One of the biggest stories of last year in regards to gaming was the rise of “extreme” takes on microtransactions by developers. While some games had modest microtransactions, meaning ones you could do but didn’t need to do to play the core game, others weren’t as fortunate. Some of the bigger ones that had these extreme measures were Battlefront II, Need For Speed Payback, and Destiny 2. And all three got flak for what they did, and then some. So this raises the question, will the industry learn from these mistakes?
Well, according to analyst Doug Creutz, yes. He chatted with CNBC and noted how though the cost of making AAA titles is rising, having extreme cases of microtransaction won’t help if no one buys them:
“This isn’t a monopoly business…Angering your customer with bad MTX (Microtransactions) does matter.”
He’s certainly got a point, one that was proven with Battlefront II, as the microtransactions element was so bad that fans basically revolted, forcing EA to shut it down just before launch, it hasn’t come back since.
Cruetz himself made a note of how games like Battlefront II and Destiny 2 have gotten backlash because of their microtransaction philosophies. But more than that, he defended the gamers who have protested these, for their complaints have not been petty:
“It’s not just that gamers are angry and complaining,” he explained. “There have clearly been performance consequences for the games involved. And in an industry where every company is dependent upon a relatively small number of franchises, this matters.”
He’s right, it does matter, and EA is a perfect example of what happens when you don’t bring quality to a title, as many of their AAA games from last year didn’t meet the quality that fans expected. So, will we see a change? We don’t know, it’s up to the developers. Let’s hope they’re listening to what gamers are saying.
