"Metal Gear Solid 5 update adds "FOB insurance" paid for with real money"

[owsf2000]

"Forward Operating Bases" are a core part of the multiplayer online aspect of the latest metal gear. Essentially it's a place to put your stuff.

Problem is, Konami decided it would be awesome if other players can raid your FOB and take your stuff, and vice versa. The entire thing is built around it. (Essentially this is what grief/pvp servers in Minecraft are like.)

So now with real money you can buy some in-game money, to buy "insurance" on your base. People can still raid you and take your stuff, but you get to keep it as well. So basically it's duplicating the gear. This is a recurring cost, not a one time transaction, just like real insurance. Supposedly the in-game currency can be obtained in-game, but it's (As one would expect) very slow, tedious, etc to obtain... without real money.

So we have...

1. Build game around the idea of stealing other players stuff.
2. Give players the option to pay to protect their stuff.
3. Make it nearly impossible to buy the protection without real money.
4. ???
5. Profit.

IF I had any interest in buying this game, it's pretty much gone. Even considering the fact that I likely wouldn't touch the multiplayer aspect of it with a 10ft pool regardless. I just don't want to reward this kind of cesspool DLC planning.

So there you go. I've voted with my wallet. Luckily for Konami, there's plenty of people out there to make up for the lost cash by paying "protection money".

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

The more I hear about this new Metal Gear game, the less interest I have in ever buying it, currently already sitting at negative values of interest. Even though I'd never play the multiplayer to begin with either, same as you, and thus wouldn't ever be directly affected by this, I still think it's fucking stupid. (Well... it's not stupid on Konami's part, because, as you say, they absolutely know without a doubt that there are plenty enough gullible/apathetic/impatient morons out there in the consumer base who will most definitely suck these feces down and happily ask for seconds [and thirds and fourths and fifths and so on, as has been proven over the past couple decades or so]. It's greedy and evil on Konami's part to dream up and sell this shit, sure, but the stupidity lies solely with the fucking imbeciles who buy enough of this sort of shit to make it worthwhile for Konami and others to sell it in the first place. The companies simply wouldn't sell it if gamers would stop being fucking nitwits, since there would be no money in it for the companies to do so. More and more, lately, I simply think of these sorts of schemes as "idiot fees" added onto games, because only idiots pay for them and only idiots try to poorly rationalize why it's not a bad thing to pay for them.)

In any case, it's just yet another goddamn example of how Konami especially, but the video game industry in general, has being going down the shitter lately, I guess. If Hideo Kojima were dead, he'd be rolling in his grave right now. Given that he's actually still alive and actively worked on this game, however, I have no idea what he makes of the travesty that Konami is making out of "his" game. If he hadn't already been sick of working on Metal Gear games since MGS2, I'd hope that this would be what does it for him, and he'd finally move on to new things, out from under Konami's yoke. (Then again, all this stupid shit could have been Kojima's idea to begin with, but I kind of doubt that.)

For what it's worth, I haven't bought any Metal Gear games since Metal Gear Solid 4 back when I first got my PS3 back in 2010 or whenever, anyway, so it's no big loss to me either way. I haven't even been interested in watching the current SBFP Let's Play of Phantom Pain, really.