Author: Admin

Microtransactions: Workhard Is Definitely A Game


I wanted to talk about Workhard because I spent money on this and I’d honestly feel bad about refunding it.

Microtransactions is the latest column idea I had here for MMO Fallout because I can either play some incredibly cheap/short indie games with what little free time I have nowadays, or I can do the sensible thing and acknowledge that I’m not actually legally obligated to be publishing stuff on the internet even though I’ve been doing just that for nearly eighteen years now.

So I picked up Workhard because it was $1.79 on Steam and looks like a Gameboy game. Shallow, yes, but so is the game. You play as a secret agent assigned to liquidate a gang. With your guns. Sure, why not. So you travel to the right over several levels and shoot people as they aimlessly walk toward you. To aid in your liquidation you have a pistol, an automatic, and a one-shot shotgun that fires one bullet before it needs to reload. The shotgun has a very satisfying punch and can take out pretty much everyone except for the final boss in one hit. Admittedly this is the highlight of the game.

All in all, Workhard will take roughly 10 minutes to beat and obtain all of the achievements. I actually thought that the game was having problems because I kept killing the final boss off-screen without realizing it and the game just goes right back to the main menu.

I’m not angry that I spend the cost of a soft-baked Monster cookie from Target on this game or the fact that it was ten minutes long, but I am starting to wish I had taken that money and gotten a soft-baked Monster cookie from Target.

[NM] Rooster Teeth’s Game Launches, Immediately Dies


Vicious Circle is a game developed by Rooster Teeth Games and launched on August 12, 2019 making it just one month old as of this week. It looks like No Man’s Sky and not just because you’ll have to fly across the galaxy in order to find another person. It labels itself “an uncooperative multiplayer shooter in which mercenaries compete for loot against a terrifying monster.”

It is also a massive flop just one month after launch. Vicious Circle launched on Steam last month to a peak of 304 players and as of this writing has seen a 24 hour peak of six. Radical Heights, the dead Battle Royale game that shut down a long time ago, peaked at four concurrent players on Steam over the same period. And it doesn’t have functioning servers. Battleborn has a higher player count.

Warner Media announced this week that they would be cutting 50 jobs at Rooster Teeth, approximately 13% of the employee force at the company. Vicious Circle was not specifically mentioned in the announced layoffs.

IPE Update: Acceleration Bay Files MTD Against Epic Games


Nearly two months ago Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Acceleration Bay LLC seeking declaratory judgment from the court in regard to allegations that Epic was using technology owned by AB in one of its many patents. Acceleration Bay filed a motion to dismiss on lack of subject matter jurisdiction (wrong court) as well as lack of controversy. In order to receive a declaratory judgment, a plaintiff must show the court that there is very likely to be a lawsuit over the matter.

“The Court should dismiss this action because there is no immediate case or controversy between Epic Games and Acceleration Bay. Epic Games seeks declaratory judgment of non-infringement of seven patents owned by Acceleration Bay. But in the pre-suit communications that Epic Games alleges gave rise to this action, Acceleration Bay did not provide Epic Games with any claim charts or infringement analysis and Acceleration Bay did not threaten Epic Games with litigation. Instead, the parties were engaged in preliminary licensing discussions, when Epic Games abruptly filed this action. The Complaint fails to allege facts sufficient to confer declaratory subject matter jurisdiction over this action, dictating dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1).”

For its part, Acceleration Bay has denied ever threatening Epic with a lawsuit (despite evidence from Epic showing just that) but instead offering a “mutually acceptable path forward” which may end up on the list of veiled threats alongside “nice business you got here, it’d be a shame of something were to happen to it.”

“Acceleration Bay never threatened Epic Games with litigation. For example, on April 30, 2019 and May 8, 2019, Acceleration Bay’s representative (Mr. Garland) stated in an email that Acceleration Bay is “interested in arranging an introductory meeting [to] provide an overview of Acceleration Bay and to agree to a mutually acceptable path forward” and that Acceleration Bay “remain[s] interested in trying to reach a business solution with Epic Games.” Declaration of Paul Andre filed herewith (“Andre Decl.”), Ex. 1 at 1.”

See? No threats, just wanting to reach an amicable solution (and sue if you don’t meet our demands). If you wanted to see the “generic, substance-free form letter” that Epic received, I have included it below.

As always, MMO Fallout has provided the court dockets in our Google Drive at the attached link. Download it, share it, do whatever you want with it. It is 74 pages in whole so get yourself a nice cup of coffee before you dive in.

More on this story as it develops.

RuneScape: One Third Of Revenue Comes From Microtransactions


There is a lot to unpack from this week’s DCMS report, but gamers might be interested in a tidbit of information that came out about RuneScape’s revenue model. The DCMS inquiry had a major focus on immersion, addiction, and particularly people spending a lot of money on microtransactions. With Jagex being a UK-based developer, it was only a matter of time before RuneScape entered into the picture. And RuneScape gets its own section of the DCMS inquiry to show “even companies with good policies to support some aspects of player wellbeing can fall short in other areas.”

The notice was in response to concerned reports from the public about how easily large amounts of money can not only be spent, but are encouraged to be spent through in-game events and how RuneScape allows players to spend vast amounts of real world cash to skip over parts of the game’s content. In its response, Jagex’s Kevin Plomer stated that the game does technically have a cap on spending, and where exactly microtransactions line up in terms of overall revenue:

“Jagex told us that it generates about one-third of its revenue from microtransactions, with two-thirds coming from an alternative subscription model. The company’s director of player experience Kelvin Plomer told us that players “can potentially spend up to £1,000 a week or £5,000 a month” in RuneScape, but that only one player had hit that limit in the previous 12 months. The company’s reasoning for setting this limit seemed to stem from fraud prevention, rather than out of a duty of care to prevent people spending more than they are able.”

By contrast the inquiry notes that Epic has no cap at all on Fortnite however purchases are limited to store stock meaning a player can effectively spend $200 per day. Candy Crush maker King noted to the inquiry that they used to email players about their spending but halted the practice due to the negative response.

“we would send an e-mail out when a player’s spend was $250 in a week for the first time. It was an e-mail that said, “We notice you are enjoying the game a lot at the moment. Are you sure you are happy with this?” […] We got back, “I wouldn’t spend the money if I didn’t have it” and things like, “I’m fine, please leave me alone”. We felt it was too intrusive so we stopped doing that.”

The whole long read can be found at the UK Parliament website here.

UK Reverses Course On Gambling Thanks To EA’s Tone Deaf Argument


Who would have guessed that Electronic Arts worst enemy would be itself? Outside of everyone with a shred of common sense and human decency I can hear you saying, and I get it.

The last we heard from the UK in terms of possible loot box regulations, the Gambling Authority stated that loot boxes are not gambling because there is no real money payout system. Not too long afterward the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee had a sit down with some representatives resulting in what might be the most embarrassing statements to ever come out of the mouth of the gaming industry. EA’s Kerry Hopkins stated that FIFA’s Ultimate Team packs were “quite ethical and quite fun” while Epic went even deeper into propaganda territory by stating “I would disagree with the statement that Epic makes money from people playing the games.”

Well following a deluge of public comments on the hearing (never let anyone tell you your complaints don’t matter), the DCMS has published its report on immersive and addictive technologies and they are not happy with how Kerry Hopkins conducted herself. In thanking the number of people who came forward with information, the DCMS took time to admonish the industry for its dishonest and unacceptable conduct:

“In contrast, we were struck by how difficult it was to get full and clear answers from some of the games and social media companies we spoke to and were disappointed by the manner in which some representatives engaged with the inquiry. We felt that some representatives demonstrated a lack of honesty and transparency in acknowledging what data is collected, how it is used and the psychological underpinning of how products are designed, and this made us question what these companies have to hide. It is unacceptable that companies with millions of users, many of them children, should be so ill-equipped to discuss the potential impacts of their products.”

In its conclusion, the DCMS has recommended further action be taken by the government in accordance with the 2005 Gambling Act.

“We consider loot boxes that can be bought with real-world money and do not reveal their contents in advance to be games of chance played for money’s worth. The Government should bring forward regulations under section 6 of the Gambling Act 2005 in the next parliamentary session to specify that loot boxes are a game of chance. If it determines not to regulate loot boxes under the Act at this time, the Government should produce a paper clearly stating the reasons why it does not consider loot boxes paid for with real-world currency to be a game of chance played for money’s worth.”

You can read the rather lengthy report at the UK Parliament website here.

Steam Cleaning: Banned Developer Creates Shell-Accounts


Where would we be if Steam’s worst developers weren’t so stupid?

There have been hundreds of developers banned from Steam for various reasons of scumbaggery, and Valve doesn’t do a fantastic job of vetting the identity of creators so many of them have come back in one form or another. The latest developer to do this is apparently Sun Lucky Industries who have taken to creating numerous shell accounts to put their copy-pasted, low quality games on Steam.

Thankfully they aren’t very intelligent. Their games Monster Planet, Urban Riots, Desert Monsters, Animal War, Alien Creatures, and Desert Lost contain the exact same price (99 cents) and the exact same product description. They also look like exactly the same game but with different assets packs.

“This is a third person action game,The player is surrounded by a group of monsters represented by the leader,Players can explore the surrounding area freely, but need to kill the monster or avoid the monster’s attack, the leader of the attack and vitality is very high need attention,Players need to survive as long as possible.”

Will Valve react? More than likely.

Big thanks to the folks at Sentinels of the Store for their diligence.

Jagex Cancels Weapon Diversity Update, At Least For Now


Jagex today announced that they are cancelling the weapon diversity update, a project that had been in beta for the last month. The weapon diversity program was meant to differentiate weapons from one another on a more solid grounding, but the major impression was that the update just wasn’t transformative enough. Most changes were being made to weapon DPS which left players simply choosing the weapon with the most optimized damage.

In the end, we were unanimous as a team. The QA resource could be used on projects that we are currently working on (and planning to announce at Runefest), tightening them up and increasing our confidence in them. That came with a caveat: we still believed in the aims of Weapon Diversity, so we agreed that we would get our design team to design completely new utility benefits for weapons, which could be introduced over time rather than in one big clutch. For example, a quest might have a reward of a javelin; we would then take the opportunity to release a javelin effect to be rolled out for all javelins at the same time.

With their options being plough ahead, restart the project from scratch, or cancel it and focus on other major projects, Jagex chose to cancel. The good news is that while this project is dead, the spirit remains alive and is still being planned for the future.

Regardless of all of this, the aims of Weapon Diversity have not gone away: we still want to bring strategy back into weapon choice, and we believe that will make the gaining of weapon rewards so much more joyful.

Incidentally the weapon diversity beta ran alongside the bank rework update which was also temporarily cancelled only to be brought back, so those who had been looking forward to this update may not be completely disappointed.

Source: RuneScape

[Column] Astellia’s Subscription Trial Should Be Free/Contribute


Astellia Online is launching with a subscription, by which I mean it’s launching with a trial subscription, and it’s a bunch of tat.

When Astellia launches it will cost $40 for the introductory kit, with no word on how quickly the game will go free to play once the market wholly rejects paying up front for what is otherwise a rather generic import MMO that feels like it came out roughly ten years ago. If you’re not interested in the $40 up front fee, you can penalize yourself by spending $10 per month to check out a “trial” version that is otherwise the exact same thing and contains no restrictions. Astellia is not a subscription title otherwise.

Here’s the fun part: Your $10 per month doesn’t contribute to your purchase price, so if you are going to “play it safe” your penalty is that you’ll be paying a 25% premium for the privilege of doing so. If you sub for two or more months, and I can’t imagine why anyone would outside of forgetting to cancel their auto-renewal, well you might as well just call it a day. BarunsOn Studio calls it a “risk vs reward” system, whereas I’ll just call it a “contempt for the customer” system, one where the publisher knows that they have a steep uphill battle convincing a large number of people to buy into a $40 game that looks a lot like the dime-a-dozen Korean MMOs that launch for free by the thousands every year, but there’s no way management is going to open the door to thousands of gold farmer accounts without getting at least a little bit of dosh in return.

Astellia’s business model runs the risk of death by a thousand cuts of apathy, and the whole thing is worse considering it’s been done before. Other games have introduced starter editions that get you into the game at a lower cost, and then allow you to upgrade to the full game if you like what you’re playing. Many of those games (Rainbow Six: Siege, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, etc) are insanely successful, more than Astellia Online is likely capable of conceiving. They don’t begrudgingly punish people for their skepticism.

Astellia asking players to throw away ten dollars risks immediately creating a relationship of animosity. There is no reason outside of contempt or greed (or some combination of the two) to immediately start your outreach to potential customers on such a hostile note, and no reason that the $10 first month can’t go toward the cost of the game. That would foster a more welcoming image. The number of sales you get from people who pay the $10 and then eat the cost and upgrade to the full version won’t be zero. I’m also willing to bet it won’t be a large number either. Ten bucks isn’t a lot of money, but Astellia isn’t a particularly high quality game. In the grand scheme of things gamers have a lot of other options either through the games that they already bought or through the multitude of free to play MMOs that are of much higher quality, far more content, and already have an established user base.

I’ve seen posts in the forums with people boasting about the idea that this acts as a gatekeeper and that it “weeds out people like you” toward critics. I’ve been writing about MMOs for fifteen years, these are the same people who will be wondering why nobody was willing to give the game a try in 2020 when the announcement comes that the game just didn’t get a good enough return to remain solvent.

All this for yet another game coming out of Korea that promises it will totally never include those crazy pay to win schemes that the Korean version has. Developers have never broken their promise in that scenario, right? At the very least, we can hope that the gold farmers (whom I suspect are at least tangentially related to this lower price version) who bulk-buy accounts to spam chat with advertising aren’t using stolen credit cards. Don’t forget, every dollar lost to a chargeback costs roughly $2.40.

This is where my free consultation of Astellia Online comes to a close. You can have your people call my people for more details.

EA Community Team Wins Award For Most Hated Comment On Reddit


You have to wonder how it feels to juxtapose simultaneously being one of the most successful companies in the industry while also being one of, if not the most hated. Electronic Arts has won numerous awards over the years for the worst company not just in the gaming industry, but in the world. The game publisher known for acquiring game studios, ruining the reputation of their games through budget cuts and rushed development periods before shuttering said developer, Electronic Arts hailed in the massive anti-consumer failure known as the Online Pass.

But now EA has another notch to add to its belt under bringing ruin to Bioware, and that is officially being recognized as having the most hated comment on Reddit. Of course we are talking about the “sense of pride and accomplishment” comment that EA’s support team left when defending the egregious use of microtransactions in Star Wars: Battlefront II, a monetization system that was quickly pulled yet didn’t do much to stop the disappointing sales that followed.

The idea that this comment is the most hated on Reddit is no surprise, gamers and those who follow internet drama have known for the better part of the year. For EA however the distinct dishonor has been encased in the carbonite known as the Guiness Book of World Records. EA’s 683k downvotes beat out the second place contender which has a whole twenty four thousand.

Why don’t you just admit that nobody on Reddit likes you?

 

[Not Massive] Gaijin Throws Taiwan Under Bus For Chinese Gov’t


A game developer doing something scummy to appease an oppressive dictatorship? Must be a day ending in WHY.

In the world of developers doing stupid things, if you push past the western AAA industry of Electronic Arts and Valve and make your way toward the back of the room, you might spot Gaijin Entertainment.

Back in 2015, Gaijin’s producer Pavel Kulikov got caught pulling an extortion scheme against a Youtuber, threatening the guy’s livelihood in return for positive coverage of the game. Kulikov was fired and Gaijin denied any knowledge or involvement in the plan. But Gaijin doesn’t understand public relations, or just doesn’t give a toss, since in 2018 the next scandal popped up with an official content partner referring to players as puny beggars, hoping that they drown in their own bile.

In today’s scandal, Gaijin has been accused of kissing up to the People’s Republic with the outright removal of Taiwan Republic of China flags from the China tech tree in the game War Thunder. The move has been painted by members of the community as an attempt to “suck the toes” (in a manner of speaking) of the Chinese government and is related to recent heightened tensions surrounding the One China policy, by which China does not recognize Taiwan as independent.

So far there has been no comment from Gaijin. The megathread on Reddit has gathered over 500 comments and 4.7k upvotes. This comes two years after Gaijin was accused of cutting story content to appease the Chinese government, involving the Japanese invasion of China in 1939.

Source: Reddit