4 ms·

It snowballed a bit, but overall it reflects the disregard gamers feel from EA: they try to make a $60+ game that also has microtransactions (Games-as-a-Service

by rf15 9y ago

It snowballed a bit, but overall it reflects the disregard gamers feel from EA: they try to make a $60+ game that also has microtransactions (Games-as-a-Service) and everything that is buyable by microtransactions has to be impossible/extra tedious to achieve in regular play to bait the whales(their actual target demographic) into wasting a ton of money (while the average gamer is just plankton/social bait to EA). And then they try to bullshit their way out of it with this argument.

Thaxll 9y ago
People don't want to pay for DLC, season pass, expansions basically nothing? How do you pay for upcoming content then? For the current price the game has a vast content.
- emsy 9y ago
  That’s not the point at all. For example, look how many gamers complained about the Witcher DLC. What bothers players is day-1-DLC and non-cosmetic loot boxes in paid games.
  - skeletal88 9y ago
    Which Witcher DLC, who was complaining? I haven't seen anything but praise for CDPR for the Witcher games. The game was amazing, with free DLCs that are as big as some smaller games, and they had 2 expansions that people had to pay for. Everyone was happy.
    - emsy 9y ago
      >I haven't seen anything but praise for CDPR for the Witcher games Yeah that was my point! No one complained because everyone saw it as fair.
- danielbln 9y ago
  How do you get that from OP's post? OP specifically said it's about stuff `that is (..) impossible/extra tedious to achieve in regular play to bait the whales`.
- rf15 9y ago
  Most publishers and developers do fine with reasonable microtransactions, DLC, season passes and so on. It's just EA that makes it extra inhuman in trying to squeeze out the last cent out of everyone (including bleeding out their studios), which in turn makes them so unpopular for developers/non-casual gamers.
- tantivy 9y ago
  Maybe you've heard of Dota 2 or Overwatch, two massively profitable and popular games with no interactive content behind transactions. EA could have easily just made different cosmetic skins for the USS Enterprise (or whatever) with a hierarchy of rarities, stuck them in crates, and let the money roll in.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > Maybe you've heard of Dota 2 or Overwatch, two massively profitable and popular games with no interactive content behind transactions. I agree with what you're saying, but there's a small amendment to that: with Overwatch, you can buy loot boxes for extra character skins or sprays. But the impact on the game is minimal[0]. Loot boxes start at $1 each (with volume discounts available), but you also get one for free every time you level up, which happens every 5 games or so[1], in addition to a loot box for every three arcade-mode games you win (up to three boxes per week). In my mind, this is the right way to do it: the content is good enough to be engaging and worth paying a small amount of money for if you really want a certain skin, but you can also decide never to pay one cent after you initially buy the game and still feel like you're getting the full experience. [0] There are a couple of cases where certain emotes can make it easy to hide in an unexpected location, affecting gameplay, but they're rare enough that the videos get shared widely, and once they're no longer secret, they don't impact the competitive meta-game measurably. In other words, it's self-correcting: there's no systematic way that buying loot boxes to get all the skins/emotes/sprays/etc. allows you to consistently improve your competitive advantage over other players. [1] Depends on whether or not you win, how well you personally play in each round, whether you're in a group, etc.
- jvzr 9y ago
  I paid for all Battlefield season passes, and would continue to do so if given the option. The franchise has some of my most-played games (350+ hours in BF1, 150+ in BF4, 550+ in BF3). My only grief with the paid DLCs and season passes is the map segmentation: non-paying customers (well, those that didn't pay for the DLC) don't get the new maps, and then two parts of the customer base are segregated between two different sets of maps. I would be more than happy to see all new maps come for free, and I'd still pay for a season pass for new cosmetics/weapons/vehicles/whatever. Hope that makes sense
- pm90 9y ago
  I don't mind paying extra if new features are released, including new characters and new schemes. But it seems like the main characters (e.g. Vader, Bobba Fett etc.) should be achievable. I mean, that's kinda the point of buying a franchise game right? You want to play as one of your favorite characters. This made me look around a bit and I came across this excellent piece explaining how the economy of the game is fucked up: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/can-ea-fix-whats-broken-with-star-wars-battlefront-iis-economy/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/can-ea-fix-whats-brok.... Maybe they should go the Valve way and hire an actual economist to design their economy?
omg_ketchup 9y ago
If they made the end-game characters (Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, etc) 40+hours to get, and they DIDN'T have microtransactions to get them quickly, would gamers be complaining? Doubtful. They made the game HARD. That's good, that's what people asked for. Then they made the game EASY if you want to pay extra to make it easy. I think that's a fair trade, but that's clearly a minority opinion.

by rf15 9y ago

Thaxll 9y ago

People don't want to pay for DLC, season pass, expansions basically nothing? How do you pay for upcoming content then? For the current price the game has a vast content.

emsy 9y ago
That’s not the point at all. For example, look how many gamers complained about the Witcher DLC. What bothers players is day-1-DLC and non-cosmetic loot boxes in paid games.
- skeletal88 9y ago
  Which Witcher DLC, who was complaining? I haven't seen anything but praise for CDPR for the Witcher games. The game was amazing, with free DLCs that are as big as some smaller games, and they had 2 expansions that people had to pay for. Everyone was happy.
  - emsy 9y ago
    >I haven't seen anything but praise for CDPR for the Witcher games Yeah that was my point! No one complained because everyone saw it as fair.
danielbln 9y ago
How do you get that from OP's post? OP specifically said it's about stuff `that is (..) impossible/extra tedious to achieve in regular play to bait the whales`.
rf15 9y ago
Most publishers and developers do fine with reasonable microtransactions, DLC, season passes and so on. It's just EA that makes it extra inhuman in trying to squeeze out the last cent out of everyone (including bleeding out their studios), which in turn makes them so unpopular for developers/non-casual gamers.
tantivy 9y ago
Maybe you've heard of Dota 2 or Overwatch, two massively profitable and popular games with no interactive content behind transactions. EA could have easily just made different cosmetic skins for the USS Enterprise (or whatever) with a hierarchy of rarities, stuck them in crates, and let the money roll in.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > Maybe you've heard of Dota 2 or Overwatch, two massively profitable and popular games with no interactive content behind transactions. I agree with what you're saying, but there's a small amendment to that: with Overwatch, you can buy loot boxes for extra character skins or sprays. But the impact on the game is minimal[0]. Loot boxes start at $1 each (with volume discounts available), but you also get one for free every time you level up, which happens every 5 games or so[1], in addition to a loot box for every three arcade-mode games you win (up to three boxes per week). In my mind, this is the right way to do it: the content is good enough to be engaging and worth paying a small amount of money for if you really want a certain skin, but you can also decide never to pay one cent after you initially buy the game and still feel like you're getting the full experience. [0] There are a couple of cases where certain emotes can make it easy to hide in an unexpected location, affecting gameplay, but they're rare enough that the videos get shared widely, and once they're no longer secret, they don't impact the competitive meta-game measurably. In other words, it's self-correcting: there's no systematic way that buying loot boxes to get all the skins/emotes/sprays/etc. allows you to consistently improve your competitive advantage over other players. [1] Depends on whether or not you win, how well you personally play in each round, whether you're in a group, etc.
jvzr 9y ago
I paid for all Battlefield season passes, and would continue to do so if given the option. The franchise has some of my most-played games (350+ hours in BF1, 150+ in BF4, 550+ in BF3). My only grief with the paid DLCs and season passes is the map segmentation: non-paying customers (well, those that didn't pay for the DLC) don't get the new maps, and then two parts of the customer base are segregated between two different sets of maps. I would be more than happy to see all new maps come for free, and I'd still pay for a season pass for new cosmetics/weapons/vehicles/whatever. Hope that makes sense
pm90 9y ago
I don't mind paying extra if new features are released, including new characters and new schemes. But it seems like the main characters (e.g. Vader, Bobba Fett etc.) should be achievable. I mean, that's kinda the point of buying a franchise game right? You want to play as one of your favorite characters. This made me look around a bit and I came across this excellent piece explaining how the economy of the game is fucked up: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/can-ea-fix-whats-broken-with-star-wars-battlefront-iis-economy/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/can-ea-fix-whats-brok.... Maybe they should go the Valve way and hire an actual economist to design their economy?

omg_ketchup 9y ago

If they made the end-game characters (Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, etc) 40+hours to get, and they DIDN'T have microtransactions to get them quickly, would gamers be complaining? Doubtful. They made the game HARD. That's good, that's what people asked for. Then they made the game EASY if you want to pay extra to make it easy. I think that's a fair trade, but that's clearly a minority opinion.