If reception to Baldur’s Gate says anything, it’s that people hate microtransactions in their AAA games.

  • whatisallthis@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    The job of the AAA gaming company is to make money, not good games.

    For the same reason McDonalds is never going to serve filet mignon, big gaming companies are never going to release feature-compete passion projects.

    • terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Not exactly, though I see your point. I think it would be more accurate if McDonald’s charged for ketchup, mustard, salt, drink cups, lids, straws etc.

      • AbsolutelyNotABot@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The big difference with physical goods is that it’s much harder to steal a McDonald’s burger that it is to crack a single player, offline game. Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.

        On the other hand games are prone to piracy, expecially on pc, you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase.

        It isn’t strange that developers look at dlc, microtransanction or game as a service with subscription, because they allow a stable flow of income that can support development, and it’s harder to avoid paying when the game is always online and stuff like that.

        • Sordid@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.

          The same goes for single-player offline games, though. There’s only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you’ve seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.

          you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase

          If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust.

        • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Movies and books exist and they are one time purchases that you use once and stop interacting with. Why do games get special excuses for being extremely exploitative and shitty to their players? I don’t have to pay for a book chapter by chapter or pay extra for a character to appear, but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.

          The game industry makes lots of excuses for it’s shitty behavior but none of them hold water.

      • whatisallthis@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Fun fact: In literally every single analogy that has ever and will ever exist, you can add things to it to make it even more analogous.

    • UlrikHD@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Witcher 3, the Last of Us (ps3), Baldurs Gate 3, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Elden Ring, Read Dead Redemption 2 (offline), Zelda, etc…

      There are plenty of triple A games that were well received that didn’t involve gambling and mtx.

    • hagelslager@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Indeed, the job of most AAA game studios is to get as much money as possible from the gamers to their shareholders.

    • NightOwl@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Lot of us have already heard most company justifications for the anti consumer moves they make. That is no new revelation.