EA: Consumers 'enjoying and embracing' microtransactions

[Elfgore]

In Battlefield 3, the smaller packs unlock weapons, vehicle upgrades etc and allow you to catch up with say, friends who have been playing for the last year, if you don't want to use the scavenger bots in DS3 (why you wouldn't I dunno, they are cool as shit) then you can just get resources NOW.

This pisses me off.

I worked insanely hard to level up my classes in Battlefield 3, and then some guy spends thirty bucks and has all the same stuff I do? Bullshit! It's the same with Halo 4 "Buy Mountain Dew and Doritos for free level gain." It's unfair for the few it seems nowadays who want to actually work to get better at games not pay money. if it was for singleplayer only that is fine, but as soon as multiplayer gets involved I get pissed.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Wasnt it someone from EA a while ago who was on about charging for individual bullets that you fired in a gun in a game yeah sure you can collect ammo normally but need help well just take out that credit card and we will top up your bullet inventory for you, instead of say making the game balanced so it wasnt a problem unless you played like a complete tard.

You mean the video of John Riccitiello talking about price points and impulse buying and asking the player when they're most engaged in a game (i.e. 2-3hrs into it)? Where one wouldn't be very price conscious at that point, using an example where if offered to refill your ammo in the middle of a fight, people might be more willing to do it? Nevermind no designer would really allow that in a multiplayer game, as it can be viewed as a 'cheat' - Whooo~ have $, unlimited spray and pray!

Of course that didn't stop people from misinterpreting the video to think "ZOMG EA IS GOING TO CHARGE FOR BULLETS" based on a poor example spoken out loud in a conference call.

Thats the one it wouldnt give you unlimited bullets though as people only have so much money to spend but yeah they wouldnt do that straight away as they would never get away with it but it gives an idea of what they would like and what they can aim towards, as for what designers want pfft they arent funding the project they will do what they are told and the cheat bit yeah dont think that will bother them and they could just say well duh its just more bullets the persona with better shooting skills will still win so it dosent effect balance it just gives less able players the option to miss more and still be able to play the game as they still have ammo people stop playing because of it maybe but thats why they have to make it a standard first so if they want to play a AAA shooter they have no alternative as all the other big companies are doing the same because they want some of that gouged money.

What they will do is just start small and see how far they can push it just like with DLC make no mistake EA arent doing this for the benefit of gamers or their passion for games they just see a potential way to make huge amounts of money for little effort.

 

[ThriKreen]

Thats the one

No it's not, and there never was such a video. Again, it was the CEO talking about the psychology of microtransactions, never did they say they would actually do such a thing.

And I'll repeat: 'Of course that didn't stop people from misinterpreting the video to think "ZOMG EA IS GOING TO CHARGE FOR BULLETS" based on a poor example spoken out loud in a conference call.'

as for what designers want pfft they arent funding the project they will do what they are told

No, because a good combat design team will be able to successfully argue that allowing such 'live cheats' will drive all the players away due to the imbalance, resulting in less profits long term vs. making people buy bullets for the instant payoff short term. Publishers can see reason you know, and not all dev teams are spineless sycophants.

Aside from those free/pay to win Chinese MMOs which I don't have a lot of knowledge on, I can't think of a single competitive multiplayer game that forces you to buy your bullets with real money first, or allows instant reloads in the middle of a round.

Aside from supply drops (or TF2 dispensers), but that's an intentional gameplay mechanic. Not to mention enemies can possibly use them too, or ambush people going for it, so there are disadvantages.

 

[mokes310]

You know what really made me sad? I got the Sims 3 a few weeks back (having enjoyed 2), and was insanely annoyed to discover I'd only bought about half the game. I'm not making this up, more than half of the items are locked, only available via real money purchase in game. EA sold me a game, then held the fun parts to ransom. Seriously? I'm supposed to embrace the fact that the same money is buying me less and less with every game they make? Well fuck that shit. Fuck. That. Shit.

It's pretty much the video game version of the film, Die Hard.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I think poor old Jorgensen might be a little confused, when he says EA consumers. He might be thinking of all the casual games and mobile gamers who get free games and then have to pay a little IAP to keep the damn thing going, or even fun, for that matter. I would have thought for most that the fun dies out pretty quickly when you have to start spending money, and all but my very richest of friends would stop and think twice before giving away a penny for something so stupid.

If you talk about the entire gaming community, then yes a lot of people are digging it. What he fails to realize is, this is only OK in so far as you aren't paying for stuff which you used to get free. You know, like unlocking costumes/skins, cheat codes, weapons, maps, secret endings, and so on. Thankfully on PC at least, and for a single player environment, there are still mods / trainers / hacks and such. For those in the multiplayer environment, well you're well and truly screwed I'm afraid...makes me remember all the grinding I did for Battlefield 2142, and now someone can just shell out $5 and get to where I was.

 

[Aeonknight]

In Battlefield 3, the smaller packs unlock weapons, vehicle upgrades etc and allow you to catch up with say, friends who have been playing for the last year, if you don't want to use the scavenger bots in DS3 (why you wouldn't I dunno, they are cool as shit) then you can just get resources NOW.

This pisses me off.

I worked insanely hard to level up my classes in Battlefield 3, and then some guy spends thirty bucks and has all the same stuff I do? Bullshit! It's the same with Halo 4 "Buy Mountain Dew and Doritos for free level gain." It's unfair for the few it seems nowadays who want to actually work to get better at games not pay money. if it was for singleplayer only that is fine, but as soon as multiplayer gets involved I get pissed.

If your attachments are the only thing that seperate you, who spent the time learning the weapons and unlocking it and mr. Credit Card, you're doing it wrong.

Using another example from BF3, the Vehicle Perk unlocks. Give a noob Air Radar and he's still going to have a hard time avoiding the ground, until he learns it for himself.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Valve releasing cosmetic hats for TF2 via microtransactions: Oh, those lovely rascals. Please, take all my money!

EA releasing cosmetic items(Sims3)/mystery packs(ME3) via microtransactions: OMFG EA IS THE DEVIL! BOYCOT! BURN THEM DOWN! RAAAAGE!

Ah well, it's the Escapist.
As long as they aren't selling advantages that cannot be obtained by ingame means, I will have no problems with microtransactions.

I think you forgot to mention the difference between the two games.

TF2 is free.

Sims 3 and ME3 cost $49.99 and $89.99 USD respectively.

(prices were pulled from the Origin webstore by a New Zealand IP and were for the standard editions)

 

[Trivun]

People complaining about microtransactions, oh boo hoo. Microtransactions are NOT things like map packs or extra story content or whatever. Microtransactions are things like armour or skin changes (that have no effect on gameplay whatsoever) and other tiny things like that. Nobody is forcing you to spend money on them. The only time microtransactions are a bad thing are when they actively prevent you from getting something that has an effect on gameplay or locks you out of certain levels or whatever. Otherwise there is nothing wrong with the practice.

At the end of the day microtransactions are the only thing keeping a lot of F2P games afloat, and nobody has a problem with that. But as soon as a 'larger' company like EA do it, somehow they're doing the devil's work. Yet if the company didn't use every opportunity it could to actually make money then a lot of decent people would suddenly be out of work when the company inevitably goes under. There are plenty of reasons to be mad at EA, especially regarding their ways of making money at the consumer's expense without providing anything that actually benefits gamers. But microtransactions are not one of those bad things. For once, I'm actually on EA's side here, PROVIDING they aren't blocking actual gameplay content. I mean, who the hell gives a damn about making their character look pretty, when the gameplay itself is so much more important and relevant? I bought the Halo 4 Limited Edition and I couldn't give a rat's arse about the armour upgrades, because they DON'T AFFECT GAMEPLAY. And let's not forget the whole Oblivion Horse Armour debacle...

 

[TheBelgianGuy]

People complaining about microtransactions, oh boo hoo. Microtransactions are NOT things like map packs or extra story content or whatever. Microtransactions are things like armour or skin changes (that have no effect on gameplay whatsoever) and other tiny things like that. Nobody is forcing you to spend money on them. The only time microtransactions are a bad thing are when they actively prevent you from getting something that has an effect on gameplay or locks you out of certain levels or whatever. Otherwise there is nothing wrong with the practice.

Don't let facts ruin their blind hipster EA hate train rage, man, they're happy when they got something to rage against.

 

[loa]

words

You're not "the bad guy", you're noise.
You're incredibly naive to think that this won't affect you if you "just choose not to buy it [the microtransactions]".
People are not complaining because of their lack of self control.

 

[Thoric485]

The further they push their moneygrubbing crap the better.

It makes the studios that actually value their creative work and their customers stand out.

 

[Elfgore]

In Battlefield 3, the smaller packs unlock weapons, vehicle upgrades etc and allow you to catch up with say, friends who have been playing for the last year, if you don't want to use the scavenger bots in DS3 (why you wouldn't I dunno, they are cool as shit) then you can just get resources NOW.

This pisses me off.

I worked insanely hard to level up my classes in Battlefield 3, and then some guy spends thirty bucks and has all the same stuff I do? Bullshit! It's the same with Halo 4 "Buy Mountain Dew and Doritos for free level gain." It's unfair for the few it seems nowadays who want to actually work to get better at games not pay money. if it was for singleplayer only that is fine, but as soon as multiplayer gets involved I get pissed.

If your attachments are the only thing that seperate you, who spent the time learning the weapons and unlocking it and mr. Credit Card, you're doing it wrong.

Using another example from BF3, the Vehicle Perk unlocks. Give a noob Air Radar and he's still going to have a hard time avoiding the ground, until he learns it for himself.

Now I will give you the flying perks, those bad boys take awhile to get the hang off. (Refer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIgABcRYzhw for my first flight experience)

Also how am I doing it wrong for wanting people to work the same time I did for decent weapons and mods? Just curious didn't really understand that.

 

[juyunseen]

When you are given no choice in the matter but want to continue playing competitively, you'll "enjoy" and "embrace" it.

It's something I hate about these micro DLCs or map packs. If you want to continue to play without getting locked out, you need to buy shit. It happens with Call of Duty, it happens with Halo, it happens with Battlefield. I can't stand it.

As a Halo player, I just want to say that noone bothers with the Halo map packs. Most players are content with the default maps, and it's actually harder to find a game on the DLC maps.

DLC maps haven't been widely played since Halo 3.

 

[Tayh]

I think you forgot to mention the difference between the two games.

TF2 is free.

Sims 3 and ME3 cost $49.99 and $89.99 USD respectively.

(prices were pulled from the Origin webstore by a New Zealand IP and were for the standard editions)

THAT is the main difference? Really? REALLY? SERIOUSLY?!
No word of mention to the fact that one is a free fps(like we aren't drowning in those), while the other is a TPS-RPG, features a long singleplayer campaign, is the finale of a trilogy, is released on multiple platforms... Oh, and has a multiplayer part which is also completely free to play once you've bought the main game.

I'm not even going to mention Sims 3 since the "big, bad and evil microtransactions" consist mainly of reskins - which can be obtained for free and completely legal elsewhere.

 

[Vegosiux]

Yaknow, one of the perks of being not-filthy-rich is that you don't spend money on junk...

And microtransactions, well...I think the old saying, "A fool and his money are easily parted" holds, but I can't decide whether the foolishness or the shameless taking advantage of said foolishness ticks me off slightly more than the other.

 

[Aeonknight]

In Battlefield 3, the smaller packs unlock weapons, vehicle upgrades etc and allow you to catch up with say, friends who have been playing for the last year, if you don't want to use the scavenger bots in DS3 (why you wouldn't I dunno, they are cool as shit) then you can just get resources NOW.

This pisses me off.

I worked insanely hard to level up my classes in Battlefield 3, and then some guy spends thirty bucks and has all the same stuff I do? Bullshit! It's the same with Halo 4 "Buy Mountain Dew and Doritos for free level gain." It's unfair for the few it seems nowadays who want to actually work to get better at games not pay money. if it was for singleplayer only that is fine, but as soon as multiplayer gets involved I get pissed.

If your attachments are the only thing that seperate you, who spent the time learning the weapons and unlocking it and mr. Credit Card, you're doing it wrong.

Using another example from BF3, the Vehicle Perk unlocks. Give a noob Air Radar and he's still going to have a hard time avoiding the ground, until he learns it for himself.

Now I will give you the flying perks, those bad boys take awhile to get the hang off. (Refer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIgABcRYzhw for my first flight experience)

Also how am I doing it wrong for wanting people to work the same time I did for decent weapons and mods? Just curious didn't really understand that.

My point was that because you earned the attachments on the guns, you're familiar with how certain ones mix with specific guns themselves. Example: you generally wouldn't put a Heavy Barrel on a FAMAS and keep it in full auto, otherwise when you go to shoot someone at a distance you're going to be looking at the ceiling after 3 shots (exaggeration of course.) Mr. Credit Card doesn't know this, so even if he bought attachments that you earned, you're still going to be at an advantage. Although if I were to rephrase my prior comment, it would be "if a noob is doing just as well as you right out of the gate, and he only bought attachments, something ain't right."

Much like the Jet attachments, they still have to learn the weapons, the only thing they have going for them is they don't have to grind hours in Team Deathmatch before deciding if they like that gun after it has attachments.

Like the name of the perk suggests, these are shortcuts. The only thing it does is make the game more approachable to newcomers (for a price) in the event they want to get to the meat of the experience that much faster (learning maps, joining platoons, getting used to squad gameplay, vehicle controls, etc.)