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[chilleverest]

We knew it was bad, but somehow they weaseled it in. 2k, Rockstar, EA, UBI and every major publishers you can think of are in it. And now they are here to stay. But who were the mastermind? Add on top are the rumors about increased retail price.

But what is that first game that you remember having microtransactions in? So much so that you felt compelled to it. Committed to it. Lets see how far this rabbit hole goes.

EA's most lucrative cashcow didnt exist before fifa 10 (i say ''most'' lucrative).

Rockstar (Sharkcards): Thanks to these your grandsons will still be playing gta V in playstation xx.

You get the idea. I'd be interesting to hear and discuss about the glorious microtransaction culture that crept into AAA titles that guys like TOTALBUISCUIT was against since day 1.

 

[Birdo]

I think it was Oblivion on 360.

I'll never forget that horse armour

 

[The Wheel of Fortune]

That it actually affected me and made me want to buy it, you mean? Definitely early Overwatch, then. At least that's the one that sticks out the most to me, for some reason. Even though I knew it was absolute bullshit.

 

[M1chl]

We knew it was bad, but somehow they weaseled it in. 2k, Rockstar, EA, UBI and every major publishers you can think of are in it. And now they are here to stay. But who were the mastermind? Add on top are the rumors about increased retail price.

But what is that first game that you remember having microtransactions in? So much so that you felt compelled to it. Committed to it. Lets see how far this rabbit hole goes.

EA's most lucrative cashcow didnt exist before fifa 10 (i say ''most'' lucrative).

Rockstar (Sharkcards): Thanks to these your grandsons will still be playing gta V in playstation xx.

You get the idea. I'd be interesting to hear and discuss about the glorious microtransaction culture that crept into AAA titles that guys like TOTALBUISCUIT was against since day 1.

OT, What scares me and I bought zero microtransactions and not sure why would I buy anything....if it would not be for that 3 year PEGI sticker on the Fifa card, it looks so visually appealing. Like physical good it's definitely catch an eye somewhere. So yeah, totaly not some manipulation.

Are they using same green on money as there is on Xbox card? I can't tell. But it caught my eye "how pretty it is" before I even read what's on there.

GTA V one looks like shit, but that's not my point.

 

[Popura]

I was just about to chime in with Oblivion as well. Horse armor got a lot of ridicule at the time, but it turns out that Bethesda were ahead of the curve. I didn't know it would get this bad with the lootboxes and battle passes, though . Well, young me also did not predict the race-to-zero free to play model, but that's a different discussion.

 

[The Pleasure]

an arcade machine going from 50 cents to a dollar. FUCK YOU VIRTUA FIGHTER.

 

[Tschumi]

I think it must be with mobile phone games around 2010 or so.. maybe i encountered it before, but i am never very shrewd about picking up on this stuff.. but yeah, something like Candy Crush, or similar.

 

[Bryank75]

Xbox 360 was my introduction to all that stuff.... the stuff you could buy for your avatar.
I remember the horse armor but I didn't buy it.
It was also the first time I came across paid map-packs.

Paid online too.

 

[Sleepwalker]

FIFA Packs (not points, packs were straight up $$ back then, $20 a pop for some) back in FIFA 12 Ultimate Team in 2011.

 

[Halo is Back]

 

[Rolla]

First DLC I bought was AC2 story expansion.

First Micro transaction was in BF2 or 3 but they were worth it imo.

First egregious Micro transaction I stumbled across was in AC early this generation. It hurt my soul so badly I haven't been back to the franchise since.

 

[01011001]

everyone who was playing games at the time will most likely say the Horse Armour in Oblivion.
it was the first one I remember because it was such a big headline everywhere.

I don't know if it was the first one you'd call microtransaction, but it was the first time people got pissed at them for sure

 

[Bernd Lauert]

I too remember how everyone laughed at Bethesda for selling horse armor in Oblivion.

 

[Robot Carnival]

I think it was Oblivion on 360.

I'll never forget that horse armour

I was just about to chime in with Oblivion as well. Horse armor got a lot of ridicule at the time, but it turns out that Bethesda were ahead of the curve. I didn't know it would get this bad with the lootboxes and battle passes, though . Well, young me also did not predict the race-to-zero free to play model, but that's a different discussion.

Xbox 360 was my introduction to all that stuff.... the stuff you could buy for your avatar.
I remember the horse armor but I didn't buy it.
It was also the first time I came across paid map-packs.

Paid online too.

everyone who was playing games at the time will most likely say the Horse Armour in Oblivion.
it was the first one I remember because it was such a big headline everywhere.

I don't know if it was the first one you'd call microtransaction, but it was the first time people got pissed at them for sure

I too remember how everyone laughed at Bethesda for selling horse armor in Oblivion.

this! so much this! I didn't even play on Xbox at the time and I heard of it and hated it. at the time it just feels dirty and even thou I had friends joke about how bad it could get I never thought freaking horse armor and MS would open the flood gate to all the bs we have today.

 

[Caffeine]

Advanced Warfare is legit the first time I ran into micro in case of the supply drops. I knew of the horse armor from news articles but I personally just ignored it. I've never spent on the supply drops though. I was actually one of the lucky ones to have my first 2 prestiges drop the asm1 royalty and the hbra3 insanity variants.

 

[anothertech]

Lindens in Second Life! That was like in 2004 or something. I was a stupid kid that wanted cool clothes... lol

 

[SpartanN92]

People say Oblivion but that wasn’t too bad. Frankly I pine for those days of DLC packs.

Dead Space 3 was probably the worst one I’ve ever seen.

 

[Halo is Back]

People say Oblivion but that wasn’t too bad. Frankly I pine for those days of DLC packs.

Dead Space 3 was probably the worst one I’ve ever seen.

The DLC was stupid but people like to forget the excellent Shivering Isles expansion. If y'all want to blame someone, blame EA and Overwatch for popularizing the loot box / money grubbing

 

[MasterCornholio]

That was my first encounter with micropenises. Before that I was used to expansions like opposing flute.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

That horse armor in Oblivion. When I saw that and how well it sold I knew we were heading towards doomsday in the gaming industry.

 

[nush]

The first I brought was the Ridge Racer 6 classic music tracks on 360. When my credit card came through that month I saw the amount I spent I could have brought the soundtrack CD for less. I could have had the CD and just ripped the tracks to my 360 instead.

That was getting off lightly for stupidity, I'd do magnitudes worse years later.

 

[Simpkin92]

Black Ops 2 Bacon camo

 

[SpartanN92]

The DLC was stupid but people like to forget the excellent Shivering Isles expansion. If y'all want to blame someone, blame EA and Overwatch for popularizing the loot box / money grubbing

I’d give anything to go back to the days of quality $15-$30 expansion packs like Shivering Isles, or Brotherhood of Steel.
Also $10-$15 map packs for Halo 2/3 and Modern Warfare.

I’m perfectly fine with paying for new GOOD content. Micro transactions/Loot boxes though are horseshit.

 

[iorek21]

I remember Mass Effect 2's weapon packs DLC and skin packs.

The ME community I participated back then hated it with their life

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Like others, reading about Oblivion's horse thing was stupid.

Another bad one was EA Sports. I don't know which other sports did it at the time or when, but in NHL 08 or 09 they had Bauer Booster Pts. You pay $10 (800 pts) and get like 50 character pts to spread out and boost your create-a-character's stats right away so you could do online leagues with a player probably 10 pts Overall better than a scrub from scratch.

Then they had pre-order Bauer boost packs in later games where your character gets gear +1, +2, +3. But if you didn't pre-order you could buy the download code to even out with pre-order gamers.

Pathetic.

 

[Esca]

Earliest I remember is I think wad a swimsuit for dead or alive 2 I think. Back them xbox magazine had an awesome monthly demo disc and I think DoA2 for the xbox had a thing where you could insert the demo disc and get a special swimsuit.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

I think it was Oblivion on 360.

I'll never forget that horse armour

Thanks a lot FUCKBOX 360... THANKS A LOT!!!!!

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Oblivion was first for me. Last of Us MP probably the worst, though I don’t do much mobile or Acti/Ubi gaming so I’m sure there’s much worse.

 

[Abear21]

Oblivion was first for me. Last of Us MP probably the worst, though I don’t do much mobile or Acti/Ubi gaming so I’m sure there’s much worse.

I think FIFA or nba2k game was the first I remember, but yeah that TLOU “finishing animations” was some of the worse I’ve seen. There were brutal finishers held behind paywalls, not cool and I’m interested to see how they approach it on PS5 when TLOU2 multiplayer drops.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

I can't remember now but there was a game for the Dreamcast that had dlc. The one I can remember (Splinter Cell extra missions) was for the original xbox.
The one that bugged me the most was the original Xbox Live Arcade games you needed to buy and they did not transfer to the 360....

 

[German Hops]

Anyone saying horse armor is correct.

 

[Barakov]

Same here. Crazy how bad it's gotten now. It's even how crazier how used to it I'm now.

 

[BadBurger]

PlayStation Home for me. I kitted my character out to look like Nathan Drake. It only cost like six bucks, but still.

 

[Yoshi]

But what is that first game that you remember having microtransactions in?

In the strictest sense (recurring smaller charges) it's probably Fifa being the first that comes to mind.

So much so that you felt compelled to it. Committed to it.

Hasn't happened yet. In all cases microtransactions were either ireelevant or they were indicative of shit game design (e.g. involving grind) and thus I was only compelled to stop playing the game. I have never bought or even wanted to buy mts.

 

[Greatest Of All Time]

I feel like I remember something similar to microtransactions in Ultima Online waaaaaay back before they were called microtransactions and long before horse armor.

 

[MetalRain]

I remember purchasing some sort of space currency in Planetside 2 for getting more weapons. I would not count extra content DLC like horse armour as microtransactions. For me microtransaction is something that you can keep purchasing indefinitely.

 

[Mr Hyde]

While it's not microtransactions per se, the earliest I can think of when publishers decided to fuck over the customer is when Capcom released all of their upgrades on Street Fighter 2 for full price. And the SNES-cartridge back in the day was like 80 bucks. Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Street Fighter 2, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo etc, it was insane.

When it comes mtx and DLC, Dead Space was the first game where I personally purchased in game-items. You could buy different suits, weapons, skins, upgrades and other cosmetics in the store. I used on of the suits and weapons for Impossible mode.

 

[Bernkastel]

Edit : So OP was asking about the personal earliest MTX. For me that would be those free to play smartphone games.

 

[Kamina]

What counts as Microtransaction?
I rememer playing Dragon Age Origins and during a dialogue i was prompted to buy the DLC.

 

[Airola]

It probably doesn't count but the first time I paid money to have something in game was with an online browser game Alphabounce.

It was free to play Breakout/Arkanoid clone where you got to explore space and play countless of levels. It was a really good adventure-rpg version of Breakout.
They gave you three free balls every day but paying 5 dollars/euros or so you got a lot more balls. I don't remember if you were able to buy something else too but I remember paying once for those extra balls because the game was amazing.

It was maybe somewhere around 2008-2009. It was a bit later released as DSiWare and I bought it and played the game through. That version didn't have any extra things to buy, but the original browser version had.

Review: AlphaBounce (DSiWare)

Quite possibly the best Arkanoid clone ever

www.nintendolife.com

 

[nowhat]

I've never been into sports games, so Horse Armor is where it's at.

 

[Portugeezer]

I already knew about MCs, bu I think the first tjmwni saw them myself was in Tales of Vesperia on the 360 IIRC... it had some time savers or extra items or something...

 

[Exede]

The Horse Armor in Oblivion with all the fuzz arround it.

 

[GreyHorace]

The first time I ever encountered microtansactions was in Dragon Age: Origins with it's Collector's Edition for the Xbox 360.

My brother was the one who bought this though. Didn't much care for the new items, but I thought it neat that they included a new area and character (Shale the golem).

I followed his example and bought the Mass Effect 2 Collector's Edition:

At the time I didn't think much of downloadable content, until I learned later that the DLC such as Shale and Javik from Mass Effect 3 were cut content from the main game. That pretty much made me suspicious of any future dlc or microtransaction a game may feature.

Microtansactions don't really affect me much since I don't play multiplayer games, but man do I hate it when a single player game features it like Bioware did with their titles. Unless it's like The Witcher 3's DLC content, I don't bother with stuff like this unless it's a game I really like.

 

[diffusionx]

The first one I bought, I think, was the Halo 2 multiplayer map pack on the original Xbox, although IIRC, they sold it as a disc as well. This was in 2005 before the 360 or PS3 came out, and maybe six months after Steam launched.

 

[Siri]

The Oblivion Horse Armour was baffling at the time. It seemed like an insignificant part of the game had been withheld, or was being tacked on. I vaguely remember thinking, who would buy that?

 

[Codes 208]

gears 3 for me. Sometime after release, they began dropping paid only weapon skins ranging between $2-$10 separate from the in-game earnable unlocks.

The first one I bought, I think, was the Halo 2 multiplayer map pack on the original Xbox, although IIRC, they sold it as a disc as well. This was in 2005 before the 360 or PS3 came out, and maybe six months after Steam launched.

the halo multiplayer pack was an expansion, not a MTX.

for halo a better example of a MTX are the gold req packs in halo 5

 

[chilleverest]

Damn ! who would have thought, of all the publishers, it would be Bathesda that would open the Pandora's box. I wonder if Todd was the mastermind.

 

[deriks]

The "DLC in a disc" fiasco from Capcom

I only bought Left Behind and Blood Dragon DLC, and they're worthy (well, maybe Left Behind was not that worthy, but that's fine)