As my last post in this thread, all i'll say to that is, that's the saddest part. And that needs to really change one of these days
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
YongYea: Ubisoft Defends Loot Boxes in Dismissive Response to Backlash, Points Finger at Gamers
- Thread starter Alucardx23
- Start date
As my last post in this thread, all i'll say to that is, that's the saddest part. And that needs to really change one of these days
Yep. Everything that goes into balancing a game is deliberate. I don't know how people can, with a modicum of common sense, imply otherwise. This reminds me of the slow cooked frog form of acceptance to mtx.
Undoubtedly the development costs have gone up and the price of mismanagement is more often than not, terminal. The base prices of games ought to reflect that instead of these psychologically pernicious practices (more often than not). But even there the market expectations of price points, disposable income and other factors complicate issues.
Anyway, this is pretty much the reason I stopped buying games brand new at launch prices (here in canada it's $80 + 15% tax).
answer me this question: if no one should ever have any reason to buy "time savers" why are they in the game?
they still have time savers in the form of "in-game resources for fun bux" though:
The one thing that Ubisoft got wrong with this game on the XP front is that it makes side missions that would be optional almost look mandatory because the main story quest is tied to XP. If you are not at the required level you either have to complete side missions or shell some cash.
It is manipulative.
If I want to buy a unicorn that leaves pink trails as it runs then why can't I? Who is anyone to tell me what I can and can't spend my money on? MTX in single player games is just fine as long as it's clear what you're buying.
See, I provided hard facts to refute a lazy argument.
You posted nonsense equating the developers of DriveClub and Hitman to rank amateurs and hobbyists.
The one thing I hate the most about this endless fucking discussion are the people with the "Well, anybody who doesn't share my opinion OBVIOUSLY doesn't understand how the world works" comments. Instead of it being people being more accepting of a system or less accepting it's either "Well, you are basically Trump" or "Well, you are basically Trump" from both fucking sides which is just utterly hilarious to me.
I'd say it influences design in that they estimate the overall revenue of these games and dictated by that budget you are getting a much bigger, lush and quality experience based off of that.
Do you think everything else stays the same if you change the budget and estimated revenue streams? I highly doubt you'd get the game you play today without it and that includes the good elements, diversity and polish.
The amount of developers Ubi keeps fed is commendable and they seem to be able to sustain that with what they're doing and at the end of the day in comparison to other publishers this isn't' even a blip in things to be worried about. The backlash is completely overstated.
Yeah they make MP games and only think about how to make money on them right at the end of production
Assassin's Creed becoming an RPG would have partly been because the series was stale, but also party because they can monitise an RPG in more ways. It's also why everything is going RPG and or MP GaaS, they're easier to monitise and support indefinitely
If you think there isn't an Assassin's Creed EXP booster target and projection on a spreadsheet somewhere at Ubisoft, and that sales of EXP boosters in this game won't influence their inclusion, price and effectiveness in the next game then I don't know what to tell you
These are things embedded in the design of the game from the planning stage
I'm not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, as they don't seem to impact Odyssey that much based on reviews and the general player reception (I've not played it yet, but will soon) however if sales of EXP boosters are modest but below projections, then yeah, they will probably tweak how they work in future installments. This is what business' do. They want to make as much money as they can, and maybe they'll make it a tiny bit grinder and maybe they'll make more money because of that
Dismissing anyone who has that concern is short sighted, even if the current game is fine
interesting article from one of the pioneers of microtransaction monetization aka straight out of the horse's mouth:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php
some of it is more relevant specifically in mobile F2P games, but it's easy to see how some of the nefarious tricks have been carried over into full price games
read specifically the parts of how they trick you into not knowing how much you're actually spending by using fun bucks, and the concept of "hard boosts" (buy once and keep throughout the game, e.g. permanent experience boosts) and "soft boosts" (boosts that are temporary and which you can make players buy repeatedly, e.g. resource packs)
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php
some of it is more relevant specifically in mobile F2P games, but it's easy to see how some of the nefarious tricks have been carried over into full price games
read specifically the parts of how they trick you into not knowing how much you're actually spending by using fun bucks, and the concept of "hard boosts" (buy once and keep throughout the game, e.g. permanent experience boosts) and "soft boosts" (boosts that are temporary and which you can make players buy repeatedly, e.g. resource packs)
Are you telling me that developers just randomly put in objects, with random specs at random real world prices in the game without giving any thought to how it affects player interaction with the game?
OP
OP
Let's say the XP Boost option was not there and the game was still just as hard. Would you say that would be wrong as well?
User warned: hostility
Y'all are insane and lost in the sauce.
Ubisoft definitely switched to rpg mechanics so they can monetize it more.
Stay away from microwaves with those tin foil hats
ideally, there'd be a way to do business where neither workers nor customers feel exploited
Imagine if consumers, the people footing the bill and allowing devs and pubs to exist, took their "precious $60" elsewhere. Imagine hating the people who give them their jobs. Imagine taking so much for granted.
Lmao. It's almost as if I was right and not everyone makes a huge profit.
Well, EA, Ubisoft et al are apparently well managed enough to make games with mass appeal and put in microtransactions to make more money.
That is the message the market is passing on to the publishers and devs, and savvy management is picking up those cues.
Imagine the gall, to criticize all forms of additional revenue generation in paid games, then to turn around and sneer at publishers and devs that don't do that and still fail. Your message is 'make a perfect product or go out of business'. And that's just laughable.
The contention here is not "does gameplay design invariably influence mtx" but rather "does mtx influence gameplay design". We have more evidence for the former than the latter
those two statements have drastically different implications and I guarantee you one is less nefarious than the other
Funnily enough I made a thread about that and a developer did come in and say they do impact a games design, though as I've said before in this thread, that's not by default a negative. Most of the best MP games are great because they were designed with a fair monitisation model in mind and their players love them because of it
I mean, business' want to make money, so they'll do things that help them make money. Thinking about and planing on how a product will make money is generally how business' act
When it comes to this subject, people seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the companies they like. Maybe mobile devs think about MXT, but not my beloved AAA publishers, they just tack them on at the end to give players a choice
After watching the discussion between jschrier and yong, I've pretty much given up hope that things will change, people are just way too stupid to bother with a nuanced discussion of monetization and game development. Instead they'll continue to rage, with little to no understanding of the process that leads to these decisions.
Publishers saw how well mtx did with casual phone gamers and figured it would work on console game casual players. Well, they were right, and now game systems in so many AAA products, whether implicitly or explicitly, urge us toward mtx. Maybe it's time for us hobbyists to come to terms with the fact that these games are no longer for us. Hobbyists hype games for giant corporations, and they inadvertently bring the whales in, against their own interests. Not to say that there aren't whales among habitual gamers, but maybe it's time we stop using streaming platforms and word of mouth to promote games with mtx?
..what?
doing side missions before taking on main missions have been a thing since forever. what are you talking about? have you even played an rpg or a jrpg?
some of the metal gymnastics here are amazing. yeah sure it sucks you can't just play the main missions (because duh it's an open-world rpg now and devs want you to play their work), but let's not act like this is the only game who has ever done this. countless of rpgs had you grind over and over before you can move on to the next story mission because the enemies were too strong.
Most of the people complaining are a vocal minority.
Vast majority of folks playing Assassins Creed Odyssey don't feel exploited.
We had a massive thread on GAF about how evil WB were for a paid option for one button fatalities. I doubt that 'outrage' spread to the real world.
Well, they aren't $60 forever. Would you be ok with introducing microtransactions only after a game were officially reduced in price from $60?
The real question is, do we think publishers have a right to enslave their developers to unreasonable work hours, hire contract workers that won't have any job after the contract's game is released, increase their own profits through micro transactions and shut dev houses for not selling 5 million+ copies. All while paying these developers the standard pay.
Is our game industry really better now? Indies are amazing and in a better place than ever before, but publishers are giving us what we want? My favorite new IP last generation was Mass Effect, they released 3 AAA titles across 5 years, then over the next 5 years, they released a broken game, and we have seen nothing since. Anthem is a game that skipped the entire generation and is likely a cross gen game now.
Dragon age dev team is now a skeleton crew, even though they won game of the year 4 years ago and nothing since. Games are taking longer to make, and it's a mixed bag in terms of improvements over last gen, sure it looks better, but what have we lost? Remakes and remaster give us our options this gen, the industry feels like it offers less and less, while the outside force of indies, make up some of the slack and show what can be done in a reasonable budget.
But everyone is distracted by this Rage from the entire community, people mad at publishers and people mad at people being mad at publishers... Just buy more indie games, buy less publisher games and let these big companies dry up, in a decade they won't be needed.
Is our game industry really better now? Indies are amazing and in a better place than ever before, but publishers are giving us what we want? My favorite new IP last generation was Mass Effect, they released 3 AAA titles across 5 years, then over the next 5 years, they released a broken game, and we have seen nothing since. Anthem is a game that skipped the entire generation and is likely a cross gen game now.
Dragon age dev team is now a skeleton crew, even though they won game of the year 4 years ago and nothing since. Games are taking longer to make, and it's a mixed bag in terms of improvements over last gen, sure it looks better, but what have we lost? Remakes and remaster give us our options this gen, the industry feels like it offers less and less, while the outside force of indies, make up some of the slack and show what can be done in a reasonable budget.
But everyone is distracted by this Rage from the entire community, people mad at publishers and people mad at people being mad at publishers... Just buy more indie games, buy less publisher games and let these big companies dry up, in a decade they won't be needed.
What is so wrong in making a game where you can simply level up and be at the required level doing the main quest alone? This used to be how these games were made.
Side missions being a necessity to level up makes those missions mandatory. To some, it might not even be much of a hustle but to people that do not have as much time to play as they used to, it becomes a bother. Now, they design the game that way, and offer you an option to spend when it is they themselves that have made the game grindy.
If you think that had absolutely no influence then you can't see the forest for the trees
They don't just sit around and go "why not make the next one an RPG, yeah that'll be cool"
Do you also think all those MP shooters in the 7th gen had nothing to do with CoD, or that all these BR games now have nothing to do with PUBG?
User Banned (1 Week): Thread derailment; history of infractions for similar behaviour.
says the person who thinks there is "some truth" to astrology, lol
I don't know.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/mobilefreetoplay.com/gdc-2017-on-monetization/amp/
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015811/What-Really-Matters-the-Relevant
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014680/Recruit-Profitable-Players-through-Advanced
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024692/Prototyping-Your-Monetization-Evaluating-Monetization
Are they?
They never ever monetized the grind. XP throttling to ensure people pay is something that has come in mainly this generation and a lot of those quests....man, waste of time. You do the same thing over and over again and they add nothing to gameplay.
What evidence do you have that there is some truth to astrology?
Why are you bringing in outside topics that have nothing to do with this thread?
Because that poster is denigrating sound logic because of the lack of hard evidence and accusing people of tin foil nonsense while believing in ridiculous fairy tales.
So if someone held religious beliefs would they be shut out of this discussion?
Again, what has it got to do with the topic? Next time you gonna bring up someone believing in a religion as "ridiculous fairy tales" to make fun of them? It has nothing to do with the topic and is just denigrating a person for their beliefs, it's shitty.
As I said before, the funniest thing about Odyssey's XP booster is that it's there for everyone to buy but you supposedly don't need it. But you're locked out of story missions if you don't have a high enough level so you have to do the side-missions, which aren't really side-missions but mandatory. Unless you pay, then they aren't mandatory anymore. It's literally the corporate snake sucking its own dick.
Just for reference, I don't think time saver style micro transactions are bad, I also don't think single player games with pay to win mechanics are bad. As an individual, you can choose what you want and it doesn't effect others, so I don't see the problem.
I do think there is a serious problem with ballooning costs of development, and the need for more profit is a bandaid at best, it doesn't address the problem, just turns game development into gambling for the developer.
I do think there is a serious problem with ballooning costs of development, and the need for more profit is a bandaid at best, it doesn't address the problem, just turns game development into gambling for the developer.
The one they are talking about is being a dick with his suggestions. Like saying one should avoid radiation from cell phones, or listening to Jay Z "music" for instance.
Agreed. And lol at the argument video game companies use psychological tactics to get gamers to buy stuff. Like companies that sell physical products don't do the same. Auto manufacturers do this all the time.
I would expect them not to accuse people with sound logic of being out of their minds with no actual counter argument.
And you probably don't want a more in depth opinion of what i really think of people with religious beliefs, but that's neither here nor there.
So game 1, grind but no boosters, game 2, grind but now selling EXP boosters
And you can't possibly fathom a scenario where they look at the money they made from EXP boosters, and make game 3 with that in mind
So the idea that maybe they make game 3 5% more of a grind and sell EXP boosters is just pie in the sky nonsense to you, that Ubisoft wouldn't ever consider?
I mean, they might not, but I doubt the game being a tiny bit more of a grind would hurt it hugely, and it would probably cause a few more people to buy the boosters
If I have managed to think of this, I would imagine it's also crossed Ubisoft's mind
Even if they do that, it might still be a better game than Odyssey. Publishers will want to find a balance between best game possible and makes the most money possible
It's just mental to me that people think huge publishers don't put much thought into making money
OP
OP