So, I got a teeny bit of hassle on Twitter the other day, for daring to say that the loot box system in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War wasn't an issue for me.
I don't find it a problem for two reasons: 1) I've got bigger things to worry about, and 2) My crappy BT "Infinity" broadband is so slow that I can't be arsed with downloading the latest PS4 network update, so I can't use the game's online features. And besides, I think Shadow of War is a game in which it really is easy to ignore the microtransactions embedded within.
You see, as I get older my priorities have shifted. Many of the things which used to annoy me - or, at least, the things I told myself I was annoyed by - no longer do. Conversely, I get really, really angry over stuff that - I think - properly matters.
It's just a consequence of life delivering its knocks, and realising what's important. Plus, I know myself more, so I no longer feign irritation in a bid to find out what really galls me. Turns out it was the big stuff that mattered all along; family, injustice, fairness. Everything else just falls into the cracks.
And that includes microtransactions in triple-A games.
But get this: something that really matters to me is Star Wars. Dick around with my Star Wars and you'll get me right riled up. And this is why, when I read the news that Electronic Arts has shut down Amy Hennig's highly anticipated Star Wars game for "refocusing", my blood boiled.
Let me tell you: there was no way that bit of news was falling into any of my cracks.
I don't find it a problem for two reasons: 1) I've got bigger things to worry about, and 2) My crappy BT "Infinity" broadband is so slow that I can't be arsed with downloading the latest PS4 network update, so I can't use the game's online features. And besides, I think Shadow of War is a game in which it really is easy to ignore the microtransactions embedded within.
You see, as I get older my priorities have shifted. Many of the things which used to annoy me - or, at least, the things I told myself I was annoyed by - no longer do. Conversely, I get really, really angry over stuff that - I think - properly matters.
It's just a consequence of life delivering its knocks, and realising what's important. Plus, I know myself more, so I no longer feign irritation in a bid to find out what really galls me. Turns out it was the big stuff that mattered all along; family, injustice, fairness. Everything else just falls into the cracks.
And that includes microtransactions in triple-A games.
But get this: something that really matters to me is Star Wars. Dick around with my Star Wars and you'll get me right riled up. And this is why, when I read the news that Electronic Arts has shut down Amy Hennig's highly anticipated Star Wars game for "refocusing", my blood boiled.
Let me tell you: there was no way that bit of news was falling into any of my cracks.
HENNIG OLD IRON
Amy Hennig, if you're unaware, is a veteran of the games industry, who - though she worked as a writer on the Legacy of Kain series, which I despised - was nevertheless responsible for much of what I loved about Naughty Dog's Jak & Daxter and Uncharted franchises.
Suffice to say, the prospect of a Hennig-directed-and-written game set in the Star Wars universe was one I had been very much looking forward to. I'm not alone, if the howls of disappointment at the lack of a single player campaign in the first Star Wars Battlefront were anything to go by.
For me, Star Wars is about story. Heck; I'm all about story; it's what I do for a living. Even with something as ridiculous as my Found Footage series I couldn't stop myself putting a story in there. It's why I respond more to single player games than stuff like Destiny. I want to be taken on a journey, not just run around arenas blasting at twats.
Indeed, I want that same feeling I got when I first played Star Wars: Dark Forces - the game for which I bought my first PC at a point where I couldn't really afford a PC.
Fortunately, I wasn't disappointed and could justify the expense... but one way or another, most Star Wars games have disappointed me in the years since that series wrapped up. I've been craving a really decent story-based Star Wars game for 20-odd years, and I was hoping that Hennig's game would reward my impatience.
Not anymore.
Amy Hennig, if you're unaware, is a veteran of the games industry, who - though she worked as a writer on the Legacy of Kain series, which I despised - was nevertheless responsible for much of what I loved about Naughty Dog's Jak & Daxter and Uncharted franchises.
Suffice to say, the prospect of a Hennig-directed-and-written game set in the Star Wars universe was one I had been very much looking forward to. I'm not alone, if the howls of disappointment at the lack of a single player campaign in the first Star Wars Battlefront were anything to go by.
For me, Star Wars is about story. Heck; I'm all about story; it's what I do for a living. Even with something as ridiculous as my Found Footage series I couldn't stop myself putting a story in there. It's why I respond more to single player games than stuff like Destiny. I want to be taken on a journey, not just run around arenas blasting at twats.
Indeed, I want that same feeling I got when I first played Star Wars: Dark Forces - the game for which I bought my first PC at a point where I couldn't really afford a PC.
Fortunately, I wasn't disappointed and could justify the expense... but one way or another, most Star Wars games have disappointed me in the years since that series wrapped up. I've been craving a really decent story-based Star Wars game for 20-odd years, and I was hoping that Hennig's game would reward my impatience.
Not anymore.
SOD-ERLUND
When announcing the removal of Hennig from her Star Wars project, revealed alongside the closure of Visceral, the studio that was handling development (previously responsible for the brilliant Dead Space games), EA's Executive Vice-President Patrick Soderlund said that the company wanted "A broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore.
"The games we want to play and spend time with, the experiences we want to have in those games, and the way we play… all those things are continually changing,"
Aside from the fact that the word "agency" gets under my skin in ways I can't articulate, the speculation is that the game will be repurposed either as some online shooter, or something which allows for the inclusion of microtransactions.
This is a reasonable assumption given that the Frostbite game engine has primarily been used for games with a heavy online focus - including the two Star Wars Battlefront games. Reading between the lines, Soderlund appears to be saying that nobody wants a linear story-based single player game anymore.
If that is the case, I say this: go to Hell. Don't tell me what I want, and don't lie about the marketplace. There are loads of successful linear games. The Uncharted games were massive, The Last of Us is massive, Grand Theft Auto is massive, Red Dead is massive, Fallout is massive, Dishonored is massive, Metal Gear Solid is massive, The Evil Within 2 is currently top 5.
All of those are, primarily, solo experiences with a focus on story, and people love them. People would've loved a single player Star Wars game - which honoured the storytelling of the original trilogy - and we've now had two ripped away from us (the promising Star Wars 1313 was cancelled when Disney bought Lucasfilm, and closed down LucasArts).
The only conclusion here is that EA is looking for a way to include micro transactions into the game, either by making it an open world, map-mopper-type affair - which I don't think suits Star Wars at all - or some sort of vast competitive thing like Destiny.
When announcing the removal of Hennig from her Star Wars project, revealed alongside the closure of Visceral, the studio that was handling development (previously responsible for the brilliant Dead Space games), EA's Executive Vice-President Patrick Soderlund said that the company wanted "A broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency, leaning into the capabilities of our Frostbite engine and reimagining central elements of the game to give players a Star Wars adventure of greater depth and breadth to explore.
"The games we want to play and spend time with, the experiences we want to have in those games, and the way we play… all those things are continually changing,"
Aside from the fact that the word "agency" gets under my skin in ways I can't articulate, the speculation is that the game will be repurposed either as some online shooter, or something which allows for the inclusion of microtransactions.
This is a reasonable assumption given that the Frostbite game engine has primarily been used for games with a heavy online focus - including the two Star Wars Battlefront games. Reading between the lines, Soderlund appears to be saying that nobody wants a linear story-based single player game anymore.
If that is the case, I say this: go to Hell. Don't tell me what I want, and don't lie about the marketplace. There are loads of successful linear games. The Uncharted games were massive, The Last of Us is massive, Grand Theft Auto is massive, Red Dead is massive, Fallout is massive, Dishonored is massive, Metal Gear Solid is massive, The Evil Within 2 is currently top 5.
All of those are, primarily, solo experiences with a focus on story, and people love them. People would've loved a single player Star Wars game - which honoured the storytelling of the original trilogy - and we've now had two ripped away from us (the promising Star Wars 1313 was cancelled when Disney bought Lucasfilm, and closed down LucasArts).
The only conclusion here is that EA is looking for a way to include micro transactions into the game, either by making it an open world, map-mopper-type affair - which I don't think suits Star Wars at all - or some sort of vast competitive thing like Destiny.
DEATH KNELL
EA has been shifting focus in recent years. Mass Effect: Andromeda was shipped in relatively unloved state so that the studio behind it could concentrate instead on Anthem - a game very much in the mode of Destiny. What it looks like we're going to be getting now is a Star Wars game like that, full of side missions, towers that you'll have to climb to unlock new parts of the map, and - yes - probably microtransactions.
And thus, in one fell swoop, EA has made me care about this insidious form of squeezing every last dime out of players. The potential of video games as a storytelling medium has been delivered a death knell courtesy of EA, who are making it very clear that this is a business, focused on the bottom line, not a platform for artists.
It troubles me more because it's Star Wars, and I care about Star Wars more than almost anything. Heck, for all the man's faults (COUGH*prequels*COUGH) George Lucas was somebody who created Star Wars to tell a story he wanted to tell. I can't even look at the merchandising cynically, because he established that model to be able to fund more stories.
It's the main reason I admire Disney so much, and why I thought they were the best people to take over Star Wars; storytelling runs through that company.
I've read some of its business philosophy handbooks, and even there stories are placed at the heart. They go above and beyond in trying to immerse their audience - whether they're sat in the cinema or waiting in a queue at a theme park - in a story. You see it in Disney's own animated movies, in the Marvel films, and - yes - the movies which are now coming from the Kathleen Kennedy-run LucasFilm.
They're a business, but they're a business which believes that good stories, cultivated with care and passion, lead to profits.
EA clearly doesn't adhere to that same mindset, and thus they can shove their microtransactions and "broader experiences" back up their cracks.
EA has been shifting focus in recent years. Mass Effect: Andromeda was shipped in relatively unloved state so that the studio behind it could concentrate instead on Anthem - a game very much in the mode of Destiny. What it looks like we're going to be getting now is a Star Wars game like that, full of side missions, towers that you'll have to climb to unlock new parts of the map, and - yes - probably microtransactions.
And thus, in one fell swoop, EA has made me care about this insidious form of squeezing every last dime out of players. The potential of video games as a storytelling medium has been delivered a death knell courtesy of EA, who are making it very clear that this is a business, focused on the bottom line, not a platform for artists.
It troubles me more because it's Star Wars, and I care about Star Wars more than almost anything. Heck, for all the man's faults (COUGH*prequels*COUGH) George Lucas was somebody who created Star Wars to tell a story he wanted to tell. I can't even look at the merchandising cynically, because he established that model to be able to fund more stories.
It's the main reason I admire Disney so much, and why I thought they were the best people to take over Star Wars; storytelling runs through that company.
I've read some of its business philosophy handbooks, and even there stories are placed at the heart. They go above and beyond in trying to immerse their audience - whether they're sat in the cinema or waiting in a queue at a theme park - in a story. You see it in Disney's own animated movies, in the Marvel films, and - yes - the movies which are now coming from the Kathleen Kennedy-run LucasFilm.
They're a business, but they're a business which believes that good stories, cultivated with care and passion, lead to profits.
EA clearly doesn't adhere to that same mindset, and thus they can shove their microtransactions and "broader experiences" back up their cracks.
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