Comment on Away Team (Oxygen Not Included Spinoff) Announcement Trailer

• NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  So… you want everything?

  Yes. Microtransactions feel bad. But if they are purely cosmetic? That genuinely hurts nobody. And it actively helps the development team since it means that the art team can keep working even if there isn’t a big DLC being planned.

  This came up endlessly back in the early days of DLC. There is DEFINITELY an argument as to when a DLC is finalized and whether it is “cut content” or not (but that kind of goes out the window for a game that is 6 years old). But people didn’t realize that the old business model was:

  • Hire a bunch of devs
  • Fire all the concept art people once you have enough
  • Fire all the modelers once you are ready to go into bug testing
  • Fire all the QA once you are done bug testing
  • Fire all the coders once you release
  • Hire back the concept art people when you want to start planning an expansion
  • Hire back the modelers and coders when you have to make said expansion
  • Lather, rinse, repeat

  What DLC did was it kept that cycle going near constantly. Like, fuck horse armor. But the Bethesda devs could start ramping up for Operation Anchorage while Fallout 3 was getting its final passes and so forth.

  And microtransactions are a continuation of that. Like, Noclip have done some great documentaries/interviews with live game studios on exactly that topic and how it turns things into a giant production line (for better or for worse) rather than the constant ramp up/down model.

  I’m not going to say ONI did it right… mostly because I have never felt a reason to engage with that screen and can’t be certain if it also includes alternate recipes or JUST cosmetics. But if it is JUST cosmetics? Then yeah, they are doing it right. They release a generally fun DLC with new biomes and mechanics once-ish a year and have a constant stream of cosmetics to keep the lights on while they patch it in between.

  Because the alternative is an endless stream of DLC (so that people won’t call them microtransactions…) and we can see how people like Paradox games. Or it is a new game every single year CoD style. The studios that can release a game and just live off the tail indefinitely are few and far between.

  FOMO mechanics

  Honestly? While that is a predatory marketing model that is heavily used it is also very much a “you problem” in terms of needing to train yourself to not be as impacted by it. The jury is out on whether it is preying on addiction (I think signs point to no?) but… people STILL have no problems with god damned skinner boxes being foundational to so many games. But tell them they might not get Officer D.Va and suddenly it is the end of the world.

  And even there? I still don’t know if I like it or not, but Dave the Diver and Vampire Survivors are both games built around DLC they know they won’t be able to sell forever. DtD is closer to a year and VS is more “We know we’ll probably have to pull the amongus and konami stuff eventually so we won’t make achievements for it”. And… it definitely feels bad and I bought Godzilla DLC because I might not be able to get it later. But also? The Contra and Castlevania DLC for VS are straight up revelatory and amazing. And I would rather that exists for a few years than never exist at all.

  source