Do people honestly think a games monetisation model doesn’t affect its overall design?

Sheepinator said:

You could look at their earnings reports. EA's profit margins are about the same as they were back in PS2 years, but if you took MTX out of the equation their profit margins would be a fraction of what they were in the PS2 years.

There's also just obvious common sense. US price changes below:

Game price increases since 2006: 0%
Inflation since 2006: 27%
Movie ticket price increases since 2006: 42%
Disney theme park tickets price increases since 2006: 77%

It's obvious game production costs have soared. It's obvious prices to consumers haven't seen the price rises typical with other entertainment. Something has to fill that gap. Again, this is easily seen by viewing the earnings reports which are public.

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An AAA game changing its business model rather than changing its price with inflation is a choice, and imo a really stupid one. Turok: Dinosaur hunter for N64 was $80 in 1997 when the standard was $50. Goldeneye was up there too. Going above industry standards in price for a cutting edge experience is not some game changing concept. If a game is good enough to have a huge budget, charge for that budget. If the game isn't, then the its AAA budget is unsustainable. Hiding initial budgetary costs in post-sale transactions is a dangerous path for the industry long term.

BDubsLegend said:

The answer is obvious to the question you asked. I mean anyone that even knows what Reset Era is can understand that.

You presented your argument in a way that would make people look stupid if they disagreed with you. Disingenuous. The true debate is can games be made with micro transactions and still be balanced to not need them. The answer is also yes. There are many examples.

There is no real debate here, you just don't like micros, set up a strawman argument, and rang the dinner bell for people that think like you to come running and agree. You don't have to like this answer but it would be better if you accepted it.

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Thread's premise would make a pretty good youtube video.

It obviously varies from game to game, because this isn't a universal rule. Now, if game X or Y is influenced by its monetization model, that's up for debate.

mael said:

It's also an example of regular old DLC so I feel like it's kinda different from MTx. Still good on them for following their vision to the end.

Game production doesn't have to soar to the point of bloating out the sun either.
EA choose to chase bigger and bigger budgets and no EA's margin increased pretty significantly recently
they got fucked up by the transition to HD but they're pretty good right now.
They decreased their reliance on initial sales revenue with various subscription and digital revenue.
ATVI not having to follow that route shows that they could have chosen another path.


At least you're honest in your shitposts.
Can you go away now so that people interested in having a discussion can have that without you?

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What's the discussion about? I guess gamers rise up against the evil corporation, that's so interesting and unique. Sounds more like a circle jerk than an actual discussion if everything you have to add is how people that can confirm how your theory is wrong get labelled as corporate defenders.

mael said:

Game production doesn't have to soar to the point of bloating out the sun either.
EA choose to chase bigger and bigger budgets and no EA's margin increased pretty significantly recently

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I said compared to PS2 years. That article starts at the PS3 years. Game production is obviously going to cost more when a) consoles keep getting more powerful, and gamers therefore keep expecting more detail, and b) gamers keep expecting more value for their money, aka more content, and c) developers like everyone else hope to get cost of living raises to keep up with inflation.

Crossing Eden said:

I mean this thread is supposedly about more than JUST mts. But post launch support in general.

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post launch support is a thing, it's never going away now.
Literally of all the games I have from the last 2 years, only 1 is still in 1.0.0 : Salt & Sanctuary on Switch.
All the other games from Toki tori 2+ on WiiU and Switch, Mario, Zelda, Bloodborne, Souls, you name it.
All of them are beyond 1.0.0.
Post launch support free or otherwise is not necessarily a bad thing, multiplayer games NEED to have it or you're left with broken messes usually anyway.

Dalik said:

Except the part where you literally only post word for word what your YouTube hero says. There's no discussion anything when you aren't even listening to facts.

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Nobody here has a YouTube hero. You have this really odd chip on your shoulder. There are a lot of publications and people writing about their dislike for mtx and what they've done to video games as a whole. A lot of people share that opinion. The fact as you put it , is that mtx to speed up the design of rpg mechanics was placed into a rpg called Assassin's Creed Odessey. There's no denying it.

Brawndo Addict said:

Here's a little thought experiment based off of what I'm guessing are widely shared assumptions.

Do we agree that capitalism determines corporate motivation?
Do we agree that this motivation is to maximize profits?
Do we agree that maximizing profits involves the creation of new revenue sources?
Do we agree that some new revenue sources are micro-transactions and loot-box systems?
Do we agree that micro-transactions and loot-box systems can be modified and changed?
Do we agree that those changes impact consumer interaction with those systems?
Do we agree that consumer interaction determines the amount of revenue generated by those systems?
Therefore, companies will modify these systems to create more revenue and profit.

The idea that companies behave according to capitalist principles except when it involves micro-transactions or loot-boxes is the more baseless and illogical claim; if the profit-motive exists, it exists. They're not going to suddenly abstain from considering it when it comes to a direct revenue source.

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Noooo but a company wanting to find new revenue streams that I don't personally agree with is evil! Even if I don't play the games! It creates a slippery slope and before you know it we'll need micros to unlock all the stars in Mario! /s

Dalik said:

What's the discussion about? I guess gamers rise up against the evil corporation, that's so interesting and unique. Sounds more like a circle jerk than an actual discussion if everything you have to add is how people that can confirm how your theory is wrong get labelled as corporate defenders.

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You made your point that you're not interested in discussion, kindly go away now, no one is forcing you to post in this thread.

Sheepinator said:

I said compared to PS2 years. That article starts at the PS3 years. Game production is obviously going to cost more when a) consoles keep getting more powerful, and gamers therefore keep expecting more detail, and b) gamers keep expecting more value for their money, aka more content, and c) developers like everyone else hope to get cost of living raises to keep up with inflation.

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The article starts in december2005 so, technically still ps2 years.
Again the chase for more expensive and shinnier games is an arm race that publishers willingly embraced, as EA shows with its non premium Fifa games they're perfectly happy selling products with marginal increase on the predecessor.
With the churn rate of developpers in this industry I doubt that salaries are on anyone's radar when considering costs.
EA is doing well regardless of MTx but it's doing exceptionally well with them.

One thing I have not seen mentioned is how micro transactions affect the single player experience on PC.

On PC I have the expectation of having the freedom to edit the game data to replay some parts or skip some unenjoyable section. If game devs are selling modifiers that affect the single player experience would it not be in their interest to prevent CE and mod usage?

Bethesda have already attempted to monetise mods, but that went badly. How sustainable is selling exp boosters for single player games when someone will release an editor that gives far more freedom and enjoyment for free?

mael said:

post launch support is a thing, it's never going away now.
Literally of all the games I have from the last 2 years, only 1 is still in 1.0.0 : Salt & Sanctuary on Switch.
All the other games from Toki tori 2+ on WiiU and Switch, Mario, Zelda, Bloodborne, Souls, you name it.
All of them are beyond 1.0.0.
Post launch support free or otherwise is not necessarily a bad thing, multiplayer games NEED to have it or you're left with broken messes usually anyway.

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Yes we live in a time where AAA titles are no longer fire and forget including SP titles. Something that has positives at the best of times, (pubs in general are releasing games with tons more content on average in an effort to increase player retention it's working, on top of that common dlc plans have changed, for example, downloadable maps on average are no longer $15 while segmenting the player base and usually come from because the development gets supported by another revenue source), and negatives, (occasionally there's a game that's gone so far with trying to make a profit that the design has been completely compromised, the biggest example being BF2's multiplayer progression and it's card system essentially being P2W, examples like that are thankfully few and far between because most devs aren't idiots :P).

Depends on the game. In the case of AC: Odyssey they didn't design the game around it

BDubsLegend said:

Noooo but a company wanting to find new revenue streams that I don't personally agree with is evil! Even if I don't play the games! It creates a slippery slope and before you know it we'll need micros to unlock all the stars in Mario! /s

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I didn't include any value-based reasoning in my post whatsoever. Whether you consider capitalism a good, bad, or neutral thing is entirely irrelevant when it comes to describing how it informs corporate behavior. The default economic position is that companies will behave rationally according to the profit motive absent evidence to the contrary. To take the position that a company will violate this principle and behave in a non-capitalist way is the positive claim that needs evidence to support it.

Crossing Eden said:

Yes we live in a time where AAA titles are no longer fire and forget including SP titles. Something that has positives at the best of times, (pubs in general are releasing games with tons more content on average in an effort to increase player retention it's working, on top of that common dlc plans have changed, for example, downloadable maps on average are no longer $15 while segmenting the player base and usually come from because the development gets supported by another revenue source), and negatives, (occasionally there's a game that's gone so far with trying to make a profit that the design has been completely compromised, the biggest example being BF2's multiplayer progression and it's card system essentially being P2W, examples like that are thankfully few and far between because most devs aren't idiots :P).

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Thankfully we're past the days of map packs.
Still I don't think they really need to make people pay for ongoing dev, the fact that they keep updating the game is usually enough to have more and more people pay for the game anyway.
Works for Splatoon2 or Fortnite (which is free to play, so they entirely rely on mtx...as well as being the posterboy of Unreal so even if it was a loss for Epic it would be worthwhile).

Absolutely, the game is designed to exploit human behavior.

Is this bad? Well.. If people are ok with that that's fine, all I know I'm never buying it for myself.

I absolutely believe that it's a tacked-on-at-the-end scenario for a lot of games in recent years. Not because of any positive reason, though, only because I'm sure companies have poor planning, or because the designers and executives don't communicate often. And because of the length of time it takes to make a game - no doubt some games were well into development when the decision to monetize was made.

However, monetization models are undoubtedly being dictated up front now, in most cases. I would expect very, very few developers would manage to keep the game design from being influenced by them, if they are even trying to do so.

I mean it makes as much financial sense to not design your major game changing systems around a small minority of players who will buy a specific MTX instead of the majority of the playerbase that won't who's good opinion you rely on, specially when designing a system in such a way would end up in alot of negative reviews and bad word of mouth. There have been some large games which got burned for this. The players that spend the most on MTX/DLC/Expansions etc. are those that play the game the most and enjoy it the most - putting your monetisation strategy as a way of actually making the game worse is actually counterproductive. Which is way the idea of AC:Oddesey being made to be grindier to make you pay for a EXP boost doesn't work very well - to make more money they actually want their players playing for longer and having fun and focusing on mainly their game so they are still playing when DLC/more MTXs come out. Also it doesn't make much sense to push the consumers to miss content that you spent alot of money making - it means there was no benefit to that money being spent.

mael said:

The article starts in december2005 so, technically still ps2 years.
Again the chase for more expensive and shinnier games is an arm race that publishers willingly embraced, as EA shows with its non premium Fifa games they're perfectly happy selling products with marginal increase on the predecessor.
With the churn rate of developpers in this industry I doubt that salaries are on anyone's radar when considering costs.
EA is doing well regardless of MTx but it's doing exceptionally well with them.

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EA's profit margin (operating income/net revenue) for the 3 years ended March, 2016-2018: 24.7%
EA's profit margin for the 3 years ended March, 2003-2005: 22.19%

That's about the same. If you were to remove MTX from the modern numbers, those profit margins would totally collapse. FUT alone amounts to almost as much in dollars as EA's entire operating income. Lose the MTX and EA's numbers would probably go from 22% profit margins back in the PS2 years to mid single digits now.

oni-link said:

If you're that upset feel free to PM a mod, as you make it sound like a trolling thread or arguing in bad faith, neither of which are permitted

I think your point on balance is an interesting one, which I also raised in the OP. I don't think it's as simple as making a game and adding a MXT model that can be ignored, because that won't make as much money as a system build to compliment the specifics of the game

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You are entitled to your opinion, and I am not arguing in bad faith. I just disagree.

This Pm a mod nonsense and repeating rules is some of the worst kinds of behavior that exist in this forum. I should be allowed to disagree, even with popular opinions and posters without fear of being banned. I noticed prominent posters in other areas avoid topics like this and social issues, probably for that very reason .

Why so I have to be upset you're the one leaving sassy comments and calling for mods.

Brawndo Addict said:

I didn't include any value-based reasoning in my post whatsoever. Whether you consider capitalism a good, bad, or neutral thing is entirely irrelevant when it comes to describing how it informs corporate behavior. The default economic position is that companies will behave rationally according to the profit motive absent evidence to the contrary. To take the position that a company will violate this principle and behave in a non-capitalist way is the positive claim that needs evidence to support it.

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I agree with your post. It's logical. My response is sarcasm.

mael said:

Thankfully we're past the days of map packs.
Still I don't think they really need to make people pay for ongoing dev, the fact that they keep updating the game is usually enough to have more and more people pay for the game anyway.
Works for Splatoon2 or Fortnite (which is free to play, so they entirely rely on mtx...as well as being the posterboy of Unreal so even if it was a loss for Epic it would be worthwhile).

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Splatoon 2 has Amiibo support, and Fortnite is absolutely supported first and foremost by the battle pass and costume/emote/accessory etc. purchases. This is where the nuance lies. A game like Fortnite gets supported with mts so everyday they add something new and let you know with a big red box that says new on it. Can't really have people working for free and just relying on the base purchase while you support the game over years. That would make no logical sense from a financial perspective.

It honestly doesn't matter if it does or not anymore because no one will believe devs either way

OP if you can, go and read the OTs of SWBF2, NFS Payback, Shadow of War, Destiny 2 etc and see loads of people defending it saying the game showers you with in-game currency and you don't have to spend a dime if you play it enough hence MTX didn't affect progression. Most of those people pulled the same card saying "I'm playing the game and you aren't and I know better". What all those 4 games have in common? They all have had their payout economy changed, sometimes multiple times, either when they removed MTX or when they were caught red handed throttling XP, making the defenders look like idiots in the hindsight.

Crossing Eden said:

Splatoon 2 has Amiibo support, and Fortnite is absolutely supported first and foremost by the battle pass and costume/emote/accessory etc. purchases. This is where the nuance lies. A game like Fortnite gets supported with mts so everyday they add something new and let you know with a big red box that says new on it. Can't really have people working for free and just relying on the base purchase while you support the game over years. That would make no logical sense from a financial perspective.

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Then why charge full price up front? Shouldn't the goal be to maximize player base so you have more customers to pay the mtx? The two monetization models come into conflict way too often to be sustainable. Only one can be the fundamental driver behind the game's design. And as long as a game's initial budget depends on ongoing purchases happening long after the initial sale, the point of the game will be about making those sales.

Brawndo Addict said:

I didn't include any value-based reasoning in my post whatsoever. Whether you consider capitalism a good, bad, or neutral thing is entirely irrelevant when it comes to describing how it informs corporate behavior. The default economic position is that companies will behave rationally according to the profit motive absent evidence to the contrary. To take the position that a company will violate this principle and behave in a non-capitalist way is the positive claim that needs evidence to support it.

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DMC4 special edition. They added microtransactions to a game that fed you orbs n proud souls. The in game economy of vanilla actually took longer to give you a certain amount of orbsn souls. So the game they added MTs too, happens to be the one where the in game economy has been balanced even further to have you interact with it less (because they could have easily left it the same or made it longer). So there you go a game tuned to have you interact with them less.

Mankind Divided. Game itself was never designed with the crap in mind, got stapled on because of square. They were tacked on without any tuning or compromising on the devs part. Making them easily ignorable. So another example where it would make sense to tune them to make more money, but it didn't happen.

I would take the bet there are other examples, ones that we won't know about until the games are out without some investigative stuff done. If not, fine, whatever exceptions to the rule.

Again no one is arguing for the love of Christ that pubs n devs aren't trying to make money, aren't thinking of their business model when making the game.

ArmadilloGame said:

Then why charge full price up front?

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Because these projects cost tens of millions of dollars to develop the base game. What investor is gonna here "Hey, we're gonna make our most ambitious game YET, and it'll be completely free to play." and say "Sounds good fam, you good at business."

BeaconofTruth said:

I would take the bet there are other examples

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Every AC game released this gen.

In most cases the people making those comments are not wrong, as in a lot of games they can be ignored, they don't hugely change the experience and you are given enough currency for playing the game to make progress at a decent pace

When this isn't the case, the games get a lot of blowback and end up reviewing poorly because of it (Battlefront 2, Shadow of War etc)

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I guess you didn't play Shadow of War huh. Couldn't think of a worse example to make that argument. Loot boxes could be completely ignored in that game (apart from the ones you got for ingame currency). Still baffled how people picked up that torch on release and it just never seemed to go away. There's a fair argument to make against MT's in a single player games, but it's sad to see so many people make clueless claims about it like they did in SoW (can't count how many times I saw people claim the 'endgame grind forced lootboxes')

OP, subsequent to letting my position known, what is your thought on increasing the MSRP US $60 to somewhere that would hypothetically cause the publishers to pause these manipulative practices? After all, the rest of the world pays more for a game compared the Trump nation. Furthermore, courtesy of perennial inflation, US $60 in 2008 is equivalent to ~US $69 (according US Bureau of Labour Statistics) today. This does not take into the account the rather non commensurate growth in wage over the same period of time in US or the fact that per unit sales via digital distribution earns greater revenue than its physical counterpart.

This is simple thought experiment given that these practices are so ubiquitous and the people so complicit, that even if the prices were to reflect the increased cost, it will continue. For the last decade or so, I have made it point to never buy games that are made better with MTX at launch prices. After all, not all studios are CDPR.

BeaconofTruth said:

Again no one is arguing for the love of Christ that pubs n devs aren't trying to make money, aren't thinking of their business model when making the game.

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Your argument is that multimillion dollar corporations aren't thinking of their business model when they design their products? I'm sorry, but you are objectively wrong here.

Indies, sure. Their goal is to make as much as it is to profit. Companies run by promoted game designers (Paradox or Larian or even Bethesda), yeah I can buy it. Those level studios have a duty to make money, but they often believe a game's quality is damaged by putting money first. And they have the freedom to live by that belief. But regarding AAA games, just no. The only point is to maximize money, and that will be the deciding factor throughout the design process.

Fucking DP

Pheace said:

I guess you didn't play Shadow of War huh. Couldn't think of a worse example to make that argument. Loot boxes could be completely ignored in that game (apart from the ones you got for ingame currency). Still baffled how people picked up that torch on release and it just never seemed to go away. There's a fair argument to make against MT's in a single player games, but it's sad to see so many people make clueless claims about it like they did in SoW (can't count how many times I saw people claim the 'endgame grind forced lootboxes')

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It wasn't just that. The devs tried to honor their colleague who died during development with a $5 dlc, Forthog as I'm sure you remember. They explicitly stated they weren't keeping a cent of it, and the money was going to the guy's family. Jim and his followers kicked up a huge uproar calling the devs ghouls for profiting from their dead friend, and to shut them up WB ended up giving away the dlc for free to all gamers, and the family didn't get that money. Did Jim ever apologize? Of course he didn't.

It absolutely does. Every.Single.Damn.One. The question is "to what degree?", because that's the thing that varies from game to game.

ArmadilloGame said:

Your argument is that multimillion dollar corporations aren't thinking of their business model when they design their products? I'm sorry, but you are objectively wrong here.

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literally the thing you quoted is me saying no one is arguing that lol

Crossing Eden said:

Because these projects cost tens of millions of dollars to develop the base game. What investor is gonna here "Hey, we're gonna make our most ambitious game YET, and it'll be completely free to play." and say "Sounds good fam, you good at business."


Every AC game released this gen.

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Fortnite says otherwise. So do most phone games. Candy Crush was more profitable than any AAA game ever has been. When the point is to sell microtransactions, you want to maximize the customer base. Short term profit that damages long term revenue is idiotic if the game's budget is built with the long term in mind. The practice only persists because it's the industry standard and companies are conservative and slow to change imo.

Shredderi said:

It absolutely does. Every.Single.Damn.One. The question is "to what degree?", because that's the thing that varies from game to game.

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Yeah I guess that's a better way of putting it.

ArmadilloGame said:

Fortnite says otherwise.

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Fortnite is near constantly updated with both free things and stuff for the player to buy. It's monetization model works for that. Meanwhile, the campaign, (that also receives frequent updates), has cutscenes and a small narrative, audio, characters, a more diverse cast, unique animations, more weapons, enemy AI, etc., and note, it's not AS ambitious as the usual AAA release, cost $40. Another elephant in the room is that the game isn't even "done." Using Fortnite as an example was a bad idea.

People are saying Deus Ex Mankind wasn't designed with MTX in mind. That may well be true for the campaign, which I beat while being showered with more more Praxis points than I needed. It's obviously not the case for the added Breach mode though. There are lootboxes and if you want more of them, a fast way is to send and receive challenges from friends (or alt profiles) which are limited to 3 per day, otherwise you can buy the lootboxes from the store, or buy weapons and other things directly with paid currency, but even those say you get an A or S weapon from the purchase, so I guess the contents must be randomized.

oni-link said:

I'm not advocating for a removal of all MXTs, and I'm not making the point they should be removed, or that they're all manipulative. If you got that from the OP then would suggest you re-read it

I'm the wrong person to ask anyway as I never buy games day 1, so a price hike for day 1 wouldn't really impact me, as I wait for sales anyway

If they did raise prices of the base game, they wouldn't remove MXTs anyway, and if you want anything more than the base game today you'll be paying more than $60 anyway

Not sure what any of this has to do with the premise of the thread

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No, I am pretty sure I got the point in OP right. Irrespective of moral or ethical implications, MTX affects the design of game balance. Game balances are a core components of its design and as such MTX would also have to be designed in a way to not break the game. Thus, balancing the game with the purchase of MTX would be the corollary.

With regards to my query about price hike and premise of removal of MTX (for which I am not advocating one way or another unless they are grossly affect the balance or are loot boxes), is to ask whether a game would be better off charging a higher price and including these game altering MTX as an intrinsic part of the base game. That is why I mentioned the witcher 2 and 3. People can play them for over 50 or 60 hours and then paying for actual worthwhile DLCs.

Crossing Eden said:

Fortnite is near constantly updated with both free things and stuff for the player to buy. It's monetization model works for that. Meanwhile, the campaign, (that also receives frequent updates), has cutscenes and a small narrative, audio, characters, a more diverse cast, unique animations, more weapons, enemy AI, etc., and note, it's not AS ambitious as the usual AAA release, cost $40. Using Fortnite as an example was a bad idea.

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Umm, fortnite is free. $40 rents its extra features for a while. Mtx funds it otherwise. It is pure game as a service. It has constant updates because that is the business model. Lure everyone possible to play in (because it's free) and constantly have new and shiny things to sell. No $60 initial cost and they are doing great. I don't know what you think my point was, but your response makes literally no sense to me.

No it doesn't because corporations are my friends.

It absolutely affects design, and for some games disproportionately so.

ArmadilloGame said:

Umm, fortnite is free. $40 rents its extra features for a while.

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Fortnite costs $40. It originally started a $40 early access title before they made the f2p battle royale mode which in EVERY sense of the term was a way more massive success then they could've ever imagined. And like I said, that portion is still being worked on and updated as frequently as battle royale is, this existed long before the BR mode:

ArmadilloGame said:

Mtx funds it otherwise. It is pure game as a service. It has constant updates because that is the business model. Lure everyone possible to play in (because it's free) and constantly have new and shiny things to sell. No $60 initial cost and they are doing great. I don't know what you think my point was, but your response makes literally no sense to me.

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There are multiple kinds of GAAS, different games require different types of support. Something that works for one game wouldn't just automatically work for another.

Decarb said:

OP if you can, go and read the OTs of SWBF2, NFS Payback, Shadow of War, Destiny 2 etc and see loads of people defending it saying the game showers you with in-game currency and you don't have to spend a dime if you play it enough hence MTX didn't affect progression. Most of those people pulled the same card saying "I'm playing the game and you aren't and I know better". What all those 4 games have in common? They all have had their payout economy changed, sometimes multiple times, either when they removed MTX or when they were caught red handed throttling XP, making the defenders look like idiots in the hindsight.

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Regarding NFS Payback, the vast majority of people complaining about that game had/have no idea how progression and mtx work in that game. People only complained about it wanted to dogpile it because its an EA game.

You can easily upgrade your cars to max without buying any loot boxes. The only unique stuff out of there is stuff like horn sounds and NOS colors, but I guess people wanna get outraged over that.

HBK said:

You count one example. I can count tens of PS2 JRPGs which have little, if at all, unlockable costumes options.

I hate MTX with a passion, but I take issue with people wearing rose tinted glasses about the "good old days".

The hard truth is that few games allowed for cosmetic customization "back in the day".

That's no justification for MTX obviously. But still.

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5 costumes in game beats 0 costumes in game because they are all DLC now. Take Persona 3 and 4(G), both of them had a handful of costumes. Comes Persona 5 and everything is DLC.

We all know this stuff would have been normally available in game, PS2 is when they started to insert them since RPG started to move away from 2D to fully 3D realized worlds.