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The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’ (www.forbes.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/gaming@beehaw.org
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If reception to Baldur’s Gate says anything, it’s that people hate microtransactions in their AAA games.

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[–] 74 points 3 years ago* (25 children)

The job of the AAA gaming company is to make money, not good games.

For the same reason McDonalds is never going to serve filet mignon, big gaming companies are never going to release feature-compete passion projects.

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  • [–] 34 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    Not exactly, though I see your point. I think it would be more accurate if McDonald's charged for ketchup, mustard, salt, drink cups, lids, straws etc.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (7 children)

    The big difference with physical goods is that it's much harder to steal a McDonald's burger that it is to crack a single player, offline game. Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it's a consumables.

    On the other hand games are prone to piracy, expecially on pc, you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase.

    It isn't strange that developers look at dlc, microtransanction or game as a service with subscription, because they allow a stable flow of income that can support development, and it's harder to avoid paying when the game is always online and stuff like that.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.

    The same goes for single-player offline games, though. There's only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you've seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.

    you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase

    If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    There's only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you've seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.

    You're absolutely right, but that's true from "your perspective". For you the fame might last 50 hours and that's all, but the developers still need to work on big patches, content and fixes even years after release.

    If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust

    And this introduces another topic I think. Would the average consumer willing to spend more for a game with everything in it? AAA already cost 70$ at launch, would the average consumer accept further price increases, or would selling plummet in comparison with reduced price+dlc or free to play with microtransanction?

    At the end companies are not inherently "evil" they just look for what works and what doesn't by trial and error

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    the developers still need to work on big patches, content and fixes even years after release

    Why would they need to do that? If it's years down the line, there shouldn't be any bugs left to fix by that point. And offline single-player games don't need regular content drops. Sure, an expansion or two might be nice, but those don't come free. Only online games need to constantly feed their players new content in order to keep them hooked and coming back to buy more MTX.

    Would the average consumer willing to spend more for a game with everything in it? AAA already cost 70$ at launch, would the average consumer accept further price increases, or would selling plummet in comparison with reduced price+dlc or free to play with microtransanction?

    Oh sales would plummet for sure, but it would still make a profit, just not as much. If From Soft and Larian can do it, everyone can. They just don't wanna. (see below)

    At the end companies are not inherently “evil” they just look for what works and what doesn’t by trial and error

    That really depends on your definition of "works". Sure, it's a business, but what's the goal? To me there seems to be a noticeable difference between companies that want to make good games, for which the business side of things is just a means to an end, and companies that want to make as much money as possible, where the games are the means to that end. Is that latter category 'evil'? Maybe not strictly speaking, but I have no concern for those companies whatsoever, they can go fuck themselves.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Movies and books exist and they are one time purchases that you use once and stop interacting with. Why do games get special excuses for being extremely exploitative and shitty to their players? I don't have to pay for a book chapter by chapter or pay extra for a character to appear, but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.

    The game industry makes lots of excuses for it's shitty behavior but none of them hold water.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.

    This is an affirmation many writers would find offensive lol

    The editorial sector is in deep crisis, it's really hard to live off as a writer unless you're ridiculously famous.

    Same thing for the filmmaking industry, look at protest of screenwriters and actors, and to companies terrible financial sheets, and to movie theaters basically bankrupting as maybe their time is over. Also we both agree there's been a shift from movies to tv series and one of the reason is that you "buy the product piece by piece"?

    Ps: funnily enough, period publication of chapters were a thing until not long ago, and still are in somewhere (for example manga in Japan)

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago*

    Webnovel sites in Korea and China sell books one chapter at a time, and some of their publishers are trying to break into the Western market with the same structure (ie Wattpad bought by naver, Webnovel.com owned by Qidian). They also like using virtual currency for buying chapters. Korean and Chinese web comics are also sold this way. Publishers really like the microtransaction money no matter the industry. If they could figure out how to sell microtransactions for movies I bet they would do it.

    Side note: I downloaded this chinese app for downloading region locked games on mobile and they somehow figured out how to put gacha in it. Publishers seem to do anything for money no matter how little sense it makes.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    The movies industry is no better, they too try to get as much money as possible and they do for example with product placement.

    If they could find a way to make you pay a few bucks more to see the protagonist on a unicorn instead of a horse you can bet they would.

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  • [–] 29 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    Witcher 3, the Last of Us (ps3), Baldurs Gate 3, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Elden Ring, Read Dead Redemption 2 (offline), Zelda, etc...

    There are plenty of triple A games that were well received that didn't involve gambling and mtx.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (6 children)

    You simply listed exceptions, thus proving the rule stated by @whatisallthis

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    How many exceptions do you need before it no longer being an exception, 50%?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    But you listed less than 1 percent?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Sorry for not combing through every major release since tetris and making a perfectly objective list of every good game of which most them I've never even seen gameplay of.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (2 children)

    Why so salty bro? Maybe go outside, meet some people. That usually helps me when I´m grumpy ...

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Salty? I listed a bunch of games that are clearly made by passionate developers and have been part of defining of defining the space in recent history. You are the one leaving a snarky comment that I listed less than 1 percent of games as if that proves anything.

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