Did microtransactions and loot boxes tarnish multiplayer gaming forever?

I use to love MP gaming back in the day so many great memories of playing Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Battlefield 2 and Counter Strike Source. These days everytime I see a new MP game get released the first thought that comes to my mind is where did they put the microtransactions. It's pretty depressing that I have to think that way now. I miss the old days when you didn't have to worry about that kinda of trash. So what do you think did microtransactions and loot boxes ruin multiplayer gaming forever? I prefer SP games these days easily as for me MP gaming is pretty much dead but I wish it didn't have to be this way.

Nope! Because they are stronger than ever despite all the bitching.

"Did microtransactions and loot boxes tarnish multiplayer gaming forever?"

The answer is simply no! We the gamers did this to ourselves. We cave in, we obey publishers and now, you see the aftermath. You wanna stop this madness, stop spending cash on microtransactions/lootbox and you got nothing to worry about. As far as I'm concern, I'm still gonna play my games and not care about microtransactions/lootbox in them.

Pretty sure they've infected single player games as well.

They are likely here to stay in some capacity. I'm ok with it as long as the game isn't pay to win, and if it is.. well it better make that clear from the start.

Call of Duty 4 tarnished multiplayer forever. Unlocks have NO place in a competitive shooter.

No, casuals did. :P

Why do cosmetics upset “hardcore” gamers so much?

Loot box mechanics but no mtx option is no, its just like destiny or monster hunter hunter looking for loot for better gear.

Loot box mechanics with mtx option is yes. It sucks and changed gaming forever.

I honestly never spent a cent on a micotransaction or lootbox and never will.

True but it's a bit different when it comes to competition but yeah either way they are garbage.

I couldn't agree more COD4 influence also ruined alot of great SP games.

You are not wrong alot of casuals buy that crap it started with mobile gaming.

I bought some rocket league keys and 2 rocket pass's which I got 10 keys from so it was like buying keys.

Am I part of the problem or just helping that dev out?

Well, I see the cosmetics as something greedy fucks have started to charge for when it was free in older games. It goes as far as games being developed with lootboxes in mind right from the start.

Cosmetics were once free unlocks that were fun to unlock in games, and when they now start to charge for these things, in games that are already full price to buy at that.. why in the living **** don't you see how others see these things as bad? I understand not giving a shit when you're rich, but everyone aren't.

Then there's the lootboxes that aren't just cosmetics that you conveniently chose to omit.

Online multiplayer becoming more popular and more accessible to children introduced a horde of immature, screaming brats and juvenile teenagers to multiplayer games; that's what ruined it the most for me. Long before loot boxes.

As for loot boxes and microtransactions. I try to ignore them. Since they became a thing, I have only ever bought one in-game purchase and that was for a Warframe skin made by someone on Steam.

We have NEVER seen the amount of skins and other cosmetics that we get today. Not even close. What games are you referring to when you claim we used to get this stuff for free? And lets not act like making money is evil here. For games to get the continued updates and work that we see in games like Overwatch, Rocket League, Fornite, PUBG etc, devs need additional revenue streams. When the money gets cutoff, the games are left to die.

Also, what games are you referring to that have loot boxes with items that aren't cosmetic?

I don't have much against asking money for added content. With that, I mean expansions. Meaningful content. Cosmetics however.. You either think the color red is worth 5 bucks, or you don't. I think it's really fucking greedy, silly and stupid to charge 5 bucks for the color red, but that's just me. Then we have the children who are dumb enough to not know you shouldn't buy shitty cosmetics for hundreds of dollars to have fun with for an hour, and the publishers knowing they are dumb, and take advantage of them.

Pretty much all fighting games is one example. We unlocked characters and costumes. For free. In fun ways. Now they want us to pay for these things, on top of paying full price for the game.

But yeah, it's totally a good thing.

"Also, what games are you referring to that have loot boxes with items that aren't cosmetic?"

Were you under a rock when EA started with their shit? OK then. Battlefront 2. There you have an example.

RPG leveling up mechanics did.

You can reward a player simply by playing, like an MMO, allowing them to purposefully inflate and abuse that loop with restrictions and hobbling.

Games are now designed entirely around it with the Publisher able to change these settings on the fly.

In FPS especially they become a convoluted mess of of unbalanced shit where there is a literal pay advantage.

Critics and gamers are to blame as well, myself included, we all contribute to it.

I don't see it as being an issue at all. This gen has seen some of the best mp games ever, and lootboxes haven't been an issue. If someone wants to buy a skin for a soldier in bf5, I kinda think it's silly...but it's up to them. I still have fun unlocking skins for guns and characters through challenges, and as long as the gameplay is unchanged through lootboxes, I don't see it as a problem.

If gamers don't buy them, Devs will stop providing them....so far, gamers don't seem to mind, which is why they're still there.

1 - Battlefront 2... A game that was DOA, and EA rolled back the loot box system. Nobody cared. Using an unsuccessful attempt isn't a good example.

2 - We need to stop this, "children spend hundred of dollars on this stuff" narrative. Sure you can find a few news stories from around the world where something like this has happened. But it's adults buying this stiff. Not little 9 year old Timmy Tenders.

3 - Your fighting games example is bringing up DLC and not cosmetic microtransactions. And there are still plenty of characters and costumes to unlock in the retail release of the games. There are also additional things you can purchase later down the line. It seems like the usual internet hyperbole when you claim you don't get to unlock things for free. You absolutely do. You just get hung up on the additional purchases and let that completely sour your experience. In the case of games like MK and Smash, it's whatever. The games are great without spending a dime past the initial $60.

Games get post launch support. That didn't happen before the 360, PS3 generation. When the games launched, that was it. Now gamers expect post launch support, content, fixes etc. That costs money. It's not the developers fault that a vocal minority on the internet seem to think they're entitled post launch support on the games they buy. And instead of charging a subscription fee like MMO's used to do, devs have found another way to keep the staff paid and the lights on in the building.

The online hate mobs struggle with this fact. That's why we're onto creating a fictional world where millions of children have access to credit cards and are the sole reason for Fortnite's success.

I wonder whether many gamers know what microtransactions or loot boxes are to be in favor or opposed to them. It seems that only "hardcore" gamers know what they are.

1. OK, BF2 doesn't count. Silly me.

2. Grown ups purchase these stupid things, probably way more than children. But I don't think we should ignore that there are 9 year olds buying this crap. It's still a problem, basically legal underage gambling with a kinder name.

3. I mean that things that would be free in the past aren't free now, because publishers noticed gamers will actually pay for idiotic shit. You don't agree, and that's fine. But from my experience, publishers are only out to earn more money, and they will go great lengths in order to squeeze out every last cent from gamers. I mean, it already feels bad. And publishers like EA continue to try to squeeze in their shit practices. I don't really see this stopping anytime soon either, on the contrary, people seem to accept it more and more (or don't have the energy to speak up anymore) and it's worrying.

4. Sure. But it's getting exploited. I see our games slowly turning into bite sized overpriced tiny packages instead of a full game for full price. Some publishers and devs does it better than others, but those who use it as a tool to squeeze extra money from gamers makes me wish lootboxes and microtransactions would just be gone from the industry altogether.

Expansions that we had before was great, imo. You got new levels, new difficulties, new cosmetics, whatever, all for a nice price. Now they want 5 bucks for the color red. Overpriced tiny expansions. Those = shit compared to how it was before.

Like.. You spent 500 dollars on Fortnite cosmetics. The game itself is one map, one mode, not a whole lot of weapons or things to do. A game that's not close to be worth 60 bucks. Wouldn't it be better if you bought all their cosmetics for 60 bucks instead of 500? You seriously can't mean that Fortnite's cosmetics and the work they put into them are worth 500 bucks?

Well personally I feel that lootboxes are fine as long as there is absolutely no way to acquire them with real world money especially in any game rated anything lower then AO. If game compaines want to inject gambling mechanics into their games then they need to be rated accordingly. What is especially egregious is when companies put these things in after a game’s release. The physical version has already been rated and the information on the box becomes incomplete when these new mechanics for the game come out. Something like this should actually be illegal and it makes the ESA and ESRB into more of a joke then they already are.

Go play a game from the 90's. A time where games were more than $60 (not even adjusting for inflation) and you could finish most in a few hours. And once a game was done, it was done. There was no DLC packs or expansions. Now today, we want online, we want constant updates, we want more out of the price of entry (which is less than it ever has been) but we're gonna bitch about having the option to pay for things that don't impact gameplay?

So lets get in our Delorean go back to 1996, and buy Ultimate MK 3. We would need to bring $114.45 of 2019 dollars with us to Toys R Us because of inflation. We would get a game with no online, and we would never get another ounce of content. No chance for performance inprovments, bug fixes, nothing. There were also fewer characters in that game than MK11 (before DLC even). Or imagine needing to spend $98.10 on a Madden game with no online or roster updates.

I don't understand this narrative that our games are getting smaller and less valuable. That's the exact opposite of what's happened. We pay less, get more, and have the option to pay extra for things that are cosmetic.

No because I don't care enough ever to spend the money and I still play the game.

I'm far more annoyed with the death of depth in multiplayer games. With the exception of Rainbow Six Siege, the FPS mp scene is wack. Gone is the speed and more complex movement options of games like Quake n Tribes n Unreal as they are limited to smaller indie titles that die in a month like Toxik, Warsow, Reflex.

You have a whole lot of hit scan weapons dominating the mp space versus the projectile based nature of arena shooters.

Everything is ADS, which is fucking lame.

Titanfall n Halo 5 at least added some more fun movement to those games, but one of them didn't do so hot commercially so you're left with a pretty mundane battle royale game with gimped movement, and Halo's fanbase has rejected the mobility stuff of 5 that I doubt it makes it into 6.

I love Rocket League this gen, and it has loot boxes n shit. I just don't care, because at the end of the day I spent the 20-30 bucks to buy the game at launch, and just play the exceptional game. If the dev wants to make some money off the cosmetics, idgaf. Ditto with fighting games.

But the FPS scene keeps putting out bland ass games. Except for Siege, that game is kino as ****. Weirdly enough a slower game, with ADS, and predominantly hit scan weapons, but the destruction, maps, class based set up, no respawns set up adds all sorts of strategic layers that just aren't fucking there in your CoDs or other ads shooters.

@goldenelementxl: I get your point. Yeah, the 90's wasn't super awesome either in that sense, I agree. Haven't really said it was. I don't have many complaints about gaming the time between then and now/recently though. And I don't mean to bitch so much about cosmetics that are for sale and optional as I do to putting paywalls on things that have been free in the past in other games. I'm gonna try to put together a list of this later to explain my point better. :P

And like I've said, there are good and bad examples of lootboxes and microtransactions. I guess I focus on the bad things and want them gone more than I want to keep the good examples.

It's a weak strawman. "look at this other shitty thing we moved on from", as if that invalidates the criticism being made against the current thing. At the end of the day the consumer gave up something, and is well within their justified right to share their complaints about giving up something.

People who need to apologize for their corporate overlords can't accept that.

lootboxes are not fine, you can just make a store front for the cosmetic item. Let me pick the item I want to pay money for, not spend money at the chance to get what I want. Even if they wanted to have Microtransactions, they could do that better, but don't tell the shills.

@jg4xchamp: I agree. I said that lootboxes are fine but only if there’s no way to spend real world money to acquire them. Lootboxes on their own are just a mechanic to get random loot drops. They’re essentially the same as getting random loot from enemies in games like Diablo. Once real world money creeps in that’s when to problems arise. If devs want me to spend more money on their games then just let me purchase any specific item right away instead of gambling for it.

This stuff doesn't bug me, loot boxes that can be earned with in game earned points are fine for me, no need to spend money. If anything the post release DLC is a bigger issue for me. Most expansions aren't worth revisiting a game over if I already put it behind me. I only ever play this stuff if I never played the game at release and pick up a copy with the DLC bundled. I remember people making issue of Star Wars Battlefront II and still loot boxes were less an issue over the game just not being that fun for me.

I do play a lot of Halo 5 Firefight and the burn cards aren't a big deal for me since I use them sparingly mostly when the team needs it so never had to do anything but get loot boxes with in game points, but I have wondered how pressing it would be to invest in paying for packs in the PvP since you can use the burn cards there and there's a competitive element to it.

But what's been given up? We get more for less... We act as if gaming used to be "consumer friendly" (I hate that phrase) when in reality we get far more for a dollar now than ever. @Litchie - "Putting paywalls on things that have been free in the past" will have to explain that one to me. Again, saying things like additional MK characters shouldn't cost money doesn't relate because we wouldn't get new characters in the past.

If they're free, loot boxes are just another way to keep people playing a game. Loot boxes for money is a little silly. Fortnite does this right while Apex, PUBG and others need to let them go. People will pay more money for a guarantee vs paying less for a .5% chance at the item. I'm glad Rocket League is dumping the keys system.

No we don't.

For starters a lot of games think its acceptable to launch broken or busted, because we'll just patch that content in later. Yeah we got short content games before, but those games got criticized for it and tanked. Or they were arcade games styled where the whole point was score chasing for a niche audience anyway.

The console twits up n decided to pay for online play, and that shit used to be free and still is on a platform that doesn't suck ass. We know them mother fuckers don't use that money for anything worthy of the consumers money.

Instead of having extras, unlockables, cheat codes in games, those are sold separately. So that's a thing we gave up.

They built a set up meant to let you customize your in game avatar, but then decided to put the lion's share of cosmetic stuff behind some sort of paywall, which would have made the disc in the case of Unreal Tournament 2004.

So you being oblivious to older games that actually had a lot of content, doesn't make your counter point less shit. Shit games existing, doesn't mean the better stuff didn't. A consumer expecting more for their money isn't an after thought, especially when some of these mp games dropped the single player right? Stands to reason that if you dropped the SP to focus on mp, your focused on MP should be feature rich.

Because when I paid 60 bucks for Halo 3 Big Team Battle, Forge, Theater all worked day damn 1 while also having a campaign. In Halo 5 I gave up splitscreen multiplayer, BTB wasn't there day one, forge wasn't there day one, theater was busted for months.

Fighting games yall just shouldn't talk about those games ever. Most of you mother fuckers don't know what you're talking about on that front. But sure he's wrong about the MK character pack shit.

Again if some of you like being spineless, that's fine. But it's not unreasonable to request shit, it's not unreasonable to think they can release a content rich mp game and not nickel n dime their buyers further. MP games used to do that for ages. Believe it or not they also got patches without having to charge me for other shit.

I have no sympathy for the publisher or developer.

They are very easy to ignore. No, they have not. I play a ton of online multiplayer games and do not care at all about lootbox cosmetics.

@jg4xchamp: I'm not oblivious to older games, though. I just don't approach the hobby with the level of entitlement that you do. Yes, Halo 3 launched with far more content and features than Halo 5. I don't think the suit customization and req packs are to blame. The amount of manpower it takes to include entire modes vs designing and coding cosmetics are nowhere near even. And I don't get your UT 2004 example. And I have the game installed as we speak...

I don't understand how you don't see how far your dollar is going in 2019. The Devs and Pubs see it, which is why they are "nickle n' diming" consumers. There's a reason the "B" tier developer is gone and why we don't get nearly as many games as we used to. Game development cost has gone through the roof. The casual gamer doesn't seem to have a problem paying more for extra features and content. It's the "hardcore" that acts like they're being held at gunpoint. Funny thing is, most of you don't even play/have any intention to play the games you bitch about. But to expect $60 in 2019 to go further than $60 did 20 years ago is nuts.

It's not unreasonable to want the next Halo to be feature rich. If it's not, then shame on them. I'm not gonna blame cosmetic microtransactions though. MK11 wouldn't be any better or worse without DLC. Rocket League is still Rocket League. And the thing that keeps these games, and games like Fortnite and Apex fresh is the post launch support. In the case of Fortnite and Apex, that support is 100% funded by microtransactions. And these are some of the hottest games out...

you goons type this like a bad thing. You're the consumer, you should act entitled. You don't get a piece of the cut on what they are trying to sell you, if you suddenly started getting less, you're more than justified to request more for your money.

Yet with a larger team Halo 5 has less content than a game that came out a decade prior. With less visually distinct maps to boot. This continues to be the case with a lot of games, your comment was "we don't get less for our money", that's not completely, that's measurably false in the case of a lot of franchises n games.

Were you to actually have it installed and play it, you would know UT2k4 has some absurd map count n different characters you can play as in multiplayer. That was content rich title in 2004, UT99 was similarly content rich. Yet most shooters today couldn't stack up favorably to the content of Unreal Tournament.

Because I'm not a putz for starters. What does my money go to in the case of Xbutt live n PSN plus? Playing online on dedicated servers? because the devs are expected to handle their own servers, allowing me to communicate with my friends? PSN had that last gen and I could do it for free. Party chat? Same thing. Stable online?

I distinctly remember paying for Xbox Live and dealing with Gears of War's netcode n host advantage.

That's without me bringing up PC gaming, and how we don't pay for shit, and we don't pay for that scam.

Furthermore, how far is my dollar going? 60 bucks is getting me less shit, it's getting me less deep gameplay, it's getting me no real added interesting modes that aren't the old tried n true done to death mp shit.

This is factually incorrect. We actually get more video games a month than ever, that B tier dev is now an indie studio, that middle market is back in a big way on PC. Japan's offering had to be dialed back because of the death of their console market, but even they are plugging in the middle market vibe on consoles n PC.

A lot of smaller devs have figured out it aint about how much bark is on that tree in the background, but how fun the actual game is to play.

And that's my problem how? They are the ones that for years pitched content content content. They are the ones that for years pitched graphics graphics graphics. I didn't do that shit to them, I didn't tell them to exclusively make big budget ass games with 1000 man teams.

All I did was pay for a video game, and if it fails to deliver on things I deem important, I am going to criticize said game for it. Not a hard concept to follow when you have a spine.

No one argued otherwise, and why the **** do you always do this as some sort of defense? I don't fucking care what the casuals do or what you do. You people lacking spine, does not suddenly invalidate the take of people with one. Just because you're too stupid to know the value of your own money, doesn't mean I have to follow along with you.

Actually it's not unfair at all. Standards don't inherently have to get lowered, as there is no logical reason to lower them. 60 dollars has stayed the price of admission, because I'm sure the bean counters and all the other financial suits have enough reasonable data that tells them going higher than 60 bucks just isn't viable. Probably because if it was the other non 60 dollar sku would have a higher percentage of the sales, as most triple A games don't just launch at 60 bucks. There is a 70-100 dollar version in a lot of cases.

I understand that you just discovered the inflation meme, but the markets dictated what its willing to consider is the value of a video game at max and such. Notice how we learned from the PS4 and XBox One, that less people will pay for a video game console that is over 399.99.

So again, considering that you keep peddling this meme that you used to get less, yet there are more than enough examples of where we used to get more, you don't actually have a point there. Try again.

And were I to have actually said that you might have something resembling a point. But that's not what I did now did I. In fact I said my issue with mp games has nothing to do with MTs, its perfectly fine if the pubs n devs want to do it. I'm just going to tell people they aren't allowed to criticize the inclusion of them, and see them for what they are.

They keep being added in, but I get less for my money in the case of a lot of games, the depth is completely lacking in a lot of these games, and added bonus the devs think they are being cute when they hold shit that was going to be in the game day 1 (because in past entries it was), but delay it for "post game support" to pull off some fake "look at how we support the community n players" meme, when it's actually bullshit, they are just finishing the game they sold you.

You're not taking some "enlightened" view when you're calling other people "entitled", you're just a corporate shill in denial.

If something isn't worth my money, I don't buy it. But I will never spend a measly $60 and act like the game developer has to cater to my every want and need. Go into the purchase informed and you will know what you're getting in return.

The developers and publishers go where the money is. If they catered to you, it would be like the video game crash all over again. The consumers are the ones that dictated they wanted big budget, flashy looking games.

I don't spend the 60 bucks, doesn't change the fact that the people who didn't buy the game aren't allowed to be part of the discourse and share their displeasure for why they didn't spend 60 bucks. It's really not that difficult of a follow up. Stifling criticism is always a net negative.

Pls quit being a putz arguing something no one is arguing. I am not dismissing the logic of their decision making or why they make the games they do. I am saying what they do is none of my fucking concern. The difficulty of their job is not my concern. I didn't make them market the way they did, I didn't make them highlight the features they did, I didn't make them set the standard that they did. That was all on them, I am merely holding them to it.

You thinking because X is successful, mean it is absolved of any criticism, is on you slick.

Nah.....it got stale and repetitive long before all of that stuff.

It tarnished gaming in general, but not forever. There has been sufficient backlash for such a disjointed market.