Deus Ex: MD, single player micro transactions, and ME:A

This assumes the games were priced appropriately fairly recently.

If we adjust for inflation from 1985 prices, games should be somewhere north of $150 USD now.

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That assumes other variables remain constant at 1985 levels.
My 101 economic class told me that prices are set to what the product manufacturers believe the customer is willing to pay. This is also true for game publishers.

True.

But to offset those costs manufacturers have to find ways to continue making revenue.

Remember the $5 footlong campaign by Subway? It made them money, but it was temporary and the cost for ingredients, shop overhead, and wage hikes being mandated in some cities.


So they remove the $5 footlong deal, make it a special promotion every so often, or offer a new deal, for $5 you can do a 6 inch sandwich with chips and a drink.  

Do the chips and drink compensate for the loss of sandwich, is the question. 

No, Sartoz is right.  The prices are set at the level the market will bear.  The production cost only affects whether the game, at that price, can be profitable.  If not, the developers won't make it.

1985 games were made by fewer than 10 people, sold less than 200,000 copies, and were priced at nearly 3 times what we see today.  I wonder if that market still exists, and is simply going unserved.

Hah...perhaps we should call microtransactions a pay-to-cheat system. Think of the bad publicity if that becomes a meme.

There were 2 big issues with the micro transactions in ME3MP from my perspective which I hope BioWare will address in me:a. Firstly the pricing outside of North America didn't seem very fair - the prices didn't appear to reflect the discrepancies in the value of local currencies which meant many players particularly in Europe seamed to be paying an unfair premium at the store compared to North American players.

Secondly I hope I speak for all of us when I say when paying real money for the premium packs I expect the Ultra rare item I paid for. At the very, very least the chances of unlocking ultra rares from paid packs should be double that for unpaid pack openings.

Expecting paying customers to bare the same risks as time grinders on premium packs is completely unacceptable value proposition. The circa 85% risk factor of failure represent some of the poorest value for money I've ever seen in a micro transaction to date and it's been 4 years since.

Furthermore given that we're expected to pay for these items in money or time BioWare really should give the player some recourse to sell back mountains unwanted items like cryo ammo, explosive ammo consumables, etc. for store credit so that we can actually get some use out of them rather than have an egregious amount of dead money/time clogging up your inventory.

I understand that, to some degree, developers have been cool with people modding and hacking their games.  As a result, I don't understand why modders and hackers don't show the developers of games at least some of respect they are due.  Instead they frequently, publicly insult the developers' abilities... citing errors in the games as "forcing" them to mod and hack, etc. (While "errors" have caused some great mods to get developed (e.g. MEHEM), in this instance, we're talking about a hack that just enables players to quickly collect items that the developer intended to be rare and that allows players to just circumvent the cost of the developer's microtransaction system.)  Without someone creating these games in the first place, the modders and hackers would have nothing in which to support their own little micro-economies (i.e. the ad monies they receive via the number of hits, likes, etc. on their website or youtube video, etc.  It's the hostility shown by the modding and hacking community and the indications that this hostility "hurts" the feelings of some developers (e.g. Flynn) that is the main reason why I (read, personally, just I) don't support modding and hacking (just the same as I don't support microtransactions either).  I would rather "suffer" just learning to play the base vanilla game rather than destroying the original balance of the game either buying the developer's microtransactions or modding or hacking it.

A little basic respect wouldn't hurt either - It's like Shep says to Legion and Tali:  "Sooner or later [they're] both going to have to stop fighting this war, or we're all going to pay the price - Developers are going to be driven into bankruptcy by their hostile "fans,' hackers and modders will have nothing to hack or mod, and we'll just have no great games to play.

(Also, thank you straykat for responding in a reasonable manner... allowing me to hopefully clear up misunderstandings in my previous posts.  To the others... I've just shut down and am not even reading your rants anymore.)

IMO that stuff ruins the balance of the game, eliminate the feeling of progression and made the entire experience quite cheap. I don't understand who would pay for purposely ruining the game they bought to begin with. I certainly won't give a single dime to this thing. I bought Deus Ex at release (not pre-order). I have not bought a single microtransaction DLC and I have not bought the season pass because will buy the story DLC separately when they will release. I think this is the sensible thing to do, if all gamers would do that then companies won't get profits from microtransactions and they would stop doing them.

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I never bother with season passes. If a game requires me to pay an online fee, the pubs can stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

This is the funniest shit I will read today.

Tears, so many tears, a damned ocean of them.

Edit: after reading reviews, I will be buying this game at a steep discount, like say the Director's Cut of HR, when it is half price. If that.... Sounds like they really took a page out of EA's handbook and made a gorgeous game with squat of a script.

This is the state of gaming. Sad.

Suicide is no laughing matter. I have had two family members suicide, and know the pain that you went through.

That said, if your entire life's happiness is dependent on how people use the mass produced product you had a small part in making (it is a huge production, making entertainment, and everyone has a small but critical role) then, I am sorry, your mental health is the real issue.

People fast forward through boring parts of tv shows and movies I made. They make fun of them, make memes, tell me I am crazy for leaving show X, why did I work on show Z. The truth is, it's a jobby job and I am not there to get a daily affirmation.

So, you have my full sympathy, but I am calling full bullshit on your post.

By the way, if you notice the OP title, my post is entirely relevant to the thread, but your tender easily offended ego is not. Get ahold of yourself. You have no idea what I've see and done in my life, which has lasted no less than twice yours if my guess is accurate as usual.