CD Projekt CFO does "not see a place for microtransactions in single-player games"
CD Projekt CFO does "not see a place for microtransactions in single-player games"
what really bugs me are fighting games with dlc characters. i know fighting games arent as profitable, but twenty years ago you could unlock every character by actually playing the game. locking content behind paywalls are a slap to poor gamers. that's on top of a $60 price tag
Fighting games started in coin operated arcade cabinets that were intentionally designed to be such a pain in the ass to beat that people would dump heaps of money into them just to keep playing. Same deal with games that were released in the days that youd rent them for a week. The difficulty was set so high that it was very unlikely that you could beat the game in that week so you would end up renting them another week or two.
The gaming industry has been filled with greedy fuck policies from the beginning and the only thing that has changed is how they are greedy fucks.
Yeah, I noticed this with mortal Kombat on snes. Every time I played the single player campaign, I'd win one fairly easily, then I'd lose to the next guy. Then I'd use a continue and beat that guy fairly easily and lose to the next one. Repeat until I run out of continues, with the occasional upset of the pattern (extra win or loss).
Also true of timed arcade games like Gauntlet. Unless you were very good, you'd have to keep putting quarters in when the time ran out.
20 years ago, they sold every Street Fighter three times with more characters in each new iteration. Microtransactions suck, but simple DLC is a less shitty than what used to be normal.
What? You didn't like buying SUPER Street Fighter II TURBO Championship Edition?
Yep
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior - (1991)
Street Fighter II': Champion Edition - (1992)
Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting - (1992)
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers - (1993)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo - (1994)
All $40-60 games at the time.
$70 is the new $60 because fuck you that's why
You're going to be really unhappy when you discover the concept of inflation
Oh stop, games have been the same price for decades, it’s not surprising they’re seeing a small price increase after so long in stagnation.
In good companies this is passed along to the actual devs making our games, which is something we should all support
Hammering and saw noises.
Ah, there it is. CDPR is rebuilding their reputation after Cyberpunk's launch. Nature is healing.
As it was with witcher 3, AKA "get off the roof, roach!"
"Spending a huge chunk of the budget on dishonest advertising and then releasing a significantly different, half-broken game is still cool though."
but its okay, cause 4 years later we'll release an expansion and what we are declaring the final patches to finally have the game in a state it should have been when it was fucking released.
Thanks for all the money, suckers customers!
The worst thing is that everyone seems to think that it IS where it should have been at release! Which I will admit that it is finally the polished bug-free game that any game should be at release. But anyone like me who was watching every last promo video they did teasing the game pre-release, knows it still isn't and never will be the game they promised it would be.
Their insistence on releasing on previous gen hardware is surely as much to blame as the rush to get it out for that sweet sweet pandemic money. Still looking back it's hard to say if it ever was going to live up to what they were teasing it would be.
Exactly. I hate that people are completely on CDPR side again, forgetting that they completely deceived their fans with a half baked game. Just because they eventually made it better (and still didn't deliver on what they said) doesn't mean they deserve to heralded again. Any trust I had in them is gone.
No need to make my comment now because you've said it better! Perfect sass.
"But we do not rule out that we will use this solution in the future."
Yeah, what now?
When it comes to multiplayer games.
Please actually read the article next time.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say there's not much place for MTX in multiplayer games either
That's why the top management should never be listened to. The CFO saying that means literally nothing because they will turn around and put MTX in single player games if they feel like they can get away with it. Their word is worthless because their goal is money.
Is this a “its ok of ifs multiplayer” in disguise?
What people don't say is often more important than what they do. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the The Witcher 4 is an always online multiplayer game with mtx.
Give it twenty years and CDPR will also succumb. Ubisoft, EA and Activision were kings until they got greedy. All companies eventually enshittify because it is all about money at the end of the day in this capitalist culture we live in.
But they see a place for broken games that are sold by lying to their customers and maybe fixed two years later. Fuck off, CDPR. Are you sure you are the right people to do the moral?
CDPR also saw no place for a crunch culture in game development... Until they did
I still love that company. The witcher 3 was amazing, easily one of my favourite games of all time. Cyberpunk had some issues sure, I got it a year or so after release and had fun with it. I really like gog and how everything has no drm and I spend a lot of money there. Compare that to almost every other major competitor and these people are saints.
Cyberpunk had some issues sure
"Some issues" is a very kind way of putting it. The game was unplayable and had frequent crashes and game breaking bugs. Even now, it's never really been fixed for old gen (the gen it was marketed for and sold in a console bundle with), they just turned it into a ghost town, reducing NPC spawn rate and turning off environmental lights to reduce the stress on the system.
And worse of all, they knew all of that, and still sold a broken product, and to ensure that people would buy it, they didn't allow journalists to record their play sessions, only allowing them to use CDPR's marketing videos in their reviews. I could still forgive them for releasing a broken product on the market and fixing it at a later date, if they were at least sincere with their fanbase, but they chose to lie through their teeth because money was more important than integrity.
The fact that they eventually fixed the game on another generation is not enough for me.
Imo they shouldn't do Witcher 4, you should stop when it's best. They won't be able to meet the expectations and only disappoint when people compare it to W3.
so what if it isn’t as good as w3? it doesn’t ruin w3.
I'm not a huge gamer anymore, at least not of newer games... aren't microtransactions a bigger problem in multiplayer games because it gives player willing to spend money an unfair advantage over skilled players?
Praise Geraldo del Rivera! CD Projekt Red is (le)terally saving gaming.
Is it 2016 again? If so I want to warn someone
I am actually ok with micro transactions in multiplayer competitive games for cosmetic skins.
I am not saying that most games that do this aren’t extremely toxic in their design but the idea of players of a popular competitive game continually paying small amounts of money to artists to create new riffs on the same player models and weapons that those players can use to express themselves is potentially a wonderful direct connection between 3D modeling artists and players that continually values those 3D modeling artists far after the initial game development is over (and a game company could potentially have no work for a 3D modeler when just maintaining a multiplayer game with small updates).
The problem is that the type of people who are most likely to spend money on loot boxes are exploited heavily, and then shamed by everyone around them into not revealing how much they spent on video game call of duty mobile skins.
None of this even remotely works when you talk about singleplayer games though, basically nobody dresses to the nines to just go for a walk in the woods where nobody can see them.. the direct link between 3D modeling artists and players expressing themselves in view of other players is gone. Players may spend hours dressing their singleplayer character and enjoy that part of the game but it just isn’t the same thing as your multiplayer competitive game character you have spent countless hours playing in multiplayer matches interacting with countless people with. It is the difference between taking a freeing walk in the woods and taking a walk in a city in view of a crowd of other artists.
I guess what I am trying to say is that micro transactions are really only okay when they are “micro” because they are a direct interaction between a player and an artist in the way buying a single song from an album might be.
Of course, my entire point is subsumed by the fact that most of the big companies probably treat the 3D modelers making their skins like trash and are probably going to replace literally all of them with AI as quietly but as quickly as possible in the next couple of months.
If they want to sell skins that are purely cosmetic I don't have an issue with that. Some people have money to drop on stuff like that and it helps fund the game.
Loot boxes on the other hand can absolutely get fucked. It's gambling, plain and simple. It has no place in games.
Nah, Im a part of the generation that wants to burn Bethesda to the ground for horse armor.
I bought the game, I don't want every fucking second I spend playing it trying to ignore their cash shop.
Except Bethesda is also one of the few companies that releases full on expansions to their games. Horse armour was the worst (and thus cheapest) of Oblivions addons, but Shivering Isles was an entire new full area and plotline.
Nuance exists. And ignoring it allows a lot of good to get caught in the crossfire
Real good take, I couldn't agree more. I also sold a dota2 skin that I got randomly for a couple hundred dollars like 8 years ago and it funded my PC purchases for a couple years so I might be biased 😉
Do you really believe money from microtransactions goes to the developer and not the publisher? I would sooner believe in a unicorn than that.
In my comment I attempted to point out that yes the profit from micro transactions never really goes to the artists and developers, but if it did in theory I would actually be really supportive of artist run cosmetic stores for multiplayer competitive games.
I want 3D modeling artists to be valued, and competitive multiplayer games providing a canvas in which artists can continually express themselves and create outfits/skins for players and items in game is an incredible opportunity to reaffirm the value of the labor of 3D modeling artists.
The opportunity is currently totally captured and subverted by shitty corporate control, but in theory it is still there.
For singleplayer games, no horse armor crap is lame, I just want developers working on expansion content.
The time has come for macrotransactions instead
I'm all in for the return of actual game expansions.
Nah, only the transactions will be bigger. Amount of content won't.
StarCraft Brood Wars Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction
People shit on Bethesda but they've consistently released banger expansions. Far Harbor was incredible.
It 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 and everyone is suddenly offended?
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. They make more money forcing you to buy everything than letting you pick what you want.
I believe that was called phantom liberty.
Or if we're talking Witcher 3, Hearts of Stone or Blood and Wine. Both of those had an amazing amount of content, well worth it.
Ill be getting the Elden ring dlc at 40 dollars day one. Yeah im expecting the game to almost double in size.
Yeah that's what remaster are for