Again, industry standard is the issue I was targeting (Destiny)

by iconicbanana, C2-H5-OH + NAD, Portland, OR, Friday, January 02, 2015, 15:12 (3854 days ago) @ Malagate

Microtransations are fine as long as they aren't designed in a way to become the ideal way to play\complete a game.

I hesitate to call Desitny's DLC a micro-transation. Now, trading marks for materials, that is a microtransaction, but of a different sort... if it's in game like that, and doesn't cost real monies, is it any different? (Rhetorical question)

I think I'm using microtransaction here as more broadly indicative of the way developers have shunted pay-walls into gameplay. It started with MMO's back in the late-90's/early-2000's and has been creeping into everything at this point. Pre-order bonuses are another example.

I'm not entirely sure how you discourage a developer/publisher from implementing them; I usually don't buy games that incorporate them. Don't pre-order only works if everybody does it, and I honestly can't see that happening without a massive amount of grassroots organizing, so it may be we're stuck with it. Blame capitalism, I guess; whatever the buyers want, succeeds, and so far it looks like the buyers want per-order content.

I think those that complain are those that don't want the pre-orders and microtransactions and pay-walls, and they probably feel pretty powerless to do anything about it at this point.

I think if you go back and look at the language used pre-launch, you'll see that the way they framed the content model satisfies a lot of the problems you're talking about. Microtransactions in this case is a misnomer. Think of each DLC release as a season of your favorite TV show. There may be entire seasons you skip and don't keep in your library. Some people will own bundles of content others don't. At some juncture, it should be expected that there will be something dividing players between those bundles of content.

I agree that there still needs to be a reasonable way to reach max Light levels without any particular DLC, and the option of having previously-available gear drop as upgraded versions is probably the best overall compromise.

At this point, we're kind of past the "pre-order culture" question with Destiny, I think, though I agree it's a generally bad business practice and should be taken out behind the shed and killed with a shovel. Where it will still apply, however; is with future deals on episodic content, season passes, and exclusives tied to them. Once we're past launch, it's a whole different ballgame; one free of the slimy-used-car-salesman funk of pre-order (and platform) exclusives.

~m

I think this is still too specific to Destiny (I personally don't have a problem with how they've structured the DLC, it's just where we started; if you're upset you can't get new exotics when you didn't order the DLC, well, they're new; if you want something new, you have to pay for it). I do think macro-transaction is a good name for the DLC; if you break it up into it's constituent parts, you get some new gear, a few missions, a raid: all things that could be sold quite separately without changing them significantly. You could play the missions, which come to a nice little conclusion, and never play the raid, and never notice the difference. The gear is thematically tied to the new missions at all. Given the option of just buying gear pack for $5 or the mission pack for $5, I think some people might take that instead of the whole deal. Since Bungie sells all of it together, I think a bunch of micro-transactions just become a macro-transaction; they don't change the game significantly like other DLC I've played have.

On the other issue that crept up here: for most of the people who are upset about the availability of old content, like Nightfalls/Weeklies, I'm a little more sympathetic. It does feel like, in effect, Bungie has pulled down a big pay-wall on some of their favorite content. I definitely have a problem with previously available content being pay-walled because new content wasn't purchased. And on a larger front, I dislike all this expansion stuff anyway. The game was awfully sparse on its outset, and I feel it was so they could drop these expansions down the road to make some extra money, at the expense of a watered down product. I dislike this trend in the industry. It feels half-assed and greedy.