Games have changed. Since the early 80′s, which is when my own personal recollection of the industry really starts to kick in, the medium has gone from bedroom developers and simple budgets to become this charging, multi-billion dollar wave of AAA monsters.
And over the next few weeks I’ll explore exactly how it’s all changed by way of specific titles that illustrate key aspects of the shift. First up was a blog about Damocles, a 16-bit space adventure that still embarrasses modern, so-called open world titles.
Part one: The Magic Wishing Crystal.
This week? Once more into the murky world of microtransactions.
A confession. Remember Need For Speed: Carbon? I bought the R34 with real cash (or, at least, Microsoft Points). Not because it’s my all time favourite car (it is) or that I had a bit of spare cash lying around (i did) but because I couldn’t be bothered grinding my way through the game, the trickle feed of cash, spare parts and engine enhancements a little too boring. My Ellipse could only go so far.
So, 80 Microsoft Points down, I had a tier 3 car that could take me to the end of the game, right from the beginning. And it did. Am I a cheat? Am I a failure? Is all this moaning about Dead Space 3 just a repressed, conflicting feeling of deep guilt and embarrassment?
Nope, because it was right for me at the time. It was right for EA, too – the total cost of the DLC for Carbon was around $100, but it was, according to EA CEO at the time Larry Probst, a success. “It’s generating a lot of money through microtransactions,” he said of the game. “So it’s a learning process, it’s iterative and we’ll get better about it as we go.”
“Need for Speed is the first example of getting smarter about it.”
Indeed it was. Whilst Carbon then offered a rather unique take on the pay-to-cheat model, nowadays it’s commonplace enough that we no longer bat much of an eye-lid. In this case those microtransactions were pretty much all attainable from playing the game regularly – you didn’t actually have to buy anything. It was carefully done, but for those that wanted to avoid the boring churn, a way ahead was offered up for a minimal charge.
And, presumably, lapped up by countless punters (including myself) who just wanted a quicker way through the game. It’s essentially lazy, but it’s also paying to cheat, and it’s ridiculously smart on the part of the publisher. But is this method of financial extraction actually new? Did EA really kickstart this whole idea?
Retro gaming: all happy smiles with whimsical tales of overly generous bedroom developers wanting to give out free birthday cakes to everyone that bought their games, right? Rose tinted glasses can mess with your memory: whilst it’s true that the genesis of gaming was about exactly that, it didn’t take long before players were asked to part with their cash if they wanted a leg-up. It just wasn’t known as microtransactions.
Chances are you’ll have forgotten about premium rate phone numbers designed to coax the struggling gamer to pick up the phone and spend a good few quid listening to the entire solution to whatever was the game of the month just to get to the bit you were currently having issues with. And that’s after you’d bought the magazine that housed back pages packed with such greedy money-grabbing nonsense.
You’ll be needing a map, Mister Mole.
And if your dad wasn’t keen on you hogging the phoneline with dodgy looking numbers, magazines were the only source of decent cheats back then. Before BBS’s appeared and newsgroups flourished, it was either Crash! magazine or the word of your mates. Getting my hands on a proper map for Auf Wiedersehen Monty (above) was a life saver, but you’d be the cost of a magazine down for your troubles. Yes, I’m aware that the concept isn’t exactly black and white here, but you get the idea.
As the web started to gain traction, certain publishers took the initiative to try something different. Square attempted to leverage the internet with their own PlayOnline service (an online portal that kicked off with Final Fantasy IX) but the pages didn’t stay around for long – try finding a guide for a game older than XI.
But mostly, and I think I’m right in saying this, cheat codes – the ones you actually typed in to get goodies in return – were plentiful. Nobody could stop one person passing on a code to another, they weren’t specific to a game and they weren’t tied to anyone’s account. I still remember all of DOOM’s letter for letter (or at least the good ones), I immediately fire in WRITETYPER whenever I play Jet Set Willy, and the rather naughty one that helps the player no end in cutesy platformer The New Zealand Story is forever etched in my brain.
Some cheat codes are legion – think of the Konami code (still used by Netflix) – but there are others for sure, and ones like Colossal Cave Adventure’s XYZZY are still used much more recently: that one appeared in Deus Ex, for example. Perhaps the most fondly remembered though are Grand Theft Auto 3’s – a series of codes that dramatically changed the game and meant you never really had to bother with the main campaign for maximum fun.
There’s at least two sites still dedicated to the transmission of such codes. Cheats are still big business, but the landscape is changing dramatically and it’s now rare to find a game with simple controller input codes built in. The point is that once publishers found a way to grant cheats via the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PSN Store, history was changed forever.
The latest game to fall under the spotlight of the gaming press is EA’s Dead Space 3, which features about $40 of DLC. It’s been blasted from some quarters but not necessarily for the fact that there’s paid for cheat codes.
Rather, Isaac’s latest adventure is peppered by something altogether different: repeated transactions – as the game progresses the player will be prompted to part with real cash in exchange for in-game resources, as often as the situation arises. I’ve not played the game yet and so don’t now the regularity of this, but it’s a brave new world for the publisher, and it’s something they’ve done so that smartphone gamers (who are used to this constant trickle of purchases in certain games) don’t feel alienated. Well, that’s really nice.
Dead Space 3, out very soon.
The publisher is keen to stress that gamers don’t have to go down this route – they can scavenge for resources in the game itself and that the system is only in place for those that want to just push through the story and buy up the better weapons quickly, but if it works, like Carbon, this will be everywhere very quickly.
Whether or not that’s an issue depends on your viewpoint on whether a £40 game should be bold enough to then attempt to charge you again and again. It’s my personal opinion that whilst cashing out for the Skyline in Need For Speed showed a lack of control (and perhaps time) I’m going to stay very clear of boosting my resources in Dead Space 3. That may be tricky, as it’s clear from the other DLC – there are three $5 downloads that boost the abilities of the bot that is used to scavenge resources – that EA really want to see how this works.
There’s also the issue over whether this is really paying for a cheat. One could argue that it’s not – you’re paying for in-game currency with which you can spend on whatever you want – but it’s paying for something and that’s where the issues are.
DLC and microtransactions are no longer alien to gamers. They’re there in the majority of games and we’ve gotten used to them. The ones that offer us something tangible, like an expansion pack in a free-roaming adventure or even new costumes for a fighting game, aren’t normally the subject of much discussion. The ones that are basically cheat codes and unlocks aren’t met with as much grace from consumers, even though they can be (mostly) ignored.
It’s a curious quandary, and it feels like Project $10 (the online pass system) all over again. Is the age of the type-in cheat dead and buried? Are we as gamers now reluctantly (or otherwise) okay with throwing the publisher a dollar or two to boost our way through their latest game? Have we just accepted that we’re going to be nickle and dimed for pretty much everything going forward?
I’m keen to see where EA’s latest venture goes. If it’s widely accepted and the microtransactions flow their way, it’ll be interesting to see how similar ideas will be echoed in other games. Fuel for your car? Bullets for your gun? Another life when you’ve expended the ones you were given at the start? It’s all about choice just now, but anyone who follows the smartphone gaming world closely will know that ultimately that choice gets taken away.
psychobudgie
Micro-transactions have a place on tablets and phones where the average game costs a couple of quid. When I, however, am asked to pay £40 and upwards for a game I do not expect to have to fork out a further 40-100 quid for the “full experience”. If they want to move to a micro-transaction based sales model they should follow the entire model and release their games for a token fee or for free.
Youles
This is my view too, although I take it a but further and include DLC – when there is a lot of DLC. In my view DLC should be a small amount of additional stuff, therefore not alienating the people who don’t buy it, but not a further 50% (content) of the original game. £40 should be sufficient to experience the majority of a game, and especially when some games these days are released broken.
3shirts
The problem I have is that to make the micro-transactions enticing they nix the game so obtaining whatever resource takes a ridiculous amount of time and grinding. It spoils the nice balance and flow that makes games like Need For Speed work so well.
KeRaSh
Why is this even a thing? People moan left and right that Dead Space turned into an action shooter instead of staying true to its survival horror roots and when they make the action experience optional through DLC and keep the vanilla experience about surviving and gathering limited ressources it’s suddenly wrong?
BrendanCalls
I worry about that too. Its all to tempting for the resources to be more limited than they would have been had the micro-transaction not been there.
Just gotta hope that temptation is resisted
KeRaSh
Weapon A: Ressources required to craft: 3 Scrap / 2 Plasma (just making stuff up to make a point). Cost of required ressources: 1-3€
Weapon B: Ressources required to craft: 2 Scrap / 3 Plasma. Cost of required ressources: 1-3€
Hey, maybe a 5€ ressource pack is enough to even craft more than one weapon, since it adds to the stuff you find in the game anyways?
Price of a DLC pack in Dead Space 1: 1-4€ according to a Dead Space wiki.
So no, this is NOT any different from just straight out buying regular DLC and it’s essentially the same as Microsoft Points, no matter how many articles you write to convince people of the opposite.
I wonder why we don’t see a few articles a week about Microsoft Points…
Alex C
Of course it’s different. How many times can you buy DLC in Dead Space 1? Yup,. once.
Besides, the article isn’t entirely about Dead Space 3.
KeRaSh
How many times would you craft the same weapon with the same ressources? You buy the ressources for the weapon you want to craft once and then craft it. If you want another weapon without hunting down the components you buy the ressources for it again and craft that in the game.
You can twist and turn it all you want but the essence is the same. You pay money, you get stuff. Wether you get the weapon directly, or you have to craft it with the material you bought doesn’t change a thing.
Would you be fine with the whole thing if every weapon used separate components that you could purchase instead of all weapons utilizing the same materials? Think about it.
You also completely ignored my comparison to Microsoft Points.
bunimomike
Nofi, fella. What does this mean?
“Some cheat codes are legion”
hazelam
what about ammo?
you can spend the resources on the store for ammo right?
LTG Davey
Personally I like the idea of micro-transactions more than I do DLC.
Micro-transactions are simply shortcuts to existing content, DLC is blocking content off to the player unless they cough up the cash.
Bilbo_bobbins
So what is Dead Space 3 doing then? The content is available before the game is released?
I agree most DLC is done before release too, but at least it isn’t drip fed to you like micro transactions. Most of the time, they drip feed you a small transaction, only to find you need to buy something else for it to work properly or get the full use of the original purchase. DLC is extra content and works, normally.
LTG Davey
It’s a tricky subject (hence the discussion article I guess, lol).
Personally I don’t really like either model (over the past 6 years I’ve bought 3 pieces of DLC and a single micro-transaction), but at least with the MT model, I can play through a game normally (as I intend to with Dead Space) and know I’m not missing out on extra stuff.
Pre-order DLC is the one that winds me up the most. Just because I bought my game from RetailerA instead of RetailerB shouldn’t mean that I miss out on extra missions, skins, weapons, perks, etc. Granted they eventually filter onto the PSN/XBL marketplaces but then you need to fork out extra cash for them. Seems a bit unfair.
LTG Davey
The only time MTs fall apart is when this “pay to win” mechanic filters through to a game’s online component. Racing games mostly fall foul of this, where you can unlock the best possible cars for just a few MS points.
Moshbag
Up, L1, Triangle, Right, forever ingrained in my brain as the code to unlock Sweet Tooth in Twisted Metal 2. Although there was no purchase or internet needed for this, it was written in lights on the ground in the New York level if you were to plummet to your death in the right place. Happy days.
bunimomike
Superbly remembered!! Up, down, up, up, left, right did a Minion-style attack too if I’m not mistaken. *happy sigh*
Peter Chapman
I like the options opened up by the paid-for boosting. I bought training packs in Fight Night that allowed me to become a better boxer, faster. I don’t like it if there seems to be a balance shift in the gameplay to encourage people to spend on boosting. Or if that boosting can be used to gain advantage in the online portion of a game.
It’s a delicate balance, I suppose.
It’ll be really interesting to see if GTA V still has the cheat codes or if Take Two are too keen to cash in on the profitable system of DLC microtransactions.
hazelam
one of the things that i don’t like about this kind of thing, is how they’re ok with players getting unearned help in a competitive multiplayer game, if you pay them for it.
if you did it any other way, you’d get banned.
but, buy the better car, or buy the better weapons and it’s fine.
Omac_brother
I have absolutely no quarms about micro-transactions in its current format. If somebody wants to pay a little extra to make the game easier, let them go for it. When content starts to be withheld by publishers and devs to sell on for further dollar, thats when I will start kicking up a fuss.
Kevatron400
Next gen they’re actually going to have built-in coin slots in the consoles, in which you need to deposit 50p in for an in-game ‘credit’ which is essentially a life or three. Then, when you lose all your lives, you’ll get a ten-second countdown in which to ‘continue’ by putting more coins in, otherwise your game ends.
Wait…
plutoniumdragon
Please don’t, I’m already feeling old enough thank you ;)
plutoniumdragon
I’m old enough to remember using a BBS to get cheat codes! ;)
And the fun of PEEKing through memory looking for anything that might be interesting…
Back to the point I agree that micro-transactions are fine, as long as what is on offer is also available by playing the game. Unless the items are cosmetic, if people want to pay for “special” in-game outfits or paint schemes that’s up to them ;)
Buying yourself “immortal” status is taking things too far though – more of a problem in the PC arena I guess.