Electronic Arts, THQ Look To Microtransactions 83
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the do-not-want dept.
from the do-not-want dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Forbes:
"Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest games publishers, on Monday partnered with microtransactions platform Live Gamer to bolster its online game efforts. ... THQ also announced a partnership with Live Gamer last week to facilitate microtransactions of its online PC and mobile games in North America. ... Worldwide sales of virtual items are expected to reach $7 billion by 2015, according to online games research firm DFC Intelligence. Fast-growing social games companies like Zynga, the maker of FarmVille, are leading the charge. The company is estimated to be pulling in around $600 million in revenue annually, largely from the sale of virtual goods. Americans are also growing comfortable with the microtransactions model. Game companies point to the music industry, where consumers buy 99-cent digital tracks instead of full albums on CDs."
Re:Oh look, we killed it, let's try *squeezing* (Score:1, Informative)
I agree with what you said.
I also take exception to the supposed link towards the music industry.
the music tracks on a CD are rarely if ever related to one another. Each are generally a whole work on to itself - with most of them sucking horribly in many cases. It'd be more comparable to having Awesome Game, Awesome Game II, Awesome Game III: The Sequel's Sequel, and Awesome Game IV.
Only Awesome Game was any good. So you get that and who cares about the rest.
With this micro bullshit, it'd be like getting the drum beat when you download the song for your 80 cents. If you want the lyrics, that'll be another 10 cents. You want the guitar? 15 cents my friend. Keyboards? Aren't you a big spender! another 2 cents. Eh, the piano sucked in that song.
Then you realize after you finally have the full song you paid more than 99 cents compared to what you use to pay!