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[Grizzled Ghost]

What if they charged for each step up in resolution? Should someone playing in 4k really only pay as much as the pleb playing at 1080.

Should he really be getting 4 times the pixels completely for free?

Not in my America.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Well with no 'rumored' reveal materializing I guess OP just decided to make up some new bullshit! It's like YouTube clickbait but he's powered by pure 'engagement' that he can't actually monetize. Sad!

Anyway, Bungo is very comfy selling gamers the cosmetics, I don't think they're going to charge 40 bucks a character, and no I ain't paying that either. With Apex Legends the characters were significantly cheaper than that and you could grind them out in game sooner or later. But I wasn't playing enough to keep up with unlocking characters and that's part of what got me to just drop off the game completley.

 

[Physiognomonics]

Who is interested in Marathon?

 

[BlackTron]

Just posting to say I knew who OP was the instant I read the title

 

[N0S]

Worst thread of the year

 

[VolticArchangel]

I firmly believe this account belongs to either one of Andrew Wilson/Strauss Zelnick/John Riccitiello, or one of these type of predatory suits, trying to gauge interest and collect data to implement predatory MT's and slimy gambling business practices, into the final game.

Mods and staff should revoke thread creation access to OP to not further his agenda, most of all, collect data from users.

 

[Tunned]

No. I wouldn't mind it at all, in fact I want the next Gran Turismo to charge 40$ per car so that I would have to pay 1600$ to unlock all the cars! Atleast you will feel connected to that one car you bought for 40$...

Spoiler: Spoiler

Drugs are bad, m'kay

 

[Boneless]

Your analogies are not close to making sense.

I am lazy to think long on your behalf, but something already closer would be that you have 5 bowling alleys in town, they are all normal bar one. In one of them you only get one bowling ball to play with and any additional ball you want to use will cost you extra.

 

[Hudo]

Who is interested in Marathon?

Ironically, no one who has played the original Marathon games on their Macs back then. I still don't understand why Bungie have chosen to use the IP for this. I am gonna laugh out loud if their MOBA game is called "Myth".

 

[Kronark]

Star Citizen is a very successful version of this on steroids. No one who's even mildly interested in the future of that game wants CI Games to take out the asymmetry to improve "competitive integrity".

Fun beats competitive integrity 10/10 times.

Don't you remember being a kid, pretending to lob imaginary grenades at giant tanks? Asymmetrical imbalance is an awesome fantasy.

There are also games like DotA 2 and League of Legends where new players can have access to 10 heroes and long time players can have access to the full 120 hero roster. Those games are wildly successful.

I think what's happening here is a conditioning. P2W has generally been implemented poorly in the past so some people believe it must always be implemented poorly. That's a folly. Concepts frequently need to be iterated on for a length of time before they succeed.

I would strongly argue that Star Citizen does not represent the general gaming market and represents a hyper specific niche of hardcore fans. Star Citizen has more in common with something like iRacing or Flight Simulator Third Party content than it does something like Marathon. It's also not directly designed / marketed as a match based game where there's a large emphasis on winning the round. With that said it's not really well known how much the Star Citizen ship stuff will have an impact yet. Sure those big badass $10,000 ships look epic but will also require crews of people to operate and may not be the pay 2 win everyone thinks. Last I heard they were all supposed to be purchasable in game anyway.

Competitive integrity is fun to a lot of people. What I'm trying to express is that when competitive integrity is compromised the experience sours. It's very easy to go from having fun to feeling like that fun just ended because of bullshit. It compromises fun.

Sure asymmetrical imbalance can be an awesome fantasy. That's why so many single player games have you fight titans, gods, etc. But that does not mean I want the realistic experience of fighting an equally skilled opponent armed with a katana while I have a can opener. If you want that under dog experience you can go equip a can opener yourself. Nothing is stopping you from using the worst character, weapon, skill, etc. But I want to be able to go toe to toe at any time in any meta shift.

It's funny you mention LoL as an example because there's starting to be backlash in that community about how Riot has changed Blue Essence acquisition recently. If you play regularly you can keep getting the new champions for free but if you fall off it's much harder to catch up. If you start out new player it's almost impossible to unlock the full roster of champions now and that has been complained about. It is still possible however to grind out 2-3 specific champions for free though if the meta shifts and starts to favour them.

Also I think it's worth noting that Bungie is specifically known to be fucking trash tier when it comes to balance, patches, and supporting their PvP community. As a reformed Destiny player (Meaning I finally broke free and quit, fuck that game) I know just how fucking awful the Crucible was in any given season. They had to remove and readd trials because they had no fucking idea what they were doing with it. I have no faith in Bungie to somehow balance $480 worth of characters.

 

[mitch1971]

I judge every gaas game's MTX with Warframe. Warframe has nearly 60 warframes. I paid nothing for them. I think that answers the question.

 

[Katatonic]

OP is trolling y'all.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I would strongly argue that Star Citizen does not represent the general gaming market and represents a hyper specific niche of hardcore fans. Star Citizen has more in common with something like iRacing or Flight Simulator Third Party content than it does something like Marathon. It's also not directly designed / marketed as a match based game where there's a large emphasis on winning the round. With that said it's not really well known how much the Star Citizen ship stuff will have an impact yet. Sure those big badass $10,000 ships look epic but will also require crews of people to operate and may not be the pay 2 win everyone thinks. Last I heard they were all supposed to be purchasable in game anyway.

I think it has more to do with conditioning and being used to a certain monetization model than anything.

If you look at single player games, you'll see gamers largely prefer asymmetry in encounter design as well. Enemies are almost always bigger, stronger, faster, with different abilities than the avatar you control as the player. Multiplayer has obviously shifted to asymmetry as well. Literally everyone likes it when it's implemented properly.

I actually don't think most people take issue with it in terms of Star Citizen either. I've genuinely never heard a Star Citizen hater say "I'll check this out once they give everyone access to all the same ships all the time." I don't think that's ever been said because people know how naturally cool it is to board the Death Star as Luke Skywalker.

Competitive integrity is fun to a lot of people. What I'm trying to express is that when competitive integrity is compromised the experience sours. It's very easy to go from having fun to feeling like that fun just ended because of bullshit. It compromises fun.

Sure asymmetrical imbalance can be an awesome fantasy. That's why so many single player games have you fight titans, gods, etc. But that does not mean I want the realistic experience of fighting an equally skilled opponent armed with a katana while I have a can opener. If you want that under dog experience you can go equip a can opener yourself. Nothing is stopping you from using the worst character, weapon, skill, etc. But I want to be able to go toe to toe at any time in any meta shift.

The dynamics we're pitting against one another are "competitive integrity" vs "fun".

Fun wins 10/10 times. Nobody wants to play Olympic Karate Championships with the same character in order to see who's the best at pressing buttons. True competitive balance isn't that fun.

It's funny you mention LoL as an example because there's starting to be backlash in that community about how Riot has changed Blue Essence acquisition recently. If you play regularly you can keep getting the new champions for free but if you fall off it's much harder to catch up. If you start out new player it's almost impossible to unlock the full roster of champions now and that has been complained about. It is still possible however to grind out 2-3 specific champions for free though if the meta shifts and starts to favour them.

Again, you can always take an effective strategy too far. Proper implementation can lead to poor implementation and vice versa. I'd have to see extensive League of Legends player metrics over a length of time and talk to a few Riot developers before I could confidently make the claim you're making here.

Also I think it's worth noting that Bungie is specifically known to be fucking trash tier when it comes to balance, patches, and supporting their PvP community. As a reformed Destiny player (Meaning I finally broke free and quit, fuck that game) I know just how fucking awful the Crucible was in any given season. They had to remove and readd trials because they had no fucking idea what they were doing with it. I have no faith in Bungie to somehow balance $480 worth of characters.

I wouldn't label a company as resource rich as Bungie to be "bad at balance". The problem with Destiny is that they were working on a unique problem...putting PvE weapons from it's most popular mode into significantly less popular PvP modes. They won't have that issue with Marathon. In no world do I think the Escape from Tarkov, or Hunt Showdown developers are "better at balance" than a company like Bungie.

 

[XXL]

You spend $40 dollars on the game and receive one "Runner token". You spend this token on a single Runner and can only play that character.

If you want access to a different Runner, you're forced to buy another $40 token.

So if you want full access (all 12 runners) that is going to cost you $480 dollars.

They should take your thread creating privileges away.

This is unhinged.

 

[clarky]

I would strongly argue that Star Citizen does not represent the general gaming market and represents a hyper specific niche of hardcore fans. Star Citizen has more in common with something like iRacing or Flight Simulator Third Party content than it does something like Marathon. It's also not directly designed / marketed as a match based game where there's a large emphasis on winning the round. With that said it's not really well known how much the Star Citizen ship stuff will have an impact yet. Sure those big badass $10,000 ships look epic but will also require crews of people to operate and may not be the pay 2 win everyone thinks. Last I heard they were all supposed to be purchasable in game anyway.

Competitive integrity is fun to a lot of people. What I'm trying to express is that when competitive integrity is compromised the experience sours. It's very easy to go from having fun to feeling like that fun just ended because of bullshit. It compromises fun.

Sure asymmetrical imbalance can be an awesome fantasy. That's why so many single player games have you fight titans, gods, etc. But that does not mean I want the realistic experience of fighting an equally skilled opponent armed with a katana while I have a can opener. If you want that under dog experience you can go equip a can opener yourself. Nothing is stopping you from using the worst character, weapon, skill, etc. But I want to be able to go toe to toe at any time in any meta shift.

It's funny you mention LoL as an example because there's starting to be backlash in that community about how Riot has changed Blue Essence acquisition recently. If you play regularly you can keep getting the new champions for free but if you fall off it's much harder to catch up. If you start out new player it's almost impossible to unlock the full roster of champions now and that has been complained about. It is still possible however to grind out 2-3 specific champions for free though if the meta shifts and starts to favour them.

Also I think it's worth noting that Bungie is specifically known to be fucking trash tier when it comes to balance, patches, and supporting their PvP community. As a reformed Destiny player (Meaning I finally broke free and quit, fuck that game) I know just how fucking awful the Crucible was in any given season. They had to remove and readd trials because they had no fucking idea what they were doing with it. I have no faith in Bungie to somehow balance $480 worth of characters.

Solid post mate.

 

[Pop]

Bungie is terrible with pricing when it comes to microtransactions. If this game doesn't cost at least $60, better buckle up

And the design of the characters. If they are looking concordish, I'm out

 

[Kokoloko85]

That would be pretty stupid

 

[Stuart360]

Jesus i wouldnt pay 40 bucks for a single character even if the game was F2P, never mind a paid game!.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

 

[riko]

This is a valid point, so I'll answer it honestly.

No.

I'm not interested in Street Fighter. The gameplay loop bores me to tears. The only way Capcom has a chance at hooking me is by throwing the absolute widest net possible so one or two characters latches onto me. With an Extraction Shooter, I'm in. All I care about is that the game is compelling, interesting, rewarding enough to play for an extended period of time. If they have 12 characters at launch, I'm naturally going to spend all my time with one character in a season (to level them up) so the other 11 characters aren't nearly as compelling.

The Extraction genre is like a mountain with 12 sherpas. Once you begin your journey, you stick with your sherpa.

Street Fighter has the depth of a puddle (for me). Once I begin my journey, I instantly want to see how Vega plays and then how Blanka plays until I exhaust the entire roster in 3 hours.

All of the game of service content slop has ruined your attention span if you think Street Fighter has the depth of a puddle.

 

[PSYGN]

I think Men_In_Boxes is a marketer or some tone deaf c-suite member caught up in trends trying to normalize dumb ideas. His tag definitely fits him, lol.

 

[rm082e]

Obviously Marathon is an Extraction Shooter that will have a number of different Runners (characters) at launch. Let's say the game offers 12 on release. Would the following monetization model kill your interest in the game?

You spend $40 dollars on the game and receive one "Runner token". You spend this token on a single Runner and can only play that character.

If you want access to a different Runner, you're forced to buy another $40 token.

So if you want full access (all 12 runners) that is going to cost you $480 dollars.

Would this be a deal breaker for you?

I honestly can't believe you would even think this is anywhere within the realm of reason. You're saying players should be okay with a game charging them 8x the normal cost of a game to get access to all the content? And you're saying this at a time when many of the most played games are either F2P or very cheap?

Look, I don't care about Fortnite. I occasionally play it with my son who's really into it, but it's not my cup of tea. But I understand why it's popular: You can spend $0 and have access to all of the functional stuff in the game. You only spend money to get cosmetic items. This "pay-to-fashion" model works great.

We tried Apex and there you earn currency as you level up the starter character. That currency can be used to unlock new characters. You can also pay money to unlock them without having grind levels. That makes sense to me.

But charging money for each character and not giving players a reasonable way to unlock them for free with gameplay is about the most disgusting thing I can think of. I mean maybe the John Riccitiello idea of charging players to reload their gun is technically worse, but not by much. Do you not remember the Battlefront II controversy?

I'm not going to play Marathon because I'm not into that type of game. But I don't have enough middle fingers or enough swear words to shout at the idea you've proposed here. Jesus...if this is the direction they're going then Sony is about to shutter another studio.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I honestly can't believe you would even think this is anywhere within the realm of reason. You're saying players should be okay with a game charging them 8x the normal cost of a game to get access to all the content? And you're saying this at a time when many of the most played games are either F2P or very cheap?

Look, I don't care about Fortnite. I occasionally play it with my son who's really into it, but it's not my cup of tea. But I understand why it's popular: You can spend $0 and have access to all of the functional stuff in the game. You only spend money to get cosmetic items. This "pay-to-fashion" model works great.

We tried Apex and there you earn currency as you level up the starter character. That currency can be used to unlock new characters. You can also pay money to unlock them without having grind levels. That makes sense to me.

But charging money for each character and not giving players a reasonable way to unlock them for free with gameplay is about the most disgusting thing I can think of. I mean maybe the John Riccitiello idea of charging players to reload their gun is technically worse, but not by much. Do you not remember the Battlefront II controversy?

I'm not going to play Marathon because I'm not into that type of game. But I don't have enough middle fingers or enough swear words to shout at the idea you've proposed here. Jesus...if this is the direction they're going then Sony is about to shutter another studio.

I think the problem here is that people are incapable of moving past their conditioned state and/or their preferred game state. They can't see the counter argument because they're blinded in a sense.

Ferrari exists because Enzo Ferrari thought there was a market for people who wanted to pay more for their cars. The result is we have a much more interesting car market.

You can apply this principle to anything. Houses, food, clothing, vacations... When a customer base values something so much, that they're willing to pay more for a premium product, the end result is a more interesting market.

I suspect the resistance to this is a fear of what might happen if it should work. If gamers are willing to spend money on gameplay oriented items, it leaves the old model further in the dust.

I see people. I see them quite well.

 

[rm082e]

I think the problem here is that people are incapable of moving past their conditioned state and/or their preferred game state. They can't see the counter argument because they're blinded in a sense.

Ferrari exists because Enzo Ferrari thought there was a market for people who wanted to pay more for their cars. The result is we have a much more interesting car market.

You can apply this principle to anything. Houses, food, clothing, vacations... When a customer base values something so much, that they're willing to pay more for a premium product, the end result is a more interesting market.

I suspect the resistance to this is a fear of what might happen if it should work. If gamers are willing to spend money on gameplay oriented items, it leaves the old model further in the dust.

I see people. I see them quite well.

The problem with that entire analogy is Ferrari made cars that had measurably higher value than other cars. Ferrari cars went around race tracks faster, they had higher top speed, they had design language that was unique and beautiful, etc. They let drivers to do something that other cars couldn't do.

If Bungie makes an AAA video game, it's _not_ going to have any features that other other multiplayer shooters don't already have. It's not like Marathon is going to have online multi-player where other shooters are local only. It's not like it's going to have 4k textures and widescreen support where others don't. It's just going to be another AAA multi-player video game that competes with other AAA multi-player games. And it's competitors are F2P and cheap games that already suck up 60% of all player game time.

This fits the pattern I've seen from your posts where you seem to have this underlying idea that there's a wealth of revenue the industry can extract out of players if they just come up with the "right" GaaS formula. From my perspective, the "right" GaaS formula has already been discovered: F2P games with paid cosmetics. The games that discovered that formula are pretty much assured to remain the top games that exploit that formula. To me, this is just like when WoW became huge years ago. Lots of developers wanted to clone that success and looked at it as a new gold rush. All these years later, WoW is still going, but who else is left standing?

 

[Grizzled Ghost]

I think Men_In_Boxes is a marketer or some tone deaf c-suite member caught up in trends trying to normalize dumb ideas. His tag definitely fits him, lol.

He's just a troll. His arguments are not in good faith.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The problem with that entire analogy is Ferrari made cars that had measurably higher value than other cars.

The idea behind Marathon (and many other super carrier class games) is that they provide more value than most/all $70 dollar - 25 hours games with no replay value. Obviously, a guy that works on a farm isn't going to be interested in a Ferrari, he'll buy his truck because that's what suits him. But it makes no sense for the farmer to try and prevent Ferrari from making high end sports cars.

These types of games measurably provide more entertainment per dollar than anything else on the market.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

From my perspective, the "right" GaaS formula has already been discovered: F2P games with paid cosmetics.

Cosmetics are relatively boring, especially after you buy a Battle Pass and acquire a closet full of different emotes and skins that have no appeal to you.

I don't think skins, emotes, and weapon charms represent the final frontier of where GAAS games are headed. I think the next frontier is in gameplay centric upgrades (ala Star Cititzen) that make worlds richer and more fun for all involved.

 

[rm082e]

Cosmetics are relatively boring, especially after you buy a Battle Pass and acquire a closet full of different emotes and skins that have no appeal to you.

I don't think skins, emotes, and weapon charms represent the final frontier of where GAAS games are headed. I think the next frontier is in gameplay centric upgrades (ala Star Cititzen) than make worlds richer and more fun for all involved.

I completely respect that you have an opinion and appreciate that you're willing to put it out there. I just completely disagree with that opinion. I think all the evidence we have shows that's not going to be the way forward.

Either way, it's going to be interesting watching companies flirt with this business model and see how players react to it.

 

[amigastar]

What a strange thread.

 

[Bungie]

Freedom of choice allows the player to find something they like & will be more inclined to stick around for that $40+ expansion & cringe crossovers.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I completely respect that you have an opinion and appreciate that you're willing to put it out there. I just completely disagree with that opinion. I think all the evidence we have shows that's not going to be the way forward.

I'd love to see the evidence showing that it's not the way forward.

The evidence that we do have would be:

Star Citizen being the most successful crowd funded game in industry history.
Asymmetrical design is the dominant philosophy in both PvP and PvE games.
The mobile market exploring P2W with more and more young people playing games on mobile.

I just don't see the counter evidence at all.

 

[Aenima]

I'd love to see the evidence showing that it's not the way forward.

The evidence that we do have would be:

Star Citizen being the most successful crowd funded game in industry history.
Asymmetrical design is the dominant philosophy in both PvP and PvE games.
The mobile market exploring P2W with more and more young people playing games on mobile.

I just don't see the counter evidence at all.

Did you just started playing games 5 years ago?

Games already moved away from Pay to Win mechanics. Most MMORPGs and mobile games used pay to win mechanics 10 - 20 years ago and players always showed resistance to the business model, and studios moved to a business model that still uses microtransactions but dont give a gameplay advantage so all you get now are mtx for cosmetics. This way players that cant pay more still feel they have a fair chance and are less willing to abandon the game. The moment a game adds mtx for gameplay items, most players leave it and the game is only sustained by players that do the same untill it eventually dies for not having a big enough comunity of players. This is pretty much what killed TLOU online mode back in the PS3 that was great fun untill Naughty Dog started selling OP weapons and the game mode died cuz it became P2W.

The fact that you think the industry is gonna move towards pay to win mechanics when the industry has already been there 10-20 years ago and moved to a pay for cosmetics only, show your disconect not only from the players mentality but how the videogames industry actually work.

All popular F2P gacha games, as predatory as gacha mechanics are, they still give the players enough currency in the games for the player to unlock new characters and usually the only thing they still lock behind mandatory paywalls are skins that dont give any gameplay advantage towards other players.

And your sugestion is paying 40$ for a premium game and lock most of the content behind a pay wall. Imagine if Monster Hunter Wilds released and only let you pick one weapon to play the game and everytime you wanted to use a new type of weapon you had to pay 40$ for it.

 

[Putonahappyface]

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Games already moved away from Pay to Win mechanics. Most MMORPGs and mobile games used pay to win mechanics 10 - 20 years ago and players always showed resistance to the business model, and studios moved to a business model that still uses microtransactions but dont give a gameplay advantage so all you get now are mtx for cosmetics. This way players that cant pay more still feel they have a fair chance and are less willing to abandon the game. The moment a game adds mtx for gameplay items, most players leave it and the game is only sustained by players that do the same untill it eventually dies for not having a big enough comunity of players. This is pretty much what killed TLOU online mode back in the PS3 that was great fun untill Naughty Dog started selling OP weapons and the game mode died cuz it became P2W.

This was all said before Star Citizen too. Star Citizen proved it's all nonsense.

What people rejected was the improper implementation of the idea, not the idea itself.

The fact that you think the industry is gonna move towards pay to win mechanics when the industry has already been there 10-20 years ago and moved to a pay for cosmetics only, show your disconect not only from the players mentality but how the videogames industry actually work.

I disagree. I think there are a number of popular games today that show players are willing to play against others with advantage, as long as it's fun.

All popular F2P gacha games, as predatory as gacha mechanics are, they still give the players enough currency in the games for the player to unlock new characters and usually the only thing they still lock behind mandatory paywalls are skins that dont give any gameplay advantage towards other players.

Yeah, I think they're leaving a lot of money on the tables. Cosmetics are boring.

And your sugestion is paying 40$ for a premium game and lock most of the content behind a pay wall. Imagine if Monster Hunter Wilds released and only let you pick one weapon to play the game and everytime you wanted to use a new type of weapon you had to pay 40$ for it. WTF are you thinking?

Then explain why there's a market for Ferrari?

 

[Aenima]

Then explain why there's a market for Ferrari?

Ferrari and the exotic car market exist because these cars offer an expirience that convencional cars dont offer. These cars are designed and perform close to racing cars and its the closest experience to driving a racing car you can get in a legal road. These cars are also aimed for a niche wealthy car enthusiast audience. Thers a reason i only see a Ferrari in the streets maybe once a year.

And this is what happens with P2W games. They became a niche only supported by a handfull of dumb ppl that are in too deep to leave the game cuz they dont want to feel they wasted money for nothing, untill the devs eventually pull the plug on the servers cuz its a ghost town.

You keep bringing Start Citizen, a game most known as Scam Citizen that fooled most of its backers and the online mode is not even out of the Alpha stage where ppl can play to be lab rats. The biggest scam in videogame history is what Star Citizen actually is.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Ferrari and the exotic car market exist because these cars offer an expirience that convencional cars dont offer. These cars are designed and perform close to racing cars and its the closest experience to driving a racing car you can get in a legal road. These cars are also aimed for a niche wealthy car enthusiast audience. Thers a reason i only see a Ferrari in the streets maybe once a year.

But you haven't explained why games can't do that.

There are a number of F2P MMO's, but World of Warcraft is the biggest and it charges $15 dollars per month because Blizzard know the games elevated value. Charging people for an avatar to explore an interesting world is where the medium is headed. The old thinking continues crashing against reality.

And this is what happens with P2W games. They became a niche only supported by a handfull of dumb ppl that are in too deep to leave the game cuz they dont want to feel they wasted money for nothing, untill the devs eventually pull the plug on the servers cuz its a ghost town.

Nobody would call Star Citizen niche. It's the most successful crowd funded game in the history of the medium. This fact can not be swept under the rug because it blows up your argument.

You keep bringing Start Citizen, a game most known as Scam Citizen that fooled most of its backers and the online mode is not even out of the Alpha stage where ppl can play to be lab rats. The biggest scam in videogame history is what Star Citizen actually is.

You're getting off track here. People call it "Scam Citizen" because it missed release targets, not because there's asymmetry in the MTX. Star Citizen proves that, if done right, the market craves this kind of experience. If Star Citizien can get it right, what makes you think a Blizzard or EA or Bungie can't?

Let's be real, if the market can support monthly subscriptions, gacha mechanics, and loot boxes...it can support a la cart as well.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Not really.

You pay 70 dollars for a product that will give you 20 hours of enjoyment, with little to no replay value.

Multiplayer gamers pay 40 (or less) for a product that will give them hundreds or thousands of hours of enjoyment.

I have 285 hours on Dark Souls Remastered. It cost me £20. I have about 300 hours on TW3, complete edition with DLC cost me about £50.

Jesus, I have over 80 hours on Resident Evil Remake and that's a six hour play through at most.

 

[Aenima]

But you haven't explained why games can't do that.

Hardware can do that not games. You have the 5090 graphic card, thats the Ferrari of the videogames. Its designed to a niche weathy gaming audience and thers ppl willing to pay for it because the way it perform compared to a much cheaper card.
Adding scummy practices to a videogame will not make the game feel any better than an identical game that is fairly priced.

I replied enough to your points, they have been proved failed concepts in the past and things that players in general reject. You made a poll in this thread take a look at it and draw your conclusions from it. Thats all the data your trying to collect thats relevant. Its not the devs or greedy corpo suits that decide the future of videogames, its the players.

I apologize for any insults, have fun and try not to spend your savings on scummy practices.

 

[BbMajor7th]

The idea behind Marathon (and many other super carrier class games) is that they provide more value than most/all $70 dollar - 25 hours games with no replay value. Obviously, a guy that works on a farm isn't going to be interested in a Ferrari, he'll buy his truck because that's what suits him. But it makes no sense for the farmer to try and prevent Ferrari from making high end sports cars.

These types of games measurably provide more entertainment per dollar than anything else on the market.

Ferraris are an elite premium product - a status symbol that you pay extra for. It makes sense to price 90% of the car-buying market out of your product range, if your products should only be owned by the elite a few.

You apply that same logic to a multiplayer game and you know what you get? CCUs in the 100s, broken matchmaking and being Concorded within a month.

Your question is literally, what if we took a multiplayer game that lives or dies on the size of it's active player base and deliberately price-out 90% of the potential players?

You might as ask what happens to a person if we deprive them of oxygen.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I have 285 hours on Dark Souls Remastered. It cost me £20. I have about 300 hours on TW3, complete edition with DLC cost me about £50.

Jesus, I have over 80 hours on Resident Evil Remake and that's a six hour play through at most.

When we're talking about markets and overall trends, it's not useful to bring up the anecdotal outlier. We know most people didn't finish Dark Souls Remastered and Resident Evil Remake. You are at the extreme end of the bell curve. We're talking about entire populations here, not you.

Ferraris are an elite premium product - a status symbol that you pay extra for. It makes sense to price 90% of the car-buying market out of your product range, if your products should only be owned by the elite a few.

Which is why most people wouldn't spend $40 dollars on all 12 characters. Ferraris for the Ferrari people. Trucks for the truck people. This way, everyone is happy. This would be the a la cart model, a model that is already supported by earths population in any number of industries. There's no reason why gaming should be excluded. Heck, you already do this with your single player games. You buy them a la cart.

You apply that same logic to a multiplayer game and you know what you get? CCUs in the 100s, broken matchmaking and being Concorded within a month.

Very illogical thinking. Escape from Tarkov already charges you $40 dollars for a single character. The premise posed in the OP would allow anyone who paid for a Runner to enter the game world of Marathon. Escape from Tarkov already does this only they don't create additional characters to buy.

Your question is literally, what if we took a multiplayer game that lives or dies on the size of it's active player base and deliberately price-out 90% of the potential players?

Why would allowing players who spent $40 dollars to play, limit the potential player base anymore than Escape from Tarkov? That's very illogical thinking.

 

[MayauMiao]

You made a poll and when the result goes against you....

 

[Grizzled Ghost]

What if the Ferrari came with third gear unlocked for 300k, and you could spend another 300k to unlock each of the other 7 gears?

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

I think the problem here is that people are incapable of moving past their conditioned state and/or their preferred game state. They can't see the counter argument because they're blinded in a sense.

Ferrari exists because Enzo Ferrari thought there was a market for people who wanted to pay more for their cars. The result is we have a much more interesting car market.

You can apply this principle to anything. Houses, food, clothing, vacations... When a customer base values something so much, that they're willing to pay more for a premium product, the end result is a more interesting market.

I suspect the resistance to this is a fear of what might happen if it should work. If gamers are willing to spend money on gameplay oriented items, it leaves the old model further in the dust.

I see people. I see them quite well.

Yeah and how many Ferrari vehicles do you see out on the public roads? My guess would be zero unless you live in an extremely rich area. And labeling people as blind and afraid instead of providing any facts or logic is a low IQ move. Be better.

No one is afraid that if some people like a stupid game that makes you pay a ridiculous amount of money for all the characters then that means every game will follow suit. And no one is afraid of that because there’s zero chance of it happening.

Let me ask you a question, would you try a shit sandwich? No? Why? Are you blinded by your pre-existing belief that eating shit is disgusting? Are you afraid that once you eat shit, you’ll find you’ll actually enjoy it and then we’ll all be walking around eating shit? See how dumb that sounds? lol

Also there are already games that exist where you pay an entry price and then have to spend a lot of money on characters. Take Dead by Daylight for example. It costs around $200 to get everything. That’s a popular game, been around for years, yet the industry hasn’t adopted its methods.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Yeah and how many Ferrari vehicles do you see out on the public roads?

That's the beauty of the a la cart model. Most people wouldn't buy all 12 characters at $40 a pop. They'd only buy the one's that appealed to them.

No one is afraid that if some people like a stupid game that makes you pay a ridiculous amount of money for all the characters then that means every game will follow suit. And no one is afraid of that because there’s zero chance of it happening.

The last 3 pages say otherwise.

Let me ask you a question, would you try a shit sandwich? No? Why? Are you blinded by your pre-existing belief that eating shit is disgusting? Are you afraid that once you eat shit, you’ll find you’ll actually enjoy it and then we’ll all be walking around eating shit? See how dumb that sounds? lol

Over emotional response leading to illogical statements.

Also there are already games that exist where you pay an entry price and then have to spend a lot of money on characters. Take Dead by Daylight for example. It costs around $200 to get everything. That’s a popular game, been around for years, yet the industry hasn’t adopted its methods.

How quickly we go from "It'll never happen" to "Dead by Daylight does it too!"

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

That's the beauty of the a la cart model. Most people wouldn't buy all 12 characters at $40 a pop. They'd only buy the one's that appealed to them.

And once word got out that people need to spend $40 per character and the game comes with one, it’s DOA

The last 3 pages say otherwise.

Over emotional response leading to illogical statements.

Illogical indeed.

How quickly we go from "It'll never happen" to "Dead by Daylight does it too!"

The never happen part is the industry chasing that model, not the game releasing itself. Games release all the time that have no business being released. The monetization model in Dead by Daylight hasn’t taken over anything.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

And once word got out that people need to spend $40 per character and the game comes with one, it’s DOA

You think people spend money for full products. They don't - never have.

They spend money for fun. If Marathon (or any game) looks fun at $40 dollars for a single character (Zelda, Metal Gear, Halo), it'll work, just as Star Citizen, the history of videogames, and human nature, show us.

167 people voted in this poll.

NeoGAF polls rarely get much higher than 200 votes. If we did a poll asking "Are you going to play Marathon?", it wouldn't get more than 20 votes. That means this poll is riddled with people who suffer from SP insecurity who can't entertain the idea that GAAS still has potential new revenue streams which will lead to further GAAS growth.

You can learn a lot by what people do, rather than what they say.

The never happen part is the industry chasing that model, not the game releasing itself. Games release all the time that have no business being released. The monetization model in Dead by Daylight hasn’t taken over anything.

Your confusion comes from not understanding how generations work. First, this a la carte model only would only work on certain titles. If the GAAS generation started in 2017/2018, that means we're about to move into the second wave. Companies who studies Fortnite, PUBG, Rainbow Six Siege etc...are just now readying the release of their next game. That means the companies who started to take notice of the a la carte model likely did so when they were well on their way with their next game. I suspect this wasn't on the radar for most companies 10 years ago, I know it wasn't for me. I'll bet you it's on the radar for most companies today.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

You think people spend money for full products. They don't - never have.

Of course they do. And sometimes they don’t. The industry is full of all sorts of games with different monetization.

They spend money for fun. If Marathon (or any game) looks fun at $40 dollars for a single character (Zelda, Metal Gear, Halo), it'll work, just as Star Citizen, the history of videogames, and human nature, show us.

Star Citizen? When did that release?

There have been loads of service games fail because of monetization, regardless of how “fun” it looks. The game you’re describing wouldn’t be a success, and Bungie would either have to pull the plug quickly or dramatically change monetization.

How quickly you have forgotten Concord, a game which you and many others here thought looked fun, but the market looked at what was offered for $70 and said “no”.

167 people voted in this poll.

NeoGAF polls rarely get much higher than 200 votes. If we did a poll asking "Are you going to play Marathon?", it wouldn't get more than 20 votes. That means this poll is riddled with people who suffer from SP insecurity who can't entertain the idea that GAAS still has potential new revenue streams which will lead to further GAAS growth.

No, a lot of people have voted because you have a history of these dumb threads where you try to play Nostradamus with GaaS and fail miserably. Also, Marathon is a highly anticipated game. If you made a poll, it would get more than 20 votes.

You can be a MP focused gamer and a fan of GaaS and still think this idea is retarded. I’m not sure where your confidence comes from, your record on these trash takes is not good.

Your confusion comes from not understanding how generations work. First, this a la carte model only would only work on certain titles. If the GAAS generation started in 2017/2018, that means we're about to move into the second wave. Companies who studies Fortnite, PUBG, Rainbow Six Siege etc...are just now readying the release of their next game. That means the companies who started to take notice of the a la carte model likely did so when they were well on their way with their next game. I suspect this wasn't on the radar for most companies 10 years ago, I know it wasn't for me. I'll bet you it's on the radar for most companies today.

Ahahaha, this is adorable. Companies are only just now readying their first a la carte model games? Also which is it, is this a monetization model that gamers should be scared will overtake all of their games or is this a limited model that will only work with “certain titles”?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Of course they do. And sometimes they don’t. The industry is full of all sorts of games with different monetization.

True.

Star Citizen? When did that release?

It's not when it released that matters. It's when companies took notice. There's a difference.

There have been loads of service games fail because of monetization, regardless of how “fun” it looks. The game you’re describing wouldn’t be a success, and Bungie would either have to pull the plug quickly or dramatically change monetization.

More baseless claims.

How quickly you have forgotten Concord, a game which you and many others here thought looked fun, but the market looked at what was offered for $70 and said “no”.

One thing I have learned about Concord is that it failed due to whatever reason the person bringing it up thinks it failed. There has been very little, if any, convincing post mortem on that game, though I'm sure PlayStation has done their work there. That being said, you still stumbled on the truth. Concord failed because it wasn't fun. Fun at 40 dollars generally works.

Also, Marathon is a highly anticipated game. If you made a poll, it would get more than 20 votes.

Unlikely. GDS is too prevalent here. The poll would receive many more "Bungie should cancel it before they reveal gameplay" votes. Of that I am certain.

You can be a MP focused gamer and a fan of GaaS and still think this idea is retarded. I’m not sure where your confidence comes from, your record on these trash takes is not good.

Thought experiments are generally more interesting when open minded people are involved. There isn't much open mindedness here.

Ahahaha, this is adorable. Companies are only just now readying their first a la carte model games? Also which is it, is this a monetization model that gamers should be scared will overtake all of their games or is this a limited model that will only work with “certain titles”?

No. You've made another mistake. Go back to your desk and fix your error. Next!

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

It's not when it released that matters. It's when companies took notice. There's a difference.

Game is not even out yet.

More baseless claims.

For someone who claims to want open minded discussion, you sure do rely on that crutch of not engaging in it when your points are proven wrong

One thing I have learned about Concord is that it failed due to whatever reason the person bringing it up thinks it failed. There has been very little, if any, convincing post mortem on that game, though I'm sure PlayStation has done their work there. That being said, you still stumbled on the truth. Concord failed because it wasn't fun. Fun at 40 dollars generally works.

Sure, fun at $40 works. Fun at $480, not so much. Not to mention that would just be for the 12 launch characters, doesn’t include cosmetics, battle pass, etc.

Again, we have plenty of examples of games that looked fun before launch and then failed thanks in large part to shady monetization.

Also, you learned nothing from Concord, obviously. I mean, here you still are.

Unlikely. GDS is too prevalent here. The poll would receive many more "Bungie should cancel it before they reveal gameplay" votes. Of that I am certain.

And it would get more than 20, which you claimed it wouldn’t.

Thought experiments are generally more interesting when open minded people are involved. There isn't much open mindedness here.

It’s not a thought experiment if you’re accusing people who disagree of being blind and afraid. At that point you’re just stating your opinion and then being a child when everyone doesn’t agree.

Maybe try this on IconEra, lots more open minded people there.

 

[bender]

OP is trolling y'all.

You are giving him waayyyyyyy too much credit.