A lot of gaming enthusiasts-- those who play on dedicated handhelds, or consoles, or PCs-- will tell you that the mobile industry is not respectable gaming. Regardless, the AAA gaming industry has taken a lot of cues from the mobile market, and this worries enthusiast gamers.
I want to compare the mobile model of making money to show you its influences in AAA games. This isn't about buttons, or graphics, or cinematic experiences. This is about microtransactions.
Mobile games are structured to be financial fleecing machines. The scheme is to sell you a cheap or free game, and get you paying out of your nose with optional microtransactions. The integrity of game design is therefore compromised for a corporate/shareholder visions of what “gameplay” should be. Games are designed around getting you to spend money.
This kind of design has seen its way to AAA games. We'll focus on two multiplayer games: Black Ops 3, and Rainbow Six: Siege.
Activision's latest game brings back “Supply Drops” which have you wondering why you're not just off to a casino to at least make real money. “Supply Drops” are like what you see in mobile games.
Generally speaking, this model has you spending real money to buy a fake currency, which you can then spend in-game for various things like power ups or cosmetics. This fake currency can also usually be earned by playing daily. Essentially, grinding.
Usually, this is a two tiered system. You have “Currency A” which is an in-game currency that can exclusively be bought with real money. You also have “Currency B” which is a currency that can be earned in-game by playing or completing challenges. You can buy DLC like upgrades, cosmetics, or gameplay advantages by spending either kinds of currencies. In Call of Duty, "Currency A” is known as COD points, and "Currency B” is known as Crypto Keys.
You can flat out buy COD points with real money, or grind for Crypto Keys. This can really prey upon gambler-like vices: you pay money to get a chance at a “supply drop” which gives you random items, of varying rarity. But you can never flat out buy exactly what you want.
This is all okay in a mobile game where the cost of entry is usually free. Or you can just call it all ugly and taper off mobile games into its ugly little corner and swear to never touch them.
In a AAA game, having this kind of model becomes dubious. It certainly isn't a problem when the rewards are cosmetic. Gamers tend to have a kind of loyalty to certain games and publishers and often make purchases for themselves, or to support the publisher for fair DLC. I know I certainly buy a lot of Rocket League content, not because I WANT them, but because I enjoy supporting Psyonix.
What happens when games start to charge for little gameplay advantages? For example, buying guns, or perks? You may be okay with this too. It can harm the integrity of a multiplayer game though. You often hear the term "Pay to Win" associated with such content. This isn't new to AAA games. So where is the mobile influence?
Well, what if I told you that you can't actually buy certain advantages like gun DLC? What if you could only get a CHANCE to win DLC, by spending money on in-game currency, or grinding long enough to earn enough in-game currency to spend on this chance?
This is the mobile model, and it exists in Black Ops 3. It's not a new model. I'd argue that this model is incredibly similar to models seen at casino slots and what gamblers are used to. It uses a combination of nickel and diming customers, multi-tiered currency options, carrot-on-a-stick rewards, and RNG luck to make lots and lots of money at the expense of shepherded gamers who are too involved with what they are playing to see the bigger picture.
Last generation, gamers saw the industry bend our patience with a myriad of money-making tactics like...
1) Season Passes! Crowdsource your favourite game so that developers can feel motivated to make quality DLC!
2) Online Passes! You borrowed a game from your friend, did you? Wanted to maybe try the online before buying it? Bought a game used? Too bad. Pay us!
3) Map DLC! All it costs is a fractured community and annoying confusion of figuring out which maps you and your friends have.
Are all of these acceptable practices? The consumers seem to think so. Quality season passes have come to largely replace the expansion packs we've come to expect from PC games of old, but they certainly seem like a win-win for gamers and publishers. Online passes mercifully faded away like jean jackets (actually, those are back in style now). And map DLC has gotten interesting. A number of games now boast “Free map DLC for life!” as a selling point to consumers, while others still charge for multiple map packs (which also is supposed to make a season pass more enticing to purchase).
But Call of Duty's "Supply Drops” really takes the cake for the biggest offense. There's no beating around the bush that a game should not hide gun DLC or gameplay advantages strictly behind a slot machine. Certainly not a competitive multiplayer game. Certainly not a AAA game that costs $60.00. Certainly not a game that has map DLC.
Yet this is the state of Black Ops 3. While these guns do not necessarily outclass every other gun, they certainly have advantages. Even melee weapons that are won through supply drops hit faster than the default knife. Where once you would have to pay an upfront fee for these weapons, you now have to spend an unknown amount at just the chance to get these items. You can literally spend hundreds of dollars just to get a gun, because the RNG is exactly that—random.
This is the ugliness of the mobile market, yet the fault lies squarely on Activision. Yet where is the outcry? Why isn't Activision crucified? How did such a perverse model slip by? It's actually because Activision added this model in after the launch of Black Ops 3. While it existed at launch, you could only win cosmetic content. That soon changed to include guns. Is there any scenario where this is acceptable? Actually, I would say there is a good compromise. Let's look at Rainbow Six: Siege.
Ubisoft's Rainbow Six: Siege is a great game. Make no mistake, this is a genuinely novel multiplayer shooter. It has its share of criticism: launch day server issues, lack of single player, and ... mobile model microtransactions. But this isn't the same ugliness seen in Black Ops 3.
I am actually going to defend Ubisoft. See, Ubisoft wasn't as clever as Activision. Instead of revealing the evil extent of Activision's Supply Drop microtransaction model, Ubisoft decided to be upfront about their similar model. For this, they were ripped by some media, during their launch.
But Ubisoft does this model in a fair way. Again, we have a two tiered pricing model. You can earn “Renown” by grinding/playing the game, and spend “Renown” (Currency A) to buy cosmetic DLC, or new classes (known as operators), who have their own unique guns, and abilities. You can also buy "Credit" (Currency B) with real money. You actually can't buy the gun DLC/operators, but you can buy special gun skins.
The real controversy for Ubisoft came with “boosters”, which were microtransaction purchases that would add a multiplier modifier for the “Renown” you earned. Think of “Renown” like XP awarded after a match, and “boosters” as modifiers that multiply your renown for a period of time. These boosters range from an XP boost for 24 hours, to 3 days, to 7 days. This is a model familiar on mobile games, where you can buy similar boosters to increase performance. Successful mobile games work by using tricks similar to those that exploit gambling addicts. You are only rewarded enough or given enough time to barely reach your objective, so you spend money and time grinding and hoping for better payouts.
For this reason, Rainbow Six: Siege caught a lot of criticism. In order to convince you that the media is unfair for their criticism, you first have to accept that multiplayer games need to make post-launch money. Like season passes, gamers need to spend for extra content, and developers need to be paid for this work. For a long time, this has usually been in the form of map DLC for multiplayer games. In some cases, it's weapon DLC. Sometimes, it's both.
I propose that Ubisoft's mobile model is fair for two reasons:
1) Map DLC is free. For the life of the title, Ubisoft expects to release 4-5 maps that will be available for the whole community.
2) As a result of (1), grinding as a means to earn DLC content like extra guns/operators is a fair compromise, and one that doesn't hurt the community or force players by deceitful slot-machine tactics
If you can accept that multiplayer games need extra content to survive long-term, and that that content usually comes in new modes and maps, then you can agree that free map DLC is a major benefit to the community. I loathe map DLC because it not only fractures a community, it hurts matchmaking, it's overpriced, the maps are usually spit out like chewing gum for the next stick, and it hurts the social experience of playing with friends.
You can also come around to realize that if these maps were charged, they would ballpark at around $15-$20 for 4-5 maps. Instead, these maps are free. So where does Ubisoft make their money? It's through these mobile-like boosters that have you grinding faster for “Renown”, which you can then use to purchase these new operators/guns. There is also another way: purchasing the Season Pass, which gives you immediate access to new guns/operators.
Nowhere here do you see what you see in Black Ops 3. There is no nasty slot machine. There is no deception of introducing gameplay advantages behind said slot machine.
Yet, Ubisoft has gotten a brunt of the criticism while Activision gets away relatively free. It's rather hypocritical that our industry is so inconsistent with this criticism, as on one hand an honest publisher gets their hand chewed off, while a deceptive one tricks its consumers well after they've made their purchase.
It's rather unfortunate that this same industry can put fault on the mobile industry as a bane on the AAA industry, when the AAA industry themselves fractures and destroys their consumers over map DLC. Battlefield 4 was particularly nasty with this, as a lot of their DLC maps are simply abandoned or not played. All of this because the community is fractured 4 or 5 times over for the sake of map DLC.
See, we don't need mobile-like tactics for greedy publishers to do more harm than good to its consumers. We've somehow come to accept map DLC as a norm, despite its harmful effects on the community. I am actually hopeful that the mobile model seen in many games can act as a fair compromise for more harmful DLC. I think Ubisoft and Activision represent two examples of a right and wrong way to do this.
I propose that games like Rainbow Six: Siege should be praised for its approach to post-launch content. Free maps, and DLC content that is obtainable for free or for a fee is much better than paid maps, and paying for a mere chance to get DLC. And the industry seems to be weighing both options too. Games like Rocket League and Halo 5 boast about free map DLC for life as well, while adding in mobile-like microtransactions to compensate.
When done right, this mobile model can be seen as a fair compromise that pays developers and rewards customers with ongoing support. When done wrong, it is downright gross, dishonest, and insulting. It seems to me that this facet of the mobile industry is one that is most relevant to our AAA industry, and one that can be as harmful as expected, or even actually better than what we have come to expect.
-Alpha
Nintendo may be working on a brand new Legend of Zelda game featuring Zelda as the main character, based on a new rumor.
It works
The cycle of hatred can't always be exactly the same
Maybe in one reincarnation the Hyrule family name their son Link in honour of Hylia's chosen hero and some village woman name their daughter Zelda in honour of Princess Zelda from the old tales of the lands past.
This rumor, or variants of it, appears pretty much every time there is a gap with a non-announced Zelda game in the works. So I would take it with a grain of salt."
That said, I have always wanted a game where you play as her. Not exactly a "Zelda game", mind you, I always see her making more sense in something like a city builder/management or strategy game.
Here is a look at the Closed Alpha for the game in action.
Keep in mind that regardless of your stance or interest in this, be it good or bad; the ToS agreement makes it so you can't leave negative reviews once accepted.
Land on any planet in Star Citizen currently and you’ll be greeted by things like weather patterns, flora, and very possibly a derelict or two. What you won’t find are any animals, however. That’s going to change with alpha 3.23’s release, as CIG has finally put together two animals to populate certain planets. That’s not quite three, but it’s more than one!
Two brand-new animals? Fantastic. This game should be ready by the time the Vault Dwellers come out from their Vaults Two Hundred years after the Apocalypse.
Any minute now...
No good, only bad. End of story. I did not pay $60 to have BS crafting/grinding systems shoved on me so I'll pay even more money. There is 0 reason for them not to abuse and ruin any good that might have come from their inclusion (if such a thing even is even possible) because too many stupid people will buy them anyways, without realizing the damage they're doing to the industry. As such it becomes a 0 sum game. They are never acceptable.