Microtransactions: the experiment that failed?
After Electronic Arts got its hands on it, it would be so easy to think so. Funny thing is, this bold online console gaming experiment called microtransactions could have been a good idea – DON’T HIT ME YET, I said “could,” and even I have my doubts it could ever be, okay? Then EA got its hands on it, ran it in Marketplace and, frankly, they botched it.
For example: Madden NFL 07 tutorial vids? Haven’t you guys heard of GameFAQs and YouTube? Then 200 MS points to max out a Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 golfer? What’s this, pay-per-GameShark? After that, pay to unlock The Godfather uber-guns, then PAY for the in-game money to buy them? What’s this, the offer we can’t refuse? And latest of all, NFS Carbon unlocks at a price? It’s highway robbery, we tell you, highway robbery!
And when you have Xbox Live community shepherd TriXie “crying rape“, and Major Nelson becoming very worried about it, you know it’s over for microtransactions, man. At least as far as we’re concerned, and not the publishers. Don’t forget: Carbon also comes out on the PS3 and Wii, which will have their own online portals. OMG, is EA going to do this same thing to those consoles’ players too?
The original intent of microtransactions was to give gamers the power of choice. Something like iTunes, where you can choose which songs of an artist’s complete itinerary you’d like to keep. If you don’t like a specific feature or extra of a game, why do you have to pay for it when you don’t have to ask for it in the first place?
This mentality runs into a brick wall that dates back to the pre-online console days. We’re used to seeing our games in one complete package. Expansion packs were just that: expansions that did nothing to detract from the original game. For the money we pay for a “full game”, we rightfully expected a full game, and not what in effect is a demo at 1,200 MS points (example: Lumines Live! Fun, but sadly not complete).
We used to be optimistic that microtransactions could mean bright things ahead. Now, we’re not so sure. Read up on this writer’s “Theory of how to make micro work” in the full article. Don’t worry – he’s not being paid per click. He’s being paid a low, flat rate.
After Electronic Arts got its hands on it, it would be so easy to think so. Funny thing is, this bold online console gaming experiment called microtransactions could have been a good idea – DON’T HIT ME YET, I said “could,” and even I have my doubts it could ever be, okay? Then EA got its hands on it, ran it in Marketplace and, frankly, they botched it.
For example: Madden NFL 07 tutorial vids? Haven’t you guys heard of GameFAQs and YouTube? Then 200 MS points to max out a Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 golfer? What’s this, pay-per-GameShark? After that, pay to unlock The Godfather uber-guns, then PAY for the in-game money to buy them? What’s this, the offer we can’t refuse? And latest of all, NFS Carbon unlocks at a price? It’s highway robbery, we tell you, highway robbery!
And when you have Xbox Live community shepherd TriXie “crying rape“, and Major Nelson becoming very worried about it, you know it’s over for microtransactions, man. At least as far as we’re concerned, and not the publishers. Don’t forget: Carbon also comes out on the PS3 and Wii, which will have their own online portals. OMG, is EA going to do this same thing to those consoles’ players too?
The original intent of microtransactions was to give gamers the power of choice. Something like iTunes, where you can choose which songs of an artist’s complete itinerary you’d like to keep. If you don’t like a specific feature or extra of a game, why do you have to pay for it when you don’t have to ask for it in the first place?
This mentality runs into a brick wall that dates back to the pre-online console days. We’re used to seeing our games in one complete package. Expansion packs were just that: expansions that did nothing to detract from the original game. For the money we pay for a “full game”, we rightfully expected a full game, and not what in effect is a demo at 1,200 MS points (example: Lumines Live! Fun, but sadly not complete).
But for all of microtransaction’s deplored failures, it does offer advantages that can’t be ignored – and we don’t mean the advantage for highway robbery. One example, it allows game devs to continue releasing expansion or sequel game content that could recycle part of the original content or code. And they can do so at a lower price than if they had to include the code in the sequel.
And some of the more positive comments to Lumines Live! had a point, too. Nothing’s stopping Q Entertainment from expanding the game further with mouth-watering additional content – or producing a sequel which, hopefully, will be cheaper than 1,200 MS points if it’s going to be an add-on to the Lumines Live! “Base Pack”.
Try looking to microtransactions as a way to offer us the game’s “minimum playable content” at the lowest possible price, and offer the rest as downloadable content. But the total price of them all should not exceed the MSRP of that platform’s game disc containing all that data. To use Gran Turismo HD and its planned downloadables as an example, the total price of the game’s basic engines (for gameplay, visuals, audio, etc.) plus the “downloadable” cars found in the PS2 Gran Turismo 4 (of which HD is a port of) should not exceed the $ 60.00 MSRP of a PS3 game. Any more than that, and for me it would be a total rip-off.
With that, I could play GTHD at a much lower price, although I won’t have all the cool cars of the complete game package. But the option to have the complete game package, plus the price I paid for the “Base Pack”, would not cost me more than if I purchased the complete game on a Blu-Ray disc.
Not all games would be compatible with this kind of economic model, I’m sure (I wouldn’t forgive Konami if they made Snake a “downloadable” optional character for MGS4), but that’s just one way out of one guy’s imagination to make this nightmare work – I mean end. And even I am not sure it could work. Or if anyone in corporate cares (the full HD is still estimated at $ 500.00). I’m just a poor gamer boy on a tight budget.
Those are just hypotheticals. Call me devil’s advocate (or something that only needs four letters, if you will), but there could be a way microtransactions could work. But it has to be focused on making games easier for us to purchase and play, and to offer us new and exciting content at lower prices than we’re used to, not to offer us gamers half-baked efforts that the publisher’ll “promise” to correct with future patches or sequels, or to con us by offering us “offers we can’t refuse.” Yeah, we’re talking to you, EA.
It must be coincidence I’m listening to Metallica’s “The Memory Remains” right now. Part of the chorus comes to mind when I think about EA and this…
Fortune, fame, mirror vain, gone insane… Fortune, fame, mirror vain, dance little tin goddess, dance…
God, I miss the days when EA was about the Desert Strike game, not about its customers deserting its games in strike. Nah, na-na-nah, nah-nah-nah, nah-nah na-na-nah…
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