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Miicrotransactions and Modding
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Banshee
Supreme Banshee


Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Location: Brazil

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 4:13 am    Post subject:  Miicrotransactions and Modding
Subject description: Microtransactions isn't a news. It is a tendency and it needs attention.
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Today's news is not a news post. It is a reflection about the microtransaction game business model. A tough one, maybe. But it certainly needs your attention, since many of the games you'll play will be affected by this business model, specially the upcoming Command & Conquer.

My motivation to post this news right now is just by seeing a new videogame being announced where the manufacturer, who is not satisfied by simply selling games with the extorsive prices for a box with a Blu-Ray disk and a piece of paper that no longer explains the game, decides also to charge those who resell the game (that they've already sold) or simply charges for people to play games from a friend in their console. Honestly, this manufacturer has lost at least one client. Yours trully.

What does it have to do with games with microtransactions? Perhaps, more than you think. Morals, principles and objectives. The modding part of the post will come near the end. Let's focus first on the microtransactions system.

The main objective from any decent game development company is to gain money, since the creation of the first game development company. Those people do not work for free and this is quite acceptable. As any human being, they expect reward for their efforts and they have families, need food, confort, etc. So, of course, the main objective is always money. We, customers, buy games to have fun. So, create a fun game and we'll retribute with money, right? The problem is when the objective to get money starts to ofuscate the focus on creating fun games that actually provides pleasure for its users.


Overview on Microtransaction Business Model

The microtransactions business model is a system where the revenue comes mostly from downloadable content sold in game. Most of this downloadable content are items to develop your character(s) or maps to extend the replayability of the game. In order to motivate users to keep playing the game, this system relies on stats raising.  

In the next paragraphs, we'll enumarate some of the common features from games with microtransactions, based on my personal experience with at least two of them: Asphalt 7 and Fire Emblem: Awakening. Both games were released in the last year, so they should be quite recent. Taken into account that the old school games that I have in my mind when I do comparisons are not focused on stats raising. Anyway, here we go:


1) Your main objective is to raise all stats from your character(s)

In old school games, you had to complete campaigns, reach the end of the story, beat all challenges or beat your friends. Microtransaction games still have these objectives, but there is one additional one that is crucial for the game: raising stats of your units, characters, cars or whatever you can raise. It's mpressive how changing a couple of variables in your game can be so much proffitable. It solely explores the anxiety of the users rather than fun. While it is fun to see progress on your assets by obtaining experience, the way to achieve it is not necessarily that fun.

You usually have two ways to gain experience. The cheapest one (usually doesn't cost a cent), you accumulate ingame funds by beating the same scenario multiples times or stuff like that. Each time, it gives you a ridiculous amount of ingame funds, which forces you to spend a lot of time to upgrade your stats. The second way is to use real money to buy these ingame credits or by buying access to maps/scenarios that will make your ingame funds to be collected in a much faster pace. The cheapest mode lead us to the second point.

If you follow our samples, Asphalt 7 has zillions of cars to be upgrade. It allows you to purchase ingame credits with real money, while you need to beat the same track 4 to 6 times to accumulate 1 million credits, which allows a couple of upgrades in the car, but it's not enough to fully upgrade one of the cars. Fire Emblem: Awakening has multiples characters that join your army in game. Most of them are totally useless. The game allows you to collect funds by beating an army of Risens in a map that you've already played. Risens appears in the map in a period of 6 to 12 hours of your real world time. You can also recruit them to the map by buying and using an item called Reeking Box. The amount you gain by beating the summoned risen is usually 2 to 4 times ($2000 to $4000) to cost of calling them ($1000) to the map and it's hardly enough to buy a decent weapon. Nintendo has offered paid DLCs packages such as Golden Pack, which has one map where you grab about $80000 credits in one shot, another that raises the experience quickly and the third one that gives you a silver card that makes every item two times cheaper. And you can play these maps whenever you want without buying Reeking boxes.



2) The game gets repetitive and the non-paying user gets penalized for not paying for the game.

If the objective of the game is to be fun for the customer, penalyzing it does not sound like a good deal, right? Microtransaction games does not work that way. The amount of scenarios and objectives in a game like that is usually low to the demands of the player. The reward obtained by beating these scenarios are minimal compared to the amount of money required to upgrade all stats. It makes the replayability of the game long, however, repetitive. The user will eventually repeat the same scenarios many times to collect ingame funds, even if the developper releases DLCs to change the experience a bit. This repetition penalizes the fun factor of the game, but it can be avoided by users who pay. Time is money is a sentence taken deeply in this business model.



3) If you pay the developper, you can cheat.

I miss the old school games and the efforts from their developpers to avoid cheating in any way. Of course, they've ended failing on every game as they still do with many micromanagement games, specially with PC games. However, microtransaction games are all about cheating. Afterall, that's the main source of money from developpers. The payment to gain experience/funds faster, access to scenarios with  hordes of money to collect, experience to gain and items that makes shops cheaper for you is all about cheating: giving you a considerable advantage over other players. It affects in game ballance and even multiplayer games.



4) Multiplayer is completely umballanced. It might only be fun for those with high stats.

Remember the old school games where designers tried inumerous formulas to make units, factions, etc ballanced? Forget it in microtransaction games. As you advance with your stats, you'll become much more powerful than anyone who has just started to play the game, unless the novice player has paid a lot of money to the devs.

My first experience of playing Asphalt 7 online might have been similar to many other people. It doesn't matter how many nitros I've used in my car or my driving skills, I simply couldn't reach the first place, because I've played against someone who had a much better car, with much better stats than I did.  This kind of match is not fun at all. I'm also sure that if a friend of mine challenges my Fire Emblem: Awakening army, I'll beat his whole army using a single unit. My Chrom (main character of the game) is invincible as he reached the stats cap on everything except magic.



5) Microtransactions are not regulated on most countries. It allows abusive attitudes from developpers or may avoid payment of taxes on several countries.

Microtransactions is something new to the laws from many countries or simply inexistent. What kind of taxes a user from Brazil (or insert a random country here) would pay to their govern or to the govern/state/city from the developper? If I go to a physical store in the United States, I pay a state tax for every product that I buy there. In Florida, I pay 6.5%, in New York it is 8.75%, etc. If I buy the same product in the online version of the same store, I do not pay this state tax. And what if I buy an item in a game? Where is the server that is hosting this game? Is it really in the United States? The server could be located in another country and the transaction could also send money to an account that the developper has in another country.

The problem is that, by not contributing with taxes for their country, they just collect money instead of contributing for a better quality of life for those who live near the developper. This money will only serve the interests of a minority that only thinks about their own pockets and help to provide unemployment in their area, which will be interesting for them, since they'll be able to exploit more their own staff with worse working conditions.

Paying taxes is boring, but bear in mind that you live in a society. You live with a group of people. The quality of life from this society that you live will certainly reflect in the quality of your life.

In an unrelated note, the ability to set prices for items in an exclusive market (with no competitors or a 100% controlled competition) is that any kind of abuses can be done. Cartels provides unfair conditions for the customers and it is usually a crime in many countries. But in a virtual world, it seems to be legal, as there is no regulations of any kind about it.




Modding on Microtransaction Games:

With all those kind words on Microtransactions, what can I say about modding from these games? As you can see, it is not interesting at all. Modding changes the stats that are part of their business. This is the main reason why you won't be able to legally modify these games. Developpers will do any effort to prevent modding under these conditions.



Conclusions

Microtransactions games twist the morals and ethical principles by promoting cheating and deteriorating game ballance, among other things. It mostly relies on motivating the user to raise their unit/character stats. It provides means for people to raise them faster by paying real money or penalizing users with repetitive actions.

Regardless of the harsh words on microtransaction games, these games can be fun and consume a lot of your time. Of course that a good design helps and I believe that the companies are still learning how to make this business model more fun.... although their main focus is always to make it more profitable, of course.

However, there will be no modding for these games, unless they switch to another business model.

Last edited by Banshee on Wed May 22, 2013 9:53 pm; edited 3 times in total

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Banshee
Supreme Banshee


Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Location: Brazil

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 4:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread


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Renegade
Cyborg Artillery


Joined: 21 May 2006
Location: Hamburg, Germany

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 3:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

First things first: You slipped up in one of the last paragraphs:
Banshee wrote:
Micromanagement games twist the morals and ethical principles by promoting cheating and deteriorating game ballance, among other things.

I'm rather sure that should be "microtransaction games".

As for the post itself, you pretty much lost me as soon as it became obvious how hopelessly biased, purposely negative and straw man-esque this post would be.

Microtransactions are not a gaming style. To blame microtransactions for greedy game publishers is like blaming telephone companies for telemarketers.
If you have an issue with a game designer designing a game for the purpose of milking as much money as possible out of you and forcing you to pay money to even have a chance to win, criticize his game design decisions - don't blame his payment choices.
Picking a random example from your post:
Banshee wrote:
Remember the old school games where designers tried inumerous formulas to make units, factions, etc ballanced? Forget it in microtransaction games. As you advance with your stats, you'll become much more powerful than anyone who has just started to play the game, unless the novice player has paid a lot of money to the devs.

How is that any different from any non-microtransaction MMO?
Seriously?
If I started playing World of Warcraft today, would my newborn character be equal to those with 10000 hours play time, because the game doesn't have microtransactions?
Bullshit.
Maintaining the balance of a game that's running for months and years on end is a game design job. If there is no way for the newb to compete, that's shitty game design, nothing more. It doesn't matter if there's payment or not, and if it's in micro- or macrotransactions: If a player doesn't have a chance by default, that's shitty game design.

Ironically, you failed to see that, in fact, microtransactions can serve as a savior here: Because, rather than getting beat up and leaving frustratedly, thinking "I'll never be able to compete with these guys!", the newb can dust himself off and go "ztype that douche, Ima buy a rocket launcher!". And BAM fun and competition for the newb restored - because suddenly, he can compete, despite the fact that he's three years late to the party.

In addition, you fail to see another important distinction or development between the "old school games" and current ones: Continuity.
A game like the original C&C tried to make money off of you once because the game was all the studio had to sell, and all it had to produce. Once the original C&C went gold, that was it. The product was done.
Compare that with the next C&C: Once it's released, they'll have to maintain and pay for countless servers and a continuous flow of new content to keep people entertained for years. It's an entirely different cost and development scenario that -surprise!- needs a different way of financing.
Are you seriously going to imply that World of Warcraft could have been financed the exact same way as Warcraft II? By just selling the game once, for a one-time-fee?


You are mixing multiple distinct topics:

  • Free to play vs. up front payment
  • additional content obtainable via microtransactions
  • "pay to win"-design
  • bad game design in general

Yes, these topics can all apply to the same games, and yes, if done poorly, dealing with one of them can "cause" the others: If I want to make my game free up front, I need to finance it later, which can make me want to incorporate microtransactions, which can lead to bad game design, if I try to force people to pay by making it impossible to win without doing so.

But the fact that a chain like that is possible doesn't magically turn one transaction type into an evil destroyer of games.

Ask yourself this: If World of Warcraft had sucky game design...would you blame subscriptions for that? Would you sit here saying "the only reason World of Warcraft makes it hard to level up is because they want it to take longer, so I stay subscribed longer"?
...or would you just conclude that WoW is a shitty game, and not worth your money?

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Banshee
Supreme Banshee


Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Location: Brazil

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

@Renegade: Fixed the bug that you mentioned at the end of the text.


Quote:
Microtransactions are not a gaming style.


I didn't say that it was a gaming style. Microtransactions is a game business model that directly affects how games are designed.


Quote:
How is that any different from any non-microtransaction MMO?
Seriously?
If I started playing World of Warcraft today, would my newborn character be equal to those with 10000 hours play time, because the game doesn't have microtransactions?
Bullshit.


You are right about the MMO situation, since it's a common problem from games that whose focus is to raise stats. But when I wrote about it, I was thinking about strategy games or razing games, which didn't had this kind of issue.

Quote:
Ironically, you failed to see that, in fact, microtransactions can serve as a savior here: Because, rather than getting beat up and leaving frustratedly, thinking "I'll never be able to compete with these guys!", the newb can dust himself off and go "ztype that douche, Ima buy a rocket launcher!". And BAM fun and competition for the newb restored - because suddenly, he can compete, despite the fact that he's three years late to the party.


My post did not failed to see that idea. I've just didn't express that matter in a positive way. I don't think it is a fun way to the user to get a ballanced game.

Banshee wrote:
Forget it in microtransaction games. As you advance with your stats, you'll become much more powerful than anyone who has just started to play the game, unless the novice player has paid a lot of money to the devs.


Renegade wrote:
In addition, you fail to see another important distinction or development between the "old school games" and current ones: Continuity.
A game like the original C&C tried to make money off of you once because the game was all the studio had to sell, and all it had to produce. Once the original C&C went gold, that was it. The product was done.
Compare that with the next C&C: Once it's released, they'll have to maintain and pay for countless servers and a continuous flow of new content to keep people entertained for years. It's an entirely different cost and development scenario that -surprise!- needs a different way of financing.


My post was using old school games as a reference, which is why I did not focus on this matter. Also, the old school model did not had restrictions on the continuity of a game, since developpers could release as many expansions as they desired. The second thing is that microtransactions business model does not necessarily guarantees continuity. If a game does not have enough clients and it does not generated revenue, it doesn't matter how much money you spent on its items, it will go down.

Quote:
Are you seriously going to imply that World of Warcraft could have been financed the exact same way as Warcraft II? By just selling the game once, for a one-time-fee?


I don't know. It depends on how game expansions were planned and their success. It could generate a lot of money for Blizzard, just like Starcraft 2 did. But I admit that the model they used gives them a better revenue.

Renegade wrote:
You are mixing multiple distinct topics:


   Free to play vs. up front payment
   additional content obtainable via microtransactions
   "pay to win"-design
   bad game design in general

Yes, these topics can all apply to the same games, and yes, if done poorly, dealing with one of them can "cause" the others: If I want to make my game free up front, I need to finance it later, which can make me want to incorporate microtransactions, which can lead to bad game design, if I try to force people to pay by making it impossible to win without doing so.

But the fact that a chain like that is possible doesn't magically turn one transaction type into an evil destroyer of games.


To be very honest, each of these topics are directly related to each other.

But calling them microtransaction games was not a bad choice of words for what I had in mind. They were designed to survive based on microtransactions and, in order to do it, they motivate players to raise stats.

There are games that are also based on raising stats and that may not have Microtransactions, but they weren't taken into consideration in my post. It was beyond my scope.



Quote:
Ask yourself this: If World of Warcraft had sucky game design...would you blame subscriptions for that? Would you sit here saying "the only reason World of Warcraft makes it hard to level up is because they want it to take longer, so I stay subscribed longer"?
...or would you just conclude that WoW is a shitty game, and not worth your money?


Considering the amount of money I've spent on it ($0), I'd be pretty sure that, for me, taking into account my point of view and the things I like and dislike: WOW is a shitty game. But I'm sure that a lot of people thinks differently than I do, which is why WOW is successfully comercially.

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Renegade
Cyborg Artillery


Joined: 21 May 2006
Location: Hamburg, Germany

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Banshee wrote:
There are games that are also based on raising stats and that may not have Microtransactions, but they weren't taken into consideration in my post. It was beyond my scope.

This is the problem, really. You are drawing general conclusions from a limited data set. It's like saying "I dislike walnut ice cream, therefore all ice cream tastes bad.".
You are deliberately not taking a representative sample, but focusing on two bad examples. Which is fine, on principle, but you then turn around and pretend that what you're describing is the inevitable use of microtransactions.

And that's just not the case.



Banshee wrote:
Quote:
Microtransactions are not a gaming style.


I didn't say that it was a gaming style. Microtransactions is a gaming business that directly affects how games are designed.

Yes, and that is the point: You are focusing on one particular, bad way of executing the incorporation of micropayments into games, and then generalize that example as if the incorporation of micropayments necessitates this exact way of implementation, thus linking the money grabbing attempt to a particular style of game.

I have no problem with you saying "this is what micropayments are, this is what they can lead to, this is what designers should do instead" -quite the opposite, that sounds like a reasonably edutaining blog post-, but what you're doing is the equivalent of saying "games including micropayments are all like this, and they're all bad". And that just doesn't follow. The presence of a particular method of payment does not automatically ruin the game's design.

Banshee wrote:
You are right about the MMO situation, since it's a common problem from games that whose focus is to raise stats. But when I wrote about it, I was thinking about strategy games or razing games, which didn't had this kind of issue.

Which is where the primary problems of the post stem from: Apples and oranges comparisons and improper generalizations.

You can't say "remember the good old games? this is what games look like today...", and then compare two entirely different kinds of games.

You can try to make the point that the old school games don't exist anymore, because of the new kind of games - but the fact that you mention the next C&C at the end kind of auto-negates that point.

As you said: Any kind of game which allows people to raise their stats over time inherently has the problem that new players' characters are vastly inferior to seasoned players'. And because that is the case for all games with this property, it is improper to pretend that this would be a "feature" specifically designed to entice players to buy upgrade via micropayments.
The way you should have argued is "game X solves this problem this way (e.g. not allowing people to attack characters with more than 20 levels less than them), but game Y relies solely on giving players the option to buy their way upwards, leaving new players who don't want to pay no chance, either as a cheap attempt to 'encourage' more investments, or as a very bad way to deal with the experience gap", thus acknowledging that the problem lies not in the micropayments themselves, but in the way they are used to solve or abuse problems that other (older?) games have solved in better (financially cheaper) ways.

Banshee wrote:
My post did not failed to see that idea. I've just didn't express that matter in a positive way. I don't think it is a fun way to the user to get a ballanced game.

Conversely, a different player might not see the fun in killing rats for the next 300 hours of gameplay just to earn enough experience to be able to compete with players who have been at it for years.
He may prefer shelling out a few bucks and start kicking ass after 30 minutes.
Because it's more fun than grinding.

Banshee wrote:
My post was using old school games as a reference, which is why I did not focus on this matter.

As I pointed out elsewhere, this is one of the primary problems of the post. Wink

Banshee wrote:
Also, the old school model did not had restrictions on the continuity of a game, since developpers could release as many expansions as they desired.

That's not the same. An expansion is just another one-off product, they have no obligation to continuously provide a service around it, and thus no ongoing costs associated with it.
Therefore, they were not forced to find a way to secure a continuous flow of income.

Banshee wrote:
The second thing is that microtransactions business model does not necessarily guarantees continuity. If a game does not have enough clients and it does not generated revenue, it doesn't matter how much money you spent on its items, it will go down.

That is true, but irrelevant, for multiple reasons:

  • Since we are talking about microtransactions, even if you invested money into your character for three years, it is absolutely probable that, in sum, you payed less for those three years of gaming than you would have for a full-price standalone game - i.e. you still got a better deal.
  • Because one-off-payment games have already made all the money they could make, the publisher's motivation to continue associated services for free is very low. The fact that you paid for the game at some point does not guarantee the publisher won't turn off the online servers at some point. iow, the lack guarantees is universal, and no sign that microtransaction-backed games are automatically worse.
  • Moreso, even if you shelled out for a game once and don't rely on online services, you still don't have a guarantee the game will run continuously the way you want - think RA2/YR and LAN functionality on post-IPX Windows. Again: The fact that a game is "old school" does not magically add any guarantees over micropayment-backed games. But: The probability that a micropayment-backed game is properly updated when shit like that happens is far higher, because it's still continuously financed. If you were a publisher, and you had two broken games, which one would you fix? The old school game that's made all the money it's ever going to make, or the game which is making you money right now?


Banshee wrote:
I don't know. It depends on how game expansions were planned and their success. It could generate a lot of money for Blizzard, just like Starcraft 2 did. But I admit that the model they used gives them a better revenue.

We are talking about making enough money off of it to a) make a profit and b) have enough money saved beyond that profit to finance keeping a game with hundreds of thousands of players world wide running continuously for a decade, with thousands of concurrent players whose stored data keeps growing.

And remember: Players won't pay $2000 for a game.
You can't price the game high enough to have all costs covered for the next 10 years and assume anyone will buy it.
Profit or not, if you want to run something continuously, you need a continuous flow of income. So it's either subscriptions or trade with virtual goods.
The need for money is inevitable. The question is how to satisfy it.

Banshee wrote:
To be very honest, each of these topics are directly related to each other.

They are related, and they often appear together, but they do not necessitate each other.
I can have an F2P game financed by ads, for example.
I can have a game with micropayments for cosmetic changes and utility functions, which still leaves the player the option to achieve experience and victory for free. But if he wants his character to have a mohawk in the process, that'll be $0.10, please.
I can have a game where you can play up to the top level, explore almost the entire world and fight the end boss with all the might of the weapons you collected...but if you want to defeat that motherfucker, you'll need the Sword of Server Upkeep, which you can get in the Caves of Data. How to get there? Oh, that's easy, just become a premium member, for a one-time fee of $19.99...
And, of course, I can have a game which is absolutely free to play, no payment asked, ever...but just utterly sucks.

Just because some concepts often go together doesn't mean they necessitate each other. So to blame one concept for the effects of another (micropayments for bad game design) is fallacious.
If you dislike bad game design, complain about bad game design.
If you dislike bad game design because of micropayments, complain about bad game design because of micropayments.
But don't complain about micropayments because of bad game design. That doesn't follow.

Banshee wrote:
But calling them microtransaction games was not a bad choice of words for what I had in mind. They were designed to survive based on microtransactions and, in order to do it, they motivate players to raise stats.

No. Just no. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
In fact, the primary reason these games would motivate the players to raise their stats is not to encourage newbs to buy experience, but because it means they're not done yet.
As long as the highest level isn't reached and the last item isn't collected, the player hasn't finished the game. So he keeps playing.
Do you know what'd happen if there were no stats to raise? Players would create a character, walk around for a while, kill a few things, and once they've killed all there is to kill, they'd walk away, because there's nothing left to do. They've done all they can do with the character.
That is the reason for developable character stats, and that is the reason the highest level is raised with each WoW expansion - so the players aren't done, and keep playing.
You can criticize that on its own right, but you should really stop equalizing raisible stats with micropayment-baiting.
Raisible stats are essentially a role playing thing. A way for people to develop their characters.

I am pretty sure Dungeons & Dragons did not require micropayments in 1974.

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Banshee
Supreme Banshee


Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Location: Brazil

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 7:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

You are making one terrible and critical mistake in your responses, Renegade.

My objective in this topic was to talk about how microtransactions game business affects the design of games (and how modding would work on them, which, in this case, it doesn't).

Then you complain that I did not cover a bunch of games that are not made after this business (i.e.: World of Warcraft). Of course, it doesn't make any sense for me. The point is not to talk about games that are based on character development or raising stats.

Of course that, most microtransaction games (if not all, since I still have to find out a sample) relies mostly on games that are based on character development or raising stats.

I've used two samples, which I admit, is a very limited dataset. But I cannot talk about games that I have never played or seen in my life. And while Asphalt 7's design may be poor, I think that Fire Emblem: Awakening is a great game and Nintendo is a very respectful game developper. To be very honest, Fire Emblem: Awakening is my favourite game for Nintendo 3ds. It is fun, but it relies in the formula I've exposed above.

And other games based on Microtransaction formula, such as these Free to Play games from EA will certainly have these problems or have to deal with them. If you watch Brian Farina's interview after reading my original post in this topic, you'll see that a lot of elements that I've mentioned there will appear in the next Command & Conquer game. People are wondering how DLCs will work on the next C&C, but the answer is in my post. And I don't need to be a genious, play the beta of the game or get priviledged information of the project to know that.

You are correct when you said that I could have pointed out solutions for these problems, but some of them are there propositally.

And killing rats for the next 300 hours is a punishment for not paying for the game. It is not fun at all. Paying for the game is not fun either and I don't see it as an ideal solution.

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Volgin
Commander


Joined: 07 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 9:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Not all microtransaction or FTP games have these issues. Yes, Zynga or C&C might be, but World of Tanks ain't. The concept isn't bad, it's the developers.

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Banshee
Supreme Banshee


Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Location: Brazil

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 10:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Of course that a good design might reduce some of the issues, specially the umballanced multiplayer game.

World of Tanks seems to be a good example.

The penalties for not paying for the game in World of Tanks is lower than in most games.
http://worldoftanks.com/game/guide/en/payments_instruction/what-are-benefits-game-gold-within-world-tanks

Also, the advantage of a high stats unit is lower on World of Tanks, since upgrades will not fix all deficiencies of your unit.

However, all features that I've listed (at least the first 4) still seem to exist in that game.



Btw, I've slightly updated the first post to clarify some points about Microtransactions game business model. These changes were done only at the two first paragraphs from the Overview on Microtransaction Business Model.

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Volgin
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PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 11:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

1: WoT has no defined objective. There IS an endgame, but players are not forced to go there. The game punishes you if you just stick with the high-tier vehicles and don't play lower tier. The repair and ammunition costs for tier 10 tanks are astronomical, which keeps the queue filled on lower tiers.

2: Non F2P games get repetitive too. When does Tiberian Sun get different in multiplayer? It's the same game as it was in 1999. WoT introduces different mechanics as you go up in tiers. The importance of weak points, the strength of artillery, ecetera. You're very blindly saying that the game is the same out of the box as it is with six months of time in it.

3: For the most part not true. Most premium tanks are worse than their non pay to play win counterparts. (Sans one that is dubious, but got nerfed hard) The company has gotten rid of paying for expensive shells with higher penetration and pay to win consumables.

4: Bullshit. Plenty of non FTP games are unbalanced. There are overpowered lines in world of tanks, yes, but there are PLENTY of games where one side or unit is just better than others. CounterStrike? Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2? Come on, now.

5: About the only thing I'll agree on. Regulations need to kick in on developers with regards to that.

Why do we need modding for every game engine available? Some engines are shit for modding, some are excellent.

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Orac
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PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

TF2 gives you incentives to buy keys (by giving you a fuckton of locked chests), but if you don't buy stuff it doesn't penalise you.

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Banshee
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Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
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PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

1: WoT is still focused on upgrading your tank (character(s)) just like any other microtransaction game.

2: The matter with microtransaction games is not the repetition itself: it is the penalization for not paying the game, which results in repetition. WoT does have it, since gold members will upgrade their tanks 2 times faster. There are many games which are worse than that.

3: You still upgrade your stuff faster by paying for the game. Fortunately, the game is well designed in such a way that these advantages does not cause serious imballances at the gameplay.

4: There is a difference between overpowered units that everyone has access to, due to bad design and overpowered units that one player has access to due to major effort to increase stats. The umballance I've mentioned comes from the second situation. The first one is just a bad design choice that may happen with any game. WoT seems to be designed better than most of the other micromanagement games.


And we don't need to mod every engine. Of course it would be interesting to have access to engines with high quality graphics.

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Orac
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PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Banshee wrote:
The matter with microtransaction games is not the repetition itself: it is the penalization for not paying the game, which results in repetition.

Random drops have got me easily enough stuff to have a LOT of fun.



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Volgin
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PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 3:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

TF2's a ztyping weird game. That said, the general concensus is that the stock weapons are the best. The community also makes the pay-to-play debate another animal in that game. - that shit is something else entirely.

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Martin Killer
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PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Whole text is biased and targeted at "why microtransactions are bad". No pros, all cons.
Quote:
Microtransactions games twist the morals and ethical principles by promoting cheating and deteriorating game ballance, among other things

Seriously, it's a cheat that someone pays RL to raise stats?

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Morpher
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PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 3:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

As a concept and in certain situations I don't see why micro-transactions are all that bad, they could certainly deserve a place amongst some games and provide some extra revenue for game companies. That said the core of the problem is how much trust do you honestly put into a development company / publisher when it comes to handling it right here and right now? The concept of making a product from the ground up with initial / inevitable flaws so that the consumer will eventually spend again is nothing new or ground breaking, it's a part of business and selling games is a bloody big business at that. The next few years of gaming will certainly be interesting to watch in this regard but I have no doubt we'll see some anti consumer tactics snook into the odd game or two.

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Renegade
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PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Banshee wrote:
You are making one terrible and critical mistake in your responses, Renegade.

My objective in this topic was to talk about how microtransactions game business affects the design of games (and how modding would work on them, which, in this case, it doesn't).

Then you complain that I did not cover a bunch of games that are not made after this business (i.e.: World of Warcraft). Of course, it doesn't make any sense for me. The point is not to talk about games that are based on character development or raising stats. [...]

Yes, it is, actually. Why? Because that is the reflection and realism your argumentation was lacking.
When describing microtransaction-based games, two and a half out of five of your descriptions also apply to World of Warcraft, which is -as you yourself emphasise- not a micropayment-game:
Quote:
"Your main objective is to raise all stats from your character(s)"
"Multiplayer is completely umballanced. It might only be fun for those with high stats."
"If you pay the developper, you can cheat."

These three, or at least your elaborations on them, as I pointed out, are just as valid for many games without micropayments, particularly RPGs. And the important part on the second one is that it's a game design decision how to deal with them. Since this conversation has gone on for a while now, I checked back with my brother, who actually played WoW: He said, back when he played, there was no barrier in place protecting newbs on PvP servers. iow, WoW has the exact problem we're talking about, despite not being micropayments-based. Point? It has nothing to do with micropayments. Micropayments are business. Dealing with stats gaps is game design.

Yes. You can be an EA-type business person and decide to go with bad, lucrative game design and use this to "encourage" newbs to buy new levels. But that's a bad game design decision, not an inherent compulsion of micropayments.

Quote:
"The game gets repetitive and the non-paying user gets penalized for not paying for the game."

Again: View this in context of all games. The logic you are trying to popularize is "this game is repetitive, it would not be repetitive if I paid for levels, therefore this game was designed to be repetitive unless I pay". And that's bullshit. You have the exact same grinding in World of Warcraft and other RPGs. In fact, it's such a big issue, it has its own Wikipedia page. You are taking a regular part of regular games, notice it's annoying, notice there's a financial way around the annoyance in some games, and then backport evilness into the annoyance. It's fallacious, it's bullshit, it's just not a valid argumentation.

Yes, again, it is possible to design it like that on purpose, but that doesn't change that grinding in stats-based games is neither caused by nor limited to micropayments. It has nothing to do with micropayments inherently, and everything to do with game design.



And you're doing the same thing when it comes to "explaining" the relationship with modding: You're making the bold -entirely unsourced- proclamation
Banshee wrote:
[...] Modding changes the stats that are part of their business. This is the main reason why you won't be able to legally modify these games. Developpers will do any effort to prevent modding under these conditions.

Yeah. Let us totally ignore the fact that many microtransaction-based games are either online games directly or have a significant online component and/or have a large multiplayer component, and that, therefore, allowing players to modify the stats parameters might be technically difficult, ztype up the game for others, and essentially amount to cheating.

I mean, seriously: What would you call it, if, in a stats-based MMO, a singular player decided to "mod" the way he gains experience?

It's the same biased, unrealistic, unfounded way of arguing as before:

  1. There is a fact.
  2. I dislike this fact.
  3. THEREFORE IT WAS CAUSED BY MICROTRANSACTIONS, SOURCE OF ALL GAMING EVIL.


I can only repeat myself: Yes, it is possible that, in some cases, a greedy publisher decides to operate this way. But before you claim that all microtransaction-based games are unmoddable purely for financial reasons, you should firmly establish that the average micropayments-based game could reasonably offer modding without harming the game environment and without undue burden on the provider.
Because, believe it or not, just because it's technically possible doesn't mean it's feasible in day-to-day operations.

Oh, and, of course, last but not least, the reality bat:

  • There is no official modding support for Tiberian Dawn. This was not caused by micropayments.
  • There is no official modding support for Red Alert. This was not caused by micropayments.
  • There is no official modding support for Tiberian Sun. This was not caused by micropayments.
  • There is no official modding support for Red Alert 2. This was not caused by micropayments.



Just because something you dislike applies to a game with micropayments doesn't mean micropayments caused it.







P.S.: No, sabotaging the server right when I'm trying to submit will not stop me. #Tongue *hits submit again*

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4StarGeneral
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PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

First of all, TF2 isn't run by microtransactions, it's economy is entirely based on how many hats one has.

Secondly, why does every argument between Banshee and Renegade never end; Or why does every argument get brought up in the next argument?

About Microtransactions:
Look at League of Legends, probably the most popular game at the moment. There's no downside for anyone to not pay money to play it, yet everyone has to have every ztyping skin, and in turn spends 3000USD on it...
If they can copy that model, then all the better.

Then look at Battleforge (I'm sure half of the people around here haven't heard of it). It was free to play, but you had to buy cards as microtransactions, and if you got bad cards from the decks or ones you already had, then you were screwed against other players if they had better cards; And thus the game died quickly.

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Shadow Hunter
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Joined: 30 Aug 2008
Location: Brazil.

PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2013 12:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

4StarGeneral wrote:
...Secondly, why does every argument between Banshee and Renegade never end; Or why does every argument get brought up in the next argument?...


It's Banshee and Renegade, what did you expected, Renegade can make replies bigger than any post itself, and by what looks like so do Banshee.  Laughing

It's really depends, microtransactions can be really no problem for thoses who play if it's done right, let's say the developer made an way to get profit but at the same time, didn't made the system of in-game cash and game-cash from his butt.

LoL, TF2 are examples of which ways developers can come with someway to win money without making an huge advantage between players. with the skins system for one and hats for other.

I really don't care if they have an slightly advantage, even if they get some better weapons or abilities, if i can get thoses by hard work (not considering an really grindquest) or get an similar effect, I see not an real issue. (Of course considering it's balanced to begin with)

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Allied General
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PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2013 9:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Micro transactions are here to stay.  The concept is not wrong but it depends upon the implementation.

Micro transactions which I find in bad taste

1) Unlocking content which is already on disc (game modes on Battlefield Bad Company 2)

2) Paying for a online pass (now ditched by EA)

3) Penalties which hinder player progression unless you pay or wait for a stupid amount of time (death waiting timers)

4) Items / Abilities which are not unlockable by normal gameplay and add a competitive edge in multiplayer scenario e.g. instant heals, some form of exclusive ability or buff.  This normally made much worse by having items in some random box (its like online gambling without the laws)



However micro transactions can work for rule of cool e.g. new looks / voices / titles / Singleplayer content expansion packs

I don't think their is anything wrong in supporting game developers.

Also once a game stinks of pay to win, the majority of players will leave very quickly.

I also agree on Renegades statement on online games modding - most people who mod a online driven game want to cheat with macros, aim bots, wall hacks or whatever.

In regards to online only modding I can only see it working like star craft 2 with the modding maps and possibly some custom interface tweaks or skins but even then with all that I can imagine monitoring would  become complicated.

Edit: Was typing on mobile phone so put single player dlc packs as a mistake - on a sidenote I am quite happy to buy any expansion if content is substantial. I do not constitute a handful of MP maps to be massive content though[b/]

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4StarGeneral
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PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2013 11:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Something they could include as far as modding, would be to look at what Valve does with all their titles, and many titles on steam, putting fan-created material into the game.

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Banshee
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Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Location: Brazil

PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2013 11:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Martin Killer wrote:
Seriously, it's a cheat that someone pays RL to raise stats?


If that stats raise affects multiplayer,  reflecting against others who did not had that priviledge and messing up with the game ballance, yes it is cheating.

Renegade wrote:
Yes, it is, actually. Why? Because that is the reflection and realism your argumentation was lacking.
When describing microtransaction-based games, two and a half out of five of your descriptions also apply to World of Warcraft, which is -as you yourself emphasise- not a micropayment-game:


You are still missing the point.

The way microtransactions business are being used is in the creation of games where the focus is raising stats. While nowadays microtransaction games inferes into stat raising games, the opposite cannot be said.

If the strategy of a game  is to get money on stats raising schemes, of course it will have the features of a stats raising game.


Quote:
These three, or at least your elaborations on them, as I pointed out, are just as valid for many games without micropayments, particularly RPGs. And the important part on the second one is that it's a game design decision how to deal with them. Since this conversation has gone on for a while now, I checked back with my brother, who actually played WoW: He said, back when he played, there was no barrier in place protecting newbs on PvP servers. iow, WoW has the exact problem we're talking about, despite not being micropayments-based. Point? It has nothing to do with micropayments. Micropayments are business. Dealing with stats gaps is game design.

Yes. You can be an EA-type business person and decide to go with bad, lucrative game design and use this to "encourage" newbs to buy new levels. But that's a bad game design decision, not an inherent compulsion of micropayments.


The features I've enumerated may happen on non-microtransactions games as well. I've never denied that. Some of them are common to stats raising games. But I do not have the purpose to get a state of art of every single kind of game here. Everything has a scope. My post is limited to microtransactions games that relies on stats raising to milk money.


Quote:
Again: View this in context of all games. The logic you are trying to popularize is "this game is repetitive, it would not be repetitive if I paid for levels, therefore this game was designed to be repetitive unless I pay". And that's bullshit. You have the exact same grinding in World of Warcraft and other RPGs. In fact, it's such a big issue, it has its own Wikipedia page. You are taking a regular part of regular games, notice it's annoying, notice there's a financial way around the annoyance in some games, and then backport evilness into the annoyance. It's fallacious, it's bullshit, it's just not a valid argumentation.


In badly designed games, even paid players have to be grinding. Anyway, that article still makes my point quite valid when it says that in Free to Play games paid players have the ability to reduce (or even eliminate) grinding from their gameplay experience.


Quote:
It's the same biased, unrealistic, unfounded way of arguing as before:


   There is a fact.
   I dislike this fact.
   THEREFORE IT WAS CAUSED BY MICROTRANSACTIONS, SOURCE OF ALL GAMING EVIL.


It's not caused by microtransactions, however, in games that relies on microtransactions to raise stats, it's really not interesting for the developpers/publishers to allow game modification, unless they create restrictions that allows these modifications to be used under certain circunstances. Also, when I phrased that, I forgot modifications to the user interface from some of these games that can be done by customers as well as the creation of tools to aid to predict certain situations in game or that simply manipulates data from the game to obtain information that could be interesting to players.


Quote:
There is no official modding support for Tiberian Dawn. This was not caused by micropayments.
There is no official modding support for Red Alert. This was not caused by micropayments.
There is no official modding support for Tiberian Sun. This was not caused by micropayments.
There is no official modding support for Red Alert 2. This was not caused by micropayments.


My claim does not say such thing.

Also, Red Alert 1 and 2 have official map editors.

The developper of these games did advertise in a positive way (or even provided prizes) for user creation generated for these games. That's a quite different instance from developpers from games based on microtransactions used to raise stats.


Allied Generals wrote:
5) Singleplayer content expansion packs


Honestly, that's the only circunstance that you've mentioned me that doesn't bother me at all.

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Volgin
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PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 1:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Red Alert 1's map editor is a gimped piece of shit - the fan made one which Westwood never supported allows all features.

RA2's is a fan creation for Tiberian Sun, again unsupported by Westwood. That is NOT Westwood's mapmaker and you're giving Mattias Wagner a HUGE disservice by saying Westwood made it.

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Banshee
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PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 1:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I'm not saying that Matze did not make Final Alert. I just said that Red Alert 2 have an official map editor.

And yea, that official map editor was actually created by a fan (Mattias "Matze" Wagner) and bought by Wesrwood.


And this is far from being any decent modding support.

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Renegade
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Joined: 21 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 10:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Banshee wrote:
Martin Killer wrote:
Seriously, it's a cheat that someone pays RL to raise stats?


If that stats raise affects multiplayer,  reflecting against others who did not had that priviledge and messing up with the game ballance, yes it is cheating.

No, I'm pretty sure a common, known, officially sanctioned activity condoned by the creators and available to all does not constitute "cheating". Neither morally nor by definition.

Banshee wrote:
You are still missing the point.

The way microtransactions business are being used is in the creation of games where the focus is raising stats. While nowadays microtransaction games inferes into stat raising games, the opposite cannot be said.

If the strategy of a game  is to get money on stats raising schemes, of course it will have the features of a stats raising game.

No, you are still missing the point: The microtransactions have nothing to do with the god damn stats.
Not only do they not have anything to do with it, they don't have anything to do with it on two different levels:
For one, the ability to expand your character, to gain experience, to "raise stats" is a common staple of a majority of popular games today. And yes, whether you like it or not, that is significant, because it underlines that micropayments are not the cause of the decision to implement stats raising. Your argumentation is like "it doesn't matter that most cars have four tires, I'm talking about cars with leather seats, and since all cars with leather seats have four tires, obviously the leather seats cause the car to have four tires!".
It's bullshit.
You cannot derive conclusions from the properties of a small subset of a set without looking at the common properties of the entire set.
If stats raising were uncommon in games in general, but overwhelmingly common in micropayment-financed games, then you would have a point. But as it is, stats raising is just a common attribute in modern games, and micropayment-based games are modern games. Their inclusion of stats raising stems from the latter fact, not the former. Because...
...secondly, and this is also the explanation for the previous fact, you are conflating several distinct attempts to manipulate the player: The whole character building, stats raising deal of course serves a purpose: Binding the player to the game. Motivating him to keep playing, to reach higher levels, to spend more time with the game. But that is independent from the parallel attempt in micropayments-financed games to convince the hooked players to shell out some money.
Do you grasp that?
Yes, the people behind the game are trying to manipulate people into committing time to the game, and yes, they are trying to make money off of those they "got", but these are independent mechanisms.
Of course they are interconnected - you cannot make money off of players that don't exist. But that's exactly the point: The stats raising doesn't exist to motivate players to pay, it exists to motivate them to play. And only then, when you actually hooked them on the game and convinced them to spend time with it, expand their character, get emotionally invested, then you can come up to them and go "look, I know all this grinding is annoying...for a small fee, we can just give you the XP directly...".

Yes, the stats raising is an attempt to psychologically manipulate the player base. But it's a universal attempt. The majority of modern games try that. That's the reason why, over the past decade, more and more and more games got RPG- and "personalization" features: Because the player is a whole lot more invested when it's "his" character.
Think about this: Who do you care more for? Super Mario, who exists in that form on millions of consoles and was led by millions of gamers, or your own, personal character? A character that exists because you created him, you named him, you crafted him, you led him, you molded him?

Personalization creates attachment. Attachment increases the time you spend. More time spent gives the publisher more chances to get your money.

But that last part is not dependent upon microtransactions. It can also happen, for example, by keeping you around and interested long enough to convince you to buy the next expansion to the game.
Personalization, stats raising, is the first step: The attempt to grab you. Monetization, potentially through microtransactions, or through subscriptions, or expansions, or something else, is the second step.

Banshee wrote:
The features I've enumerated may happen on non-microtransactions games as well. I've never denied that. Some of them are common to stats raising games. But I do not have the purpose to get a state of art of every single kind of game here. Everything has a scope. My post is limited to microtransactions games that relies on stats raising to milk money.

Yes. But you're pretending that a) that's all of them, b) the stats raising component is a direct result of the decision to use micropayments to monetize the content, which is bullshit, and c) that the fact that many of the same psychological mechanisms exist in "normal" games doesn't matter - which is untrue.

To put it differently: I am fully aware that you are purposely limiting the scope of what you're looking at. I'm just telling you that, as a result, the conclusions you draw are noncredible and implausible.

Banshee wrote:
In badly designed games, even paid players have to be grinding. Anyway, that article still makes my point quite valid when it says that in Free to Play games paid players have the ability to reduce (or even eliminate) grinding from their gameplay experience.

Impressive attempt to twist that to your advantage! Smile
Of course you're conveniently ignoring the fact that the article talks about all forms of payment, going as far as giving examples like
Wikipedia wrote:
[...] Grinding is seen as a reason to increase the amount of time it takes to reach these levels, forcing the player to pay more subscription fees along the way. [...]

...thus underlining my point that it has nothing to do with micropayments. Micropayments do not cause, enforce or require stats raising.
Being stats-based is game design.
Being micropayment-based is monetization.

Banshee wrote:
It's not caused by microtransactions, however, in games that relies on microtransactions to raise stats, it's really not interesting for the developpers/publishers to allow game modification, unless they create restrictions that allows these modifications to be used under certain circunstances. Also, when I phrased that, I forgot modifications to the user interface from some of these games that can be done by customers as well as the creation of tools to aid to predict certain situations in game or that simply manipulates data from the game to obtain information that could be interesting to players.

You are -again- projecting your assumptions on the designers without considering the alternatives. Depending on the type of game, there can be a very real technological barrier hindering the implementation of modifiability. There's also the issue of gameplay, game flow and game community management: Assume mods are possible, how do you distribute them? Offer them? Advertise them? How do you protect players from malicious mods, and how do you make sure mods aren't used to cheats? How do you make sure the right match-ups happen? How do you deal with tech support issues in modded games? How do you react if players like a particular mod better than the stock game?
Allowing and supporting mods creates a whole host of challenges for the publisher and the developers. Not wanting to subject yourself to that is a perfectly reasonable decision - and the fact that the game is micropayments-based does not magically turn a reasonable decision unreasonable.

And, of course, there's a business side to it: Not in terms of "we must not allow that, so we can milk them!", but in terms of who pays for the modding tools? who pays for the extra hours spent writing modding documentation? who pays for fixing for the extra bugs created by the modding interface? Offering the ability to mod a game requires more. More of everything. More development, more documentation, more support, more skill on the tech supports' side. And more of everything costs more money. Shitloads of it.
So, again, it is a very reasonable decision to decide "offering mod support is too expensive". Entirely independent from the question of how the game is financed in the long run.

Lastly, the unfounded claim that allowing modding goes against their financing scheme is utter bullshit: For one, it has been proven time and again that mods increase the longevity of games, which is only in their interest (look at Counter-Strike, look at this very community, look at Quake-engine-based games in general). Secondly and more importantly, however, mod creators and users would be the perfect way to make more money and find potential spenders:
They could offer a mod section in their in-game market, where they list quality-tested mods, and split the profits with the creators. Result: The publisher gets free extra content for the game he can make money off, the modders are motivated to create more quality extra content, because they can get money and recognition out of it, and the players are happy 'cause there's a continuous flow of easily accessible, quality extra content. Everybody wins. And the publisher will love players using mods. Why? Because they have already proven they're ready to accept content that changes the game. Who is more likely to buy an item that changes the game's stats? Someone who has never modified his game, or someone who regularly plays with mods?

Your entire "argumentation" is basically a vast conspiracy theory where every "bad" aspect of modern gaming is somehow the direct result of microtransactions - no matter how many reasonable alternative explanations there are, how non-micropayments-based games look like, or whether your claims make sense in the first place.

Banshee wrote:
Quote:
There is no official modding support for Tiberian Dawn. This was not caused by micropayments.
There is no official modding support for Red Alert. This was not caused by micropayments.
There is no official modding support for Tiberian Sun. This was not caused by micropayments.
There is no official modding support for Red Alert 2. This was not caused by micropayments.


My claim does not say such thing.

Yes. That was the point. Confirmation bias. Your continued efforts to ignore all evidence that could bring your "micropayments == satan" theory into question.

There are non-microtransaction-games which do not have mod support.
Therefore, the mere fact that microtransaction-games do not have mod support does not constitute evidence that microtransactions are the cause of them not having mod support.
Therefore, you will need better evidence than "they have microtransactions and they don't have mod support...isn't it obvious???".

Banshee wrote:
Also, Red Alert 1 and 2 have official map editors.

Maps constitute mods now?
So if I download one of the official RA2 map packs, I'm running a modded game?

(This is independent from the fact that maps have the ability to modify the game rules, it's a question of differentiation. If you start arguing that any change or addition to the stock game constitutes a mod, then I'm pretty sure most microtransaction-based games are also "moddable".)

Banshee wrote:
The developper of these games did advertise in a positive way (or even provided prizes) for user creation generated for these games. That's a quite different instance from developpers from games based on microtransactions used to raise stats.

When did they do that and what did they do that for?
There's quite a difference between a prize for the best map developed for the stock game with the official map editor, and a prize for the best game modification developed with hacked-together third party tools.
And it also makes a difference whether they did the latter from the start, or only after they realized the modding was gonna happen anyway.


Edit: Preview is still broken. I can't be bothered to edit this a dozen times for improved readability. Consider every typo or grammatical insanity a cry for working previews.

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Orac
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PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 10:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Steam Workshop support has only made the games which opted into it better.

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OmegaBolt
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PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 12:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

LOL AG how is extra singleplayer content at all bad, surely its the best kind of 'microtransaction'. If you want more content because you like the game then buy it, if not then dont. Its entirely optional. Multiplayer content on the otherhand can just split the player base.

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Starkku
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Joined: 28 Dec 2007
Location: Finland

PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 12:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

OmegaBolt wrote:
LOL AG how is extra singleplayer content at all bad, surely its the best kind of 'microtransaction'. If you want more content because you like the game then buy it, if not then dont. Its entirely optional. Multiplayer content on the otherhand can just split the player base.


Well yeah to me, SP content via microtransaction/DLC seems basically like an expansion pack, just smaller. Rest of AG's points I agree with, though. In general, when purchasable content actually effects (especially multiplayer) gameplay in some fashion, there is a very good chance that it's also nudging the game towards the 'pay to win' scenario.

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Renegade
Cyborg Artillery


Joined: 21 May 2006
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PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

The primary concern with single player paid extra content is usually the implication that the content was there anyway, the publisher just decided not to give it to you with your original purchase, but to sell it to you a second time.

As AG mentioned, there are some games where the extra content is already on the game disk - basically, it was finished with all the other game stuff, pressed on the same disk, sold to you in the same package...but you have to pay again to access it. That pisses some people off.

Essentially, imagine having paid for RA2, having played the Allied campaign and then discovering that you'll have to pay another $10 to "unlock" the Soviet campaign.

If those games were priced accordingly, e.g. half the price up front, and then buy only the parts you like in addition to that, that'd be one thing - but paying full price for a game, only to discover that you'll have to pay again for half the stuff on the disk? ztype you, EA!

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Morpher
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Joined: 28 Jan 2005

PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 5:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Renegade wrote:
The primary concern with single player paid extra content is usually the implication that the content was there anyway, the publisher just decided not to give it to you with your original purchase, but to sell it to you a second time.


I'm really not a fan of that current practice, to me it's not selling a complete product initially. At the end of the day we're all the consumers in this situation and I think sometimes when people get too caught up in a franchise / series they forget that fact and instead will mindlessly be satisfied with more content regardless of the way it's delivered to them. I'd rather live in a world where micro-transactions enhance your experience without altering core gameplay mechanics.

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4StarGeneral
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PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 5:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Orac wrote:
Steam Workshop support has only made the games which opted into it better.


What I meant by that was that they could just "copy" that idea, and do that sort of thing. By no means will any EA game be included with a steam workshop lol.

Morpher.

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OmegaBolt
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Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Location: York, England

PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2013 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Renegade wrote:
The primary concern with single player paid extra content is usually the implication that the content was there anyway, the publisher just decided not to give it to you with your original purchase, but to sell it to you a second time.
Well yes, but then I wouldn't pay for this extra content if I didn't even think the original game was worth it (plus I may not have bought the game having looked into it first). I'm not gonna buy DLC for a crappy half-arsed game. I suppose the argument is that I may not have gotten a crappy half-arsed game in the first place had DLC not been invented but that seems like a trivial question.

Having to pay to unlock content you already bought however is just plain exploitation.

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Zaaz
Disk Thrower


Joined: 21 Apr 2013
Location: Canada

PostPosted: Sun May 26, 2013 2:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

*derp*

What gets me the most about microtransaction is the fact of always paying for content.
I juste hate it. It's like having to purchase every single item, one by one,
instead of buying them all in one pack. I don't know.

I like however buying a game once, and
then get the major DLC, because like some said,
sometimes they're expansion packs in reality.

Something like Mass Effect did. That does not bother me.
In the MP, you could buy weapon packs and equipment packs,
but everything you could buy there, you could get it normally, without
having to pay for anything. Also, the fact that it was humans vs computer
was the reason it wasn't bothering anyone.

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Allied General
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Joined: 19 Mar 2004
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Wed May 29, 2013 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

OmegaBolt wrote:
LOL AG how is extra singleplayer content at all bad, surely its the best kind of 'microtransaction'.


My mistake was on mobile was pretty much exception / visual upgrades. At least patches are not charged for.

I kinda think cynically DLC is another way to say - hey we thought this cool to average joe but in secret they actually saying - here is content we did not finish 1st time around so enjoy.

Also whats the deal with pre-order that gives you MP perks such as early unlocks, etc?

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