Inspired by a post in an Overwatch thread that really made me think:
Can we have a good old fashioned discussion about how public perception of cosmetic microtransactions in full-priced games has changed in the last 10 years?
If you'll recall, circa 2006 the public sentiment about horse armor in Oblivion was enough to make Bethesda a laughingstock for months.
I dunno, seeing it go from "this model will never be more than a joke" to "not even worth batting an eyelash at" is equal parts surprising and incredibly disappointing.
What do you guys think about all this?
>>339437720
Thanks for the bump, anon.
>>339437514
>That horse
>>339437514
Agreed, but things have gotten so much worse now, that by comparison, it seems like less of a big deal.
Which was probably the intention all along.
Not entirely the same thing, but still very disappointing, yes, though not altogether surprising.
10 years is long enough to cycle through a generation of people. The people who laughed at this DLC are no longer a majority of the people buying games, or even a plurality of them.
>>339437835
>Not entirely the same thing
Care to explain why you feel they're different, and if so, why the current model is any more justifiable?
>>339437514
For me it will always be that microtransactions no matter what in a P2P game will be bad. Microtransactions that are cosmetic in a F2P game are okay though.
>>339437912
You think so? Most of the folks I know who played video games 10 years ago are even more into them now than they were back then, although there are also a lot more folks playing now that didn't in 2006 as gaming has become more ubiquitous and accepted in our culture.
It's such a slow burn that I didn't even realize that it's not something that makes you a social pariah anymore until literally everyone was doing it, so yeah, in that sense, that group is at the very least a smaller fraction than it used to be.
>>339437514
I generally dislike piece-meal DLC. Give me a complete set of content, or something so damn good that it's worth paying for. And please, please, don't let me or nothers not owning the DLC fragment the playerbase.
That's all I want out of the DLC. Otherwise, I don't mind cosmetic microtransactions much. I don't buy them, and if they don't affect the gameplay, then I don't care. Although I do have a problem if a premium game feels robbed of choice because the only way to have decent cosmetic customization is to buy shit.
>>339437514
Horse armor was a joke because it was billed as making your horse more combat ready. In reality it was just a gay add-on that gave your horse some huge health pool and cost way too much for a minor change.
Most cosmetic add-ons these days actually change your character's looks, and generally don't promise any bonuses in combat or whatever. People are willing to spend money on them, obviously.
it's different because the horse armor thing was billed as being something it wasn't. Nowadays, companies are much more careful in billing their DLC accurately, as to avoid backlash. The cosmetic DLC out today is still stupid, but whatever. If you introduced a pack of new Oblivion armors for the player for $5.99 when that game was new, it might've gone differently.
I think that a part of why horse armor was so ridiculed was because horses in Oblivion were useless and Elder Scrolls is such a highly mod-able series. If it were a decent looking cosmetic pack for the player character in a multiplayer game, I think that the reception may have been warmer.
But I've never bought any DLC of any kind to this day so I'm out of the loop.
>>339437514
The difference is that Oblivion is a single player game, where the Horse Armor is literally an object that could've been easily added in base game, but instead was tiny paid DLC that split off for obvious money-grabbing.
Overwatch, however, has completely optional payments for cosmetics, even allowing them to be acquired through normal play, and what we've seen points to it being mostly the Art & Model team working on things after the base models were done.
Quite a few games do the latter, sometimes just as Pre-Order content.
What eats my ass about the current model even moreso than horse armor ever was is the fact that you can't even specifically buy what you want anymore.
The model TF2 popularized is based upon making you pay a fuckton of tiny transactions instead of one sensibly priced ones because with safe systems and loot boxes you can't actually buy what you specifically want. It's ridiculously anti-consumer and I have no idea how it became as popular as it did.
>>339437514
IT IS OKAY WHEN BLIZZARD DO IT
>>339438212
Hmm, the whole notion about "this could've been in the base game" really echoes the whole on-disc DLC fiasco that came to the head with the release of SFxT. Do you guys figure things have gotten better or worse since then, or gone in a completely different direction altogether?
>>339438335
'cause it's gambling, but it has a system set in place where it doesn't feel like it.
And this is why the publishers persisted with it - they know perception can be manipulated over time
This caused an outrage back then but now no one would bat an eye.
They won.
>>339437953
not op but I think the multiplayer focus adds a bit more legitimacy since one can "show off" or "stand out" using cismetics.
there is also the server cost with hosting these games that having a continuing source of income more understandable.
I am still in no way saying purchasable cosmetics in a full price AAA game is okay, I just think the cases are a bit different.
>>339437514
You can legitimately get every skin in Overwatch without paying, you cannot do the same with Horse Amour.
>>339438954
Yeah, and I get that, for sure, anon.
However, when I think about the whole "server cost" issue, I always think back to games that didn't have that issue despite not having constant pay models. Even if we're staying within the context of Blizzard IPs, before WoW, we had the entire Warcraft and Diablo series as well as Starcraft who managed to have live Battle.net servers despite not having a constant stream of income from anything but retail.
Why do you figure that is?
>>339438542
I think devs have gotten better at hiding it.
Because people were finding "DLC" content on the base game locked away with the price being a "key" to unlock something obviously developed as part of the base game. Borderlands 2's pre order Arena zone could be acsessed by just walking in with a coop player and it would unlock permenantly for you (until they patched it).
We're seeing less of that type of stuff bevause it's just bad press. But they are still doing very similar things, and microtransactions are the new biggest way to make money.
>>339439003
Couldn't you just mod it in? I recall most TES games having fairly substantial mod tools.
People still buy it.
Sure, most people on /v/ think its stupid, but the people who are actually buying this garbage are just regular people who buy music on iTunes, and pay for apps on their phones, and get tricked into spending $75 on an oil change for their car. Hearing that you need to spend money to unlock new skins and shit in games doesn't phase them at all because nothing else ever does either.
As legendary as Horse Armor was, and this has to be said, it is very telling that it was a strictly cosmetic affair that caused all that. It's telling that it was consumers recognizing how stupidly unworth of its price a piece of content was.
Boy, do I wish companies had stuck to selling ridiculously overpriced pieces of bling.
That said, as far as cosmetics go Horse Armor is a particularly bad one because the bling it sells isn't even good.
Hell, remember when alternate skins were included as unlocks and secrets for games?
Micro-transactions are fine, Day 1 DLC is not. Finish the product before you release it.
>>339437514
All the cucks who argued "it's cosmetic and doesn't effect the gameplay" or "it can be unlocked so it's fine" are to blame. This wasn't always their line of thought but sometime around 2010 you saw this mindset creep in among the more "reasonable" people.
The fact that people defend it is what annoys me the most. Being neutral is understandable but the fact that I can say "paid microtransactions are bad" and have someone argue that it doesn't effect me or w/e is just baffling.
Also arguments like >>339437912 are retarded. While new gamers might see microtransactions as commonplace, it's your generation that allowed the rot to set.
>>339438542
One of the biggest things about this I think was with BioWare and the Javik fiascowhich I learned about from a TotalBiscuit video, considering it was a full on lore-important character that was being hidden behind the Pre-Order wall of a then unrealized mediocre game, which shipped out on day one in the files of the game.
>>339439716
Ah yeah, thanks for bringing that up, I think ME3 was pretty much at the forefront of that on-disc DLC mess with SFxT.
The whole ME3 thing was, in my opinion, the absolute peak of EA's greed (though that isn't to say it's gone down).
Daily reminder that if you bought or play any Blizzard games you should realize that people like you are the reason the nazis had to set up death camps
>>339439557
Microtransactions are fine within certain conditions. Thankfully Dead Space 3's model of "you can buy in-game materials to speed your upgrades" didn't catch on, because that's such a nightmarish spawning grounds for abuse.
The only games I know have kept up the model so far are some of the Final Fantasy ports on Steam that sell you what are effectively gameshark codes.
>>339439716
Only the character, his equipment, and his ambient combat dialogue shipped. All of his scenes, quests, etc. were a separate download created after certification.
>>339439532
BIG HEAD MODE
I don't mind dlc if it's clearly something that was made after the game was finished.
>>339438335
The F2P games where micro transactions originated from were made in countries like Korea, where gambling was illegal. It provided a single solution for a multitude of issues, where players could get their gambling fix, and game makers could pay the bills. Additionally, unlike real gambling, you would always get something "useful" out of a box. So even if you didn't get the ultra rare gun in the crate, you could still get a something like a weapon mod or some sort of accessory. When games like the ones Nexon published migrated their way here, and were also successful with micro transactions, other companies took note, but it wasn't until TF2's successful F2P relaunch that really pushed other companies to integrate such cash boxes in their games.
A dog will eat a bitter pill if you roll it up in some turkey. People would buy horse armor if equipping it made horeback combat possible. When Steam tried to release paid mods for Skyrim, there were people who were willing to buy those mods, even though they'd always been free and the modders were getting a quarter on the dollar for their work - which meant the people making that content weren't being paid to any meaningful capacity.
I think part of it is that Blizzard is still a beloved brand to people who aren't very good at the types of games Blizzard used to make. People who didn't get good enough at Starcraft 2 to have to worry about the stale metagame or bullshit hard-counter based design. People who don't get what was wrong with Diablo 3 and who don't really understand how Blizzard is proving it's a pretty mediocre company these days outside of their marketing.
Blizzard could likely start selling maps for Overwatch as DLC, and even though it'd split their players and make it so you can't play with friends as easily unless you make your friends buy the maps too, they'd get away with it because they're Blizzard.
>>339439532
I'd like to add though, that ironically enough, Bethesda [and Obsidian with New Vegas] have probably my favorite DLC model in the market, where their content is all about adding new short adventures for your character that, more importantly, always add a number of new equipment or systems that you can play around in on the main game. It's not just new weapons waiting for you in a crate somewhere [although they also do that]. It's not exclusive to them, of course, but it's far better than just standalone level packs like, for example, BIoware used to do with Assassin's Creed.
>>339440846
kind of ironic when you consider the blizzard used to be the uncontested king of that kind of additional content
>>339440846
>Bioware
>Ubisoft
Ehh, close enough.
The rise of mobile games has a lot to do with it.
>>339440997
I was going to bring this up, Facebook games too. The amount of people I knew irl (and not just old women) who spent real money on Farmville and the like was baffling.
>>339439942
Yeah but they come with the game for free in FF's case.
>>339438335
Gambling.
Incidentally, US law would only intervene if players were allowed to directly profit from the gambling, but Valve avoids that by instead trying to enforce trading through Steam, sometimes for thousands of dollars for a knife skin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9RjDRLBWio
>>339440964
Regardless of the quality of the actual game, Diablo 3 went about it pretty admirably by removing microtransactions and having pretty hefty free post-launch content after RoS.
>>339440381
>Blizzard could likely start selling maps for Overwatch as DLC, and even though it'd split their players and make it so you can't play with friends as easily unless you make your friends buy the maps too, they'd get away with it because they're Blizzard.
I don't know Anon, for me selling map packs for a multiplayer shooter is the kind of stunt that only a company that has a near absolute control of a large following that is also blind to the industry could pull. An Activision or an EA can get away with that because they draw from the endless ranks of children who think looking rough, carrying a rifle and using "tactical" in a phrase are the greatest things ever, and that's where their requirements for what the game provides ends.
Overwatch couldn't pull something like this both by virtue of standing under the shadow of the angry dog that is TF2, who never did that, and, ironically, the cartoony artstyle meaning most of the fanbase is old enough to lash back.
>>339439532
>Hell, remember when alternate skins were included as unlocks and secrets for games?
This is the one thing I miss most about video games today. One of the last games i can easily remember that contain tons of unlockable comstumes/guns/etc.. was Dead Rising
>>339437832
This
>>339442026
Dead Rising 2 as well
>>339437912
I read that in his voice.
"I take it the microtransactions were agreeable?"
DLC is only bad when its:
>on disk
>has little value to single player other than cosmetics
>gives you a boost in single or multiplayer
Expansion Packs and cosmetic microtransactions are okay.
>>339441679
I dunno if I'd consider doing damage control on a system they ARDENTLY DEFENDED that did nothing but destroy the value of all the equipment in the game and tie it to an always-online system that did nothing but hamstring the gameplay for everyone, including those who had no intention of utilizing the system at all as anything near "admirable".
At the very MOST I'd consider it the first step down a very long road of seeking forgiveness.
>>339439149
Expansions, alot of them
>>339440964
Why do people always credit Diablo 2 to Blizzard? It was published by them, no more. They had nothing to do with development.
>>339437832
Yeah this is what companies do. They keep getting as worse as possible until they can't get away with it...
Then they just go back a little bit instead of all the way because people don't view it as being as bad. People need to fight for all of the practices to be gone, not just some of them.
>>339442360
Gee, I dunno...
>>339439532
>strictly cosmetic affair
It increased your horse's health. While this is a minor thing, it wasn't strictly cosmetic.
>>339442026
Speaking of old features that are no longer commonplace in the industry, although only tangentially related to the topic at hand, every time someone, ANYONE mentions cloud saving or any manner or remote save file storage as a feature of a console or service as if that's the greatest innovation in gaming, I can't help but stare in amazement.
Did the entire world forget that Memory Cards existed one day?
>>339438542
Ahh its not just on-disc though. Many devs (this is proven later than sooner unfortunately most times) often just don't finish content and then release it later for extra charge. Some times intentionally and even if it's not intentional by the dev it was by the publisher who wanted more cash.
So really DLC is all about releasing cheaply made content or ideas that were already fleshed out and paid for but they want to reap two fleeces of wool from one sheep. I haven't bought nor trusted any DLC ever since its inception.
Its almost never the case (except year or more after development expansions) that content wasn't already planned or made for the game only to be withheld for an extra free greed move later.
>>339442578
fucking savage
>>339441867
Blizzard and Activision is the same company, and a lot of kids are playing Overwatch.
>>339442832
tbf most AAA devs have a relatively hard-and-fast release date (moreso when there's publishers involved) and its very much possible that they are forced to shelve good ideas in order to make their deadlines.
Do you also hate expansion packs?
>>339442360
>>339442578
What the fuck is an |jiot?
>>339439657
Acceptance is the biggest sin of gaming. It's what's caused gaming to go from being a deep and enriching game to the shallow, DLC/Micro infested marketplaces that games are today. There are a very few games (and not usually popular ones you hear about) that delve in older game design paradigms and values.
But yeah, publishers got in the heads of a new generation and convinced them to give up better and more for worse and less at the same or higher cost.
>>339443201
Isn't that what they say in the redneck south instead of idiot?
Damn, guy got shown up by a dude who fucked his sister.
>>339439149
This and honestly a lot of games that don't have that issue are also from studios with much less wealth than Blizzard.
>>339442335
That's a better model than forcing peoples hands with constant payments.
At least then more new content is being added so additional payments are for more than just playing the game more than a month.
>>339443064
A lot of kids are playing Overwatch, sure, but I'm pretty certain there's nowhere near enough to achieve the "chained to a corpse" effect of having an overwhelming amount of players that are effectively blind and deaf to the industry pumping out money for whatever the game puts out on sale to a point where everything is viable.
Activision and EA can pull it with CoD and Battlefield, but I don't see Blizzard being able to pull it with a smaller, new brand, is my idea. Especially since, unlike WoW, Blizzard even wants to push Overwatch into the E-sport corner.
>>339437514
It's a cosmetic in a singleplayer game though.. that has mods.. Not really a fair comparison
>>339439532
I always look at it for what it really is. It matters not whether its cosmetic vs. game changing. It's a rip off plain and simple.
If they wanted to charge then play it value for value. If its a skin then that's somewhat like 1/10000 of the games content. Why am I then charged 1/12 of the games initial price? I should be charged value for value. 1/10000 of the cost for 1/10000 of the content.
>>339443292
>by a dude who fucked his own sister
He got shown up by a respectful gentleman?
>>339443607
But Blizzard already said all future things will be free and all current things are also free. Microtransaction are just getting something you want faster.
>>339441510
This is a great recollection of the poison introduced into games over time.
And now we know why Blizzard and Activision made Overwatch...
This will happen in Overwatch. Just wait.
>>339437514
I think its a reflection of the audience. Normies started buying games and didn't know any better, and they vastly outnumber "hardcore" gamers so publishers rightly figure they can get away with things like this. And the whole "gamer entitlement" thing means anyone arguing from a hardcore gamer perspective is already on the defensive.
>>339444327
We'll see. Blizzard has been known to twist meaning and words. And the TF2 and Payday 2 issues have shown what people can get away with.
>>339443094
No. I don't think their infallible but I don't hate them if the original game is complete. And because of the sheer amount of work that goes into them (some being almost full games themselves) and the fact they can and usually are released at reduced prices.
>>339444736
Do you really think Blizz needs to make future stuff paid for? Think of it this way;
>New hero means automatic new skins
>Releases may also introduce more Epic or Legendary skins for current heroes
>Some players will just outright pay for crates until they get a new skin they want
They have it down pretty solid.
>>339443201
Shut up, idjit
>played blops 3
>never payed a penny for black market chest whatevers
>suddenly all my friends are bragging about getting guns
>later they admit to spending money and one spent $90
>I got a bunch of new friends and old ones built a PC for overwatch
>literally EVERYONE is spending money on chests
literally WHAT IN THE FUCK
It blows my mind that people will gobble up shit
>>339439226
Now they don't bother to lock incomplete stuff up on the disk/in the files to use as DLC later. Now they flat out release incomplete, unfinished, rushed out shit with the promise of 'free updates' that never come and wind up having a price tag.
>>339444953
It all comes down to the profit they make. If you charge for a hero, how many will buy? Is it more effective to charge for the hero and the skins, or just one?
Cosmetics and boosts were always ok in online games. The mentality just moved to consoles too
>>339438195
>and Elder Scrolls is such a highly mod-able series
important point
>>339437514
Cosmetics in multiplayer games makes sense, since you can show off all the cool stuff you've got.
But in a singleplayer game where its just you staring at it, then its a joke.
>>339437514
I think the horse armor DLC made people laugh because it was so undesirable. Games like Dota 2 have a better screening process for things that a playerbase might be interested in.
The thing that genuinely shocks me is how easily people accepted microtansactions that affect gameplay. People were scared of P2W for years, but apparently it's now okay if sold advantages aren't locked behind a paywall?
>>339443632
>Blizzard even wants to push Overwatch into the E-sport corner.
Source on that? They want LoL audience and it makes more sense in that case.
Good thread, bumping
>>339449318
Blizz has been chasing that dollar ever since Riot made it big. Seriously, each one of their games has several attempts at esport-dom. WoW in particular tried at least twice with Arena matches.
