Loot Boxes & Microtransactions: Necessary Evil or Just Wrong?

What To Expect: Developer CD Projekt Red wowed us with their behind closed doors demo at E3 2014 and we expect them to pull off a similar feat at their Comic-Con 2014 panel. Attendees will hear more about this final game in the trilogy, see it played live, creedshadowgame.Com and learn more about Dark Horse’s upcoming The Witcher graphic no
The name Andrew Ryan is even a near-anagram of Ayn Rand’s, while Frank Fontaine and Atlas take their names from Rand’s husband Frank and her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged respectively. It’s in these works that Rand first explores and outlines the idea of objectivism, making it somewhat fitting that their titles were incorporated into the ga
Loot crates are everywhere. Overwatch uses them in a way which keeps players coming back for more, month after month to enjoy themselves and try to win exclusive goodies, but Shadow of War pokes and taunts the player with a dirge of endless boredom until they either persevere or pony up to see the game’s true ending. Last year, Gears of War 4 found itself in hot water with the fans after its own overpriced loot box system led to the Horde Mode being effectively Pay to Win . Meanwhile, Forza Motorsport 7 is in trouble for changing the system from Forza 6 to lean harder than ever on its Prize Crates and Mod Cards. Even Destiny 2 has received flak for changing its shaders from unlimited-use items to consumables which can be purchased in cra
Loot boxes are here to stay, and if publishers include them in ways which the gaming community can feel comfortable purchasing in large enough numbers, while ironing out the issues inherent in titles like Shadow of War, Forza 7, and Gears of War 4, then maybe gamers won’t feel cheated as much as they currently do by the less savory titles making use of practice in today’s marAssassin’s Creed Identity is making its way onto the mobile market in just under three weeks and to promote the game, Ubisoft released an announcement trailer that is just all around dull and utterly boring. Even the actor portraying a regular shmoe who transforms into the assassin character (likely the protagonist of the game) looks bored and angry throughout the trailer. It’s as if just having to play this game during his short walk down the tunnel had squandered his entire day.
It is set in between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and takes inspiration from live-action films. Your character is the ranger Talion and an elf-lord named Celebrimbor. It will be your job to find followers from different races, plan strategies, and go on complex and intriguing missions. The game received critical pra
Released as a launch title for the Xbox One, Ryse remains an absolute spectacle of a game. It’s not set in Ancient Greece and lacks the fantasy element of Odyssey, but it’s still the perfect title for fans of swords and sandals epics and historical fict
The Assassin’s Creed series has novels of its own these days, but when creating the first game, developers took much of their inspiration from the work of Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol. His 1938 novel, Alamut , tells the story of the Hashshashin and is named after their fortress which once stood in what is now the Qazvin province of I
What To Expect: BioWare will show attendees a similar demo to the one at E3 2014, which focused on the open world and tactical combat in Dragon Age: Inquisition . Panelists will also answer questions about the highly anticipated third g
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is the latest and most ambitious Assassin’s Creed game in the franchise. In it, you get to choose between playing Kassandra or Alexios and going on a mission to reunite your family in addition to taking down the formidable Cult of Kosmos. The game is an epic adventure and open-world roleplaying gUbisoft has been through a rough patch since the days of Unity. Syndicate’s sales were greatly impacted because of it and playing around with worthless trailers like Identity’s could impact sales just the same. If they were planning on creating a Q&A video about the game that provides impressive and well done gameplay visuals, Ubisoft should started with that right out of the gate or at least have cut a few clips of the gameplay shown in the Q&A and implement them into their announcement trailer, or even better scrapped the trailer all together and focused on creating a proper reveal trailer. Although the creativity and budget were behind their “announcement” trailer, it was by no means a worthwhile one especially since you really have to go out of your way (and be interested in the game enough) to find their little Q&A video that does a much better job at portraying what the game actually is.The worst part of the trailer is the actual “gameplay” that is provide the clip is barely even ten seconds worth of footage and all we see is the character diving into a hay bail. There is no real indication of how this game will play or what it’s even about, however, if you were to do some research about the game you can find a video called Assassin’s Creed Identity- Q&A Part 1, which was published two days after the announcement for the game. The video gives a detailed description on what players can expect from the game regarding its gameplay paired with video clips of actual gameplay longer than five seconds. Now the original announcement trailer could be taken as a “teaser” trailer, but with the state of the franchise the way it is on console, it’s not a good idea to make your mobile debut trailer a live action setup with virtually no indication of actual gameplay.