EA to build microtransaction systems in all of its future games

It looks like Dead Space 3 has been a successful venture for EA. According to a transcription of EA CFO Blake Jorgensen speaking at Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference by Seeking Alpha , the company plans on building a microtransaction system in all of its future titles.

“The next and much bigger piece [of the business> is microtransactions within games,” said Jorgensen. “We’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be.”

He continued, “Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business.”

This could be problematic as the company may start making games pointlessly more difficult just to push consumers towards the microtransactions. While this issue isn’t found in Dead Space 3, a cynical person could say that it’s only a matter of time before we’re forced to buy a gun in a game because unlocking it takes an impractical amount of time.

Dead Space 3 would be the first game in the series to feature a micro-transaction system. Another unlikely candidate for micro-transactions that EA managed was the multiplayer component of last year’s Mass Effect 3. The game featured micro-transactions to buy trading card-styled “booster packs” of randomised weapons, abilities and power-ups.

Looks like Dead Space 3 was just testing the waters

Dead Space 3’s microtransaction system was revealed back in January, just a few days before its release. This was a very slippery slope for EA to walk, as the game is based on surviving with the resources you can find and having these resources available at the touch of a button could potentially take away from the atmosphere of the game.

“You can buy resources with real money, but scavenger bots can also give you the currency that you can use on the marketplace,” Dead Space 3 Associate Producer Yara Khoury explained. “So you don’t have to spend [real world> dollars.”

When asked if a player could possibly just buy parts for the best weapon in the game right at the start, Khoury replied, “No you can’t!” She continued, “There are a lot of weapon parts that are only available to buy later in the game. Unless you’re playing through it again [on New Game Plus>.”

EA had unveiled the first piece of DLC for Dead Space 3 earlier this month. The DLC, titled Awakened , will be launched in March and will cost 800 Microsoft Points on the Xbox 360 and roughly Rs 530 on the PlayStation 3 and PC.

EA has stated that Awakened will feature “the franchise’s darkest chapters”, and the battle against the Necromorph will become more gruesome. General Manager of Visceral Games Steve Papoutsis has said Awakened would feature some of the “most disturbing content” players have experienced in any Dead Space game. Papoutsis hinted at the DLC back in January.