I think gamers are right to be very suspicious of how this will play out. If this review of the EA published Real Racing 3 on iOS is anything to go by then they're willing to try putting frequent and high tariffs on gameplay. On the other hand Real Racing 3 is still a free-to-play iOS game. How they'll incorporate micro-transactions into PC or mainstream console titles has yet to be seen.
There is a strong argument that consumers have a choice to buy or not buy whatever is offered (as voiced by CliffyB while I was writing this post). I can't deny the truth in that but it doesn't mitigate the valid concerns of fans of existing games titles. EA owns many well-loved brands and fans of those brands are now faced with the possibility that future iterations will be warped to conform to a business model that needs to generate ongoing payments. It's not just a matter of the games being less fun, or even more expensive, it's the possibility that the very nature of those franchises will be changed. SimCity, Command and Conquer or Mirror's Edge wrapped round a micro-transaction model may well not be SimCity, C&C or Mirror's Edge as we know them. There won't be a choice to buy or not buy the games we want -- those games will simply not exist any more.
Maybe, Just Maybe, It'll Be Okay
There is, as always, a middle ground. It's the zone in which we can imagine games that incorporate micro-transactions in non-destructive ways. Unfortunately, a position that recognises the danger in applying free-to-play models to the traditional games market but also holds that it's not uniformly evil is too grey to be attractive. Nuanced opinions don't get heard much in a debate that exists between corporate spin-drone press-releases and hyperbolic teenaged gamers in comment sections.
Despite the lack of vocal recognition the reality is that IAP just means "stuff" you can buy from within the game. DLC is just "stuff" you can buy to add to your existing game whether from inside or outside that game. "Micro-transactions" is just code for virtual currency to buy "stuff"*. F2P just means it's free to install and play at least some of it or for some period of time and you'll have to buy "stuff" to play more.
None of these things are inherently evil concepts. My local coffee shop is F2P in that you can walk in and hang around for free. They have IAP coffee and cakes and a micro-transaction currency involving gift vouchers and reward stamps. If I stretch a bit I can even say they have DLC ground coffee that you can order for use at home. I doubt that many people would compare them to Hitler for doing any of that.
The debate needs to move from blanket "this thing good"/"this thing bad" to being about the specific behaviours. People need to express what is not okay and what is okay. Not all DLC is horse armour. Not all F2P is Real Racing 3.
If EA sells me a full-price Tomb Raider and then offers extra hats, clothes, hairstyles for more further payment then that's fine. If they want to sell me ammo or "Lara Energy" needed to play freely then it's not. I'll be honest, I probably won't buy the hats but some people will and I don't mind them being available.
If EA sells me a full-price Need For Speed and then offers extra cars, paint jobs, decals for further payment then that's fine. If they only offer the "best" car as an added extra then it's not. It's really, really not okay to do this if a game contains multiplayer competitive elements.
If EA sells me a full-price Mirror's Edge and then offers extra missions for further payment that's fine. If those missions are actually required to bring a narrative close to the story in the game I paid for then it's not.
If EA creates a franchise specifically for F2P then I reserve the right to hate it, but it's really no skin off my nose. If they take a franchise that I enjoy and subvert its nature to fit F2P then they're not just making something I dislike but they're destroying something I liked. It's not illegal but certainly a dick move.
If EA creates micro-transactions that are proxy subscription fees for ongoing services, that's fine by me. You can justify selling the ability to play if the game has a significant ongoing running cost. Justification goes out of the window if you've manufactured the need for that cost (always-connected DRM, unwanted social/multiplayer features).
If EA introduces micro-transactions to create an on-ramp between demo/piracy and full purchase then that could be acceptable. I'm okay with free to install and pay-to-play purchases for single-player games as long as I can get off the treadmill with a single purchase (infinite coins/fuel/whatever) that is in line with traditional game pricing. We also need to be able to release games from IAP treadmills in instances where the payment mechanism ceases to exist.
But Probably Not
I'm afraid that my instinct and experience tells me that we're in for a bad time no matter what arguments are made and heard. I foresee the inclusion of payment models that don't seek to increase revenue by upselling or extending the market but rather by getting people to pay more for less. I foresee micro-transactions shoe-horned into games and game designs broken to include them. I foresee a proliferation of virtual currencies as consumer "company scrip" and we'll have to collect EAbucks, Ubibeans, and Acticredits to play their games.
Ultimately it's just too tempting for publishers to ignore. F2P/IAP aren't just the kind of buzzwords that business types feel they must add to their CV. The massive numbers coming out of the top mobile freemium games are real. If you add to that the possibility that micro-transactions can be used to open a new front in the digital shop-front battle (Can't spend $EA on non-EA titles and no-one else gets a cut) then it becomes inevitable that the big boys are going to try it on.
I also frankly doubt that it's going to go away. Even if gamers vote with their wallets as CliffyB suggests and we see some big franchise releases bomb due to bad micro-transaction implementation once the systems are in place they will be used. We can only hope that market forces result in tolerable usage to most of us.
If there's a silver lining to this looming cloud it's that, by moving to payment models that are unpopular with large numbers of gamers, the big players will make space for others to offer alternatives. "Pay once, play forever" might just become a selling point in itself that indies can exploit.
*Micro-transactions were once touted as a mechanism for monetising web content and literally meant "small value transactions". The idea was that you could charge 0.5c or whatever for reading a blog post. These transactions were enabled via virtual currency (to avoid the overhead of real currency transactions). The meaning in games has taken great liberties with the interpretation of "small value" and now it really just means the use of in-game currency to buy stuff, whether for 10c or $10.
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