From a corpo point of view a game which has no end of life built into it is a product you have to compete with forever.
Agreed, but always-online has two other advantages as well.
First, it lets the devs get a ton of additional analytics as to how often features are used, how the game's actually being played, etc. Now, that could - and occasionally is - used to actually improve the game, but seemingly more often these days it's used for the second advantage - micro-transactions.
By making the game always-online, you can splash the store page at the players every single time they want to play at all and you get more eyes on whatever the deal-of-the-day (or week or whatever) is. And by spamming people with the ads over and over and over it increases the chances of someone's will wavering and then you get another $2-5 or whatever a skin costs.
Fair enough on the price, I haven't paid attention to most MTX pricing in a while.
While you can have commercials baked into updates and such, if the client is offline that does add in a couple other complications though. First, there's no guarantee that the ad will actually load (especially if the user legitimately has no internet). Second, and more importantly, though - if you are in offline mode, then to make the purchase you're going to have to exit the game, switch to online mode, relaunch the game and then go to the store. That's a lot of time for the user to overcome the impulse purchase urge compared to the one or two button presses that are required if you're online.
The subject of microtransactions also came up in the session, with Esaki confirming that there would be no cash-for-currency MTXs in the game. Of course there’s a car pass, welcome pack, and race day car pack available at extra cost over the base game — all included in the Premium version — and a VIP membership which includes cars, vanity items, and a permanent credit multiplier.
Agreed, but always-online has two other advantages as well.
First, it lets the devs get a ton of additional analytics as to how often features are used, how the game's actually being played, etc. Now, that could - and occasionally is - used to actually improve the game, but seemingly more often these days it's used for the second advantage - micro-transactions.
By making the game always-online, you can splash the store page at the players every single time they want to play at all and you get more eyes on whatever the deal-of-the-day (or week or whatever) is. And by spamming people with the ads over and over and over it increases the chances of someone's will wavering and then you get another $2-5 or whatever a skin costs.
Fair enough on the price, I haven't paid attention to most MTX pricing in a while.
While you can have commercials baked into updates and such, if the client is offline that does add in a couple other complications though. First, there's no guarantee that the ad will actually load (especially if the user legitimately has no internet). Second, and more importantly, though - if you are in offline mode, then to make the purchase you're going to have to exit the game, switch to online mode, relaunch the game and then go to the store. That's a lot of time for the user to overcome the impulse purchase urge compared to the one or two button presses that are required if you're online.
I can't help but remember how Sony at first confirmed this for GT Sport, only to sneak them in at a later date.
Activision did the same thing with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.
You just can't trust AAA developers at their word anymore.
DLC by definition is a microtransaction, so this is probably gonna always have some sort of grey area.
From the article: