...could be the new normal for big franchises [...]", - source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...chises-opinion
Plus, "The cannibalization takeaway [...]", - source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...ek-in-business
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...could be the new normal for big franchises [...]", - source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...chises-opinion
Plus, "The cannibalization takeaway [...]", - source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...ek-in-business
Clickbait title shouldn't obscure this point:
Fewer micro-transactions in premium games? Sign me up.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamesindustrybiz
[edit] and before some muppet jumps all over me, note how I said "fewer". I'm realistic enough to recognize they won't go away at this point
I'm out if it is I find in these free to play games you have to spend money to get anywhere or anything decent and it will cost more than buying a game such as division 2- if thats the path then I am done.
An in-game menu centered around battle pass and store rubrics tells it all, doesn't it?
Both articles are informative, nothing else. At least for me.
To the mods and Ubi in general...
The cat is out of the bag, and it won't go back in. You won't be able to put a lid on this, that's how the internet works.
Better to ride the tide and release details and some quality footage, so we can all appreciate it and not form first impressions based on that really low-quality stuff.
Fighting it at this point will just make it spread further and faster, with more damage than good. I know you wanted a proper unveiling in June, but that ship had sailed. Ship happens with random testers.
Well, it was running on a potato with everything on low, on dial-up, so we have a general idea but still difficult to fully appreciate it. Plus, the guy didn't seem to know what he was doing.
But that's exactly my point... better to get ahead of it than fighting a useless, hopeless, damaging fight.
Those articles are okay, but no crystal ball.
KInd besides the point - I am quite annoyed by the "free to play" label... Is it really FREE to play? Don't think so. If anything, it's much more expensive to play, provided your want to progress from the very bare-bones basics. That's the big draw for corps like Ubi, the $$$-making in-game transactions that add up quickly, with much less effort and investment than a full AAA title.
I am not part of that targeted market.
Not sure why people are shocked at this 'trend', unless they aren't old enough to have any memory of the past decade.
F2P has been around at least 10 years and for some unfathomable reason the business model can be phenomenally successful. Or a total failure of course.
Developers have seen what Fortnite has delivered - and also impossible to replicate - and want a slice of the pie.
For some unknown reason consumers want to buy a piece of that - atrocious - pie so there is reason to get into it even to get the crumbs.
F2P is vapid, empty and asinine compared to even an indie retail, but it is what The Masses want and where the money is.
Personally I can see the future of gaming as built on this model and I will turn - as I already have - mostly to indie retail.
We are talking about a world where TikTok reigns, there isn't really much hope for mainstream society based on that, so the only option is to bail out and see what are on the fringes.
If anything my question would be - why 4 years after Fortnite launched? That is way late.
It is free to download and probably to play itself as the gameplay is so simple.
Then you have a choice of purchasable aesthetics I guess, unless they go down the 100% inadvisable pay to win route. That kills games as immediately, no one free is going to put up with opponents with a paid advantage.
I would like to be more informed but with f2p slapped on it I have zero interest, I don't have enough time to play retail let alone F2P garbage.
I've seen the leaked footage. I won't post details or anything that could get my post or account nuked.
But suffice to say, I was pretty damn close about what this is going to be, and I am not impressed by what appears to be little more than a minimum viable product, cash grab asset flip.
I'd say it's a disappointment, but that would imply I had expectations of it being anything other than what it is.
TBH generally, I don't exspect something "better". I saw the difference in quality from The Division to 2. The constant, like the original had, is gone. Today it's the good, the bad and the ugly, also with his improvements.
The Asset flip side of things is a given, why spend Dev time on new stuff when for the minimum effort you can make a game and make a whack load of cash off of it, via P2W and micro/macro transaction (not saying making money is bad).
Ironically it's not aimed at us per-say, it's aimed at the Ytube/twitch market (Ytube is full of vids about what it could be etc etc clickbait) by mostly P v P/DZ players and its also aimed at the Chinese market,
Tencent own 29% of UBI to start with plus that market welcomes micro/macro transactions and P2W, apparently if you don't P2W in china you are nothing in the gaming world, they have a whole different ethos to the west.
Why do you think so many Western Gaming companies are percental owned by Chinese and going into the Chinese mobile market, Bethesda are doing it Activision/Blizzard are doing it/Ubisoft are doing it.
It's the Largest gaming market in the world and worth the most money.
Oh! and if they are going down the Battle-royal/survival or survival route then they are going up against the big hitters, so their game is going to have to be on point from the off.
Fortnite
Apex
Warzone
PUBG
and
Day Z (Been playing this one on and off now for 8 years since 2013) in it's iterations
It was a joke , have people forgot how to laugh these days ...
I just posted my "personal opinion" on it and it was monetized because it referenced what was in the footage , for all we know the video could have been from ages ago and by now the game may have changed completely and probably will until release day , still not happy they are taking away people rights to freedom of speech when I'm not under any NDA
in my opinion the F2P is the best thing that could happen to the division, simply because they finally release content to do this $ because they have no choice if they want to make profits, while paying 1 time $ 69.99 they are already making their $ and can abandon the games, yes there are micro transactions but it is little to pay to FINALLY have content. Many players dont buy a game because who want to pay 70$ for a game who only view in a video, many time a buy a game and after 1 week i leave the game because the game suck, but with F2P you dont loose your money and only pay for a game you like.
The thing is F2P is the current trend look at the likes of Warzone and Fortnite both game bring in tons of cash from people buying skins,blueprints and battle pass, it's a guarenteed winner platform to make tons of cash if the game is popular, Ubisoft tried to crack the market with hyperscape which they have said is was a failure , Heartland needs to bring something new and unique to attract some top level streamers to their take on their BR style game and it must be able to support at least 100 players to complete against WZ and Fortnite , the other issue we have all seen is the ammount of cheaters in Warzone been F2P , PCGamer reported recenty up to 450,000 accounts have been banned since release, Div 2 failed and has been riddled with cheaters with very few banned due to the system they used
LMAO, you can tell who has been hanging out at sketchy gaming boards when they start whining about "asset flips" :nonchalance:
It's also obvious who hasn't played Div 1's Survival, a mode that was incredibly fun with far less than 100 players. Similarly, Apex Legends "only" has 60..
To be honest you don't have to hang out anywhere when discussing asset flips.
It stands to reason anything Division related is going to use what they have available already, it reduces the Cost of Development and time.
Take Fallout 76 virtually everything in it is literally from fallout 4 bar the odd thing.
Fortnite online P v P is made up from the assets in the P v E game.
Call of Duty are famous for re-using assets whether it be maps or other
Battlefield do it
Fifa and the NBA/N2K games all re-use assets from previous
Alot of games/Developers re-use assets from other games in their stable when making a new game associated with it, because as above they reduce Dev time and it saves money, so the profit margin goes up and up.
Now lets look at The Division Franchise
Between The Division and The Division 2 they have a plethora of Assets waiting to be used. from the E3 original trailer upto now.
Maps/Area's and buildings.
Original E3 trailer
Brooklyn
Manhattan/NYC (Div 1)
Dark Zone (Div 1)
NYC (Div 2)
Dark Zones (Div 2)
Underground
West Side Piers.
Liberty Island
Kenly college
Classified missions
Roosevelt island
The Raids
All the above from the two Division games area's all have re-usable assets that are quite easily re-usable into a new Division based/themed game.
That list doesn't even bring into account Weapons/Gear/mods/Skins/outfits/Player models/Weather/Environmental assets like crates/barrels/Skills etc etc etc.
So anyone with a modicum of intelligence and has been around gaming would rightly assume previous assets will be used at some point within a new game based off of the previous.
PS: AS an addendum to my piece.
Iv'e seen some of the footage and hey presto the first thing iv'e seen were vehicle assets ripped straight out of Division 2 along with clothing/gear/weapons and crates
It's literally ripped out of the previous. ergo re-used assets.
They really need to Fix the F'ing crashing issues first... :S
Lets hope they don't charge you 54.99 for a "Start kit"... :D From my experiance playing Division 2 Ubisoft want loads for nothing.
They need to be committed to attacking cheaters and perma banning the accounts if this is to succeed at any level. We all know Ubi/Massive have essentially ignored and condoned cheaters with no punishment at all. At least in PvP you're allowed to cheat all you want, but kill a couple True Sons with an in game damage glitch and you'll be scorned and have your account progress stolen. So basically Ubisoft needs to treat PvP players like they did 1.5 million PvE accounts having too much fun. Without a total commitment to ban cheating, this game won't last 2 month.
I mean i saw what it was, didn't really like it but i can fully understand all the design choices and the f2p method, unless they polish that thing until it shines like the sun i don't see much reason to play it.
It has some community requests that happened over the years, it's just not the type of the game i want, a lot of it will come down to how much the quality will outweight the monetization
Yes....that shady site called reddit. So obscure. Much shade.
Take a game mode that Div2 players have asked from almost the beginning because of how popular it was in Div 1, slice it off from div2 and recycle a bunch of assets from the UI and other places....slap a giant cash shop on it and present it as a "new" game.
What would you call that other than an asset flip cash grab?
Wait, don't answer that. I already know you'll make some excuse for this kind of practice.
The entire process from start to finish is shameful and anti-consumer. It's EXACTLY the kind of garbage that deserves all the condemnation that I posted earlier.
Sketchy, not obscure. There's a difference :nonchalance:
Cadillac-Jack already answered this. That you continue to rail against it is hilarious. You must have been incandescent when items in Div 2 looked exactly like their counterparts in Div 1.Quote:
Take a game mode that Div2 players have asked from almost the beginning because of how popular it was in Div 1, slice it off from div2 and recycle a bunch of assets from the UI and other places....slap a giant cash shop on it and present it as a "new" game.
What would you call that other than an asset flip cash grab?.
Well at least everyone will be able try the game to say if some mechanic changes will improve the series or not
Reposting this in a more appropriate thread given we're talking about business models:
This deserves to be expanded on for the people at the back.
Companies like Ubisoft are accountable to their shareholders, many of whom manage investments on behalf of individuals saving for their retirement. Your mutual funds, 401(k), RRSP or state pension funds probably hold positions in the same companies you complain about being greedy.
As an example, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan holds 2.2 million shares in Tencent. They in turn hold 5% of Ubisoft.
TL;DR - F2P games are paying for Ontario teachers retirements.
Welcome to Capitalism 101 :nonchalance:
^ I don't think Hyperscape is funding / paying for anything.
That doesn't really matter. You were never the person who financed it. Its the problem with playing something that other people pay for. When other people pay or finance something, you have very little to no say in how or what they produce.
Too often gamers expect video games to cost the exact same as they did back in 1988. The problem is that $50 in 1988 is now $112.87. Unless a game is a strong hit, game developers cannot count on consumers to make up the missing costs. Game development is even more expensive now as well. That means they often need someone to finance the project. Everyone is opposed to pre-orders, right? Well that has a cost too. It means that developers are even more dependent on financing(i.e. loans and stock purchases).
You and everyone else who complained about "greed" and refused to evaluate the facts pretty much gave these projects over to other people to finance. Now when they are releasing a Free to Play game, we as consumers have little to no influence.
I know that bad corporate behavior is a thing, but often lately there has been a lot of bad consumer behavior. Someone else is paying for this, literally. It isn't the consumer, we have very little say in what they produce.
It is problem with Free to Play. It is why they exist to an extent. Consumers think things should be "free" and thus someone else has to pay for things.
Unless you or anyone else is willing to pay $112.87 for a todays produced equivalent 1988 game or likely $200 for a triple A title, expect more of this to happen.
Thought we are talking about Ubi and/or The Division...
... anyway, the point is that for every successful PVP there are hundreds of failures. At this point there is Fortnite, CoD and Apex (and maybe Overwatch), and nothing else. The nothing else includes Hyperscape, a game launched in August last year and now dead in the water. And that was a full on PVP effort and still not enough to be successful.
In contrast, Heartland feels like a half-acced shallow mish-mash of PVE and PVP, and the risk is that it will fail on both fronts. Yeah, I know, it's still early, could get so much better by launch time, blah, blah, but the published roadmap puts before anything else.
There was another point about recycling assets... It makes perfect sense to do that, especially with The Division. Is one good looking game, with lots of variety and incredible attention to detail. It's important how much effort you put into the game and level design, how you use those assets. One bad example is The Summit... has the same assets, but the design is boring and the combination of assets is just so effing ugly. I mean the lobby is the best part of it...
Whatever you saw on heartland was likely an initial video of content created as a concept. Most online gaming publications expect it to be released very late 2021 or early 2022. That is 6 months to a year away. It is why I despise leaks like this. It is extremely unfinished and there are a lot of changes that can and will be made to polish it.
As for F2P successes and failures. Banal groups like retirement funds investing in something will mean that anyone that wants their money has to "chase the trends". You can't afford to be an innovator when the local Teacher's or Municipal Government's Pension fund is invested in the company financing your project and wants a safe proven money maker based on market trends. Telling them that Fortnite was an outlier rather then a trend setter requires more courage than most in that industry have.
Summit is basically Underground from the Division 1 recreated for the Division 2. It was a random procedurally generated dungeon maker. Personally, I enjoy it. It's great for farming and way easier to multi level binge over Underground. Considering that this was what they were aiming for, I think they did really well.
More content for the Division 2 is supposed to come out this year or next year. We are supposed to get apparel events eventually as well. Heartland is its own project produced by Red Storm. They are 2 different games and development studios.
@TimesLostArc
What are you even trying to say?! Not sure what you point is...
Yes, games are expensive to make, but the market is much bigger and the returns potential much higher than 1988.
As re. who is financing development, they do it to make make money, sales, hence they will make it for the market / audience, not to fit or satisfy their own preferences.
The fact that some games fail and some are successful is witness to the "influence" we, the consumer and audience still have.
I think I was extremely clear in what I was saying. We as consumers don't matter any more in this part of the development process. Our demands don't matter. We aren't paying for it.
The returns might be bigger, but the expenses are vastly larger and the return per customer is much smaller. Hence the individual customer has less influence if not almost no influence. At this point the developers are looking at trends and trend setters. Fortnite is the most successful game and is hence the trendsetter. Individual customers mean almost nothing, it is about creating the next "it" title.Quote:
Yes, games are expensive to make, but the market is much bigger and the returns potential much higher than 1988.
It is about returns. To the investors/developers, all they have to do is recreate the exact model that Fortnite did and then simply profit. Most individual customers mean nothing(except for the whales), because in this case individual customers aren't willing to pay for anything and can't even be reliably trusted to even know what they want.Quote:
As re. who is financing development, they do it to make make money, sales, hence they will make it for the market / audience, not to fit or satisfy their own preferences.
The fact that some games fail and some are successful is witness to the "influence" we, the consumer and audience still have.
When customers mean nothing and aren't a part of the financing process. Then their opinion is moot. It becomes a game of following trends and trying to recreate success.
They adopt the mantra "if they just build it exactly the same way someone else did then the money will just come".
Eventually investors may wisen up and realize that Fortnite was a fluke rather than a likely future. That period of time will likely be years from now.
As for this moment the conventional wisdom is that "most customers are not willing to pay for the development of a game, hence we need to follow a formula that works from the most successful example in the gaming industry(Fortnite), we create that and maybe we can get enough money to produce other projects that can succeed."
Most of Tim Sweeney's clumsy statements about the "consumer not mattering" are a part of what I just explained. There is a lot of hubris in this thinking, but I strongly think that the consumers, developers and investors each had a hand in bringing us to this shameful moment. Process in this moment matters far more than people simply because people(i.e. consumers) are considered unreliable moochers to developers and investors.
I personally think customers should be an integral part of the process. Still when most customers are unwilling to pay for things, I can see this series of events playing out more often. My personal belief code is to "aspire for a world without end" and "free is a four letter word". I know that I am in the minority in my personal beliefs, especially on that last one.
Massive had 450 people after Division 1 had completed (and that doesn't include the people from Red Storm, Annecy or other studios that helped out).
The original Bioshock from 2007 peaked at 130 people. Knights of the Old Republic from 2003 peaked at 98 people.
The original Rainbow Six from 1998? 22