Jimquisition: Fee to Pay

infinity_turtles

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Apr 17, 2010
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I think one of the saddest things about the industry is that when it comes to AAA studios I'm now most excited to hear about publisher's failing and Devs pulling an Avelone.
 

CyberMachinist

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Oct 8, 2012
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Colt47 said:
Gah! Stop taking Final Fantasy The Bravest out of the chained up trunk we sent off the side of the Brooklyn bridge! Just seeing it does mental damage.
Would you like to use our patented "Brain wiper"? Guaranteed to make you forget the worst images your brain has likely created or seen.

Selective application to certain types of memories are "optional" as separate purchases.

OT: Well Jim it seems the thorns of industry has once again incited you with it's widespread leeching business tactics.

I guess terms like "Gold" and "Gems" or whatever sounds above the standard used currencies in games has, at this point really been cemented with Real money currency as an almost synonymous word. While these practices are appalling their are still people who will overlook this, probably for alot of reasons, most likely they can easily ignore it and think nothing of it in which case good for them, i think, or they really, really! like that game.... or brand to name a few. Of course they think everyone should ignore it like them.

I don't remember the saying "Ignore it until it goes away" as very effective advice on how to fix a problem, at best the people behind this will think they need to increase "appeal" to get people to actually buy stuff from the MT store.....
That doesn't sound very reassuring.

I like to hear exactly how "well" the games industry would progress because of allowing these kind of practices to continue from the people who don't really think much about it.
 

secretkeeper12

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Jun 14, 2012
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You're praises of Dynasty Warriors are incidentally the same reason I love Anti-Idle. With the whole game based around grinding, and additions like daily quests or the elusive blue coins, it seems like a recipe for disaster. However, there's absolutely no pay-2-win involved. You're limited solely by how much you "play" it (inasmuch as leaving a computer on overnight counts as playing). It basically takes the premise of most crappy IOS games and makes something beautiful.
 

Fiairflair

Polymath
Oct 16, 2012
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I understand that, in games you pay for up front, micro-transactions are a corrosive element. Games with a story (the best kind) are worsened by the uncomfortable break in immersion micro-transactions present.

However, I disagree that micro-transactions are always bad. In mobile gaming they are the norm and can actually be fun to use. In some online multiplayer games (good examples are TF2 and DOTA 2) they are mostly just for aesthetic. Sure, I've spent too much money buying paint for my hats. But while there is pressure to do so, that pressure has nothing to do with gameplay. My gaming enjoyment isn't being held ransom. I'm not uncompetitive because I'm using default weapons or locked out of servers because I don't have the right skins. The only pressures I'm tackling are those that affect consumers everywhere.

F2P has psychological studies saying that people are pressured into buying more things. Fine, but consider the gruen transfer at your local shopping mall. Advertising shouldn't be banned because it makes you want things.

Micro-transactions, generally speaking, shouldn't be done away with either. There are times when they are out of place, but those times will be defined by public opinion and sales just like everything else in the market.
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
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geizr said:
The biggest take-away I got from this episode was at the end where Jim talks about how the developers, at least the ones he spoke to, themselves don't like all this stuff but are forced to build it into the games, that the developers are not able to make the kind of game they would like and enjoy making. The developers would prefer to just make a good game and sell it, very simple.

I have sometimes said some not-so-nice things about game developers in my past posts. But, this got me to thinking maybe I should give some apology to the game developers and reserve my ire for the publishers instead.
All those developers which now belong to a few publishers weren't forced into taking their money when they let themselves become owned and taken over by them.

They all saw dollarsigns and ignored the fine print.
 

crimson sickle2

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Sep 30, 2009
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I agree for the most part, especially concerning non-free games that are set up around micro-transactions (those can disappear and never return for all I care), but I can't get behind Tribes' FTP model. Back when I played, grinding took days just to unlock one gun. It didn't help that the basic guns were all boring and mostly sucked, but the unlockable guns were stuff like grenade launchers on the stealth class. Shouldn't spending money on a FTP game feel like taking a bite out of the forbidden fruit, rather than grabbing the fruit that everyone else has, and needs, to play somewhat decently?
I still prefer when FTP games only offer some cosmetic purchases or some convenience type carrots.
 

geizr

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Oct 9, 2008
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Nurb said:
geizr said:
The biggest take-away I got from this episode was at the end where Jim talks about how the developers, at least the ones he spoke to, themselves don't like all this stuff but are forced to build it into the games, that the developers are not able to make the kind of game they would like and enjoy making. The developers would prefer to just make a good game and sell it, very simple.

I have sometimes said some not-so-nice things about game developers in my past posts. But, this got me to thinking maybe I should give some apology to the game developers and reserve my ire for the publishers instead.
All those developers which now belong to a few publishers weren't forced into taking their money when they let themselves become owned and taken over by them.

They all saw dollarsigns and ignored the fine print.
I think you are oversimplifying the complete situation, but I'm too exhausted right now to argue. For some developers, what you say may be true; for others, it may not be or circumstances at the time were more complex.
 

BQE

Posh Villainess
Jun 17, 2013
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uanime5 said:
This is really a non-issue because if no one buys the optional extras companies will see that it doesn't make money and stop using it. It also has an upside as games are becoming more challenging because there's a mechanic that allows people with no patience to skip the part of the game they don't like.

Also Blizzard is already making games in separate parts, yet charging you the full price for each game (such as a Starcraft 2).
Actually this isn't the case. The expansion to Starcraft 2 was not a full price game just like the expansion to Starcraft 1 not being a full price game.

Both expansions are built on the predication of adding more campaign and more units, however the expansions are entirely optional, you don't have to buy them should you so choose and you are free to play on Battle.net however much you want.
 

RobfromtheGulag

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May 18, 2010
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Thus far I've only come across this 'Freemium' scenario once, (DA:O). I'm thinking it'll just come down to having to wait for reviews for AAA games before I buy them, because I'd rather not walk into one of these.

It's nice that Jim clarified that F2P games are what they are - you have to expect it when you go in. Little annoys me more than people in the LoL community complaining that they couldn't purchase every new character on release with their in game currency.
 

Alar

The Stormbringer
Dec 1, 2009
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Monxeroth said:
Do you have any specific examples to where this principle works really well and where it does not (Dead Space 3 obviously)
Why, and why not?

What would your opinion be on things like League of Legends, TF2 or Dota 2?

To me, optional should really REALLY be very damn optional.
Even "convenience" to some extent i dont believe to be all that optional really especially not in a f2p game like World of Tanks where convenience IS the game and IS a huge part of it, the difference between a standard account and a premium can be like night and day despite all the "optional convenience" that the devs claim has little to no impact even though it very clearly does.
I'm curious about this to. How would you classify these? They're certainly not Fee to Play, but most likely Freemium to an extent. Though, to be honest, I'm typically more tempted to buy skins for my champions in LoL than anything else.
 

Tumedus

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Jul 13, 2010
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In principle I agree with you, but I disagree with the notion that its not optional because... psychology.

Sticking with the Dead Space 3 example, the game series works and has worked on a reward schedule where you are supposed to be at a certain power level at certain points in the game. In the previous titles, it was only on subsequent playthroughs that you were allowed to break that dynamic by bringing in power from previous playthroughs. Dead Space 3's microtransaction allowed you to circumvent the first playthrough limitation and buy extra power from the get go.

And that is okay. It didn't break the game and it absolutely wasn't necessary. And, most importantly, it didn't offer any power that couldn't be acquired in the game normally.

The place where they screwed up, imo, is that they decided to change the system with which upgrades were performed in order to accomplish this. In the previous Dead Spaces, power was essentially discovered through exploration by finding schematics and power nodes. It was also limited by inventory space and relative ammo cost (although cost was easily exploited to your benefit).

In Dead Space 3, they removed the exploration aspect of power upgrades and hitched them to, at least in part, a time based system. You had a limited number of bots and they always took a certain amount of time to reward their supplies. They didn't remove exploring altogether as there were still the robo hot spots and you could find the big chests of goodies in sub mission but for the most part, you were dependent on those robots to get a lot of the supplies.

If you played the game slow it wasn't a big deal because they would almost all be ready by the next bench. But for anyone who like to play the game fast, the time limitation was an impediment. In the previous titles playing fast didn't prevent you from finding all the power nodes, in this game it necessarily meant less supplies.

That to me is where they crossed the line, not simply at adding a purchasable way to circumvent the power dynamic but by actually limiting the power dynamic to time based rather than progress based.
 

faefrost

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Jun 2, 2010
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Lilani said:
This episode kind of made me warm and fuzzy, thinking of the Final Fantasy XIV open beta starting soon and how Square has vowed to stick to the subscription model, for the sake of making sure they can produce a quality game :) I'm just hoping later on down the line they don't go the way of WoW and give that up.
Square? Ummm?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danieltack/2013/01/17/final-fantasy-all-the-bravest-a-dlc-laden-abomination/

That doesn't sound anything at all like Square? I mean I'm pretty sure Square's Corporate mission statement is "Do the Opposite of what you just said"
 

Keneth

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Oct 14, 2011
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I've been playing a lot of Firefall recently. Their F2P model is about perfect in my opinion. You can unlock everything of worth in the game purely through normal gameplay. Of course, you can unlock it faster with "Red Beans" the purchased in-game currency but you really don't have to. The only things you can't get through normal gameplay are cosmetic items that don't have any effect on gameplay.

I have been thoroughly enjoying myself and haven't paid them a penny. I feel like I should though. Not because it would give me any kind of advantage but because the game is just THAT DAMN GOOD. ...and I want a cool looking hat
 

Nazulu

They will not take our Fluids
Jun 5, 2008
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This is why I get annoyed every now and again when I go shopping. I have to research EVERYTHING just to make sure I don't get some annoying form of DRM or for brutal micro-transaction pushing. And of course, a lot of games just being very bland. Why? To copy something else that was popular before.

Can we find all these publishers and put their names on the net so we know who to hate? I know they'll feel the burn then.
 

GonzoGamer

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Apr 9, 2008
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I've been saying this since we started seeing multiplayer in EVERYTHING. I can't help but wonder how many games have had online multiplayer shoehorned into it just so the publisher can have online passes or MS can sell some more gold subscriptions.