"Naughty Dog's greed is out of control"

[starcraft]

pokoko said:

starcraft said:
People that argue that this only happens because people are happy to pay micro transactions, and that they don't mind because they don't are only semi-grasping the point.

Think back to Goldeneye 64. Think of all the skins you could access, all the guns you could use. Then think about the skins, guns and perks you could obtain through in-game cheats.

Now imagine that half of all of them could only be obtained by paying extra for the game on top of your $60 for the title, and your $60 for PS+ for the year.

THATS what is happening here. Things are being withheld from the game so that they can be sold later. You don't buy them? Fine. While you're busy laughing at those that do, you're missing the fact that you'd have more content if gamers were unwilling to put up with this.

This is FAR from a Naughty Dog specific problem, but they have gotten an absolute free-pass because their single player remains epic, and their multiplayer forgettable.

All well and good except it's not completely true.

I mean, you're making it sound like you get nothing at all with the base game, then you make it sound like they would have made all that extra content for free.  The first is untrue, the second is unlikely.

Borderlands 2, for example.  It introduced wide-scale DLC for skins and heads that was absent from the first one.  So that means it had nothing that you could unlock through game-play?  Not quite.

*snip*

It feels to me like you're building a semi-false argument.  There may very well be cases of what you're talking about but there are also many case where that is probably not true.

Can what I said be proven to be true for each individual game? No.

But I don't think that undermines the main premise to any great extent.

I don't feel like I implied you get nothing with the base game. That wasn't my intent, and if thats how it came off I apologize.

We certainly see instances where extra content is explicitely produced for later sale, that otherwise wouldn't have been included in the main game (see The Witcher 3). This is not new, expansions, sequels and spiritual successors have existed for years. Is it possible that if microtransactions ceased to be, Naughty Dog would produce less content for the game? Yes. But if games did not have microtransactions, they would still be required to compete with one another for your $60. To suggest that all that extra content would be culled (when, as in the Goldeneye instance I mentioned, extensive multiplayer skin and weapon options have existed for eons) is unlikely. To do so on any consistent basis would be commercial suicide. In other words, people would still be required to make good games if they want those games to sell.