ANTHEM Microtransaction Controversy Starts Early, BioWare Says Pricing Isn't Finalised

"Everything can also be bought with coin, another currency that can be earned through playing the game."

GRIND!!

This has been a dumpster fire since it was announced. All I can say is, good luck BioWare. I hope one day soon you can get back to making some of the best single player RPGs out there and not have to worry about earning as much as FIFA Ultimate Team.

Does this have a single player campaign or purely online?

@MightyDemon82
They said you can play alone, but it is an always online game.

the fact that these things exist in a full priced game should be a crime.

in a free to play title i can understand since they need money somehow but even then it needs to be fair and balanced.

but in a game like this with a AAA price tag? should be forbidden to even test out.

and even if the prices are not final,they still thought that this much would be a good testing indicator,which is just stupid that they think that people would agree on them.

they said no lootboxes,but apparently at the expense of high MTX price tags.

nice that you can earn the cash by just playing but we all know that wont be a fun and balanced way to get that stuff at all.

wonder how the teased dragon age will be affected by this,if it is even a SP game at all.

If 100 shards equals 1$, why not charge 1 shard? Why inflate it?

If it is just for cosmetic, I think it's fair. After all, the price of the game remains the same for more than a decade or 2, while the cost of production has soared, even if you don't consider the inflation.

Hope this game bombs tbh.

@MightyDemon82 You can play solo in the same way you can play any online multiplayer game solo. It requires you to be online, as well as a PS+/Xbox Live Gold subscription.

Oh man....people buying this game are going to get BURNED by EA!

you only have yourself to blame for buying and supporting this greed.

That goes for anyone who is Preordering and buying day one.

I'm getting the N7 get up. Sorry not sorry.

Even if they are test prices why put them in so high. I suppose they cant win either way if they were low and leaked people would say they jacked up the price at launch. But would seem to me they have considered these prices at some stage.

Im wondering if all the stuff in the demo thats currently free to entice people will actually need to be grinded. Seen alot of cool paintjobs and colour choices in peoples vids and would be easy to put them behind ingame currency or as drops. Its not that i dont trust bioware but its EA. Im worried that they think the VIP demo problems may have offput too many people so time to damage control with microtransactions.

@mrbone Thank you! This! This is a thing most people seem to conveniently ignore.

Game prices hardly rose overall over the last decades or so, and while games used to be made by relatively small teams, they are often multi-million dollar affairs with team sizes in the hundreds behind them. Granted, more people in general buy games than ever before, but still, game companies are in for a profit.

I'm not trying to defend scummy and shady loot box practices, that is just wrong and basically gambling while bypassing the laws normally regulating gambling. But in case of an always online game like Anthem, that's built as a games as a service model, being supported over a long time, being evolved and expanded? You have to have a stream of revenue to support this. Bioware stated there would be no loot boxes, no paid levels or DLC and no season pass or such for gameplay-affecting stuff so to not divide the community. I think that's a good approach.

So there's going to be expensive vanity items in the game. Figures. Good way to make a buck. If you don't like it, don't buy it, easy as that. It won't affect your gameplay if you don't have it, and apparently, lots of customisation options can als be earned by simply playing the game and completing challenges.

Plus, I'm guessing there's going to be 5he occasional sale, both for the premium currency and also the vanity items.

Personally, I had a blast with the demo, despite the glitches, and I really can't wait for the full game.

well one word

EA

what did people expect from the company that cancelled a single player Star Wars game because they couldn't fill it full of micro-transactions

Still buying tbh. Doubt I would ever even venture into the "premium" shop especially since it's just cosmetic. As long as I can make an all black Javelin I'm good lol. I'm sure this will be a story for months to come though.

@FullbringIchigo Technically, that's two words...

@redd214 Same. Titanfall 2 had comparable MTX and other than two prime titan skins I bought, I never bothered to pay for any cosmetics. Still one of my most favourite games this generation. Can't imagine I'll buy much in Anthem, but I'm absolutely sure I'll enjoy this game very much.

I totally disagree with ANY Micro-transactional content - whether its 'just' cosmetic or not - in a full priced game. It is totally NOT necessary - just GREED. If a game is 'good enough', it will sell well enough to be profitable. Mass Effect: Andromeda 'flopped' sales wise but was still profitable - as are many AAA games that don't sell 3m+ copies. Its pure Greed!!!

That being said, any full priced game that does have Micro-transaction content should sell individual items (not loot boxes with a 'chance' to get something you may want), be cosmetic ONLY AND offer a chance to earn it (or currency) in game to buy so you never have to spend real money or miss out.

Yes it may well be a 'grind' to earn in-game currency BUT if the game is enjoyable, then its not so much of a grind and if not enjoyable, then why bother playing to earn the credits for some cosmetic only items anyway? If it takes 40hrs to earn enough for an armour pack and you are having a lot of fun playing the game, then 40hrs is not a chore, not a grind - I would prefer that these were 'rewards or unlocks' for playing the game for 40hrs rather than credits to buy rewards and, like I said, rather they kept 'micro-transactional' purchases out of the game entirely - but if people with no patience and more money than sense would rather pay than play to unlock, then this is just encouraging Devs to offer 'short-cuts' for real money....

@Reverend_Skeeve Technically it's 2 letters 🤔

"This is why we tend to not discuss things like pricing, because it's one of those iterative things that's sure to change frequently right up until the day you play the game."

Translation: "you're going to wish these were the final prices"

@Mikethemosher It's all psychological. It inflates the number, making it seem less worth. They want to distantiate their digital currency from the real word money. If it was 1 for 1, you'd equate them with dollars and euros. You'd see a $20 paint job and say hell no. But now it's 2000? 2000 arbitrary online currencies.

It's like how they give digital goods a rarity number; Common, uncommon, rare, etc. They aren't there's an infinite amount of them. But it adds to the illusion that you're buying something rare, something worth owning.

Well, that's a turn off this game really didn't need. Final or not, it's still not a good look.

@Reverend_Skeeve If you cant make games this way scale down. And a game isnt €60 most of the time. But €90/€110 to get a Complete Edition.

Microtransactions, lootboxes, seasonpasses, seasonalpasses, always online. And and please dont give me that its so expensive.

Everything is behind a paywall these days. You know how to make it honest a good expansion or a little less big and make a part 2.

Sportgames are monetized to the max those games are not so hard to make.

Didn’t EA learn anything from the Star Wars Battlefront 2 fiasco?!?!

Just as predictably as the sun rises, EA will find a way to screw it up.

@Octane that is what i suspected. I may grab this on megasale but no chance im paying full price (80cad).

No loot boxes but just to be safe we put some in

@Dreamscape20 Touché 😂

@Flaming_Kaiser But it is a simple fact that games development has become way more expensive. And even at a 100,- for a complete edition, games haven't gotten that much more expensive, compared to the days of old.

In the end, we could argue all day...it comes down to "vote with your wallet". Most games are heavily shortly after launch, so if a game seems to expensive, wait or don't buy. I think mtx have no place in single player games like Spider-Man or GOW, but when an online service game like Anthem does them cosmetically to support the infrastructure, I'm okay with it. To each their own...

I paid for the platinum skin for my pitchfork.

@Reverend_Skeeve But games are more main stream these days, digital cuts out the middle man, etc. These companies are making more money than they ever have; and every year they boast about record breaking profits. Doesn't sound like they are in trouble at all if it's all so very expensive. Which reminds me, it's always the popular games, the games are guaranteed to sell 10+ million copies and be profitable that have MTX. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Its almost as if it says EA on the box 🤔

RIP Bioware.

But but but but its only cosmetics, games cost too much to make, they can't make a profit.

Insert loud fart noise............................................

So $12 to scrape gum off of my javelin's shoe?
Should I be grateful? Disgusted?
I can't imagine it being very difficult to add an animation like that to the game, but it's actually Epic rarity...
Shrugs

@Mikethemosher let's hope these currencies find a way in our world in that way that a big mac cost 700 shards or 500 gils. Way too cool. And you could find a. Loot box in the mcmeal.

Scum bastards

@Cheski you don't need gold or ps plus for the division, are you sure you do for this?

@Gamer4Lyfe my favourite comment of the week. 🤣

@Futureshark well yeah they arent going to just hand everything out when you start the game.. personally i will wait to see how fast you can amass this coin before i start whining.

Why are we not talking about Fallout 76?

What happend to the good ol' days when your $60 bought all of the game you paid for???..

"these [prices] don't represent final, stamped for all of eternity pricing. We are iterating on our economy design and balance almost daily, so you're seeing a snapshot of one iteration."

Indeed. What we're also seeing is that, at some point, you quite clearly felt that these were acceptable, justifiable prices. Now unless in your final "economic balance" 20,000 shards equates to 20 pence/20 cents as opposed to a third of the cost of the game, you're 'avin a feckin' laugh, mate. I don't care if it's optional or not, that's extracting the urine.

@Sladey69 https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/Will-single-player-Anthem-campaign-require-a-PS-Plus-XBox-Live/m-p/7021293/highlight/true#M4595

I don’t buy their explanation.

My guess is that that is the real price they set up. Because it leaked and people aren’t happy they are using marketing jargon to try and say it isn’t how it will be without properly ruling it out, because the bosses above want that price.

What they should have done is quickly said: “These prices are not real. When creating the UI we set up random prices just to test the interface and will not be using these when the game releases.”

They then should have adjusted the prices to be lower on launch.

The fact they didn’t say that tells us that it is probably because the financial bosses at the top who are running the show setup these ripoff prices and the devs have to try and work their way out of it without upsetting the customers or the bosses above.

They are testing the grounds, using social media to "feel" the public's view on this (scam)
And what's that about games being expensive to make with huge teams and hundreds of people working on it?
Hellblade says hello, with a team of 20 in average...

The times of corporate greed comes to an end. In an ironic plot twist capitalism and it's mechanics, used for what felt like eons to extract the last bit of cash from the consumers now is an adequate weapon to strike back. Vote with your wallet, which has much more weight than whatever you could do at a ballot box, and let them feel that we are the customers, we are in charge, we don't want to get insulted anymore with ridiculous pricing, unfinished games, stupid PR BLAH BLAH and politics. You want our patronage? EARN IT. Also: #supportindies. This will all come crumbling down and I'll be there, slowly clapping.

@Cheski well isnt that a kick in the balls.

@Reverend_Skeeve
Agreed with all you say. I can't help thinking that some good folk here have fallen into the default 'EA is an evil, greedy, heartless corporation' POV.
Although this may be true, Anthem has to be considered on its own merits.
Let's not get into a 'The sins of the father' Anthe-mentality

@Octane But games are getting more expensive, no doubt about it. And yes, companies are reporting obscene profits, true...and again, I am absolutely against MTX in single player, campaign-driven games...or selling part of the game as DLC in those. Also, I despise the pay to win bullcrap EA pulled with Star Wars Battlefront 2. But with purely cosmetic stuff that doesn't affect gameplay in a game like Anthem, that has to maintain a server backend and pay a team that's going to add more content for the game over time? With this I have no problem. Again, vote with your wallet if you find it to expensive. As I said, I can't see myself shelling out real money for cosmetics. I'm sure I'll enjoy the game regardless.

@nathanSF Yeah, agreed. I can understand most of the hate. EA has a long history of scummy practices, no doubt...but I also have the impression that many don't want to give Anthem a fair chance because of EA. I think, as I said, that Biowares approach to MTX in Anthem is as reasonable as possible, all circumstances considered. I hope the game does well. The core gameplay is a blast, so if the endgame in Anthem is strong and Bioware supports the game as promised, I can see myself playing this for a long time. I have a bunch of friends ready for co-op for sure.

Add me, if you'd like to play together:

Reverend_Skeeve

By "leaking" these shots of an over priced economy in the game they are trying to get people outraged at the cost so when the game comes out and the price is lower people will be all "oh well £10 for a skin is not as bad as it was going to be"

The government does the same thing with fuel prices. Raise it by a lot then lower it a bit when people complain, they stop complaining and pay the new price. The government get the raise they wanted in the first place and sheeple stop making noise.

@kyleforrester87 touché

I gladly put $100 into cosmetics so I can support the game to stay alive for long enough. I actually expected to pay $15-20 for a vinyl, which I am fine with. It should feel worth something and special. Not something everybody can just get.

Most gamers have absolutely no clue about what it takes to keep a live service game alive. I am against MTX in pure single player games. But a live service game? How do you guys think they can support this for 10 years? Do you also want to work for free for your company?

It doesn’t work that way. People scream no paywalling DLCs, no pay2win, no monthly subscriptions. Nobody of you is giving an actual solution to the problem, you just complain.

I find the above solution to be the best balance between people who don’t want to spent anything and people who gladly support BioWare to keep ANTHEM alive.
If you don’t like it, stay away from live service games, there are enough single player campaign driven games out there, especially on PS4. I wish for anthem to be successful, for BioWares sake.

This is for cosmetics so it has no impact on any gameplay. They have already said they want this game to be a long term game and all dlc content will be free so how are they meant to pay for that? Why do people get so worked up about it?? People say that 'games never used to use micro transactions' well that's because most games back then weren't online and all you got was the game with no future dlcs. I don't see a problem personally.

On one hand, many have been burned by EA before because they blindly preordered of their own free will. It’s their money, no one else has a damn say in it, but they still pay the price.

On the other hand, it’s not another Star Wars game. There’s tons of good ones already, with communities to keep them alive well over Battlefront’s expiration date. This game looks interesting, and I played the demo. It feels great to play. No, my opinion has not been bought out by EA, because I’m very much an advocate against their business practices, but I think I’ll give this one a try. If anyone else reads this, make up your own mind. Watch developer interviews, read forums, skim through every comment on every anti-EA thread you see. Ultimately, it’s up to you if the game is interesting or not. No mob mentality train should force their opinion on you.

Like I said, this looks interesting, I’ll give it a go.

Also, please don’t bother with the “Warframes is already doing that” comments. They’re not entirely comparable, just as Destiny and Warframe aren’t until now. Warframe appeals to a certain group of gamers, and Anthem appeals to a different group. Warframe leans far away from traditional sci-fi stereotypes, something that Anthem instead caters to.

@Reverend_Skeeve And somehow Firstparty titles are almost microtransaction free. Well EA is finished then no more card packs in Belgium. And they gave a strange response with BF2 removing the microtransactions wont affect our profits? Why not go free to play then you can jack up the microtransactions to the max.

@Octane I know but people still stick their heads out and defend everything.

@mrbone I need to be that guy, but here goes: First off, the inflation argument is BS. Inflation hasn't risen that much, and the cost of games HAS inflated. Currently games cost £50-£60 in the past 5 years they were £40-£50, the past 10 years they were £35-£45, and the past 20 years they were £30-£40. They've basically doubled, atleast here in the UK. And I know they've gone up in price everywhere else too. The percentage may vary.

But. And this is a full-sized, massive capitalized BUT!

They sell more copies. hundreds of thousands to MILLIONS more than they were selling 5, 10, 20 years ago. Plus they're spending less time and money in developing games against how much they make total (without MTX) and how many copies sold. Mainly due to asset flipping on yearly titles, and so on. EA - again - is the biggest offender of this.

So, no. It's not fair. They're not giving you more content. Game time does not equal quantity OR quality of content. Most publishers try to make open world and/or grindy games. Open world gives the illusion of mass content (without having to actually have put much content, or effort into content in. And gameplay/game time is wasted of travel. Issue with Current Ubisoft and Just Cause games, for example). Or grindy games, like Destiny, Star Wars Battle Front 2, so on and so forth. Means playing the same limited content over and over with the hope of a reward of the end. Even through persistence or RNG. Which is where MTX's come in (specifically here) and where these predatory practices are abused.

MTXs "Even for cosmetics" are not acceptable.

Even the game look somehow nice does not mean need to pay for skin.. It a full price 60 dollar price so why still want to sell us skin? Anthem should wait few month then release skin. now what most important is let player experience is this game worth to pay them again

@Revadarius I agree more people are buying games now. But no inflation? read this https://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/10/15/the-real-cost-of-gaming-inflation-time-and-purchasing-power.
Don't forget GBP has lost value against USD since Brexit referendum.
Remember more people are pirating now and pirating is much more easier these days. Yes series like FIFA, COD use the previous asset. Even then, it is reported that it takes 3 years to make a COD games. While the tech has improved a lot over 2 decades, it takes longer to make a good game. Gone are the days of releasing RE 2, 3 and Veronica every year back in 90s and palette color swap like in Mortal Kombat. By the way, I'd choose RE over COD everyday, not a fan of 1st person shooter.

@Mikethemosher

If 100 shards equals 1$, why not charge 1 shard? Why inflate it?

It is a common business tactic for micro transactions to not have the in game currency you buy to buy in game items easily translate to the value of real life money, so people have a hard to knowing how much they are really spending.

@mrbone That link is dead, unfortunately. But my point still stands that the cost of games HAS risen. Prior to brexit (brexit hasn't actually affected the cost of games, though Nintendo - the cheeky sods - still charge £10+ for their titles, starting at £60-£65. Attempting to take advantage of the situation) games still remained the same, only really affecting household goods and electricals. Computer parts and mobile phones have gotten stupid. But not games, nor consoles.

And development time isn't as long as stated, they do a lot of pre-production (involving writing and re-writes, buying licenses, third party software, etc) which takes up most of the development time. Or spend years in development hell where there's little-to-no development happening. Games such as FFXV, Fallout 3, Diablo 3, Prey that barely survived.

Also, to save time and cost they tend to release the game earlier. Let the community QA test is and patch it later. These trends specifically affect online games. Prime Examples: Battlefield 4, Gears of War 4. Yet they tend to have fully functioning (Day 1) DLC and/or loot boxes upon launch.

Also, Resident evil 1, 2 and Veronica were made 2 years about. And 3 was a major asset flip off of 2 as it was meant to be a spin-off story based on 2, hence why there's a 1 year gap. Similarly with Mortal Kombat 2 and onwards. I appreciate that there's been an advance in videogame technology, but as I said. In terms of development time + costs, and the money made... developers are trying to spend less whilst making more. And how do they do that? By reusing as many assets as possible (or making unnecessary sequels/spin offs. I.E, FFXIII-2/Lightning Returns, the aforementioned Resident Evil 2, Metal Gear Survive)

Oh, and with MTX (the original topic of the debate). They shouldn't be in our games, period. EA have stated (with the SW:BF2 debacle, and now with Anthem) they don't 'need' MTXs, and they won't affect their bottom line. Which means it's just free money they think they're entitled to for low/no effort, whilst abusing predatory practices such as gambling (which has been determined to be aimed at and affect small children).

@Revadarius You can easily google that ign about inflation. You can read that if you type in google but not sure what’s wrong with the link? You can look at from from another view. They sometimes make sequels to recoup the loss. Shadow of tomb raider costs 75-100 millions USD despite it being a sequel and the potential to reuse the assets from previous 2 games. That doesn’t even include the marketing cost yet. So I disagree with your opinion on game production cost.
The beauty of cosmetics MTX is you have an option not to buy it and it will have no effect on everyone experience at all whether people buy it or not.