Pay real cash for power-ups in PS3 shooters?

[Thunder Force]

Now I know that Sony have had pay-for-weapons features in their online rpgs like Everquest for quite a while. But billing shooter fans credit cards for an "Expanded Salvo" in Warhawk seems a bit unreasonable.

What next, pay per multiple in Gradius VI?

Of course, Sony have not yet confirmed pricing, it might possibly be a free product in the store. But I have a bad feeling about this...

[FatCobra]

"Wanna go out for pizza tonight?"

"I can't, I'm saving up for a copper sword in my game."

Bonus points if you can guess what game I'm referencing.

[Arznei]

Worst concept in the history of concepts.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

It isn't a bad concept if there are morons who would pay .

[The Coop]

It isn't a bad concept if there are morons who would pay .

Pretty much. Lots of people got real cash for fake gold and weapons with games like Diablo II and Everquest.

[VNAF Ace]

Oh hell naw! WTF is Sony smoking!? First they decide to charge $600 for a PS3, and now this!?

[Fenrir]

Haha, well, the world of videogames is finally going berserk and I'll sit and watch it turning more and more depraved. It seems like this pay-per-play-better is going to be a leit-motif if those first attempts turn out to be successful. This could probably be the dawn of a new era.
Anyways, paying $10 for an uber-sword or for 1000g in a game isn't all that different from paying $7 to go to the cinema or get any other leisure thing, from a packet of chips to a... heck, an under defeat poster for your bedroom. Every "leisure" thing is the same and has the same value when investing money - you buy useless things that make you happy.
It's just us old timer videogamers that frown or are shocked by this new turn of events, but really, it isn't all that bad. You will probably fight this way of thinking and will howl and shriek and stomp your feet on the ground with disgusted faces but well, when things change it's always like that - there's always a bunch of old conservative geezers who "liked it better like it was before".
My inner me is always thinking that games should remain as pure and pristine as they were in the late 80s, but the outer me is just thinking that we can't stop evolution and things will change sooner or later. It's like cinema, really. You pay $8 or 10 or I don't know how much it is in the US to be amused for 2 hours and bask in the sweet memories afterwards, and in WoW you pay $10 to buy 1000 gold, spare 10 days of automated, somewhat boring farming and get the bigass armour/sword earlier and be happy about that, have fun and bask in the sweet memories afterwards. It's just a convention that "paying for stuff in videogames is nerdy and has to be pointed against and laughed upon". Like in every conceptual field of this world, elitists (like videogame purists) are friggin' biased.

BUT!! The important thing is that you don't NEED the stuff you buy to beat the game. If they force you to buy stuff or the game you bought turns useless, well then it's just criminal and I would get very very verrrry angry (unless it gets specified on the box, that is )

[99pence]

No way!!!


Hilarious.

[zinger]

What next, pay per multiple in Gradius VI?

Or per million pts in DDP4.

[matt]

Supply and demand - if it's a dumb idea, nobody will pay for it and Sony will stop.

Isn't this kind of like in the arcade where you can buy extra lives with money?

[99pence]

Isn't this kind of like in the arcade where you can buy extra lives with money?

It would be if you actually owned the arcade machine and some fella came round and took the money out of it.

[tiktak]

wtf is this topic and posts above? Everyone pays for new fancy clothes for horses in oblivion with REAL CASH and in MMORPGs this is well known and even liked for years... no one bothers. Amazing how stupid fanboys whine here. I really hoped this place is more inteligent

[Stormwatch]

and in WoW you pay $10 to buy 1000 gold, spare 10 days of automated, somewhat boring farming and get the bigass armour/sword earlier and be happy about that

I haven't played WoW, but doesn't that imply that THE GAME IS A CHORE?!

Comparison: I can still play Propeller Arena again and again (well, if my fuckin' Dreamcast wasn't broken), even though I already have unlocked almost all the unlockables. Why? Because it's so damn FUN! The moment it becomes a chore, I'll stop playing it.

[Fenrir]

and in WoW you pay $10 to buy 1000 gold, spare 10 days of automated, somewhat boring farming and get the bigass armour/sword earlier and be happy about that

I haven't played WoW, but doesn't that imply that THE GAME IS A CHORE?!

Comparison: I can still play Propeller Arena again and again, even though I already have unlocked all the secrets (except one, I think). Why? Because it's so damn FUN! The moment it becomes a chore, I'll stop playing it.

Not necessarily. Some people (like me, for example) enjoy hunting for gold. You earn some XP, enjoy the scenery, refine your fighting skills, make friends with a couple of pass-byers, feel the thrill of a horde coming in and fight him, occasionally pick herbs, skin monsters, find that 1 on 1000 rare drop and earn a couple of bucks in the auction house - all while gold farming. In two words, it's fun.
Gold farming on WoW is not indispensable, like some people seem to think. You can live with the armours/weapons you find on epic quests perfectly and be a major pain in the arse even for high-end characters with nuclear weapons and colossal armours if you're skilled enough and play well. Some people want to be like that skipping all the process of gold hunting (which is rewarding, in a way) - if they want to take the easy line, they have to pay. Nothing wrong with both methods, of course.
It's much of a chore like it's a chore playing through the same 3 levels of a SHMUP hundreds of times with ease just to get to that fourth level you just can't beat. Some people enjoy that. Some people (weird people I might add ) would eagerly pay a buck or two to have the chance to start from the 4th level for a hundred times or so

[VNAF Ace]

Now that I've calmed down... I would be fine with it as long as we could still earn stuff the old-fashioned way (by playing the game).

[stuffmonger]

I NEVER plan to pay more than once for a game that I own. That includes charging for online play using the only server that a game allows. If it comes to the point where you can't play games without a monthly fee, or where you need to pay to get to certain ranks/parts, I will stop playing games (with exception to the old ones that I won't have to pay for). I'm not sure what the hell all this buying clothes for horses on oblivion bs is all about... I havn't seen any of that... hell, I don't even think the pc version of oblivion has online play (I could be wrong though because I havn't looked). But, all in all, yes. Paying for stuff in games is stupid because you don't get anything for it except a memory. If you buy a poster, you at least HAVE the poster, and can ideally keep it till you die if you so wanted, and with movies, you don't have to buy the reel and projector before you pay to see the movie.

[Fenrir]

Sorry pal, it's all a matter of how much you're willing to pay to have fun (I've seen people spending craploads of money for much more short-lived fun than 6 months of WoW) and people's personal interests. Don't assume that because in 25 years of videogames things have always gone like that, so it's always correct that they'll keep going like that. People like online gaming and there's nothing wrong with that. It's interaction with real people and very strong experiences, and you have to pay not because Blizzard or Mythic or Squaresoft or... Microsoft are evil corporates that like watching you forking out money every month to play with their games and laugh manically while their pockets get full with money. Online games require assistence, high-end (very costly!) servers, a huge housing band with expensive subscriptions, twenty - thirty people constantly fixing bugs, programming new stuff, planning marketing, answering phones and so on - stuff that cost a lot of money and people who have to earn their salary.
So, online gaming is a new way of playing, it's the next frontier and it costs money to mantain in full throttle. Speaking about "I bought your game and I STILL HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY WITH IT???!?" is soooo 1990 and shows how your view is a bit one-sided, because it leaves out the simple consideration that online gaming = costs. Some people might like to pay $5 once in a lifetime to make their favourite hobby prettier until it lasts. It's like people who spend money for fireworks. $20 for 5 fireworks, blam! blam! blam! blam! blam! Pretty! Fantastic memories. Nothing left than a puff of smoke. But it was good until it lasted and I don't think you despise people who spend $20 for fireworks as much as you probably don't like people who spend $5 to have a pretty horse armour for their virtual horse. I respect both of them, if they feel better. Nobody forced both of them to do this stuff. They do that because they like it.

About the poster and the movie... of course I didn't mean it that way. If you say something like

with movies, you don't have to buy the reel and projector before you pay to see the movie.

I could swear you're saying the same thing as "with games, you don't have to buy the console before you pay to play the game". Which is a bit silly (and by the way, many some games let you download the game for free and then just pay the subscription, even blockbusters like Dark Age of Camelot and Guild Wars).

[tiktak]

I tend to agree with stuffmonger's opinion. Paying more than once for a game is stupid. I hate this Sony's idea and I always hated MS's Live but turning all facts against Sony is silly.

What's more, I love cave games and I respect them more than any 3D mainstream stuff but 2000$ as a launch price? Ok, arcades can be profitable but why HERE ppl whine about 600$ high-end multimedia device?

I don't mind Windows at all, moded Xbox is a nice divx player but gloryfing all this stuff at all cost is dumb.

Personally since this generation I will start to fight with this trend, PS3 and Wii all the way!

[Michaelm]

Sony announced a new revolutionary start button for their games on PS3.

A coin slot.

[system11]

It's difficult. Running games online costs the companies money, I have no problem with playing a blanket subscription per system. I have no problem paying for content releases where the price and what you get are valid - example the Rainbow Six map packs - they were cheap, you got 4 maps.

As games get more complex, textures and polygons become richer and more numerous, just creating one extra map is not a trivial task. It's inevitable that if gamers demand this, they're going to have to pay for them. Of course, there's a fine line between fair and unfair. A real world example would be the infamous Oblivion horse armour. Lots of people were upset that it was clearly something that really should have shipped in the game, and also upset by the price. The company listened to this, and the Wizard Tower mod was both cheaper, and added significantly more.

The danger is that as more and more companies start adopting this model (and they will), more companies will start releasing genuinely incomplete products in the expectation that people will pay for all the little bits they missed out, in effect raising the price of games. Pay per weapon is obviously utterly ridiculous, but from all reports Sony are hugely into the whole concept of micropayments for content snippets. Pay per song for Singstar is another good example of their intentions. Namco tried that with Ridge Racer 6 on the 360 - people generally haven't been interested in pay per tune for that game, but Singstar? Yeah probably.

I think what I'm getting at but totally failing to, is due to the rising costs of production (and HD does NOT help that), reliance on investment return and ever increasing demands from gamers for rich immersive worlds and 70 hour playtimes, we're going to see a whole lot more of paid for content. How much of this is fair is going to be decided by what people are prepared to pay for.

I would say as gamers we should blame ourselves for this turn of events, but I'd like to think people on this board don't post on forums that they want more texture detail and 2000 polys on each gun fiddy-cen is wielding. You never know, though.

[Specineff]

This idea might work on online MMORPGs, strats and sims, but if it happens that I have to keep on paying to play my game decently, OFFLINE, I'm packing all my old games, moving to a desert island (solar generators, baby) and pushing my secret red button to unleash armageddon on the rest of the world.

[jp]

You know... I remember back in the day where you just needed to find a Rat's Tail or collect some D-Units to get more powerful in a game...


Ah the old days, when paying for a game meant you owned it and all the code meant for it.

[stuffmonger]

I ONLY play games online when they are free to play online. C&C Generals, Neverwinter nights, Star Wars Jedi Academy, etc... It's not impossible to have a free online play... the only reason that these companies need to have a full staff, big servers, etc... is because they force gamers to use their standalone servers. If they allowed gamers to use a third party server, I wouldn't be bitching, but the fact that they DON'T allow any alternative, makes it a bad thing.

[system11]

I ONLY play games online when they are free to play online. C&C Generals, Neverwinter nights, Star Wars Jedi Academy, etc... It's not impossible to have a free online play... the only reason that these companies need to have a full staff, big servers, etc... is because they force gamers to use their standalone servers. If they allowed gamers to use a third party server, I wouldn't be bitching, but the fact that they DON'T allow any alternative, makes it a bad thing.

There aren't enough players to warrant anyone being able to create a server. As for third party (but selected by Sony) servers as PS2 online used - you get what you pay for. This was painfully obvious much of the time, and why I refer to a certain company as 'Lamespy' now.

There's no business model in the world that supports truly free online gaming, either someone gives up their resources for nothing, or the price is paid by the company making the game, or your details get sold up the river as an advertising target. Xbox Live is damn cheap for the features and reliability you get. This is a whole different world from buying guns for your ship, and that's one I don't want anything to do with.

[Fenrir]

I ONLY play games online when they are free to play online. C&C Generals, Neverwinter nights, Star Wars Jedi Academy, etc... It's not impossible to have a free online play... the only reason that these companies need to have a full staff, big servers, etc... is because they force gamers to use their standalone servers. If they allowed gamers to use a third party server, I wouldn't be bitching, but the fact that they DON'T allow any alternative, makes it a bad thing.

This is another blind reply that makes me understand that people quite don't fully know (although they think they do) what they're talking about when discussing about online gaming, and that there's just a widely accepted opinion among players that often don't reflect reality.
Online games are like huge monsters constantly in need of fixing, expanding, helping, reviewing, upgrading and more than other, finding players that exploit bugs or are in need of assistence.

All those things modify the game source code EVERY SINGLE DAY. You can't simply give away the game because lazy gamers are offended by the fact that OMG YOU HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY !1!!1!!11 and thus dot the whole world of unofficial servers where the game is full of bugs, where the staff isn't reliable (or sufficient) and could modify the game itself to help their lobby of friends (I've played on Ultima Online unofficial servers alot and I know what I'm talking about) get the big stuff and boast around.
Or when bugfixing occurs (and they occur ON A DAILY BASIS, trust me), all the servers in the world can't possibly stay up to date with the official server. You can't possibly ask every unofficial server to tweak everything that can be tweaked every minute on an offical server; and to assist thousands of players they TOO need a huge staff and this kind of staff works for many hours each day to provide enough assistence. Who's gonna pay them, or the servers, or the software house that provides assistence to the third party servers?
And this kind of work costs the producing company a bloody lot of money and I can't possibly understand why you want to play with such advanced softwares and medias but you don't want to pay the software house for the huge work they did, while providing a full-fledged assistence.
And moreover, in the world everyone wants to be president and nobody likes to be "one of the mass". If the game were to be given away for free to third parties, everybody would want to start their own server to be acclaimed as the MASTER OF TEH MMORPG LOLOL and people would scatter all over the world, and servers would have not more than 300-500 players each (I'm being optimistic - see UO) and many games are produced with parts that work only if huge armies of hundreds of players clash together (Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Age of Reckoning...). It would never happen if the game scatters that much (see UO!) and the game itself would be mortified. Mind you, I could go ahead for days.

It's like people playing with copied games or stealing movies on the web, burning them on DVD and piling them in their living room with nice photocopied covers.
The entertainment industry doesn't spend millions of dollars every year to let people enjoy their products for free.

[Thunder Force]

Pay per weapon is obviously utterly ridiculous

Indeed. I'm frankly surprised that some folks are aggressively defending this approach. I guess this is a polarizing issue similar to in-game advertising...

[stuffmonger]

I ONLY play games online when they are free to play online. C&C Generals, Neverwinter nights, Star Wars Jedi Academy, etc... It's not impossible to have a free online play... the only reason that these companies need to have a full staff, big servers, etc... is because they force gamers to use their standalone servers. If they allowed gamers to use a third party server, I wouldn't be bitching, but the fact that they DON'T allow any alternative, makes it a bad thing.

This is another blind reply that makes me understand that people quite don't fully know (although they think they do) what they're talking about when discussing about online gaming, and that there's just a widely accepted opinion among players that often don't reflect reality.
Online games are like huge monsters constantly in need of fixing, expanding, helping, reviewing, upgrading and more than other, finding players that exploit bugs or are in need of assistence.

All those things modify the game source code EVERY SINGLE DAY. You can't simply give away the game because lazy gamers are offended by the fact that OMG YOU HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY !1!!1!!11 and thus dot the whole world of unofficial servers where the game is full of bugs, where the staff isn't reliable (or sufficient) and could modify the game itself to help their lobby of friends (I've played on Ultima Online unofficial servers alot and I know what I'm talking about) get the big stuff and boast around.
Or when bugfixing occurs (and they occur ON A DAILY BASIS, trust me), all the servers in the world can't possibly stay up to date with the official server. You can't possibly ask every unofficial server to tweak everything that can be tweaked every minute on an offical server; and to assist thousands of players they TOO need a huge staff and this kind of staff works for many hours each day to provide enough assistence. Who's gonna pay them, or the servers, or the software house that provides assistence to the third party servers?
And this kind of work costs the producing company a bloody lot of money and I can't possibly understand why you want to play with such advanced softwares and medias but you don't want to pay the software house for the huge work they did, while providing a full-fledged assistence.
And moreover, in the world everyone wants to be president and nobody likes to be "one of the mass". If the game were to be given away for free to third parties, everybody would want to start their own server to be acclaimed as the MASTER OF TEH MMORPG LOLOL and people would scatter all over the world, and servers would have not more than 300-500 players each (I'm being optimistic - see UO) and many games are produced with parts that work only if huge armies of hundreds of players clash together (Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Age of Reckoning...). It would never happen if the game scatters that much (see UO!) and the game itself would be mortified. Mind you, I could go ahead for days.

It's like people playing with copied games or stealing movies on the web, burning them on DVD and piling them in their living room with nice photocopied covers.
The entertainment industry doesn't spend millions of dollars every year to let people enjoy their products for free.

If you'll notice, however, I didn't say that charging for the developers server was directly a bad thing, I said that not allowing any alternative is what is bad. I say, let the people (such as myself) who don't want to pay more than the original game price (and possibly upgrade packs with more maps, enemies, etc...) use the third party servers. If they had an option to let players who wanted to play in a constantly upgraded server, let them have that option, otherwise, let them play on the unofficial servers. I pay the developers for the game when I buy it in the store. I don't feel that I should also be forced to pay $20+ per month in order to play that game... especially when the games cost under 3 months worth of play.

[gameoverDude]

I think online play fees should be only for the subscription to the service if you have already purchased the game. Having to buy extra vehicles in Warhawk with cash means that when you pay $60 you don't have the complete game.

Buying the weapons with "Fantasy Zone" virtual cash is just fine though.

Having to pay another $5 to get Missile Level 2 or $7 for the Hyper Laser is not an appealing concept. Whatever weapons Gradius VI has should all be in the game.

[Edge]

The danger is that as more and more companies start adopting this model (and they will), more companies will start releasing genuinely incomplete products in the expectation that people will pay for all the little bits they missed out, in effect raising the price of games. Pay per weapon is obviously utterly ridiculous...

That's my fear as well and I think they might even be successful with this approach. I don't think that buying online stuff is absolutely useless and I would do this for serious updates (new levels etc.). Well, I won't buy a PS3 anyway. Out of idealism, since I absolutely disagree with the way the gaming market develops.

I will buy the Wii and I will probably even pay for the virtual console if I like the pricings.