Microtransactions

Nester · Dec 5, 2013

After reading the Xbone V Swaystation thread, i figured Microtransactions could use its on bitchfest/rationalization thread. Feel free to talk about DLC as well.

Tells us how you feel about MT in the following situations!

- in FTP games
- in cheap games ($20 ish)
- full Price ($60 !!)

Do you buy them?
If so WHY do you buy them? Vanity? Keep up with the Jones?
Do you HATE them but buy them anyway to try and keep up?

What microtransactions have you purchased online for your gaming fix? Do you think it was money well spent? Do you have the regrets?

For me, MT pisses me right off, i really dislike the current trending in games. I have actively avoided any MT up until a few months ago. Now that i have caved i feel the slippery slope trying to draw me in.

So far i have only paid for MTs in 3 games.

on my Ipad i purchased a few extra characters for Kingdom rush and Kingdom Rush Frontiers. Both F2P I think i spent $15 across both games.

Then i found Marvel Heroes. Its a very fun F2P D3 clone with all your favorite characters, unfortunately you only start with 1 of 4 options and can SLOWLY earn more in game, some costumes you can only get with MT. I really like the game and would have been happy to pay $60 on release as i did with D3 (bleh) i dropped $60 in MT money to buy some bank slots, chars i loved and some fun costumes. I rationalized it as a purchase price of a game i have played way more than some of the boxes on my self. I got suckered into a few lotto type items (random chance at XYZ) I blew thorough my $60 quicker than anticipated. then i dropped $20 then $20 more. Now i am out again but after spending $100 already i am really trying to stop myself from going any deeper down the rabbit hole. This game as a $199 option to buy a super pack of chars, i laughed my ass off when i saw it saying "who would actually buy that" now being halfway into that price point i find myself with much less value than half the super pack. Its funny, my wife said "if your going to buy stuff you should just get that superpack and be done with it" which i responded "no way i would spend anymore on this game" but here i am well on my way.

What have you bought? Do you regret it? does it make you hate yourself? Please lets try not to judge others who spent mad cash on games, we are all gamers here lets get some real stories and thoughts.

an accordion_sl · Dec 5, 2013

Games that are designed with such slow currency acquirement that microtransactions are necessary should not exist. Gameplay changing gear/items/characters/etc through microtransactions at launch should not exist. Anything else is fine really.

Joeboo · Dec 5, 2013

I'm varying degrees of ok with it

- in FTP games - do whatever you want to make money, sell all sorts of crazy shit if you want. The game's free. I'm not out anything if I try it and don't like how it's set up.
- in cheap games ($20 ish) - I'm ok with some microtransactions, mostly just convenience stuff, nothing that drastically unbalances gameplay(larger inventories, etc)
- full Price ($60 !!) - I'm ok as long as it's just retarded vanity stuff, like new outfits for your character or glow effects for your sword. nothing that actually changes gameplay whatsoever. I want 100% of the gameplay experience available for $60.

Gaige · Dec 5, 2013

RMT doesn't bother me as long as it's not required to progress. Options are options.

Needless · Dec 5, 2013

Like Gaige said, so long as it doesn't hinder actual progress.
I like the options for shit like costumes and vanity stuff

It only pisses me off really, when a company releases a game pre-maturely, resulting in them releasing their originally planned content as DLC packs

Commander Vimeseh_sl · Dec 5, 2013

Same as most have already said in regards to micro transactions. As long as I can play the game and make equal progress without needing to spend cash then I'm fine with whatever vanity items the company wants to overprice.

I hate DLC with a passion though. I prefer the old way where good games just got expansions that were basically a whole second game for either the same cost or slightly less and they obviously weren't day one money grabs. Now you have companies cutting every penny they can out of you with day one dlc, individual quest line dlc, and then genuine expansions on top of the one to ten dollar shit they already tried to hit you with. The biggest issue is we aren't just talking about cosmetic things like oblivion's horse armor, but actual story related quest arcs that impact game play like the day 1 companion dlc for ME3. Give me Throne of Bhall or D2: Lord of Destruction any day over shit like that.

Nester · Dec 5, 2013

So have you guys bought anything? If so what was it ? in retrospect do you feel it was good money spent? (as opposed to another $60 box you pay for 2 hours before realizing its shit)

Adebisi · Dec 5, 2013

PvZ 2 is my most recent microtransaction game disappointment. Big surprise since EA owns the title now.

You now have to pay for a bunch of plants that used to come with the game, and were somewhat awesome to have. The other shit is that the PvZ store has an option to buy $100 worth of game currency. That's one hundred real life dollars they want someone to spend on a PopCap game.

Greed, motherfuckers. That's what microtransactions are about. When I pay money for a game, I want to know I'm getting the entire game.

Szlia · Dec 5, 2013

I am not opposed to alternative business models that allow a broader range of video game to exist, but I am opposed to microtransactions. Two reasons for that: 1) It is fundamentally dishonest as it is exploiting the fact people are more likely to spend 5 times $5 than one time $20. 2) The expertise of the game designer is suddenly no longer used to maximize the quality of the experience for the player; it is used instead to maximize his willingness to spend money over and over again.

spronk · Dec 5, 2013

i fucking hate all RMT all DLCs and all that shit, if I pay $x for a game I expect to play everything without spending another penny. The only exception I suppose is f2p MMOs, as long as its cheap to buy and $0 monthly then I would be ok with $$ for xpacs every 6-18 months to support dev efforts, but fuck this bullshit with buy bags, skills, classes, level caps, vanity items, blah blah blah - you should earn all that stuff in game, not in a store.

steam sales have broken my trust/fanboism of developers, I rarely play games on launch anymore. Every PC game goes 50-75% sale within six months. In many ways DLCs have fucked things up too, why play the game at launch when a year later there will be a GOTY version with all DLCs and bugfixes at 75% price. For console games, it'll pretty much have to be a real killer exclusive for me to buy it outside of a sale, I doubt I'll see more than 10 of those during the PS4 lifecycle. Heck, even console games have really good deals nowadays like the b2g1 free ps4 launch games.

the only exceptions are MMOs (dead genre) and FPS, of which really I only play the battlefield series. Although next year should be good with Destiny, Titanfall, and Division. Hopefully no goddamn microTX in those.

Gaige · Dec 5, 2013

Nester_sl said:
So have you guys bought anything? If so what was it ? in retrospect do you feel it was good money spent? (as opposed to another $60 box you pay for 2 hours before realizing its shit)

I bought Killer Instinct Ultra edition and a few VC packs for my NBA 2k14 Myplayer. I think that's it on Xbox One. I bought a few vanity items off the SC store in the very beginning but then it was so easy to trade plat for SC I stopped doing that. I can't think of anything on 360.

Sean_sl · Dec 5, 2013

Relevant:Fee-to-Pay and the Death of Dignity

Commander Vimeseh_sl · Dec 5, 2013

Nester_sl said:
So have you guys bought anything? If so what was it ? in retrospect do you feel it was good money spent? (as opposed to another $60 box you pay for 2 hours before realizing its shit)

League of Legends is my main go to game, so yah I have plunked down whats probably an absurd amount of cash for the vanity skins they sell. At least in the five hundred dollar range, if not more. I tend to wait and buy GOTY or complete packs for box price games so that I can get everything at once and pay less then the release price for the base game plus whatever dlc.

Gaige · Dec 5, 2013

Sean bitching about microtransactions makes me laugh because he always buys the limited super ultra rare collector's edition of everything. Which is basically RMT.

Zhaun_sl · Dec 5, 2013

I've dropped a bunch on Marvel Heroes, over $100 I think. But I have near 300 hours /played so it doesn't bug me.

As long as I am enjoying a game and getting 1-2 hours of enjoyment for every $1 invested, I'm fine with the costs. In fact I find myself liking F2P games with cash for extras, as I get to play and see if I like it before investing, instead of dropping $60 and rolling the dice.

jooka · Dec 5, 2013

I think overall it is a bad idea. Overtime as this slowly but surely becomes a norm(already is really, just going to get worse), it will also become the norm to power rush a game. If you end up with friends wanting to do this while you do not, you get left behind. At this point you definitely need new friends but still left behind looking for new friends.

jooka · Dec 5, 2013

Gaige_sl said:
Sean bitching about microtransactions makes me laugh because he always buys the limited super ultra rare collector's edition of everything. Which is basically RMT.

I would think being a collector and a dumb ass looking for the easy way out(in for you, pedo) would be something you could grasp.

Quineloe · Dec 5, 2013

On Track to the Medium Tank 121: Premium Shop Bundles | Premium Shop | World of Tanks

stop calling them "micro"transactions.

turbo · Dec 5, 2013

I have always hated the concept myself but I can see why companies are gravitating towards it. I forced myself to retire from MMO's a few months back and wanted something that still had some level of competition and long term draw so I tried a new genre that I've never touched. I got Might and Magic Duel of Champions. I make a pretty damn solid living and am frugle to boot in many areas so I've never been concerned with my game hobby costs as long as it provides a good mental break from the job. I figured if I was going to play I wanted to jump right into it so I dropped $100 dollars on cards which was abit stupid because I hadn't quite understood the meta game or what key cards etc I should be going for. I spent another $50 dollars over thanksgiving on it getting much more value out of that.

The only reason I don't feel bad doing it is that I am usually competitive in about anything I do so I wanted to skip the low ranks and get into the higher challenges as fast as possible so I basically was just buying a quicker path to get caught up with the vets of the game.

Still I agree that it really just drives too many bad behaviors from the game companies and its only going to get worse. Oh I lied, I did spend some money on Cross Edge which was one of the more enjoyable games I've ever played. Ultimately it felt abit like cheating but once you got towards the end of the true ending that shit was just down right brutal if you didn't have some juice.

The area I think COULD be beneficial that is usually failed upon miserably is the extra content. Take a NIS game that you sink 100's of hours into and after completely beating it you have that sad feeling that there is nothing to do. I love the idea that they could go add a new boss or challenge to allow you to make use of all your hard work for abit more. Unfortunately games usually put extra content as a stupid side story etc instead of extending the high end content of the game which boggles my mind. I don't want to go play lvl 10 mob stories when I have beat the game. Give me super hard bad ass challenge dear god.

Neki · Dec 5, 2013

Path of Exile is an example of a FTP game with micro transactions done right

Microtransactions

Vyemm Raider

shitlord

Molten Core Raider

Legal Ephebophile

Toe Sucker

shitlord

Vyemm Raider

Clump of Cells

Member

FPS noob

Legal Ephebophile

shitlord

shitlord

Legal Ephebophile

shitlord

marco esquandolas

marco esquandolas

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Molten Core Raider

Molten Core Raider