live Arcade games, I can't help but to notice the influx of developers simply abusing microtransactions. The first really notable example was Bethesda's horse armor pack for Oblivion; the file added some protection for characters' mounts--for $2.50. I love Oblivion, but there was no way I would spend $2.50 on a trivial download when PC owners could get the same thing for free.

Lately, EA has been the worst offender by selling "consumables"; EA has essentially removed the cheat codes from their games, instead opting to put them online as priced downloads. I remember reading about one download for The Godfather in which the player can pay so that they could buy certain guns in the game. So, you'll be [I]paying[/I] just so that shopkeepers will carry the gun, but you will not have it. EA also has microtransactions up where you can pay for in-game money. Need For Speed: Carbon has $50 worth of downloadable content--most of which is already on the disc and can be unlocked for free.

Obviously anyone with a brain should know better than to purchase EA's crap, but it's just a shame that they're allowed to put up such lazy offerings. The worst part is that since there is no regulation and developers are allowed to put up whatever they want at no cost.

Lumines was troublesome too because you pay $15 for the game, and many of the options are unselectable unless you purchase additional packs. My problem with this is that this is not clarified on the download description.

The same abuse will undoubtedly carry over to the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 as well. One bit that already bothers me is that Sega Genesis games are going to [B]start[/B] at $8. The Super Nintendo games are also $8, so it seems to make sense, but the fact that Genesis games may cost even more is absurd. On the whole, I do not see why anyone would bother downloading twelve year old games with no enhancements for eight dollars or more.

So, what are your opinions on this issue? Do you think that microtransactions will ruin gaming?

At this point, I could see developers eventually making role-playing games entirely episodic, forcing the player to pay for each new addition to the story. Or, I could see developers just forcing half-complete products on the shelves and charging the gamer for the rest. Maybe I'm overreacting though. :animenose

[DeadSeraphim]

[COLOR=Indigo][SIZE=1][FONT=Arial]I think there's a good chance it could destroy gaming for a lot of people. For one, a lot of teenage (and below) gamers simply wouldn't be able to buy any incremental updates or whatever because they wouldn't have a credit card, and that applies to people who aren't eligible for one too. I mean, how many adults trust their children with their credit cards?

Then you have the whole market of people who simply don't want to use their credit card for intangible **** like "Godfather Weapons Cheat". There is a whole market of people who will, yeah, but for the people who have more class than that, gaming for them will be ******. They already spent upwards of $50 on the game, then they have to invest $15 more just to use cheats, or - in your worst case scenario - proceed to the next portion of the videogames plot? It's like being back in the shareware days, except you're paying for the game to begin with... and no one liked the shareware "get a large portion of the game for free then pay for the rest of the game" system, so lets see people warm up to the "pay for the game then pay for the rest of the game" system.

Except they won't.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR=DarkOrange]I've been rather bothered by this system myself. While I enjoy the prospect of downloading demos and trailers to my 360, I'm shocked to see that some may cost money! Why the hell would I pay for a demo or even worse-- a trailer?! I'll just rent the damn game!

Online games are bad enough already. To play [B]Phantasy Star Universe [/B] we had to shell out 80 bucks for a wireless tranceiver since the only good computer is on a different floor, had to buy an XBox Live account, had to buy a Hunter's Liscence for $10 which is only one month, and the game itself costed 60 bucks!

If it starts getting worse, I'm going to be seriously pissed off. I don't have the dough to put up with this crap.[/COLOR]

[Semjaza]

Bethesda sells all of that Oblivion stuff for the PC too, so it's not exactly free in their case either.

In any case, what's going to happen is what gamers allow to happen. If anything, this generation is going to serve as the testing ground. Whether that test lasts several months or the entire generation is really up to argument... but my point is that if people continue to react as poorly as they have to the situations surrounding EA's last couple of titles, Lumines Live! and other games in the future (such as Gran Turismo HD Classic), these things are going to die down.

This is one of those cases where you can only really speak with your money, though. If people buy what are essentially cheat codes for EA games so they can get things earlier, I don't know if I should be more annoyed with EA or the people willing to spend $10 to do it.

[Papa Smurf]

Well, I think a lot of the microtransactions are complete ********. I can see some stuff, like what Bungie did with the map pack. That had new maps, in addition to new weapon balances, and the grenades are amazing now. Good move with the microtransaction. It was totally worth getting, whether through the stores or online.

Anything else I've seen, I can't say that I'm impressed, particularly the pricing for the Virtual Console stuff on Wii. I mean, even 8 bucks seems misguided. Sure, if you were to buy, say, Super Mario All-Stars in cartridge form, you're going to spend 40 bucks, but here, you really aren't buying anything more than a ROM...and I can't see any ROM being worth 8 bucks. Or even 5.

MAYBE they'd be worth it if there were significant enhancements made to the VC games, like what I hear was done with UMK3, or even Doom.

Generally, though...microtransactions aren't being handled as well as they could be, I guess. Some things are pretty solid, like various XBL retro games, and stuff from Bungie, even [i]some[/i] of what Bethesda is doing for Oblivion--though, horse armor was the only crock of shat download from what I can tell...everything else seemed to be pretty useful, especially Frostcrag Spire for those unfortunate people who want to create spells but can't get into the Mages' Guild after a certain corpse vanished.

[quote name='DeadSeraphim']and no one liked the shareware "get a large portion of the game for free then pay for the rest of the game" system[/quote]
Duke Nukem would disagree with you.

[Charles]

[quote name='Papa Smurf'] Duke Nukem would disagree with you.[/quote]

I think we're well past that now--especially with the cost of console titles. I highly doubt that people are going to happily spend sixty bucks for incomplete games.

2006DigitalBoy--I'm pretty sure that you do not have to pay for demos or trailers unless there's some kind of new turn of events that I'm unaware of. Every demo and trailer I have run across on the Xbox Live Marketplace has been for free. I don't think that companies will charge you for advertising a game to you. If a company does do that, it will probably be EA.

Also, you do not have to buy an Xbox Live Gold account to play Phantasy Star Universe from what I understand. Silver works just fine.

[Papa Smurf]

[quote name='Charles']I think we're well past that now--especially with the cost of console titles. I highly doubt that people are going to happily spend sixty bucks for incomplete games[/quote]
Well, the underlying mistake in what Alan here is saying is that shareware/freeware in how he's using it is something totally different to the crap EA is trying to pull here. And he says how people don't like shareware, but yet, that's what game demos are: portions of the game you can play for free.

Duke Nukem 3D got major cred through its shareware/freeware campaign back in the 1990s...it's basically what got people to pay attention to the game. Same principle here.

Freeware/shareware are absolutely not the same thing as EA's crap, and I don't really see how pointing to shareware is a valid point at all in that regard. We'd be comparing free game demos to partial games you still have to pay for. It's a comparison that makes no sense in the first place, because, realistically, [i]who doesn't like [b]free[/b] game demos[/i]?

[DeadSeraphim]

[QUOTE=Papa Smurf]Well, the underlying mistake in what Alan here is saying is that shareware/freeware in how he's using it is something totally different to the crap EA is trying to pull here. And he says how people don't like shareware, but yet, that's what game demos are: portions of the game you can play for free.

Duke Nukem 3D got major cred through its shareware/freeware campaign back in the 1990s...it's basically what got people to pay attention to the game. Same principle here.

Freeware/shareware are absolutely not the same thing as EA's crap, and I don't really see how pointing to shareware is a valid point at all in that regard. We'd be comparing free game demos to partial games you still have to pay for. It's a comparison that makes no sense in the first place, because, realistically, [i]who doesn't like [b]free[/b] game demos[/i]?[/QUOTE]
[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Shareware aren't demos. Demos are portions of incomplete games, where you're only being given a taste of the game. Shareware gave you whole complete portions of the game - Doom gave you the entire first episode for example - with no limits, and everything done, and when you got to a point they'd ask you to donate/buy a serial, you'd input it, and bam, rest of the game. Demo != Shareware, get it right.

And that's what makes this exactly the same thing. You'd have full control of the game, and no limits, and it would be done, but once you hit a point it'd be BAM - buy next installment, plz (well, worst case scenario, I mean). The only difference is you'd have payed $60 already for the game, and therein lies the problem.[/font][/color][/size]

[James]

[font=arial]I definitely have concerns about "episodic content". The idea is great in theory, but it really depends how it's approached in each case. Some companies are including hours of gameplay for a low price, whereas others are offering a few token elements for an astronomical fee.

Basically I agree with Tony. This is a new area for console gaming (and to some extent, PC gaming); this generation is a test bed, more or less. In a free market, developers will respond to what consumers pay for. If a large amount of people are prepared to pay for cheats, that's what developers will produce for us.

I think there are some amazing possibilities with microtransactions, but few companies seem to be taking advantage of them.[/font]

[Papa Smurf]

[quote name='DeadSeraphim']Shareware aren't demos. Demos are portions of incomplete games, where you're only being given a taste of the game. Shareware gave you whole complete portions of the game - Doom gave you the entire first episode for example - with no limits, and everything done, and when you got to a point they'd ask you to donate/buy a serial, you'd input it, and bam, rest of the game. Demo != Shareware, get it right.[/quote] Alan, what you're describing here is no different than [b]game demos[/b]. Don't tell me to "get it right" because you're entirely getting it wrong, dude.

[quote]And that's what makes this exactly the same thing.[/QUOTE] And it's not "exactly the same thing" at all. Shareware and freeware were used to [i]advertise[/i] a game, to get people aware of a game. [i]NOT[/i] to suck more money out of people after they've already paid 60 dollars.

What you're talking about are marketing tools. What's going on here is price-gouging. Two radically different things.

And plus, you tried to say that people didn't like the idea of shareware. A few decades worth of gaming trends tend to pretty much obliterate such an assessment.

So really, I don't know what you're trying to say here. There's no way in hell you can begin to seriously compare mid-90s marketing tools used by fledgling developers to generate interest in a product, and what ******** we're seeing from EA. Why do you think something like Duke Nukem 3D was such a huge hit, if people didn't like shareware? Were you even playing video games back when shareware was big? Were you even born yet?

EDIT: Oh yeah, about the horse armor thing...am I the only one who just steals horses? I don't care if they don't have armor. They're dead to me as soon as I get to my destination...and whether I mean "dead to me" literally or figuratively is what you have to decide...

[DeadSeraphim]

[COLOR=Indigo][SIZE=1][FONT=Arial][QUOTE=Papa Smurf]Alan, what you're describing here is no different than [b]game demos[/b]. Don't tell me to "get it right" because you're entirely getting it wrong, dude.


And it's not "exactly the same thing" at all. Shareware and freeware were used to [i]advertise[/i] a game, to get people aware of a game. [i]NOT[/i] to suck more money out of people after they've already paid 60 dollars.

What you're talking about are marketing tools. What's going on here is price-gouging. Two radically different things.

And plus, you tried to say that people didn't like the idea of shareware. A few decades worth of gaming trends tend to pretty much obliterate such an assessment.

So really, I don't know what you're trying to say here. There's no way in hell you can begin to seriously compare mid-90s marketing tools used by fledgling developers to generate interest in a product, and what ******** we're seeing from EA. Why do you think something like Duke Nukem 3D was such a huge hit, if people didn't like shareware? Were you even playing video games back when shareware was big? Were you even born yet?[/QUOTE]
Demos? I've never known a demo to include an entire third of the game, Alex. I've known demos to take me through one or two specific sections, but never do they let you play from the start all the way through a third - and then have it tell me you to buy a serial or get out. Once you got the serial though, the rest was [i]right there[/i]. In practice, shareware games were a fundamentally different concept to demos because of that, it let you get a real solid experience with the game then if you were willing to support the studio, it let you keep going. Demos just give you enough to cut your teeth on but just enough to (ideally) leave you wanting more, then you'd have to go out and buy the game separately. In both scenarios you're getting a taste of a full game, but the circumstances, execution, and the fact demos are never refered to as shareware, or vice verca, outside of your claims in this thread, make them entirely different beasts.

But I digress.

Episodic content is similar to shareware (by the way I'm defining it) because you already have the full game at your fingertips (or would, if they weren't hosted online - you've still payed for a full game though), but you have to pay a little bit extra once you hit that point. And with that said, I'm done arguing pointless semantics.

Post Script: Shareware as a concept only worked really on the **** that was new and exciting, like the original Doom. Duke Nukem 3D got more sales through off the shelf than shareware, and rode the controversy wave more than the shareware wave (Charles summed it up earlier as Doom with strippers, which piqued people's attention - lucky the gameplay was solid, huh?). The fact that shareware as a marketting concept died out shows that people got sick of it for gaming (utility shareware is still going strong, of course).[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Papa Smurf]

[QUOTE=DeadSeraphim]Demos? I've never known a demo to include an entire third of the game, Alex. I've known demos to take me through one or two specific sections, but never do they let you play from the start all the way through a third - and then have it tell me you to buy a serial or get out. Once you got the serial though, the rest was right there. In practice, shareware games were a fundamentally different concept to demos because of that, it let you get a real solid experience with the game then if you were willing to support the studio, it let you keep going. Demos just give you enough to cut your teeth on but just enough to (ideally) leave you wanting more, then you'd have to go out and buy the game separately. In both scenarios you're getting a taste of a full game, but the circumstances, execution, and the fact demos are never refered to as shareware, or vice verca, outside of your claims in this thread, make them entirely different beasts.

But I digress.

Episodic content is similar to shareware (by the way I'm defining it) because you already have the full game at your fingertips (or would, if they weren't hosted online - you've still payed for a full game though), but you have to pay a little bit extra once you hit that point. And with that said, I'm done arguing pointless semantics.

Post Script: Shareware as a concept only worked really on the **** that was new and exciting, like the original Doom. Duke Nukem 3D got more sales through off the shelf than shareware, and rode the controversy wave more than the shareware wave (Charles summed it up earlier as Doom with strippers, which piqued people's attention - lucky the gameplay was solid, huh?). The fact that shareware as a marketting concept died out shows that people got sick of it for gaming (utility shareware is still going strong, of course).[/QUOTE] Alan, what did companies use demos and shareware for? To entice you to support the company, to buy the software. No matter if you call it a demo or shareware, [i]the goal was the same[/i]: to give you a taste of the game [b]*for free*[/b] so that you'll hopefully snag the full product.

That is not comparable to this microtransaction ********, and pointing to some vague public dislike of shareware does nothing to help whatever point you're trying to make, because the public absolutely embraced shareware/demos. Nobody would have given two shats about Duke Nukem 3D had Apogee not done shareware. The edgy qualities of the game certainly were a selling point, but Apogee got people hooked by giving them those demos.

And I don't see how you can say that shareware as a marketing [b]concept[/b] has died out at all...considering the success of demos across the industry today. You have entire sections on XBL for game demos. You have entire networks on sites like Gamespot dedicated to game demos. Shareware as a [b]concept[/b] is still alive and well.

So why point to shareware/demos to criticize EA's price-gouging? It's just a stupid thing to do. With shareware, you still got the product for free. You didn't have to pay anything to get that partial game. And people obviously did not dislike that at all. The success of shareware is testament to that.

What EA is doing is nothing like shareware. You're paying 60 bucks up front to play a portion of the game, then another 50 or so on top of that, like in the case of NFS:Carbon. If they gave you the starter portion of the game for free, then you could make such a comparison.

[quote]Episodic content is similar to shareware (by the way I'm defining it) because you already have the full game at your fingertips[/quote] The way you're defining it is a totally broad and vague idea, though, that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Anyone can see that even episodic content is totally different than shareware, most importantly because you don't pay anything up front with shareware, as opposed to what we're seeing currently with microtransactions. "But the content is still there, just restricted from you" you say? So what? I don't see how that enables this comparison, especially when the respective pricing structures of each system are totally different.

Shareware itself didn't die out due to the lack of public interest, either. It just became too expensive to distribute in the original methods. Back in the 90s, gaming was still small enough to where you could spread the game over messageboards, or on 3.5 floppies. That's not the case anymore. Now it's either high-speed downloads or CDs. Or even DVDs in some cases.

[James]

[quote]Episodic content is similar to shareware (by the way I'm defining it) because you already have the full game at your fingertips (or would, if they weren't hosted online - you've still payed for a full game though), but you have to pay a little bit extra once you hit that point. [/quote]

[font=arial]Shareware itself came in a few different forms anyway. Some games were [i]entirely[/i] free or had "free versions". And then there were other games that were essentially extended demos of a finalized retail product.

I see the distinction you are making though and from your point of view it makes sense. I think that the challenges with episodic content are very similar to what we had with shareware...only perhaps we're talking about a more dangerous scenario.

I suppose for me, the ultimate nightmare scenario is that you play for an hour, reach a cliffhanger and then are told "1000 Wii Points to Continue to Chapter 2" or whatever. In other words, you're not getting a full game with multiple episodes...instead you're getting a standard-length game and you're essentially paying more because of the payment method.

I suspect that such systems won't survive though, because most people just aren't going to be willing to spend that kind of money.

Micro-transactions will no doubt be a novelty for a while, but unless developers include true value in them, I don't think they have much of a stable future. But then again, this is where competition comes in - companies who offer real value will hopefully be rewarded by consumers.[/font]

[Semjaza]

The thing is that EA isn't the only company doing microtransactions. People can ***** about them specifically all they want, but it doesn't invalidate the basic idea of it.

Bethesda put out the horse pack and people bitched. They subsequently increased the value of some of the other releases while making the prices more reasonable. Some aren't of major use to anyone but major fans of the game, but I don't really see a problem with paying a few bucks for a dungeon with new weapons that takes a couple of hours to complete.

There's nothing inherently wrong with microtransactions. They can help extend the life of a game. In Oblivion's case, these add-ons were obviously designed after the game went gold. They weren't removed in order to be sold later. The same is true of the car packs (the latest of which came with some new game modes) or some of the bigger map packs for games like PDZ or GRAW.

If you don't buy it, you still have the main complete game. You don't have to buy it to keep up with anyone else or get more achievements or anything else. It's optional. If the online marketplace didn't exist, most game add-ons wouldn't be coming out at all. At some point development has to stop and resources put elsewhere.

There's a way to balance these things. Unfortunately, there's obviously a few companies that seek to take advantage of it from the start. EA is the big one, but like I said, there's been little going on to show them to be the norm rather than the exception. I would say that for the most part the microtransactions on Live itself have been rather fair. Sony's and Nintendo's systems are still kind of up in the air, so it's hard to freak out yet.

Like I was saying before, this is a testing ground right now. Previous to Live this wasn't even really an option. It's the same with every thing else. It's new, so companies want to take advantage of it as much as they can before it's obvious what the general public is actually willing to pay for.

If EA continues to get as much negative press as they are right now for some of their online practices, I suspect something might be done about it. Whether from their end or Microsoft's. Unfortunately, considering this is a capitalistic society and the dashboard descriptions for NFS: Carbon (for example) clearly state that these packs give you "instant access" to stuff already in the game... if people pay for that even after reading about it, I don't know what to say. EA is being unethical about it, in my opinion, but again, all we can do is not buy it and hope MS notices the complaints. It sure seems like majornelson.com alone gets enough of them.

I don't know that full game and arcade downloads should technically count as "microtransactions" to begin with. Usually the term is used in relation to buying small parts for existing games.

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Charles']Also, you do not have to buy an Xbox Live Gold account to play Phantasy Star Universe from what I understand. Silver works just fine.[/quote]

[COLOR=DarkOrange]Yes, but I needed gold for Halo 2 as well :P also, on top of all those costs, the damn 360 turns out to be a faulty unit, ruins Phantasy Star Universe and Enchanted Arms (got them both exchanged) and now we have to mail it to Microsoft, wasting a good about of my Live time AND my Hunter's Liscence.

Microsoft seems to be dropping the ball here. The Xbox never had any problems with me. I'd hate for this to end up like the PS2.

When it comes to premiums, online play, and all the things you have to buy extra, gaming has gotten way too damn expensive. Last generation I bought a PS2 for 150 bucks, a whole lot of 20 dollar RPGs and was content.

I hate to think that gaming will be ruined for me by freaking prices.[/COLOR]

[Semjaza]

[QUOTE=2006DigitalBoy][COLOR=DarkOrange]When it comes to premiums, online play, and all the things you have to buy extra, gaming has gotten way too damn expensive. Last generation I bought a PS2 for 150 bucks, a whole lot of 20 dollar RPGs and was content.

I hate to think that gaming will be ruined for me by freaking prices.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

You're kind of comparing PS2 prices near the middle and end of its life-cycle to 360 prices near the beginning of its life cycle, though. I got a PS2 shortly after launch and, trust me, it wasn't much cheaper to get to play most of what I wanted to lol. Hell, for quite a while there really weren't even any decent RPGs to speak of.

I guess the same is true of every generation, really.

[2010DigitalBoy]

[QUOTE=Generic NPC #3]You're kind of comparing PS2 prices near the middle and end of its life-cycle to 360 prices near the beginning of its life cycle, though. I got a PS2 shortly after launch and, trust me, it wasn't much cheaper to get to play most of what I wanted to lol. Hell, for quite a while there really weren't even any decent RPGs to speak of.

I guess the same is true of every generation, really.[/QUOTE]

[COLOR=DarkOrange]Well, technically, I've payed HELLA more for PS2 consoles since I've had 4. (first stopped playing games, second bought from friend for $15 only for him to steal it back after I bought $200 worth of games, thrid kept destroying disks, now I have slim version.)

Anyway, I do realize I am talking about mid-life term of the PS2, as when it first came out I was a 'tendie fanboy.

But even then, the Gamecube was only $200 when I first got it and it never gave me any trouble (till it melted down when we lived in Florida for a while >_<). And there has never been anything necessary to buy for the GC, it's fun with just games (and because all the side crap they released sucked, but was just side crap.)

That's how I think upgrades should remain. SIDE crap. (well, not necessarily crap.)[/COLOR]