Are Microtransactions Getting Abused By Game Publishers?
You see? This is why we can't have nice things!

I am a big fan of the idea of microtransactions in video games, as well as episodic content. Or at least I was. I've got an episodic RPG design on the back-burner right now that I am building up to. Ninjabee's Outpost Kaloki X for the XBox 360 had great success releasing expansions (both free and paid for via microtransactions) that were actually, completely, 100% honest-to-goodness bonus materials. Brand new campaigns. Stuff like that.

I had visions of new dungeons or mini-adventures half the size of Bioware's "Premium Modules" for Neverwinter Nights being made available for two or three bucks. Spend $2 and get a brand new track for a racing game. That kind of thing. Cheap bonus content! More game for less money! Great benefit to the gamer! Right?

Now that companies are actually USING microtransactions now, the reality is... not so golden. Techdirt has an article entitled, "If EA Made a Shooter, Would They Charge You $1 Per Bullet?" It is, unfortunately, ringing too true.

Horses, Guns, and Paying More For What You Used To Get For Free
Too many publishers (you know who they are) are treating it as scam to make people pay more for a game than the already hefty price tag. Releasing a game for MORE MONEY, packed with.... um, LESS content than earlier games in the series, and then making the players pay yet more money to acquire a full game piecemeal?

And with new games (where players cannot look at previous editions or similar games to see how much they are being screwed), there are some similarly questionable decisions that feel like more of a money grab than actual added value.

Take paying a buck and a quarter for an extra gun. Like the horse-armor thing for Oblivion, that sounds a little pricey for something that doesn't actually extend one's enjoyment of the game. Sure, that's being done in MMORPGs, and maybe they are jealous about how the MMO's are getting all the action. The difference is that MMOs are social games, and those items serve more of a social function than an actual gameplay function. But that's besides the point.

But it feels like it's something that should be integral to the core game. I mean, is the core game balanced WITHOUT the presence of the gun (or horse armor)? If so, does the gun screw up the balance? Ah, but not... you are not actually paying for the gun with your buck-twenty-five. You are paying for the OPPORTUNITY to acquire the gun in-game... to actually USE the gun you have paid for with REAL MONEY, you have to get to an advanced stage of the game (gee, the gun WOULD have been handy to getcha there, wouldn't it?).

Or - get this - you could actually pay real money for in-game currency to acquire the gun earlier. Effectively, a cheat code to get more cash. The real clincher is that you could get the extra in-game currency via a cheat code in the PC version of the game, which was disabled on the XBox 360 version. Think about that for a second...

They are charging you extra to access a cheat code.

(Sorry, my friends up at the-company-formerly-known-as-Headgate. I'm ripping on your game, I think. But you gotta admit, it's cheesey.)

Giving Microtransactions a Bad Name
What's worse - since microtransactions are a such a new thing, the consumer ill-will they are garnering with these dirty tricks are poisoning the whole concept. Microtransactions are getting a bad name. It's going to get to the point where ANYTHING that has to be paid for with microtransactions - even true bonus content - is going to gain the suspicious smell of something that should have been in the original game all along.

The other thing about microtransactions is that they can be tied to an individual customer, rather than a disc which can be pirated or *gasp* sold used when you are no longer interested in the game. This drops the value of resale, but increases the perception that what we're buying off the shelf is only half a game.

Where Does It End?
The excuse is, of course, that the next-generation games are more expensive to develop, so they trying to "figure out some way to defer and recoup those costs." This is eighteen months after bragging about how expensive the new games would be and how that would be a barrier to entry for anyone without their deep pockets. This kinda smacks of having your cake and eating it too, anticipating the consumers to foot the bill.

Now, unless we gamers suddenly get new jobs that double our game budget, the practical result is that we spend more money on fewer games. This means that the gulf between the blockbuster games and the games that LOSE money becomes ever wider and deeper.

And what does that mean, to a developer and publisher? It means you'd better spend even MORE money on your game to make sure it's one of the winners. The ante keeps going up.

Thus development budgets continue to skyrocket, and that cost gets passed along to the consumer. Since the gaming market isn't growing at nearly the rate of the development costs, this means we're going to have to pay more and more for each game. Microtransactions allow publishers to put us on a hidden installment plan.

I'm not feeling like much of a fan, now.


(Vaguely) Related Ranting
* How to FUBAR an MMO Launch
* Alternatives to Front-Loading Game Sales
* Indies Squeezed Out of XBLA?
* No E3 For Me!

Labels: Biz, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:36 PM (Permalink)