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EA makes history

To anyone out there that's pissed off from this business practice, remember that companies like EA and Activision will only communicate to their fans with money, so in the words of Alphaomegasin, "Vote with your wallet".
 
@Filflourine Can't remember the last time I played an EA game that's great.
 
I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Battlefront 2's microstranactions and DLC policies are abhorrently bad, but it must be observed from the conversation about microtransactions and such that most people, especially those guys in the Reddit thread, have no idea how the industry works.

$60 dollars for a full-priced game is just not sustainable without DLC and microtransactions and such.

Microtransactions are necessary in the current gaming market. You've got voice actors, motion actors, in-house staff, outsourced staff, location scouts for various asset gathering purposes, meetings to plan budgets, various infrastructure maintenences. Marketing. These are just a few aspects of video game development. None of these are free. And they're getting more expensive over time.

Check this out.In 2006, Gears of War cost $12 million to develop. Less than a decade later, Gears of War 3 cost over $100 million. Profit margins are slimming as costs increase. Heck, in the 90s, SNES games and such sold at $70 dollars, not counting inflation. And games cost way less to produce back then.

There just isn't any way around these things without either A.) raising retail prices to over $100 or B.) making games sell way lower than they should be but have microtransactions make up for lost revenue. There are countless similar cases. I'm not sure which is preferable, but the latter obviously results in more sales and profit, and therefore more production values.
 
@Freeman

The backlash isn't so much that they exist, but how EA is trying to justify it.

They're saying that playing for 40 hours in online matches just to unlock one hero should make the player feel accomplished, when it's utterly tedious and not rewarding, especially when the players who ca pay kick your ass the entire way. Grinding is annoying, grinding while everyone else kicks your ass is downright frustrading.

Plus, paying more money than the game actually costs just for one character is a bit of an outrageous demand for anyone. You could spend that money on an entirely different game, lol.
 
@Ever

Oh, yeah, this particular case is just laughable. And DLC/microtransactions affecting gameplay in order to allow for giving advantages to people is just not acceptable in my eyes. And I think EA is evil (trying to bankrupt Origin via a bogus court case is evil; dumb DLC isn't). But I'd just like to give a bit of context and understanding to the situation.

I think Titanfall 2 (topical; Respawn got aquired by EA) is a good example of microtransactions. Tons of content either way; sweet cosmetic boosts via five bucks here and there. Also, the game is $20 on Origin right now.
 
The ever-increasing prices for AAA games are the result of an industry obsessed with graphics and a desire to make games increasingly more mainstream and cinematic. There are games who spend a colossal amount of money hiring hollywood actors to play characters and perform motion capture, rather than focus on the actual game.
 
@Matt

Definately. This has been made inevitable ever since the first consoles. No one buys a console with the willingness to play games made on the same level of those made a few years prior, graphically and otherwise. The only way around this is for consumers to alter their obsencely high (in regards to production value, not quality of design) standards accordingly, though that doesn't seem likely.
 
@Freeman you know what else can help them get a lot of money, advertising the game instead of shoe horn in shady business practices that's been prominent in mobile gaming. Look at Naughty dog, their last two games, uncharted 4 and the last of us sold like hot cakes. You want to know why? It's not because of the micro transactions, it was because those games were fun, complete (as in they didn't rip out a chunk of the content and sold that content as dlc), were reviewed well, and most important of all, they had a lot of advertising ever since they were announced.
 
@Glass

It's very true that advertising is perhaps the most important factor in AAA-game development. Do keep in mind, though, that Naughty Dog has the benefit of having popularity that's been around for a while, and that Uncharted in particular has been popular before cost of design really went through the roof.

Again, microtransactions aren't for every game, and I'd rather they weren't necessary, but there are reasons for these things.
 
And those reasons are complete bullish&t. EA has also been in the market since the 90's as well, so that whole "Naughty Dog has been around for a while" argument doesn't work.
 
What I mean is that they have a dedicated fanbase to support their new games. Although I shudder to think what microtransactions in an Uncharted game would even look like. As far as the costs are concerned, Uncharted 2 cost $20 million. I'm seeing numbers for subsequent games at much higher prices (U4 in the hundred millions?), but I haven't found a definite number yet. U4 sold well, thankfully.

But not everyone can afford the marketing Uncharted has, and new IPs won't sell as much as an estabished franchise, either. Look at this again. Some of these games have marketing costs much higher than development ones!

Though, returning to Battlefront, I don't see why EA bothered with the stuff in it. Star Wars would sell no matter what. Maybe they think Star Wars fans will pay that much to be Vader or whatever? I hope not.
 
What puzzles me is the fact that somehow people believe this will damage EA. Let's get real now, a ton of people are gonna buy the game, then they will complain probably, but EA took the money so who cares. Same thing happened with the first SW game they made, same thing happened with For Honor, COD AW and a ton of other games. Reddit doesn't represent even a small percentage of the players out there. And Star Wars is Star Wars, of course it's gonna sell.

Don't blame the companies for shitty practices, blame the ******** customers who buy into it. "Games" like Candy Crush make millions everyday from these practice.
 
You're right, not everyone can advertise their games everywhere. But this is EA we're talking about. A company that has a lot of money and has no issue advertising their games as much as they want.
 
@ScarletFirefly

I agree. Only way things will change is if more people get a better idea of the game development landscape and are more forgiving of more well-made games with higher core prices to replace more compromised games with microtransactions.

@Glass

Ah, I see I failed to communicate that well; my bad. I think EA is really dumb with this in particular, and probably with most of their other games. Their shadiness has been well-documented. But there are bigger fish to fry out there than microtransactions, since the absurdly low prices of games make that kind of a necessity for those who can't be sure they'll sell their game in the millions. Heck, if you wanna roast EA, how about the matter of their killing their own games via online server deaths? You'll see what I mean by the end of the video
 
Meh, I lost interest in EA SW BF1, and didn't even bother to look into the sequel. Wake me when either KOTOR III, Imperial Commando, Jedi Knight III or Star Wars Bounty Hunter II/1313 comes out. I'll probably be sleeping for eternity though, but don't hesitate to give me some good news.
 
Exact same thing happened with No Man's Sky. Sean Murray became a millionaire overnight and run away with the money. Now Hello Games are trying to save face by updating the game. But do you think it matters to Murray? **** no it doesn't.
 
Question where did he run away too?

Just bought a mansion and lived in it?

Sadly, this stuff will NEVER change...People are still going to buy the game, give EA their money, and everything's going to stay the same, ultimately, all people do is complain about it instead of doing shit about it, because what can they do? Nothing.
 
Run away as in total radio silence for months from him following the game's disastrous launch.
 
@Freeman Microtransactions ARE the bigger fish to fry. If we ignore this, it'll only be a matter of time until another gaming crash occurs.
 
Gargoyle One said:
Sadly, this stuff will NEVER change...People are still going to buy the game, give EA their money, and everything's going to stay the same, ultimately, all people do is complain about it instead of doing shit about it, because what can they do? Nothing.
Click to expand...
I point to this.

A Gaming Crash is sill unlikely considering the amount of people intent on not only buying he game but paying Micro-Transactions
 
@Gargoyle there will come a point where the casual gamers won't play any more games because of the micro transactions.
 
Theglassman12 said:
@Gargoyle there will come a point where the casual gamers won't play any more games because of the micro transactions.
Click to expand...
I find that to be extremely unlikely
 
I think microtransactions are a symptom of the cost of games being way too low to accomidate their development costs. That's the only reason microtranactions exist, anyway; to make money not being made at retail. You gotta be as big as EA or as small as an indie developer to endure these things. Being in the middle means that you can't afford enough marketing, but are still expected to have production designs as big as those who have that luxury. And even if you do have the money to spare, your production costs are still so high that you need to get all the money you can store up in case a big project down the road goes horribly wrong.

Of course, the balancing act is to put in the microtransactions to make up for direly low retail prices but not let them hurt balance, which obviously didn't work out in the recent Battlefront game. Though I would contend there are other cases to beware of, such as the highly accalimed Destiny 2, doing this on a smaller scale and getting away with it.

@Teen

I liked that quote that says "I find your lack of game disturbing." I'm going to use that when I win at the next Smash Bros. tournament! Maybe not.
 
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