Why cant microtransactions ACTUALLY be “micro”?

Games Halo Infinite
#1

Rant time. TLDR: Store prices are absurd across the board. They rely on a few ‘whales’ to spend all their money, why not rely on the whole playerbase to spend a tiny bit of their money each. Anyone asking for more overpriced items is pathetic, and using the argument “its just cosmetics, who cares,” is baseless and shameful because they are another layer of the game and they were at one point included in full releases of every game.

Seriously why is this the current market trend? These multibillion dollar companies place a store in their game with obscenely over priced items hoping to find those few whales to come along and drop as much money as they can on impulse buys.

Could you imagine how much more lucrative it would be if they sold full armor sets for $1?? That’s a price tag that I’m sure 80% of Halo fans (or any game fan) could get behind. Then over time, instead of the game relying on those few suckers who shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for their worthless cosmetics, the companies could profit off of their whole playerbase spending reasonable amounts of money on their still worthless, but understandably priced items.

Seriously, theres nothing more pathetic to me than watching someone beg a company to put more overpriced, objectively worthless items in the game sold at a 10000% premium. Especially when 10 years ago, all of this stuff was included as a part of the game. Another layer of the game that incentivizes continuation of play in order to unlock. But i realize that the store is probably never leaving, so at least make it so that the objectively worthless cosmetics that are being sold are priced low enough to justify a purchase for most everybody who is playing the game.

And whatever argument you have about the value cosmetics being a subjective thing are wrong. Mainly because it costs these companies almost nothing to create these cosmetics items, they cant be exchanged for anything else, and they are only present in this iteration of ‘Halo.’ They are worth nothing.

24 Likes
#2

Agree 100%
If an armor set would cost only 1 Euro i would buy most of them.

8 Likes
#3

agreed

this usually results in less overall profit

because it makes a lot of money this way. Trust me I hate it.

they would probably make less in total, but would have a happier player/fan base. I would spend $1 for an armor set. I would probably even buy a bundle that had only one thing in it I wanted if it was $1.

nods vigorously

They do take time to make so that does cost them some time and money. Surely not enough to justify the cost though.

5 Likes
#4

I visited the store for the first time a couple of days ago… after 1600 games. And I was absolutely devastated by a) what I could buy and how much it would cost. I thought about getting a cool skin for tge BR. Well… nothing was available… it was available in season 1. And price wise, 2-3 € for a weapon skin would be nice, but paying more for it just because it’s in a bundle I don’t need? nah. So I closed the store and went back to playing with my default stuff. :slight_smile:

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#5

Because too many fanboys support it

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#6

Microsoft has been very close to becoming a 3 trillion-dollar company, did they really need to use their flagship game to nickel and dime people this way, or is the greed machine unstoppable now?

1 Like
#7

people who activally defend 343/microsoft allow all this… -v-

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#8

I’d buy the Eaglestrike helmet in the store now, and I would have bought the Mister Chief AI if I could have bought those two things, and only those two things.

2 Likes
#9

I would buy it too if it wasnt as expensive as it is

#10

They replaced completing challenges or gaining XP as a means of unlockables with very limited-time windowed purchases or event-less events.

1 Like
#11

While I agree, I don’t think the prices are that bad atm. My problem is that the items I like are bundled with items I don’t like. If we could buy everything separate I’d be happy.

$2 - Helmets & Chest pieces
$0.50 - Emblems, Weapon Skins, Weapon Charms & Weapon/Vehicle Attachments.
$1 - Everything else.

This gives us about the same pricing as the current bundles but you can buy what you want.

1 Like
#12

On top of the store, there should be more free unlocks that are either skill-based or time-based.

Things like ‘earn 100 mythic medals’ or ’ kill 10000 Spartans with headshots’ or even ‘complete the campaign on legendary’

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#13

To be fair I defend 343 for their game design, but I will rip them apart for Microtransactions.

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#14

The thing about what you said actually happens. I would actually like to know the percentage of players that do have that problem.

Personally, don’t care to spend any money on the worthless items especially knowing you can’t do anything with them outside of Halo. The one thing that annoys me the most about the shop in Infinite is how much has been removed from what we used to have in previous titles, and placed in the shop. Bungie did this that ruined the sense of value certain cosmetics gave acquiring them through simply playing the game. They placed them in the shop instead of using the vender or activities which they were originally placed so they could sell them.

Imo, shops are not being used as their intended purpose and have ruined gaming.

1 Like
#15

It makes them a lot of money. Sad isn’t it?

Making a good game for the fans isn’t important anymore like in the old days.

3 Likes
#16

So you think its reasonable to charge 15% of the cost of an entire effing game for a costume that you can only wear and hardly ever even see in this one single game?

I’m gonna keep saying it: these things that they are selling are not expensive to make. The only reason they get away with charging as much as they do is because of sentiments like yours. The only reason they dropped store prices to begin with was probably because they werent making as much money as they hoped they would, not to ‘show appreciation for the fans’ feedback.’ As long as people keep shelling out unreasonable amounts of money, they will keep charging unreasonable amounts of money, and the effect of this is that people will gradually become more apathetic to it. Just like you demonstrated with that thought. Hell, some games go so far as to charge 40 FREAKING DOLLARS for skins just because they can. You dont think 343 would do the same thing if enough of the players were numb to that?

6 Likes
#17

If 343 wanted to do any charging, they should’ve done it with the campaign and multiplayer packages. Not this drip feed crap.

God it feels like I’m playing vanilla destiny 2 all over again.

3 Likes
#18

The prices stay where they are because people buy things. I haven’t bought a single item outside of the S2 pass (which I got for $0.94 btw).

Like you said some games charge $40+ for a single skin. As it stands right now $12 gets you: a helmet, a helmet attachment, shoulders, a skin, a chest, and in some cases a utility or wrist attachment. That’s about $2 a piece which isn’t terrible, but it’s also not great.

#19

That wasnt my point. My point was that you said that the prices arent to bad where they are right now, and that is the sentiment that sends signals to 343 saying, “Hey, even if they arent buying the stuff, they dont care that we overcharge the crap out of it.” The playerbase ought to be putting more pressure on these game companies to stop this ridiculous practice, not shrug our shoulders and say, “well it could be worse.” And by doing so, you will also be helping your fellow Halo fans save tons of money that they otherwise would have unloaded on ridiculous impulse buys.

$2 for a single piece of armor is terrible. Yea its better than what it was before, but that doesnt mean its acceptable. If they charged $2 for the whole armor set, that would be “not terrible, but also not great.” In reality, ALL OF THIS STUFF SHOULD BE A PART OF THE GAME. But as ive already said, i know the store system is not going away, so they ought to, at the very least, throw us meager fans a bone and drop their prices to something that doesnt cost the same as the full game of Stardew Valley. Seriously, i could take the money i would have spent on a single Halo bundle and go buy a myriad of other FULL games instead. It **IS ** terrible.

Anyway, i understand where youre coming from, but what you gotta consider is that 343 has all the funding that they need to cover this game. They have no reason to charge what they do aside from expanding their profit margins. If this were an indie title, the conversation would be different. I sometimes shell out $50-$100 just on one small game company, especially if the game is well made and fan-friendly. None of that is the case for Infinite and 343, however. And the longer we just let them continue on the nefarious practices of the rest of the gaming empires that have propped up in the past decade, the more theyre going realize they can get away with ripping off their fans.

1 Like
#20

First they need to get rid of item rarity completely. It’s an artificial “value” to items that are literally no better or worse than one another.

Next the need to standardize prices on a per-item basis.

All helmets should cost the same amount as all other helmets etc.

Individual items should basically range between $0.50 for tiny stuff like helmet attachments, emblems, and coatings, to $2.00 for the big ticket items like Armor Effects.

Bundles should come in two forms:

1 - Coating/Emblem/Charm/Effect bundles. Coating bundles give you the same coating on every single coatable item. Every weapon, every vehicle, every armor core. Effect bundles give you matching effects for every effect-able item. Right now that’s Armor, Animations, and Kill effects. In the future Vehicle effects should be added and also included in these bundles. Emblem and charm bundles do the same, but feature a collection of thematically similar emblems/charms. Charms should also become attachable to vehicles and somewhere on your armor.

2 - Armor/Weapon/Vehicle set bundles, which give you one piece for every customizable slot in the allocated set. Armor for example, gets a Helmet, Attachment, Chest, Shoulders, Utility, Hand, and Wrist attachment. Weapons should be more modularly customizable, the AR for example should be able to customize the barrel, sight, and stock based on the three parts that model sections currently can go. And a bundle would feature one item for each of these parts. Vehicles should act the same way.

Bundles should also behave like a flat discount. All bundles should be discounted the same % of cost in comparison to each item individually. So a bundle is equal to the sum price of every item within it -%25 for example.

All of these items should be available to purchase individually from the armory at all times. While the shop can continue to sell bundles. So if you want to wait and get more bang for your buck, you can grab the bundle when it rotates in. Or if you really just want that helmet or coating for this one thing right now, you can buy it with the prior knowledge it is technically cheaper to get items in bundles.

Bundles should also discount based on the weighted amount any items you already own counted towards that bundle. Let’s say the armor bundle works to about a 25% discount as mentioned above. And helmets cost $2 individually. If you already own a helmet that’s in the bundle, the bundle would be about $1.50 cheaper than usual. You still spent more money because you bought it individually, but that was your conscious decision to make.

3 Likes