And food is a necessity for survival. People are willing to pay a price for food because they continue to live when they consume it. It is not comparable to video games. Video games are entertainment, and there are thousands of alternatives ranging from board games, books, music, television, movies and far, far more.
This already is happening with Certain Affinity, but only because Certain Affinity has a proven track record from working on Halo. This is not the same as having Jim-Bob down the street work on content for these games. There is a reason that Forge content rarely ever makes its way to the official matchmaking pool - itâs because the vast majority of it sucks.
And Bethesda does this with Creation Club. Outside of PlayStation, Creation Club is the worse alternative to existing free âthingsâ
My guy, that is not the reason armor in Infinite costs an arm and a leg. It costs $12-$15 because they realized thatâs what people are willing to pay for it. It used to cost $20, and it used to come with the purchase of a $60 game all the way from Halo 3-5. Reach had probably the most extensive armor customization in the franchise, and the only added buys were for Map Packs that were not related to the armor customization in any way. And those came out after the armor was already added.
Even if members of the community stated submitting new armor pieces, I can guarantee you that the price would not go down. Assuming that 343 doesnât have to pay a percentage of sales (like how Team Fortress 2 does this, and Valve still assigns the weapons stats) to the content creator, 343 still has the capability to charge whatever they like for it. Microtransactions are the business of pushing how much something costs until you hit peopleâs breaking points. 343 discovered that cost was $12-$15, instead of the $20 they tried in the first place.
Youâre also acting as if the in-house modelers and content creators for armor are paid on commission - theyâre salaried. They donât get any additional money from each of the grossly overpriced armor sets that are sold to the whales. They get a set, agreed upon wage and thatâs it. This is why 343 can put the price at whatever they want, and the price fluctuates so randomly.
This works - up until weâre asked to pay for it. Map Packs died as an idea because people stopped paying for them. The playerbase shifted off of the new maps and back onto the ones that everyone could play. This same situation would happen if they introduced microtransactions for maps, because it then creates a series of walled gardens that splits the playerbase, and this already small playerbase does not need to be split further.
Free content is going to get people to play the supposedly free to play Halo Infinite. Asking people to purchase things to access core gameplay features does not and will not work, least of all for a game with a floundering playerbase.
