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Loot boxes and Micro-transactions

Kiith

Curious to see what people think about the current trend of having loot boxes in full prices games, as we've seen in some major releases lately (notably Shadow or War and Battlefront). Seems to be a recurring theme now, and any suggestion that they would be kept to only cosmetic has quickly been shown as untrue.

Some examples...

Shadow of War - single player with micro-transactions, with a huge amount of grinding required if you don't buy them, just to get the 'true' ending. Also, gives a clear advantage in the limited multiplayer mode.
Battlefront 2 - Star cards that give a big advantage to people with certain cards (40% damage reduction compared to 100% at top rating), which take a long time to grind if you don't pay.
Borderland 2 - One of the first that i remember was the Golden Crates in Borderlands. One of the earlier examples that i can remember in full priced games. Signle player only though, and absolutely optional though, so not too bad. My bad, these were free. I thought we had to buy them.
Overwatch - purely cosmetic as far as i'm aware?

Are developers/publishers justified in adding micro transactions to full priced games, given the rise in costs of development? Or are they just doing their best to rip people off?

Personally, i don't have an issue with cosmetic loot boxes, though i do miss the days that these were unlockable by playing the game. But i'm against any sort of loot boxes, especially when they are RNG based, that provide gameplay advantages over other people. It's literally the definition of P2W.

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Benzino

wes wrote: »

I don't see how I am twisting anything, exactly. Making that argument at all, is exactly what I said pleading poverty. Sorry, I can't call what your saying anything else, other that what I see it to be.

So saying that retail price does not cover development costs is the same as saying the companies are broke??? Wow, ok.

There is zero point in debating with you further.

wes

Benzino wrote: »

So saying that retail price does not cover development costs is the same as saying the companies are broke??? Wow, ok.

There is zero point in debating with you further.

Yeah, its pleading poverty and pretending that some how your making a different argument is beyond silly.

The retail cost can easily cover the development costs. FFS, they are making money had over foot. Claiming that they don't make money from retail is absurd. Plenty of games make back there money without loot boxes still. Look at the new Mario for example. Not a loot box in sight. Your claim is simply untrue, and is nothing more than an excuse.

I respect the argument of game companies being businesses, because at least is accurate about there motivation. They want to make money, and fair enough. The claims of they can't make money on retail is bull.

Gbear

I thought that the lootbox model for Mass Effect 3 multiplayer was grand.

It seemed to strike a balance between regular unlocks, breadth of content, supporting free DLC to keep things fresh for everyone but an option for those who are happy to shell out money to get ahead.

I played something like 200 hours of it and in that time I didn't unlock every character or weapon and certainly didn't get every gun or weapon mod upgraded to the highest level.
But having something to work towards absolutely increased my enjoyment and focused my gameplay. Sometimes I'd want to grind a bit and sometimes I'd want to try something new.

Over time grew to understand their audience, throw them a bone here and there and offered specific lootboxes for different rewards - character-focused ones, weapons focused ones and ones that had the highest chance of unlocking ultra-rares.

Within that you have plenty of content, they have a revenue stream to allow the dev team to support itself independently and justfiy ongoing support for the game to the accounts department, but you can get plenty of enjoyment without having to spend money.

They made it a bit grindier in Andromeda. I think that's fairly dead now.

It's important to note that this was a competetive horde mode, so it side-steps any pay-to-win issues.

This Battlefront thing seems like another level.

Minor elements of pay/grind-to-win can probably be borne, so long as it's not that steep a differnce in power.
Darth Vader vs faceless stormtrooper is presumably not such an example however.
If increased power level requires a commensurate increase in playing difficulty, situationality or other factors that mean a character isn't strictly better but perhaps has more options available that can make them better in the hands of a skilled player then that might have it's merits.
Probably the biggest problem with Battlefront, however, is that nobody gives a **** in Mass Effect if you have to use faceless free soldier class or faceless ultra-rare unlock caster class whereas if you're buying Battlefront it's because you want to be Darth Vader, Yoda or Luke Skywalker.

That's the EA business model. Acquire property with fanatical fanbases, do whatever you can to make money, harvest the property until everyone hates it. Move on.
It's easy to say "buy other games" but there's not going to be any other Star Wars games like this. Nobody else is going to make a Mass Effect.
Brand loyalty is much more reliable if there's the level of emotional buy-in you see for huge multi-media brands like Star Wars or LofR, old titles benefitting from nostalgia or RPGs that, by their nature, hook fans in much deeper.

I'm sure they've got quite sophisticaed calculations that show how much they're able to **** over a fan base depending on the level of buy in they already have for it.

I wonder how their other projects tend to do - ones they don't buy but have to generate a new fan base for.
I would imagine they'd go lighter on the micro-transactions for those.

[Deleted User]

Speaking out against this ****e will do nothing they said...

https://twitter.com/EAStarWars/status/930186176085893120

wheresmahbombs

One of EA's comments on Reddit has garnered over -390k points (or under -390k, technically speaking).

gizmo

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Speaking out against this ****e will do nothing they said...

https://twitter.com/EAStarWars/status/930186176085893120

Whoever they are clearly hasn't been paying attention then. Making a clear and cohesive argument tends to work quite well, NBA 2K18 and Forza 7 being two prime examples recently.

Now all people need to do is not buy any lootboxes or, better yet, still not buy the game. Balancing the original Hero unlock for 40hrs worth of play and then dropping it by 75% on a dime should be seen for exactly what it was, a complete piss take.

[Deleted User]

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Speaking out against this ****e will do nothing they said...

https://twitter.com/EAStarWars/status/930186176085893120

Wait, they removed loot crates from the game and other games will also be removing them. Guess it is a win then for the internet.

Penn

Deleted User wrote: »

Wait, they removed loot crates from the game and other games will also be removing them. Guess it is a win then for the internet.

Come off it, Darko, that's completely disingenuous. Nobody was suggesting EA would suddenly change the entire model of the game based on the complaints. But the complaints and negative publicity has clearly resulted in a far better balance for the lootcrate system in this game. Not saying it's by any means perfect, but the complaints did result in positive change.

[Deleted User]

Penn wrote: »

Come off it, Darko, that's completely disingenuous. Nobody was suggesting EA would suddenly change the entire model of the game based on the complaints. But the complaints and negative publicity has clearly resulted in a far better balance for the lootcrate system in this game. Not saying it's by any means perfect, but the complaints did result in positive change.

Overwatch has a lot to answer for, the whole "it does loot crates right" mentality is the reason loot crates went from being in a few games to almost every upcoming big title. If loot crates and microtransactions go away forever then it is a win, till then they will still be there and I dread to see what is going to happen with Red Dead Redemption and it's use of them.

kunst nugget

....

marcbrophy

Wonder if there's any micro-transactions in Rockstars re-release of L.A. Noire, out today?

Penn

Deleted User wrote: »

Overwatch has a lot to answer for, the whole "it does loot crates right" mentality is the reason loot crates went from being in a few games to almost every upcoming big title. If loot crates and microtransactions go away forever then it is a win, till then they will still be there and I dread to see what is going to happen with Red Dead Redemption and it's use of them.

Overwatch shouldn't be blamed for doing something right which other companies then tried to copy and did wrong, that's nonsense. You've made the point several times that companies need stuff like lootboxes and MTs because games are so much more expensive to create now, which is true, so lootboxes and MTs going away forever isn't the only "win" that needs to be achievable. Again, plenty of gamers are willing to accept lootboxes and microtransactions to a point.

There can be minor wins on the road to getting a better balance between lootboxes and MTs not harming gameplay and companies being able to earn additional revenue to recoup their costs. Anything that helps both sides achieve that should be counted as a win, and the huge backlash over this particular case and how EA substantially reduced the cost/grind should definitely be considered a win, even if it's a minor one.

Lootboxes are just the current thing. Their popularity will wane, they won't make as much money as they had been, and they'll gradually be shelved for the next revenue-maker. But bad implementation of them now should still be called out. In this case, it was called out and the devs modified the system to give a much better balance. That is a win by almost any metric.

Benzino

Deleted User wrote: »

Overwatch has a lot to answer for, the whole "it does loot crates right" mentality is the reason loot crates went from being in a few games to almost every upcoming big title. If loot crates and microtransactions go away forever then it is a win, till then they will still be there and I dread to see what is going to happen with Red Dead Redemption and it's use of them.

This is a ridiculous argument, the loot box system in Overwatch is perfect. Should the inventor of the knife be blamed for all subsequent stabbings? Silly argument.

J. Marston

I'm guessing there will be some goodwill towards EA after the cutback but it would just piss me off more if I was a Star Wars fan and going to buy the game.

They took the piss and then their response is "Ah, you caught us. Fair enough, here's a discount."

gizmo

I don't think it's fully resolved yet if the information in the Game Informer explanation for the delay in their review is accurate.

For instance, during my review, completing the campaign earned players a unique loot crate that contained 20,000 credits. That reward is now 5,000 credits. A big change. What else is different? I need to find out. One thing I hope EA is addressing is Arcade rewards; after completing five challenges, I was alerted that I could no longer earn credits in this mode and that more would be available in 14 hours.

I'd expect a certain amount of rebalancing of the rewards to come with the reduction to the cost of the higher level Heroes but that number is a little too suspect for my liking right now.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

Wait, they removed loot crates from the game and other games will also be removing them. Guess it is a win then for the internet.

You suggested that complaining and rising up against this type of practice would do nothing.
It clearly has made a difference.
You were simply wrong.

[Deleted User]

Penn wrote: »

Overwatch shouldn't be blamed for doing something right which other companies then tried to copy and did wrong, that's nonsense. You've made the point several times that companies need stuff like lootboxes and MTs because games are so much more expensive to create now, which is true, so lootboxes and MTs going away forever isn't the only "win" that needs to be achievable. Again, plenty of gamers are willing to accept lootboxes and microtransactions to a point.

There can be minor wins on the road to getting a better balance between lootboxes and MTs not harming gameplay and companies being able to earn additional revenue to recoup their costs. Anything that helps both sides achieve that should be counted as a win, and the huge backlash over this particular case and how EA substantially reduced the cost/grind should definitely be considered a win, even if it's a minor one.

Lootboxes are just the current thing. Their popularity will wane, they won't make as much money as they had been, and they'll gradually be shelved for the next revenue-maker. But bad implementation of them now should still be called out. In this case, it was called out and the devs modified the system to give a much better balance. That is a win by almost any metric.

Overwatch doing it "right" normalizes the concept and makes people think that loot crates aren't all bad, and you know what they aren't. I've never bought a loot crate in my life and doubt I ever will. I leave that to the guys with more money than sense.

I'm all for the reducing of in-game grinds but the thing is that we now have the internet celebrating their win but it's simply moving the goalposts. I have no issue with loot crates, I understand why they exist and while I find their implementation and use to be quite poor in many regards we only have them because gamers are so afraid of change. The gaming industry is one the only ones which has seen costs skyrocket while retail prices have remained the same and when inflation is factored in games now cost far less than back in the early 90s.Â

Anytime a game increase is mentioned the internet gets up in arms about the injustice, they expect developers to deliver Triple-A titles and then continue to support them based solely on an initial investment. And yes, a $60-$75 price tag is a lot but how many people will buy the game for $40 a couple of weeks later.Â So developers and publishers have to find new ways to make money and often it's not about greed, it's about ensuring that you sent losing money.

I used to run a little store and we gave up on selling new games as the store profit per title was so little that we were lucky to make 5 euro a title and then lost money when after a few weeks the game had a price drop. It's why independent brick and mortar stores are going under and with Amazon and the like set to be the new go-to for games, publishers will be making less money given Amazon's huge buying power. Amazon dictates prices to publishers, I know of a boutique film publisher whose RRP per title is Â£15.99 but Amazon are buying them at Â£7.99 and then selling for Â£12.99-14.99 on average. Amazon is able to see the title cheaper than the publisher can on its own site. If they refuse to deal with Amazon and accept their pricing then they are pretty much screwed given that over 60% of all their sales are through Amazon alone.Â

A game like Battlefront 2 or Red Dead Redemption is most likely costing half a billion dollars and that doesn't factor in the after release costs, servers, customer support, additional content and so on. Sure the games will sell 10-15 million copies but that may not be a whole lot of return on investment when you conisder that Amazon and the like are selling new games for under 50 euro.

And yes it's the developers and publishers problem. But it's also gamer. The problem is how do you return a profit and then finance additional content. Battlefront 2 has no season pass meaning that the additioanl content is all going to be free which is pretty great but where does the money come from? We all know the answer to that question which is why the normalising of the concept by games like Overwatch is a bad thing.Â

Games as content is going to be a thing of the past within the next 5 years. Games are going to move away from the traditional publishing means to a live Netflix model in which you pay a monthly subscription to a service where the games are then offered for free. It'll be interesting to see how loot crates will play into all this as I can see people being far more open to them if the games are delivered in a Netflix like model.Â

M!Ck^ wrote:

You suggested that complaining and rising up against this type of practice would do nothing. It clearly has made a difference. You were simply wrong.

Loot crates are still there and will remain. Also I never said complaining would accomplish nothing, I said that till people voted with with their wallets loot crates weren't going away people simply won't do that. You seem to have a huge issue with loot crates but seem happy to support games with them. Sure you may complain on forums about how awful they are but as you say yourself, you enjoy games that have loot crates and will continue to support them.

Kiith

I don't think that it's completely unreasonable to look at Overwatch's loot boxes as part of the problem. They are still things that, in the past, have been unlockable within the game. Everyone is fine with them now, but i'd be willing to bet money that Activision will gradually push more and more of them on users. We know this is true, after their patent for targeted microtransactions.

Activision/Blizzard are not beyond charging crazy prices either, as is evidenced by most of the World of Warcraft service costs (characters transfer, race change etc...).

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

Voicing concerns will change nothing, the only thing that will see any change is voting with your wallet. It's that simple but then the question that has to be asked is what are people willing to pay for a game. With production, licensing and marketing costs of games passing half a billion a price point of 60 euro won't cut it anymore. Without loot crates and season passes, I would expect to see most Triple A titles cost 100+ euro. Are people willing to pay that for a game is the question?

You are wrong

[Deleted User]

M!Ck^ wrote: »

You are wrong

Oh goody, they've removed loot crates from triple A titles. Way to go mick, I await the announcement from Take-Two that they are going to be removing loot crates from upcoming games.

Benzino

Kiith wrote: »

I don't think that it's completely unreasonable to look at Overwatch's loot boxes as part of the problem. They are still things that, in the past, have been unlockable within the game. Everyone is fine with them now, but i'd be willing to bet money that Activision will gradually push more and more of them on users. We know this is true, after their patent for targeted microtransactions.

Activision/Blizzard are not beyond charging crazy prices either, as is evidenced by most of the World of Warcraft service costs (characters transfer, race change etc...).

The Loot boxes have made Overwatch a better game. It has enabled all the new maps, heros and modes to be available to everybody for free. Traditionally, this content would be charged and would split the player base, a big problem for online only games. I think it's been quite some time since that was the case for other games.

Blizzard shouldn't be blamed for doing something right, but commended for doing it while all others are going the pay to win approach.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh goody, they've removed loot crates from triple A titles. Way to go mick, I await the announcement from Take-Two that they are going to be removing loot crates from upcoming games.

It's clear as day it's having an impact. You are struggling to get your head around these facts.
EA had initially removed Epic Cards from Loot-boxes on the back of direct feedback from users and a live discussion with Angry Joe.
And now have reduced the amount of credits required by 75% for accessing the main characters in the game caused by a massive backlash against the final product from users.
All this makes a difference.

Falthyron

M!Ck^ wrote: »

It's clear as day it's having an impact. You are struggling to get your head around these facts.
EA had initially removed Epic Cards from Loot-boxes on the back of direct feedback from users and a live discussion with Angry Joe.
And now have reduced the amount of credits required by 75% for accessing the main characters in the game caused by a massive backlash against the final product from users.
All this makes a difference.

The best outcome would be the game under-performing financially and the EA Executive Board identifying that loot-boxes played the critical role in that under-performance.

If anybody here has an issue with loot-boxes then they should be avoiding this game like the plague. You can be guaranteed that other publishers are keenly watching this game's reception and performance to justify implementing a similar system into their own games. A lot of damage has been done to EA's brand in the past few days (see share prices) and the negative media reports are also causing problems, but they have decided to keep the loot-boxes in the game anyway. Clearly, they haven't been pushed enough.

Also, it should be noted that reviews of the game are starting to come out. Even the 'review-in-progress' reviews are leaning towards 6s and 7s. Hopefully, the game tanks and it will put the idea of p2w gambling to bed.

Mickeroo

The good thing about Overwatch's loot crate implementation isn't the crates themselves, it's because it means actual worthwhile content that gets added to the game is entirely free. Halo 5 did the same thing and it was all the better for it. Would take that system over paying for a season pass any day.

[Deleted User]

Mickeroo wrote: »

The good thing about Overwatch's loot crate implementation isn't the crates themselves, it's because it means actual worthwhile content that gets added to the game is entirely free. Halo 5 did the same thing and it was all the better for it. Would take that system over paying for a season pass any day.

Out of interest is there any statistics around financial revenue generated using the Overwatch model?

Mickeroo

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Out of interest is there any statistics around financial revenue generated using the Overwatch model?

Probably is but I've not seen them, I think I read something relatively recently that said they're making an absolute tonne of money from them though.

[Deleted User]

Mickeroo wrote: »

Probably is but I've not seen them, I think I read something relatively recently that said they're making an absolute tonne of money from them though.

That's great news for them, and I've always been ok with it once it doesn't impact skill and progression.

[Deleted User]

Skip to 3 minute mark

Falthyron

It has been a bad year for EA, when you think about it.

Andromeda, Battlefront 2, Need for Speed: Pay2WinBack, and FIFA 18 struggling against PES 2018. If we think EA treat their customers with contempt, I can't wait to see what they have in store for 2018... :pac:

gizmo

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Out of interest is there any statistics around financial revenue generated using the Overwatch model?

The best figures we have are overall revenue generated to date, the level of increase on spending year on year, and the install base of 35m.