My thoughts on micro-transactions in games.

Hello all, I’m currently working on the 2^nd part of my Doctor Who review blogs, (there will probably be one part for each season) but in the meantime, I thought I’d share my opinion on something that is bugging me right now.

See, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain hits stores tomorrow, I never pre-order these days but I did pre-order this one just for the sake of a down-payment so that picking it up on launch day wouldn’t be such a blow to my wallet. (Seriously, games are expensive)

I love the Metal Gear series, it is among my favourite game series of all time (definitely top 5.) I love Hideo Kojima for the magnificently mad bastard that he is, and I love that his particular brand of madness has managed to persist in his games even in this modern age of an increasingly homogenous “Triple A” game industry.

It won’t surprise you then to learn that I was saddened when it was revealed he was parting ways with Konami, and as a result, Kojima Productions was disbanding. Initially I was sad, but then I learned more about the behaviour of Konami of late, and am becoming more gladdened by the fact that he’s getting out when he is, but the megalomaniacal influence of the higher-ups seems to have found its way into what may well be his swansong title (certainly for the Metal Gear series as far as I’m concerned.)

Firstly, they scrub his name and all mention of him from the game and all of its related merchandise altogether, as if he never existed, not so much marginalising his contribution as pretending he had nothing to do with a game he created from the ground up, the conclusion to one of the world’s biggest game franchises that he, himself created and the only thing allowing Konami to stay relevant in the modern games industry since the Silent Hills debacle.

Not only do they have him finish the game knowing that, but also announce that they plan to continue churning out Metal Gear titles with or without him because they own the rights. (I won’t be buying any of those, for me, the Metal Gear series ends with Kojima’s involvement in it) reinforcing the reputation that Konami seems to think they can just farm out game development to anyone (if the rumours about their working conditions are to be believed anyway, I would go into further detail but I’m regurgitating enough information here as it is.) I’m still going to buy Metal Gear Solid V, but that decision was not made lightly, especially when I learned, that there were micro-transactions in the game.

It is here we get to the point of this post, I am no fan of micro-transactions, even in free-to-play games where they are often excusable (depending on how they are implemented obviously.) I thought I would write this post to explain my stance on them to those who have thrown the old “they’re optional, so what’s the big deal?” argument my way.

I think we all know by now how micro-transactions work, in their most basic form they offer a premium in-game currency that allows you to speed up, or in some cases immediately achieve progress to a certain goal in the game. Now, in order to sell the “optional” angle, it must be theoretically possible to accomplish 100% completion without spending any money on micro-transactions. Possible, but not by any means realistic.

I have dabbled in one or two freemium games, and some of them are all right, but they are nevertheless designed in such a way to test your patience against your attachment to your money, I’m sure everyone who will ever see this has played something like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Farmville or something of that ilk. As different as those games are, the fundamental thing they have in common is that, when you get to a certain point in the game, progress becomes painstakingly slow, and it is at that point when your patience is tested. “Do I wait to run out the timer/gather more resources, or spend just a little bit of money to speed up the process?” and this is how freemium games make their money, they wear away at your patience until you give in and pay to have a more efficient experience, for a little while, and of course once you’ve given in the first time it becomes easier and easier to do it again, it’s a slippery slope.

This is fine when the games are free, they have to make money somehow and if you download a free-to-play game you’re as good as agreeing to that psychological battle as your cost of entry. However, this is a post about Metal Gear Solid V, a boxed retail title being priced at £40-£55 a pop depending on where you go, and the presence of micro-transactions in such a product is beyond sleazy. It’s not enough that Konami charges us premium prices, but they have to implement these mechanics to try and coax as much money out of the user base as possible? Fucking disgusting.

Yes I’ve heard that it is “optional” this is a lie, and it’s the worst kind of lie, the kind that isn’t entirely untrue, see, on the surface, you don’t have to use these micro-transactions, I certainly won’t but the fact that they are there means that the game has been designed in such a way to implement them, their very presence has impacted the core design of the game to try to tempt you into using them, and that is not optional at all.

I will state that I don’t know as of this writing how they will be implemented, but I have seen a screenshot of the available transactions, (as a side note, I should mention that no transaction of more than £3 at most has any right to be called “micro” that is not so much disingenuous as it is an outright lie.) The transactions are for mother base coins, an in-game currency that can apparently be earned in game and, I’m not sure at the time of writing, but it appears to be excusive to an online mode, which you are under no obligation to use.

This might sound better, but it really isn’t, all it serves to do is create a divide between online players, you can opt not to have it come into play, so, what? Just not use an entire portion of the game I paid for? I don’t think that’s a reasonable compromise. If you do find yourself going online, you’ll probably go up against people who have used the transactions to gain advantage, putting even more pressure on you to spend more money on a game you’ve already paid a high price for, even if you don’t do it, you’re still at a disadvantage to those who do. That disadvantage is not something you opt into, there is nothing optional about it.

This is assuming (possibly wishfully) that the micro-transactions are only implemented in the online multiplayer parts of the game, which may be a generous assumption, I’ll find out when I get the game but I certainly wouldn’t put it past the Konami of late to implement them into the core game as well, I do however have faith that good old Hideo Kojima has done everything he can to make the game good, I have read a few reviews and they all say it’s great, as angry as this post was I fully expect to love the game.

But even if I do, my opinion of it will forever be tainted by the shitty business practices of the publisher, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be buying from Konami after this anyway.

10 years in 4 months: A Doctor Who Retrospective. Part 1

As a British citizen what I’m about to say may come as a shock to some of you, but for the sake of context I feel like I should put it out there. Until quite late in my life (last year in fact) I had never watched Doctor Who, Apparently, according to some, that is a crime for which, had the government known, my British citizenship would have been hastily revoked and all relevant documents incinerated in the core of a dying star. In my first year of Uni, (currently awaiting the start of my third as I write this) at the behest of a couple of friends, one of whom claimed to be “very disappointed” in me, I gave the first episode of the 2005 revival a watch.

For those who don’t remember, or haven’t seen it. The episode focused on a southern London girl named Rose for the better part of the first half, Mannequins had begun to come to life and were slowly replacing everyone around her. As she tries to get away she encounters The Doctor in his ninth body (Played by Northy McNorth-North the Black Pudding Man Christopher Eccleston), he introduces himself and then…honestly, I don’t remember much but running after that, at some point they ended up where the big-cheese of the operation was located, and Rose did something…to be honest I’d pretty much stopped paying attention at that point, not a great start far as I was concerned, as such I didn’t really think about Doctor Who again for a while.

Fast forward another year, around November I think, one of my new friends from halls was positively flabbergasted when she found out I hadn’t really seen Doctor Who, by this time we had established a precedent for getting together to watch things, so I begrudgingly agreed to give Doctor Who another try.

It took a few episodes, and I don’t know precisely at what point it happened, but eventually I did start getting into it, and a few months of the occasional Doctor Who night later, I was all caught up with the 10 years I had missed (I have yet to watch any pre-revival Who at time of writing so I won’t be commenting on anything from that era in this post)

And so, after cramming eight seasons in about four months, here are my thoughts on the past ten years of Doctor Who, unburdened by nostalgic love for the classics.

Season One:

This season is primarily notable for being the only one to feature Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, so if you’re a fan of that actor you’d probably want it to be good right? Does it deliver?….eh, sort of, in certain parts.

Season one was very hit and miss for me, it seemed like the show as a whole was still trying to figure out precisely what it wanted to be, I can forgive the understandably bad CGI as it was a TV show in 2005, which was before TV shows were given the budgets that some are today, but the general wishy-washy nature of a show that hadn’t yet decided on a target audience was very noticeable. The Doctor himself was, in my opinion the least eccentric incarnation, being essentially a down-to-earth no-nonsense and sometimes sarcastic northern bloke, (for the most part at least) this, for me hinted at the show going for a broad appeal, it seemed to me that Rose was there in the beginning for kids to better identify with, so that The Doctor wouldn’t have to appeal to those sensibilities as much, not that he never did, (I said least eccentric incarnation earlier, but that doesn’t mean the quirkiness wasn’t there.) Which is where the tonal inconsistencies I mentioned come into play, I understand it’s a wide universe and there has to be variety in the adventures and such, but at least three separate episodes of Season one were dedicated to thwarting (REALLY crappy-looking) alien body-snatchers whose key distinguishing feature is that they fart a lot, now I’m willing to grant that those episodes were probably aimed at kids and thus, not at me, but I think there’s a very good reason the slitheen weren’t featured much post-season one.

On to some positives, the sixth episode, “Dalek” (Guess what the danger is in that one?) was, and looking back still is, pretty great, the oft-alluded to dark nature of The Doctor is brought to bear for the first time, contrasting with his usual down-to-earth attitude as he lashes out and tortures a captive Dalek in anger over the horrors their two races have inflicted upon each other, a common theme throughout the show between The Doctor and the Daleks is that for all of The Doctor’s compassion, he hates the Daleks every bit as much as they hate everything else. (For those unfamiliar the Daleks seem to basically be Doctor Who’s obligatory Nazi Allegory, which I can only imagine was all the more haunting back in the early days of the show when WWII was still a fairly recent memory. The Daleks are possibly my favourite monsters in Doctor Who, mainly because they provoke a reaction from The Doctor that nothing else can, and in this episode when The Doctor is told “You would make a good Dalek” I almost felt how badly that remark must have stung.

Soon afterwards the reason for The Doctor’s hatred (and his generally brooding persona) is revealed (unless I’m mistaken and it happened before that) At some point before the show was revived, there was a “Time War” primarily between the Timelords and The Daleks, the war raged out of control until The Doctor did the only thing that would stop it, he destroyed both sides, committing mass genocide of not just the Daleks, but his own species as well, I think you’ll agree, that’s pretty heavy stuff.

Another episode that sticks out in my mind, would be the two-parter starting with Episode 9: The Empty Child, this episode is notable for the first appearance of Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, this character would go on to become a recurring cast member and star in his own spinoff show “Torchwood” which I haven’t watched at time of writing so I can’t speak on its quality. But for me this episode was also notable for its change in atmosphere, the tone shifted frequently for comedy moments, but the episode largely carried a pronounced vibe of horror, coupled with a little mystery, I found the suspense to be very effective, I won’t go into detail as I know at least one person who reads this hasn’t seen it.

And of course, another notable episode would be the season finale, “The Parting of the Ways”

Season finales in Doctor Who are always big, and this is the one that set the bar for that trend, it’s another Dalek episode, this time confronted by an army of them, The Doctor has to face the threat of the time war breaking out yet again, I really felt the stakes in this one, and the decision the Doctor makes partway through the episode only reinforces that, but with all said and done at the end The Doctor absorbs a lethal amount of energy from the TARDIS in order to save Rose, the episode ends as he is seen in the TARDIS telling Rose that he is dying, fortunately, whenever The Doctor is fatally wounded, he can survive by simply re-casting himself as another actor for whom the fatal wound never occurred. Thus ended Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor and began the run of David Tennant. Bloody hell the season one bit was longer than I expected, I think I’ll have to do this in parts,

So to sum it up Doctor Who is very much an adventure of the week type of show, there are a lot of fun nods to continuity throughout and you’d have to pay attention to catch them all, and there is a lot of subtle character development even in the not so good episodes, so if you can stomach the plastic farting bodysnatchers I would recommend watching them all.

Season One was not without its problems and Eccleston is probably my least favourite Doctor, as he’s basically just, every character Christopher Eccleston ever played, (apart from the bad guy in Thor 2) but with a time machine. But I did still enjoy it and I would still recommend it, although I would recommend watching it with someone else, I found it to be something best watched socially, so even the parts that are bad you can at least laugh at. 

On the subject of Nerds and being a Nerd

I have to wonder about people sometimes, especially those who self-identify (and if you don't put yourself into a vaguely-defined sub-cultural identity, it's a good bet any number of people are already doing it for you.) but the one I find most confusing is the one, if one is applicable, to which I most presume to belong, namely Nerds.

As someone who has long identified as a nerd, (and frequently been called one throughout my life) I think I'm more qualified than most to say what does and does not constitute a nerd/geek or whatever you like to think you are because you have a slightly more than passing interest in any given thing, but I find myself questioning if my identifying as such is really right, or even relevant.

For example, Superhero and Sci-fi fiction has made a huge transition in the last decade or so and is currently dominating much of mainstream pop culture (thanks in part to attractive men named Chris for those that way inclined, and for everyone else, the same stories and characters the "nerds" always knew were there, and some pretty great action scenes.)

Therefore, liking the Marvel movies does NOT make you a nerd, everyone likes the Marvel movies, but not having read the comics doesn't necessarily disqualify you, (since apparently the title of "nerd" is a badge of honour now and not the insult it was not more than 6 years ago at most) I've never read through a comic in my life (unless you count the odd manga, but even then it's only one or two.)

For context, let me tell you about some of the more “nerdy” things about me throughout my life, my earliest of note is this, at age 9, I had the entire first-generation 150 Pokédex completely committed to memory, (this was back before there were almost a thousand of the buggers and catching all of them was still a somewhat attainable goal) to the point that if you gave me any number from 1 to 150, I could tell you the corresponding Pokémon and whereabouts in the original Red/Blue releases it could be located, and in the case of exclusives, which version you needed to get it, no one I knew bothered getting any guide, and even those who had discovered this function of the internet at the time normally just came and asked me anyway. I was what could justifiably be called a Pokémon master…Until I discovered Dragon Ball Z and lost interest in Pokémon altogether, I’ve forgotten most of that information over the years, I vaguely remember Voltorb being at number 100 and the first 9 being the starters and their respective evolutions in the order of Grass, Fire, Water, but I digress.

As mentioned earlier I lost interest in Pokémon when I discovered Dragon Ball Z, which gave birth to a new obsession that endures to this very day, to the point that I have felt it necessary to establish mathematically to my own satisfaction that Super Saiyan God is indeed much, much stronger than the now defunct Super Saiyan 4. The characters were all impressively realised (even if everyone but Goku basically got the shaft in terms of usefulness) and for a show airing on Cartoon Network it was pretty brutal in its depictions of violence. Also Cell was the first villain in anything that I found genuinely scary, seriously, watch the scene where he first appears carrying that guy then impales and drinks him through his tail again, legit freaked me out the first time I saw that. As I said this obsession is one that never left me, and probably never will.

So you’ve read about just 2 of the many obsessions I have had, (just a quick mention of a third, if you can name a professional wrestler, I can probably tell you what their real name is) and I haven’t even mentioned Doctor Who yet, but I won’t punish you with more details, my point is that I’ve grown to see myself as something of a nerd, but I wonder if I arrived at that conclusion independently, or if I have simply been forced to internalise that idea through being completely unable to get away from it.

Writing this I start to wonder if there's any point in identifying as a "nerd" or anything else for that matter, or if pretending to do so is just a lie thrust upon us by the companies that make the things we love to better segment audiences and inspire brand loyalty. (Also a demographic for other companies to cynically target and exploit while simultaneously insulting. *Cough* Big Bang Theory *Cough*) With the internet age being what it is, everyone is free to just like what they like, nobody else even has to know.

So in summation, and in saying this I speak both to the genuinely passionate about their chosen fiction, and to those who think knowing who Superman is gives you geek cred (it doesn’t it means you are a person who is alive in the 21^st century) if you’ve ever been called a nerd or geek or asked if you were one, to the question “Am I a nerd?” I would answer “Does it matter?” my answer to both…Not really.