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Fuck off, fuck you, I hope you die, here have few a million quid.

Started by Fry, December 08, 2021, 06:22:10 AM

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Fry

Halo Infinite's multiplayer mode has launched and its yet another release from a so-called AAA developer that has left its audience furious.

I feel this is becoming more and more frequent. In the past month the release of the latest GTA, Battlefield and now Halo game has left passionate fans furious at the developers. This time one of the complaints was the inclusion of microtransactions in every level of cosmetic upgrade (as always, it is technically possible to unlock these things through gameplay, however it would take a good few months of constant play to do so and its trapped between a byzantine challenge system that is in no way related to how well you play), a frequent criticism I hear is along the lines of "they charge you for a coat of blue paint". I'm glad that the clearly bullshit idea that charging for cosmetic upgrades only is OK has finally started to wear thin, as ridiculous as it was.

For their part, some of the Gamers have responded in the standard way.
Yer standard litany of death and rape threats at the developers, I've seen references to attempted doxxings and stuff. At one point the halo subreddit was shut down because of the volume.

Developers releasing games that are incomplete, or stuffed to the gills with annoying mechanisms to make sure each gram of fun is cut with at least a few grams of annoying busy work or tedius grind to try to incentivise you to spend extra, and more and more often, both. Gaming communities hosting a disproportionate amount of people who respond to any annoyance by immediately hammering the provided  corporate meatshields with threats and insults. Is there a single other industry where the producers and consumers of a product have so much disdain for each other?

JamesTC

I don't have a problem per se with microtransactions for cosmetics. Where Halo Infinite is egregious is in taking away things you would expect to come as standard on a game like this. Give the player a reasonable number of bog standard armour/helmet variants and a decent colour palette and the anger wouldn't be anywhere near as widespread. I initially assumed that it was very limited due to the status as a beta.

The sad thing about anger being thrown at developers for these decisions is that these are made by higher ups and have nothing to do with the people who made the game. 343 themselves seem to have finally made an actually good Halo game at the third time of asking so it is a shame it is overshadowed.

I'll still enjoy the game when I manage to get a new graphics card and my friend sets up his PC so we can recapture our teenage years playing Halo 3 non-stop.

bgmnts

I just dont know how you cwnt have a problem with these business practices, considering what they are. It's so anti consumer and so greedy and shady and unethical it's mad.

JamesTC

Quote from: bgmnts on December 08, 2021, 12:24:46 PMI just dont know how you cwnt have a problem with these business practices, considering what they are. It's so anti consumer and so greedy and shady and unethical it's mad.

The base game is free to play. So long as the microtransactions are all strictly cosmetic, I have no issue if they pay for the game.

The problem here for me is lack of base cosmetic content but the idea in principle is fine. It worked with Team Fortress 2.


Zetetic

Quote from: bgmnts on December 08, 2021, 12:24:46 PMI just dont know how you cwnt have a problem with these business practices, considering what they are. It's so anti consumer and so greedy and shady and unethical it's mad.
1) It's pretty up front, if not in the game's own bumf then in reviews.
2) The market for computer games, particularly games vaguely like Halo Infinite, is really extremely free.

I suppose I have a problem with them insofar as I'm not going to buy and probably won't ever play this game, and will instead buy and play other games.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: JamesTC on December 08, 2021, 12:47:37 PMThe problem here for me is lack of base cosmetic content but the idea in principle is fine. It worked with Team Fortress 2.

Only after they acquired a huge player base as a paid-for game before doing that model. And if there's a lack of content then the principle isn't fine, because it's taking content out of the game so you have to pay for it. Stuff that used to come with the game or could be earned by, y'know, playing the game. But yeah, it's far more fun to just buy a gold skin for a gun instead of having to earn one by playing the game, that's the way forward for gamers.

peanutbutter

Capcom's pretty compact RE remake games done pretty well financially, didn't they?

How much of the current gaming industry's focus on these big bloated messes of things stuffed with microtransactions is about being able to hide commercial failures by claiming they'll recoup their money over time? Softens the drops in stock prices until people forget about the flop while the major successes can be doubled down on by claims of how they're gonna make x10 more from the DLC.

Wonderful Butternut

Cosmetic or not, microtransactions are designed to exploit people with addictive personalities and poor impulse control (& if you're EA, children) to make big extra wads of cash, which usually go straight into the hands of the people at the top.

They're shit.

JamesTC

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on December 08, 2021, 01:35:50 PMOnly after they acquired a huge player base as a paid-for game before doing that model. And if there's a lack of content then the principle isn't fine, because it's taking content out of the game so you have to pay for it. Stuff that used to come with the game or could be earned by, y'know, playing the game. But yeah, it's far more fun to just buy a gold skin for a gun instead of having to earn one by playing the game, that's the way forward for gamers.

I don't personally get any fun from a gold skin on a gun. The multiplayer isn't for unlocking shit, it is for playing the game. If there was some gameplay to these things locked behind a paywall, I would be incensed, but they are all cosmetic shite.

As I said earlier, it doesn't seem like there is enough cosmetic choice in the base game. If they fixed that, then I doubt there'd be the groundswell once they've balanced the XP system.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: JamesTC on December 08, 2021, 02:51:20 PMI don't personally get any fun from a gold skin on a gun. The multiplayer isn't for unlocking shit, it is for playing the game. If there was some gameplay to these things locked behind a paywall, I would be incensed, but they are all cosmetic shite.

As I said earlier, it doesn't seem like there is enough cosmetic choice in the base game. If they fixed that, then I doubt there'd be the groundswell once they've balanced the XP system.

Which was my point, you used to get all those things from actually playing the game, multiplayer was for both playing and unlocking, now you just buy instead and play the game less. I get no joy from skins either, the joy for me was completing the challenges you needed to do to unlock them, it added extra gameplay and made you want to play the game more. Now that's disappearing in favour of just buying things instead so that gameplay is being taken out of games, that's the disappointing bit for me, Clive. It's not just a case of "buy them if you want, don't if you don't", the games are actually suffering because of it and not enough cosmetic choice being in the base game would be another example of it.

Zetetic

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on December 08, 2021, 02:50:53 PMmicrotransactions are designed to exploit people with addictive personalities and poor impulse control
This is a fair point, in many cases, and one that strongly undermines my not giving that much of a shit about this in general.

H-O-W-L

I'm a lifelong gamer but at this point I am hoping the fucking bottom falls out of the market and we get a refresh. Too many AAA titles have been complete shit in the last 3 years, and it really was a pre-COVID problem, companies just blame COVID.

JamesTC

The thing is, games can make money without DLC and microtransactions. Halo would have made a profit either way. It is just they'll make more money this way.

I take on board that it might impact people with addictive tendencies. People may want to "complete" the game. I would be interested once the XP return is fully balanced how collecting everything with the battlepass (a one time purchase) compares to collecting everything on Halo Reach. If it similar then I would argue it is well balanced. If not then it is clearly weighted towards the extra microtransactions.

Cold Meat Platter

It's amazing we're still obediently calling these 'micro'-transactions. Micro meaning a millionth.
People haven't called computers 'micros' since about 1986 so it's not that
Just a tiny wee transaction - almost TOO wee, aye.

Thursday

Following people I know on twitter, they're having a great time with Halo Infinite, they think it's a bit of a shame about the state of the battle pass and all that, but it's something that could hopefully be fix.

Reddit thinks it's absolutely fucked and everyone should die. I think there might be a degree of validity to the complaints, but the main thing I take away from it is that gamers on reddit are the worst cunts alive.

I feel like a massive apologists for THE MAN saying this, but I do think a degree of additional monetization is probably necessary now that lots people work full time on online games, the base price probably doesn't really cover the necessary maintenance and updates the games have. That's not to justify predatory tactics, but they probably do have additional costs to cover. They have tended to get a bit better (Since EA went so egregious with that Star Wars Battlefield game.) certainly in the western market these games do tend to limit to cosmetic shite, and you also know what you're paying for, random lootboxes aren't as common a thing you can spend money on anymore in console games, and when it is, it has to be pretty up front about what the odds are on getting the thing you want from the lootbox.)

Again not to say it's not still shite, but I feel like we already reached the peak of companies taking the piss and they realized there was a limit to what they could get away with. Which is kind of why people have come to accept the level we're at now.


Quote from: Thursday on December 09, 2021, 12:01:35 AMI feel like a massive apologists for THE MAN saying this, but I do think a degree of additional monetization is probably necessary now that lots people work full time on online games, the base price probably doesn't really cover the necessary maintenance and updates the games have. That's not to justify predatory tactics, but they probably do have additional costs to cover. They have tended to get a bit better (Since EA went so egregious with that Star Wars Battlefield game.) certainly in the western market these games do tend to limit to cosmetic shite, and you also know what you're paying for, random lootboxes aren't as common a thing you can spend money on anymore in console games, and when it is, it has to be pretty up front about what the odds are on getting the thing you want from the lootbox.)

Again not to say it's not still shite, but I feel like we already reached the peak of companies taking the piss and they realized there was a limit to what they could get away with. Which is kind of why people have come to accept the level we're at now.

It might be true that the peak of lootbox madness has probably passed now, but the fact they and other predatory in-game mechanics still exist at all means the problem is far from having gone away.

The notion that the industry NEEDS monetization or it will somehow collapse is hopelessly naïve. The very idea that these billion dollar corporations need extra money on top of all the other money they already have just in order to get by is laughable.

Games publishers aren't run as socialist collectives and that extra money does not go towards better staff pay and conditions nor making games better, it goes straight into the pockets of the executives and the shareholders. It's late capitalism laid bare in all it's naked greediness. The richest people in the world trying to squeeze even more profit out of customers just so they can sit on top it all like a bunch of sweaty middle-aged Smaugs.

Thursday

Well no I agree actually, and yet at the same time, more is invested into online services now and I can see why it might be necessary to recoup some of that. Not just with Microsoft/EA/Activision not everyone is a billion dollar company, there are other studios that struggle to get a foot in.

Fry

But when a game is successful it doesn't stop being sold. The base game to GTA5 still is selling like gangbusters purely because the online is so popular. Hell, people are still buying Skyrim and that's not even online. If instead of constant bilking people for shark cards and microtransactions, but instead Rockstar had released 3 or 4 decent-sized online only DLCs for GTA5 over the last decade I don't doubt that they would have still made an incredible amount of money and it would feel so much less exploitative.

Chollis

i've been having great fun with Infinite so far but now the official release date has passed and multiplayer is still completely bare bones. only 3 playlists - Quick Play, Big Team Battle and Ranked Arena. no new maps or game types from the beta, nothing in the patch notes about multiplayer. none of the classics like Team Doubles, Team Objective or SWAT. i'm not interested in the cosmetic stuff personally but if they are charging people through the nose for it, it would be nice if they released more multiplayer variants for "free", but I imagine they'll be charging separately for "DLC", i.e maps and game types that should have been in the base game. it's especially frustrating as the gameplay is amazing.

H-O-W-L

MCC seems overall like the superior -- and cheaper!!!! -- Halo experience to me. Thirty quid, 'ere's five belting games and one shite one, shitloads of cosmetics you get by playing and 'aving fun and you can even get 'em by playing singleplayer, cor!

AND we give you all the Halo 3 cosmetics for free, love. And all the colors for every game! Gratis! Almost like we can sustain the game off sales!

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Fry on December 09, 2021, 12:34:27 PMBut when a game is successful it doesn't stop being sold. The base game to GTA5 still is selling like gangbusters purely because the online is so popular. Hell, people are still buying Skyrim and that's not even online. If instead of constant bilking people for shark cards and microtransactions, but instead Rockstar had released 3 or 4 decent-sized online only DLCs for GTA5 over the last decade I don't doubt that they would have still made an incredible amount of money and it would feel so much less exploitative.

I can speak from experience that even full price retail copies (not just down-marked digital copies) of GTA are still selling out en masse.

Mister Six


H-O-W-L


oggyraiding

Quote from: H-O-W-L on December 09, 2021, 04:05:18 PMMCC seems overall like the superior -- and cheaper!!!! -- Halo experience to me. Thirty quid, 'ere's five belting games and one shite one, shitloads of cosmetics you get by playing and 'aving fun and you can even get 'em by playing singleplayer, cor!

I'm curious, which is the shite one?

H-O-W-L

Quote from: oggyraiding on December 09, 2021, 07:45:59 PMI'm curious, which is the shite one?

Halo 4. It's just very very boring and turns Halo from trend-setter to trend-chaser for console FPS.