Microtransactions

[Firemeboy]

Have you heard of this?  If you don't have the skills to play the game, you can buy your way to victory.

http://wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,66955,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4

Don't quite know how I feel about this.

[Entsuropi]

They have never said if ingame benefits would result; at the keynote presentation they simply pushed it as part of the customisation facet of their strategy. Let the users customise their online experience through items.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yargh! Sounds like a money trap. You could easily spend much more for a game than you ever anticipated.

Of course, that was Scott McCloud's idea in the first place when he first connected the idea to comic viewing. It makes business sense, I think, but it can end up being much hardert than the user plans, I think.

Unless he can set up an account, put some money in it, and say "stop me when I spend all that." Maybe the game implements that, I confess I only read the first part because I already knew what micropayments were.

[Entsuropi]

We will just have to see on that score, but i'm pretty excited by the ability to customise my online character or whatever. Thats a major selling point of MMO's.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

oh, I've no doubt people will go for it. That does sound cool.

[Firemeboy]

I read an article recently where you could set up a game (I think it was X-box) so that you just clicked a button, and it called and ordered a pizza for you.

Now if game companies would just ship their game with catheters we would be set.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

YEah, that'd be this thread.

[Dex1138]

Don't like it. Why bother playing the game then? Why not just buy a character with max stats and equipment?
When I play these games it's the getting the next level/power/cool item that's the reward for playing. Why reduce it to who wants to pay for it? That's rhetorical, by the way