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Where is the line with Microtransactions?
- Thread starter Pixels
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Grim Patron
Member
Modern gaming = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgp33-EVqXk
TheChewyWaffles
Member
Already crossed it
TheBryanJZX90
Member
Whatever you feel comfortable paying. That's going to be different for every person and is going to be completely different from game to game.
Gatcha?
IsntChrisL
Member
Anything that gives another player an advantage for paying more is over the line. Anytime a developer purposefully slows down progress to players that don't pay is over the line.
They're usually over the line.
They're usually over the line.
This seems to be the worst offender.
This definitely needs to be a regulation that's enforced in more places in the world.
In practice, how, with so many territories any given game can be in and/or operate out of as a business, someone smarter than me will have to answer.
texhnolyze
Banned
Yeah, this.
Full priced games today are the f2p games in several years ago.
And yet people still avoid f2p games like a plague somehow, without realizing they're paying in advance to play f2p games now.
SoundPulse
Banned
I don't mind rewarding developers/publishers by purchasing cosmetics if it's a game I enjoy a lot and have been playing for an ungodly amount of time. My personal line is with loot (read: gambling) boxes, however. I'm certainly guilty of indulging in the past, but they've only gotten more and more distasteful to me over time. Just let me buy your stuff.
Yeah, there is no line. People will gleefully justify anything.
People piss and moan about every little graphical effect and write pages and pages about character design but then immediately turn around and argue that cosmetic DLC microtransactions are always fine because they're just graphics.
People piss and moan about every little graphical effect and write pages and pages about character design but then immediately turn around and argue that cosmetic DLC microtransactions are always fine because they're just graphics.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Microtransactions in full-price games.
UltimaWeapon
Member
When you have to pay to win.
Not to thread-whine as I think the premise of the thread is a good one for discussion BUT can we have better OPs please? There has been a slate of 1 sentence or less threads lately that are so poorly thought out they're almost un-thought out. OP should give some examples of different microtransactions, trending styles of microtransactions, egregious or controversial examples, something to guide the discussion.
For myself, I think it's a case by case basis. I don't think I've bought any microtransaction content yet, but I have made some DLC purchases. I thought FE Awakening might get me to buy some of it's microtransactions, but the content on the cartridge ended up being enough for me.
For myself, I think it's a case by case basis. I don't think I've bought any microtransaction content yet, but I have made some DLC purchases. I thought FE Awakening might get me to buy some of it's microtransactions, but the content on the cartridge ended up being enough for me.
I'm happy if its more in line with like an expansion pack and its a lengthy scenario like 10 hours long or something like that. I'll happily pay a percentage portion of the full price game for that. Say a game is $60, happy to pay $5 when the DLC is discounted to get the extra expansion.
I'll never pay for a hat or cosmetic item because that's money I can spend on other games.
I'd also MUCH rather buy a base game of something else than DLC for others, because usually the base game represents a significant portion of game time vs the DLC. On the other hand, there's been some really good DLC recently, like the Dark Souls stuff, Mario Kart, Nioh, Driveclub, and the Euro Truck Simulator 2 expansion packs all seem reasonable to me.
I'll never pay for a hat or cosmetic item because that's money I can spend on other games.
I'd also MUCH rather buy a base game of something else than DLC for others, because usually the base game represents a significant portion of game time vs the DLC. On the other hand, there's been some really good DLC recently, like the Dark Souls stuff, Mario Kart, Nioh, Driveclub, and the Euro Truck Simulator 2 expansion packs all seem reasonable to me.
Good:
- Cosmetic items that amount to tipping the developer for a game you love
- Meaningful content expansions for a game that already feels like a complete, full-priced offering
- Pay-to-win competitive advantages for sale
- Consumable items of any kind
- Content that felt like it was missing from the full-priced offering, like a meaningful ending
- Any form of gambling for rare items
- Constant in-your-face offers
TransTrender
Gold Member
The 'line' for MTs has already been crossed.
Ubisoft or Activision crossed it years ago.
As for me, I'm OK with it in actual free to play games, you know, actual games that were free and then make their money on MTs...as long as they aren't pay to win. In actual games I only tolerate cosmetic items. For DLC only Nintendo has done it right. Every other time I've tried DLC I airways regretted it.
Along the F2P games I think MechWarrior Online did it wrong because the entire economy is too time consuming to grind CBills, the Mechs are to expensive, and buying premium time is a waste due to my sporadic gaming schedule.
Ubisoft or Activision crossed it years ago.
As for me, I'm OK with it in actual free to play games, you know, actual games that were free and then make their money on MTs...as long as they aren't pay to win. In actual games I only tolerate cosmetic items. For DLC only Nintendo has done it right. Every other time I've tried DLC I airways regretted it.
Along the F2P games I think MechWarrior Online did it wrong because the entire economy is too time consuming to grind CBills, the Mechs are to expensive, and buying premium time is a waste due to my sporadic gaming schedule.
jasminlovesyoux
Banned
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I make no claim to be smarter than anyone, but I have worked in regulated "gaming" for quite a while.
If the regulation comes down like casino and online gambling regulation, the state/country/local agency make the rules and you figure out how to follow them. For example both Nevada and New Jersey jurisdictions, that approved online gambling, invested very significant funds in geofencing, geolocation, and proxy detection (such as it is) to ensure that sports betters were, in fact, within Nevada or New Jersey, respectively.
Employees of related industries like casinos are often licensed, I pay a certain amount every two years to have my tax records, legal records, and outstanding court records reverified to allow me to work. More significant roles of responsibility in the industry require more significant license ($1200 or so to get in the first place, $200 every two years to renew, due to all the background checks to ensure no whiff of fraud or criminal activity). This is just to work with the tech/games.
Casino games are tested by a national (and licensed) testing company in a process that takes several months, and then these tests are reviewed by the state's control agency which may voice its own objections to the results and send them back for further testing and adjustment. Recalls happen all the time and there are significant penalties (up to hundred of thousands of dollars, if chalked up on a per-machine violation) if a casino is too slow to replace recalled software.
All bets and wins are tracked, audited, triple-checked and reported so they can be taxed at the much-higher tier for this regulated activity, and thus are posted publicly allowing people to indeed math up the overall "odds" (or hold percentage) of the casino, broken down by denomination (and old metric, really). Reporting systems are also subject to the same testing company's approval, as is any system interacting with game tracking and reporting software. I once watched an international casino games and system manufacturer spend months and millions in development refining reports for the local state gaming agency before they could get approval and sell their CMS system upgrade in the state.
"The State" passes the law and you do what you have to to follow it and do business there, or face the law. That's regulation. All these same micro-transaction marketplaces find a way to detect, implement, collect, and pay sales tax when a jurisdiction demands it.
Compared to what's possible, I'd say posting your loot box odds on a page no one visits is fairly slight. I'm curious if China has investigators even now confirming those percentages, because with regulation, comes enforcement.
Agree with most of this, though the good and bad parts can obviously cross over. Overwatch has consumable, random boxes that grant non-gameplay-affecting cosmetics.
Psychoward
Banned
Shit like the new CODs and Battlefront 2 locking objectively better PVP items behind RNG lootboxes that can (sometimes only) be bought with real money is when I laugh and move on to a game that doesn't treat its players like shit.
Thanks for the insightful post!
China may be known as the 'everything goes' armpit of the world, but one consistency is when the government says something, you do what the government says.
In Japan, where gacha regulations predate china by a few good years, I feel like it's even less of a problem since honor and shame are huge parts of japanese culture (expert yadda yadda) and joking aside, interestingly enough a conglomerate of the biggest mobile publishers have collectively been able to decide when an exploitative system was too much.
ScatheZombie
Member
The only line is when your microtransaction systems are intentionally designed to exploit users via predatory, often outright illegal in non-digital formats, gambling.
Almost everything else is just arbitrary bitching. Either bitching that people who value time over money (or vice versa) are inherently wrong or bitching that if something doesn't have value to me then it obviously has value to no one.
Almost everything else is just arbitrary bitching. Either bitching that people who value time over money (or vice versa) are inherently wrong or bitching that if something doesn't have value to me then it obviously has value to no one.
Rumblebones
Banned
Loot boxes. It's gambling. Fuck that. I hope legislation is introduced against it to stop it.
Sojiro
Member
Bingo. I don't mind microtransactions for cosmetics, and will happily get them if it supports the game and I like it, but the moment its a disadvantage to not purchase them, its fucking awful.
I agree but will giants like blizzard ever be stopped? I don't think it will happen any time soon.
Haha kompu gatcha is on a whole other level.
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
Interesting article, I had missed that development, thanks for that. There's precedent in the U.S. as well, in the 90's when Senate attention began to focus on the video game industry because of increased fidelity allowing games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap to be paraded as attention-grabbing examples of "depravity."
The voluntary institution of the ESRB and its rating system arguably staved off official regulation. Still so ironic to me that senator Leland Yee who pushed the issue to the Supreme Court and actually finally secured first amendment rights for the medium turned out to be involved in illegal arms dealing.
America!
Conkerkid11
Member
Anything that puts you at an advantage over other players.
And what about the case where the game isn't free, but post-launch support is like with Overwatch or Battlefront 2?
Where's this info regarding Battlefront 2's boxes containing non-cosmetics?
KyanMehwulfe
Member
I agree.
Currently, this is the worst offender. I've stopped playing games that does this.