Konami Sells Insurance For Your Metal Gear Solid Base

[Originally published on Sub Cultured as Konami Sells Insurance For Your Metal Gear Solid Base]

Yesterday I read about a... well we'll call it a questionable microstransaction opportunity from Metal Gear Solid V, specifically targeted towards multiplayer action. In multiplayer mode, players operate FOB's (short for forward operating bases). And much of the play relies on infiltrating other players' bases and causing as much havoc as possible through event FOB missions. Of course when a FOB gets raided, there's going to be some damage. There's going to be a loss to the player that got raided that has to be replaced. So what can a concerned FOB operator do to gain some peace of mind during these troubling raid events? They can spend real money for fake money to insure their precious bases.

In digital software, especially in gaming, we've all begun to grow accustomed to the now-standard revenue scheme called the microtransaction. For the sake of the uninitiated: A microtransaction is any kind of purchase a player makes for an in-game benefit, from cosmetic changes like costumes and skins to game-changing items like powerful weaponry or even an expansion pack.

Yes, it's a fancy word for DLC with less emphasis in the C.

Even on the surface it smells like bullshit, and we've all gone for it. I've paid for character unlocks and costumes and skins and a number of other things for the games in my collection, feeling both dirty and satisfied at some sort of perceived value simultaneously. See that's how they get you - they set the price low enough so that it doesn't seem so bad to pay it, and makes you forget that you probably already spent upwards of $50 on the game you're playing. And if the game is free to play up front, you're even more inclined to purchase DLC because "hey, I didn't actually pay for this game to begin with."

Microtransaction riddled freemium games... have a special place of scorn in my heart, but this post isn't about that particular scourge right now.

I'm not saying it's all bad. Anyone who paid for Burial at Sea for BioShock Infinite for example is not complaining about the money the spent for that particular nugget of DLC. It got rave reviews across the board. But then there are others that fall far short of that mark - hell, fall short of anything positive at all. Remember World of Tanks' custom paint job that you could buy as premium, content? And remember when that premium content expired?

So it's easy for us to traverse from the good to the bad. But then there's the outright strange. So where was I again? Right...

FOB Insurance.

I kid you not my friends, you can now sign up for an insurance policy with Konami to compensate you for any losses during a raid on your base. It insures your base from theft. The player doing the raiding still keeps all of their spoils, but you, the hapless victim, are entitled to compensation. See details right from the MGS:The Phantom Pain website.

It's actually a fairly original idea as far as player services in multiplayer games go, but here's the issue - insurance is paid for with MB coins, a resource that is sporadically given out for free as bonuses, but has a very real exchange rate with real world currency. I couldn't find anything on the US PSN Store, but the South African PSN Store charges R 14.00, which is a little over $1 US. Here's official word from Konami:

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 defense of the FOB (neither death nor extraction will be compensated)
・Nuclear weapons

Well hell, my nuclear weapons aren't covered? Lame. So you kids take that in, and let us know what you think about this next level in microtransactions in the comments below. How would the pitch go when the insurance salesperson comes to your house? "Do you ever worry that all your base are not belong to you? I'm selling peace of mind."

But how important is that piece of mind? I'm not sure how many people would take part in this insurance program, especially at the cost of real money. Granted, it's only about a buck or so for 100 coins but there's no word on how many coins a insurance policy would be. The risk of any loss at the base is part of the multiplayer experience though, and I'm fairly certain that those playing Metal Gear Solid V already accept that as part of the mechanic. Whenever a base does get hit a player is still only feeling a... Phantom Pain. It's a weird safety net addition to the game, and as all safety nets do, in my opinion it'll result in slightly more reckless play. Maybe that was the plan to begin with?

In the meantime I will be contemplating using real money for virtual money to protect virtual things from thievery. Maybe my insurance company could bundle this with my house and car? 

Capcom Producer Admonishes Street Fighter x Tekken Players for Hacking On-Disc DLC

[Article first published as Capcom Producer Admonishes Street Fighter x Tekken Players for Hacking On-Disc DLC on Blogcritics.]

I remember that there once existed a time when gamers had to accomplish a feat to unlock additional content for a game.  This was especially true in fighters, where you had to either win with a certain character or some other set condition to unlock more characters, stages, and sometimes character costumes.  It added another type of fun factor to the game, long before Xbox Live achievements and PSN trophies came along.  It was a very simple formula: player + win = content reward.

In current-gen gaming that formula has been augmented a bit, given the number of games that can be played online and consoles that come with built-in network access for communication and downloads.  Sure there’s still unlockable content that you can get by achieving certain win conditions, but some of that has been separated from the game, giving a worthless achievement for feats of skill and publishing the reward as downloadable content – what gamers affectionately (or not) refer to as DLC.  Instead of getting new content through play time or accomplishments, you download them from the publisher.  And no, it’s usually not free.  On top of the sometimes $60+ you could spend on the game itself and additional fees for online subscriptions, you’ll be forced to spend even more on certain downloadable goodies.

This is nothing new – on consoles it’s been going on since the release of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  It’s another revenue stream that publishers can squeeze out of us, but we pay anyway (me included) because having certain downloadable vanity items is kind of fun.  But the reason I bring this up now is that a specific game has run into some DLC controversy recently, not over simple vanity items but characters – the Capcom / Namco joint-property crossover Street Fighter x Tekken.  Their plans for the game was that it would start with a limited number of characters, with 12 additional characters being available through DLC – for an additional $20 (at the current rate 1600 Microsoft points on Xbox Live).  But they managed it in a very interesting way.  The 12 DLC characters already physically come on the on the disc for anyone that purchased it.  The DLC is more of an unlock code that allows you to access that data.

So of course many enterprising folks went ahead and made some modifications that allowed them access to those characters without paying the $20 for the DLC unlock.  And I really don’t blame them one bit.  They paid for the disc, the disc has the characters on it, so in my opinion they already paid for the characters.  Of course this gets into a whole other discussion on software ownership and licensing that I’m sure I’ll get into at some point in the near future.

 Now the twist – Tomoaki Ayano, the SFxT producer recently talked about the on-disc DLC issue and expressed his great disappointment at players hacking the game to play the characters in an interview with GameSpot.  “Personally, I was really surprised when I heard the news that the characters had been hacked, basically.   So I was pretty disappointed by that. I was really surprised at how skillful the hackers were, basically. But I was really kind of disappointed that it created this kind of environment where a bunch of players were playing the characters but a bunch were unable to play with them.”

What strikes me as interesting, and to be honest relieved, is that Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada doesn’t agree with that philosophy.  “Tekken has never had DLC before and charged for it,” he told Edge during Namco Bandai’s Global Gamer Day event.  “This isn’t really directed at Capcom, I have always said this, but I see the characters and their move sets as chess pieces - they are essential items necessary in the game and we would never sell any of those individually.”  As Capcom’s running the show on this one, he fell in line with Capcom in his official sentiment.  He explained that every player needs to have all the characters on-disc so people who don’t buy the DLC can play against people who did without eating up hard drive space.  But it still looks to me that while he’s supporting Capcom in the decision, he’s simultaneously distancing the Tekken series from this issue.  And I sure don’t blame him with Tekken Tag Tournament 2 just around the corner for North America, which will give access to pretty much every character in Tekken history.

While I can understand Capcom’s logic in adding the DLC content on the source disc, it still seems wrong on some level to charge people to use what they’ve technically already purchased.  Especially when that content is 12 distinct characters including Sakura, Guy, Christie, and Lei Wulong.  Sakura and Lei, more so than others with their franchise history, should never be paid DLC.  With this one I’m definitely with Harada.

And to Ayano, after we hear you simultaneously admonish and praise those who hacked the disc, I pose a fundamental question – how did you not see this coming?