As probably many of you know, I really don't like sports games. I think they are boring and repetitive and serve no real entertainment for a AAA costing game. I really think that Game Overthinker nailed it when he called them, "Madden: Same f*cking game you bought last year but with a slightly different roster." Sports games have always lacked the depth of a real game. But EA wants to try and add a bit of depth... just not in a way you would expect. When I say depth, I mean something to keep me playing the game, like a story in an RPG. I know this isn't possible because it's a sports game... so it's jaded from the get go. But anyway, on to the point.

EA has added a WONDERFUL new feature with microtransactions that, with REAL money, allow the player to do one-time upgrades of their players/coaching staff/etc. For $1 to $2 a piece... Here's a few examples:

Note Done Yet: Downloading this allows you to keep one player out of retirement for one more year; usable once per season, per franchise. This is used in Franchise Mode only. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see http://www.xbox.com/live/accounts. 80MP

DB Scout: Download this to use a special scout who will reveal all true stats for Defensive Back prospects in the upcoming offseason. This is usable in Franchise only. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see http://www.xbox.com/live/accounts. 40MP

Play Through the Pain: Using this allows for one player to recover from any injury no matter what the severity; usable once per season, per franchise. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see http://www.xbox.com/live/accounts. 80MP

Game Day Instincts: For one game, your coaching staff is in the zone. All players receive a 5% boost to all stats; can be used once per year, per franchise. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see http://www.xbox.com/live/accounts. 40MP

...the list goes on. What happened to the good old days? You know, when you bought a game, and that was it. It was your game and you had no other expenses. And what's worse, my plea to not pay for this will fall on nothing but deaf ears... if you are willing to pay for the same game every year, there's no way to stop you from wasting your money on this.

And it will do well. EA is going to make money off of this. It costs them no money to produce or make... it's litterally free money. But my huge concern is exactly HOW well it does. If it does well, this might branch off of the sports genre and leak into others. How would you like to have to pay real money to get the newest set of weapon and armor for your characters in a RPG?

Well you are too late I think, because I'm pretty sure that Ace Combat 6 has you paying for all kinds of things which were unlockable for free in Ace Combat 5. You can blame the internet. That's the difference between an online game and an offline only game.

So if you don't want to pay for added everything (and eventually you will have to because gamers are enablers) you might as well play the Wii because Nintendo knows that the gamer does not want online they want connectivity.

As for RPGs, I thought that was already happening in some console games. And if not, I mean if a PC RPG can have people selling rare items, why wouldn't the developer get in on this.

Yeah, it's all going that way.

It's good and bad.

Good:
1) It will promote extra features in games.
2) It allows indie games to make a significant amount of profit.

Neutral:
1) It's not for everyone. Not everyone is gonna pay 2 bucks for a different looking horse to ride.

Bad:
1) Bad companies will use micro-transactions in the same way Bad companies use patches: To solve a problem after the fact, leading to featureless games that can be upgraded to industry standard affair.

hmmm... I know there's more than that, but I'm done thinking for the day.

1) Extra features like that could be in the game and unlockable after meeting certain requirements in the game... or earning points at which these things can be 'bought.' No need for real money.

2) I really doubt inde game developers will even be allowed to use them. And the ones that do are probably going to be online sites like newgrounds, kongrigate, ect. And even now some DO have something similar... and so far, they have all been getting really bad feedback for it.

It's the stupidest thing ever. If you have to pay for some stupid thing to help give you the edge or something unique, then you care too much about winning or you're just weird. I like the football games, but I'm in no way going to pay money just to have some beefy sh*t stats for one game. It's waste of time.

Well I'm agreeing with everyone here. If we have to pay for things we used to get for free (weapons, aircraft, color changes) that does suck. But for things that we really didn't get for free (map packs, gametypes, and certain detailed sports seasons, tournaments or leagues), it is a benefit to have those things for sale if someone wants them when you can also opt out if they don't suit you and just enjoy a full experience with the core game, but if as it has been suggested these things are essentially requirements to advance at a reasonable pace or even necessary to compete against others online, then we are talking about garbage.

I already have to deal with losing the ability to play like 9 or 10 different game types on Halo Multiplayer (leaving me with only about 5) because I refuse to buy the newest map pack. This is BULL SHIZ. This kind of crap makes it so that you essentially have to buy the microtransactions just to play at all. They know that most gamers will cave in either because of themselves or pressure by friends who have the maps, and here is a situation where you can NOT just be neutral. If you don't pay for what you don't want, you are very much inhibited from playing what you do want. It used to be that if you didn't have the add-on maps you just couldn't play the gametypes on those particular maps but you would still be matched in any gametype you choose on other maps that you do have. Now you cannot play most of the gametypes at all.

Also they want you to pre-order Halo 3 ODST to unlock a certain character (the Sargeant). I don't mind pre-order sweetening the deal like when you can get a free additional game or something (when I pre-ordered Shadow Hearts Covenant, I got Shadow Hearts for free), but in theory even though it may be more expensive or hard to find, I still could have not pre-ordered and bought Shadow Hearts later. Unless in this ODST example you can somehow get the Sargeant later, then the gaming industry will continue to go even further into creating the have and the have nots based on money because the haves will just fork over the $60 to get the Sargean now, and those who won't have the $60 until after the game is released and also those just waiting for it to drop to a reasonble $40 may never be able to play as the Sargeant even if they are willing to pay later. Hopefully they will give the option to buy him later so you won't be coerced into spending money now that you don't have if playing as the Sargeant means something to you.

I was rather peeved when WoW did the same with a steed, Bo. I wanted to ride a dragon, darnit! That's not the sort of thing that should only be in certain copies!

As for Madden, yeah, that's stuff that should be unlocked through things like Achievements. Not bought for a petty penny. The only thing you should ever have to buy as a microtransaction is new stats for players, instead of releasing the same game every year. But of course, that'll never happen.

Meanwhile, WiiWare is a wild card. There was the new Space Invaders that came out a while back. You payed a price for the first couple levels, and had to pay extra to buy the rest of the game. The excuse is that Nintendo has that stupid restriction on how big games can be on the download service. My answer to that is: if the game was so big, it shouldn't have been a downloadable game.

There's also Bubble Bobble Plus. The main package gave you the original arcade levels. Extra packages you could buy earned you an extra hundred levels on top of that. In a way, those are expansion packs. Expansion packs that existed right from the start because of Nintendo's size limit, but expansion packs nonetheless.

Mega Man 9, I'm gonna be hypocritical about. It had those little extra game modes you can buy. Realistically, they should've been unlockable. But the main package felt so complete, and it was a really good game for its price, I can't really fault it.

Lastly, there's Final Fantasy IV-2. You know what, nevermind. It's the sequel to one of my favorite FF games, I would've payed $35 for a full handheld release, anyway.

Actually, I've heard really good feedback about many freemium and microtransaction services, but mainly when they serve no mechanical purpose. I recently read about a game that was a free online game, but offered a deluxe version with the ability to change the default "skin". Dude made 92k ytd.

I think you're good to go as long as:
1) What you sell is never mechanically better than what you earn.
2) What you sell might be for non-mechanical ease of playing
3) What you sell isn't required to play the game with others (such as maps)
4) What you sell is graphical only

New modes should probably be something the main game has. Minigames? I could go either way. Sure, the examples above for the football game seem like they should be cheat codes... but I don't care for cheat codes myself. If it's worth it to you to bring that player out of retirement, chuck some cash at it.

Sometimes is just a way for rich people to pay more for their games. Maybe bring down the price of the game for people who want to play and earn their way through.

I'd like to bring up Second Life. The world has an in-game currency called Linden Dollars. There's an entire economy within Second Life, selling things like clothes, furniture, and furry avatars , as well as there being various jobs (mostly at clubs, and there's a ton of them), and a few real-world companies and places having their own piece of SL. L$500 in-game is worth about $2.50 real life. I know this because Linden Labs, the creators, buy and sell in-game money. (Naturally, L$ is worth less selling it back to them.) It's not a requirement to buy money, though, as you can obtain money by selling things (SL has a very handy building tool, texture uploader, and open scripting), and many of those aforementioned clubs have frequent contests that earn you money (usually by being the best-dressed to a theme). Heck, you could go even without the in-game money if you wanted, as there's a bunch of freebie stuff laying around in various places.

It works, since it's not required for most things, and the only things that do require paying real money is if you own property. But even living on property can be done without paying real money, if somebody's renting out land or homes (and there's plenty of that, too). This system is what makes Second Life free to play, and is really the best way I've seen an online game handle microtransactions so far. I've even heard of a few people being able to make a living off selling things in SL. But you'd have to be selling something pretty good to do that.

Off topic real quick: Is that out yet? Like fully out? I still refuse to play it until all parts/episodes/whatevers are released.

I get upset about microtransactions when its stuff like, 3bucks gets you a new outfit for Ryu. I and I get FURIOUS when the microtrasaction is actually an unlock key for features in a game that are on disc, but not accessible unless you pay for it after the retail price. Its on the disc then it should be accessible. Examples? Ok. Every single DLC item for every single DDR game on 360. I was prepared to list more but got too angry. There are more. Just pay attention to the file size of the DLC. If its 108Kb then it is simply an unlock key.

Well that's the thing.

I understand what everyone is saying. But these Microtransactions are for consumable items. You use it, and it's gone. You have to re-buy it again.

So far, there is nothing like that. And that's why I think it's a taboo... and also very very cheap of EA.

There are microtransactions like that. In Tales of Vesperia. You buy item packs and even purchase Level Up by 5 or by 10. Unlock Stats. Then if you want to repurchase any of these, you buy the next DLC of it that is actually the exact same content. That's because you cannot repurchase something you already purchased.

Take a look.
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024e4d07e9/

Wow, that's amazingly f*cked up.

Well first I definitely agree about paying $3 for a Ryu outfit and I sort of agree about the unlock key but here is the thing. I assume that for DDR we are talking about copywrited material (music?) that the gamemakers do not own but that is much more cost effective to put on the disc from the start. So really if that is the case and the developers were really required to have everything unlockable on the disc from the start, those songs would never be there because the developers would never be able to afford it from the music industry.

That having been said, I do see it as greedy to have unlock keys for stuff like weapons, armor, aircraft, etc. that we could otherwise get for free.

That too having been said, if they do want to charge for it considering it premium stuff and already have it ready by the time the disc is ready to be realeased should they simply not put it on the disc (to be unlocked via purchase) and simply place it as online downloadable memory (unnecessarily really when it could have been on the disc) just to make it APPEAR that it is new content so as not to infuriate the likes of us? If they really consider it premium material that they are going to charge for no matter what, I myself in a sense would rather they put it on the disc to be unlocked by a small file because otherwise it is unnecessarily hogging to much of my my available memory on my hard drive.

@Lantis
I went back and looked at your original post and I see what you are saying. What bothers me most is not the 'one-time" use. I mean if you don't want to pay for those features you don't have to and if you want to pay more than once that is your decision, but rather that you can get out of any injury in a video game (period) by paying real world cash. That is totally greedy to offer and gamers will enable. I mean if something should be earned to unlock instead of bought to unlock it is defintely something like this.

It finishes sometime September. Can't remember. Never got around to getting the second chapter, myself.

Damn you Bo. That makes sense. I have been mad about the DDR thing for two years and never stopped to look at it as though any one but Konomi had any thing to do with it.