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Cliffy B says things about microtransactions

J

Jake Tower

Banned
People like to act like we should go back to “the good ol’ days” before microtransactions but they forget that arcades were the original change munchers. Those games were designed to make you lose so that you had to keep spending money on them. Ask any of the old Midway vets about their design techniques. The second to last boss in Mortal Kombat 2 was harder than the last boss, because when you see the last boss that’s sometimes enough for a gamer. The Pleasure Dome didn’t really exist in the original Total Carnage. Donkey Kong was hard as hell on purpose. (“Kill screen coming up!”)

But that is often *exactly* what modern (non-cosmetic) microtransactions are like. They are the modern equivalent of old coin-op machines designed to get more quarters out of you. Except now, publishers are asking for $60 upfront in addition to feeding the coin-slot as you play.
 
V

vasametropolis

Member
noobasuar said:
Hey guys how about we just turn this thread into a gears of war 1 love thread?

Remember how awesome it was when your other three teammates are dead and your trying to take out the whole team, and as you kill each one you know that the rest of your team is talking massive shit to everyone that's dead on the other team. And then you get down to one guy and you just have adrenaline pumping through you knowing that the rest of your team is watching you, and you finnally find the guy and down him and then take your sweet time to curb stomp him.

Fuck those were the days.
Click to expand...
I loved doing the glitch where you could powerslide like a mile while doing the curbstomp. It was a great finale every time.
 
T

TheChits

Member
noobasuar said:
Hey guys how about we just turn this thread into a gears of war 1 love thread?

Remember how awesome it was when your other three teammates are dead and your trying to take out the whole team, and as you kill each one you know that the rest of your team is talking massive shit to everyone that's dead on the other team. And then you get down to one guy and you just have adrenaline pumping through you knowing that the rest of your team is watching you, and you finnally find the guy and down him and then take your sweet time to curb stomp him.

Fuck those were the days.
Click to expand...

Gears 1 <3 Best maps in the series I think. Process was soooo good
 
T

Thug Waffle

Member
muddream said:
The brilliant thing about these Pay to Win schemes is that they come in small packages, seemingly affordable to a poor person.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a shame, because they eventually add up and encourage devs/pubs to continue upping the ante with new, improved pay 2 win content.

Side-note:
I think it's pretty frustrating that Cliff is just here to offer one or two sentence posts that don't contribute much to the discussion. Humor is good PR, but if there's one place online you could have a reasoned discussion with the people who support your vacations, meals, and family, it's here. It'd be nice if he was more engaging in this thread. /dickishbackseatmoderating
 
E

Elixist

Member
alexandros said:
What was the reality check? He says:



Since when do we equate quality to budget? You can create a great game for much less, but the gaming industry seems obsessed to pretend like it's the film industry by churning out tons of "cinematic", overly hyped and most of the time barely interactive games.

Maybe a crash is indeed what this industry needs. Maybe then we can go back to what really matters and stop spending ridiculous amounts of money on crap.
Click to expand...

Denzel-Boom_zpsde94a718.gif
 
T

TL21xx

Banned
CliffyB said:
What, those art history and philosophy degrees everyone has aren't helping them land jobs? :)
Click to expand...

Dang Cliffy, that's kinda cold...

But I'm with you on that point, there is a lot of "kids" my age that couldn't care less about the business side and have yet to wake up and smell the reality of it all. All in due time.

Anyways, I mostly agree, but wish that devs would consider treating DLC like expansion packs from the early PC days, kinda like how Westwood handled Command and Conquer. Sure, you could say that's what season passes are for, but I like the idea of having it all boxed together on day 1.

But what do I know, I'm more of a retro gamer these days...
 
S

smik

Member
Jake Tower said:
untitled-1bnks9.gif
Click to expand...

lol perfect!

oh how the "industry" has warped this once bright mind, like this gif, Cliff has now become just a Suit,
you start to loose touch with Gamers and money when you have alot of it.

Honestly use to Love Cliffy before GOW2 launch, its been rarely hit and mostly miss ever since.
 
W

wrowa

Member
What I'm actually taking issue with in his blog post is that he's portraying the complaining gamers as one dimensional idiots who are mindlessly repeating an "Microtransactions are evil! Microtransactions are evil!" mantra.

Truth is, no one does that.

People are able to distinguish between different kinds of microtransaction strategies and they do. People do support it when microtransactions are used sensible, but they also voice their opinion when it's integrated badly. No one complains about TF2, Tribes or Planetscape since these are great games with sensible systems. However, we do complain when we've got to pay 60$ and the game welcomes us to pay another dollar for that sparkling weapon just five minutes after we started playing it.
 
N

noobasuar

Banned
THACHITS said:
Gears 1 <3 Best maps in the series I think. Process was soooo good
Click to expand...


Yup. I can't even think of a bad map in the whole game. And hell they had some promotion with like the discovery channel and gave away like 3 maps for free.

What the hell happened to having some respect for the people that buy and love your game?
 
V

vg260

Member
Glix said:
He doesn't address AT ALL the shady shit that has been done

He doesn't talk about games being released incomplete. He doesn't talk about Season Passes that don't pan out. He doesn't talk about content being removed from the game to act as DLC.

There is a reason that no one complains about The Walking Dead and having to pay for each episode.

We're not stupid Cliffy.
Click to expand...

Because that's not how it happens nowadays. Maybe early on, but not now. When can we drop this outdated notion that DLC is stripped from the final game and then monetized? I think people underestimate the intelligence of the people that run and manages these companies. Gamers have the perception of content being yanked out, but are not thinking about how this works in reality. DLC is big business, and in most cases they're gonna plan that stuff out and optimize how it gets created during the development cycle. They're forecasting profits and planning to keep you engaged and paying. He's right about that. They're not going to simply create a bunch of stuff and then find stuff to pull out. They're gonna create certain stuff with the express intent of selling it at DLC. They do analyze the costs and estimate the sales (i.e. budget it). If they weren't gonna sell it as DLC, chances are pretty good they wouldn't have spent the labor to create it.
 
E

EmCeeGramr

Member
2&2 said:
Because that's not how it happens nowadays. Maybe early on, but not now. When can we drop this outdated notion that DLC is stripped from the final game and then monetized? I think people underestimate the intelligence of the people that run and manages these companies. Gamers have the perception of content being yanked out, but are not thinking about how this works in reality. DLC is big business, and in most cases they're gonna plan that stuff out and optimize how it gets created during the development cycle. If they're forecasting profits and planning to keep you engaged and paying. They're not going to simply create a bunch of stuff and then find stuff to pull out. They're gonna create certain stuff with the express intent of selling it at DLC. They do analyze the costs and estimate the sales (i.e. budget it). If they weren't gonna sell it as DLC, chances are pretty good they wouldn't have spent the labor to create it.
Click to expand...

The writers of ME3 talked about how they wrote all this stuff about Javik and EA told them to make it DLC, which was backed up by leaked script fragments in the demo that indicated that he was part of the main plot before they made him into Day 1 DLC.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
wrowa said:
No one complains about TF2, Tribes or Planetscape since these are great games with sensible systems.
Click to expand...
I would. ;-)

I assume you meant PlanetSide 2. 60 dollars doesn't even unlock you a full class in that game.
(Unless you buy that when they have the $1=$2 promotion like they had 2 months ago.)
 
V

vasametropolis

Member
alexandros said:
What was the reality check? He says:



Since when do we equate quality to budget? You can create a great game for much less, but the gaming industry seems obsessed to pretend like it's the film industry by churning out tons of "cinematic", overly hyped and most of the time barely interactive games.

Maybe a crash is indeed what this industry needs. Maybe then we can go back to what really matters and stop spending ridiculous amounts of money on crap.
Click to expand...
Pretty much this. Over-exaggerated a bit IMO, but the fact is that if people don't like what they're bringing out, it will happen.
 
J

Jake Tower

Banned
walking fiend said:
You must have a small mind to be blown so easily:

I'll just pick some points:


Engagement ring doesn't effect the gameplay, it is a 'cosmetic' item. No matter how far you stretch it, there's a qualitative difference.


Sure, but it IS evil a lot of times.


So, we either have to completely dismiss something, or just accept it with whatever flaw we see in it? Are you retard? It's like saying that I am happy to be alive, because I do not cancer, but is okay if I have my fingers cut, or get crippled.


So minority should shut up, because the average majority has no problem? If you were in Germany in 1940, one with your logic would back up Hitler, cause the majority was buying all the shit he was spurring out.

The problems with your shallow analysis and ranting go on. However, the main thing you are avoiding so blindly, is that if this trend of poor DLCs, forced microtransactions, etc. goes on, gaming will become something that we do not value anymore.

Your whole article articulate around the idea that if we want gaming industry to stay alive, we should allow them to cash in more money; but the games will not be the same that they are now in 10 years. Just because other peoples are buying the games, it doesn't mean I will be.
Click to expand...
You were doing so well until you pulled a Godwin. Dammit.
 
R

rvy

Banned
2&2 said:
Because that's not how it happens nowadays. Maybe early on, but not now. When can we drop this outdated notion that DLC is stripped from the final game and then monetized? I think people underestimate the intelligence of the people that run and manages these companies. Gamers have the perception of content being yanked out, but are not thinking about how this works in reality. DLC is big business, and in most cases they're gonna plan that stuff out and optimize how it gets created during the development cycle. They're forecasting profits and planning to keep you engaged and paying. He's right about that. They're not going to simply create a bunch of stuff and then find stuff to pull out. They're gonna create certain stuff with the express intent of selling it at DLC. They do analyze the costs and estimate the sales (i.e. budget it). If they weren't gonna sell it as DLC, chances are pretty good they wouldn't have spent the labor to create it.
Click to expand...

So, you release DLC 1 month after the game ships and it's not removed from the game? How does this work?
Oh, right. The game goes gold 1 month before release and then the team has 2 months to work on content. And I'm Santa.

Boy, developers sure can shit out content quickly these days. Kinda odd how they have 2 or 3 years to develop a game some times and they release a broken, buggy product.
 
Duxxy3

Duxxy3

Member
noobasuar said:
Yup. I can't even think of a bad map in the whole game. And hell they had some promotion with like the discovery channel and gave away like 3 maps for free.

What the hell happened to having some respect for the people that buy and love your game?
Click to expand...

Fuck loyalty and respect, we just want your money right now.
 
R

Rapstah

Member
EmCeeGramr said:
The writers of ME3 talked about how they wrote all this stuff about Javik and EA told them to make it DLC, which was backed up by leaked script fragments in the demo that indicated that he was part of the main plot before they made him into Day 1 DLC.
Click to expand...

He was the main plot before they made him Day 1 DLC.
 
J

Jake Tower

Banned
2&2 said:
Because that's not how it happens nowadays. Maybe early on, but not now. When can we drop this outdated notion that DLC is stripped from the final game and then monetized?
Click to expand...
Javik and Catwoman were both ripped from their respective main games to be DLC. At least Catwoman was free with a new purchase.
 
R

rvy

Banned
EmCeeGramr said:
The writers of ME3 talked about how they wrote all this stuff about Javik and EA told them to make it DLC, which was backed up by leaked script fragments in the demo that indicated that he was part of the main plot before they made him into Day 1 DLC.
Click to expand...

I don't believe it.

YOU LIE. Go back to playing MGS 2.
 
G

Ghost_Protocol

Member
I read the whole blog post and thought it was completely reasonable, except for his take on why people scoff at micro transactions/day 1 dlc. I'll speak for myself here. I don't blame companies like EA/Valve for trying to make money for extra goodies, I blame them for trying to sell me on an experience that was designed to be excluded from the original game in order to be sold to me afterwards. Things like "missing chapters" that were obviously removed from the main game. That feels crummy.

I don't really think people give a damn about weapon skins or dlc costumes put up for a few dollars after launch. Part of that is just bitching to be bitching. But withholding content, real content, from a game is something different. Nobody batted an eye when the From Software guys said they were putting together DLC for Dark Souls because EVERYBODY knew, even before they came out and actually said so themselves, that the material was brand new and hadn't even been started until after the game had shipped. And it showed. Dark Souls was a complete experience when it shipped, and the DLC built upon that. But that's one of the only examples I can think of.

Purposely selling us incomplete experiences now so they can collect extra money later goes beyond "Hey, I'm just trying to put food on the table or pay for my expensive San Francisco home" and becomes "Hey buddy, fuck you."
 
J

jkanownik

Member
One of the biggest issues modern capitalist societies face is the thinking that the sole purpose of business is to make money. The purpose of business is actually to build value. While value is usually measured in dollars, there are ways to build value without making money. Tremendous value is created when you build a studio from the ground up that it capable of making great games in the future.

Many people struggle with the abstraction of value from money and they just focus on the easier objective of money. This can lead to many bad things like Enron, the banking crisis or terrible MTX mechanics that are solely designed to suck money out of unhappy customers.

People also make mistakes the other way though. If people enjoy playing Zynga games, then Zynga is building real value. Some firms like Zynga eliminate the trouble of abstracting value from money by building measurement tools to track customer satisfaction. If customers are satisfied, then there is an assumption that value is being created. The problem with this path is that when money creation and value measurement are completely separated, there is a delay in discovering when money creation activities are no longer building value. It doesn't change the fact that Zynga was at least at one point delivering a lot of value for their customers.
 
C

charsace

Member
Microtransactions won't go because people support them. The same way people on here whine about COD and buy it yearly anyways. A lot of people cry about the reaming, but bend over a company wants to cram its cock in your ass. When DLC first started gaining momentum you had huge threads with people complaining, but those same complainers were buying it. Just look at all the people that complained about horse armor in ESO. That horse armor was still a win for Bethseda.

Cliff, will there ever be another game like Unreal Championship 2?
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
Bgamer90 said:
Overall, if I see DLC that I don't like, I just ignore it. If a game has too much DLC to the point in which the main game is really lacking in content then I just won't buy the game. Simple.
Click to expand...

This really is the only sensible way to address the issue as consumers. Not just re: DLC but microtransactions too.

And I agree entirely - the base game without any extras needs to be stellar or no buy.
 
N

noobasuar

Banned
Remember playing tyro station and having someone chase you on the bottom part of the map and coming out by the train tracks and making it up on the platform just in time before the train hits you and having the guy chase you get fucked?

Goooood times.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
charsace said:
Microtransactions won't go because people support them. The same way people on here whine about COD and buy it yearly anyways. A lot of people cry about the reaming, but bend over a company wants to cram its cock in your ass. When DLC first started gaining momentum you had huge threads with people complaining, but those same complainers were buying it. Just look at all the people that complained about horse armor in ESO. That horse armor was still a win for Bethseda.

Cliff, will there ever be another game like Unreal Championship 2?
Click to expand...
Are you assuming that GAF represents the gaming majority?

I've done both of the above and I haven't bought either of what you accuse the people here of having done.

I know it's hard to believe but the 8000 members currently online were not solely responsible for the 20 million sales of the latest Call of Duty or the financial success of the horse armor.
 
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