Responding to 343i statement on monetization

Games Halo Infinite
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From @ske7ch 343i’s Community Manager

Not everyone likes that Infinite is a F2P game and thus has a new business model based on monetization of customization. I understand where you’re coming from, especially with a 20 year established franchise with a longstanding legacy. F2P has been a huge boost to growing the player base and we’ve seen a huge amount of new players entering the franchise for the first time ever. But this is a business - the servers you play on cost money to operate. The studio that develops and maintains the game costs money.

I do not think everyone hates monetization as a business model but rather they hate the way it has been done.

When you make free armor extremely grindy to get unless you pay the admission pass of 10$, then of course you will rub people the wrong way. You do not get all armor by grinding only some at the very high levels of the game but if you pay money and buy the battle pass, you can get some every few level progressions. This essentially forces you to buy the battle pass so you may eventually get the armor you desire. I am ok with armors like Tenrai being payment/event only bound but armor that us halo fans have had for over a decade now should not be the target of monetization.

There is also an option in which you can speed your progression through levels by using credits that are only obtainable through your debit/credit card. I am quite sure a lot of players including myself do not respect that as an option because how fast you level (in my opinion) should solely be determined by your effort in each game and not by the size of your wallet.

Lastly armor colors in the game for some reason look very terrible and 343i has taken away our freedom to express ourselves with whichever color combination we desire rather than monetizing a different form of armor coatings. Players should not have to pay 10$+ for armor color sets just because that armor color is much more vibrant and complete in comparison to the ones obtained via battle-pass or challenges, which look scratched/damaged.

What I think would be fair monetization.

  • Allow players to choose their Primary, Secondary, and Detail colors again but focus on monetizing color patterns. Example of color patterns would be: Gladient, Stripe, Dots, etc

  • Monetize vehicle/armor/weapon effects as a singular purchase. Battle pass has this but in the future armor/weapon effects should just be cash shop only. Example of other effects: Storm clouds (from reach), animated weapons, logos, and various color patterns listed at the top. Animated effects while driving vehicles or various color patterns etc.

  • New A.I voices

  • Spawn/death effects

I am sure there are many more things that could be added like if 343i added a similar playlist that halo 5 had where you could use the req packs to obtain certain items,vehicles,etc.
343i is of course feeling the heat because these problems were the creation of their own doing but I definitely do not agree with comments that are disrespectful. I really hope the constructive feedback is taken seriously because I do not want this game to die or turn off new players who are joining us on this experience for the first time.

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Where did you find this quote?

It’s so frustratingly absurd to think that this person believes- or assumes we’ll believe- that the game couldn’t have been monetized in a better way. Literally only monetizing charms, weapon skins, nameplate backgrounds, AIs, stances, and vehicle skins would have been enough to support the servers. There’s a point where it is just greedy. Preying on and commodifying people’s nostalgia by selling old armor- for example- definitely crosses an inappropriate line that doesn’t need to be crossed.

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It was posted on Reddit. You can go to this thread Official statement from Ske7ch where a lot of discussion has already taken place on the topic. Also, the entire statement can be found there as well.

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To be honest, it would be difficult for Halo to add MTX without it being the customisation. What’s the alternative; objectives locked behind a paywall, or certain maps.

That said, they needed to find the right balance between what to lock, and what not to. If they gave us armour as unlocks, and all ‘new’ custom options as MTXs, would people really be that bothered?
E.g. if they charged $10 to make every kill explode in a pink mist, or Prometheus phase, would people really be that tempted to pay for it?
They had to pick a lane for this sort of stuff, and hope it worked with fans.

The business model is a tricky dance to get right, with lots of moving cogs. Would armour in the store be so bad if the base game had a similar number of options as Halo 3 from the get go? Would it be so bad if there were more options in the BP, and/or a quicker progression so we weren’t all unlocking the same item at such a snails pace.
Another ‘cog’ is the cross-core issue. If this was fixed, I feel it would improve a lot of other issues. A store item would seem more worth it if you could apply them on multiple Spartans, and the slow BP wouldn’t feel so grindy if a new helmet could be applied anywhere.

IDK, there are a lot of moving parts to this game.

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Don’t think you’re pushing it far enough on the monetization downscaling.

Have the vast majority of armor be free to earn or purchase with credits (with credits being earned after every match completion, through challenges, and the battle pass free path.) You get money for armor by having variants of gear in the store.

Return customization to at least as good as MCC and Reach, sell special patterns and non-standard colors through the store (all of them must be purchasable with credits.)

Have special weapon skins in the premium path of the battle pass, as well as vehicle skins and emblems.

It seems like it’s too much, but there are games who monetize less hard than this suggested way and still rake in the money because people will spend if the game and its player treatment is good.

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How about we create our own armor coatings? I’m spit-balling here, what if we get a blank Coating out of the battle pass at various levels and can “consume” it to make our own armor colors?

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Yeah, I would definitely pay money on monetization. I’ve spent money on Halo 5. But I won’t do so on Halo Infinite in it’s current state. I’m not going to pay for things like basic colors, or basic customization. I’ll pay for more extravagant colors and armors though. Assuming a reasonable price.

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Yeah, I’d be okay with that. They could even sell additional blank coatings. And they could sell us expanded colors/patterns for blank coatings and I’d pay. Players need some way to choose custom colors. If it has to be a compromise system, so be it. But not having color customization at all is not okay in my opinion.

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They already solved the problem with the e-sports kits. You need exceptional shader/coating quality that goes above the basic. Also death effects, explosions, auras, etc.

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I always think “Actually, who the hell asks for the Free MP?”

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The people at the top who thought it could make them more money. Hence those of us willing to pay for past Halo games and this one have a right to be upset.

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While I’m glad that Sketch said they are keeping an eye on the economy and have some changes planned, I get the feeling those changes won’t be enough to satisfy me unfortunately. I won’t be happy with this game’s monetization scheme until:

  • Store prices are lowered by at least 60%. It should not cost $20 to buy an armor set ($18 with gamepass discount), it honestly shouldn’t cost more than $6 or 7 per set. They are trying to get away with charging Fortnite prices for cosmetics, but most of those Fortnite cosmetics are full character model skins of licensed characters that they must pay the licensor for, there is just no excuse for totally original Halo armor sets to cost $20.
  • Store credits are earnable in game at a pace that sets a fair balance between allowing free players to save for cosmetics, and encouraging those who can afford to spend real money to spend real money
  • The Store is made persistent instead of having rotating limited time items. Each cosmetic that is added should be added permanently so that people can buy whatever they want to own, whenever they want to own it
  • The weekly challenges are made easier so that it never feels forced to use challenge swaps. This ties in to better playlist options.
  • Progression is sped up a bit more with some kind of match score to XP conversion system or an XP for in-game medals system, so that you never feel the need to buy battlepass progress unless you are just somebody with lots of disposable income who absolutely must own some late battlepass cosmetic immediately
  • More detailed color customization is put in the hands of the players, instead of monetizing color combinations
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I found the statement very disheartening and disappointing to be honest. Whilst I appreciate what appears to be honesty, it actually beggars belief that not only did they decided to go down this route but also make it so technically difficult to customise.

Why is the system that they have created themselves been done in such a way that it is so inflexible and is based around challenges? Surely part of the dev teams project plan would have been to implement a system that would be flexible and easy to make changes on the fly to in game basics such as playlists?! It would appear that this is not the case, and as such someone or many people have failed in their job.

I genuinely don’t understand how they could get one of the fundamental basics of any online multiplayer game so completely wrong. Surely there must have been red flags during the project and development cycle, and it is a huge failing for these not to be either recognised or changes made to the project and development. As a project manager myself, it really doesn’t make sense how they have got to this point and come to the conclusion that the product they are “selling” to their customers is what they set out to produce or that their consumers would be satisfied with the end product.

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What he fails to mention is that gamepass massively subsidises development costs too. 343 have lost the plot

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Couldn’t agree more.

From halo 3 they have 14 years of matchmaking data to go on and they really messed up the playlists, I would put money on it being extremely poor decision making from top to bottom that caused a lot of the issues with the game.

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I’m fine with the game being monetized as it’s F2P. What I’m not fine with is the outrageous prices and what they chose to monetize. Monetization should have really been set aside for things new to Halo, while returning items could have either been free, battlepass, or as a reward for owning that game in MCC.

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My thoughts on this:

For all the controversy over the MTX statements, there are right and wrong ways to do MTX. This battlepass at least is taking the right steps in going for changes. Still to players like me, we’ve heard this MTX statement a million times now. If games doing these really needed that much more, then the MTX would support that, the quality and caliber would be higher than what we had before, not subpar. These MTX always go to the execs. Its not a longshot to say that all the Xbox servers couldn’t be supported by just the gamepass itself. You see the same speech several times, its not going to hold water.

But as they said, its just business, yeah it is. Every choice, even that which could need more money, can have other costs as well. And the real issue here, isnt the fact people would stop buying the battle passes and armor, its the fact they screwed up the first impression, you only have one shot at a first impression, and franky, in this day and age of gaming, if MTX are here to stay, theres one thing more imporant than money: trust and goodwill.

Money can always be earned and replaced, trust and goodwill cant. It make sound like saying lord volemort to the marketing department, but to a customer, trust comes before money. Burn the trust, the money burns too.

It takes ages to build and foster a community, it takes mere moments to burn it all down.

Is Infinite doomed? No, sadly it seems like its most likely to be regulated to the niche spot Halo 4 and 5 had to survive. Which is why this entire aspect of the first impression was so important. Word of mouth, the echoing dissent, the knowledge that we can’t just play what we want in matchmaking yet we can easily just setup the modes we can in training, custom, and community modes, on our own time, in less than even 5 minutes, doesnt sit well in any aspect.

Right now, Infinite is in such a strange spot, gameplay, maps, and modes, they are fine, its by all means a functional game with good aspects, its just the conventional stuff that isnt there, just irks most of us right now.

And thats just it too, the fact it would take so long to just get basic changes done…people are fed up and not paitent anymore. A month in the game world is like a year in real time. Some people will return, but the concern is, those who wont, how many people just up and said, no more? Thats the real silent killer.

One year in real time is like 10 years in the gaming industry, And this is the hoildays too, if we cant play with our friends, its not exactly a good spot. People will then just play other stuff.

Halo 4 and 5 eventually fixed themselves, but by that time, the playerbase was far beyond its apex.

Halo infinite, may sadly have done that too.

Is it hopeless? No, maybe it can pull a FF14 or no mans sky, but the former outright apologized and the latter just bore the brunt of the flak and powered through. 343 is at least in the right space of taking action ASAP, unlike some other companies. 343 at least to me, alright, you’ve taken action twice on the Battlepass so far, but its still kinda…strange how the lack of playlist options is just…not there. The complaints are not on the game modes themselves, just the lack of the options or why it seems so hard to just, get even the most basic stuff live. If a bandaid for the BP could be done so fast, why not a flatline basic rules for slayer too?

Will I play halo Infinite more? Yeah, I mean…BF2042 is gone nuclear by comparison, at least we have a functional game. The campaign is there and for better or worse, as long as its functional, as long as we get a good run out of it, then fine. Some will rampage through, others will get slaugtered on legendary, I intend to take my time on this and do a heroic then legendary run.

Will I buy another battlepass: I can’t say, Maybe if the progression improves or they level on some field with us? Maybe I just got lucky all my choices for Reach customization with that also being my favorite armor style in the series, all landed in the battlepass, I like the ODST armor, so I just need to brunt the grind.

Will the game get better? I’m sure it will, but how it goes some players will return, others…they’ve gone into the howling dark and wont come back. Not everyone has the same patience.

Yeah, I can level with 343 in some stuff but others, well…bad choices are just…bad.

At the end of the day, MTX are still on the choice of the individual, some will buy regardless others wont spend a cent. The controversy is in my eyes, warrented because of what we had before just ripped away.

343 at least has shown one trait I can commend: They’ve taken action. At that very least, remember this:

“Actions are more important than words”

I’ve long ignored the speech in these situations, at the very minimum, they have taken the right action to start, even if some better ones could be done too. So…at least its a start.

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there was a way they could have made this work for both the whales AND the F2P crowd, they could have easily pleased everyone if they had just done this…

People who’ve been playing Halo for years and got used to the grind to unlock every armor either by completing hard challenges or unlocking enough in game currency should have just been given that, 343i should have made the challenges permanent and long treks/milestones like rather than weekly random BS on a timer.

They should have also, as they stated in the beginning, allowed EVERY SINGLE PIECE of customization the option to be unlockable by just playing the game, either by completing one of these permanent challenges, completing a difficult achievement or just earning enough in game currency. They could’ve kept it paid for the people who are willing to sink the money rather than the time, and given the rest of the playerbase the ability to earn it, and distinguish the player who bought it and the one who unlocked it so you could feel special regardless of what route you took…

Hell, go one step further, give the battle pass away for free, give people a few double XP boosters every week and take them out of the pass and put more armor and customization options in… and for GOODNESS Sake’s PLEASE unlock armor cores and allow us to fully mix and match, I don’t care HOW ugly or bad you think it will make people look. Players have been using clown sets for YEARS and taking that away now just borders on lunacy, whatever the reason may be…

Everyone would have won in this regard because NO FOMO on the Challenges or unlocks, NO customizable is off limits to a free player and it would keep people playing since they can now just take their time unlocking exactly what they want to look EXACTLY HOW they want… That is all people are asking for in the customization department, and I don’t think it’s too unreasonable an ask for things to be the way we are used to…

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It’s just pure greed tbh. Do they honestly think the game isn’t going to turn a profit? They’re charging $60 for a highly anticipated game. Campaign sales alone would generate more than enough revenue to keep the Multiplayer alive for free even without monetization. The current model is just pure predatory and greed. I don’t really like Fornite all that much but tbf Epic Games got it right there. Just copy that model.

They’re fortunate that this is Halo because without the name players wouldn’t stand for this.

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Where they dropped the ball is by not offering something substantial unlocked through gameplay in the campaign, or if they have they failed to advertise it properly. Or have a 20th An Event, where you put the free items into a Beta Pass of some kind.

I brought this up in another thread, but when you look at the monetization systems in say CoD, they are giving away things based on time played. It’s small stuff, an emblem here a 2xp token there. It’s nothing in terms of any real value most of the time, but it offsets the feeling of having to pay for everything. Note these free items are in addition to the free Battle Pass items and offered through the store.

They are also using a entirely new game as their FTP model. They still include the Full MP suite in the retail version. People feel that there is value there, because their purchase of the MP compliments the FTP version of the game. They also offer “Free” weekends to play just the MP, which helps players feel justified in spending more
time and cash on the titles. Here the FTP version replaces the MP, with no significant replacement.

I don’t know how you couldn’t see this as offering less value as your direct competition, and triggering your fan base, all in the hopes of additional monetization.

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