I've been meaning to type this out for a while since I learned about the microtransactions Rare was implementing and seeing some of the reactions from the community. It was going to be in pure defense of Rare until I saw the contents of the update. So half will be defense in Rare the other half will be a more direct spanking of Rare's hind quarters.
Thanks to EA, the whole concept of Microtransactions has become an impermissible concept.
The immediate hatred derived from the community from the simple mention of microtransactions is incredible. Are microtransactions a good thing? Are they a bad thing? Why do developers and companies use them if the gaming communities hates them so much?
The first thing to clear up is the believe that microtransactions are just a way for developers to cheat money out of their community. Some players are too young to remember but there was a time where multiplayer required a monthly subscription. The normal fee for such a subscription was $15 a month.
If you were playing an online game, you were paying this every month. The monthly subscription wasn't only so that the company could make more money but it was added to the cost for the QoS. Servers needed maintained, support department needed to get paid, developers that were still developing expansions also needed to get paid.
What happen to this staple form of transaction?? Easy, people started to release content under the guise of the word "Free". The introduction for Pay to Win was introduced. The individuals who created that "free" content didn't create something for everyones benefit, they created it because they wanted to get recognition and of course wanted to get paid.
Funny right? Everyone switched to this "free" content method which major developers started to notice that players were more and more reluctant to pay for something since the market is now being flooded by all this "free" content. This released control from the developers and firmly put the reigns in the hands of the marketing team.
Now its not about developing and keeping players coming back, its "What can we release that they will pay for?" "How can we spin this so that players will willingly pay for this useless junk?". It used to be purely about the content because the company was getting paid either way. If they made good content players would stick around and keep paying, if not then they would stop paying.
Companies still had to get paid though. A couple of individuals developing something in their basement and keeping an employee base of 5 plus someones dog isn't in same situation as a developer like EA, Blizzard, or other companies with thousands of employees and developers where the basic entry level for a Level Designer is 50k a year.
So the whole concept of microtransactions isn't the fault of companies or major game developers. Its our fault because we as a community are greedy. We want as much as we can get for as little as possible. If someone released a game that costs $15 a month but had great graphics and mechanics then someone else released an as basic as you can get replica for free with microtransactions, which one do you think the player base would choose to play??
Keeping servers maintained cost money, paying employees costs money, developing cost money. Money is what makes the cogs keep moving.
You want more content?? Well Rare is going to need money from somewhere people. They went from releasing something every week, to every month. They've even had huge game changing expansions. Besides the games purchase price they aren't receiving any other influx of income and that initial influx will run out. The game has been around for over a year. Salaries need to be paid.
You want more content?? Then get ready to open your wallets or piggy banks. Stop being greedy monkeys and expecting stuff to be free.
So that was in defense of Rare and really of any company. Things cost money. We did this to ourselves. We could instead go back to monthly subscriptions but everyone is so used to not having to pay for anything they would cry, whine, and kick all the way to the bank.
Next is the spanking for Rare.
Rare, you mean money grubbing bunch of nanners swimming in gold, blue doubloon awarding, ancient coin hoarding Scrooge McDuck. What in the hell??
There is a right way for microtransactions and the EA way of microtransactions. You are just toying with players tugging at their idiosyncrasies with the way you released your content. Time limited content that can only be purchased with money?? Have you seen the price tag on your content??
This might not even be your fault, maybe the marketing team?
The best way to get your playerbase behind you is to do things the correct way. Instead of going for large transactions like most companies, go for the the small stuff. You are a cosmetic based game. You have it completely in the bag.
Just release a bunch of cosmetics and put a price tag of like 1 to 3 dollars on each item. You could charge as much as 5 to 10 on really awesome stuff. If you hit a creativity block just hand some crayons to someones kid and let them go nuts.
YOU HAVE THIS IN THE BAG. Stop trying to control the amount of cosmetics you release. Just start releasing tens to hundreds of cosmetics and put a price tag on all of them. You could make the same cosmetics with different colors and players will pay for it.
Red Athena outfit? White Athena outfit?? Purple skeleton hull skin? Yellow admiral hull?? PURE BLACK SHIP!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Founder sails?? Black Dog Set?? You guys have the best game for microtransactions.
You have so many different ship skins that don't have cannons, capstans, or wheels skins that its unnerving. Its like you are trying to make sure the stuff you release looks cool enough or is acceptable enough. Are you worried about how the player base reacts to it??
You release a bunch of Ghost skins that no one likes? Thats fine!! guess what you get to do, RELEASE MORE VARIANTS. You could literally create 50000000 different versions of the ghost cannons and there will be some who buy at least 10 of those. I don't know why you are being so conservation with your cosmetics in a game that is purely about cosmetics. A hat with a feather? Without a feather? Why not both? Crazy right?
This is not hard. You are going the same route a lot of companies went. They were looking for huge influxes of money from like the top 10 percent of their player base that had money. While trying to tug at a human beings idiosyncrasy about "time limited" items, trying to bait them into forking over the cash anyways because "time limited" am I right? The ones that can afford, the ones that give in to purchase it because its time limited, then the ones who can't afford any of it. Which alienate the rest of the player base which makes your game BAD because even though 10% of them can buy your stuff, the other 90% hate your guts.
Spread out the pricing and release more content and you'll get the cash flow. Its better to get less money from everyone then more money from a small portion of the playerbase.
Want to control gold inflation? Well now you get the chance to actually increase the amount that stuff costs. If a simple skin costs like 2 to 3 dollars a peice / 500k or 1m gold a piece, then some players will just pay for it others will grind it up. You'd be surprised how often someone will go "eh its only 3 dollars"
Leave the values low so that players can pay little at a time. Trying to get so much in one sitting is going down a bad route.
I hope I stayed on topic and this help some of you understand why microtransactions aren't the evil of the gaming world if done right. This was long and trying to stay on track while editing and re-editing my post was difficult.
