I'm getting sick of micro transactions in games

You used to buy a game, and it was done, you got to spend hours playing the whole thing - like a good RPG. Even Mario, let's focus on Mario -

All eight worlds came free-to-play with the original purpose of a game like Super Mario 3! Imagine these days, you would be forced to buy each level for 99 cents or a world for $9.99 - and the quality of them would be lame. That's the general idea of this rant.

For example, I am playing Game of War, a game that has poor graphics and lackluster game-play. It is an empire-building game, where you have a stronghold and you collect resources from mines and the like to upgrade buildings and research tech. It takes years in real-time to research some of the highest tech in the game, and that means using speed-ups... but speed-ups cost GOLD! And gold costs cash! Most of the people I play with in my alliance have dumped around $1,000 into the game. It costs $100 for 50,000 gold pieces. If your hero dies, for example, it costs 5,000 gold to resurrect them. You can instantly research a mid-tier tech for 40,000 gold. That is nearly $100.00 per tech. I don't purchase gold in the game, and thus my empire suffers.



People I know have dropped a grand into this game.

I also play Magic: The Gathering. This game almost gets a pass because it's been around for a while, but the fact remains it is a micro-transaction game. And the game has recently shifted towards being a lot more expensive - most people play competitively, and that means keeping a deck up-to-date with what is legal (cards cycle out) so I could be spending $150 every 3 months to keep a deck maintained and playable... and that is if I'm on a budget, which I am.

Then there is Magic the Gathering: Online... basically mirror the costs to play the same deck online.

There are numerous other games, the competitive ones (another example being Hearthstone) advertise being competitive as free-to-play but really you can't win unless you pay (pay-to-win), and these games can literally cost thousands of dollars to play over time.

The Elder Scrolls online sounds like a bargain with a subscription of $15.00 a month and no need for micro transactions... it cuts out the nonsense. Star Wars: The Old Republic, on the other hand, has an optional subscription... otherwise, you can opt to buy things essential to game play at the cash shop!

It goes on and on... the bottom line is I need to get another job just to play games I already own!

I am ashamed of how much money I have spent on Clash of Lords 1 and 2, Clash of Clans, and Castle Clash. Spent another $10 last night

It is becoming difficult to find any mobile games that are paid. I was extremely happy to find Baldur's Gate EE for sale! For just $10! And I have the complete game! What a novelty these days. There is I think 1 or maybe 2 things you can buy, but they are not necessary. I can't really blame the companies: they found thousands of suckers (like me) who will shell out over and over for games. No more! I am done!

i totally feel ya on this one. Its frustrating as hell! So what i did was i had my internet canceled and just played games on my PS3 & PS4, i totally opted out of online games and any game that made it mandatory to go online to play it. This cash shop thing totally killed my love of MMOs. The ones they kept churning out were nothing like the quality of what they used to be and mostly because of cash shops. Sure some of the graphics are good but the quality of game play completely went downhill. I haven't touched an MMO in, hmm let me think, its been so long i can't even remember lol its been a while lol.

You answered your own rant.

Super Mario is finite. You play, you finish, you move to buy another game. at $70 a pop.

You are playing an infinite game which can take years and never end. You pay to play for the time instead of the win.

Peace

a reply to: darkbake

Thanks for the heads up. I downloaded that game played for a few minutes then never got back to it. After reading your OP I deleted it. I will not even bother with that stuff now.

Quit buying them.

I think some replies are missing the point of the rant. At least to me there is a big difference between a game such as World of Warcraft where you are paying for server maintenance and updates as well as new content and supporting the development of new content (although I think WoW is way overpriced).

Now when you have games such as Game of War, I have to ask, why don't they/can't they simply create the game and sell it? Civilization has done very well as a complete game. Jude11 has a valid point regarding value, but most games have replay value. And the new model of freemium games has nothing to do with endless playability: it's all about "having" to pay to get anywhere in the game (unless you want to wait days, weeks, months, or longer).

It's easy to say don't play the games, but hey, this is a rant

It would be nice if devs stopped being lazy and actually created full games again.

originally posted by: InvisibleOwl
I think some replies are missing the point of the rant. At least to me there is a big difference between a game such as World of Warcraft where you are paying for server maintenance and updates as well as new content and supporting the development of new content (although I think WoW is way overpriced).

Now when you have games such as Game of War, I have to ask, why don't they/can't they simply create the game and sell it? Civilization has done very well as a complete game. Jude11 has a valid point regarding value, but most games have replay value. And the new model of freemium games has nothing to do with endless playability: it's all about "having" to pay to get anywhere in the game (unless you want to wait days, weeks, months, or longer).

It's easy to say don't play the games, but hey, this is a rant

It would be nice if devs stopped being lazy and actually created full games again.

Priorities might play a part in my post. I posted the video because you really do create your own prison. You can use it for video games being too expensive and some others things. I have done the same thing and the one thing that helped me out of it was the word, priorities. I get the point. I just don't see there being a point. You as the consumer have the ultimate power. When enough of you do this, it forces them to change their business strategy or they cease to exist. You have to love the free market.

a reply to: InvisibleOwl

in regards to MMOs like WoW and such i have zero problem with paying a monthly sub. My issue regarding that specific type of cash shop is I'm already paying a monthly sub so no need for a cash shop and when they do eventually add them its usually done in such a way as to almost force you to buy from the cash store and that I'm totally against.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA

Completely agree and I found your choice of music video quite apt
For me it is absolutely a prison I have jumped into. And you are correct: people need to stop buying in to this model if we want it to change. I have finally taken that step. I just hope that some game companies will go against this tide and make games that are full, even if they have to charge 10-20 bucks.

Part of my rant within this rant is toward myself. I nearly had a panic attack when I saw my Visa bill will a LOT of 2-3 buck transactions. I hated myself just a little

Pick up guild wars 2 no sub fee.

or play a moba. Many mobas do not force you to buy anything at all.

Or pick up a consol like 3DS and pick up a game that has high replay value like the pokemon games.

The newer pokemon games are great. But honestly what do you want to play? and RTS?

Pick up star craft 2 and you won't have to worry about transactions. Want an empire building game? There are some on steam that you can buy.

There are lots of great free games. Have you tried Astroflux?

Lots of people are playing pokemon these days. I myself got a 3DS this christmas just to play the new pokemon games. I got X, Omega ruby and alpha saphire. They set up is pricey at first, But this will keep me entertained for 2 years. Until the next pokemon game comes out and i can dig into more of the lore they seep in.

I love digging around the world to learn the lore. For me this was something i grew up with so i can relate with it. It was in my childhood so, It's nostalgic to be going back in time like that. And i love the fact there is still a huge community of it. Almost everyone in my generation has been subjected to pokemon. It was a worldwide phenomenon right before the internet hit. It literally is the marking point right before the end of the old age and the transition to the new age.

The age when interactive screens started taking over homes and regular peoples lives. Pokemon came out in 1995. Which is pretty signifigant in of itself. As the internet followed a year later...

I understand the sentiment 100%! I play Star Trek Online, and it's got it's C-store for those microtransactions. If there's a system to learn how to manipulate/play in your favor, you just have to learn how.

For energy credits, which are in-game cash for the exchange & NPC vendors, you can increase your cap to a billion from 10 mil. That, however, costs real cash to do. I did do this, but there's a work around to using cash that I'll explain shortly. It cost me the equivalent of $5 worth of "zen" (PWE's currency in-game)

Tier 6 (max level/end game) ships cost $30 in the c-store, T5's are $20-$25. If you want to upgrade your T5 to a T6 instead of just buying a T6, it's $7. Per T5 ship you own.
If you're in a fleet (guild) and want a ship that is restricted to fleets, that's $5 per fleet ship module. I think those ships cost you 4 modules ($20 to get)

Character outfits run the equivalent of $5.50. Increasing your duty officer slots by 25 personnel runs $2.25. A specialty Bridge Officer (liberated Borgs, Aenar, Ferasan, Caitian) run you $6. A playable Fed Klingon, a Trill, Ferasan, Caitian, Reman all run $6 also.
If you want a Shared Account bank, that's $10. It unlocks a bank type that allows all characters on your account to put unbound or account-bound stuff in there. It's actually really handy & more efficient than the in-game mail system, and I did get this (but not with real cash)

Then you have the worst money suck of all. Lockbox keys. These boxes are random drops in game, that are only useable if you buy a single key for $1.25, or a 10-pack for $11.25. This is really their cash cow for microtransactions, because everyone has done it with real cash at least once, even me.

There's a ton more, but those are the most commonly used/bought things.

I've bought 3 T6 $30 ships, a couple of T5 ships, T5 to T6 upgrades, several Bridge Officers, several playable species, TONS of outfits, a lot of lockbox keys, the shared account bank slot, etc. I've only spent about $20 real bucks on one ship, the Odyssey cruiser years ago when it debuted. Everything else, I've used dilithium for. I think I've bought about $150 worth of in-game stuff with dilithium alone. This is another in-game currency, usually used for fleet projects & a store for dilithium-buy items. What we savvy players do is watch the Zen exchange like hawks, you can trade in a certain amount of dilithium for a single Zen. This adds up, sometimes very quickly. Right now, the Zen costs about 160 dilithium, which means I could get around $3 worth of Zen today if I traded it in on one character. However, I'm a saver, I squirrel it away for months sometimes, and get a huge trade-in. One time, I had almost $100 in there, just from saving & exchanging dilithium for Zen, which is essentially real cash if you buy it with real cash. Dilithium is a work-around to not using any cash at all. It takes time for a new player to figure this out, because you also have to figure out how to rake in that dilithium. Duty officer assignments, queue rewards, zone rewards, it's plenty possible but takes time & patience.

Plus, they give you a hurdle to overcome. You're allowed as much dilithium as you can acquire in unrefined form at any given time (you can only have 10 million unrefined all together if you save that much) You can only refine 8,000 per day, however. So this can take all year for someone to stockpile enough to go on a full-fledged C-store spree with, but again, it's totally doable with patience.

And don't get me started on the Lobi store. That's a reward currency found in lockboxes. If you want something out of that store, you need Lobi, and the only way to get it is in lockboxes, which means you buy keys one way or the other (players can also sell them on the exchange, as they're not bound, thus rates average around 2 million EC per key) I've got quite the stockpile from buying keys off the exchange & the occasional dil-for-zen buy from the C-store. Now all I need for one of those rare Lobi store bridge officers or coveted store ships is a good sale. I'm a little like a Ferengi in that regard, I don't use that store unless they run a sale, because Lobi are hard to get a large quantity of.

Again, if there's a system to beat, figure out how. It can save you a ton of real money

you don`t actually buy those kind of games you are just renting them. if you look at the fine print in the TOS it usually says that all the game content including your account and everything in it is the property of the game developer/publisher.

The game stuff that you buy with real money you aren`t allowed to sell for real money because again, it doesn`t belong to you (even though you paid for it) it belongs to the game developer/publisher.so, you see you aren`t actually "buying" anything you`re just renting it.

Why would I want to pay rent for years just to play a video game? I wouldn`t that`s why I don`t play games like that.
The game developers figured out that they can make a lot more money by renting the game to you than by selling it to you.

I won`t play any game that makes me pay to play it, I already paid for it when I bought it didn`t I?

to keep running servers, pay a staff, and continue to generate content costs some coins breh. Personally I can agree with your rant as well as everyone wants to juice that fruit till the last dollar. The future of gaming is actually geared towards the teens and people that have the time and money (or moms money) to keep playing. It really is going that way, the whole industry is literally forgetting the gamers of the 70s 80s and 90s which actually makes up most of its employee basis and buys games for their kids its almost like cutting off the nose to spite ones face type of things.

This is relevant:



love Francis..and..he actually is spot on.

a reply to: Brotherman

Oh absolutely, no one works for free, there's paychecks that have to be issued. For STO, there's a lifetime subscriber option, as well as a monthly subscription. I'd love to do either one to help keep the game afloat, but alas, bills come before frivolous fun. Sooner or later, I'll be purchasing one or the other for my account & my husband's when we can afford to.

Why spend real money!?! I play clash of clans, marvel puzzelquest, marvel contest of champions and zenga poker. I haven't spent a dollar and have stayed as competitive as time I have to play. I definatly don't feel the need to pay money to win matches... You just gotta be patient and let the suckers spend there loot... Not be a sucker spending your money lol.

a reply to: Nyiah

I stopped playing STO for that very reason.

I'm way behind on games, I play mostly The Sims 3, TS2, Simcity 4 Rush Hour. And console games, forget it. I tried Left 4 Dead and those controllers are unworkable for me.

I don't necessarily have a problem with microtransactions, as long as they are not overdone or needlessly shoved in our faces. They are an essential part to making a profit in some games, especially independent products. But i do think they can verge on the unethical sides of things, where a consumer has to 'pay to win'. I do not support microtransactions for AAA games made with large budgets, unless of course it is for maintaining a cost such as servers for MMO games...

Personally, i would like to see microtransactions become a tool to aid players instead of ripping them off. In many games, players actually have to pay to win - they can't effectively progress in the game unless they pay. That is unethical and should be stopped. Instead, the player should always be able to reach the goal while having microtransactions as potential offers in helping them along.