Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming Quick Takes - Monetization

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

From gaming hosts Josh and Paul, we're bringing you even more gaming content each week. Gaming Quick Takes are a short series of game recommendations, funny moments, off-topic chat and more. A small dose of gaming to brighten your Saturdays! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Shazam! Boom! Hey guys, it's Paul here with another quick take for you all thank you so much for supporting the show josh and i really do appreciate it and for this quick take i had posted in our discord server that i needed a couple of subjects to talk about because i wasn't too sure what to do here and so courtesy of legendary supporter jake he asked me to give my takes on game monetization. So DLC versus subscription versus microtransactions versus Battle Pass. Now, I don't know if I'm the best person to ask this about because I am generally anti all of those monetization methods. My main thing is I

just want to be able to pay full price for a game and just have all the content. So in many cases in the past, I will wait until there is a game of the year edition that's got all the DLC thrown in and I'll buy it all at once. You know, that's my preferred method. I think the two that I dislike the most are subscription and microtransaction based. The subscription model I think is just dead. You know, no one wants to keep paying $15 every month for a game like World of Warcraft. I think so many games have just figured out that if you can offer the game for free, then you're just going to get a huge player base and you'll have enough people who want to pay through another means. So I kind of feel like subscription is

definitely on the out and out, even though I think that's what most companies probably prefer. And then microtrans transactions obviously have a terrible reputation for a reason you know micro transactions for items that give you a benefit are basically the best way to ruin your game you do not want pay to win mechanics we've seen so many games just get destroyed over those i think everyone kind of learned early on that really there's just no place for it in gaming today. If you want to do microtransactions for cosmetic stuff, that's totally cool, but you don't want it to be for anything base. I think when it comes to battle passes, I tend to think that that's a pretty decent model. I think especially if you're playing a game like halo infinite for free sometimes i don't mind

buying the battle pass just to help support that game and as long as you get some cosmetics out of it then that's cool you know i like the idea of being able to purchase the battle pass on my own terms and not have to pay monthly like a subscription so if i'm no longer you know really interested in apex legends then maybe i don't pick up the battle pass but maybe in three or four months when i pick it back up then i can choose to pick up that battle pass uh so i kind of feel like for all the shade we throw at fortnite i kind of feel like they were kind of at the forefront of kind of bringing in the battle pass model which i certainly don't mind but honestly

out of all those i think paying for individual dlcs is the one i personally prefer the most i mean just call me old-fashioned i just want to be able to know what i'm buying and to pay for it and then just have it you know i i get why some people love battle passes i also totally get why some people are like well i don't know how much i'm going to play and i just kind of want to have my items right now and so dlc is kind of a great way to do that i famously do not play very much dlc there are very few games that i can even think of off the top of my head where i did get dlc uh mass effect, Lair of the Shadow Broker, definitely stands out. Also, whatever they called the zombie DLC for Red Dead Redemption.

I know that that one was hugely popular, and a lot of people bought that one on disc for PlayStation. The Witcher 3, famously, has some really good DLC. But honestly, other than those couple of items, I don't know that I've really spent much more money. I do remember picking up some of the Dragon Age Inquisition DLC. Because the story kind of finishes. But then you get to return and find out what's been going on with the characters. So for me I feel like the DLC is worth it. If it impacts the main story or if it's

like a really good self-contained campaign like lair of the shadow broker is kind of famous for that it's i don't remember how long probably about 10 hours but it's got its own self-contained story and you know for for something like that you're basically just paying for a smaller game but i feel like for dlc nine times out of ten it's just not worth the that, you're basically just paying for a smaller game. But I feel like for DLC, 9 times out of 10, it's just not worth the price. Oftentimes, you're buying something that just feels like it's done half-heartedly. Usually, you see on Metacritic, the base game might have an 88. And these DLCs, you'll see down in the 50s. Mass Effect, I think, was the first time I ever bought DLC.

And I just remember some of those you'd pay 10 bucks and you would get like 40 minutes of content and it was like why on earth did i buy this and so for as much as i love mass effect that dlc really spoiled it for me i remember in particular there was one dlc where you kind of just drove around in the um oh my goodness i can't believe i'm forgetting the name of the uh vehicle you drive around on all the planets it's not a warthog from a halo but it's kind of similar but basically you just drove around on a planet and you shot some stuff and you entered one or two buildings and it just kind of ended and you know so dl, I tend to stay away from. Plus, it's just hard for me

to rebuild the momentum in a game. If I'm playing the game and I beat it and I have DLC to go into right away while the game is still clicking, I'll do that. But it's hard for me if I finish a game and I hear that DLC has come out, I don't necessarily want to jump right back in,

relearn the mechanics figure out whatever they're doing new in the game so DLC is something that I tend to just full out avoid the most recent example is when I did pick up DLC for The Witcher 3 and at that point I had played so much of the base game since that base game is so long that I put in like two or three hours in the dlc and i was kind of like you know what i'm just kind of burnt out at this point um so i guess there's probably a sweet spot maybe if you play a game that's more in the 20 hour range and then you can jump right into dlc that's probably the best way to do it but for me i

like buying the full bundles that way i've got all that dlc included i do not mind holding off on a brand new game i'll let it sit for a year or two and i'll pick it up on a steam sale i think that is generally the best way to do it but if you got to use one of these other methods i'm definitely cool with dlc or battle passes microtransactions for cosmetics i don't care if it's in there. I'm not going to use it. But certainly since we keep seeing games who try to build in like buy a potion that gives you double XP or to have to use real life currency to do fast travel in the game, things like that, I think is just a terrible way to try to monetize your game give us a good product

give us it at a reasonable price and you know people will pay for it so anyway i think that's about all i have to think about on this matter probably not like the sexiest quick take uh concept here but just a couple thoughts about monetization hope you guys all have some great games that you're playing through and we'll see you guys next time.