WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!
I disagree with this 100%.
We support the developers when we buy the game for 70€.
You do, yes. You also support the platform holders and, if applicable, publishers. If the game is released on disc there are also costs for disc manufacturing to add in. Modern games have to sell a whole lot of copies to make a profit, and without a profit you’re stuck making one game and then closing the studio because you have to cover wages, rent, licensing etc. for the entire development cycle of your next title.
Unfortunately Codemasters seem to keep their sales figures quite close to their chest so I haven't been able to find any solid information on how many people are buying each iteration.
F1 comes out every single year, so people give them 70€ every year to develop a game that has no relevant story, motion capture, voice acting, art assets etc.
There are lots of things that get updated and/or added each year. How do you think they add in features like the post-race interviews? What about the fact that the cars change between seasons? What about the liveries that change between seasons? The entirely new UI? AI and gameplay code improvements? Any new audio?
That's before you even get to the lighting overhaul they did with 2019 which likely required multiple engine changes and improvements, and the fact they added F2 which is
a whole new game mode complete with new cars. Oh, and they added driver transfers. Then there is the licensing for each year, something which is a minefield for even the smallest of brands let alone one as big as Formula 1.
The tracks are always the same, with a couple new ones, some new cars and a few changes to graphics, sound, etc. Assassins Creed used to come out every year without MTX and it was a completely new game, new world, new story, new voice actors, new art assets, etc. Now Ubisoft decided to release it every 2 years and make the games even better.
There are multiple teams and
multiple studios around the world behind the Assassin's Creed games.
F1 is made by a single studio with some outsource support. You only have to compare the size of the credits between
F1 2017 and
Assassin's Creed: Origins to see the difference.
Regarding the tracks being the same do we know for certain that they don’t re-work them for each iteration? I imagine the real life tracks change so it would make sense to keep them up to date.
Other racing games offer livery editors for free that attract a lot of people and are one of the best features in any racing game. GT came late to the party but any game without it feels a bit empty to me now, as someone who loves to create liveries.
I'd love to see a livery editor in an F1 game, even if it's just on generic cars that aren't tied to a specific team. It could be something as simple as a licensing issue though, and there’s very little you can do to get around that.
If you add up the liveries you can only get with MTX, you'll probably spend another 20 or 30€ for stuff that will be useless and outdated next year, when the next game comes out and people move on to that game. Unless Codemasters makes this game a "live service" instead of realeasing a new game every year, I doubt that in 2020 everything you get will be transfered to the new game.
I don't think it's fair to make a judgement on this when we're nowhere near to knowing what they will do for 2020.
People give a pass to first steps like these and then companies abuse them more and more, leading to broken player bases down the line.
Some companies abuse them, yes, but that doesn't mean we should immediately assume that all games studios are going to do the same. I can certainly see why people are cautious, and tt would be a shame if that happened with the F1 games, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for now.
GT could sell liveries, I wouldn't oppose to that decision. And I would be OK with it because we can create whatever we want ourselves. So if PD would sell some really nice liveries (very complex, with higher res logos and a special color or something like that) I wouldn't mind.
I'd be interested in seeing how this worked out for them from a business perspective; the game offers a livery editor but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they would sell fewer items. I don’t think they’ll ever do it but it’s an interesting idea.
And I don't buy the idea that, because it's the official F1 game, they can't allow people to create whatever liveries they want. I mean, that doesn't imply liveries have to be sold. They could have those liveries for cars, helmets, suits and gloves in the game already for free.
For all we know the Formula 1 license doesn’t allow it at all, and I can realistically see this being the case. They wouldn’t want F1 cars, even generic ones, being associated with “bad” logos (tobacco and alcohol companies, for example) as it damages the Formula 1 brand. The entire game is covered by the F1 license, not just the cars.
It also makes me roll my eyes with some people excuse microtransations because "it's only cosmetic". I mean, cosmetic items are a great part of what makes games appealing and are a great way for people to get more into the story, gameplay, etc. All cosmetics should be available through gameplay, even if though "hard work" and some grind. Putting it behind a money barrier is more often than not, something poorly implemented.
I disagree, I think that developers should be rewarded for the hard work they put in to a title and microtransactions like these are a great way of providing the studio with a little bit more income to be able to invest in new talent and new titles. If this were some huge studio where the CEO was making billions each year then I could understand the concerns (there have certainly been some greedy developers out there when it comes to earnings from microtransactions) but I don’t believe that Codemasters are that sort of studio.
EDIT: I should add, however, that if they do start becoming one of those studios I'll happily stop buying their products