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Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski has posted a passionate defence of microtransactions, insisting vocal detractors are a minority and citing investor pressure as the motivating factor for alternate revenue streams.

In a lengthy post on his Tumblr, Bleszinski pointed out that “scumbag EA” and “good guy Valve” use similar business practies, and that the much-criticised Origin currently occupies a similar think space as Steam did back in the day.

“It took Valve years to bang their service into the stellar shape that it is in these days. Yet somehow everyone online forgets this, and they give EA crap about trying to create their own online services. Heaven forbid they see our digital roadmap for the future and try to get on board the ‘games as services’ movement,” he wrote.

Bleszinski said Epic came under similar attack for offering premium cosmetic weapon skins for Gears of War.

“And you know what? In spite of the uproar, people still bought plenty of them. If you don’t like EA, don’t buy their games. If you don’t like their microtransactions, don’t spend money on them. It’s that simple,” he said.

“EA has many smart people working for them and they wouldn’t attempt these things if they didn’t work. Turns out, they do. I assure you there are teams of analysts studying the numbers behind consumer behavior over there that are studying how you, the gamer, spends his hard earned cash.

“If you’re currently raging about this on GAF, or on the IGN forums, or on Gamespot, guess what? You’re the vocal minority. Your average guy that buys just Madden and GTA every year doesn’t know, nor does he care. He has no problem throwing a few bucks more at a game because, hey, why not?”

Bleszinski said that after adjusting for inflation, games are cheaper than ever before from the consumer’s perspective, but cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make when you include the necessary marketing costs.

“The old business model is either evolving, growing, or dying. No one really knows. ‘Free to play’ aka ‘Free to spend four grand on it’ is here to stay, like it or not. Everyone gets a Smurfberry. Every single developer out there is trying to solve the mystery of this new model. Every console game MUST have a steady stream of DLC because, otherwise, guess what? It becomes traded in, or it’s just rented,” he added.

The outspoken developer also reminded readers that games publishers exist to make money first.

“Those companies that put these products out? They’re for profit businesses. They exist to produce, market, and ship great games ultimately for one purpose. First, for money, then, for acclaim.

“And when those companies are publicly traded on the stock market they’re forced to answer to their shareholders. This means that they need to make a lot of money in order to increase the value of the shareholder’s stock. Every quarter.”

“If you don’t like the games, or the sales techniques, don’t spend your money on them. You vote with your dollars,” he concluded.

The full post contains a lot of further discussion and is well worth a read, whether you agree or not. It seems to be a response to outrage over recent news that EA will include microtransactions of some kind in every title moving forward. Activision said yesterday it expects to take a profit hitwhile it scampers to implement new business models, too.

“And you know what? In spite of the uproar, people still bought plenty of them. If you don’t like EA, don’t buy their games. If you don’t like their microtransactions, don’t spend money on them. It’s that simple,” he said.


Actually that is happening. EA in general has many flops recently. Warfighter anyone?

The problem with microtransactions is that they often give players with no skill the ability to succeed only because they're willing to throw a lot of money at the game. I see enough of that shit in real life, I don't need it in my fantasies.

Not only that, but MT's can potentially horribly unbalance games, rendering them essentially unplayable competitively without spending extra money. I don't like them, and I will forever stand against them. There's no sense of accomplishment from beating a difficult boss if you had to pay to do it. There's no satisfaction in slaying another player if the only reason you won is because you're "richer". Microtransactions offer NOTHING constructive to game design OR playability. I used to complain about MMOs with $15 subscriptions, but if this is the only alternative, I'll gladly lay down the monthly fee to play a fair and balanced title.

Why is this guy back on his lip flapping streak lately? He's been quiet for a while and he suddenly has an article on him everyday.

It all started with the PS4 announcement.

I'm guessing since he left Epic he doesn't have to deal with PR guys filttering out what he says.

and this is why i love cliff XD

I don't really like Bleszinski and I think he's more than a bit of an ass, but he's mostly right here. Microtransactions are a business model that makes money. That means people use it. I can't ask businesses not to take money that's sitting on the table. That's silly.

What I can do is to say that I won't buy a game where purchased items break the structure, be it single-player or multi-player. I don't like those and I avoid them. As long as the extra items are added after the game is balanced, fine, do what you want.

However, Bleszinski's "I've got a lot of disposable income and so should everyone else" attitude is annoying. If we've paid for a full game then we should get a full game. That's not too much to ask. Also, he's a moron if he doesn't know that paying customers have every right in the world to complain about a product, minority or otherwise.

He's right about Origin, though, and the free pass that Steam gets. I've never really understood that.

Anyone else not give one flying f*ck about games being 'services?' I was happier with them just being games.

Cliff ... don't you know better? The LAST thing gamers want to hear is THE TRUTH ...

A few things:

- If the criticism won't hurt their bottom line, why should I or anyone else stop? If it works for EA, they're not losing sleep over it. His logic is ass backwards.

- After the madness of Street Fighter x Tekken, in which microtransactions would've become vital to staying competitive in a $60 game if not for the shit-ton of outrage, I don't trust any publisher's handling of microtransactions. At all. If it was just cosmetic stuff like skins and costumes, I wouldn't have a problem, but I doubt they'll leave it at that. The "games as service" model becoming commonplace at retail frightens me.

- Oh, the poor companies need to get solid quarterly earnings reports? Cry me a fucking river. Whether going all in on microtransactions/DLC saves them or blows up in their faces means little to me, especially when this generation has been such a disappointment. These publishers are not charities; I'm not donating shit.