Dead Space 3 has 11 pieces of day-one DLC

@50 The difference is that you’re making money on it, and they aren’t.

I think there’s also a pretty big difference between selling oil which is little more than a commodity, and games, which are not just entertainment, but interactive entertainment.

Without immersion, are you really delivering?

@YoungZero: XD That was fucking hilarious, and also fucking straight on the money.

@viralshag: I was playing Dead Space 2 today, and on the main menu screen it invited me to buy a DS t-shirt on visceral’s website. DS3 is gonna do the same thing. That affects me. The effect is it pisses me off.

@51, Who isn’t making money on it? We don’t sell oil, we simply sell certain equipment used in the industry (I’m not at liberty to discuss in more detail what and for who haha). But as an example and just for fun to show you how ridiculous it is, I can sell a rubber ring that would barely fit over my little finger for $400, which I get for nothing. And that’s no exaggeration.

I would also say is ignoring a “store” button prompt any more immersion breaking than looking at weapon stats in a menu? I think the immersion break example is quite a stretch if I’m honest. It interactive entertainment, through the use of a monitor and control device.

@52, I’m just starting to think you’re just a little tetchy.

@48, Do you think they decided to scrap the old power node system and introduce real-money upgradeable “scavenger bots” before or after the notion of including micro-transactions in the game was brought up?

What’s interesting there is that under the old system they could have sold you power nodes or credits for real money, but they couldn’t have got $15 out of you for upgrading your scavenger bot, which they can under the new system. That sounds very carefully targeted at people who feel uncomfortable directly buying resources but feel comfortable with this sort of boost.

It also makes me wonder, if the scavenger bots were already destined to be in the game prior to the notion of the micro-transaction system, were the bots supposed to be upgradeable through normal gameplay? Is the bot upgrade system ripped out of the game in order to pull another $15 out of the consumer?

@53 That’s still a commodity though.

Looking at weapon stats keeps you within the universe, looking at totally fictional objects. Looking at a store prompt reminds you of a very real credit card, somewhere far from a delapidated space station.

Saying that it isn’t immersion breaking because it’s on a computer is just a blatant cop-out. You watch movies on a big piece of canvas, you read books on hundreds of pieces of paper. That doesn’t make them less immersive, and it doesn’t lessen the requirement for the content to suspend your disbelief.

And neither are doing this sort of thing, trying to sell you shit in the middle of the action, although I guess product placement is sometimes an example of the same.

I don’t see a lot of publishers looking like winners. EA made a whopping 76 million dollars in 2012.

@55, It’s hardly “in the middle of the action” though. You’re talking as if it’s going to ask you every 10 minutes.

And you made the distinction between entertainment and interactive entertainment. Movies and books are simply feeding me the information and don’t require any input from me (other than turning a page) to do anything so of course they will be more immersive and captivating.

Immersion will always be to a certain degree in games, and with any entertainment. I just think it’s being used here as bit of a weak excuse to prove a point. But that’s just my opinion of immersion in gaming.

@56, still, imagine turning up to an upgrade bench in DS1 or 2, you don’t have enough power nodes and the game says “hey, buy a power node for $4.99!”.

Isaac Clarke doesn’t have $4.99. That’s where the immersion is breaking.

@56 I think it’s exactly the other way around. A book and a movie don’t actually require you to move within the universe, that’s all done before your eyes.

In a game you are the protagonist, so suspension of disbelief becomes that much more important.

I’d say using mobile gamers as an excuse to monetize gameplay is the weak one, more than arguing that something that has been conducive to entertainment for hundreds of years, is actually pretty essential.

@57, Yes, you’re right there. I’ll give you that. But then that’s where it comes back to simply ignoring it if you don’t want to play like that.

From the screen everyone is basing this on you had two options under the message, “A Continue” and “Y Downloadable Content”. I’m really struggling to believe that pressing A and ignoring Y is that difficult to continue your DLC-less immersive game.

EDIT: @58, I completely agree with what they said in their follow interview. And it’s completely valid as there are clearly gamers that want or need to buy these additions to save time.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, some people have more time than money, others have more money than time. This suits both and it’s not hard to enjoy it either way. You don’t need to spend additional cash to get everything the game has to offer.

Theres direct evidence that this sort of micro-transactional model directly influences gameplay, namely the patch notes for Diablo 3.

Everything from lowered gold drops, to lowered armour durability directly points towards them wanting to people to use real money to buy replacements.

When does ignoring what you don’t like end? How much shit must I by-pass, should I buy a pair of horse blinkers?

Aside from the fact that simple resource cheats have been a standard feature for more than two decades.

Now they want 5 bucks to let you use one.

If the idea was really to attract mobile gamers, why not just let them use cheats. Surely they’d love a game even more if they weren’t being nickle and dimed for those advantages?

“If a games not asking me to pay for something every 5 minutes then its doing something wrong”

- Mr Steve Mobile Gamer, yesterday.

I’m going home now so I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree.

I’m probably not even going to get this game as I don’t even like Dead Space that much but this has been fun haha!

@59 Let’s not try to somehow make this a service to anyone. It’s cheat codes, for money.

It’s been in games for 20 years. It constitutes a total expense of 0 dollars and 0 cents on the part of the publisher.

It’s clearly not a question for me and others, of whether there’s a market or not, because obviously people will go as far as to have romantic relationships with their gaming consoles, defending features intended to rip them off.

I’m sure you can make a buck selling them just about anything.

The question is whether you should.

I think it’s problematic that a publisher and developer are suddenly right to fence in perfectly common features, with no purpose other than to create artifical value, and sell you nothing for the price of something.

At least for me, that would be the end of gaming, and obviously I’ll choose not to touch Dead Space 3 with a ten foot pole.

@62 Dead Spaceville!

I’m sure that’s already been said a million times, but for me it constitutes a major comedic breakthrough.

This is just the cream of the cake, and people are crying fowl. There is still lots of DLC yet unannounced by Visceral – Suits and Guns Packs and many many (mimicing Commandant Lassard’s from Police Academy) more.