What you need to know
- As Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched on PC Thursday evening, a previously hidden suite of microtransactions became available for purchase.
- Things you can buy for the single player ARPG include fast travel points, Rift Crystals for hiring Pawns and buying special items, appearance change and revival consumables, a special camping kit that weighs less than normal ones, and a few others.
- In response to the microtransactions, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is being review bombed, with the game currently sitting at “Mostly Negative” on Steam.
These are not the same thing, at all
I think a more apt comparison is if you’re renting out a place where every light switch is three-way with one switch near the light it controls and another in a closet with all the other light switches. You can control the ones in the closet for free, but the ones in a reasonable location are pay-per-use. The problem isn’t that the features aren’t available for free. It’s that they poured resources into deliberately making things worse, then they charge you to undo that. Literally creating negative value.
Except I’m playing the game right now and these “deliberately made worse” elements have not once inconvenienced me in 20 hours.
You are all crying about nothing.
I have no interest in this game, so I wouldn’t know how it actually affects gameplay. But do you not agree that this is shitty business practice? You have a game. Sell the game. If you want microtransactions, then produce extra art or something and sell that. You can even make the case that separating out parts of the game into various DLCs on launch is acceptable. You’re at least charging for something of value that you created.
Implementing anti-cheat costs resources and makes the end result strictly worse. Now you want people to pay you to undo that? That’s creating negative value. We want the economy to run on people creating positive value.
How.
I’m playing the game right now moron, you don’t have to spend a single dime for any of the things you spend money on. It is pay to play faster, cry more about it. Your experience isn’t tarnished because someone else spent more money on the game than you.
The fact that the MTX exists in the first place is just predatory. It doesn’t matter if it’s optional.
Don’t forget that things got this bad to begin with because everyone kept defending early MTX with the same excuse. These companies are always trying to push shit. Give them an excuse and they’ll run with it.
The problem that everyone seems to be missing with this “slippery slope” bullshit is that you all acknowledge that there are MTX systems worse than this one. That worse one likely being P2W MTX, because that is undeniably the worst form.
The RE4 remake literally had P2W. You could buy the weapon upgrade items for real money. DD2s MTX are in no way P2W.
So to organize the factors I’ve presented as they pertain to the discussion, plainly:
Everyone wants to avoid P2W because it’s a bad sign for games. P2W is the reason why gatcha is the way that it is.
The Resident Evil 4 remake (oh you know, Capcoms biggest franchise) had a P2W system (that thing we just established as being the worst form of MTX).
DD2 has an MTX system so functionally worthless that I’m about to beat the game and the only reason I’ve even considered spending money is because I’m lazy. You actually get more out of spending your money on gatcha games (on literal fucking P2W scams).
We reach this conversation, where you’re suggesting that “It’S a SlIpPeRy SlOpE”.
I cannot fully express through words how genuinely stupid it is to be picking this game to cry about how bad microtransactions are. Genuinely, this is some of the dumbest shit I’ve seen from gamers. In your analogy, we already reached the bottom of the slope and the people fucking cheered for it.
Yeah there are worse MTX systems out there. I think that makes a pretty good case for calling out bullshit when you see it no matter how you see it. If a company sees people accepting it, they’ll push it further. Therefore I’d say there’s a pretty good point in complaining about DD2.
RE4 having shitty monetization doesn’t make DD2’s monetization not bad. Both can be bad, this isn’t a mutually exclusive thing.
DD2’s MTX issue is still bad regardless of worse things being out there.
Again, call it out early. So that, if they made another DD game then they don’t try to push it further. Like you said it’s already bad for RE4. So if there’s no push back for DD2 then don’t be surprised if the next DD game has something worse. Call it out before it gets all fucked up, you know? Don’t just go “Oh but other game bad so this one is actually ok!”.
DD2’s MTX system is basically preying on people with poor impulse control. You might see it as useless but you can bet there’s people out there that’ll buy that shit even if they don’t need it.
Yeah that’s because it is a slippery slope. We didn’t get to this point just like that did we? It started out small, with companies slowly pushing things to see how far they could go. Turns out, gamers are largely a masochistic lot that just let it roll in. Ball started rolling and here we are.
In this case we’re seeing Capcom start out small by pushing an MTX to a specific series that seems small in comparison to other systems. Just because they could do P2W to RE doesn’t necessarily mean they can get away with it in DD2, difference audiences and other factors. Making it small in comparison also has the benefit of getting some people to react like you’re doing, rolling over and giving up because “Oh we’re already at the bottom.”
Yes, we already have P2W in some games. But I don’t think that necessarily means that were are absolute rock bottom. Companies still give treat franchises with some level of individuality. While they might do something with one series, like MTX with RE4, they might think twice about trying it with another series if it gets push-back. Especially if that series is a big deal for them. That’s why capcom doesn’t have P2W in all of their games.
There’s still a chance to keep bullshit out of stuff that hasn’t yet been coated in it. So yeah I think it’s pretty worth to make a point about it. It’s certainly better than giving up and going “Guys things are already bad therefore it’s stupid to try and change things for the better”. If you want to roll over then go for it. Just don’t try to bring other people down with that defeatist bullshit. Like what’s the point of your reply? To say that things are bad so we shouldn’t try to push people to do better?
You do not understand what you’re talking about. You very clearly do not understand what I said.
I’m done with this conversation.
Nice cop out. I think I’ll give it a 9/10.
I’ve elaborated. I’ve explicitly detailed how you’re wrong, and you turned around and literally said exactly what I said you would. “BuT iT iS a SlIpPeRy SlOpE”.
It isn’t. You just haven’t been paying attention.
You’re right, but I just wonder where it will end up. Everything has a beginning.
This is the exact same monetization that Devil May Cry 5 had in that it is practically non-existent. You can earn everything in game, you do not have to spend money.
I’m glad you’re not bothered by microtransactions. I personally don’t like them, and I never buy games with anything more then cosmetic microtramsactions. But we all have that line in the sand we won’t cross, this is one of mine.