>What I do question, though, is how long gamers are willing to accept this sort of content strategy moving forward? Or has Anthem just tipped the scale?
>Just as the lootbox debacle that blighted Star Wars Battlefront 2 saw the industry back away from the practice, perhaps the state of Anthem’s launch and the push-back from critics and gamers is an alarm bell that needed to happen?
>I’d like to think that between Anthem, Fallout 76, and Battlefront 2 we’re at a nexus point where unsavory practices like microtransaction-heavy multiplayer games and content-light, unfinished and buggy games-as-a-service are no longer acceptable.
All this means is that the industry will double down on their cashcow audience; kids. In the future we won't even see single-player centric games, it'll all be shit like Fortnite or Apex Legends. Publishers will just go " fuck adults" and go 200% on selling loot boxes and gambling to kids with mommy's credit card.
Grayson Cruz
Video games were never for adults outside of niche genres and series which are doing fine
Austin Gomez
Enjoy their fad focusing even more now. Hope you have a phone and vr headset.
Justin Murphy
This.
All of you people have completely forgotten the level of retard the average gamer is.
Jaxson Garcia
But the industry isn't going to raise its standards, it will simply look for the most easy target to blame, blame them for the bad sales, and continue like nothing happened.
Ian Lopez
RIP BioWare
Jonathan Martin
I actually completely agree with this. I'm glad to see these companies are starting to get a taste of their own medicine.
Alexander Hill
im just playing jap games, western games are poo.
Easton Richardson
Remember when SW Battlefront came out and everyone realized lootboxes were shit and stopped putting them in games? Oh wait...
Lincoln Gray
god if only there was some kind of system of journalistic reviews to tell people when games are bad
Ryder Thompson
>97 and 05 What events exactly?
Ayden Long
This. They will just regress and try to nickel and dime their already most loyal customers even harder then ever. Only if they were to drive the whales too far would they ever back down.
Justin Hill
Lootboxes aren't appearing that much
Only Apex Legends but that's free to play
Jose Flores
Go to any high school/uni/college, and you will see hordes of normies talking about how awesome the new fifa is. EA could literally start charging players hourly for play time, and normies would still go to school and talk about how awesome the new game is. they don't think. They are incapable of questioning why they are getting ass raped, because not only are they unaware of the ass rape, but they actually welcome it
Justin Murphy
Microsoft and Sony can put their foot down on publishers any time they feel like. Seems both took on a race to the bottom in allowing publishers to shit in the box and ship it.
>selling loot boxes and gambling to kids The law makers are finally starting to catch up with this...at least in Europe anyhow
Disney dropped the hammer on lootboxes. EA was ready to milk it for it was worth.
>Go to any high school/uni/college, and you will see hordes of normies talking about how awesome the new fifa is. Actually they won't shut up about Fortnite. But there's like one kid in a class I cover that talked about Warframe and Deltarune, so they might have hope.
Nathaniel Phillips
Because when the money comes from their mommy or daddy, then it has no real value to them. They feel like they will never run out of money and will always get what they want, they don't know their parents spending limits in the first place.
John Stewart
Generally loot boxes in f2p games is considered acceptable. The problem most people have is when you pay a premium price and still have shit like loot boxes.
Wyatt Nguyen
>we’re at a nexus point u fokken wot
Landon Lopez
Fortnite, fifa, yada yada you get the point
Robert Barnes
What people don't realize is that the outrage is irrelevant. Fallout 76 wasn't even a B-team project, it was something thrown together for shits and giggles, and it sold well over enough to cover its development cost.
Battlefront 2 sold well, also. The problem is that these things sell, and lootboxes print money. There's this tiny voice that's mad about it, but overall gamers absolutely love lootboxes. Why do you think Tencent makes more money than any other gaming publisher? They acquire studios and force them to implement loot box strategies and shift development to maximize that style of revenue.
It won't change while it still makes shitloads of money. Thankfully, there are still small studios who will continue to make real games, and it just means we need to focus on those. Who gives a fuck if EA releases another online multiplayer loot box fiesta for middle schoolers? Best thing to do is not play it.
Cameron Clark
Disney pulled the plug on them for EA, some EU country banned them outright because their similar to gambling and that sent a pretty clear message for the rest of the world. Apex gives them every time you level up, so its pretty much how games are suppose to reward you. "Play more, get rewarded"
Blake Morgan
The absolutely WORST thing that could happen now is new consoles Big AAA publishers are waiting new hardware like the second coming of jesus, because it will give them the reason to once again dump all reasources in graphics and presentation, basically selling us the same fucking games with new graphics and ride off that instead of actually improving gamedesign. They did exactly that this generation. ALL AAA games on PS4 and Xbone are the same games from PS3 and 360 with improved graphics and literally NOTHING else. The alliance of visual artists and marketers is what really kills AAA games. We need at least another 5 years of same hardware to break that habit. Unfortunately it will never happen. So the cycle will continue.
I live in a low income neighbourhood, and most kids don't get money from mommy and daddy, but that never stopped them. Kids go out and mow lawns, sell weed, save up every penny just to buy the new 2K every year
Levi Ward
>Apex gives them every time you level up
I hope you know it stops at like level 20
Colton Garcia
Haha yes goy good idea, too bad we already tried that. It was a different time; being able to control the public's opinion of our games with a couple of bribes to the most popular outlets was the best part of the 360/ps3 era. We'd have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that meddling fat fuck Jim Sterling.
Jack Wilson
This would be the case right up until the second the law comes down on all these clowns, and it's going to happen.
EA would actually crash overnight if it ever does, they've got nothing but lootboxes in their model, Wilson is a big gambler.
Carter Brown
BioWare's long been dead. Their swansong was DA:O.
Hudson Jones
haven't played much, but thats new to me. thank you for correcting me and letting me know
Lucas Morris
I don't think western publishers are gonna learn much from the recent successes of Japanese games.
Thomas Allen
>implying it will change anything AAA industry is a race to the bottom
Parker Ramirez
>There's this tiny voice that's mad about it
I know Europe is irrelevant when it comes to a discussion about the US, China, Russia, even India, as Europe is no longer one of the big boys anymore, but when it comes to shit sold within their union they're not a tiny voice. EA can't pick a fight with the EU and win, no matter how much they screech.
Charles Miller
>In the future we won't even see single-player centric games, it'll all be shit like Fortnite or Apex Legends.
If games like Resident Evil 2 and DMCV show us is that there has always been and there still is a huge market for singleplayer games. And to pair Capcom as an example, Nintendo keeps releasing a lot of huge singleplayer games, like the upcoming Yoshi's Crafted World or the 3DS port of Kirby's Epic Yarn. And then you have hugely popular games like the Souls series and their lookalikes which, even if they have some multiplayer elements, are still aimed as a singleplayer experience.
Personally, after the dreadful multiplayer experience that was League of Legends, I always approach all these new multiplayer-only games with caution, since most of the time they're all style, no substance and full annoyance.
Brayden Thomas
This. Their beating heart was removed once EA bought the company.
Benjamin Morales
Yeah but it's getting a funeral now. Or a party, as I see it.
>What makes these games so good? >RE2 and DMC5 have photo real graphics with their engine boss >That MUST be it!
Aiden Williams
Remember when that one country tried to make lootboxes illegal due to the connection to gambling, and the gaming industry DIDN'T even try to disprove the link between gambling and lootboxes, but instead responded by saying "lootboxes are a form of artistic expression and we will not be censored!", literally making it about censorship instead of business practices? Never underestimate just how petty and how far video game corporations will go to protect their whale traps.
Cooper Anderson
>Only Apex Legends but that's free to play
Which is fine, I think almost nobody has issues with true f2p games that include microtransactions. Is when they add that shit to fully priced games when it becomes an issue.
Henry Jenkins
Funny that none of these game journalists have the balls to say any of this shit unless it's the general consensus, or if it's another Nintendo rehash like Pokemon.
Brandon Martinez
They should just try to make a connection to Japanese gacha games, in any convoluted way possible. They'll get tons of weebs defending them.
Owen Murphy
I'm totally fine with lootboxes, skins, etc in f2p games. But I ain't paying $70 (+$30 """dlc""") for a unfinished AAA game that still offers mtx
Luke Ross
This user gets it. The failures mean nothing to them, as long as they make back what they spent to make the game, and even make back just one penny more, even though its a failure it still made profits.
Caleb Nguyen
The industry won't improve because one shit game got middling reviews. Also critics still have incredibly low standards, they just gave a pass to Metro Exodus, which I've found more game breaking bugs in than any other singleplayer game of recent memory.
