“Every game, at some point, in some way has currency and they’re trying to get additional revenue from each player that plays the game. You know, the question has to be when does it feel like it’s a straight money grab versus when does it feel like it’s value added, right?
We know nowadays that most people don’t have the patience to work their way to the top. They just wanna be there right away. So, you know, we look at it as, oh it’s an opportunity for us to allow you to skip the grind, but then if the grind is too long, like some people felt last year, they’re gonna sit there and they’re gonna go ‘well, you knew the grind was too long to begin with.”
I’ve played a lot of games this year. A lot. And literally none of them have virtual currency. This guy is a tool.
Also, my manager’s son is super into NBA and has spent hundreds (all his allowance over the summer) of dollars on it. It’s a shitty situation. My own son and his friends play NBA 2k19 but they haven’t spent anything, so at least it does seem optional for the type of gamer that likes to earn his stuff?
“Most people” have never had the patience to work their way to the top. That’s why it’s the top. Microtransactions just allow people a shortcut, while also allowing publicly traded companies to enjoy shareholder calls. The toothpaste is out of the tube now. Even if gamers were willing to pay $80+ for a base game (they’re not), microtransactions would still be the more profitable option.
I don’t envy whichever committee of producers/suits is in charge of hashing out the microtransaction model, either. It’s a constant battle between the Scylla of leaving money on the table and the Charybdis of exploiting/pissing off your fan base. 2K has been drifting toward exploitation for the past few years, but they’re showing signs of a more reasonable model for 2K19.
On a tangential note, I personally wish sports games would get out of the scripted campaign business, as I don’t need D-list celebrities and dinner theater veterans woodenly delivering shitty lines when I just want to get out on the damn court. However, I’m sure somebody somewhere has a spreadsheet that says X amount of dev resources used on this mode will grow the user base by Y percent.
Keep it up Rob. In fact, keep putting in more and more micro-transactions and a longer grind. I dare you. I double dare you. I double dog dare you.
In a few years no one will buy that cock up of a game and then someone else will release a new and better product to put you out of business. The world will continue to turn and 2K will not be missed in the least.
The phone gaming market is a good demo of what this mentality would produce.
A market where games are free, and the whole business model depends on predating people with psychological problem. Games shallow*. Gambling aimed at children’s.
Is a race to the bottom, economical and moral.
* budgets are small, they reuse has much has they can get with. Sometimes stealing other people games likeliness and gameplay.
The PC and Console gamers don’t want that, and will drop you like a hot potato the moment they feel what you sell is bad confort food with strings attached. And if you are making bad cheap games, everyone can do that too, so you are competing with a zillion other companies for the same small group of customers (the whales)
And then, in many countries at least, a political and regulatory backlash. The industry is driving itself over a cliff right now when it comes to business models and if it’s not careful it’s going to find it no longer knows how to make money legally.
I expected the same thing, and read the quotes from the article fast enough that I still assumed that’s what it was about until I started reading more responses.
I am sure Marketing is loving this interview. That’s the most interesting thing - this guy acts like micro transactions are a bad thing. When in reality they are just a revenue strategy like everything else. It is like apologizing for having to earn a living. It is the way it is.
Instead of him acting like they are now with the Devil, he should point out how they keep the base game price down, or how they try to make it low friction, affordable, and unobtrusive. He needs to have a better explanation as to why they chose this strategy.
As @mok said, the ridicule should be at the way the NBA 2K producer badmouthed the microtransactions in his own game as “unfortunate” and then bitches about having to balance it.
