microtransactions – MMO Fallout

RuneScape. Financially the game is in a fantastic position; back in May we discussed how Jagex had posted a 9.3% increase in overall revenue with subscription numbers at their highest ever in the game’s history thanks to the launch of Old School mobile.

But all has not been great on the western front. MMO Fallout has reported for several years on how RuneScape’s monetization efforts have been very successful, but also very polarizing in the community. Every couple of years, Jagex reaches out to try to pull on the brakes of the game’s heavy microtransactions and it looks like it’s time for another heart to heart. Community animosity has been high ever since a UK parliamentary report from September specifically called out the developer when discussing egregious microtransactions, pointing to one player who had spent more than $62,000 USD.

On November 5, several Jagex staff will host a stream discussing the future of microtransactions in RuneScape. Those of you placing bets should keep in mind that Jagex receives one third of its revenue from these microtransactions.

“Tune in at 5PM GMT on November 5th for a very important livestream. Mods Osborne, Warden and MIC will be on the couch discussing plans for the future of MTX in RuneScape.

Ask your questions in the Discord room, on the forums, or in the dedicated Reddit thread – or email Mod Warden directly at AskModWarden@jagex.com. Your opinion is important to us, especially when it comes to controversial topics like this one – so let us hear your thoughts!”

Source: RuneScape

Rant: The Industry Makes Its Contempt For Consumers Public Once Again

I have to be honest with you folks: The AAA gaming industry has become such a contemptuous ball of greasy slime that I frankly no longer find it believable when companies do shady things and chalk it all up to human error.

I’ve spent the better part of the last six years shouting to the high heavens about how the gaming industry, specifically the AAA sector, has been meticulously and in many ways purposely building an increasingly hostile and bitter relationship with consumers. We’re talking about an industry that brings psychologists on board so they can figure out better ways to subtly manipulate people into spending more money than ever, an industry that is building massive databases of information and artificial intelligence so they can low-key manipulate your behavior all in the name of selling microtransactions. One where companies deliberately introduce problems in order to sell you the solution, where they can use every dirty tactic to get you to pay exponentially more for exponentially less.

Let’s talk about how Respawn is the latest developer to acquire EA’s venom for the public.

All of this hubbub began when Apex Legends released its latest update introducing solo mode and the Iron Crown loot box. The Iron Crown box is special because it costs $7 as opposed to $1 for the normal box, and contains limited time items that will only be available until the event ends on August 27. There are 24 items in the box and you can obtain two boxes by completing challenges. Nothing in the boxes could be bought directly, and you are guaranteed no duplicates. So all in all, you’re looking at being required (as there is no other way to get these items) to spend $140 USD to get everything.

I say required because Respawn is using the tactic where they know fully well that they are pushing this for completionists in the hopes that many will buy the whole set, while giving themselves the plausible deniability of “it’s all optional.” It leads into the Bloodhound’s Raven’s Bite axe, an item that must be purchased directly but can only be purchased once you buy all 24 items, and it costs 3,500 coins. All in all, you’ll need to spend at least $170 in bulk if you want these items. There’s greedy and then there is Electronic Arts greedy.

Naturally the community went in an uproar over the update because consumers don’t like being fleeced, and Respawn’s apology didn’t do a whole lot to assuage criticism by taking the loot box items and placing the skins on the store for individual purchase at $18 a pop.

“With Apex Legends it is very important to us that we don’t sell a competitive advantage. Our goal has not been to squeeze every last dime out of our players, and we have structured the game so that all players benefit from those who choose to spend money – events like Legendary Hunt or Iron Crown exist so that we can continue to invest in creating more free content for all players. This week has been a huge learning experience for us and we’re taking the lessons forward to continue bringing the best possible experience to all of you.”

An EA subsidiary not trying to bleed its customers dry? Sorry, I don’t buy it.

The folks at Respawn aren’t that stupid that they built up this very obvious and blatantly greedy cash event and had absolutely no idea how egregious it would be. Because the overall corporate structure at Respawn doesn’t give a damn if you’re unhappy with the product, just shut your stupid peasant mouth and open up that wallet to give them more money. This is a free to play game, you ungrateful putz, that means that instead of giving $60 up front for a few years of entertainment, you agree to spend hundreds of dollars over the course of a couple of weeks while shutting your trap and not questioning any of the business decisions that are made for you.

But it wouldn’t quite be a rant if I didn’t show you the absolute contempt that some of the Respawn devs have for their players, such as Drew McCoy who took to Reddit to call gamers “dicks” and freeloaders. This is what happens when bullshysters are called out on their schemes, they immediately go on the attack in order to hopefully divert attention away from why people are angry in the first place.

“Hey everyone – found the dick I was talking about. Guess what, I didn’t even read your comment except for the first sentence and last. This kind of garbage doesn’t warrant a reply – but lucky for you I already made a comment about this earlier. Go find it.”

“I think technically I was calling gamers dicks? I dunno. I had a spicy lunch, feelin’ it.”

“There is a wealth of data available on how monetization works in free-to-play games, and we ourselves have run tests by putting skins on sale in the store. The amount of people who spend is crazy low, most of ya’ll are freeloaders (and we love that!) and a change in price doesn’t move the needle.”

Drew goes on to act like the changes are because Respawn is such a benevolent overlord and honestly you freeloaders should be happy that they put the game out for free and are so magnanimous and charitable. Sure, Apex Legends released for free because selling it at a box price would be a financial disaster since the competition is free, and the whole point of releasing free to play is to forego a consistent amount of money up front distributed among 100% of the community in favor of the 15-20% of the community fronting more money and those free players adding more traffic to the servers so those paying players stay more engaged and end up spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars over its lifespan. As opposed to $60 plus maybe some small cosmetic purchases.

Stop asking questions and buy more product.

“Jeez, whats with the conspiracy theories? This event has been quite the success, and I can’t say that any clearer. We’re making changes that will most likely reduce revenue, but we’re doing it because its the right thing to do.”

Nobody tell Jayfresh that he can help avoid being called a liar by not being a liar.

But Respawn’s inability to handle criticism for its anti-consumer business practices is par for the course in the Electronic Arts family and follows in line from the “pride and accomplishment” statement regarding Battlefront II loot boxes to former CEO Patrick Soderlund telling customers that he doesn’t care if they don’t buy Battlefield. Apex Legends is stupidly successful right now, but I’m going to go back to what I said ten years ago: The model is only successful until it isn’t, and the gaming community turns on a dime with games going from overnight successes to overnight abandoned warehouses…overnight. The industry doesn’t turn that fast, and Respawn is

Sure, the developers at Respawn probably think they are invincible right now, but let’s keep one thing in mind: You work for Electronic Arts, a giant with a graveyard larger than a prepubescent Sims player who knows how to remove the pool ladder. Titanfall 2 sold below expectations and Mass Effect took only one game to go from massive success to studio-closing failure.

Game companies are not your friends, I can’t express that statement enough. They aren’t your buds, they don’t have your best interest in mind, and they will turn on you at a moment’s notice.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter. Oh, one more note:

“I’ve been in the industry long enough to remember when players weren’t complete ass-hats to developers and it was pretty neat,”

Dear Drew, that era was back when developers like yourself weren’t releasing $200 cosmetic events and formulating your game as cynical slot machines designed to get kids to spend as much of their parent’s money as humanly possible.

Activision Patents Using Matchmaking To Encourage Microtransactions

Can you imagine playing a game where you’re never quite sure whether or not the game is intentionally pitting you against more skilled enemies to better advertise spending real money on more powerful weaponry? Activision can, they patented it.

Discovered by Rolling Stone, the patent relates to matchmaking systems and driving microtransactions in said games. There is no concrete proof that this system has been used in any existing Activision title. The patent offers way to use matchmaking in order to drive microtransaction purposes, by specifically pairing players who own DLC items with those who do not, with the goal of exposing said items to potential new customers.

One example of this implementation involves matching a low skill player with a high skill player who happens to own a cash shop weapon in order to encourage the lower skill player to buy said item. Say for instance if the system determines that a player is trying to become an expert sniper, as the patent describes. He could be placed in the match with a higher skilled sniper who also owns some sniper DLC weapons and maybe that player will buy some weapons of their own.

“The system may include a microtransaction arrange matches to influence game-related purchases. For instance, the system may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player. A junior player may wish to emulate the marquee player by obtaining weapons or other items used by the marquee player.”

Another implementation would have players with a microtransaction item that is currently on sale be paired with players who do not own such item, in order to promote said sale.

Microtransaction engine 128 may analyze various items used by marquee players and, if at least one of the items is currently being offered for sale (with or without a promotion), match the marquee player with another player (e.g., a junior player) that does not use or own the item. Similarly, microtransaction engine 128 may identify items offered for sale, identify marquee players that use or possess those items, and match the marquee players with other players who do not use or possess those items. In this manner, microtransaction engine 128 may leverage the matchmaking abilities described herein to influence purchase decisions for game-related purchases.

The system isn’t all about making more money, though. Other implementations of the patent involve matchmaking in regards to matching players up with friends/clans, placing emphasis on players who spend a long time in matchmaking, and matching performance based on skill in a more accurate way. In another example, the system can determine a player’s preferred game mode and steer them toward those servers in matchmaking.

Activision has denied in a statement that this patent has been put to use in any of its games, claiming that it “was an exploratory patent filed in 2015 by an R&D team working independently from our game studios.”

You can read the entire patent here,

(Our thoughts: Let’s go on a limb here and take Activision’s statement as fact that this has never been implemented. They’ve painted a target on their backs of a company willing, and now capable, of secretly putting such a system in their games.)

Less Massive: Valve Bans CSGO Servers That Falsify Inventories

Valve has issued a warning to server owners in Counter Strike: Global Offensive that modifications that falsify player inventories are not allowed and must be removed before “further action is taken.” Since Valve’s games are heavily modifiable, players in the community quickly figured out methods to alter servers in order to provide players with weapon skins, items, and other goodies normally only accessible through random drops, lockboxes, and through the paid campaign modes.

Allowing players to claim temporary ownership of CS:GO items that are not in their inventory (Weapon skins, knives, etc.).
Providing a falsified competitive skill group and/or profile rank status or scoreboard coin (e.g., Operation Challenge Coins).
Interfering with systems that allow players to correctly access their own CS:GO inventories, items, or profile.
[To clarify: it is also not acceptable to provide players with custom models and/or weapon skins that do not exist in the CS:GO ecosystem]

The blog post warns that further action will be taken to servers that do not comply with these rules.

We will continue to monitor the players experience on community servers, and may reevaluate if further actions need to be taken to ensure that server operators comply with the request above.

A few servers are already reporting bans via their Game Server Login Token with lengths of two decades. For the unaware, Counter Strike requires game servers to register a GSLT via a persistent account in order to accept players that aren’t on the same network. A new Steam account with a new qualifying phone number is required to open a new GSLT account.

(Source: Counter Strike: GO)

[Community] Blocked & Kicked: Payday Community Targets Customers

Editor’s note: Community is an editorial column where we discuss pressing issues in the gaming community, including outside of the MMO genre. The acknowledgement of events or actions by individuals or developers should not be misinterpreted as our approval of said actions, unless explicitly stated.

If you haven’t been paying attention recently, the Payday community is in a bit of an upheaval following the unveiling of Crimefest, Overkill’s celebration of the Payday series’ fourth anniversary. The celebration is being accompanied by ten days of updates and ten days of free game time for those who have yet to pick the crime shooter up. Overkill launched Crimefest with the Black Market, a system similar to Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike where players receive lock boxes and must pay real money to open them. Inside said lock boxes are weapon skins of varying type and rarity, some offering bonuses that alter gameplay.

Microtransactions are a highly divisive topic in the gaming community, one that has only become more openly hostile as developers continue to include them in genres where they had previously been absent, with games like Tomb Raider, Halo 5, and now Payday 2 going down the route of blind box rewards. Especially egregious in the eyes of the Payday community is the fact that Overkill has not only denied multiple times that microtransactions would ever come to Payday, but shamed those who dared to think otherwise.

You would expect that an exodus of players would follow such an update, and there is certainly no lack of “I quit” threads being posted to the forums, but certain members of the community are taking another approach to showing their contempt for microtransactions: They’re targeting Overkill’s customers. One of the topics you’ll see being discussed on the Payday 2 Steam forums is the topic of how to curb item purchasing among those who will happily buy drills at $2.49 apiece, and the answer is simple: remove them.

Among those dissatisfied with Overkill’s new microtransactions, a number of players have pledged to kick and ignore any players that join their lobbies with skins gained from microtransactions. Evidently if you can’t physically prevent someone from buying items that are available to them, there is always the option to make their ensuing gameplay experience as miserable as possible, thus either forcing them to quit or diminishing their ability to play.

How widespread this sentiment reaches isn’t clear, while you can find a fair number of people in the forums pledging to block anyone with cash shop skins, I did not personally witness anyone removed from public lobbies while playing over the past few days. This is likely to be a very small minority of the active community, and one that most players will never encounter. Regardless, it will be hard for Overkill to ignore the growing discontent in their own community over the update, and the developer has promised to respond to complaints once the ten day event is over.

World of Warcraft Exploring Microtransactions

Astute World of Warcraft players noticed that the 5.4 patch brought with it an interesting new addition to the public test realm. A few players on the forum noted the sudden appearance of an XP buff item, which appears to be sold through the same cash shop as the mounts and pets currently available. The item, an Enduring Elixer of Wisdom, grants 100% exp bonus with no mention of how long it lasts.

Community Manager Zarhym chimed in later in the thread, confirming the item and explaining that Blizzard is exploring microtransactions.

We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game. As part of this process, elements related to this will be appearing on the PTR. We’ll provide additional updates on our plans as development progresses.

Whether or not Blizzard decides to go ahead with fully implementing a cash shop will have to be seen.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

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