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Game industry's lack of ethics

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Wild Bill63

Wild Bill63

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First of all, I know that game developers /need/ a way to recover the cost of building the games they make, I get it. A multi-million dollar game get's expensive and how else can they make money aside from selling it? The simple answer is micro-transactions. Of course sells should be enough but microtransactions basically says "I'm not confident enough that people will want to buy this game so we're going to charge $30.00, BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE, we will also split this game up into DLC's and charge $20 a piece." It's maddening. The customer isn't responsible for the company going over budget therefore the customer shouldn't have to pay for their errors.

Microtransactions are an unethical travesty. It's not right to make a 100% complete game, release only 10% of it making the other 90% available as DLC's and charging $20.00 per installment to have a complete game. (Looking at you Bohemia Interactive).

Got any thoughts, or ideas on how to address this ever growing nuisance that we have all grown to despise?

Fun fact: The first microtransactions in the video game industry was done by Bethesda when they made horse armor for an Elder Scrolls game. So we have them to thank for that trend.

14-Apr-2021 05:24:15 - Last edited on 14-Apr-2021 05:29:25 by Wild Bill63

Archaeox
Dec Member 2011

Archaeox

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Wild Bill63 said :
Fun fact: The first microtransactions in the video game industry was done by Bethesda when they made horse armor for an Elder Scrolls game. So we have them to thank for that trend.
Fun fact: the practice actually started in arcade games: Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1990) used them, for example - insert extra coins for powerups.

Other PC-based games (etc.) which used MTX before Bethesda in 2006 include:

QuizQuiz (1999)
Habbo Hotel (2001)
Second Life (2003)
MapleStory (2003)
Mabinogi (2004)
Fighter Online (2004)

And so on.

After two decades of success as a business strategy, MTX isn't going away. The best one can do is avoid obvious pay-to-win examples.

Wild Bill63 said :
It's not right to make a 100% complete game, release only 10% of it making the other 90% available as DLC's and charging $20.00 per installment to have a complete game.
I would differentiate downloadable expansion packs from micro transactions proper.

Personally I like the approach adopted by Frontier Developments - purely cosmetic MTX in game, and when a new expansion is released, earlier expansions become available for free.
~~~~ Just another victim of the ambient morality ~~~~

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14-Apr-2021 06:06:16 - Last edited on 14-Apr-2021 06:59:23 by Archaeox

Shiavui

Shiavui

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There is no way to avoid it if you wish to continue engaging in the hobby known as gaming. Well, to be clear, you could just play older titles ad infinitum, as those aren't riddled with the disease known as microtransactions. Unfortunately, greed is the bane of humanity.

14-Apr-2021 07:13:42

vonSageworth

vonSageworth

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No one says you have to use MTX and no one says you have to pay to play. It's strictly an individual choice. Paying Players who started playing many years ago and kept their account active pay the same price as they did when they started playing. Every time the price for membership goes up these players are grandfathered in.

Consider this:

In RL...
If improvements are done to an apartment complex, the price of the improvements can be passed on to the tenants by raising the rent. You don't agree? You'll have to move.

If you live in an apartment complex or condos part of your rent helps pay for the mortgage. You don't agree? Get your own home and pay mortgage anyway.

At the Dry Cleaners, if they get new equipment, part of the price of the equipment is passed on to the customers by raising the price of doing your laundry. You don't agree? Go someplace else.

Companies can use the catch-all phrase "New and Improved" to raise the cost of the item, even if it's just a change in the labeling. Reason being is because changes had to be made to the equipment, costing the company extra money. The Consumer pays.

This is in answer to your statement:

The customer isn't responsible for the company going over budget therefore the customer shouldn't have to pay for their errors.
Music is the Heartbeat of the World


Let's flip a coin; heads I win, tails you lose. Fair enough?

14-Apr-2021 09:02:18

Miles Prower
Nov Member 2006

Miles Prower

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Nowadays you get much less game for your money and microtransactions slapped on top. It differs genre to genre, though, so I have more tolerance for a subscription package over a standard game with a story. The 'next gen' tax is indefensible as the majority of the time, graphical settings are simply being pumped up on the same engine.

Having said that, I do find myself less concerned with microtransactions and more concerned about digital purchases and game preservation. Once the servers are shut down, it is no longer possible to download or purchase the game. It's gone forever and so is the time and money invested. Even single player experiences are impacted by this problem. As a collector, I really do worry about the direction of the industry. Low on bank space? Click here .

14-Apr-2021 11:33:09

BreakingBad
May Member 2014

BreakingBad

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Greed, plain and simple. You find me a company that operates free of charge because their good heart thinks they should.

I'll wait, but I have zero doubt you will not find one.


My favourite example is the bet365 Boss who took home over 400M this year and 300M last year, but their saving grace was 'oh, but they donated 1M to fight gambling addiction'. Well, I'll be damned. Making billions off peoples misfortune and addictions is a sure fire way to sleep tightly at night.

Same with gaming, people want to play so i'll charge them for it. And I'd like some more money, so let's make a DLC or two. CoD / GTA don't rake in billions because they're free...
I wish I liked Quests as much as I love AFKing

14-Apr-2021 13:46:39

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14-Apr-2021 16:29:40

Wild Bill63

Wild Bill63

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Oh let me make this clear, I'm not talking about Jagex though they aren't without flaws.

Once again I know that it's big on revenue but again let me say this - Releasing 100% of the game then splitting it into DLC's and charging $20 for each DLC isn't cool. Why can't they just give a solid price for a full game with all content being accessible like they did a long time ago? I don't know.

I feel like if they want to add DLC's it shouldn't be directly related to the story - then and only then should they charge for it.

Example - I was playing the Arma 3 campaign and there was a vehicle IN THE CAMPAIGN that I couldn't use unless I paid for a DLC that it was part of. Do you see the problem? You have a fully developed that you shelled out maybe $40.00 for then you have to pay to access parts of the fully developed game. That would be like having to pay to create a runescape account, pay again to access Draynor, pay again to access Varrock, pay again to access Edgeville, etc. even though it's all right there. It's unethical.

If you buy a game you should have full access to all of the contents, not just 10%.

14-Apr-2021 17:42:33

Wild Bill63

Wild Bill63

Posts: 2,947 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
@Sage in the example you provided it's understandable that they would have to charge a little extra but it shouldn't be a permanent cost. If you are at an apartment and the landlord upgrades the AC's the price should only increase for the time it takes to make that money back then lower the cost of rent to what it was.

Another problem I noticed - you were trying to use that as a reference to DLC's, I had already said the game was 100% complete, the content was there and you could even see that content in-game but it was split up into 10 dlc "access packs" which couldn't be accessed unless you pay for each individual dlc.

@Archaeox thanks for catching a mistake - I googled it and was told Bethesda invented the infamous microtransaction.

14-Apr-2021 17:50:05 - Last edited on 14-Apr-2021 17:51:38 by Wild Bill63

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