New GTA could be subscription based

[Nurb]

http://kotaku.com/5085880/is-take+two-thinking-of-subscription+based-gta-and-bioshock

During today's talk at the BMO Capital Market's conference, Take-Two head honcho Strauss Zelnick seemed very up on the idea of downloadable content, micro-transactions and even... subscriptions.

"Looking ahead, the biggest opportunity that we see for the industry as well as for us is downloadable content," he said. "With Grand Theft Auto IV we will be offering downloadable episodes that gamers can buy on Xbox Live after they've purchased the original title. We've also that next week we will be releasing add on content worldwide for Bioshock. And these are our first offerings for downloadable content. We're excited about the creative opportunity. We are very excited about the profit potential and we'll see how these things roll out. I think the entire industry is focused in this area."

Zelnick went on to talk about the importance of microtransactions and how multiplayer gaming could perhaps be the solution to the growing used game market. In other words, make your online mulitplayer good enough and people won't want to sell the game back.

And then he had to ruin it all by bringing up subscriptions and not, it seems, just for the typical massively multiplayer online PC game

"The holy grail is taking a business, already a very large and successful business that's focused on packaged goods that you sell once and then are occasionally resold by others with new benefit to us, and turning that into a subscription business or a semi subscription business where we have an ongoing relationship with consumers, giving them products that they want," he said. "Who's better positioned to do that than the company that has the top franchises."

But what games could you be thinking of doing that to Strauss?

"It's our view that you won't be able to apply a subscription model to mid-tier titles," he said. "The triple-a titles that people really want to have that are really must have are in the best position for this business model."

Please tell me he's not thinking of a subscription-based Grand Theft Auto or BioShock. Worse still, this makes two of them. (http://kotaku.com/382882/subscription-based-gta-very-doable-very-compelling)


And customers WANT subscription free gaming, you greedy corporate prick.

This nickle and dime stuff is really screwing up the industry. Games like far cry 2 withold content so they can charge you for it weeks later instead of putting it in the final release, and companies are beginning to charge for extra content now instead of providing a full expansion and in the end you pay 50-60 bucks for the same amount spread out over time instead of an 'all at once' expansion which normally runs 30 dollars. Now these big companies want to add subscriptions to everything so they can milk you for more money.

Some people think that 10 bucks isn't bad for a few maps and weapons but add up all the money you spend on all the content you downloaded, add your live service, your mmo subscriptions and expansions you buy ever year and it can be quite a bit more than what you used to spend on gaming! And these guys want more out of you. Every cent they can.

its why I quit XBL.. I paid for the system, the game and the service, I'm not paying for little crap that should be free for people who've paid them a lot already! Its also why I advocate piracy over stuff like this :D

[Variation-XBA]

Its also why I advocate piracy over stuff like this :D

That is still no reason to advocate it or condone it. Why do you think companies stop making titles or would you rather everything go the way of the Dreamcast due to piracy as well?

[Ainokeatoo]

That is still no reason to advocate it or condone it. Why do you think companies stop making titles or would you rather everything go the way of the Dreamcast due to piracy as well?

=/ Sega should have went the way nintendo did, and just had extremely weird/annoying disk sizes/cartridges and make them hard to get. So if you wanted to pirate things, you'd have to go through hoops or have someone you know that can get you these discs and cartridges. Nintendo have been one of the leading gaming industries who's been able to all but stop piracy completely.

The fact that their discs and cartridges wasn't the easiest to get their hands on, almost stopped piracy on their games. It didn't do it completely, because there were some of those shmucks who got their hands on the materials needed. But the people were few and far between. But then again, how much I loved sega, as a console, they were failing anyways, kinda why I opted a Xbox over a Dreamcast, they stopped making games.

I won't say whether I pirate or not, I certainly don't condone it nor endorse it. But some people will do what they have to, to get something they can't afford. You'll see that as the economy gets worse until it stops getting worse and begins to come up, more and more will turn to pirating and ya can't stop it.

[Symmetric-XBA]

wow I pray this doesn't happen. seriously though I can understand if a company makes 2-3 major new dl content releases for their AAA titles. I bought all of Oblivion's DLC, Halo 3, etc.. However, there are games such as Ace Combat 6 for the 360 that has become a DLC cash cow! Seriously you spend $59.99 on the game, and then you spend at least 400MS points PER PLANE!! And trust me, there are a lot... a lot... a lot of planes to dl. All of them semi-pointless unless you feel like flying around w/ a big orange pumpkin on your plane for hallowween. This is insane, if you wanted every plane that was available for dlc for ace combat I wouldn't be surprised if it cost you at least $30 more. So now the game that you spent $60 on originally now has a total of $90 worth of your investment, and then on top of that $50 for the service. So hyp. speaking if you just got an xbox arcade, with ace combat, and a years worth of live, and all the planes on the dlc, you'd be pushing well over $350! lol does this seem crazy to anyone else?? I understand companies do this for residual income for titles already released onto the market, and it is quicker to do DLC than to just make the release of a second game, however, with more and more game companies charging more and more for every little piece of dlc they can provide, it will soon come down to the gamers once again to decide if this is really something they want to pay for. It will be up for the gamers to make a stand against video game companies releasing massive pointless cash-cows.

[Unreal]

I won't pay for a subscription regardless of the game. But I will pay for content that I feel will enhance my gaming experiences. That's the great thing about freedom of choice. You can buy something or not buy it. If gamers disagree with something then they should voice their opinion by not purchasing said content. Developers will get the hint if enough of us refuse to spend our hard earned money on extras.

When I look at it from the devs point of view. Its getting harder and harder to keep costs down on making games now. With game worlds getting bigger, graphics getting better, and features being expected. Its getting more expensive, so if this is their way to get some money back. Good for them. Anyway, back on topic. GTA will stay in the store if I have to pay a monthly fee to play it.

[Ainokeatoo]

I won't pay for a subscription regardless of the game. But I will pay for content that I feel will enhance my gaming experiences. That's the great thing about freedom of choice. You can buy something or not buy it. If gamers disagree with something then they should voice their opinion by not purchasing said content. Developers will get the hint if enough of us refuse to spend our hard earned money on extras.

When I look at it from the devs point of view. Its getting harder and harder to keep costs down on making games now. With game worlds getting bigger, graphics getting better, and features being expected. Its getting more expensive, so if this is their way to get some money back. Good for them. Anyway, back on topic. GTA will stay in the store if I have to pay a monthly fee to play it.

Exactly what I thought, unless GTA turns into a damn good MMO if you start charging me a monthly to play it, bye bye rockstar. I'm barely ok with paying mmo fee's which is why I look for private servers before I start playing any commercial Pay to play game, WoW being one. But that's kind of the incentive developers have to create new content that expand the game without having it's users to pay more than just the subscription fee.

It's like Live, you pay 50 bucks a year to play online, and it always gets better because there is more incentive for developers to actually do work on it. Versus a free online service, such as the Wii's online and PSN. The reason our service is better is because it has to be something worth us shoveling out money for. And in my opinion, with the latest dash update it is worth the fifty dollars I pay a year just to play in the service.

[SamSmith]

Games with monthly fees are only justified where there is a constant industry and empoyee base around it - constantly developing / improving / serving.

[Ainokeatoo]

Games with monthly fees are only justified where there is a constant industry and empoyee base around it - constantly developing / improving / serving.

Which MMO's such as WoW, are doing, there are always new fixes, or fixes to old things. There are always new things, new items, new things to do. WoW is not the only example but one of the better ones. Hopefully GTA will 'not' go that route, it just started in the online industry, unless they do this really really well, they really should stay away from subscription based gaming.

[Unreal]

Which MMO's such as WoW, are doing, there are always new fixes, or fixes to old things. There are always new things, new items, new things to do. WoW is not the only example but one of the better ones. Hopefully GTA will 'not' go that route, it just started in the online industry, unless they do this really really well, they really should stay away from subscription based gaming.
Maybe I haven't opened my mind on it to see the potential (GTA). But with a game like WoW you have a universe that has endless possibilities. One that can add new worlds, weapons, character class', character levels, questing missions etc. With GTA, I just don't see how you can have a persistent world and offer new stuff with a monthly fee. Sure you can add a new city, weapons, clothes, etc.

But with the game sort of based in reality. How different will it be then from the game you bought and started playing. Maybe time will tell and when everything is said and done. They are able to get it to work. I don't see myself paying to play it because I like playing games to much. I would end up not playing a lot of other games so I could justify paying the money on this one. Who knows. Good luck Rockstar.

[Ainokeatoo]

Maybe I haven't opened my mind on it to see the potential (GTA). But with a game like WoW you have a universe that has endless possibilities. One that can add new worlds, weapons, character class', character levels, questing missions etc. With GTA, I just don't see how you can have a persistent world and offer new stuff with a monthly fee. Sure you can add a new city, weapons, clothes, etc.

But with the game sort of based in reality. How different will it be then from the game you bought and started playing. Maybe time will tell and when everything is said and done. They are able to get it to work. I don't see myself paying to play it because I like playing games to much. I would end up not playing a lot of other games so I could justify paying the money on this one. Who knows. Good luck Rockstar.

Well mainly because GTA really "can't" be a good mmo it has potential and as far as I know, it would be one of the first. If they do turn it into an mmo and it's decent i'd pick it up, because it would amaze me as to how they've done this. I just don't see it working at all. WoW is a traditional MMO so maybe it wasn't fair comparing the two, but WoW *which may or may not be* the pinnacle of subscription based gaming at the present time. Is only so because of the new and ever changing content they offer.

Now a few months between patches may not be a 'fast' changing game, but it certainly gets better and slightly different every time it is patched. It's something worth the money you shell out just to play it. Why is it worth it? Because you're giving the developers a reason to make it worth it. I just don't see GTA being anymore than an online game, not something i'd pay monthly for though. And Rockstar if you do intend to do this, please do an overwhelmingly excellent job, not only now are you setting bars that are very very doubtful of you reaching. It won't be anything like GTA IV's hopes in the online system.

Which, to me, was low, as it was the first game in the GTA series to ever be online, and ya did a great job. But if you do start charging people ;) just hope you can deal with all the agro.

[wicked_d365]

It won't happen, I don't why your all freaking out. The developers are dumb, but I don't think their dumb enough to let one of the biggest and most popular games out become one of the most hated because of subscriptions. Sure, a few people will buy in to it, but majority of us won't, and they know this.
I just did a survey where they were asking about what kind of service I would subscribe to. After about 5 mins of him explaining tons of different packages, I just told him, I will never subscribe to anything game related except mags and my yearly Xbox fees. He looked at me and said, "That's all I hear from everyone I've interviewed. I wouldn't do it myself."

[Nurb]

they complain about cost when gaming industry makes so much more than all other entertainment industries. They want more money, so they'll hold back content and charge you for it later because they wanna milk the cash cow. If they charge LESS for a game THEN charge for content, ok I can see that, but not when we spend so much money on their products to begin with.

and subscription fees were originally to pay for upkeep of company servers, but its not so much the case anymore and profit far outpaces upkeep, and while cost of tech has come down, cost has been the same. Its like when CD's replaced cassettes, they were much much cheaper to make, but cost more initially because of the technology to play it at the time, and they had said they would lower the costs as the tech came down in price, but they left the price inflated and pocketed the extra money ever since.

[hostchecker]

I hate subscription fees
http://photosnag.com/img/837/t08j1110iyaz/cool.gif