The Blog Of Eternal Stench

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I think somebody has an axe to grind against microtransactions and is looking for some validation. Here’s the image in question:

So first off, the meme is disingenuous in its message. The meme-maker never actually purchased anything; this is a screenshot of the UI from a Free to Play mobile game called “Asphalt 8″, by Gameloft. It’s currently available at the App store and via Google Play. We’ve already established that in-app purchases are probably going to be there because (as we have firmly established in the past) money has to be made somewhere and the game is free. But let’s break the meme down a bit further.

The purpose of the game is to race cars on tracks to earn currency with which to buy more cars and tracks. One can spend real dollars to purchase more cars and/or tracks. That is really no different than Gran Turismo, Forza, Mario Kart, or really any other racing style game that offers paid DLC. As a racing game, a lot of the UI is going to be dedicated to displaying information about your cars, your tracks, and your statistics. Here is Asphalt 8′s:

The sections in red are, of course, things that lead to in-app purchases or managing in-game currency. This is where they offer you new tracks and featured cars. The sections in green are buttons to immediately race. The meme tried to downplay the one in the lower left, but it’s there. Finally, all of the sections in blue are dedicated to showing you pertinent information, not selling in-app purchases or handling in-game currency. These show things like options, leaderboards, what cars you own and their stats, and so on.

Let’s compare this to the UI for a AAA racing game like Gran Turismo 5:

Using the same breakdown, we’ve got the blue still representing player info, the red representing options to spend game currency, and the green to actually start the game. The overall menu favors the ‘immediately play’ much more, but the overall is not that far removed from Asphalt 8. This isn’t so different from other games that feature a similar emphasis on statistics, play, and the spending of currency:

As I said, the meme itself is disingenuous. It’s conflating any element that isn’t “start game” with “GIVE US YOUR MONEY”, and that’s unfair. If you look at AAA games, they certainly have some elements of it but I don’t think it’s as oppressive as the meme makes it out to be. Heck, even Doom II only had two out of five choices in the main menu to immediately start playing - New Game and Load Game. 60% of that menu doesn’t lead to gameplay!

I’ve been gone! This is where! From now until March I’m trying to complete one story sequence a week. Some are mine, others (like this) are stories I love and want a shot at re-imagining.

Thoughts!

1. The frosty setting is more symbolic than historically accurate–Hamilton and Burr dueled in July.

2. My goal was to finish the boards in a week. It took five days! My speed is improving.