EA's pay to win future

Skanda

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
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http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...asutra+News%29

EA has hinted numerous times in the past that it is very interested in pursuing in-app purchases wherever possible,including an exampleof paying a dollar to get more ammo for your clip inBattlefield.

As part of a talkat Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom Conference this week, Jorgensen said that EA is now looking to incorporate in-app purchases into all its games, "either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be."
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It's hard for me to find the words to describe how much I hope this blows up in their face. It looks like Dead Space 3 was just the beginning of trying to force the cell phone gaming culture onto the larger gaming sphere. Seems like EA is quickly climbing their way back up my list of most disliked publishers.
 
Jait

Jait

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It's all a cycle. And ultimately it's only about what model offers the most profit.

Eventually by 2020 enough people will get pissed and they'll go back to "grind the fuck out of things 40 hours a week to get ahead."

Then that generation will grow up and get jobs and demand pay2win.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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EA has sucked shit for awhile now, not really surprising. I generally don't play their games.
 
Vorph

Vorph

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I've come to like Origin. It removes any and all temptation to give EA money for games that I know do not deserve to be supported.
 
Drajakur

Drajakur

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The only thing worse than EA for doing this is each and every stupid fucking asshole who paid for something in Dead Space 3. It was obvious that the microtrans in that game were a pilot. And it is also obvious, from this announcement, that there were enough idiotic retards out there to prove the model financially succesful. You can blame EA for the dick, but you have to blame gamers for lubing up and bending over.

What sucks is the rest of us now have to put up with this bullshit.
 
spronk

spronk

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i haven't played any of the new games, what happens if you pirate shit? everything is free or can you not get ammo?
 
Tuco

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I think I'd be more upset about this shit if I ever played a game where an inferior player could gain advantage on me with $$$. The worst pay-for-shit thing I've seen has been a deliberate attempt by developers to create a shitty grind and then make it easier to progress through it with $$$.
 
Skanda

Skanda

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I feel the same way about cosmetic crap. I don't get it but whatever floats your boat. Though I am really loathe to see this crap make it's way into every game. But using his example of $1 to fill your clip in Battlefield makes it pretty obvious that, at least the execs, don't give two shits about balance or advantage.
 
Jait

Jait

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They care. But if you were a painter, would you starve and paint for art or paint 6 naked dogs fucking each other for 200,000?

Art is nice and all, but the MBA attitude rules business now.


Drajakur_sl said:
The only thing worse than EA for doing this is each and every stupid fucking asshole who paid for something in Dead Space 3. It was obvious that the microtrans in that game were a pilot. And it is also obvious, from this announcement, that there were enough idiotic retards out there to prove the model financially succesful. You can blame EA for the dick, but you have to blame gamers for lubing up and bending over.

What sucks is the rest of us now have to put up with this bullshit.
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That's exactly it. Vote with your wallet. Bitch is, we don't always get what we vote for, especially when it seems obvious that we shouldn't be voting for something. Here in California a bunch of morons passed a proposition to increase funds to Education. Because if you're not for Education you're a god damned terrorist, right?

Unfortunately no one read the fine print and they're all now whining about the Sales Tax increase.


Back to the point at hand....I think what were all really pissed about is that they have found more ways to make us PAY. But the quality hasn't improved. We're not seeing that money put to good use. Or at least I haven't.
 
Kaige

Kaige

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Tuco_sl said:
I think I'd be more upset about this shit if I ever played a game where an inferior player could gain advantage on me with $$$. The worst pay-for-shit thing I've seen has been a deliberate attempt by developers to create a shitty grind and then make it easier to progress through it with $$$.
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A lot of this type of concept was born through browser-based MMOs. Oh the stories I could tell! Don't forget all the nutty stuff people would buy on those MMORPG ebay sites: characters, weapons, plat, etc.

You might've seen us all involved in a game we mostly gave up, called eRepublik. This game gets pretty obsessive by people because it pits RL countries against each other. IRL hatred transfers over, and people go nuts trying to conquer each other in game because they can't do shit about it in the real world. Some time ago, they changed the limits on the amount of health per day you could use, to where you could buy gold and replenish your health infinitely as long as you kept buying it with your credit card.

So this one fight, Japan (us) vs Taiwan, we're trying to win a round. These battles have divisions, and each round is seperated by strength, etc so like-values fight each other. Each division per round awards a certain amount of points. The division of the round we're trying to win was #4, the highest, which only awards 5 points. You need 80 points total to win the ENTIRE battle.

This guy on Taiwan's side tanked heavily against us and spent a ton of gold just to winthat round. Do you want to guess how much gold he bought just to beat us for that meager 5 points?

Roughly 300 dollars. Yup...300 bucks.



Another example is a game we play currently which is loosely based off erep, called e-sim. Recently they introduced stat equipment. Diablo-esque type stuff.

So this one guy - who is a lawyer and is notorious for buying gold in truckloads - went nuts bidding on a really good item on the auction house. In the end, he managed to win it at just under 2000 gold.

Guess how much it costs to buy 2000 gold? Well, it costs about 55 bucks to buy 200 gold, so that would be ten times the amount...550 dollars.

He quit a week later, because his firm got a big case.
 
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Fazana_sl

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The MMO market has gone 95% freemium, the IOS and Android market is 95% freemium, it was only a matter of time before the big PC boys noticed how much can be made this way and wondered if they can get a slice. If they can do it along with still getting an upfront cost out of the consumer, well that's even better as far as they are concerned.

A company in Japan is making $60m a month from a phone game that costs nothing to download and play but makes its money from convenience impulse buys. That's the carrot they are chasing now.
 
Penance

Penance

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On one hand this should help drive economies. I'm all for micro-transactions, but only if they're vanity and only if they're worth it. We can all hope that EA sinks because of this, but as long as they're funding studios that make great hits, they will unfortunately continue to thrive.

But one can always hope
 
Zaphid

Zaphid

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I have a feeling that if they stick a way to buy progress in anything, it's bound to make more money than without, which is kind of depressing. Thankfully the market is big enough to support developers that think this is negatively affecting the design and don't do it.
 
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Pennilenko

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Jait_sl said:
I think what were all really pissed about is that they have found more ways to make us PAY. But the quality hasn't improved. We're not seeing that money put to good use. Or at least I haven't.
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This is my biggest issue with the current market.
 
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Illuziun

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Quality has gone so far down the shit hole in gaming. Everything is just played safe these days so they can take the least amount of risks while following some generic best possible route for net revenue ideology. The problem is, in order to be innovative you have to take risks, and no one is taking risks in gaming. Companies like EA have turned into a pure cash cow while putting forth the least amount of effort into actual development so they can keep expenses down.
 
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Sean_sl

shitlord
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Illuziun_sl said:
Quality has gone so far down the shit hole in gaming. Everything is just played safe these days so they can take the least amount of risks while following some generic best possible route for net revenue ideology. The problem is, in order to be innovative you have to take risks, and no one is taking risks in gaming. Companies like EA have turned into a pure cash cow while putting forth the least amount of effort into actual development so they can keep expenses down.
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Man, I could not disagree more. Gaming has been great this past year and the start of this year. Ubisoft took some wild deviations and big changes with both Assassin's Creed 3 (the Naval battles could be a game on their own) and Far Cry 3. Capcom created a great new IP with Dragon's Dogma and had Ninja Theory do an amazing new take on Devil May Cry. Konami & Platinum games put out the awesomely unique Metal Gear Rising. Level 5 put a huge awesome RPG experience with Ni no Kuni that was a great mix of things. Firaxis revived the XCOM franchise with XCOM: Enemy Unknown which went on to win many GOTY awards despite being a Strategy game. Even Bethseda put out a brand new franchise with Dishonored and it was plenty unique.

Plus there were a ton of fantastic smaller games like The Walking Dead and Journey, which were anything but "playing it safe". Not to mention Mark of the Ninja, DeadLight, Unfinished Swan, Dust: An Elysian Tale, etc.

EA may be pumping out low risk dogshit and raping series like Dead Space, but everyone else sure as fuck is not. Over all gaming has been better than ever.

There's always some crusty, joyless cunt of a naysayer claiming that the industry is uncreative and dying and they're always dead fucking wrong.
 
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Blide_sl

shitlord
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I don't necessarily think the industry is moving the wrong direction. I do think it's way more risk adverse than it was in the past though. That's not too surprising given the cost of development.

I would say there are more good games being released than ever before. It used to be that most releases outside the fall/holiday season were utter shit. Now there's at least a few quality releases every quarter.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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Sean_sl said:
Man, I could not disagree more. Gaming has been great this past year and the start of this year. Ubisoft took some wild deviations and big changes with both Assassin's Creed 3 (the Naval battles could be a game on their own) and Far Cry 3. Capcom created a great new IP with Dragon's Dogma and had Ninja Theory do an amazing new take on Devil May Cry. Konami & Platinum games put out the awesomely unique Metal Gear Rising. Level 5 put a huge awesome RPG experience with Ni no Kuni that was a great mix of things. Firaxis revived the XCOM franchise with XCOM: Enemy Unknown which went on to win many GOTY awards despite being a Strategy game. Even Bethseda put out a brand new franchise with Dishonored and it was plenty unique.

Plus there were a ton of fantastic smaller games like The Walking Dead and Journey, which were anything but "playing it safe". Not to mention Mark of the Ninja, DeadLight, Unfinished Swan, Dust: An Elysian Tale, etc.

EA may be pumping out low risk dogshit and raping series like Dead Space, but everyone else sure as fuck is not. Over all gaming has been better than ever.

There's always some crusty, joyless cunt of a naysayer claiming that the industry is uncreative and dying and they're always dead fucking wrong.
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Agreed.

And Im also going to comment on Jaits.

Do you really feel like you are paying more for the same experience since the f2p/micro Jait? really?
I'm pretty sure I'm playing 10x more games at half the price.
mmos. I have DDO, Lothro, DCUO, GW2, Doofus, Tera installed. Then how many others are also F2p and could be on there? (Swtor, TSW, etc?) Then Dota2, LoL, sins.. PoE of course, various Android games..
Its like having extended betas for every game. If a game is good, invest in it. if not, fuck it.

I'm sure as hell not paying 70/month on a new game anymore.

More often its the other way. After 1500 games in LoL, decide I probably should spend some cash on store...
 
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Cor_sl

shitlord
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Illuziun_sl said:
Quality has gone so far down the shit hole in gaming. Everything is just played safe these days so they can take the least amount of risks while following some generic best possible route for net revenue ideology. The problem is, in order to be innovative you have to take risks, and no one is taking risks in gaming. Companies like EA have turned into a pure cash cow while putting forth the least amount of effort into actual development so they can keep expenses down.
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Games cost millions of dollars to make nowadays and the companies making them are operating on razor thin margins. It's no surprise that they're risk averse.

As for micro transactions; pc & console devs need to make use of them. They're leaving so much money on the table because they're not. There are so many whales out there wanting to spend more money on their games but they have no options to do so: these people need to be monetised.

Companies like EA are kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place going into next gen, too. The cost to make games is only going to increase yet consumers don't want to pay extra. Since consumers seem to be unwilling to pay more for games (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=516448), they'll need to find other ways to drive extra revenue if they want to survive.
 
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