In some cases yes, like Ubisoft. They do design the game around the transactions.
In this case the transactions are clearly being added in at the end by the publisher and weren’t influencing the development itself.
Like seriously - selling me a wakestone or ferrystone? A dozen or so hours in I had too many to carry and was putting them in storage for a rainy day. Literally just grabbing two starter pawns from others and camping out will get you wakestones in a few minutes.
The port crystal is the only useful item in the store, and frankly if you buy it you ruin your gameplay curve.
The base game without microtransactions is paced exactly like the first game. The microtransactions here ruin the gameplay design if bought in one case and are worthless in the other cases. The base game without buying anything is what it was designed around and is also going to be the most enjoyable way to play.
Again, this stuff has been in multiple capcom games, and it hasn’t impacted anything. Nothing on re4 was devalued by its microtransactions either. It’s fine. For other companies that actually make things grinder sure, maybe. But this one just doesn’t do that. Which people might know if they paid attention.
Honestly, people are just looking for an axe to grind. I’d love to see this effort towards companies that do mass layoffs or something instead. But this case is totally inconsequential
You claiming it didn’t affect anything doesn’t make it reality.
It’s fundamentally not possible for it not to change the design process of a game. Literally every game ever made with micro-transactions has been affected in one way or another, unless the first time the idea was discussed was after the game was shipped. “Just cosmetics” guarantees cosmetics that would have been earned with gameplay get taken away to be put behind a paywall, and all of the exploration and discovery involved in earning them is gone.
All microtransactions make games worse, and all microtransactions are bad.
The key gambling system 100% impacted the community, who are the ones to provide gameplay to each other in these games.
All previous Counter-Strike game had a 100% level playing field— all players had access to the same gear and visuals. This equity was very important to gameplay by keeping it competitive, specifically being able to recognize weapons and enemies easily.
CS:GO took a sharp turn with this, effectively ending equity in the game. Not only did you have to spend money if you wanted you or your gear to look like others, but it also made it much more difficult to recognize enemies and gear people were carrying unless you more carefully inspected them. Bits sticking out around corners became much more difficult to recognize.
There is likely much more impact to the game and its development on various levels, but this is a clear example of a negative impact of microtransactions being introduced.
In TF2, players cannot completely disable the hats. It takes a server operator employing mods or plugins to disable them. The equity was there. It ended with CS:GO.
As well, even if a player could opt out of seeing them, it doesn’t change the fact that the game was built around the gambling and still impacts other players you interact with.
There are some non-competitive games I think handle cosmetic-only micro transactions well (ex: Last Epoch). But I don’t try to fool myself that it doesn’t impact development or gameplay.
it’s the same system that was in the first game they just let idiots buy a thing to skip the mechanic. Unless you think this future implementation of micro transactions affected the past.
It’s not the same system. It’s new code, built and tuned for the current version of the game. And it’s literally impossible for it not to be affected by the knowledge that microtransactions were going to exist.
But let’s play make believe that it was theoretically possible for any microtransaction to not be actively malicious. Lying about it would still make everyone involved a bad person.
It always affects the base game.
Your entire design process is impacted by the mere existence of microtransactions.
In some cases yes, like Ubisoft. They do design the game around the transactions.
In this case the transactions are clearly being added in at the end by the publisher and weren’t influencing the development itself.
Like seriously - selling me a wakestone or ferrystone? A dozen or so hours in I had too many to carry and was putting them in storage for a rainy day. Literally just grabbing two starter pawns from others and camping out will get you wakestones in a few minutes.
The port crystal is the only useful item in the store, and frankly if you buy it you ruin your gameplay curve.
The base game without microtransactions is paced exactly like the first game. The microtransactions here ruin the gameplay design if bought in one case and are worthless in the other cases. The base game without buying anything is what it was designed around and is also going to be the most enjoyable way to play.
Again, this stuff has been in multiple capcom games, and it hasn’t impacted anything. Nothing on re4 was devalued by its microtransactions either. It’s fine. For other companies that actually make things grinder sure, maybe. But this one just doesn’t do that. Which people might know if they paid attention.
Honestly, people are just looking for an axe to grind. I’d love to see this effort towards companies that do mass layoffs or something instead. But this case is totally inconsequential
You claiming it didn’t affect anything doesn’t make it reality.
It’s fundamentally not possible for it not to change the design process of a game. Literally every game ever made with micro-transactions has been affected in one way or another, unless the first time the idea was discussed was after the game was shipped. “Just cosmetics” guarantees cosmetics that would have been earned with gameplay get taken away to be put behind a paywall, and all of the exploration and discovery involved in earning them is gone.
All microtransactions make games worse, and all microtransactions are bad.
Even things like valve’s key systems in TF2/CS?
Absolutely.
The key gambling system 100% impacted the community, who are the ones to provide gameplay to each other in these games.
All previous Counter-Strike game had a 100% level playing field— all players had access to the same gear and visuals. This equity was very important to gameplay by keeping it competitive, specifically being able to recognize weapons and enemies easily.
CS:GO took a sharp turn with this, effectively ending equity in the game. Not only did you have to spend money if you wanted you or your gear to look like others, but it also made it much more difficult to recognize enemies and gear people were carrying unless you more carefully inspected them. Bits sticking out around corners became much more difficult to recognize.
There is likely much more impact to the game and its development on various levels, but this is a clear example of a negative impact of microtransactions being introduced.
And in TF2, where disabling skins is a console command away? Frankly surprised there’s no similar option in GO/2.
In TF2, players cannot completely disable the hats. It takes a server operator employing mods or plugins to disable them. The equity was there. It ended with CS:GO.
As well, even if a player could opt out of seeing them, it doesn’t change the fact that the game was built around the gambling and still impacts other players you interact with.
There are some non-competitive games I think handle cosmetic-only micro transactions well (ex: Last Epoch). But I don’t try to fool myself that it doesn’t impact development or gameplay.
Yes.
it’s the same system that was in the first game they just let idiots buy a thing to skip the mechanic. Unless you think this future implementation of micro transactions affected the past.
It’s not the same system. It’s new code, built and tuned for the current version of the game. And it’s literally impossible for it not to be affected by the knowledge that microtransactions were going to exist.
But let’s play make believe that it was theoretically possible for any microtransaction to not be actively malicious. Lying about it would still make everyone involved a bad person.
The first game had a built in eternal ferrystone when it saw most of its success.
In no way is paying 3$ for every ferrystone except 5 the same as an eternal ferrystone.