CliffyB: Microtransaction is Not a Dirty Word, EA is Not The Bad Guy

[Lee Quitt]

When was the last time EA ever did a sale? like valve do all the time.

Right now, Cryis 3 and Dead space 3 are 30% off, BF3 and all the DLC were massively on sale just last week, half the Sims selection half price now as well..... Sigh some people are just intent on speaking stupidity.

 

[Mr_Terrific]

Well...at least now we can lay off the bash David Cage for no reason party and jump on a real tool who repeatedly says stupid things every other week. $60 games should not have micro-transactions or integral bits of gameplay pay walled off Clifford. Now, go make another another overrated bro fest over at your obvious new employer, EA.

Also, don't give me that starving dev bullshit again and follow it by telling me to vote with my wallet. That makes no sense...

 

[Beryl77]

No, you've obviously not done any research. I'm glad we can agree.
(Nor provided any direct evidence for that matter, just unsupported opinion)

Oh yes, that one link you provided was so much evidence for all your "supported" opinions. I'm glad that we can end this in a mature way and not a childish "I'm closing my ears and can't hear you" way.

 

[GoldenShadow]

I just want to point out that Valve used the free to play games like TF2 and Dota 2 to get people using Steam. Once you have steam, you will see all of the daily deals and holiday sales and probably buy more games.
Gamer get some free games and steam gets to advertise to them through the steam client. Its quite a symbiotic relationhip.

EA makes you buy a full priced game, then pay more for 100% of the game. If I already paid 60 dollars, I should have the whole game already. I think a lot of gamers are OCD and like to 100% complete their games, so they must buy all of the DLC and costumes, etc to accomplish that goal. EA end up looking like a parasite on your wallet.

I just replayed Portal 2 and noticed they still have that micro-transaction store to buy hats,skins and gestures. That stuff is pretty expensive, but really has no impact on your game at all. You almost never see the robot character you play as during co-op. That money you can spend on those items is for the benefit of your co-op partner.

With the EA, lets use Dragonage series as an example. The DLC content there all had meaningful impact on your story. It was new items, newquests, new locations and characters. Some of it was created after the game shipped, but some of it was included as day 1 DLC. Anyone who wants to 100% dragonage NEEDs all of the DLC to complete that game.

 

[AsurasEyes]

Difference being, Valve didn't charge me 40 quid for TF2.

Microtransactions are fine in F2P models, but when you charge full price for the game, it gets a little sketchy...

You're implying TF2 was always free which is an outright lie

No, I was implying that I didn't pay 40 quid for the game.

Don't presume to know my intentions.

If your only comment was on your personal experience is one thing, but when you imply that TF2 fits into the "F2P" model and always has you're misrepresenting the facts deliberately or through an inability to communicate

It's akin to me saying "Well EA didn't charge me 60 bucks for Mass Effect 1, so you know, EA is awesome." and then I neglect to mention that I bought it 2 years after release and it was originally 60 bucks.

I'm not in the mood to have another semantics argument over the internet, so please, just it leave it there.

It's not a semantics argument, it's about you basing your opinion of a company based on personal experience rather than looking at the situation objectively with you know a reasoned, mature perspective.

Team Fortress 2 was 60 bucks at launch in orange box
Mann Co store opened a year before TF2 became free to play

So to imply that TF2 falls under what is commonly understood as the "Free to play" model is not accurate.

Valve was charging for the game and then later began offering optional people micro-transactions within said game. Just like Dead Space 3 was released at full price, and offers players optional micro-transactions within the game.


This constant grasping at straws by gamers to justify what are obviously skewed perspectives is laughable at best.

Are you Cliffy B?

Why? Why do you defend a company that does not care about you?

Why do you insist upon sneering at the one company and product that has not actively fucked us? Yes TF2 cost money at first, and the micro-transactions were in game and were mostly cosmetic. Then it became free to play because Valve made enough money off of it and the hats that they no longer needed to charge full price, and you're calling that "grasping at straws"? Because they decided to be less of a bunch of dicks than they could have been, which is something that EA has NEVER done?

Why do you insist upon starting an immature beef with a man who has done nothing wrong over the internet? Why do you insist upon insulting someone, calling them immature and unreasonable?

Why do you accept the stupidity of EA that has caused gamers nothing but discomfort? Why do you get so defensive of a massive, multimedia corporation that has done nothing to earn your respect as others have? Valve has done good, so we love it. EA has done only hideous things, and it is reviled for that reason.

Please, answer me. I need to understand how someone could honestly think that this isn't as clear-cut as a fight between The Allies (Gamers, Valve, Bioware, etc.) and the Nazis (EA and the rest of their ilk)

 

[Rachmaninov]

Team Fortress 2 was released as a retail game like any other. It was available for 60 bucks, full priced game.

Incorrect. It was available in a pack of five games, for 60 bucks. If we divide that equally, that's 12 bucks a piece. Maybe, if EA were selling Dead Space 3 for 12 bucks, you'd be right, but you're not.

You saying that spending money on stupid cosmetic crap is better than spending money on items that'll help you finish the game faster? Really?

Yes, because spending money on "stupid cosmetic crap" is more like a voluntary donation, with a cosmetic reward. Faster progress is evidently more tempting (as your own words prove) and is therefore an attempt to apply pressure to the user. To make the player feel as though they're completing the game "too slowly" and therefore "need" to take part in the microtransactions. No one is going to feel they genuinely "need" what you call "stupid cosmetic crap" to enhance their gameplay.

Seriously people think Valve does things for your benefit, it's the other way around.

No, the difference is, Valve do their business without - to borrow from Jim Sterling - dragging their slimy balls across our face.

Valve can make money for themselves without chewing up, and spitting out, beloved publishers like Westwood. They offer some of their DLC free, and they frequently offer the best damn sales in the entire video game industry.

Free DLC from EA? Or a box of new five new EA games for $60? Don't make me laugh. They're too busy swallowing developers to bother with any of that.

Uh, Valve is barely a developer anymore. What have they done recently? A HD update for CS? They release what 1 or 2 games a year, tops, almost all now multiplayer-focused having abandoned their single player fans.

EA on the other hand distributed 39 games on various platforms in 2012 as an example, and people what have a problem with one game this year? Dead Space 3? And one game out of dozens means they're a bad man.

Valve doesn't have 13 bought-out subsidiaries to churn out games for them. And since when did flooding the market with rushed sequels become a good thing?

Microtransactions are only EA's latest of a long, long list of offences. RIP Bullfrog Productions, Westwood Studios, Kesmai, Pandemic Studios, Bright Light and DICE Canada, for a start.

The world: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2007/06/15/half-life-2-orange-box-release-date-set

60 bucks on consoles. 50 on PC. Full priced game.

Orange box had three new things.
short 2-3 hour Portal
short 4-6 hour Half Life 2 Episode
Team Fortress Multiplayer

Deadspace 3 has what, 14-20 hour campaign? And multiplayer?

So what's the difference between two short SP games and multiplayer, and one long SP game and multiplayer? Not very much.

The Orange Box had five games. Doesn't matter if you don't consider two of them "new". It was still five games, for 60 bucks. Total up the length of Half Life 2 + Episode One + Episode Two and you easily have Dead Space beat, on quality as well as quantity. That's not even including Portal. Not to mention Dead Space 3's Multiplayer is just the single player except with three extra side-quests and a couple of lines of dialogue. Which can hardly compare to one of the most critically acclaimed multiplayer games of our generation.

As for EA stagnating the industry?

Mirror's Edge.
Spore.
Dead Space.
Mass Effect.
Dragon Age.
Battlefield Series.

Now you've got to know you're deliberately misrepresenting the truth here. Are you so keen to defend EA that you're going to resort to bare-faced lying?

Yes, EA currently owns the companies that make these games. How many of them are EA actually responsible for creating?

Dead Space.

Everything else on your list was either part of a company EA took over (which totally makes EA retroactively responsible for all the good things that developer ever did, right?) or with EA only acting as publisher (which means EA fronted the money, not the idea.). And the worst part about that list I know that you know you're telling half-truths... so why are you doing it?

EDIT:

TF2 IS a free to play multiplayer game. Just because it wasn't at launch doesn't mean that it does not count now! The ignorance is trong in you

Oh by the way, speaking of free multiplayer games:

http://www.battlefield.com/battlefield-1942

Nine Years strong.

Speaking of free multiplayer games that EA didn't make, you mean?

And is there any level of hypocrisy you won't sink to, to glorify EA? You're ragging on TF2 for only going free after a couple of years, when BF1942 wasn't free for the first ten years, and until they'd released two expansion packs.

Maybe you're trying to make the point that a game being free now doesn't mean it was free always, but even then, you're still doing it wrong. TF2 never had paid expansion packs, and was made free forever (when BF1942 was only available free for six months) after only four years, instead of ten.

 

[halobolola]

That was the reason I didn't buy any of his shit games.

Thing is if you want the game, and its a ea game, you don't have a chance with their bullshit.
I want watch dogs, but I don't want uplay. that means I have to decide between the two.