Microtransactions: Selling in-game content for real money

[Krikkitone]

Accept that thats just how it works.


I said this before but since people are missing it i will reexplain. The complaint isnt against microtransactions. The complaint is against microtransactions leading to low quality to price products.

But maybe you think a model that costs one fourth of an expansion pack is the same quality to price.

They provide a Quality to Price that is sufficient for the people that buy them.

If people want to pay money for Blizzard crap models then that is fine (its not crap to them).
As long as Blizzard turns out non-crap games for a reasonable price, I will buy those.
If Blizzard stops producing non-crap games, I will hold my money ready to buy if someone starts making non-crap RTS games again.

As long as the microtransactions don't extend to Game play (ie Want to get a Hive, that'll be 200 min 150 gas and $ 0.01) then its fine.


But if you are complaining about low Quality to Price.... you really should be looking at our entire society.... 60-80% of the entire industrialized economy is spent buying, borrowing to buy, making, and marketing crap. Save your money so you can buy the non-crap the industrialized world makes.
*There will always be a market for non-crap, its just a lot smaller than the market for crap.


ps remember quality is relative... the price of that crappy model may be the same for you and someone else, but to Them it is higher quality... so it might even be a higher Quality to Price ratio than the game itself. (for them)

[pure.Wasted]

Its not about the price. Its about the price to quality ratio. Just because that is subjective does not mean it doesnt exist.

And you think that a $100 difference between WC3 and WC3 CE, for a soundtrack CD and an artbook, was warranted?

I did. I bought it.

Plenty of people think Lil'KT is worth $10, because they bought him, too.

[newcomplex]

Are we talking about now or when the game first came out?

In Canada WC3 went for $60. TFT went for $50. This is standard.

No matter how much they cost, though, that discrepancy between Product X and Product X CE will always exist. It's absolutely no different from the sort of microtransactions that have been brought up by Blizzard in the context of WoW/SC2.

PC games are usually all 50$ in U.S, except for MW2 lol

Do you really believe that? That they are forcing themselves to take your money because its the only way to prevent people from doing it often.

And you cant think of any other way they could possibly discourage people from changing gender?



The real question everyone needs to ask themselves is "If it wasnt for the microtransaction trend would I be able to change gender for free? Would it have just been included in a patch?"

Without micro transaction, blizzard would have implemented a system of rules and regulations that would have lead to far more abuse and wierdness then a microtransaction. I already addressed this. Putting real life monetary is really the most efficient way of limiting a service to the people serious about it in game, and causes less lorelols because it doesnt have to be even considered canon.

Making money AND a simple system of regulations. Awesome

Accept that thats just how it works.


I said this before but since people are missing it i will reexplain. The complaint isnt against microtransactions. The complaint is against microtransactions leading to low quality to price products.

But maybe you think a model that costs one fourth of an expansion pack is the same quality to price.

ZOMG LOW QUALITY TO PRICE PRODUCTS

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Sh.../9780743423182

[Nicol Bolas]

The real question everyone needs to ask themselves is "If it wasnt for the microtransaction trend would I be able to change gender for free? Would it have just been included in a patch?"

Would I be able to change genders at all? There are quite a few MMOs that don't let you do that, after all.

This nonsense goes all the way back to the "horse armor" in one of those RPGs I don't remember. People didn't like it, they didn't buy it, so the developers didn't try it again.

Let the market work these things out. Just because something might have been free in the past doesn't mean it should be free in the future.

Those fancy-schmancy graphics that gamers insist on having in the games they buy cost more money than they did 5 years ago too. Yet the price of PC games is stable: $50 (which itself is worth less than it was 5 years ago, thanks to inflation). If game developers get yelled at for raising the base price of their games, then their only option is to find alternate means of getting money.

[ArcherofAiur]

ZOMG LOW QUALITY TO PRICE PRODUCTS

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Sh.../9780743423182

lol point in case old blue.

[deadlock]

Goddamn blizzard should be giving us this shit for free

fuck

[unentschieden]

Well thats the crux. Microtransactions allow Blizzard to offer us content not valid for conventional channels aka expansions. Unfortunately they would also allow them to charge us for stuff that SHOULD be free. It´s basically the DLC issue for the PC.
Blizzard is thankfully conscious about the issue, after official (the dark portal) and inofficial (the nonblizzard SC "expansions") low quality 3rd party content they got the message.

What would be big enough to charge for but to small for a expansion or even spin-off?

[Nicol Bolas]

Unfortunately they would also allow them to charge us for stuff that SHOULD be free.It´s basically the DLC issue for the PC.

Who says that it "SHOULD" be free?

[Triceron]

Everyone who isn't making a profit off the game?

[Nicol Bolas]

Everyone who isn't making a profit off the game?

Isn't that what everyone who buys things whats? For all the stuff they buy to be free?

We live in a captialism. That means, among other things, that you pay people for stuff. Like videogames. If you don't like the price that someone offers for the stuff, you don't give them money.

Like Penny Arcade said on this issue: the PC is the most open platform on the planet. If you don't like the price on what someone's offering, someone else will be along to fill your needs presently.