Pay-For-Extras
Scott over at Broken toys has a few things to say about EA’s new “pay to unlock” strategies. Essentially, there are alot of extra features in many games- extra courses or golfers in Tiger Woods Golf, for example, that are only available once a player “unlocks” them by some achievement in-game. They might have to beat the game, complete X courses, or some other mind-numbing act of repetition to gain that “reward.” Until now.
Now, all you need to do is pay $3-4 more to unlock all that extra stuff.
The debate isn’t new to gaming- online games have been plagued with the “RMT” issue (Real Money Transfer) where players pay real money to others for ingame gold, items, or advanced characters to streamline play.
Scott’s comments are admittedly negative, both toward the player (”too lazy to play the game”) and the developer (by implying that, if people want to “skip” content in your game, your game has an inherent flaw). He also makes some arguments about paying extra to play parts of a game you already paid for.
I’ll try to play Devil’s advocate here:
Laziness
First, calling a game player “lazy” for not wanting to invest more time in a game is a bit odd. I’ve seen this more and more, where a person willing to invest so much of his life in an admitted RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY calls those that don’t want to recreate as much “lazy.” Oftentimes, it’s because that person is MORE industrious elsewhere in life and has limited time to invest in the game.
Some of these “unlockables” take multiple runs through the
game, an investment of dozens, if not hundreds of hours. If my lifestyle DOESN’T allow me to squander my time in such a way, but I do have a few extra bucks, my curiousity may get the best of me.
Most of these unlockables are relatively minor- extra costumes, different characters, 1 or 2 optional “zones…” I can experience the “original costumes” rather quickly without “skipping them.” I can grok the playstyle of a character without completing the game and desire to try an alternative strategy with different character builds. I haven’t intentionally missed zones to access the extra sites… I might sample them all.
Paying for What You’ve Already Bought
This brings us to the topic of “why SHOULD I have to pay?” Well, you probably shouldn’t. These “unlockables” were always intended for the “hardcore” player that will go through a game multiple times, trying alternate tactics, building alternate builds, or just seeing how darn fast they can get through an area. Unlockable material served as an “extra reward” to people that put forth that extra effort.
If that material was just “available to anyone” through a free code, many players would feel cheated out of what little reward they get through replayability.
But these people are a minority- one that’s shrinking as the market expands to less traditional gamers. The EA interviewer suggests that less than 20% of players unlock that extra content. That’s 80% of the market that could start clamoring about not having access to material they’ve paid for through ‘reasonable means.”
Now, an extra $3-4 is more reasonable to some folk. If it isn’t, put in the time.
Developing Games
I’ve already touched on some elements of game development- the challenge of broad markets with varying times to prioritize play, for example. Now, I’d like to comment on the challenge of justifying these unlockable assets altogether.
If any of your content is going to be accessed by less than 20% of your playerbase, how much time should you invest in that content? Could that time be spent elsewhere in a way that enriches the game for more of your market?
With the mad rush of “must have” titles and the market expanding into non-traditional gamers, that 20% that unlocks all your content is only going to shrink. At some point, they’re no longer worth the cost of catering to.
That is, unless you can make the content accessible to another market- one that’s willing to pay less than the price of a movie matinee for a few extra features they normally wouldn’t have the time to access.
I’n not thoroughly convinced on all this yet, mind you. This can be a ’slippery slope’ to making for-pay performance mods for games- features that SHOULD be available to everyone. Imagine having to pay extra to shift to “easy mode” (or “hard mode”) just because the developers made the pace too fast or too slow for your baseline. Imagine learning that if you waste all your ammo AND the ingame ammo boxes, your only option to beat the next box is to make a micropayment for a full clip.
Then again, is THAT so different? I recall plenty of 25 cent arcade game bosses that couldn’t be beat without plopping in a few extra quarters…
November 15th, 2006 at 12:28 am
Well said.
I think the accusation of laziness is egocentric/ethnocentric, because it assumes that all gamers share that gamestyle…difficulty-loving achievement gaming. Not every gamer loves challenges just for the sake of saying “I did it! I rock!”. In Goldeneye, for example, there was an unlockable cheat that was insanely hard to get (don’t remember which…Golden Gun?). Many gamers tried it a dozen or so times and just said to hell with it, because it wasn’t all that important to them. Many gamers aren’t achievement-oriented, and others only like difficult goals when there’s something involved besides just difficulty (like a lore reward which embellishes other lore).
In regards to pay-for-play, I’m not a “customer is always right” sort of guy, so I don’t think gamers are owed anything. The developer decides for themselves what they think is the finished product, and you either accept that as being worth your money or you don’t. If you don’t, maybe the developer is missing out on potential revenue like yours (i.e., it was an adverse design decision), but you weren’t cheated of anything if you were never promised differently.
The ideal add-on content is content that adds replayability to the whole game…as opposed to one more quest, area, or similar expansion which is quickly breezed through. The player is owed that sort of content, and it’s not necessary for expansion content to be profitable, but it’s simply a much greater value for the consumer and a much easier sale.
Diablo 2’s expansion included a new Act (hours of new areas and story to explore) and two new classes (whole new avenues of gameplay to enjoy from the very beginning of the game through). That, by far, is the most valuable expansion offering I can think of for a non-MMO (which I would say is a somewhat different ballgame). The classes are the main attraction, because they represent hours upon hours of fresh gameplay. Not only the players, but the developers also, got a lot more bang for their buck that way than if Blizzard had only added the new Act.
I’d venture to say that relatively few games disallow expansions of that nature…expansions which refresh the entire game, rather than merely tack something onto the end.