[PPOTW] Do you like micro transactions?

[WhiteMaze]

This is what happens when gaming developers begin getting super famous, due to their last successful releases (Forza / Gran Turismo).

To me, and to a lot of other people, you shouldn't do this. This is clearly a way to squeeze more money. You can say whatever you wan't: It's a way to get more of your wallet, period.

You have to freaking choose one: Either F2P with micro transactions OR full retail price.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

FF XIV=Buy Game+Pay for playing+Buy Stuff in Premium Shop

............................ ._.

 

[FAST6191]

Sometimes, depending on the content. I would never buy horse armor, but if they used DLC to add more accessible Pokemon in the wild for Pokemon X and Y I would probably buy, depending on the price. <--- That's just an example.

Horse armour at least could allow for a new style of play (kind of hard to play a plate armoured knight if your horse can not handle it). The pokemon thing would involve twiddling a probability knob.

I wouldn't mind if they were actually micro and cosmetic only - but they aren't. We are talking about several euros for something to be done within game instead of waiting whole IRL day and something that is needed to make game playable!

Only company I can trust with microtransactions is Valve. TF2 is literally only hats and everything else can be aquired any other way or just simply playing normally and every weapon is as good as other one. If you want to go wild grate key is under couple euros and there can be almost anything! If it sucks you can transform it to metal and trade it for another key!

Regarding the bolded part. Interesting you frame it like that. In previous conversations on the matter I have seen that many of those that are a bit unsure about this style of monetisation often seem to be quite happy with the wait or pay approach, especially when it is something as easy as waiting a day rather than putting in 200 hours of solid clicking to continue.

On the Valve thing I probably should look at that more. I quite like seeing the weird (often deeply flawed) economic systems that arise in such games though.

 

[porkiewpyne]

Don't want it in full-priced games.

I don't mind it in f2p if there is a way to obtain it without spending money. Or if it is purely for aesthetics only like costumes.

 

[DinohScene]

As long as those micro transactions won't impact the gameplay/enhance gameplay in any way that it would benefit over the vanilla game then it's fine.
Weapon skins, clothes, hats, character customizations, car skins etc is fine.
But upgrades to boost stats, no sir.

DLC....
I'm kinda against it.
Some devs just push out DLC as an excuse to sell an unfinished game.
DLC should basically be standing apart from the actual storyline.
But then again, DLC isn't a micro transaction tho.

 

[Hells Malice]

Micro-transactions are basically chopping off bits of the game to sell at an extra cost, or making getting something extremely difficult but not impossible to try and coax you into just instead spending MORE money to get it.

Microtransactions are a plague, and while sometimes they're fine, in almost every instance, they're just used for money grubbing and games suffer because of it.

 

[Arras]

FF XIV=Buy Game+Pay for playing+Buy Stuff in Premium Shop

............................ ._.

World of Warcraft is like that as well, but with a full-priced expansion pack every year or so on top of it

 

[Mario92]

Regarding the bolded part. Interesting you frame it like that. In previous conversations on the matter I have seen that many of those that are a bit unsure about this style of monetisation often seem to be quite happy with the wait or pay approach, especially when it is something as easy as waiting a day rather than putting in 200 hours of solid clicking to continue.

On the Valve thing I probably should look at that more. I quite like seeing the weird (often deeply flawed) economic systems that arise in such games though.

For some people that style suits and it's from earliest facebook games. You just simply play same game at same time everyday so game continues and rewards you for it. However if you want to just continue the game right then and there you'll have to pay for it (or some games wants your friends to play so you can continue). This makes the game more of an platform where it gives you treats for remembering it instead of actually playing it.

I personally couldn't hate that more as I have irregular work schedule. I just want to play the game but because some games uses this IRL time thing and there aren't way to fully buy the game they simply get deleted from my devices.
Of course there aren't that many ways to monetize single player games as cosmetics aren't that interesting in them so I understand they have to do something but I would rather pay 5€ for full game without those waiting things instead of paying 50snt every time I want to play. Of course some people who want to play the game pays that 50snt so they won't make option to buy whole game....

Other thing is selling cheats like I said. That's usually fine but sometimes game is impossible hard and then it starts flashing all kind of icons which takes you to page to buy "superpowers" or something similar for couple euros to get trough part of game and most annoyingly tracks same scores with and without cheats! It's then about making game impossible without those cheats and then treating you from using cheats. Usually games had these things in cheat codes and they warn you that you can't be on top lists and so forth. Best part is that those are usually also on kid friendly games and are marketed being awesome most notable examples are Angry Birds with mighty eagle and Cut the rope with mascot masked as superhero.

This all reminded me of good "free-to-play" model which Capcom and Level-5 uses on mobile and Telltale with every platform: pay-as-you-go. You can basically try game out and buy it in parts or whole deal instantly like real game. Works with single player titles perfectly and is fair for everybody. Problem with Telltale is that they sell episodes before they are out but that's pretty minor complain. I bought Mystery Room on Android fully and Phoenix Wright and Ghost Trick on iOS uses same system. This also gives trust to players as you already know how game is so you can then make better decision do you want rest of it!

Other good F2P model is letting users rent things for period of time if they aren't sure do they want it, like in Blacklight: Retribution. I played that game some time and it's actually awesome. Played few rounds and had enough in-game currency to rent weapon for day. If I wanted to keep that I could buy it for real money or just rent it again later with same amount of in-game currency. Of course game has option to build weapon from ground which can't be rented so I just hoped they would simply make game more cosmetic...

 

[trumpet-205]

Microtransaction is fine, as long as it is strictly for aesthetic or DLC.

 

[MTSoph14]

Micro-transactions really don't have a time and a place, IMO, and it certainly isn't anywhere near F2P games. "Pay to Win" annoys the shit out of me.

 

[FAST6191]

As long as those micro transactions won't impact the gameplay/enhance gameplay in any way that it would benefit over the vanilla game then it's fine.
Weapon skins, clothes, hats, character customizations, car skins etc is fine.
But upgrades to boost stats, no sir.

DLC....
I'm kinda against it.
Some devs just push out DLC as an excuse to sell an unfinished game.
DLC should basically be standing apart from the actual storyline.
But then again, DLC isn't a micro transaction tho.

What about those pay only weapons that should be just as effective as the ones available to free players (half the damage per hit but twice the fire rate or something)?

Interesting thoughts on DLC. First for this I will be calling DLC functionally no different from the expansion packs that have existed for ages. Similarly I am slowly becoming a bigger and bigger proponent of the idea of rolling releases for games.

For some people that style suits and it's from earliest facebook games. You just simply play same game at same time everyday so game continues and rewards you for it. However if you want to just continue the game right then and there you'll have to pay for it (or some games wants your friends to play so you can continue). This makes the game more of an platform where it gives you treats for remembering it instead of actually playing it.

I personally couldn't hate that more as I have irregular work schedule. I just want to play the game but because some games uses this IRL time thing and there aren't way to fully buy the game they simply get deleted from my devices.
Of course there aren't that many ways to monetize single player games as cosmetics aren't that interesting in them so I understand they have to do something but I would rather pay 5€ for full game without those waiting things instead of paying 50snt every time I want to play. Of course some people who want to play the game pays that 50snt so they won't make option to buy whole game....

Other thing is selling cheats like I said. That's usually fine but sometimes game is impossible hard and then it starts flashing all kind of icons which takes you to page to buy "superpowers" or something similar for couple euros to get trough part of game and most annoyingly tracks same scores with and without cheats! It's then about making game impossible without those cheats and then treating you from using cheats. Usually games had these things in cheat codes and they warn you that you can't be on top lists and so forth. Best part is that those are usually also on kid friendly games and are marketed being awesome most notable examples are Angry Birds with mighty eagle and Cut the rope with mascot masked as superhero.

This all reminded me of good "free-to-play" model which Capcom and Level-5 uses on mobile and Telltale with every platform: pay-as-you-go. You can basically try game out and buy it in parts or whole deal instantly like real game. Works with single player titles perfectly and is fair for everybody. Problem with Telltale is that they sell episodes before they are out but that's pretty minor complain. I bought Mystery Room on Android fully and Phoenix Wright and Ghost Trick on iOS uses same system. This also gives trust to players as you already know how game is so you can then make better decision do you want rest of it!

Other good F2P model is letting users rent things for period of time if they aren't sure do they want it, like in Blacklight: Retribution. I played that game some time and it's actually awesome. Played few rounds and had enough in-game currency to rent weapon for day. If I wanted to keep that I could buy it for real money or just rent it again later with same amount of in-game currency. Of course game has option to build weapon from ground which can't be rented so I just hoped they would simply make game more cosmetic...

That sounds more like it is not so suited for you rather than outright problems. In some ways it might be similar to those among us that are unfortunate enough to lumped with kids and a job that no longer have 40 hours to sit down and plough through a big old 40 hour epic quest type game. The only times I have encountered it though it has been "come back in 24 hours or more" and not "come back in exactly 24 hours" so that does not seem such a problem to sign in at 7am the next day or 8pm at night (37 hours later). Of course I have not really done any facebook stuff and I have not encountered (I know it exists, just I have not seen it personally) it in Flash games.

On the bold thing that usually gets termed pay to win and is not the same as microtransactions (even if they use the same methods).

Telltale selling things before they are out... isn't that otherwise known as a preorder?

I have heard good things about Blacklight as well. The cynic in my wonders if that sort of thing is more of a way to ensure a reasonable player base but in reality everything could or at least should (looking at you DOTA/MOBA) do things to try to ensure such a thing.

 

[Taleweaver]

Other: I don't have a clue what a "micro transaction" actually is. By itself, I would have gone for Shadowsoldier's definition...

I don't mind actual DLC, but I don't consider micro-transactions DLC.

DLC = maps, quests, worlds, stories.
microtransactions = clothes. hats. wheels. guns.

...in other words: micro transaction=mere cosmetic changes. But going by other replies, it's like it is supposed to be "everything that you pay in addition to the game itself".


So without a clear knowledge of what I'm actually supposed to be liking or not liking, I can only answer "mu".

Mu is something like "the question is wrong". In other words: I honestly can't answer it without a clear definition of what is and what isn't a micro-transaction*.


Going by the 'mere cosmetic changes' definition, I'm going with "I couldn't care less".





*according to an online dictionary, it is supposed to be "anything that has to be paid a small fee to access". While that does clear SOME things up, it's easy to play devil's advocate and call red alert 3: uprising a micro transaction, as I bought it in a humble bundle.

 

[Mario92]

That sounds more like it is not so suited for you rather than outright problems. In some ways it might be similar to those among us that are unfortunate enough to lumped with kids and a job that no longer have 40 hours to sit down and plough through a big old 40 hour epic quest type game. The only times I have encountered it though it has been "come back in 24 hours or more" and not "come back in exactly 24 hours" so that does not seem such a problem to sign in at 7am the next day or 8pm at night (37 hours later). Of course I have not really done any facebook stuff and I have not encountered (I know it exists, just I have not seen it personally) it in Flash games.

On the bold thing that usually gets termed pay to win and is not the same as microtransactions (even if they use the same methods).

Telltale selling things before they are out... isn't that otherwise known as a preorder?

I have heard good things about Blacklight as well. The cynic in my wonders if that sort of thing is more of a way to ensure a reasonable player base but in reality everything could or at least should (looking at you DOTA/MOBA) do things to try to ensure such a thing.

Yeah they are usually 24h and over but some games do these daily things where if you log in between 24-48h you get daily rewards which get better every sequential (is that the right word...) day. Some games have events which lasts for X amount of time before dissapearing forever and they are usually calculated on 24h cycle. This is when the game becomes the platform which suits only some people and begins to be problem as some people are left out without help of an wallet and that what I was referring to. You can play without those things as usually what they give you are also available trough wallet.
When the game is platform then it actually takes away more of your time than "actual" game would only in smaller pieces and trying to hook you somehow. These time cycles are just the way to take away the obious grinding.

Pay-to-win and Pay-to-skip are unofficial terms for how games microtransactions are actually balances. Games themselves still have those microtransactions as microtransactions are the thing that makes game pay-to-win! At least this is how I have acknowledged it :|
Every term these days seem to merge one another. DLC can mean everything from full expansion to cosmetic packs, Beta can mean real beta or beta as people get to play game bit earlier but it's actually pretty much ready. Latest thing is Borderlands 2 getting more DLC after just releasing GOTY which has usually meant that it's full game with everything in it. Some games are selling these microtransactions in DLC bundle actually so...

What we can say is that DLC is something you buy and can always install again with game where microtransaction is paid in-game

Telltale thing may as be preorder but when game is fully out the pricing model is still intact and you can buy any episode you want or full thing.

I actually haven't played Dota/LoL at all. What I have read is that Dota 2 seems to be fully cosmetic at least which confirms what I said in first post: Valve is only company I can trust with microtransactions.
I forgot to mention that you can actually collect cards from games you own (I have over 100 games that supports them), sell them and then buy in-game things with the money. Every time cards are sold the game dev and valve gets share.

 

[FAST6191]

Other: I don't have a clue what a "micro transaction" actually is. By itself, I would have gone for Shadowsoldier's definition...



...in other words: micro transaction=mere cosmetic changes. But going by other replies, it's like it is supposed to be "everything that you pay in addition to the game itself".


So without a clear knowledge of what I'm actually supposed to be liking or not liking, I can only answer "mu".

Mu is something like "the question is wrong". In other words: I honestly can't answer it without a clear definition of what is and what isn't a micro-transaction*.


Going by the 'mere cosmetic changes' definition, I'm going with "I couldn't care less".





*according to an online dictionary, it is supposed to be "anything that has to be paid a small fee to access". While that does clear SOME things up, it's easy to play devil's advocate and call red alert 3: uprising a micro transaction, as I bought it in a humble bundle.

Granted it is not as bad as MMO or casual gaming but yeah the definition can be a bit fluid.

The method has technically been around for years, longer if you consider most fruit/slot machines are almost exactly this (you might get money out of a fruit machine). It rose to prominence in recent years as many facebook, flash, mobile phone and web based games used the model, I even saw it on a 3ds game the other day in Bravely Default and there were a few "full" games that use it. Free to play games (be they simple flash things or full 3d) make extensive use of this sort of thing.

Generally it was noted that being paid for your games was nice for developers and adverts do not cut it in a lot of things. How they implement it varies quite a bit.

Some games use purely cosmetic things.

Some games use it to allow variation in play styles. Going back to an earlier example if say damage per second was a thing then if you halfed the damage but doubled the fire rate you have basically the same gun but it might allow for a slightly different play style.

Some games use it to allow you to select another character. You have 10 character types to choose from but if you are going random play then you can have a user pay to play as another character type.

Some games use it to buy collectible cards of a sort.

Some games use it to allow players to boost stats either temporarily or though it is more of a thing in the next one you can also get permanent boosts. On the cards thing you can also pay to improve your luck.

Some games use it to allow access to exclusive maps, areas, abilities (as in not just similar weapons but slightly different but whole other classes of abilities-- only paid users* can use magic and such).

*only paid or those that put in several hundred hours so practically speaking only those that paid still counts but has been seen.

Some games use it to get a player to quickly progress through a game. This can serve multiple purposes -- just because it takes 2 hours to play does not mean it took 2 hours to build and all that but if someone has paid you then it becomes less of an issue.

Some times this makes no broad difference to gameplay other than free to play people do not have as many strategies available to them (I have only the starting 5 guns or something where paid have 10 more, as no gun should be overpowered and the game should still be skill based this is not such a problem). Other times developers can crank the difficulty right up so only people that pay can get anywhere in the game. The latter is usually termed pay to win and is often seen in the Korean MMO side of things, it is also what several people assume all such games are (and such cynicism is not unwarranted a lot of the time). All seem to appeal to the sunk cost fallacy either on the time (why you may want to get people to sign in every day and delay them from going forward) or the money front.
In all cases I have ever seen this allows people to spend far far more money than a normal game might cost.

I have not truly investigated this like I have some other things and I have seen some things do it well (Illyriad, despite having an interesting fanbase, probably being one of the better examples). It gets a bit more complex as many games will hold contests for things that might cost money, might technically allow you to play fully and for free if you sign in every day (you might be able to miss a few each month but not many), abstract away costs with "points/tokens/coins" and other tricks more commonly seen with con artists and others that abuse the lessons psychology teaches us (sign your friends up and the like).

 

[Gahars]

I honestly don't mind microtransactions, even in full priced retail games, as long as they're a) tied only to multiplayer, and b) balanced.

Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, for example, had an excellent system of microtransactions. The in-game currency were easy enough to earn through matches alone, so it was never necessary to buy the packs with real money, and all the packs were randomized, so there'd be no guarantee that you'd get good loot even if you did actually buy it. Plus, that game was built around cooperative gameplay, so it was never a huge problem if someone had better weapons/powers than another player.

There's a lot of gray areas with microtransactions. I don't blame developers and publishers for trying to earn some extra money, but as soon as it comes at the expense of the game itself, then it's a problem.

 

[TheDarkSeed]

I'm switching to pong...

 

[DJPlace]

this is what i buy for DLC.

ok for me is=new people and stages for fighters and other games. outfits (only if there on sale)


not ok=color changes. seriously who in gods name want's to pay money just to change color for a few bucks...

but buying a game to make you paying money to play a game is just fucking stupid...

 

[FAST6191]

but buying a game to make you paying money to play a game is just fucking stupid...

I was finding this line of thought to be odd. Then I realised I avoid going to clubs with a cover charge/entry charge.

On the other hand if the microtransactions allow me to assemble a more complete version of the game I got at a cut rate then I can see that. MX vs ATV had something like this I believe.

 

[calmwaters]

Should only exist in F2P models, no where else. Especially in full fledged games that cost 50/60 USD, that's just a disgrace if there are still microtransactions in there.

But, should microtransactions in F2P games cost more than 10/20 bucks? I mean, the game is technically free, but the developers have to maintain some source of income. Doesn't Zynga make F2P games?

 

[Deleted member 158512]

Well I would, if micro-transactions meant that a game would receive continued support with new content (that all depends on the game genre as well). In reality, a lot of larger devs are just using micro-transactions as a way to profit off of incomplete features that didn't make the final cut because the publisher rushed their game.