The New Cash Cow

Dead Space is a terrifying horror series that I, regretfully, have yet to snap up and play past the demos. If I'm honest, it's because I'm incredibly fragile and, given the choice between putting myself through a nightmareish fight for survival and having a nice sit down with a cup of tea and a zero per cent chance of nerve-janging, Lovecraft inspired mutant zombies, I will consistantly choose the latter option.

But, I appreciate a good, fully-immersive world, regardless of its living standards and, from the tiny, tiny bits I have played of Dead Space (Only the first demo. I wasn't very good at it either), you really felt the struggle. Makeshift weapons, limited resources and a menu system that remained within the gameplay created a truly realistic and, importantly, unbroken survival experience. I can't really explain why I haven't played more.

So news that the new, third installment is changing, subtly, the game's style; its experience, has, unsurprisingly, met a wall of controversy. A new, more practical weapon selection, a sign of a shift from survival horror to all out action, which could make the game a jarring, possibly even disappointing addition to a well-acclaimed series. But, undoubtedly, the most feather-ruffling revelation about the game is the implimentation of micro-transactions or, more importantly, the ability for players to use micro-transactions to gain upgrades much quicker than through the basic gameplay.

Micro-transactions are not a new thing. If you have games on Facebook or your smart phone then you'll have seen them, probably even bought into them. These usually take the form of small purchases of specific resources that speed up the gameplay of, otherwise free, casual games, although you will also see packs of extra levels or costumes and other such pointless decorations that can be purchased to expand more elaborate console or PC games. Dead Space 3 would appear to be the first example of a premium, console game making use of in-gmae micro-transactions on top of the original purchase of the game.

So what problem does this cause? None, really. It has been made clear that the resources you will be buying are still available to collect during gameplay, although far slower. And, seeing as it's a single player game, one person making use of the micro-transactions will not gain a direct advantage over those who don't. The advancements may not even make too much of an impact to gameplay. Unlike the free-to-play games that saw the genesis of the phenomenon, I doubt the game will become a tediously long exercise of patience for the player to see progress. It will likely prove an entirely unobtrusive, optional feature of the game.

But, on the cynical side, it just would be EA that pulled this stunt first. Games at the top end of the spectrum already carry considerable price tags. It's a hell of a step to take to try and ask for more after this. And, here are EA just going ahead and doing it. It's not necessarily any worse than the business model of Blizzard with World of Warcraft, which not only charges for the game and its expansion packs, but also pays a monthly subscription that you need to play. Admittedly, this is intended to go towards the servers that run the expansive online community, but you naturally assume that the most is being made of this. It is, at least, not as blatent as what is going on with Dead Space 3, where money is being asked in exchange for things you will get anyway. True, it is optional, and no-one needs to take up these transactions (at least, I hope. I presume there will be no tricks to make playing the game without transactions painfully difficult.) but there will be people who do take this up. And it will encourage future use of this model in premium games. There is a clear line that you hope will never be crossed and assume there is sense in the publishing agencies to never try. But you never know with these companies.

The thing that bothers me the most, though, is what this does to the quality of the game. Especially with the Dead Space series, where immersion into the environment is vital for the success of the story you tell. If you then give the option to players to buy whatever they want, whenever they want, how do you also maintain the sense of fear, the sense of isolation, and desperation. With a single player game like this, where you are trying to move through a narrative, I can only see it being ruined when you reach the designated marketplace for whatever transactions are going to get crowbarred into the game. It's bad enough playing something where the mentality is to try deserately to conserve resources only for the game itself to let you in on a massive stockpile of health and ammo just in time for the nearby boss that you'll have to face. Having points where you are literally broken from the experience whilst you sit through another invitation to go to the PSN store (or other, xboxy equivalent) just in case you want to pick up some mega tools for the next fight is going to make playing these games a ridiculous exercise.

In an interview, the game's producer, John Calhoun, said that including micro-transactions was intended as a way of boosting the audience - There's a lot of players out there, especially players coming from mobile games, who are accustomed to micro-transactions. They're like "I need this now, I want this now". They need instant gratification. So we included that option in order to attract those players, so that if they're 5000 Tungsten short of this upgrade, they can have it.. - This sounds flimsy at best, and reeks of a guy trying to make excuses for money-farming. The fact is that "instant gratification" has been a part of games since probably the first Ataris. You want all the weapons now? Just type in idkfa. Invulnrability? That'll be Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. What is being implimented in Dead Space 3, then, is simply the marketing of cheat codes. However, it seems as though they're already in danger of being undercut.