Yeah, that statement is so dumb. Even if it’s hugely successful, a game of this type is made for a niche audience. That niche audience does hate microtransactions but they’re in no way representative of the mainstream.
I think, with 700k concurrent players, we need to recognize cRPGs may not be as niche as we previously thought. However, your point stands: this isn’t going to hurt anyone’s revenue from MTX.
We also like games that ask players for feedback, then take it and test it in the game and improve the game with it if it works. As opposed to recycling the same ubisoft tower climbing + shallow collectible fetch quest-a-thon for the 100th time while wondering why people are getting bored and not buying the sequels.
How could you learn anything about what people think of microtransactions from the success of a game that doesn’t have them? If a beloved franchise added a sequel with microtransactions in it and that sequel tanked, then maybe you’d have a case. From the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 the most you could conclude is “people will still buy a game that doesn’t have microtransactions,” which is not particularly revelatory.
A bunch of AAA games that heavily feature microtransactions are smash hits and made millions of dollars. Sure, people complain about it, but they also purchase tons of them (may not be the same people, mind you). I’m pretty sure we can conclude that not all people hate microtransactions. Hell, publishers will look at Baldur’s Gate 3 and probably go “man, this game is good but if they put some paid cosmetics in there they could have made even more money.”
All 100% correct unfortunately. These companies put in micro transactions because they make a boatload of money off of them. End of story. Til that changes, they will continue to shoehorn them into games to sustain the unsustainable infinite growth/profit model. Until pissing us off costs them more than they gain from it, it ain’t gonna change.
Then fuck it. All the people who want microtransactions, or don’t care about the quality of the medium enough to stop engaging with shitty practices, can have them. There are plenty of developers making games that care enough about the things they make that I’ll be happy to buy from. We’ve reached a point where the big studios will spend three years and a quarter of a billion dollars putting out 7/10 games that look great in trailers and don’t function on PC that exist alongside solo devs who make the games that look at home on PS1 and offer a better experience than anything Blizzard has made in the last decade. Even if my wallet’s vote doesn’t matter to the big guys, it doesn’t have to as long as it’s enough to support people whose passion isn’t exploited to make a just barely par product.
Don’t get hyped, don’t preorder, don’t buy games until they’re fixed. You can’t change the industry but you don’t have to support it.
I feel like microtransactions are “ok” for people on general as long as the game is good. If the game is well made, has a soul, and not a cash grab, people tend to not care about microtransactions. Except the occasional “fuck, this is 10e?”. Like path of exile for instance.
But if the game is half baked, released waaaay too early because of higher ups said that the need money now and not 6 months from now, THEN they become an issue. Games belong to this category soooo of then these days that it’s just what happens. But the microtransactions are not the reason, they just exasperate the issue.
If a great game like Elden ring would’ve had cosmetic sets you could buy, would it have undermined the “greatness” of the game? I really don’t see it happening. Unless they’re like super aggressive or meant to trivialise the game, like, continue fighting the boss only for 2e! Here’s a popup mentioning this each time you die.
If a great game like Elden ring would’ve had cosmetic sets you could buy, would it have undermined the “greatness” of the game? I really don’t see it happening.
I agree with you that people mainly care about the game being good. However a game’s budget is more or less fixed. If From had made a bunch of cosmetic sets it would be taking away resources from making the “main” game, and it may not have been as great and polished as it is.
Also, once you have microtransactions in a game, there’s going to be a temptation to maximize the revenue gained from them, which can lead to the aggressive strategies you mention.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to do mtx without ruining the game, but it’s difficult. Without mtx, the only thing you have to maximize your revenue is to make the game as good as possible, and so everyone involved in the game’s development is aligned towards that goal.
Once you add mtx, there will be people involved whose main goal is to maximize revenue from the mtx (and I’m not saying those people are evil or want the game to be bad; they’re just doing their job). And so a sort of tug of war starts to happen between devoting resources and design decisions to make the game better, or getting people to buy your cosmetics. Finding the right balance through that mess is difficult.
The reason cosmetic microtransactions are so prolific is that their fixed costs are low and the return on investment is high. It wouldn't have affected Elden Ring's development much.
“Instead of getting more accepting of microtransactions these days because they’ve become so normalized, I’m moving the opposite direction. I genuinely resent Diablo 4 for sinking so, so much work into its $15-30 armor sets in the store when they could have been farmable in the game, and in-game sets are already starting to fall behind in the seasonal model.”
You clearly don’t resent it that much, considering you gave Diablo 4 a 9/10.
It's not a burn; it's a poorly constructed comment made out of context. The author's criticism on Diablo 4 is based within the context of Baldur's Gate 3's release. The review for D4 was written before BG3 was released.
I’ve seen a bunch of good games being ruined by microtransactions and battlepasses. At least I believe that they could have had so much better sales and reputation if they didn’t include it.
For example: Shadow of War. Deus Ex Mankind Divided. Good games. These had microtransactions hooked on as an after-thought. It didn’t affect gameplay at all and could be completely ignored. Still they received so much hate for it. And then there are games adding microtransactions and nobody care. Most Ubisoft games for example. I think it has with who their target audience is. Though I can’t see what DX and SoW audiences has in common. Do they have less casual players than Ubisofts games? Idk.
Having played the shit out of Assassin's Creed Odyssey I can say that the game has tons of equipment skin variety without MTX, the game is balanced to not need them, even from a visual variety standpoint, there are tons and tons of equipment skins to collect and permanently unlock in that game
I keep seeing the posts about OW2 where everyone is acting like blizzard is getting destroyed by the poor reviews, but, like you said, they still already made bank on these games in spite of all the complaints that have existed since launch. Blizzard just out here like:
Nah, the lesson AAA devs will take from this is “gamers want more boobies”, and we’ll start seeing nudity DLC, romance season pass, plastic surgery loot boxes, etc. I bet even Link will show some ass cheeks in the next game.
I don't really get this argument. Titillation occasionally is nice. Similar to prestige shows. But if it was soft-core all the time or too much, people would lose interest in the plot.
That and there's quite a few decent porn games now. Ones that look better in the...dongles than BG3 does. Ones with decent stories. If people want interactive porn, it's there already. And oftentimes cheap or free.
Food prices have skyrocketed and people still go out to eat. What you are proposing is austerity. People denying themselves things because of price point preference and principals will generally not work because people like having things, like having fun, etc. All it does it ensure companies can squeeze people that have very limited time for their limited cash.
the question developers and publishers should ask themselves is this: are we trying to make a video game to sell, or are we trying to make an onlyfans with more button clicking ?
I’m pretty excited for this game. Luckily, I haven’t played divinity original sin 2 and it’s available on the switch. After I finish Disco Elysium and Divinity Original Sin 2 I’ll pickup a steam deck and this game.
This is like saying, “people need air to breathe.” The fact this is a revelation to gaming studios is deeply concerning.
I played some when it was in early access, and I’ve been absolutely loving BG3 now that it’s officially released. I haven’t felt like this about a game in a long time, and it’s probably because Larian studios treated this like Divinity Original Sin - a complete game with loving care. As I saw in another review, they didn’t make a D&D game, they just made D&D.
I feel like the revelation to gaming studios is not that people like a good product, it’s that Larian was allowed to make one without investors demanding it be the shittiest thing since shit sandwiches.
Absolutely. I genuinely worried a bit about my group, myself as DM included, being sucked into this game or having unrealistic tabletop expectations because of how well this game has been done lol
I also saw that there are a lot of things for players and DMs to learn from this game and how, although we can’t compete with the years long process of making such a complete game (done by many, many, minds and hands and through significant man hours), tabletop GMs can definitely be inspired by such a complete work. Asessing what they can implement from it in their own game designing and seeing how the two mediums of tabletop and video game can complement each other and how they differ will definitely lead to more interesting content on the table and respect for what GMs and story designers do.
I love the game, but I do miss some of the "fuck around" shenanigans you can get into with a DM who can improvise based on if someone comes up with some WAY out of left field idea of what they want to do. It's no replacement for the tabletop but there are definitely things both DMs and game designers can learn from each other here.
BG3 does have a few too many “the ceiling collapses and you all die” moments for my liking, but, for the most part, I do like it. It just came out, so it’s still going to probably get some balancing patches!
There are many spells and items in the game that would be pretty good in a TT game IMO
Agreed, I’m just astonished how they got the feeling of exploration/intrigue/investigation in the game down so well.
I’m taking notes on how best to bring that kind of suspense into my sessions. I’ve had players feel similarly suspenseful using Foundry Virtual Tabletop and a fog of war on a map I created, but it’s a little harder to accomplish that in person.
The improvisation is one thing and GMs definitely lend tabletop to be more creative in that way, but the suspense of not knowing what’s around the corner or behind the door is harder to relay with just description. I think the visual aspect is definitely helpful.
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