[dunkvg]

What he meant is that company's MO is buying IPs of successful franchises that are dear to many gamers, release 1-2 crappy games on that IP that is filled to the brim with microtransactions which is not well received by the customers (but makes them money), resulting in the death of that franchise. Rinse and repeat for whatever IPs still remain to be bought.

It creates money, but contributes 0 or negative value for the actual gaming industry, unlike other companies like FromSoft that consistently hits the ball out of the park, pushing the envelope on new franchises and new gaming genres. THAT, is creating value.

[gruez]

>which is not well received by the customers (but makes them money),

stated preference vs revealed preference, or alternately, the people commenting about games on HN or reddit aren't reflective of the average EA customer.

[ceejayoz]

That a heroin addict's "stated preference" is to quit does not mean they secretly want to be a drug addict when their "revealed preference" for something deeply addictive comes around.

[gruez]

That argument might work against f2p lootbox games, but that does not explain the "release 1-2 crappy games on that IP that is filled to the brim with microtransactions" phenomena that's described in the GP. Nobody is like "wow this game doesn't have lootboxes? I guess I'm not going to buy it". If someone is buying such a game, to a first approximation they're buying for the gameplay, not because they're addicted to gambling and are buying it to get their fix.

[dunkvg]

The point is when microtransactions are involved, the gameplay and overall quality of the game suffers, because they are no longer the priority, the microtransactions become the priority. Decisions will be made by the game developers to increase the spending on microtransactions with less regard to the effect on gameplay, and from the studio perspective, this is fine as long as its profitable. In the short term this could be true (despite bad reviews these games tend to still be profitable), but in the long run this is rarely true as they end up milking the loyal fanbase for as much money as possible with the mtx, until there is no one left to milk and hence the IP dies.

This approach doesn't look to add value to the existing IPs, it looks to drain as much money as it can out of whats left of the IP, before shelving it completely (and then coming up with remakes of the old games after 10 years etc.)

[ceejayoz]

Some folks get suckered into a gambling addiction via the buffet, too.