Micro transactions have ruined the gaming experience..
- Thread starter Big Lurko
- Start date
BrotherZ
Active Member
It more an issue of capitalism and everything being about constant raise in profits than the micro transactions.
Some games, when the items are purely cosmetic and cash purchase is only to skip in game grind for said item, aren't too bad. I'll always look at Warframe and the way Digital Extremes handles it as an example of what I want to see. All of that games MX could be earned from just playing certain game modes and interacting with other players. Not a single item you can purchase in the game can't be earned the hard way and not a single item is needed to play the game in its fullest.
Then you have something like Diablo 3 that had the auction house. While I wasn't around when that was a thing, I heard that some of the best gear in game was up for sell for hundreds of dollars and folks hated it.
I think Fortnite has a decent system where you can earn the next battle pass from just completing the current one. other than the fact that you have time limited character skins, its a game that gains zero benefits just cause you spent any money on it.
MX, when done right, could benefit smaller companies but most larger companies push way too hard to justify its existence instead of just letting you earn it in game.
Some games, when the items are purely cosmetic and cash purchase is only to skip in game grind for said item, aren't too bad. I'll always look at Warframe and the way Digital Extremes handles it as an example of what I want to see. All of that games MX could be earned from just playing certain game modes and interacting with other players. Not a single item you can purchase in the game can't be earned the hard way and not a single item is needed to play the game in its fullest.
Then you have something like Diablo 3 that had the auction house. While I wasn't around when that was a thing, I heard that some of the best gear in game was up for sell for hundreds of dollars and folks hated it.
I think Fortnite has a decent system where you can earn the next battle pass from just completing the current one. other than the fact that you have time limited character skins, its a game that gains zero benefits just cause you spent any money on it.
MX, when done right, could benefit smaller companies but most larger companies push way too hard to justify its existence instead of just letting you earn it in game.
SeaSnake
OG
Facts honestly I’m tired of paying for dlc they could’ve been included in the game all this season pass shit. But those mobile games are the worst when it comes to cash. Shouldn’t have to pay to level up. Same with 2k
SeaSnake
OG
Lol you pro capitalism
Micro transactions are a necessary evil unfortunately because games have become so expensive to make so if a developer doesn’t include micro transactions somewhere there’s a large chance the game isn’t all that profitable
the difference in micro transactions that’s affecting the gaming experience is games having a pay to win structure.
mobile games are so popular/profitable for companies to make because they are cheaper to make and there’s way more of a potential customer base. I saw a video before about micro transactions from maybe CNBC that companies are relying on those customers that grab their credit cards to spend $100 every time periodically on the game more than the average person who might either play the game free or spend a lil bit very occasionally
The pay to win structure grew more and more apparent as gaming got more competitive with the rise and addition of Esports and streaming
2k never gonna get rid of the shit they do with VC because of it.
So yeah I mean not all micro transactions are bad as a lot expands the game that they maybe couldn’t include in the base game due to time constraints or another reason and it gives a chance for developers to make more profit than they otherwise would have.
Oh shit this was a long response lol
the difference in micro transactions that’s affecting the gaming experience is games having a pay to win structure.
mobile games are so popular/profitable for companies to make because they are cheaper to make and there’s way more of a potential customer base. I saw a video before about micro transactions from maybe CNBC that companies are relying on those customers that grab their credit cards to spend $100 every time periodically on the game more than the average person who might either play the game free or spend a lil bit very occasionally
The pay to win structure grew more and more apparent as gaming got more competitive with the rise and addition of Esports and streaming
2k never gonna get rid of the shit they do with VC because of it.
So yeah I mean not all micro transactions are bad as a lot expands the game that they maybe couldn’t include in the base game due to time constraints or another reason and it gives a chance for developers to make more profit than they otherwise would have.
Oh shit this was a long response lol
RandomNegro
Active Member
I knew it was dirty when they had Black Ops 4 doing it for rare guns. It’s a fucked up game. You had kids gambling for a rare gun to feed that dopamine hit
SneakDZA
High Evolutionary
Where were y'all ~15 years ago, tf?
The war is over, we been lost.
I was there, man. We lost a lot of good people.
Games aren't more expensive to make, it's just that game companies realized that they have the best ratio of dollar spent per hour of entertainment and decided to fuck over their consumer base.
You spend 60 bucks on an RPG, it takes you 20 hours to beat it, that's 3 dollars per hour. Then you can replay it as much as you want.
You spend 20 bucks at a movie theater, it ends in 1 hr and 30 minutes. That's $13.33 per hour.
Game companies looked at the math and realized that their profit margins could be greater if they made you pay for the game the longer you played it.
This option became available when payment technology made it convenient for people to pay for shit at anytime. And the internet made it possible for companies to constantly "update" their games with new content to justify you paying for shit that should be included.
Video game software developers and IT workers get paid peanuts and are overworked compared to their non video game counterparts.
Video games aren't that expensive to make. The industry reuses assets, use game engines, contract development teams from smaller studios, all types of shit to cut costs.
You spend 60 bucks on an RPG, it takes you 20 hours to beat it, that's 3 dollars per hour. Then you can replay it as much as you want.
You spend 20 bucks at a movie theater, it ends in 1 hr and 30 minutes. That's $13.33 per hour.
Game companies looked at the math and realized that their profit margins could be greater if they made you pay for the game the longer you played it.
This option became available when payment technology made it convenient for people to pay for shit at anytime. And the internet made it possible for companies to constantly "update" their games with new content to justify you paying for shit that should be included.
Video game software developers and IT workers get paid peanuts and are overworked compared to their non video game counterparts.
Video games aren't that expensive to make. The industry reuses assets, use game engines, contract development teams from smaller studios, all types of shit to cut costs.
aka_og
Select Square
The quality of AAA games and content available at launch has gotten worse since like 2012 - the increase in cost is most likely in marketing and building micro transaction systems/season pass systems to chase the mobile gaming model
Gaming consumers get half the blame for all of this though - this has been going on for YEARS now and still expecting these companies to change
Gaming consumers get half the blame for all of this though - this has been going on for YEARS now and still expecting these companies to change
SeaSnake
OG
mike030270
Memes
It does? I don't think I played it but man they made horrible decisions in Destiny IMO
What we are witnessing is a contradiction of digital and information technology.
Information and computer technology generally things cheaper, easily accessible and efficient.
Which means digital products like video games, TV shows and music should be less expensive to create produce and distribute relatively over time.
(This is for the most part true, music at this point is basically free, if someone is paying to stream music, they are dumb, lazy or both.)
This is bad for public corporations that need to a show a profit and revenue growth every year to satisfy their shareholders.
Which is why everything is turning into a subscription and a continuous service where you are paying for access and exclusivity, not the ownership of the actual product.
Overall point is, we reached a point of technological development where corporations are creating barriers to the proliferation of digital goods because there are no more avenues to generate new revenue and profit.
konceptjones
The one between three and three.
one of the single biggest reason I don't play mobile games.
konceptjones
The one between three and three.
This is a screenshot showing a bit less than a third of my current inventory on CS:GO
I have enough of those cases to fill a bit more than two more screens when I scroll through it. Each of those cases costs $2.50 to open and to this day I have yet to pay to open any of them. The "new" guns inside are just texture swaps, it's not like they're more accurate, more deadly, or anything. They just look different. Once in a blue I actually get one of those guns after a few matches anyways i.e. the CaliCamo XM104 I currently have equipped for both teams. IF all I get are texture swapped versions of the same guns that I may just get for free anyways, then what am I really paying for???
One of the games I infrequently play basically ruined itself by allowing folks to pay to level-up. World of Kung Fu was like "aiight... pay $x.xx and you can go straight to level 80, bypassing all of the quests and everything". As more people started doing it, fewer people were playing 'cause these high ranking muhfuckas were just running rampant across the landscape. There's barely anyone on it these days.
Peep the number of players online right this second. That shit used to number in the thousands, now it's just ONE.
I have enough of those cases to fill a bit more than two more screens when I scroll through it. Each of those cases costs $2.50 to open and to this day I have yet to pay to open any of them. The "new" guns inside are just texture swaps, it's not like they're more accurate, more deadly, or anything. They just look different. Once in a blue I actually get one of those guns after a few matches anyways i.e. the CaliCamo XM104 I currently have equipped for both teams. IF all I get are texture swapped versions of the same guns that I may just get for free anyways, then what am I really paying for???
One of the games I infrequently play basically ruined itself by allowing folks to pay to level-up. World of Kung Fu was like "aiight... pay $x.xx and you can go straight to level 80, bypassing all of the quests and everything". As more people started doing it, fewer people were playing 'cause these high ranking muhfuckas were just running rampant across the landscape. There's barely anyone on it these days.
Peep the number of players online right this second. That shit used to number in the thousands, now it's just ONE.
aka_og
Select Square
They need to make money - i get that, but better solutions can be found where they take advantage of modern content distribution while creating gaming experiences that have replay value v what they been doing for years now which is straight up lazy (building around pay to win/funneling traffic to the in-game store, re-adding and removing known features, etc)
IMO only change taking place is if gamers take some type of financial stand to force their hand
I think these companies make enough money just by selling what people paid for. What's happening now is greed.
It's always interesting hearing companies telling consumers that they need to make money, so they intentionally cripple technology that they supposedly spent so much money to develop meanwhile real wages haven't risen in decades.
For example, to move off games for a minute. Amazon created the Kindle and issues its own fucking file format that is not compatible with any other e-reader or ebook reading software unless you convert it to an epub or a mobi, two open file formats.
Only reason they do that is to force you to buy a fucking Kindle to use with their Amazon store and prevent you from sharing books. It's the same fucking shit. No new features, nothing.
We are living in an era of record wealth generation for the wealthiest people in the world due computer technology and all they do is cripple it to make people pay to use it. They make products worse to make money. That's crazy.
It started with software in the 90s with crippleware, and the concept expanded to everything from games to got damn ebooks.
Consumers and workers aren't organized, therefore we have no choice but to accept this shit. Corporations are organized and they pay millions upon millions of dollars to prevent us from being organized against their thievery.
@Big Lurko what made you make this?