DRM, Online Pass, Project Ten Dollar and the like

[Waldorf and Statler]

There's a Super Hero Alien Killing White Dude inside all of us.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

if you play your cards right.

[Thursday Next]

Perhaps EA are trying to steal the "we can do no wrong and if people are doing what we are doing everyone will suddenly forget that we do it and hate on the other guy anyway" crown from Valve?

 

Because mtx vanity items totally ruined Portal, and TF2. They truly broke the game and made everyone hate Valve... right?

 

Or, we could not instantly assume the worst case scenario, and instead wait and see whether these mtx models actually break something, or like FIFA Ultimate Team, turn out to be something that people really enjoy.

 

The Dead Space mtx for useful things is entirely optional. Grinding doesn't even take that long and is very exploitable. The paid for content is almost entirely vanity and can be purchased outside of the game so you don't have to break immersion.

 

Don't get me wrong. It could turn into a nickel and dime fest. EA has screwed up in the past and will make mistakes in the future, but we also do some pretty cool stuff too.

[TheMightyEthan]

 

The fact that you can buy the stuff outside of the game is irrelevant, it's the fact that within the game world it offers to let you buy DLC that is immersion breaking.  Even if you never ever buy it, the fact that that thing is there at the workbench breaks the immersion.  It cannot be avoided while still playing the game.

 

Vanity items are fine, as long as they fit with the style of the game, and mtx in multiplayer is fine with me as long as it doesn't turn into p2w, but it's hard to give EA the benefit of the doubt when they so recently did the above.

[Thursday Next]

You had a choice there. You can go scavenge for items, or you can buy them. You are moaning because you have a choice. You are honestly telling me that the presence of a "Downloadable Content" option broke the immersion? What about the button prompts? Did they break the immersion too? The above is not pay to win, it's pay to not grind, and the vanity items totally fit in with the rest of the world as they are mostly suits things.

[TheMightyEthan]

You are honestly telling me that the presence of a "Downloadable Content" option broke the immersion?

 

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying

[Thursday Next]

But the presence of "Press X to Open Door" or "Press Square to Reload" does not?

[madbassman39]

Perhaps EA are trying to steal the "we can do no wrong and if people are doing what we are doing everyone will suddenly forget that we do it and hate on the other guy anyway" crown from Valve?

 

Because mtx vanity items totally ruined Portal, and TF2. They truly broke the game and made everyone hate Valve... right?

 

Or, we could not instantly assume the worst case scenario, and instead wait and see whether these mtx models actually break something, or like FIFA Ultimate Team, turn out to be something that people really enjoy.

 

The Dead Space mtx for useful things is entirely optional. Grinding doesn't even take that long and is very exploitable. The paid for content is almost entirely vanity and can be purchased outside of the game so you don't have to break immersion.

 

Don't get me wrong. It could turn into a nickel and dime fest. EA has screwed up in the past and will make mistakes in the future, but we also do some pretty cool stuff too.

 

True, we are being a little overly negative towards EA, but lets be honest, EA has not been as nice as Valve has been as far as their content is. Team Fortres and Portal were never sold for the full $60 price tag. If you bought TF2 or Portal for $60 then you also got Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode 1, and Half Life 2 Episode 2 all in the Orange Box.

 

If you want to jump on Valve for adding micro-transactions, look at the price of the game when they were added in. Team Fortress 2 now costs a whopping total of $0.

 

Dead Space 2 costs a total of $60 with Micro-transactions over the top. This is why people excuse Valve for adding micro-transactions and not EA. I will say that I would excuse a game for $20 or $30 for having micro-transactions, but Dead Space 3 cost the same price as Skyrim, Uncharted, Halo, Tomb Raider, Far Cry (more on the PC), and a whole lot more. Those games got by without adding microtransactions in their game, so why can't EA do the same?

 

Its a shame, because EA does make some fantastic games, and to see that EA throw microtransactions that can turn into gating off part of the game, is upsetting.

 

To back up Ethan's opinion, even if the button prompts are there, you still have to exit the game to purchase the DLC, add money to your account and then download it. DLC breaks up the game.

[TheMightyEthan]

But the presence of "Press X to Open Door" or "Press Square to Reload" does not?

 

No, it doesn't.  I can't explain it, but for whatever reason interface elements like that (health bars and such too) I can easily ignore as not being part of the game, but like in that Dead Space shot that interface is actually an in-world computer interface, so having it talk about out-of-world things like DLC is jarring.  It's the same as the characters at your camp in DA:O that suggested you buy DLC.  If the load screen said "You can buy extra materials from the game menu." that would even be fine, because that is an out-of-game communication, but don't build those things into communications that are otherwise in-world.

 

I guess to analogize it to something like a book, "press x to open the door" is like the fact that I'm reading printed words on a page: it's part of the medium and I can ignore it.  But the in-game communications about out of game events would be like if in the book I was reading it suddenly said within the actual text of the story "Buy the next book in the series to find out what happens.", or worse if a character said that in dialog.  If they want to put that in the little extra pages at the beginning or end that's fine, but once you insert it into the actual world of the story then it becomes immersion breaking.

[Mister Jack]

It's really not that complicated. People don't like other people trying to sell them something while they're just trying to relax and have fun.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

 

The fact that you can buy the stuff outside of the game is irrelevant, it's the fact that within the game world it offers to let you buy DLC that is immersion breaking.  Even if you never ever buy it, the fact that that thing is there at the workbench breaks the immersion.  It cannot be avoided while still playing the game.

 

Vanity items are fine, as long as they fit with the style of the game, and mtx in multiplayer is fine with me as long as it doesn't turn into p2w, but it's hard to give EA the benefit of the doubt when they so recently did the above.

 

Isaac has a bank account he can tap into as payment for all of the crazy shit he got into in the first two games. Immersion unbroken.

[deanb]

Should add that as far as TF2 stuff goes, it's hardly like people are entirely happy with how it was handled.

 

 

I can't add much on Dead Space 3 stuff, but will add the Dragon Age Origins DLC shenanigans was exceedingly badly handled. At a glance it seems DS3 is on similar bad lines, which sucks when they kinda got it figured with BF and ME, with the main menu having a scrolling bar or similar alerting to DLC deals n such.

 

Also PAR did a post about it earlier. Basically pointing out EA will be shifting to micro-transactions cos otherwise they're gonna go out of business.

[TheMightyEthan]

At a glance it seems DS3 is on similar bad lines, which sucks when they kinda got it figured with BF and ME, with the main menu having a scrolling bar or similar alerting to DLC deals n such.

 

Can't comment on BF, but I'll agree that the DLC/mtx in ME3 didn't bother me at all the way they were handled.  As long as it's only occurring in menus and stuff that are already out-of-world then fine (again, as long as it doesn't turn into p2w, but last I played ME3 hadn't so it was fine).

[Thursday Next]

 

But the presence of "Press X to Open Door" or "Press Square to Reload" does not?

 

No, it doesn't.  I can't explain it, but for whatever reason interface elements like that (health bars and such too) I can easily ignore as not being part of the game, but like in that Dead Space shot that interface is actually an in-world computer interface, so having it talk about out-of-world things like DLC is jarring.  It's the same as the characters at your camp in DA:O that suggested you buy DLC.  If the load screen said "You can buy extra materials from the game menu." that would even be fine, because that is an out-of-game communication, but don't build those things into communications that are otherwise in-world.

 

I guess to analogize it to something like a book, "press x to open the door" is like the fact that I'm reading printed words on a page: it's part of the medium and I can ignore it.  But the in-game communications about out of game events would be like if in the book I was reading it suddenly said within the actual text of the story "Buy the next book in the series to find out what happens.", or worse if a character said that in dialog.  If they want to put that in the little extra pages at the beginning or end that's fine, but once you insert it into the actual world of the story then it becomes immersion breaking.

 

 

That's fair enough. I'm going to tell you that it doesn't affect you when it does, but it seems to me that it is something that you will just get used to. I for example find it much more immersion breaking to see Xbox controller prompts, because I have to think about where the "Y" button is and why the "X" button is doing the things that "Square" should be doing. I don't find PS button prompts distracting because they are hardwired.

 

Similarly, I don't "see" ads on webpages either, I'm so used to them that my brain tunes them out, and I guess it applies the same process to "Press X to get DLC".

 

If you find that option in the game totally ruins your experience then that is unfortunate, but I doubt that the majority of people even gave it a second thought.

[TheMightyEthan]

Well, totally ruining the experience is probably an overstatement.  "Somewhat irritating" is probably more accurate, but it's a trend I definitely don't want to see continued/expanded upon.

[Thursday Next]

You'll stop noticing it soon enough.

[TheMightyEthan]

I know this devolved into a conversation about the obtrusiveness, but what I'm actually more worried about is it negatively affecting game design.  Making games grindier to encourage you to just buy materials/equipment/whatever instead, or putting difficulty spikes right after a cash store location.  Stuff like that will affect everyone playing the game whether they are bothered by the prompts or not.

[Thursday Next]

Sure. I dislike predatory business practices as much as anyone. Implementation is key. If EA can replicate what they did on ME3 and FIFA, then great. Just need to avoid ugly Dragon Age issues.

[Luftwaffles]

Funny you should mention FIFA, I think it's got pretty great microtransactions. It's likely what ME3 was based off of, I'd guess. 

[madbassman39]

Battlefield 3 Endgame comes out this month, closing out the final expansion for BF3. EA did this one right. I was hesitant to buy into their Premium service (essentially a season pass), but when looking at what they were offering for an additional $50 I decided to buy it.

 

It came with 5 DLC packs, new objectives in each one, new weapons in each one, new game modes in each one and new maps in each one. Alone these DLC packs cost $15 each, totaling $75. If you bought the game in their "limited edition" (you can still buy it brand new today) you got one of the DLC for free. So now you pay $50 for 4 DLC packs which would have cost you $60 to buy them individually.

 

EA got my money because it was a good deal. Worth fronting the extra cash on a game I knew I was going to pay for in the expansion packs.

 

I just want to say this is how you combat piracy and used game sales. Don't take away from gamers, give extra content to gamers. Extend the support of a game almost 2 years after release, with quality content. You can buy this game used and get the full game from EA, the same game you could have bought on day 1. Add extra content, allow me to buy it up front at a lower cost (Management 300 told me that $50 now is worth more than $75 spread through out 1 year in smaller payments) and I will probably have no problems buying it.

[jayc4life]

Funny you should mention FIFA, I think it's got pretty great microtransactions. It's likely what ME3 was based off of, I'd guess. 

FIFA's microtransactions for Ultimate Team are great. It's like the equivalent of buying into a digital trading card game of sorts, and it's really awesome that they've ported the same mode and dynamic into both Madden and NHL too. However, the fact that these games are so ridiculously popular, paired with how easy it is to buy stuff without 2-step authentication makes these games - FIFA especially because of the colossal international market - prime target for account hackers wanting to skim money from people's accounts, buy a ton of these online trading cards, send them to themselves and bail. (old story, I know, but it still happens to this day, so it's still relevant)

[Thursday Next]

I hope you aren't trying to lay the blame for Microsoft account hacks at FIFA's door. An inadequate MS system and the inherent dishonesty of lowlife humans is at fault. I suppose it is not beyond EA's powers to make something entirely, universally unappealing, but is that really a solution to credit card fraud?

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, the lack of a two-step system is MS's fault.  If EA had made it a proprietary, EA-only system instead of using MS's then people would have just bitched about that (assuming MS would even let them).

[TheMightyEthan]

An interesting (though brief) article on Joystiq about reviewing games that are both products and services simultaneously.

 

I like the restaurant analogy, and think it makes sense that you would consider how good the service is when reviewing the game.  What good is a fantastic game if you can't reliably access it?

[jayc4life]

I hope you aren't trying to lay the blame for Microsoft account hacks at FIFA's door. An inadequate MS system and the inherent dishonesty of lowlife humans is at fault. I suppose it is not beyond EA's powers to make something entirely, universally unappealing, but is that really a solution to credit card fraud?

While my post did come across that way, I'm not pointing the blame directly at EA (they have enough hatred aimed at them this week to last a million lifetimes). FIFA's in the unfortunate position of being the reason that there are so many Xbox account hackings. It, of course, would be preventable if Microsoft had better authentication over how people are able to both add MS Points to their account, as well as how they spend them. All I'm saying is, the more popular and competitive of a game it is, the more likely it is to attract and bring out the absolute worst in the people who play them.

 

I know it's rather apples to oranges, but if Call of Duty c.~2 years ago had microtransactions for something or other that would give them an obvious competitive edge on multiplayer (like a 3rd perk slot or something), I'm sure that would attract all sorts of scum and villainy too.