The idea that getting somebody to play a game for 300 hours, must have meant that the devs put in a ton of work, and therefore need extra money in return doesn't always hold true.BTW, I do absolutely love how people try to defend cosmetic MTX as "Who cares, it's just cosmetic!" The number of free cosmetic customization options in GoW, Spiderman, and GoT is unmatched. 

Translation: We haven't announced it yet, but we're going to ask for $70 for all of our MS first party titles. 

Cerebralbore101 said:

Translation: EA and Activision have found a way to sell people digital goods that costs next to nothing for them to produce, and they are making a killing off it. Let's face it. All games will eventually become this. And as a corporate shill I really like that idea! Good for them!

The idea that getting somebody to play a game for 300 hours, must have meant that the devs put in a ton of work, and therefore need extra money in return doesn't always hold true.

It holds true if the game gets frequent post launch content and support 

It doesn't take that much for a game to keep somebody interested for a full year. They just need to design the game in order to make it compelling, instead of fun. Take the +100 score you get for killing somebody in a CoD game. That +100 that pops up is a little piece of reward for your brain. It trains your brain to keep going back to CoD, whether you truly enjoy CoD or not. When you find yourself going back to a game over and over again, even though said game makes you rage, that is a sign of addiction.

It takes a ton of effort to keep somebody interested in one game. There’s so many games to play these days our attention span is so small. You can do compelling and fun at the same time.

But yeah, the way that they try to confuse the consumer with season passes, MTX, and 5 different "Digital Deluxe Editions" of a game is even worse, like you say. I don't think the $70 price of games is justified, but I'd take that if it meant no more content carving, and no more MTX. I'd take the $70 price tag if it meant we went back to good meaningful DLC ala Fallout's Broken Steel Expansion, or Witcher 3's DLC. Or Torna.

IMO $70 is warranted purely due to inflation. We have been paying $60 for over 20 years. 

BTW, I do absolutely love how people try to defend cosmetic MTX as "Who cares, it's just cosmetic!" The number of free cosmetic customization options in GoW, Spiderman, and GoT is unmatched. Having different costumes to find in a game has been a staple of the industry for years. And it was all free. Now they are trying to charge you for those formerly free costumes. And the kicker is that all it takes is a dude working for $30 an hour for 4-5 hours to make a new skin or costume. And in exchange for that roughly $150 investment the company gets to sell thousands of copies of that skin for $2-$5. They could sell these skins for a nickle a pop, and still make boatloads of money. Charging $2-$5 for this cosmetic crap is just pure greed no matter the way you slice it.

Guess you haven't played Sunset Overdrive. 

Why would their first party titles all be $70? All of their first party titles this gen weren't $60. Also, aren't Sony and other publishers already charging $70?

Because if they were going to be $60 he would have said so. MS will brag about anything they get a chance to brag about. His silence speaks volumes. And yes, Sony and other publishers are doing the same.

Again, isn't this how the business currently works? What publisher wouldn't love to have a strong fan base playing one game for years, constantly generating new revenue with expansions and microtransactions? How is this bad for a gamer? There have been countless games that tried to do this and for every failure there are plenty of Avengers and Anthem's. Please list for me an executive at any publisher, MicroSonyNintendo included, and tell me which of them wouldn't start drooling when being offered what you are describing. As long as the execution is good, this isn't an inherently bad business model.

I have 65 PS4 games, 40 PC games, and over 100 Switch games. Guess how many of those games are trying to constantly generate revenue with MTX? Less than 10. Sure, every company in the world would love to print money, but quite a few of them know they would alienate their fanbases by going with MTX, GaaS, and Grind.


It's bad for a gamer, because they are often forced to choose between grind, and spending more money. They either waste their time, or waste their money. A game with pointless levels of grind for the sake of pushing MTX isn't fun. Avengers and Anthem are failures, so for every failure there's a failure? What?

Of course it's not a bad business model. That's not the point. The point is that it's a scummy unethical business practice.

Oh man can you please source these costs? I enjoy math, I'd love to see what "next to nothing" is. Also, people have been blaring this "all games will come this!!!!" horn for like a decade it seems. Yet we're not closer to it now than we were back then.

 Most skins and costumes are just retextures, with maybe a couple alphamaps or other things thrown in. A talented 3D artist should be able to make a new skin in 4-5 hours. I know this because I went to school for 3D Art, and Programming. Considering that game artists work 40 to 60 hours a week with mandatory crunch, and no overtime pay. Well, I'll let you do the math for yourself. Keep in mind that once they've paid the 3D artist, and sold 30K to godknowshowmany digital copies they've made bank. It's gotta be something like 3,000% profit on these stupid microtransactions.

Another bizarre translation that comes off as whiny and anti-business and downright just silly and illogical. I'm all for consumer rights and pro consumer moves, but at some point you have to realize you've jumped the shark when it comes to consumer rights and are just being upset that all these publishers want to make money.

There's a difference between making money, and ripping people off.

I don't get this idea that MS wants MTX in all their games and people talk as if they've been doing that all gen or something. The only game I remember it being an issue is Forza 7 and they fixed it. Their games aren't grindy or full of MTX. Sure you might have an outlier here or there but it's no different than Sony.

I mostly agree with that. I think it was just Forza 7, Gears 4, and Gears 5, that had MTX. All signs indicate that Halo Infinite is going full on GaaS mode though, that is where the idea that MS wants MTX in all of their games. Not to mention that this CFO is actively defending MTX in this interview.

Equally confused as to why people are so set in stubborn ways against the idea of a good GaaS title. If done right, it's a great business model for consumers. For example I play Dead By Daylight. It came out in 2017 and I still play it daily. It cost me $30 to buy. Compare that to many $60 titles, and I would have been done with them in less than 30 hours. It monetizes the game in three ways:

DLC. Every three months or so, a new killer character, survivor character, and map are brought out. They cost anywhere from $8-10 altogether.
Battle Pass. Every other month or so a new rift comes out and you can play through the whole thing and earn cosmetics for free or pay $10 and unlock tons of stuff, plus your $10 back to buy the next rift.
Cosmetics. Buy all sorts of cosmetic items for killers and survivors. Laughably overpriced, or grind for them. Doesn't bother me, because they are cosmetic.

I've played this game for thousands of hours and whenever I finally find a SX, it will likely be the first game I download. There are plenty of good games like this that do content the right way, there's no need to mindless disregard everything associated with GaaS because you think your rights are at stake and that in the future every game will be a GaaS.

There will always be a place for strong single player games and games with a beginning and an end. No need to worry so much about it.

Maybe you just don't understand how business works? I don't know, seems like it.

Also just like all your other hot takes in this thread, this one isn't well thought through and paints every situation with the same brush.

Cosmetics costing money gets shit on even in GaaS all the time, too. It all depends on how the game is designed. Look at Evolve, for example. $60 game with a day one season pass and a day one store loaded with expensive cosmetics while the base game had, IIRC, two skins to unlock for each character. Gamers rejected it, game crashed and burned. There are plenty of other games that give you plenty of skins and also let you unlock more and also let you buy others. Those are the types of situations where no one cares, because the MTX are all cosmetic.

Also thanks to the amount of money these publishers are making off of cosmetics and stuff, a vast majority have abandoned charging for map packs, etc, another big positive for gamers.