So the game's not even out yet, but they already have a bunch of outfits you can ONLY unlock by paying for them with real $$. And you're telling me that's good?
You know what other marvel game had a ton of outfits? Spider-Man, you know how many you have to pay for? None! Hell they even kept adding new ones FOR FREE!
The more complacent (or worse, congratulatory) you become over MTs no matter the form, the more they'll push to see just how much they can squeeze out if you, and in how many ways they can do it.
Just look at shadowkeep for a perfect example, previously all destiny mt were purely cosmetic, most attainable rather normally in game. Then exclusive eververse items started showing up, then they kept increasing the # of items like that. Now in shadowkeep, the amount of new armor sets in game is but a fraction of previous entries, almost all guns are visual reskins, and yet there is probably just as much (actually new) stuff, but now fully locked to the eververse (since they removed the bright engrams and you barely get any bright dust).
“Just cosmetic” is not good enough, because eventually they will start taking away what would otherwise be normal content and put it in (ridiculously overpriced) microtransactions.
If anything, at least price your content accordingly. Most of the content will be in the mt store? Fine, then dont charge $35 for the expansion. Dont charge $15 for a simple armor skin (for just ONE character, $45 if you want it for all classes...)
Reminder that you had to pay for the Spider-Man DLCs, and it was done for after the 3 chapters. Also, reminder that to get the suits in the DLCs you could only get them if you bought the DLCs.
Same, before i was on the "it's fine is it's just cosmetic only" train, but i quickly noticed thats just a ploy to make you complacent to their existence, then they start selling you gameplay and progression items which ALWAYS affects in game grinding. This is them starting the cycle again but with your SINGLE PLAYER GAMES!
For the past year or so i just straight up dont buy games with MTs. Im f#$king done with this garbage, and it seems many people are starting to hit that point too, with preorder numbers finally starting to reflect people's frustration with it and devs trying to apply damage control to get them back. I've passed on many games i would've loved to play like Crash Team Racing, but im not going to support that garbage.
I wish there were not micro transactions as well, but if you want game quality and budget to go up but game prices to stay at $60 they gotta recoup that cost somehow, they can either go crazy with high price DLC content, or add a ton of non-needed low price skin content that won't affect people who don't wish to buy.
Games like The Witcher 3, Spiderman, and Smash Ultimate could go on fine without a lick of microtransactions and those games have insane amount budget and high quality. What they do have, however, is quality DLCs to help recoup any cost that they lost.
I think the notion of “games are too expensive to make” should be muted at this point. They are too expensive to make because the publisher/developers make them too expensive to make, not us gamers.
It only takes about 2 million in sales at full price to make a return on investment for the average AAA game budget with marketing. Some games have higher marketing budgets, some have higher production budgets. But some companies are more prudent with their production costs....like Sony made Horizon for around 40 million, and God of War for around 50 million....marketing included. That means only about 1 million to return initial investment.
Since most of these games are selling anywhere from 3-10 times that number, they're making money fine without having to increase the cost, or throw in micro-transactions. Even with online games, the budget usually includes maintaining servers for a period of time, and server costs aren't that much in the grand scheme of things. Quite literally, a server space and data could be rented for 3 years for around $50,000. If not less. Some companies have their own servers so the cost to run the MP isn't even factored into the production costs.
This idea that MT are needed to recoup investment is a fallacy that publishers tried to push since last gen, but just doing some basic math shows that it isn't necessary for most of the games that actually get them.
The MT schemes are there solely to maximize return on investment. That's what investors want, because games are a risky venture. In order to get that much money to make games, they want more assurances to get as much money as possible back. Risk vs. reward. Publishers and investors know there are enough people that will pay for them, so they don't care if a lot of people dislike them. Defending MT is not looking out for your interest as a consumer, and i'd think in general, one would care about themselves more than the industry fat cats.
“Games like The Witcher 3, Spiderman, and Smash Ultimate could go on fine without a lick of microtransactions and those games have insane amount budget and high quality. What they do have, however, is quality DLCs to help recoup any cost that they lost. ”
Not the witcher 3, but what’s the difference between Spider-man charging you $10 per small dlc chapter or $25 for a season pass and say something charging optionally for an outfit but giving you free missions (not saying this game will do that, but in general)
And you’re fooling yourself if you believe smash bros doesn’t have MT’s, they sell individual characters with a level for $5.99......that’s a MT
@gaming “$10 for actual single player content Spider-Man or $6 for a character and a level really puts that $10 for a skin in Gears of War in perspective huh?”
Yep, especially when i don’t have to spend a dime and get characters and levels for free. Couldn’t care less about a $10 skin when it’s optional and i get free levels
They just released a new patch with free characters,! a new way to play escape mode and there’s a patch with free levels coming soon. Without having to spend a dime
microtransaction is better than gambling buying actual lootboxes and not getting anything good is worse than just paying for the object you want , i liked choosing which packs i wanted in mafia 2 then waiting for a deal to grab the other cars and costumes later
@No Way: Only similar in that instead of giving money for a chance to win more money, you're giving money for a chance to win a virtual item. Missing/Ignoring how that gambling mechanic effects a game, unless said game was designed around a gambling mechanic.
Because now we're accepting the lesser of all evils because it's not the worst thing. We're basically at the bottom of the slippery slope that started with horse armor.
Yet we still have "pay full price for games you don't own" or "you can only pay monthly subscriptions for a rotating library" while "have to deal with DLC and MTs targeted at and meant to promote addictive personality traits.
"Actually, know what? Just-just give us all your money."
I'm not a shareholder and neither is anyone else. In what way does a "good microtransaction" benefit me? How is a "You can’t ever earn what you can buy" statement a good thing? This is a worse alternative to lootboxes. People really thought removing lootboxes would make things better but all it's done is cause the creators to double down on horrible RNG and paid only items. Now instead of just earning your rolls, you now have to wait for the opportunity to pay real money for items that may or may not pop up. How is this good?
Go fuck yourself. Anyone who approves of MTX can eat shit. Devs can eat shit as well. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 has alt costumes I can unlock in the game. So does Dragon Quest XI-S. So does Links Awakening. Gravity Rush 2 has them as DLC...FOR FREE! Wow, imagine that!
So if you want a certain costume you have to pay with no way of getting it by grinding, sorry how is this a good thing? Other games do go overboard with the amount of grind but at least you have a choice of not having to pay, I feel this is to trap kids into buying the most "special" costumes you cannot earn via playing.
eeeeh... don't tell to an audience that you will not put loot boxes in your game (expecting applauses for the bare minimum) if you want to exploit them with other shitty moves anyway.
What is wrong with the person who wrote this? Are kids so jaded today they figure microtransactions are just a part of life? No microtransactions are good, in any form. You don't have to put up with this crap, stop buying games like this.
This is not the type of MTX I support. Anything in MTX should be possible to obtain through normal play without unreasonable effort.
But, you should know, Disney is a huge supporter of these sort of MTX in games. Their mobile games are some of the most predatory of MTX games out there. It should be no surprise that this is how they choose to handle MTX in this game.
For what it's worth no one at WellPlayed is pro microtransactions, we dislike as much as everyone else. Unfortunately, whether you hate them or love them, they are a part of the world we live in.
Of course there will be publishers and games that exploit this, but if a game can refrain from shredding the experience down to make you want to buy MTs and where it doesn't affect the game itself (i.e. just cosmetic) then it's not too bad. I'm not saying it's right, it just could be a lot worse.
But I get it, having to pay for specific skins is frustrating if you like something you can't earn in-game.
So the game's not even out yet, but they already have a bunch of outfits you can ONLY unlock by paying for them with real $$. And you're telling me that's good?
You know what other marvel game had a ton of outfits? Spider-Man, you know how many you have to pay for? None! Hell they even kept adding new ones FOR FREE!
The more complacent (or worse, congratulatory) you become over MTs no matter the form, the more they'll push to see just how much they can squeeze out if you, and in how many ways they can do it.
You shut your filthy mouth!
This is it I’m not buying this crap.
Its articles like this that legitimizes MTs. F**k this article.