Pachter Can't Understand The "Angst" Over Microtransactions

Please! Just shut the hell up. Ofcourse these industry types will try to condidtion us for an a$$ raping. I will paraphrase EA's Ritticello. "When you're 6 hours into Battlefield 3 and need a new clip beacause you are low on ammo we can charge a dollar for that new clip because you aren't really that price sensitive at that point." That's EA's CEO arrogantly laying out his vision on microtransactions. It's up on youtube and it's from a shareholders meeting. My, God he actually laughs like Emperor Palpitine right before he says you really aren't that sensitive to price at that point.

I get why EA was voted most hated American company now.

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Last edited by Excelsior1 on 3/5/2013 11:47:05 AM

24 up, 2 down

Wipe them out !
ALL of them!!

8 up, 2 down

or two clips at $3.00
full stock of grenades at $5.00
extra body armor for $10.50
upgraded assault rifle and new scope $19.99

Where does this price gouging end??
Its bad enough everywhere I go I have to spend more and more money in my daily life on basic needs and necessities
Why must I now expect as much from the video games I play? What they couldn't be left well enough alone. Isn't DLC enough?

So now I have to expect that when I play games like these there will be less ammo (so I'll be forced to $$$ more)
Twice the amount of enemies so I use more rounds (having to $$$ for more)
While foes taking less damage causes me to use more bullets to advance through the game (pressuring me to $$$ more clips)

This isn't FARMVILLE. I'M NO Farmville player. I hope their business model fails and it blows up in all their faces.
EA YOU ARE THE WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO VIDEO GAMES PERIOD.

12 up, 3 down

Hate all you want but he's right. If you don't like them don't use them. Obviously many gamers use them otherwise they wouldn't waste their valuable resources to inject them into the game.

However, if the future holds a micro-transaction practice that removes the end game sequence/level until you buy it then we have a problem. As they are right now, this present day they are not bad. Wow, I just agreed with Pachter! Will wonders cease to exist?!

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Last edited by CrusaderForever on 3/5/2013 11:54:01 AM

6 up, 12 down

You've got it exactly right. When we starting paying full retail for a game and THEN companies try to make you pay extra for conclusions, central missions, promised features, etc., THEN you'll see Telly leading the angry mob to EA or any other company's doorstep, pitchfork in one hand and torch in another. But that's not at all what's happening now. They're allowing lazy players to buy extra crap in CoD? Who cares? Someone's paying to level up their single player characters? What effect does that have on YOUR gameplay experience?

3 up, 2 down

Back when Zynga was at it's height, with it Facebook games, it was pulling about $900 million from microtransactions. Now I read a story then, it was actually about EA getting into the microtransaction game, and it said that of the millions of Zynga facebook users only about 5% actually paid the microtransactions.

Now EA doesnt look at that number and say well only 5% paid to play. It looks at that number and says, only 5% paid and they made $900 million. We need to figure out how to get more to pay. Thats were the problem lies.

Now much like Kinect or Move, they are not saying well only a few use it. They are saying how do we get more to use it. They might think, hey lets cut out this part of the game and make them pay for it. Or we will sell the game but make them pay to play the multiplayer. Then no matter wether you want to or not they will force you to pay the microtransaction to get the full game experience. Thats where they are taking this.

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Last edited by wackazoa on 3/5/2013 1:37:33 PM

7 up, 0 down

If somebody wants to pay to level up in their SINGLE player game then I wouldn't really care. You're right. No skin off my back. EA didn't make that distinction when citing their hypothetical BF3 microtransaction though. They didn't say they would charge to level up, but for ammo. That is all kinds of risky if you ask me. They could design the game to make you have to buy ammo via a microtransaction. You are getting into pay-to-win when using EA's example. That model is despised by gamers. Leads to all kinds of problems.

8 up, 0 down

When we start doing "pay to win" scenarios -- a BF3 player drops $50 in real money on a ton of guns, ammo and armor that goes into the game and places that player at a considerable advantage compared to the other players who spent $0 on gear, for example -- I don't care for that one bit. But is that really what's being proposed here? Or are we suspecting what MIGHT happen one day in the future?

That's not a sarcastic question, but a serious one. And I ask it because even as EA (and surely others, let's not pretend EA's alone in this!) looks to incorporate more and more microtransactions into their games, they surely must also realize that the fundamental appeal of a game like BF3 is the competition. And without a level playing field, ANY competition is inherently meaningless. Players would leave BF3 in droves if players they used to trounce handily simply spend their way toward an advantage. EA surely knows this, so I'm skeptical they are looking to implement a "pay to win" microtransaction structure like you propose. But again, I truly don't know, perhaps you know more about this issue than me. Honestly, I haven't thought a ton about multiplayer games being impacted by microtransactions because, well, I rarely play them. Single player/co-op all the way, baby :)

2 up, 0 down

I don't know how far they will take it either. I saw the video of EA's CEO laying out how they could get away with charging for an ammo clip 6 hrs into BF3. At that point gamers won't be sensitive to paying for the ammo is what he laughingly claimed. He was being serious when talking to EA's shareholders. maybe he was overstating what EA had planned but he sure tried to convince his sharholders it could work.

1 up, 0 down

The problem is crusader THEY are already doing that. It is suppose to add to the main experience, but instead they chip away at the main experience. Also, people are up in arms because if a game has microtransactions. The only way to get your message across is not to buy the game at all.

Then you give into buying the full retail price to only find out you can't play the ending and you have to pay for extra costumes which you got free in ps2 era.

DLC/expansions, free to play with micro, monthly payments, full retail price with micro, a combination of or/and whatever else you want to come up with can work out. Can be amazing experiences, but only if they are willing to do it right.

5 up, 1 down

@Coffeya:
Oh, you're talking about Assassin's Creed II, right? I avoided that game because of that very issue.

1 up, 0 down

Good old Pach attack, I really like this guy.

2 up, 6 down

I don't. He's very arrogant for someone who is wrong a lot.

7 up, 0 down

Even O.J. Simpson had ardent fans. So it doesn't surprise me that people would find this charlatan likeable.

The fact of the matter is, Pachter represents companies and shareholders that are only looking to make profits at any cost. Pachter doesn't give a rats arse about gamers.

So yes, he doesn't get why there is an outcry. He doesn't get it because he's detached from what gamers want. He doesn't share our point of view and that's why he thinks we're idiots for not bending over and grabbing our ankles.

5 up, 0 down

I heard a legend that say that "microtransactions" were called "unlockables" and "DLC" were called "Side Quests" and were included INSIDE the game WITHOUT a lock to pay for it...

Beautiful legend, if you ask me...

11 up, 2 down

What's with all the thumbs down? The Darkside, everywhere it is. I can hear the Emperor now "Good...Gooood!"

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Last edited by Excelsior1 on 3/5/2013 12:30:12 PM

5 up, 2 down

its probably pachter

7 up, 1 down

I totally get why people don't like microtransactions. What I don't get is this RAGE over their existence. How often did we pump quarters into arcade cabinets to prolong play some 20 years ago? How badly were we nickeled and dimed during the strategy guide/ps1 days before gamefaqs, et al came into existence?

Again, I get it, I'm not thrilled about the prospect of these sorts of microtransactions. But I have an easy solution for them -- I won't pay for them. And you can avoid them the same way. Easy right? So why get worked up over it?

5 up, 3 down

Addendum: to state the obvious, if microtransactions are so horrible, why do you think so many players are already paying for them? Some folks have no problem being nickeled and dimed for some extra stuff they want. I don't do it myself, but have no problem if someone else wants to do it.

2 up, 3 down

I wasn't really enraged until I saw EA's take on it. What he describes when charging for an ammo clip doesn't sound optional or easily avoided to me. You run out of ammo and want to continue the fight you have to give EA a dollar. That's really where they want take it and they seem confident they can.

Okay if they want to pull that stunt on free-to-play games but please keep it out of $60 games. They already have DLC, online passes and season passes. How many more revenue streams do they need? Sheesh. I guess greed is the creed. I guess I need to have my credit card in hand even after I paid full price for a game. Never know when I'll run out of ammo.

That's a slippery slope my friends. Like the poster above me said what's to stop them from tweaking the game so that you always need more ammo? The tempatation would definitely be there.

8 up, 2 down

If what you propose happens believe me, I'll be right there along side you in the internet mob screaming at the injustice of it. I just don't think we're anywhere close to that level right now. Someone wants to buy stuff instead of just find it in the game like a normal person, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. If they start taking away central missions, features, etc. from fully priced retail games and demand extra payments for that stuff down the line, you'll see this man get MAD ;)

3 up, 2 down

@Telly

Your analogies don't quite fit the situation here.

Arcades were fulfilling an actual demand from consumers. Players who didn't have an arcade cabinet, PC or console at home. These type of consumers wanted to play quality and popular videogames. That was a legitimate demand.

On the other hand, Micro transactions are a demand that is NOT coming from consumers at all. Its coming from shareholders and greedy execs.

There is absolutely no demand coming from consumers to pay full-price for games that are gimped. And to have to deal with a paywall in order to get the full gaming experience.

Pachter doesn't get the outcry, but I believe that most do.

5 up, 0 down

"no demand"? But people are paying for the microtransactions. That's why EA plans to ramp them up. Clearly, some players DO want to pay for this and that in the games they bought for full price at retail. If no one was paying for it, EA would have dropped the experiment quite quickly.

I do want to ask, too -- are games really getting "gimped" in this process? That's a serious question. Because everything I've seen is just options for players to buy extra ammo (like you can apparently do in Dead Space) or buying a new outfit/costume for your character that really has nothing to do with the story. I mentioned earlier that I see no evidence that EA is looking to chuck competitive balance out the window in multiplayer games by allowing players to just "pay to win," but honestly, maybe I'm missing something there. Let me know if I am. Bottom line for me, I don't see microtransactions gimping games at all. They're a service some gamers want (for reasons I don't really understand!) and are willing to pay for, and that's why we have them. Period.

I think it's important to remember, too, that while arcades were indeed meeting demand at one time... and then demand ceased, and they vanished very quickly. Pretty simple, really -- game companies are only going to sell things that consumers will buy.

1 up, 4 down

@Telly

Gamers do not pay for micro transactions because they demanded such a thing. We pay because its a system that has been set in place to take full advantage of our addiction to videogames.

Companies understand that we might complain about DLC's and micro transactions. But they also understand that videogames have become such an integral part of our daily lives, that we will go to great lengths to get the full gaming experience that they can offer us.

The problem is obviously not so much with these companies. But with us, the ones that keep doing the whole "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" routine, despite getting in exchange something trivial like a new costume or skin.

Yet the whole concept or idea of these micro transactions, is to set up a system where we pay more and more. The games are already expensive in their vanilla editions.

If things go mostly digital only next-gen, then a lot of gamers will not be able to afford to pay the default $60-70 dlls price tags at the online store. Nor will they be so willing to pay for all the extra stuff either. And that's when the outcry will only get worse.

Interesting times ahead.

5 up, 0 down

Good post, Telly. Good perspective.

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Last edited by Beamboom on 3/6/2013 10:13:19 AM

2 up, 0 down

He apparently hasnt heard of WAR Z... and while it maybe the exception to the rule, it shows the idea that microtransactions are going in.

1.) It creates a disadvantage amongst players, when you have some willing to pay for the extra armor or ammo and some who wont/cant afford to.
2.) It allows publishers like EA and Activision,etc. who will allow you to buy an incomplete game then charge you extra for story.
3.) It makes it seem at least that the developers/publishers are more concerned about money than the state of the games they produce.

I know his job is to only care about the monetary side of the game industry but those comments show the future of gaming. And if so, I cringe for that future.

8 up, 0 down

He must mean the players don't have to pay to "play" the game, not necessarily enjoy. I'm pretty sure they'll set it up so that players have to pay to get a decent "enjoyment" or satisfaction of the game. Otherwise, it'd be just like a "big" demo.

What I'm really worried about is how far companies may go with this. It's a model that they can easily take advantage of the consumers. We have to remember that companies do what's best for them, not us. Anything they do good for us, is for their benefit.

Now, I don't have a problem with that as that's the reality of business, but if this whole micro transaction thing takes over, it may be the end for gamers that want to experience a true "complete," single player experience. In fact we're already seeing this degrade somewhat with DLCs that offer "true" endings, and simple modes. Online gaming may actually work, but as far as single player, it's just too silly in my opinion. Like movies, it should be a single pay experience.

2 up, 0 down

On a side note, Kazunori Yamauchi had plans of micro-transactions back in 2006 in the announcement of Gran Turismo HD. One of his reasons to cancel the project was because he simply didn't like the idea of micro-transactions. On why that is exactly, I have no idea. If somebody knows, or know the article that talks about this please let me know.

0 up, 0 down

Pachter is an idiot.

3 up, 0 down

Those are all things that we used to unlock through effort in the past. It's essentially withheld content that is very easy to take offense at finding for ransom. Also it opens the door to more and more horrifyingly blatant consumer abuse.

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Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 3/5/2013 5:03:25 PM

4 up, 0 down

Its stupid plain and simple. Microtransactions can be disguised as "non essential" all they want but what are they adding to the game FOR the gamer? Nothing. To make matters worse, what if you dont "have" to pay for any of these but after playing the game for a while you realize that its not enjoyable or it is too much of a grind unless you do? This is the reality of a lot of F2P PC games.

People who play a lot of MMOs, or F2P fps games know exactly what I'm talking about. You get these micro barriers that dont add anything to the game for the gamer but are instead only there to increase the profit made.

The biggest kick to the face now is that we used to unlock things for free through effort. Instead now what we get are trophies that do nothing, and have to pay for unlocking new costumes and what not.

It costs money to make games, but SO many developers aren't doing this, so when someone says they are necessary I dont buy that for one second. Especially this late into a console generation where all the technology and engines being used are old.

The whole thing is a slippery slope, DLC, micros, online passes, annualization etc.

Its slippery because as time goes on the publisher just has to tell the devs to hold back on content. Sure the game might "look" complete but look at it this way, would FF7 still have felt complete without any of the minigames at the golden saucer? How about tifa and vincent as hidden characters? Of course it would, if all that stuff was cut NO one would be the wiser, and that is exactly what is scary about it.

You can probably think back to a lot of your favourite games and go you know, the game would be fine without that, or the story would still work without any of this part right here, or hey the mini games dont really "add" anything to the story or characters.

But that is the problem with all this DLC, micro stuff, over time people will get used to it, and the more used to it the majority is the worse it is going to get until gamers say woah I paid 60 bucks for a 2 hours game with 5 10 dollar DLC packs that are optional but really arent?

Dont get me wrong, Devs need to get paid, and I hate that more people have pirated the witcher 2 than have bought it, or at least last I read. But if CDprojekt red can make new engines, release free DLC and patches, and sell only a million copies and still profit enough to make a new engine for the witcher 3 and fund cyberpunk, then I don't think any other companies have an excuse.

Well they do have an excuse, the excuse is they HAVE to make more profit than the quarterly the year prior or they aren't growing and if they aren't growing they are failing. Thats why games are more "expensive" not the tech or the voice actors, its the profit margin has to increase or the corporation has "failed".

This is why year after year you see them trying to find new ways to get people to pay for stuff after they have bought the game. Sure its not required but if its out there and it has good enough trailers and marketing the dlc and micros will make them the profits they need.

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Last edited by xenris on 3/5/2013 5:21:27 PM

5 up, 0 down

Worst thing about this is that microtransactions affect game design. It's not something that's just grafted on top of a pre-existing game, but actually changes the way the game is made in the first place.

The only games I support 'em in are free-to-play games - as clearly it's the only way the devs get any money (and, not surprisingly, I dislike free-to-play games because the game design limitations of microtransactions mean they can't compete, for me personally, with other games where the game design isn't similarly limited). Elsewhere, there's no excuse. I would much rather pay a higher price up front and have an uncompromised game, thanks.

1 up, 0 down

Definitely, it means the game is designed around a fundamental flaw: that things must be held back.

3 up, 0 down

One developer who seems to get DLC right is Criterion, at least as far as Burnout Paradise and Need for Speed Most Wanted are concerned. The game, on-disc, is complete, and the add-ons they sell are exactly that: add-ons. The main areas are enormous, and none of the built-in modes are bastardized. Selling extra cars seems dumb to me, but they don't really affect gameplay.

2 up, 0 down

Wouldn't that suck if battlefield 4 ran like an iphone app, "Well you just completed the match, you can play again in 5 min. Or you could pay a dollar to play another match right now!"

4 up, 0 down

I think the issue really is that this trend is a big concern after the dlc issues that have over the last year or so. What I mean is that the premise that something adds to the game and does not affect it from its main play is alright.....BUT as we have seen with some DLC see these days the games we get feel incomplete and the devs/publishers hold back on already create content or assets for us to additional buy to make it feel complete while we are still paying the full price to what feels and looks like a incomplete game.

Pachter is correct to a point but the worry is will these micro-transactions end up like some of the DLC out there. Skins for characters and such is fine but not when they offer items that greatly change how the game is played. Might as well introduce God Mode back in to games so we can go through them and feel immortal. Many of the so called transactions look like preorders to me but I MIGHT be wrong. :)

That said.... if this is what people want then I guess thats what people shall purchase. Comes down to choice I suppose.

Keep Playing!!

1 up, 0 down

If that's all it truly was... additional and unnecessary content, I wouldn't feel angst.

But let's face it... holding back anything on purpose is a scary road to start down. Consumers having to pay to get ahead in a multiplayer world is already a very tempting road for developers to go down...

I have 0 trust that I will never be pissed off from being forced to buy something to get somewhere.

1 up, 0 down

so buying new more powerful weapons, is just dressing up your character and not changing the gameplay one bit is it?
god this guy is a moron!
gotta love how he makes it sound like that only social games like the sims offer MTs.
theres tons of games out there that force you to spend more money if you want to unlock the good stuff!

lets not forget preorder bonuses too, which are kinda MTs.
buy our game from this store, otherwise you miss out on the x day double XP.
hows that fair?
customer A gets a unfair advantage just because they have a certain store close to them, and customer B gets a unfair disadvantage because they dont have said store near them.

publishers need to go back to saying thank you for buying our game, not f*ck you for not buying it here, or f*ck you for not doing MTs, or whatnot.
maybe if publishers were not so f*cking greedy they would sell more copies thus alleviating the need for MTs!
as the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar!

2 up, 0 down

I understand the hate, though I think it's largely overblown and unwarranted. If publishers get so stupid as to leave out core parts of a game (actual core content, not "extra") to charge you more for them, they will eat a swift backlash.

Concerning "microtransactions" and "DLC" used to being called "unlockables", two things to note here:

1) Creating a decent extra costume in 2013 takes a lot longer (i.e. costs more, be it in man hours, skills required, etc) than in 2004. As has been stated repeatedly, game development costs have made stupidly large jumps since the end of the PSX era (about a 5 time increase from PS1 -> PS2, and ANOTHER five fold increase from PS2 to PS3). Even if PS3 to PS4 increase is minimal - I certainly hope so - the fact remains that, unless you want all games to go the iOS/Android simple stuff route, making games is prohibitively expensive and has been for years now. Developers and publishers will do what they have to to surivive, or else collapse. EA might not need the extra money now, but then again, I'm pretty sure THQ was looking pretty good not too long ago...

2) If they could have monetized the extras back then, they would have. Hell, Capcom's been doing this since 1993 with their fighters, only instead of releasing bits and pieces and charging for each separately, they just released large game updates and charged you for a whole new game.

Furthermore, developers/publishers will not include "extra" content that they don't think they can sell. They're putting in micro-transactions because players (in sufficient numbers) are buying them. If players do not buy them, THEY WILL NOT INCLUDE THE EXTRA CONTENT. There is some misguided notion that people whining about microtransactions have, where they think that the "extra" stuff will go back to being free and unblockable like in the old days if they complain loudly enough. It won't. If the extra content won't sell, it simply will not get made.

The alternative, of course, is to simply charge higher average prices for all games. There was a time when we used to pay US$80 for games (I paid this for various SNES games). Would the player base at large stand for this? Probably not. Nevertheless, I definitely think publishers need to start using more varied price points to better reflect what they're offering. Take the debacle Capcom experienced with Street Fighter x Tekken, for example.

Contrary to what whining players think, with SFxT Capcom offered a full game (38 characters, 43 on PS3) at US$60. But they made the "mistake" of developing and finishing a planned additional 12 character update early and including it on the disk. That update was NOT budgeted to be sold as part of the US$60 package. It was the equivalent of a full update, they very thing they traditionally released as a "new" game and charged full price for. Had Capcom sold an US$80 SFxT package at the onset that had all characters available, I think that would have gone down a lot better. Sure, they would still have been complaints, but they wouldn't have been the subject of the excessive vitriol that they did.

2 up, 2 down

What happens when they dilute games over time so we accept a barebones game as a "core" experience? What happens when we can't tell what was core and what wasnt? It is a slippery slope, when devs used to cram all the ideas they could into a game disc because they wanted that disc to have as much value as possible. Publishers now want to spread out the game as much as they can, and this is because of the corporate aspects of increasing quarterly earnings. Also they can do this because of the internet. It is easier than ever to cut out this and that and sell them later as 2 dollar downloads.

Also it doesn't cost much to skin and make costumes.

My friends who were just dicking around with source engine tools figured out how to make pretty good counterstrike maps in a month. This was when they were in highschool and knew not one damn thing about this stuff and used the internet and trial and error to figure things out.

Fastforward and you have devs working on old engines like UE3, Unity, Cryengine, and others that have been around for half a decade or more, and these devs are super familiar with them.

It DOES NOT take a lot of time to hammer out a skin or a costume for an engine that a dev is familiar with. It still takes some time but it certainly doesn't cost them much because they already usually have the engine paid off that they are working with.

I'm so sick of the argument that it costs sooooo much money to make games now. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO. Most of the time whats happening is publishers waste money getting hollywood voice talent, or wasting money other places(EA does this all the time) or they cut money from the games budget and then all of the sudden it is expensive because the devs have less money to work with(EA has a trend you can find online of cutting money from RnA and putting it into PR, it was up on reddit a while back)

As for capcom adding 12 characters after the game was launched that is a load of crap. Why does it cost them more to have a big roster when Tekken, Soul Calibur, heck even KoF all have huge rosters at launch?

Capcom seriously was just nickle and diming. How is it cool to release a game for 60 bucks, then release a more complete version for 40 bucks several months later and the early adopters have to either spend another 40 bucks so the game comes out at 100 bucks, or they buy the character DLC which is usually even more expensive in the long run?

Micro content will always be in games dude, people arent whining to get it for free, they are whining to let the publishers know that they aren't happy with it.

The problem is that idiots do buy this stuff and a lot of it. Its why F2P MMOs can end up making more money than if they had a 15 dollar sub. Humans given the opportunity will buy things to get an advantage or feel like they are. I play Tribes Ascend on the PC and many MANY people bought newly released guns that werent "better"(although they were) instead of unlocking them for free through play time.

The trend in Tribes was they would release a gun that was OP as heck, then they would nerf it a bit once sales declined. This happens in League of Legends, and a lot of other popular F2P or micro based games.

It is just a scummy ass model, and companies like Valve, and CDprojekt red do just fine without doing any of this crap.

So I don't buy whatever BS excuse publishers come up with as to why we "need" micros or day one DLC.

I'm not alone either, there are a LOT of industry veterans like Brian Fargo, and Tim Schaefer who hate the corporate direction gaming has gone.

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Last edited by xenris on 3/7/2013 11:38:56 AM

1 up, 1 down

$$$$ talks; sad.

0 up, 0 down

People hate micro-transactions because after paying full price for a game companies now want to charge for features/functions/items/whatever that should have and were a part of games in the past. Top it off, it's evolved into a "pay to win" scheme which is even more annoying. This isn't about expanding the re-playability of a game as DLC was originally intended to be, that's fine when done properly and fairly priced but publishers are in a constant quest to generate more revenue have abused the crap out of it and eventually it will come back to bite them in the ass. How many people now skip the release of a new game where they would have been there on day one? How many now either way for a significant price drop or a "game of the year edition" because we've now become accustomed to that sort of thing happening?


But those who are really to blame are those who bitch yet partake in it. Micro transactions belong in F2P games and nothing else.

0 up, 0 down

Once a company figures out they can do something and get away w/ it they will move onto the next item on their list of things to try. Eventually companies will get to the point where they will start charging to play side quest and making main missions take just a handful of hours so that if you want to play for longer you'll have to buy side missions... Years ago game companies wouldn't have dreamt of charging extra for in-game content at all... The future of gaming is looking poorer and poorer unfortunately... My gaming life might not make it too many more generations.

0 up, 0 down