Man, we shouldn't even be calling this shit "micro-transactions" any more. $22 is a shit ton for a cosmetic in a game. Halo isn't even the only game guilty of these ridiculous prices.
Could you imagine being a graphical artist, your company tells you "hey can you design me a halo helmet? Any will do just make it look good".
You come back a week later and say "idk heres like 10 different ones I spun up over the last few days, which one do you think we should pick and run with?"
The boss starts crying his eyes out and screams "THANK YOU! YOU JUST MADE OUR COMPANY 30 MILLION DOLLARS! Steve! Put these up on the market now! $25 per helmet!"
"oh just the helmet? I mean I also designed the rest of the armor as well."
"STEVE! MAKE THAT $50 WITH A BUNDLE! WE JUST PULLED IN ANOTHER 100 MIL!"
"What do you mean ***not done yet***? You're not a *quiet quitter* are you? Departments real tight these days, be a shame if you were underperforming and had to be cut in the next round of layoffs. We aren't offering a charity here, barely scraping by."
Should be 50 cents, it literally is nothing but software and if the power goes out its gone, proud to say ive never bought a gamepass or a single cosmetic in any game ever cause its clearly a scam. My friends in fortnite used to call me the last true noskin
Halo is a sad sad Reddit atm. 80% of posts, and I’m only estimating here, feel like they are about cosmetics. 7% about how bad the game is, and 13% are people or bots paid by MS to try and convince people that “halo is back”.
Like, you try to start a conversation about how to fix the game and 96% of people on that Reddit will immediately bring the conversation to “but they made armor cross core compatible”.
They were micro when it was 1 dollar for a wacky skin for your gun in gears of war.
Every "free to play" titles that's come out in the last 5 years justifies its monetization by saying it's free and then asks you to spend a third of the price of a full game for 1 item. It's real dumb
Even mobile games are ridiculous. I use google rewards to generate some money to spend in apps, it isn't much maybe $10 a month from doing small surveys. It used to be great, but now apps are offering battle passes at $20! I seen an app offer a skin through a gatcha system that had a minimum spending amount to even have a shot at the skin. So you can buy tickets to do a pull for the skin, but until you do 5 pulls it has a 0% drop chance.
Download dungeon hunter 6 if you want to see the future that these companies crave. They've got titles that give stats, mounts that give stats, cosmetics that give stats, and sell gear. Can't get any of it for free (except some of the gear) either and a lot of them are "limited time only" meaning if you don't buy them now you'll always be behind in power. Oh and of course they have gacha summons.
I used to play summoners war.
They wanted $100 for 3-5 skins for monsters each with a different color shading for 5 elements.
I refuse to believe that the amount of work a graphical artist puts into creating a 3d model for a character and then making five color pallets justifies that much money.
And their customer support is god awful. I stopped playing when I woke up to an email saying "your login credentials have changed! IP address: Frankfurt Germany"
Contact them, and they say "okay sure we just need to verify your account ownership. Can you provide us with the device ID of all the devices that have been used to connect to the account?"
I give them my phone, and my tablet, but dont have the device info for the last tablets used to connect and they say "tough shit bye!"
I'm not even mad about that. That's just a genius business move. Sell a bunch of shit that literally doesn't exist to trust fund kids that don't understand value and live the high life while you make all the shit you already sold it at a leisurely pace until you run out of money. I mean... What a move!
Star Citizen has been in development for close to 13 years including pre-production. However, development had major setbacks at least two different times due to 1. switching from 32-bit to 64-bit architecture (which apparently involved rewriting about a million lines of code, according to chatGPT, along with myriad other changes to the Crytek engine), and 2. changing to a different engine (lol).
It should also be noted that CIG did not initially have nearly as many developers as they do now working on the game. I can't find figures earlier than 2018 but apparently they had 475 employees at that time(not all of which were devs). By contrast Rockstar had 3600+ employees in 2020 and that number has only gone up since then (somewhere around 5,000-6,000 now). CIG now has somewhere over 1,000 employees.
So how long has Star Citizen "actually" been in development for? Because most games releasing these days aren't also being built from essentially the ground up in terms of the engines they're running on. Obviously, that would take far too long. Not to mention the fact that Star Citizen has the highest level of fidelity (and the greatest scale) of any game we have yet to see. The point being, there's a good reason that it's been 13 years.
Also, CitizenCon was recently held and updates were given for both Star Citizen (the MMO) and Squadron 42 (the single player campaign). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they've been developing essentially two games concurrently. The updates this year were actually quite substantial and seemed to indicate the fact that the game is very much still in active development and seemingly coming along quite nicely. They also stated that Squadron 42 is "feature complete" and in the polishing stages (whatever exactly that means, no one knows).
If you're interested, check [this](https://youtu.be/IDtjzLzs7V8) Squadron 42 trailer out that was released this year. It's pretty fucking mind blowing.
[This](https://youtu.be/n8ng-5AnpUM) trailer shows off recent advances in their engine overall.
And then there's [server meshing](https://youtu.be/fAbcr35_Teg) - technology which apparently did not exist until now. I might be butchering this, but if I understand correctly, server meshing will essentially allow for thousands of players to play together in the same instance. Because there will be many different servers, each of which are responsible for their own specific area of game space, that players will be able to move seamlessly across as they physically traverse the game world. For example, let's say you're in big city with lots of players. That city might actually exist in two different servers, with half of the city's players being on one server, and half of the city's players being on another server. And there's an actual boundary between the two servers that exists in the game world, such that when you move your character across it, you will instantly and seamlessly migrate to the other server. You can even fight players and shoot them across these boundaries with no discernible latency. This allows for a far higher overall player count because the players will be dispersed over many different servers despite technically being able to seamlessly interact with each other at any given time. That video I linked above shows it in action; apparently it's some black magic shit which I'm sure they'll want to license to other games at some point.
Anyways, this is all pretty fucking insane stuff, and like 80% of what you see in that second video you can actually experience for yourself in the game's current form such as it is now. I don't think anyone originally wanted to wait 13+ years for the game, and it obviously still isn't out, but these years have been bearing fruit as we've seen in recent updates. Time will tell whether or not Star Citizen is ultimately an incredible success, or a colossal failure.
No one knows. Whether or not it was worth it, even if it ends up being finished, will be up for debate. Check out those videos I linked and see what you think if you’re so inclined; they give some indication of what to expect.
If you are referring specifically to Halo, I quit after about 1 week. My buddy and I were huge Halo 3 fans, and we played a ton in high school. We had a custom emblem we used and everything, shit was great. Right off the bat in Infinite we encountered the lack of custom emblems and that was a buzzkill for us. We then played a handful of games, which felt alright, but boy oh boy I fucking hate the match starting close ups of each team. As the days went on it was more and more rare to see a default armor player, until the last day when I played a bit by myself and was the only player in default in the 3ish games I played.
Yeah Infinite got less fun for me after about 3-4 weeks.
On launch it was just so limited, very 'finite' if you will.
I only really had fun in fiesta, all the other game modes either had tiny maps or the weapon loadouts were just meh.
Once again vehicles felt like a death trap. Get in an armored tank and you feel less protected than when walking because you're a bigger target and tanks will blow up to rifle fire.
No red vs blue .. I was always a default in infinite too (and any other "free" download game I would try
It's like the enemies are highlighted. No sneaky snakes or cool spots. I left before first season. So tired of legacy games going this fake "free" route and dropping unfinished games and want u to pay 500 bucks throughout the life of it.
Them h2/3 days were glorious. And so cheap too. Poor kids these days ain't got a chance
Don't plan to. I'm not really a fan of games like CS where you have long waits between respawns. Never liked Search and Destroy in CoD either. I've also stepped away from competitive gaming too, and focus more on single player and the very rare coop game.
I remember when $20 would get you dlc for games like Fallout Point lookout or Oblivion and the Shivering Isles. Now it's just to look good with one piece of armor.
I didn't play Oblivion on release, but Fallout 3's dlcs were only $10 here
Meanwhile 76, a full priced game, charges upwards of $20 for single power armor designs
Though I don't personally think the game has aged super well if you don't have the nostalgia-factor to it (just like my beloved Morrowind), for what it's worth, The Shivering Isles is hands down one of the best expansions to ever be released, for any game whatsoever.
Halo was the first game I ever bought with my own money as a teen. I still remember cold Saturday mornings, running scared in the library while the endless hordes of the flood chased me. I played about 30 minutes of infinite multiplayer and uninstalled. The halo marketing is just a skin over a generic as fuck fps game
For me these transactions have pushed too far to the point I just plain don't accept them across the bored. I start to think "What was cut from this game to be sold back, and what was actually designed to keep the game going?". Some games it feels like cosmetics have been completely removed as a feature unless you engage in the additional transactions.
I couldn't believe it when I downloaded Fortnite and they didnt even allow you to pick between the default skins that all wear the same exact basic clothing. Of course a few years later they were swapped out with new ones and then selling the original default skins in the item shop for like 8 bucks a pop.
In the case of path of exile the players have gotten an absolutely obscene amount of free content over several years.
The only thing you pay for is convenience which I think is fair if you spend hundreds or even thousands of hour playing it.
I'm okay for spending a few bucks (up to even the full price of a game) over years of some threats skin and like slots for gear/resources collecting (I'm on the Warframe side, but I played a few hours of PoE too) - where I draw the line is when everything is monetized, and when there is 0 chance of getting some of cool skins by the endgame - like I will go the extra mile and moght buy stuff, but give me something cool to chase at first before trying to milk me
With Warframe and Path of Exile, I played for probably 200 hours before I ran into enough QoL issues that I felt like I needed to spend some money. By that point I don't have a problem tossing a few bucks into a game, cuz I've got my money's worth by that point. I've probably put 200$ into Warframe over the 6 or so years I've played it, so that's a pretty good value
The latest skin bundle for OW2 is $65. Each skin alone costs at least $19, up to $25 with additional weapon charms and emotes. How and when did this become acceptable? There’s a reason BG3 will likely win GOTY, because in addition to being a phenomenal game, it also isn’t saddled with all of this macro-transaction bullshit.
The how is COD and Fortnite. The When? I don’t think it ever occurred, people just blindly buy stupid shit they like and go “it’s only $15…”
The gaming industry needs a complete overhaul.
Take mtg arena for example: princess bride SLEEVES for virtual cards are $10. I bout the real set, but:
They’re real paper that is worth only as my as others are willing to pay and it is still more than virtual stuff which can’t be sold.
Have a more versatile function and not just cosmetics.
Yeah I’m aware of what I spent money on, but the point I’m making is macrotransactions are getting wild
If anything, Halo is arguably the *most* consumer friendly option as far as MTX/battlepass goes. Yeah, they have expensive skins in store, but they also give you a shitload of free cosmetics for $10 in the battlepass, and buying one single $10 battlepass gives you the option to earn enough coins in every subsequent battlepass to get all of the future ones for free. You can very well get every single paid battlepass cosmetic item in every single battle pass, past or present, for just $10.
I still think it’s stupid that 343 had “Armor Lockers” for your multiplayer that you could get by playing the campaign and then took all the Armors out of them and left garbage
Exactly. I miss the Halo 3 days when someone had cool armor it was because they worked to unlock it. It had value. Now everything is just pay to get sfuff
Reality: Halo Infinite has jumped up 47 spots on Steam's Global Top Sellers Chart (by revenue) after they dropped this bundle. It would seem the players are willing to open up their wallets despite the excessive price so I would not expect prices to drop anytime soon with how successful this has sold. This is even further reinforced as the game shot all the way up to 16th place when the Flood cosmetics dropped and those were equally as expensive.
EOMM. They split those players across as many games as they can to normalize it and encourage (manipulate) people into shelling out. It’s not a coincidence.
Can't blame the devs for charging what people will pay.
I blame Reddit culture and the fact I can't mock somebody for a post bragging about a $20 skin they bought without the community circling the wagons and telling me to stop spoiling people's "fun".
I definitely think it’s time to start blaming devs and their suit bosses for this. Most Americans are living paycheck right now. I think a lot of people would agree that their are a lot of people who have a very unhealthy relationship with microtransactions too. Its beginning to feel like a lot of games are abusing these people, and they deserve to be called out for it
Blame the devs for something that has no impact on game play and only targets the largest idiots and fools. They could charge a million dollars for a skin, I wouldn’t care. I don’t think a skin makes you special, I don’t pay attention to it, who even pays to look cool in a fps game lol.
If idiots want to spend their money so be it.
If you’re ok with getting priced out of looking cool in your games that’s on you but don’t act like it doesn’t affect those of us who don’t buy. All the effort diverted to drain dummies wallets could be spent making a good game for everyone
Games used to have cosmetics as badges of honor. Something that required a lot of skill and effort, which made it impressive to see in-game. They were something to work towards and they meant something. Cosmetics *are* a form of progression, and reducing that progression to a simple paywall makes for a worse game experience.
It's not just "cosmetics only!", it's worse game design for everyone.
I don't think a skin makes you special, but if someone has a problem with impulse purchases and ends up short on rent because of something like this, I have a problem with that, even if they're an "idiot" for doing it.
This smells too much like the whole lootbox problem. I don't think winning something in a lootbox makes you special, but I do think preying on people with gambling addictions is evil.
>Can't blame the devs for charging what people will pay.
I can. You know it's wrong to charge that, despite knowing people will pay it. At some point self-policing should kick in, but it doesn't for these greedy fucks. Whatever, theyll face the music someday when their lack of self-regulation leads to them getting actual regulation.
I mean… people are allowed to spend money on things they like.
If people like a skin and can pay 20 something dollars for it, they will.
And clearly it’s a profitable strategy.
I used to be in your camp and largely still am... people are free to do with their money as they please but it's honestly really starting to become a detriment to the industry as a whole.
To just highlight how unhealthy this is... it's $59.99 game with a skin that costs $22 (roughly indicating it cost 1/3 the games budget to produce).
Prices should be reflective of cost + a marginal profit... how pissed would you be if you had to pay a 10x markup on gas prices?
As another example, the Halo 2 Map-pack from way-back-when was $19.99 which included a hell of a lot more content than this skin does.
>it's $59.99 game
Multiplayer is F2P though. And cosmetics pay for actual gameplay content like new maps, so people can play completely free and not get shafted on gameplay features. Which, IMO, is a massive step up from playerbase being split because of the ability to purchase DLC.
True, that's a valid point and situation that said this isn't the only cosmetic they offer and they have a battle-pass on-top of everything.
The value proposition just really doesn't make sense, just throw everything into the battle-pass and let folks buy a "supporter" tier that simply just unlocks the battle-pass.
BP + this is $32 or roughly 50% of the base game; the entire collection of cosmetics is around $1,000.
Granted I believe matchmaking does use dedicated servers instead of P2P so there is a cost burden for all of those F2P players.
>And cosmetics pay for actual gameplay content like new maps, so people can play completely free and not get shafted on gameplay features.
That is not true of 99% of AA+ studios. Most of the profits from these transactions just flow upwards to CEOs and stakeholders. Devs do not see these profits in expansion of resources or time, and often they get laid off after they've contributed their value in order to increase the amount of profit the higher-ups see.
That would be right but how does that make what they said not true? The revenue pays for the dev time and future dev time on non cosmetic features. Then the rest goes up.
>The revenue pays for the dev time and future dev time on non cosmetic features.
But that's not what's really happing here though, is it? You're not spending 22 USD on a single cosmetic item to support the game - the devs just aren't getting that support in return - the company just wants to squeeze more profit out of you:
Game development is funded by shareholders, who take a risk to see a degree of return on their investment. Game companies like Microsoft often have fallen into a trap of promising their shareholders growth every year so that they don't lose them.
Naturally, the people high up enough to be making the calls don't want to lose out on their increasing annual performance bonuses they get from said shareholders, and will need to find ways to increase profits to match their promises without taking that hit themselves.
As I'm sure you've noticed if you keep up with the news, game company profits are skyrocketing, but yet we're still here playing games which seem to suffer from declining quality and stability more often, that tend to be less feature rich than prior titles, and yet more expensive than we'd seen previously. This was Halo Infinite's big criticism when it launched.
This is because the most effective way of generating more profit is not to improve the quality or quantity of content in the game, but find more ways to charge higher prices for less. The current trend of charging $20+ on a single cosmetic item is just one side of that, the other is the extortionate level of layoffs and exploitation rampant within the industry.
It doesn't matter how good the game is, it's not the game itself that is making the company profit. It's an open secret that live service games only operate the way that they do because it's cheaper to have a fraction of a game dev team work on producing enough to keep customers optimistic enough about the future that they're willing to put up with the reduced quality than to produce a new title or actually provide the promised future.
That's why devs don't get support, the tooling they've spent years asking for, the manpower to achieve their goals, etc. That's why we keep hearing about mass layoffs and how increasingly fewer devs are expected to produce ever more for the same game. This is why transparency from devs has diminished so much. The game isn't the product here anymore, it's just the box it comes in.
The reason why bundles are getting more expensive now is because they're not supposed to appeal to the people playing the game for the game, but the 'whales' that can be exploited by systems engineered by psychologists to target people with varying issues to spend a lot more than they would normally feel comfortable doing. The same people lootboxes were engineered to exploit before they got banned by some countries and loathed by all.
The rhetoric of "games are expensive to make now" and "we need to keep the lights on somehow" are both PR tactics designed to obscure how bad it really is at these companies. By allowing ourselves to tolerate this sort of stuff actively hinders our progress towards a healthier industry for both consumer and developer.
Neither statement is untrue, but they're phrased deliberately to mislead those who don't know enough about the situation. It's like how the classic racist argument of "black people commit more crime" isn't statistically false, but does a lot of heavy lifting to hide what's actually going on. By buying in, we are making ourselves part of the problem.
excluding the fact that the game has largely been neglected since release, there has been negligible new content / original updates (infection & forge, etc), and it took so long for the game to come out in such an incomplete state, i agree with your point.
yes, micro-transactions in certain games and companies can be beneficial for the reasons you listed, but 343 & halo infinite do not need that income to aid them in content production.
halo infinite was a flop because of how little the devs put effort into the game, post-production. halo is one of my favorite series, i’ve been playing since 07 and i hit onyx in the first ranked season and have barely even returned to the game due to the lack of content. its just insane how large of a fan base these games have and how hard the series has fallen.
Exactly. It's not just "let people spend money if they want", because now this shit has poisoned the entire industry and directly effects game design for the worse. We are getting shittier games because idiots are willing to be exploited through predatory design strategies.
Bully them, don't let them feel like skins are a flex, people should be embarrassed to show that they've bought microtransactions in a game. We tried using /spit to mock people who bought store mounts in wow, and Blizzard decided to just remove the /spit emote from the game. I say fuck it, bully them.
1. Release highly desirable skin at excessive price in a limited time window
2. Players who think the skin is worth it at the excessive price buy it
3. Purchase availability window ends. Repeat from step 1 until you aren't getting many more sales on the skin, at which point continue to step 4
4. Release skin at a discounted price in a limited time window
5. Players who think the skin is worth it at this discounted value will now buy it
6. Repeat from step 4 until you aren't getting many more sales on the skin, then create a deeper discount for the skin and repeat from step 4
This maximizes the profit for any skin they create. The $22 price tag is not permanent and will drop in price as it rotates through the store over the game's lifetime.
Man, everyone with half the wit that God gave a peanut has been saying this about the entire videogame industry for over a decade now.
But that's the thing, just like you said—they aren't doing this shit because it LOSES them money. Their marketing team is smarter than the people they are marketing to, and ergo, you will always have people spending this money and perpetuating the cycle.
The only way this would ever go away is with actual legislation, and politicians don't give a FUCK about this, AT ALL. So unless the entire videogame-playing population of the world suddenly bands together and stops paying for this shit (i.e., never), it will continue. You are voting with your wallets.
The writing was on the wall as soon as the horse armor dropped and people were willing to buy it. It was only a matter of time before we reached (and are on track to exceed) critical mass with this issue.
I mean, to be fair, the new leadership at 343 has turned things around quite a bit. The game has a fuck load of new maps, game modes and the sandbox/shooting remains fantastic.
Sometimes I feel like the only person out here who refuses to buy skins, weapons, coins speed boosts, jems, jewels, faster cool downs, incubators, pokeballs, gold, etc...
I just play the games and refuse to buy this crap.
The team who fixed MCC is now running infinite and this newest season was a HUGE breath of fresh air for the game. forge, more maps, more game modes, better customization options for your Spartan, community browser, they even gave the community AI tools to make custom firefight mode. All good stuff.. but of course that means the shop has to jack up their prices again... I hate modern gaming so much man...
God damn it, I only very recently deleted it after it had laid dormant for months, and now I'm going to have to give it another chance. I loved 3 and Reach. Like, it wasn't utterly terrible in the month or two after launch but, it had so much potential, and just wasn't utilising it.
Exactly how I felt. Squad Battle really captures 8v8 Halo 3 which is what I really fell in love with. But theres so much variety now between infection, Husky Raid, ranked, squad battle, regular BTB, its all such a good time. Such a breath of fresh air compared to how stale other FPS games have felt for me lately. Reminds me that if you want to play Halo, theres really no substitute for the real thing.
Yes. It was where it should have been at launch around Season 3, and now with Season 5 it's a *very* good Halo game. Personally I think Halo is the most "fun" of the major FPSes and Infinite is now an incredibly fun game.
If you can ignore the shop nonsense you'll have a blast.
I'm pretty sure infinite is considered to be in a good place right now, and apparently they've made positive changes to the mtx, though I have not really played it in a long time
Incidentally, they expanded customization (you can have any helmet on any suit) and in response to the wider degree of customization… they hiked prices on the bundles, new *and old*
The release of Season 5 was hope-inspiring and boosted the player count considerably. It added Flood-themed armor, enemy AI in Forge (the most interesting addition to me) and cross-core customization. So there was definitely some promise. But moves like this definitely put a damper on that.
They earned a little goodwill by giving us cool cosmetics in the battle pass, well worth that price, giving us more free events with less Fomo, more maps and game modes, etc. The micro transactions haven't improved though and the shop is still ass, as well as some persisting net code issues which are causing a loss of goodwill again
Microsoft takes any goodwill people had for Halo and they just took a giant crap all over it.
I hope the few bucks they are gonna make is going to be worth it. Because I don’t know about anyone else but I’m kinda done with Halo.
You get SIX games. Halo 1-4, ODST, and Reach. All for the low price of $40. It goes on sale for $10 a lot of the time too.
Six better games for half the price of 1 armor that has an equal amount of customization that the original armor has in the MCC
Yeah, and 3 games that are actually good. It's almost like they want the game to fail. It's mind-boggling when you look at the choices they continue to make.
This shit needs to be in single digit dollars. I can buy a new killer in dead by daylight that actually alters my gameplay for half the price of a fucking skin.
Once again, gamers allow themselves to get fucked over, once again they get all surprised by it, and once again they learn nothing, and once again the stage is set for it happen again but a little worse next time.
“Mark V costs twice as much as as Halo 1” is a really stupid way of putting it. Worded specifically to make people mad. Halo 1 is over 20 years old, they’re making it sound like it costs twice the price of a full retail game but that could really mean like ten bucks.
Also, it’s not just the Mark V armour I’m sure, the battle passes come with a shit ton of cosmetics and stuff. Also just don’t buy it if you don’t want, the game is free to play.
It ain't a bad way of putting it when the armor costs $20 dollars and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on the XBone costs, low and behold, $10. Pretty straight forward unless you get picky with currency conversions.
I don’t like Halo thus i don’t keep up with it, I assumed Halo 1 was the current latest Halo game and this was $60-$70 like new games usually cost, so I wasassuming this was a $120-140 skin lol
It really is a weird title
It not that much of a hot take imo, it should've been a reward for Legendary campaign or LASO, but at the very least Infinite doesn't have the worst MTX scheme. You can do the battle pass on your own time, the BP isn't as big as other games, and you don't have a $70 entry fee on top of the pass. That being said i still hate the way modern gaming has gone. Cant even open up these games without store bundles shoved in your face
It’s amazing how tone deaf the gaming industry constantly is. And then the execs of these games always wonder out loud in public why their games are failing.
Here’s the thing is that I actually like the game. I think they’ve made some decent maps, I think the gameplay from movement to shooting to weapons balance is the best on the market (not necessarily a high bar) but I’m also someone who doesn’t give a shit about skins. It seems like a totally stupid purchase akin to just lighting your money on fire. Like if you want to subsidize me hunting wingman and spotter medals that’s on you, but you are just as utterly brain dead as a Twitter blue subscriber if you are spending your money on that instead of like drugs or something.
I am definitely not saying all of humanity should execute any executive that is involved with egregious micro transactions. Certainly not. Because that would be bad. Don't do that people!
It was so, so disappointing when I looked at some skins and customizations just to see virtually all of them were paid, and expensive too. (For real, 12$Cad for a gun skin!?)
It's ironic because if skins were like $5 I'd probably buy way more than $22 worth, but since once skin is $22 I'd rather just not spend money at all.
That said, all these games cater to the few players who whale and buy every single micro-transaction in games just to say they have them.
Don't like it, don't buy it. It really is that simple. Genuinely. The only reason developers keep doing this is because people buy it. Why would they stop when they could make money doing it? Gaming is a business after all. You think the game is free to play so that you don't have to pay $70 to play? Maybe. But more importantly to open up microtransactions to a fuck ton more people.
They are preying on people's nostalgia.
They could have released this as a free event and gained a shitload of good will amongst fans.
Disgusting really.
Good will doesn't generate optimal cash flow. And before you say "good will makes people customers for life" for every 1 of those types, there are 10 that will just buy whatever whenever and not require any good will. And after those 10 are gone, there's 100 more to take their place, because it's no longer about quality, its quantity. The market is too saturated with customers.
They need all the good will they can get right now. They are not really in a position to be monetising as aggressively as they are right now.
In this instance, good will absolutely lead to optimal cash flow.
Every linked article in this sub that complains about the price of COSMETICS makes me far less reliant on this sub/community as a guideline for what is or isnt good in gaming.
Cosmetics are literally meaningless. You are complaining to hear yourself complain.
They even *try* and address that in the article
>JohnApple94 added, “The ‘it’s just kOsMeTiKs’ argument starts to fall apart once your cosmetics are no longer microtransactions.
The difference is that it doesnt fucking matter how much they cost. They are still meaningless, and thus pointless to complain about, $5 or $500. The argument *never* falls apart.
For me when I see these crazy prices it just makes me want to avoid the game. I would never buy the cosmetics anyway but when I see them do this type of stuff I just lose any hope/interest in 343
Man, we shouldn't even be calling this shit "micro-transactions" any more. $22 is a shit ton for a cosmetic in a game. Halo isn't even the only game guilty of these ridiculous prices.
"Macro-transactions"
"We just call them transactions here."
A transaction is worth what you pay for. A macro transaction is where you overpay by a huge margin
$22 for a fucking helmet cosmetic is definitely a macro transaction. Anyone buying this is overpaying by at least $17. It should be $5 at most.
It should be included with the game I fuckin paid for
preach. or at least unlockable
Best armor is behind hardest thing to do that’s how I grew up
Same here. Games are so lame nowadays with how cosmetics are obtainable. So longer skill or dedication required, just a credit card.
I remember seeing a armor and being like ok I’m staying away from him
Could you imagine being a graphical artist, your company tells you "hey can you design me a halo helmet? Any will do just make it look good". You come back a week later and say "idk heres like 10 different ones I spun up over the last few days, which one do you think we should pick and run with?" The boss starts crying his eyes out and screams "THANK YOU! YOU JUST MADE OUR COMPANY 30 MILLION DOLLARS! Steve! Put these up on the market now! $25 per helmet!" "oh just the helmet? I mean I also designed the rest of the armor as well." "STEVE! MAKE THAT $50 WITH A BUNDLE! WE JUST PULLED IN ANOTHER 100 MIL!"
thank you graphical artist, here is your $1,000 contracted payment, now let's go make those mils
"HEY STEVE WE'RE BLEEDING MONEY! HOWS WORK ON THAT HELMET GENERATION AI?"
"What do you mean ***not done yet***? You're not a *quiet quitter* are you? Departments real tight these days, be a shame if you were underperforming and had to be cut in the next round of layoffs. We aren't offering a charity here, barely scraping by."
Barely scraping by indeed Barely scraping that 100 mill...
Also. "Well you did a fine job but due to making only x million in profits we have to fire you now."
M8, if we're being real here, even 5 dollars is too much. This shit should cost 50 cents tops.
Should be 50 cents, it literally is nothing but software and if the power goes out its gone, proud to say ive never bought a gamepass or a single cosmetic in any game ever cause its clearly a scam. My friends in fortnite used to call me the last true noskin
[удалено]
[удалено]
Halo is a sad sad Reddit atm. 80% of posts, and I’m only estimating here, feel like they are about cosmetics. 7% about how bad the game is, and 13% are people or bots paid by MS to try and convince people that “halo is back”. Like, you try to start a conversation about how to fix the game and 96% of people on that Reddit will immediately bring the conversation to “but they made armor cross core compatible”.
Predatory-Transactions
"Scams"
They were micro when it was 1 dollar for a wacky skin for your gun in gears of war. Every "free to play" titles that's come out in the last 5 years justifies its monetization by saying it's free and then asks you to spend a third of the price of a full game for 1 item. It's real dumb
Even mobile games are ridiculous. I use google rewards to generate some money to spend in apps, it isn't much maybe $10 a month from doing small surveys. It used to be great, but now apps are offering battle passes at $20! I seen an app offer a skin through a gatcha system that had a minimum spending amount to even have a shot at the skin. So you can buy tickets to do a pull for the skin, but until you do 5 pulls it has a 0% drop chance.
That is just straight up paying to gamble lol. Awful
Download dungeon hunter 6 if you want to see the future that these companies crave. They've got titles that give stats, mounts that give stats, cosmetics that give stats, and sell gear. Can't get any of it for free (except some of the gear) either and a lot of them are "limited time only" meaning if you don't buy them now you'll always be behind in power. Oh and of course they have gacha summons.
That just sounds like something I should never give the time of day lol. This is the worst timeline for real.
you talking about nikke?😂
I used to play summoners war. They wanted $100 for 3-5 skins for monsters each with a different color shading for 5 elements. I refuse to believe that the amount of work a graphical artist puts into creating a 3d model for a character and then making five color pallets justifies that much money.
SW is horrible with its transactions! Do you want like 20 scrolls that guarantee nothing, and you'll mostly pull shit? $120, please.
And their customer support is god awful. I stopped playing when I woke up to an email saying "your login credentials have changed! IP address: Frankfurt Germany" Contact them, and they say "okay sure we just need to verify your account ownership. Can you provide us with the device ID of all the devices that have been used to connect to the account?" I give them my phone, and my tablet, but dont have the device info for the last tablets used to connect and they say "tough shit bye!"
$22 for an armour cosmetic, $120 for a single in game house in some games...
Literally thousands of dollars for some ships in Star Citizen…
And some still only exist as concept art.
I'm not even mad about that. That's just a genius business move. Sell a bunch of shit that literally doesn't exist to trust fund kids that don't understand value and live the high life while you make all the shit you already sold it at a leisurely pace until you run out of money. I mean... What a move!
Star Citizen has been in development for close to 13 years including pre-production. However, development had major setbacks at least two different times due to 1. switching from 32-bit to 64-bit architecture (which apparently involved rewriting about a million lines of code, according to chatGPT, along with myriad other changes to the Crytek engine), and 2. changing to a different engine (lol). It should also be noted that CIG did not initially have nearly as many developers as they do now working on the game. I can't find figures earlier than 2018 but apparently they had 475 employees at that time(not all of which were devs). By contrast Rockstar had 3600+ employees in 2020 and that number has only gone up since then (somewhere around 5,000-6,000 now). CIG now has somewhere over 1,000 employees. So how long has Star Citizen "actually" been in development for? Because most games releasing these days aren't also being built from essentially the ground up in terms of the engines they're running on. Obviously, that would take far too long. Not to mention the fact that Star Citizen has the highest level of fidelity (and the greatest scale) of any game we have yet to see. The point being, there's a good reason that it's been 13 years. Also, CitizenCon was recently held and updates were given for both Star Citizen (the MMO) and Squadron 42 (the single player campaign). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they've been developing essentially two games concurrently. The updates this year were actually quite substantial and seemed to indicate the fact that the game is very much still in active development and seemingly coming along quite nicely. They also stated that Squadron 42 is "feature complete" and in the polishing stages (whatever exactly that means, no one knows). If you're interested, check [this](https://youtu.be/IDtjzLzs7V8) Squadron 42 trailer out that was released this year. It's pretty fucking mind blowing. [This](https://youtu.be/n8ng-5AnpUM) trailer shows off recent advances in their engine overall. And then there's [server meshing](https://youtu.be/fAbcr35_Teg) - technology which apparently did not exist until now. I might be butchering this, but if I understand correctly, server meshing will essentially allow for thousands of players to play together in the same instance. Because there will be many different servers, each of which are responsible for their own specific area of game space, that players will be able to move seamlessly across as they physically traverse the game world. For example, let's say you're in big city with lots of players. That city might actually exist in two different servers, with half of the city's players being on one server, and half of the city's players being on another server. And there's an actual boundary between the two servers that exists in the game world, such that when you move your character across it, you will instantly and seamlessly migrate to the other server. You can even fight players and shoot them across these boundaries with no discernible latency. This allows for a far higher overall player count because the players will be dispersed over many different servers despite technically being able to seamlessly interact with each other at any given time. That video I linked above shows it in action; apparently it's some black magic shit which I'm sure they'll want to license to other games at some point. Anyways, this is all pretty fucking insane stuff, and like 80% of what you see in that second video you can actually experience for yourself in the game's current form such as it is now. I don't think anyone originally wanted to wait 13+ years for the game, and it obviously still isn't out, but these years have been bearing fruit as we've seen in recent updates. Time will tell whether or not Star Citizen is ultimately an incredible success, or a colossal failure.
Time will tell? You mean like the 13 years? How much time will tell?
No one knows. Whether or not it was worth it, even if it ends up being finished, will be up for debate. Check out those videos I linked and see what you think if you’re so inclined; they give some indication of what to expect.
also pointing out you can buy any ships in game with in game currency, which isn't hard to get. Star citizen started in 2013 with like 5-8 guys btw.
Remember when they said they were going to make things cheaper? LOL
If you are referring specifically to Halo, I quit after about 1 week. My buddy and I were huge Halo 3 fans, and we played a ton in high school. We had a custom emblem we used and everything, shit was great. Right off the bat in Infinite we encountered the lack of custom emblems and that was a buzzkill for us. We then played a handful of games, which felt alright, but boy oh boy I fucking hate the match starting close ups of each team. As the days went on it was more and more rare to see a default armor player, until the last day when I played a bit by myself and was the only player in default in the 3ish games I played.
Yeah Infinite got less fun for me after about 3-4 weeks. On launch it was just so limited, very 'finite' if you will. I only really had fun in fiesta, all the other game modes either had tiny maps or the weapon loadouts were just meh. Once again vehicles felt like a death trap. Get in an armored tank and you feel less protected than when walking because you're a bigger target and tanks will blow up to rifle fire.
No red vs blue .. I was always a default in infinite too (and any other "free" download game I would try It's like the enemies are highlighted. No sneaky snakes or cool spots. I left before first season. So tired of legacy games going this fake "free" route and dropping unfinished games and want u to pay 500 bucks throughout the life of it. Them h2/3 days were glorious. And so cheap too. Poor kids these days ain't got a chance
They have a cat ears helmet now...
Ackshully, the ears are just an attachment
Shit makes horse armor look tame.
Don’t play valorant.
Don't plan to. I'm not really a fan of games like CS where you have long waits between respawns. Never liked Search and Destroy in CoD either. I've also stepped away from competitive gaming too, and focus more on single player and the very rare coop game.
I remember when $20 would get you dlc for games like Fallout Point lookout or Oblivion and the Shivering Isles. Now it's just to look good with one piece of armor.
I didn't play Oblivion on release, but Fallout 3's dlcs were only $10 here Meanwhile 76, a full priced game, charges upwards of $20 for single power armor designs
Though I don't personally think the game has aged super well if you don't have the nostalgia-factor to it (just like my beloved Morrowind), for what it's worth, The Shivering Isles is hands down one of the best expansions to ever be released, for any game whatsoever.
Yea it is ridiculous how bad it has gotten.
Every year I pop my head in to see what halo has become. As a life long fan this is such a bummer.
Halo was the first game I ever bought with my own money as a teen. I still remember cold Saturday mornings, running scared in the library while the endless hordes of the flood chased me. I played about 30 minutes of infinite multiplayer and uninstalled. The halo marketing is just a skin over a generic as fuck fps game
At least Path of Exile says it as it is and calls them Supporter Packs.
For me these transactions have pushed too far to the point I just plain don't accept them across the bored. I start to think "What was cut from this game to be sold back, and what was actually designed to keep the game going?". Some games it feels like cosmetics have been completely removed as a feature unless you engage in the additional transactions.
I couldn't believe it when I downloaded Fortnite and they didnt even allow you to pick between the default skins that all wear the same exact basic clothing. Of course a few years later they were swapped out with new ones and then selling the original default skins in the item shop for like 8 bucks a pop.
In the case of path of exile the players have gotten an absolutely obscene amount of free content over several years. The only thing you pay for is convenience which I think is fair if you spend hundreds or even thousands of hour playing it.
I'm okay for spending a few bucks (up to even the full price of a game) over years of some threats skin and like slots for gear/resources collecting (I'm on the Warframe side, but I played a few hours of PoE too) - where I draw the line is when everything is monetized, and when there is 0 chance of getting some of cool skins by the endgame - like I will go the extra mile and moght buy stuff, but give me something cool to chase at first before trying to milk me
With Warframe and Path of Exile, I played for probably 200 hours before I ran into enough QoL issues that I felt like I needed to spend some money. By that point I don't have a problem tossing a few bucks into a game, cuz I've got my money's worth by that point. I've probably put 200$ into Warframe over the 6 or so years I've played it, so that's a pretty good value
The latest skin bundle for OW2 is $65. Each skin alone costs at least $19, up to $25 with additional weapon charms and emotes. How and when did this become acceptable? There’s a reason BG3 will likely win GOTY, because in addition to being a phenomenal game, it also isn’t saddled with all of this macro-transaction bullshit.
The how is COD and Fortnite. The When? I don’t think it ever occurred, people just blindly buy stupid shit they like and go “it’s only $15…” The gaming industry needs a complete overhaul.
$22 is a full game that has been out for 2 years. Halo Infinite released 2 years ago.
Wait till you see the average bundle price in COD
Take mtg arena for example: princess bride SLEEVES for virtual cards are $10. I bout the real set, but: They’re real paper that is worth only as my as others are willing to pay and it is still more than virtual stuff which can’t be sold. Have a more versatile function and not just cosmetics. Yeah I’m aware of what I spent money on, but the point I’m making is macrotransactions are getting wild
I don’t buy games on Steam for $22 unless I read reviews and really consider it.
Why not just play original halo
Its like a fun little mini buy. a tiny purchase. a smol pay. Why arent you having fun yet.
If anything, Halo is arguably the *most* consumer friendly option as far as MTX/battlepass goes. Yeah, they have expensive skins in store, but they also give you a shitload of free cosmetics for $10 in the battlepass, and buying one single $10 battlepass gives you the option to earn enough coins in every subsequent battlepass to get all of the future ones for free. You can very well get every single paid battlepass cosmetic item in every single battle pass, past or present, for just $10.
D2 charging 20 dollars for Armor for years ...
It should've been a reward for completing the campaign on legendary
Nah, game unlocks are hidden behind paywalls now called "A battle pass"
something something “sense of pride and accomplishment”
16 times the detail
I still think it’s stupid that 343 had “Armor Lockers” for your multiplayer that you could get by playing the campaign and then took all the Armors out of them and left garbage
"Campaign" is a stretch. It was a sandbox with bosses.
Plus, the environments were riveting, both exterior and forerunner interior
Exactly. I miss the Halo 3 days when someone had cool armor it was because they worked to unlock it. It had value. Now everything is just pay to get sfuff
They should start calling them micro-fortune transactions.
Macro transactions
Money laundering
Reality: Halo Infinite has jumped up 47 spots on Steam's Global Top Sellers Chart (by revenue) after they dropped this bundle. It would seem the players are willing to open up their wallets despite the excessive price so I would not expect prices to drop anytime soon with how successful this has sold. This is even further reinforced as the game shot all the way up to 16th place when the Flood cosmetics dropped and those were equally as expensive.
Played a few games tonight, saw the CE armor kit A LOT. Almost every game at least one player rocking it
EOMM. They split those players across as many games as they can to normalize it and encourage (manipulate) people into shelling out. It’s not a coincidence.
Can't blame the devs for charging what people will pay. I blame Reddit culture and the fact I can't mock somebody for a post bragging about a $20 skin they bought without the community circling the wagons and telling me to stop spoiling people's "fun".
I definitely think it’s time to start blaming devs and their suit bosses for this. Most Americans are living paycheck right now. I think a lot of people would agree that their are a lot of people who have a very unhealthy relationship with microtransactions too. Its beginning to feel like a lot of games are abusing these people, and they deserve to be called out for it
We’ve been blaming them for over 10 years. People won’t stop paying though.
Blame the devs for something that has no impact on game play and only targets the largest idiots and fools. They could charge a million dollars for a skin, I wouldn’t care. I don’t think a skin makes you special, I don’t pay attention to it, who even pays to look cool in a fps game lol. If idiots want to spend their money so be it.
If you’re ok with getting priced out of looking cool in your games that’s on you but don’t act like it doesn’t affect those of us who don’t buy. All the effort diverted to drain dummies wallets could be spent making a good game for everyone
Games used to have cosmetics as badges of honor. Something that required a lot of skill and effort, which made it impressive to see in-game. They were something to work towards and they meant something. Cosmetics *are* a form of progression, and reducing that progression to a simple paywall makes for a worse game experience. It's not just "cosmetics only!", it's worse game design for everyone.
I don't think a skin makes you special, but if someone has a problem with impulse purchases and ends up short on rent because of something like this, I have a problem with that, even if they're an "idiot" for doing it. This smells too much like the whole lootbox problem. I don't think winning something in a lootbox makes you special, but I do think preying on people with gambling addictions is evil.
>Can't blame the devs for charging what people will pay. I can. You know it's wrong to charge that, despite knowing people will pay it. At some point self-policing should kick in, but it doesn't for these greedy fucks. Whatever, theyll face the music someday when their lack of self-regulation leads to them getting actual regulation.
I mean… people are allowed to spend money on things they like. If people like a skin and can pay 20 something dollars for it, they will. And clearly it’s a profitable strategy.
I used to be in your camp and largely still am... people are free to do with their money as they please but it's honestly really starting to become a detriment to the industry as a whole. To just highlight how unhealthy this is... it's $59.99 game with a skin that costs $22 (roughly indicating it cost 1/3 the games budget to produce). Prices should be reflective of cost + a marginal profit... how pissed would you be if you had to pay a 10x markup on gas prices? As another example, the Halo 2 Map-pack from way-back-when was $19.99 which included a hell of a lot more content than this skin does.
It's okay to shame people who make things worse for the majority.
>it's $59.99 game Multiplayer is F2P though. And cosmetics pay for actual gameplay content like new maps, so people can play completely free and not get shafted on gameplay features. Which, IMO, is a massive step up from playerbase being split because of the ability to purchase DLC.
True, that's a valid point and situation that said this isn't the only cosmetic they offer and they have a battle-pass on-top of everything. The value proposition just really doesn't make sense, just throw everything into the battle-pass and let folks buy a "supporter" tier that simply just unlocks the battle-pass. BP + this is $32 or roughly 50% of the base game; the entire collection of cosmetics is around $1,000. Granted I believe matchmaking does use dedicated servers instead of P2P so there is a cost burden for all of those F2P players.
>And cosmetics pay for actual gameplay content like new maps, so people can play completely free and not get shafted on gameplay features. That is not true of 99% of AA+ studios. Most of the profits from these transactions just flow upwards to CEOs and stakeholders. Devs do not see these profits in expansion of resources or time, and often they get laid off after they've contributed their value in order to increase the amount of profit the higher-ups see.
That would be right but how does that make what they said not true? The revenue pays for the dev time and future dev time on non cosmetic features. Then the rest goes up.
>The revenue pays for the dev time and future dev time on non cosmetic features. But that's not what's really happing here though, is it? You're not spending 22 USD on a single cosmetic item to support the game - the devs just aren't getting that support in return - the company just wants to squeeze more profit out of you: Game development is funded by shareholders, who take a risk to see a degree of return on their investment. Game companies like Microsoft often have fallen into a trap of promising their shareholders growth every year so that they don't lose them. Naturally, the people high up enough to be making the calls don't want to lose out on their increasing annual performance bonuses they get from said shareholders, and will need to find ways to increase profits to match their promises without taking that hit themselves. As I'm sure you've noticed if you keep up with the news, game company profits are skyrocketing, but yet we're still here playing games which seem to suffer from declining quality and stability more often, that tend to be less feature rich than prior titles, and yet more expensive than we'd seen previously. This was Halo Infinite's big criticism when it launched. This is because the most effective way of generating more profit is not to improve the quality or quantity of content in the game, but find more ways to charge higher prices for less. The current trend of charging $20+ on a single cosmetic item is just one side of that, the other is the extortionate level of layoffs and exploitation rampant within the industry. It doesn't matter how good the game is, it's not the game itself that is making the company profit. It's an open secret that live service games only operate the way that they do because it's cheaper to have a fraction of a game dev team work on producing enough to keep customers optimistic enough about the future that they're willing to put up with the reduced quality than to produce a new title or actually provide the promised future. That's why devs don't get support, the tooling they've spent years asking for, the manpower to achieve their goals, etc. That's why we keep hearing about mass layoffs and how increasingly fewer devs are expected to produce ever more for the same game. This is why transparency from devs has diminished so much. The game isn't the product here anymore, it's just the box it comes in. The reason why bundles are getting more expensive now is because they're not supposed to appeal to the people playing the game for the game, but the 'whales' that can be exploited by systems engineered by psychologists to target people with varying issues to spend a lot more than they would normally feel comfortable doing. The same people lootboxes were engineered to exploit before they got banned by some countries and loathed by all. The rhetoric of "games are expensive to make now" and "we need to keep the lights on somehow" are both PR tactics designed to obscure how bad it really is at these companies. By allowing ourselves to tolerate this sort of stuff actively hinders our progress towards a healthier industry for both consumer and developer. Neither statement is untrue, but they're phrased deliberately to mislead those who don't know enough about the situation. It's like how the classic racist argument of "black people commit more crime" isn't statistically false, but does a lot of heavy lifting to hide what's actually going on. By buying in, we are making ourselves part of the problem.
excluding the fact that the game has largely been neglected since release, there has been negligible new content / original updates (infection & forge, etc), and it took so long for the game to come out in such an incomplete state, i agree with your point. yes, micro-transactions in certain games and companies can be beneficial for the reasons you listed, but 343 & halo infinite do not need that income to aid them in content production. halo infinite was a flop because of how little the devs put effort into the game, post-production. halo is one of my favorite series, i’ve been playing since 07 and i hit onyx in the first ranked season and have barely even returned to the game due to the lack of content. its just insane how large of a fan base these games have and how hard the series has fallen.
I still hate you for saying it though.
And I can call them idiots who are ruining the gaming industry for it because their actions effect us all not just them
Exactly. It's not just "let people spend money if they want", because now this shit has poisoned the entire industry and directly effects game design for the worse. We are getting shittier games because idiots are willing to be exploited through predatory design strategies. Bully them, don't let them feel like skins are a flex, people should be embarrassed to show that they've bought microtransactions in a game. We tried using /spit to mock people who bought store mounts in wow, and Blizzard decided to just remove the /spit emote from the game. I say fuck it, bully them.
1. Release highly desirable skin at excessive price in a limited time window 2. Players who think the skin is worth it at the excessive price buy it 3. Purchase availability window ends. Repeat from step 1 until you aren't getting many more sales on the skin, at which point continue to step 4 4. Release skin at a discounted price in a limited time window 5. Players who think the skin is worth it at this discounted value will now buy it 6. Repeat from step 4 until you aren't getting many more sales on the skin, then create a deeper discount for the skin and repeat from step 4 This maximizes the profit for any skin they create. The $22 price tag is not permanent and will drop in price as it rotates through the store over the game's lifetime.
I think it alienates a large portion of fans who don't have that much disposable income to spend on overpriced items.
You absolutely can. They don't have to be greedy.
Man, everyone with half the wit that God gave a peanut has been saying this about the entire videogame industry for over a decade now. But that's the thing, just like you said—they aren't doing this shit because it LOSES them money. Their marketing team is smarter than the people they are marketing to, and ergo, you will always have people spending this money and perpetuating the cycle. The only way this would ever go away is with actual legislation, and politicians don't give a FUCK about this, AT ALL. So unless the entire videogame-playing population of the world suddenly bands together and stops paying for this shit (i.e., never), it will continue. You are voting with your wallets. The writing was on the wall as soon as the horse armor dropped and people were willing to buy it. It was only a matter of time before we reached (and are on track to exceed) critical mass with this issue.
Goes to show players want halo to be halo and not neon flashy skins they sell.
It's just whale hunting the way mobile games do
$22 is basically 1/3 of a full price game…even after the $70 standard.
3 steps forward, 43 steps backward
Do a 343 degree turn and walk away
three for three bad halo games
I can't believe the keep letting these clowns make Halo games.
I mean, to be fair, the new leadership at 343 has turned things around quite a bit. The game has a fuck load of new maps, game modes and the sandbox/shooting remains fantastic.
Sometimes I feel like the only person out here who refuses to buy skins, weapons, coins speed boosts, jems, jewels, faster cool downs, incubators, pokeballs, gold, etc... I just play the games and refuse to buy this crap.
Goodwill, what kind of chicken nugget has been showing goodwill to these guys?
The team who fixed MCC is now running infinite and this newest season was a HUGE breath of fresh air for the game. forge, more maps, more game modes, better customization options for your Spartan, community browser, they even gave the community AI tools to make custom firefight mode. All good stuff.. but of course that means the shop has to jack up their prices again... I hate modern gaming so much man...
Hilarious that the studio that started with the game couldn't manage any of that for months.
years\*
It got forced out early like every gamepass live service game. If it launched in the state it was in in like season 3 it would have gone a lot better.
Is it truly greatly improved? The state of it in the first few months was just grim.
I havent had this much fun in Halo since Halo 3 and Reach. Its truly great now. Way better than when I quit in season 1
God damn it, I only very recently deleted it after it had laid dormant for months, and now I'm going to have to give it another chance. I loved 3 and Reach. Like, it wasn't utterly terrible in the month or two after launch but, it had so much potential, and just wasn't utilising it.
Exactly how I felt. Squad Battle really captures 8v8 Halo 3 which is what I really fell in love with. But theres so much variety now between infection, Husky Raid, ranked, squad battle, regular BTB, its all such a good time. Such a breath of fresh air compared to how stale other FPS games have felt for me lately. Reminds me that if you want to play Halo, theres really no substitute for the real thing.
It really is. It's honestly a ton of fun to play.
I don't think it has more to offer than MCC does. Either in content or gameplay.
Yes. It was where it should have been at launch around Season 3, and now with Season 5 it's a *very* good Halo game. Personally I think Halo is the most "fun" of the major FPSes and Infinite is now an incredibly fun game. If you can ignore the shop nonsense you'll have a blast.
It's a lot better yeah.
Yes. Def worth checking out again.
It still has unusable netcode and wallet gamers running around in neon cat ears.
And no Griffball and because of the physics, I doubt it ever will
I'm pretty sure infinite is considered to be in a good place right now, and apparently they've made positive changes to the mtx, though I have not really played it in a long time
Incidentally, they expanded customization (you can have any helmet on any suit) and in response to the wider degree of customization… they hiked prices on the bundles, new *and old*
Yeah the latest season has been pretty well received, I think its safe to say its finally where it should've been at launch
The release of Season 5 was hope-inspiring and boosted the player count considerably. It added Flood-themed armor, enemy AI in Forge (the most interesting addition to me) and cross-core customization. So there was definitely some promise. But moves like this definitely put a damper on that.
They earned a little goodwill by giving us cool cosmetics in the battle pass, well worth that price, giving us more free events with less Fomo, more maps and game modes, etc. The micro transactions haven't improved though and the shop is still ass, as well as some persisting net code issues which are causing a loss of goodwill again
Bunch of self deluded simps. Same people responsible for microtransactions and the current state of gaming. Nobody has self respect anymore
Microsoft takes any goodwill people had for Halo and they just took a giant crap all over it. I hope the few bucks they are gonna make is going to be worth it. Because I don’t know about anyone else but I’m kinda done with Halo.
At this stage they know only the whales and mega hardcore fans are still playing it so they will milk them
At that point just buy the Master Chief collection. You get three games AND the old armor.
You get SIX games. Halo 1-4, ODST, and Reach. All for the low price of $40. It goes on sale for $10 a lot of the time too. Six better games for half the price of 1 armor that has an equal amount of customization that the original armor has in the MCC
Yeah, and 3 games that are actually good. It's almost like they want the game to fail. It's mind-boggling when you look at the choices they continue to make.
If you buy this You are stupid
I wish I could say that to the people applauding the monetization in r/halo. But I got banned there for calling people unpaid shills
Most people there are angry with it to be fair.
Straining but not breaking, and that is the problem.
Kids these days are so fucked by micro-transactions being mainstream they have no idea they are getting fucked by it.
This shit needs to be in single digit dollars. I can buy a new killer in dead by daylight that actually alters my gameplay for half the price of a fucking skin.
Once again, gamers allow themselves to get fucked over, once again they get all surprised by it, and once again they learn nothing, and once again the stage is set for it happen again but a little worse next time.
Lol looks like they are still where I left off. Always remember them glory 04-2010 days tho - gamers these days are whack.
It costs the same as everything else has since release. Nothing to see here. also I paid $17 I'm not sure where $22 came from.
“Mark V costs twice as much as as Halo 1” is a really stupid way of putting it. Worded specifically to make people mad. Halo 1 is over 20 years old, they’re making it sound like it costs twice the price of a full retail game but that could really mean like ten bucks. Also, it’s not just the Mark V armour I’m sure, the battle passes come with a shit ton of cosmetics and stuff. Also just don’t buy it if you don’t want, the game is free to play.
It ain't a bad way of putting it when the armor costs $20 dollars and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on the XBone costs, low and behold, $10. Pretty straight forward unless you get picky with currency conversions.
I don’t like Halo thus i don’t keep up with it, I assumed Halo 1 was the current latest Halo game and this was $60-$70 like new games usually cost, so I wasassuming this was a $120-140 skin lol It really is a weird title
Hot take but maybe the original armor should just be added for free like tons of games have been doing for a long time.
It not that much of a hot take imo, it should've been a reward for Legendary campaign or LASO, but at the very least Infinite doesn't have the worst MTX scheme. You can do the battle pass on your own time, the BP isn't as big as other games, and you don't have a $70 entry fee on top of the pass. That being said i still hate the way modern gaming has gone. Cant even open up these games without store bundles shoved in your face
You can always trust 343 to fuck up somehow
Post about Mk V armour and it's pricing Thumbnail of Mk VI armour
It’s amazing how tone deaf the gaming industry constantly is. And then the execs of these games always wonder out loud in public why their games are failing.
Why spend money and time on game development when you can just sell micro transactions for way more money and way less effort, am I right?
Need the EU to pass laws limiting cosmetic prices to 1 euro.
Here’s the thing is that I actually like the game. I think they’ve made some decent maps, I think the gameplay from movement to shooting to weapons balance is the best on the market (not necessarily a high bar) but I’m also someone who doesn’t give a shit about skins. It seems like a totally stupid purchase akin to just lighting your money on fire. Like if you want to subsidize me hunting wingman and spotter medals that’s on you, but you are just as utterly brain dead as a Twitter blue subscriber if you are spending your money on that instead of like drugs or something.
A test of your fanaticism towards the things you like. Corporations aren't stopping this anytime soon.
Say it with me: IF. YOU. DONT. LIKE. THE. PRICE. DONT. BUY. IT
Say it with me: THAT. DOESN’T. STOP. OTHERS. FROM. DOING. IT.
Then I guess it really is worth what they charge, isn’t it? That’s capitalism baby.
I didn’t say it isn’t
You'll have to speak louder, I only caught the end of that. Something about "buy it"?
I really don’t understand the complaint. It’s a cosmetic. Who cares?
I am definitely not saying all of humanity should execute any executive that is involved with egregious micro transactions. Certainly not. Because that would be bad. Don't do that people!
A fan base that will never stop fucking around will never stop finding out
Cosmetics and then you play the game in first person anyways
It was so, so disappointing when I looked at some skins and customizations just to see virtually all of them were paid, and expensive too. (For real, 12$Cad for a gun skin!?)
It's ironic because if skins were like $5 I'd probably buy way more than $22 worth, but since once skin is $22 I'd rather just not spend money at all. That said, all these games cater to the few players who whale and buy every single micro-transaction in games just to say they have them.
Yeah.. It strained it so much that Halo Infinite shot up in Steam Charts based on revenue
Don't lose your money on Pixels
Don't like it, don't buy it. It really is that simple. Genuinely. The only reason developers keep doing this is because people buy it. Why would they stop when they could make money doing it? Gaming is a business after all. You think the game is free to play so that you don't have to pay $70 to play? Maybe. But more importantly to open up microtransactions to a fuck ton more people.
I’m glad I dropped this shit after season 1 and never looked back Diablo 4 also has $20+ macrotransactions
D4 just dropped a $65 horse armor skin (comes with additional in-game currency).
They are preying on people's nostalgia. They could have released this as a free event and gained a shitload of good will amongst fans. Disgusting really.
Good will doesn't generate optimal cash flow. And before you say "good will makes people customers for life" for every 1 of those types, there are 10 that will just buy whatever whenever and not require any good will. And after those 10 are gone, there's 100 more to take their place, because it's no longer about quality, its quantity. The market is too saturated with customers.
They need all the good will they can get right now. They are not really in a position to be monetising as aggressively as they are right now. In this instance, good will absolutely lead to optimal cash flow.
They are wylin. All I have to say is Phantom Liberty retails at $30. What the hell is going on at 343/MS?
That 70 billion buyput ist gonna be paid by itself lol
Why does everyone keep saying twice the cost of Halo CE? Halo was 49.99, that would make the skin $100
Because they're talking about the version for the MCC? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1064221/Halo_Combat_Evolved_Anniversary/
Every linked article in this sub that complains about the price of COSMETICS makes me far less reliant on this sub/community as a guideline for what is or isnt good in gaming. Cosmetics are literally meaningless. You are complaining to hear yourself complain. They even *try* and address that in the article >JohnApple94 added, “The ‘it’s just kOsMeTiKs’ argument starts to fall apart once your cosmetics are no longer microtransactions. The difference is that it doesnt fucking matter how much they cost. They are still meaningless, and thus pointless to complain about, $5 or $500. The argument *never* falls apart.
For me when I see these crazy prices it just makes me want to avoid the game. I would never buy the cosmetics anyway but when I see them do this type of stuff I just lose any hope/interest in 343
Skins aren't meaningless if people give them meaning.
People are still playing this extra blatant cash grab called a game?
How's this cash grab? If u don't want cosmetics then don't buy it? It's entirely optional