I kind of doubt that. A lot of things like say, character skins, are done using the “leftover artist hours”, when the core programming of the game is done, but there’s a lot of tweaks and fixes going in - and the character artists are left with nothing to do. Having them make downloadable items is just another way to justify keeping those artists on the payroll.
The man-hours spent in MTX can’t necessarily easily be redirected to make more singleplayer content. Generally, if a game just doesn’t have enough content or doesn’t feel satisfying, that’s my direct criticism of it - that they didn’t do a good enough job, and it should show up in reviews too. I also generally don’t buy MTX at all, and have rarely felt I got “less than a whole entity”.
I know and understand the whole idea of maximizing artist hours for cosmetic DLC. It’s an understandable reason for it to exist.
However, the big thing about MTX to me is the way it changes my perception of the game and how it feels to interact with it. Playing games without in-game cash shops or MTX allows me to focus on the game itself and feel that what I’ve purchased is one cohesive piece that works in a singular purpose towards a goal of something enjoyable to play and rewarding to explore the content of.
Something like Prey 2016. My entire memory and experience of playing that game is absolutely nothing but the experience of the lore, atmosphere, gameplay, decisions, and the creativity of exploration. At no point was I ever passing over menu options designed to sell me more piecemeal content, I wasn’t wading through a reel of battle pass cosmetics, I wasn’t attempting to ignore little rectangular ads on the main menu asking me to check some skins out.
And again, I totally understand why those things are there and I’m not inherently against their existence, I enjoy many games where those experiences are a part. In the end, I just believe that being free of that stuff absolutely makes a game feel perceptibly better and more pure, more of a game and less of a transparently monetized product.
I also feel like there’s a sort of forbidden knowledge aspect to the whole “maximizing artist labor time for cosmetic MTX”. The best way for cosmetic MTX to happen is to utilize extra possible labor time that couldn’t be used elsewhere. I’d love to believe that any cosmetic MTX took no time or development from any other part of the game. I’d love to believe that no amazing visual design for armor or weapons was held because its more premium appearance would better fit a paid item than a free base game one.
But you’ll never know that for sure. There will always be that inkling of cynical doubt that the cool item got a price tag and the okay one ended up in the base game. That the visual artists are so burnt making constant art for base game and then MTX that their energy couldn’t be focused solely on the core experience. I can assume, I can take the company’s word for it, but I’ll never be able to cleanse my mind of the knowledge that it’s a separate kind of content from the base game.
In another thread, someone brought up how Paradox games, while they do have tons of DLC, only advertise it on the Steam store, not any ingame ads. Would that still allow for the same kind of within-game, immersive, undistracted experience? I should maybe point out that Prey 2016 did have DLC, both for preorder bonus weapons you receive when you get to Morgan’s office, and for its Mooncrash campaign. I think it’s very possible and likely to enjoy a game like that both before, and after, having learned such things existed.
Personally, yeah, I find it much less offensive if the extra purchases do not nag you in-game and their presence is not missed or noticed in terms of affecting balance.
For example, Middle Earth Shadow of War infamously let you buy Uruks. Having played the fuck out of that game I can confidently say the game was balanced such that you never needed to do that (apart from the end game grind, but the grind is the gameplay, so if you hit end game and didnt want to grind, you just didn’t wanna keep playing), but having it appear in the menus was jarring and the idea of buying an Uruk with real money juxtaposed next to the mechanical intent of obtaining Uruks through exploration, marking, stalking, and exploiting their weaknesses just stuck out like a cynical sore thumb.
If they put the Uruk purchases outside the game with no in-game ads and I played through Shadow of War and was like “man holy shit, my Uruks cannot keep up with the curve, this is insanely grindy” and I discovered that you could buy them and skip it, I’d say thats dastardly as well.
But the happy medium would be balancing it so it wasn’t necessary, but providing an external purchase to milk that revenue if they really still wanted to. That example is moot now anyway since they eventually removed the MTX Uruks entirely.
There’s still code work going in that’s not going to get any extra money but the art work has to get extra money? I think that’s worth talking about. Is (visual, audio, etc.) art less necessary? Should it be seen that way?
Of course, some companies sell patches (DLCs that fix long-standing bugs certainly exist). Maybe there’s a kind of equality to come, code-work and art-work both getting exploited equally hard and wrung for every last cent.
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I kind of doubt that. A lot of things like say, character skins, are done using the “leftover artist hours”, when the core programming of the game is done, but there’s a lot of tweaks and fixes going in - and the character artists are left with nothing to do. Having them make downloadable items is just another way to justify keeping those artists on the payroll.
The man-hours spent in MTX can’t necessarily easily be redirected to make more singleplayer content. Generally, if a game just doesn’t have enough content or doesn’t feel satisfying, that’s my direct criticism of it - that they didn’t do a good enough job, and it should show up in reviews too. I also generally don’t buy MTX at all, and have rarely felt I got “less than a whole entity”.
I know and understand the whole idea of maximizing artist hours for cosmetic DLC. It’s an understandable reason for it to exist.
However, the big thing about MTX to me is the way it changes my perception of the game and how it feels to interact with it. Playing games without in-game cash shops or MTX allows me to focus on the game itself and feel that what I’ve purchased is one cohesive piece that works in a singular purpose towards a goal of something enjoyable to play and rewarding to explore the content of.
Something like Prey 2016. My entire memory and experience of playing that game is absolutely nothing but the experience of the lore, atmosphere, gameplay, decisions, and the creativity of exploration. At no point was I ever passing over menu options designed to sell me more piecemeal content, I wasn’t wading through a reel of battle pass cosmetics, I wasn’t attempting to ignore little rectangular ads on the main menu asking me to check some skins out.
And again, I totally understand why those things are there and I’m not inherently against their existence, I enjoy many games where those experiences are a part. In the end, I just believe that being free of that stuff absolutely makes a game feel perceptibly better and more pure, more of a game and less of a transparently monetized product.
I also feel like there’s a sort of forbidden knowledge aspect to the whole “maximizing artist labor time for cosmetic MTX”. The best way for cosmetic MTX to happen is to utilize extra possible labor time that couldn’t be used elsewhere. I’d love to believe that any cosmetic MTX took no time or development from any other part of the game. I’d love to believe that no amazing visual design for armor or weapons was held because its more premium appearance would better fit a paid item than a free base game one.
But you’ll never know that for sure. There will always be that inkling of cynical doubt that the cool item got a price tag and the okay one ended up in the base game. That the visual artists are so burnt making constant art for base game and then MTX that their energy couldn’t be focused solely on the core experience. I can assume, I can take the company’s word for it, but I’ll never be able to cleanse my mind of the knowledge that it’s a separate kind of content from the base game.
In another thread, someone brought up how Paradox games, while they do have tons of DLC, only advertise it on the Steam store, not any ingame ads. Would that still allow for the same kind of within-game, immersive, undistracted experience? I should maybe point out that Prey 2016 did have DLC, both for preorder bonus weapons you receive when you get to Morgan’s office, and for its Mooncrash campaign. I think it’s very possible and likely to enjoy a game like that both before, and after, having learned such things existed.
Personally, yeah, I find it much less offensive if the extra purchases do not nag you in-game and their presence is not missed or noticed in terms of affecting balance.
For example, Middle Earth Shadow of War infamously let you buy Uruks. Having played the fuck out of that game I can confidently say the game was balanced such that you never needed to do that (apart from the end game grind, but the grind is the gameplay, so if you hit end game and didnt want to grind, you just didn’t wanna keep playing), but having it appear in the menus was jarring and the idea of buying an Uruk with real money juxtaposed next to the mechanical intent of obtaining Uruks through exploration, marking, stalking, and exploiting their weaknesses just stuck out like a cynical sore thumb.
If they put the Uruk purchases outside the game with no in-game ads and I played through Shadow of War and was like “man holy shit, my Uruks cannot keep up with the curve, this is insanely grindy” and I discovered that you could buy them and skip it, I’d say thats dastardly as well.
But the happy medium would be balancing it so it wasn’t necessary, but providing an external purchase to milk that revenue if they really still wanted to. That example is moot now anyway since they eventually removed the MTX Uruks entirely.
There’s still code work going in that’s not going to get any extra money but the art work has to get extra money? I think that’s worth talking about. Is (visual, audio, etc.) art less necessary? Should it be seen that way?
Of course, some companies sell patches (DLCs that fix long-standing bugs certainly exist). Maybe there’s a kind of equality to come, code-work and art-work both getting exploited equally hard and wrung for every last cent.