Games-as-a-Service

[TedEH]

Refunds and chargebacks exists to help you out when you can’t handle your own shit.

Ok, then lets try looking at that from a business perspective then. The framework needed to provide the customer service and accommodate those refunds cost you more money than if you hadn't avoided the mistaken purchases in the first place.

 

[diagrammatiks]

I'm not going to touch that one.


You're assuming all parents function the way you do. If you've got control of your kids like that, then good. You're doing the right thing, I guess.

That being said, the idea that all households work that way is incredibly far from true. A lot of parents are bad parents. A lot of parents are doing the best they can but get overwhelmed or don't have the capacity to police the content their kids are accessing all the time. You also have no control of what they're doing while they're away from you. When they're at school. When they're with friends. When they are under the watch of people who don't share your values.

There are kids just sitting around with phones and credit cards having no idea what they are doing, and aren't having their device usage monitored. That's not me making up a hypothetical, it's fact. Refunding stupid mistakes make by kids happens a lot. I've done it. I've done it with games, I've done it when I worked in customer service for cell phones, etc.

Actually -> Being able to see the nonsense people get on their phone bills in order to provide customer service was a pretty big insight into the volume of dumb thing things people do, or the dumb things that people let their kids do, knowingly or otherwise.

My point at the end of the day isn't that everyone is a garbage parent -> But that not everyone is good at it either, and we can't just shrug off the responsibility of how the products were make are inevitably going to end up in the hands of people who are incredibly vulnerable.

The point is that there’s a already recourse for things like stolen credit cards and accidental purchases.

In fact those protections are way better then anything you’d get for a real life cash purchase. Your kid steals 20 bucks to buy some Oreos. Good luck with that.

The problem is that you think that these systems are inherently evil. But they aren’t. I agree with you that a lot of games that use these mechanics are just crap. But that’s because they are implemented in a way that aren’t fun. That doesn’t mean that the entire system is flawed. They can be designed in a way that is fun for their target audenience.

Everything outside of that is still not my responsibility.

 

[TedEH]

The problem is that you think that these systems are inherently evil. But they aren’t.

They are knowingly exploitative. They are designed to be addictive. Some are more or less than others. Occasionally there are conscious decisions made as to "how exploitative do we want this system to be?" It's not that the idea of all free to play mechanics are evil, but I think it needs to be responsibly implemented, and that we need to be mindful of who we're targeting, and be transparent about that fact that is is gambling in the first place.

Let it be ultimately the responsibility of the end user? Sure. But give them the tools to make that decision. Don't market addictive mechanics to kids. Don't mask the gambling analogy.

 

[wankerness]

It’s like there’s no recourse when a kid somehow figures out how to enter your credit card information. Refunds and chargebacks exists to help you out when you can’t handle your own shit.

It's far more of a drain on our system than if they'd been blocked from the damn thing in the first place. That just shoves the waste of time and money to other parties.

 

[Mathemagician]

Could it be argued that this is just as much a tactic to keep you invested in the product? Not to say it's not a good model, but nothing is ever truly "free". If they can keep you playing, I would imagine that the bigger time investment makes a person more willing to make a financial investment.

I mean that’s exactly what it is though. The general point being the “cost” of cards in terms of this game. Have time? Grind until you can build them with in game money or buy packs with in game money. Only have time for like 1 game a day? Here’s a pack for your first win, for your first 3 wins, oh you lose most of the time here’s a pack for playing for a while.

$10 buys you a “story arc” which unlocks certain cards automatically just for beating it. So if you don’t want the cards you don’t buy the “story set” to unlock it.

The point being that someone with nothing but time could grind it all and you can buy packs at any time. Just like other digital card games. However they throw in lots of freebies to help you work towards building your collection where in day Hearthstone it honestly feels like you’re punished for not spending enough money fast enough. I’m bad an want to play bad people and Hearthstone throws me against people with decks I’ll never grind for and it’s a game i altogether find more shallow.

My primary point being “here’s a fun FTP game that if you put money into you wouldn’t feel guilty about”.

Similar to Warframe. I put 200+ Hours into that game in a matter of months. I happily spent $50 on some prime cosmetics. It was entirely my choice and the game was fucking dope without it. But I’ve spent $50 for a crap movie trip before so bravo to the devs.

 

[TedEH]

That sounds reasonable.

I put 200+ Hours into that game in a matter of months. I happily spent $50 on some prime cosmetics.

In a roundabout way, that sounds like the end result is pretty close to what you'd get for a standard not- ftp kind of game. In my mind that's ideal as far as the end result for every party.

I wonder how much value there would be in bringing back the concept of game demos. One of the arguments in favour of ftp (and piracy, for that matter) is the lack of being able to try something before having the shell out money up front. I know some games have brought out demos recently - and I wonder what the impact of that was. Maybe demos are relevant again.

 

[Mathemagician]

A demo can work for single player games. But for like Apex or Fortnite it’s better for the gameplaying population to “give it away for free” then charge for things people will pay for - unique skins and the like.

CoD’s Quadruple-dipping sucks, but people still want to play COD so they pay for it. Other games need to find ways to get to that audience without similarly asking for $60 up front. Hence they go FTP to hopefully get inflows $5-10+ at a time.

And yeah Warframe gave me a fun game so I gave them money. Win/Win. Had it been crap I would have uninstalled and moved on.

Not all FTP games work that way obviously.

 

[TedEH]

CoD’s Quadruple-dipping sucks

I'm not actually super familiar with CoD's model -> I assume this is upfront cost + DLC + in-app purchases + ...?

I'm really not a fan of in-app purchases being tacked onto something you've already paid upfront for. DLC has some ground to stand on, but outside of that I think it becomes much harder to justify.

 

[Mathemagician]

Up front, season pass, individual purchases, and I believe there was talk of adding lootboxes but that may not have happened as I quit playing.

 

[TedEH]

If anyone still cares about my nonsense ramblings about games, this video that came out sort of sums up a bunch of my originally intended thoughts in a better way than I was able to put it:



Edit:
On a positive note, I read somewhere this morning that Microsoft is backing away from the software as a service thing a little bit with their updates - which isn't games related, per-se, but it's a step in the right direction overall. It's all software at the end of the day.

 

[wankerness]

Ah, Movie Bob. I don't get the point of the 8-bit video aesthetics on himself in those.

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

If anyone still cares about my nonsense ramblings about games, this video that came out sort of sums up a bunch of my originally intended thoughts in a better way than I was able to put it:

On a positive note, I read somewhere this morning that Microsoft is backing away from the software as a service thing a little bit with their updates - which isn't games related, per-se, but it's a step in the right direction overall. It's all software at the end of the day.

I care deeply, Ted! I just didn't find this thread until it was already pages long
That's great news from Microsoft. Actually, MS has been really impressing me in general lately. I think they may have realized their public image was seriously threatened and had some kind of reality check, because the news coming from the M$ camp over the last year or so has been pretty decent. This whole 'as a service' approach needs to disappear in general, though. It's incredibly anti-consumer and a while different level of irritating.

Such a shame. The original idea behind DLC was so pure and had so much potential; it legitimately depresses me when I think about how it got abused and mutated into this hideous amalgamation that is the current distribution model seen from most publishers.

 

[Mathemagician]

-on Microsoft pulling back from SaS somewhat:

I’m not paying $10/mo+ for office. Microsoft can fuck themselves. I need a sale/discount on their $150+ “all in” price. But it’s always a 1yr discount on their subscription service. Sell me excel. I’m not subscribing to it.

 

[TedEH]

Lol I'm not buying it either. At this point there are enough free productivity / office tools out there as sticking to MS products for it doesn't make sense to me unless there's a very specific requirement for some reason. And even then....

 

[Mathemagician]

I use it for work. At home I use google whatever for simple budgets/etc.

 

[wankerness]

Excel's necessary if you do any work with queries from databases. The interface and capability is also very superior to what it seems everyone's switching to, Google Sheets. I also can't deal with using Google Docs over Word, there are way too many inflexibilities with formatting, both page and text-wise. Open Office was nowhere close to as good as Word/Excel the last I used it. I haven't messed around with Pages or Numbers on the Mac too much.

Google's just nice if you want things easily accessible in multiple places without having anything installed and formatting's not very important. I use it for collaboration plenty.

PS - I still love some DLC. Some of my favorite content of all time is DLC. The one that sticks out the most may be the REAL ending of Mass Effect 3, that silly party DLC.

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

Another thing that I don't understand is that...there's already like a half dozen versions of office out there already that you can just buy.
What feature do they hope to add that's going to be good enough that I want to drop the software -that I own- to subscribe to office? I mean christ, the 2003 revision is still good enough for 80% of people.

PS - I still love some DLC. Some of my favorite content of all time is DLC. The one that sticks out the most may be the REAL ending of Mass Effect 3, that silly party DLC.

DLC -as it was originally intended- was god's gift to gaming. And the DLC that you see that was built with that kind of mindset really reflects that (Blood & Wine for The Witcher, for example). The problem is when DLC is used to nickel and dime the customer, and when it's planned out right from the gate. Case in point (IMO) was Destiny. The original Destiny beta had major content from the first 2 or 3 expansions playable. In the beta. So when the game launches and that content isn't there, I assume it's cut. Then when it comes back, but I'm getting billed for it? I'm upset. Just the wrong attitude.

And don't get it twisted, I get that content needs to be play-tested and post-launch support is great- but I have an issue when it's ready at launch and isn't included at launch. DLC always seemed like it should be more of a "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we did this?" "Oh yeah that'd be sick. We should do that." then a couple years after release you get this huge DLC update with a hefty price tag that fans of the game would be over the moon for. I'd spent $40 for another NieR Automata storyline DLC in a fraction of a second, you couldn't stop me from throwing my money at the monitor.

Piecemeal DLC is also still great if it's done correctly. Rock Band 2 (and I'm sure the later titles as well) did it perfectly, if you want to play a song that's not in the game, just buy it. It was only like $1.50 per song. Outstanding deal, major value-add to the game. But when it's pay-to-win garbage or circumventing some insane timegate, or when core features of the game (or when you can clearly tell an entire part of the game was designed with DLC in mind) are locked behind "optional DLC," when each piece pushes you into the next piece for more profit while each piece has little substance on it's own, all of that stuff turned me off of gaming so hard that I more or less gave up on a hobby I was heavily invested in for almost 2 decades.

Just bums me out dude. Cause like you said, some of my favorite moments in gaming were from early DLC additions.

 

[TedEH]

I think the line between DLC as legit extra stuff vs. a piece of the game strategically chopped out so you can charge for more for it has always been a bit blurry. Consider from the point of view of production, sometimes you need to know what your DLC is going to be before you main game is out in order to do it in a reasonable time, or to have it actually fit with the main game, but that makes it hard to argue that it couldn't have been part of the core game from the beginning.

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

I think the line between DLC as legit extra stuff vs. a piece of the game strategically chopped out so you can charge for more for it has always been a bit blurry. Consider from the point of view of production, sometimes you need to know what your DLC is going to be before you main game is out in order to do it in a reasonable time, or to have it actually fit with the main game, but that makes it hard to argue that it couldn't have been part of the core game from the beginning.

Exactly.
I mean, some people are always going to have stronger or weaker opinions on certain issues than others, but this is one I fall very firmly on where I think if you're actively thinking about DLC during development time, you're doing it wrong. And god help you if you ship on-disc DLC because your soul is long gone.

That definitely makes it tricky when doubled with the scale the extra piece has to be in order for it to be 'worth it,' for sure. But yeah, I think if we're planning things out in 2014, I pitch Campaign X and everyone is on board, we're in development until 2018, the game launches in 2019, and Campaign X isn't playable until 2020, we fucked up. Fiscally no, we definitely made money- and PR-wise also no, because this stuff is acceptable for some reason- but ethically, I think in that scenario we made a mistake.

I don't know about you guys but I think back on my favorite games and they were all amazingly large and complete for their time (and usually...before DLC / during the first wave of DLC implementation). Final Fantasy X is unchallenged as my favorite game of all time and I sunk over 200 hours into that game before I was confident enough to call it complete. Every system was complete or felt meaningful. Compare to its modern equivalent in Final Fantasy XV, and in my 30-hour playthrough I felt disconnected from the characters (due to their stories not being fleshed out until the DLC dropped), uninterested in the extra systems of the game (since they were either non-impactful, time/reward balance was off, disconnected from the plot, or there was no impetus to do so other than to 'complete them), felt more on-rails than I did in FFX (which is humorous since FFXV is an 'open world' game and one of FFX's most common criticisms was that it was a hallway simulator), and my satisfaction from the ending was less in the resolution of the plot and more in the knowledge that I had finished it. I understand FFXV went through development hell and may be a bad example in the case, but I think the point still stands.

But I'm also that guy that is 100% okay with waiting 8 years for a new installment in a series that I'm a fan of as long as all of that development time is reflected in scale, quality, and honestly price. I'd have no issue paying more for a game that shipped "complete," (I actually bought NieR Automata twice for this reason). The current state of DLC and microtransactions just leaves guys like me feeling like we're viewed less as fans and more as walking wallets. Seriously, I'd rather pay $100 on launch day for a game that took 6 years to develop than $80 spread throughout a year on a game that took 4 years to develop, as would literally every other person I know. Continuing with Final Fantasy, everyone is joking that the FFVII remake isn't coming out until 2025 and honestly, I'd be fine with Square taking extra years to develop that game as long as the delivered product is quality. Low-key, I hope the game isn't out until like 2025 or something like that.

tl;dr I think DLC should have been more along the lines of a gaming 'passion project,' a way to extend the lifespan of a game for it's devoted fans. It'd be ideas some of the devs were really excited about but didn't get included on disc, and likely be released noticeably after the initial 'wave' of players had already finished the game. The people that were serious fans of the game would purchase the content and get the double bonus of being able to enjoy this game that they liked for that much longer, and see new content/storylines. Unfortunately though....this approach doesn't print money.

 

[wankerness]

Another thing that I don't understand is that...there's already like a half dozen versions of office out there already that you can just buy.
What feature do they hope to add that's going to be good enough that I want to drop the software -that I own- to subscribe to office? I mean christ, the 2003 revision is still good enough for 80% of people.



DLC -as it was originally intended- was god's gift to gaming. And the DLC that you see that was built with that kind of mindset really reflects that (Blood & Wine for The Witcher, for example). The problem is when DLC is used to nickel and dime the customer, and when it's planned out right from the gate. Case in point (IMO) was Destiny. The original Destiny beta had major content from the first 2 or 3 expansions playable. In the beta. So when the game launches and that content isn't there, I assume it's cut. Then when it comes back, but I'm getting billed for it? I'm upset. Just the wrong attitude.

And don't get it twisted, I get that content needs to be play-tested and post-launch support is great- but I have an issue when it's ready at launch and isn't included at launch. DLC always seemed like it should be more of a "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we did this?" "Oh yeah that'd be sick. We should do that." then a couple years after release you get this huge DLC update with a hefty price tag that fans of the game would be over the moon for. I'd spent $40 for another NieR Automata storyline DLC in a fraction of a second, you couldn't stop me from throwing my money at the monitor.

Piecemeal DLC is also still great if it's done correctly. Rock Band 2 (and I'm sure the later titles as well) did it perfectly, if you want to play a song that's not in the game, just buy it. It was only like $1.50 per song. Outstanding deal, major value-add to the game. But when it's pay-to-win garbage or circumventing some insane timegate, or when core features of the game (or when you can clearly tell an entire part of the game was designed with DLC in mind) are locked behind "optional DLC," when each piece pushes you into the next piece for more profit while each piece has little substance on it's own, all of that stuff turned me off of gaming so hard that I more or less gave up on a hobby I was heavily invested in for almost 2 decades.

Just bums me out dude. Cause like you said, some of my favorite moments in gaming were from early DLC additions.

Yes, Witcher 3's two expansions are fantastic examples and are relatively new. I'd argue some of the content for the Assassin's Creed games has also been great. Far Cry Blood Dragon, Bioshock Infinite Burial At Sea, HZD - Frozen Wilds, etc.

And yeah, Nier Automata I love so much I bought that moronic arena DLC for it. It isn't surprising, though, considering how definitive the ending of that game is. I did still get a huge kick out of fighting the CEO or director or whoever those guys were.

I forgot about Rock Band 2 dlc - that was SO great. I bought probably hundreds of dollars' worth. Everything from Meshuggah - Bleed to the entirety of No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom to Dream Theater songs came out for it.

The first DLC I remember hearing about that was laughed at was the infamous "HORSE ARMOR" in Oblivion, but that was just so dumb that no one took it as a dire warning of the future or anything. The actual DLC for that game was quite good, I think I heard.

The first real controversy with DLC that I remember clearly was Mass Effect 3, which had launch DLC that was an additional character along with long recruitment missions. Everyone said "this was clearly hacked out of the game for additional money-making," which might be true, though the character really has no relevance to the main plot, so who knows. They kind of redeemed themselves with the later DLC being much better. I think ME2's "Shadow Broker" usually gets the most props for Bioware DLC, though. The DA2 and Inquisition stuff was mostly pretty good as well.

But yes, EA and Activision have rightly gotten tons of hate over the year. It's kind of a franchise-by-franchise basis, I think, but amazing events like re-releasing COD4 and then charging for its original DLC the same way it was originally charged for was egregious and I think is the kind of think that sticks in peoples' mind when they think DLC.