@toxicantidote: I think requiring incorporation isn't that big of a deal. Think of how much crap would be avoided on the Steam store if they did the same.
It's just a matter of filing with your local Department of State of as an LLC, partnership, or corporation. It doesn't cost too much and is relatively simple.
Besides, indie devs who don't want that bother can still go on Steam, etc. It's just an additional avenue for delivery.
As for the service itself, I'm excited! I'll still want my PC so I can play multiplayer games >60 FPS, but if this can replace the need to buy a $500 Xbox or Playstation (in addition to the 4K HDR TV), then I'm all for it. Plus, the possibilities of the additional horsepower could turn out to be really neat.
Maybe it's because I work in corporate America, but Google being in control of this doesn't really scare me. Every game you play now is already sending data back to the developers. Besides, if you run this on a Chromecast on your TV, you'll be sending a whole lot less information to Google than you would running a PC game installed to your hard drive.
While I appreciate Jeff's review, I know his tastes on the recent Call of Dutys (i.e., mobility, unlocks, etc.) are much different than mine, so I will definitely still check this out.
I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Thank you to those who offered thoughtful responses. Checking back, it seems like the majority consensus is that unlocks are fine/good which, as I stated, is perfectly reasonable. However, there are some points I want to address:
Saying that every part of every game should be immediately accessible is frankly pretty silly, and comparing the idea of skipping through a game's story to skipping to a chapter in a book or scene in a movie is nonsensical. I mean, yeah, you could do those things, but why the fuck would you? Especially if it's your first time experiencing the story? Many linear stories in games have chapter selects once you complete them anyway. The nature of games has always and will always be that you earn your way to the top.
I agree that it would be silly to do and would personally see very little use for it. However, it would not take any more development time or money to not lock away content from a player, so why not do it, no matter how limited its use cases may be? No harm, no foul. It’s just there as an option.
I also don't think it needs to be taken for granted that just because something has always been one way, it needs to remain that way. I think that's living the unexamined life (within the silly context of video games, of course). Besides, there are ways to earn your way to the top without locking away content; achievements, challenges, leaderboards, and end-of-round scoreboards, just to name a few.
I had a slightly longer post written out, but the thrust was "vote with your wallet"
Precisely. As I stated, it comes down to a matter of consumer agency. However, I think it's a conversation worth having, regardless of how the wallet tends to vote.
So if I buy Monopoly, should I expect my friends to be ok with me taking the best properties, a couple of hotels and most of the cash before the game even begins because "I bought the game, I should have access to everything regardless of game rules"?
No. The entire core gameplay of Monopoly is built around the progression from $1,500 to a real-estate monopoly. That's it -- there is nothing else. If that were to be allowed, the game would devolve to a mere game of chance where players rolled dice, went around the board in a circle, and waited to see who was unlucky enough to land on Boardwalk first. There would be no skill -- you might as well play War.
The games that we're discussing do not depend on progression for their core gameplay. They would still feature their core loop; shooting, driving, whatever it may be. The gameplay is in no way hindered by the removal of unlocks. The unlock structure in most modern games is entirely tangential to the gameplay and is merely in place to keep people playing for longer.
And, yes, I acknowledge they are rules, and as such, constitute a part of that game. However, that doesn't mean they are good rules.
Because of the unique interaction players have with games I would argue that they are very much not commodities, and comparisons of market adoption of games with even similar features is incorrect. Unless a studio would offer the same game with and without gated access (and supply was not an issue) a direct comparison is inappropriate; even at this point the difference between informed and uninformed consumers would not be explored.
I would guess that an informed consumer would always pick the option for no gated access. I would guess that an informed developer will always include gated access in order to increase the length that consumers continue to play the game, which boosts the playerbase and increases the chance that multiplayer thrives. Neither of these are the complete explanation of why consumers or developers do what they do in each unique situation.
We demand unique experiences that consequently make it hard to "vote with our wallet". They supply us with games which require us to play with longer than 8-10 hours and sell back as used games.
Very well said. I don't know that the "if it weren't gated, they wouldn't build it" argument holds up, however. In 2015, a $60 video game comes with inherent expectations about quantity of content, regardless of whether that content is locked or not. If you were to tell a developer that they had to make a $60 multiplayer game, but without unlocks, I'd expect they'd put in just as many features as a game with unlocks. The market has already proven that "old fashioned" games with no unlocks and fewer features, such as CS:GO or Insurgency, get relegated to the $15-$20 price-point. In order to justify the $60 price-tag to the average consumer, a developer needs to and will include that content whether or not it's locked from the start.
Now, obviously, content such as post-release DLC, which would never have been "green-lit" without the promise of extra income, is an entirely separate issue and a perfectly reasonable reason to "hold back" content and require further payment. I acknowledge $60 only covers so much development.
And I agree that developers and consumers will have two different agendas and two different views on the issue of unlocks; there is no denying that unlocks keep people playing games for longer, which gives developers more chances to sell to them down the road. Ultimately, the only way the trend could change is if consumers voted against the unlock structure with their wallets.
unlocks are a form of reward system, people want to play and get rewarded, level up and get power ups, fairly common mechanic. I'd think a game would be pretty boring if everything was given to you right from the start.
They're an essential part of the feedback loop. Otherwise you're just chasing score or finishing a game for the experience of doing so. Other media can get by on the latter but games like to dangle carrots.
Call of Duty, Unreal, Counter-Strike, Battlefield, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Halo, Medal of Honor, James Bond, SOCOM, Enemy Territory -- these are franchises that were all born before the rise of ubiquitous unlocks and had incredibly popular multiplayer shooters. A good game can stand on its own two legs.
Unlocks are fun as hell. I want to play a game to unlock stuff. I love the Smash Bros. series. I love Melee because I play it on that competitive level and I went to a college with one of the biggest tournament scenes for Melee. Brawl and Sm4sh are games that no one takes seriously on a competitive level and they don't even play as well as Melee. So why did I enjoy those games? Because I enjoy the unlocking of things. You almost always have to unlock more than half of the cast of a Smash Bros. game, and that is fun to me. If all of the characters were already unlocked, I would put nearly as much time into the last two Smash games as I would have. And I'm not saying I regret that time, it was a lot of fun. But that is a situation where the rewarding feeling of unlocking stuff in my game was more compelling to me than the actual gameplay.
And that's a perfectly reasonable, thought-out explanation. If unlocks offer you that much fun, then obviously they benefit your experience. Who am I to tell you otherwise?
Your car and coffee maker analogy is pretty terrible as well. Cars don't come standard with heated seats. Coffee Makers don't come standard with timers. These are features you pay extra for.
Whether the game has unlocks or not, it's immediately imbalanced as soon as people get their hands on it. I don't have time to spend after midnight on a Monday to play the newest shooter for 12 hours straight - Joe Schmoe does, and he's going to learn every corner of the map and every cheesy mechanic before I even get to boot up the game, and it's even worse if there's a beta-demo. If the game didn't have a progression system and I was facing off against Joe Schmoes on day one, I would turn it off and never play it again. At least the unlocks would give me something to look forward to, and give me some hope that I may be able to compete down the line. If everyone had access to everything from the get-go and it was only a measure of free time to balance it, the people learning the maps and getting the muscle memory down first are the people that are going to win.
It may not be such a bad comparison, even if you consider heated seats or a timer to be premium features. It's not like you're paying $60 for the starting features, then you consider all of the unlocks extra gravy on top. You paid a premium for all of that content. If it were just the starting content, you'd have only paid $15 to $20 (take CS:GO or Insurgency for example). In short, you are paying a premium for it.
Yes, time will always be a major factor in player skill and game balance; there is no way around that unless you were to design a game of pure chance. However, nothing is being denied to you when time/skill is the only limiting factor. You may get your ass kicked, but you can still use the rocket launcher, or the grappling hook, or the Ferrari, or the AC-130; the only limiting factor creating unbalance is the natural one of time/skill.
And you make a good point that the promise of unlocks can offer an incentive to keep playing when you're first getting creamed by veteran players. However, I think it's purely a mental benefit, or a placebo if you will. At the end of the day, those veteran players have not only the time/knowledge, but also the wider range of unlocks to choose from to even better kick your ass. Whenever you do get to that next unlock, they'll still be ahead of you in time/knowledge/unlocks so you've really gotten nowhere (except maybe feeling like you've made progress).
Time will always be a natural imbalancing factor -- I don't think there's a need to introduce artificial ones on top.
This is one of the silliest arguments against a video game feature I've ever seen. I suppose you also think HBO is "withholding content" by airing 1 episode of Game of a Thrones a week rather than letting you watch the season finale before all the other episodes? I mean, you pay for that HBO subscription, shouldn't you be able to watch any episode you want immediately? Every episode is complete before any of them are released, so clearly HBO is denying consumers the full product in order to keep them coming back for more.
HBO green-lights Game of Thrones for 10 episodes each season with the knowledge that viewers will be paying $15 per month. They don't release all 10 episodes at once because they would only receive $15 instead of $45 -- many people would simply subscribe for one month and then binge-watch. In that case, it makes perfect sense to dole it out monthly. That monthly income is expected and necessary for the show to exist in the first place.
You are also essentially getting that content at a discounted rate. The boxed version of a Game of Thrones season retails for $60. So while I may have to wait for content, I'm getting a 25% discount for doing so. Hell, I'd be more open to unlocks if they came with a discounted version of the product.
With a game, aside from MMOs, I've paid you my $60 up front. You have all of the money you're going to get out of me for that on-disc content. From a business standpoint, the only reason you have to put unlocks in the game is to keep me playing for longer so that you have more chances to sell me additional content.
It also ignores the fact that you can consume your weekly episode of Game of Thrones and then happily go about your business for the next seven days until the next episode airs. You don't have to re-watch episode 4 three times to unlock episode 5. 100% of your time with the product can be spent enjoying it.
The assertion that you're not getting the full game you paid $60 for because you have to spend time playing it to gain access to everything is patently absurd, especially when there are so many legitimately exploitative business practices within the industry.
I simply can't take that angle even remotely seriously when we have legitimate consumer concerns like exploitative microtransactions.
I think unlocks are much worse than micro-transactions. Sure, micro-transactions have the gut reaction of being awful when they ask us to pay $5 for a new emote in Destiny, but they are easily ignored. By their very nature as being micro, they are one-off features that can be taken or ignored, usually without implications to the core game. If you're not interested in that one thing, then you don't buy it.
Unlocks however, take a bunch of stuff you are interested in (the core game, for example) and then lump it in with locked content. You can't decide to pay $30 for the core content alone -- if you want to enjoy that core content, you are forced to pay the full $60, whether or not you will ever be able to experience everything you are paying $60 for.
Micro-transactions: You don't want part X, don't buy part X.
Unlocks: If you want part X, you've got to buy part Y too, whether or not you'll ever use part Y.
And as an aside, it's sort of disappointing to see this discussion start off with FPSs when, back in my day, you had to find candles to burn bushes, fight crazed robots for their power and hunt down weird statues for powerups. Kids these days...
Let's not resort to name-calling, shall we? As stated, I focus on multiplayer games -- shooters in particular -- because other genres are better suited to the unlock structure.
That's how most things work. Life in general. Paying for college doesn't mean you just get to pick a degree without first taking all the classes. You have to read books after you buy them.
Education, among any number of other examples in life, is a completely different beast. You must attend class, work on projects, do homework, and interact with professors and other students in order to obtain the academic, cultural, and social knowledge, in addition to the work ethic, that a degree instills. In contrast, video games are artificially gated. Time will have to be spent to learn the mechanics and get better, but there is nothing that inherently requires the artificial locking of content.
If I could pay you $200,000 up front, and you could instantly zap into my brain the knowledge, cultural and social experiences, and work ethic that college instills, but don't do so just to keep me on campus in hopes of selling me stuff for the next 4 years, that would seem pretty shitty too.
@akyho: Thank you for the video! I had never seen that and it's very much in keeping with what I want to discuss.
@ssully: Actually, it's a very well-reasoned argument that you just don't happen to agree with. As stated -- and restated -- I agree that it is a matter of consumer agency.
Now, if you'll all excuse me, I have to go buy and download Black Ops 3... :)
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