Thoughts on Jim Sterlings video about Advertisements in games?

[Aidy]

Games *are* costing more to make. Marketing is going up too, but the underlying cost of the games are also going up, so it's a double-whammy.

[Valkenr]

Games are not costing more to make, I used to believe this too. The only expense that has gone up is marketing, because you have to scam your customers into buying an unfinished product. If anything, its a great time to make games, with UE4 and Unity in decent states, and YouTube providing an amazing cheep or even free marketing platform (if your game is decent enough to get picked up by games media).

Its just a really bad time to make games if you're trying to have some smash hit to save your stock price, after you had that one good idea [Overwatch].

Art is a bad investment, unless you are using it to buy drugs.

#KeepWallStreetOutOfVideoGames

[Borghir]

I believe that game companies flourish when creators/developers are the decision makers within a business, but once you get a sales director to become CEO, they stop caring about the love of the product or the fans, and want to make the cheapest possible product with the highest amount of monetization. They don't care if an IP is destroyed in the process because they are usually only there for 1-3 years.

[metalspider]

the whole excuse of games being to expensive to make is just pathetic,most AAA companies make so much money that you cant even begin to understand how much it is,add to that the amount from microtransactions for basically nothing.
and then we have the companies bailing from steam because steam charges them too much,as if you pay less for a game on origin or something.
the only thing thats really going on is big corporations wanting to make even more money,what ever way they can get away with.

[Aidy]

Product placement is different from advertising. Product placement tends to be unobtrusive (thought it can sometimes result in unnatural things happening in the game), whereas an advert is something obtrusive that you are forced, or incentivised to watch.

[zeorhymer]

It's been around for DECADES. Why are we bringing it up now? Anyone remember Pizza Hut in TMNT, Axe body spray in MGS, or even Duracell in Alan Wake? Whatever, as long as it's not intrusive, I don't care.

[Spect3r]

Of course you can say good or bad things about a game, i didnt question that.
All i did was give you my opinion on the subject, thats all. My opinion doesnt make your opinion less valid or vice versa.

And no one is defending micro transactions.
But do they bother me? No, not at all.
I am still to find a game that i fel like it forced me to buy anything in the game.

And i disagree, it is not game of the year, not even close in my opinion.

[Aidy]

When I played the game they shown full screen ads for every new horseskin or ship crew package or xp booster that you could buy with helix credits.

That's not my experience in the slightest.

And it's not about how hard the game is, it's about how grindy it is. The xp gains is purposely reduced to make the xp booster more appealing.

Again I can only disagree. I find the level progression fine, in line with the previous AC game. If anything it's too quick as I was worried I was hitting the 50 level max too soon, but I see they've since increased it to 75 and they've changed the way master abilities work a bit too.

These kinds of games are always "grindy". Do you complain that Final Fantasy etc is grindy? No, it's a part of the game experience. When you get exp and levels etc you can either make non-respawning enemies and give the feeling of it being an RPG when the reality is that your progression through the game is tightly controlled *cough*Witcher 3*cough*Divinity Original Sin*cough*, or you make the enemies respawn and give the player a little grinding to do.

Also the stat differences make it impossible to explore in the game without levelling up to the appropriate level, again encouraging players to get the boosters if they want to play the game without doing every last side mission in an area before moving on.

Again I can only disagree. I've not had a problem there as I do a lot of the side missions and general exploration along side the main game so I've never been level-restricted in anything. I appreciate if you want to bomb through the game to make a YouTube video to get those views then that can be a problem, but if you do the side stuff too it isn't. So maybe they don't want you to buy boosters, maybe they just want you to....play the game?

The game mechanics are subordinated to microtransactions. These games are no longer designed to give the best experience, they're designed to give maximum incentive for ingame purchases.

Again I 100% disagree. I've never had micro-transactions pushed in AC and never felt I needed them, never felt the game devs were pushing me so that I thought I did. I just put the game in, turn it on, play it, and have fun. It seems to me you're actively looking for something to complain about. I'm not saying some games aren't tarnished by micro transactions, but AC is most certainly not one of those games, and for anyone reading this who is potentially put off playing AC because of micro-transactions, then don't.

You might be put off but the somewhat repetitive gameplay though

[MadMummy76]

I played the entire game, killed all the cultists, did the Atlantida story, etc, etc and not once i felt like i had to buy xp boosters or anything else.
I dont even think i saw a menu of them selling anything, so i really dont get why people complaining about it.

I don't know why are there so many people defending microtransactions here to a point where they'd even claim they didn't even know about it. Yeah, right, you didn't see the menu, the previous guy didn't even know about it. . It's quite impossible to miss.

Guess what, I finished the game without buying anything too. So what? I also noticed that it wasn't the best game that it could've been thanks to the aforementioned things.

You people should stop doing an ego thing about games. When someone has criticisms about a game you liked, they aren't attacking you. I think odyssey is GOT 2018, but that doesn't mean I must only say good things about it.

[Spect3r]

When I played the game they shown full screen ads for every new horseskin or ship crew package or xp booster that you could buy with helix credits.

And it's not about how hard the game is, it's about how grindy it is. The xp gains is purposely reduced to make the xp booster more appealing. Also the stat differences make it impossible to explore in the game without levelling up to the appropriate level, again encouraging players to get the boosters if they want to play the game without doing every last side mission in an area before moving on.

The game mechanics are subordinated to microtransactions. These games are no longer designed to give the best experience, they're designed to give maximum incentive for ingame purchases.

I played the entire game, killed all the cultists, did the Atlantida story, etc, etc and not once i felt like i had to buy xp boosters or anything else.
I dont even think i saw a menu of them selling anything, so i really dont get why people complaining about it.

[MadMummy76]

Are you serious? I don't even remember that happening. I'll take your word for it but there is so much going on at the start it just past me buy. I'm over 100 hours in, level 55 or so and have never had paid-for content mentioned or suggested or shown to me at all. Neither have I felt I've needed it, it's not that hard of a game.

Saying that being given some premium currency after a tutorial and told you can use it in the shop and it never being mentioned again is "in your face" with "full screen ads" is, IMO, fairly unreasonable.

When I played the game they shown full screen ads for every new horseskin or ship crew package or xp booster that you could buy with helix credits.

And it's not about how hard the game is, it's about how grindy it is. The xp gains is purposely reduced to make the xp booster more appealing. Also the stat differences make it impossible to explore in the game without levelling up to the appropriate level, again encouraging players to get the boosters if they want to play the game without doing every last side mission in an area before moving on.

The game mechanics are subordinated to microtransactions. These games are no longer designed to give the best experience, they're designed to give maximum incentive for ingame purchases.

[Omen Gaming]

I have been subscribed to Jim's channel for a while now and while I do not always agree with everything he says I do find myself disagreeing with his opinion less than I used to, and on the point he makes in the latest video I agree with him completely.

Watching the video he makes a lot of valid points like how one character's tattoo has been replaced by an advertisement for something (a e-sports tournament I believe it was), and you can turn the adverts off but then you get less xp than if you play the games with the advertisements activated. And then he went into other games with advertisements a lot of which you look at and you realize he is correct you maybe just didn't give it a second thought to maybe notice before. We can already see in some games, (Grand Theft Auto Online being a the example of one I have played so have seen first hand) where you will have NPC mission contacts offer you new missions however you need to buy a certain vehicle, building or weapon before being able to do it and then you are charged a extortionate amount of in-game money that will no doubt require you to have to spend real world money to purchase it. And look I know there will be many out there that can afford these items, that played the game to oa point where they have grinded and completed missions and earned the money and can afford these items, so isn't it also kind of a slap in the face to those players for sticking with the game. I am getting off topic, sorry.

My main issue is something I saw someone mention on another thread which is games being released as incomplete or there being long beta demo's and alpha testing of games where developers are pushing games out earlier and earlier to build hype for a part-finished game, with potential to be a really good game but then ultimately the game never reached that level and flatters to deceive. It has become less about the game play, less about the story, less about quality control and more about quantity; how quickly they can push a game out, how much dlc they can add, can they get away with adding a season pass, how many in game currencies they can have and loot boxes/crates and different skins and costumes and weapons customizations, what cheats they can add to save players actually completing the game and unlock everything players would otherwise grind at an ever slowing rate as games become increasingly grindier in an attempt to make players either play for longer or get bored, pissed off or both that they end purchasing some pay-to-win item which will give them a short cut.

I remember an era when a game would be advertised in a magazine and you could go down but it at your local games store or order it directly from the maker, and what you got was a completed game, sometimes there may be a bug or glitch but for the most part games were fun, playable and most of all complete. It's sad how things have changed so much and can never return to the way they were when a game was a game and not just one component of a long term marketing strategy.

[Spect3r]

Ads in games are one of the most obvious moves and i find it amazing that no one ever done it before.
Im not saying i agree with it, but is really no surprise to me that they have done it.

Also, if done in a non intrusive way, specially if done "organically" with in the game, it doesnt botter me that much to be honest.

[ciderPunk1877]

It's weird. I pulled out Fable Anniversary recently, and was reminded of how simple the game is, how little there is in terms of systems and mechanics... and I realized, "This cost $50 when it came out."

If you do the math for inflation, that's $66 today.

Definitely an argument to be made that $60 is too low for a modern AAA game. Not a popular opinion, but... I'm standing by it

[DarknessFX]

I think SFV is preparing to be a PSN+ "free" game and this AD will be always on for PSN+ gamers.
In general I not following or care anymore about Jim Sterling since he went full SJW in a video about a silly game that involves a foreign political figures.