This is exactly the sort of thing Beth has been moving towards ever since their first ham-handed attempt to monetize mods deservedly blew up in their faces.
They didn’t give up on the idea - they just shifted to a strategy of doing it incrementally.
And this is just the latest step in that ongoing process.
Think about how bad it’s (very deliberately) going to be by the time TES 6 finally comes out…
Now that the fallout show was a success, they’ll probably just put starfield on the backburner and wait till the heat dies down, then make a tv show about it. I’m willing to bet money on this.
I’ll admit I’ve been in that crowd that believed they saw early efforts like horse armor and Bioware’s infamous pay-to-continue Dragon Age quests, and backed off - resolving they need to shift monetization elsewhere like skins. Seems I was wrong.
You could argue given Starfield’s overall failures, it’s still in the sector of terribly-designed monetization that just gets forgotten by history, much like most mobile games. But, we’re still in the process of writing that history.
To think I bought a Series X just to make sure I would be able to play this game when it came out. To date, I have neither played nor purchased the game.
The Bethesda of old is long dead. After the disappointment that was Starfield, it will take multiple rave reviews and watching a few streamers playing on Twitch for me to even consider giving them any money. And I sure as hell will not be paying for goddamned mods, not now and not ever. Eff that and eff the greedy assholes that now run Bethesda.
The Bethesda of old who invented MTX with their $5-dollar horse armour?
Or the Bethesda of old who made millions by re-releasing the same game for 10+ years but refused to spend a dime to fix its bugs or give the players a functioning UI?
I don’t see any problem with modders charging for their mods. They are doing work, and deserve to be compensated.
If they’re creating additional deep content, I can see that being worth paying. If it’s just some skins or configuration edits like wonky gravity, that would not be worth money to me. But I think it’s a good thing to be able to add micro transactions for.
Take the original DOTA for example. A warcraft 3 custom map. It eventually dominated the custom game lobby, at least 3:1. I would have no problem with the creator(s) making money off their creation that contributed a ton of replayability the game.
When it comes down to it, it should be the modder’s choice on if they want to charge for their work, and the consumers choice if they want to pay for it.
Also why I didn’t have problems with microtransactions for skins, particularly when it was community driven like DOTA 2. Artists can make money creating non-game altering content, and fans get to personalize their characters.
Its mentioned in the article, but it bears repeating.
They force give you the first quest of a questline for free, and then charge you seven bucks for the second 15 minute quest.
Its also not complete, its an early access paid mod where they clearly cut content out of the game just to give you the first hit of a faction questline, end that first quest on a cliff hanger, and then charge 7 bucks per quest. And before this, the faction was just a series of kiosks giving radiant quests.
Fuck that’s bad. Though I’m not playing starfield I’m certainly paying attention to shit like this. Before 76 I would have been a fully committed fanboy pre-ordering most, if not all, Bethesda games. Between 76 and other shenanigans they had dropped sharply out of favor. I wasn’t going to buy a game brand new until reviews came out (hence why I still haven’t played starfield). They gained some favor back with the TV series as it seemed well done for just my kind of interest level. Now they’re losing it again.
Idk why the tv show would have gotten them any grace? As far as I know, all they did was let the property be bought and used by Amazon. Todd Howard executive produced, but that’s not saying much. The show has nothing to do with them as a studio. They just lucked into a team who had something interesting planned with the IP.
I recently started playing Diablo 4. I’ve never bought DLC or cosmetics but I recall the horse armor uproar. My shock when some of these cosmetics are $20 for mount or town portal…what?!
It’s because their competitor does the same, see? Since few people purchase the mtx they rise prices to compensate. Please ignore the 70$ price tag, thanks.
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