Please Rare....NO MTX ! !

Look at it this way EA is the most hated gaming company. Yet, they make record profits yearly with mediocre cookie cutter games. This is all to do with micro transactions. I'm all for a company getting funds for development. However charging full price for a game while adding additional charges later is double dipping. This is something gamers shouldn't stand for. Do you want more companies like EA? Cause, that's how you get companies like EA.

@drayman86 Because it is a cosmetic item that has no impact on gameplay. You can still fully play the game without making the purchase.

@dyfrin

The time and effort the employees of the company needs to be compensated.

Full heartily agree, development cost money its only fair.

For a game to continue updating it has to have a way to pay for development.

For that to happen:

You are looking at content updates that cost money (Destiny)

You are looking at seasonal tickets to unlock cosmetics or events (Dota 2, fortnite)

You are looking at a monthly subscription (WoW/EQ)

You are looking at microtransactions (LOTRO, Madden)

You are maybe looking at in game advertisement (not yet realized, Rare talk to me about revenue stream from product placement? =)

The lootbox fiasco and moves by say Apple to combat it, is the gambling component of the setup, buying a "chance" to get an item is a chimerical purchase and is markably different than buying an actual item.

A lot of these aren't good examples though lets break them down.

Dota (or any MOBA) is free to play, no initial game purchase was necessary. They also fund that money back to the community with tournaments in the form of prize pools. Look how big League of Legends is and the size of the prize pools they provide. CS-GO can say the same, but they had a lower price tag on the initial purchase.

Fortnite as well, is free to play, while also pumping out content at a much faster rate then Sea of Thieves.

WoW is such a huge game, while also justifying its monthly subscription with security, quick patches, and a hell of a lot of content. Significantly more then Sea of Thieves. Also adding very few other games can pull of a seperate monthly subscription. I can't think of any others still alive today, can you?

Madden or any of the other sports games owned by EA demonstrate simple greed. EA most hated gaming company yet still makes record profits. While also pushing out cookie cutter games. Its a bad practice for the gaming industry to get into. If companies can justify this behavior with how much money they make, what effect will it have on future gaming quality? People are quick to forget Star Wars Battlefront, and now their is even leaked content on future skin prices for Anthem set around $20. Clearly they didn't learn their lesson with Star Wars Battlefront. Granted that's pay to win, but still under the umbrella of Micro-transactions.

I understand games require funds, micro-transactions though, belong under a certain business model. Not under full Triple-A price, if the game was like half the upfront cost then sure, it makes sense. If this game was free to play, then sure I welcome micro-transactions

@JE0RGIE-P0RGIE I was in the middle of typing this, but last paragraph applies to you as well. I'm all for micro-transactions, however not for full priced games.

@je0rgie-p0rgie

As I stated earlier, full priced games aren't developed the way they used to be 13 years ago. PS3 and Xbox 360 games were priced at $60 a piece in 2006 - 2007 and over time the quality and standards of triple A games increased but their base retail price never did.

I will be honest man, I don't buy this. The gaming market is also significantly larger then it was 13 years ago. With more consumers being a by product of this market. You also remove price adjustments with how games are distributed now. That being digital distribution, this helps keep development cost down. The thing is I see tacking on micro-transaction not as a form creating funds to fund future content, when the model doesn't support it. Had SoT been $30, not full priced with future micro-transactions, this works for me.

Its more just greedy at this point. The example I see is EA, and how big a flop Star Wars, Mass Effect, and BF5 were. These games sold poorly and weren't that great, yet the company still had record profits for those years. Yet EA keeps doing it cause they know they can get away with it. Look at Anthem and future skin costs. Their is too many people willing to spend money on mediocre games (Madden and FIFA), that EA will keep doing this model. The byproduct is lesser quality games, and other studios picking up these habits.

@dyfrin
I too support games I love, looking at Team Fortress 2. However, they also had pushed out free updates and content for 4 years before they switched their business model to free to play with cosmetics. To me they demonstrate a game can keep putting out free updates through game sales alone, without the need to introduce micro-transactions until later. They also had a significantly smaller initial purchase price for the game. The Orange Box was $30 dollars while also including Tf2.

They are introducing MTX. Pets will be microtransactions. We don't know how the MTX on pets will work. Maybe 1 or 2 pets available free, and the rest MTX, all mtx IDK. The thing is that Pets are just decoration, don´t make advantage, son I think it's fair.

@octopus-lime
I'm not surprised, this is something that I am aware of. I am merely stating that if a company charges full Triple-A price, micro-transactions don't fit with the model. I just don't think its right to do this. To me it just seems greedy. I would also like to see gaming companies not following EA's example.

@octopus-lime
Same to you, I am not trying to start arguments. I just don't like how some companies take advantage of micro-transactions when they don't need to. Whether Rare needs to could be debated.

You have good one though.

@Lethality1

You can't expect all of that to be free forever, can you? Plus they've talked about this plan even before the game launched, and have put it on hold until they felt the game was in better shape.

Their is no expectation for "free forever." However, other games have demonstrated the ability to add content over the years, through game sales only. I only talk like this, because I'd rather games not follow EA's example with abuse of the Micro-Transaction model. Its a trend I'd rather see not grow.

@nabberwar said in Please Rare....NO MTX ! !:

@dyfrin
I too support games I love, looking at Team Fortress 2. However, they also had pushed out free updates and content for 4 years before they switched their business model to free to play with cosmetics. To me they demonstrate a game can keep putting out free updates through game sales alone, without the need to introduce micro-transactions until later. They also had a significantly smaller initial purchase price for the game. The Orange Box was $30 dollars while also including Tf2.

TF2 and all of the games in The Orange Box didn't run on dedicated servers hosted by their creators, nor do they require anywhere near the resources Sea of Thieves does. Sea of Thieves is hosted on Azure and scale automatically to handle the load. Even with any deals with Microsoft, each instance (server) running is a serious expense and that money needs to come from somewhere.

This game has been in development for years and will hopefully continue to grow for years to come, those initial sales will only get them so far.

@d3adst1ck said in Please Rare....NO MTX ! !:

Are we all forgetting that there is continued revenue through the GamePass subscription that some players are using?

$10 a month, and you think Rare gets anything substantial from that? I doubt they get more than a few percent of each subscription or even less based on usage.

@man-o-war-meche said in Please Rare....NO MTX ! !:

@drayman86

Not quite pay to play, more pay to sparkle. I am very against MTX games, I think cosmetics are the future of gaming. They need a way to keep a revenue stream to keep making updates free.

I love that! Pay to sparkle.

So true though. I am totally fine with players paying for stuff that does not give them an unfair advantage when it comes to PvP.

Is this thread really still active? It's unclear right now what the implementation will look like. It's unclear what clever ways Rare might find to make this work acceptably. I am generally against micro-transactions, for reasons stated by others in this thread, but I'm giving Rare the benefit of the doubt that they might find some clever way to implement it that I'm okay with. Maybe pets can be bought using gold or doubloons, and spending real money will just be a faster/alternate way to get them. Then everyone can access everything, if by different methods. All this to say, let's not complain too much until the feature is released and/or we know all the details about how it works.

@drayman86 said in Please Rare....NO MTX ! !:

@octopus-lime said in Please Rare....NO MTX ! !:

@drayman86 They have been very clear since launch that they would be introducing MTX for cosmetics and pets. They will not have any impact other than purely cosmetic so it will not be 'pay to win' at all.

Pity that only those with the extra disposable income will be able to get the full game experience.

So much for a community of equals and peers, where game advancement and cosmetics are due only to achievements and skill.

Thats just how life works. I am a huge Sims fan but yowzers their game content packs get pricey. I do not not own every single pack that comes out because of this. I wish I could but like im just not spending that much on the SIMs and trust me I have spent alot already. Is it fair that some people get to have all the newest goodies while others dont? I guess not however gaming is a luxury after all, no ones life is in danger if they dont get the pop corn machine in SIMS or pet rat in SOT if we even ever get these pets.

Plus RARE has been great not charging for DLC content thus far so I dont mind them making money from cosmetics I mean they need to make money to keep bringing us fab new content. I also play Ark and American Trucker and you pay for all new DLCs so I always appreciate online games who dont charge.

Just my opinion.

@je0rgie-p0rgie

More consumers and more streamlined distribution are just two ways developers and publishers have combated the rise in cost for game development. Developers need to fork over a large amount of money to build a triple A game with the hope that their investment will capture the eyes of the market. You could have 100's of millions of gamers in the world but if they won't touch your product because it doesn't meet the industry standard then you're on a sinking ship.

We both definitively agree that the game industry as a whole has drastically changed over the years. I don't think its a simple answer as we both want it to be. Have some cost for developing a game increased? Maybe, but their is other ways that has caused prices to remain close to the same price.

Ad targeting can find their target audiences much easier, while also enlisting prominent streamers for targeted ads. Much cheaper to pay a prominent streamer or youtube personality then placing an ad on a national Tv station. How much of that price is just to get the gamers attention. Advertising avenues are just more open then previously before.

In all honesty, and you seem educated in the business field so I'm genuinely curious about your opinion, do you really expect Sea of Thieves to survive on just game sales alone? For how long? Rare wants to see this game last for years. Also you need to keep in mind that even though Rare is one of the most passionate game designers I've had the pleasure of witnessing they're also a business. They are here to build something that we, and they, want to play so that we buy their product so that they can continue to make money for their studio and for Microsoft.

I'm just a gamer with no background in business, I could be all wrong about this. However, I don't buy it always when gaming companies say these things. Especially when certain publishers are making record profits while even pushing out failing titles.

I think your question isn't an easy answer when pertaining to Sea of Thieves. I think if we are honest with ourselves, this game shouldn't have been released as early as it did. From my perspective, all of this trickled in content was more of an attempt to save the title. This game wasn't a finished product on release. I don't blame Rare for this, but I think Microsoft definitively played a role in pushing the release earlier then intended. This may come off a conspiracy theory level, but how much of this content would have been in the game, had the company waited on the release? I think if the game was released at the level of content it has now plus the Arena, I think that alone would have allowed the game to fund for years on sales alone rather easily. I would even ask, how much of a push to add Micro-transaction was Microsofts idea.

That's one of the primary reasons there are significantly less independent game developers out there now verses those that have partnered up with a publisher. One bad game can be the downfall of an entire studio because it costs so much to make games and requires so many copies to be sold to just break even.

I don't really agree with you on this, at least when it comes to PC indie games. Their is probably a larger market today then their ever was. Steam has quite the library of Indie-games no one has ever even heard of. For them (the developers) advertisement becomes the issue rather then development. However advertisement has become easier over the years with youtube "LetsPlay's." That and Early access is much more prominent today, thus making development much easier. As well as GoFundme, take a look at how much Mighty No. 9 pulled in for development.

@archangel-timmy

TF2 and all of the games in The Orange Box didn't run on dedicated servers hosted by their creators, nor do they require anywhere near the resources Sea of Thieves does.

This statement isn't quite accurate at least to my knowledge. Player owned servers were thing, but their was always official servers on a map rotation that players could join that were run by valve. Still to this day they do as well I'd imagine. They game still has a rather large following.

@lethality1 Team Fortress 2 went from 2007 to 2011 with free regular updates. Updates included weapons, cosmetics, and maps. First one comes to mind.

How should they add revenue to support the service if you agree that this shouldn't be free forever?

This is no simple answer, but games can have a lifespan, not all games need to run for decades. However, they could open up options on who maintains the servers. Having players run their own dedicated servers, could lessen the cost of hosting, that isn't to say this is right for Rare. More of an answer on how some games can keep servers running longer. Side note, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 still has servers running I think. Food for thought.