DuckThor Evil
Legend
Is Sony doing the same?
Microtransactions: the Future of Games? (LootBoxes and Gambling)
Is Sony doing the same?
lol yea. Sony is now doing the same.
My argument was that MAU's mattered, and will continue to matter because MAUs directly meant revenue, via subscriptions, DLC, etc.
But people kept telling me MS was only measuring MAU's because they couldn't win hardware NPD.
But now Sony is saying the same thing; that they need to measure MAU's
MAU's matter big time, people buying your hardware but not using your hardware doesn't mean anything for your profitability.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
MAU's matter if you can monetise it, which is something that Google have mastered. I am an MAU for Xbox through Windows 10 but I benefit Microsoft very little - one Gears of War 4 sale - thus far at least.
It's a nonsense. Prior to Xbox games on Windows 10, Microsoft could have directly calculated my input to their business through Xbox hardware profit margin, Xbox Live subs and the game sale. But Microsoft make little from Windows licensing now, you can buy legitimate Windows 10 Home/Pro licences for as little as $1. It costs Microsoft more in maintaining their Windows licensing accreditation infrastructure. I've actually probably cost them money through buying Windows 10 super cheap and buy Gears 4 through their own store in a sale yet they have to support my Windows 10 installation for a couple of decades at least.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
I'm not certain which discussions you are referencing, but providing active user base figures is not mutually exclusive to giving out hardware sales numbers... and I don't think people had problems with active user bases. The lack of HW sales data was the problem for many including me, although it doesn't help that the qualifications for an "active member" were seemingly very lax and void of any real information.
Active users are of course very important and it's great if Sony provides that. It is not great though if they stop producing HW sales figures. The article you provided doesn't state that Sony is stopping giving HW numbers, which is why I was questioning whether we are talking about the same thing MS did previously?
ah okay, I get why you asked now.
Yes, I think that MS did stop giving hardware numbers, they are focused only on MAUs.
Billy Idol
Legend
I wish AAA game devs wouldn’t go the lazy route but rather improve their efficiency and workflow to reduce costs, like every other business has to do as well.
Game prices have increased steadily by introducing DLC. Now that this is not sufficient to pay the marketing budget, we get microtransactions and loot boxes next.
If we learn from this, there should be a new money maker mechanism on the horizon soon....
It could be that gamers get used to this. It could also be that at one point, especially when the money maker mechanisms influence actual gameplay/game behavior, gamers turn away from AAA.
Game prices have increased steadily by introducing DLC. Now that this is not sufficient to pay the marketing budget, we get microtransactions and loot boxes next.
If we learn from this, there should be a new money maker mechanism on the horizon soon....
It could be that gamers get used to this. It could also be that at one point, especially when the money maker mechanisms influence actual gameplay/game behavior, gamers turn away from AAA.
What makes you think they don't? AAA devs work their frickin' socks off over long hours and are always looking for ways to improve workflow and optimise the process AFAIK. Like every other business, they want to reduce costs to improve profitability (or more likely, avoid going under). So I'd like to see/hear some examples from you of where these devs are being lazy and using unnecessarily expensive methods and then passing the costs on to gamers.
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Billy Idol
Legend
What makes you think they do?!?!? Any example? Maybe Bungie with content overload D2, or maybe Dice with BF?!? Or Visceral Games who couldn’t even do a prototype after years to show off.
I personally base my opinion of course on pure arm chair yelling at the cloud, like an old man:
Hellblade. The single goal of this game was to reduce the cost and increase efficiency of the workflow! Freaking impressive devs, real geniuses imo! The fck could a fully bloated lazy multi hundreds dev team like Bungie do with this mindset! They should go to school and take some courses by NT...all of the so-called AAA.
No no no, they all go the lazy route of loot boxes that give you advantages in gameplay...because they are so clever!
Back in ye ol days, everything was better.../end yelling at clouds.
I went for an interview at Ubisoft not too long ago to be a developer.
Indie experience was not enough. They could easily just ignore my enterprise experience and put me as a jr.tool developer which is what at best they could offer me.
So. In terms of lazy devs. I think not. The interview questions were not for noobs. At least not the ones they had me answering.
So in many ways I will have to side with the devs here. If you don't understand the economics of development, it's hard to evaluate what is efficient and what is not.
Multiplatform games are much more expensive to make than exclusives, when you have to cater to the lowest common denominstor in terms of how coding is accomplished; older style pipelines but pushing higher fidelity costs $$$. Where newer techniques can get away with a variety of high level techniques for cheaper.
That has nothing to do with being lazy and everything to do with trying to make a living/profit (if you had a working game made super efficiently and the chance to double your profits just by adding loot boxes, would you refuse?). The same attitudes and mindset regards development exist now as did in your imaginary ye olde days (very varied between different dev companies), only the workloads have gotten bigger and bigger as the games and demands have. Your attitude is insulting, disrespectful, and rather typical of the modern entitled gamer. It's really no wonder we're seeing more of a schism between them-and-us IMO. Doesn't matter what the devs do, they're lazy because games aren't perfect, and with so many whinging gamers out there, I can see why devs and pubs who perhaps cared more for the art once upon a time would decided to just sod it and milk them for all they can.
Edit: In fact more than that, you're not just calling them lazy but stupid too. You're suggesting all these devs could reduce costs and so require less sales to remain profitable, but instead they rack up the bills during development in the hopes of making more back on loot boxes. "Okay guys, let's not work efficiently for a total cost of $50 million so we can be safer regards recovering costs and increase our odds of staying open another year. Let's instead burn money and rack up $100 million in bills, and then add loot boxes to try and recover that. What's that? Work efficiently, save costs, and add loot boxes to make more money? That sort of thinking is only for the smart business-savvy entrepreneur. Our options are only efficient and no microtransactions, or wasteful and microtransaction gambling, as is the Unwritten Dev Code by which we must abide or be snubbed by our GameDev peers."
Bonkers, insulting argument based on nothing but a dislike of loot boxes projected into a shot-gun character assassination of the guys and gals busting their guts to make your games.
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if they are using tricks like falling chests from the sky in the last CoD game, that's shameful. What's doing a chest and a fruit machine in the Battle of Normandy map, for instance? Plus the other players can see the chests falling from the sky and what the guy gets... Talks about going overboard for some extra cash
I could agree. I dislike the practice of in-game gambling and would like to see an end to it. I never excused microtransactions and loot-boxes - I said they don't exist in games simply because devs are too lazy/stupid to make games economically and are falling back on the extra cash of MTs to cover their bloated costs.
Hard to really fix these issues unless the publishers and distributors take less of a cut.
Or the need to move to different tools and rendering methods could remove some costs as well. Not sure how much though.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Or just charge more. AAA games have launched at $60 for a long, long time and not kept pace with inflation which impacts development costs.
Yea that makes sense.
I've also wondered at the possibility of a factory like model. Have games in development for 5 years staggered. Skeleton crew works on the gaming and story aspects. And then there is this shared assets team that pumps out all the work closer to the end and moves from project to project.
They don't want to charge more. The motivation of keeping a base price of $60 is to keep broad appeal while micro transactions are used to extract value from those users who are willing to spend more.
Unlike subscriptions or DLCs, micro transactions don't splinter the userbase. If microtransactions are well accepted by a particular userbase, the associated devs has plenty of opportunity for continuing support and new content.
A 12 hour single player game with no multiplayer component offering microtransactions would just be devs being opportunistic.
But games with a heavy online component can use microtransactions to keep its users engaged for years.
Unlike subscriptions or DLCs, micro transactions don't splinter the userbase. If microtransactions are well accepted by a particular userbase, the associated devs has plenty of opportunity for continuing support and new content.
A 12 hour single player game with no multiplayer component offering microtransactions would just be devs being opportunistic.
But games with a heavy online component can use microtransactions to keep its users engaged for years.
There's also a difference between MT DLC and loot boxes. There's nothing wrong with selling additional content. eg. Borderlands provided some quality content well worth the additional money, which supplemented the costs and limited game price of the initial release. It's the practice of psychological hooks causing people to pay unfairly (loot boxes and in-game consumables) that's despicable, although absolutely permissible within the conventions of free market economics.
GTA Publisher Plans to Have Microtransactions in All Future Games: http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/11...to-have-microtransactions-in-all-future-games
As long as this increases the production values and the supported time of AAA games even further I have no problem with that.
As long as this increases the production values and the supported time of AAA games even further I have no problem with that.
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