Dead Space 3 has microtransactions
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Electronic Arts' upcoming action game gives players option to purchase resources with real-world money.
Dead Space 3 will be the first entry in the franchise to include microtransactions. Eurogamer reports today that the action game will allow players to use real-world money to purchase various resources like materials and scrap parts. This is entirely optional, Dead Space 3 associate producer Yara Khoury explained.
"You can buy resources with real money, but scavenger bots can also give you the currency that you can use on the marketplace, so you don't have to spend [real-world] dollars," Khoury said.
It was not revealed how much the microtransactions would cost, though Khoury said players will have several currency bundle options to choose from.
Though players will be able to buy items in Dead Space 3, Khoury explained that gamers will not be able to obtain high-level weapons right away. "There are a lot of weapon parts that are only available to buy later in the game. Unless you're playing through it again [on New Game Plus]," Khoury said.
Dead Space 3 comes to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on February 5 in the United States and February 8 in Europe. For more, check out GameSpot's previous Dead Space 3 coverage.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
607 comments
Honestly, these are the BEST kind of microtransactions I've seen yet. As many DS3 sites have noted, you're literally swimming in resources and ammo by the end of the game, even without the Chapter 8 glitch, so you'll never have any reason whatsoever to fork out real cash. EA will only earn spare change from a few lazy, incompetent, and/or impatient gamers with money to burn, which is perfectly fine business practice in my books. IOW just buy the damn game, skip the microtransactions, and enjoy.
It's just plain sickening to see the smurfberrification of a once great game series. Oh, and there is nothing "micro" about having $5+ transactions in a $60 game.
Sadly, any sort of IAP eventually leads to the game being designed to coax players to pay rather than be fun to play, and to punish those who don't. Just at the new levels latest Angry Birds releases - total PITA to play without using powerups, and I'm not going for the whole 1c per bullet nonsense.
1 Like "...players will have several currency bundle options to choose from."
Every company that uses this method needs to be burned to the ground. It's one thing to charge people for shit like this, it's an abomination to push greed beyond bounds and only let you buy 96 gold coins when everything in the shop costs 100 or 200, forcing you to buy the more expensive packages. On top of that, you'll never spend all of your currency because of uneven numbers and faulty pricing methods. Other companies didn't get my money with this scam, and there's not a chance in hell that you will either, EA.
2 Like See. This is why people will resort to piracy. They don't like being bent over and milked like a bunch of f*ing cows.
1 Like Well, first thing gamers need to do is NOT pre-order. I don't understand why people can't wait another day or two to play a video game. Wait for a review or wait until you can rent it and see if its worth buying. I guarantee 80% of you complainers will pre-order this shit. The rest of us will sit back and see what happens and make our decision then. Yeah, I think people that wait days, or even hour(s) in line for an iPhone are idiots that need a life.
EA has always been a very dodgy gaming company but this is particularly greedy and scummy. What...milking kids of $60 for a videogame isnt enough profit??
Way to go guys...
1 Like @Divisionbell Hate to say this, but this is how it goes these days.
Ongoing discussion, especially concerning the newer gamers/younger generation wanting it all at once and straight away, has brought us to this.
Problem is, people don't want to work for the stuff anymore, why bother "wasting" time collecting parts, or waiting for that epic drop etc., when you can just spend a bit of money and get it as easy as click, click, done.
I don't think its gaming industrys' fault per se, obviously they try to promote it as much as they can, because it will create extra revenue out of nothing, but moreso what I mentioned about the "wanting stuff NOW" - mentality.
1 Like Oh you have GOT to be kidding?
Why? Every once in a while, some greedy mother fuckers think... "let's be a bunch of assholes and be even more greedy".
Boycott time :). I loved DS1 and DS2 but bye bye DS3. Idiots.
As others have said, when you pay £40 (or $60) for a game, you'd expect to get the entire thing.
Last game I buy from EA if they're going to ruin good franchises with daft money-making schemes.
:D
Saw this trend coming when they decided to allow to purchase your way through unlocking classes in BFBC2. EA and their games are becoming Activision and COD :(
8 Like "This is completely optional..."
Yes, you have the alternative option of grinding for artificially rare materials for a crafting cost that is artificially high with the express purpose of frustrating players into paying real money (see 3, Mass Effect).
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when I pay $60 for a game, I expect it to be a complete product, but I guess $60 is now the "down payment" for a game that publishers view as an $80 product, where they will sell the complete experience as DLC and microtransactions.
@thegroveman I'm with you on this. Like you said it used to be so simple. You bought a game, you got the whole game and end of story.
Nowadays, you can buy extra this and extra that. DLCs, proper ones I mean, I can somewhat live with, not necessarily happy with them, but they aren't completely rotten.
However, this is starting to go towards the "too much zone". Buying minerals and weapons in a SP game with real money? (Well, what is supposed to be one anyway.) Geez.
I didn't see it as a problem in ME3 mind, but I do feel like this is a step too far.
However, don't think its just EA, take a look at Blizzard and D3 for example. The whole game revolves around auction house, mainly the real money one. And quite frankly ruined the game.
@S4E @thegroveman I saw the problem with Diablo III coming a mile away, and didn't buy the game. Best decision of last year :)
1 Like Milking the cow. I don't expect nothing good to come for Dead Space franchise. I imagine it will be a huge sales success, and for the companies that is all that matters. But ultimately, making your game more of a generic action shooter to access the top sales chart where numbers are counted in the millions is a business valid option. Even if the plurality of genres and tastes in videogames gets reduced. Dead Space had the tittle of best survival horror game out there these days. The best representative. And EA is willing to let that go to assure more sales.
1 Like See I'm worried about DS3. I love DS2 sooo much, it's almost impossible DS3 will be as good or better. I really hope I'm wrong.
Kind of a slippery slope. I don't mind microtrans if I get the full game i.e. finding parts for weapons in the game or saving time and buying them. But EVERYONE knows how greedy publishers are and can see a game being designed to milk you for every cent. Then again if you're dumb enough to give in then I have no sympathy for you.
@rudyv30 This is the android model. Games like Tiny Tower, The Hobbit: KOM, and Megapolis take months to get anywhere unless you drop cash on things to speed it up. In Megapolis you can build a couple things then you have to wait a week until you save up enough of the in-game money to expand your space. Rinse and repeat forever.
I'll say it again, micro-transactions will be the absolute ruin of video games... and EA is at the forefront of it. Don't believe me, here it is from the horses mouth, IE, the CEO of EA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6-u8OIJTE
Man i'm so excited to pay a buck every time I reload.... freaking stoked to pay a dollar EVERY TIME I RELOAD! (eye roll inserted here)
2 Like I'm not shocked. They have been talking about this kind of b.s. for a year already. Count on me not doing any such "transactions".
Damn...I can't believe they're actually doing this and I can't believe that people will actually pay real currency in game!! Who's to blame?? EA or gamers???
1 Like @brain20035 I heard there's a lot of dump players who're willing to pay for stuffs in MMO games long before. The companies that hosted those games banned players who had sold stuffs to the communities, but they chose to sell them themselves. In this case, I think you can blame gamers. If there's no buyer, there won't be any seller.
10 Like Gaming just isn't what it used to be. What ever happened to just plain old singleplayer and multiplayer games? No add-on's, no payments, no strings attached. Just play the game! What ever happened to the simplicity of that?
A 19-years-old talking like a 79-year-old. I fear for me and my generation.
2 Like @JKjr86 Then imagine how the older guys must feel.
When DLC´s started i thought to myself, this is going to be very bad in a few years, well...and look at the state of game industry now.
Most are expensive and useless DLC, passes, Dumbing down games, bland story, awfull pc ports, now microtransactions, DMR, Forcing multiplayer... and the list goes on forever.
Than the bad is younger people calling us old timers, and telling us to keep up, blindly leading us to the game industry we see today.
Anyways...
Keep up the good work EA and then blame Piracy.
@JKjr86 But how will the CEO get his bonus if the stock price doesn't go up 2/10ths of a point? Oh yeah, he just lays off 100 people and ships a shit game. He doesn't care. He gets paid no matter what. Even if they fire him he still gets a $30 million severance package and you get to pay another $15 for next year's game.
2 Like DLC. Quick Time Events. Ports. Micro Transactions. This is one example of games yet to come. they now are calling "services". the "Dead Space 3 Service": buy your basic game for 59.99 and for 9.99 at month you can play the new DLC of 15 minutes of duration, also you can buy armors from 4.99 to deluxe megafap edition from 15.99! dont forget the MultiPlayer special for 12.99 at month!! and if you are a weapons freak, we have the basic Plasma cutter fror .99, but if you want the supersasayin model, it only cost 5.99!!!
@Lestat_jio Ports aren't new to this generation. They used to make inferior ports from arcade versions.
@GamerOuTLaWz you mean that they are more like cinematics that we sometimes play on them? (no offence at all, i just want to know with what way you are saying this)
Yet another lazy effort from this so-called "journalist". For an actual article that looks at how this event fits in with other recent micro-transaction developments go here:
Just add the cover system and force us to buy each chapter separately and you run your game on today standards.
12 Like TAKE IT OUT OF THE GAME AND IN TO THE OPTIONS MENU. THIS WILL RUIN IMMERSION. PRE-ORDER CANCELLED.
So you can either spend more money on a game you hopefully already purchased(or borrowed) or have some bots gather the neccessary goods so you can upgrade without spending the dough? Well, I am a lazy person, but I ain't even close to that lazy. Then again I have no idea how managable it is to get the content using your bots, it is EA and they are only about one thing.
What's the point of spending real money if it's not something that will help you all that much? Again, I'm not a Dead Space fan, but wouldn't it make sense to let new players buy the best equipment right away since you want their money?
Another excuse to go handheld/PC/mobile, the environment on consoles are just too fucked up.
Boy EA makes it easy for people to hate on them...
I think this just slipped back into 'nah not interested' territory for me, as I've got serious reservations about buying a game that promotes micro-transactions. Optional DLC, even if it's day 1 'bonuses/extras', is one thing - but this... no this stinks of a company trying to turn us into cash machines even more.
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Dead Space 3 (Limited Edition)
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