Microtransactions - Or why it does not work

Crni Vuk

Crni Vuk

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I think it is pretty interesting even though if I have no clue how accurate their conclusions are as its always rather difficult to talk for the gamers as "whole group".

Season 2, Ep. 25 - Microtransactions

But what I think is that microtransactions are usually never that good for the consumer.

But hell yeah. As long people are at least willingly to spend their money on something like this ... well. I doubt much will change.

Eve Online now selling $70 monocles

Eve Online’s Incarna update launched yesterday. In addition to the ability to walk around outside your ship, you can also buy micro-transacted items to spruce up your avatar. The problem? The cost of these items is far, far beyond most DLC prices, and it’s affecting the delicate Eve economy.

EVE Evolved: The day that EVE Online died

I think it's safe to say that this week has been an unmitigated disaster for CCP Games. Following last week's $99 license fee fiasco for third-party developers, CCP Zulu managed to claw back some player support with a segment addressing the issue during the alliance tournament. This week CCP followed up with the release of Incarna 1.0 and its long-awaited captain's quarters. Players logged in to walk around their private rooms and check out the various cosmetic items available for purchase in the new microtransaction store.

I never was a fan of those microtransactions. And it seems rightfully so. Yeah. Sure. If done right. Might work for both. Gamers and Developers/Publishers. But how many of the mare doing it right ? Only a handfull. If any.
 
Didn't you notice that it only applies if you BUY PLEX? You can also buy PLEX with in-game currency (ISK) and exchange them for Aurum, making the cost of, say, that monocle nil.
 
Tagaziel said:
Didn't you notice that it only applies if you BUY PLEX? You can also buy PLEX with in-game currency (ISK) and exchange them for Aurum, making the cost of, say, that monocle nil.
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1. Its not only about EVE. Its about the whole idea behind mincrotransactions which is somewhat rotten to the core - You could as well take Wofld of Tanks for example where you can buy high level "premium tanks" which generate more experience and credits on the cost of smaller tanks which now have to deal with more "premium" tanks of higher levs instead of following the usual way of working your way up to the "high level tanks".

The industry rarely if ever does it in the favour of the consumer.

2. Do you think it's good to start with 70$ monocles regardless if you can "earn" them in the game somehow ? How many hours are you going to spend to "grind" those useless shit items ? That leaves you almost with only 2 options. Spend money on it. Or dont get it. Because seriously. Grinding for that useless stuff ? It is also not only about that monocle. The whole clothes/stuff in EVE are completely overprized. Which means you will spend a huge amount of time to get the needed resources only for that. Sure. its the choice of the players. As always. But that does not make it more "right". - Again it's the idea behind it which seems to be reather lead by greed then sensible profit. And I always thought greed is bad.

Per said:
Need more Microtransaction Velociraptor!
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as usuall. Per blows and owns the tread again.
 
Crni Vuk said:
1. Its not only about EVE. Its about the whole idea behind mincrotransactions which is somewhat rotten to the core - You could as well take Wofld of Tanks for example where you can buy high level "premium tanks" which generate more experience and credits on the cost of smaller tanks which now have to deal with more "premium" tanks of higher levs instead of following the usual way of working your way up to the "high level tanks".

The industry rarely if ever does it in the favour of the consumer.

2. Do you think it's good to start with 70$ monocles regardless if you can "earn" them in the game somehow ? How many hours are you going to spend to "grind" those useless shit items ? That leaves you almost with only 2 options. Spend money on it. Or dont get it. Because seriously. Grinding for that useless stuff ? It is also not only about that monocle. The whole clothes/stuff in EVE are completely overprized. Which means you will spend a huge amount of time to get the needed resources only for that. Sure. its the choice of the players. As always. But that does not make it more "right". - Again it's the idea behind it which seems to be reather lead by greed then sensible profit. And I always thought greed is bad.
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Greed is good. Human greed has been the motivator for most of human progress, such as technology, arts and research.

And I don't really get your point. If you don't want to spend cash, uh, don't spend it? Or buy it with in-game monies (grinding is an inherent part of EVE)?
 
cant argue with a die hard capitalist though ...

foodforcar1.jpg


greed. A huge motivator. Indeed.
 
League of Legends does this really well in my opinion. you collect Influence Points by playing the game, which you then can spend on champions and runes to improve your champions with. for real money, you can purchase Riot Points, which you can spend on champions instead of Influence Points, on new skins for champions or on boosts that will double your XP or IP income for a certain amount of time. runes can however still only be bought with IP and are a very important part of the game, which means you can't simply buy yourself to the top - you still have to play the game.

every week there's a new "champion rotation" allowing you to play a bunch of the champions for free, so even if you haven't spent IP or RP to buy them you will eventually get the chance to try all of them.

this way you can play the game totally for free and be just as competative as someone who spends a lot of money on it. the money you spend on it is only for aesthetic reasons or to save you time farming XP/IP (which you get at a pretty high rate without boosts anyway). the game never forces you to spend money, and doesn't even attempt to shove reasons for spending money in your face. it's all very tastefully done.
 
Crni Vuk said:
cant argue with a die hard capitalist though ...

foodforcar1.jpg


greed. A huge motivator. Indeed.
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If you're not going to take the other party seriously and discuss in a manner befitting intelligent people, why don't you say so, instead of linking political cartoons?
 
me not taking it seriously ? Wait a min.

Tagaziel said:
Greed is good. Human greed has been the motivator for most of human progress, such as technology, arts and research.

And I don't really get your point. If you don't want to spend cash, uh, don't spend it? Or buy it with in-game monies (grinding is an inherent part of EVE)?
Click to expand...


Tagaziel said:
Greed is good
Click to expand...

Tagaziel said:
Greed is good
Click to expand...

and you expect from me to stay serious ? Well. Greed is not the same like as you confuse it with "ambitions". Greed does not lead to positive results. Just as how violence does not lead to good results. But lets leave it as that. But usualy greed is widely accepted as something negative.

I am bafflwed how few actually understand the principles of economy/business. In every school which I used to visit and where we had economics (the basics of it of course) one of the most important things they teached us was to generate profit. But. Not profit for every price. Fairness was just as important. Fairness toward your consumers for example. That is one of the reasons why many dont think very positively about people walking from door to door with the intention to look out for eldery people selling them a internetconection even if they dont have a PC (or any other internet using device) at home. Profit ? Sure. Nice. But "correct" ? Thats a different question. Now if we both would be part of this kind of people then I would of course agree with you Tag.
Quark,_2376.jpg


Tag. Dont get me wrong. I do respect your opinion and I know youre some inteligent lad. But forget the greedy polish personality in you for once :P

I mean there are many ways how to generate profit. Selling cigarets/acohol to teenagers. Exploting the dementia of eldery people. Selling weapons to african child soldiers. Yes. Greed really motivates the best of our in us!
 
How can something which is 70 dollars be called a micro-transaction? That may be the general term for the type of payment in games but $70 is just absurd to spend on pixels to me.
 
I think microtransactions are a way to go. For example, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online can now be played for free due to this system. Of course you will have to pay sooner or later, but hey - you get a really big chunk of the game free of charge, and then you don't have to spend that much to play on.

For example, I was level 34 in LOTRO and haven't bought a single thing, mostly got my Turbine Points from Deeds. Then I could buy a new region for small cash and play for hours more, or buy an expansion for reasonable price and play even more. It's OK if you ask me, certainly better than having to pay 15 Euros or Dollars per month, which is absolultly absurd to me.
 
Crni Vuk said:
me not taking it seriously ? Wait a min.

and you expect from me to stay serious ? Well. Greed is not the same like as you confuse it with "ambitions". Greed does not lead to positive results. Just as how violence does not lead to good results. But lets leave it as that. But usualy greed is widely accepted as something negative.

I am bafflwed how few actually understand the principles of economy/business. In every school which I used to visit and where we had economics (the basics of it of course) one of the most important things they teached us was to generate profit. But. Not profit for every price. Fairness was just as important. Fairness toward your consumers for example. That is one of the reasons why many dont think very positively about people walking from door to door with the intention to look out for eldery people selling them a internetconection even if they dont have a PC (or any other internet using device) at home. Profit ? Sure. Nice. But "correct" ? Thats a different question. Now if we both would be part of this kind of people then I would of course agree with you Tag.

Tag. Dont get me wrong. I do respect your opinion and I know youre some inteligent lad. But forget the greedy polish personality in you for once :P

I mean there are many ways how to generate profit. Selling cigarets/acohol to teenagers. Exploting the dementia of eldery people. Selling weapons to african child soldiers. Yes. Greed really motivates the best of our in us!
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Again, if you are going to try cheap strawman arguments, don't bother posting. You are arbitrarily picking out worst examples that are a miniscule part of the global economy.

Greed is the great motivator. It is understandable that you automatically equate greed with evil, but think upon it. What motivated the greatest advances in human history? It was greed.

Some were greedy for money, others were greedy for knowledge or splendor. But at the end, it was all the same: the identical desire to have something that others do not. You can make up fancy talk about ideals, fairness or other nice concepts, but at the end of the day, what motivates most humans is self-interest and our base instincts.

And it's good. Because that gives us technology. Because that gives us medicine. Because if we weren't selfish fucks looking to get an advantage over others, we'd be stuck in pre-neolitic hippie communes, happy to dance around in perfect harmony.

And, by the way, the player isn't intended to pay 70$ for a monocle. That's the editor's self-made calculation, and it's clear that the EVE Online developers intend for players to buy Aurum with in-game currency, rather than buy PLAX with real money. Otherwise, why give them the ability to purchase playing time with in-game currency? Which is, y'know, fair?
 
I'm thinking Microtransaction Velociraptor: the Animated Series, running for two seasons of twelve 7-minute episodes each.
 
Per said:
I'm thinking Microtransaction Velociraptor: the Animated Series, running for two seasons of twelve 7-minute episodes each.
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Why not ten minutes? Or are you leaving space for Trauma T-Rex ads?
 
here is why i think they made that monocole so expensive.


they provide the ability to buy game time or PLEX with in-game money. that means you dont have to pay real money for anything as everything can be bought with in-game money if you make enough or have enough.

EVE has been going for 9+ years and there is a frightening amount of money in their economy overall. so they came to the realization that games like UO discovered a decade ago. there must be not only methods to gain money, there must also be money sinks. there is a point where the entry requirements for the game become so large because everyone else has so much money it makes it much harder for new people to come into your game. if new players cannot get into the game due to the cost of even middle or even low range equipment/gear/upgrades, then you have a large entry barrier.

entry barriers are not good. they make your game stagnate as it creates a massive difference between the "haves" and "have nots" which is extremely undesireable.

so what did the people behind EVE do? they created vanity items as a money sink. the goal is to REMOVE money from the economy.


because they waited so long to add real money sinks, they have to have some things that are high priced.
 
Tagaziel said:
Again, if you are going to try cheap strawman arguments, don't bother posting. You are arbitrarily picking out worst examples that are a miniscule part of the global economy.
Click to expand...
Hey. You confuse greed with ambitions. Again.

I am somewhat surprised how many seem to "enjoy" the idea of microtransactions here (or I get something wrong). Considering the fact how much at a disadvantage the consumer here is.

But well. Each to his own I guess.
 
Maybe because, as TheWesDude points out, they're moneysinks for all the in-game virtual currencies?

Second, ambition is just a fancy, politically correct name for greed.
 
Well you can't fairly connect the problem of the microtransactions (i.e. the fact that you can buy in-game money or items with real money) and the problem of the internal economy of the game.
Having money-sinks may be a good thing if the internal economy is isolated from the real life economy.
But here it's obviously not.

I for one will never play a game where real life money has too much of an impact on the in game mechanics. But that's just me, you do what you like.
 
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