Dead Space 3

Dead Space 3 runs in-game ads to sell you parts to build weapons with. In short, they are running the F2P model on a game they are asking $60 for. Hell, I like the Dead Space titles so much that I bought two of the real-life $120 RIG backpacks. I won't buy this title at launch though, no matter how good it is. If they are going to make the decision to unbalance the in-game economy to encourage users to spend cash on in-game currency, then I'll make the decision to buy the game for $20, preferably used so that the dev sees none of that cash. Then I'll have a bit left over to buy their in-game currency that they love so much.

I was really looking forward to buying this on day one for $60, just like I did with Dead Space 2. Hell, I'm even one of the tiny group of 9000 people that bought Dead Space Extraction on the Wii the day it came out. I even bought that again on the PS3 for the HD upgrade to use with my Move. They did a fantastic job of taking their extremely loyal customer and telling them "Yeah, don't bother picking this up."

Yea but if people want to screw up their own in-game economy, how does it affect you? This isn't a competitive game.

Pushing in-game currency means that items will cost more than they would have without said purchasable currency. I don't care if players screw up their own personal economy. I care that the developer has screwed up the economy by design.

Seriously, have you played any F2P game? Pushing in-game currency is the name of the game, and in-game economies skew heavily in favor of excessive grinding to sell that currency. F2P is fine, but it doesn't belong in a $60 retail release.

They still going for survival horror? Seems every iteration takes a leap towards gears/COD, and that's not a good thing IMO.

Its a conflict of interest for the game designer. Design the game to maximize entertainment, or design to maximize profit. I'm sure in a paid game like this it skews heavily in favor of entertainment, but still....it corrupts the experience, and its a slippery slope. I don't want this BS infecting my games either....but I've come to expect it from EA at this point. I'd be more surprised if it didnt have it.

EA games have been pushing in-game cash sales/cheat packs for years, though. This isn't new. And I've never bought any of those and enjoyed the games fine. The games are balanced both ways.

If Dead Space 3 isn't, if it's terribly repetitive and grindy without money but great with money... it's just a bad game. I doubt they would ruin the franchise like that though.

I've also played some F2P games that weren't like that, for example Planetside 2 and Tribes Ascend.

I don't have a problem with this. The industry is all about the nickel and dime nowadays, it's nothing new. You have the option of buying armor/weapons/etc in practcally everything you play. I choose not to buy (most) DLC, but I will get DS3 because I really enjoyed the first two. Should there come a time when a game developer wants to charge full retail for an incomplete game; in other words, you can't beat the game without additional purchase, I'll be the first to proclaim I'm not buying it.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-26-saturday-soapbox-buy-to-let-gaming

A good Eurogamer article about this. My favorite quote:

"As many wags this week have pointed out, EA is trying to charge you £40 for an experience, and then charge you more to skip parts of it - a bittersweet joke because, of course, it's true."

This isn't a matter of DLC, pay-for-cheats, or nickel and diming. It's a matter of shoehorning a feature in to a game where it does not fit and actively lessening the experience for everyone, whether they pay or not.

I just wish there was a very clear way to get across to EA that this is the specific reason Im not buying it. It's not fair to say every game nickles and dimes you nowadays, EA is far and away the worst transgressor. And they push it further with each game. This isn't inevitable.

Cosmetic stuff is fine, DLC is fine....but I'm not paying money for game mechanics. That's the point where you're no longer playing the game, the game is playing you.

As long as their model doesn't impact my ability to finish the game in a reasonable amount of time or doesn't hamstring the experience in any way, then I don't mind. As others have said, EA has been selling shortcuts to their games for years and I'm sure certain players (whether they be impatient, simply too busy to play all the way thru without help, or just not particularly good at the game) have gotten value from that. If/when they start holding features back or start designing the game in such a way that you MUST buy extra stuff to be able to advance or finish the game then I think they'll have a lot of angry people banging on their virtual doors.

For better or worse, this is the model that more and more publishers and developers are following (just look at all the junk Ubisoft is peddling on ACIII) and as long as consumers continue to pay, it will continue and even get worse.

"As long as their model doesn't impact my ability to finish the game in a reasonable amount of time or doesn't hamstring the experience in any way, then I don't mind."

"as long as consumers continue to pay, it will continue and even get worse"

Gentlemen, let's all thank Tony for contributing to the problem.

Not sure how I'm contributing to the problem. Assuming the game gets good reviews, I'll buy it; but I won't buy any add-ons. I think that sends a clear message: I like the game and I'll pay for it; I don't like all the ancillary nonsense and I won't buy any of it. This is what I do for all console games that provide content in this way.

When I was a kid, Game Genies were all the rage. Later on I worked at an EB Games and we sold GameSharks like you would not believe. People have been paying for cheats/shortcuts a lot longer than EA has been profitting from it.

Castlevania II and Final Fantasy IX's in-game economies weren't designed with the motivation of selling as many Gamesharks and Game Genies as possible. Your argument is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

And yet, there is no proof that Dead Space 3 is designed for that either. It's only hysteria.

The game will be judged on its merits. A Tiger Woods game from a couple years ago got killed because of microtransaction BS. If DS3 is annoying with pop-ups and grindy it will get judged as a bad game too reliant on microtransactions. If the microtransactions are more like cheat codes, then it's... exactly like dozens of other EA games released lately.

Aren't you concerned about the gradual slip of standards though? Tying it more closely to game mechanics doesn't seem as bad when you're comparing it to the paid cheat code/shortcut we've already become accustomed to. Remember when those were free? Then when it gets even worse in the next round of games, people will say "well, its basically the same as dead space 3, no big deal!"

I'm against having to grind in *any* game, its nothing more than filler. We should be moving towards less grinding in games simply based on it not being fun, not using it to justify microtransactions as if grinding is an inexorable part of gaming. They're loading you down with dead weight, and then charging to ease the burden. It's like when Sony tried to charge for the removal of crapware on their laptops....how about not having crapware in the first place?

Anyway, I tried the demo, and it seemed like they were definitely pushing the crafting system. The game seemed cool enough, but you can't get a sense for dead space in 10 minutes anyway.

I look at games on a case-by-case basis.

If reviews come out and say, hey, Dead Space 3 has this crafting system that is terrible and you need 50 ingots to upgrade your ripper but you only get 1 an hour unless you buy them... I'll skip the game. No biggie.

I have a feeling that EA would not risk destroying this franchise like this, but we'll see.

"grind" in this context just means "unfun stuff", where unfun is different for everybody. As an example, I spent dozens of hours zipping around Just Cause 2 liberating towns and finding stuff. I saw a lot of people call that a grind. I get bored with every Pokemon I play after 5 hours, but people are out there making spreadsheets to track progress of all their guys.

I'm not sure how I feel about the crafting system, especially when arguably the best weapon is the one you start with.

See?

Been reading great first impressions and Neogaf and some people are saying it is a great mix of DS1 and DS2 and still is pretty scarey which is the most important thing in motion.DS has never been like COD/Gears at all.

The early reviews I've seen also confirm (so far) that all the available microtransactions and enhanced equipment/weapon purchases are not necessary to progress in the game and that you can do just fine with only the in-game assets, which was pretty much the case with the first two games.

On the other hand, I'm reading that the game's ending (which was recently leaked) is generating some pretty negative reviews; haven't seen it myself but people keep comparing it to Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by TonyDP - 2/2/13 at 4:05pm

Read the article, it's all cheat packs, optional weapons and costumes. Nothing essential.

DS3 is going to feature Hardcore Mode where you get ONLY 1 live for the entire game which is pretty damn crazy..How many of you will tackle that specific mode?

It doesn't matter, people will complain anyway. There's nothing wrong with being vigilant about companies doing stuff like this but I can't lump this in with F2P at all. The best thing you can do is vote with your wallet. If you don't want to buy the game because of this stuff don't. People that will buy the game though aren't contributing to the problem because I don't recall it being compulsory that you purchase whatever in-game content they are offering. This situation is a bit more nuanced than just the "us vs them" mentality permeating this thread.

You mean, just like DS1 and DS2 had?

There is no HC mode in the original Dead Space as it only has 3 difficulty settings.DS2 definitely has it but in DS3 it's much harder as you only get 1 life for the ENTIRE game..

Compared to Dead Space 1 and 2 which averaged an 89 and 90 review score, Dead Space 3 is sitting at 79 right now. It also had no early reviews and limited copies seem to have made it out in to reviewer hands. Day one tends to be a bit higher than where the score finally settles, so we can expect this to end up at about an average of 74 once the people that actually pay for their games review it.

What a surprise.

I pre ordered mine for the 2 extra suits and weapons. Early reviews do state that the game suffers from a weak story, but that seems to be the only low point from what I have read.

What does that mean? DS2 hard core mode was that you only had 3 saves. Do you have to go through the game from start to finish without saving?