Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[Eleccybubb]

Wait... there is a issue with selling cosmetics directly now?

More to do with the pricing.

£20 for a cosmetic is pretty fucking steep. And no this games not the only culprit either.

WoW charges £27 for a mount. And £19 for the rest. Literally I can get Resident Evil 2 for the cost of 2 pathetic little mounts.

The only reason EA are pricing them as such is because they know they lost a huge stream with the "no to lootboxes" policy. It's just trading 1 evil out for another.

It's like Fallout 76 basically. That has cosmetic MTX and some of those are priced stupidly.

[Lahis]

More to do with the pricing.

£20 for a cosmetic is pretty fucking steep. And no this games not the only culprit either.

WoW charges £27 for a mount. And £19 for the rest. Literally I can get Resident Evil 2 for the cost of 2 pathetic little mounts.

The only reason EA are pricing them as such is because they know they lost a huge stream with the "no to lootboxes" policy. It's just trading 1 evil out for another.

It's like Fallout 76 basically. That has cosmetic MTX and some of those are priced stupidly.

One would think that moderately priced cosmetics would bring in bigger revenue when more people would be inclined to buy them.

But no, they went full "Lets price these pants as much as a full new game, whales will cave in any case!"

[dope_danny]

More to do with the pricing.

£20 for a cosmetic is pretty fucking steep. And no this games not the only culprit either.

WoW charges £27 for a mount. And £19 for the rest. Literally I can get Resident Evil 2 for the cost of 2 pathetic little mounts.

The only reason EA are pricing them as such is because they know they lost a huge stream with the "no to lootboxes" policy. It's just trading 1 evil out for another.

It's like Fallout 76 basically. That has cosmetic MTX and some of those are priced stupidly.

Shit think how many Warframes, not skins but actual warframes you could buy with that much in platinum.

[Lindon]

No court rulings had been made yet, the case wasn't closed. They could have kept throwing lawyers at it.

Untill the court case is closed with a favorable ruling EA are not allowed to sell lootboxes within Belgium.

[Edge-]

The only reason EA are pricing them as such is because they know they lost a huge stream with the "no to lootboxes" policy. It's just trading 1 evil out for another.

How are mildly overpriced, totally optional cosmetics "evil"?

[Gaidax]

One would think that moderately priced cosmetics would bring in bigger revenue when more people would be inclined to buy them.

But no, they went full "Lets price these pants as much as a full new game, whales will cave in any case!"

This is my issue there.

I'm not militant about it and I would certainly play Anthem to we will see which extent, but these prices are pretty high. I really don't think it would kill them to slash these by 50% and make them more reasonable.

[Exquis]

But.. the pricing is based on speculations. Yeah we've seen how many shards are needed for an item, not what the price per shard is. The 20$ per item pricetag is nothing but speculation coming from reddit and youtube echochambers.. come on.

If it ends up being that expensive on release, yeah, that is less than optimal. But regardless you can earn the shit with ingame currency and its cosmetics. Live service games need revenue - at least they're not demanding a sub fee :')

[Lindon]

Shit think how many Warframes, not skins but actual warframes you could buy with that much in platinum.

The price of the non-prime frames in the market ranges from $5 to a little over $20 (you will have to buy more platinum than what the frame costs in some cases)

[Dhrizzle]

No, they lost the legal battle. You can't "cave" because the courts don't rule in your favor. Good lord this, "EVERYTHING EA DOES IS BAD" mentality is painfully boring.

Mostly I agree with you, but in this case Belgium passed (or rather clarified) a law that made it very clear that lootboxes fall under gambling legislation and EA were still set to challenge it before realising what a dumb idea that would be.

[Thelyron]

Not sure you quoted the right person. I was in support of playing a game not because of its publisher but because you enjoy it. I never said anything about any indie game at all. I was pointing out that so many people feel entitled to trash any game at all if its made by a Triple A, for the sheer reason as it was made by a Triple A.

Aw shit man, i completely misread your statement. My bad. I apologize.

[kaelleria]

Evil? Oh, c’mon, that’s just silly.

Overpriced cosmetic items deserved to get mocked, 20€ for a re-colored armor? Yeah, it’s god damn stupid, you bet your ass I’ll make fun of that, especially when there are games out there such as LoL selling that kind of crap for like 2€ or Warframe selling entire color pallets for 4€.

Do I see it has a problem though? Not really, no, you get exactly what you are paying for, if you are crazy enough to pay 20€ for “blue” go ahead, I just have my doubts that many players out there are.

Doesn't LoL have a $100+ skin?

[Eleccybubb]

How are mildly overpriced, totally optional cosmetics "evil"?

Wasn't referring to the cosmetics.

Was referring to the monetisation/methods.

Because EA aren't able to use lootboxes this time as they claim they won't be they instead overprice the other MTX.

And before you say anything I think it's BS in other games where pixels are like half the cost of a full game. Of course that's just my opinion. If people want to spend their money on it so be it. It's their money of course and they are 100% optional.

WoW is a prime example charging £27 for a fucking mount when it's a sub based game. FF14 is no better charging £20 for a bike that doesn't even have any cool flying animation.

- - - Updated - - -

Evil? Oh, c’mon, that’s just silly.

Overpriced cosmetic items deserved to get mocked, 20€ for a re-colored armor? Yeah, it’s god damn stupid, you bet your ass I’ll make fun of that, especially when there are games out there such as LoL selling that kind of crap for like 2€ or Warframe selling entire color pallets for 4€.

Do I see it has a problem though? Not really, no, you get exactly what you are paying for, if you are crazy enough to pay 20€ for “blue” go ahead, I just have my doubts that many players out there are.

Oh I didn't mean it like the cosmetics themselves are the problem. I meant the pricing. They are swapping out one bad monetisation tactic for a lesser evil. The lesser evil being the high prices.

I have absolutely no issue with cosmetic MTX. As you yourself said it's the pricing I take issue with. I can get a game for 2 of those £20 paint jobs.

[Dhrizzle]

Evil? Oh, c’mon, that’s just silly.

Overpriced cosmetic items deserved to get mocked, 20€ for a re-colored armor? Yeah, it’s god damn stupid, you bet your ass I’ll make fun of that, especially when there are games out there such as LoL selling that kind of crap for like 2€ or Warframe selling entire color pallets for 4€.

Do I see it has a problem though? Not really, no, you get exactly what you are paying for, if you are crazy enough to pay 20€ for “blue” go ahead, I just have my doubts that many players out there are.

It depends how you look at it really. £20 to be blue might seem silly, but if I've played a game for a couple of months, really enjoyed it and want to be blue I'd pay it and think it's money well spent. Mind you the way I usually look at these sorts of micro-transactions is as a voluntary subscription charge - if I enjoy playing a game then I don't mind spending £X per month on it.

[Eleccybubb]

It depends how you look at it really. £20 to be blue might seem silly, but if I've played a game for a couple of months, really enjoyed it and want to be blue I'd pay it and think it's money well spent. Mind you the way I usually look at these sorts of micro-transactions is as a voluntary subscription charge - if I enjoy playing a game then I don't mind spending £X per month on it.

And if you think it's money well spent that's what matters most. I would never ever tell you not to get that £20 MTX.

However imo even for optional stuff it's just overpriced as hell for something as small as that. And while it may not be final it's not the only game doing it which irks me a little admittedly.

[apelsinjuice]

People really just want everything for free, they complain about lootboxes and claim they want mtx to be purchasble directly with no rng, and when the devs give it to them they demand it to be sold for 5 dollars, if they caved in and started selling it for 5 people would start a new complain hate train trying to get it lowered even more

EA just surrendered lootboxes for FIFA in belgium due to their new restrictions

[Gaidax]

People really just want everything for free, they complain about lootboxes and claim they want mtx to be purchasble directly with no rng, and when the devs give it to them they demand it to be sold for 5 dollars

EA just surrendered lootboxes for FIFA in belgium due to their new restrictions

I would not be so sure here. People want to get a fair return for their money and paying 20 bucks for some skin when you have games like Metro Exodus cost 50 bucks, is not very fair.

[Eleccybubb]

People really just want everything for free, they complain about lootboxes and claim they want mtx to be purchasble directly with no rng, and when the devs give it to them they demand it to be sold for 5 dollars

EA just surrendered lootboxes for FIFA in belgium due to their new restrictions

Why the fuck should there be RNG involved in purchasing a cosmetic in the first place though?

And £20 is a stupid price for a cosmetic. Not just in Anthem but in ANY game. It's half the cost of some decent games.

What Anthem is doing is good. It's allowing direct purchase. However if that £20 goes live as is then that just proves they are high priced to offset the balance of there being no predatory shit like lootboxes in the game.

And EA didn't "surrender". They were literally never winning that case. They are not the good guys in that situation considering they tried to fight tooth and nail against the law.

I remember Tony Hawks Underground on PS2. You could customise your deck a fair bit and you unlocked that stuff by PLAYING THE GAME. Not shelling out £10 for a deck skin. Hell the character customisation in that game was quite good too in terms of amount of stuff.

[Gorsameth]

I would not be so sure here. People want to get a fair return for their money and paying 20 bucks for some skin when you have games like Metro Exodus cost 50 bucks, is not very fair.

If you don't feel its worth it don't buy it, thats the advanced of limiting micro-transactions to cosmetics.
Christ this isnt rocket science.

[Eleccybubb]

If you don't feel its worth it don't buy it, thats the advanced of limiting micro-transactions to cosmetics.
Christ this isnt rocket science.

Yet again the issue is not WHAT it is. What it is frankly is absolutely what EA/Bioware should have done with MTX in other games.

It's that the pricing is a bit out of whack for what you get in peoples opinion. I mean nobody is trying to pass it off as fact just voice an opinion. Let em.

[Edge-]

It's that the pricing is a bit out of whack for what you get in peoples opinion. I mean nobody is trying to pass it off as fact just voice an opinion. Let em.

See, we'll complain about the pricing but...it works. People buy shit at those prices. If they weren't buying it, they'd drop the price down.

Same thing as with loot boxes. We may hate them. We may wish they'd disappear forever, but they sell like hotcakes and any company, especially one with a fiduciary responsibility towards their shareholders, is going to try to take advantage of it accordingly. But again, if folks weren't spending on it then we wouldn't see so many games cramming them in.