[xena]

Hi, author of the article here. Microtransactions are an active cancer on the gaming world and I abhor their prevalence in modern gaming. The _only_ time I find them okay is for when they are for _cosmetic purchases only_, and even then the games industry has done a terrible job of making sure that is the case. Sometimes I want to play a game to play a game and immerse myself into that game's world. I don't want to have people manipulate money out of my wallet and into their bank account.

Then again, I'm also someone who has been suckered into spending over USD$200 on Fortnite skins, so a lot of my rejection of microtransactions is rooted in the fact that I am vulnerable to their temptations and would rather they be anywhere but in the games that I play on a regular basis. Nintendo games are usually good about not trying to fleece you for cash in a game you paid full price for, so I play a lot of those.

[somehnacct3757]

Gaming as-you-define-it is surely dying and it took maybe 15 years for microtransactions to do it in.

However, more people play video games than ever before and more games are released per year than at any other time in human history. So what died exactly? Certainly not an industry. Only a business model has died. A game's business model has always been inextricably tied to its design, going back to arcades. So designs you like are dying.

This is why I classify your behavior as gatekeeping. All those happy gamers must be enjoying games wrong. The designs they like are not valid game designs because they aren't adherent to your design aesthetics.

Do you miss paying a fixed price for a fixed amount of content, never to be updated? Nothing about that is incompatible with microtransactions. In the old days we called them expansions. These days they're called battle passes.

Do you miss paying for access to a live game server? Those used to be called subscriptions. Now we've found a way to offer free subscriptions to any and all, subsidized by gamers who have the financial freedom to support their favorite games.

[edit: for politeness]

[alexb_]

No I actually miss paying 60 dollars for a product, getting the entire product, using the product, and that being the end of it. The fact that you even begin to equate business success with how happy the games are making people is absolutely abhorrent and a terrible way to think of things.

Have you made free to play games? Anyone who has taken even a small look at it obviously KNOWS that it's not people with "financial freedom to support" who are putting money into these things. Stop kidding yourself.

[somehnacct3757]

$60 price point for games spans back nearly 2 decades. In today dollars those games would cost $90. If you would like developers to release games with source engine graphics, and charge $90 for them, then just say that.

Back then games had a huge problem with equitable access. You needed the equivalent of $90 disposable income in 2022 just to try a game sight unseen. Gamers were incredibly wealthy and privileged in those days.

The industry dealt with rampant piracy from those who wanted game experiences but couldn't afford them. Gamers relied on written reviews by a handful of curators to derisk purchases.

All the while the table stakes to develop a game were rising. The nature of the console games industry is a technology reset every decade which undermines economic efficiencies in development tools. Development costs were kept artificially low by poor working conditions for those in the industry. Poor job security and stolen wages.

I haven't yet mentioned that gamers' expectations for control schemes, camera behavior, animation fidelity, environmental realism, and much much more have only grown and contributed to table stakes.

I think you are putting the momentary happiness of a niche gaming cohort on a pedestal and it blinds you to what the industry has become and just how many it benefits.

Lastly your claim that whales are gambling degenerates or people with poor self control is FUD. This claim is itself part of the gatekeeping from capital G Gamers because it assumes people spending money on games in novel ways can't possibly be enjoying those games. Whales are wealthy people with loads of disposable income. The same people who fly private jets or hire famous musicians for private parties. And everything in between. Why should games miss out on monetization models benefiting other entertainment formats?

A much simpler explanation is that Gamers who had grown accustomed to being the Alphas in a hobby they self-identity with, are grappling with the economization of their hobby and being priced out of Alpha status. In effect, the games industry has sold out, man. A naive position that overlooks all the economic realities I outlined at the start.

[xena]

You should take a look at Elden Ring. It's a massive open world that you pay $60 for once and then you have the whole game. It's also an amazing game that builds on top of the foundations of Dark Souls to give you a role playing game that has a unique sense of victory when you overcome what feels insurmountable. Highly recommend. I've been planning on writing something up about it once I beat it.

It's also notable that Elden Ring has been one of the most successful games of 2022, it managed to trend on gaming twitter for over a month and a half and still comes up on trending every once in a while.

[dawnbreez]

Not wanting to be scammed is not gatekeeping, in the same sense that not wanting to be defrauded is not gatekeeping.

Also--you say that other gamers are happy with microtransaction-heavy games, but that begs the question: Is it because of microtransactions? Or is it because they are able to enjoy these games despite the microtransactions?

[corrral]

> Gaming as-you-define-it is surely dying and it took maybe 15 years for microtransactions to do it in.

But tons of non-microtransaction games are coming out all the time. I game lots and don't see any impending shortage of that kind of game. They're coming out at a higher rate than ever, as far as I can tell, and I've been PC gaming and console gaming since something like 1990. I can't keep up with 5% of them, total—as in, I don't think I'm even aware of the existence of a solid 95% of what's coming out, but I can see enough that I'm certain I'm missing a ton—and can't even manage to try all the AAA titles of that kind at the rate they come out, let alone the vast ocean of indie and hobbyist games.

If the whole pie's growing, it doesn't follow that growth of microtransaction games are cutting into the availability of non-microtransaction games. Both could be growing. If non-microtransaction games are dying, it sure looks like they decided to flourish to a degree they never have before, just before they die (which must still be some point in the future).

Whatever the truth of the rest of what you're pushing, this part doesn't pass the smell test, at all.

[somehnacct3757]

I fully agree, and the quoted blurb is an instance of sarcasm not transmitting over text.

There's nothing about microtransactions that makes premium games unreleasable. This is part of why I view the anti-MT stance as gatekeeping.

[corrral]

Gotcha, sorry for the misunderstanding.

[xena]

> Gaming as-you-define-it is surely dying and it took maybe 15 years for microtransactions to do it in.

> [...] So designs you like are dying.

Yeah, this seems to be the case and this is really unfortunate. I'm keeping a close eye on the indie scene though, that seems to be where the real innovation is with exceptions from Nintendo and other AAA developers like From Software. Indie games are generally made with a lot more heart and soul anyways, which I personally prefer. Plus with indie/Nintendo games you generally buy the game once and then you don't buy anything again unless they make more content for it. It's perfect for my needs.

> The designs they like are not valid game designs because they aren't adherent to your design aesthetics.

I think there's room for nuance here between games they like for the game themselves (such as with Tetris Effect being a super well implemented version of Tetris with an added VR mode), games they like for the aesthetics of the games (such as games like Pokémon where a friend of mine tries to play the game to assemble a viable team of creatures they think look cool and doesn't care about anything else), or games that have suckered people in using manipulation tactics to give them just enough of a drip feed of dopamine that people end up thinking they like them (such as my subjective and personal experience with games like Fortnite, Genshin Impact and other gachapon games).

I'm not trying to say that people that like microtransactions aren't happy. I've seen people get financially ruined over goddamn FarmVille (remember when that was the big thing in gaming??) and other such games that I'm beginning to wonder if we as a society should tolerate this kind of outright manipulation. And if this means that as a player that I will have to pay a fixed amount of money for a fixed amount of content and that if I want more content I need to pay more, then that is what I will prefer and seek out. Hell, I already do this. I have at least 130 hours into Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I bought the expansions for the game something like 20 hours into playing it because I genuinely liked the experience and wanted more. These things do exist in the modern day. I preordered Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and its expansions upon announcement (mostly because I liked Xenoblade 2 _that much_). IGN's review says it's a 150 hour game. Looks like I have my gaming diet for the next few months ironed out.

Besides, things never being updated after being released makes game preservation very easy. You can go play the day 1 unpatched Breath of the Wild game and it's mostly the same as the one we have with all the various bug fixes it got over the years. When you don't need to have live services attached to a game to play it, the ability to play the game doesn't rely on other people's servers that they can turn off at any point. If that happens with a live services game, the data on my disk is useless no matter how much I paid for it.

> Do you miss paying for access to a live game server?

I pay for the Nintendo Switch Online and PS Plus subscriptions because I do online gaming with friends on my Switch and my PlayStation. I don't have to miss it, because this is already the reality to me. Besides, if a game was genuinely enhanced in some way that was only possible with a subscription (outside of a "battle pass" which is just a FOMO gate for cosmetic items or real-world currency), I'd put my money where my mouth is. I haven't seen a game out there that offers such a thing though, so I haven't.

Maybe I really do come from a different generation of thinking about video games. It's quite sad if this means that "being almost 30 years old" means that I have a totally fundamentally different view on what I want out of video games compared to the vast majority of the market though. It'd be really sad if this was the case.

[somehnacct3757]

On your last point you may find this timeline of games industry market cap to be equal parts enlightening and horrifying.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/...

During your lifetime consoles have been largely static and mobile gaming came out of nowhere and eclipsed every other form of gaming combined. But you're also old enough to have fraternized with those who rode the big console wave. 'Big' here is of course tiny compared to the mobile gaming wave. But it felt big at the time (and was.)

There are those who believe that games aren't how much money they make so they continue to ignore mobile gaming. Still, the timeline at least explains developers' behaviors.