Just my thoughts about micro transactions in modern games, I for one, welcome them. Let me explain that statement with a revelation I had. Would you go to work, day after day, week after week, month after month, without pay? I assume not. But if you buy a game and enjoy it, you would also like the developer to support that game for many months, if not years to come. To do so they will have to pay workers to achieve that goal.
In the past, if new features, modes, and maps were added to a game, they did so with paid DLC. But this caused a problem of splitting the player base between those that purchased, and those that did not. Now it seems, developers have adopted to give out the major gameplay updates for free, therefore no one is left behind. But continued support needs to be paid for somehow.
This brings us to the micro transactions. The industry has painfully learned not to include a pay-to-win system anymore. Instead, it is all cosmetic. New weapon skins, armor, badges and such. I am 100% fine with this. I personally don’t really care too much about how my character looks, I just play for fun. But for those that do, it helps fund new modes and maps that keep everyone coming back.
I also understand the question of “But I paid for the game, why should I have to give more money?” Well, when you bought the game, you are paying for the substantial investment that was made to get it to the point of release. For games before internet and online gaming, that was the end of the deal. You played what was released, nothing was ever going to be added. Of course now, everyone expects much more to keep things fresh and entertaining.
Grabs cane Back in my day developers supported the game that players bought because it was in their best interest. Players bought your game with multiplayer and long term support told those player that they can expect support for the next entry as well, meaning they were more likely to buy the next game that gets released. They also could minimize the need significant post launch catch up by just making a game with a large amount of actual content and features in the first place, you know, like Halo games used to do. The developers were not giving out “free labor” by supporting their own games they were getting paid to make a new game while smaller part of the studio supports the current game.
Developers also used to more freely give out community modding tools which allowed the community to flourish even if developers dropped support in favor of something else. Every time I think about SPV3 I think about how different things would have been for Halo had the games continued to release on PC on a regular basis and had been given similar tools to Halo Custom Edition.
Paid DLC, specifically map packs(not to be confused with proper expansions), was itself a massive overreach on the part of publishers and developers back when that practice was new. No one in the industry deserves any credit for “fixing” the problems they created in the first place. They are not actually taking any steps back, they are just finding new and innovative ways to justify their own overreach.
The money the industry makes via microtransactions isn’t a necessary evil to keep the lights on, its a gigantic revenue stream that attempts to squeeze more ever more money out of the playerbase that mostly goes to higher ups and investors in the impossible pursuit of endless growth. Being cosmetic only does not justify the manipulative monetization schemes, cosmetics are an important part of many games, if cosmetics were really so unimportant to any given playerbase they wouldn’t be such big moneymakers in the first place.
> 2533274791998460;3:
> “Back in your day”, Son, I have been playing games before pong was a thing. Modern games cost tens of millions of dollars to make. During the cartridge days, they sold for about $60 dollars, more or less, back then. With inflation, more than that. More than what people want to pay today. Please go back and play those games. Very limited, no online play, and no updates.
>
> Modern gamer’s expect constant updates, more modes, and maps. This involves many man hours to achieve. Old games could be coded by one man over several weeks. That is far from what can be done today.
>
> Halo Infinite is a free to play game, but no one will work for free. Buy the skins or not, it’s up to you, but don’t hate someone trying to make a living.
I don’t know if you realise this, but what you’re saying is that this multi-billion industry can’t manage production cost efficiently in relation to the price people pay for the product. Going to have to add, that the product they’re selling, has an infinite quantity.
Also funny how older games felt more, complete.
Having more content. Having more maps, modes and so forth. Just compare Reach to Halo 5 and the difference in launch content is noticeable.
Why isn’t it a “Donate Button” if it’s about supporting the developers?
As the data from MTXs only show that the publishers and developers get away with intentionally cutting content out, and selling it back piece-meal to the user base.
No, Infinite isn’t free to play, the multiplayer part is.
> 2533274791998460;3:
> “Back in your day”, Son, I have been playing games before pong was a thing. Modern games cost tens of millions of dollars to make. During the cartridge days, they sold for about $60 dollars, more or less, back then. With inflation, more than that. More than what people want to pay today. Please go back and play those games. Very limited, no online play, and no updates.
>
> Modern gamer’s expect constant updates, more modes, and maps. This involves many man hours to achieve. Old games could be coded by one man over several weeks. That is far from what can be done today.
>
> Halo Infinite is a free to play game, but no one will work for free. Buy the skins or not, it’s up to you, but don’t hate someone trying to make a living.
“Modern games cost tens of millions of dollars to make” Interesting how these companies are not struggling to break even with these massive budgets, but are in fact posting record profits. Its almost like development costs are a smokescreen for fleecing players or something… Yes, games cost more relative to the budgets in past generations, which only serves to highlight how arbitrary it all is. Curious how we just skip over from “no online play, no updates” straight to the modern industry while ignoring everything in between. IE Games that had enough content to be played for years at launch, free dev support trading the cost of that support for future returns with later titles, mod support.
“Modern gamer’s expect constant updates” I wonder why there is a demand for content while modern games have paper thin content at launch and/or their “content” is mostly made up with tedious busywork. Its a mystery. Player don’t need to subsidize further development when these games are effectively launching in early access.
As far as F2P is concerned its not like I or anyone else was actually given a choice in the matter. I don’t “hate” someone trying to make a living I might “hate” how a certain person or entity chooses to make a living. For example I hate how corporate entities hold up their own overworked and underpaid developers as a shield to protect the obscene amounts of money they make from manipulative microtransaction schemes that are specifically designed to make the games they create worse.
Don’t make excuses for corporations, its not that difficult.
Its a cheap cash grab. They took a standard feature and attached a price tag to it. No effort put into it. Just greed. They want extra money? Put in extra work and make real content. Periodt.
stop defending MTs in any games. they are not going into development and you are in no way supporting developers or the “common” worker in a gaming company. you are supporting investors and corporations by buying MTs. you make games worse by supporting MTs, bc games are already tailored towards selling MTs and not towards being a good, consumer friendly game. and in the long run the developers are getting the blame and stuff like this if the game underperforms for reasons like being a bad game, bc it was tailored towards selling MTs.
and the developers are already being forced more and more to implement MTs, not bc it’s profiting them, but bc it’s profiting investors behind them.
Microsoft is a trillion dollar corporation. There’s no argument to be had about ‘supporting the devs’ when 343’s parent company is a literal tech giant.
Cosmetic microtransactions just do not work for Halo. Halo’s entire unlock system is about player expression and showing off achievement. To be able to just buy cool looking armor instead of having to earn it is very un-Halo like.
Let’s just go back to map packs for the love of god
If you fall for the narrative surrounding the reason for including MTX’s and loot boxes, then you are the reason companies keep doing so. That’s okay, the people in this thread and beyond will keep fighting against anti-consumer behavior, even if you decide to side with things that are meant to manipulate and trick you.
> 2533274791998460;1:
> Just my thoughts about micro transactions in modern games, I for one, welcome them. Let me explain that statement with a revelation I had. Would you go to work, day after day, week after week, month after month, without pay? I assume not. But if you buy a game and enjoy it, you would also like the developer to support that game for many months, if not years to come. To do so they will have to pay workers to achieve that goal.
>
> In the past, if new features, modes, and maps were added to a game, they did so with paid DLC. But this caused a problem of splitting the player base between those that purchased, and those that did not. Now it seems, developers have adopted to give out the major gameplay updates for free, therefore no one is left behind. But continued support needs to be paid for somehow.
>
> This brings us to the micro transactions. The industry has painfully learned not to include a pay-to-win system anymore. Instead, it is all cosmetic. New weapon skins, armor, badges and such. I am 100% fine with this. I personally don’t really care too much about how my character looks, I just play for fun. But for those that do, it helps fund new modes and maps that keep everyone coming back.
>
> I also understand the question of “But I paid for the game, why should I have to give more money?” Well, when you bought the game, you are paying for the substantial investment that was made to get it to the point of release. For games before internet and online gaming, that was the end of the deal. You played what was released, nothing was ever going to be added. Of course now, everyone expects much more to keep things fresh and entertaining.
Games design is always a risk but I strongly feel like if we’re paying for a fully priced games that should make up for it. Game designers are also gamers too since many of us design games so we want to come home and play a game without MT forcing our games into a mindless grind. I’m not expecting games to be continually supported for many years but I have to draw a line when some dev’s try to charge £100’s for skins for something your average person can probably easily make within a short time and I’ve seen it too often where dev’s have used MT as an excuse to release rushed games which are either broken or unfinished and that’s depressing for both designers/gamers. Though in fairness Infinite looks like their coatings aren’t simple reskins like I’ve seen other dev’s do since I can tell they put a lot of work into those.
If we defend MT…then it just ends up becoming about defending the next new ‘predatory’ system that the industry thinks up and as far as I can tell adding MT just means most designers still lose their jobs while higher ups get more money so there’s no guarantee those people will get paid often.
When I bought Halo 1 on the original Xbox that was an investment into the series while after that I’ve continued to support Bungie with Halo and even given the same support to 343i regardless of their choices with modern Halo…so I believe I’ve invested plenty into the Halo IP but there has to be a point where I have to draw a line and say it’s getting out of hand. Even though MCC updates regular…part of the reason I enjoy those games is because the original games were practically full games that weren’t drip fed and yet I hated games like Halo 5 because it never felt like a complete game.
To me, cosmetic MTs have gotten to be so ubiquitous that it’s basically like a mall: up to each person whether to head straight for their objective or to buy as much as they want along the way. I personally beeline to a few things, buy them, then move on, but I don’t see how it harms my Halo Infinite experience when others decide to drop more money on their wardrobe if it doesn’t change the actual playing field in a match. And the devs have confirmed that these will be Apex/Fortnite-style: what you see is what you get if you decide to buy, not mystery boxes. So if I have access to the whole “mall” without having to buy any extra “clothes”, I don’t see the harm in the mall owner making more money.
> 2533274873390670;12:
> To me, cosmetic MTs have gotten to be so ubiquitous that it’s basically like a mall: up to each person whether to head straight for their objective or to buy as much as they want along the way. I personally beeline to a few things, buy them, then move on, but I don’t see how it harms my Halo Infinite experience when others decide to drop more money on their wardrobe if it doesn’t change the actual playing field in a match. And the devs have confirmed that these will be Apex/Fortnite-style: what you see is what you get if you decide to buy, not mystery boxes. So if I have access to the whole “mall” without having to buy any extra “clothes”, I don’t see the harm in the mall owner making more money.
Yeah I like the idea of having either method of unlocking at the same time. You can either grind for them or simply buy them upfront. However, I do think that there should be some achievement-only unlocks that you can’t buy that you have to work for, like Achilles or even something like another Helioskrill, but for players who completed Halo 5 on Legendary.