I’m a big fan of the Dead Space series from EA. I loved the first two installments, so when I heard there was a third coming out, I was super pumped. As the game got closer to release, disturbing news about the game hit the internet: EA, Dead Space 3‘s publisher, had included microtransactions, allowing players to buy weapons, skins, and resources for the in-game crafting system. Developer Visceral Games assured players that they could still find everything they needed in game, and with some careful resource management would have more than enough resources to play and beat the game.
Having not played and beaten the game, Visceral wasn’t far off the mark; there were times where I was strapped for resources, but eventually was able to get most of what I wanted.
However, the inclusion of micro-transactions in a full-priced game is still disturbing, as it shows how a publisher like EA views it’s gamer customers: walking piggybanks.
Microtransactions started out as a staple of the Asian MMO gaming market, where piracy and poverty are rampant, and it was easier to develop a “freemium” model where games were cheap but you had to pay a few dollars to unlock certain abilities or features, rather than the full-priced AAA titles typically sold in the West.
However, because microtransactions were so successful, it wasn’t long before they were imported to mobile and casual games as well. Ever downloaded a game on your phone and, to unlock a certain feature, you had to buy tokens, coins, or some other fanciful currency? That’s a microtransaction. The idea is to separate gamers from their money one, five, ten, and twenty dollars at a time, rather than charge them the full price up front, hoping that eventually you exceed the purchase price of them game through microtransactions the customer doesn’t even notice.
The MMO I play on a regular basis, Star Trek Online (yes, I play an MMO based on Star Trek. I have a ship (a Jem’Hadar Attack Ship named U.S.S. Ironhide) and a crew and everything. I even have a Gorn first officer named Krunk.), is a free-to-play MMO where, if I should so choose, I never have to spend a dime. I can grind resources to my little heart’s content and never have to spend anything. Alternatively, I can spend a ton of money on stuff I can get for free, at the cost of a significant amount of time. Star Trek Online is also free-to-play, which means that it costs me nothing to just play.
What makes Dead Space 3 unique is that it’s a single-player, story-focused experience; there’s no online mode (save for a handful of co-op missions). Basically, EA put in microtransactions as a cash grab for gamers with more money than time. Considering the game isn’t particularly difficult on Normal, it’s hard to imagine them profiting significantly from their inclusion.
The microtransactions in Dead Space 3 fall into two categories: DLC and Resources. The DLC side of things includes new appearance options for the main character’s weapons and armor. The Resources side of things includes upgrades to your Scavenger Bots, small drones you can release to find resources, and actual Resources themselves.
Now, let’s say I make a trainer (a computer program designed to help players cheat by giving them infinite health, ammo, resources, money, etc.) to give myself infinite resources in Dead Space 3, the case can be made that I’m stealing from EA. Of course, there’s no chance I’d ever give EA a dime in microtransaction money, but EA doesn’t see it that way; by cheating, I’m depriving them of the possibility of revenue, which is the same as depriving them of actual revenue. Now let’s say I upload that trainer to the internet, where it’s downloaded a gazillion times. Suddenly, EA’s microtransaction revenues from the PC side zero out as everyone is using my trainer to get infinite resources, and thus depriving EA of revenue, as there are people that might use microtransactions that won’t because they can just cheat for infinite resources. Suddenly, no crime at all becomes a criminal conspiracy to defraud EA of thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.
What makes the inclusion of these microtransactions even more galling is the fact that Dead Space 3 is a full-priced game. As I mentioned earlier, microtransactions are prevalent in FREE-TO-PLAY MMO’s and mobile games, which by their very definition are either free-to-play or inherently low-cost, and therefore need an alternate revenue stream to support continued development and support. Dead Space 3 costs $60 USD.
Long story short, EA is attempting a blatant cash grab in a highly visible, AAA title, when it not only doesn’t need to, but probably shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
