Reasonable Atheist said:
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm disgusted by the way certain players in this industry we all love are headed. I realize the call to boycott has been used in a silly fashion before, but I believe it is totally justified to deal with this shameful corporate greed. I will not be purchasing ANY major titles that include exploitative micro transactions of any kind, and I ask that if you agree with my position, you make the same pledge here.
I'm not a fanatic, things like paying a buck or two to unlock the full version of plague inc, or other reasonable costs are not what I am referring too here.
also post your most shameful micro transaction purchase in this thread if you wish.
my confessions:
-an amount I would rather not recall into mass effect 3
-about 5 bucks into a pay-to-skip android game who's name I will not give traffic
I'm so sorry gamer community for my sins against you, as contrition I boycott any title that commits this sin.... no matter how much love I bare the franchise.... *single manly tear*
I'll put it this way, I'm sort of ahead of the curve on this one. While not without their flaws I was a pretty big fan of "Dead Space". Honestly it was the "No Known Survivors" website and the detail that went into it that got be so interested in the first game despite by general dislike of shooters. I played the second one and also thought it was pretty good. I even watched their animated movie. I however deliberately chose not to buy the third installment in the series because of the micro transaction system, I don't care how it was implemented or arguments about it being "low impact" it has no place in a game like this. Sadly as I doubt it will ever be removed from the game, nor will the game appear on STEAM instead of Origin, I doubt I'll ever play it, which makes me quite sad on some levels, but I'm sticking with it.
As far as guilty confessions, I've mentioned a number of times I've put some pretty substantial piles of money into Cryptic's games. Of course at the same time I didn't feel I was being forced to do so, and that the company was actually being pretty generous with people that weren't willing or able to pay for the game. What's more they seem to be willing to release new, free, content periodically (missions, events, campaigns) and without support they would go out of business, so it doesn't bother me so much. Honestly while I think their cash grubbing on some things (inventory slots for example) I think they represent a pretty reasonable compromise on the FTP field.
On the other hand this all comes down to it being comparative though, I still prefer a subscription based system without cash shops. Saying Cryptic is "good" is compared to looking at say the FTP version of "The Old Republic" where they charge you for action bars or just to equip purple equipment or what might be available in their "Free" events. Basically "pay us to use the treasure you earn". My confession of being the stupidest is when I actually thought I could get the equivalent of a lifetime subscription to ToR by unlocking everything, only to learn they locked out so much stuff after the fact that you can pay them over a hundred bucks and STILL be locked out of basic features (like earning full exps for quests, or being able to choose from all the reward items after quests, or just being able to carry enough money to actually buy anything worth a crap). Then of course there are games that outdo EA, I made the mistake of looking at some of the other properties by "Perfect World" (which now owns cryptic) and a few other Asian FTP games like Atlantica and some of them have the audacity to sell you timed items. You might for example think that a FTP game asking you to pay say $25 for a cosmetic costume was an idea conceived after a bunch of executives did a bunch of coke and called down to the devs while high out of their mind. Now imagine a game with the audacity to charge you $25 for that same costume, but you can only wear the costume for 30 days at which point you have to buy it again... Given that for some items it's more than a subscription for a AAA game (and most of these games are "B" or "C" grade at best) it amazes me they stay in operation (though to be fair, most have at least one really cool sounding mechanic), I usually run in horror, but I imagine there must be a few stout fellows out there who enjoy lubing up and logging in for those or they wouldn't exist.
At any rate I believe I've managed to avoid buying any EA products at all since the ME3 ending, and as I said, the micro transactions chased me away from one of the few titles that would have tempted me. At the end of the day though I think a boycott is doomed simply because most gamers will not go without something they really want, in order to make a point, relying on this is what the gaming industry has been banking on so far. I can't see gamers as a whole having either the organization or the willpower to hold out long enough to actually make the gaming industry care. Not to mention the most likely outcome is sadly going to be a "crash" of sorts where gaming as we know it dies, and they all move on to producing casual games exclusively for the kinds of people that have apparently been paying for the mobile version of "Dungeon Keeper". After all that way of doing things has been working since Farmville, and with the lowest human denominator drawn into gaming nowadays we've sadly gotten to the point where all you need to do is make a cute graphic that makes a noise and simple animation if someone pays and clicks on it, and people will do it. Zynga might be slowly falling, but think about how much money they made on doing pretty much exactly that, and also how half their problem is doubtlessly that they simply have competition in the same space now (since EA and similar companies have been jumping on the same basic market as we've seen).
