One industry analyst has said the gaming industry's sales and performance will not be damaged as a result of the fallout from the tragedy last week.
Doug Kreutz, an analyst at Cowen, lowered his sales estimate for Star Wars Battlefront II while saying that core gamers are increasingly unhappy with developers embedding microtransactions into gameplay.
As scummy as lootboxes are, it's still a decent alternative to $50 season passes that fragment the MP community. It's a shame that Activision wants to get their hands in both pots with Call of Duty.
Nah, far from a decent alternative. Loot boxes end up costing more due to the predatory nature of them. Season passes at least pay for extra content (maps etc) where loot boxes pay for nothing apart from shareholders extra yachts.
no they dont. ive never spent real money on a loot box, but i cant as easily opt out of a season pass
I m with uth11
I think he meant you don't have to pay for extra content whereas for a season pass you obviously have to buy it to get extra content. Nobody likes loot crates and I hope they get rid of them but that's simply a fact.
Sorry uth, but you couldn't be more wrong. You can avoid loot boxes and not spend money on them because traditionally they don't contain core game elements - granted, Activision and EA are determined to make it so aspects that impact gameplay are included now.
As for loot boxes not costing more, there are enough people spending hundreds or thousands on loot boxes in Overwatch, the Fifa Ultimate Team Packs and more. EA's financial reports indicated the success of such as FUT and the amount spent on it, and it's huge.
Season passes are just a collection of DLC. While I don't agree with paying for DLC up front in the form of a season pass, it's just a preorder. Of course when developers actually create large amounts of extra content for a game, they're going to charge for it.
Expansion packs like Blood and Wine for Witcher 3, DLC like Brettonia for Total War: Warhammer 2, it's extra content you pay for and you actually get something in return. You can opt out of it if you want to, just but whatever content you want separately and at least you don't have to gamble to actually get the content you're after.
No it is not as it effects the core game play and progression. A season pass or MT's has to be done right and not increase your hours from a few hundred to a few thousand. SW BF2 should have been FTP with the model they opted for, simple.
Paid map packs divide online communities. Halo 5 has expanded so much with free content drops, and it wouldn't have had the same effect if you had to pay for them.
There's a line with how microtransactions are implemented, and EA has crossed it. But some games can genuinely justify them, especially if they're done well (Halo 5, Overwatch, Rocket League for example.)
@emporer you are completely right and so do poor executed games. For example I didn't buy swbf2 purely out of my dislike to the model so technically they have lowered (or divided) the community even more so.
If they opted for xp boosts and cosmetics which let's face it who wouldn't wanna run around as a bright watever storm trooper, I am sure they would see revenue whilst keeping the free dlc.
They dont need 50$ season passes or lootboxes devs costs are thr lowest they been in a decade stop believing the caompanies that have lied to you time and time again.
That's the stupidest notion that floating around. I need to see full blown evidence that this is true not some forum speculation. With that said no the do not need these loot boxes in games, they are still profitable enough but everybody involved is getting greedy.
They aren't at their lowest. But they are about the same as they were at the start of last gen where they used the excuse to raise the prices of games, and start implementing MT. What's different though is that the software sales are way up.
The biggest problem I think is that they spend way too much on marketing, but a lot of those big budget ones(including BF2) was paid for primarily by the console makers.
Right, I prefer free maps alongside balance destroying, grind increasing mechanics than having the option of picking which maps I want with the ability to unlock every equipment within a month or 2 instead of years. Because I'm never that busy; I don't have a job, family, in school, hobbies, or other video games to play.
That was sarcasm by the way. I wouldn't put faith that these devs won't just give you recycled maps from previous games and try to trick you that it's fine because it was free with a full approach system that ties into microtransactions.
Rather see a balanced game economy than seeing whales demolish everyone or taking forever to get the guns or gear that I want. This isn't supposed to be an MMORPG, it's not at it's core designed like that.
When a developer ties progression to loot boxes it's not decent, it's a system designed to screw you over.
Nah cod WW2 especially is incredibly easy to grind I've played 12 hours and prestiged. I feel no incentive or disadvantage from not buying loot boxes.
I'm not happy they are there but as long as I'm not at a disadvantage massively I don't mind
I'm pretty far from a cod fan I hated most recent entries in fact every cod since MW2 and just avoid them until WW2 got me interested again the community is still garbage though.
wrong, only conditioned people believe that games only survive with season passes or MTs.
What's a better alternative is a complete $60 game. They can fund it through MT for things that don't really affect much....like cosmetics. Sell a good game, make money. Pretty simple really. Believe it or not, most MP games cost significantly less to make than a media stuffed SP campaign. Maybe they can cut the marketing budgets to less than the development budgets, and still see the sales come in, and still make a profit without trying to gouge the user base, or piss off the people who actually do want to give them money for their games.
If Overwatch and other games can get it right with cosmetics only, then it's more about the implementation. You just have to make cosmetic loot that is worth getting.
I'd rather pay $50 for a season pass to an amazing game than have the integrity of my game compromised to shoehorn in MTs so that they don't need to do a season pass.
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They were willing to accept it to an extent now more and more people are just tried of getting nickled and dimed..
Apparently when the analyst thought that the vocal gaming community was inconsequential to the actual sales of the games. While that is partially true, and publishers could ride that out for a while as the numbers build up to bigger boycotts, the fact remains that the analysts and publishers disregarded the concerns of a sizable portion of their potential audience in an effort to capitalize off a small portion of the buying public.
The people unhappy with them has been growing over the years. It was only a matter of time before everything came to a head. I knew that it would be EA who finally screw up big enough to cause a big enough outcry to screw everything up for the publishers who were more responsible with their MT policies.
Hope this game and EA rots
Kill all loot boxes and microtransactions from ALL games.
Free to play games should be the exception. I will add that it should be balanced. Several games I've thoroughly enjoyed and wanted to spend a few dollars because I sincerely beloved the devs deserved it
It seems it was long time ago. A bunch of friends spending hours on end playing RPG games, sitting around the table with the box of cold pizza. Excited about the story, listening to the Game Master, they were completely engaged in the worlds only visible to them and their imaginations.
The GM is the programmer, and in MMOs and co-ops, you can play with others. If you want to ONLY use your imagination for the visuals, read a book.
Scrawl: "Looks like we know how that new Compile Heart countdown is going to end. The latest issue of Famitsu has confirmed that Agarest Senki 2, known as Record of Agarest War 2 in the US, is Compile Heart’s newest title."
1) Hope they put it on disc this time.
2) Hope this is a positive for Neptune coming over as well.
If so, that's being developed & published by Idea Factory. Compile Heart has nothing to do with it (Thank God for that).
Thought Compile Heart was one of the companies lending characters.
Was also speaking in general as in regards to a US of Neptune. If these guys are offing a second game, NIS or Atlus, both of whom offer quirkier titles, will put that one out.
@kagon01:
My issue isn't - wholly - with the DL-only option, but the price. The first game should be $30. Maybe $40, and by that I mean $39.99. The only reason its $45 is the 360 disc version which has extras. Nevermind that by all rights its a PS2 game. Something that proabbly could have been done if the devs had the GOW2 engine or tools.
I approve of this god damn message.
Could have gotten my 60 bucks if they just put it on a disc.
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Is this a half decent SRPG, porn aside, cause if it is, i might just decide to go and buy it for the 360.
There's no porn just some sexual innuendos but that's it.
Also it is a great game by itself, maybe not graphically but everything else is top tier.
Yup, it's a decent game. I just hate that a move has to go first before any attack options.
Fallout.......fuck yeah.
You know...for those that ever wondered what a real analyst does, this is it. Would prefer to read what this guy has to say in the future over Patcher any day of the week.
Of course not. Ps, Xbox, and Pc gamers won't let it. We may disagree on system preference be we all agree that blaming events such as shootings on gaming is a prominent display of ignorance.