Comment on CD Projekt CFO does "not see a place for microtransactions in single-player games"
schmidtster@lemmy.world 8 months agoIt is kinda funny how people have no issue paying for it all together as bundle, but separate it so people can pay for things individually is silly.
I would rather have a story for $10 and $1 outfits I can ignore, than to spend $30 on a story and bunch of cosmetics that don’t add to the game.
This is just marketing, nothing more.
People did have issues paying for it all together, back when they were called “expansion packs.”
I don’t mind paying for more of the game. I do mind paying for fixes to a broken game. I don’t mind optional cosmetic upgrades, but I don’t like pay-to-win, even in single player (looking at you, Nintendo amiibos).
But regardless, people are going to complain, and many of their complaints will be valid.
People had different issues with those, that was because online was a portion of it, and people thought devs were holding content back just to make more money. Obviously some did that, but they started painting every dev with that brush.
Every change has been a reactionary effort to adjust for the market changes and using it to their marketing advantage.
You know, the way you phrase it I’d be fine. Only in your example, instead of 60 for it all, it is now 60 for 80% of the story, another 2x15 for the remainder, and 10 per Outfit.
You used to be able to unlock cosmetic content by playing instead of paying. They’re taking advantage.
The thing is, you actually get 30$ story and 5$ per outfit instead of a 30$ Expansion.
And cosmetics do add to the game for a big part of the market.
I think some people like to know when it ends. Microtransactions can make it seem endless. Once you’ve done that a few times it makes you want to know about as much as you can upfront.
ogmios@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Eh… It’s more than just paying, but that a lot of the stuff which is now a standard microtransaction used to be integrated into the total experience, so you’d unlock outfits and such for finding secrets or completing challenges. That sort of content was integral to the over all experience, not just an extra to tack on as an afterthought.
schmidtster@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That’s also just an affect on the market of people wanting more choice.
Of course it can be swung in a negative light too, because it affects developers bottom lines, and they always want the most money possible. CDPR is no different.
snooggums@midwest.social 8 months ago
The outcome of splitting the content is that there are a lot of people who want to have everything and they will end up paying far more for a la carte than for an expansion. The people who wouldn’t have bought the expansion still buy nothing, and pretty much nobody just buys a couple of things to save money.
Microtransactions is a system designed to prey on completionist whales. Barely anyone only buys a couple of things and doesn’t end up spending more than $30 over time as the content is drip fed and the new hotness comes along to replace the old hotness. Those that don’t spend anything, or just buy one thing before catching on, weren’t going to spend the $30 anyway.
It is false choice that negatively impacts the game experience.
schmidtster@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So if they want the content, they can support the devs so they make more.
So no lose there, but they could buy an outfit if they liked it and want to support the dev.
…… that’s actually the majority of gamers…… 2% of the player base accounts for most of the purchases, that means the other 98% is still buying stuff, just not everything. So that’s not even remotely close to reality, most people pick and choose the content, which is literally why this because a thing, because the market wanted it….