Halo 5 Microtransactions

[owsf2000]

You remember how I said a few posts back when I was ranting about how developers have evolved (Devolved?) into using tricks to make people think the excessive DLC isn't so bad since technically "it's all free", as in, it can all be earned by some in-game currency system. As I mentioned, they do this to give themselves a talking point when people try to get upset at how much the DLC costs. "Oh but you don't have to buy it!"

Of course, at the same time that they're doing this, they're developing the system such that the most efficient way to actually obtain all the DLC is to open your wallet anyway. This takes the form of either excessive time requirements or badly (or should I just call it unfairly?) balanced gameplay. (Among other tactics!)

As an example of how this works, let Angry Joe walk you through what was done with Halo 5. So essentially you CAN pick up all the cosmetic stuff for free, but you're looking at like 400-650 hours of gameplay - assuming you're a decent player and can earn enough points per match to make it that fast. Otherwise you can shell out a little over 1000 dollars buying the gold packs at $2.99+ each. (Ultimately they'll settle for people going half and half I'm sure.)

400-650 hours to get just the cosmetics in the game. If you look earlier in Joe's review/rant, you see him get pissed about them taking out split-screen co-op, and more particularly at the REASONS they took it out. "oh in today's age people are too busy, they typically don't have the time to gather at a friend's house to play - but yay, Microsoft Live!" Wait... they expect their players NOT to have a lot of time to play the game, but expect them to spend 400-600+ hours to unlock shit? Yeah, kinda what I thought. I agree with him, they just want to force people to get their own copy of the game rather than play at a friend's occasionally.

As he also points out, Forge and other such things were left out of the launch due to lack of time and whatnot "but oh don't worry they're on the way!". Imagine if they had invested the time and energy into making those things, that hardcore halo fans would have liked to have, instead of spending all that time and energy into making an elaborate, money grubbing DLC system.

And yeah, overall the DLC system is "non-invasive". It's always that way at first. Joe's use of the boiled frog analogy is most appropriate.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

They're up to Halo 5 now? Huh. How 'bout that. And now I'ma go back to not giving a single shit about Halo, beyond the two or three hours I played into the single player campaign of the first game, several years ago, before I sold the whole lot (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/743924.html) along with everything else (with Halo 2 and Halo 3 still being in shrinkwrap).

And, yeah, scummy dogshit like what you and Angry Joe describe here is definitely a way to make me anti-interested in ever giving this series (or any other game/series that does similar scummy dogshit) another go at any point, even if I actually still owned a console on which it could be played (and even if it came out on PC, I still wouldn't buy it, even at a 90% off $5 Steam sale). Joe's description of the blind, militant acceptance and defense of this abject, scuzzy horseshit is exactly what is wrong with the modern video game "community," and has been what was wrong with the modern video game "community" for at least a decade and a half now. That is precisely why things have gotten to be as deplorably disgusting as they are these days. And yeah, that shitty little animation he riffed on (SHUT YOUR NOISE HOLE WITH YOUR REASONABLE CRITICISMS, GRUNT! THE GROWN-UPS ARE TALKING HERE!) was quite stomach-turning (or, at least, it would have been, if I actually gave the slightest single fuck about this game/series, except to ridicule it, which I do not, so as such, it's actually more of a schadenfreude thing for me). And I agree, his boiled frog analogy is indeed rather apt.

I wish there were a hundred more Angry Joes out there to rant about this kind of bullshit, who had the same relative reach that Angry Joe himself enjoys. Then again, I fear that even if there were a million such Angry Joes, tirelessly ranting about this odious elephantshit, there'd still be far too many gormless morons willingly pressing their lips to the sewer pipe for the companies to ruthlessly exploit to make it profitable for the companies to engage in this ruthless exploitation. Aside from cathartic ranting like this, I've already long since given up on modern video gaming, as I've said before and likely will say countless times more.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

"The ability to update a game post release was a great step forward in gaming possibility, but a huge step back in gaming reality."

That's the first comment I see under Joe's video, which pretty much sums up EVERYTHING wrong with modern gaming.

And of course one of the first responses to him was a sarcastic reply about how the guy obviously didn't like Halo 5. (Worded in such a way to get that unspoken 'yer an old hasbeen shitbag out of touch with REAL gamers' impression across. - at least that's how it appeared to me.)

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I didn't see any comments at all, because I have comments on Youtube hidden (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/no-youtube-comments/). I disabled that briefly to see the comment you were talking about (and which I definitely agree with), but then I made the terrible, terrible mistake of scrolling down past that to look at some of the other comments, which never fails to remind me why I installed that add-on in the first place. ¬_¬

In response to the "didn't like Halo 5" asshat, if it were me he'd been responding to, I would have replied that no, indeed, I do not like Halo 5, nor do I like (nor will I buy) any game that does bullshit like this. If that makes me a "has-been" then so fucking be it, and if he wants to waste all of his money and/or time on pointless microtransaction bullshit, then it sucks to be him I guess. "A fool and his money are soon parted," and all that. He is the problem in this situation, not me.

You know, I'm pretty sure that this, truly, has become the modus operandi of the modern video game industry: "A fool and his money are soon parted." Video game companies have given up trying to actually do a decent job with their products and have simply resorted to trying to part as much money from as many fools as they possibly can before the bubble finally bursts.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and it seems most of the time the comments won't load for me myself anyway - and often times I prefer it that way honestly. I do glance at a couple of comments once in a blue moon, such as I did today. Literally a couple.

Here's another Angry Joe rant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Mo-lFlC2I) over a "Freemium" game (the pay to win shit). Not really worth it's own post/rant imo given it's 5 months old. But it's pretty much the same kinda shit. Only difference between this and Halo is that Halo is a AAA release. This is a free to play pos that's designed to yank your cash. Other than the level of game development... no difference.

*addition* In particular I'd like to point out this (https://youtu.be/A2Mo-lFlC2I?t=15m31s) comment in that video, that was only 5 months ago. Only 5 months, and it's already happening. And it's been happening to AAA games before Halo 5 over the last couple of months.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I wonder how long it'll be before Halo 5 steals that booster pack concept for their REQ system (assuming that they don't already have it, which they very well might, for all I know). Pay $3 or whatever to make it "slightly more fair" (as Joe put it in that other video) for a scant few hours to get the drops you want. Or, rather, the chance to maybe get the drops you want.

I mean, that's the fucking worst of it, for me. It's like (or rather, it's not "like" because it explicitly "is" that) you're not even buying something concrete (well, as far as anything you buy in a fucking video game can be "concrete"). No, you're simply buying the chance that you might get something halfway decent, but probably won't. Like how Joe in that video bought that $20 bullshit and then got shit for classes that he didn't even own and would need to spend even more money to be able to use.

This kind of horrendous shit was utterly inconceivable probably even just fifteen years ago. Ten years ago, it was definitely conceivable, due to all the other shit that was ramping up at the time, but we still all foolishly told ourselves that they'd never, ever stoop so low, surely. Five years ago, we'd pretty much already checked out by then, and just assumed that they would get this bad eventually, probably sooner than later. And now, today, it's simply yet another one of those disgusting, abominable things that idiots are militantly defending, for whatever unfathomable reasons, despite the clear fact that those very same idiots are explicitly the very ones who are getting fleeced by this type of ludicrous scam (and I absolutely consider this kind of shit to be nothing better than a flagrant scam) in the first place, whether they realize it or not. The video game companies simply would not be able to get away with blatant horseshit scams like this if there weren't people out there who fall for the shit (and who then pugnaciously swear to the high heavens that it's really not as bad as the rest of us make it out to be... because they're fucking imbeciles who are fucking stupid enough to fucking fall for such a fucking scam in the first fucking place).

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I honestly cannot decide who disgusts me more in this scenario... the companies who do this kind of nauseating, terrible shit... or the stupid goddamn consumers who slurp it down the sewer pipe, thus making it possible and worthwhile for the companies to do so. Probably about 50/50, or maybe more like 55/45 in favor of hating the inane video game players who buy and defend it more. The main thing I hate about the companies who do it is that they're so disingenuous about it, making like it's somehow a good thing and they're somehow doing the game players a favor or some stupid fucking dogshit like that.

It's actually amazing how pissed off this shit still makes me, even to this day, after I've already completely checked out of the buying of modern video games who do this kind of shit. I can only imagine how enraged I'd be if I were still invested in this shit. I'd probably be dead of a heart attack or a stroke by this point. >_>;

I just sorely miss the days when I cared about buying new video games. Nowadays I only buy stuff that's maybe five years old or older, and then only when I see them for $5 or less on Steam or whatever. And even then, I still don't buy the shit that was infested/infected with this sort of crud and muck. The only remotely new shit I buy is indie stuff that starts at more reasonably cheap prices already, and isn't (yet) tainted with any of the above such Jurassic Park piles of shit. Thing is, even the indies are starting to get into this kind of canine feces as well. It's like, if the big AAA boys can do it and get away with it, then why can't they, right? Probably sooner rather than later, the day will come when I'll just be done with video games altogether, period, full stop, end of line. And I don't look forward to that day. That's part of the reason why I hope an industry crash happens soon, and the sooner the better, such that the dregs of the video game industry like this all gets washed away.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

"The main thing I hate about the companies who do it is that they're so disingenuous about it, making like it's somehow a good thing and they're somehow doing the game players a favor or some stupid fucking dogshit like that."

But then, that, of course, is precisely why it's such an effective scam in the first place, because of all the dimwits who actually swallow that shit and believe it.

Well, it's either that, or they're among those who mistakenly believe that they're "supporting the industry" by buying this kind of fecal matter, like they're some kind of martyr "taking one for the team" or whatever dumb shit, because they're too weak-willed to avoid paying real money for ephemeral, ethereal dung. Like if they didn't buy this shit, then the video game industry would collapse or someth-... oh, wait, at this point, the video game industry almost assuredly would collapse if they stopped buying this shit, so maybe they really are "supporting the industry" by buying this shit. If only the industry that they were supporting hadn't evolved into nothing more than blatant scamming, then maybe that'd actually be the good thing that these people incorrectly think it is.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

"Ten years ago, it was definitely conceivable, due to all the other shit that was ramping up at the time, but we still all foolishly told ourselves that they'd never, ever stoop so low, surely."

Actually, that was probably just me (and most everyone else), because I think you were already making predictions along these lines even back then. If only more people had been like you and had seen this shit coming, maybe just maybe it could have been nipped in the bud.