Poll: Microtransaction confessions, And a call to arms

[Signa]

I already boycott micro-transactions. However, there have been a few rare instances where I felt inclined to drop a few extra bucks, and I don't regret it at all.

1) I put $20 into Puzzles and Dragons, a F2P game on the Android. Unlike games like Dungeon Keeper, there is some real gameplay to be had, and I don't feel like the game is at war with me and my wallet. I enjoy the game, and what I got I consider to be "subscription perks" for my money. As long as I don't do it again too soon (like, within a year of the last purchase), I will not resent the game, or the choices I made in supporting it.

2) Skin DLC. There's a couple games on Steam that have a lot of stupid skin packs. I'm willing to buy them when the sale price on them gets so low, that it's worth my coin just to have the bragging rights that I have all the DLC for that game, as well as the decreased headache of trying to figure out which DLC pack I own and don't own. Additionally, it will have to be a game that I don't mind throwing a few extra bucks at the devs, because I like their work. Case in point: Borderlands 2.

 

[Signa]

I heard someone say Forza earlier so I'll give that one (though I don't know that for a fact since another poster is challenging it). I've heard Ryse is the same way but again, I don't know that for a fact so I'll just count it as ruined just to start it off. Every other game with Micro-transactions that I can think of are either cosmetic (horse armor, wolf in CoD, etc.) or can be earned with no problem through the game (Dead Space 3).

Just you wait though, it won't be long before grinding in-game will be designed to take longer so that you spend money on making go faster instead of the normal work/reward trade-off. We are already seeing it with Forza. That might fall into your category of a game being broken at its core[footnote]I am putting some words in your mouth here, because you only said that the core experience is bullshit. Same difference as far as I'm concerned.[/footnote], but I consider it a cynical dick-move by a dev/pub to make the game rake in more cash. "Broken at its core" to me would mean that the game is like Dungeon Keeper, where there is no gameplay to be had, or there are some fundamental issues with the game design, like Mario not being able to jump high enough to clear the pits. The way you worded it, it sounds like you would consider a re-release of classic Final Fantasy 1 broken at its core if the game was sold to you, and then you had to pay again if you wanted normal XP gain rates. FF1 already proved itself to be a viable game, but the microtransactions re-designed a small part of it to make the game nearly unplayable.

 

[tippy2k2]

Just you wait though, it won't be long before grinding in-game will be designed to take longer so that you spend money on making go faster instead of the normal work/reward trade-off. We are already seeing it with Forza. That might fall into your category of a game being broken at its core, but I consider it a cynical dick-move by a dev/pub to make the game rake in more cash. "Broken at its core" to me would mean that the game is like Dungeon Keeper, where there is no gameplay to be had, or there are some fundamental issues with the game design, like Mario not being able to jump high enough to clear the pits. The way you worded it, it sounds like you would consider a re-release of classic Final Fantasy 1 broken at its core if the game was sold to you, and then you had to pay again if you wanted normal XP gain rates. FF1 already proved itself to be a viable game, but the microtransactions re-designed a small part of it to make the game nearly unplayable.

If it helps for definition, this is exactly what I think "Broken at it's core" means:

A game is broken by micro-transactions if it either:

1. Takes a significant amount of time for basic game-play if you don't pay. You (to the best of my knowledge) exclusively see this for mobile apps like Dungeon Keeper 2, Candy Crush, and...others. I don't really play games on my phone

2. If I cannot get everything through game-play in a reasonable amount of time. I don't know of many games that do this (since I don't really play much with micro-transactions) but games like that Simpsons Tap-out would be here (assuming I understand it correctly from Sterling's video this week; you can get donuts, the primary currency by playing but you get it so stupidly slow that it might as well not exist. A good micro-transaction example of this for a game that lets you get everything in a reasonable time is Dead Space 3 (to harp back to that). From what I've heard, you can get just about everything you want from the game through normal game-play. You can choose to spend money to become super Isaac right away but if you play like a normal person, you get that stuff just later.

As to Forza, I don't know what that would count for I don't care at all about racing games. From what I've seen online, the older edition of Forza gave you 140 cars and 18 tracks[footnote]Not the real numbers, I'm just making the numbers up to use as an example[/footnote] while the new one gives you 100 cars and 10 tracks and allows you to download extra cars and tracks for a fee. That to me is broken micro-transactions and would be a game that I would avoid if I cared about racing games. I'd research it to know for sure but since I don't like racing games, it'll never be an issue for me

If I understand your FF1 example correctly, then yes, I would call that broken (Your example is that they release FF1 but the leveling system would be gimped so that progress would come to a crawl unless you bought the "Super XP Package", correct?).

 

[Signa]

Just you wait though, it won't be long before grinding in-game will be designed to take longer so that you spend money on making go faster instead of the normal work/reward trade-off. We are already seeing it with Forza. That might fall into your category of a game being broken at its core, but I consider it a cynical dick-move by a dev/pub to make the game rake in more cash. "Broken at its core" to me would mean that the game is like Dungeon Keeper, where there is no gameplay to be had, or there are some fundamental issues with the game design, like Mario not being able to jump high enough to clear the pits. The way you worded it, it sounds like you would consider a re-release of classic Final Fantasy 1 broken at its core if the game was sold to you, and then you had to pay again if you wanted normal XP gain rates. FF1 already proved itself to be a viable game, but the microtransactions re-designed a small part of it to make the game nearly unplayable.

If it helps for definition, this is exactly what I think "Broken at it's core" means:

A game is broken by micro-transactions if it either:

1. Takes a significant amount of time for basic game-play if you don't pay. You (to the best of my knowledge) exclusively see this for mobile apps like Dungeon Keeper 2, Candy Crush, and...others. I don't really play games on my phone

2. If I cannot get everything through game-play in a reasonable amount of time. I don't know of many games that do this (since I don't really play much with micro-transactions) but games like that Simpsons Tap-out would be here (assuming I understand it correctly from Sterling's video this week; you can get donuts, the primary currency by playing but you get it so stupidly slow that it might as well not exist. A good micro-transaction example of this for a game that lets you get everything in a reasonable time is Dead Space 3 (to harp back to that). From what I've heard, you can get just about everything you want from the game through normal game-play. You can choose to spend money to become super Isaac right away but if you play like a normal person, you get that stuff just later.

As to Forza, I don't know what that would count for I don't care at all about racing games. From what I've seen online, the older edition of Forza gave you 140 cars and 18 tracks[footnote]Not the real numbers, I'm just making the numbers up to use as an example[/footnote] while the new one gives you 100 cars and 10 tracks and allows you to download extra cars and tracks for a fee. That to me is broken micro-transactions and would be a game that I would avoid if I cared about racing games. I'd research it to know for sure but since I don't like racing games, it'll never be an issue for me

If I understand your FF1 example correctly, then yes, I would call that broken (Your example is that they release FF1 but the leveling system would be gimped so that progress would come to a crawl unless you bought the "Super XP Package", correct?).

Ok, that's not unreasonable. AFAIK, DS3 was Ok, because the microtransactions removed all grinding. My concern though, is that the grinding could have been made more excessive to encourage the microtransactions. That actually did happen with Forza (at least at first, I heard they were talking about fixing it), where you had to grind and grind for something like 40 hours just to get the permission to unlock a car, and then you had to have the in-game cash to buy it too. You could just bypass one of those grinds by forking over some real money. I'm too lazy to look up the specifics, but it was on Dungeon Keeper levels of stupid. The only difference was that you had to be playing for those 24 hours of block digging to make progress.

And correct on the FF1 part. That's where I'm disagreeing with you, because a game can be a good game, but utterly destroyed by a single, profit-driven design choice. Those games are potentially worth your time to play, but nothing further than greed ruined them. I think we are headed for that now, because it wouldn't have taken much effort to made the drops/XP/whatever you collect in DS3 just a bit more rare, which could have ruined the game for so many players.

 

[Kotaro]

I tend to ignore them and just play the game for free. If I hit a paywall, I just stop playing.
Every once in a while though, I find a game that I've really been enjoying so I throw a few dollars at it to support the developer.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

No need to join a boycott. I don't buy that shit anyway.