Rantology: Talking about Microtransactions

So one of the biggest things in the game industry right now is the trend for companies to want to rip ever last dime you have from your wallet and give you seemingly little in return.  Whether it be different amount for different editions of the game, a plethora of cosmetic items and virtual currency bought with real money for in game items and rewards, or the loot box system that started coming under fire last year when the game launched.  However, some of these are more insidious than others because they don't offer the player a guaranteed product that they can judge to be worth their money.  Now the debate of whether this is gambling or not I will try to avoid, as it has been covered, beaten, and then covered again over the years (full disclosure it is textbook gambling and if you don't think so please go fuck off).  No what I want to do is talk about the cost of games, the ethics of such a thing and why it's dangerous, even if you can afford it.

The Cost of Games

Full disclosure I have bought loot boxes in the past.  Do I regret my decision?  Not necessarily.  Am I adding to the problem?  Absolutely.  But that's the first part of the problem, admitting there is one and knowing when you are being part of it.  Loot boxes are a problem, micro-transactions are a problem.  I have added to that problem.  I fully admit that and I'm not going to beat around the bush with it.  What really needs to be addressed here is the value behind this as a service.  What does that mean?  Simply put at what point in time does a product stop being valuable to the consumer?  This is one of the most researched topics in human history as companies want to maximize their profits and their sales.  Lets use cereal as an example.  If I am a large cereal company like Kelloggs and I am selling boxes of oh so delicious Frosted Flakes to my customers, I need to make sure that I give enough product at the right price to both make money, and yet still have it affordable enough to make a profit from. Meaning if I were to charge $10 a box I would have a huge profit margin, but I probably wont sell a lot of boxes due to not many consumers seeing the value in my product.  Thus I'd need to sacrifice my profit margin for sales to earn more money overall.  This is pretty simple economics so far.

But how does all of this apply to the games industry?  Well simply put the industry has agreed upon a price of $60 retail for a game, and while this price will vary in countries because of exchange rates (except Australia because you cheeky fuckers are weird) this is generally the agreed upon price.  While that seems a fair price to pay, publishers will argue otherwise, claiming that they don't make all the money off of the sale and while they technically do make most of it and are recovering some losses from their earlier contracts (basically the cost they pay the developer, console and brand licensing, and the costs to advertise the game are all paid up at front while the profits and retailer portion is actually earned at the cash register).  So if we take a game with a $100 Million budget (and assuming a retailer rater of 15%) they would need to sell roughly 2 Million copies to make their money back on that project, over that to start making money.  However with the advent of digital distribution a player buying a digital copy of the game off their platforms distribution service will effectively cut out the 15% retail cut giving that to the publisher, thus making them more money (which is why we've seen a huge push for digital sales in recent years).

Publishers will say that every game should need to make its money back on its own, and while that is a statement I can understandably agree with, that is not the reality.  See far too many games exist for this kind of a market to effectively exist (saying that roughly 1 million copies need be sold for every $50 Million in costs) especially considering even your lightly played games still have the expectation of being of a certain quality (sorry I don't like clipping Janice!!)  When you break this down you must realize that there is a minimum amount  that is needed for that quality to be achieved.  These costs come in the form paying developers, artists, voice actors, musicians, and all the other staff at a development studio to make the game (who typically don't see a dime after the game is launched based on the games success unlike other forms of entertainment media), and staff at the publisher, and console companies too. So it's understandable why they cost so much, but the publisher obviously wants a return on their investment.

Now lets go back to our Kelloggs example above for this next part.  Say I have a not significant amount of customers wanting a new type of cereal, like Bran Flakes for example.  Obviously this isn't going to be a large seller, but the demand for this product is big enough that the costs wont be too absurd to make it, so it would make sense for us as a company to make this and sell this.  Now I may end up losing some money on it occasionally but it makes people happy and it gets the Kelloggs name out there driving more sales of my other brands so I'm okay with it especially considering I have my guaranteed Frosted Flakes to pick up the slack on an off month for it.  This same idea applies to the game industry.  For every game like Madden that makes EA a TON of money, ten games like Dead Space exist to fill a more niche roll in the market for a specific type of game and to ultimately make my consumers happy so I get a better rep.  Yea, Dead Space may not have been a super huge block buster hit, but it does have a cult following of die hard fans who will gladly buy more games in the series because it gives them what they want.  It may even lose money here and there, but the good rep with your consumer base pays off more than well enough.  This is a fact that is lost on these more digital entertainment companies because they're seen as a premium product and believe they're above the rules for other companies.  The no longer respect their Bran Flakes.

The ill advised ethics of micro-transactions in the digital age

As many of us know and will agree to micro-transactions and loot boxes are largely disliked, but they are still be driven by out ever increasing "want it now" mentality.  Why play the game and spend time earning things if you can just pay a little extra and get it right now?  That hat that looks nice, well either 3 hours of gameplay, or hey, toss me $5 and I'll just give it to you!  This is the problem, companies don't consider the alternative besides what they will gain from it.  As someone who has worked selling games some people decide to not buy a game simply because there are micro-transactions in the game.  The cost of entry is already $60, why should they be forced to suffer through a game hallmarking the extra money they can chose to spend simply because a publisher wants to make more money on top of that?

The problem with this is if I'm paying a cost of entry of $60 already, which is a lot, I should not be pressured into giving you more money.  If you want to make more money simply charge more money for the product at the register.  I'd personally be okay paying $5-$10 more per title if it meant I wouldn't get rimjobbed with micro-transactions all day while playing my games.  Because I'll fully admit, they are tempting, they're designed to be so.  The system is made such that it is supposed to be tempting, so the temptation is an additional price, and if I'm not paying anything to get in then I'll gladly deal with the temptation and will actually more than likely to slide a few dollars to the game if I genuinely enjoy it.

Recent events *cough* Battlefront 2 *cough* have really encouraged i'll used ethics by not only time-gating but also pay-gating characters and having an almost 0 skill barrier behind it but instead hey, give EA $100 and you can be almost the deadliest thing on the planet thanks to it.  Which is a shame because I was looking forward for this game.  While I do want to keep talking about Battlefront 2 and Star Wars as a whole that will probably be a separate post.

The long and short of the ethics here is that there are no ethics for them in a $60+ retail game, even if it is cosmetic in nature only.  The cost of entry has already been achieved, if you feel that this isn't enough, simply charge more.

Why micro-transactions are dangerous

Now as we have seen with preorders and season passes and I can cry wolf about slippery slopes all day the fact is that this isn't even the worst part.  No the worst part is in the future we're probably going to see parts of the game split up and served to us on a silver platter for premium prices, because lets face it, companies want to nickle and dime us for every last dollar we have.  See that really cool Halo game?  Well if you want to play certain pieces of it only you can, but surprise surprise buying it piece wise will be more expensive in the long run, and even if you bundle them you may be lucky to get it for the same price.  Imagine paying $30 each for campaign, competitive, and cooperative multiplayer, and then this being touted as a good thing because players can get and pay only $30* for the games, but the real cost could be up to $90.  For an example of this look at what is currently happening with games like Hitman where they're breaking the story up into pieces.  And while other franchises have been doing this thank god they don't have the audacity to charge over $60 and are reasonably priced experiences.

Honestly the real slippery slope is what will publishers think up next to try and shoehorn as much money out of people as they can because they can.  The issues are what comes next, what comes after, how do we protect ourselves as consumers from this bullshit, because it is bullshit.  I know I, for one, will be boycotting Battlefront 2 because of this weeks revelations, at least until it's only a $20 game or I can get a cheap copy preowned (because fuck EA and fuck money going into their pockets because they don't deserve that shit ever).  Join me in pledging to not buy lootboxes, not to give in to the pressure that they represent, and not to give into the micro-transaction shit anymore to show that we wont make them profitable.

Really if you give even a fraction of a shit about the games you play and the quality of your experience you need to not buy these horrible misguided mistakes that we have been forced to endure.  Vote with your wallets, don't make these profitable, show that they're a waste of money as they wont make money for the developer.  Till next time folks.

Rantology: What BioWare did to Mass Effect Andromeda and why you should care.

So, over the weekend BioWare issued an update that they will no longer be supporting single player updates.  This news comes after they have fixed the majority of bugs and glitches in the single player game which includes the facial animations (full disclosure this is not something I personally experienced to the degree that most people claim it to be), and the Hainly Abrams thing which I have previously addressed.  I did write a, as of  yet, unposted review of Andromeda, but I may get around to doing that later this week (btw I gave the game a solid 8/10).  That being said, considering the game is a little under 6 months old at this point I'm going to assume that everyone has finished it and I will be discussing spoilers in this post, but incase that's not enough....

********************************SPOILER ALERT*********************************

Now, with that out of the way one of the biggest things that this hits is from a story perspctive, see for those of you who have completed the story, you'll know that the 5th Ark (the Quarians and other minor species like Drell, Hanar, Elcor, additional Volus, Krogan, and Batarians has arriaved in Andromeda, but is at a currently undisclosed location due to issues, presumably from the Scourge that plagues the Andromeda system, and their pathfinder is dealing with the issue.  Now this brings forward the question of their fate, and the fate of their ark on the surface, but bellow that it makes us wonder if there are additional threats, or if the Scourge isn't what it appears to be and something is controlling it, and what the interest in the Quarian Ark is specifically.  Furthermore, in a post credits scene, a kett known as the Primus, who served as the Archons second in command, is observing Meridian, letting us know that we haven't defeated the kett, especially since we know the Archon was considered a rogue threat who stepped out of line in Andromeda to pursue Remnant technology, as we know the kett only seem to be able to absorb biological material, and not synthetic (possible resurgence of the Geth to fight back at them?)  Finally, the third major question left unanswered is the Remnant, who made them, what their purpose is outside of teraforming, is the AI on H-047c related to them in any fashion?  And while a few smaller questions are left unanswered (specifically in regards to the Angara and Krogan) they are nowhere as near as important to the above, at least in my mind.

While story questions are all important, we also need to realize what this can mean for Mass Effect as a whole.  While Andromeda was never release with a specific plan for the series in mind and meant to be fluid, I doubt anyone ever meant for it to be abandoned, especially considering we have been without a Mass Effect game for going on 5 years prior to its release.Yes, we still have other BioWare games like Dragon Age 4 to look forward to, but they just don't fill the void left in our hearts. Why is this happening?  Well from best I can tell it is because of the overwhelming negative feedback focusing on the glitches in terms of facial animations and dialogue, which while I won't say didn't exist, but were never as large of a part of the game as people (mostly those who hadn't touched the game in my experience) would have you believe.  See, when something like this happens on a lesser known series, or a game that is widely regarded as a cherished title by the masses, it doesn't get the amount of negative attention that a game like Mass Effect would with its rampant fanbase of overzealous players.  For example, Dark Souls has a large number of glitches in their invasion PvP system, ones that will actually break the game and make it impossible to have a fair and balanced game, but the response from the internet is one of disbelief and cries for it to be fixed, not widespread criticism, where Andromeda was laughed at relentlessly for a small glitch that didn't break the game, and by most accounts was less than 1% of the overall experience.  Now I'm not saying they both don't need to be fixed, and say what you will for modern release it now, patch it later culture, but the fact that it is an option to be able to fix it is a good them.  But we can also look to the response from the communities for the efforts to fix their glitches.  From Software spent a large chunk of time investigating and banning players who exploited this glitch, and as of the time of this writing I'm not aware of any patches to fix this issue, only to be met with overall praise from the community for such a proactive approach, while Andromeda was met with disdain and criticism for taking less than 3 months to almost completely eliminate the problem, which I need remind you didn't render entire aspects of the game almost unplayable.

This brings me to my last point of why you should really care.  Andromeda has set a prescendence, and not the one they were hoping to.  What this proves is that with enough complaints, trolling, rampant meme sharing, and overall shitty attitudes to what really was a solid game, you can effectively bury it and a franchise, because when you complain to an extent and harass a developer you are attacking their heart and soul.  Many developers hold these games close to their hearts, as they can be working on them for close to 70-80 hours a week for over 2 years.  These games are their children, their babies.  They care about them and want to see them grow just as much as we do, but the sheer amount of harassment that Andromeda received, especially from people who never played the game (you know who you are), was too much.  This will only serve to tell people that they can keep doing this to other games and series that they either don't like or have some sort of issue they don't like and it is dangerous. Things like this can lead someone to depression, which is a very serious issue, and while I'm not saying we should ignore issues in our games, we should raise those concerns, but we should do them in a constructive way.  Positive feedback is much more beneficial than negative, think of the last time both has happened and what the outcome was for you?  Now apply that same to these games and their devs, and keep in mind that these games are their passion.

We all love video games, there is no question about that, but the thing is how we address them matters so much more.  The issue surrounding Andromeda is a difficult one, but I believe that we need to learn from it so we call all grow, both the community and devs.  See you next time.

Dragon Age Inquisition Review

Okay, so I'm REALLY late to the party on this one, considering the game came out in 2014, but I finally got a copy again and snagged the DLC as well, so I feel ready to review this.  Plus, as I said earlier it won't always be new games that I review right away (though I am hoping to be able to get out a Horizon: Zero Dawn vs Zelda Breath of the Wild review next week, so fingers crossed on that one).  One of the big things to know about me is I am a HUGE Bioware fan.  I LOVE Mass Effect, KOTOR, and Dragon Age.  These games are often filled with charming characters, deep stories and universes, and side quests that are sometimes more interesting than the main quest line (which despite what others might say is never a bad thing if you can be drawn into a game and actually enjoy all of its content).  So when Dragon Age Inquisition came out I was undoubtedly excited.

Being completely honest I didn't particularly enjoy the game at first, it was such a huge offset of the first two games that I had a hard time getting into it.  I begrudgingly forced my way through around 20 hours of it before eventually letting it fall by the wayside while I was playing other games and keeping myself busy with other hobbies.  Then in August of 2015 some part of me got the itch to pick the game up again and continue my righteous march to save Thedas once more.

Now, I'm not going to attach my usual spoiler warning tags to this one because I'm not even going to attempt to try and summarize the monster that was my 150 hour campaign play through into a plot summary outside this (all of this happens at literally the begining of the game btw):  After everything in the first two games, the war between the mages and templars comes to a pinnacle and the Chantry has to step in and call a Conclave to begin negotiations to end hostilities at The Temple of Sacred Ashes.  Divine Victoria is killed when an explosion occurs that your character is the only survivor of granting you a mark on your hand allowing you to control and affect the veil (a magical barrier between the physical and dream world).  You must reestablish the Inquisition to find out who is behind this attack and the massive fade rift that now looms over The Temple of Sacred Ashes.  That's it.  That's all your getting.  Everything else story wise you're on your own for.

One of the things that really stands out to me, and has historically stood out to me is the quality of music that Dragon Age games have, and Inquisition not only lives up to its predecessors, but makes them seem like they were just a child playing on a keyboard.  Seriously, everything fits the game, and while some of it may seem off at first, once you start to get more into an area it really builds upon the ambiance of it.  And its not just the music, but even the sounds have a way of making this game come alive.  One of the things you can do is click the right thumb stick you can scan for nearby items and the sound it makes when found just gives you a good feeling.

The other big part I'd like to hit here is Bioware and their near consistent attention to character details in the game.  This is one of their strongest aspects, and inquisition really shows it.  Not only do you get to interact with series staples like Leliana, but you get introduced to new characters like Iron Bull and Dorian (who make the most adorable couple btw).  Now, I personally wont say I enjoyed every character, but that doesn't mean they aren't all charming in their own ways, and their loyalty missions will leave you wanting more, much more (looking at you Iron Bull).  I'm also hoping that they will make a comeback in the next entry just because some of them I feel would fit well into the setting.

And of course it wouldn't be a Dragon Age game without customization and  replay ability built into its core.  From the 3 base classes, to the 9 specializations you can play the game multiple times and never have the same experience, and what adds even more to it is that you can take an already established character and switch their fighting style mid game to make them more adaptable to whatever the situation is at hand, for example I did this with my inquisitor (who was a rogue) because my in-your-face dagger style wasn't cutting it so I went to a bow build and started making my enemies regret every adult decision they ever made (and trust me, they had much to confess).  Other fun builds are the Knight Enchanter mage build, and pretty much anything that is also an Alchemist Rogue.

Finally, the last big thing here is the multiplayer.  Bioware took a page out of Mass Effect 3's book for this one, took an already great base formula and somehow made it better.  It's harder forsure, but the nice thing too is that difficulty is nothing that can't be overcome with just a bit of teamwork.  Pretty much the multiplayer takes place in a randomly generated dungeon with 5 different "zones", each offering a different challenge.  Different enemy factions, and random bonus rooms help to mix things up.  Yet again you are limited to healing items like in Mass Effect, but the progression based system really makes it feel like you are actually accomplishing a mission, rather than deploying to a hot spot, and running after collecting some data.  Overall it's very well done and something I hope than Andromeda can play on in the next few weeks when it launches.

Overall if you like the Dragon Age series so far you're going to love Inquisition, and while it isn't a perfect game, it is one that I feel does a good job at offering a lot of content for not a whole lot of price (maybe $40 for the game of the year edition with all DLC).  It does mix things up a bit, and doesn't seem like a Dragon Age game at fist, but after the first couple of hours you get pulled right back in again.  That is why I'm giving Dragon Age Inquisition eight and a half High Dragons, out of ten.

Battlefield 1 Review

So, I'm going to start off this whole venture with quite a few posts in quick succession (maybe 2-3 a week for the first 2-3 weeks) to kind of build a backlog for people to read, don't expect me to keep up with this grueling pace or anything, because it can become very tiresome, very quickly.  With that being said, lets start this off with what I'm guessing is most people most wanted FPS this holiday season: Battlefield 1.  I'd say shooter of the year, but with Overwatch having come out in May that kind of took precedence.

So, Battlefield 1 offers an insightful look into not only how can we age back modern FPS' to an earlier time period successfully, but it also gives us a look at what DICE *could* have done had they put their nose to the grindstone on Star Wars Battlefront (though even then it would still be dwarfed by the mere existence of the classic Battlefront 2), and by that I'm talking about the multiplayer experience, not the potential for a single player campaign.  But, we're not here to talk about that, so let's shelve that conversation for another time.  What Battlefield 1 does well is delivering a full experience of how trench warfare and the industrial revolution really changed the world.  You get a sense of the massive scale of the first world war, the ominous feeling of having to fight through what would later be called "The war to end all wars", and also the sheer lack of establish rules of engagement of the time.  It's honestly impressive, but at the same point it still feels very samey to the other Battlefield games, and while that's not a bad thing, DICE had a chance to truly reinvent the genre, and they kinda just let it slip through their hands.

******************************SPOILER WARNING *********************************

I'm going to start off talking about the campaign, and how that particular beast played out first, because it's an easy starting ground for me, and while I'm not really going to be discussing major story spoilers, I will talk about the environment of the game, and some of the battles so I'm tagging it anyways.

In my mind, the campaign does a good job at adding a human face to a very violent and faceless era of human history, but you really only ever experience it from the side of the Allies, though no surprise there, the victor is whose truth gets written, meaning it would have been nice to experience the game through the eyes of an Ottoman or German soldier.  Overall though the campaign is a good experience for me, plenty of opportunities to approach most missions how you feel like it, though often times it felt as if I was still going at the missions alone, which historically isn't really accurate, these were large scale battles after all, and really only a couple of situations even sold themselves as "this should be done alone" kinds of things.  The other big thing the campaign suffers from is what I like to call "wave mentality" or, sit here and defend this position while we just throw waves of enemies at you.  One moment in particular is while you're defending a train depot as a sole tank crew from waves and waves of German tanks and infantry, it's cool, but it's not exciting or remotely believable for this era in warfare (typically you would have had a platoon support you with maybe one or two other tanks, or your crew would have surrendered the objective for a more feasible one).  One of the good things it does though is allow you to try and learn a variety of weaponry, but the lack of a distinct tutorial (how do different weapons work vs support weapons like the dynamite work) is a bit frustrating and forces players to get a handle on things all on their own.  While I enjoyed the story missions I was also left wanting much more than I was given, especially considering that they're relatively small areas, unless you're playing the pilots missions, and they get reused VERY frequently (one campaign had me fight in the same area for nearly 2/3rds of it).  Overall not bad, but it has a lot of areas to grow.

*********************************END SPOILERS**********************************

A lot of people would say that the multiplayer has long been Battlefields strongest aspect, and I would agree, but the unfortunate truth is that games outside of the new Operations game mode (think of it as massive 32 vs 32 asymmetrical multiplayer) just aren't as good.  The Operations are incredibly fun however, and do deserve all the attention they've been getting.  In my brief time with the multiplayer I've really enjoyed getting the reinforcements as the attacking team, and being able to dig in to highly defensible positions as the defending team.  The weapons really make the game shine, as well as the chaotic nature of rushing from objective to objective trying to push the front lines forward.  My biggest gripe however is that from what I've seen melee weapons seem to be nothing other than cosmetic reworks of each other.  The shovel isn't any more useful than the mace.  i was hoping for at least some utility use to them, like the shovel could help you to dig out a bit of a better fortification, or the mace would allow you to pierce through armor, but that really isn't the case, they just kind of do the same thing, or if they do work differently I haven't seen it.

Another nice aspect to the game is that some of the multiplayer item enhancements are obtainable in the single player campaign but finding field books or completing challenges for codex entries, which really give credibility to the campaign and doesn't make it feel like its just there for anti-social people like me who really enjoy a good single player experience.  The weapons are diverse enough to be fun, but I still feel we run into the classic issues of people using the same 5 or 6 guns because they're just objectively better than others and you really can't do anything about that.  The graphics and sound are very nice, but if they weren't I wouldn't be playing a Battlefield game (tbh it feels like they sacrificed in some areas in exchange for graphics, but hey what can you do), and my only other main gripe is that main menu is a little clustered and can be a bit confusing if you're not super used to it.  I like the behemoth war machines in the multiplayer mode, and how they're good for the balance, and not just one sided win machines like they very easily could have been, they pose a nice threat, but if your team works together they're nothing you can't overcome.

The map design is really nice, lots of areas in most of the maps to get around and ambush enemies, or hide depending on your play style, and while personally I've never been a huge fan of Battlefields destructible environments I can see their appeal and find it a nice way for a map to evolve over the course of a match.

Long story short, if you like Battlefield games, you're bound to like Battlefield 1, but your like me and you're new to the series and are hoping that it will break the cycle that modern online shooters have been offering you're barking up the wrong tree, especially since DICE and EA just can't leave their $50 season pass behind despite the addition of microtransactions to the game.  Sadly its just not enough to keep me on the bandwagon.   Overall I give Battlefield 1 7 misplaced artillery shots, out of 10.


I played Battlefield 1 on Playstation 4 system, the copy I played was a retail copy that I acquired at Walmart on Black Friday.