Hello all, I’m currently working on the 2nd 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.
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