How do you feel about monetisation in games?

[oni-link]

Hi all, this is my first thread here so if I've done anything wrong or broken any rules please let me know

How do you feel about monetisation in modern games? So really I'm talking about paid cosmetics, lootboxes, paid exp boosters etc

It's often a contentious topic within popular gaming coverage, what with 2017s Battlefront 2 being quite a significant talking point due to how it's progression system was structured

I personally play a lot of older games along with more modern titles so it can be quite jarring with how some more modern titles have a storefront front and center, or how you're nudged in the direction of a store.

That said I don't think I've played any single player games yet where they can't be ignored, however I do wonder to what extent they influence a games design

What are your thoughts on monetisation in games?

[KSubzero1000]

Generally speaking, I don't like it. I think the only paid cosmetic I ever bought was one of the cars in Rocket League because I wanted to support the developer.

I think that the worst of them are often predatory, which isn't an issue for me as an adult with solid impulse control, but is very much an issue when younger inexperienced players are being manipulated into throwing their (parents') money out of the window.

I do think they influence game design, which is also an issue. Shoehorned XP systems in singleplayer games and XP booster packs are often two sides of the same coin. Staying clear from most massive AAA games with those elements and supporting those without them (like the new GoW) seems to mitigate the issue for me.

But I also understand that the 60€/$ business model is becoming more and more unsustainable with modern development costs and that publishers need to recoup their investment somehow. If you ask me, the most obvious solution to this would be to scale back on the obscene AAA production values a bit and make sure to stay within reasonable budget limits, but the general game buying public seems to disagree.

There is also the issue of large market sections (like the mobile market) depending on this new business model. As much as I dislike scummy business practices, I'd prefer to see a solution that wouldn't involve ordinary developers losing their job due to some random legislation.

It's a vicious cycle, really.



My ideal video game is polished, bug-free, complete and perfectly functional straight out of the box, has the exact amount of production values the developers could afford, and costs 60€ on physical media. Plain and simple.

[KSubzero1000]

My ideal video game is polished, bug-free, complete and perfectly functional straight out of the box, has the exact amount of production values the developers could afford, and costs 60€ on physical media. Plain and simple.

RDR2.

Well they added the online mode as a post-launch update, but yes, RDR2 is otherwise pretty good in that regard.

[KissMammal]

I'm also pretty old-school - I don't really do online multiplayer and pretty much exclusively play games on Switch, so almost never encounter these types of things, but I do find it bizarre and kind of amusing how furious certain sections of the gaming audience and media can get about it all.

For instance, I like Jim Sterling, but I don't think I can stand hearing him rant about loot boxes/paid DLC/'games as service' ever again. Like, if you don't like it, you can vote with your wallet, right? Maybe just... play something else? We're in a true golden age of gaming with the relative ease of access and plentiful choice we have now..... I honestly struggle to see what all the fuss is about.

[Joshihatsumitsu]

Not that I'm saying anything new, but monetisation is very much both a reflection of the unsustainable ambition of big budget studio releases, and, well, just general greed. Mostly greed.

The thing is, I collect arcade PCB'c, and the arcades were certainly pay to play, but not necessarily pay to win. Sure, you can keep popping credits in and play to the all the way through, but most games will reset the score with every continue. You could pay your way to the end credits, but the high scores had to be earned.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this... I guess commerce was always a part of gaming, and within reason paying a fair price for something never bothers me, because it's capitalism after all: I certainly don't work for free, and I understand the need to compensate people for their time and effort.

But most monetisation in modern gaming is just greed, nothing more. None of the big publishers are struggling financially: EA and Ubisoft are sure as hell turning over some big profits, and Rockstar can treat people however they want, especially now they know that most won't push back against it in anyway that effects the bottom line.

Finding the right balance between art (or just big dumb entertainment) and commerce isn't exclusive to this industry alone. But it feels like pure commerce most of the time now.

[dezm0nd]

I too prefer the one and done purchase with games but there's no denying that some free to play games have gotten more people into games than ever before.

Whether they're paying customers or not is another discussion entirely and whilst i prefered Super Mario Run as a single purchase, you can't help feel that it wouldve been better off, financially, for nintendo had it been rammed full of microtransactions

[Magical_Isopod]

Loot boxes are predatory, usually aimed deliberately at children and those predisposed to addiction issues. They should be straight-up banned.

DLC is a hit-or-miss thing for me. If there is substantial content released well after a game comes out, I have no issue with it - unless it's insanely overpriced (like charging $15 for a single additional fighter in BlazBlue). What I don't like is when content is very obviously removed from the main game so it can be held for ransom - Asura's Wrath locking the last 20% of the game behind a paywall, for instance.

I also despise what Dragon Age did, where you would do a big dialogue tree to seemingly start a quest, only to be brought to a store page and asked to pay for it, breaking all immersion and holding you captive for what turned out to be a commercial.

With cosmetic stuff, I generally think all that's fair game -- if you know what you're getting. Paying a buck or two for a new skin you like is really reasonable, but being asked to put a dollar in the digital Gatchapon machine for a 5% chance of getting the one you want is just a predatory scam.

If there's a "good" model of monetization from recent memory, I like how AC Odyssey does it. There are some neat cosmetics you can buy, and they're pretty inexpensive. They give you some free credits throughout the story, so if you want a specific ship decal or something, you can probably get it without spending extra. And for the loyal customers, some of the cooler cosmetics are unlocked through UPlay - owning other Ubi games unlocks new skins and stuff. I think that's pretty reasonable, all in all. I've never felt like resources were overly scarce or the XP curve was unfair in the main game either, so the XP boosters and all that are really just there for people who want to bee-line into high level areas while skipping over plot. A cheat code, more or less.

And of course, free to play games need monetization to survive. Best example I can think of is Pokemon Picross, where the game is free, and the whole thing is free if you just wait for the levels to unlock on a timer, but you can buy unlimited in-game currency for like $30. The game's actually worth that, so that's a smart way to do that model.

[Joshihatsumitsu]

Hmm... I think my favourite example of monetisation in games is in 2018's Pokemon Let's Go, in that there's no micro-transactions, no DLC, and no greedy-corporate-predatory-gambling behaviours.

I'm obviously not the first to make that observation, but if ever there was an IP ripe for exploiting it's fanbase, it would be Pokemon. In a way, the fact that loot boxes or any other of that crap doesn't exist in that game at all, in 2018, made it a bit of an anomaly.

But it also proves that you can make more than enough money without being exploitative about it. Granted, the mobile version Pokemon Go does have micro-transactions, however those micro-transactions exist in a free-to-play mobile game, not a full priced retail release, sooooo... still not saintly... and that's one of those free-to-play-grey-areas. I'm a little more forgiving, I guess...

[dezm0nd]

Agreed that lootboxes are harmful to anyone who buys them. Subtley feeding us gambling mechanics isnt healthy for anyones mental state let alone children

[delb2k]

I struggle to have an issue with monetization but that is mainly because I have never played a game that I felt had been directly affected by it. I should note at the start that I do not play mobile games regularly, if at all.

That is not to say that a lot of the titles I play do not have options to pay real world money for items or boosters but I have never felt adversely affected or stunted by their inclusion, nor have I felt overly bothered by the prompting as most of the time you simply skip past it. For this reason I have struggled to see widespread evidence of game design being deliberately affected by this, but I am open to examples.

I am happy to admit there have been some very poor examples of integrated DLC or virtual currencies, the 2K NBA games come to mind so I do see that some companies do get it incredibly wrong, I have no doubt of that, but I do not see it as an ingrained issue.

In a nice world we would not need them, but with the revenues from stores remaining stagnant and the trend, at least in the UK, of heavy discounting of underperforming titles the ability to earn consistent money from a title is much harder. And as an industry the public always want the best looking, the shiniest and the prettiest games. While a lot of companies have had good profits recently a decent percentage of that is from digital transactions and I do not know what the impact of removing that is for future projects. Are they downgraded, is the investment budget reduced?

And if so does that mean when they are revealed the internet goes into a frenzy and complains that it does not look ‘next-gen’ enough? I do not know the answer to this, but I could see it being a possibility.

I should point out I know that is not everybody, and the above is a sweeping statement to a degree, it is more a reflection on the Digital Foundry era that we are in (who do excellent work) and the closer inspection of visuals and performance that now exist.

I do also wonder if we have a saturated market as well. There are multiple titles coming out each year, a mixture of small titles, mid-size and large projects so your time, and your money, are even harder to earn. In the past there were fewer titles and the really big titles had a slightly longer breathing period (apart from the festive period madness).

I would like to see hardware companies do more to teach users how to correctly protect children and minors from making purchases unwittingly. From account settings and password challenges there are a lot of things that can be done in order to stop unwanted bills but Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Nintendo should do more to explain what safety nets can be put in place.

[KSubzero1000]

That is not to say that a lot of the titles I play do not have options to pay real world money for items or boosters but I have never felt adversely affected or stunted by their inclusion, nor have I felt overly bothered by the prompting as most of the time you simply skip past it. For this reason I have struggled to see widespread evidence of game design being deliberately affected by this, but I am open to examples.

Well, why do Middle-earth: Shadow of War or Assassin's Creed: Odyssey need xp upgrade systems and associated skill trees, for example? You can have open world epics without them. The first couple of AC games worked just fine without one, and so do all Rockstar games. I'm not saying they have only been introduced in order to sell overpriced xp boosters, but surely there is a correlation between their inclusion and the rise of these dubious monetary practices.

[Magical_Isopod]

The "games NEED monetization to make money" argument is utter bullshit. Well, excluding free-to-play. Obvs. You can make phenomenal games without spending hundreds of millions of dollars. How many indie successes out there prove exactly that? Games, as a business model, need to be rational - like, turning Dead Space 3 into an action hero shooty bang bang co-op game was not going to make it a 10 million seller. You can pump 300 Million into a new Katamari Damacy game, but it's never going to re-coup that.

I mean, look at "big indie" games like SOMA and Hellblade - they do what they need to do, have great graphics, and sold for a budget price. They both turned a profit. If AAA studios can't make big games and turn a profit on the quality of the games alone, maybe they shouldn't be in business. Of all the studios that could go out of business, the likes of EA and Activision are the companies I'd miss the least.

[delb2k]

That is not to say that a lot of the titles I play do not have options to pay real world money for items or boosters but I have never felt adversely affected or stunted by their inclusion, nor have I felt overly bothered by the prompting as most of the time you simply skip past it. For this reason I have struggled to see widespread evidence of game design being deliberately affected by this, but I am open to examples.

Well, why do Middle-earth: Shadow of War or Assassin's Creed: Odyssey need xp upgrade systems and associated skill trees, for example? You can have open world epics without them. The first couple of AC games worked just fine without one, and so do all Rockstar games. I'm not saying they have only been introduced in order to sell overpriced xp boosters, but surely there is a correlation between their inclusion and the rise of these dubious monetary practices.

You are correct, we can and have done, but we have also had lots of open world games with them as well. Saints Row, Far Cry, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Origins had some form of ability upgrade tree if my memory serves me correctly. I can see what you mean but the template of an open world that includes gaining XP to customize abilities has been around for a long time and it could easily be that the developers decided to change these sequels so that they provide the players with something a little different without any subtext of offering a booster. Truthfully neither of us really know, but personally I cannot imagine that the booster is prominent in the developers minds during game developement. The is primarily because they cannot guarantee that the people they sell too have an internet connection available to purchase it.

Like myself I am sure you have seen these boosters in different forms in the past as well, racing games were famous for having packs that litrally unlocked late game vehicles for those that just wanted to get the car. I suspect there is an audience who will happily pay purely because they are impatient and/or time constrained and dont want to wait or go through at the developers pace.

It is all conjecture though and I can see why people would believe that it has an effect, absolutely can see why.

[KSubzero1000]

You are correct, we can and have done, but we have also had lots of open world games with them as well. Saints Row, Far Cry, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Origins had some form of ability upgrade tree if my memory serves me correctly.

Saints Row does have a "Respect" XP system, true. It's difficult to find out without actually booting up the game, but I don't think the first Far Cry has anything of the sort. Horizon: ZD and AC: O have XP systems, but both came out in 2017 at a time when microtransactions were already standard practice, so I would definitely classify them as "new-school" in that regard.

As for racing games, well, none of my favorite old-school racing games have anything of the sort. Things certainly got worse as time went by, however.

But I take your point, it's definitely a chicken-and-egg situation. It's difficult to know what influences what behind the scenes. I agree with you that it's hard to imagine developers consciously inserting these elements into their games in order to squeeze that extra revenue out of the player afterwards, but I also think that behind every well-intentioned developer trying to make the best game they can is a not-so-well-intentioned publisher trying to make as much money as they possibly can. And the two are oftentimes at odds with one another.

[delb2k]

You are correct, we can and have done, but we have also had lots of open world games with them as well. Saints Row, Far Cry, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Origins had some form of ability upgrade tree if my memory serves me correctly.

Saints Row does have a "Respect" XP system, true. It's difficult to find out without actually booting up the game, but I don't think the first Far Cry has anything of the sort. Horizon: ZD and AC: O have XP systems, but both came out in 2017 at a time when microtransactions were already standard practice, so I would definitely classify them as "new-school" in that regard.

As for racing games, well, none of my favorite old-school racing games have anything of the sort. Things certainly got worse as time went by, however.

But I take your point, it's definitely a chicken-and-egg situation. It's difficult to know what influences what behind the scenes. I agree with you that it's hard to imagine developers consciously inserting these elements into their games in order to squeeze that extra revenue out of the player afterwards, but I also think that behind every well-intentioned developer trying to make the best game they can is a not-so-well-intentioned publisher trying to make as much money as they possibly can. And the two are oftentimes at odds with one another.

In regards to Far Cry and Saints Row you are correct, I should have been more specific in regards to the later entries but that was my fault for being too general. I very much meant the later entries that have come out over the last 4-5 years. So my apologies for that one.

And I can agree that whatever the developer makes, and the systems they design, if a publisher sees the chance to develop something that can be sold they can often act on that to the detriment to the user perception of the game. That is very true and something I think has led to a general distrust of a lot of the major publishers.

[KSubzero1000]

In regards to Far Cry and Saints Row you are correct, I should have been more specific in regards to the later entries but that was my fault for being too general. I very much meant the later entries that have come out over the last 4-5 years. So my apologies for that one.

And I can agree that whatever the developer makes, and the systems they design, if a publisher sees the chance to develop something that can be sold they can often act on that to the detriment to the user perception of the game. That is very true and something I think has led to a general distrust of a lot of the major publishers.

Ah, it's okay! I don't think we disagree that there are differences in game design between old-school and new-school games, but perhaps we're just instinctively drawing the line somewhere else. To me, a 2014 game is very much "modern", although I admit that the average video game consumer would probably disagree with me on that.

And yeah. But it's also important to highlight the publishers who don't. The latest GoW for example is a game that would have been perfectly suitable for all sorts of microtransaction nonsense, and yet it doesn't have a single trace of it. If predatory business practices are going to lead to bad-will and distrust, then I also think that publishers taking the high road should be acknowledged, at the very least.

[delb2k]

In regards to Far Cry and Saints Row you are correct, I should have been more specific in regards to the later entries but that was my fault for being too general. I very much meant the later entries that have come out over the last 4-5 years. So my apologies for that one.

And I can agree that whatever the developer makes, and the systems they design, if a publisher sees the chance to develop something that can be sold they can often act on that to the detriment to the user perception of the game. That is very true and something I think has led to a general distrust of a lot of the major publishers.

Ah, it's okay! I don't think we disagree that there are differences in game design between old-school and new-school games, but perhaps we're just instinctively drawing the line somewhere else. To me, a 2014 game is very much "modern", although I admit that the average video game consumer would probably disagree with me on that.

And yeah. But it's also important to highlight the publishers who don't. The latest GoW for example is a game that would have been perfectly suitable for all sorts of microtransaction nonsense, and yet it doesn't have a single trace of it. If predatory business practices are going to lead to bad-will and distrust, then I also think that publishers taking the high road should be acknowledged, at the very least.

Absolutely. I think Nintendo has been excellent, Microsofts support of Sea of Thieves I think has been really good (there is talk of a premium store but I do not think it is out yet) and Sony have not pushed either Spider-Man or GoW in that direction so thats been a huge plus. Plus publishers like Devolver Digital and Annapurna have done well to identify and promote high quality titles without needing to fund through bolt ons.

[ThirdDrawing]

I don't play any games that have monetisation.

DMC V, unfortunately, is going to be on that list.

[delb2k]

I don't play any games that have monetisation.

DMC V, unfortunately, is going to be on that list.

Out of interest is this out of principle?

Completely accepting of your choice to do so, I am purely curious if this is a stance that you have taken due to something or because you want to do it for another reason?

Sorry that you are going to miss out on DMC V if you were looking forward to it though

[ThirdDrawing]

Pretty much out of principle, yes. Not a tactic I would like to support.

Buying games with it, supports it, ergo don't buy those games.

I'm not a hardcore DMC fan so it's not a huge deal.