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

[TerryMathews]

Just to fan the EA hate over Dungeon Keeper just a little more:

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/02/07/dungeon-keeper-android-makes-it-difficult-to-rate-app-less-than/

Apparently, when the app asks you in game to rate how good the game is, selecting 5 stars will post that rating on the Google Play stores, but selecting 1-4 stars WILL NOT post the rating, and will instead ask you to provide direct feedback to EA about the game.

Hilarious--I love the "Pawnee Election" reference in the Joystiq article.

Google should do the right thing and blackball them from the play store over that.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Google should do the right thing and blackball them from the play store over that.

I agree, that sort of manipulation is very unethical.

 

[artemicion]

Google should do the right thing and blackball them from the play store over that.

I'd put some of the blame on Google. If apps are allowed to submit user ratings to the Google Play store, it should be required to do so using a standard interface provided at the Android OS level.

At the very least, Google should set guidelines on how apps can collect and submit user ratings to the Google Play store, or disallow it all together.

 

[TerryMathews]

At the very least, Google should set guidelines on how apps can collect and submit user ratings to the Google Play store, or disallow it all together.

I'm sure, somewhere in the developer agreement, silently dropping reviews <5 stars is prohibited.

 

[lord_emperor]

DLC is just the new(not really new anymore) word for expansion packs(which everybody loved). Quit the conspiracy nonsense. Gaming isn't ending as we know it or really even changing all that much.

This couldn't be further from the truth.

What we used to get:

* Full game for $50.
* 1-2 years later an expansion approximately equal in content to the original for $20-$50.

What we are getting now:

* A game for $60.
* Some kind of exclusive option for pre-ordering (paying for the the game before it's even reviewed).
* Some kind of exclusive content - cosmetic or advantageous - for paying $70, $100, $150 or $200 (and probably pre-ordering at this price!).
* Tiny DLC packs for $5-$20 that contain <1 hour of gameplay and/or some new items/vehicles/whatever which were obviously cut form development either to push the game out on-time or with the intention to sell as DLC.

 

[artemicion]

This couldn't be further from the truth.

What we used to get:

* Full game for $50.
* 1-2 years later an expansion approximately equal in content to the original for $20-$50.

What we are getting now:

* A game for $60.
* Some kind of exclusive option for pre-ordering (paying for the the game before it's even reviewed).
* Some kind of exclusive content - cosmetic or advantageous - for paying $70, $100, $150 or $200 (and probably pre-ordering at this price!).
* Tiny DLC packs for $5-$20 that contain <1 hour of gameplay and/or some new items/vehicles/whatever which were obviously cut form development either to push the game out on-time or with the intention to sell as DLC.

You can use revisionist history fit any narrative:

What we used to get:
ET
Custer's Revenge
Superman 64

What we are getting now:
Bioshock Infinite
Last of Us
GTA 5
Rayman Legends

What we used to get:
Ultima 7 speech pack
Wing Commander speech pack
Quake map packs
Diablo Hellfire
Black and White Creature Isle

What we are getting now:
Borderlands 1 & 2 DLC (General Knoxx & Tiny Tina's in particular)
Super Luigi U
GTA 4 DLC (Gay Tony in particular)
Oblivion DLC (Shivering Isles)
Fallout DLC

Kinda funny how so many people think that a few examples of piss poor DLC and FTP's signal the end of quality gaming as we know it. Are all of you < 20 years old or are you just selectively not remembering all the crap we put up with back in the day? I'm pretty sure the good game to terrible game ratio in the NES years was something like 1:20 and we didn't have the Internet to help us separate the good from the bad.

 

[Nintendesert]

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/02/10/news-wb-games-wont-fix-batman-arkham-origins-glitches


Interesting story from IGN on how Batman won't get bug fixes due to the team focusing on the DLC instead. Another nice little reminder that only gamers get screwed in this DLC/Microtransaction world.

 

[shortylickens]

The majority of Bethesda DLC is shit that should have been included in the base game.

 

[Bateluer]

You can use revisionist history fit any narrative:

Cherry picking isn't exactly revisionist history. Anyone gaming within the past 10 years, which is probably most of us in here, has definitely seen the trend towards cheaper and cheaper DLC, pre-order bonuses, shady review tactics, content pulled from the base game to sell as DLC, etc.

You can name a dozen games that came out in 2013 that were epic level trash, Ride to Hell anyone?

Kinda funny how so many people think that a few examples of piss poor DLC and FTP's signal the end of quality gaming as we know it.

Heh, make a list of every DLC being sold in the past 2 years and every DLC being 'developed' for the next 2 years years, then pick 30 at random. How much you want to bet that all 30 of those will be junk?

That said, quality gaming isn't going away, its just shifting and changing. There will always be some developers making quality games, but you idiots supporting F2P and P2W models need to stop, if you want to see those quality games hit the market without micro transactions and craptastic horse armor DLC.

Are all of you < 20 years old or are you just selectively not remembering all the crap we put up with back in the day? I'm pretty sure the good game to terrible game ratio in the NES years was something like 1:20 and we didn't have the Internet to help us separate the good from the bad.

And now its more like 1:20000, when you start counting mobile(phone and tablet) games.

 

[cmdrdredd]

For someone who doesn't touch phone and tablet "games" I dont even care about how much junk they have.

 

[Bateluer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG_F7GK8xRY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUy1Ms_5qBTawC-k7PVjHXKQ

Total Biscuit brings up an interesting point in his Content Patch today, at about 10 minutes in. Younger gamers today, growing up with trash like Dungeon Keeper Mobile, Simpsons Tapped Out, Farmville, and the slew of F2P/P2W junk, how will that affect gaming in say 10 years? Compare gamers that grew up playing Doom, Quake, Super Mario, System Shock, Baldur's Gate, Torment, WarCraft and StarCraft, etc to younger gamers growing up today playing absolute drivel.

 

[darkewaffle]

As though there weren't kids playing crappy games ten years ago. I played the hell out of Ragnarok Online and played a lot of bad free to play early MMOs (Helbreath, Priston Tale, Shining Lore) and turned out fine lol.

Farmville is not an analogue for BG. Take a kid playing BG, freeze him for fifteen years and you think that kid is going to pick up Farmville? Unlikely. Put someone playing Flappy Bird in a time machine to fifteen years ago and are they just going to pick up Doom? You're talking about completely different kinds of people here who want and enjoy different kinds of experiences. Though they'd probably be ok playing Super Mario Bros admittedly.

Hell we just had this thread not long ago chock full of good suggestions for young kids. A good friend of mine has two young nephews who are big Minecraft fans and play Pokemon X & Y with him regularly lol.

People desiring simple games has not displaced other people's desire for more intricate games, it's probably always been there (tic tac toe, hop scotch, cornhole). But the former group was a largely untapped video game market because of their tendency to be dissuaded by the high cost of entry of consoles and computers in the past, whereas now they can get it as an "and one" from other (now relatively) more affordable and more ubiquitous devices.

 

[Cerb]

The majority of Bethesda DLC is shit that should have been included in the base game.

And was, if you had the patience. I bought the FO3 expansions, because I was given the base game for free, but the others I've only bought as the combined versions, and don't even know what it's like to start a character without all official expansions installed and enabled, from Morrowind up through Skyrim (I never knew Morrowind without vampires or werewolves, FI). Until the expansions and CK have been out for a bit, and a GOTY or equivalent release is available, it's not really released, just teasing the impatient and the console gamers.

Thing about Bethesda is that you can count on the fact that they will release a combined version, that it won't cost a bundle, and that the game will be vastly enhanced by modders by about the time that comes about (overhaul mods go from ideas to finished DLs pretty quickly, after the GOTY+CK are available). They and the community have a nice repeatable pattern set, by now, that many game publishers do not.

I'm still waiting for a suitable pack and/or sale-on-everything for BL2 (the holiday one was not deep enough for all that DLC, IMO). I loved BL1, but it only had a few that made anything, and they weren't bad...but that DLC list for BL2 is a cluster.

Metro LL has some silly ones, too, but the content ones weren't expensive, all totaled, were pretty good, and were extras, rather than what should have been in the game--you wouldn't miss anything at all, not getting them. If all publishers made them like Metro LL's, it wouldn't be bad at all, IMO...but, at the same time, that won't rake in the monies like having content that aught to have been in the game would.

For the most part, though, games heavy on nickel-and-dime DLC and IAP I tend to not want to play anyway, even not counting that part of them. They will tend to be overly-scripted, full of QTEs, renown for being buggy, require added DRM from publishers I don't trust (like Ubi and EA), etc..

 

[Dumac]

For someone who doesn't touch phone and tablet "games" I dont even care about how much junk they have.

Me neither, but it doesn't just stop at those platforms. It's invasive to the actual video games industry.

 

[Anonemous]

damn paying for lawnmowers in PVZ2... 🙁

 

[BSim500]

The overall problem is "pay to cheat" (which is what IAP really is) and "play for the challenge" really don't mix within the same game. Even in single-player games it screws up comparing scores, times, achievements, etc. You might just as well sell "+10 trainers" and call those "micro-transactions" - the effect is virtually the same...

 

[shortylickens]

The overall problem is "pay to cheat" (which is what IAP really is) and "play for the challenge" really don't mix within the same game. Even in single-player games it screws up comparing scores, times, achievements, etc. You might just as well sell "+10 trainers" and call those "micro-transactions" - the effect is virtually the same...

Actually, FF7 and 8 both have in game cheaters for the new Steam releases.
But those are old titles so maybe it doesnt count.

 

[StrangerGuy]

LMAO at the notion that built-in micro-transactions and P2W are the same thing with third party powerleveling/gold buying/botting. You really are a tool if you think both are at the same level.

 

[WelshBloke]

LMAO at the notion that built-in micro-transactions and P2W are the same thing with third party powerleveling/gold buying/botting. You really are a tool if you think both are at the same level.

I'm not really seeing a massive difference TBH. Maybe you want to expand on your point rather than just LMAOing?

I dont really care if people PTW or cheat at games as long as the base game is not broken for me to play. Dungeon Keeper is broken if you dont pay at the moment.

 

[smackababy]

LMAO at the notion that built-in micro-transactions and P2W are the same thing with third party powerleveling/gold buying/botting. You really are a tool if you think both are at the same level.

The example that was used for was in relation to games that offer paid ways to level up (or obtain items) that you'd previously, either had to grind out yourself OR pay a service to do for you. There is no real difference, except one isn't exploiting Chinese kids for profit to do it.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[PowerYoga]

The example that was used for was in relation to games that offer paid ways to level up (or obtain items) that you'd previously, either had to grind out yourself OR pay a service to do for you. There is no real difference, except one isn't exploiting Chinese kids for profit to do it.

I don't remember grinding coins to pay for lawnmowers in PVZ.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I'm not really seeing a massive difference TBH. Maybe you want to expand on your point rather than just LMAOing?

I dont really care if people PTW or cheat at games as long as the base game is not broken for me to play. Dungeon Keeper is broken if you dont pay at the moment.

One is designed with pure greed right from the start and the other isn't. Really, do I have to spell out every word?

 

[WelshBloke]

One is designed with pure greed right from the start and the other isn't. Really, do I have to spell out every word?

I dont really care about the motivation behind it, I care about my experience playing it.

 

[Dumac]

I dont really care about the motivation behind it, I care about my experience playing it.

The experience is derived from the motivation.

If you have to rely on third party sites or a foreign, non-legitimate workforce, then that means the developers of the game weren't intending for these resources to be available. As such, the game was designed in a way that assumed the player did not have access to these resources.

However, when microtransactions such as skipping obstacles or leveling up faster are present in the game itself, then that means the game was made with these features in mind. More than likely, the developers tweaked the gameplay as to encourage use of the microtransactions.

The result is impure gameplay who's goal is part "let's nickel and dime the player" rather than "let's give the player the most enjoyable experience we can".