deathbydeath said:
First of all, if EA dies, that is a bad thing. Second, is not supporting microtransactions worth killing a franchise that isn't that bad, if I were to listen to people here? If you don't mind me quoting Penny Arcade [http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/par-reviews-dead-space-3-the-game-does-everything-right-except-the-horror]:
In practice, the microtransaction model isn?t annoying. Sure, it?s offered at the benches, but I was never tempted to bring in any extra support from outside the game, and I also never felt like I was missing out due to that decision. It was easy to ignore the prompts to download for-pay content. You may not like the system that allows you to pay to become more powerful, but if you don?t like it, don?t use it. I saw little evidence to support the idea that the game was tuned to require the use of outside funds.
You are willing to kill a quality franchise for that? Something hardly intrusive or annoying? Seriously?
I disagree. EA's death would be quite good in my opinion. It would teach the industry that excessive greed and creating products with increasingly lesser value is not a valid business model. These are entertainment products. When we no longer have money to spend on them, they will go, and consequently, when we no longer see value in them, they will go.
In the meantime, if EA died, the most valuable developers and IP's would be auctioned off to quite willing buyers, and the industry would equalize. Gamers would survive, and actually thrive as a result. There are FAR worse changes in life you might have to deal with than a swapping of developers between publisher hands. Even if the IP's don't survive, good game ideas will survive in new games.
But most likely, talented developers would be purchased by publishers that, for a while (being realistic about it), might understand the lesson of excessive greed expressed by EA's failure. If you ask me, EA's death would be *QUITE* good for gamers.
Unfortunately the corporate charter of quarterly profit at any cost will ultimately lead them to the same state we have now, but equalizing the progress towards corporate greed is never a bad thing if you ask me, no matter how fleeting. The more permanent, the better.
If you think EA's death would be bad, you probably do not fully understand the relationship between publishers and developers.
To a large extent, publishers are a made-up need. They would not exist without talented developers. Publishing is to developer as banker is to industry, they are the upper class to the starving artist, the gallery to the aspiring, the money that enables the passionate to make a little coin, etc... I don't fault them for wanting a return on their investment, but traditionally, they ALWAYS go too far, yet they would have nothing to offer without the artist suckling at their... uh nm.
If you think developers get their fair share, sure, the top-execs of the developer might, that's why they play ball, but the underlings who actually make the game and who CARE about the game are just like you and me... maybe well off (by current standards), but certainly not retiring early, probably not getting paid out by social security when they're old, and what they'd like to see YOU get as an end product is not what you're going to get ever again, if EA's current business methods prove more profitable than those that give us good value for our money.
That's why I sigh whenever I hear a developer get blamed for what clearly seems to benefit the publisher at the gamer's expense.
As long as you can't distinguish the difference and motivations between publisher and developer the developers are 50% likely to be blamed for the publisher's A-hole decisions.
If you think not supporting microtransactions may equal the killing of a franchise, you may be of the business mind to be an EA executive... or you may just need to hear an opposing, yet reasonable, point of view.
Don't be a fool...
Go ahead, buy Dead Space 3, but I implore you, don't support microtransactions.
