Clifford Unchained: Nickels, dimes, and quarters.
The video game industry is just that.
An industry.
Which means that it exists in a capitalistic world. You know, a free market. A place where you’re welcome to spend your money on whatever you please… or to refrain from spending that money.
Those companies that put these products out?…
The issues I take with this were laid out nicely by a poster on reddit:
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The engagement ring is cosmetic; it has no effect whatsoever. You are not required to buy it; you don’t gain anything from doing it.
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Team Fortress 2 is a free game whose only source of income now is the item store. Dead Space 3 and future EA games are not free games.
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Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer game where new cool stuff makes sense. In a single player game like Dead Space 3? Not so much.
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EA charges money for the game, the DLC and the micro transactions. Three sources of cash from the same game. Valve gives away new content for free, doesn’t pester you to buy it, and any in-game purchases are purely for cosmetic reasons (except maybe for new weapons, but those can be acquired for free, so not a big deal) Granted, the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer stuff was free, but that’s a unique case.
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EA has a long history of shoddy and shady business practices. The micro transaction thing is just icing on the cake. They have run developer houses into the ground, abused intellectual properties and trademarks, used every trick in the book to rob the customer of as much money as possible, and even took down their games from Steam and put it on their own DD system just so they could get a bigger piece of the cake.
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Valve have always innovated, expanded and tried new things to see if it benefited the customer and in return, benefited themselves by gaining loyal customers, respect amongst your peers and a good reputation. Screwing over your customers will not earn you that kind of treatment.
