(Jim Sterling) NBA 2K18 Pulls A Microtransaction Slam Dunk - General

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9gwtmcB_TM[/media] TL;DW everything costs virtual currency and you can buy heaps of them like in a mobile game.

Videogames makes me wanna die

[QUOTE=Dom Pyroshark;52700365]Videogames makes me wanna die[/QUOTE] Videogame publishers make me want to die.

Yeah, I saw it being bombarded with negative reviews on Steam and uh...yeah, no argument here. This is just vile.

Who the fuck is going to pay $150+ for a game that will be replaced within a year? Also, apparently MyCareer has 2 hours worth of unskippable shit at the start. Meaning that players couldn't refund once they were allowed to actually play.

You have to pay for a haircut where you can't see what the haircut looks like. And you can't own the haircut. You have to pay real money again to have the same haircut again.

I'm surprised the WWE 2k games aren't as bad with microtransactions. They still have fuckton of wrestler DLC packs, but I think the career mode is mostly untouched.

i hate video games

[QUOTE=Mud;52700438]i hate video games[/QUOTE] Hey come on now don't think like this. It at least didn't kill older games we all (still) love.

[QUOTE=Mud;52700438]i hate video games[/QUOTE] But not every video game is like this

#NotAllGames

What the hell, 2k? A full blown freemium model do not work on premium games, this shit won't even fly in the gullible mobile game market! [QUOTE=MrJazzy;52700570]#NotAllGames[/QUOTE] Kind news are boring. Keep bringing us something we can hate on.

[QUOTE=Noob4life;52700756]Kind news are boring. Keep bringing us something we can hate on.[/QUOTE] I just found it funny how they seemed to take the guy so seriously. I doubt he hates video-games, it seemed more like a sarcastic comment with undertones of disappointment in how (some) major companies never cease to top eachother in ways to make more money off of the same or even less of the actual product they're selling.

[QUOTE=Noob4life;52700756]What the hell, 2k? A full blown freemium model do not work on premium games, this shit won't even fly in the gullible mobile game market! [/QUOTE] in jimquisition's words, publishers were given an inch on the free to play market and they're now fucking the gaming public with the mile

Anti-consumer business practices seems to suffer much more backlash in games industry than any other afaik. In other markets most consumers have the choice to swear loyalty to another brand (unless monopolized, like ISPs, fuck every single one of them). Despite there are now way more games than what anyone know what to do with them, gamers still find it difficult to move on from their favorites. Also games bring communities together which makes dissatisfaction easily heard over the internet. All in all, good! I have a growing distaste towards incentivizing player behavior as a whole, especially when used to make quick bucks.

[QUOTE=Noob4life;52700888]Anti-consumer business practices seems to suffer much more backlash in games industry than any other afaik. In other markets most consumers have the choice to swear loyalty to another brand (unless monopolized, like ISPs, fuck every single one of them). Despite there are now way more games than what anyone know what to do with them, gamers still find it difficult to move on from their favorites. Also games bring communities together which makes dissatisfaction easily heard over the internet. All in all, good! I have a growing distaste towards incentivizing player behavior as a whole, especially when used to make quick bucks.[/QUOTE] I don't think anti-consumer business practices suffer more backlash in the games industry than any other, heck I'd say it's the other way around. Anti-consumer business practices are tolerated more in the gaming industry than in any other I can think of.

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;52700908]I don't think anti-consumer business practices suffer more backlash in the games industry than any other, heck I'd say it's the other way around. Anti-consumer business practices are tolerated more in the gaming industry than in any other I can think of.[/QUOTE] Tolerated! That's actually the word I was looking for. Gamers do still stick around even after getting screwed over. In other industries if they pulled anything too extreme I'm sure their customers will immediately scramble off to their competitors.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;52700546]But not every video game is like this[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=FixEEt;52700461]Hey come on now don't think like this. It at least didn't kill older games we all (still) love.[/QUOTE] im just funin lol

It's like the crap 2K pulled with Evolve but 100x worse.

Why not add a $20/month subscription service on top off it while you're at it on top of the normal $60 and constant freemium currency mechanics? You're already fucking them in both ends, might as well get some use out of those hands as well.

I'm so tired of this. Just charge what your game costs. As I customer I shouldn't have to investigate every game I buy to see how much of its content is paygated. I'm broke as hell but it isn't even about the money. It's about selling me something for $60 and when I open it up you tell me the game never really cost $60 and that if you wanted to play all of the game it's actually $74.99 (or something) I've quit AAA. I've felt immediate buyers remorse too many times this year. I'll stick with old games and indies. Why should I buy a game for $60 and then buy it a few more times, just to have a shitty AAA game when Quake is like $5 and Bad Company 2 is still active? It's not even just micro-transactions, it really feels like AAA = quick gimmick game that won't be relevant an a year. Like, think about Fallout 4. Fallout is a niche RPG. Did they really think that making a generic 'for all types' kind of game was gunna work? Of course not but they convinced a lot more people to buy it than if they just made a really good successor to 3/NV. I (or we, idk) are no longer the demographic for these games. These are not games for gamers anymore these are games purely for profit. (there are obvious exceptions, I don't actually think all AAA games get ruined by bad publishers. It's just extremely likely and I'm tired of purchasing a game feeling like a roulette wheel where's there a chance I buy a game and only after ten minutes of play realize I absolutely hate if for very stupid publisher stuff like this)

[QUOTE=MedicWine;52701052]Like, think about Fallout 4. Fallout is a niche RPG. Did they really think that making a generic 'for all types' kind of game was gunna work? Of course not but they convinced a lot more people to buy it than if they just made a really good successor to 3/NV. I (or we, idk) are no longer the demographic for these games. These are not games for gamers anymore these are games purely for profit.[/QUOTE] Actually, AAA games often go wide when it comes to demographic. A blog post from the devs of Furi, which I liked for their philosophy, briefly touched on this, [url=https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EmericThoa/20160729/278028/Furi_some_tough_design_decisions_striving_to_make_a_memorable_game.php]up until the end of part ONE[/url].

The video game market has grown for a while now and keeps growing and it's already huge. There's a lot of legal ambiguity and grey-areas. I don't doubt that we will eventually live in a time when the market is much more regulated by authorities and shit like this doesn't really happen, because as is apparent, the market itself doesn't care, it just wants to keep generating more money - and that's why I am actually thankful for people like Jim Sterling, because they're the ones giving these issues attention.

[QUOTE=Noob4life;52700922]Tolerated! That's actually the word I was looking for. Gamers do still stick around even after getting screwed over. In other industries if they pulled anything too extreme I'm sure their customers will immediately scramble off to their competitors.[/QUOTE] That's not really possible in this industry's current state. More and more AAA games are an investment, and the penalty for pulling out is split playerbases, wasted resources, dying communities, and a variety of other unpleasant things. Indie devs are an alternative, but not a replacement. And the middle/AA market is just too small to replace anything right now. The closest thing to a way out is the handful of big Japanese devs that haven't fucked everything up, and they all have problems of their own.

[QUOTE=Aredbomb;52701205]That's not really possible in this industry's current state. More and more AAA games are an investment, and the penalty for pulling out is split playerbases, wasted resources, dying communities, and a variety of other unpleasant things. Indie devs are an alternative, but not a replacement. And the middle/AA market is just too small to replace anything right now. The closest thing to a way out is the handful of big Japanese devs that haven't fucked everything up, and they all have problems of their own.[/QUOTE] When you mean pulling out, you meant players to stop paying and playing only the games with malicious practices, or the entire "tainted" industry as a whole?

[QUOTE=Noob4life;52701237]When you mean pulling out, you meant players to stop paying and playing only the games with malicious practices, or the entire "tainted" industry as a whole?[/QUOTE] I mean stop playing a particular company's games in protest of said company's malicious practices. Doesn't matter what they do next.

[QUOTE=Aredbomb;52701245]I mean stop playing a particular company's games in protest of said company's malicious practices. Doesn't matter what they do next.[/QUOTE] Ah alright. I don't see why that's not possible, plenty of fish in the ocean. Sounds more like sunk cost fallacy, unwillingness to leave the fanbase and universe behind. The companies need to be let known that being too greedy can cost them.

[QUOTE=simzboy;52700412]Who the fuck is going to pay $150+ for a game that will be replaced within a year? .[/QUOTE] I still see dumbshit casuals do this at gamestop. Last time I was at gamestop, it was to preorder MGSV collector's edition( thought I had to do it in person) and there were two bros in there upset that they were only getting a very tiny amount of cashback for NBA2kpreviousyear to trade towards the newest NBA2k game. And they still went through it despite it being the same game. They even knew it was the same game

This is getting insane, not only that you've already bought a 80$ (Canadian) Dollar game, but they have the crunch to charge micro transaction on everything down to the gameplay. This is the worst case scenario for pay to win. Unpopular opinion incoming but i think if microtransaction keeps infesting more and more games to the point it becomes parasitic, i think we'll have another video game crash.

[QUOTE=Rummy.SM;52701595]Unpopular opinion incoming but i think if microtransaction keeps infesting more and more games to the point it becomes parasitic, i think we'll have another video game crash.[/QUOTE] I actually don't think this is an unpopular opinion; I've heard a lot of people predict an impending second crash. I'm not so sure about it [I]myself[/I] and I don't know if the entire market would fall with no survivors, but someone's definitely going to get hurt if this trend keeps up.