I don’t know about you chaps but I absolutely detest the modern approach companies have with their franchises and games.
I remember you’d get the game on disc and that was it. Or maybe a expansion to go with it which improved it 100%
An example would be say the mortal kombat games, you used to be able to have all the characters or Unlock them. But now you gotta pay up to 100% the game if you want everything.
Micro transactions, seasons passes, small dlc that are often poor money for value, in some cases in the past as well we’ve seen endings sealed behind dlc or things that clearly should have been part of the game but cut out just to make people buy them as dlc.
My most recent purchase of an expansion that really sticks out is probably Xenoblade 3 where you get a whole new story arc and it’s pretty big in terms of expansions.
Why does it stick out? Because it’s very well done and extremely good value for money.
I’ve hated them from the moment they started. I was looking forward to it before any game had it, thinking it would be like getting well made mods for like fifty cents or a dollar. But then it ends up being a color swap for $15 and shit. Low effort, and expensive for what you’re actually getting.
Let me just go back to being able to drop a file into a folder and now I am Spider-Man, like I could do in Quake.
Give me back reasonably priced expansions that were like an entire sequel for half the price of the base game instead of $30 for a single dungeon.
And while we’re at it: give me back server executables and a browser so I can host my own shit and find good, moderated places to hang out.
I miss cheats, there are times I just want to be in god mode without having to download dubious trainers.
Besides that I agree with everyone, micro transactions, loot boxes, games as a service, always online are an instant “no buy”. Also DRM. If it’s not on gog I don’t buy it.
There’s a lot of people who seem to expect games to keep getting updated. Growing up, if I bought a game (with my mom’s money of course), that game was complete, for better or worse.
Now kids seem get upset because I don’t want to add new characters to a shitty little game I released 5 years ago.
Calling it “up to” the full price of the game is being pretty generous. I’ve been really annoyed by Square Enix since they got into the DLC/microtransaction game, because their pricing is always way, way off. It started with Theatrhythm on the 3DS I think. The game had like maybe 50 songs you could play out of the box, but you could buy a ton more at 99ç a piece, which easily cost a lot more than the game itself if you wanted everything.
Some of the skins for Dissidia NT are crazy. First you gotta buy the game, then you gotta buy the character, then you gotta buy a skin and the skin is like $20 for no reason. Unbelievable.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Square Enix has ever done microtransactions with a shred of dignity.
FFXIV handles it “okay”, in that you get a large portion of glam in game and the cash shop stuff is largely excess. There are a few cases where it would have been better to have the reward in game, but for the most part I feel like I can play the game without needing to buy anything.
The impression the community gets is the cash shop is a begrudging feature that SE higher ups mandate to keep cash flow going (because XIV is funding most of SE’s other projects)
What really rubbed me the wrong way with ffxiv’s monetization past the regular subscription was the additional retainer service.
I know it’s not a large benefit to have, even if one’s main focus is on crafting/AH gameplay, but it still annoys me to no end that I could be more efficient by forking over an extra 2USD up to 6 times (iirc) PER MONTH. This means to max out one’s efficiency, one has to nearly double their monthly sub. Ultimately this was one of the many small frustrations with that game that lead to me dropping it, despite overall liking it.
Do they sell a good product at a fair price? Do I know what's in it and get what I'm paying for? Is it future-proofed such that what I bought won't disappear if the seller turns off their servers? Does it refrain from using shady tactics to manipulate me into buying something I don't want?
If the answers to all of those questions are "yes", then it doesn't bother me. For instance, Paradox games. Lots of people seem to feel like they need all of the content for a given game, but I don't understand it. They released what they had for a full game at launch, and then while a large portion of that team can move on to prototyping their next game, a smaller team remains behind to come up with some goodies that you can modify that base game with to keep it fresh, if you're interested. It's low cost for them to improve the game at a systemic level, and if what they put out isn't good enough, you can just not buy it and still play the game you already enjoyed. It isn't any less complete just because they decided to attach more game to it, and this is far better for both parties than selling a sequel every year that's the same as last year's but with a tiny bit extra.
When it comes to cosmetics like Mortal Kombat's, it doesn't bother me that they exist. They're horrendously overpriced, so I never even consider buying them, because they're terrible value. There's also the shop timers that would fall under "shady tactics to [attempt to] manipulate me", so that's not cool. Far worse though is how much of that game is arbitrarily tied to server checks, including a couple of unlocks in the base game. Also not cool is that they replaced Krypt with Invasions. The Krypt was a metroidvania-esque dungeon crawl, and while it too was designed to get you to grind a bunch or spend a bunch of extra money, it was actually fun to solve. Invasions is just bot matches but worse, and it's tied behind server checks, because people like me used Cheat Engine to bypass the Krypt grind in MKX rather than spend $20 on Kombat Koins. I really enjoy MK, but they're stepping right up to, and sometimes dancing over, the line.
Microtransactions annoy me, sure. But the season pass, live service, bullshit stuff pisses me off more. It’s just a step towards what I hate about apps on my phone these days. There are so many apps that require a subscription but have no recurring fees or content updates. I’m talking calendar apps, or apps for taking notes, etc.
Ubisoft guy recently implied he wants to take things this direction but it’s not that far off with their games already.
If you go by standard inflation, games purchased in 1998 would now cost over $100. And, given reduced visuals, those games needed much fewer people to finish.
Selling games for $100 is one idea, and some publishers have even shifted that way. But, that’s not so fair for low income gamers (especially since even since 1998, the minimum wage hasn’t really gone up).
The solution they came up with is changing the entry fee, and giving semi-pointless extras on top. What I’ve generally seen is that the things games sell within them are in no way “Half the game’s content”; usually things more like skins and cosmetics. Levels, story, and gameplay items are very commonly accessible to everyone. There are expansion packs, just as there were in 1998, that usually represent significant development efforts, new voice acting, and new levels.
Skins are not “nothing”, so I understand the frustration of having them unavailable, compared to old days when they were unlockable by doing a kickflip between the schools in Tony Hawk or something. But in those old days, games effectively cost $100. Which would you prefer?
$100 games. I know I’m the minority in this as I have the income for it, but I subscribe to the “buy once, cry once” mentality where I’d rather pay a large up-front cost for something and just have it be mine with all the bells and whistles it comes with. I detest this nickle and dime bullshit modern gaming has become.
Which is why I’ve also given up on “AAA” games from corporate publishers and stick to indie games from indie developers. I’m sure even if the AAA publishers started charging $100 for games, they’d still nickle and dime you just because they can.
That’s definitely a fair opinion - just unfortunate that enough people wouldn’t agree, or wouldn’t be able to afford $100 games, that that will probably never happen.
The other issue is that developers these days keep working on games after their release - often using information gained related to launch reception.
One other thing I think people forget about older games is that they made a lot of sequels. They have the assets for a mid-sized game and a lot of unused ideas, so to put out more content they remix what they have in new ways for a shorter development cycle. That kind of thing now becomes more suitable for an expansion pack; but whichever way it’s sold, the timeline for its release would never have made it to the first game’s production deadline.
There are a lot of benefits to the sequel model in some circumstances. You get to have every permutation of a game and its versions rather than overwriting previous versions of a game that arguably might be better for their own reasons.
Street Fighter 6 recently came out, to pretty high praise from reviewers and the general public.
The game has a “Year 1 character pass” that adds 4 new characters. Eventually, there will be a year 2 character pass that will add more characters. If you’re not buying these, you’re literally not getting the entire game. When you play online, you will face opponents playing characters that you can’t even play yourself.
There are lots of games that have similar features where not spending the extra cash means you’re literally not getting as much content as everyone else. It’s not just about cosmetics anymore and hasn’t been for years now.
That’s actually a very fair point. I don’t play fighting games, but this is a common theme for many multiplayer games now. A lot of developers have worked to make the newer character options “fair”, but even when they work to balance new with old, just having confusing tactical options that some players can’t play as is enough to mess with someone’s strategic skill development.
So for fighting games, character passes are a good thing(overall).
If you bought SF4 at launch and continued to play the game throughout it’s life, you ended up buying the same game multiple times. This was essentially a few characters and a balance patch(had new mechanics as well). This the fragmented the player base a lot, so if you were playing the base game you couldn’t play with someone on the latest version.
Street Fighter 5 however, switched to character passes and even being able to unlock characters with in-game currency(difficult if you came to the game later but possible). This means everyone got the balance patches and major system updates, so the player base stayed as a single entity.
For a niche genre, this is significantly better than multiple purchases of the same game, and allows for a game to get more updates over a longer time.
However I do wish they kept in more unlockable content like costumes, colours and stages.
Specific to Street Fighter 6 though, they have a battlepass(which is not good, but isn’t terrible either) which the free version gave/gives out a bunch of character rental tokens, so you can play with DLC characters you haven’t purchased.
Lots of the DLC crap was stuff you unlocked by playing in the past. I remember playing DoA 2 and unlocking costumes, DoA 6 has like 2000 bucks worth of DLC costumes or some crap lol
Its more about DLCs, then microtransactions but the two are very similar.
Okay lets say its a Steam Sale and they have publisher highlights. Lets saaay…Ubisoft or EA or one of these big corporate publishers.
Huuuge banners::Sale up-to 85% off
So since I am a patient gamer I start browsing and look at some 8-10 years old AAA titles I didn’t bother to pay full price for at relese. Like some older AC, Ghost Recon, or something for under 10 EUR/USD. Cool, then you click on it and what I see?
THATS ONLY THE FUCKING BASE GAME!?!?!! They still sell 3 premium editions with the DLCs and the one with all the content is something like 25-30 EUR/USD. With 85% off. So the full price is still something like 100+ EUR/USD. Fuck this artificially inflated price, I’m not paying that much for a decade old fucking game.
While other publishers roll all content into a complete edition or even release free remasters with all content included for considerably lower price for their older titles these greedy fuck publishers still trying to sell us exclusive content from a decade ago. Fucking boils my blood.
I can tell you from experience that you'll have a better time with plenty of old Assassin's Creed games by not having the DLC in the picture to affect your opinion of the total package.
One thing that kills me are the “its just cosmetics” fellas. While I agree that is is the least worst option for micro transactions but for most games the drip game is half the game. I want to look cool and I want those looks to represent I did something in game.
Any kind of microtransaction or paid content is a real turn off for me nowadays. I really couldn’t care less about your loot boxes, battle passes and “games as a service” so I will just play something else.
I haven’t bought a game with microtransactions in several years, even if I was interested in the game. I know my resistance probably doesn’t accomplish much, but I simply refuse to support that business model. I don’t want to put up with pressure to pay “just a little bit more”. Day 1 DLC isn’t a guaranteed gamebreaker for me if I already really want the game, but it definitely reduces my interest and I’ve passed over several games before because of it.
I wholeheartedly support expansions so long as their content justifies their pricetag.
I know my resistance probably doesn’t accomplish much
It does. Besides not giving that game your time and money, you're instead putting it in some other game that's making what you want, and they probably need your time and money more to keep doing that.
I have no problem with developers continuing to create new content and give customers the option to buy it or not.
Loot boxes and gambling stuff and types of micro transactions where you are basically paying a fee to avoid artificial annoyance/grinding are a cancer on the industry.
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