UnrealDelusion: You have a right to see it as you want I'm not here to convince you otherwise :) For me personally DLC was the first drop in the bucket which is about to burst seeing where we are today with all those major publishers,

Breja: Obviously gaming can't go back entirely to the pre-online, pre-digital stores days, not even DRM-free games. I was thinking more that people need to learn to remember they are spending real money even when they don't take it out of their real-life wallet. Especially young people. My friends kid brother recently spent a shitload of money on World of Tanks, basically because why not?

pmcollectorboy: What band of sheep got together and gave this abomination "mostly positive" on Steam?

deja65: I remember a time when developers said that the current hardware at that time was holding them back from making bigger and more immersive games.Fast forward to 2018 and we have games that ask us to buy save slots..... Lucky for us that we can still enjoy the games from the earlier generations as right now the gaming industry is trying as hard as they can to alienate as many gamers as they can.Cheers

Breja: https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/23/17042242/metal-gear-survive-sv-coins-boosts-character-save-slots-micotransactions-konami

The current state of gaming does not cease to amaze me. Really, shit like that makes me glad my stance on DRM and Steam and now also my aging PC mostly cut me off from major publishers and AAA games. Hell, I'm close to giving up on buying from GOG too :P

Sometimes I feel like I should seriously look into new choose your own adventure books and solitare board games. I know to some this probably sounds like becoming a totaly pathetic no-life nerd, but come on. A choose your own adventure book at least doesn't charge me extra for using a bookmark to save my progress :P

StingingVelvet: Eh... I mean some DLC definitely sucks, but some games do too. If it's tied in with BS like this it's only because both got more and more common as high speed internet took over. That's just my opinion though, I know some hate DLC with a passion. Even with the really crappy DLCs and such I blame consumers for buying more than I blame companies for trying. That's capitalism, baby.

mintee: they do it because players will buy it and all the other MTs they offer. there is a whole generation out there that has grown up with micro trans and think of it as normal, expected, and a way to show their elitism. they have been conditioned into it in order to play the latest games. you can also include intrusive data mining and loss of privacy, they really DONT CARE and willingly give up every detail of their online profile for crappy apps

its normal to them. us old timers just have to let it go. the only thing that will curtail MTs is if the corporations dont make money on them, which wont happen. there is some light in the tunnel with increased govt interest in limiting and defining online gambling loot boxes in games at least and other addictive abuse marketing techniques games are employing.

CARRiON-XCII: Just as I suspected, people are not buying this piece of shit "MGS" game. These micro-transactions are just the final nail in an already rotting coffin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pitnYnWUvJU

This game was destined to fail since day one, and Konami doesn't give a flying fuck about it. It's my hope they crash and burn hard and are forced to one day sell their valuable and legendary IPs. It's so damn frustrating to watch some of these giants literally sitting on gold and not doing a damn thing with them.

Ryan333: Just to keep things real here – the title of this post is a bit misleading. You can save as much as you want, but you can only create one character by default. If you want to completely start over from the beginning with a completely independent character that does not share any progress with your previous character, then you need to purchase the “Additional Slot: Avatar”. And no, I don’t think that’s “splitting hairs”. I certainly don’t agree with this tactic, but at the same time I don’t think we need to add any more sensationalism than needed. A more appropriate title for the post might be: “Wanna replay your game? Pay up!” Yes, that’s still a dick move, but it’s not quite as dicky of a dick move as the post title suggests.

I suspect Konami’s (misguided) rationale here is that the typical player will want to focus on a single character. Presumably, the game is being designed in such a way to discourage alternate characters. Thus, the assumption is that the only time a player would reasonably want to create an alternate character would be if a roommate, sibling, friend, etc. also wants to play the game. And the assumption is that the “Additional Slot: Avatar” will allow another person to “share” your game… for $10. Because, “why would a rational person ever want to play through the game with multiple characters when they can just replay missions on their original character to gain more benefits/achievements/etc.?”… or something like that. Again, I don’t agree with the logic – and I can come up with lots of counters to it – but that seems to be what Komani is thinking, as misguided as it may be.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like this tactic at all. But I think it’s a big enough dick move that there’s no need to misrepresent it. It’s not “you have to pay to save your game.” But still… “you have to pay to restart the game” is bad enough that it will generate enough negative hype on its own. (At least I hope it will. And if it doesn’t, then I weep for the future of gaming.)

rjbuffchix: The push towards F2P models, let alone towards "games as a ~SERVICE~" continues to repulse me. Thankfully on GOG we can avoid this type of anti-consumer garbage. I will say that my big fear here is if Galaxy will someday not be optional..."wanna play your game? Client up!".

I fear that across these examples I just mentioned (F2P microtransactions, games as a service, clients/launchers to play), the vast majority of people seem to go along with whatever the practice is, even when it is objectively worse off for the consumer. In doing so, the better, more consumer-friendly alternatives seem to disappear remarkably fast.

For instance, there was certainly no putting the DLC genie back in its bottle! Look at how when Bethesda released Horse Armor, it was "off to the races"! At least some companies do still release real, meaty expansion packs and not just cosmetic tweaks.