Just ignore the horse armor, bro.
I often wonder how many people were stoked enough about that to buy it...
ok so.
1. DMC4SE isn't valid example by default, because it's port of older game that was already balanced without them.
2. DMC5 designed with microtransiction in mind, so it could factually affect progression
3. I have nothing against DLC, but microtransiction doesn't belong to single player games
4. almost all examples of single player games affacted by it are negative
5. player choice is bs PR talk pulled by each and every person in charge of promoting game
6. people shouldn't insult devs about it, buuuuuuuuuuuut it doesn't mean fanbase should stfu and gobble everything up.
!) Supposedly, DMC4se actually
did have its red orb ratio balanced, to drop more orbs, despite the inclusion of the very same microtransaction people are worrying about now
@) It could, but we've been told it's not, so...either believe the devs or don't...?
#) debatable, depending on what they do
$) Again, debatable. The only ones we ever here about are the ones that have a negative effect, many go unnoticed, even if the option to buy them is announced ahead of time. Bad sample size
%) I'm thinkin'...no? People have turned "player choice" into a negative phrase, but the fundamental nature of it, and if offered correctly (DMC4se being correctly, Shadow of War being incorrectly), the choice is literally there for the player alone to make, with no coercion
^) I didn't even say that. I said to pick battles and understand the nuances of each different situation. Get upset when there is a cold, hard, legitimate fact to be upset about. Right now, people are taking conjecture over the words of the people making the game. Amazingly, it's DmC aaaaall over again. This fanbase, I tell yah...
At the moment there are more games released without them because of the negative backlash most with them get. Some games even make a point before they release of announcing that they have no loot boxes or microtransactions of any kind as they dont want to be associated with them. However that would soon change should more gamers actually start to accept them. In the same concept there are FAR more games where microtransactions have had a negative impact on a games in game economy than in the rare cases where they go unnoticed.
That's an entirely debatable topic, really. Obviously devs don't want to **** off consumers, and who would, when they act this irrationally, but any game that has the options that don't make headlines, no one complains, because they're, for lack of a better phrase, "done right." Please take note of the quotation marks there.
Unless you are a tiny indie studio releasing a free to play game and microtransactions are your sole source of income they do not belong in full priced AAA games. This whole concept could derail the games hype as every comment I read yesterday were along the lines of 'Microtransactions = No Buy', 'Cancelled preorder, AAA games shouldnt have microtransactions' or 'Will wait for it to hit the second hand bargain bin in a sale'.
And that's the problem with kneejerk reactions, thinking the absolute worst to the extent of legitimately denying information that should prove otherwise. If people want to take that stance, that's totally their prerogative, but then they'll have to reap what they sow. If people don't want to listen to Istuno or Matt Walker when they say there's nothing to worry about, then they only have themselves to blame if DMC5 sells poorly and the series staggers for another five to ten years.
Those worst case scenarios are simply because the big boys decided they would push them the hardest before gamers were ready to accept them. They ruined it for all these companies that were slowly introducing them and turning that dial slowly to tempt gamers into buying them. Had most developers got their way all microtransactions would go the WB Games and EA route years down the line once they had become an accepted part of gaming.
And yet Capcom is one of the first companies to have learned its lesson when it came to this stuff, and they learned it half-a-decade ago. The DLC and microtransactions in their games nowadays are limited, and have no negative effect on gameplay. This isn't
Asura's Wrath. Who cares what WB or EA have done to their consumers? They got greedy and didn't think about making worthwhile products first that people are willing to support, other companies deserve some semblance of leniency to actually see what's actually going on instead of reactively thinking the worst. It doesn't matter if they tried to force such terribly misguided practices through "too early" or if they weaned us in to them - you don't think the moment something unacceptable started we wouldn't cry fowl, regardless of what we accept beforehand? This stuff has been going on for how long now? They've been
trying to wean us onto those practices, and Shadow of War and Battlefront 2 proved they were unacceptable. Even before that people weren't all that keen on lootboxes with Overwatch.
Why is it so hard to believe that people can be logical about this? Why is it that consumers can only appear to be reactionary and thinking the worst of everything or some kind of shill that doesn't care how bad gaming gets?
Really easy for the PR side of things to keep repeating they dont impact the game as its been said so many times before and then it turns out that they DO impact the game. Once bitten twice shy and all that, I just dont trust these companies any more based on the negative impact microtransactions have been having on gaming for years. I will always ignore them in games and will NEVER buy a microtransaction in a game but I dont want my in game goal posts to keep being pulled back to make every action take longer to reach that goal to push me towards buying them.
Capcom isn't WB, though. Why would Itsuno and Walker stick their necks out and lie straight to their consumers after a stink was already raised beforehand, just to lose consumer trust after release? I totally get being "twice shy," but it feels like people went far past shyness and into paranoia. You lose absolutely nothing by bothering to trust Itsuno and Walker, except for like...lower blood pressure.
People just dont trust microtransaction business model or the developers that use them. It is far too easily abused and can be done after the fact too. All it takes is a patch or a hotfix to tweak the drop rates after you have already given them your money and bought the game and that grind just got longer. I would urge everyone to keep an eye on patch notes after game launches for the inevitable balance tweaks and see if that drop rate changes.
And when was the last time that actually happened? That a game was patched to negatively impact the gameplay? Capcom has been doing these kinds of microtransactions for years now, I remember it from way back with Dragon's Dogma, and they didn't once make things more difficult after the fact. DMC4se actually had orb drop rates
increased. The only time I've heard of a game's balance being tweaked after the fact was Shadow of War and Battlefront 2, to actually
decrease the crap they had tried to pull after their playerbases got so angry.
Maybe this WILL be one of the very rare cases where they dont actually impact the game in a massively noticeable way but at the same time might also be one of the games that gets you to drop your guard before you are burned by another that does. Only time will tell and we will have to wait and see...
It's possible to be on your guard and still trust when the developer says there's nothing to worry about. I am.
tolerance for bad business practices
I would say that it's because it's not inherently a "bad business practice." People can huff and haw all they want, but there are games out there that already do the exact same thing, and no one cares two curly mud pies about them. It's only a bad business practice when a
developer let's be honest it's the publisher, exploits it, especially at the cost of normal gameplay. Games probably don't really need them, but if they don't negatively impact the game, there is literally no harm in allowing them. This isn't a slippery slope.
