Reply 2

by Avateur , Sunday, March 03, 2013, 18:56 (4069 days ago) @ Avateur

If you care about great games, buy only great ones. Better yet, if you really care, work your way into the business so that you can make the games that you want to play. You might get lucky and have your faith rewarded.

It's not about great or not great, it's about a negative path the industry appears to be taking, harm to the consumer, and diminished gameplay quality. As microtransactions continue, it appears gaming is going to want to head down the alley to grinding. Unpleasant grinding. Grinding that makes you want to purchase your way past said grinding. Games intentionally made not to be fun. Or, from what Cliffy B essentially wrote, games that are games strictly to be a money making tool, not a means of interaction, fun, or delight. Just money. And while the business model is absolutely important, and obviously these studios should want to profit and profit as much as possible, there are clearly many ways to do it and the video game industry has gotten larger and been able to make games that cost so much and are so ambitious because of the industry's previous successes.

I view microtransactions as a step backwards in the industry. A lot of posts in this thread like to focus on microtransactions and their effects on campaign. Many of these points are valid. For the most part they seem to have negative effects on multiplayer, especially in competitive environments, and this also hurts people who are less competitive depending on their own ability to purchase, put in time and effort, or purchase a game at a later date as someone else.

So back to where I started, I guess I don't see how you agree with Cliffy B since you didn't really touch on what he said (which seemed to be nothing but "I want money and I want that money by any means necessary, especially when it works" without actually looking at anything else critically). Your thoughts as a whole, though, were great to read!

(Also, it seems I broke the word count :P)