Reply 2

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, March 04, 2013, 11:03 (4378 days ago) @ Avateur
edited by Kermit, Monday, March 04, 2013, 11:39

Well as I said, I pretty much completely agree with it from a 100% strictly business perspective. It makes perfect sense. But we're talking about entertainment and fun, and a lot of the time strict economic sense can have a very, very nasty and negative impact on a consumer or on the ability for a product to be well made (or in a video game sense, even well balanced).

It's impossible to talk about only entertainment and fun. Games have to be funded somehow. My opinion is that nasty impacts tend to convert consumers into non-consumers, and well-made products can find a market.

"I’ve been transparent with most folks I’ve worked with in my career as to why I got into this business. First, to make amazing products – because I love the medium more than any. "

I did see that, and I found it interesting that his entire thought process revolved around his third point, which was profit. There was almost zero balance to what he wrote. I believe he did actually get into the business to make amazing products because of how much he loved the medium. ...

Huh? Maybe the justification of seeking profit was the subject of this post, and that had something to do with it being the focus of his thought process.

It's almost like he threw this part in to say something to the effect of, "Look, you know me! I'm Cliffy B! I love the medium! I do this and did this because I want to make amazing things that people enjoy and find amazing! Trust me! Now give me all of your money because my real aim is to make all the profit in all the ways ever."

Well, now you sound like you don't believe him. Do you believe him or not? You know, I used to think of Cliffy B as an obnoxious kid who might be how you characterize him. A number of things, including the New Yorker profile a few years back, changed my mind. But my perception of him started to change when he openly stated, the year the first Gears came out, that Bioshock was the best game of the year. The fact that he would say that impressed me. It's not the comment of guy just out for self-enrichment or self-aggrandizement.

And again, I don't believe that his intent is to just make all the moneys ever, and I do truly believe him about his motivation for getting into making games. It's just interesting to me that his approach in what he wrote was from a strictly economic side, consumers, fun, gameplay (balance, grinding, whatever) be damned.

Okay, so you do believe him, sort of, but maybe not since he didn't explicitly take up the issues you mention.

....

I'm hoping that will be Bungie. Bungie does a great job of setting trends. Unfortunately, EA could be a negative trendsetter with this "all games going forward" that may put the industry as a whole down that path. I'm not a big fan of Halo 4's multiplayer. I especially can't stand how something as mundane as emblems are locked to me. This model of gameplay design is already unfortunate. What happens in Halo 5 if 343 Industries decides to charge you $5 to unlock all of the emblems early? I'm not saying this would ever happen, but that'd basically be an admission that it's not worth the trouble of getting them, and people do want their emblems and feel an attachment to them, so hey, milk it. This can unfortunately be applied to many games right now, and I get the feeling many more to come. I just used Halo 4 as an example because I'm closest to it currently in finding all of their "locked content" fairly ridiculous.

Also, so don't buy it, right? I wouldn't. I'd never buy into that. No harm no foul there, especially over something that doesn't impact gameplay, right? On principal alone, I'd really love to just have my #9 emblem right from the start. Identity. I've had it since November 9, 2004. Well, until they removed it from H4, but you know what I mean. It's unfortunate that I need to play 90 hours and get 8023975628 EXP to unlock it. Or I can just spend $5 and get it right away. Or I can just be disgusted by it and not spend money on it. It does make perfect business sense. It also alienates me as a consumer that they wouldn't just give me my little emblem from the start, offering up a ton of grinding to get it or a pay option for something that I really already purchased once I purchased the game itself (and thus, as mundane as it is, why not just make it available?).

If I wanted an emblem, and didn't have the time or desire to play 90 hours, I'd buy it. Would you rather they monetize something less mundane? Monetizing brings revenue, which helps to fund more games. This is what Cliffy B was saying: people gotta eat. I hope they get to do more than that. I wouldn't be bothered if Jason Jones and Cliffy each had an swimming pool full of gold coins to swim in because money is an exchange of value, and the fun I got out of Gears and Halo was worth way more than what I've spent on either franchise. Money also helps people focus on what they're good at. Cliffy and Jason can spend their energy on creating something great, and the money they have saves them from spending that energy fixing their cars or whatever.

We tend to balk at the cost of everything, and we expect to be able to buy used games, we're offended when even cosmetic items are monetized, and if an industry leader dares to speak bluntly about the hard calculus involved in creating games these days, we suspect he's Scrooge McDuck.

I'm not trying to simplify your viewpoint. I know that you and I care mainly about fun, but a bit more realism about how that fun got to us and how it can continue to get to us might be in order here. We're entitled to nothing. Neither are developers. They risk alienating us if they make games that aren't fun. That's part of the calculus, too.