HereForTheBeer: Someone has to program in these features, and presumably a lot of those programmers are gamers. I wonder hif any of them get a little sick to their stomach while writing the necessary code?
If the game allows for local saves instead of mandatory cloud saves, maybe save-scumming is possible in order to manually get multiple save slots? From a review I read it seems like these extra slots are to allow for different characters without overwriting the previous character, and not for multiple save slots for a single playthrough. I can't imagine that save-scumming in this case would be a big burden, unless you're a player who switches back and forth frequently among your different characters.
The pricing of this thing, too. $10 for 3 extra character slots? Yikes! Are they really saying that this is worth 1/4 of the price of the entire $40 game?
Stefan Molyneux actually interviewed one such guy. And, yeah, he said he felt absolutely terrible as a game dev for what he's been told to do, which is why he went on Stefan's show.
ApexProcyon: It's insane that people are willing to pay for and support these practises. Since it's becoming more and more common, people must really enjoy paying multiple times for their rented product.
Breja: That's the real problem here. I'm not even mad at the publishers. I remember seeing some study recently that showed only something like 6% of gamers are opposed to microtransactions and don't partake in them at all. At this point it's hard to expect publishers not to milk gamers for all they can - apparently the majority is practically begging for it.
What kills me is that even Kanye West of all people even had common sense about this.
timppu: I don't understand this kind of black and white thinking. While there probably will be more and more "online games with microtransactions", I don't see them completely replacing all single-player games.
StingingVelvet: Well the part in parenthesis there is to indicate I'm talking about big budget games from major companies. There's just way too much added revenue in online games to ignore, even if the online component isn't really the focus. Companies are all about return on investment, especially when game budgets keep skyrocketing, so I don't see a future where it doesn't become more and more common. Even our beloved CD Projekt have indicated Cyberpunk will have some kind of online mode.
Bethesda are the one large company still making a ton of offline only games right now, but they were rewarded with disappointing sales for titles like Dishonored 2 and Prey, sadly. How long will they hold out? Who knows.
Luckily I see no end to the indie and small team games we currently receive, and hopefully those will expand into new genres and styles. I love the Baldur's Gate style games, but man could I go for an indie Deus Ex or Morrowind.
Bad news: Elder Scrolls Online. Yep, they're in on it, too. A buddy of mine plays on the euro servers, and he has informed me that someone he knows spent a large sum of money on lootboxes.