Your Opinion on Paid Online

[peat-warrior]

So you're saying that by making and selling tons of systems and games it's not going to keep them afloat? Just like with the Wii U, right? Also you're basing your arguement off of what OTHER companies have done. Do you know workers/employees/customers that have been ripped off by Nintendo? Because I certainly haven't. And besides, it's not like you're going to go bankrupt by paying 50$ a year for something, but it helps Nintendo a lot to keep themselves going. Please don't go basing one company off of others, that's not the way the world works.

Look on the backside of any console by Nintendo, what can you see? Made in China. It is no secret, under which circumstances people have to work there...

 

[Magic8Ball]

Look on the backside of any console by Nintendo, what can you see? Made in China. It is no secret, under which circumstances people have to work there...

So maybe they're putting this paywall in place to try and improve those circumstances. Also your point is invalid, we're arguing about the paywall, if you want to fix the horrific socioeconomic situation in China then be my guest. The point is that the money from the paywall has to go somewhere, and I'm sure the heads of Nintendo have more money than they could ever imagine so why would they want to take in more if it wasn't for the purpose of their company. That's my point and if you can't find a solid arguement other than "they're a greedy company" then I'm going to kindly stop this conversation. The only person who has made an even relevant post to back your side of the arguement is Ulk, whom I applaud.

 

[Albatross]

A company exists for the purpose of making money. Their competitors also have these paid services. As long as they don't charge more than their competitors this action is fair. They are a company, they are looking out for themselves first as a company should. It's not greed, it's natural business.

 

[peat-warrior]

@Magic8Ball

As long the means of productions are in the hands of a few people, the economy is not serving the needs of the large part of the population.
I just want to have a better world and I think that you might have misunderstood my intention of my previous posts. We shouldn't quarrel, because we are both
part of the working class, we share the same interests. And only when we all unite our power we can free this world from wage slavery.

 

[MacSmitty]

I honestly think that this is a PS+ situation all over again. When Sony announced paying for Online, people blew up about it, and now, the complaints have dwindled. Though the cost of the subscription and the amount of games to play online overall for the Switch can influence whether people think its worth it or not...

 

[Elecmaw]

...It's depressing how companies have successfully normalized microtransactions in the minds of consumers. So Overwatch's system of being able to spend a hundred dollars on gambling and still not get the item you want is preferable to you in this scenario? Amazing. I'm not a fan of monthly charges either but at least you're guaranteed to GET something for that. Cosmetics aren't "harmless" either, before you bring up that tired argument, because even things that don't affect gameplay create a have/have not scenario that makes non-spending players jealous and enticed to spend their dosh. And Splatoon's fashion DOES affect gameplay, so this would be even worse. These are multi-million dollar companies. They don't need to wheedle even more money out of you, ESPECIALLY in the cases where it is virtual gambling. Regulation is going to come down hard on that sometime.

Also, as for kids not being able to pay up on a timely basis? GOOD. Kids are already some of the worst "whales" around, just look at all the news stories of kiddos dropping thousands of their parent's money on mobile games, they don't need the encouragement. Also, let's be frank, any parent that drops money on something as expensive as a game system for their kid is going to suck up the additional fee. Skylanders exists and is a massive success, and we all know that success was taken out of the wallets of adults :p

Splatoon 2's clothing and abilities will be separate this time around.

Oh no, don't get me wrong. Microtransactions aren't innocent, i hate them just as much especially in games that you already paid for in the first place. I'm very well aware that cosmetics cater to a desire to stand out among the crowd, and prestige is something that everyone is after whenever virtual or real. But it can just as easily be a mask to fund server upkeep, which is what I'm getting at here. The servers can't stay online for free, so it sorta makes sense that they've decided to add a fee to that now.

It's just that in this scenario, i consider it the lesser of two evils. In the other scenario, you buy the initial price of Splatoon and then have to spend extra per month just to keep playing it's main feature, online play. Adding in a hard paywall excludes the target demographic for this game, kids who have no easy means of getting over that. Imagine getting it for Christmas and then realizing you can't go online because the parents forgot to get an online pass for it.

Doesn't have to be the case with Nintendo's consoles though, they have a parental lock for a reason. And Splatoon, and Nintendo's main target demographic has always been kids. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy it, but it's something we should keep in mind.

Again, if you absolutely need to pick one of these, I'd pick the former option of microtransactions. I don't like either of these options, i cannot emphasize that enough.

 

[Albatross]

@Magic8Ball

As long the means of productions are in the hands of a few people, the economy is not serving the needs of the large part of the population.
I just want to have a better world and I think that you might have misunderstood my intention of my previous posts. We shouldn't quarrel, because we are both
part of the working class, we share the same interests. And only when we all unite our power we can free this world from wage slavery.

online services in a video game are not the needs of the large population of people

 

[Dessgeega]

Splatoon 2's clothing and abilities will be separate this time around.

Oh no, don't get me wrong. Microtransactions aren't innocent, i hate them just as much especially in games that you already paid for in the first place. I'm very well aware that cosmetics cater to a desire to stand out among the crowd, and prestige is something that everyone is after whenever virtual or real. But it can just as easily be a mask to fund server upkeep, which is what I'm getting at here. The servers can't stay online for free, so it sorta makes sense that they've decided to add a fee to that now.

It's just that in this scenario, i consider it the lesser of two evils. In the other scenario, you buy the initial price of Splatoon and then have to spend extra per month just to keep playing it's main feature, online play. Adding in a hard paywall excludes the target demographic for this game, kids who have no easy means of getting over that. Imagine getting it for Christmas and then realizing you can't go online because the parents forgot to get a online pass for it.

Doesn't have to be the case with Nintendo's consoles though, they have a parental lock for a reason. And Splatoon, and Nintendo's main target demographic has always been kids. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy it, but it's something we should keep in mind.

Again, if you absolutely need to pick one of these, I'd pick the former option of microtransactions. I don't like either of these options, i cannot emphasize that enough.

Fair points, I'll just say that the scenario you mentioned, not being able to go online after a kid gets it for Christmas, has already happened with many titles, Nintendo's included, due to server failures and online functions that aren't ready yet :P That's a problem not linked to monthly fees in the slightest and will continue regardless. Also, the target demographic has parents. I will continue to repeat that sentiment. Grabbing the attention of kiddies with something that parents can be browbeaten into purchasing without breaking the bank is what kid-centered businesses do best.

 

[ヒーロー]

It depends. I would say that 40$-50$ may not be bad for a year.

Opinion: I don't really understand why Nintendo would do such a thing to poor people like me. It's very disappointing to see something like this.

 

[omaridash12]

Nintendo's new online service will require you to pay in order to play online, starting in Fall and the free trial begins in March when the Switch launches. What's your thought on this? Do you feel online should of stayed free?

i really hope its cheap cause i dont want to pay $30 at month just to play online so i hope its about $5 to $10 dollars a month

 

[p14n0f]

Honestly, it's a factor that makes me not want to get a Switch, because one of the few games I want is Splatoon 2, which is basically all multiplayer if we base it on its predecessor's short story mode. I fundamentally disagree with paying for a game, and then paying for access to play that game. I want to own that game, period, and welcome local multiplayer. On the other hand, if this makes the lifetime of online games longer than they would be, it could be a good thing. I myself don't want to have voicechat, but do recognise that some people do and it's nice to have a choice.

To address kids not having access, usually, if you're a kid in a family that can afford to get a videogames console and games, you also likely have an allowance or sufficient time to earn some spending money. It could be great opportunity for them to learn about reoccurring payments and what they want to use their money for. There are some exceptions, but I think this is fairly accurate.

I think one of the paradigms would be neat to see change would be the creation of local leagues and an increase in local tournaments. It's possible to link eight Switches together. Everyone could bring their own systems and link up. RL tournaments can be fun. At minimum, everyone has at least one thing in common to talk about that's not the local weather. If that happens, I do hope that people take the Pokemon approach (being friendly and helpful and making the game accessible-- at least, that was my experience). The downside in settlements which have lower numbers of people per area, of course, is that it may not be possible to have sufficient numbers of Splatoon 2 players in the vicinity... it would definitely be a more densely-populated-area-thing.

Something I'd like to see would be a discovery mode for adhoc connexions. The idea is that you could toggle yourself to be discoverable or not and then arrange to play togther. Example you're sitting on public transit and there's another person on the other side playing too; you could request to play together on something you both have. Maybe something Pictochat-like for preliminaries or just a request button for slotted and digital software. Less useful for Splatoon because of the number of participants required (two four-squid teams), but something that'd facilitate this entire sort of play with random people meetings maybe.

I'm glad there aren't microtransactions because they annoy me on principle; however, I wouldn't be averse to the way some games handle it where functionality isn't behind more payments, but aesthetics are. That way, I can play a game, and then if I find it good and want to support them by buying something that makes my icon look nicer, great.

tl;dr I don't like it and don't want to pay, but short of not getting a subscription and encouraging local play, I'm not sure what else I can do about it really.

 

[Magic8Ball]

Honestly, it's a factor that makes me not want to get a Switch, because one of the few games I want is Splatoon 2, which is basically all multiplayer if we base it on its predecessor's short story mode. I fundamentally disagree with paying for a game, and then paying for access to play that game. I want to own that game, period, and welcome local multiplayer. On the other hand, if this makes the lifetime of online games longer than they would be, it could be a good thing. I myself don't want to have voicechat, but do recognise that some people do and it's nice to have a choice.

To address kids not having access, usually, if you're a kid in a family that can afford to get a videogames console and games, you also likely have an allowance or sufficient time to earn some spending money. It could be great opportunity for them to learn about reoccurring payments and what they want to use their money for. There are some exceptions, but I think this is fairly accurate.

I think one of the paradigms would be neat to see change would be the creation of local leagues and an increase in local tournaments. It's possible to link eight Switches together. Everyone could bring their own systems and link up. RL tournaments can be fun. At minimum, everyone has at least one thing in common to talk about that's not the local weather. If that happens, I do hope that people take the Pokemon approach (being friendly and helpful and making the game accessible-- at least, that was my experience). The downside in settlements which have lower numbers of people per area, of course, is that it may not be possible to have sufficient numbers of Splatoon 2 players in the vicinity... it would definitely be a more densely-populated-area-thing.

Something I'd like to see would be a discovery mode for adhoc connexions. The idea is that you could toggle yourself to be discoverable or not and then arrange to play togther. Example you're sitting on public transit and there's another person on the other side playing too; you could request to play together on something you both have. Maybe something Pictochat-like for preliminaries or just a request button for slotted and digital software. Less useful for Splatoon because of the number of participants required (two four-squid teams), but something that'd facilitate this entire sort of play with random people meetings maybe.

I'm glad there aren't microtransactions because they annoy me on principle; however, I wouldn't be averse to the way some games handle it where functionality isn't behind more payments, but aesthetics are. That way, I can play a game, and then if I find it good and want to support them by buying something that makes my icon look nicer, great.

tl;dr I don't like it and don't want to pay, but short of not getting a subscription and encouraging local play, I'm not sure what else I can do about it really.

Well hey, be the change you'd want to see in the world. I personally love what Pokémon and Smash do for local tournaments and communities and I'm sure Splatoon 2 will pick this up quite nicely. But for people who might not have the same availability, online tournaments work just as well. And yeah I can understand the sentiment, but like you said it's not incredibly bad price wise, just the principle of the thing is what irks you.

But try and think about it like this. Other systems have a paywall, in the consumers' minds, this means that their servers are more powerful or there is some advantage to playing online on their servers. Nintendo probably wants some uniformity for the market. And I think that Nintendo is really trying to beef up the local multiplayer for Splatoon 2, so there's no need to worry in my opinion.

 

[Maave]

I'm fine with it. I'd rather it be free but what can ya do. It doesn't need to be expensive at all. $5/mo or even $2 should cover it with thousands of players paying. The most popular online games have hundreds of thousands of active players. Splat1 had 4 million initial sales and at least a few tens of thousands of active players.

I think people are missing the real expense of online games. It's not the servers, those might be $50-$200/month (depending on specs) and a couple servers for each region. Only a few people need to pay to support that. The much larger expense is developer time. Devs ain't cheap. If you want any DLC, post-launch content, patches, etc they have to pay devs to program that. The game sales cover the initial development while the reoccurring payments cover game maintenance and updates.

 

[RespawningJesus]

Whether or not paid online is worth it, is really up to Nintendo at this point. They haven't exactly proven to be capable of delivering a solid online infrastructure, so I understand if people will be hesitant at first, especially since a very small portion of games on the Switch in 2017 will have online multiplayer. I am just hoping they have something solid for us in the Fall, if not, then this will certainly hurt game population in Splatoon 2, and hurt Nintendo as a whole.

I am just hoping that Nintendo actually does better with the online in their games, especially this one.

 

[Green Waffles]

I'd be a lot more comfortable having to pay to play splatoon online IF Nintendo made some official announcement that some/most of the profit form the payments would go to obtaining/maintaining a better server and thus much less lag than we currently have.

If we get no announcement like this? It will feel like paying for the same service they had been offering for free on the WiiU, but with a bike bell taped to it.

The fact that we are missing these key details for the online service means the latter is still quite possible, and that really rubs me the wrong way. =/

 

[Spraylan]

I'm not thrilled with the idea, but I need to know what Nintendo's charging. $60 a year would be pretty painless, I'll pay that to play Splatoon. If they get it as low as $30 a month it will be a non-issue.

 

[RespawningJesus]

I'm not thrilled with the idea, but I need to know what Nintendo's charging. $60 a year would be pretty painless, I'll pay that to play Splatoon. If they get it as low as $30 a month it will be a non-issue.

I highly doubt they will charge that much for it. Anything more than $60 would puzzling. I am hoping it will be cheaper than $60, since I doubt Nintendo's infrastructure will be up to par with PSN or XBL.

 

[LancerStaff]

Nintendo's online services have been overwhelmingly... Er, underwhelming.

Keeping a VC game or two for a month at a time isn't exactly cushioning the blow.

Unless they can prove that they're capable of making the experience that much better, I'm not paying for it. And I doubt they will either.

 

[RespawningJesus]

Nintendo's online services have been overwhelmingly... Er, underwhelming.

Keeping a VC game or two for a month at a time isn't exactly cushioning the blow.

Unless they can prove that they're capable of making the experience that much better, I'm not paying for it. And I doubt they will either.

It also doesn't help that anyone can pretty much emulate whatever games they offer per month.

 

[Ansible]

Not pleased about it, feared it would happen, but not the least bit surprised. Until a year ago I only ever used their handhelds and there was already microtranaction creep with their non-main Pokemon games, that baseball title where you barter with a dog for a lower price on the minigames, and the Badge Arcade.

So yeah, not the least bit surprised on them moving on to having a paid service like Playstation and XBox. Neither of which I currently use—no PS4 or XBone.

Only online multiplayer I can see myself using is Splatoon 2, Pokken if there's a Switch release, ARMS if it turns out to be a sleeper hit, ma~aybe Mario Kart 8 if it ends up in some sort of Splatoon/MK bundle. I might get some use out of it.

But I extremely want to know what all this online service actual entails because what info they currently have available is rather piss poor in explaining much beyond vague bullet-point statements.