Microtransactions, Or, Class in Games

I'm going to go ahead and take a break from endless spreadsheet manipulation and have a quick rant. Of late, there's a trend in online gaming where 'Micro-transactions' are available to players. You can run around, level up, and kick ass normally, but you can also pay money to get special privileges.

One example of this that I've experienced was a little game you may have heard of, CafeWorld. Zynga has been rocking this model for a while. CafeWorld is basically a stripped-down The Sims, with one location, your restaurant. Microtransactions were pretty arbitrary in that game; either keep playing and unlock shit, or quickly spend a buck or two and get, say, a tiger chair and the leg lamp from A Christmas Story. This type of microtransaction doesn't really make me feel any way, because the game is shallow anyways, the progression pretty arbitrary, and the micros have basically no true effect on the game.

A very different example, however, is Dungeons and Dragons Online. This is a hard-core RPG. I'm not going to explain what that means. The micros in that game are really frustrating. Some races must be purchased with scrilla. Or in WoW, we recently saw the star-horse (highlighted-vertex shitty 3D model).

I'm not against game companies making money. However, game companies need to realize that a huge portion of their player-base is going to be broke as fuck. When I play a game where I am restricted in what I do, not because I have not become wealthy and successful in the realm of the gameworld, but because I am not wealthy and successful in the real world, that's when I have a problem. Nobody likes to feel excluded, but in D&DO, I felt second-class. Games are an escape from our shitty, meaningless lives. When I get off work, I go home and play, say, Red Dead. I can leave the fact that I work 40 hours a week and still drive a piece of shit behind me. I can blast any number of fools, irregardless of if I'm homeless or a millionaire.

What micros seem to be doing, inadvertent as it may be, is creating a segregated play environment. Those whose parents will pour money into meaningless things for their children will outgrow the legitimately hard-working players who do not have money to throw at a 'free' game. This dynamic is totally against what gaming is about. A game should be a self-contained world. (Unless you can time-travel to the future, say World of Starcraft, with your Orc Hunter. That would be the shit) Games allow a freedom that broke-ass people cannot afford in reality. Who has the money to spend $10 on a class they can't even try before they buy? People who could be doing fun shit in real life. These people already have money to go see a movie, or go bowling, or roller-coastering. Or hunting, or tailoring. They can afford that in real life. I'm generalizing to a ridiculous extent right now, but bear with me.

Seeing someone with 90 real-dollars of gear is frustrating to broke people(read: broke me) because it shatters what success they've earned in the game. It tells me 'no matter how well you do, you are still too broke to win this game.' I don't have a point or a solution to anything I'm bitching about right now. But there's gotta be a better way. Or those games should die. I dunno. I guess if you want to you can play it, and if I don't want to I don't have to. It just troubles me that many game developers are spending so much time on an inherently segregationist endeavor.

Gaming has it's roots in being fucking broke. People used to make these things(and the things they run on) in garages. In their spare time. I guess micros are just a sign of the times. Big studios, Big Game mentalities with Big Game marketing. I guess my conclusion is this: If you are an indie developer, you are a) a better man than I, and b) pivotal to the survival of the soul of games. Let the big guys continue to fuck around with different schemes of extortion. On the lowest level, we have to keep alive the culture of an alternate reality. One where you are what you choose. A self-contained experience, with the potential to be a completely separate from your real-life persona.

Development Update - Arctic

Been working super-hard on the game over the weekend, subtly transitioning to week. I've figured out exactly how the player can change the state of each district. One can do a quest to get it into any state, each quest is different depending on what state, district you're going for. Also, at around level 50 players will be able to 'lock' a state. Basically, if you are going for one state for a district, you can make it extra-that-state by (usually) summoning a god-like creature. But the lock isn't forever, around level 70 you'll be able to unlock it by killing the god-like.

When people hear '8-week game challenge,' I'm sure they don't think of a great experience. Maybe a quick, poorly animated platformer, maybe a half-assed puzzle game. This is why I'm keeping the locks and unlocks so high up in the chain. Just trying out the game should reward the player. With games like this, you have to approach things much differently than a game the player has paid for. They don't want to have 'wasted' their money, so they will always give a game the benefit of the doubt for at least an hour, usually around 2 or 3. I'm just basing these statistics off of bullshit at this point, but it's what seems to be the case. However, with a free game, downloaded, the 'this is broken, this is a waste of time' factor comes in very quickly. For me, as a kid, I would close down shit if it wasn't looking fun or open in the first 3 minutes.

So I have to present the core aspects of the game right away. Hopefully the player will feel compelled enough by the novelty of each district having different inhabitants long enough to level up. Then hopefully they'll see a gate with the level 5 seal. 'Oh, that's not too far off.' So they level up to 5, open the gate, new areas, new '10' seal. The basic setting-shifting quests are around levels 10-30, so if I've got them hooked until the level 5-10 area, I think they'll play until they can change the settings.

This also sets up a nice reward system for the players. You'll constantly have more of an effect on the world. There won't be many 'wasted' levels, because killing the gods you've summoned should still be pretty tough for a level 80, and levels 90-100 should feel like you're a god yourself (Morrowind factor). The goal is to immediately, slightly, top the player's expectations. Just to get that 30-minute to an hour chance they'd give a product they purchased with their potential food money. Then keep expanding the world that they have, and allow them to sort of craft their own entire world through their actions. The more they reward me by playing the game, the more I'll reward them by giving them more influence over the world I've created. It'll slowly become their world.

So, that first 5 minutes is key.

I've managed to come up with half(100) of the scene-shifting quests so far, and planned all the races who will give them to you. Also decided what half of the god-likes are. The god-like quests are really fun to plan. I'll post an example of a district's potential story-flows sometime soon. I started to explain one in this post, but it's getting pretty long now.

8-Week Game Challenge: 'Serene, Simple, Sinister'

Yesterday, I discovered some interesting news. Apparently Enterbrain released an engine called IG Maker, apparently it happened a year ago, and apparently it lets you do Action-RPG setups. While I'm skeptical about the product (it seems too good to be true), it has caused me to put a hold on designing my crazy first chapter of my fantasy world game. (Knight from said game pictured left) No point in planning mechanics if there's a huge chance that, once I get my kickass Windows box back, the gameplay will change.



So, in the meantime, I've decided to challenge myself to an 8-week game. Plan it all, get it all together, and release it, in under 2 months' time. I was reminiscing a week ago about this one RPG Maker game I created while rooming with some old buddies. It was hardly a game at all, just basic template battles and stolen graphics, but as the game expanded, I had them try it. To my surprise, there was a good 30 minutes of entertainment to be had from it, and they legitimately enjoyed it.

I'd like to see what the full effect of having my friends play a completed game, so that's what I'm going to do.

Right now, it's a pretty simple concept. There's a 4x4 'block' map world, each block is, say, 40x40 tiles.(Not sure that'll be the actual size) Each of these blocks can be in a state of serenity (fairy-tale-ish shit), simplicity (simple mythology) or sinister… ousity?(just creepy fable stuffs). You complete quests for representatives of each feel to get the block to change to that type, and once you get the whole world as one type, you beat the game. My other idea for the game is to reward people who keep playing once they beat it; one should be able to complete the game by level 35 or so, but there should be new exciting things to do up till level 100 if someone wants to play the game that long.

We shall see how Serene, Simple, Sinister turns out. For now, I'm getting back to planning, as I have no clue if this is possible in 8 weeks! :)