Atlus Threatens to Ban Persona 5 Streamers
What a time to be alive. 2017 marks one of the best years for gaming so far, with hits like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Assassin’s Creed Origins all making a prominent impact that fans of the industry will no doubt feel for years to come. That nbeing said, 2017 wasn’t without its shortcomings, as some developers and publishers made mistakes in trying to appease hardcore audiences while keeping stakeholders at bay. The following is a list of the most egregious mistakes the industry committed this year.
When Persona 5 released in April this year, publisher Atlus set some rules and guidelines for fans to abide by when streaming game content online. Though seemingly innocuous at a glance, people who showed any gameplay of the title past the date of July 7 ran the risk of having their account suspended due to a copyright strike made by the company. Atlus went so far as to disable the PlayStation 4’s social and sharing capabilities for the game too in an attempt to keep control over would-be broadcasters.
Fans and streamers were outraged by the decision, and fans rallied together against the move on popular gaming websites and on Atlus’ very own social media channels. The response was so overwhelmingly negative that the company ultimately felt the need to reevaluate its position on the topic, allowing people to play up until November 19 now without worry. Despite the change of heart, Atlus did mention that it was “surprised” that fans were so adamantly against the initial rules and guidelines, which is a bit odd concerning how in-touch the company seems to be with the public in other areas.
Pokemon Go Fest
When the developer of a game itself says it’s “horrified” by the result of one of its promotions, you know that one of the year’s biggest mistakes has been made. This is the case of mobile game maker Niantic and their massively popular title Pokemon Go, which held a promotion earlier this year. The resulting Pokemon Go Fest was a disaster, with participants from all around the world gathering together only to spend hours upon hours underneath the scorching sun to get very little, if anything, in return. Indeed, fans were met with widespread server issues and bugs that rendered Pokemon Go virtually unplayable for most of the festival’s duration.
Niantic tried to appease users by offering $100 of in-game currency and full refunds for anyone who purchased a $20 wristband for the event, but the damage to hardcore fans of the title was severe. A California man who traveled to the event filed a class-action lawsuit against the developer shortly after Pokemon Go Fest happened, requesting that he receive compensation for travel expenses.
Activision Files A Microtransactions Patent
Microtransactions were all the rage toward the latter half of the year, and not in a good way. Publisher Activision was granted a patent by the United States’ Patent and Trademark Office last month that allows for “a system and method that drives microtransactions in multiplayer video games.” This didn’t go by well with industry fans who interpreted the move as just another way for big publishers in the vein of Activision to render consumers’ pockets dry before they’re even done playing the game they purchase.
As if to provoke things further, the patent even goes so far as to suggest that this microtransactions system could be implemented across a wide variety of genres so as to “enhance a level of enjoyment by the player for the game-related purchase, which may encourage future purchases.” The controversy evolved in such a way that fans were fearful that Destiny 2 would be the first game under Activision to use such features. These concerns had to be directly addressed by Bungie community manager David “DeeJ” Dague, who on Twitter claimed that “none of this functionality appears in Destiny.”
Activision has since stated that the patent was filed by a research team back in 2015 and has not been implemented in any of its games so far. It remains to be seen if consumers will see some form of it someday in the future, though judging from the industry’s climate today, Activision would be wise to go in a different direction.
Shadow of War’s Single-Player Microtransactions and Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC
When it was announced over the summer that Middle-Earth: Shadow of War would be receiving in-game microtransactions on top of its standard $60 price tag, the reception from fans was far from positive. Many went on messaging boards to decry their implementation in the game, stating that purely single-player titles are undeserving of microtransactions by nature and that their use in Shadow of War seems ridiculous and nothing more than a blatant cash-grab.
Matters were made worse when Warner Bros. announced its Forthog DLC, which seemed like a respectable homage to a deceased developer. Unfortunately the publisher decided to put a price tag on the additional content, making it appear as if it was using the death of an employee as an excuse to make more money. Warner Bros. ultimately apologized, donated to the ex-developer’s funeral directly, and made the DLC free for everyone to use, but a poor taste was left in consumers’ mouths due to both of the publishers’ mistakes.
Star Wars Battlefront II’s In-Game Transactions
Out of all the gaming mistakes made this year, EA and DICE’s use of in-game microtransactions in the recently released Star Wars Battlefront II takes the cake. It’s hard to explain everything that went wrong with the game’s launch in a succinct manner, as fan outcry and misdirection from PR both erupted in a catastrophe that drew the likes of not only property-owner Lucasfilm, but of actual government officials as well. If anything, the game’s sales measured against the original and its current user score of Metacritic serve as a perfect summary of the events that unfolded.
Fresh off the controversy that was Shadow of War’s implementation of microtransactions, fans were not pleased when it was discovered that Star Wars Battlefront II would be using in-game transactions, too, only in a more blatant way. Multiplayer was designed in such a way that it resembled something akin to a free-to-play mobile game, where players are expected to play the game for an exorbitant amount of hours in order to unlock iconic heroes in the franchise lest they give in to buying loot boxes to advance their progress. Loot boxes didn’t guarantee a purchaser’s success should he or she have money either, as more significant unlocks are randomized to such a point where the term “rare” is an understatement.
The company still has a lot on its hands when it comes to dealing with the fallout of fan reaction to the game, though it seems as though it anticipates bringing back microtransactions at some point in the future. It remains to be seen how the Battlefront series will progress from this point forward, if at all given all the controversy now surrounding the franchise.
This year’s mistakes have proven that the gaming industry is far from perfect. Here’s hoping that developers and publishers have learned from 2017 and are better prepared to handle the controversies of 2018 and beyond.
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