Ah! Been waiting for a while to see if I could get DA2 at a discount (since I want to play the games in order despite this entry's lukewarm reviews), and get started on the ME series! This one's definitely a BTA for me. =D

You earn in-game coins that unlocks new costumes, at a pretty good rate, too. I think you have the option of using real money to buy coin packs or some such, but it's non-intrusive enough that it never bothered me.

Kind of, you earn some coins to buy sticker packs, those packs have different stuff like cosmetic parts, plants or zombie minions to defend/attack and body/full characters to use (changes the gameplay since it gives new abilities).
So it depends, it will be grindy to get enough coins for those packs but it's doable, i lost my patience and deleted the game after 20h +-...

In unrelated news, fatalities in the new Mortal Kombat are now an IAP...

Welcome to modern gaming. Wonder where are those people who said that casual players and f2p wouldn't screw up gaming in general...

To be fair, from what I read, "Easy Fatalities" (a mode to make, well, fatalities easier to execute) are now an IAP and also can be unblocked in game.

I know Origin is a PITA, but the BTA was WAY too good to pass up, I bought a couple (GAs coming soon)... plus the BTA table top as well..

Guess I'm feeling flush with my very small tax refund. LOL.

Fair? Those micro transactions used to be cheats, free optional decision from the player to use them or not... And the problem is how the game economy works, i gave up playing pvz gw because of that, wasting the coins on random sticker packs was awful because sometimes you didn't get what you wanted and you had to play 4-6 matches again to regain enough coins for another pack.

The problem is that they end up fucking the game balance so that it's hard to get the stuff that you want, it's no longer a case of people not having time to play the game, it's the devs rising the game difficulty so that the gamer feels tempted to buy a small boost pack for a small fee. There's a rumors that they lowered the amount of coins that you get on mk10 with a patch, if true some can argue that it's to balance the game (so that you don't unlock everything in a week) but considering that there's micro transactions, uhm... I wonder...

70€ for the game, 30€ for the season pass and micro transactions... Sigh...

Exactly right, whatever happened to cheats in games. They were a big part of the fun I had with games in the past but nowadays all this kind of stuff is hidden behind micro transactions. Say what you will about the layers of DRM in Rockstar games but they are the only ones that still seem to care about having fun cheats in their games and GTA V is great value for a consumer's $60 bucks.

Most of the games these days end up costing almost double i.e. around $120 bucks if you want to get all the content hidden behind pay walls like the Day 1 Goro character DLC crap that Netherrealms pulled with MK X which is an even more terrible practice then the micro transactions which atleast can be circumvented.

Thanks, I think I'd be inclined to avoid it then, certainly not something I would want to gift.

I said "to be fair" because the original post didn't portray it very well, not because I necessarily think this is a good model of business. Paying to unblock cheats (that can be unblocked in-game anyway) is a bit different than paying to use an actual feature of the game, and this seems to be the former rather than the latter.
About season passes, it varies. Sometimes they end up costing (and being equivalent to) about the same that expansions would, other times they are grossly overpriced, hardly ever go on sale and so on...

I know what you meant and it wasn't particulary directed at you but more of a global thing, nowadays is just normal to dismiss this type of situation because "you can unlock it in your game" and while that is true and that the "paid cheats" is optional, the problem is that it opens the doors for more nickel and dime from publishers.

They just don't know when or where to stop, they don't understand how games like LoL, Dota 2, TF2, etc, have high profits, it's free games with microtransactions (and the essential stuff can be obtain with in game money and the cosmetic is paid), Evolve has the gameplay model for f2p game (as in multiplayer only with planned hunters/monsters dlc) but they want the 70€ for the game AND more money for the dlc, you can't have both, just pick one...

People still laugh at the idea of paid bullets for *insert shooter title* but considering what has been happening in the last years i wonder if they will still laugh in the next 5~10 years...

Less characters in fighting games;
Less mod support (none for the big titles);
No more cheats (now microtransactions);
No more free maps;
Japanese companies shifting from home consoles to mobile devices (f2p);
etc.

/end of rant

Edit: And sorry for the offtopic, back to predicting bundles and gaming deals.

oh man, I wish that was $1.25 :(

THanks mate. I've had both on my wishlisht for a while now. I was hoping the Gamer's Gate one would go on sale before the Shiny Loot version. But $1.25 is incredibly hard to resist. must resist.

It's such a good other game. Its not really AAA, but it is so much better than the average budget title. Would possibly be second only to "Second Sight" as my favorite of these type of games from the X-Box era.

Words cannot express just how "meh" I am about Humble's new Origin bundle.
Thank GOG there's actually a sale on I like, am interested in and am tempted by. (Although I haven't actually bought anything yet...)

We are so opposite my friend. The only reason I will not buy this bundle is because I have already bought almost every game offered previously. I do not regret paying those higher prices for these titles. Some stellar content here worth far more than the current BTA.

Different strokes, eh?