Is the tide of rage against IAPs and microtransactions hitting critical mass?

[MWink]

Ten-ish years ago, people thought reality tv would be the death knell of quality scripted television because it was programming that tv producers could make very cheaply (compared to paying actors, writers and special effects guys to make a sitcom or drama) and consumers appeared to be eating up ravenously. This was proven to be false. Sitcoms and dramas still exist. TV producers did not have absolute control over the market and force everybody to watch reality tv because it was cheaper for them to produce and was more profitable. Breaking Bad was made and was one of the greatest scripted TV shows of all time despite the existence of cheap reality tv. The demand for quality scripted television still existed, ergo the market created a supply of it.

I completely disagree. In my opinion the quality of TV shows HAS dropped incredibly over the last 5 years or so. In the past I never had trouble finding great shows to watch. Now I find it very difficult. Most of the decent shows that remain are really old shows that have been on for years. Anytime I find a fascinating new show it is cancelled after its first season.

Most of the stuff on TV now does appear to be "reality" crap. There are a few "reality" shows I can stomach but I only watch episodes once. Good shows I can watch reruns of over and over. Frankly, things have gotten so bad that I've given up on new shows and now just go back and find older shows that I missed in their time when I'm looking for something fresh.

I do absolutely feel this "reality" craze has ruined decent TV and I also feel microtransactions/IAPs are severely damaging modern gaming. Sadly, I think things are only going to get worse.

 

[DominionSeraph]

If you have played Warcraft/Starcraft/C&C and any other RTS games, this is akin to your gatherers taking 4 hours to return with their resource haul. DK is more like RTS than epic strategy games like Civ and this is what makes the 4 hour timer plain ridiculous.

More than that, as blocks clear out in no time. It would be more akin to 3 days for a Warcraft 3 gold peon or SC2 harvester to make a round trip, a couple weeks for WC lumber peon, or a month for a C&C harvester. It's straight up, "Pay us or nothing else is going to happen."

 

[Arkaign]

I have never paid for anything beyond the original purchase of a game or legitimate expansion, and never will. I tried out WoW and Eve, but was bored out of my skull with them the first day.

I like the ES series, but would have skipped ESO on principle alone to begin with. The fact that it also has IAPs is about a thousand more nails in that coffin.

People are morons though, and if enough morons support IAPs, devs will continue to pour them on at an increasing rate. Eventually every game will have IAPs.

Halo 5. $69.99. Comes with 3 levels, and MP with melee attack only. Want more levels? Day one DLC, $59.99 for each map pack, 5 map packs total. Want more guns? $19.99 each. Want a different skin? $14.99.

I crap you not, that's where we're headed, if tards be tarding enough.

I feel sorry for the folks who never got to play epic games before they got gob-smacked with heaping crappiles of DLC as a standard fare. I bought Quake and Quake II on release day, had a blast with them stock. Then over the next few years enjoyed thousands of mods for them, new levels, weapons, maps galore, the community was fantastic. Same thing with RTCW and Enemy Territory.

Skyrim comes to mind as another recent example. You could buy DLC, but the base game was a reasonable experience for the asking price, and the openness to mods meant that PC players got ten times the game that it would have been otherwise. Whenever I saw someone who was really into Skyrim on console, I felt bad for them honestly, everything they missed out on.

Really it boils down to the C in DLC. If the CONTENT is worthy of it being called DLC, and if it's not an artificially obvious way of hacking the original game up in order to split it in different purchases, then it's fine. I do see a trend with some titles where it's plainly obvious they developed a single title, then chopped it up to hand out slowly as DLC. But even that pales in comparison to the worst IAP/PTW crap.

The market will decide, and you know what? I don't trust it. Justin Bieber sells an asston of music. McRibs sell by the metric ton every minute. Twilight is ten times more profitable than Pulp Fiction or Ip Man. And yes, most of the top selling games are .. dumbed down to say the least. And mobile games, 99% of them make me want to puke after the first 5 seconds.

 

[Fire&Blood]

As I remember, DLC isn't a really new practice but IMO it used to be justified, old DLC wasn't day 1 DLC, it used to be expansion packs and the value was there.

The market will decide, and you know what? I don't trust it.

You nailed it. These extortion practices were on the industry's mind for a while and they started executing them a while ago, after they managed to introduce consumer masses into the equation via consoles. Besides the obvious benefit of a larger consumer user base, it drowns out voices of reason

If the mass market had any backbone, just to give an example, it would have rejected xbox live gold. It didn't and Sony went with it too and as a result it became a standard practice. Thanks to the manipulation of the mass market, the quality, values and consumer rights keep eroding. On one end, the target market is growing, industry keeps getting better with efficiency due to improving game making tools while reducing the cost by switching to digital over physical media. On the other end, games cost the same $59.99 with the tendency to keep rising with IAP and DLC's. It's the same with F2P's, it takes a few whales to spend excessive money in game and the game mechanics get tightened to extract money from other and force more gamers to become whales. Because the mass market allowed it, everyone is looking at a future where a gamer is nothing more than a stupid whale.

Even if you can drive these points through the thickness of a new age gamer, 5 minutes later he'll preorder a sequel of whatever crap is on the screen.

 

[tential]

I don't understand this whole thing on anandtech (This is the first forum I've seen it posted this often), where if a person doesn't like something, and they create a thread about it, people come in and say "If you don't like it ignore it!" What?

This is America last time I checked (And if you're in another coutnry right now that sucks, just pretend you're in the GOAT country for a minute). Voicing your opinion in hopes that something will be changed is a fundamental part of being American. If you don't understand that, it's time to stop posting.

I don't like Microtransactions at all. I don't like that players can spend money to get ahead of me but that's not even the main reason I don't like it. It segments a game. With COD/BF4/Halo, it segments the game into which people own which DLCs.
With games with built in timers, it means I have to spend an insane amount of time doing something just because you're trying to make me purchase more things in game.

To me, it's lying about the cost it takes to play the game.

I'd rather the game cost more upfront to be honest. I'd rather pay $100 for XYZ MMORPG and enjoy the whole game than pay 6 separate transactions.

But, I understand the industry has found a way to make more cash. Instead of selling an expensive game, they can sell a cheap game, with tons of smaller transactions that people will purchase and forget about. Soon, people have spent $200+ on games and don't even notice it. My brother plays League of Legends with people who have purchased EVERY SINGLE champion, and EVERY SINGLE skin. They own everything possible in game, none o fi through farming solely through purchasing.

Microtransactions are HERE TO STAY. Whether we like it or not, it makes game owners boatloads of money. Most people I know who play Dota, League, or other games like these farm items like no other. They love the little customizable options. They'll spend tons of cash purchasing it or farming it.

Gaming has changed, maybe it's for the worse, but it's changed for good.
Microtransactions
Female Focus (attempting to bring as many female gamers as possible to your game and other use of female sexuality)
Game +1(Releasing the same game and just adding a new number with some changes. Hello Halo 19?)
etc.

None of it is going away.

 

[Ns1]

If I find I don't like the way a certain game handles in-app purchases I simply don't play that game. I believe most people employ a similar strategy.

This

 

[Dumac]

This

But why stop there? Why not voice your concern and let developers and played know how in-app transactions can make a game worse?

 

[sxr7171]

I think most of us got suckered into spending ungodly amounts of money in some game or another. From that I'm sure most of that group learned quickly never to do it again. Personally I simply do not play games that require expenditure within the game. It was a one time fad and its time has passed. The only chance that developers of such games have are "fresh meat" and that tiny subset of people who can't help themselves. Sort of like how casinos live off that relatively small group of compulsive gamblers.

 

[waggy]

I hate DLC that is day 1. Then it either offers godly gear or a paywall where you are pretty much screwed on content or going foreword.

skyrim DLC has been ok. dawngaurd and dragonborn are well worth the little money they charge.

the MMO they have coming out from what i have heard has a bunch of PTP bullshit. of course its nto released yet to know for sure. IF so i won't buy it.

i hate P2W bullshit. i refuse to buy any game that does it. I don't mind microtransactions for cosmetic things or pets (such as WoW does). It's when you need to do it to play (such as dungeon keeper) i refuse to give them money.