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| Ziff Posts: 1288/1800 |
Then manufacturers are going to have to find a way for people to return their software if people refuse to sign ridiculous ToS agreements or the fact that the game is not properly billed as requiring content additions to become the full game - rather than content additions being simply content that is additional, but not necessarily necessary.
This is the next hurdle facing both the gaming community and the industry. The community needs to understand that they're the whole support of an industry. And that it is the consumer that controls industry through demand. Thus, gamers will have to band together to form powerful groups that can pressure the larger companies to put in quality control mechanisms. They already gave themselves the rating system. Whats to say that user directed policy can't be implemented? |
| PrincessPeach Posts: 287/381 |
Originally posted by HyperHacker What if... he did not open the seal covering the disc inside, as proof, but anyway. It's funny how the license, he did not agree too, gives him the right to return the game and get his money back free of charge if not agreeing to the terms of the license. |
| HyperHacker Posts: 3984/5072 |
Just thought of an addition to my post last night, a sort of "icing on the cake" scenario. Suppose Joe actually reads the bigass legal agreement and says "wtf no, screw this". Packages the game back up, takes it back to the store... but what store actually lets you return software/games these days? Poor Joe would be stuck with a game he doesn't even want anymore. |
| Ziff Posts: 1282/1800 |
You know what would make good sense?
LOWER THE PRICE OF THE INITIAL PRICE PURCHASE OF THE GAME. ie. instead of 50 bucks you charge 25. Then you can attrition out addons and special things over the long term on a declining price basis. So, you release a new map for BLOODKILLER 598 or whatever. It comes out, it'll be 5 bucks. And then its price lowers until it reaches a point where it is free. I wouldn't mind buying a full game and paying for addons assuming that the addons are necessary additions that I wouldn't have been able to unlock in the initial product run of the game. Say, a car set of vehicles you'd normally find in a racing game. I would be pissed if I had to pay for a bunch of high performance cars that should've been in there in first. But, you know, if they had a special thing where they charged 6 bucks for 6 different super-whacky cars, that'd be cool. You know, offer the six vehicles (a giant bobble head Bobby Orr, a mad axe wielding Raskolnikar, or something silly like that) with a bunch of little tiny inconsequential addons for fun. Backgrounds, a song or two. You could generate more content and such over the long term and make a lot of that content killer. Make people WANT to buy it. That's how you make more money and make more loyal consumers. |
| HyperHacker Posts: 3971/5072 |
Originally posted by Emptyeye Unfortunately, while it's easy to simply not buy crippled products, thousands of idiots/people who don't know of the problem will continue to feed the beast. If it were this easy we certainly wouldn't have DRM to worry about anymore. 
Originally posted by Metal Man88 I always hated when you get to a forum and they put the avatar, sig, etc links up like normal, but when you click them they're like "zOMG U GOTTA PAY $25.47 TO HAVE A 6KB 32x32 NON-ANIMATED IMAGE NEXT TO UR NAME". Like who the hell actually pays for this? Just annoying. Same as those that spam even registered users with ads, worse when they claim registration removes them, worse still when you register and then they say "oh we meant registration AND paying $85874 removes them, btw thanx for the email address, enjoy ur spam lololololol". I certainly hope games don't end up like this.
Again, hit the nail on the head. When I buy a game I pay for the fun experiences within, not an empty shell that requires me to buy those fun parts separately. Why buy a driving game if I have to pay extra to be able to outrace Granny's minivan? One other issue I noticed nobody mentioned is the currency system. Why "points" and not simply dollars or yen? You could argue it's for international reasons - and I bet they do - but that doesn't make a lot of sense really; if I'm using a Canadian console it should be able to connect to a Canadian server and/or grab the latest CDN<-->JPY exchange rate off the web and show Canadian prices. No, the real reason for this is that they can vary the value of their imaginary currency at will. Make it 1 point = $2 and you can convince people they're paying less than they really are by saying a game only costs 5 points instead of $10. This gets more sinister when you consider methods of refilling one's account. I wouldn't doubt one or more of these systems has an option to just charge your credit card for each purchase instead of having a separate account you have to buy points for. So Joe Gamer plugs his CC# in and goes on to buy some new cars or something at "1 point" ($2) each. The system simply charges the card each time he buys a car. Poor Joe doesn't notice that halfway through his shopping spree, for no apparent reason, the exchange rate briefly switches to 1 point = $5...  Maybe he notices the problem when he gets his bill, but (as with just about every company ever), his call to tech support ends with him hanging up after being on hold for 2 hours. Or maybe he does talk to someone and they point out that section 27, paragraph 19 of the ridiculously long license agreement Joe had to agree to with every new game (or, God forbid, every new car in the game) he bought states that they can do this and he can't do squat about it.
Scary thoughts, hmm? |
| The Red Snifit Posts: 657/739 |
Here's what I think.
Expansion packs = Good Games like Starcraft and Warcraft used this, and it was a big success. Paying for a complete version of a game = WTF? When you buy the game, it should be ALL yours. It's like paying for a bike, but only getting the frame. Then they tell you you can buy the rest, even though you payed for it at a good price for a complete one. Of all the stupid things they could have done for money, this is the WORST! Paying for some single awesome thing = Bad What ever happened to playing the game and unlocking these any way? And a quick thought: How will they deal with Cheat Code products for these? |
| Cynthia Posts: 5119/5814 |
It's the thing they MOST care about, and trust me... they'd be a lot more concerned with profits going down than making one or two bad games. 
If there's any avenue a company can go down to make more legitimate profit, they'll do it. |
| Metal Man88 Posts: 390/701 |
I have several issues with this 'genius' game idea. The first hits back at me home, VGF, where you must pay money to have an avatar (and most likely a signature too.) These things just aren't worth enough money to be charging for, unless you're money-grubbing or overusing your server resources and desperately attempting to break even. Neither are good, in my mind.
The next is the whole cars in racing games thing. WTF? It should be like it was in the old days, where you'd just download any cars you wanted from any site, and, heck, EA used to give out free add-on cars on the internet. Again, unlocking little polygonal cars is NOT worth little pieces of money. On the other hand, it does have a point in some games, such as unlocking features that can be acheived other ways, or add-on content which you know you clearly weren't paying for. That said, I hope it doesn't become a common feature, or else the price of being a gamer will skyrocket by the hundreds of meaningless point things. |
| Emptyeye Posts: 807/869 |
Originally posted by Alastor the Stylish 1. Fair enough. Maybe it's not the only thing they care about, but it's the only thing they care about whereby the layperson can hope to influence the policy. 2. I never said that, I never implied it, and I don't know how you could think I did. I'm aware that video game companies are hardly the only companies that operate with their primary goal being profits (I would actually hope any competent company would make that their primary goal, for obvious reasons), and I don't know how what I said would imply otherwise. Anyway, having thought this over some more, I see there can be valuable applications for the system (Like what XK and NSNick mentioned), but the system seems less headed in that direction and more in the "cripple the game and make people pay out the ass and make that the only way to get all the content" model that Sony seems to be using. And that's too bad. |
| Rydain Posts: 571/633 |
*agrees with Xkeeper and NSNick*
I wouldn't mind paying for an expansion pack or something else that is substantial new content. The Guitar Hero example is something that would especially interest me. I think it's fair - and good for both the players and the developer - to release a game that has plenty to do already and then develop more content to be added on later. This keeps the game fresh without requiring the developers to commit to a sequel, and I don't think there's much of a point in bothering with a full sequel just to add more songs, multiplayer maps, or whatnot. I wouldn't pay for trivial crap that doesn't do much for the gameplay, and charging for a crippled version of a game is flat-out bullshit. A free demo is fair, but when people pay for a game, they expect to be able to actually play it. |
| Alastor Posts: 7599/8204 |
Originally posted by EmptyeyeI have an issue with the statement that these companies only care about money; that's not even close to a fair assessment. For one, they don't only care about money, they merely care about money most. For two, even if you meant that they cared about money above all else, saying this implies that this is not true of every other company, which is similarly false. |
| Ailure Posts: 2063/2602 |
Originally posted by paulguyEh, the ones who spends alot of real money on items in MMo's tends to be the minority. |
| Zidane Posts: 67/105 |
I really don't mind it. It gives people who are unwilling or don't have the time to play very much to get something decent. As long as something better or equally powerful could be obtained without paying, then I have no problem. I laugh at people who buy their things in games such as PangYa, anyway. It makes them look less skillful.
Expansion packs or extras I have no problem with, as long as it isn't something that comes disabled with the game. Originally posted by HyperHacker Games like this usually involve accounts, where your information is stored online. Maybe you could unlock something for single player, but they could care less about that. Hack their server though, and you'll get into some trouble. |
| Cynthia Posts: 5100/5814 |
Exactly. You want to charge for extras? Let the player receive EXTRAS. Not just one nice car or a neat track or a new gun.
Then you also have problems if you want to play online against other people and it takes you a while to find a game because they all paid extra for content and you didn't. |
| Xkeeper Posts: 4432/5653 |
I know one example that worked with pretty good success: the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack.
$7.99 for a bunch of new maps, or buying it at retail for $19.99 or something, which came with a "Making of" (or behind the scenes, whatever) deal. Of course, the maps went free a few months later, too, so you could either buy it early and brag with your friends (and get to learn them first), or wait until they went free. Personally, I think that method was a success, as it gave both sides benefits -- the maps went free while the game was still popular and there were a bunch of multiplayer maps already in the game. That kind of thing is good. Having you pay out the ass for single cars/tracks is not. |
| Cynthia Posts: 5094/5814 |
Emptyeye: The industry's going this way because gamers have shown that they'll pay for content. The only problem is that certain companies haven't figured out when to say when yet.
Even if we get rid of the stupid stuff like cheat codes/single cars, there'll still be a market for expansion packs and useful content. Some companies have already made a pretty penny off of these sales, and they definitely save on marketing/packaging costs. |
| paulguy Posts: 60/71 |
The sad thing is, microtransactions are probably going to be successful. Have you seen your average gamer these days? Or your average person for that matter; complete idiots. They'd spend out of their ass for that crap. It's kind of like the MMO people who spend hundreds on items, fucking retards. This is where the video gaming world is going so I'll stick to my SNES. |
| Emptyeye Posts: 793/869 |
Originally posted by Colin Why? I'm hardly some idealist when it comes to this stuff, but I would think that gamers as a whole could show that this is bullshit by simply not buying whatever is included in these microtransactions. Taking it a step further, don't even buy the crippled half-games that rely on these microtransactions to reach their full potential. I really don't think it's that hard to hit the companies in the pocketbook (The only thing that said companies care about, and the reason I think it could actually work) to show them that this is generally a stupid idea. That said, my basic position is the same as Thexare's. If it's another way to unlock content that I would eventually be able to get to anyway, then that's fine, no one really has an advantage over everyone else, etc. If it's the ONLY way to unlock stuff, then....suffice to say I have no plans to buy the next-gen systems anytime soon. |
| NSNick Posts: 1799/2228 |
I think for some games it works very well, and others, not so much.
i.e. I drool when thinking about Guitar Hero 2 on 360 with future song packages available for download. |
| Cynthia Posts: 5088/5814 |
Microtransactions are where the industry's going so we all have to live with it. HOWEVER... some companies are getting greedy.
Look at, say, EA selling cheat codes on Xbox Live. Can you think of anyone who wants to PAY 50 or 100 points for an invincibility code? Of course not. People want to unlock this stuff on their own, they don't want to have to shell out money for each code they want. Some types of microtransactions are OK. Obviously games are good, and everyone can take advantage of that and the companies can profit. Expansion packs work as well, but if you're going to go down that road, you should make sure the gamer gets his/her money's worth. What's better - buying 20 maps for a FPS for $20, or getting it all in one bundle for $10? I really hope that Sony's GT experiment blows up in their face. Having a few packs full of good content = good. Buying every single car/track = BAD. I can just see it now... a race that someone can't enter in the game because they haven't bought the specific type of car that they need to use for that race. Oh, and the Lumines thing... INSANELY dumb. If you're going to release a cripped version, make it a FREE DEMO. Don't give someone half the game for $15 then expect them to plop down another $15 for the full game. |
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