Take-Two plans to only release games with 'recurrent consumer spending' hooks - Gamasutra

[Spudsie74]

It reads like a CEO looking at Civ 5's steam charts numbers and saying "There are 40,000 people still playing Civ 5 years after they paid us for it, how can we keep making money of them?"

Unfortunately, that is just what a good CEO would say. A great CEO might consider something other than short term profit, but that is a rare find. Anyone with that much basic common sense should not be running a corporation.

PS: I hope they do not take the part about charging per Civ too seriously....seriously, I imagine that would like being able to by an extra unit with real money (or bitcoins?). Or get decor' features (a custom palace?). Other than strictly cosmetic changes, I can't think of a way to implement that with Civilization...it seems to be more of an MMO thing. I hope.

 

[shaglio]

Maybe full-fledged DLC civs might be too big to be considered micro-transactions, but perhaps new Leaders for existing civs might be small enough. So Cyrus of Persia would be a DLC, but they could have micro-transactions for Xerxes and Darius if you already bought Persia.

 

[Gorbles]

I brought it up because, like I said, Take Two owns Friaxis. The CEO wants all new game under his company (which would include Friaxis) to have some kind of microtransaction in all games from his company (which again would include Friaxis) so I am bring this article up to discuss what that would mean for Civilization. The theoretical Civ7 I brought up is just a way to frame that declaration into a series people might not think about when it comes to microtransactions, not to "scaremonger".

They did not say microtransactions, and even ruled out forms that this content could possibly take. Civilisation has DLC. It has everything from races and leaders to fully-fledged expansions. Try not to read things that aren't there, because otherwise it's a bottomless pit of "well maybe they meant this".

If you want an honest conversation about digital content in Civilisation, you need to a) recognise that what I'm saying may possibly be true (not saying it necessarily will be so) and b) you need to be aware of what the franchise already offers and how that meshes with the phrases used in the quote(s).

 

[Kwami]

Unfortunately, that is just what a good CEO would say. A great CEO might consider something other than short term profit, but that is a rare find. Anyone with that much basic common sense should not be running a corporation.

PS: I hope they do not take the part about charging per Civ too seriously....seriously, I imagine that would like being able to by an extra unit with real money (or bitcoins?). Or get decor' features (a custom palace?). Other than strictly cosmetic changes, I can't think of a way to implement that with Civilization...it seems to be more of an MMO thing. I hope.

I don't know. The percentage of players that buy DLC is already pretty low for most games. An even smaller DLC that requires some other DLC probably wouldn't sell very well. I guess if it's cheap enough to produce, then it might still be profitable, but I'm skeptical. The art assets for a new leader are quite significant.

 

[trev1972]

I think it would be less successful to introduce micro transactions succesfully because it is primarily a single player game

The reason people pay in mmo's etc is that it gives them an advantage over humans?. I also seem to remember reading it is the bears (big spenders) that make the real cash? could be out of date it was years ago i read about how much some people spend in league of legends

 

[darkace77450]

Nah, lootboxes are the money machines of choice at the moment, so if anything I'd be worried about the fact that it probably wouldn't be particularly difficult to insert some kind of level-based progression system into Civ without changing the basic fundamentals of the game.

When they first announced the Policy Card system for Civ6 lootboxes was the first thing I thought of.

 

[King William I]

Civ isn't a game that works with microtransactions. They'd have to change the theoretical civ7 to the point that no one would buy the base game, thus rendering the point moot

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Civ isn't a game that works with microtransactions. They'd have to change the theoretical civ7 to the point that no one would buy the base game, thus rendering the point moot

Truth. I don't buy games that are microtransaction based.
If it's free to start, I'll take a look at it, but I ain't buying all the little crap.
(I'm looking at you Blizzard and now Bethesda CC)

 

[Janskey]

I like the CD Projekt RED approach better:
"We have one very simple rule at the company and as long as I'm there I'll make sure that we check all the key decisions by this rule...
Can we explain why we have taken such decision in front of a room full of gamers."
(around 1:56:20 in

)

Switch gamers with parasites and you've got the Take-Two approach.

 

[Japper007]

These statements seem more like the sort of vague promises CEOs make to keep the shareholders happy. As in: "we are looking into X moneymaking scheme".
Trust me, if this guy had a concrete idea of a civ+microtransactions thing, he'd be shouting it from the rooftops, not making some vague allusions.

 

[Spudsie74]

CEO's are, by nature, adept at issuing vague promises to keep shareholders happy.It's in their job description.

 

[Kimurae]

I think by the time Civ VII is released (if it is), something else will have disrupted the game industry.

The CEO was just re-iterating what publishers/developers have wanted since AAA games became expensive to make: longer monetization. We've had physical expansions, engine reuse, engine licensing, subscriptions, micro-transactions, loot boxes, DLC, and possible other schemes. I don't entirely blame them, but at the end of the day; the only schemes that will work long-term are ones that bring value to players. (Note how every time EA has tried to really screw people over, it backfired. The only shame is people haven't wised up and just boycott them)

 

[Drakul]

Take-Two will ruin the Civ franchise with their greed. Civ 6 is a mess and the game is more then 13 months old....in 13 months they made only few DLCs that could have been made in about 5 months.They promised a Civ 5 64 bit version almost 7 years ago and they still didn´t developed it. The future will bring new 4X games and Civ might end up as Nokia because of bad CEO and greed.

 

[Zaarin]

Take-Two will ruin the Civ franchise with their greed. Civ 6 is a mess and the game is more then 13 months old....in 13 months they made only few DLCs that could have been made in about 5 months.They promised a Civ 5 64 bit version almost 7 years ago and they still didn´t developed it. The future will bring new 4X games and Civ might end up as Nokia because of bad CEO and greed.

There are many great 4X games out there, but I'm not aware of any TBS games that fill Civ's niche. The majority of TBS 4X games are set in space, like Endless Space or Galactic Civilization. Most of the remainder are fantasy, like Endless Legends or Fallen Enchantress. I'm not familiar with any historically-inspired (I think Civ plays a little too loose with history to call it "historically-based") TBS 4X games like Civ; NB that Paradox's games are real-time and more accurately termed grand strategy than 4X. I respect their skills as developers, but I never could get into Crusader Kings II. Not that some healthy competition wouldn't do the Civ franchise some good.

 

[member66170]

The main difference between Paradox and Firaxis isn't the turn-based/real-time approach. That's pretty much a non starter in a SP game where you can speed up or down arbitrarily and can issue orders when paused. Its pretty much impossible to be overwhelmed on time management in EU4 or CK2.

The big differences is in their approach to history: Paradox recreates it and asks "what if" while Civilization just uses it as an inspiration. On that level, Civilization makes tons of abstractions and has relatively few variables to play with (half a dozen types of yields, a few resources, GPP points, 1 number that quantifies relations with each other civ, and so on...). These all interact strongly with each other, and players complain when they dont interact enough (eg, Tourism). EU4 and CK2 have endless variables which all do one particular thing. The game is a giant spreadsheet and buckets to fill up. Units don't have one value for strength, they have 7 IIRC. Every patch/expansion pack they publish adds a huge number of extra counters to keep track of.

I wouldn't say either of these approaches is better or worse, but they give very different games. In Civilization I'm deciding on grand strategy. In EU4 I'm doing essentially management. Both are fun, but Civ feels more epic while EU4 feels more roleplaying (as a head of state).

 

[Disgustipated]

I can't see myself doing continuous payments. Especially if it's just cosmetic changes. I would be seriously t'd off if they charged to play civilizations, or kept certain governments or policies from reach unless you paid.

I would be okay if they had silly stuff like paying money to get your unit healed to full health. It's cheating in a way, but some people would pay for that. I never would. But I'd be okay with them making revenue off of stupid people. Isn't this how most mobile games are? I don't play mobile games, so I can't say for sure. I think a lot of games are moving to a system where you pay money to be overpowered. For me, it's easy to resist that kind of temptation.

What I fear is all games will head to a future where you have to pay X dollars a month to play in addition to the base cost, even single player games. This is a danger of having games on an online platform like Steam. Who will be the first company to attempt this? Sounds crazy like it won't work, but if everybody did it, we'd have no choice but to play if we want to fire up a game.

 

[Zaarin]

What I fear is all games will head to a future where you have to pay X dollars a month to play in addition to the base cost, even single player games. This is a danger of having games on an online platform like Steam. Who will be the first company to attempt this? Sounds crazy like it won't work, but if everybody did it, we'd have no choice but to play if we want to fire up a game.

I don't think it will happen soon: the fiasco of the last "always online" SimCity game is still fresh in peoples' memory. I for one keep my gaming computer offline except when I update Steam/Origin/other things a couple times a month, and I would consequently never buy a game that was online-only (and more than one game I've been interested in has lost me for that reason, Absolver for one). I know people like me are the minority, but I think we still make up enough of the market to make developers think twice for now.

 

[Kwami]

I don't think it will happen soon: the fiasco of the last "always online" SimCity game is still fresh in peoples' memory. I for one keep my gaming computer offline except when I update Steam/Origin/other things a couple times a month, and I would consequently never buy a game that was online-only (and more than one game I've been interested in has lost me for that reason, Absolver for one). I know people like me are the minority, but I think we still make up enough of the market to make developers think twice for now.

SimCity generated a lot of bad press with the always online requirement, but they did eventually patch it out. On the other hand, Diablo 3 still requires a connection to play. Seems like most people, sadly, don't care about that kind of thing.

 

[God of Kings]

I may be a Nintendo apologist, but even Nintendo of all companies succumbed to this!

Super Mario Run requires always online access to play.

Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros for the Wii U and 3DS, and Breath of the Wild have paid DLC (the Switch version of Mario Kart 8 comes with all free (read: Mercedez-Benz product placement) and paid DLC). Same with Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

Pokémon Go has micro-transactions, as well as Fire Emblem Heroes. Same with Team Kirby Clash Deluxe (despite being a 3DS exclusive).

Don't forget the amiibo! These are physical figurines sold by Nintendo depicting a Nintendo character (or occasionally, a third-party character who appeared in Smash Bros for the Wii U and 3DS). For some games, amiibo are essentially an "I win" or "bypass much of the game's content" feature.

At least Take-Two will not do physical figurines yet. I don't want to imagine the following:

Buy this Gandhi figurine and unlock the ability to use nukes during the ancient era!

 

[God of Kings]

Thanks, EA and Ubisoft. Your obsession with microtransactions is now ruining the entire industry--except Bethesda, which is too busy repackaging the same mediocre game six times over and exploiting fan creations to get into the microtransaction market. This is why I'm overwhelmingly an indie gamer...

Same. Even the same mediocre game you mentioned was ported to the Nintendo Switch, of all platforms, six years after initial release! Inserting the ability to use Zelda amiibo will not improve the game.

I don't think it will happen soon: the fiasco of the last "always online" SimCity game is still fresh in peoples' memory. I for one keep my gaming computer offline except when I update Steam/Origin/other things a couple times a month, and I would consequently never buy a game that was online-only (and more than one game I've been interested in has lost me for that reason, Absolver for one). I know people like me are the minority, but I think we still make up enough of the market to make developers think twice for now.

I'm with you. I'm very strongly opposed to making single-player games online-only. Online features should be optional, not mandatory.