Free-To-Pay

Gamers used to earn perks if they managed to beat the game on harder difficulties as a bragging right. During the seventh generation of gaming, microtransactions popped up more than ever. Earning the additional content is no longer earned, you pay for it.

It's become a bad trend within gaming to put microtransactions in full priced retail games. It wasn't always this way. This used to be only restricted to Free-To-Play games. A developer had to make money off the game after all, some how. Some games did it better than others. Not all of them exploited the gamer, but some of them did with gusto. It was understood that you got to play the game for free and you could buy additional content to support the game.

When it entered the paid game space, it started with expansions. They added additional content to retail games which then moved on to Downloadable content (DLC). The most recent thing is microtransactions in games you pay for. In Forza 5 you could <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Forza-5-Top-Car-Run-You-110-Why-Okay-60798.html">buy a car for 110$</a> of your real money. Gran Turismo 6 offered a <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Gran-Turismo-6-Top-Car-Cost-Nearly-200-60880.html">car that roughly cost $196.05.</a> Assassin's Creed Unity offered the first week of the release, you could <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-11-14-how-assassins-creed-unity-micro-transactions-work">buy 100 dollars worth in boosts</a> in the game.

There are despicable examples on all platforms. Not too long ago we had War Z. The game was in an unfinished state and unplayable. Yet it had microtransactions left and right. You were heavily limited to a timer if you didn't buy your way out of it, and i am not even mentioning how broken it was. On mobile platform Square Enix in all its wisdom released Final Fantasy All The Bravest. The whole game was built around to pay your way to the next battle. If you lost the battle you had to pay to continue. The balance was so off that every battle was almost impossible to beat. The only reason that game exists is to get money out of the consumer. Microsoft didn't make a good start to the Xbox One either with Forza as i mentioned before. That wasn't the only game riddled with microtransactions. Crimson Dragon and Ryse had it aswell. In Ryse you have pretty much the option to buy everything. From cosmetics to actual weapons. The worst offended I have seen is Train Simulator 2015. <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/24010/">Train Simulator 2015 has <b>$4,548.84</b> worth of DLC‏ and microtransactions</a>, that is absolute insanity. What is the point in this? Is the whole point not to actually get the items from the game, but rather buying it from the developer themselves?

If the microtransactions only gave you the option of cosmetic content, I would be fine with it. That isn't the case in the industry at the moment. They give you shortcuts and advantages for giving out money in retail games that you pay for. I personally think that demanding money in Free-To-Play games for full access is an acceptable way to make a business model for a game. It's not when the you actually pay full price for the game to get shortcuts. When the game itself is long and has grinding, and then ask them to give you money for the game aswell? That is not acceptable or consumer friendly. When you put in barriers by choice when you already have your money, it's just flat out greed. EA tried this by forcing online passes. That didn't work to say the least.

If microtransaction are only limited to cosmetic content, I would be fine with it in retail games. It doesn't seem to be the case however when you can pay more for a car in the game than the actual game itself. Even though most people don't buy them, they will be in the game because the company can make money of from us.

What I am trying to get across is to use the most powerful tool that gamers have; the wallet. Use it to show that it's not acceptable to sort to these anti-consumer methods. Because we've seen that we get less and they require more money. CD Project Red are releasing 16 free DLC's with the Witcher 3 game to thank fans. Mass Effect also released free DLC with its game. Rockstar have also provided free content to its online mode. This is a great way to get gamers invested in your game. If the content is good, people will pay for extra, instead of forcing them by limiting the consumer.

We need to show publishers as gamers that this is not acceptable. When the game is good and the microtransactions aren't forced, you should reward the developers. Otherwise you should stay away from them.

This is the direction ubisoft is going starting with assassin creed all their future games will have micro transactions, they are forcing it upon you slowly eventually it will get to a point where you will be unable to progress far into the game without paying extra money.

Well the gamers expectation has gone up which increase the cost to make the game, but gamers refuse to buy the game for more money and the number of games sold has not increase at the same rate. Worse yet is we have gamers that whine about it as if those extra would have been in the game. DLC is the best compromised that the companies has to deal with the two demands from the gamers.

If the game company make something you like then get it and stop seeing everything as if it an attack on you.

@wiouds:

Ubisoft says their profits were higher than expected in 2014 so them putting micro transactions in assassin creed was just pure greed and nothing else.

So that mean all micro transactions is for greed?

@wiouds:

No microtransactions have a place in free to play games but when you play 60 bucks for a game you should not see it, if ubisoft allows me to download assassin creed for free I would be more than happy to pay for more microtransactions.

Some are. The Helix credits are PURELY for greed. They sell 100 dollar packages of Helix credits, and even after you've upgraded everything, you still have around 50 or so dollars worth left in credits. For what? For GREED. They make stupid gullible impatient gamers think they NEED that shit, when they don't. Do you know what's that called? Exploitation.

The industry is deeply rooted in exploitation through micro-transactions. It has been there since the conception of the video arcade. It's not going anywhere.

I completely forgot about arcades. Isn't it the reason why it died? Consoles were allowing people to play games at home at a set cost without having to feed the machine.

@Pedro: They started to decline in the late 90s' for a variety of factors which consoles had a large part in:

• Consoles were more affordable
• Consoles offered competitive multiplayer games, a niche that was once filled by arcades
• Consoles stole the exclusive games from arcades
• renting became more affordable than feeding quarters

The whole premise of paying to win is an alien concept to me. I mean, if I win knowing that I had an unfair advantage, I don't enjoy my victory at all. I guess some people think shooting fish in a barrel is fun?

Thanks for the information Minish.

People cheat in online games so yes there are people who think shooting fish in a barrel is fun :P

i am not paying for those types of games

I don't really mind dlc and microtransactions myself. If I feel that something has value to me then I buy it, if not then I don't. This has served me quite well over the years as I have purchased a fair amount of dlc and the odd microtransaction here and there and I've never been dissatisfied. The thing is that different people have different ideas of what constitutes value for them. No one person has the right to dictate what should and should not be bought. Each person need only be satisfied with what they purchase.

People who don't like microtransactions, such as myself, should just stay away from games that do it. If it's only cosmetic changes, then it is your own OCD that's the problem, not the game. If it's changes to the way the game works, then just stay away. I don't see the issue.

You vote by not buying. Clearly, plenty people buy. Let them be.

So selling extra for what you got is greedy. Well I guess most companies are greedy. I went to the movies once and they want me to pay for movies and popcorn. That is just being greedy.

I never like the whole the whole vote with your wallet. You vote yes or choose not to be heard. Second you think they would just do plan that make some unhappy with out someone there to look at the numbers.

Except enough people have OCD to buy these skins and have been doing for so long that it's starting to become common practice. The issue is that these skins, among other things such as weapons and even levels, used to be things you could unlock by simply playing the game. The whole "Sell a shell, then the rest as well" business practice is what fucked up Ridge Racer on the Vita. The only reason I bought the DLC for that game was because it was given to me as a gift, so I had no problem in bring the rest of the game up to where it was supposed to be in the first place.

Simply avoiding games like these is not the solution, as clearly enough people are buying skin packs and whatnot, sending a message to developers that this is okay. Awareness needs to be spread to the average consumer who doesn't know they're being take. Yes, it's their money, and they can throw it away if they want, but as I illustrated with Ridge Racer Vita, it may affect games that YOU want to play as well.

Voting with your wallet means you're only voting when you buy. When you vote no, it might as well not count as a vote at all because the developers/publishers have no idea why you aren't buying it in the first place. For instance, the only reason why MS reversed their Xbox One policies was because of the amount of negative press surrounding them. This lead to many unwise consumers learning what was happening and thus not pre-ordering. If no one spoke out, MS would win, because then pre-orders would have hit numbers MS was happy with, and boom, everyone without Internet would be fucked over for Xbox One. People voting with their wallets would have won, but for reasons they didn't even know or understand.

Perfectly said.

No dude, that is bs. They've also turned up the milking aswell. The games do cost more, but make a great game and people will pay for DLC. Games are the biggest industry in teh world now. More than Music and Movies combined. Microtransactions is not the way to go.

It's an attack on gamers when they actively go out of their way to screw you over

I hate f2p microtransactions crap.

I always think this when I see gamers at max level grouping together in MP games and go around destroying every team they come across. I don't understand how running people over on a team with other expert level players could be fun. It's the same thing when I end up winning on a team with more players cause the matchmaking sucks or the other team quits out early on. No sense of satisfaction.

Of course, what's a thread about microtransactions without a Francis rant?

@Archangel3371: but that would mean you also wouldn't mind paying for your dinner and after that having to pay to open your cabinet, grabbing a plate and even for your spoon, knife and fork...

I prefer F2P transactions to a game where you pay full price and it as pay to win microtransactions

@The_Last_Ride: P2W is sad just look at Battlefield Heroes you'll lose just because your weapon is not strong enough...

That's one example. Take a look at a game like Planetside 2, DC Universe Online. Star Wars The Old Republic, etc. I personally think they all have fair use of them

Precisely. I guess it's the bully mentality: delude yourself of being strong by taking on someone you can't possibly lose against.

No, that's not true. Just because a game may have dlc and/or microtransactions doesn't atomatically make the core game an incomplete experience on it's own. When I buy a game I do so because the game is worth it to me on it's own. When I buy dlc and/or microtransactions I do so because those are things that further enhance the core game experience. I've also played many games on their own and been satisfied with just that as well.

Agreed, and I do remember this being a hot topic back in the day when we learned that consoles where going online.

@Archangel3371:

You are a sucker one of those kind of people who will buy something even if its ridiculously overpriced because you like it, companies love people like you because you make them even richer, thank god every body is not like you or we would be paying a 100 bucks for a happy meal.

I personally feel like the impact of F2P games and microtransactions has been overstated. Sure it dominates the mobile market but we're at a point where I feel most people understand what they're getting themselves into when they download that newly rated 5 star app on their smartphone. I don't feel sorry for anyone who gets "suckered" into dropping a dollar for some boost on Clash of the Clans or some other such game.

In regards to core gaming on the PC and consoles people tend to be a bit more wary of it and only those games with healthy and beneficial models for both consumer and company tend to thrive (DOTA 2, LoL, TF2 & Hearthstone.) If companies like Ubisoft want to squeeze every last dime out of consumers rather than maintain a long-term relationship with their consumer base then let them. For every Ubisoft and EA there are a hundred smaller companies that can compete for my wallet with satisfying products. We the consumers control this market, not the producers. I'll shed no tears if any of these bigwigs go down.

@Archangel3371:You are not going to win. They are pulling doing a Anita Sarkeesian so reasoning with them is impossible.

I think micro transactions and other things like that have a time and a place if there is an even playing field. I don't want to see everything go this way, but I can understand it in certain, limited circumstances. Having said that though, I'm always turned off by the model and almost always avoid them.

Oh well then. I'm satisfied with my purchases and that's all I really care about. :)

That's ok. I'm having a great time being a gamer. I'm playing a lot of great games and I'm happy with my purchases. That's really all the "win" that I need. :)

Is the Xbox One example a fitting analogy, though? That was the release of a huge console, which, more importantly, was compared to the release of another huge console. The average game does not seem to be that big of a deal. How are you going to raise enough awareness about specific games or about this practice in general, which seems pretty firmly settled in? I'm hesitant to believe the majority of the people buying all this stuff is actually unaware that they're being exploited. But maybe I'm too optimistic about people (or pessimistic, depending on how you look at it).

You show the publisher that you're not alright when you don't buy a game. You don't support the practices or the game. You vote with your wallet, if they see declining numbers, they will notice

I personally have no problem with F2P games, because I don't play them, but I think the fact that when a developer is giving you there base game for free, it's fair for them to offer small micro-transactions to cover there losses and keep up maintenance.

What I don't like however is how this model is moving over into retail titles, stuff like the latest issues with Evolve doesn't bother me, because it's all cosmetic and it's allowing them to release all the extra maps free of charge, but it does with stuff like, I think Battlefield did this, where you could buy every weapon in the game so you didn't need to bother unlocking them. Of course my biggest problem with that was that they offered it from day one, if it had been a few months down the road and they felt it was now difficult for people to compete with players who'd been there from the beginning who'd already unlocked all those weapons it wouldn't have been as bad, but to offer it out the gate was just appalling, but then again people actually bought it so who can really blame them?

Well, if they are aware, then they're just being foolish with their money. Honestly, how can you buy games 10 years ago that used to have things like skins as unlockables to buying games where they charge you those unlockables and say it's a good thing, or worse saying you're getting "value" for your dollar? And the attitude of, "It's my money, and I'm happy" is simply a foolish one. As Boogie already said, "If you're happy to accept less, then you will keep getting less." Paraphrased.

Alright. I am having a great time with gaming while not letting my greed cloud my judgement too much. I also wanted to make point out who they are acting like.

That's ok, no problem.

The reason i have an issue with this is because it's in retail games that you've paid for. If it's content that's done after production then fine. But don't pull this crap day one.