I can respect this. Huttball was great. My main issue with PVP wasn’t the battlegrounds or gameplay It was crappy balancing and progression --- Post automerged --- I Mained a jugg. Great for Huttball terrible for arenas though
Angry Joe discusses info about MTX If you don't watch the video, the Reddit thread is linked in the description. Remember the old times, 10 years ago, when cosmetics were unlocked by playing the game, with no currency at all, whether in-game or bought for irl money? When the barrier between you and the super zomgawesome camo was an in-game challenge instead of an RNG store? God I fucking hate RNG stores. Can we go back to 2009 please? I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
TLDR is that there's a screenshot of the in-game store in Anthem and it features skins for 2000 paid currency, which I presume means ~$20, javelin textures for ~$8, vinyls (functionally, a bunch of stickers put on top of the suit's paint job) for ~$12, etc. Essentially, the prices for the mtx in Anthem are pretty ludicrous in that screenshot. Given the sheer volume of the backlash about it, I can't imagine they'd be stupid enough to leave the prices there, but EA has surprised me with their idiocy before, so anything could happen.
Considering EA only just stopped breaking Belgian law with all their microtransaction lootboxes, I'm going to bet they either stick to the current prices, or try to find some way to make it look less bad while still sneakily keeping it just as bad.
Eh. It's certainly possible, but I have the sneaking suspicion the "leak" was intentional, as part of their marketing. This way, they can release the game with prices set at half of what they were in the screenshot and look like they "listened to player feedback" and all that rot. Which would certainly convince a significant portion of the userbase to stomach higher mtx prices than they otherwise would. It's a pretty standard marketing/haggling tactic. Ask for something ridiculous so that when you ask for merely a favorable deal, it looks appealing in comparison. I'd be somewhat surprised if EA hasn't thought of trying it, especially given how they handled BF2's mtx between the beta/demo/etc and launch.
This is absolutely what they're doing, down to retarded dev responses in the reddit thread. "Prices will continue being optimized to the last second". No. You figure out shit like this (hours played/armor pack) in testing, when you're setting currency drops. Big publishers have mountains upon fucking mountains of data of stats on player engagement with MTX, they know the exact point they can stretch to to maximize price/MTX unit and number of purchases. "Balancing" is PR. I know invoking sheeple is dumb but... sheeple will eat this shit up. We have tons of fiction about evil corporations, but people somehow refuse to recognize evil corporations irl. So yeah, this got rather tinfoily.
We here at EA feel that these prices will hit the mark and provide a sense of pride and accomplishment to those who participate in our false economy. (✿◠‿◠)
But you know guys... we fucking deserve it. Just over that way ---> there's a Kingdom Hearts 3 thread. KH3, published by Square Enix. What was the last newsworthy thing Square Enix did, lemme think... oh, right, it was that retarded tiered pre-order system for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. People universally agreed that it was retarded and SE were cunts. Cut to a couple years later, who cares because Kingdom Heeeaaaaaaartsssss gimme gimme. In the Dragon Age 4 teaser thread there was a heated exchange because it's Dragon Age, so I don't care about what shit EA has pulled, Dragon Aaaageeee. People will bitch at EA, but then will go and buy the next DA/Mass Effect/FIFA/Battlefield anyway. They'll bitch at Activision, but will buy CoD. They'll bitch at Ubisoft, but will buy the next Assassin's Creed. They'll bitch at Bethesda now, but will preorder Elder Scrolls 6 and blink over the Day 1 patch because it's Elder Scrolls. We're muppets hypnotized by brands. Why would the industry give a flying fuck about consumers, when consumers will swallow the industry's anal leakage and come back for more every single time?
Because if we don't, there's no games left to play eventually. In your list alone were 3 or 4 of the last games I played and had fun with. Yeah, EA is a humongous pile of shit. In a perfect world we should boycott the shit out of them until their sales drop as low as their conscience, but I honestly haven't got the time or energy to concern myself with an ultimately futile endeavor. EA is there to stay. As is Ubisoft. As is Bethesda. As is Activision. It's good that you've got the fortitude to stay true to your convictions and won't buy from these companies, but honestly it's fucking exhausting to read about and not everyone is a crusader. All I want after a long day of classes is boot my rig and slit some throats in Assassin's Creed. That's it. Theoretically I could keep all the bullshit the publishers do in mind while practicing my assassination game, but I'm sure as hell not playing to be bothered by real life corporate shit, so I don't. Anyway, what I mean to say is, I get it. We all do. EA fucks us over, as does everyone else. We're letting ourselves be fucked in the arse. Yes. There is a sheeple element to this, fair enough. But the last three pages have been all about that topic and honestly I'm getting sick of reading about this particular soap box.
Mmm, I bought a 'pre-order' the day before and only because it was Every KH game bundle for the PS4. I don't pre-order any more at all unless there is an actual financial incentive to do so.
I'm not saying never play another game. I'm sure we all have a catalog from years past. You can play older games without giving AAA more of your money. Hell, pirate new games if possible. And you know what? Maybe burning the forest down is what we need at this point. I totally get your position. Not everyone has to be a crusader, you're absolutely right. I can still bemoan what's happening and I choose to read something instead of fragging in whatever turd EA turns out next for my leisure time. I would love to play another great BioWare game, knowing that I'm supporting a studio that deserves it. Alas, it is not so. --- Post automerged --- I find preordering games to be a generally bad practice. I can't see anything good that's come of it. It's just paying for a game that you don't even know works or is worth the money, and probably with a Day 1 patch.
Started buying pretty much every single player game during steam summer/winter sales 1/2 years post launch and refuse to buy microtransactions in them. Stopped playing multiplayer games with any RMT that influences gameplay, which admittedly doesn't leave a lot of them left. I'm fine with my strategy but whatever floats peoples boats. Getting to old to put that much time into gaming either way. I'll be the old gramps one day complaining about scrubs not knowing what it was like getting the full game once you buy it.
I was going to play Kingdom Hearts 3 regardless of whether it was a good game or not. I've waited this long for closure and I'll be damned if I'm not getting it first hand over watching someone else play it. Gonna have to echo @Eilyfe here in that I'm no longer at the point in my life when my concern over shitty games and selling practices trumps my limited time for entertainment consumption. I have no intention of playing Anthem, any future Assassins Creed, any Battlefront games, etc, etc. I know what kind of games I like and I base my purchasing habits on the marketing materials that are put out, be it first party (trailers) or third party ("Influencer" spots). Thankfully I live in a country with strong consumer law and If I don't like a game then I can get a refund on it which I have done multiple times in the past when a product has been shit or misrepresented (No Mans Sky).
Yeah, I've honestly got a titanic back-catalogue of games to get through as it is. I've got over a dozen games on my steam list I haven't even installed, and a lot more I've never properly gotten through. I really should get around to playing Far Cry 3, Witcher 3, and Dark Souls 2... Really, one of the big flaws in the whole "Live Service" model of gaming that AAA studios are so obsessed with is that there just aren't enough hours in the day for most folks to play more than one or two of those games.
Broadly speaking, I'm in your boat. AAA gaming has some seriously shit practices, with buying the product sight-unseen, while being blatantly lied to, somehow being one of the least egregious. It's turned me off a whole lot of games that I used to adore (see: call of duty and battlefield, assassin's creed, etc). Though I will admit, I'm significantly less of a crusader in this regard. I encourage folks to not preorder, and I don't do any of that nonsense myself, but I'll still happily buy a game that actually interests me. It's just that my interest automatically falls a few points if there's a major AAA publisher involved with the game.
Hey, I'd love it if people the world over decided tomorrow to just stop spending money on AAA games for 10 years regardless of who the studio/publisher is. Just starve the industry to death, raze the place to the ground, and wait for nature to reclaim it before we let some new people make new games. But I'm not fucking Thanos. At the end of the day the decision belongs to the individual. I'd be betraying my principles if I were screaming at people to not buy games or else. But I'll still call them idiots for giving EA money.