Micro-transaction Shop. Yay or Nay?

[Babyduck]

NO NO NO and NO

[Tedstery]

Nay... I pay a Sub, I should get all new items for free/earn able in game.

[MadMachine]

Nay!

 

I don't have any problems with a Free-to-Play game that earns its income based on Microtransactions but I feel that when you have a Pay-to-Play game, that your payment should be as inclusive as can be. My $15 a month should be valued by whatever company I choose to spend it on, and should that company think they can try and gouge more money out of me on fiddley little things they will stop getting my money altogether.

[Rhysling]

A game cant survive and thrive on a cash shop without offering items in it that give the players an advantage.

 

City of Heroes and Startrek Online as you have mentioned are both doing terrible. Both of these were failing games to begin with that switched to cash shops because they were failing.

 

Cash Shops just dont support a game unless there are things to buy that enhance your play. Looking pretty isnt enough to pay the bills unless it's one of those cheapy copy/paste korean mmo things.

 

Blizzard would say you are wrong. They have lots of micro shop items now. Mounts, pets, race changes, server changes, guild server changes, etc.

[Rheshalea]

No thank you.

 

I love almost everything about my job, apart from the lousy salary. When playing MMOs I'm equal to the 12-year old kid whose mum pays for his gametime, as well as the lady who married and divorced for money.

 

With microtransactions, I'd be constantly reminded about my economic situation, and that is not something I want in my games, which should be a way for me to relax after work. This is why I am very strongly against microtransactions of any kind, in any game - especially one I pay monthly fees for anyway.

 

 

Btw, I'm in no way fishing for sympathy. I do love my job, and I can afford to live comfortably on the salary I get, but there isn't much money left over for luxuries. One MMO subscription is about what I can afford.

[revial]

Blizzard would say you are wrong. They have lots of micro shop items now. Mounts, pets, race changes, server changes, guild server changes, etc.

 

And you don't think all the people who have paid for race changes tied to arena and their changing of racials (ie: Human racials) over the years has made them a huge chunk of cash?

 

Boy, now I know how insurance salesmen make a living.

[KeeperOfSajuuk]

Hell Nay...

 

Pay to win, is always a bad idea, imho.

[Frigidman]

No thanks.

 

But EA will think its a good idea no matter how many people say no.

[Rhysling]

And you don't think all the people who have paid for race changes tied to arena and their changing of racials (ie: Human racials) over the years has made them a huge chunk of cash?

 

Boy, now I know how insurance salesmen make a living.

 

umm... what?

 

It made them hundreds of millions in just mounts. That last mount sold over 4 million units at $25 a unit. Just for that mount alone they made 100,000,000 for a re-skin of a horse with wings. lol

 

People will buy anything. As long as it just things like this I am fine with it.

[Hellbrass]

City of Heroes and Startrek Online as you have mentioned are both doing terrible. Both of these were failing games to begin with that switched to cash shops because they were failing.

 

Star Trek Online didnt switch to a cash shop, it had a cash shop to begin with while still charging a subscription. They thought the best way to run an MMO was to treat their customers like children while fleecing them for content that should have been in at launch.

 

I would have no problem with cosmetic things like mounts etc. but like others have said its a slippery slope that inevitably leads to in game advantages if you pay more.

 

WoW for instance. Started with a few non-combat pets, then a few mounts. Now we have a pet that is basically a way to buy gold and next expansion the same non-combat pets will give advantages to those who play their pokemon inspired pet battle game thing.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Hellbrass

[Renissara]

I don't personally buy them, although I'd consider paying for a server transfer given the right circumstances.

 

However, I figure that there are always going to be some people willing to pay money for cool in-game items. And I'd far rather that they purchased something from a MT shop than bought credits. For starters the MT shop can be monitored so it's all vanity items and not game-breaking items. Secondly, the higher demand there is for gold selling, the more obnoxious behavior legit customers have to put up with, such as gold spam, botting and account hacking.

 

So yeah, I'd go with a begrudging "Yes".

[Rohanin]

No. I want to be able to get everything with my skill not money.

[derkokes]

id rather not have it period. Things like mounts, companion kits and the like, i feel are status symbols, that should be earned in different ways. paying to not look scrub bothers me.

[sosolidshoe]

No. Niet. Nein. Nuh-uh. Nochance. Noway. Nohow. Nope.

 

I hate cash shops, because they're ALWAYS the same thing; a way to get us to pay more money for the same amount of content. The idea that developers actually hire/keep on extra staff just for the MT work is laughable - the cash from those transactions goes right into the dev/publisher's pocket, and more devs making MT items means less devs working on content for everyone else.

 

It's especially ridiculous in a subscription game - if I'm paying a subscription, then I am ALREADY paying the developer to continually add small nuggets of new content, and don't talk about running costs, because those are a lot less than most people suspect. I won't even start on the idea of purchasing statted items.

 

Most of all, I dislike people who like MT stores. Your laziness, your inability to just play a game for enjoyment instead of trying to buy your way to the top, are what brings this crap on the rest of us. If you don't have time to play a game, just don't sodding play it, rather than dragging everybody down to your level. And I say that as someone who doesn't get to play MMOs nearly as much as I'd like to.

[LuShang]

Micro transactions are a slippery slope my friends.. that being said this is EA so expect to pay for everything.

[revial]

umm... what?

 

You claimed MT are fine if it's purely cosmetic like Blizzard. I showed Blizzard's MT are not purely cosmetic and they have made a ton of money off Arena players by nerfing and un-nerfing racials.

 

Is that really hard to grasp?

[SithInitiate]

NAY..

 

and to those claiming that MTs will give the developer money for new content..

 

wait.. so the 29+ million A MONTH in revenue they will inevitably get isnt going to be enough??

 

2 million subs * 14.99 a month = 29.98 MILLION a MONTH.

 

and thats just with 2 million subs.. think about what that number is like when they get to 10 million.

 

THAT BEING SAID, if they did a charity event kind of like what blizzard does every year, where if you buy a certain vanity pet, the proceeds go to the charity they are sponsoring.. i dont have a problem with that..

 

otherwise.. no thanks.

 

will i still play the game? as long as they keep the MTs to a level similar to what ActiBliz does, ill still support the game..

 

the second they put up a new planet, FP/Warzone, or companion character im gone.

[Brool]

no thanks to micro transactions.

[paleion]

Nay - MMO's should be (imho) the great leveller (excuse the pun) where everyone, no matter what their background, can take part on a fair and level playing ground together, in a world of our making.

 

They should NOT be "The one with the most spare cash in real life can be the best in the game, have the best gear, have the cutest pets, have the nicest looking mount, have the biggest reddist lightsaber". I dont care if your rich, or if your poor, if you want something in the game, you need to go out and earn it. Dont have time? Then earn it slowly. Dont want to wait? Go play COD or Battlefield instead.

 

On top of that, we pay £40 for the game. We pay £120 a year to play it. We pay £35 for each expansion. We should not have to pay for anything else to play.

[Cameirus]

want? no.

 

Would I mind? If its cosmetic only and not at the expense of free patch updates, I would not mind. But its a sub based mmo, so the justification woudl have to be pretty damm good.

[essell]

wait.. so the 29+ million A MONTH in revenue they will inevitably get isnt going to be enough??

 

2 million subs * 14.99 a month = 29.98 MILLION a MONTH.

 

and thats just with 2 million subs.. think about what that number is like when they get to 10 million.

 

The cost of running the game is directly proportional to the number of subscriptions. It's not pure profit when they get more customers.

 

My worry is that without a shop there is content that simply won't get made. It's a lot easier to justify the Dev's time on something extravagant (My Mrs wants a rainbow effect lightsabre) if you're going to be selling it.

 

If they can put that in a free content update because they're making enough money, Great!. If it's choice between a shop and not having the content, I vote shop.

[DagnyTaggert]

NO!!!!!

 

I have seen where it leads, and it is not pretty.

 

Spend a fortune for a game, pay every month, and still have to pay? I don't care what you call optional (and the definition expands as this becomes a profit center).

 

NO!!!

[Heckrix]

I say nay, since they usually put the better looking items in the store and let recolors of items for drops. Honestly i much rather work/grind rep/farm instances, for cool aesthetic items, it give allot more sense of accomplishment.

[Cmdr_Haggis]

I have never been a fan of micro transactions. My vote, of course, is a resounding "No".

 

First, immersion is shot when you have to reach for the credit card or Alt-Tab to Firefox. A quick menu key to pull up the MT store is ridiculous. If I have to run to a vendor in-game to buy an item, why would I click a button and have disembodied voice ask for my payment instructions? Or a fancy themed communicator widget especially for MT use?

 

Second, if it's purely cosmetic items then the road is paved for in-game content to look lousy while MT content is sparkly and shiny. Just put that sparkly, shiny stuff in game and I'll earn it in-game.

 

Third, if there are ANY performance boots then you've just gone down to the seventh ring of Hades and tipped the balance of the game in favor of those with deeper pockets. It's not that I cannot afford a $10-$25 stat boost, but why do I need to buy that which I should be very able to earn in-game?

 

Fourth, any item sold in MT should be found in-game. The rarity of "epic" loot is but one driving force behind exploring the game world and getting oneself lost in the story. Make those "epic" loots available for a fee and a quick mouse click and we've just devolved the world of Star Wars into any one of dozens of failed/failing games which catered to the "gimme gimme" gimmick of the "Me Generation".

 

/walloftext

 

-- c_h

[Terraphon]

A big no to microtransactions...on any level. I don't care if they charge 2 cents for a bottle dye to recolor my armor with...NO MICROTRANSACTIONS.

 

Microtransactions have proven themselves to be a slippery slope, on both fronts. First it's a vanity item, next it's a pay-to-win item like armor or weapons with better stats, finally it is vital supplies so you can't make healing items or buff items without buying the materials to produce them with.

 

When things get to that level, players walk away. Do they necessarily want to walk away? No but they are left with no choice because their bank accounts can no longer support their game habit. When this happens the player base dries up, the game goes f2p and starts hemorrhaging players at an exponential rate. Next, they just shut off the servers and go home.

 

The introduction of microtransactions to an MMO is its death-knell. It may not happen fast but its expiration is imminent. Here's hoping EA/BW/LA are smart enough to know this.