Total sales for Dragon’s Dogma II have surpassed 2.5 million units, Capcom announced. Cumulative sales for the Dragon’s Dogma series have surpassed 10 million units.
Problem is that these will always be a thing because of whales. Am I supposed to not buy a game because of a micro like this? So basically quit gaming? Because they’re everywhere now, and as long as whales exist, micros will exist. You need to pick your battles. I stopped buying multi-player games all together. I’m not limiting myself on single player games because of a minor micro that changes nothing about my single player experience.
Everyone could boycott this game except for the whales, and that handful would still be considered a win for them. Don’t be disappointed in a single games sales, be disappointed in the current state of gaming.
Let’s do some theoretical scenarios for microtransactions:
-apathy with whales:
“we need to ensure a good monetisation model to extract value from the whales, even if the normal players are missing out”
-apathy without whales:
“let’s try adding microtransactions to extract more value per player, it won’t hurt our sales!”
-No apathy with whales:
“no one is buying our game! And our whales have no one to play with! Are the whales even enough to fund this on its own? We got to undo the microtransactions soon!”
-No apathy no whales:
“why did we even add microtransactions! Every business knows that only quality games and good marketing can help sales!”
Problem is that these will always be a thing because of whales. Am I supposed to not buy a game because of a micro like this? So basically quit gaming? Because they’re everywhere now, and as long as whales exist, micros will exist. You need to pick your battles. I stopped buying multi-player games all together. I’m not limiting myself on single player games because of a minor micro that changes nothing about my single player experience.
Everyone could boycott this game except for the whales, and that handful would still be considered a win for them. Don’t be disappointed in a single games sales, be disappointed in the current state of gaming.
Apathy is worse than the whales.
Let’s do some theoretical scenarios for microtransactions:
-apathy with whales: “we need to ensure a good monetisation model to extract value from the whales, even if the normal players are missing out”
-apathy without whales: “let’s try adding microtransactions to extract more value per player, it won’t hurt our sales!”
-No apathy with whales: “no one is buying our game! And our whales have no one to play with! Are the whales even enough to fund this on its own? We got to undo the microtransactions soon!”
-No apathy no whales: “why did we even add microtransactions! Every business knows that only quality games and good marketing can help sales!”
A little hyberbolic but surely you see my point.