EA: Consumers 'enjoying and embracing' microtransactions

[squid5580]

Keep in mind, people like us who complain about microtransactions on message boards aren't the average gamer. We're a very passionate and vocal minority.

The average consumer, the ones who don't really care about the industry or how the industry is treating them, probably do embrace microtransactions since it allows them to skip anything they find as tedious and get straight to the stuff they find fun for just a few extra dollars.

Back when I used to play World of WarCraft I knew a guy who paid another person to level up all of his characters, then bought Gold and gear with real-life currency. I asked him why he did it, since I couldn't fathom why you'd buy a game only to pay someone else to play it. He told me it was because he worked long hours and didn't want to deal with all of that stuff he found uninteresting during his limited free time. All he really wanted to do was play PvP, so to him the extra real-life cost was worth it to get straight into PvP.

Not to mention $25 mounts that sell how many millions?

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Not to mention $25 mounts that sell how many millions?

He did have a sparkle pony, come to think of it.

 

[Rattja]

I find it sad that this is where we are headding, even if it's just cosmetic, it kinda buggs me that it's there.
And not just that, it's everywhere =/

I remember when I first started playing MMOs, I remember people laughing at me, as they could not believe how stupid I was to buy a game, and THEN pay for every month, in fact some still do. The same people don't seem to have much problem with this though.

Anarchy Online and Tibia are two games that comes to mind. They were free to play, but had premium subscriptions that were monthly payments. Yes that's pay to win, but I played and enjoyed both those games (still am) for a long time without feeling the need to upgrade, as basically all the premium stuff was aimed at the higher levels.

I kinda liked the way AO did it, where you got the "normal edge" with better items, new places and all that, more then enough to justify the cost, but also gave you points for every month that you could buy fun vanity items with.
So, if you saw someone with say.. a devil and an angel on their shoulder, you knew that person had been around for at least half a year, and not someone who just had some money to spend.

I'd much rather have a set monthly fee where I have accsess to everything, rather then buy a little here, a litte there, and that, and that and.. where did my money go?

Also, aren't we basically just renting games at this point? With everything being online, DLC and things to buy ingame, once the server or connection is gone, so is everything you just bought.

 

[Maximum Bert]

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.

I hope you are right but im still not convinced I guess only time will tell tho eh. Why not say buying bullets dosent allow an imbalance because everybody can buy bullets for instance so the effect is still technically levelled I suppose they could say well yeah but that gives those with more money a greater advantage but they can say that those who have spent more time with the game still have an advantage its just allowing people who cant spend as much time with the game (but have more money) a chance to compete, and in true competetive play such as tournaments they could just set up a house rule like buying bullets is forbidden.

This is all speculation and there is no way EA will do this at least for the forseeable future because of how many people it will piss off but if they can get people to accept micro transactions as a norm then they can keep pushing as that mental barrier of resistance is gone, its no longer a `live cheat` but a way of gaming.

What they need now is a hook for these transactions such as a killer franchise or game they can work with that everybody wants to play and will put up with a lot of shit to do so.