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Is "Monetization" a Millennial trigger word?
Abuz0r
Member UncommonPosts: 550
Something I've noticed over my painful experience of reading Millennial opinions when it comes to money and game development is that the single largest issue surrounding a video game is how much money they DON'T have to spend to play it.
So let's say a game has a Kickstarter campaign. Immediately 2 very vocal groups will form, the people who think it's a cash grab and try to find a way to prove there's somehow a scam happening, and then a group who will silently donate hundreds or thousands of dollars but then come on the forums and defend the game. The argument will use words like vaporware and scam and 'development team size'.
Anyhow, when a game finally comes to fruition, the next stage of game development is always figuring out how to generate ongoing revenue. "Monetization" becomes the issue. This is the first of a series of divide and conquer mistakes that will eventually fracture the games support group and put it in a death spiral. The original Kickstarters will either have been given free play for life, or they'll have been informed they'd have to join the payment model after a prescribed amount of time based on their contribution.
Of course, let's not forget, the glorious imagination of some of the Kickstarters will turn them into some of the games most vocal adversaries, as various stages of alpha testing may make them feel as though they've donated to a sub-minecraft graphics experience. The game will have to contend with their alpha testing cries for Kickstarter refunds between forum posts carefully articulating their 'failures' from day one.
If and when a game makes it to release, Kickstarter or not, this new generation of MMO player wants a hand-held experience. They want to click the quest objective, to go watch TV, and come back and know that their character auto-pathed, auto-combatted, and auto-turned-in the quest, and is now gathering resources because it had nothing else to do until you got back. Yes, the player doesn't want to have to figure things out, or to struggle to learn the controls, huge flashy bouncing fingers are the best bet for a developer, quickly pointing to the "click here to have AI play the game for you" buttons.
After several months of 'release' games realize cash-flow is drying up. The honest truth is, how long do you want developers to warranty your gaming experience? If a game costs $30.00, how long does that developer owe you a fun experience before they want more money? "Monetization" again becomes the key item. The Millennial solution I always see is to sell useless items like wedding dresses through an item mall, allowing players to 'tip' the developers as they play the game if they feel like. Yes, yes, the developers rush to create the tip jar, and it gets some coin in the bottom, hardly vacation material however.
Oh, how the games forum becomes flooded with computer-penis comparisons. Long lengthy computer specs of just upgraded video cards and processors and ridiculous amounts of RAM. Developers realize how the players will spend thousands of dollars on their machine, maybe on a video card alone, but can find little more than $30.00 to invest in their game. Yes, the players have the money, the developers need to have a conference to figure out how to get it applied digitally. A monthly subscription? Heresy. Selling useful items? Pay-to-win. Oh how anything beyond the $30 box is the death of us all.
Once upon a time a MMO game was $49.99 and $120.00 a year in subscription fees, now we expect twice the game with better graphics for 1/4th the money. We spend days putting together thousand dollar machines to play $30.00 games on. When we get what we pay for, we're frustrated and upset. Truth be told, there's no new $160.00 or $200.00 a year game coming on the market. If you want an experience that asks that price you have to return to Blizzard, which has unfortunately implemented most of the challenge-killing short cuts of modern games anyhow.
I like to offer solutions, but we the gamers, not the developers, through our endless endeavor to not be compelled to pay money for the games we play, have killed our genre.
So let's say a game has a Kickstarter campaign. Immediately 2 very vocal groups will form, the people who think it's a cash grab and try to find a way to prove there's somehow a scam happening, and then a group who will silently donate hundreds or thousands of dollars but then come on the forums and defend the game. The argument will use words like vaporware and scam and 'development team size'.
Anyhow, when a game finally comes to fruition, the next stage of game development is always figuring out how to generate ongoing revenue. "Monetization" becomes the issue. This is the first of a series of divide and conquer mistakes that will eventually fracture the games support group and put it in a death spiral. The original Kickstarters will either have been given free play for life, or they'll have been informed they'd have to join the payment model after a prescribed amount of time based on their contribution.
Of course, let's not forget, the glorious imagination of some of the Kickstarters will turn them into some of the games most vocal adversaries, as various stages of alpha testing may make them feel as though they've donated to a sub-minecraft graphics experience. The game will have to contend with their alpha testing cries for Kickstarter refunds between forum posts carefully articulating their 'failures' from day one.
If and when a game makes it to release, Kickstarter or not, this new generation of MMO player wants a hand-held experience. They want to click the quest objective, to go watch TV, and come back and know that their character auto-pathed, auto-combatted, and auto-turned-in the quest, and is now gathering resources because it had nothing else to do until you got back. Yes, the player doesn't want to have to figure things out, or to struggle to learn the controls, huge flashy bouncing fingers are the best bet for a developer, quickly pointing to the "click here to have AI play the game for you" buttons.
After several months of 'release' games realize cash-flow is drying up. The honest truth is, how long do you want developers to warranty your gaming experience? If a game costs $30.00, how long does that developer owe you a fun experience before they want more money? "Monetization" again becomes the key item. The Millennial solution I always see is to sell useless items like wedding dresses through an item mall, allowing players to 'tip' the developers as they play the game if they feel like. Yes, yes, the developers rush to create the tip jar, and it gets some coin in the bottom, hardly vacation material however.
Oh, how the games forum becomes flooded with computer-penis comparisons. Long lengthy computer specs of just upgraded video cards and processors and ridiculous amounts of RAM. Developers realize how the players will spend thousands of dollars on their machine, maybe on a video card alone, but can find little more than $30.00 to invest in their game. Yes, the players have the money, the developers need to have a conference to figure out how to get it applied digitally. A monthly subscription? Heresy. Selling useful items? Pay-to-win. Oh how anything beyond the $30 box is the death of us all.
Once upon a time a MMO game was $49.99 and $120.00 a year in subscription fees, now we expect twice the game with better graphics for 1/4th the money. We spend days putting together thousand dollar machines to play $30.00 games on. When we get what we pay for, we're frustrated and upset. Truth be told, there's no new $160.00 or $200.00 a year game coming on the market. If you want an experience that asks that price you have to return to Blizzard, which has unfortunately implemented most of the challenge-killing short cuts of modern games anyhow.
I like to offer solutions, but we the gamers, not the developers, through our endless endeavor to not be compelled to pay money for the games we play, have killed our genre.
Comments
Earning money is of course important for any company but games still need to be made with love or we just get the same tired crap over and over so I can't really blame kids for being cynical.
But sadly is it the small companies that really wants to make a good game that get the worst of things, EAs and the rest of the big publishers tend to sell fine even with bad publicity, but it can make or break a small one game company.
Actually, we've been getting 1/2 the game for 10-50x a much money, if you want to be top tier in a f2p p2w game.
$170 for total full access to everything in an MMO for year? That's some kind of dream.
And over that, they want it free.
It's why we see MMO's with subscription models failing one after the other, what forced many MMO's to fall into the free-to-play realm, and then they need to make... MONEY!
The B2P also comes with its flaws, pay once and play forever... gives the MMO initial revenue for short term and then at long-term they need something else.
And personally i hate the expansion models on MMO's more than i hate micro-transations, segregation of player-base is annoying.
There's no "free lunch" only false advertising.
Yes, there is no such thing as a free lunch, the problem really is how games are monetised, not that they are monetised, some forms of monetisation treat all players equally, and others, not so much, i am of course talking about F2P vs P2P, as F2P monetisation methods often favour those less financially challenged, whereas P2P games more often than not treat all players equally, they pay the same, they have the same advantages and disadvantages, the old argument that players with less time to spend on one game should be allowed to use money to offset the advantage those have who can spend more time on a single game, is frankly ludicrous and always has been, if people play several games then they can't expect to excel in one, frankly that applies to all activities, not just games.
The issue is that publishers aren't there just to get paid, they want to maximize income while minimizing cost. They will cut down on amounts of developers and support because they didn't reach their target number which has nothing to do with actual costs and their aim is to charge you more for less. There is a big disconnect when a game developer tells the public that their game exceeded expectation and the next month they come back with more cash shop content.
While mmorpg used to have a subscription cost they could sell it because it was a truly unique experienced, where else could you find a game where thousands of people could be online and share the same world. In modern mmorpg its the same kind of game we had ten years ago, its not much of a shared world and fps have bigger battles for a box cost. Todays mmorpg simply ain't special enough to charge a premium and that's why p2p models mostly died out.
When it comes to kickstarters I never heard much complaints about monetization for Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, Darkest Dungeon and plenty of others because you got the game and the released game was good. While people were upset about mighty no 9 it was about the quality of the game and not much to do with monetization.
On the other hand there are tons of issues with online kickstarter games because they have trouble bringing a finished experienced. However, the complaints about monetization is directed at games like star citizen and shroud of the avatar that has a big shop, I can't remember the same complaints being thrown at crowfall or camelot unchained. The complaints regarding pantheon has more to do with trust issues regarding Brad Mcquaid and almost nothing to do with money.
Also, there is no proof that its a generation issue, I doubt we have that many millennials that frequent these boards.
The feeling I have when I play f2p games is that I know this game is only offering a short shallow experience anyway, so why should I pay for something that never comes ? I can just go play the next shallow game there is for free, or pay the price for one of the few good games.
This will not stop till the f2p era is over, and it will be over once enough players get fed up and enough game developers can't make profit for their investors.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Gen-X here; when I was in my 20's, things were far more inconsistent: there were times when I had disposable income, and there were times when things were pretty desperate. I certainly didn't have the money to Kickstart things (for me, the equivalent of a Kickstarter in the mid-aughts would have been someone in person asking me for $20 because s/he had this great business idea and would totally get back to me with a finished product in a couple years - guess what my reaction would have been then), although looking back I did waste a lot of money in foolish ways whenever I had some to spare. At least, that is my perspective today.
Now, halfway through my 30's, I've finally worked my way back to about the point I was at when I landed that golden opportunity fresh out of college. However, things are far more consistent; I have a much better sense of what I'm doing. As such, things are far more financially stable.
I still think most Kickstarters are to be avoided, for what it's worth. However, I do have a better understanding of those that choose to support any given project. My horizons are much broader now than they were in my 20's.
My point is not to be too hard on those being critical of a given project, especially if they are of a given age. If anything, this should lead to a better understanding of where they are coming from.
For myself, it's easy to think back to a time when I was very insecure about my money, even if I was pulling in at least as much as I am now. The reason for this is that I had far less understanding about the economy, budgeting, and financial theory than I do today.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
You've got games that would have been considered mediocre at best in 1990 being offered as F2P on a smartphone and companies making billions for it.
Now the industry as a whole wants to emulate it.
Welcome to the New Age of Gaming
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I was born in 1980. Besides, I refuse to label myself Gen-Y. Gen-X is just so much cooler.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Sorry to disappoint you!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That, plus my upbringing, various childhood experiences, and a cultural understanding of those born during the period of which I am at the tail-end of at give a far deeper sense of where I "actually belong" than some stranger on the internet.
It's what I grew up with; it's actually what my parents taught me.
Anyway, let's not derail this thread with even further ageist overtones.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
On the other side of the coin, I see older gamers who are mad/disappointed in the direction the gaming industry has moved in the last decade. 10 years ago games were $50 plus a monthly sub fee and it gave you EVERYTHING. If you wanted the really cool looking armor or cosmetic outfit you had to earn it and all new content was for the most part free. Every game had fully customizable housing, crafting that would make your mouth water and skill choices that allowed you to make your avatar truely unique. Even the FPS games allowed you to map your own custom maps.
Fast forward to today and if the game does have housing it is a joke. There is little to differentiate between crafters and each one can make the exact same things of the exact same quality. You know exactly what class a person is and the skills he has by looking at his armor and your adventure in a game is exactly the same as anyone elses, there is little difference in the play experience between players. Heck, you can not even make your own custom maps anymore in FPS's, you have to buy map packs.
Publishers/developers got greedy. They learned from WoW that a dumbed down game can earn much more revenue than a sandbox. They saw players making maps for FPS games and wanted to monitize that too. The gaming press was still in its infancy and they found ways to gain some control over it through advertising dollars. So now developers are allowed to flat out lie and say a game has multiplayer when it doesnt and the gaming media makes excuses for it. Publishers make the chance of finding an item in the game a quarter of one percent but allow a 10% chance of getting it in the cash shop and the gaming media says its ok, they need to make money.
So in the end, I do feel like some players feel way to entitled but on the other end, I also feel we are getting much less from our games and the media that covers them, than we used to.
Add the rant about how publishers/developers become "greedy", "dumbed down games", "P2W" and "we are getting much less from our games" and it fits nicely into a full picture...
http://twitch.tv/woetothevanquished
The ones who don't are lost causes.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Well let me put it this way......selling an UNFINISHED BUGGY product ,would under any NORMAL thought process be considered a SCAM,next news at 11.
Crappy games are or should be LUCKY to garner a 15 dollar price tag,yet i have seen garbage asking for 25-50 for early access ,it is a laughable joke.
I don't like to LABEL anyone or anything,to me i simply look at the OBVIOUS,i either see a good quality effort and either a solid game or a pile of crap.There is no reason to start labeling people as one side or the other or a vocal minority or majority.
It is like saying Oh well over here we have the type of people who complain just because their brand new car won't start while over here we have all the good people who simply love getting ripped off or slapped in the face.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The ones that "figured out how world goes around" have no problem with cash shops, F2P and alike "inequality".