Impressions: Paladins (Nintendo Switch)

Paladins manages to be a fun game on the surface and in gameplay, but it has a few steep cliffs.

Paladins is an interesting release on Switch

Paladins went free to play on Switch so we got a chance to try it out!

Paladins is an interesting title. A Hero Shooter with various modes and teams of 5 battling it out for supremacy. Each character is unique, each mode offers new challenges.

There are daily rewards, levelling up both your characters to unlock new skills and your general account for rewards. It’s all very progression based.

Which is exactly why this is a free to play game.

 

How Does It Look?

Paladins looks fantastic on the system

Paladins looks mighty clean on Switch

Paladins looks good on Switch. Nothing about it feels off, though the dynamic resolution can be very obvious in high density moments, but everything is smooth and fluid.

There are a variety of HUD options and placements, cursors and more. The UI is very customisable with one caveat.

As health bars of allies show up a “Sickly Green” when impacted with a status ailment, and enemies are red…a colour blind mode would have been very helpful!

 

How Does It Play?

Some of the load times are a bit extreme

Paladins can at times take a good while to get going however.

The gameplay itself is fairly simple, divided into 3 modes. Team Deathmatch where you compete to get the most kills, Siege where you battle to capture a point and then escort a payload to the enemy base, 1 point for each action, first to 4 wins.

Finally there is a standard Control mode, where you occupy a marked space and accumulate 400 points to win, fighting off the other team to do so.

These modes are all good fun, however the Siege mode lasts for far too long compared to the others, especially when wrestling for control.

Controls are snappy and responsive, and nothing feels out of reach. Interestingly you can get battle buffs by performing well during matches, earning credits to spend for that match. This is best done while respawning of course but it keeps things dynamic and allows you to adapt.

Of course this all comes with a downside: Load Times. Loading can take a while and especially getting into a match. It’s nothing major but for something on a console known for being snappy, this is a bit surprising.

Stage variety also seems a bit light, but that could just be bad luck during matchmaking. It’s hard to tell.

 

Let’s Talk Progression

Sometimes simplicity is best.

Paladins is an absolute behemoth of monetisation, and it’s confusing.

Progression in Paladins is strange. You level up characters and unlock cards and new abilities for battles, clear daily challenges to earn Gold and maybe even Crystals…but getting more from the game is hard.

You have a very limited number of characters initially, and this makes choosing one difficult since the game doesn’t allow duplicates on a team. Further to this, finding the characters in the store is difficult, and expensive in terms of Gold, as they are buried amongst voice samples and outfits etc.

But most egregious is a Battle Pass, akin to Fortnite with challenges for rewards, that you pay for with Crystals, a Season Pass, that gives you all Battle Passes, and various chests of randomized items.

Crystals are the premium paid for currency and the sheer wealth of options for expanding what you can simply do in the game is insane. It’s a complicated and frankly worrying mess that so much is gated off, as the game is genuinely fun.

But if this seems like an issue, there is a Buy All option with the Founder’s Pack. For a fee you unlock everything and this is how the game initially launched. I would recommend that over the restrictive Free To Play release.

 

Overall?

Paladins is an excellent game marred by some weird choices for monetisation. It tries to accommodate every model known to the industry at once.

This is the biggest downfall of the game, as what is a very fun time is locked behind a grind and premium rewards.

If you want to see the game in action, we have a two hour stream below:

 

Thanks for reading everyone, and don’t forget to share what you think of Paladins on social media or try it out for yourself, it is free to start after all. Until next time, Happy Gaming!

Battlefront 2 Didn’t “Meet Expectations”, and Nintendo Made Bank!

I’m surprised about both of these stories for different reasons.

 

Update – 2/2/2018

So we all failed to note one thing about the entire lootbox backlash to Star Wars Battlefront 2: EA wins either way.

Here’s the thing: If gamers didn’t give backlash to EA in such force that sales were impacted, then the game would have sold as expected, and EA would be justified in continuing their current practices.

As a result of the backlash, EA has noted lower sales of Battlefront 2, and we figured it would send a message. It hasn’t. In fact it’s response to investors was that in-app purchases will return as previously noted, but now with the added note that those purchases can be used to make up for the lost sales, justifying their inclusion.

Personally I can’t fault that logic. That is actually sound business practices there, so well done to them on that. The downside is we end up in the potential situation we began fighting back against in the first place-

If EA knows micro-transactions will cut into sales, but make up the lost revenue, why wouldn’t they keep them in, when the alternative is losing that revenue AND sales?

In response their stock has hit all time highs.

As I said, sound business sense to cover for potential losses but…I guess we can hope the big stink that was raised about lootboxes leads to some legislation huh?

Original Story

Let’s start with Nintendo, namely 3DS. It’s sales are down year on year, yes, but it’s also nearly 7 years old. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon sold 7.17 million units. So good stuff for the budget entry into the ecosystem.

The real story is the premium system: Nintendo Switch. Within just shy of 10 months, as of December 31st 2017, Switch has outsold the first 12 months of the PS4, at 14.86 million units. That is firstly maddening to see, but also shows the 3 month holiday period accounted for half of the lifetime sales so far.

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So in doing so, it has also surpassed the Wii U, so comparisons can finally stop on that front. The system has shown itself to be a viable platform for many developers, and I can only hope this continues. Next stop is the 21 million of the Gamecube!

On to software however, we see a few interesting pick ups. Firstly that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has sold 1.06 million in just a month, placing it firmly in the heights of its franchise, an excellent result for a release many people thought flopped due to low sales charts rankings.

Next is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a re-release of a Wii U game that many seemingly didn’t want, having already owned it, logically, but one I and many others assumed would do well due to now hitting a much larger market, many of whom simply won’t have played Wii U games. Evidently the latter is true as the release has hit 7.33 million units and is well on its way to surpassing the original Mario Kart 8. As an evergreen title, it will surpass that, and shows that yes, if a port goes to a new, bigger audience, it probably isn’t a bad idea, you know?

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Finally of note is Super Mario Odyssey, selling 9.07 million units in just two months, and becoming the top-selling software on the system, and the 2nd best-selling Mario title ever in the main series, only behind New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Could it beat out that game? Possibly, we need to see if it remains as evergreen, as 3D Mario typically falls below 2D Mario.

Full financials are available here: Source

But what really gets me is how Mario Odyssey performed compared to another game of note…

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It’s time to talk about everyone’s favourite game ever: Star Wars Battlefront 2. EA seems disappointed by its performance, namely how if we include digital sales to physical shipped copies to retailers…it’s around 7 million units. It’s going to fall well below what they told investors it would hit by March, as well as falling below the prior Star Wars title.

So for reference, Battlefront 2 fell below a game like Super Mario Odyssey, that was only released on a single platform. That’s insane.

But the proof is in the pudding. Legislation is being looked at for lootboxes, because of course they are, and EA is blaming consumer backlash. Not only that, Bioware developers are feeling stressed over the inevitable forced monetization EA will make them include in Anthem, a game that seemingly could spell the end for the studio, understandably given EA’s record.

Micro-transactions are to be reintroduced to the game in the coming months “When the time is right”, but EA is already feeling the burn. Gamers weren’t happy, investors won’t be happy.

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Sadly I do feel EA will learn nothing from this, but if nothing else it acts as a sign.

With the previous comments of people not wanting single player games, games costing too much to make thus mandating additional, aggressive monetization and the like, to see Super Mario Odyssey, on a system EA dismissed no less, outsell the game and probably due to less extravagant spending by Nintendo, make more money than Battlefront 2 has in all likelihood, is a huge slap in the face to EA.

Words cannot accurately describe how EA must be feeling right now, but it proves that gamers just want good games, especially from Star Wars, and even stuff like cosmetics can be done for free, and games don’t need to cost as much as EA pumps into them.

It’s  a sign that the AAA business model is inherently flawed and self-destructive. Where one company prospers by tightly controlling expenditure and not pursuing aggressive monetization in full price games, another gets knocked back for saying that model wont work, and then seeing the alternative is more damaging, at least in the short-term.

It’s that short-term that needs to be taken away from this, as that is the primary interest of a majority of investors: Short term profits. In the long-term EA is likely to be fine, but in the short term the fall of Battlefront 2 to something like Mario Odyssey, a business model EA has repeatedly dismissed, just shows what the market wants.

 

Make good games, and they shall come. Don’t be stupid with your games and licenses, and they shall come. Then everybody wins.

EA Has To Be Feeling The Burn Right Now

Star Wars Battlefront II sales figures are in for physical copies at retail from around the world. Oh boy.

 

 

So after the micro transactions mess and now lame excuses from EA, they have now revealed that maybe, just maybe, lootboxes won’t return to Star Wars Battlefront II at all.

EA has previously stated that the game will meet targets of around 14 million by March 2018, and at least match the 2015 predecessor, but now, it looks like that won’t happen.

 

Analysts in the US expected the game, at retail (So physical only) to chart below the original, due to the more prominent digital scene for game distribution now. Estimates coming out before the news breaks tomorrow, is it sold less than 1 million physics units in November.

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That is actually shocking, more so when that is believable, with Black Friday images showing the game going untouched in many stores. Evidently the backlash hit such mainstream presence, it damaged the reputation.

At the same time, it was also Black Friday, better deals and all that. Plus, EA did announce before the game launched that it would be discounted alongside the new Star Wars movie, so both could have had an impact. Either way, those remaining sales won’t have been made up digitally, that is for certain.

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More over in Japan the game debuted…at a solid 30,000 or so, and then fell from the charts. In the UK it’s hung around the top 3, ahead of single platform release Super Mario Odyssey (Which given the circumstances some would say is a sin) but for a game on multiple platforms, not hot, especially as both Call of Duty and FIFA are outselling it still. Granted, those games aren’t innocent either.

So what does this mean? Well, we can only hope EA is re-evaluating its stance, and so is Disney most likely, now more government bodies are looking into the lootbox issue. EA has to be sweating about whatever happens next, and the rest of the industry is now being scrutinised heavily, with Destiny 2 under fire for gating off content you could access in the game behind DLC, even though you had access to it prior the DLC release date.

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Battlefront II won’t hit it’s projected sales targets, and investors won’t be happy. EA had $3bn wiped from their value over the course of this controversy, and while that is small change for them, it shows investors were absolutely not pleased, at least briefly.

EA also said micro transactions weren’t necessary to the game making a profit (Despite many publishers saying they are in fact necessary to do so), but under the current circumstances, they humorously may well have been!

Either way, EA’s monumental screw up has had a huge knock on effect. No one company is safe from scrutiny now, and all it took was one last push, and EA was the one to do it. They pushed too hard too fast, though honestly, I would have expected this event to happen eventually anyway.

Whether they alter their course or not remains to be seen, but we are now in the stage where publishers are attempting tactics and having to apologise afterwards with their tails between their legs.

 

Plus, we get to see every other developer fire shots. That’s something amazing to witness.

 

If you enjoyed this piece as always share and leave some feedback on social media, and I will see you next time. Until then, Happy Gaming!

EA, Listen, Gamers Aren’t Thick!

The gift that keeps on giving aren’t they?

 

Update: As Noted by Andrew Reiner on Twitter, there’s some hallmarks of mobile free to start games here too:

https://twitter.com/Andrew_Reiner/status/930209923505557504

Update 2: EA removed in-app purchases temporarily after backlash from Disney, said they would return later, and most recently had the same criticisms levelled at Need for Speed: Payback and a new UFC title. To compound this, after saying “They didn’t want to offer cosmetics because it violates Star Wars canon” for Battlefront 2, they were reminded not only did they do that for the first game in 2015, but Battlefront 2 has cosmetics in the game data!

Plus, violates canon? We have a game, this very game in fact, where Yoda can battle Kylo Ren on a planet that has been blown up.

So brace yourselves, Reddit has a new record for most down-voted post ever. It’s EA’s Official PR guys too, on the Battlefront sub-Reddit. Oh boy!

The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.
As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we’re looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.
We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets.
Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.

Link

EA said that!

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So for those not in the know, Star Wars Battlefront 2 (The second one with that name, yes it’s confusing) has loot boxes and in–app purchases which in a $60 game as we have already discussed is a bit much. Now, people did some number crunching, showing that for a character like Darth Vader, you need to play for 40 hours, or cough up.

Now, EA has revised this down by 75% so the total number of “Points” is far less. This is good. Granted…it’s not for us. It’s for the shareholders.

You know, without a shred of doubt, a shareholder sat and saw that backlash, and felt his vault empty. Sure, it’s 490,000 people (It’s insane and climbing) but to an investor, that’s 490k $60 sales that just said “I might not buy it”. And then add in the lost revenue from in=-app purchases? Yeah.

Now there is no guarantee this will happen, because after all, who can say how many people just hopped on the train. But to a shareholder, there is no greater fear than the potential of lost revenue.

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What’s more, that potential lost revenue is likely too great for them to sit back and worry. It’s now more valuable for them to cut the amount of micro transactions they’d have to sell, to instead maintain those $60 purchases. Just on the chance they lose sales.

Truthfully speaking, I expect the developers don’t even want this. They just want a game that’s good. But the money talks, and in this instance you can put some Monopoly bucks down on some tight-fisted gents breaking their fine china as their hands tense.

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What bothers me about EA’s statement though, ignoring the background economics of the matter, is that “A sense of accomplishment” isn’t going to be earned from 40 hours of grinding, while people pay up around you and beat you down online.

Frankly, this model, or at least these extremes, are parting the player base like Moses parted the Red Sea: A huge gulf with no bridge unless you build it yourself , or pay the piper. On one side, people who pay, and the other those who don’t.

This ultimately was “Dictated by the Open Beta” but if EA paid attention, the feedback to that was of trepidation and concern around potential pay 2 win shenanigans. With the track record of a company like EA, well deserved, and now, proven.

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What concerns me most is the phrase “Constant adjustments”. I don’t now what that implies…but it would seem like as they say, an effort to keep things attainable with engaging challenges. Now that to me, sounds like discounts of purchases, or rather, how many point you need.

Honestly, discounting the points needed for some time seems like a way to push purchases just a little more. Sell a lesser purchase to more people, making it attractive. This doesn’t sit well with me. That feels legitimately predatory, not to mention the upcoming (Announced before launch) discount to coincide with the upcoming Star Wars Episode 8.

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Ultimately, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, great, EA listened. On the other, I know it is only self-serving in the end, and their statement has the potential to open a whole other bag of worms. Honestly, this entire game is surrounded with negativity and questionable motives.

But at the end of the day, it’s got Star Wars on the box, and when discounted in the hype of a movie, what will the average Joe go and buy? This game.

The tactic is going to work in the end, this is just a move to soften a blow to shareholders and keep gamers on board. The money from the average consumer will be huge regardless, but nothing sells certainty to money-makers than a show of faith, especially when the cash has legs and vows to run away.

 

 

I had a little too much fun writing this one up. If you have some thoughts why not share or comment on social media with your friends, and I’ll see you next time! Happy Gaming!

The Problem of AAA Development: Money and Vultures

The news of EA buying Respawn Entertainment (May they rest in peace) has spurred a thought: Is AAA game development actually sustainable?

 

So EA closed Visceral in late 2017, suddenly but to the surprise of no one. As it happens this was just yet another in their hit list: Be it studios swallowed whole or internal studios biting the dust.

Now EA, not long after disbanding Visceral and their single player Star Wars project, has bought Respawn and the IP for Titanfall.

Titanfall 2 was actually surprisingly awesome, and it even made a little marketing push on having no DLC, no micro transactions, and just being a solid game you got the entirety of with one purchase.

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And EA, the publisher, put it right in between Call of Duty, and it’s OWN Battlefield 1, effectively cannibalizing its sales. We now also know with this acquisition that Titanfall 3 is a thing in the works. Taking bets as to how that will turn? Well let’s look back at Dead Space.

 

EA wanted Dead Space to be a multimedia thing. It didn’t happen, but the first two games sold really well. Dead Space 3 however, needed 5 million sales for a future, and had micro transactions and modes added that frankly had no place in a game like that: Sales tanked, Visceral got moved to Battlefield Hardline, that didn’t do too well, and now they are gone.

You can probably tell what Titanfall 3 will be like can’t you? Oh, and the developers get bonuses based on how well the games review. Money talks apparently.

 

Respawn is just yet another studio with talented staff, good IP and a drive to make good games snatched up by proverbial vultures. When, and it isn’t a case of “If”, Respawn is closed by EA, it will be for not meeting expectations. But what are those expectations?

activision

Let’s look at Activision’s Q4 2016 sales figures:

 

Activision Blizzard confirmed during their Q4 2016 Earnings Call that the entire company, across Activision and Blizzard titles, made over $3.6 billion just from in-game content sales. In-game content sales includes Call of Duty Points, Overwatch Loot Boxes, and more.

Link

Now let’s look at Take Two:

“We’ve said that we aim to have recurrent consumer spending opportunities for every title that we put out at this company. It may not always be an online model, it probably won’t always be a virtual currency model, but there will be some ability to engage in an ongoing basis with our titles after release across the board,” Zelnick said.

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EA themselves have quoted games as a service model as a key driver.

 

Let’s be honest though, is this shocking? No. Businesses exist to make money, but the more staff they have to hire, the more the consumer demands better graphics, the more capable the hardware for games becomes, and the longer games take to make, means bigger budgets, more wages, and ultimately, a need to sell more copies. Far, far more.

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Part of this is the “$60” price tag of games. One time purchase, that’s it. No more money for the publishers and developers. So what do they do? Find a way to increase monetization: A constant stream of revenue. Lootboxes, In-app purchases, DLC, it all goes straight to them. But it doesn’t stop at covering costs, it continues to making as much money as humanly possible, often with minimal effort and some very dodgy practices.

Take Call of Duty: WWII for instance. The game has lootboxes, with a twist. Others can see what you get, with the aim of seemingly spurring jealously.

According to redditor cuzseile, who uploaded the video, the supply drop exists in the game world but other players can’t steal it, which you’d expect. But cuzseile reports other players can see what you get from a supply drop

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The psychology of reward and feeling good is at full use here, akin to gambling, and of course, Activision also has that patent, where matchmaking can be based on pushing you via losses and other players into purchasing lootboxes.

Publishers have leapt to the furthest end of the spectrum in seeking additional monetization. Honestly, as many have noted, if the game was free it could easily sustain itself on in-app purchases just on player base. Any game could in theory. In practice though, its not just a case of making ends meet as they claim: Now it’s predatory, and now it is about milking as much as possible.

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Even smaller studios, to loop back to the start of the article, are in need of money. It is why studios are bought up: They need publishers, and a source of income. Why wouldn’t you take that opportunity if presented? But the publishers typically twist and gut the studio into their vision of maximised profits.

 

Personally, I would be fine with a $10 price increase on games. That could go a surprisingly long way to meeting costs and break even points. Sadly though, the big publishers have already tasted the blood in the water, and won’t settle for the more market friendly lesser revenue.

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AAA gaming is a vulture. Or maybe a parasite is more apt? Either way, it swallows creativity whole, and turns studios most people knew and loved of all sizes into factories, producing not games but products.

As an aside, during my time studying Games Design at university, this is the model we were taught: Not to produce games, but products. Plan ahead from the mere conception of a game to form ways of further monetizing, be it DLC, removing content to sell later, or in app purchases. This is something I heartedly disagree with. Yes, in-app purchases have a place, mostly in free games, but not in a title already paid for.

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The games industry is a ravenous beast, hungry for the taste of as much revenue as possible, and all the talent it can absorb to get that revenue. As consumers want more from games, studios need to fund that. They turn to publishers who want as much money as possible, then in a few years see more hardware come out, games look better, cost more to make, and the cycle continues.

 

The industry isn’t unsustainable, at least not yet. It needs change. Perhaps the biggest problem is that it is noticeably cannibalising itself, breaking down what talent it has and the bright futures and ideas of many, in the sake of the now, the money, the gain, and it isn’t looking to the future, where games are solely predatory and more expensive than ever, without any reason to be that way.

I’ve said it before, and I will probably say it forever: Minimal Effort, Maximum Profit.

 

As always if you enjoyed this article leave a comment with your thoguhts, share with your friends, and happy gaming!