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Microtransactions and you.....
EyeSpEye
Member Posts: 66
With the latest development with SOE's SC and then Blizzard's $15 appearance change, one thing is for certain, MMOs are changing. I have seen a lot of outrage (at least on this site) and I ask what is the issue?
I am not saying haters are right or wrong, but at the same time why is this such an issue among so many people? I understand that there may be a monthly fee already, but what is such a hassle that having people be able to buy things in game they otherwise wouldn't be able to obtain without sometimes godly time invested or otherwise.
There are some pretty good pros to being able to RMT in games, such as the "normal" Joe who works a full week with a family and so forth can't afford the time to invest to get that oh so rare item. He spends more time working in real life life to earn that little extra cash and can afford to buy what others can spend in personal time to achieve. I see it actually somewhat balanced. I, like probably many people who have (and still do) play WoW have bought gold at least once. The way I saw it was I worked a few extra hours in a week of RL to buy something others will spend time in game to work for.
Now it seems as if right now all these RMTs are novelty and I don't think anyone should be upset about an appearance change, or a different looking item. Givin time, I am sure these companies are going to get much deeper into the game like really usefull items and such, but I ask, if someone can invest in a game as much as someone can invest in thier job or otherwise be able to obtain the same status, why does it warrent such an outrage?
Comments
If your not happy with what Blizzard or SOE are doing go to a game not made by them. Just because they do something you dont like doesnt mean every other game is doing it.
Look at it this way... just because WoW sucks doesnt mean all MMO's suck
EDIT: not all game devs try to do everything Blizzard does.... or at least they shouldnt
Ok i just want to make sure i understand micotransaction....so the company sells the item for money but nobody in game actually found it to sell? I know sony had the exchange servers on eq2 where you could sell your stuff to other players legally...why dont they just do that and have auctions but over multiple servers...that would validate people's need to play endless hours and not only give them some money and the company money but the person who wants to buy the item could get their stuff too.....
again if this is how microtransactions actually work im sorry but from what i saw it means they just buy the item straight from the company wihtout a player actually finding and selling it....
I like the way you think. Everyone can benefit this way.
I ask you what the point would be of progression in a game when you can buy said items by means of $.
I ask you what the point of role playing is when you can buy any item by means of using real life $.
I ask you what the point is of playing a game where no one wants to help you on your adventures because they know they can just get said items with $.
What is the point of a role playing environment with specific items when you can get all of those items by completely bypassing any role playing and adventuring in the world you play in, but instead buy them from a screen with a visa card.
Exactly, there would be no point to have items in the game at all.
Wont be long until EA or SOE pushes a ZT online RMT system on us.
Hang on, lets get one thing straight.
Blizzard charging to change your character's customization options is in a different league entirely to SOE selling experience potions.
That's not to say you can't criticize Blizzard for charging for a service that they make 100% profit on, that instead could easily be implemented as part of some quest instead of for cash. However SOE far worse with what they are doing, are hypocrites going back on what they said in the past, and I hate the way they always introduce things like Station Exchange and Station Cash to their existing games.
SOE have absolutely no respect for their player base at all and they consistently demonstrate this.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
SOE has to use RMT, because they are completely uncreative. They aren't making enough money with the million MMOs they have out. Instead of coming out with a compelling and fun game they took the shortcut. Shortcuts are short term goals, and rarely ever succeed.
Comparing a haircut or facial changes to bonus XP pots is idiotic. Blizzard doesn't have to resort to selling XP, becuase they have 11 million subscribers. The fact is games that fail to pull in subscribers are going to have to do RMT to make the money that WOW has brought to the genre. WAR(I'm predicting will end up with RMT system), SOE games, obviously failed in creativity, and have to find any way to get more out of their customers. Why make a great game? Its hard work.
Here's what I think; if a game has to resort to RMT to make money its probably not worth playing, anyways.
It's one thing to charge money for something that probably requires someone at the company in question to do something. For instance, moving a character to another server or changing the name (premium services in LOTRO).
OTOH, changing the gameplay and adding things like exp potions, that's something different. You've got a lot of nerve if you do that and charge a monthly fee....
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
What is the issue?
The issue is this:
Evolution One
Theme: Beauty, Art, World
Design games that are creative, fun, and inspiring.
Make a game interesting, fun, exploratory, and never finished.
Inspire people with options, opportunities, and beauty to keep them playing.
Evolution Two
Theme: Addiction, Grind, Repetition, Barriers
Design games with barriers, addicting content, and grinds for the 15.00 fee.
Keep them paying (not to be confused with "playing").
Evolution Three
Theme: "Innovative" forms to get money from MMORPG consumers
15.00 is not enough. Redesign payment schemes to get microtransactions, purchase in-game items off-line for cash, etc.
"Creative energies," instead of designing content that is repetitive, grindy, and addicting will be designed toward maximizing the use of these new payment schemes.
The industry is take a new, radical, and ugly turn in regards to creativity and innovation. We are entering a phase where the masses, already susceptible to menial and grindy tasks and addiction in various forms, will now have more money sucked out of them with these "new" payment schemes.
God help them. I will have no part of it.
I think the issue for alot of people is that they dont want players to buy their way to being the best..... I think that most players want others to earn their stuff and that RL money should not be the determining factor as to who excels in certain games.......I have no issue with RTS as long as it does not ruin the balance of he game.....XP potions and stuff liek that are fine....Weapons that can one shot other players are not.
The biggest problem with MMOS these days is people are to worried about what others do. Instead of playing the game for your own enjoyment, players waste time on if Joe Shmo got his AX of Uberness raiding or bought it off a cash shop.
This is no different than if a person is driving a fancy car by years of saving and hard work or if daddy got the car for you. Bottom line both have the same car and only the person behind the wheel really knows the story but they both get to drive the same shiny car anyway.
In MMos you can chose who you group with and play with. You can tell who are serious players and know thier business and who isnt. Dont let these things ruin it for you I mean criminy, just watch the news.
I mean right now in most games you really dont know if the person your grouped with bought gold or whatever so this really doesnt change anything.
Guess just saying that just seems people just waste to much energy on worrying about what others do and all that will do is get you frustrated.
Times are tough and Id rather see a company at least come up with ways to stay in business rather than close it down and have people lose jobs. Maybe its a bad decision but this board is only a tiny fraction of the actual player base out there so time will tell.
Because now the hardcore gamers with no lives/money are suddenly going to be on par with the casual gamers that work for a living. What took them 2 years to accomplish will take someone with the cash 3 clicks to accomplish.
Peronsonally i'm against MT type systems in games, and will probably be hard pressed to play one where the MT store had anything other than cosmetic or fluff type items...
Z
The issue is a simple one, really.
Heretofore, the games have been set up such that everyone paid the same admission price, and what you did with that admission price was up to you. So you could spend 24/7 or 2 hours a week for your monthly fee. Those who spend more time, tend to advance more quickly. I think people accept this as "fair" because it is analogous to other non-gaming activities: if I practice a musical instrument more, I will likely improve more quickly at it than someone who does not, and the same thing holds true for sports or any other hobby. It therefore seems "fair" to people that you get rewarded for more time investment.
When you screw around with this, by in effect allowing Joe to buy his advancement speed higher than everyone else, it doesn't create a level playing field in the game, but instead creates two different rulesets: the XP ruleset for Joe, and then the XP ruleset for everyone else. It's that creation of two different sets of rules in the game that isn't acceptable to a lot of people.
Most of the supporters of RMT and MT tend to look at the equity issue in terms of outside the game: that is, it's more fair because I have less RL time to devote to the game, and this allows me to catch up with Mr. No Lifer. But that's really the wrong focus. It shouldn't be up to the game developer to try to compensate for inequalities that exist outside the game: some have more time than others, some are smarter than others, some are more coordinated than others, etc. What makes for a level playing field is not handicapping the experience (at a price) for those who are "poor" in terms of skill or time or what have you -- what makes for a level playing field is charging everyone the same price and then letting people decide how much they are able to dedicate to their hobby and reward them accordingly, as would be the case with respect to any other hobby.
Gaming companies are opting for this simply because Blizzard has whipped them when it comes to the subscription market. No other company has demonstrated any significant ability to compete meaningfully with Blizzard in this space. So developers and publishers are sniffing around for other ways to make money. That's understandable, but using microtransactions scotches one of the fundamental "fairness" baselines in the minds of many gamers in Western countries, and as such is a pretty risky way to proceed.
Massively had an overview article
www.massively.com/2008/12/12/the-community-responds-to-a-week-of-microtransaction-announcemen/#comments
reiterating what I commented over there
with exception to Server Transfers and Name changes,
I dont think Cash transactions belong in Pay to Play games
should be able to use only ingame cash, quests, special events to get fluff items or ingame perks
EQ2 fan sites
The problem is people who up to know have been the "Power players" of MMOs would get displaced and so now they are whiny. College students, Single people, Teenagers, etc all players with more free time on their hands then money would all of a sudden find themselves not the best players in these games.
All of a sudden more casual players with more money then free time would be equal across the board.
Sorry but the entire arguement about paying the same admission price makes everyone equal is false and a pathetic joke. All it does it create a new currency (amount of Free time) which is used to create "Uber characters".
Personally I could care less if this went into affect in most games. People say that the "Western Market" doesn't want RMT but that is a flat out lie. We want the illusion that we are all working for what we get but under the table billions are being spent on RMT transactions already.
I hope Blizzard does something like this as well. It would put the "Gold farming industry" out of business and that would make the game playing more enjoyable.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I really don't think it has anything to do with that.
The people who were vocally the most objective to the Station Cash have been casual players. Raiders and power players too, but in general the casual players were the first to leave and cancel their account.
I think it's a matter of principle and pureness. I have no problem with games who were F2P from the start. I have a problem with games which are P2P and add F2P on top of that. It has little to do with not being able to afford to pay for them, because I could, even though I'm not rich by any means.
It has to do with preserving some kind of balance in the game where your adventures and gameplay tell the story of the items you own, not how big your wallet is.
I'm not sure where to stand on all of this though, since I'm not against RMT if the game is F2P and states so from the beginning. But I am against introducing an RMT marketplace in which you can just buy XP and stat item.
Even fluff items like people call them are often more important to casual players than they are to raiders.
I really don't think it has anything to do with that.
The people who were vocally the most objective to the Station Cash have been casual players. Raiders and power players too, but in general the casual players were the first to leave and cancel their account.
I think it's a matter of principle and pureness. I have no problem with games who were F2P from the start. I have a problem with games which are P2P and add F2P on top of that. It has little to do with not being able to afford to pay for them, because I could, even though I'm not rich by any means.
It has to do with preserving some kind of balance in the game where your adventures and gameplay tell the story of the items you own, not how big your wallet is.
But what does it matter? Who cares what other people have? The game is for fun and enjoyment how does what other people have affect your fun or enjoyment.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
It affects people's enjoyment. I can only speak for EQ here, but once they added the kiss which fills up your mana bar completely, once they added XP potions and once they added familiars and mount etc..it started to have an impact on EQ's gameplay.
You can pretend that designers just ignore everyone who uses XP potions and Kiss items but the fact is still there that content in beta will also be tuned around people who do have these items.
Once items unbalance the playing field of the game and influence the individual power of a player, they will influence content design later on.
Another thing is that the only way you could get a cool looking mount was to pay for one. Now you could argue that this is just a fluff item, but adding only new graphics to mounts and to armor which is bought from a marketplace does affect the enjoyment of players.
But what does it matter? Who cares what other people have? The game is for fun and enjoyment how does what other people have affect your fun or enjoyment.
It doesn’t, unless its a PvP game, it comes down to jealously. Nothing more.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
It doesn’t, unless its a PvP game, it comes down to jealously. Nothing more.
It goes much further than just jealousy.
It directly influences content design when said items add power to a player. When said MMO does beta testing where over half of the players possess bought RMT items which influence stats, regen and travel time, it will influence the content design. Kiss which is an item which refills your mana bar probably impacted how EQ was tuned somewhere along the line of it's development cycle.
Can I know this for sure? No. But when a majority of players in the beta trials of expansions possess theses items, it's not hard to see how they probably influence content tuning.
When your raid guild rewards people for lvl'ing up, the players are unwillingly being forced to buy said XP potions to keep up or they are left behing. When your friends and guildies buy XP potions and you do not, you are unwillingly left behind.
Graphics mean a lot to some people. Graphics is one of the reasons I play. Call it silly but I like how 'stuff' looks in game, be it the environment, the characters or the armor / items they carry.
When good looking items are exclusively restricted to players who buy RMT ornamentations for the gear to make them look nice, then it influences how I feel about my character.
But what does it matter? Who cares what other people have? The game is for fun and enjoyment how does what other people have affect your fun or enjoyment.
It doesn’t, unless its a PvP game, it comes down to jealously. Nothing more.
And honestly even in a PVP game you then have a choice. You can use your "Time" to create a perfect character or you can use "wealth" to create a perfect character.
It isn't like they are going to make RMT the only way to compete.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
But what does it matter? Who cares what other people have? The game is for fun and enjoyment how does what other people have affect your fun or enjoyment.
It doesn’t, unless its a PvP game, it comes down to jealously. Nothing more.
How can I be jeaous of anything that I can just go and buy from the item shop?
That obviously is not it, and you know it.
This is all about play to achieve vs pay to exist.
RMT alters the very fundementals of game play how progression takes place within it. It changes the game for us all. In fact, it stops MMORPGs even being games.. they are more now correctly just 'virtual environments' where people go through the comatose motions of operating virtual knitting machines just to kill time.
Listen, I have a full time job and active extended family and I obviously don't get the same time to play as I did as a teenager, but the time I DO get to play I want to play to achieve. I don't care if I am not as 'ubr' as the next guy because I havent put as much time in as as him, he plays his game and I play mine, but I am proud of what I have achieved and the adventures I have had along the way.
The irony here is that the statement "It doesn’t, unless its a PvP game, it comes down to jealously. Nothing more." is the complete opposite of the truth.
RMT only exists because of the jealousy of casual gamers to have the same as those that can put more time into a game. Oh, and it also suits the lazy and inept of course...
But what does it matter? Who cares what other people have? The game is for fun and enjoyment how does what other people have affect your fun or enjoyment.
It doesn’t, unless its a PvP game, it comes down to jealously. Nothing more.
How can I be jeaous of anything that I can just go and buy from the item shop?
That obviously is not it, and you know it.
This is all about play to achieve vs pay to exist.
RMT alters the very fundementals of game play how progression takes place within it. It changes the game for us all. In fact, it stops MMORPGs even being games.. they are more now correctly just 'virtual environments' where people go through the comatose motions of operating virtual knitting machines just to kill time.
Listen, I have a full time job and active extended family and I obviously don't get the same time to play as I did as a teenager, but the time I DO get to play I want to play to achieve. I don't care if I am not as 'ubr' as the next guy because I havent put as much time in as as him, he plays his game and I play mine, but I am proud of what I have achieved and the adventures I have had along the way.
The irony here is that the statement "It doesn’t, unless its a PvP game, it comes down to jealously. Nothing more." is the complete opposite of the truth.
RMT only exists because of the jealousy of casual gamers to have the same as those that can put more time into a game. Oh, and it also suits the lazy and inept of course...
Once again RMT has no affect on your PLAY to ACHIEVE. You can still do that as much as you want. You won't have to partake in RMT if you don't want to.
RMT exists because MMO games currently are not fair or even. RMT makes them more fair and more even.
As I stated earlier right now MMO games are unfairly biased towards players with large amounts of time. People who play 5-10 hours a day are achieving a lot more then a person who can only play 1-3 hours per day. Currently MMO companies have decided not to design the game in any fashion that makes those two play styles equal. TIME should not be so overwhelming in gameplay. TIME does not make you the better player or more worthy of better rewards. IF MMO companies had equal content and rewards for all play styles then you would never seen RMT come about.
But they don't instead they reward those who play the most hours with the most content and best rewards. More casual players are locked out of entire portions of the gameplay. That just isn't fair. So of course more casual players will pay to have their account leveled or for more gold or what ever. It is because they are using the resource they have more of which is "Wealth". As opposed to the current top tier of MMO players who use their resource which is "Time".
Sorry but anyone that really has issues with there being different paths of advancements based on people's needs is either jealous or gets all of their game satifisaction from hoping that others are envious of what they have in game.
( I could see the issue if they made RMT the only way to advance your character but that is never going to happen )
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
They certainly do no such thing. RMT is by definition only available to players who are willing to spend extra cash to buy items.
Anyone who does not partake in such schemes is put on another playing field. They do everything but make the gameplay of said MMO's fair.