Fable 3 - To Use Microtransactions?

Myrthos

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One would like to think that once you payed for a game it contains the complete game (MMO's excluded). Peter Molineux likes to change that perception and intends to add microtransactions to Fable 3, like we know them from Free-to-Play MMO's.
So to get that awesome weapon or that shiny armor that matches your hair so well and makes you irresistable you pay a small fee in an in-game shop. I understand the business concept for microtransaction in F2P MMO's, but does it add something to a single player RPG?
Thanks to Omega for pointing out this link on Joystick.
More information.
 
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It might work if the game can be downloaded for free and the items you can buy are not required to play the game. Some people are not interested at all in this kind of stuff while others would spend much more money than they would if they bought a complete game. The downside is that online would be a requirement (something that most people here hate in the first place, something to do with being able to play the game always and everywhere).
 
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So, the total income for developers (driving the level of future investment in making cool shit that I might want) increases purely at the expense of the kind of mug who'd pay to dress up their pixels?

I'm not seeing the downside here. It's like banks offering free current accounts because they make enough money fining idiots who can't manage their finance - a good thing for me :)
 
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I'm sure there will be uproar in the forums, but whether that will translate to lower game sales or in-game sales, I don't know. It's always a dangerous thing, trying to extrapolate internet outrage to the real world. But I do know that the forum dwellers (at least on the 360 side, can't speak for PC) will be angry.
 
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This implies being online all of the time. Or at least having a quick connection at hand.

Rural areas always have their problems. Maybe not so much within the U.S. but here there are still a few "holes" without board-band connections available. It just doesn't pay off.

Plus, that the player must in a way reveal a way to pay it ... credit cards, maybe ? What if some hackers break into the servers of Fable 3 ?
 
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I don't know if it adds something to the single-player rpg at all (to have micro-transactions) where you can buy a cool sword or armour from an in-game-shop (with real live money or MS Points), but I do know that I can't see the reason why this is necessary. You're not trying to impress your friends, you are trying to upgrade your weapons so that you can do better when fighting monsters with your friends.

However, I foresee that this is the way the industry moves just now:

Even Dragon Age: Origins will have micro-transactions:

Jay Watamiuk said in post on the Bioware forums that there will be a new NPC in the game with a ! over his or her head, then you talk to him or her about the quest. At some point after talking to him or he, you would be made aware of that the actually need to pay to play this additional quest - with real life money that is. Not in-game money.

In principle, I find no differences between paying for an additional quest or for a weapon or armour, even horse armour, via a game shop, an npc or through MS Live - especially if is done with real life money.

My look on these things would probably be a little better if it were possible to use the game's own currency, say gold coins, to pay for these items or quests. There is a fine tuned balance between the virtual world and the real world; asking the players to use real world money to pay for content in an virtual is overstepping that boundary, I find.
 
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Overstepping a boundary, indeed. I agree completely aries100. And here I was anticipating DA:O. I feel ill.
 
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There is a fine tuned balance between the virtual world and the real world; asking the players to use real world money to pay for content in an virtual is overstepping that boundary, I find.

Yes, but in asian MMOs this seems to be already common, no ?
 
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Yes, but in asian MMOs this seems to be already common, no ?

This might well be the case. However, DA: Origins is a single-player rpg, not an MMO.

I know EA (and Bioware) pushing the genre forward towards the whole software as a service goal i.e. meaning gaming, also single player rpgs, will be played online.

This way developers and puiblishers can have full acess and full control over any user made content made for the game as well as over their accounts.

I hope, I'm wrog, though...
 
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As long as games are NOT intentionally stripped down with content that would otherwise have been there without microtransactions, then I really don't see a downside. This whole idea, to me, seems like an extension of the 'Collectors Edition' concept… you get more 'stuff' if you're willing to pay more money.

Again, this requires that developers and publishers stay on the 'up and up' about all this. They need to create complete, fully functional, NON-gimped game content to which they can then ADD stuff that people MAY want to buy.

The success of this business model will be rooted in whether or not consumers TRUST developers and publishers. If consumers begin to feel scammed into buying additional content via microtrasnactions because the game experience without the content in some way feels 'gimped,' I think this business model will eventually 'crash' in the end... and I have little doubts that resisting the temptation to do exactly this will prove challenging, especially in rough econimic times such as right now.
 
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There are many reasons that microtransaction based mmorpgs are successful but those reasons mostly don't exist for a single player rpg so I think this is not going to be very successful. They would do better to stick with regular dlc and forget the this microtransaction ideal.
 
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There are many reasons that microtransaction based mmorpgs are successful but those reasons mostly don't exist for a single player rpg so I think this is not going to be very successful.

I used to think that 'Collector's Editions' of single player RPGs would be a brief fad. Never underestimate hardcore fans' willingness to buy more stuff for their favorite single player RPGs.
 
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As long as games are NOT intentionally stripped down with content that would otherwise have been there without microtransactions, then I really don't see a downside. This whole idea, to me, seems like an extension of the 'Collectors Edition' concept… you get more 'stuff' if you're willing to pay more money.


But of course they *will* be intentionally stripped down in this circumstance. I have to believe that at least some of these weapons, items, etc, have been designed prior to the game's release. How has it come down to people paying real money for simple in-game items??

I see absolutely nothing positive about this, and I really hope it doesn't become a trend.
 
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I used to think that 'Collector's Editions' of single player RPGs would be a brief fad. Never underestimate hardcore fans' willingness to buy more stuff for their favorite single player RPGs.


Collector's Editions are something totally different though. They normally include actual physical items - soundtrack CDs, documentaries, figurines, etc.
 
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It is beyond me how anyone could pay any money for any ingame item..... no matter MMO or not, with one exception and that is if you are intending to earn money by buying it.
 
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What is the difference when you already paid 50 bucks for the game?
 
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I pay 50 bucks for a GAME, not for an ingame item, for these 50 bucks I expect a story, fun gameplay, C&C, a great world etc etc, if I would buy a ingame item for 5 bucks... it would probably even make the game less enjoyable as it would be easier with this "uber-item" to complete the game....
 
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That is assuming the mechanic is that simple. The item could only be available after a certain point in the game. It certainly isn't a mechanic I like the sound of however. It wouldn't be so bad if the game was cheaper as a result, although the cynical part of me says it would probably not happen.
 
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I agree, I think it's an awful trend for RPGs. I'm ok with standard DLC, even if it's released at the same time as the game. I'm not ok with microtransactions like paying for a special sword or dyes, or finding out halfway through a conversation with an NPC that he is trying to sell you something (for real money). Not only are you being "nickel and dimed" to death, but it breaks immersion badly, similar to how any other in-game sales pitch would.

I hope that the Jay W. remark above is misrepresented somehow. From Peter M. I would expect this, but I would hate for Bioware to go down this route. Now that they're in bed with EA, maybe it's inevitable, but I would hate to see it.
 
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