Microsoft To Introduce "Consumables"

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I think what's lacking with this news is qualification of where it's intended, and different people are reading it with different applications. Some instantly think of MMOs where it's already common practice. Others think of it extending to accessing in-game properties and being more widespread. I think it's open ended for the devs to do what they will with, and some will go whole hog to try and recreate the Pokemon success I expect. I can only hope those titles bomb miserably, but I fear people are too loose with money and don't value it accordingly, and the mainstream will set a precedent that influences the majority of gaming where constant little fees are the norm. If microtransactions were confined to extra content, that wouldn't be a potential future problem.

 

You are attacking MS for allowing/enabling companies to do microtransactions. You want MS and everyone else to shield you from that. How is that anything but trying to get others to do your work? You say you have a fallback, but that's tangential.

Terrible analogy. It shows complete nonunderstanding of the actual roles. Developers and publishers are not unchecked adolescents. Microsoft is not the one holding final authority and power over everything. We're not incapable of being anything but prey.

MS, Sony and Nintendo are not your parents.
Developers and publishers are not the bad guys.

 

I happen to agree completely with Scoob, in that if developers try to take consumables or microtransactions to the point of releasing incomplete games, then the market will quickly correct the problem.

Also, since these consumables are necessarily different than the microtransactions, their usefulness really has to be limited to RPGs and the like. How many sorts of games are there that even have items that get used up? Taking this to the level of absurdity, (IE: you have to spend .10c for every bullet in F.E.A.R.), doesn't really do the conversation any justice, IMO.

Remaining firmly in the grasp of probability, rather than possibility, I don't see much impact of microtransactions across genres other than RPGs.

 

I think that it is a great idea for MMORPG games. Instead of me fighting for spawn against less people because the farmers will will hopefully be driven out of business. Nothing worse than going to my favorite hunting ground only to have it all cleared by some farmers bot.

If you don't like it don't buy them encourage others not to buy. If no one is buying then they wil quit selling it.

 

The only place this is even remotely acceptable is in MMORPG's and even then its hypocritical for developers to do it since they denounce others doing for doing it.

Eventually its going to permeate the rest of the genres where it doesn't belong. And, no it will not be corrected by the free market because its never that simple.

 

I still wanna know how because it will be a long time before everyone has a broadband connection. Console games will have to work as if you don't have a broadband connection or you lose out on a lot of customers.

I would rather the developers be hypocritical and get rid of the farmers than to do nothing.

 

It won't work, and it won't happen, and nobody has still given me the first example of a genre other than RPGS where consumables will somehow negatively effect game play.

So WHAT if you pay the developer (and MS gets their cut) for buying gold or items in an RPG instead of buying them from a third party off of EBAY?

The only thing that has happened is that by making it 'legal' the price per purchase will decrease.

SO? How is that bad? Oh.. you want to eliminate gold farmers all together? GREAT! Like I told Shifty... Come up with a game mechanic that still allows trades, yet somehow prevents an outside economy, and then come back with your solution.

I don't know where you people work, or what it is that you do, but if I come to my boss with a problem ONLY and not a problem AND a possible solution, they tell me to go back to work and come back later.

Identifying problems doesn't take any sort of genius, and you'll find that most of your executives are well aware of the problems. You don't get a bonus or a raise for pointing out problems. You earn those things by offering solutions.

 

There's an interview with an Ms guy about this subject in Oxm September 06...

He talks about introducing market place inside the game, to offer an ebay-like sort of market, but with one big advance: security.

This isn't just Ms trying to steal money for us, they are giving more choices for both developers and gamers, making possible games like gunbound, where you could either pay for more items or gain money by playing for lots of time (and the game was very successful), or even one of the biggest seelling points on MMOs: the abilty for user-to-user trades... Imagine if we could sell itens achieved or even developed characters to each other, right there on xbox live?

Having the ingame market place enable developers to do a lot more about these game communities that they could before... And a importante note: games that developers are sure that will be a heavy load of commerce going on (like Gunbound) can be cheaper or even free...

Of course, the power is at the hand of the developers and this could go either way... But i really dont think they will start taking things out of the retail game just to charge for them later...

 

I think allowing online users to have a good experience is worth losing a few customers. It seems like quite a few console manufacturers think so too. Developers are NOT hypocritical in not letting gold farmers do their thing while selling gold themselves. Developers WANT to be able to help control the game world to keep it balanced. Allowing others to freely sell gold w/o oversite can easily cause inflation in the game. Also, it *should* lower the amount of people that camp for monsters although that is something thats pretty much impossible to stop unless drops are completely random.

If you don't like the consumables, don't buy them. If you think consumables are runining the game, don't play it. They are not forcing you to buy these things or play their games. Whining on an internet forum isn't going to change anything. Not buying a game or consumables will.

 

so basically exactly what sony showed at E3

 

That is called an AUCTION HOUSE and they are already a mechanic of MMORPG's. Once you are allowed to sell all your ingame content to other players for real cash the in game gold will become meaningless! Am I the only one who sees this? Why the hell would you sell your in game item for some lousy digital gold when you can sell it for some real world cash?

Do you think the developers are going to give unlimited amounts of gold for people to buy? No. Because they have to balance the amount of extra money they put into the economy just like the real world.

Now.. what do you think is going to happen when people go to buy gold and are told they hit their limit on what they can purchase? They are going to buy the rest from gold farmers. Simple as that.

 

FPS DEVELOPER ANNOUNCEMENT: Well in our upcoming game we are going to introduce a pay per play style system in order to alleviate our server costs and to avoid those pesky month per month charges other companies make you pay to play their games. But dont worry, it will only be $0.05 for every 100 games you play!

Now your PS3 free multiplayer isnt so free anymore. Sure 5 cents wont seem much but thats ok right? I can just play single player if I dont want to pay right?


And Its only going to start off as consumables.

So, you want those funny big head, 1 shot kill, and other multiplayer modes for your James Bond game? Well now you have to pay for the add on microtransaction. You want to be the fun host with all the cool modes? You better pay up sucker.

So, you want the Stage 4 turbo for that extra edge in the race game? Well guess what? You better fork over some cash for this "addon" that will enable all these things.

Now all those free things are going to cost you.

 

What if the gaming industry turns into something like the music industry. Every year, they put out same old stuff and want total control. They nickle and dime you for everything. And every year, they keep on increasing the price for whatever reason...And much of the selection is catered to the mainstream. With the death of the Dreamcast, I see over the years and years, games based on franchise/sequel lack innovation. I hope Wii can change this trend. Why am I complaining when I'm guilty of contributing this? I don't know...just feel like ranting while I wait for CoD3.

 

Personally i wouldn't, but there are a lot people doing this... However they dont actually buy items this way, its more like huge amounts of gold, or a high-level item-fulled character...

 

Then the bottom will fall out like is currently happening with the music industry. The music industry is blaming it on illegal file trading. The game industry will blame it on pirates, hackers, and gold farmers. If they make the fatal mistake of assuming their particular form of entertainment is a necessity, they'll all go bankrupt, just like Atari did.

If microtransactions alleviate the cost of video games, then they could end up helping the industry. If you buy a game for $10 tor $30 and have to drop a little extra cash for the "full" thing, people will likely buy more games. They'll take more risks in their purchases and try new things or buy the less-than-spectacular games that currently get overshadowed by the big guns. But if it ends up that you're paying $50 or $60 for an incomplete game, the publishers will lose their shirts as people simply quit looking to games for entertainment.

 

It's more an issue with marketing and policies rather than micro-transaction itself. The technology is useful and allows consumers to buy cheap stuff (i.e., the transaction cost won't be more expensive than the stuff you want to buy). It should also enable consumers to sell stuff (No need for merchant account).

There will probably be some experimentations along the way. As long as people behave rationally, I don't see a problem.