Your thoughts on financial double-dipping in games
polycounter lvl 11
I've been seeing this a lot lately and it's kinda bothering me. What I mean is when you pay for a game, and then still you are expected to pay more money. It basically means you paid for only some of the content, but nobody informed you of that beforehand.
For example say a game that you've paid for that still has ads for real-world products in the loading screen. Or certain MMOs that charge for a box, plus subscription, and then have micro-transactions inside the game for more money.
It seems to me that it used to be you pay for something and you get it. Now I'm seeing more and more that they're trying to milk the costumers for as much as possible.
What do you guys think? Do we have a responsibility to our players? Or is it simply a case of if they're willing to pay, then anything goes?
For example say a game that you've paid for that still has ads for real-world products in the loading screen. Or certain MMOs that charge for a box, plus subscription, and then have micro-transactions inside the game for more money.
It seems to me that it used to be you pay for something and you get it. Now I'm seeing more and more that they're trying to milk the costumers for as much as possible.
What do you guys think? Do we have a responsibility to our players? Or is it simply a case of if they're willing to pay, then anything goes?
Replies
The system was created with the intent to provide more value to the customer by having more points for potential revenue streams for the devs, which could then be used to make more content for the game. Or at least the suits that liked the idea as a way to bilk more money out of customers gave it that sort of nice PR coat.
Of course we live in an imperfect world, so even if there are developers who use the system 'as intended', the less scrupulous developers have devolved into using it as an excuse to turn everything into a cash grab. This is a business, anything goes.
Having 8 random weapons and perks you can buy for an already complele game sounds like a cash grab to me.
Though you do not have to pay for the "extra items", the monthly subscription thing could be sorted out better to actual game time so people don't feel ass raped every month for not even playing 2 days worth of that month...
DLC's and that stuff are perks to those that can afford it, but then again make the consumer who is stressed for cash feel inferior that they can't keep dishing out money for there hobbies.
This is how I feel anyway, since I am in the category of a poor consumer, compared to many.
Dumb it down to:
Basically if you got it why not?
If you don't got it, your shit out of luck buddy.
It could. I think that one is really walking the line. Expansions in general.
But if the DLC is really just content that's built into the game and it's just locked for the sole reason to charge people money, then that's crossing the line for me.
The question is whether the player already paid for it or not. In an MMO if they're charging for micro-transactions alone then that's fine. But if they're charging micro-transactions on top of a subscription, then what exactly was the subscription for? And if the subscription was for something, then what exactly was the box price for?
- If the additional content is optional, I'm okay with it. (even day1 dlc)
- If advertising is unintrusive, I am okay with it.
- If it doesn't create imbalances between players who pay more and those who choose not to, I'm okay with it.
But I hate games that force you to spend more money to enjoy the damn game. Like the card game scrolls. You really have to spend some cash just to try out the different types of decks, on top of spending $15 for the game already.
Fuck that.
Or I should say, I'm not sure about the whole thing, but I'm not sure if it's a problem really. The usual response is that people are willingly buying the stuff, so why not?
Scrolls is not that cash grabby, you can buy decks with in game currency, it doesn't that that much saving up. And you only have 2 other decks to buy in the game, otherwise you can only buy cards with cash up to 6 cards a week.
I can see why it sucks for players of genres that are smaller where there are fewer alternative games to play or in TCGs where everyone has basically adopted similar models at this point.
Based on the timing/examples I get the feeling this thread was prompted by the news about WoW though, if that's the case I don't think they're really doing anything that hasn't been done before. A 100% exp bonus buff is the same as trading money for time, in the same way that buying gold from a seller in China meant you didn't have to spend time making it yourself.
I think that hurts player perceptions of fairness but I guess only time will tell if it will bother them enough to quit.
Because it seems like people just assume that because a game has Day1 DLC it must have been ripped from the main game when really it's possible that content would have just been never made if it weren't for the opportunity to sell it as DLC.
The thing is, if the DLC is ready at launch, it was likely made during the development cycle of the main game. So, largely, it's a part of the game that they withheld to get people to pay more. That's what you call segmentation.
The only way anyone could prove they were just cutting up the finished game to deliver as DLC is if they actually had first hand knowledge of the project.
You're right, I just didn't want to name anything specific. Also I haven't played WoW in years and years, so I just passively hear about this stuff. But it's not the exp bonus. What really rubbed me the wrong way is them selling those for-looks helmets for money. It's like that celestial horse they were selling for a whopping $25 a while ago. Just seems like exploitation all around. First because they made sure to make it not available in the game. I mean, they could have just made those items tradeable in-game, which would also solve the gold-farming problem in China, and would enable people to get it through the game itself. But also because they essentially put some artist on their team on it, and then went and turned their investment (the artist's salary) into millions in profit. It's not like the people who actually made this stuff are going to see percentages of it like Valve's TF2.
But again, technically they're not doing anything wrong. Especially since it's obvious people are willing to pay for the stuff. It just seems like it's in murky moral waters.
On the flip side it seems like the only reason people are willing to pay for it is because it's a high-name company. I doubt their competitors can pull stuff like this off.
On the 0-day DLC thing, I don't see anything wrong with that. The projects I worked on that had 0-day DLC had a separate budget from the publishers for that. The perception is that if it was ready at launch then they could have just included it. But in reality the publishers paid extra to get that content done. So as a customer you're paying for that. But I can't say the same for micro-transactions on top of a subscription.
Other than that though, I'm also seeing other games (on the PSN especially) where I've paid something like $15 for and then still I see ads during the loading screen. And isn't it odd that the game takes exactly the length of the advertisement to load?
Just shady all around.
All those have a date trace back, which can be very easily exposed and if you don't have the skill, simple math of announcement + when the game came out and date of DLC can very easily show such things and if they lied or not.
It would be much better if Dev's, instead of trying to PR manage day 1 DLC with all the grace of whale in a ballerina outfit full of geese, they did stuff like announce on an open platform something like "Our art team just finished the last assets for our game", or "The game has gone gold! Now we're starting to brainstorm for additional DLC content".
But like the celestrial mount they were all vanity items afaik so I didn't see it as a great loss to anybody else playing the game. I see them like I see DLC pretty much, if they couldn't sell them they probably would have never made them so on that note I don't care a whole lot.
In regards to the salary thing, I don't know how blizzards pay works but it seems like you could make that case about any project as a whole. The only difference is that the mount was probably made by a single artist while the game is made by lots of people. But in both cases the employee usually doesn't see any of the profit beyond what their employer is willing to give out as bonuses.
To me though truly exploitive monetization doesn't look like this at all, I think exploitive monetization preys on compulsion and opportunity by directing you to the store after you die in-game where you can purchase things to help you do better. Or sets up in app purchases in kids games hoping children will charge their parents credit cards while playing the game.