Great topic.  You'll never reach a consensus but I don't think that was requested

I think microtransactions are fine from a cosmetic standpoint.  I don't think they are fine when it comes to letting players get more powerful or reach end game content because then it turns into "pay to win".  I also strongly disagree with elements of gambling ala loot crates.

Now that being said, microtransactions have been raged on for years and years and there is no sign of them stopping.  Why?  Because they are successful.  People buy into them regardless of the rage.  

Gone are the days when one person could write a game and do its art and make a ton of success from it.  Indie developers are like musicians and artists.  For every one dev that makes it "big" or produces a minecraft there are thousands you'll never hear about.

Making a financial success in the game dev industry is very hard, much like being a successful musician or artist is.  Microtransactions help that.  

My oppinion:

- Single player games on any platform should never ever introduce microtransactions in any way.
- Multi player games can have microtransactions for cosmetics or speeding up the grinding only but for nothing else.
- DLC´s are fine when the core game does not feel limited/incomplete and the expansion actually enriches the game by at least 1/3.

I think the whole problem is that the way the industry is at the moment is how it works.

Players complain but it's there actions that has lead to this. Players say the want a game that doesn't force them to spend, one that they can pay for when they decide. Then if you make a game that players can play with out spending it, no one spends on it.

It's like the unlimited trial thing. Give users a trial that they can keep using without paying, then the users won't pay.

Maybe EA will make a huge profit. It is possible, as players who pay for both the game and micro transactions is worth 4-5 players who only pay for the game; some whales spend thousands. Then maybe that would move all AAA games in that direction, leaving the indie developers to fill the gap.

At the moment EA is the canary in the AAA market.

14 hours ago, Hodgman said:

Quite often you see successful, profitable studios shut down and completely dissolved by their publisher, despite the fact that they just released a critically acclaimed (and profit-making) game.

Case in point: Respawn Entertainment. You hit the nail on the head with this one.

14 hours ago, Hodgman said:

This is why people love indie games - because they're made by self-funded humans who aren't legally restricted in how they spend their money. They can (and do) choose to do the "dumb" thing and put the love of their craft above their own financial well being. AAA games don't have that luxury.

 

Exactly! I like to think that Indie and AAA are two very different animals. I enjoy many AAA games and many indie games. I also understand that because a product is AAA, you might have to deal with the occasional AAA mishaps. As was the case with EA and Battlefront. Investors run EA, and if EA doesn't deliver a goldmine with their investments, there is no point in even gambling your money. You wouldn't gamble $10,000 at a casino for a chance to make a $30 profit. (Or at least I would hope you wouldn't)

10 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Players complain but it's there actions that has lead to this.

My thoughts exactly. I'm starting to see more and more games, especially AAA titles, falling victim to the "Overhype Train". I hate to say that it is the consumer's fault, but I feel that there are so many expectations and so much pressure to deliver a game. Gian-Reto can say that he has no problem paying $80 for a full game if it needs to make profits, but I think we all know how that would go over. Reddit would light up like a warehouse full of dynamite and kerosene.

19 hours ago, IcedCrow said:

Now that being said, microtransactions have been raged on for years and years and there is no sign of them stopping.  Why?  Because they are successful.  People buy into them regardless of the rage. 

yeah, they have. That doesn't mean the current feeding frenzy can go on forever.

Seems like EA has finally gone too far and some officials are calling regulators to step in. I don't think paid lootboxes are here to stay for that reason. No matter how youpersonally view lootboxes (gambling vs not gambling), if enough countries or the EU for example are regulating against it, pubishers will probably drop the practice.

And I don't think the AAA industry really should like the attention. It means whatever new scheme they come up with to replace the profits from lootboxes will now be put under a microscope by officials... at least for a year or two. If I would guess, I'd say the whole microtransaction frenzy will calm down for a year or two now, until publishers think the gamers have calmed down and forgotten, and officials and regulators have moved on to other things. And then the next wave of lootbox like craziness is going to hit AAA games again.

But of course, maybe I am misinterpreting the longevity of the current outrage, AND the officials and regulators attentionspan. Maybe everything has been forgotten in a month, at least until EA switches on lootboxes again in SWBF2... which is as sure as the amen in the church.

As to gamers being simple creatures... yeah. A pet peeve of mine. I have a hard time understanding how you can hate on the practices of a publisher so much and still buy their games. How, in this day and age, ANYONE can still pre-order games and be disappointed when the game turns out buggy, overhyped or just not as good as expected. How much of an ADDICT do you have to be to not be able to wait some weeks and months for reviews to come out and bugs to be fixed before buying the newest AAA title.

But there is an alternative theory: maybe the die hard fans are NOT as hypocritical as I expressed in my last paragraph. Maybe the people being outrage do NOT buy the games, and do NOT pre-order them. Maybe its the others, people not well informed, people ignorant of gaming news that pay the publishers all that cash for subpar releases and the microtransactions tied to them. If that theory is correct, there is a time limit to this culture of taking as much as you can, while delivering as little as you can get away with. Because at some point, the amount of people woke to that kind of culture has reached a critical mass and sales start to slip. Because as much as Star Wars fans might love star wars, and shooter fans might love DICE games.... its not like shooter fans are starving for alternatives, there are plenty of good shooters on the market that are not going as far with their monetization, and SW might just pass over a SW product they deem not worth it, unless they are the kind of fan who needs to collect and see EVERYTHING, even if its subpar or way too expensive.

It's a dangerous game to play, even if the market has proven the EA's and Ubisofts of this world right until now. That can change quickly, and if one of them oversteps the boundaries, the whole system (of microtransactions) might get into question.

9 hours ago, Novadude987 said:

Gian-Reto can say that he has no problem paying $80 for a full game if it needs to make profits, but I think we all know how that would go over. Reddit would light up like a warehouse full of dynamite and kerosene.

Well, I am not denying that.

Does that mean trying to sneak more money out of the customer without them realizing it, or chopping up the game into pieces to have a 60$ base price will go down easier with customers? I would dare say a game price of 70$ or 80$ would probably garner outrage on the level of some games hiding parts of the expierience behind a paywall... that is, loud outrage with little financial impact. Some gamers might not pay the highe price just as much as much as they might have not bought the paywalled game, most gamers will in the end accept it IF the game is good enough to warrant them paying more.

Of course, people WILL be aware of the higher price. While most uninformed gamers might only notice the paywalled content AFTER they have bought the game. Which might turn them unable to return the base product. 1:0 for the paywall...

Now, there have ALWAYS been schemes to offer customers games at different price tiers... which are pretty much accepted and even loved by gamers today. Yes, I am talking about limited and collectors editions.

Why not expand on that? Just as an example: when I bought my PS4 Pro and the games to go along with it this spring, I was very tempted by the steelbook editions and even collectors editions of both HZD and Nier:Automata. Both because at that point it has become clear these where quite good games, I was looking forward to both, and I am in desperate need for some plastic junk to fill some desk space in my home office (yeah, not really, but that Aloy and 2B Figurines where still tempting).

Now of course I didn't pre-order, I waited for the reviews to come in and then had to do some soulsearching (and find a third game good enough for me to buy, to justify the lay out for the console itself)... and by the time I finally ordered, not only was the collectors edition long sold out (the Nier:Automata one never even came to europe), I was only able to order Nier in the Steelbook edition (which at least will make my games shelf look more shiny), having to settle for the normal edition for HZD.

I can see how "limited editions" try to make customers buy "nao!" because of their limited nature, I am still wondering if that edition could generate some more profit if it was sold for longer? Why not offer the limited edition through some channels even months after the release of the game? Why make the Steelbook edition limited?

Why not build on that by offering more varying editions that offer more bling, and more ADDITIONAL content over the base game for higher prices? I know, that ain't that different from the GOOD microtransactions which give you a different costume for a small fee, but its a concept that has been highly accepted in the gaming world for ages.

While I see the need for generating more money in face of higher budgets (though I do question if budgets do indeed HAVE to spiral ever higher, or if that is just build on false assumptions by devs or a discrepancy between expectations and real need as expressed by gamers), and I see that this is kind of a sticky situation where devs and publishers will get under fire either way, trying to got the most shady route, trying to sneak in additional cost, cutting the expierience in pieces to be sold seperately, or making the game deliberately more tedious to urge players to pay for shortcuts don't seem that good of an idea to me.

And apart from that, I don't think they are the ONLY way to generate more money with your games. Just because some of those tactics have proven to work well in the mobile space doesn't mean its the only way for AAA games to go.

EDIT: Well, I remembered there had been some people as of the last few years complaining about "complete platinum deluxe collectors editions".... but that was mostly in regards to these being sold as pre-orders, maybe even preorder only. For sometimes complete insane prices. So it was more complained in regards to preorder culture and this being another try to urge people to preorder games. So point IMO still stands... nobody really faults devs and publishers for releasing more expensive versions of the game as collectors editions.

4 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

Does that mean trying to sneak more money out of the customer without them realizing it,

How do microtransactions "sneak" more money out of a customer? You have to buy them first, thus agreeing to license agreements and the works. Nothing is "snuck in".

6 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

How much of an ADDICT do you have to be to not be able to wait some weeks and months for reviews to come out and bugs to be fixed before buying the newest AAA title

There's another option: the majority of people may not care that much. I've played plenty of buggy games over the years, they've all been fixed in the end. Sure, maybe you wait a month or two for a patch, but I've rarely seen a game so bad it is actually unplayable.

6 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

I would dare say a game price of 70$ or 80$ would probably garner outrage on the level of some games hiding parts of the expierience behind a paywall...

Most games these days are sold in a $60 base version, and a $80-$120 "collectors edition". I haven't heard many complaints about collectors edition pricing, and I see plenty of players wandering around in-game wearing collectors edition skins, etc. There doesn't seem to be much motivation for outrage.

2 hours ago, Novadude987 said:

How do microtransactions "sneak" more money out of a customer? You have to buy them first, thus agreeing to license agreements and the works. Nothing is "snuck in".

You pay 60$ to play a complete game. SOME games in past have walled part of the expierience behind a paywall. I am talking NOT about ADDITIONAL content like additional costumes, separate missions, and stuff like that.

I am talking about parts of a game being cut out to put in as microtransactions. And then not communicating that clearly.

Also, there is the problem with the Lootbox gambling and how people quickly loose track of how much money they put in because of how the whole system is set up. It certainly is built in a way to make people spend way more than they should, given they have a gambling addiction or similar weakness.

Sure, you can educate yourself and find what is part of the base game and what is not, most of the time from firstparty resources, the DLC list in Steam and similar stores, and whatnot. You can say people who are surprised by getting only part of the game they paid for and not knowing about the paywall should have informed themselves better.

And sure, nobody forces you to buy those lootboxes and not grind the stuff you want the traditional route, IF that is a possibility. And if it is not, just suck up to be not at the top of the P2W pyramid, or in the best case, not having the best  looking hat in the game.

I can agree to that.

But then we put in all the psychological tactics to urge players to invest money. The unnecessary grind, the p2w elements, and all the other psychological tricks employed. Might not sound sneaky to you... it does to me. Shouldn't really be a surprise or work at all on a healthy adult mind. Yet we know there are the weakminded and kids. Sure, you can say "why do they have access to a credit card or even play such a game"... but you see where I am going.

Its a grey area for sure, at least IMO

38 minutes ago, swiftcoder said:

Most games these days are sold in a $60 base version, and a $80-$120 "collectors edition". I haven't heard many complaints about collectors edition pricing, and I see plenty of players wandering around in-game wearing collectors edition skins, etc. There doesn't seem to be much motivation for outrage.

Yeah, I did write about those. Just below the part you quoted. I am pretty much in favour of these editions, but the fact still stands that most people will go for the cheapest edition. I was talking about the base price in that paragraph, not a special edition. Most people are used to a 120$ collectors edition... some people will go for that because of the additional gubbinz they get.

I don't see people being so calm about it when the BASE price of the normal edition would be 120$, without any extra gubbinz, and without any choice to get a cheaper normal edition.

I still think 70$, or maybe even 80$ might still be accepted as base price, after some outrage (because lets face it, EVERYTHING garners outrage of some level these days... especially price hikes, no matter how justified)...

EDIT:

But see, @Novadude987, maybe I am derailing your thread here a little bit. I am not sure you wanted to discuss IF certain types of microtransactions have a place in an AAA game. I think we have diametral opinions on SOME forms of microtransactions, while I am sure we agree on others.

I for one are not really lambasting any business to act in their own interest. I might be a little bit irritated when those businesses then do not own their own mess when getting called out for it and earning pushback by their community because of some of their decisions, and instead are trying to smoke an mirror the issue, sugarcoat it, or even start attacking the community, their own fans, for calling them out.

Maybe my irritation with some of the AAA Industries decisions of the last few years, including EA's decisions on how to handle the BF2 mess, have influenced my posts in this thread a little bit.

While I never will like gambling mechanics in games, or paywalls, I never meant to attack anyone for those decisions, or having a different stance on these mechanics.

If I sounded too harsh or like I was attacking anyone in particular (other than faceless big companies and their collective decisions), I am sorry. That was not my intention.