Mr. Enigma
Member
Do any of you fuckers still actually play games, or do you just hang out here all day long and play digital fantasy football with the industry?
Who has time for games when I have this giant, purple dildo to play with?
Do any of you fuckers still actually play games, or do you just hang out here all day long and play digital fantasy football with the industry?
I still don't see the contradiction.
Are you looking for him to offer you another option? His opinion was to attack the purse, that the internet griefing isn't driving home the message. The fact that many approve of the additional purchases is the message that is the basis for how things are currently being offered. To me, that is where it falls back on accepting at some point that it may not be for you and move on. Or make a fuss all you like, he is just letting you know the desired effect may not be achieved.
The thing is that, his basic logic to defend his point can be extended to anything. If you ever have any problem with something, you should completely avoid it. If you think something is wrong with the policy of your country, you should leave!
Dude, that's what Valve did with their shitty Steam service in 2004.
Because it's essentially a meme at this point. Many don't bother at looking at the actual product being offered, just that word they can grasp on to.
Maybe you genuinely understand the pros and cons, and theory, behind the practices and the good and ill effects for consumers (which then good for you and keep doing what you do), but the majority of people couldn't care less. Same thing when it comes to budgets (single player vs multiplayer) and marketing. They just take the popular route for the karma/whatever and don't bother to educate themselves.
And I think that's the point Cliff is making. You can make all the noise you want, but no one is going to give a crap if you're not taking an objective stance. You just end up playing the fool opposed to the money that speaks greater volumes to these companies.
And we're saying that the desired effect may not be achieved by attacking the purse, for a reason that he himself brings up.
Ask primarily or solely PC gamers how well the oh so pretty democratic maxim of "vote with your wallet" works when they feel they are receiving substandard products. The publisher doesn't exactly say, "Let's cater to these people who won't buy our products."
Yup. Instead they're villainized as pirates, or get stupidly awful DRM, or get even more jacked up prices, substandard ports, or delays, etc.And we're saying that the desired effect may not be achieved by attacking the purse, for a reason that he himself brings up.
Ask primarily or solely PC gamers how well the oh so pretty democratic maxim of "vote with your wallet" works when they feel they are receiving substandard products. The publisher doesn't exactly say, "Let's cater to these people who won't buy our products."
The thing is that, his basic logic to defend his point can be extended to anything. If you ever have any problem with something, you should completely avoid it. If you think something is wrong with the policy of your country, you should leave!
I get all that. I am just not sure what was so wrong with his initial editorial? He explained how the current campaign against isn't making an impact. He suggested another that may be more effective. Some agreed, some didn't, some were more concerned with attempting to entertain and it became less about what he said and more about challenging all of him. If I am to consider a more logical approach, do I look to the guy who has knocked out quite a career in the industry we are debating or the poster that uses Cliff's bowel movements to attack everyone who disagrees?
Clifford Unchained (really?) said:If you dont like EA, dont buy their games. If you dont like their microtransactions, dont spend money on them. Its that simple. EA has many smart people working for them (Hi, Frank, JR, and Patrick!) and they wouldnt attempt these things if they didnt work. Turns out, they do. I assure you there are teams of analysts studying the numbers behind consumer behavior over there that are studying how you, the gamer, spends his hard earned cash.
If youre currently raging about this on GAF, or on the IGN forums, or on Gamespot, guess what? Youre the vocal minority. Your average guy that buys just Madden and GTA every year doesnt know, nor does he care. He has no problem throwing a few bucks more at a game because, hey, why not?
If I am to consider a more logical approach, do I look to the guy who has knocked out quite a career in the industry we are debating or the poster that uses Cliff's bowel movements to attack everyone who disagrees?
I'm not the biggest fan of Cliffy or his games, but the timing of his response was gold.If Cliff took a shit in a napkin, I swear some of you would commend him and say how beautiful the shit napkin is.
I think you've bought into the meme that people who complain about video games never actually play games. There's no objectivity in any of this debate. Cliff is arguing purely in his own self-interest but begrudges enthusiast gamers for doing the exact same thing.
I'm not sure I understand how his experience is supposed to lend any more weight to arguments if they are built on unreasonable statements. Most of these were brought up in the thread and no amount of industry experience can brush away failed logic.
Yup. I seem to remember reading somewhere that he gets upset if people think he's being ironic.does he actually run a tumblr called "dude huge speaks"
like, is that a for real reality or am I having a nightmare from which I cannot wake
Shit, I had no idea. I figured Ni no Kuni was selling 30 million copies per hour, because it's being talked about a lot on a video game forum. Thanks for clearing that up, Django.
Dismissing arguments and consumer dissatisfaction on a discussion forum with a sweeping hand of "just vote with your wallet and shut up; you're not relevant" is up there toward the height of stupidity, especially when it's being framed on your blog in between soapboxing about what you think the video game industry should be doing differently. Have some perspective.
Businesses would grind children into goo to sell if it made them a profit and it was legal.
Vote with your wallet. Don't like goo children, don't buy 'em.
What, those art history and philosophy degrees everyone has aren't helping them land jobs?
After all, Goo children producers have to find new ways to stay profitable in the industry. Not only that, but maniacal dictators made Goo children in the past, so it's totally okay to do it now.
the face of a murderer:
Also bringing up Team Fortress 2 as a way for Valve to easily milk consumers is flat out absurd. Team fortress 2 was made free to play because Valve figured if someone wanted in on Team Fortress 2, they probably already bought it. Sales eventually reached a stand still after a few years.
So Valve figured they wouldn't sell that many copies of Team Fortress 2 anymore. So making it free to play was an incredible financial move, anyone with a bit of curiosity but didn't want to buy Team Fortress 2 could give it a shot. The audience grew larger than it would've being a traditionally bought game.
So both the player count and overall audience goes up and with larger numbers comes a larger chance of people buying items or hats for the game. The base game can be played without any monetary transaction, yet the the devoted or just plain consumer could buy an assortment of hats and items.
And the people that got in the game when it was free to play might've been more willing to sink a little money into the game since well, they got it for free.
Everyone won in this instance, there was no mean spirited or overly greedy ulterior motive. Valve made an excellent business decision that fucked no one.
Well said.Unfortunately for gamers, voting with your wallet is unlikely to have the desired effect.
The economic theory of voting with your wallet is that it sends a signal to the supplier. The reality is that the signal must first be recognized and then it must be interpreted correctly in order to have the intended effect. There is so much noise in the process that this is highly unlikely to happen.
Even the simple act of receiving the signal is extremely complex and biased. There are usually incentives to keep forecasts as low as possible. Especially on MTX and DLC products where the gross margins are so high. The low demand signal is not received unless demand is lower than an arbitrarily defined point. That point is likely significantly off from where demand could potentially be if a high quality product was released.
Even if the low demand signal is received there are so many factors that drive demand that it is extremely difficult to determine the reason for the demand variance. The decision not to buy due to quality or pricing has the exact same signal as the decision not to buy due to unawareness (we need more marketing next time!) or timing (the DLC was too late/early!) or desire (we put too much content into the main game!).
Actually they are taking a break from Medal of Honor.If EA is so short on cash maybe they should, you know, skip a year on the CoD clones since basically all Medal of Honor games tank anyways...
That's the whole point. If EA did that, everyone would be "fuck EA, microtransactions, blah!"
I agree with the basic premise of people vote with their wallets, and if you agree with that, the simple truth is that micro-transactions are a huge hit. I think one of the biggest money makers is the subscription model, like in World of Warcraft, but there have been so many attempts at MMOs and most of them fail. A lot of subscription MMOs have gone F2P because that's the only way for them to maintain a user-base. I think for the majority of games, subscriptions have failed, so there's an attempt at creating another revenue stream.
This is especially true for MMOs, always online games (DiabloIII), and multiplayer games (Team Fortress II). Those aren't games like Mario Galaxy, where once you ship 'em, the game is done. WoW, DIII, TFII, are all constantly being worked on, they have server costs, they have to be patched and balanced constantly, they have to maintain compatability with new hardware etc.
Microtransactions are a way for a developer/publisher to maintain a revenue stream beyond that initial purchase. What happens when your sales drop by 80% every year, but your playerbase only drops 10%? It's not sustainable.
If every dev could just walk away from the game when they're finished, they would, but if they can't, they'd love the subscription model, but if that doesn't work, they'll accept microtransactions, and if that doesn't work, why maintain the servers?
Not the yearly CoD bait, though, I imagine?Well said.
Actually they are taking a brake from Medal of Honor.
The Battlefield series is too successful.Not the yearly CoD bait, though, I imagine?
I guess it'll take more time to burn that to the ground, sorta like CoD.The Battlefield series is too successful.
...in-app purchases permeate every facet of Real Racing 3's existence. With each race your car sustains damage, drains oil, wears out its tires, and so on, and you need to pay in-game currency to fix these issues if you don't want to be left behind on the track. This currency is doled out in meagre amounts when you place high in an event, or you can buy more with real-world money.
But it doesn't stop there once you upgrade or service your vehicle, up pops a countdown timer of a few minutes that you're encouraged to skip with another form of currency, which is even scarcer than the first. If you don't have the money virtual or real your only recourse is to quit the game and wait for a push notification to let you know that the work has been carried out.
...
Real Racing 2 found success with a $2 million budget and a fair $9.99 price point, but spending the same amount on its sequel wouldn't get you nearly as much content the "Race Car Booster Pack" costs that much alone, for example, but contains just one car, two events, and 65 pieces of virtual gold to spend on speedy repairs. Although it's not necessarily surprising from EA, who this week said it would be adopting microtransactions across all of its games, it's certainly disappointing to see the model spread to its formerly "premium" titles. Some may be grateful that an impressive game has been offered with no upfront cost, but anyone looking for a deep experience will likely feel ripped off.
But goo children is the most efficient way of processing children, how else is a company in these rough times supposed to make money.Vote with your wallet. Don't like goo children, don't buy 'em.
If Cliff took a shit in a napkin, I swear some of you would commend him and say how beautiful the shit napkin is.
His read makes sense imo. I agree with most of it.
Although I believe there are legitimate concerns about some payment methods. Yes you can avoid shit pay to win games, but when these kind of things invade bigger games you actually want to play "normally", that's concerning.
Bleszinski's points are absolutely compelling, as have been the points of basically every game journalist I've argued with about Electronic Arts this week. There's been a lot of defense for the company, and that's fair enough. So far all the arguments are rooted in the now, however, and that's my problem. I don't believe the "we make money now, there's no problem" attitude is the right one to have, especially in a console market so tumultuous and at risk of falling apart. A crash is looking set to happen, if it's not happened already, and the companies with an eye on the future, not the ones scrabbling to make money immediately, are the ones I feel are going to succeed.
As far as calling for people to stop being angry, I just don't agree. When people think of games they care about being twisted to suit the psychological warfare that is a "freemium" model, I believe they've every right to be unhappy, and should voice their disapproval. Even if they are a vocal minority, and even if EA doesn't give a shit, I defy anybody to see something they're passionate about get broken and not want to say something.
I mean, the people making memes about EA on Reddit probably don't care about what Cliffy's got to say on their behavior, but he still said it! None of us are very good as just shutting up and ignoring things we don't like, and there's a lot to dislike in the mainstream game industry right now.
Read more at http://www.destructoid.com/on-cliff...ctronic-arts-247379.phtml#TldHuGg8Vvo5JEy7.99
If anything, those who are aware of gaf, but primarily exist outside of it on the internet, are often quite vocal in their distaste for this place.