Friday, May 6, 2011

DLC, Microtransactions and Free Updates

If there's one thing that has been working to divide and galvanize the gamer populace, it is the rise of the microtransaction.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, a microtransaction (MT) is a service or additional item added to an already released game for the owners of said game for a fee smaller than the original purchase price. The items can range from harmless non-combat pets to entire classes and areas in the case of free-to-play (F2P) MMOs.

The conflict among gamers arises with the debate over when gamers should be charged for additional content, how much should be charged and whether or not companies should even charge for additional content at all.

I'll start by saying this, I have little problem with developers and publishers having the right to have MTs. It's their game, their product and as long as the initial product we bought and paid for is complete without the addition of these items, then no harm no foul.

The place I really start to get angry is when you can tell at a game's launch that elements were ripped from it solely for the purpose of charging MTs. The most notorious recent example of this are the removed outfits and dyes from Fable 3. It was obvious that dyes like the color black were missing from the shelf totally with the knowledge that people would pay for it later.

This sort of event is why MTs have terrible reputations and those who utilize them are labeled as money hungry sadists with no respect for their fans and customers. Although I have to lay a good amount of blame at the foot of the publishers too. It's more than likely that these sorts of scenarios were put into place only because of publisher pressure rather than the developer's personal desires to be as evil as possible.

 However, MTs aren't necessarily terrible...when done right.

When it comes to F2P MMOs, then MTs are perfectly suited to that style of subscription. The one caveat to this is that the full game needs to be equally accessible to everyone. Let's take Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) as an example, being that it's currently the front runner F2P MMO. (I'm not going to be addressing social games in this post, that will have another all to itself.)

When you subscribe to the game, you have a substantial chunk of area to explore. You also have all classes leveling and developing the same as those classes that belong to paying customers. The path diverges a bit with the MTs. The MTs they offer include additional classes and new zones in addition to less major items like pets and mounts.

The place this gets rocky is when you're already paying a subscription and additional items are launched as MTs. As I said above, this works with F2P games. But when you're still paying a subscription and they ask you to pay more for items that you should have access to anyway, it's not a good thing. Especially when these items could in some way upset the balance. It's at that point that gameplay comes down to who has the larger wallet. If I'm paying a subscription, then I should have the exact same opportunities as everyone else paying a subscription. (Note: I'll expand upon the subject of equal opportunities in MMOs at a later date.)

The bottom line of this is, MTs should not gimp you in any way if you decide to skip them. They should add to the experience, like the expansion packs of yore.

But there's a point where it starts to really grate on my nerves, like the Fable example above, and that's adding things purely for the quick buck. One of these pet peeves involves the idea of selling map packs.

Recent shooters such as Halo: Reach, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops are guilty of this, as are many others. They charge you 5-15 dollars for 2-3 additional multiplayer maps. It is quite obvious that these are implemented solely for the idea of making additional funds.

I understand part of this is because of certain XBox Live policies. But when they do the same thing on Steam, it rings alarm bells. Speaking of Steam, Valve just recently announced that all updates to Portal 2, on ALL consoles will be free of charge.

I rejoiced immensely at this news. First, because it cements Valve as one of the best developers of this gaming generation and second because they're throwing down the gauntlet to other developers who are charging for map packs and add-ons.

THIS is how you support a launched game. THIS is how you give add ins to those who already purchased your product and Valve deserves massive kudos for treating it's playerbase with such respect.

That all being said, what is the final verdict?

To put it bluntly, it is entirely the developer's right to launch as ask for money for DLC. It's somewhat unfortunate, but it's true. We as the consumer have to pay with our wallets and tell them, "Hell no. I'm not paying five bucks for black dye. How about you put it in my game when I buy it?" We also have a responsibility to point at Valve and say, "See? They can do it, why can't you? What's stopping you?"

DLC is here to stay and it's our responsibility to shape what that DLC is from this point onwards.

Game on and take care.

7 comments:

  1. I'd like to know why we're still paying 60 bucks a game on consoles at launch for decreasing content. TFU 2 was a (terrible) example of a game that was way overpriced for what you got. If they're going to give us shorter games and go to MTs, then they need to lower the costs of the original games, too.

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  2. i think the same should apply to downloadable full games such as on the 360 as well >_< for instance Shadowrun, it is actually now $30 bucks again instead of $20 to download the full game, yet you can get it for 5-10 bucks new in game stop.

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  3. @ Jae Onasi: Agreed, for the most part. However, I have no issue paying full price for games that are actually complete at launch. I payed full price for Mortal Kombat and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. (Review Soon)

    Unfortunately half-finished games are becoming a trend. The only thing I can recommend is wait until we reviewers sacrifice our thumbs for you and give you an overall verdict of the game. That way your wallet's saved and you know when to wait for a Steam sale. ^_^

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  5. "The most notorious recent example of this are the removed outfits and dyes from Fable 3."

    Well that, and the archer character from Dragon Age 2... although it feels more like they just forgot to include him, really.

    "We also have a responsibility to point at Valve and say, "See? They can do it, why can't you? What's stopping you?""

    To which the answer would be "well, our games aren't massively successful and able to bring back the price of free updates like Portal 2!"

    Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that Valve decided to make updates free (though I'm wondering what these updates will actually -be-), but it would be unfair to expect the same of most companies. Really, Valve can only pull this off because most of their games are just so successful that developing updates and releasing them for free is just not an issue to them.

    And yes, of course, some companies like Cryptic tend to go overboard the other way, charging money for the tiniest things and trying to make a quick buck by rather cheap means. But honestly, Portal 2 is one of those games I wouldn't mind priced DLC for (assuming the price and the content is proportional); Mass Effect 2 also had some awesome DLC and I didn't feel cheated buying those. Star Trek Online on the other hand... well, it kinda sucks that all the uniforms that don't look like they're made of rubber cost you money...

    Also, I do honestly feel games are overpriced these days. $60 already feels like a lot for most games, and the fact they usually sell the same games for €60 over here really isn't helping things.

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  6. "Well that, and the archer character from Dragon Age 2... although it feels more like they just forgot to include him, really."

    Actually that character was part of the Platinum edition you got when you pre-ordered Dragon Age 2 within a certain time frame. If you didn't get it through that, then it was released as DLC. Personally, I liked that a pre-order bonus was actually a bonus, but I guess one could infer it's about equal to Cryptic putting pre-order items up on the C-Store. Only thing is, Blizzard never called the bonus "exclusive"...

    "To which the answer would be "well, our games aren't massively successful and able to bring back the price of free updates like Portal 2!"

    To which the response is, "Shut the fuck up Activision, you own Black Ops."

    "Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that Valve decided to make updates free (though I'm wondering what these updates will actually -be-), but it would be unfair to expect the same of most companies. Really, Valve can only pull this off because most of their games are just so successful that developing updates and releasing them for free is just not an issue to them."

    Please re-read what I wrote above. I'm mostly targeting developers and games that have arguably been hits and made so much money to the point that asking 10-15 dollars for useless map packs is nothing but a money grab.

    MMOs provide free updates on a more or less regular basis, granted that's partially backed by a subscription, but even F2P MMOs give free patches and updates.

    There's really no excuse for overpriced DLC among the majority of gaming companies, especially for things that should be provided to the gamer. The more people play a specific game, like Black Ops, the more likely they'll get their friends to play. You can't maintain that, realistically, with sovelware DLC.

    "Also, I do honestly feel games are overpriced these days. $60 already feels like a lot for most games, and the fact they usually sell the same games for €60 over here really isn't helping things."

    Games have always been on the expensive side. I remember new Genesis games were about 40$ at release. The increase in price is mostly likey due primarily to two things, monetary inflation and more money being poured into the development process than before.

    You've got games now that have 2-year development windows with nearly 100 people working on it, you have to recoup those costs somehow.

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  7. Yeah, but what's really annoying is when you have games like TF: WFC where they release new map packs, but you seem to be the only one that doesn't have them, therefore you can not join the game. And in response to your line about Activision, I feel that they at least released one piece of DLC that was reasonably priced. It was for SM: SD, and it only cost 240 MP, for four new alternate costumes, and new concept art based off the costumes. And MP don't cost much, actually. I thought it was a fair deal. And I can access it on all my Xbox profiles. So I thought it worked. But I understand if you disagree. And yes, Cryptic charges way to much for, well, everything at the C-Store. Oh well.

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