Michael Transactions is a bad, bad man.

You said I know it's going to happen sooner or later. I'm not making it up. It's in your post.

It's not a movement that's gaining strength. It's a movement that arrived at the beginning of the generation and is now entrenched. There's no reason to think that they're going to lock a character class behind a paywall. Yes there will probably be a DLC party member with a quest or two that may or may not be interesting but nothing that's going to affect the actual game.

@atlas: The scenario you suggest wouldn't be too much of a problem though, because for every one person letting themselves be ripped off, you would have 5-10 waiting to spend their money on traditional model games and so they would still get produced.

The really bad -and far more likely- scenario is that everybody falls for the "They're entirely optional! You can just buy the game and ignore the microtransactions if you want, they won't affect the rest of the game!" lie and developers are left with no reason at all to produce games unpolluted by microtransactions.

The only thing anybody can do if they don't want game design crippled by the MT business model is to not support games which use it. Merely ignoring the microtransactions themselves isn't enough, as it does nothing to dissuade them from harming the 'core' part of the game in service of pushing the MTs.

I for one will have nothing to do with any game which believes it's ok to sell my own time back to me. The customer having more money than free time is absolutely no excuse for them to try and 'save' that customer's time by selling it back to them (via faster unlocks etc.). That's just a disgusting practice in principle, and if 'letting' the customer AVOID the process of playing the game is considered to have monetary value then they have fundamentally failed at game design. Anybody who agrees to take them up on that offer has fundamentally failed at not being an idiot.

so does this mean I have to wait till every game is game of the year? Is the game of the year edition like "the fruits of what Micropayments" brought? so then all that junk is in there and they are off making another sequel which will have more micropayment stuff?

the direct quote is right there dude.

and how can you say it's not a movement gaining strength when Microsoft and Sony are only now starting to employ it in their first party titles? And did you even listen to the interview with John Riccitiello provided in the OP?

you seem so sure that you know what's going to happen, and yet all you've done is make unfounded accusations and a preposterous claim that the prevalence of micro-transactions hasn't gained any momentum since the beginning of last gen.

But people enjoy the crazy hard levels in God of War. If anything the dick move would be charging for the harder difficulty. I wouldn't mind extra health being thrown in for the weenies but weapons should all be unlockable in game.

Didn't Boarderlands 2 put some classes behind a pay wall?

lol

If you're asking if they charged for the DLC they put out 3 weeks / 8 months after the game came out, yeah they did. Although the first DLC character was free for all preorders.

Microtransactions are no longer micro but macro

Why would you need to buy every car in the entire game?

And what are you going to do, go to the shop and buy them all one by one? (when there are, like, over a thousand cars?)

I am glad you brought this topic up and we are having a discussion about it. I really don't know what to think on the issue. It's like I want someone to tell me how to feel about it. I completely understand the rising costs of games is a real factor and games have been 60 bucks for how long now? Shouldn't inflation atleast moved prices up for these big budget games? So I don't fault them for doing this however it does feel dirty doesn't it? A little like double dipping.

Also it is a fact that putting in this model effects gameplay decisions and the feel of the game. We have seen it with countless other games. Things become more grindy and so you feel like making a purchase is more cost effective from a time/benefit scenario.

I may not be the best person to even discuss this topic because I think Steam has colored my opinion on game prices. I am in my 30's to give you some perspective on where I am coming from as our opinions are formed by experiences. I hate all Micro-Transactions and even hate DLC. There is something about buying something extra that I have a mental block over. I would rather they finish a story fully in 1 game and then release a full expansion or sequel. I do not like these mini DLC add ons. I also am a bigger PC gamer nowadays. I am used to having access to trainers/hacks to unlock items, models, cheats etc... I have access to other peoples save files if I wanted for example every car in a racing game available to me. User made mods that expand games beyond what the designers even thought of. And as mentioned above with Steam ridiculously low prices on lots of great games. I go into the Wii U store and cringe at the prices and just can't make a purchase.

I think i got sidetracked in my thoughts there. This micro-transaction issue on full priced games is a tricky situation. I honestly think I would rather see them raise prices on big budget games to $70 then effect game-play decisions to nickel and dime you after. I think really the bottom line is this, if game-play wasn't effected and they just gave you a faster way to unlock something that would be ok with me. I mean i prefer a cheat code like the good old days to just unlock what you wanted but It is what it is. So the question using Forza as an example. Does it take longer to unlock things in Forza 5 then it does in Forza 4. Or GranTurismo 5 vs 6. Then we will have our answer if these microtansactions have effected game-play decisions.

Still kinda seems kinda icky to charge people for a character because fuck you for not preordering. The other stuff seems fine I guess (haven't played it).

Really? I think it seems nice to give people paid DLC for free because thank you for preordering.

I've never minded the way The Sims does expansion packs.

GT6 has the same earnings grind as GT5, it offers you to pay real money for credits to skip past that very, very reasonable grind (after it got patched up from the original terribad GT5). Is that really just as bad as Forza 5 which is designed to constantly beg for you to open your wallet?

If your answer is yes then I'm sorry for the shame that your parents feel.

You are looking at it backwards bizarro duder.

No, I think he has it right.

Anyway, this sort of stuff is absolutely disgusting. Forza 5 and GT6 are both gross games for doing it so I don't want to hear any fanboy nonsense about one being worse than the other. It's a disgusting practice.

People that like microtransactions are bad people. Or selling a bill of goods.