Metal Gear Online is launching today. We previously checked out the game at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. It seems like a lot of fun. You know what isn’t fun? Charging people for what’s essentially a cheat mode.
The online portion has transactions, yes, but they are optional (more here). That being said, Konami’s decision to sell paid in-game insurance for your forward operating base (FOB) is like an Onion article brought to life.
Via the game’s official site:
Your FOBs are always at risk of coming under attack. Now, you can rest easy with FOB insurance (paid service). If you sign up for insurance, then during the insurance period you will be compensated for any materials and staff lost due to rival infiltrations.
* Staff/materials stolen by the rival will in fact remain on your base, and an identical amount of staff/materials will be handed over to the rival instead.
* MB Coins are purchased with real money, but free MB Coins are also distributed periodically as login bonuses, etc.
* The following are not covered by FOB insurance:
・Staff/items that are not fully your property, such as abducted staff being held in your Brig (FOB)
・Wounded staff (staff lost due to death or extraction will be compensated)
・Staff used by you to deploy in defence of the FOB (neither death nor extraction will be compensated)
・Nuclear weapons
It’s like Konami is running a protection racket.
Comments
71 responses to “Konami Goes Microtransaction Crazy With Metal Gear Online Insurance ”
*sigh* Anyone know how much they are charging for this insurance?
3 Days (usage interval 1.5 days) first time free/0 MB Coins
1 Day (usage interval 0.5 days) 50 MB Coins
3 Day (usage interval 1.5 days) 100 MB Coins
7 Days (usage interval 3.5 days) 200 MB Coins
14 Days (usage interval 7 days) 300 MB Coins
MB Coins (On XBOX, in AUD)
100 MB Coins = $1.25
550 MB Coins = $6.65
1150 MB Coins = $13.45
3500 MB Coins = $39.95
6000 MB Coins = $64.95
They’ve been giving away minor lots of MB Coins some days as the daily reward, but you’ll also need a minimum 1000 MB Coins (or it might be 800, not too sure) to buy your second FOB base and possibly more if you want to upgrade one of those or both to a better location.
The last middle finger that konami are going to give to the gaming community, before they run away and make pachinko
It was nice to come back to TPP after a week and find out I was raided while I was away… sigh, thanks Konami/Kojima
Meh, I’ve never had much of a problem with the invasions.
You can lock your best staff so they can’t be taken, and the only resources they can take are unprocessed ones.
The insurance is completely optional, and the game is perfectly playable without it. I don’t think it’s such a big deal.
While it is optional and it is true you don’t *have* to do it, apathy and not speaking out against it to companies like this are signs of acceptance and lead to more of this happening. To paraphrase Jim Sterling, microtransactions have no f***ing place in a premium priced game. They’re offensive in a fully priced game, be it MGSV, GTA V, MKX or whatnot. The fact they’re gaining traction is disturbing and the apathy towards them, worse.
Sorry mate, but as long as they stay optional, and are non-critical to the game, I’m not going to speak out, because I’m not bothered by it.
It doesn’t affect me, and if other people want to buy this sort of thing, then good for them.
Ah, one of those people. When you don’t get something, make excuses.
Maybe I’m just having one of those days, but I don’t know what you’re getting at, and none of what I said was making excuses.
No idea what he’s on about. Must be upset that you aren’t grabbing your pitchfork.
And when you buy a premium priced game, but cannot progress to the next level because ‘you don’t have enough coins’, but you can opt to buy them to continue! ?
It’s definitely going to happen. It’s inevitable.
At that point I will certainly be complaining, but your argument is specious.
I don’t see any reason to believe we’ll be forced to pay for vital game elements (ammo, lives, etc) in the foreseeable future.
So you’re not aware that EA has already had meetings where they’ve openly declared they’d charge for ammunition if they could?
It’s not specious at all, it’s factual.
Here’s Jon Riccitello from EA talking about BATTLEFIELD. Originally, this was looked at for Battlefield f2p and was sought to be implemented in a full battlefield game.
But…….back in 2012, microtransactions in a full priced game?
Who the hell would do something stupid like that?
Right?
Of course now in 2016, with the attitude over the last 3 – 4 years of ‘Ah it doesn’t affect me, go ahead and do it…’, they’ve been implemented without an apparent pay wall *at this point*. But you know, they’d never DARE implement a pay wall in a full priced game?
Same as a few years ago, Microtransactions would NEVER be put in a full priced game. THEY’D NEVER DARE RIGHT?
If you don’t see the growing pattern of infiltration of microtransactions into full priced games you’re either a.) blind or b.) in denial.
But nothing about that is specious. Nothing at all.
What you’re saying is that even EA, one of the most hated publishers, knows that they couldn’t get away with charging for ammo. Surely that says something?
There have also been several instances recently where companies have completely changed their plans because of negative feedback. Microsoft removed the “always online” from the Xbone, and Ubisoft (another hated publisher) cancelled the augment your preorder promotion for Deus Ex and offered all the promotion rewards for preorders.
Companies aren’t stupid, but they’re trying to make money, just like most people. If I could sell my piss in a jar for $100, you can bet your ass I would be.
Even if they do start charging for ammo, or keys to the next room, I’ll make a fuss about that when it happens. I’m not going to tell developers/publishers that I hate “A”, just so they won’t do “B”.
“I’ll react after the matter rather than adding my voice to trying to head a problem off before it occurs”.
Because that always works. Apathy, is the reason why this all occurs. Enjoy it.
It tells me that the company is greedy and has the gall to consider gimping their products experiences for the sake of money. Yes I know companies are designed to make money, but the ones deserving respect are the ones who do so my making quality non-exploitative products.
So we should forgive and forget when they do?
“I beat them up but it’s ok because I didn’t kill them! I only wanted to coppa!
The intent was shown and it should be a permanent black mark.
They wouldn’t have listened and changed anything if they didn’t think they were going to lose money anyway.
Yeah and you’ll get no love from me if you water it down and sell the remainder for $5 a ml.
@weresmurf Yeah, it’s definitely not the people paying for microtransactions that are to blame.
@allgravynolackin Of course people do have a choice, however should that choice even BE there in a premium price game? But with that comment, you’re saying that the company isn’t to be held responsible? If they don’t put the money grubbing option in there, that won’t be an issue.
@weresmurf I understand where you’re coming from, but I believe these options should exist. Some people simply don’t have the time to invest hours upon hours into a game just to unlock a particular item.
Of course the companies are to blame, but the people paying out extra $$$ are the reason we keep seeing microtransactions. I know I’m repeating what is already well known, but at the end of the day it’s about making as much money as possible. Until they aren’t making money off them, you can guarantee they will hang around.
Why is GTA in that list? That’s probably the best implementation of microtransactions in a AAA game. Nothing is behind a paywall and if you don’t want to spend a week grinding heists for a particular vehicle you can pay for quick cash.
I don’t agree that not speaking out is acceptance, I think you’ll find most people are against microtransactions when they are locking off parts of the game. It’s just easier to vote with your wallet than spend time repeating the same old “omg microtransactions are the devil!1! comments when even the companies responsible know they aren’t popular. But that doesn’t matter when the people calling you evil are the same people forking out more cash.
From my experience, this is what all microtransactions in recent games have been – quicker access to content.
They introduced a similar system in Forza 4 for buying in game cars with real money and when Forza 5 shipped they reduced the amount of money you won per race to purposefully make the game less fun and more grindy to entice you to pay for cars.
This is the future if people don’t complain as soon as they see it implemented. Even in GTA 5 the grind was excessive to get anything half decent.
As I said, these companies KNOW what the public reaction will be, yet they still do it because people will buy it. Every gaming forum could be filled with “fuck x company for their microtransactions!” but if people are still buying them, they aren’t going to stop.
The Forza 5 ordeal made me laugh, I swear the people complaining didn’t actually play the game. Money was incredibly easy to come by, without even taking into account Forza Rewards.
I don’t see comment based complaints doing much at all, at least not somewhere like here. GTA was a grind yes, but once you own everything there really isn’t anything to do. Obviously they want to promote shark cards (is it really that bad to give some extra money to a dev that constantly supports it’s game and delivers FREE content updates?) but I’d also say the grind is there for longevity.
Forza 5 was a major faux pas. After severe backlash from the consumer car prices dropped, they removed the “hey wanna buy some coins” screen after every race and balanced the system more. I am not completely adverse to micro-transactions if it is simple non-core pointless stuff. Games cost more to make and the price has been fixed for a long time. The big issue is when they really do start making it pay to win. FUT 16 right now has an overinflated transfer market where buying packs becomes the need, it takes the fun out of playing a game and grinding and progressing with true reward at a fair pace. The other thing is games like Battlefield where you can purchase weapons packs. I find there are too many weapons to keep up, just streamline to like 4 – 5 guns per class and keep it simple.
I still refuse to support DLC as I see that as one large micro-transaction for content with held from the game to milk extra money. I am sure there are genuine examples of a dev just keeping the game alive, but I think of that more as an expansion pack i.e. Diablo reaper of souls, not the “hey you just installed this game, while we download the day 1 patch, do you wanna shell out $20 for some additional content, or how about $60 for a season pass?”
Yeah, you can argue the GTAV grind isn’t bad but it exists purely to annoy players into paying additional fees. It’s not good grind vs bad grind, it’s grind vs just letting players enjoy the game at a proper pace.
You’re welcome to your opinion.
I really don’t see it as being that bad at all. It’s like real life, if you want something expensive you need to work for it. You’re never forced to grind, but if you want to make the most money in the least amount of time then that’s your choice. Could you imagine GTAO if everyone had Jets and Buzzards from the get go? F that.
Grinding has been a part of games for a very long time, people resort to it even in games without microtransactions. It’s still a choice though. Do you really think GTAO would be any different without shark cards?
Wow. Sounds like something is wrong with this game.
You may have to sit down for this, but some people actually enjoy working towards in-game items.
Shocking, I know.
Its not that people dont enjoy working towards things its that the rate is adjusted for making money rather than player enjoyment.
In Battlefield 4 I can unlock a new gun in about 30 minutes or so, in planetside it takes about a day because thats how they make their money.
The main difference being that I didnt have to pay 60 dollars up front for planetside.
Of course, but I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as it’s made out to be, especially regarding the GTA example.
BF is also a yearly release, so it can afford to give up longevity. I’m not sure how much you actually played of BF4 but besides the early unlocks it’s going to take more than a single game to unlock a weapon…
I have played BF4 for hundreds of hours, playing on operation locker it was pretty easy to reach the next gun on the unlock tier in a single round and that was without using a boost that they pretty much handed out like candy.
@piratepete and you think that’s a good thing?
Yeah, I think over 100 hours of unlocking the base content is quite reasonable and after that people will stick around to use the stuff that they have unlocked if your game is fun.
Games are fun because of the gameplay not because they take 1000 hours instead of 100 hours to unlock the more base content in the game. Even once you have all the guns unlocked they keep you interested because you can unlock cosmetic things like camos and you unlock attachments for the guns themselves to customize them.
On the topic of the weapons they also make sure you can unlock some good attachments right off the bat and then if you get a few hundred kills with the weapon you get cosmetic variants of the same attachments to make your gun feel unique.
Its a really good system and the right way to do full priced games.
@piratepete so (according to you) it takes 30mins to unlock a weapon but 100 hours to unlock everything? Yeah…no lol.
You could just as easily look at BF4 and call it a grind to unlock weapon camos etc. But it’s fun having those to aim for right? Even though you could say they encourage microtransactions.
I’m not shocked because in games that do it right I never feel encouraged to pay to avoid it.
The term “grinding” is a symptom of poor effort-to-reward scaling in the gameplay – intentional or not. It’s pretty clear to me that ‘grinding’ for a week is way too long to earn a car.
I remember when this wasn’t such a problem in gaming. Either the game let me ‘cheat’ to enable my lazy tendencies and let me have fun with the product I bought, or it would be designed well so that both completionists and the lazy could enjoy the product.
So games shouldn’t have goals for hardcore players to aim towards? In the GTA example you can just go into SP and purchase almost every vehicle or activate cheats. If you want one of the high end vehicles online where other people can see? Guess what, you have to work for it (no, grinding isn’t *required*). And I prefer it that way.
A single player game I can understand the frustration of having to pay more, but when you’re talking about online games you can’t just let everyone run amuck with God mode/no clip and the like.
Where did I say that? Oh look I didn’t. Such goals have been in most games since inception. High-scores, special challenges, hard modes etc.
The important measure of quality here is that doing these things both a) doesn’t detract from the experience of those who don’t, and b) is done through a regular enjoyment of the game that in no way represents ‘grinding’.
Throwing micro-transactions in the mix affects both of these because the companies want more money from both the hardcore and lazy.
Yeah and I’m criticising the manner in which they execute that. So you can’t cheat in multiplayer of course, but it’s fine to pay your way through? They’ve created a system were earning these things isn’t about having a fun game experience, but about committing to a ‘grind’. This is a problem: the insurance being talked about here for FOBs and the type I hear about for punishing ‘car-wreckers’ in GTA are terrible modern-day band-aids thanks to real money/tears being so important in these games over the enjoyment of playing them in the first place.
@snacuum I’m not talking about basic highscores, that’s why I said hardcore players. The people that enjoy the repetition be it from doing missions for money (what some call grinding, what I call playing/enjoying the game) or going for high scores, they enjoy these hard to get items. Is an expensive car really taking away from your experience if you don’t have it?
Careful now, or i’ll bust out the oh so cunty…er I mean clever “where did I say that? Oh look, I didn’t” reply. When you’re literally paying to win, I don’t agree nor support that. When you’re paying for something like in-game cash in GTA? That’s completely fine and not even remotely comparable to cheats that impact other player’s experiences.
It sounds like you’re having a pretty miserable experience with games at the moment if that’s how you feel. I actually really enjoy the car insurance on GTA, I find your view of it hilarious actually. If your enjoyment of a game like MGS is negatively impacted by optional insurance then I genuinely feel sorry for you.
back to you @allgravynolackin.
That’s the problem with this topic. If there’s no money involved, you would just get to enjoy the grind and others would not. If there’s more of you we get Eve Online, and if there’s more of me then we get Unreal Tournament or whatever. You can enjoy repetitive tasks in games as much as you like, but the term ‘grind’ happens as soon as the game motivates it beyond the enjoyment of the task itself – like a ‘skinner box’. Soon players are spending hours of ‘work’ for gold, for crafting materials, for level-ups just so they can get some sweet reward that they think will then make the game enjoyable.
Not addressing these problems before the game is finished results in poor game design IMO.
Then throwing money into the equation ruins everything.
Now every component of the ‘grind’ of the ‘work’ of the ‘rewards’ are tied in some way to the publishers desire for real money.
It is if the path to earning one is by laboriously not playing but instead grinding. You may be a special case, but the insurance system in this tells me that they knew a large amount of people would not like to spend their game time doing repetitive tasks over and over again. Adding to the insult is that this ‘work’ can be skipped only if you shell out real cash. Creating a separation in the minds of the player base: tipping the community off to the wealth of the player. There used to be no distinction between a wealthy player and a poor player, but now it subtly creeps through.
Sorry but we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I do consider the paying for anything but vanity objects (and I’m still against that) as P2W. Winning isn’t just getting a higher score, it’s a state of mind. If you enjoy ‘grinding bits’ then surely winning for you is when you earn that sweet reward, but people can just pay for that win. The insurance system is literally there to protect crybabies against feeling like they lost. It’s completely against the attitude of a fun multiplayer experience I would expect out of GTA game.
Then I feel sorry for you in turn. Because it’ll be you that will eventually find acceptance in the next money-grabbing scheme that publishers come up with.
@snacuum
I was talking purely in regards to doing missions in GTA the way you are supposed to. I’m not talking about playlists where you repeat the same mission for the biggest payout, but multiple varied missions/races etc. That’s not grinding, that’s playing the game. Which is exactly how you can attain the expensive cars. Why do you assume you HAVE to grind to get it? I don’t even know where to begin on the insurance topic. The fact that you’ve drawn that conclusion is a bit of a reach, but if that’s what you want to believe then more power to you. I believe insurance was implemented to deter GTA’s biggest issue – trolls, not “protect crybabies”.
Yep, agree to disagree. Some people simply don’t have the time to invest in games to unlock particular items, should they have to miss out? If I see someone with an expensive item, how they obtained said item simply isn’t an issue for me. I’m playing the game for MY enjoyment, whether that’s putting in hours of gameplay to unlock something or paying an extra $10 because I value my time more, that should be my choice. At the end of the day, you can still think to yourself ” well at least I earned it instead of paying for it like that guy”.
Eh, there’s plenty I don’t agree with nor support, but I’m not against giving people options.
@allgravynolackin
Yeah that’s not grinding if you’re playing the missions like expected. It is though if you’re doing it again and again for not more fun but more reward. I only assumed that it was a ‘grind’ because you said,
IMO if playing the game regularly and enjoyably without any worthless repetition isn’t necessary to get the result players want then why is there even the option to pay your way through? There would be no need to ‘pay for convenience’ if the product was convenient in the first place, which to me IMO is correct game design.
From my point of view there’s nothing ‘trolling’ about blowing up an opponents car. It’s how you play the game! It only became a problem because Rockstar made these fancy cars so valuable that people would be upset about losing (with micro-transactions representing actual money loss – even more despicable). It’s the same with this FOB insurance: Konami designed the ‘grind’ for Mother Base materials to be just laborious enough so that losing said materials would be upsetting, so instead of testing and designing it better, or patching it, they now sell not losing at the game.
And get away with it because “it’s optional, you don’t have to pay.”
They wouldn’t if the game was built better in the first place. In better games, that time wouldn’t be so wasted, for others you could use cheat-codes. For multiplayer the power curve should stop at the skill floor, or custom matches/servers should be employed for different players. There’s so many ways to resolve these issues but the developers/publishers chose the one that makes them more money.
Which at the end of the day is a worthless as the digital goods that guy bought. So I can’t condone being in either position.
Neither am I. But I am against a) giving sole control of those options to the game makers and b) the specific options I disagree with.
It’s really mostly frustrating because while having FOBs is optional, a large number of your upgrades are directly locked behind them – you’re only playing with part of the arsenal if you don’t build and maintain one.
As far as I know, the only upgrades “locked” behind it are related to the level of your teams (with FOBs being an easy way to add staff capacity and level up teams).
You don’t need insurance to utilise the FOB. I’ve only been invaded about 4 times, and I hardly lost anything.
Yeah, without a FOB I’m pretty sure you’d need to max out your MB staff with all S+ or higher to get those goodies unlocked and even then, I highly doubt it. Also, many of the upgrades require a decently-high security team, which is FOB-only.
My first foray into FOBs I stole 40,000+ fuel from some poor bastard and haven’t touched it again, riddled with guilt over knowing how much of a chore to grind and how absolutely vital that material is, and paranoid that some asshole is going to do the exact same bullshit to me.
I’m really not a fan of that particular mechanic.
I’m not sure if I’m being nice or lazy, but I generally just go for the objective.
You get volunteer staff as high as S+ for a successful invasion (and I’m pretty sure they don’t come from the other person’s staff).
Some guy took a buttload of fuel from me early on (are you playing on Xbone? lol), but it all comes from your unprocessed materials, so I wasn’t that bothered.
EDIT: I forgot some of the research requires a security team…
40,000 in unprocessed fuel is still a ton of fuel. You have to replace it and then restart the timer for processing it into a usable form. You may not care but not caring either way is hardly a good reason to implement or defend a feature. The only reason FOB content intrudes on single player content is because Konami want to sell coins to players who already paid full price for the game.
If I cared, I could just go and take the resources back. *shrug*
The game can be thoroughly completed without needing to spend any extra money on MB coins.
But again you’re defending it simply because it’s not interrupting your playthrough right now. Pretty much everything I’ve fultoned is now considered an online asset. Yesterday my 17x M84A MAGLOADERs were sitting there ready to be sold if I needed GMP. Today three are local and the rest are online. If I want the 1,700,000 GMP selling them could have got me I’m out of luck. Time to go grind some materials and hope they let me sell them once they’ve been processed.
They’re pushing people who already paid full price for this game into a PvP system purely so they can pay additional fee in MB Coins to minimise how much that PvP system interrupts their game. I’m not asking you to care about your unprocessed resources but as a human being you should have enough self respect to care that they’ve sold you a game for $80-$90 that includes a feature specifically designed because they think your dumb enough that you’ll pay $15 per month as a ransom on your progress. At the very least don’t stand around making excuses for their behaviour.
Sounds like it would have been a really fun mechanic if the numbers weren’t addled by the micro-transactions. I mean if 40k of fuel is so horrible to lose then they shouldn’t have designed it to be so valuable or so possible to steal so much.
I do blame the micro-transactions wholly for this since their inclusion is inextricably tied to the worth of players ‘grinding’. Your ego has been damaged by your larceny! But that would be all you’ve damaged if there was no money involved.
I guess to qualify the process, in the normal course of play it might take you 15-20min to clear out a mid-sized outpost which may have anywhere from 4-6 small packs of fuel (which all up could be around 200-1000 in processed materials), or larger outposts may have some large containers of unprocessed at maybe 15,000-30,000 unprocessed at best, with likely a fair bit more clearing time involved unless you are grinding specifically. However, unprocessed materials require that you leave the system on to have the crew back at base process the materials over a matter of hours.
That’s if you’re grinding for it specifically, I’d say. It’s far more likely in my experience that a 6hr session of doing missions as normal with a large unprocessed backlog is only going to net you 15-20k of processed fuel, god only know how little with your unprocessed cleared out.
Worse still, upgrading your platforms to advance in research and strength is gated by that fuel for every platform type, making it the most precious of all the materials you have.
Thus, 40k of the material represents several hours of work to me and the loss of an entire day of research/advancement if it’s gone, and is essentially a total dick move that I deeply regret inflicting on someone else and fear being inflicted on me.
Holy crap. I haven’t played my copy yet so I didn’t even know.
If I had designed this:
1)There’d be no processing – getting the fuel is time expenditure enough.
2)I’d limit the total amount that can be stolen from your FOB until the stockpile reaches a specific ratio.
Truly we are in the worst age of video games when the likes of an MGS game can be affected by this.
To be fair that sounds like the point of this kind of multiplayer gameplay. I can draw parallels to the Demon/Dark Souls series here. But I still agree with you that currently the FOB system, by nature and nurture is destructive to the game.
That said, it’s relatively late into the game that it becomes a factor and the game up to that point is amazeballs good. I haven’t been invaded yet, either, so it’s really a paranoia factor at the moment, but knowing how big an impact that theft could’ve been on the other guy constructing a platform was an eye-opener.
Thought: Did Kojima ask to have his name removed and any association taken away from the game as much as possible because he didn’t agree with all this microtransaction bs?
You clearly haven’t played the game, because his name appears at the beginning and end of every mission.
Yes you’re quite right, I clearly haven’t. Only judged it by the cover and the lack of a ‘Kojima Productions’ on it.
Because that’s the filthy, disgusting animal that I am.
And that hole Konami is digging just keeps getting deeper. This company sucks. Microtransactions are evil
Konami; on a mission to out-do Activision, Ubisoft and EA it seems…
They’ve already succeeded. Their new objective is to become not only the worst AAA developer that has ever existed, but that can ever even hypothetically exist. They’re over half-way there already, I think.
Fuck you, Konami.
*Groans Internally*
Easy way to avoid raiding: set the game to offline… Or delete internet settings before booting the game up.
* Staff/materials stolen by the rival will in fact remain on your base, and an identical amount of staff/materials will be handed over to the rival instead.
HAHAHA you are paying for someone ELSE to win.
Not really, as they get the stuff regardless of you having insurance.
Many smartphone games here in Japan implement microtransactions and daily bonuses like this. Konami sucks for doing this. I bet Kojima didn’t agree to this.
HAH.
Me: “Oh, a daily login bonus of 10 MB coins! I wonder what I can spend those on… I guess I’ll find out when I unlock something about that.”
3 weeks later…
Me: “OK! I’ve unlocked FOBs! I hear this is what MB coins are for! After a three weeks of daily login bonuses – most of which were herbs or ore – I’ve got 100 coins! Let’s see what the cheapest thing I can buy is!”
Cheapest MB-coin purchase: 2nd FOB. 1000 coins.
…Still one of the best damn games I’ve played all year and in fact in the last few years.
Imagine how great it would have been if they had finished it!
:C
This is the real crime.
Such lust for money, WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!??
What happened is, when the Playstation came out, it said ‘you can now play all those high-end games at the arcades in your very own home’. Ever since the arcades started dying, the corporations have been scheming to strike back, and are now pushing that ‘arcade’ into your house.
It’s going from inserting coins at the arcade to digitally inserting coins in your home.