When I played Mass Effect 3, I didn't spend nearly a year of playtime and was able to afford Elite Spectre Packs after every couple of gold matches or so. I've yet to spend money on it.
If anything, this is genius marketing by capitalist standards. It's a perfect blend between "work hard and get it later" or "pay money and get it now." There's nothing game changing that's only available by using real money.
Incidentally, did you know that delaying gratification is a sign of maturity?
@LikeaSsur said:
Incidentally, did you know that delaying gratification is a sign of maturity?
It's also a sign that you may have stumbled on a fetish site.
@Ekpyroticuniverse said:
@Tennmuerti: sorry economies of scale includes principles of uncertainty and complexity and therefore the points I raised are not irrelevant.
The scale was irrelevant. The tiny individual decisions/factors/probabilities you mentioned are not of significant impact on when talking about scale of millions are a background noise that will always be present regardless of overall circumstance as such can't be and should not be a factor. The things you went on to mention further (like the economy or microtransactions) were relevant due to them actually having a major effect.
You seem to mistake my point. I agree with you in that to EA none of this matters, as long as the profit is increased against the outgoing of the game then they don't care. What my point is, is they should care because for all they know they could have made more money.
Could they have? Maybe. But maybe not. Microtransactions have so far yielded them guranteed significant profits. Rolling the dice by itself doesn't. So they weight it. It's a simple principle. One that makes exceptional business sense short term. (as long as people haven't had too much of a significant backlash to such rolled dice and so far they haven't enough to affect them).
And yes these companies employ people to map this all out and make predictions but they are not very good at it, as if they were EA would not be losing money and losing market value.
Predicting individual game's sales and ensuring profitable decisions is not necessarily a sole factor in this. Far from it. Very far. Overall economies, monumental gample fuckups (looking at you KOTOR), gaming market, end of console life cycle. All play a huge role. For all we know they are loosing money and market value at a far slower rate then they would have been otherwise. (but we dont') This is especially significant when you can see just how badly some other game companies have had it in the recent years. Relatively to them EA is doing quite fine.
Equally they employ people to do alot with numbers including prediciting review scores but because of the complexities involved they are often wrong, hence games scoring worse than expected
Lets please never confuse predicting sales with predicting review scores. While there is some degree of causality, one is largely work of pure numbers the other isn't.
Its the same here the complexities involved means they can make a guess but they can never say with 100% certainty how the market will behave or how consumers will react.
100% agreed. It's the exact reason they're suing microtransaction. To increase the probability of more stable guaranteed profits. Because ultimately you can't be sure. But you can sure as hell increase your odds of doing better.
What my point was is that including microtransactions for all anyone knows may have cost them more profit through lost sales than it raises and they have no way of accurately working this out, not that they care about this, but that this is the reality of it.
Only to a degree. A game like DS3 can only be realistically expected to sell so much with or without microtransaction. (ie i doubt you or they expect it to sell 10 mil). But after a point the profits from microtransactions might eclipse any reasonable sales estimate and loss of sale.
@rebgav said:
@Tennmuerti said:
Simply saying to not buy a product is not a valid reason to not criticize it.
Endlessly reiterating opinion is masturbatory nonsense which achieves nothing.
Then what are you doing here.
@Tennmuerti said:
Do not buy those games; There are lots of other games; Buy those games instead
Don't like these discussions don't read them, there are plenty of other topics and threads to read.
Don't like my contribution? Get fucked on.
Did you seriously fail to understand that this was made only to illustrate exactly the pointlessness of the argument thereby mocking it and took it seriously? wow
Of course the statement is asinine, it was made to point out how asinine was the original point.
/whoosh
Boom. That's what I did. I haven't bought an EA game for over 2 years (outside of BF3 which I broke my not-buy-EA-stuff thingy to get because I played hundreds of hours of BF2. I shouldn't have. BF3 was not good). I am possibly going to get Simcity but there is no way in hell I am getting any of the DLC. I never ever buy DLC anyway but especially since it is scummy EA.Stop fucking supporting EA games instead of complaining about it. Problem solved. People have been shitting bricks over this company for years now and they keep buying their products anyways.
@Funkydupe said:
@Demoskinos: The essence is: Players don't like that content that should have been part of the boxed game is cut up and sold piecemeal on top of the 60 dollar retail price. The thing is that we never know the deal we're entering before we try it. Well, unless you stop buying games on release day as a rule.
This is a good idea and more people should practice it. Wait literally 12 or so hours and almost all the game's flaws will surface to the internet, hell it all goes fast enough that you could swing by the game store when they're closing and know everything right or wrong about a given game.
My point is, people should be thinking harder about their purchases rather than getting hyped before a game comes out and instantly buying it. Especially with a company like EA which has a track record of annoying business practices. Gamers should know better, anyway.
(Wow Lamers is in my computer's dictionary but Gamers is not? Gross)
@Tennmuerti: @Tennmuerti said:
@Ekpyroticuniverse said:
@Tennmuerti: sorry economies of scale includes principles of uncertainty and complexity and therefore the points I raised are not irrelevant.
The scale was irrelevant. The tiny individual decisions/factors/probabilities you mentioned are not of significant impact on when talking about scale of millions are a background noise that will always be present regardless of overall circumstance as such can't be and should not be a factor. The things you went on to mention further (like the economy or microtransactions) were relevant due to them actually having a major effect.
No the scale is not irrelevant, I am sorry but in order to make a full assessment of if something is a true good decision or not you need to know all the facts or your just guessing. That was my point that can't know the small scale reasons for each consumers choice and therefore they have no idea if microtransactions is a good idea or not.
@Tennmuerti said:
@Ekpyroticuniverse said:
You seem to mistake my point. I agree with you in that to EA none of this matters, as long as the profit is increased against the outgoing of the game then they don't care. What my point is, is they should care because for all they know they could have made more money.
Could they have? Maybe. But maybe not. Microtransactions have so far yielded them guranteed significant profits. Rolling the dice by itself doesn't. So they weight it. It's a simple principle. One that makes exceptional business sense short term. (as long as people haven't had too much of a significant backlash to such rolled dice and so far they haven't enough to affect them).
True in some respects, but we will see with DS3 since the microtransactions are not crucial. However the backlash is more than insignificant since EA are seen as one of the worst companies around, even so much as appearing as such in polls. Consumer backlash is vocal and has even driven the leads in part of bioware to quit.
@Tennmuerti said:
And yes these companies employ people to map this all out and make predictions but they are not very good at it, as if they were EA would not be losing money and losing market value.
Predicting individual game's sales and ensuring profitable decisions is not necessarily a sole factor in this. Far from it. Very far. Overall economies, monumental gample fuckups (looking at you KOTOR), gaming market, end of console life cycle. All play a huge role. For all we know they are loosing money and market value at a far slower rate then they would have been otherwise. (but we dont') This is especially significant when you can see just how badly some other game companies have had it in the recent years. Relatively to them EA is doing quite fine.
Equally they employ people to do alot with numbers including prediciting review scores but because of the complexities involved they are often wrong, hence games scoring worse than expected
Lets please never confuse predicting sales with predicting review scores. While there is some degree of causality, one is largely work of pure numbers the other isn't.
EA are not doing well though, not just because of the things you mention but becasue they also have predicted numbers that have not happened, see medal of honor.
And i wasn't confusing game sales and review scores I was saying that both are numbers companies try and predict, but both are diffcult to predict beacuse of the complexities involved in the decisions that go into both, i.e. the complexities of if a consumer buys a product or not and the complexities of if a review will give a 75% or 99% review, no prediciton can account for the complexities involved in either because they are trying to predict dynamic systems of choice that lay outside of mathmatical approaches. A review score could be influenced by how the person is feeling and so could a decision to buy or not. That was my point, they are both unpredictable accuratly.
@Tennmuerti said:
Its the same here the complexities involved means they can make a guess but they can never say with 100% certainty how the market will behave or how consumers will react.
100% agreed. It's the exact reason they're suing microtransaction. To increase the probability of more stable guaranteed profits. Because ultimately you can't be sure. But you can sure as hell increase your odds of doing better.
What my point was is that including microtransactions for all anyone knows may have cost them more profit through lost sales than it raises and they have no way of accurately working this out, not that they care about this, but that this is the reality of it.
Only to a degree. A game like DS3 can only be realistically expected to sell so much with or without microtransaction. (ie i doubt you or they expect it to sell 10 mil). But after a point the profits from microtransactions might eclipse any reasonable sales estimate and loss of sale.
I will state my point again. They have no way of telling if they made more or less money as a result of including microtransactions in a £40 game. yes your right they might increase the probabuility of game making a profit but they can't with any level of confidence state that the inclusion of such a system made more money than they otherwise could have made. That is not an argument for not including it just a reality that they cannot make that claim.
Hey, guess what? This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
I recommend not buying EA games. There are plenty of great teams/games not doing this - support them!
@Ekpyroticuniverse:
(cutting down on the quotin, i'm going by paragraphs)
If you're telling me you can account for single individuals actions when doing economies of scale (outside of a preset allowed for error) i call BS sorry. You can't and don't give a shit if someone got into a car crash and could not buy a game when talking about millions of sales. This is why an allowed for margin of error exists in the first place. This however has no actual effect on whether or not a large net effect like micro transactions are effective or not.
Oh I completely agree on the overall backlash, but this is outside of the immediate sales loss due to micro transactions effect. Long term is a whole different story, and microtransactions are only a part of EA's problems and why opinion turned on them.
I already said that while EA might not be doing well, but you have to look also at the overall picture, both internally (all their other decisions besides microtransactions effect) and how they are doing relatively to everyone else in the same market. Focusing narrowly only on EA and then even further only on microtransacions is completely invalid. Your reply on this didn't add anything that wasn't said already and did not address my points really.
And i wasn't confusing game sales and review scores I was saying that both are numbers companies try and predict, but both are diffcult to predict beacuse of the complexities involved in the decisions that go into both, i.e. the complexities of if a consumer buys a product or not and the complexities of if a review will give a 75% or 99% review, no prediciton can account for the complexities involved in either because they are trying to predict dynamic systems of choice that lay outside of mathmatical approaches. A review score could be influenced by how the person is feeling and so could a decision to buy or not. That was my point, they are both unpredictable accuratly.
If that were true economics wouldn't exist.
You can't mathematically predict individual choice.
You can do so for a large enough sample, that's kind of the whole point.
I will state my point again. They have no way of telling if they made more or less money as a result of including microtransactions in a £40 game. yes your right they might increase the probabuility of game making a profit but they can't with any level of confidence state that the inclusion of such a system made more money than they otherwise could have made. That is not an argument for not including it just a reality that they cannot make that claim.
And i already pointed out several reasons and factors on how exactly can they do that. Which still stand and have not been refuted. Hell even a perfect study case has already been mentioned that illustrates just that.
@Tennmuerti said:
@White_Silhouette said:
@rebgav said:
@coakroach said:
Do not buy those games
There are lots of other games
Buy those games instead
...and nothing more ever needed to be said on the subject.
Shallow drivel of an argument that has been dismissed time and time again.
Simply saying to not buy a product is not a valid reason to not criticize it.
Don't like these discussions don't read them, there are plenty of other topics and threads to read.
Wait so you're telling me that If I "Don't like these discussions don't read them". But if tell you the same thing it's a "shallow drivel of an argument that has been dismissed"?
I are very confused.
@White_Silhouette said:
@Tennmuerti said:
@White_Silhouette said:
@rebgav said:
@coakroach said:
Do not buy those games
There are lots of other games
Buy those games instead
...and nothing more ever needed to be said on the subject.
Shallow drivel of an argument that has been dismissed time and time again.
Simply saying to not buy a product is not a valid reason to not criticize it.
Don't like these discussions don't read them, there are plenty of other topics and threads to read.
Wait so you're telling me that If I "Don't like these discussions don't read them". But if tell you the same thing it's a "shallow drivel of an argument that has been dismissed"?
I are very confused.
It's mockery by reflection.
I am refuting your argument by using the exact same argument on you. Throwing it back. That's the whole point. If one is true then so is the other. And visa versa. It's up to you to decide if you want to take both seriously or not. But if you dismiss mine your's is likewise invalid.
This is a very common approach to make people see how illogical something is.
@rebgav:
Sounds exactly like masturbation. Except you're jacking off the other person.
No, disappointed i had to explain it.
@Tennmuerti said:
It's mockery by reflection.
I am refuting your argument by using the exact same argument on you. Throwing it back. That's the whole point. If one is true then so is the other. And visa versa. It's up to you to decide if you want to take both seriously or not. But if you dismiss mine your's is likewise invalid.
This is a very common approach to make people see how illogical something is.
Ah I understand now. But in a consumer driven business if market does not like the product the product must change to suit the market. It is valid to have options of the product and think it should be changed but. If one still continues to purchase the product and not be satisfied the product does not need to change.
@Seppli: I could not disagree more. Why? Those microtransactions justify the release of the free content updates that they've been putting out for that mode. So far, we've gotten Resurgence, Rebellion, Earth and Retaliation--for a total of 7 new maps, 34 new characters, 12 new weapons, and a ton of other stuff. That is the way to handle this sort of stuff: frivolous microtransactions that justify continued to development of free content updates: stuff that doesn't split the user base, and ensures that you will continue to be able to revisit an experience with something meaningfully new to see.
Dead Space 3? $60 release, microtransactions, full DLC expansions, day-1 DLC, and weapon packs. That is uncanny.
@Ekpyroticuniverse said:
I will state my point again. They have no way of telling if they made more or less money as a result of including microtransactions in a £40 game. yes your right they might increase the probabuility of game making a profit but they can't with any level of confidence state that the inclusion of such a system made more money than they otherwise could have made. That is not an argument for not including it just a reality that they cannot make that claim.
Actually they can, it's actually a much more reliable form of sale for them than retail because they don't have to worry about resells with micro-transactions. The complete opposite is the case from what you said. It's why micro-transactions are so popular. Not only is it added revenue but it's not disrupted by the noise of retail.
@White_Silhouette said:
@Tennmuerti said:
It's mockery by reflection.
I am refuting your argument by using the exact same argument on you. Throwing it back. That's the whole point. If one is true then so is the other. And visa versa. It's up to you to decide if you want to take both seriously or not. But if you dismiss mine your's is likewise invalid.
This is a very common approach to make people see how illogical something is.
Ah I understand now. But in a consumer driven business if market does not like the product the product must change to suit the market. It is valid to have options of the product and think it should be changed but. If one still continues to purchase the product and not be satisfied the product does not need to change.
And I agree.
But that is not a valid argument to say that all other discussion is pointless. We can buy or not buy something, and still discuss it on the forums, pro's, con's, morality etc. The phrase "don't like it, don't buy it" keeps getting used on forums like a mantra as if there is nothing else do discuss on the matter. And a line like "and nothing else needed to be said", further reinforced that.
If you don't like a game, don't buy it and then don't want to criticize it - that is a perfectly reasonable approach.
But then by the same virtue if you don't like the discussion around the subject, don't criticize it, simply ignore it.
@Tennmuerti: Ok I think we mostly agree and are arguing over symantics. But there are a few things.
Firslty I was saying that indvidual choices are important in economies of scale in that the complexities of individual choice or factors mean we can't accurately predict things to 100%. We can say we think that roughly x or y will happen but we can't say for certain because there is too much complexity in the system. I am not saying we should factor if one person gets hit by a car, I am saying it means we can't predict outcomes or sales, or why a game sold or not. I don't think the microtransaction will be a barrier for enough people for it to be apparant on a scale as large as we are talking and therefore we can't state if this is a factor in consumer choice to a major degree with out doing some indepth costly social science research.
Looking at the overall picture its a mixed bag, some companies are doing well and some are not, Take 2 for example announced today they are doing well and there appears to be few meaniful trends in terms of bigger picture. therefore we must look at EA and say ok if some companies are doing well, why are you not. Some of this is beacuse they are making predictions on sales that turn out to be incorrect again see medal of honor.
Sorry but complexities exist in all systems and that doesn't we don't try and understand them. In fact we get better at working out uncertainties and compelxities all the time and thats why economics exists, as it is a process of attempting to work out complexities and uncertaintintes to gain grearter levels of confidence in our predicitions to inform actions in the future. However economics is not an exact science yet, there is still a long way to go, hence why we still have large economic crashes and hiccups.
When i said you can't mathmatically predicit indvidual choice I meant with 100% confidence and that is my Point EA cannot accuratly say that microtransactions in a game will net them more profit than not having it would have that is all I am saying and you have yet to provide me with proof that they can or do. Can you tell me that they know for certain that Dead space 3 microtransations will make them more money than is lost from people deciding not to buy the game? I am saying because of the complexities involved they cannot accuratly predict this and are taking a gamble.
Sorry which arguments have I yet to refute? and what was your perfect study case? because I recall I have come back at every point you have raised with my own justification, justification you might disagree with but ones that are based on economic theory and systems thinking approachs to dynamic systems. If your perfect example is mass effect 3 I don't think that this maps to dead space 3 as the situation is very different.
@project343 said:
@Seppli: I could not disagree more. Why? Those microtransactions justify the release of the free content updates that they've been putting out for that mode. So far, we've gotten Resurgence, Rebellion, Earth and Retaliation--for a total of 7 new maps, 34 new characters, 12 new weapons, and a ton of other stuff. That is the way to handle this sort of stuff: frivolous microtransactions that justify continued to development of free content updates: stuff that doesn't split the user base, and ensures that you will continue to be able to revisit an experience with something meaningfully new to see.
Dead Space 3? $60 release, microtransactions, full DLC expansions, day-1 DLC, and weapon packs. That is uncanny.
Nothing against the free content support and such, the results in that regard are indeed stellar. I'm speaking out specifically against the *Mystery Box* design of it. Its inherent flaw is only apparent to those of us, whom have sunken significant amounts of time or money into the game. The unlock progression becomes less and less rewarding, the more time or money you put into it - to the point where it turns into a continous stream of slaps to the face *stop slapping yourself fucker*.
The way EA/Bioware are handling Mass Effect 3's F2P-style multiplayer is disrespectful of my time and money, and I fucking hate their guts for doing it this way. So very much. So fucking much. Murderous rage in fact. I'm almost a year removed from having last played that game and my blood still boils at the amount of redunant unlocks and slaps to the face I've received from this fucking game. Makes want to rip-off their nutsacks and feed it to them, after breaking each and every tooth in their fucking faces. That's how fucking mad it makes me.
Metaphorically speaking.
@LikeaSsur said:
When I played Mass Effect 3, I didn't spend nearly a year of playtime and was able to afford Elite Spectre Packs after every couple of gold matches or so. I've yet to spend money on it.
If anything, this is genius marketing by capitalist standards. It's a perfect blend between "work hard and get it later" or "pay money and get it now." There's nothing game changing that's only available by using real money.
Incidentally, did you know that delaying gratification is a sign of maturity?
The more you play (or pay), the more often your efforts/expenditures will be met by redundant rewards. If you've invested a certain amount of time or money, the returns for your ongoing investments become negligible - to the point of being insulting. Hence the hate.
You've just not played it *hard* enough, so you are incapable of seeing it from my perspective. If only you knew, or at least were capable of enough empathy to see it from my eyes - you'd get it. You don't get it however. The evil lurks just beneath the surface. Hope this evil never threads into your realm, like it did in mine.
There should be a trade element in mystery box games to make them reasonable in scope. That's why Magic: The Gathering and other TCGs and CCGs pull this off. There's a way to trade, allowing for something other than randomness to give you what you need.
That said, I'm in luck that I don't play enough multiplayer to get this aggravated. It sucks they've slowed the endgame so much.
@Ekpyroticuniverse:
Firslty I was saying that indvidual choices are important in economies of scale in that the complexities of individual choice or factors mean we can't accurately predict things to 100%. We can say we think that roughly x or y will happen but we can't say for certain because there is too much complexity in the system. I am not saying we should factor if one person gets hit by a car, I am saying it means we can't predict outcomes or sales, or why a game sold or not. I don't think the microtransaction will be a barrier for enough people for it to be apparant on a scale as large as we are talking and therefore we can't state if this is a factor in consumer choice to a major degree with out doing some indepth costly social science research.
See but that's the brilliance of it! If you're saying that microtransactions are an insignificant enough barrier on the scale required to be apparent; then the scale simply does not care enough about that sales loss anyway. Because sure as hell profit from them has been more then on a significant scale, at least so far. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
In the first case we can estimate the loss. In the second case microtransactions have succeeded. In the last they failed. In all cases we have measurable information.
Looking at the overall picture its a mixed bag, some companies are doing well and some are not, Take 2 for example announced today they are doing well and there appears to be few meaniful trends in terms of bigger picture. therefore we must look at EA and say ok if some companies are doing well, why are you not. Some of this is beacuse they are making predictions on sales that turn out to be incorrect again see medal of honor.
One company does not make a case. Just because company A "said" they are doing ok, and company B is not doin so hot, does not instantly proove that their approach has failed and is unprofitable. Company A could be full of it, or company A could be an exception doing better then anyone else in the same industry. Which is why I said that to make that kind of call we would need to look at most of them, at the whole industry. Which is unfeasible for me and you, unless we decide to make a full on study of it :P
Sorry but complexities exist in all systems and that doesn't we don't try and understand them. In fact we get better at working out uncertainties and compelxities all the time and thats why economics exists, as it is a process of attempting to work out complexities and uncertaintintes to gain grearter levels of confidence in our predicitions to inform actions in the future. However economics is not an exact science yet, there is still a long way to go, hence why we still have large economic crashes and hiccups.
You're kind of saying what i have been for all this time. Yes complexities exist. But that does not mean we cannot make educated predictions, or better yet analysis of past and ongoing expenditures and profits. And this is exactly what enables us to determine if say microtransactions have paid off or not. it does not require a 100% degree of precision. It never does, or ever did. You can still point a finger and say: this lost us money, this made us money, this made us more money then the thing we tried before, and so on.
When i said you can't mathmatically predicit indvidual choice I meant with 100% confidence and that is my Point EA cannot accuratly say that microtransactions in a game will net them more profit than not having it would have that is all I am saying and you have yet to provide me with proof that they can or do. Can you tell me that they know for certain that Dead space 3 microtransations will make them more money than is lost from people deciding not to buy the game? I am saying because of the complexities involved they cannot accuratly predict this and are taking a gamble.
Correct, they are taking a gamble on DS3. I said almost as much in my first post to you: "(DS3 can be considered an experiment of theirs to try doing it in a purely singleplayer environment)." That is not the same as saying they cannot judge if it paid off or not in post analysis.
Sorry which arguments have I yet to refute? and what was your perfect study case? because I recall I have come back at every point you have raised with my own justification, justification you might disagree with but ones that are based on economic theory and systems thinking approachs to dynamic systems. If your perfect example is mass effect 3 I don't think that this maps to dead space 3 as the situation is very different.
Quoting which:
Oh but they do. You are falsely assuming that concrete numbers of lost sales and information is required for this to classify microtransactions as a good business decision. It's not. All that is required is that:
- Game A required X amount of investment, made total of Y profit.
- Game A2 required Xn amount of investment, made total Yn profit.
- (assuming same franchise games, with remotely similar investments obviously)
The theoretical lost sales are really not required to be known. As I already have repeated 3 times at this point. Again this is of course all only talking about short term profits.
- If the ratio of Xn:Yn is better then ratio of X:Y then they did better then before and therefore made a good decision, or at least one that brought them more profit
and
Only to a degree. A game like DS3 can only be realistically expected to sell so much with or without microtransaction. (ie i doubt you or they expect it to sell 10 mil). But after a point the profits from microtransactions might eclipse any reasonable sales estimate and loss of sale.
You have not addressed either of these two as to why they are incorrect or invalid ways to determine if microtransactions were profitable for DS3 or not.
The perfect study case was FIFA for how easy it can be to determine when microtransactions have made a profit (sorry thought it was obvious)
@rebgav:
You can only blame yourself.
And it wasn't because you agreed with someone.
@Seppli said:
The more you play (or pay), the more often your efforts/expenditures will be met by redundant rewards. If you've invested a certain amount of time or money, the returns for your ongoing investments become negligible - to the point of being insulting. Hence the hate.
This happens in every game with loot, though, whether or not there's micro transactions. Look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls, the original Mass Effect, any Final Fantasy, Diablo, etc. Put enough hours into it and you'll eventually have the best weapons ever. Everything after that is redundant, and/or a downgrade. At least if you get a duplicate in Mass Effect 3, it ups the level by one. It's not perfect, but it's far from negligible.
You've just not played it *hard* enough, so you are incapable of seeing it from my perspective. If only you knew, or at least were capable of enough empathy to see it from my eyes - you'd get it. You don't get it however. The evil lurks just beneath the surface. Hope this evil never threads into your realm, like it did in mine.
Yeah...I'm gonna have to chalk this up as artistic exaggeration to prove a point.
@LikeaSsur said:
@Seppli said:
The more you play (or pay), the more often your efforts/expenditures will be met by redundant rewards. If you've invested a certain amount of time or money, the returns for your ongoing investments become negligible - to the point of being insulting. Hence the hate.
This happens in every game with loot, though, whether or not there's micro transactions. Look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls, the original Mass Effect, any Final Fantasy, Diablo, etc. Put enough hours into it and you'll eventually have the best weapons ever. Everything after that is redundant, and/or a downgrade. At least if you get a duplicate in Mass Effect 3, it ups the level by one. It's not perfect, but it's far from negligible.
You've just not played it *hard* enough, so you are incapable of seeing it from my perspective. If only you knew, or at least were capable of enough empathy to see it from my eyes - you'd get it. You don't get it however. The evil lurks just beneath the surface. Hope this evil never threads into your realm, like it did in mine.
Yeah...I'm gonna have to chalk this up as artistic exaggeration to prove a point.
Let's say I played the game to the point where I had every rare weapon maxed out. And only ultra rares are left to unlock. Imagine a fairer F2P unlock-system, that values my time and money. It would start giving me the ultra rares I'm missing, because there's nothing else left to unlock. Oh well - if they'd respected us more, they'd not use fucking Mystery Boxes in the first place.
Reality check. I'll get redundant character unlocks over and over and over. And other silly shit devoid of value. The significant unlocks that are left however? Still pure RNG. EA/Bioware doesn't give two fucks about how much I played or paid. Give fuck all about it. Disrespect my time and money.
I've got to stop here, because I don't want to ruin my evening. It's a sour bitter old stinking sock, and I shall not jerk my impotent rage no longer into it. Be warned however. The evil of the Mystery Box is looming over every future EA game you might be interested in. Death to the Mystery Box!
@Little_Socrates said:
There should be a trade element in mystery box games to make them reasonable in scope. That's why Magic: The Gathering and other TCGs and CCGs pull this off. There's a way to trade, allowing for something other than randomness to give you what you need.
That said, I'm in luck that I don't play enough multiplayer to get this aggravated. It sucks they've slowed the endgame so much.
That's a cool idea actually. Trading and gambling with unlocks would alleviate many of my complaints with the Mystery Box - albeit I'm much more in favor of a straight-forward progression.
@Tennmuerti: Ok I think the reason we are having a disagreement is because we are arguing different things. You are saying they can predict and assess profit from microtransactions and I am saying while that is true they have no way of predicitng total lost sales from the inclusion of microtransactions. The Microtransactions might make them money, I think it most likely will, what I am saying is they have no way of counting non-sales, because these are hypothetical. I am not saying they have made a bad buisness decsion only they will never know for sure if the microtransaction inclusion lost them potential revenue, unless they invent a machine that creates alternative dimensions and make dead space 3 in one with microtransactions and one without. then they would see in which they made more money and go from there.
I wasn't saying that we can look at one company But what i was saying is there is no general trend supporting the idea that EA's loss can be accounted for by market trends http://sites.duke.edu/soc142-videogames/international-trade-patterns/main-players/ while there is a shrinkage in the market share overall it does not match the large drop that EA has seen.
Again I am not saying we cannot predict to some extent. What I am saying once is that there is no way for EA to count how many lost sales will occur as a result of the inclusion of a microtransaction system without paying for qualitative reasearch. yes they can say that for x investment they had x return and yes they can say that dead space 3 made them x amount of cash but they cannot say what loss they got in none sales due to a boycott beacuse they can't identify how many will boycott. they might not care and maybe they don't need to, but they cant say that the microtransaction inclusion made them more money that it lost them because they have no metric to work out how much it lost them (unless they count any cancelled preorders although my bet is that will be really low)
@Tennmuerti said:
Quoting which:
Oh but they do. You are falsely assuming that concrete numbers of lost sales and information is required for this to classify microtransactions as a good business decision. It's not. All that is required is that:
- Game A required X amount of investment, made total of Y profit.
- Game A2 required Xn amount of investment, made total Yn profit.
- (assuming same franchise games, with remotely similar investments obviously)
The theoretical lost sales are really not required to be known. As I already have repeated 3 times at this point. Again this is of course all only talking about short term profits.
- If the ratio of Xn:Yn is better then ratio of X:Y then they did better then before and therefore made a good decision, or at least one that brought them more profit
and
Only to a degree. A game like DS3 can only be realistically expected to sell so much with or without microtransaction. (ie i doubt you or they expect it to sell 10 mil). But after a point the profits from microtransactions might eclipse any reasonable sales estimate and loss of sale.You have not addressed either of these two as to why they are incorrect or invalid ways to determine if microtransactions were profitable for DS3 or not.
The perfect study case was FIFA for how easy it can be to determine when microtransactions have made a profit (sorry thought it was obvious)
First point you can't really compare the numbers of A and A2 due to them occur at different points in time, you need to take a systems thinking approach and factor in all outside systems i.e. state of the market, which yes they do. So saying they can look at DS3 sales and then DS2 sales and if DS3 makes more money then the incllusion of microtransactions was a good decision is a fallacy as what you need to compare is sales of DS3 with microtransactions compared to DS3 without, realised with all the same variables inplace as they are today and I am saying without an alternative reality you can't do this so you can't make the claim you made the most profit by including the microtransaction only that you made x amount of profit. for all they know they may have made more.
your second point is valid and I am not saying they have made a poor decsion I am saying they had made one that is uncertain and without a second earth to try it out on we will never know if they made the best decision or not.
Again I think Fifa is a different kettle of fish to DS3 which is a single player game, I think that microtransactions in multiplayer games is most likely a good buisness decision even if it is shitty on the consumer I am saying I don't think the same is true for single player games where the longevity of the game is less, the likelyhood of one player spending cash on microtransactions is lower and yet a lost sale is more impacting due to this. If i boycott the game thats £40 lost, now unless they can make that £40 back with 10 sales at £4 each in mircotransactions from other players then they have taken a loss. now unless they now how many £40 they lost in boycott which as I stated they cannot know they will never be able to with 100% certainity say that they made the cash back and more in microtransactions unless they sell so many that the argument is null and void. which i doubt will be the case since according to Bard you don't even need the extra stuff anyway. That was my point.
I agree that a big problem of the mystery box is becoming less rewarding to hardcore player. I just don't like them changing the formula of the game when it has to cater to whatever micro-transaction or online feature set for the game. I won't complain if these Online features are not a rip off and it does not take away from the core game at all.
Mass effect 3 just did not deliver on its core game which makes the online stuff more gross. I also feel it been a bit of a pattern of EA release games becoming more disappointing the more they get the EA treatment.
Well, that's sort of what these things are designed to do right? Prey on people specifically with your "gotta catch 'em all, forever" mindset. If you're really at the point where so many of your weapons/upgrades are at max rank that a majority of your packs are going to waste, then you really shouldn't need any more upgrades. Granted maybe they spiked tripled the difficulty, but the last I remember playing it was possible to do extremely well on Gold with base-level gear. I was regularly scoring at the top of my team and having consistent success in PUG's with weapons/upgrades ranked no higher than III. Of course getting everything up to X is going to make your time easier, but it is far from necessary.
As @LikeaSsur: said, this is just another manifestation of randomized loot in any game. In Diablo eventually you end up with a weapon that has all the right stats you want, but maybe is just a few points shy of max in some of the random properties. With all the variables between possible prefixes and affixes and the with range of values possible for these point bonuses, eventually you're looking at a 1/1,000,000 drop chance or less. And that's not a 1/1,000,000 items dropped. That's a 1/1,000,000 chance that when the 1/250 chance of the right core item dropping with the 1/100 chance for the right rarity with the 1/3 chance for the proper number of suffixes/affixes that it will have exactly the stats you're looking for.
In ME3, you can grind forever or you can spend a fortune on packs. In Diablo III, you can grind forever or you can spend a fortune on the auction house. In a majority of other games, your only option is to grind forever. At least in ME3 you have a choice on how you approach your obsession.
@Ekpyroticuniverse:
Firstly those first 3 paragraphs are sound. And I cannot disagree. Loss of sales can't be accurately measured. Hell I don't think i ever disagreed with that.
The fundamental difference in our approaches I believe is that, like i mentioned before the actual loss of sales in my opinion is irrelevant OR is not necessary to determine measurement of $ success. Which is all that EA cares about. The loss of potential revenue, while not 100% known can still be overcome by other factors (like overwhelming profits from microtransactions, like say in FIFA) or by excluding it entirely in the approach to calculate if microtransactions were overall a net profit over the last iteration.
...
In an ideal world yes, but we are not an ideal world and all that they have is DS1 and DS2 that they can measure DS3 against. Factoring in significant market trends over the years (by looking at the whole industry) this can provide a decent enough estimate. Enough to say at least if they profited on it overall at least. Arguably, and this is where I will concede to you, this requires a minimum significant margin difference between the games. If the difference in profit is too small then the error will make it irrelevant. In my eyes anyway this will mean that microtransactions have failed (because of their long term negative effects on goodwill)
Yes FIFA is a different case from DS3, i merely bring it up to point out that there can be a situation where the profit margin can be large enought for it to be undeniable that including microtransactions was a success.
We will see how this pans out for DS3, but actually i expect we will never know :P Outside of if this trend of their continues in SP games or not, sadly.
@rebgav said:
@Tennmuerti said:
@rebgav:
You can only blame yourself.
And it wasn't because you agreed with someone.
Oh, fuck my ass. I don't remember asking for your commentary on my commentary on someone else's commentary and the fact that you don't see the irony in jumping in, uninvited, to let me know that it didn't meet your lofty standards is just full-on silly at this point. Posting on GB is always like walking into a cloud of gnats but this is ants-at-a-picnic level trolling and it's getting dull. Don't make me post another diagram of the integral parts of a suspension bridge, no-one got it last time.
I don't have a humorous .gif or an emoticon for this post so please assume that I'm going totally Lou Ferrigno over this. Yes, I probably do mean "deaf."
So far i've had several quite decent and mature conversations in this thread with a few people.
The irony I see quite well, revel in it in fact, after all it was used by me to make a point in the first place.
You are the only one throwing a hissy fit, falling back on masturbation jokes, then getting upset when they are turned back on you.
Cheers!
@Tennmuerti: Wait did a debate online that ended amicably.
Yeah pretty much we are looking for different things. I don't think EA will give a shit about anyone boycotting and was more pondering the whole thing and would love to be able to see the true metrics, also because that would mean we would have another earth to run crazy experiments on.
I also would like to say sorry as my points where not always that clear. And your right we wont ever know, either dead space 3 does really well and they go on to make dead space 4 or it doesn't and they don't make another one, either way I don't think it will prevent microtransactions in SP games and not just from EA, because really what EA will be focused on is how much did it cost to include the microtransactions in the game development vs how much did it make and I bet it will be profitable. i think that this is where we are heading and I am sad to see it. All i can hope is that some developers will see the debates and ill will that players have to this and on a principle stand point not partake in this. Just like some developers don't ever agree with DRM on a principle alone basis.
@Seppli: But you knew what the mystery box was, didn't you? You knew that it was a mystery box, a gamble. It's no different than what Valve does with their stupid crate things in Team Fortress 2. At this point, it's an established microtransaction model that is deeply rooted in anti-consumer scumbaggery.
My point was more that the ends justified the means. Sure, at the time of launch it was a $60 release that came with microtransactions--that's scumbaggy. But as time went on and we saw this continuous stream of free DLC packs released, the whole thing started to make some justifiable sense. The biggest question with monetization systems for me is always: where is this money going? Is it going on top of a giant pile of publisher cash so that they can gloat during their fiscals? Or is it going right back into the game for all to enjoy?
I look at games like Killing Floor as a prime example: it's a small team-lead, but pretty popular wave-based hoard mode game that has been around for ages. You see the base price of $20, and then you see $50 worth of DLC on that store. For the longest time, that DLC was exclusively meaningless character skins, and community's view was simple: if you enjoy the game and want to continue supporting it, use the DLC as a way to donate some cash for continued development. In return, Tripwire has updated the game continuously over the past 4 years with new maps, modes, tons of great holiday stuff, and so many extras. (Recently, they've started delving into weapon DLC packs, which is slightly more offensive, but at least they continue to keep their userbase intact).
That sort of view on DLC may only be reserved for finance-stressed small teams, but if you divorce this from EA as a publisher, the result is very much the same: you have a completely ignorable microtransaction model that is set in place to justify continued content updates. So long as you aren't suckered into their money-grubbing web, you end up walking away with quite a deal. I know that you've spent a great deal of time in Guild Wars 2, and I have to ask: how is that any different? In an MMO where the core experience is an attempt to socialize, compete and cooperate for prestige, how aren't prestige/show-off items like gambled mini-pets and costume skins any different? It's a $60 product with a microtransaction store that justifies a game's maintenance.
@Ekpyroticuniverse:
A lot of my debates end amicably :P
I love arguing especially when someone has a different opinion, as that is the one that is most valuable.
Sometimes however and this is my fault, i come off as a bit too aggressive initially, so people assume I am hating them or am otherwise antagonistic just to be a dick. But this is largely because i only start an argument if i deem it relevant enough to talk about, so there is an emotional factor at the start. Also my initial aggressiveness tends to make people respond. /shrug. It's a habit.
@rebgav said:
Don't make me post another diagram of the integral parts of a suspension bridge, no-one got it last time.
Just for academic purposes, can I see this suspension bridge analogy picture?
On-topic: What makes Mass Effect 3's microtransactions closer to acceptable to me is, well, the fact that they were only related to the multiplayer. You didn't need them to play the single player game at all.
Granted, you apparently don't need them to play Dead Space 3's single player, but they are there, and they are always ready for you to buy something, and in a single player story-driven game. That's what's disgusting to me. And the things they offer are so fucking artificial, too. "Here, you can halve this spider-bot's search time if you give us a dollar or so! Isn't your time important to you?" Yes, my time is important to me EA, and so is my money. I will spend no more on a game than the base price. You might be able to hook me with DLC if your game is really fucking good, but keep in mind that I haven't even forked over money for Skyrim's DLC yet and I consider that the best game of this generation.
@project343:
What matters is respect. Many F2P games respect their customers and players. Respect their time and money. EA/Bioware and their take on the Mystery Box however does not. Progression comes pretty much to an absolute halt given a large enough investment of time/money. That's inacceptable. Just because you like the free fruits its Mystery Box business scheme yielded, doesn't mean that that's the only plausible way they could have handled it.
Hell - there's plenty of fairer ways to handle the Mystery Box in and of itself. Mass Effect 3 is worse than most pure F2P-games in that regard. How can you justify that? That's just pure fucking evil, and I hate how I'm seemingly one of the very few who's enraged about these circumstances. It feels like there's just no hope left at all. Free 2 Play Doomsday is upon us!
Oh, I begrudge Guild Wars 2 for every moment I've spent in it in pursuit of the legendary. It's an atrocious grind, devoid of challenge - a dullard bookkeeper's idea of good gamedesign - which is most likely rooted in the desire to generate IRL-currency gem-purchases on their item shop. The worst carrot on a stick I've ever chased. That's a story for another day however. Guild Wars 2's Mystery Boxes don't contain gameplay relevant items, though I find their existence in any game distasteful.
P.S. How bad are Guild Wars 2's dungeons and group mechanics? So fucking bad. The worst of any MMORPG I've played to date in fact. The core gameplay carries the game, together with my appreciation for all the smartly designed systems and UI and subtle tweaks to established MMORPG paradigms. Overall - it just doesn't work as well as the classic formulas do. Guild Wars 2 will go down in history as a supremely influential game, but it's not the game for me, and won't be the most successful game following the paradigms it introduced into the market.
Just 220 more ectoplasms to go for my legendary, then I'm fucking out. FOREVER.
@Seppli: So this is much less of a jab at EA directly, and more a jab at a very specific F2P model. I suppose that's fair enough.
I played a fair bit of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, had a great time, and jumped back in more recently to enjoy some of the new content. I didn't spend a dime, and never felt the need to. I guess my perspective on this, as someone who was un-phased by this inclusion, is skewed.
I, personally, take much more offense to SWTOR's nickel-and-dime-ing away features that should be part of the core gameplay experience. It is a significantly more offensive and anti-consumer model than Mass Effect 3--regardless of the $60 upfront pricing. I can't wait for this ridiculous territory to even out: for developers to find the right sweet spot and stop experimenting with these awful cash-grabs. On one hand, games like SWTOR make me incredibly anxious and nauseous when thinking about the future of video game monetization; on the other hand, games like TERA, Team Fortress 2 and DOTA2 are exactly the opposite. These are dark, muddy times that we live in. Lets hope that the dust settles soon.
@Tennmuerti said:
The phrase "don't like it, don't buy it" keeps getting used on forums like a mantra as if there is nothing else do discuss on the matter. And a line like "and nothing else needed to be said", further reinforced that.
If you don't like a game, don't buy it and then don't want to criticize it - that is a perfectly reasonable approach.
But then by the same virtue if you don't like the discussion around the subject, don't criticize it, simply ignore it.
Discuss all you want, it only exists (both the micro transaction model and EA itself) because people enable it through their purchases. It's not the only aspect of the equation worth looking at but you better believe it's the most important.
EA treats it's customers like junkies and suckers and has burned a simply baffling number of studios, we shouldn't be supporting this.
I dont buy the game because I want a whole lot of things tied to it to end, I do weigh in on these discussions because I think they should continue and hope they might bring some people around to my way of thinking.
Mass Effect MP is both fun and annoying. I really enjoy playing it, and it was probably one of the only MP experiences that I would say I am actually pretty good at, so I have a soft spot for it. The random DLC packs did hamper my enjoyment though. I really just wanted to unlock certain things, and I played a lot of the game, but I never really got what I wanted out of it for weapons and I never got all the characters I wanted either. The thing that would save it, in my opinion, would be a trade mechanic. I only really ever wanted to use the Disciple shotgun, which I still have not unlocked, and the Carnifex heavy pistol, which I unlocked after a lot of games. I have a poop-ton of shotguns and sniper rifles which I just don't use for my play style, so it's just kind of a waste. I do understand the model, I just wish I could upgrade a little more to my play style and not have it all depend on a roll of the dice.
And this it the part of the post where I admit playing a F2P game with "mystery boxes" and admit to paying real money to open them. I play Star Trek Online which moved to a F2P model and pretty much depends on stuff like the box thing. I don't participate much, and you can grind things like in-game currency to buy the keys that open the boxes on the player exchange, but keys can only be purchased with real money unless you buy them on a secondary market. Of course, on the secondary market they cost a lot of in-game currency, so you are spending a lot of in-game currency just for a minute chance (like under 1% or something ridiculous) to get a cool ship. It stinks for people like me that spend money on the game but are not willing to spend a freaking huge amount just for the chance to unlock a cool ship from a locked box. My husband spends more money in STO than I do because he is a ship collector and loves the game. He figures if he loves a game that lets him fly around in the Star Trek universe, he will pay money to support it, although we are both getting burned out on it now. The new content is not that exciting and having to grind in-game currency or dilithium to get ships or build up a fleet base gets really old really quick. Anyway, unless you play the game I guess you may not get what I am talking about, but it's similar to the model that they implemented in SWTOR, although I think SWTOR gives you more bang for your buck.
It wouldn't be a problem if these ships (in STO) were available for a set price in the store for real money. Then you could pay your 20 bucks for a Cardassian ship and be done with it, but they make them only available as ultra rare drops from lock boxes, and that gets tedious after the 5th different lockbox promotion. (Cardassian, Ferengi, Tholian, Temporal, Dominion) But I also have to give them some props for giving out free ships during events. I have a Breen ship from doing the winter event and the Ambassador class FED ship from doing the 3 year anniversary event, so I feel like there is content there for people who are total F2P players, but they throttle some fans, like my husband who likes having tons of cool ships to fly, with all the box stuff that they do. It's hard to say you love a game that keeps wanting more and more money, and I can see us totally dropping it soon if the basic content doesn't improve and get valuable additions.
By the way, I understand how silly that sounds. If you don't want to buy the content, then don't. I totally get that which is why i don't have all the cool ships in the game and all the costume pieces. I just try to get what I like through the secondary player market with fake money, not real money, most of the time. It's hard when you see something cool though and you kind of get that "Maybe I'll just try it this once" mentality.
@Jothel said:
They're treating $60 games as if they were free to play games and it suuuuuuuucks
They're treating $60 games as if they would like to make a little more money from a generation of gamers that believe in instant gratification and disposable income that isn't actually disposable. A lot of the problems with this specific form of game design is due to people wanting it now, so instead of getting pissed at the companies for taking advantage of that mentality, we should instead get pissed at PEOPLE IN GENERAL for being such stuck-up Violet Beauregarde mimics and change that culture. If so, it forces the companies to either change their ways or die.
With that said, there are plenty of examples out there of how F2P and microtransaction models in games (even in F2P games) are done superbly. I don't think nearly enough companies take lessons from those guys and apply them, instead thinking they can solve it all while making just a little more scratch than the other guys. League of Legends, Guild Wars 2, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Tera, and multiple other games have this whole model DOWN, almost to a perfected science. Hell, even WARFRAME is handling the model incredibly well. Path of Exile handles it incredibly, to the point that I even FORGET that they have a goddamn microtransaction store in the first place! Why aren't more people following their examples?
I understand how EA's handling the whole thing, but at the same time, it seems like everything I've heard about Dead Space 3 indicates that they are finding the equal medium for this finally. The stuff with FIFA Ultimate Team (Madden as well) has been dirty as shit, and the Mass Effect 3 stuff seemed a bit...precarious?...so to say. However, with Dead Space 3, it sounds like they are making sure that the microtransactions are not nearly as intrusive or necessary that wants to actually play their game.
Honestly, we just need to get to a point as a community of gamers where we say "enough is enough" and actually vote with our dollar. When you let a game bomb because a microtransaction model is placed within the $60 game that is shady and dirty, don't buy the game. That sends shockwaves when big numbers are missing from their quarterly financials.
Until then, it's just the way things are and will continue to go.
@coakroach:
I wasn't referring solely to your initial phrase but to continued quoting that nothing else needs to be said. And I already agreed that not buying those games is a valid way to go, i do the same myself actually. But that should not be at the expense of dismissing all other discussion on the topic as irrelevant. That's a close minded and frankly insulting approach, which is why I actively discourage it when it rears it's ugly head and ask people to think beyond the superficial level.
If your initial intent got misused and you yourself like to see discussions get encouraged then the fault doesn't really lie with me does it for subverting what you wanted to convey.
Like I said before the "don't buy it" is a perfectly valid personal approach to these things, but not a valid argument to dismiss criticism towards the product. Which i think? you seem to agree with.
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