CliffyB: Microtransaction is Not a Dirty Word, EA is Not The Bad Guy

[Vapus]

Greed Is a natural byproduct of almost every multi million/billion dollar industry in the world. cutting corners, Charging more for less and not delivering on promises or what advertising and marketing implys.
EA is absoultely guilty of this as are many other companies. I find it amusing that CB rips on Steam . yes they are another huge company and yes the service did suck when it launched with halflife all those years ago.. However they stuck to a buisness model that works and no one has come close to touching yet. Ubisoft is slowly learning, I was happy to see Uplay working correctly in offline mode after I had "activated" far cry 3.

As far as trying to justify micro transactions and day one DLC.. Cliffy is just another whiny rich dude wanting more money for less product and trying to justify it by todays economy.What a load of Crap. If the games didnt Make money they wouldnt make them , period. Shame on you .. I wonder, is his next Gig going to be with EA ?

I absolutely Vote with my wallet , and wish more Gamers would as well .

 

[Rachmaninov]

What I don't get is why people hate day one Dlc so much think about it its the best place for it how many times have you heard about some dlc for a game though"hu that looks cool I may look into it after I finish these other games Im playing"
And then Leave that spesific game to Rot on your shelve or In your trunk or whereever you keep your games

The problem with Day One DLC is this;

If the DLC is complete, and available to be played on the release date why didn't it come with the game?.

And more often than not, Day One DLC is on the disk you already paid for. So you walk into a shop, spend $60 on a game and come home to find that some parts of the disk are locked away, until you pay more.

Day One DLC is like buying a movie, to find out you can only watch the final scene if you pay extra.

 

[Gameguy20100]

What I don't get is why people hate day one Dlc so much think about it its the best place for it how many times have you heard about some dlc for a game though"hu that looks cool I may look into it after I finish these other games Im playing"
And then Leave that spesific game to Rot on your shelve or In your trunk or whereever you keep your games

The problem with Day One DLC is this;

If the DLC is complete, and available to be played on the release date why didn't it come with the game?.

And more often than not, Day One DLC is on the disk you already paid for. So you walk into a shop, spend $60 on a game and come home to find that some parts of the disk are locked away, until you pay more.

Day One DLC is like buying a movie, to find out you can only watch the final scene if you pay extra.

Yea its not perfect and tbh I would sypmpathise with companys If they werent handiling it so poorly a good way to do this would be to simply charge less for a new game lets say for sake of example that Black ops 2 cost £35 Brand new but your have to spend £20 to unlock the Mp Stay with me your still paying £5 less than for a brand new £60 game so you spend less money the developer gets more money Im sure other people can come up with better ideas than me but you see my point right?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

So now you're saying that their model requires people to pay?

Actually, despite my generally disagreeing with him, on this aspect, he is correct.

Since TF2 went F2P, any players who obtain the game free need to make a purchase from the Mann Co store to become "Premium" and begin receiving random drops besides crates.

That's not what it says on their [http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay/faq.php] site or the wiki, and I can't find anything to back that up.

It says F2P players can get weapons and crates, just no cosmetic items or anything rare. It would defeat the purpose of their F2P model if the free players couldn't get the weapons through in-game means.

I never said that "Free Players" get no drops. I said that the drops for Free Players happen an extreeeeeeemly lower frequency of those who have bought items or bought the game previous to the F2P Update. Free players get next to no drops until they pay. You could play for hours as a free player and only get one drop in a day of playing TF2, while the "Premium" player has received 3-4 crates and a weapon. And getting weapons is a much more rare occurence even for "Premium" players. So the chances of getting a weapon are extremely low for free players. This I think we all know from playing the game ourselves and just seeing people talking about drops or the lack there of in the chat section.

And that, to en extent, is one of the major reasons I made a point if this when stating my argument on how Valve's business actions with TF2 are in the same vein of aggressiveness as EA's microtransactions. If not more.

Also, coupled with the fact that Free Players get next to no drops, they can't even trade at all until you pay for something. Trading is a massive part of TF2 due to the fact that you will get a lot of items that you don't want/already have. Such is the nature of random drops.

Another point I made is that the items do give an advantage to the premium players, but on a premium player > free player bias. I think we can agree that, as good as a person can be at TF2, a free player's base start off weapons do not do as well as the unlockable ones. Yes, there are unlockable items with drawbacks, but there are quite a bit that don't have drawbacks either.

For all of the reasons above, TF2 sets the incentives for paying, pretty damn high. Dead Space 3, not so much.

Dead Space 3's microtransactions are mostly to make the game easier and not take as much time to beat. Its a pay to win model for a single player game. Yes it's ever so dastardly for EA to implement this, but you can beat the game without having to purchase a damn thing. A lot of the weapons you can buy are just reskins (stat wise) of the weapons you can already get through playing the game, and day one DLC is so common with the big publishers now I can hardly call it a reason to get mad at EA specifically anymore. The day one DLC is unneeded for the enjoyment of the completion of DS3.

My point is that TF2 is in very many ways modeled to take your money in just of an aggressive manner as Dead Space 3. Most free to play MMO's don't kneecap the free experience as harshly as in TF2. So what if Dead Space 3 charges $60 for the game. The game itself for all intensive story line purposes is complete. The microtransactions in DS3 are no ones that the game ABSOLUTELY NEEDED TO INCLUDE. If the story of the game is told completely, there's no NEED to pay any more than the $60. You can completely play and enjoy all of DS3 without the extras. Playing TF2 for free is not as fun without paying money though. Most free to play games are either pay to win or pay for cosmetics. TF2's model is seemingly set so you have to pay to unlock a majority of the game. That alone makes it just as aggressive as EA's MT model.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

I notice you're still avoiding their point.

When with DEAD SPACE THREE be F2P?

Not BF1942, that's always been free.

To my knowledge EA have never turned a game F2P, besides ones that started F2P and failing MMOs. Never have they made a game even remotely like DS3 F2P.

And TF2 didn't include MTs for the first three years, a key difference you're just glossing over.

He's not avoiding their point. This whole post is invalidated by the fact that Battlefield 1942 was a full priced retail game when it came out and went free 10 years later. You just said to your knowledge that EA has never turned a full priced game into a F2P game. Turns out you now have proof stating exactly that.




Also The Old Republic MMO went F2P after being full priced.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

So your proof that Dead Space 3 will eventually go Free-to-Play....is a completely different game in a completely different franchise?

It's not a "guess", it's a logical conclusion based on the facts. Dead Space 3 cost EA far too much money for them to release it as Free-to-Play. Keep in mind that they said it had to sell 5 million copies to be viable in the market.

The Old Republic MMO cost a hell of a lot more than Dead Space 3 to make and it went free to play in well under a year. And it has Dead Space 3 going F2P is not something you can predict, so its silly to even set the precedence that you've come to a logical conclusion based on "facts". Especially when your "facts" have no bearing on the next 5 or the next 10 years of Dead Space 3's life as a game. It JUST came out. You're asking an unanswerable question here. What's worse is you're trying to belittle their point because they can't tell you the future.

You want to know if Dead Space 3 is going to go F2P ask Nostradamus or Miss Cleo, because that's about as likely of a 100% sure answer as you're going to get.

 

[Rachmaninov]

But I'm sorry, this IS an evasion. Because you're trying to dispute what I'm saying, by opening up another line of reasoning but you're still NOT disputing what I'm saying.

In order to play Team Fortress 2 at launch, you had to pay full price. This is fact.

I'm not evading any more than you are trying to deliberately misinterpret the facts.

You're trying to say;

TF2 = $60
DS3 = $60

Therefore, TF2 = DS3

And that is simply not true.

While TF2 did cost $60, it came with four other games. So the real equation should look like this;

TF2 + four other games = $60
DS3 on it's own = $60

Therefore, TF2 =/= DS3

But you don't like that, so you call it an evasion. Until you include the rest of The Orange Box in your reasoning, you're deliberately twisting the facts to suit your agenda.

See that's evading the point. You're introducing a new point, which does not directly dispute the old point, yet you're claiming that it does even though your really talking about something entirely different.

Nope. I am disputing the original point. You said:

It was available for 60 bucks, full priced game.

Attempting to deliberately make it sound as though TF2 cost $60 on its own. How you can call a $60 box of five games "full price" boggles the mind.

It's about being specific. The same way you use blanket terms like "5 Games in Orange box" as if the 5 games are equal in value to Deadspace when two of them are old and four of them are not full games

The sum of the five games far exceeds the value of Dead Space 3, both in length of play time and in quality (awards/critical acclaim). Whether or not they are "old" (EP1 was one year old, HL2 was two) and that others are "not full games" does not change the fact that you have at least one "full game" by your own definition, one "MP-only" game and three "small games" (or whatever diminutive term you want to use for revolutionary titles like those) does not change the fact that they exist, and that their sum is greater than that of one "full game".

On top of that, you give no consideration to the fact that you could gift extra copies of HL2/EP1 to friends, if you already owned them.

And let's not forget the fact that those users, who were expecting a 20 dollar Episode 2 instead were required to buy a 60 dollar package with A - two games they already had B - two games they may or may not have cared about. The fact that the episodes were later released as a bundle doesn't change the fact that some people may have ended up paying for stuff they didn't want to. That's great value, right? Being forced to buy games you don't want.

I can agree that people who wanted only Episode 2 and didn't enjoy the other games got a bad deal.

But it still wasn't that bad. EP2 was six hours long, and the other games in The Orange Box were all exceptional titles. It's still a better deal than buying the latest Call of Duty game, for instance.

Plus they could have gifted or (eventually) traded those extra copies of HL2 and EP1 if they had them already. Something which I think you're forgetting.

Just like you're forced to install Steam with any game you buy in order to play it.

Sounds a lot like Origin, except for the fact that Steam's not shit.

 

[Rachmaninov]

I notice you're still avoiding their point.

When with DEAD SPACE THREE be F2P?

Not BF1942, that's always been free.

To my knowledge EA have never turned a game F2P, besides ones that started F2P and failing MMOs. Never have they made a game even remotely like DS3 F2P.

And TF2 didn't include MTs for the first three years, a key difference you're just glossing over.

He's not avoiding their point. This whole post is invalidated by the fact that Battlefield 1942 was a full priced retail game when it came out and went free 10 years later. You just said to your knowledge that EA has never turned a full priced game into a F2P game. Turns out you now have proof stating exactly that.

Oh, true. I forgot they used to sell BF1942. So I suppose there is precedence, although it's still not of quite the same nature as DS3.

Also The Old Republic MMO went F2P after being full priced.

You saw the part, in the quote you quoted, where I said "besides failing MMOs" right?

Yes, SWTOR went F2P. All failing MMOs do, these days. It's the norm. And it's by no means evidence of wanting to follow in Valve's footsteps with TF2.

 

[Church185]

I'll agree that microtransactions aren't an inherently bad thing, but the way EA has chosen to implement them so far leaves a lot to be desired. I feel like they see successful business models sprouting up, but completely miss the point of why these business models exist in the first place when they try to implement them. I don't necessarily belong to the "EA is evil" camp, but they definitely could have made better decisions in the last little bit.

 

[Rachmaninov]

Oh what, so someone bought TF2 for 12 dollars at launch? Right, no wait everyone paid FULL PRICE to play it.

Full price with FOUR FREE GAMES.

(DISCLAIMER: Three of the four free games only cost $20 to buy individually)

And no DS3 is not equal to TF2, DS3 is a 60 dollar game, TF2 is a 20 dollar multiplayer game. Just like EA's Battlefield 1943 which is a 15 dollar XBL MP only game.

Oh, I'm sorry, I clearly didn't make the equation quite wrong enough for your liking.

TF2 = $20
DS3 = $60

Therefore, DS3 > TF2?

Is that what you intend to say? Because, if it is, it's even more wrong than the first version I quoted you as saying.

If you're going to isolate TF2 as a "20 dollar multiplayer game" then the equation is (almost identical to how I wrote it the first time):

TF2 = $20
DS3 = $60

Therefore, TF2 =/= DS3.

I quote evidence, from Valve's own pricing model that the five games are not equal. And yet you still consistently lump them together.

Don't worry, as you can tell by the disclaimer above, I'll stop. I don't suppose you'll stop with the consistent "TF2 IS FULL PRICE ON ITS OWN!" implications, will you? Despite the fact I've proven it wrong, over and over?

You also still consistently take for granted the fact that not everyone may want to play those games, and also that a lot of people may already own HL2 + E1.

Here's me, doing exactly the opposite of what you just claimed I did:

I can agree that people who wanted only Episode 2 and didn't enjoy the other games got a bad deal.

But it still wasn't that bad. EP2 was six hours long, and the other games in The Orange Box were all exceptional titles. It's still a better deal than buying the latest Call of Duty game, for instance.

Plus they could have gifted or (eventually) traded those extra copies of HL2 and EP1 if they had them already. Something which I think you're forgetting.

Please pay more attention.

And also you're trying to tell me that someone didn't pay full price because they got 0-4 extra games they didn't want. No they still paid full price.

Paid full price, and got FOUR FREE GAMES.

(DISCLAIMER: Three of the four free games only cost $20 to buy individually)

No amount of rationalization will change the fact that TF2 was in a box that was full price at launch.

Full price, with FOUR FREE GAMES.

(DISCLAIMER: Three of the four free games only cost $20 to buy individually)

You're accusing me of trying to twist the truth, when in fact I'm presenting the truth. The Orange Box was five games (read the disclaimer) at $60. That's a bundle, not a "full priced game" like you're repeatedly trying to claim. A bundle.

It doesn't matter if you didn't like the free games, because they were free. If you divide them into their individual prices, you would get:

HL2 = $60
EP1 = $20
EP2 = $20
TF2 = $20
Portal = $20

Total = $140

So you either paid $60 and got $140's worth of game, or you paid $60 and got $80 worth of gifts to give or trade.

And if you're not a new buyer and like most people already have HL2 and Ep1, then you're just getting the equivalent of 1 full game just like Deadspace 3

Except you could gift of trade the games you didn't want. Meaning under those circumstances you just posed, where someone already owns HL2 and EP1 (I know I did) and bought The Orange Box, they got HL2 and EP1 to gift or trade. That's eighty dollars worth of gifts.

Sounds a lot like Origin, except for the fact that Steam's not shit.

Except again you conveniently ignore the fact that Origin just launched and that Steam at launch was equally shit so please, quit trying to manipulate the argument. I'm not fooled for a second.

EA operated a DD service before Origin [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_(content_delivery)#History], and they had Steam as an example to learn from, so they've got no excuses.

And you're ragging on Steam, for being required to play Steam games, but not applying that same logic to Origin. Please, be less obviously biased.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I never said that "Free Players" get no drops. I said that the drops for Free Players happen an extreeeeeeemly lower frequency of those who have bought items or bought the game previous to the F2P Update. Free players get next to no drops until they pay.

1. You're going to need to back that up with evidence, because I can't find anything to suggest that other than the usual people who have had trouble with the drop system (F2P and Premium).


2. You're extending the goal post if you think it's a problem that they only get free stuff instead of "more free stuff."

You could play for hours as a free player and only get one drop in a day of playing TF2, while the "Premium" player has received 3-4 crates and a weapon. And getting weapons is a much more rare occurence even for "Premium" players. So the chances of getting a weapon are extremely low for free players. This I think we all know from playing the game ourselves and just seeing people talking about drops or the lack there of in the chat section.

And this is just untrue. F2P players actually have a higher chance of getting weapons because their drops do not include rarer items such as hats. Simply put, the system is randomized except for the variable on what items they can receive.

 

[Rachmaninov]

Before I respond to the rest of your post, have you got evidence that TF2 was ever sold, on its own, for $20?

Presenting the truth? Hahaha. Man alive!
You just presented a THREE YEAR OLD GAME as being worth FULL PRICE in the bundle.

Decrease the price if you want, the result is the same.

HL2 = $1 (because it's soooo old)
EP1 = $20
EP2 = $20
TF2 = $20
Portal = $20

Total = $81

Oh, look at that. It's still more than $60, even with HL2 only costing a dollar! Even if you knocked EP1 down to one dollar, it's still more than $60.

[sarcasm]What a difference your point made.[/sarcasm]

(And no, the fact that MT weren't introduced at launch isn't analogous because most people paid the launch price.)

Got evidence? Because, if you don't, read this:

Shouldn't be making claims about things when you have no idea what the reality is, we already discussed that.

Now you think that Orange Box has better value, therefore MT in TF2 are less heinous.

Not the only reason. Not even the biggest reason.

The biggest reasons TF2's MTs are less heinous are because;

It didn't have MTs until three years after its release.
It went F2P a year later.
All the while, Valve gave out DLC for it for free.

So, even if I humour you, and accept the possibility that DS3 might go F2P in a year's time (like hell it will) that still doesn't put them on equal terms, because DS3 shipped with MTs as well as Day One DLC. And you won't be getting any free DLC for it, either.

So now, in order for your logic to match up the following assumptions need to be made:

1. The person buying Orange box doesn't already own Half Life 2 and HL2 Episode 1 (and no, I don't care about gifting)

And the value doesn't care whether you personally care or not. Being given a copy of the game for gifting or trading is worth something to anyone so should not be so casually ignored.

And #2 is a biggie. Because if the person ONLY wants to pay Team Fortress 2, then they're paying 60 dollars, for a 20 dollar game (ie being ripped off) and later they're being dinged for micro transactions.

Now you're confusing price with value. TF2's value is entirely subjective. Some players would play it for longer, and enjoy it more than they'd enjoy DS3, which you make it as valuable or more, in their eyes. Others might play it and hate it. Critical acclaim suggests more of the former, than the latter, though.

If I buy a diamond, and then sell it for $1 it doesn't mean that diamond is worth $1. And if I buy a bag of horse manure and sell it for $1000 it doesn't mean it was worth $1000.

So there is no point debating subjective value. And whether or not TF2 is truly a "$20 dollar game" is subjective, despite Valve's pricing methods, because their choice of pricing would be based on a lot of factors other than just quality, and if Valve decided to sell a great game cheap, doesn't mean it's a bad game.

In fact, if you compare Metacritic scores between TF2 and DS3, TF2 scored 92/100 and DS3 only 79/100 (on the same platform).

A lot of people don't play both single player and multiplayer, they focus on one, so there's a large group of people who are not getting value for their dollar. As for how it breaks down:

1. The MP only people are being ripped off completely. (60 dollars for 20 of content)

A subjective $20 of content, plus four free games to gift or trade.

(DISCLAIMER: Three of the four free games only cost $20 to buy individually)

2. The SP people are being slightly less ripped off (60 dollars for 40 dollars of content) if they've bought HL2+E1

A subjective $40 of content, plus three free games to gift or trade.

(DISCLAIMER: Two of the three free games only cost $20 to buy individually)

3. If they haven't bought HL2+E1 then they're getting at or around normal amount of value (60 dollars spent for 40 dollars of new game, plus roughly 20-30 dollars of old game).

A subjective $40 plus a subjective $20-30, with a free copy of TF2 to gift or trade.

It's only if you love both SP and MP, and haven't bought HL2 and E1 that you get full value of about 90 dollars (which includes the decrease value of HL2 and E1)

Not true, since you can gift or trade whichever games you don't own, meaning you could always get the full value regardless of whether or not you owned other games, or did not want them.

Selling people stuff they already own isn't value. Especially when they cannot RESELL the original product because it's tied to their Steam account.

Selectively ignoring the part where I mention trading, I see. You actually can resell the original product through Steam, using the trading system. You'd just have to get your customer to send you money through PayPal or some such, while you sent the game over Steam... for instance, you could put the game on eBay.

Selling people stuff they don't WANT isn't value either.

I don't want another copy of BF3, but if DS3 had come with a free copy that I could gift to a friend, I'd be happy about that.

And if DS3 had been sold with a copy of BF3 that I could gift or trade, you might actually have a leg to stand on in your comparison between it and The Orange Box.