And that's the issue that makes me so mad. Everything with the video gaming crowd is a personal insult. That game could be interpreted as a statement of contempt, or it could be interpreted as, at worst, a rushed attempt to gain a foothold in a new medium they didn't full understand. Because to believe that Enix was insulting its consumers is to believe that the higher ups at the company sat there and said, "Final Fantasy players are stupid and will buy anything."Atmos Duality said:Well, even in the example you've given here, it's kind of a nasty practice.irishda said:It would be better serving though if he hadn't said in the video, multiple times, that he'd be willing to pay if the developers didn't A: charge so much or B: "beat him over the head with it." Which I'm not even sure I know what he's talking about. The closest I can think is that guy in Dragon Age that talks to you about some important mission, and then the game pauses to tell you you have to buy the DLC. But that's solved by just not talking to the guy again. If that breaks you out of your gaming funk for more than five minutes (or however long until you talk to someone else) than something's wrong with the game itself to begin with.
Legal, well within their right, but nobody likes having proverbial keys dangled in their face.
I'll elaborate a bit more below.
Pardon the personal interpretation, but I believe his outrage at these costs are in essence arguments against their related practices in general. It's not just price-hiking measures, it's how they're implemented.No, Jim's not arguing against the practices, as he made very clear in the video. He's just mad that they're "forcing him to" or "charging him too much". Which, on both accounts, are fucking stupid reasons. If he REALLY wanted to speak out about it, he would've made a video about how retarded you have to be to spend money on a fucking cheat code or a hat for your character. But no, instead its a video on how the video game industry will burn and fall because publishers have the audacity to fish for people stupid enough or wealthy enough to pay for extra shit.
At best, I find this problem akin to that of Product Placement in film; even if you try to ignore it, even if you walk away from it, once you're aware of it, it still cheapens the experience. Perhaps I'm a weaker person for it, but subconsciously, I hate it when I realize I just paid money for an experience and then have an advertisement shoved in my face.
At worst, well, we're seeing a trend in AAA games with more and more content focused on micro-transactions. Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 3, even Diablo 3...I call them "shell games".
Incidentally, I did some research on that iPhone/mobile Final Fantasy: All The Bravest, and Jim is right, it's a fucking terrible game.
It's so terrible in design and so greedy in its intent, I actually applauded Squeenix for making it.
FF: AtB's mere existence could be interpreted as (I do not say this with any irony or sarcasm) a statement of contempt for the FF fanbase, and the nostalgia-centric market they drive.
Squeenix really thinks their fanbase is so stupid, with such low standards that they will gobble up a game whose gameplay literally consists of rubbing once side of the screen until you win just because it has the Final Fantasy franchise stamped on it.
What blew my mind while researching this: I found people defending the game heart and soul. These people are spending money, sometimes lots of money, on SPRITES. Nothing more complicated in function or appeal, than an animated gif.
And it's because of shit like this, that I cannot get mad at Jim as you have.
I totally agree with you on the consumer taking a stand and rejecting bad offers rather than buying them and grumbling about how shitty the market is later, but there is a point where someone needs to stop and point out just how ridiculous these money grabs are getting, and that's what I took from his video.
More to the point, I don't see micro-transactions as the wave of the future, and I don't even see them as being much of a problem in the first place. People say things like Diablo 3 are signs of what's to come, because they believe the entire game was designed to center around the auction house. But even that is centered around how much you as an individual care to invest in an experience, and whether or not you want to make that experience easier. Is it more efficient and easier to just buy things off the auction house of D3 rather than go on endless loot runs? Absolutely. Is it easier to buy more energy in those facebook/free-to-play games than to just wait until it automatically refills for free? Certainly. But it's weighed by what you look for in a game. And it's not even as forceful as Jim paints it to be. There are no "Buy this, it's in the auction house now!" in D3, except from the actual players. And that's relegated to a tiny corner of the screen. And it can be closed.
Bottom line, I don't feel any of these are as active as Jim believes them to be, and him yelling about it just makes him look like a guy screaming at a billboard, "They're infecting everything! They'll be everywhere!"