[HN Gopher] I hate what video games have become
___________________________________________________________________
I hate what video games have become
Author : mattigames
Score : 372 points
Date : 2022-03-27 23:57 UTC (23 hours ago)
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| jokoon wrote:
| I think overwatch is the best fps in the world. I love the game
| mechanics.
|
| Meanwhile, Im realizing blizzard encourage smurfing, meaning have
| several accounts, to constantly win against lower skilled players
| in competitive, instead of playing against players of their own
| skills.
|
| You now see entire teams "deranking" meaning losing on purpose,
| to lose skill rating, so they can climb all over again. It ruins
| the game.
|
| Other games add barriers, like sms, or scanning for ip.
|
| Blizzard does make a lot of money that way.
| gigaflop wrote:
| > best fps in the world
|
| Have you played for very long? I originally got into it several
| years ago, a little before Moira was announced. After a while,
| it felt like everything devolved into samey-ness, especially
| when the maps stagnated.
|
| Not long after the hamster showed up, my whole group of friends
| had also gotten bored of it.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Blizzard is fully aware of this. Their matchmaker is perfectly
| designed to provoke this behavior with their use of hidden
| ratings and other rubber-banding mechanics.
|
| Why fix it if its not broken? Buying another copy of overwatch
| is a drop in the bucket for players who have already invested
| thousands of hours.
| spicybright wrote:
| There's more great games at our finger tips than ever before imo
|
| I agree AAA big budget games suck, but there's soo many good
| indie titles that can be much more fun than them.
|
| You don't gotta only eat at mc donalds.
| vmception wrote:
| purchase price of non-indie games have to go up like 3x then (at
| least), and people have to accept that....
|
| But since gamers are uniquely price sensitive for prices that
| haven't changed in 30 years, for an entertainment form that last
| longer than pretty much all other forms
|
| Then you have micropayments to nickel and dime gamers to reach
| the same result
| stodor89 wrote:
| Games are many things to many people. Don't play the ones that go
| against your personal values.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| JetAlone wrote:
| One interesting thing I've heard when working for a company that
| had microtransaction mechanics is, "Non paying players create
| content". By engaging in the community, even if in isolation they
| cost the devs money to host, they create the content and also the
| audience for the whale's behaviour.
|
| I think a lot of us have a vision of a childlike, halcyon
| "purity" of experience, in the joy of gameplay itself, that we
| would seek and enjoy with or without other people's presence,
| with or without money. We want to experience that, we also as
| programmers (who may have learned to code because we like games)
| often have a deep desire to create that, to give it to others.
| It's like the "Beatific Vision" in the life of one who likes
| games.
|
| We all know there always was a need for money, and passionate
| creativity exists in its margin. I think the complaint here
| really is that this margin seems to have less room in the eyes of
| the complainers, because the pull for money is present in
| virtually every game loop now, as opposed to being outside of the
| box...
|
| A question I want to ask is, for newest generation of whales, is
| there a memory of some great, memorable exploratory rush in the
| big spend for them, part of a broader set of social interactions
| that gave them great joy and built them up in their community?
| Would their experience with the game due to this purchased power
| inspire them in any way, maybe to make some potentially positive,
| impactful life decisions? Or is it literally just a borderline
| scam at every single possible level?
|
| I dislike microtransactions of any kind strongly, but I am at
| least trying here to be open to the _possibility_ that someone
| who did them was able to feel something similar in relationship
| to them somehow.
| wincy wrote:
| I guess I'm not quite a whale but for a brief period of time I
| was spending several hundred dollars a week to run contests and
| pay for ships and game time for an Eve: Echoes (the mobile
| version, although I did play the original) corporation. We had
| 100+ people playing, I was their fearless leader, we had a war
| at one point, lots of fun. I knew once I stopped all the
| spending a lot of people would just leave and I wanted the
| party to keep going for a little while longer. I bought an iPad
| Pro so it'd be easier for me to administer my corporation. It
| was during COVID and it made me feel important and felt like I
| had friends. I couldn't keep it up though, and maybe 75 people
| evaporated to wherever they came from.
|
| We ended up with about 25 people sticking around, people
| idolized me and it was fun for awhile. Eventually (after a few
| months) I got bored and gave the reins over to a much less
| "fearless leader founder" person and much more "I am an
| accountant irl and Eve sounds neat" type person, which worked
| out pretty well, and the corporation thrived. I think back
| fondly to that and felt like it was worth it.
|
| Alternatively, maybe ten years ago I spent a similar amount of
| money on this mobile game that was like sim city and Pokemon
| and time lapse command and conquer all rolled into one. I hate
| that I played that and hate how they managed to get my
| addiction loop just right and I was spending most of my
| paycheck on this stupid game. I had a guild and "friends" there
| too but it just felt like we were a bunch of addicts justifying
| each other's spending habits. We knew what the in app purchase
| limits were for apple and how to get around them and stuff that
| just seems insane to me now.
| JetAlone wrote:
| Thank you, this is a very interesting answer.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Lol whatever, play other games then
| tills13 wrote:
| Video games, movies, TV, books, etc have never been better yet
| all people focus on are the bad examples. There have always been
| bad examples. Get out of the past.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I hope this post doesn't give Netflix ideas. I could easily see
| an exec reading that and thinking "hey what if we charged extra
| for the directors cut and other scenes that weren't in the
| theatrical release". Would be a genius move tbh, and I would hate
| it.
| pengaru wrote:
| There's a lot to dislike, but my gripes as a developer who
| occasionally dabbles in games are more along the lines of "this
| puzzle game prototype is interesting and may be worth polishing
| up and tossing on steam, but oh right, it won't even pay for
| itself unless I turn it into yet another gambling machine."
|
| Then I go back to writing system software.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| That depends on how good the concept is! Plenty of indie games
| have succeeded without gambling mechanics, look at something
| like Baba Is You for instance. I don't know that the developer
| became rich off of it but be seems to have done well enough.
| techdragon wrote:
| This only works if you either already have a brand like
| Zachatronics or if you have the patience to support/polish
| these small games for years till the random slot machine of
| the universe drops you enough reviews that you get critical
| mass and decent sales... or you pay for PR and you can
| successfully profit from even a shit game with enough PR
| money so why bother at that point...
|
| Your right about a good concept winning a lot of good will
| and making success possible with less polish, but these days
| it doesn't subtract the "risk of never being discovered" if
| you make an iOS app your just one of millions in the App
| Store if it's on steam the shovelware isn't as bad and
| discovery is better but it still requires market
| understanding in order to stand out.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| The reason I referenced Baba Is You is because that concept
| was so incredibly brilliant, I legitimately believe you
| could have dropped the game into five parallel universes
| and it would have gotten attention every single time. Just
| get the game in front of one journalist for five minutes,
| and they'll very quickly see how brilliant it is.
|
| Discovering a game concept like that is _hard_ , but it
| does happen.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| What exactly makes you think as someone who "dabbles in games"
| to be entitled to profit?
|
| AFAIK it costs $100 +30% to publish on Steam. It only takes 260
| people to buy your game at 50 cents to break even. If your game
| can't sell 260 copies at 50 cents then it's just that,
| worthless.
|
| Why not just release your game for free, for free? Does it
| _have_ to be on Steam? Does it _have_ to make money?
| moron4hire wrote:
| Weird take to make on a site about entrepreneurship
| pengaru wrote:
| > AFAIK it costs $100 +30% to publish on Steam. It only takes
| 260 people to buy your game at 50 cents to break even. If
| your game can't sell 260 copies at 50 cents then it's just
| that, worthless.
|
| It doesn't take zero time to ship a bespoke finished game,
| your calculus is asinine.
| zimspy wrote:
| Break even on publishing costs. What about the man hours
| put into development?
| temp8964 wrote:
| How is that break even? Don't you need to invest time/money
| to make a game?
| bccdee wrote:
| The difference between someone who "dabbles in games" and a
| professional is that the professional polishes up the
| prototype and sells it on Steam. The commenter above
| explained why the state of the industry has prevented them
| from doing that. Your weird tangent asking "why do you feel
| entitled to make money for your work?" isn't really relevant
| to the conversation.
| bradknowles wrote:
| Do you have to eat?
|
| Do you have to have a place to sleep?
|
| Seems to me like making a reasonable amount of money to help
| towards these goals is not an unreasonable thing to hope for.
| But maybe you can prove me wrong?
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| You shouldn't be selling your game for 50c if you expect to
| live off it so the calculation is even more off.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Oh sorry sometimes I forget most people live in wage
| slavery.
| Loughla wrote:
| I'm genuinely confused by this. Are you saying that you
| shouldn't have to worry about eating and living indoors?
| Or are you saying that you literally forget people have
| to pay for those things? Can you please explain what you
| mean?
| chefandy wrote:
| I chastised a friend for getting so upset after losing half
| a dozen travelers checks on vacation. Get a grip -- it's $2
| worth of paper. If you can't afford to replace that you
| can't afford to be on vacation.
| bradknowles wrote:
| For me, I think the concern with Travelers Checks is the
| potential loss of money from your account, if someone is
| able to forge your signature on them, and how that might
| potentially be used to tie you to other events or crimes
| that may have occurred.
| [deleted]
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, people blame the developers, blame the publishers, but I
| think the sad truth is, gamers themselves shoulder much of the
| blame. Somehow the public came to believe that everything
| should be free. Maybe it was the internet? Maybe it was
| sites/apps like Facebook?
|
| Regardless, when a great piece of software that happens to have
| a price tag fails to sell, whose fault is that?
|
| Don't blame developers/publishers for going instead to the only
| model that pays the bills these days.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Artificial scarcity is bad, actually. Things that don't cost
| money to duplicate should be free, we need UBI and maybe a
| general shift to patronage-based models, luckily this is
| starting to happen.
|
| There are also plenty of games that implement a cometic
| lootboxes that don't impact gameplay model that are totally
| fine.
| collaborative wrote:
| This would lead to a society where there is no incentive to
| create any new digital goods.
|
| The patronage "platform" would be the new Apple/Google and
| would likely be riddled with corruption
| thot_experiment wrote:
| While my original comment is not my best work by any
| stretch (sorry), I implore you to reconsider the idea
| that all motivation is monetary (it's absolutely not) and
| that patronage must happen on a "platform" that will
| become corrupt in some way. I think discounting the
| possibility of novel systems that tackle these problems
| out of hand is not a good way to start.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Lot of assertions here about how society should be run
| without any actual argumentation.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Fair enough, it's not a great comment. I don't really
| know how society should be run, and I shouldn't have
| offhandedly emphasized a couple things that I think might
| lead us to a solution.
|
| That being said I'll stand by artificial scarcity being
| bad thing and clarify that while I don't have some master
| plan on how to create a functioning society where we
| don't have to impose artificial scarcity on the digital
| world; I absolutely think that is something we should be
| dedicating a lot of effort to. I reject the premise that
| we need to deny some people things that can be copied
| essentially for free.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > That being said I'll stand by artificial scarcity being
| bad thing and clarify that while I don't have some master
| plan on how to create a functioning society where we
| don't have to impose artificial scarcity on the digital
| world; I absolutely think that is something we should be
| dedicating a lot of effort to. I reject the premise that
| we need to deny some people things that can be copied
| essentially for free.
|
| Again this just sounds like an emotional argument -- you
| seem convinced on a purely intuitive level that
| artificial scarcity is bad without actually explaining
| rationally how the harm it does outweighs the benefits.
|
| There is a _very simple_ argument (which I'm not claiming
| is _true_ in all cases, but it is at least compelling, so
| anyone claiming the contrary needs to address it) in
| favor of artificial scarcity: taking away a major
| monetization strategy (often the only viable one)
| massively reduces the incentive to create high-quality
| products and we all end up poorer for those cultural
| outputs not existing.
| apatters wrote:
| This is like saying we should blame the smoker, the junkie,
| or the gambling addict. The latter is an especially accurate
| comparison because these companies turn their games into
| gambling machines.
|
| Sure, personal responsibility is important. In the end the
| only person who can free an addict from the quagmire of
| addiction is them. But that doesn't stop us from regulating
| the fuck out of tobacco companies, heroin dealers or casinos
| to reduce the harm they do to their victims.
|
| The elephant in the room is that we as an industry hold the
| power to alter people's psychology on a greater scale than
| any drug. But people stay silent because it delivers the
| paychecks and the shareholder returns...
| Gigachad wrote:
| Why blame anyone? Gamers get the content they want in the way
| they prefer to pay for it, developers and publishers get
| paid.
|
| The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that people
| prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play games.
| Just because it doesn't match the Hacker News gaming utopia
| template doesn't mean anyone is doing anything wrong.
|
| This is especially true for multiplayer games where a lot of
| children don't have money to buy the game but their presence
| on the platform adds value to the people who do have money to
| spend on it.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| > This is especially true for multiplayer games where a lot
| of children don't have money to buy the game but their
| presence on the platform adds value
|
| Playing a competitive FPS game casually with all age groups
| is lot of more fun and attractive to most gamers a la
| Apex/Warzone/Fortnite/Valorant/CSGO.
|
| By charging up front you remove an enormous player base and
| create a worse matchmaking experience for all players. Long
| gone are the days of buy a Call of Duty game for Christmas.
| playpause wrote:
| I also think "Why blame anyone?", but not because there's
| no problem. Just because it doesn't make sense to blame
| individuals for market movements.
|
| Markets are powered by billions of instances of "what
| someone wants" but that doesn't mean the resulting market
| movements are always a good indicator of what everyone
| wants as an environment. Sometimes aggregate human activity
| results in a crappy experience for most participants. "The
| market has spoken" is a glib, ideological phrase that can
| be used to dismiss any discussion about ways we could steer
| and improve markets to make them do a better job at
| facilitating human happiness and flourishing.
| bengy5959 wrote:
| Same thing for airlines. I hate the argument "consumers
| decided they wanted smaller seats, no free food or
| drinks, etc by buying the cheapest tickets." People just
| tried to get the best deal possible in the market, they
| aren't analyzing which airline has the best seats and
| amenities and making their decision from there.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that
| people prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play
| games.
|
| I wonder how many people on HN complaining about this model
| actually even consider themselves gamers.
|
| I'm a gamer. I spend 30-40 hours/week on PC games. I think
| the "Free-to-play with paid cosmetics" (Apex Legends,
| Rocket League, Splitgate, tons of other games that follow
| this model) is _perfectly fine_.
|
| I think part of the problem is that it's hard to have a
| conversation about this model because _someone_ will always
| make references to games that are pay-to-win (Most mobile
| games) or gate content behind a paywall (Not sure which
| games do this today), which are an entirely different beast
| and not a part of the conversation.
|
| EDIT: Just remembered League of Legends. It gates content
| (characters to play) behind progression, or you can pay
| money to unlock them immediately. But paid characters
| aren't necessarily more powerful, and they're constantly
| making adjustments to characters to try to keep them
| balanced. Any experienced player will tell you that paying
| money for a character perceived as being overpowered is
| foolish as it's guaranteed they'll eventually get nerfed.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| That's not true though. No game lives off the general
| public buying a few cosmetics. It lives off a few addicted
| people buying thousands of dollars worth, while the vast
| majority pay nothing. It's a terrible business model that
| will hopefully be outlawed in the coming decade.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I had assumed those "few addicted people buying thousands
| of dollars worth" were instead just people with a lot of
| disposable income.
|
| You could be right though, and it is addiction. That
| would in fact be uncool.
|
| My only data-point though is a friend of mine who has
| spent hundreds of dollars (or more?) on Star Citizen
| ships and he is the disposable-income kind of gamer.
| bytehowl wrote:
| This video by Jim Sterling is a good overview of how
| knowingly sinister microtransactions truly are, with a
| couple narrated testimonies of people who fell for them
| despite not being able to afford them.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-DGTBZU14
| tsimionescu wrote:
| There are combinations of both, for sure. But there was
| an interview some time ago on Eurogamer about a super
| spender (thousands of pounds) on Candy Crush who was
| awarded some airplane tickets to attend a Candy Crush
| convention, but she couldn't afford tickets to get to the
| airport...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That's extremely sad.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that
| people prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play
| games.
|
| All that the market discovered is that there is a huge
| number of "whales" that can be exploited. The "fun" will
| begin once the whales have squandered their money and will
| either leave entirely or, and that's the scenario I fear,
| some (or someone's relatives) will raise a sob story in
| front of their local newspaper or politician... ending in a
| repeat of the early 2000s with videogames being blamed as a
| whole for the excesses of a few, and religious and other
| moral fundamentalists getting ahead.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I agree. I too am, reluctantly, in the why-blame-anyone
| camp. I say reluctantly because I dislike the current state
| of affairs.
|
| My critique, pushing as much of the blame onto the gamers,
| was meant to point out that everyone/no one is to blame.
| greggsy wrote:
| IMO, it's the platforms that turn down novel ideas in
| preference for money making products, resulting in less
| visibility for the underdog. Apple's App Store routinely
| promotes paid for apps over free ones. Steam does the same.
| Google search is obviously the worst offender.
| shusaku wrote:
| The other option is to apparently blanket your game with
| advertisements. I spent some time yesterday looking for word
| games in the iOS store, and it seems like everything was
| "free", but had non stop, unskippable ads. One offered to
| remove ads for a fee, but even after paying they remained in
| various parts of the game.
| samatman wrote:
| Some of that is that Apple's App Store search remains the
| worst search engine I'm forced to use, but some of it is
| evaporative cooling from Apple Arcade.
|
| Most of the decent games have migrated there. I barely use
| it, but I think it works out to two bucks with the other
| iStuff I'm happy to pay for, and having a few games on my
| tablet or phone can be nice when I'm traveling.
| rstupek wrote:
| what type of word game were you looking for?
| temp8964 wrote:
| Almost all top iOS games are like this now, iPhone App Store
| is an extremely toxic market for games.
| farzher wrote:
| cosmetic cash shops is actually the best thing to happen to video
| games. i remember back when most multiplayer games were pay2win!
| now that's not a common thing anymore thanks to people paying for
| cosmetics
| dado3212 wrote:
| I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often
| hold up Rocket League as an example of a _great_ free-to-play
| game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of cosmetic items through free
| play. 2) The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on
| gameplay and are just visuals.
|
| For the same reason that people wear nice clothes in real life,
| why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a
| video game? Are you surprised that people don't just wear
| monochrome black shirts in real life? Likewise, you can resell RL
| items, there's a market for that. Are you surprised when you
| can't resell a shirt you wore for a year at the same price as
| when you bought it?
|
| That's not to say that games where progression is locked behind
| time gates where you need to buy 1000 Realm Warp Crystals or
| whatever just to actually play the game aren't a toxic hell. But
| that doesn't seem to be what the article is pushing against.
| meonmyphone wrote:
| While I agree Rocket League is a good example of a free to play
| with cosmetics, I think it got worse with the blueprint system.
| Now you're limited to one item per week (from the blue
| lootbox). And if you get the blueprint of item you want, you
| can't pay only for that item, you need to buy a package of
| credits, that may be more than you actually need.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Yeah, cosmetic items are the least bad solution to this problem
| since they provide zero advantage to players. They're there for
| people who want to look cool online which is fine.
|
| Paying for items that impact the game balance turns them into
| spending competitions: whoever pays the company the most money
| wins. Games designed like this are not even worth playing. I
| fell for one of these money sinks once, never again.
| skazazes wrote:
| This reminds me of an old trick from the Call of Duty 4: Modern
| Warfare days. You could edit the player model skins locally if
| you had the correct Photoshop plugins installed. Players would
| just spray over the character model skins with blaze orange so
| you could pick people out from across the map, even if they
| were hiding in deep vegetation. Eventually the 'pro-mod'
| developers caught on and implemented some client side hash
| checking but the public non 'pro-mod' servers were never
| protected against this afaik
| nanochad wrote:
| madrox wrote:
| I think a lot of people naively think of moves like this as
| pure money grabs and don't appreciate that a lot of these moves
| are out of survival...especially for games like Rocket League
| that require a sufficient player base to even be a viable live
| service game.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Well, Rocket League doesn't _need_ to be a "viable live
| service game", it could just be a regular multiplayer game
| that gives you a client and server executable to run your
| own.
|
| It isn't like not being a live service game killed Quake 3,
| for example.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Quake 3 is over twenty years old though.
|
| Yes, obviously a big part of it is that every studio is
| hoping for their game to become the next WoW or Fortnite or
| Destiny-- a franchise that will print money for a decade
| with not much more investment than a few content drops a
| year.
|
| But I think the expectations of players have changed too,
| as far as matchmaking, leaderboards, progression, anti-
| cheat, anti-abuse, etc. You just can't deliver these things
| in a consistent way with the distributed client-server
| model, and companies needed to own the end-to-end
| experience vs farming out the community management side to
| faceless volunteer guild/clan/server operators.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| Yes, Psyonix could drop development of RL and start work on
| new titles. That's just comparatively risky for them.
|
| > It isn't like not being a live service game killed Quake
| 3, for example.
|
| Dead to who? It still has players, but it's "financially"
| dead, which is what the studio cares about when making
| these choices.
| roganartu wrote:
| I have 2600 hours in Rocket League. It's a fair bit for a
| "casual" player, but it's got nothing on pros (who are
| mostly up over 15k hours these days). I have some friends I
| play fairly regularly with, but we don't usually play
| against each other we play with each other.
|
| The main reason I still play is to continue improving, and
| I don't think I could ever do that effectively if I was
| limited to only playing against people in my local sphere.
| My rank typically puts me somewhere in the top 1% of
| players (and honestly, I'm not even that good. The skill
| ceiling is insanely high), online match making may be
| frustrating sometimes but it's the easiest way to find
| opponents who will push those boundaries.
|
| Would a hosted server work well for people who are much
| lower ranks who are primarily playing to just mess around
| with friends? Probably. I would quit tomorrow if online
| matchmaking went away though.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I guess it depends what you mean by need. Many multiplayer
| games (like AoE2) have switched to a hosted server approach
| because it's better for performance and matchmaking. I
| mean, thinking back 15 years, non-LAN multiplayer was not
| very good at all. Even LAN multiplayer could be hard to set
| up. Even today, it's fairly limited (especially since your
| upload speed is probably severely limited). But hosted
| servers for everything have been fantastic. Multiplayer FPS
| games have extremely good performance. Network issues for
| games like AoE2 aren't nearly as prevalent.
| tjader wrote:
| I don't believe RL or other modern online games could
| survive with even a tenth of the player base if they didn't
| have decent matchmaking, and you can't have decent
| matchmaking if you depend on players finding each other
| outside the game and one of them running a server and
| sharing the IP address. It's way too much friction to
| expect most players to do that.
| paulmd wrote:
| Console games survive perfectly fine without any sort of
| anticheat/etc, maybe that would be bad for PC gaming but
| games could sustain their player base without anticheat,
| and matchmaking is neither necessary (lots of multiplayer
| games just don't use it at all) nor is it particularly
| expensive to run if that's all you're doing.
|
| Obviously that would be a problem on the PC but games
| would remain popular and publishers would get paid
| without either of those things. Games as a whole wouldn't
| go anywhere. They just make more money this way.
| ericsoderstrom wrote:
| I think it is a problem though when a game's revenue mostly
| comes from cosmetics, as it shifts the developer incentives
| away from "developing a game that lots of people want to buy
| and play" to "making the type of game that lends itself well to
| lots of cosmetic micro transactions". These are often pretty
| different types of games and it would be sad if the former were
| entirely replaced by the latter.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Yeah but if the game isnt interesting than the cosmetics dont
| sell.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| Fundamentally the biggest driver of selling cosmetics is
| still just the size of your player base. Companies are still
| really out there trying to make sure people play their games.
| Exceptions exist (I'm looking at you mobile games), but for
| the most part I don't see a massive shift in incentives.
|
| IMO the big change is to do with the lifecycle of games.
| Previously you release a new title, maybe a few DLCs, and
| then you move on. The game is done, you have to do something
| else, a sequel, a new IP, whatever. That was true for all
| games, multiplayer included. Now (for multiplayer) the idea
| is to try different releases until one sticks, and then try
| and make that game evergreen. The dream being something like
| League of Legends, which has been printing money for over a
| decade.
|
| Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate I
| suppose.
| criddell wrote:
| > Are you surprised when you can't resell a shirt you wore for
| a year at the same price as when you bought it?
|
| The complaint isn't about depreciation but rather the inability
| sell the items at all.
| therouwboat wrote:
| "Are you surprised that people don't just wear monochrome black
| shirts in real life?"
|
| No and thats why its silly to say rocket league items have no
| impact on gameplay, ofcourse its nicer play with hot wheels car
| that has animated decals than grey corolla.
|
| I would like game to be more like "if you get this good, you
| get these cool items" instead of something like "if we put paid
| rewards right next to free rewards, then 15% of our playerbase
| is going to buy paid tier." :/
|
| I had no problem with dlc cars, it felt like I was supporting
| the game, now it feels like I'm being manipulated to give money
| to somebody who owns rocket league.
| imiric wrote:
| > now it feels like I'm being manipulated to give money to
| somebody who owns rocket league.
|
| Epic Games. Why are we surprised by this when they saw a cash
| cow when they bought it, and have done nothing but turn it
| into another Fortnite?
|
| I think this type of game needs its own genre. Fortnite, RL,
| GTA Online, Warzone... They all follow the same model of
| "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it"
| perpetually by squeezing as much revenue as you can from your
| users".
|
| I was a huge RL fan in 2015/16. It started going down hill
| sometime after that and EG has run it into the ground.
| gigaflop wrote:
| "Live Service" or "Games as a Service" may be the vocab
| you're looking for.
|
| The game exists as a monetization engine. Some amount of
| fresh content is required to keep feeding the machine, but
| the goal is generally to let the machine run while dropping
| in bits of content and purchasable junk for the players to
| consume.
| cinntaile wrote:
| > They all follow the same model of "build a good
| multiplayer experience and "support it" perpetually by
| squeezing as much revenue as you can from your users".
|
| It's a viable business model and it allows players to enjoy
| the game for many years to come. What bothers me a little
| is that these revenue extracting schemes are usually very
| complicated and are probably complicated because it allows
| them to extract as much money as possible from a small
| subset of players. Like casino's and mobile games.
| paulmd wrote:
| > I think this type of game needs its own genre. Fortnite,
| RL, GTA Online, Warzone... They all follow the same model
| of "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it"
| perpetually by squeezing as much revenue as you can from
| your users".
|
| that's called "live service". In theory. A lot of games try
| to skip the "build a game that's actually fun and
| reasonably complete" part and just race to dump it on the
| market as soon as it's barely (or not even) playable and
| think they'll add content later. That's not live service,
| that's early access, and it's killed BFV and then BF2042
| after it, Anthem, etc. EA is very very bad about this.
|
| But yeah, when you hear a publisher say that a game is
| going to be a "live service", that's what it means, they
| want to do the fortnite model and squeeze ongoing revenue
| from the player base by whatever means. Sometimes it's
| cosmetic-only, sometimes it's not (R6: Siege), sometimes it
| starts one way and then becomes gameplay-affecting 6 months
| or 12 months down the road when they've got a player base
| who's attached to the game.
|
| Of course, just like changing the game to add P2W elements
| after the fact, sometimes they won't. Valve basically
| abandoned TF2 about 5 years ago, they are still raking in
| money from it (it's still a top-10 game on steam...) but
| they won't even keep up with anti-cheat let alone continue
| development. Or even continue live service. No live
| service, only pay. And nor will they even allow the
| community to fix the game on their own, like Team Comtress
| 2...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnBDMZ-9-Dw
| somedude895 wrote:
| Even with Rocket League microtransactions are a bad idea. It
| incentivizes the developer to make attaining items through
| gameplay a slog in order to get you to skip that by paying up.
| If there was no way to get those items through mtx, they'd make
| the process of getting them fun.
|
| Also, games are supposed to be a form of escapism, where the
| gameplay matters, not who you are and how much money your
| parents make.
|
| You can argue in favor of the game itself being free allowing
| people to save 10 or 20 bucks. But gameplaywise
| Microtransactions inevitably make the gameplay experience
| worse, without exceptions.
| tjader wrote:
| Anectdata: I have over 2000 hours of Rocket League, never
| once spent any money on it after purchasing it and never one
| have I felt that my fun was impacted by the available
| microtransactions.
|
| Nothing that can be purchased in the game affects gameplay,
| it's all just cosmetics.
| elcomet wrote:
| you didn't even buy the fennec car?
| tjader wrote:
| I'm not sure, why do you ask specifically about the
| Fennec?
|
| I have bought some items, but only by trading free drops
| for keys/credits.
| elcomet wrote:
| It seems to be the most common item people buy (because
| it can actually slightly affect your performance as it
| better matches the hitbox, and it is the most used
| competitively). I know a lot of people who never bought a
| single item, except for the fennec.
| tjader wrote:
| The Fennec's hitbox is the same as the Octane:
| https://twitter.com/RL_Support/status/1144311306415157248
|
| As far as I know all custom cars have the same hitbox as
| one of the freely available cars.
| elcomet wrote:
| The fennec hitbox is the same as the Octane, but the
| design of the car better matches the hitbox compared to
| the Octane. So you can be more precise with your touches.
| tjader wrote:
| Ah, I understand what you mean now. I can't say that
| feels relevant at all at my level of play.
| thoughtpalette wrote:
| Feel the same at 3k+ hours and 4x GC.
|
| The biggest issue I have with free to play is there's
| virtually no barrier for smurf accounts.
| tomatowurst wrote:
| it's also super hard to build a great f2p and i think CSGO
| easily is the best. they bootstrapped it for almost 2 decades
| from a mod made by Minh Le to what it is today and I must say
| it is the only f2p game I regularly play.
|
| simply because it actually pays to play. I've made about $20
| bucks this month from just selling cases given out randomly at
| the end of each match. It cost me nothing to buy yet the in
| game items (cosmetic skins that don't influence gameplay)
| regularly sell for good money.
|
| it also make sense to buy the keys to unlock the cases
| sometimes simply because you might unlock a skin that fetches
| far more money. so it is a bit like gambling in that aspect.
|
| i'm just constantly amazed how they were able to pull the
| economics behind this. clearly the ppl who expect a 10~100x ROI
| on their keys must outnumber those selling the cases. I mean I
| can imagine a bunch of people just farming cases day and night.
| Perhaps even a sophisticated AI could pull it off since the in
| game drops aren't even correlated with your performance.
|
| even more impressive is how this is all legal since it really
| is gambling of sorts.
| tpxl wrote:
| > so it is a bit like gambling in that aspect
|
| It's not a bit like gambling, it's exactly gambling and the
| predatory nature of it is what I hate about video games.
| tomatowurst wrote:
| you can still enjoy the game without taking part in it as
| it is optional and does not change your odds of winning,
| that is still skill based. if somebody wants to pay for a
| fancy skin I don't really see an issue.
|
| people bet on soccer too but that shouldn't stop you from
| getting excitement from it.
| mnsc wrote:
| > ... i think CSGO easily is the best ...
|
| > ... so it is a bit like gambling ...
|
| I hate what video games have become.
| tomatowurst wrote:
| I don't mind CSGO's flavor since it doesn't cost you money
| like poker but I can absolutely see somebody trying to buy
| multiple keys in hopes of unlocking a really good skin.
|
| again this doesn't impact the gameplay at all and I'm happy
| to earn some money. was able to buy another title on steam
| with the money accrued
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| I don't know if you're just naive or not, but you're
| paying with literally the most valuable currency you
| have.
|
| That doesn't mean it isn't fun to do so, although there's
| a very high chance you'll come to regret the number of
| hours pumped into such games and the way they kept you
| engaged in their dopamine loop.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _I hate what video games have become._
|
| I think this is more than anything, an app store sickness.
|
| It has spread a little to consoles and desktop, but I can
| still buy a 100% offline, single player game, which has the
| main purpose of entertaining me.
|
| It has a story, a point to it, a mystery often, fun things
| to do which aren't mining or grinding away.
|
| I pay 80 bucks for the privilege, and am quite happy to do
| so. It is worth it, giving me many hours of entertainment.
|
| Some boast "oh I finished the game first run through in 8
| hours" Really? Such players just ignore all the scenery,
| don't really explore, don't grasp the full mystery, just...
| fast fast! Gotta get this over with!
|
| I play and take in the scenery, and games like the Last of
| Us, Horizon Zero Dawn are fun, take 50 to 100 hours to play
| this way.
|
| Just reading things in-games, clues, discovering how these
| worlds got this way was 1/2 the fun of the game!
|
| So stop playing on your portable addiction device. Its hold
| is more devious too, as it is always in your pocket.
|
| Your PC, console, are with you on the bus. At work. In the
| kitchen.
|
| Return to us, good sir. Return to real gaming.
| rak wrote:
| It gets even better.
|
| With CSGO third parties were essentially selling games for
| actual currency instead of credit with Valve and using skins
| as currency for gambling on esports matches. A few of them
| also came up with other gambling games that didn't even
| involve esports.
|
| It was also a great vehicle for money laundering:
| https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/oct/30/counter-
| strike...
|
| Wild times.
| 878654Tom wrote:
| > even more impressive is how this is all legal since it
| really is gambling of sorts.
|
| In my home country (Belgium) and my neigboring country
| (Netherlands) a lot of games their lootboxes are not
| available for us for the reason that the game-creators do not
| advertise the dropchances like the lottery, casino's and
| other gambling games are forced to do.
|
| The reasoning is that the items that come out of the lootbox
| have a monetary value (as you need to pay to unlock a
| lootbox) so they fall under some of our gambling laws.
|
| In my eyes, good riddance and I hope more countries will
| follow.
|
| So Valve, EA Games,... just disabled opening lootboxes for us
| as they seem to be afraid to advertise the "drop chances"
| (but we can still buy and sell them)
| legalcorrection wrote:
| As someone who once played a lot of counter strike, this
| comment is baffling. How about the part of the game where you
| try to shoot the people on the other team? Is that part fun
| or are you just in it for the casino mechanics?
| tomatowurst wrote:
| I've been playing since 1.3, what part of it did you find
| baffling? you are not rewarded based on game performance,
| it is completely random to the point I don't even think
| about it and so I'm always focused on having fun.
|
| it just so happens that I seem to get good cases that I was
| able to sell for a bit of change but it is not like you can
| play 20 hours every week and make consistent money.
| Sebguer wrote:
| Is 1) actually still true? I haven't played recently, but I
| recall quite a few chests that you have to buy keys for in
| order to get items out of?
| meonmyphone wrote:
| Instead of crates, there are now blueprints. And instead of
| keys, there's credit to unlock the item of the blueprint. And
| instead of item drops, there are blueprints. There are still
| lootboxes, but these can be obtained only in events or
| challenges.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| They got rid of keys a couple years ago. Now they have
| blueprints instead.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Are you surprised when you can't resell a shirt you wore for
| a year at the same price as when you bought it?
|
| No, because the market for second-hand clothing is extremely
| oversaturated and clothing, particularly "fast fashion", simply
| does not last long enough to live a useful second life any
| more.
|
| A video game skin however does not degrade, it will look the
| very same (or better) even in two decades.
| qwery wrote:
| The whole 'preying on the vulnerable' thing kind of puts me
| off. But I want to respond to this:
|
| > The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay
| and are just visuals
|
| Cosmetic items are not _just visual_ though. They are real
| elements in the game. Cosmetic items are interactive. They are
| unlockable, collectable, wearable items.
|
| Further, visuals do impact the gameplay. You could argue about
| the difference between "gameplay" and "visuals" but each
| supports/influences the other and both are critical elements of
| almost every videogame. However you divide up the parts of a
| game, they all affect each other. Generally speaking, having
| all of the elements working together makes for a better game.
|
| Monetisation strategies like microtransactions, loot boxes,
| etc. are also part of the game. However, the goal of such parts
| is not aligned with that of the others. The game is compromised
| by the introduction of the monetisation strategies.
|
| > why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a
| video game?
|
| Nobody is surprised by this.
| SentientNo4 wrote:
| > Cosmetic items are not just visual though. They are real
| elements in the game.
|
| Yes, I really hate this argument that cosmetics are not
| gameplay. Visuals are a huge part of what makes a game, no
| one would be happy if games shipped without textures and
| shaders and people would have to pay to unlock them.
| boredtofears wrote:
| The hitboxes are the same, so to any seasoned player the
| visuals really don't matter gameplay wise, as long as the
| model isn't too out of scale with it's hitbox.
| originalvichy wrote:
| Unless there have been changes in the game, different
| cars have different hitboxes so technically in this
| circumstance you might be wrong. Not that there any
| absolutely amazing car for hitboxes, but there are
| differences and they affect gameplay.
| boredtofears wrote:
| Nope, there's just a few different hit box models, the
| visual model just gets assigned to one of the existing
| different hit boxes.
| lajy wrote:
| I assume you're still talking about Rocket League? All
| models in that game fall under 1 of 6 hitbox types [1],
| each of which are attainable without purchase
|
| [1] https://support.rocketleague.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360029832...
| originalvichy wrote:
| Gotcha. I didnt know they had a cap on the number of
| models.
| pharke wrote:
| You're strawmanning, they don't ship Rocket League with all
| the graphics turned off and force you to pay for them. They
| sell silly hats and skins in addition to the already great
| graphics that they provide with the base model.
| bko wrote:
| I see it just as price discrimination and I'm fine with it.
| I can choose to play with "worse" visuals for a lower
| price. If I want "better" visuals I can pay for that as
| well. I'm just happy that I have the chance to play for a
| low cost (sometimes free). I let others who care more about
| that stuff fund the cost of development. I'm essentially a
| free-rider.
|
| That of course assumes that the game isn't sold to me with
| these "better" visuals as included.
| entropie wrote:
| > if games shipped without textures and shaders
|
| Back in the days we used mods and texture packs to remove
| (hardware) expensive textures from the game so we get more
| FPS. I'm not sure if your argument applies to all games.
| For many games there is a competitive scene that usually
| don't give a shit about visuals and would trade most visual
| features for more frames per second.
| relativeadv wrote:
| And just another example. Path of Exile is a game known for
| its visual clutter when you reach the end game. You have so
| many mobs and skills flying around it is very difficult to
| tell what is going on. You can buy cosmetics to make
| different skill gems appear different when they are cast,
| including mobs. Often, these alternative skill cosmetics
| create a greater visual clarity than their default. My
| point is that if there is a skill that can one-shot kill my
| character i'd like to see it as clear as day when it is
| coming. Paying money in Path of Exile gets me that.
| nopcode wrote:
| A better phrasing is whether they offer a competitive
| advantage.
| some_random wrote:
| The reality is that they kinda do, people with expensive
| cosmetics are viewed as being better players by their
| teammates and opponents. The significance of this can be
| hard to measure, but in most games it's bigger than a
| small stat boost that would be immediately seen as p2w
| godshatter wrote:
| So the less skilled players with expensive cosmetics get
| their abilities over-estimated while the skilled players
| in the base skins get their abilities under-estimated.
| That sounds like a win for the skilled players in the
| base skins to me. Better to be under-estimated than over-
| estimated.
| usrusr wrote:
| While I get the impression that many of those visual
| bling payables available today seem to give more of a
| disadvantage than an advantage, back in the days of 1.6
| CS I caught myself _in real life_ considering the
| contrast between what I wore and the environment I was
| passing through. Not because I was expecting to get shot
| at (I certainly wasn 't), but because at the time it was
| so much of a routine consideration for me. Yes, visuals
| can be a competitive factor.
| Terretta wrote:
| Underlining this comment -- Ubisoft games, such as
| Division or Breakpoint, allow purchase of national camo
| designs.
|
| If these had no "gameplay" effect or "competitive
| advantage" based on environment, why do nation states
| spend money developing them and equip troops differently
| based on biome?
|
| And why have some games had to patch their PvP to
| "outline" opposing players with a visibility border in
| the patches that follow certain "cosmetics"?
|
| A more subtle advantage can arise from hitboxes in both
| hitscan and projectile games with customizers or
| cosmetics that change the mesh. There's a reason some
| games are predominantly female characters in close fit
| gear.
|
| Finally, even games that insist no gameplay or
| competitive advantage, are fully aware of "the meta".
|
| In Fallout 76, for example, PvP players learned to hotkey
| the "Nuka-Cola" drinks with special benefits. In a for
| money store, Bethesda allows you to purchase a robot junk
| collector that gathers Nuka-Colas for free. Rationale is
| it is just a QoL (quality of life) benefit, but in
| reality, it allows stockpiling a combat advantage to last
| longer in combat than the opponent. Same store also
| allows you to purchase "repair kits" for weapons and
| "bubble gum" that suppresses the survival mechanism
| around eating/drinking for an hour of game play.
|
| Again, Bethesda's claim is QoL not pay-to-win, but
| weapons repairable mid-battle away from one's base
| certainly affects winning, and level of hunger/thirst
| affects damage multipliers and action point refresh (aka
| 'mana').
|
| Lines keep moving.
| ikurei wrote:
| Why? Why is competitive advantage the only thing that
| matters?
|
| OP is just ranting about people who pay more getting a
| better experience, making paying such a central part of
| gaming. They just hate this, which I agree with, although
| I know others don't.
|
| In a way, getting a better experience just for being able
| and willing to pay more is a basic feature of our
| society. Why should we expect videogames, being as
| expensive and lucrative, to be radically different from
| the rest of society?
|
| I'll just continue appreciating those games who are,
| those who actually work more like art. If I ever decide
| to try a F2P loot-box generator-style game, it generally
| puts me off quickly.
| dreen wrote:
| IMHO when a game centres around competitive play, and
| said game also allows you to buy competitive advantage
| for real money, that is a problem. A situation like this
| is called "pay to win" and is tempting enough for some
| game companies to ruin their game with.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Why? Why is competitive advantage the only thing that
| matters?
|
| Because it determines whether free players can still
| compete with paying customers.
|
| There's no problem with a paid weapon skin that just
| looks cool since everyone is still on a level playing
| field. If that paid skin gives the user double damage
| then you've created 2 classes of players and one of them
| is superior. In such cases, the only reason free players
| even exist is to serve as fodder for your paying
| customers. They're there to get wrecked.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| > Why? Why is competitive advantage the only thing that
| matters?
|
| Because unlike the _real_ world, we expect games to be
| inherently _fair_ and _meritocratic_. In a competitive
| game, we expect that no matter how somebody looks or what
| they may say, the only thing that matters is their
| ability to perform. This is comparable to why people get
| upset about, say, the speed-enhancing swimwear for the
| Olympic games but don 't have any problem with that
| swimwear existing.
|
| One of the central functions of games is to level the
| playing field, or at least to reduce the dimensionality
| to such a degree that it is possible to be focused on
| _all_ influencing factors in a game within the confines
| of that game. A closed-system, when we 're usually all
| stuck playing in an open-system. Since all real-world
| closed-systems actually exist within an open-system, of
| course there could be external influences, but gamers
| generally have an expectation that attempts will be made
| to make a game as self-contained and closed as is
| possible. Pay-to-win games break this contract to make
| those unwilling to pay into unwitting tools for the
| enjoyment of the paying customer. They are open-systems
| under the guise of being closed-systems.
|
| Granted, the category referred to as "Games" now includes
| many different things, including "Experiences" that
| aren't really games at all. And there are so many games
| today that it's pretty easy to find games that are
| actually games at their core. But there's also plenty of
| games that are _marketed_ as games but turn out to be
| significantly about art / fashion to such a degree that
| they can no longer really be classified as games.
|
| I've got call out Roblox for playing the meta-game here
| in a way that all gamers frustrated by pay-to-win will
| appreciate. It takes the idea of a closed system being
| broken into an open system, and makes _that_ (making F2P
| games) into a closed system that breaks into an open
| system: you get to pay-to-win at creating pay-to-win
| games. A beautiful pyramid scheme that even your 11-yo
| child can enjoy being exploited within!
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I think they do, but only if they add to camouflage
| williamscales wrote:
| Look good, feel good, play good?
|
| It seems to me that it definitely has a psychological
| impact for some folks (myself included) in both off-line
| and on-line competition.
| __ryan__ wrote:
| Look "good"? Come on. If not having the Pickle Rick decal
| for your car makes you play worse it has nothing to do
| with looking "good". Perhaps look "like I own this
| exclusive cosmetic", which applies to offline as well,
| don't you think?
|
| The real problem is that loot boxes are gambling, and are
| addictive, period. It triggers something in otherwise
| rational people, especially children, that makes it feel
| good to spend money on mostly non-gameplay-altering
| cosmetics.
| williamscales wrote:
| Oh I totally agree that the system right now is majorly
| screwed up. Loot boxes are absolutely gambling (why else
| would the odds be legally required to be disclosed in
| some jurisdictions?)
|
| And of course it's a vanity component (at least for me,
| though other posters have raised other factors).
| Everyone's different with different preferences and as
| long as there's not a problematic spending aspect I think
| it's fine...but this links back to the gambling issue.
| Personally I only buy cosmetics in a few games I play a
| lot and that don't use loot box mechanics.
| paulmd wrote:
| At some level it probably does. Even in Rocket League,
| which is more cosmetic than most, if your teammates are
| passing to you more than they would have with the default
| skin, then you'll do better.
|
| As a medic in team fortress 2, I usually pocket and
| ubercharge the players with cosmetics. It's an important
| team resource, and the odds of someone with a "default"
| skin making good use of it are fairly low. Much like
| plumage for a bird it's a reliable signal of "virility" -
| if you're invested enough in the game to own a $200 hat
| and a coordinated outfit then you've probably played it
| long enough for me to trust you sight-unseen.
|
| http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f278/katietiedrich/comi
| c26...
|
| If you're a pro player with the default skin, you're
| gonna have a bad fucking time, because you're last
| priority for heals, you're not getting an ubercharge,
| etc. That is gameplay-affecting even if the cosmetic
| itself is not.
| pharke wrote:
| If you make all skins and cosmetics available to everyone
| then you're back to square 1 and people will use some
| other heuristic to decide who they should pass to. I
| think this is actually an argument _for_ paid cosmetics,
| it would improve gameplay for the people who spend the
| most time playing the game by allowing them to identify
| other people who also dedicate a lot of time and money to
| the game.
| gknoy wrote:
| This is the first really good example I've seen of
| cosmetics having a gameplay effect. I hate that it's
| true, but I really appreciate you mentioning it --
| signalling of skill is super valuable, and if cosmetics
| are a reliable enough signal, that's interesting.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| > no one would be happy if games shipped without textures
| and shaders and people would have to pay to unlock them.
|
| Not a meaningful comparison. A game without textures would
| be hardly playable at all. The same can't be said for skins
| or accessories to your character/vehicle. You don't get
| eye-cancer with the default skin. If you feel you need that
| virtual Louis Vuitton bag to fully enjoy the game then well
| be a sucker and pay for it and pretend the game was just a
| little more expensive. I've yet to encounter a game where I
| feel like I'm missing out on anything with the default
| player model/skin/car.
| codyb wrote:
| The Rocket Pass is a pretty sweet deal if you play a fair
| amount. I think it's 10 bucks and you can earn enough
| credits to get the next season's Rocket Pass.
|
| I don't really muss with my car too much anymore, instead
| I just click "Equip Now" every time I can and slowly
| modify it over time.
| swills wrote:
| That's fine for you. A lot of these games are social
| experiences. Kids do get called names and bullied for
| having a default skin. Peer pressure drives a lot of the
| purchasing of cosmetics. That's why you'll rarely find
| paid cosmetics in games that don't also feature social
| aspects.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Yes but that's the point. That's all external and cannot
| be blamed on the game, or taken to mean the game is
| incomplete without. Extending on that, there should then
| also be a ban on fashion and luxury items in any shape or
| form IRL, as they do the same things to kids (and
| adults). And a ban on violence in videogames, as I'm sure
| there's someone out there who's been pushed over the edge
| by it and committed a crime they otherwise wouldn't have.
|
| So where do we stop? This is just one more way, in
| addition to the thousands we already have, in which peer
| pressure and status symbols manifest.
| dwild wrote:
| > Yes, I really hate this argument that cosmetics are not
| gameplay.
|
| I don't disagree that they do add something, but theses
| ones are not something that I want, nor that I need.
|
| > if games shipped without textures and shaders and people
| would have to pay to unlock them.
|
| I do have to pay for the textures and shaders... I did pay
| for them as a matter of fact. I didn't pay for the one not
| included, as I didn't want them. Some did want them, and
| did pay for them individually. Just like I didn't pay for
| Elden Ring but plenty did...
|
| Now, when you bought that game, if you were expecting a
| specific amount of content, and you didn't get that content
| without paying more, I agree completely, that would be
| false advertising and that would be definitely wrong.
|
| False advertising is definitely an issue in video games,
| there's so much overpromising and under-delivering but IAP
| isn't the issue there (though it definitely can be the
| reason for your false advertising). Until that part is
| handled correctly, the market did alleviate most of the
| false advertising by having an abundant amount of reviews
| and to me that's a not so bad way to deal with this.
| gmadsen wrote:
| I think people usually mean there is no competitive
| advantage with cosmetics.
| bbarn wrote:
| > Further, visuals do impact the gameplay.
|
| Not only that, sometimes they can affect the basic mechanics
| too. For example, some guns in Destiny 2 the range is
| measured from the end of the weapon model, and some skins
| extend the model out so the gun is further from the player.
| This in a one v. one scenario can give you a slight edge on
| one shot kill distance if you have the skin, so you can shoot
| earlier than an opponent without it.
| [deleted]
| paulmd wrote:
| > Monetisation strategies like microtransactions, loot boxes,
| etc. are also part of the game. However, the goal of such
| parts is not aligned with that of the others. The game is
| compromised by the introduction of the monetisation
| strategies.
|
| Yup, I think this gets lost in the "visual-only cosmetics are
| fine/gameplay-affecting is bad" position. The problem is that
| in most cases, even if the cosmetic is purely visual, games
| are now being designed around "how do we incorporate
| cosmetics" which is constraining the types of experiences
| that are being made and the mechanics they allow.
|
| Battlefield 2042 is an example of a game that completely
| upended its traditional mechanics to pull in the concept of
| "operators" (like R6: Siege) because they knew they could
| make more money selling operators. And at some level that's
| gameplay affecting, maybe not the ideal picture of what
| happens when MTX gets involved, but that's always the
| temptation - "we'll make it gameplay-affecting, but it'll be
| fair". Once you bring money into the picture you are reliant
| on developers to take the high road - not just today, but for
| as long as the game is active/you're interested.
|
| Its predecessor, BFV, was skin-based and it was still
| controversial not just that you had random Fortnite-style
| nazi characters running around the Pacific Theater or
| Japanese Rambo Lady running around Norway, but because they
| started to introduce tons of animations so that players could
| at least see the skins they paid $20 a pop for - and that is
| a basic game-design thing that affects everyone regardless of
| whether you yourself pay up or not.
|
| At a more basic level, the single-player RPG is essentially
| dead because it's the most difficult to introduce MTX
| mechanics into those genre of games. And sure you can point
| to Elden Ring but even then they are using "cooperative" or
| "inter-session" mechanics that fundamentally exist as a way
| to get an "always-online" server system into the picture as a
| platform for MTX. You've got forced Denuvo on everything. Etc
| etc.
|
| And again, even when it's done right, there is still an
| incentive to make the "free" mechanisms grindy so that
| players feel the urge to pay IRL money. LOTR: Shadow of War
| was an example of that where the game could technically be
| finished without MTX, but at a certain point the game ramped
| the difficulty so hard that it was virtually impossible,
| certainly impossible without suddenly turning the game into a
| second job. Many games similarly force hundreds of hours of
| grinding or... you can just pay and go play with your
| friends! You can get bait-and-switched once you are into the
| game and emotionally attached - and that can even occur after
| release/after reviews have been written, or even just so far
| into the game that most reviewers don't reach it in their 5
| hours of gameplay on their pre-release copy.
|
| Those MTX mechanism are still shaping gameplay mechanics even
| if they are "purely cosmetic" - and in many cases they are
| not, they are definitely gameplay-affecting by design (in
| major AAA/e-sports titles even, this isn't just random mobile
| crapware, R6:Siege is one of the most popular e-sports
| titles, LOTR is a mega-IP, etc). Games being designed around
| "how do we pump the player for cash most efficiently and with
| the least ability for them to hack around us" is itself a
| problem _either way_ though, that 's a corrosive mindset for
| game design as a whole that is enabled and encouraged by
| allowing MTX at all. Either you keep that camel out nose and
| all, or as soon as that nose is under the tent it's always
| going to be an insidious urge, and in many cases an explicit
| mandate from publishers to the studio.
|
| Also, yes, in anything where you interact with another
| player, your interactions are shaped by the other player's
| responses to you, which is determined by your cosmetics. I
| posted this deeper in the thread but to bring it back here:
|
| > As a medic in team fortress 2, I usually pocket and
| ubercharge the players with cosmetics. It's an important team
| resource, and the odds of someone with a "default" skin
| making good use of it are fairly low. Much like plumage for a
| bird it's a reliable signal of "virility" - if you're
| invested enough in the game to own a $200 hat and a
| coordinated outfit then you've probably played it long enough
| for me to trust you sight-unseen.
|
| > http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f278/katietiedrich/comic2
| 6...
|
| > If you're a pro player with the default skin, you're gonna
| have a bad fucking time, because you're last priority for
| heals, you're not getting an ubercharge, etc. That is
| gameplay-affecting even if the cosmetic itself is not.
|
| Paper that might be enlightening for those who haven't
| partaken: https://www.diva-
| portal.org/smash/get/diva2:901463/FULLTEXT0...
|
| (I should add that as medic, I had a golden medigun for a
| while too, and that was an extremely bad time for me, because
| every single roamer was absolutely gunning for the medic with
| the $100 item. Sometimes it pays to have some restraint in
| your plumage when you happen to be a particularly delicious
| and defenseless target...)
|
| I have such mixed feelings about TF2, because it was such a
| fantastic game, but it pioneered all these exploitative MTX
| mechanisms. The game itself was actually one of the better
| examples of how to do MTX properly (cosmetic only, tradeable
| by players, etc) but it immediately showed there was a lot
| more money in MTX than in making games, and opened the door
| to other actors to exploit much more heavily (compare the
| Overwatch model and its non-tradeability/gacha mechanics,
| R6:S with its gameplay-affecting operators, etc). It's also
| disgusting the way they've just continued to let the game rot
| without even basic bugfixes, it's been completely overwhelmed
| by hackers for 4 or 5 years now because they just won't patch
| their shit. Nor will they let the community patch their shit,
| like Team Comtress 2...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnBDMZ-9-Dw
| sobkas wrote:
| > At a more basic level, the single-player RPG is
| essentially dead because it's the most difficult to
| introduce MTX mechanics into those genre of games. And sure
| you can point to Elden Ring but even then they are using
| "cooperative" or "inter-session" mechanics that
| fundamentally exist as a way to get an "always-online"
| server system into the picture as a platform for MTX.
| You've got forced Denuvo on everything. Etc etc.
|
| Have you ever heard of thing called fashion souls? A lot of
| times I wear armour (pick and choose pieces) because it
| looks cool not because it have bigger numbers.
| crtasm wrote:
| > you can point to Elden Ring but even then they are
| introducing "cooperative" mechanics that fundamentally
| exist as a way to get an "always-online" server system into
| the picture as a platform for MTX.
|
| What? Co-op/PvP has been a major part of From Software's
| souls games going back to Demon's Souls in 2009. They can
| also be played entirely offline if you wish and have zero
| microtransactions or Denuvo.
| gigaflop wrote:
| If you're at the pro-level, then why does cosmetic choice
| matter? If it's actually a competitive environment, with
| people of similar skill levels, then you should be able to
| have some amount of trust in the skills of other players.
|
| If I were on an actual team of people, I'd expect cosmetics
| to only matter for at-a-glance identification of a specific
| player.
| paulmd wrote:
| because tf2 largely isn't centered around the "pro
| experience" even if the players are at the top of the
| playerbase. Comp is its own thing with its own rules, and
| "casual" gameplay is what the game is designed and
| balanced around. Comp usually bans about half or 2/3rds
| of the weapons in the game and imposes additional rules
| (class limits, no weapons pickups, etc). It's a
| completely different thing that happens to run on the
| same engine.
|
| Most games you will play with 23 other randoms who you
| will never see again after a couple hours. And that is
| actually the problem - on an actual competitive team your
| entire team would be decent and everyone would be there
| to play seriously and get stuff done. But in public games
| you need some kind of fitness signal to figure out which
| players are going to be a waste of a team's scarcest
| resource. How do you tell that from a bunch of players
| jumping around a spawn room like monkeys for a minute
| during the setup countdown? Cosmetics. Plumage.
|
| (and actually Valve have gone out of their way over the
| years to remove other potential signals, like sprays and
| chat...)
|
| Plumage evolved in nature for a reason, it's still
| functional and important even though it's "cosmetic-
| only". Games are a social phenomenon and plumage is still
| important to them too and that still affects your
| gameplay too.
| gigaflop wrote:
| In something like TF2, I'd probably rely more on the
| player's name than what they were wearing. If I recognize
| the name (even if only in the context of the one match),
| and know roughly how good they are, I can have my mental
| preference of who I prioritize.
|
| I usually play Deep Rock Galactic, which has some non-
| cosmetic ways to judge people's experience.
| Promotion(like prestige) of a class is indicated by a
| border color and number of stars, and indicates someone
| has played a character for promotion _25 levels. Bronze
| stars are okay, silver stars should be decent.
|
| 'Blue Levels' are also present. They serve as an
| indicator of how many times that player has leveled up
| _any* character. So, someone with blue level 100 and only
| one promotion star should still be considered experienced
| in terms of game sense, but not necessarily an expert on
| their character.
|
| Someone with low 'blue levels' and no stars is just a
| greenbeard, and should not be expected to be great.
| paulmd wrote:
| The TF2 player base is too big to recognize by name
| outside of smaller community servers (it's still about
| 100k peak and this is a fraction of what it was 10 years
| ago at its historical peak). Sometimes you may see one or
| two repeat players but mostly it's ships passing in the
| night and that's OK! There is something to be said for
| games that everyone is competitive for an hour and then
| everyone goes home.
|
| There is a similar player level mechanism in TF2 but not
| tied to classes at all, just a blue level type thing.
| That works in the starter room, but it's not a solution
| for the "I have two seconds to choose which of these
| players to uber before that soldier finishes bombing
| me"/"I need to pick one of these players to pocket to try
| and stay alive to keep the uber up for the team".
|
| Plumage works, you can instantly make a call that this is
| a default player and that one has cosmetics, or recognize
| the cosmetics of a person who has played well
| previously/who you gave a chance and they did something
| antisocial/stupid. Trying to identify a player name,
| finding them on the scoreboard, and then re-syncing with
| what has happened in the game in the last 5 seconds just
| isn't practical.
|
| Like, TF2 has been f2p for 10+ years now, random HNers
| aren't going to come up with the magic solution here,
| this is how the game plays regardless of whether you
| think it should be. It's not a problem, and it's actually
| one of the least-exploitative MTX mechanisms on the
| market, but you can't eliminate the effects of cosmetics
| on gameplay in many situations because plumage is such an
| important social cue.
|
| https://www.diva-
| portal.org/smash/get/diva2:901463/FULLTEXT0...
|
| Visual design is such a core aspect of (good) games to
| begin with, it's basically impossible to divorce that
| from the gameplay effects it has.
|
| https://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3499&conte
| xt=...
|
| If you want an example of cosmetics that _don 't_ affect
| anything - Battlefield 1 has a fixed selection of guns
| and then each gun has some skins. Nobody else can really
| see the particular skin at range anyway so no real
| gameplay effect. This was done deliberately to allow the
| character design to be visually distinctive - a british
| medic runs around with crutches on their back for
| example, and the british scout wears a cape. Can't have
| that with cosmetics unless they're so trivial that nobody
| can tell they're there (BF1), or you go to great efforts
| to preserve character silhouettes (TF2). In BFV it's much
| much more difficult to tell the classes apart - any class
| can run around with a medic hat on for example! An elite
| skin can be any class - you have to visually identify
| what guns and items they're carrying, which is more
| challenging even if it's "just cosmetic" - a mere
| cosmetic gives you a tactical advantage, you know what
| your enemy is carrying and they have to guess about you.
|
| And that's obviously because BFV was much more oriented
| around MTX sales, while BF1 focused on an "expansion
| pack" model.
|
| So MTX clearly affects that aspect of game design even if
| it's "only cosmetic".
| gigaflop wrote:
| I feel like your arguments on plumage could equally be
| applied to lower-cost cosmetics, to the point where being
| able to recognize that someone is 'that specific Heavy',
| is more important than 'a Heavy with the limited-release
| Sandvich Holster', and probably easier/faster.
|
| The holster is rare, and maybe you recognize that it's
| rare, but they could have just gotten it out of a drop
| and kept it. The Heavy with the funny flip-flops and
| sunglasses is probable more recognizable at-a-glance, but
| could have bought a bunch of cheap cosmetics for a few
| dollars on the market.
|
| And in the case of keeping an uber ready, won't you have
| to stay pocketed long enough to learn if someone is a
| good or less-good choice? Even if it's raining hell on
| your position, you'd have a rough view of the Heavy and a
| kill feed that highlights the assists you're getting from
| them. What more is there to look for?
|
| As for the Battlefield games you mention, my biggest
| issue in 5 was that all of the player models seemed to
| blend into the background. Most of the time, I wasn't
| able to spend brainpower trying to figure out who is
| which type of class, simply because I was too busy trying
| to figure out if some dull, misshapen blob was part of
| the map or trying to kill me. Combined with the general
| feel of the game (poor, imo), I was never motivated to
| spend enough time on it to get into anything serious.
| Haven't bought another Battlefield game since, and BF5
| was on a steep sale at the time.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| >Monetisation strategies like microtransactions, loot boxes,
| etc. are also part of the game. However, the goal of such
| parts is not aligned with that of the others. The game is
| compromised by the introduction of the monetisation
| strategies.
|
| This is an interesting point. I think it begs the question,
| what _is_ the goal of a game? 10 years ago I would have said
| that broadly, the goal of a video game is to create an
| experience the player will enjoy. Perhaps now it's more
| simple though, maybe the goal of the vast majority of games
| today is to create a model in which money is willingly
| transferred from the player to the publisher.
| lol_what wrote:
| you and everyone else concerned about the preying on
| vulnerable thing should be aware that we have literally no
| evidence that such a thing is happening. the absolute worst
| thing we know off in practice are extreme edge cases (i.e.
| not applying to 99% of people even within the whale
| demographic) of above average earners spending their money on
| waifu shit instead of buying themselves a car they don't
| need.
|
| the more regularly occuring thing is probably that parent's
| don't properly set up their kids phones and then they buy a
| few hundred or worse thousands bucks of something they
| shouldn't. but again those occurances are rare and don't
| cause really cause any actual damage, especially since you
| can get refunds for this stuff if it gets expensive very
| easily. kids regularly do stuff a lot more expensive than
| that. in fact kids themselves are a lot more expensive than
| that as a baseline.
|
| the supposed exploitation of things like loot boxes has
| literally zero evidence behind it. all you will find are a
| few genuinely bottom of the barrel studies (as in that
| australian government study from some years ago, should
| literally be taken as an example in a book of how not to run
| a study).
|
| and the constant comparison to gambling is really tiresome,
| because it's obviously not the same. people play themselves
| out of all their belongigs regularly with actual gambling,
| because their goal is to make a profit with gambling and
| their last gamble will surely turn it around. such a thing
| isn't possible even in the few online gaming markets
| remaining where you can resell your items for real money
| because its a big hazzle to liquidize all your assets.
| Yizahi wrote:
| "It's only cosmetics shop" is a cancer that's killing AAA game
| industry. Games are designed from ground up not being fun
| themselves but to be filled with dark patterns, ads, artificial
| focus on the shop items and so on.
| holler wrote:
| One complaint I've had with RL recently is that it seems like
| they've put all their energy into new visuals and cosmetics
| while leaving the game mostly unchanged.
|
| The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and I've
| wondered why they don't add different types of maps to the mix;
| spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the center, figure
| 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1), etc.
|
| I guess it's simple and works but it'd be cool to see new
| gameplay related updates.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| The reason is because people absolutely hated that Tokyo map
| with the embankments, myself included. Rocket League is
| unique in that the core gameplay is so good, that messing
| around with it is just a bad idea. It's like asking why there
| aren't new pieces being released for Chess, or why people
| don't start adding unconventional elements to a soccer field.
| It's because novelties like those take away from what is
| already a solid experience. They have added some modes to
| that in non-competitive Rocket League, but RL is a unique
| game in that it seems like most players play the game in
| competitive modes, where those novelties are not appreciated,
| and so putting lots of work into those kinds of alternative
| arenas just doesn't make a lot of sense.
|
| I personally am glad the developers have realized they have a
| game like this and haven't killed their game through adding
| more for the sake of more.
| dkersten wrote:
| Interesting. I haven't played Rocket League in years, but I
| actually liked that Tokyo map... it added variety.
| evandale wrote:
| Oh god, I forgot about how awful that Tokyo map was. I
| enjoyed the wide slightly sloped wasteland though.
| Daneel_ wrote:
| They did this a long time in the past (See: Rocket League
| Rocket Labs) and it was near-universally disliked.
|
| The complication when it comes to adding new features is that
| Rocket League is built on top of a bespoke scripting engine
| that was discontinued after Unreal Engine 3, so they have to
| fully recreate RL in UE5. Because of this they don't want to
| put any additional resources into new features for UE3 since
| it's wasted effort once the game transitions to the new
| engine.
| Arrath wrote:
| I know I was always in the minority, but I loved the Rocket
| Labs maps and wished for more funky, mind bending ones.
| holler wrote:
| Interesting, have they said much about that or when to
| expect it?
|
| I did like that game mode where the ball would gravitate
| towards the goal!
| IshKebab wrote:
| They turn those weird modes and maps on occasionally -
| called Limited Time Modes.
|
| The only genuinely new one they've done for years was the
| NFL mode, which they presumably got paid for and wasn't
| very good.
| Sturmis wrote:
| Ball gravitating towards the goal has been available as a
| Limited Time Mode on a few occasions, it's called
| Heatseeker IIRC.
| evandale wrote:
| >The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and
| I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to
| the mix
|
| They tried that with the original wasteland map and there was
| huge pushback from the community and people demanded the maps
| be standardized.
| telchior wrote:
| Fair criticism, but one that is only relevant in the first
| place because of freemium. Prior to that business model,
| there was no such thing as a company continuing to provide
| regular, ongoing support to a 7 year old game of the non-
| subscription variety.
|
| I mean, how or why would they? You release something; it
| makes 90% of its lifetime revenue in year 1; if you continue
| working on it for 6 more years, you're out of business.
|
| As for the ownership or survivability of in-game virtual
| goods -- I think the author is referring to Valve's hats in
| Team Fortress 2? -- to me it's nonsensical to complain that
| you don't own it outside of the game. It only has relevance
| in the game, and it would be silly to ask the company to
| develop some external service just for owning your object.
| The ones that have tried that kind of thing just fail and
| look silly. But wait! Along come NFTs, with potential
| permanent ownership... but gamers despise that idea, too.
|
| Gamers are just eternally grumpy and conservative about
| changes and progress. (I say that as a grumpy gamer, myself.)
| hanselot wrote:
| Back then: Pay for Game when it releases, launch day it
| mostly works, or the studio is dead.
|
| Now: Pay for game prior to its release, launch day, people
| will tell you the bugs are actually features, studio milks
| franchise forever.
| dkersten wrote:
| > Fair criticism, but one that is only relevant in the
| first place because of freemium. Prior to that business
| model, there was no such thing as a company continuing to
| provide regular, ongoing support to a 7 year old game of
| the non-subscription variety.
|
| Plenty of games get regular patches and updates (Age of
| Empires 2 Definitive Edition being one I recently played)
| and back in the day, games would release paid expansions.
| No reason that Rocket League couldn't sell a map pack, for
| example. Sure, its a similar idea as freemium (pay for more
| content), but at least the expansions used to be sizable
| packs with lots of content. Old school expansions, as well
| as expansions like those of The Witcher 3 or the FROM
| Software games (which are often lauded as better than the
| base game), that cost about 1/4 the price of the base game
| for a decent content boost extend the life of the game,
| provide the developer with continued income and feel a lot
| less scammy than fremium games do.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Multiplayer paid map packs fragment the user base and
| create smaller lobbies/angry buyers. It was a real
| problem for older halo titles.
| robin_reala wrote:
| No Man's Sky has been getting 6 years of updates purely out
| of a wounded sense of pride.
| Groxx wrote:
| Wounded pride and a _ton_ of money for a small company
| like that. They got enough money to comfortably run the
| company for _at least_ a couple years if not the _entire
| time since launch until now_. The wikipedia page sticks
| it right along-side other highly successful AAA launches
| around the same time because it was _that "successful"_
| despite being an absolute mess of a game:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Sky#Sales
| Lev1a wrote:
| Obligatory link for discussions on NMS:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ
| peterashford wrote:
| I was very critical of No Man's Sky on release, but boy
| have they knocked it out of the park since. Super
| impressive piece of work
| gigaflop wrote:
| I don't trust AAA studios, or any game studio for that
| matter, to implement NFTs in a responsible and ethical
| manner.
|
| Ubisoft has announced NFT integration via their own
| platform. However, unlike an actual "I can do what I want
| with this" token, it may as well be a database entry in the
| company network: https://quartz.ubisoft.com/welcome/
|
| I don't think there's any way to 'solve' NFTs in games
| right now: A true NFT can be moved anywhere on an open
| network (monkey jpeg receipts, etc), but a game-related NFT
| needs to be constrained to those users who play the game,
| otherwise it's even more useless.
|
| It doesn't help that most things NFT-related are scams,
| hype bait, etc.
| bluescrn wrote:
| They have no real reason to use NFTs right now.
|
| They can create digital scarcity of in-game items using a
| centralised server. Any NFT linked to an in-game item
| will be just as worthless when the servers are eventually
| shut down. And they don't want players buying and selling
| items, they want to take a cut every time a player buys
| something.
|
| You're never going to be taking your Fortnite skins into
| FIFA or your Gran Turismo cars into Mario Kart. Ain't
| going to happen for a multitude of reasons.
|
| (And if one publisher/developer does something like that
| as a gimmick, allow importing items into a specific
| another game, they could do that with a centralised
| database too)
| tomtheelder wrote:
| > I don't think there's any way to 'solve' NFTs in games
| right now: A true NFT can be moved anywhere on an open
| network (monkey jpeg receipts, etc), but a game-related
| NFT needs to be constrained to those users who play the
| game, otherwise it's even more useless.
|
| Agree totally. NFTs for games make quite literally no
| sense. You are buying an asset or whatever from a central
| authority (the developer/publisher) that only exists or
| makes any sense within their game/platform/ecosystem.
| What value could a token bring there? The only value add
| I could see is that your ability to buy and sell the
| asset is now out of the hands of the publisher... except
| it isn't since they still control access to the asset and
| can therefor constrain your use of it in any way they see
| fit.
|
| This is really a problem with most of the NFT related
| ideas floating around. Once a central authority is
| involved your token ceases being meaningful and just
| becomes, like you said, an ID in a database somewhere.
| saithir wrote:
| https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Patches
|
| Yep, nothing to see here, no regular, ongoing support to a
| 20 year old game of the non-subscription variety at all.
| Warcraft 3 (from 2003) was similarly updated well into
| 2019.
|
| Now, most regular games only get 2 or 3 years of attention.
|
| > Along come NFTs, with potential permanent ownership...
| but gamers despise that idea, too.
|
| Oh no, how dare we despise things that anyone can see will
| not work as advertised.
| dtech wrote:
| Starcraft is the exception rather than the rule. If you
| take a random sample of 20 year old games I'd wager that
| in the vast majority of samples none of them will have
| received updates in the last 15 years.
| eru wrote:
| StarCraft is a bit special with so much e-sports
| attention. I wouldn't necessary compare other games to
| it.
| Aldqueath wrote:
| Adding to that list, most valve games (even half life 1
| from 1996) still getting updates today, and indie game
| terraria released in 2011 which got big content updates
| over a decade.
| majewsky wrote:
| If we are going to mention Terraria, we should also talk
| about Minecraft. I purchased it in 2009 and I'm still
| getting new content on a regular basis today. It's true
| that they have a subscription offering through Realms at
| this point, but it's entirely optional.
| xeromal wrote:
| I'd love to see the % of games that got the same love as
| starcraft.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| That's only regular if you ignore the 8 years of no
| updates between patch 1.16.1 in January 2009 to 1.18 in
| 2017. The same year they released Remastered to sell
| people. They've since also added cosmetics in skins and
| voice announcers: https://us.shop.battle.net/en-
| us/family/starcraft-remastered
|
| Similarly Warcraft 3 had a 5 year gap between 1.26b in
| 2011 and 1.27a in 2016, which was probably about when
| they started development for Reforged, announced in 2018.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Along come NFTs, with potential permanent ownership...
| but gamers despise that idea, too.
|
| Permanent ownership of _what_? If the game servers shut
| down or you get banned[1] for some reason your permanent
| ownership is meaningless. Also how are NFTs different than
| the existing systems like the Steam marketplace in terms of
| functionality?
|
| [1] Oh yeah, NFTs _require_ you to have an online account
| for the game. I would argue my unlocks in SSBM are much
| more permanent than any game NFT because there 's no
| account for Nintendo to ban that could cause me to lose
| access to them.
| telchior wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification. I haven't followed the NFT
| hype much but the one game startup founder I know who
| talks about it had ideas for permanent ownership in some
| kind of ... _hand-waves_ metaverse.
|
| Personally I view games as art that's closer to food than
| a painting: ephemeral, may disappear after being
| consumed.
| jesusofnazarath wrote:
| mcphage wrote:
| > there was no such thing as a company continuing to
| provide regular, ongoing support to a 7 year old game of
| the non-subscription variety.
|
| Minecraft still gets significant updates.
|
| > I mean, how or why would they? You release something; it
| makes 90% of its lifetime revenue in year 1; if you
| continue working on it for 6 more years, you're out of
| business.
|
| I think a lot of these companies have found that it's the
| opposite--that games make 90% of their revenue in year 1
| _because_ nobody continues working on them. If you keep
| working on it, however, you can continue to get sales,
| because the more you work on it, the better the game
| becomes, and so people buy it just to see what everyone
| else is talking about.
| cruano wrote:
| Minecraft also has a marketplace, and a "Realms"
| subscription, and you can purchase it on different
| platforms if you want to play like that so there's plenty
| of ways to keep revenue coming
| sweetbitter wrote:
| The points of Realms and multiple platforms is true,
| though the PC version does not have a marketplace.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Not that I'm outright opposed to this kind of thing, but
| often messing with core mechanics in wacky ways is a lot more
| fun on paper than in practice.
|
| There's a lot of games that have a sort of boring standard
| (SC2's 1v1 ladder maps are all same-y, nobody competitive
| plays Smash with items on, etc.) and the fact that you see
| this pop up repeatedly in unrelated communities should
| probably tell you something.
|
| IMO, when you have a game with sufficiently deep mechanics,
| wackiness tends to obscure that depth, resulting in an
| experience that's less interesting rather than more. Like if
| you added Mario Kart abilities to football/soccer and
| suddenly the winning team was getting regularly blue shelled,
| I don't think it would improve the experience, even if
| initially it'd be hilarious.
|
| Now maybe it's still worth it to have "party game" modes in
| some cases, I'm just saying that these modes might not have
| legs, so to speak, and thus may not be worth the dev effort
| if hardly anyone plays them.
| dendriti wrote:
| Those are pretty bad examples. Mario Kart and Smash are
| literally some of the top selling games of all time. If
| their "wacky ways" are played and enjoyed by 10% of
| players, that's still millions of sales.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| They were designed to be party games first and foremost
| though. I think it's different when you take a more
| serious game and try to layer wackiness on top. If
| nothing else, there's a huge difference in player
| expectations.
|
| Anyway that's why I also used SC2 as an example.
| Blizzard's attempts to add more wackiness/variety to the
| 1v1 ladder maps have generally been poorly received.
|
| Now, SC2's _co-op_ mode has a bunch of wackiness and did
| great, but note that this is very VERY separate from
| standard ladder /melee games. It's not just "oh we
| changed a few rules" or "we took the base game and added
| wacky items" it's a much more fundamental rework than
| that, it's an entirely new 'vertical' for the game. And
| yeah, _that_ kind of thing could probably work for a game
| like Rocket League.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| It's probably more like 99% of players, but I think
| you're missing the point a little. What that commenter is
| getting at is that if your target audience are
| competitive players then it's not in your best interest
| to introduce "wackier" modes, as it isn't what those
| sorts of players want and might actually be off putting
| to them.
|
| If your primary audience is casual, like in the case of
| Nintendo games, then it makes all the sense in the world.
|
| Obviously you could argue that Psyonix ought to be
| appealing to a casual audience. That's a separate
| conversation, and I'd argue that RL is a fundamentally
| bad fit for that sort of game, but given what they have
| been going for thus far, not introducing crazier modes
| makes a lot of sense.
| olau wrote:
| You're probably right, but I still think we should add
| another ball to soccer/football and see what happens.
| Kiro wrote:
| That's like saying they should change the rules of football.
| Rocket League is a seriously competitive game and even the
| slightest change to the physics would have a big impact. I
| like that they have kept the core gameplay intact. It's
| beautiful and pure.
| mcphage wrote:
| > That's like saying they should change the rules of
| football.
|
| They do that pretty regularly. Not in major ways, but the
| rules of football do change over time.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and
| I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to
| the mix; spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the
| center, figure 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1),
| etc.
|
| They tried. Wasteland, Neo Tokyo, and Starbase ARC were non-
| standard maps. Players complained about it, and now they are
| changed to be standard.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I liked wasteland, any other attempts were irritating.
| bhedgeoser wrote:
| I think their dev team is too busy with the UE5 port.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| They added those types of arenas years ago and removed them
| all. In the ranked games these honestly felt to gimmicky and
| I'm pleased that the differences between arenas are now only
| cosmetic.
|
| They still keep adding other game modes some of which are
| only there for a few days.
| onpensionsterm wrote:
| But I paid for a game that wasn't free-to-play
| phelm wrote:
| I can't believe how many people care about the cosmetics, I've
| been playing RL for years, unlocked heaps of things to wear but
| never changed the appearance of my car once. All I really care
| about is playing and trying to win, although sometimes other
| peoples cars do look cool, I have no desire to update mine.
| lilgreenland wrote:
| The indie game scene is still pretty great. Tunic just came out
| last week. It's super fun and basically a single dev.
|
| I wrote my own free open source browser game.
| https://landgreen.github.io/sidescroller/
|
| "N-gon is a physics-based single player 2-d platformer shooter
| with hundreds of different power ups. You move with the keyboard
| and aim with the mouse. The core game is done, but I'm still
| adding new content.
|
| You can play here for free. It's open source, no ads, no
| tracking, no data harvesting, no crypto-mining, no DLCs, no
| freemium, no microtransactions, no gacha."
| cheerioty wrote:
| I feel like Rocket League is like the smallest offender. What
| really shocked me when I discovered that like 99% of FIFA streams
| were about loot pack openings these days, not actually anyone
| playing/enjoying the game. And when they dare to do so anyway,
| their live viewer count drops right away. Also in this case it's
| pure gambling, as you don't know what you'll get with any buy.
|
| Edit: People tried to fight this in court, with basically zero
| results:
| https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-03-09-eas-10m-dutch-...
| LargeWu wrote:
| FIFA is one of the worst offenders, because it's not just
| cosmetic. There's a constant flood of player cards of
| escalating ability, and you have to either keep grinding for
| objectives, or drop tons of cash, just to stay competitive.
| I've quit playing because of it because it just stopped being
| fun, even as a casual player.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| How bad can this really be without ceasing to be a realistic
| feeling game? Like I would imagine you've got just a few
| stats like speed, endurance, ball handling and kicking
| accuracy.
|
| What does the game look like with base F2P characters vs top
| tier characters? Are they just laughably faster on the field?
| LargeWu wrote:
| Yeah, speed is one of the key meta aspects, and having a
| boost in that area is a major advantage if the player is
| good at other aspects as well. At some point your players
| just can't keep up. A new version of the game is released
| end of September every year, and by Christmas it's
| borderline unplayable unless you keep escalating.
|
| Additionally, there are daily/weekly/monthly challenges
| that require you to do certain things, like score a goal
| with a player from the Belgian league in 10 different
| games. So players will score to achieve their goal and then
| disconnect, and just waste everybody's time. Or the
| objective will be "Win 10 games", and the community has
| decided that if you give up the first goal during one of
| these challenges, you're expected to just concede
| immediately. Otherwise the opposing player will take long
| pauses, perform every goal celebration and replay, anything
| to annoy you into quitting. It's become really toxic, all
| because of the rewards that are at stake.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| I find that really funny. How much faster are the best
| units? And these are real players presumably so... are
| they alts of the same person?
|
| Please tell me they're doing a gacha Christmas alt of top
| tier soccer players
| aftergibson wrote:
| I believe the term is called "whales" for those vulnerable to
| predatory monetisation. The sad part being many are escaping
| other addictions through video games, and that escape now
| attempts to profit through similar tactics. It's really
| disappointing.
| jsnell wrote:
| > Can you imagine if other art mediums where this ridiculous?
| Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask
| you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use
| his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? Or you are
| reading a cooking e-book that asks you for one dollar for each
| desert decoration recipe you want to unlock?
|
| We don't need to imagine it, this is happening all over the
| place. Board game kickstarters will have tiers with upgrade
| components that don't change the gameplay but just upgrade the
| cosmetics. Movie releases on optical disks have "collector's
| editions", where the DVD/blueray is bundled with all kinds of
| useless junk. Limited edition sneakers; foil MTG cards; trade-
| paperback books; concert tickets with a "band T-shirt" tier.
|
| Yes, those are mostly physical goods that could in theory hold
| their value and eventually be resold. But in practice they
| aren't. They're things whose value is entirely bound in you
| liking that thing, and wanting a fancier version.
| _jerryxiao wrote:
| You could have played supertuxkart.
| walrus01 wrote:
| ... so don't play those games?
|
| There's still tons of world class story driven games that don't
| have loot boxes or similar mechanics. I think I paid $19 for a
| used copy of horizon zero dawn and enjoyed it immensely.
| failrate wrote:
| There are so many new and dufferent games being created at all
| times, I defy you to even point in a general direction and say
| "this is what video games are".
|
| Coupled with that is the horrible viewpoint that the money for
| your game is now "wasted", which assumes that most everything we
| buy is kept, when in reality, most of what we buy is transient:
| food, energy, garments.
| jerf wrote:
| Most people who say this mean "this is what AAA video games
| are". Rocket League is arguably not AAA but is clearly taking
| its more recent changes from it.
|
| As you say, many new things are being created, and the solution
| for the most part is simple: Don't buy AAA. It has almost no
| appeal to me anymore, and even when I hear about some franchise
| I like or used to like, I just assume the worst if it's making
| the leap to AAA, and to be honest, that metric hasn't failed me
| in a while.
|
| I'm late to the bandwagon and just bought Slay the Spire for
| $10. No microtransactions, no unlocks, no AAA garbage at all.
| Just money for fun. That's the solution. Don't play games that
| are just platforms to deliver psychological manipulation to
| extract money from you when there are games that will deliver
| the same basic dopamine hits for defined amounts of money, and
| for goodness' sake, don't _pay money_ for things that are just
| platforms to psychologically manipulate you into giving them
| money. And often, frankly, aren 't as good at the dopamine hits
| anyhow since they have to wrap them around manipulation.
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| I don't think it's necessarily AAA games. I don't game much
| anymore, but the last five games I played are: Elden Ring,
| Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, Super Mario Odyssey and
| Breath of The Wild. None of them have the problems mentioned.
|
| It seems like it's really easy to avoid microtransactions,
| etc.
| duckfruit wrote:
| I agree. We live in a golden age of gaming. Steam and all the
| game stores have a practically unlimited catalog (granted
| there's a lot of shovelware, but still plenty to chew on).
| Triple A games with budgets that rival and even exceed tentpole
| Hollywood franchises. New art forms constantly furthering the
| boundaries of narrative driven entertainment. Hyper realistic
| graphics pushing the frontiers of CG and even AI research with
| DLSS and the like. Gaming can be entertainment, a social
| activity, a creative tool (There's Minecraft of course, but
| also check out some of the incredible stuff made in Dreams on
| the Playstation https://youtu.be/AXtNlgjPb80?t=288).
|
| And on top of all that, there's _also_ innovation in the
| underlying business models. F2P games that are morally dubious
| and depend on hapless whales that get addicted to your product
| and subsidize it for the rest of the playerbase? Sure! Single
| $60 or $70 purchase without DLCs? Contrary to the author 's
| insinuation, there are plenty of games that still follow that
| model. Expansion packs! Monthly subscriptions! There's just no
| other kind of media that even comes close -- where else can you
| spend $50 and potentially get hundreds or even thousands of
| hours of entertainment?
| akira2501 wrote:
| I think people play games looking for an escape. So a game that
| attempts to bring the "transient reality" of everyday life as
| part of it's core mechanic is severely missing the point.
|
| Then again, Roblox has kids literally "working" for each other.
| So, what do I know?
| [deleted]
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Roblox and kids might not be the best example, given that
| that doesn't reflect the reality for kids they'd want to
| escape.
| yourdeadneopet wrote:
| A few years ago, Nintendo made a wonderful game called Super
| Mario Run. It was simple - Mario automatically runs and you tap
| to jump - but surprisingly deep. The timing of the jumps and the
| height of jump was paramount, and there was a ton of
| replayability in trying to get out-of-reach coins and finding
| shortcuts. It also captured the aesthetic of the Mario World
| games with modern graphics. I was VERY skeptical of a mobile
| Mario game, but was won over by the quality of game design and
| the clear level of polish.
|
| Nintendo charged $9.99 for this game. The response was absolute
| evisceration in the ratings. Mobile game players EXPECTED a F2P
| experience that would waste their time with energy charge ups,
| loot boxes, etc. and were upset when Nintendo didn't do that. In
| response, Nintendo switched to this type of experience for their
| next release, Fire Emblem, which performed much better.
|
| The Wikipedia article for Super Mario Run explains in detail.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Run#Commercial
|
| A select quote - '[Nintendo President] Kimishima said that "we
| honestly prefer the Super Mario Run model", though in a June 2017
| investor question-and-answer session, he said "in the future we
| will consider not only a single set price, but other methods that
| incorporate a wider variety of elements that allow as many
| consumers as possible to play"'
| mcphage wrote:
| > "in the future we will consider not only a single set price,
| but other methods that incorporate a wider variety of elements
| that allow as many consumers as possible to play"'
|
| Iirc, they released a 3DS game with DLC, where you could haggle
| the price down in-game:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty%27s_Real_Deal_Baseball
| adrianh wrote:
| Nintendo did the exact opposite with its subsequent mobile game
| Mario Kart Tour. It's free to play but has tons of optional
| paid upgrades plus an optional monthly subscription.
| zo1 wrote:
| This story makes me sad. What a sorry state we've let the
| mobile (phone) gaming market become purely because of ads.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| It's not popular to say, but maximizing accessibility (by
| minimizing up-front cost, in this case) has downsides:
| mechanics and business models end up needing to be shoehorned
| into the dominant economic model.
|
| Touch controls and IAP impose serious constraints on the
| mobile game market still. There are some gems, but it seems
| like the golden age of gaming is occurring outside of mobile
| games.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Super Mario Run, on top of being a great game at a great price
| is basically single payment f2p.
|
| And most people didn't get that you could buy it and not worry
| about needing to buy berries or diamonds for real world money.
| Not worry about your child spending hundreds of real world
| dollars when playing on your phone.
|
| People just hated the fact that they had to pay for the
| cheapest priced Mario game ever.
| wink wrote:
| It's based on the platform. Nobody would've bat an eye at a
| Switch or PC game for an upfront cost, but asking 10$ for a
| mobile game was kinda unheard of. I think they misjudged the
| market response there.
|
| I can't say I'm not biased here, I basically hate 95% of all
| the mobile games I ever tried, or at least stopped playing
| after an hour - so a 10$ purchase for me would simply never
| happen, because I don't like the platform. On the other hand
| I did do the "paid unlock" after trying it out for a few.
| (Ignore this if they had a demo, I never tried it, wasn't it
| iphone only?)
| codebolt wrote:
| You could play the first 4 levels for free, like classical
| shareware. And it was released on both iPhone and Android.
| wink wrote:
| Good point, then the argument is a little different, as
| it's more like an ingame unlock. I still think I remember
| the outrage about the price.
| ihuman wrote:
| > but asking 10$ for a mobile game was kinda unheard of
|
| Ironically, this used to be the norm when the iPhone's app
| store came out. For example, Super Monkey Ball was $10 in
| 2008. Over time, there was a race to the bottom, and then
| F2P became the norm when Apple introduced IAP.
| bpicolo wrote:
| > but asking 10$ for a mobile game was kinda unheard of
|
| Kind of crazy that the whole market was defined by
| shovelware
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| To quantify "performed much better":
|
| Super Mario Run: $60 million total by July 2018
|
| Fire Emblem Heroes: $656 million by January 2020
|
| An order of magnitude. Incentives are everything.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > Nintendo charged $9.99 for this game. The response was
| absolute evisceration in the ratings. Mobile game players
| EXPECTED a F2P experience...
|
| Just look up "Super Mario Run" on your favorite store and what
| you will see is "Free", not $10. In fact, I am not sure if the
| actual price is mentioned anywhere on the store page.
|
| So _of course_ people expected a F2P experience, because that
| 's exactly what's on the store page. If Nintendo was honest,
| they would have published it as a paid app, with the price
| clearly visible on the store page. Maybe with a separate free
| and clearly labeled demo, as it is standard practice for one-
| time payment apps.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| The fact that all consoles charge money for "online play" irks
| me. I mean the internet is there for a reason.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| You should not be required to use the official servers; you
| might set up your own, which could use LAN if you wanted to do,
| I should think. However, not all games (and other computer
| programs) are designed in this way.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Online play typically involves servers to authoritatively host
| the game. It's not just "the Internet".
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Which the games themselves provide.
| stuu99 wrote:
| ianbutler wrote:
| Counter points: literally every indie game, Elden Ring, Tiny
| Tina's Wonderland, God of War, all of Nintendo (they have other
| issues though) and the literally hundreds of triple A games that
| aren't live service. I'm quite sure I'm missing a lot, but these
| are just top of mind.
|
| They've chosen a very narrow definition of video games to be
| disappointed over.
| Melatonic wrote:
| The thing I found funny about cosmetics is that often the players
| that are REALLY good (as in very top of the game) end up
| stripping off all cosmetics and going as bare as possible (or
| just using one single basic cosmetic). When you get to the point
| where you already own all the good stuff and have used it for so
| long theres a novelty in looking vanilla. And of course you could
| argue a competitive advantage in that people may think you are a
| much, much worse player than you really are.
| 0des wrote:
| This is also why some models dress and look the way they do.
| Looking at you, balenciaga.
| Lazare wrote:
| I dunno.
|
| First, there's more _non_ free-to-play games out there than ever
| before, and some are truly amazing and innovative, so I 'm not
| sure about what "games have become". In the last couple of years
| my top games by hours spent have probably been...
|
| 1) Valheim, a truly lovely indie game with a traditional "buy it
| upfront" model. Don't regret that purchase at all, great game.
|
| 2) Final Fantasy XIV, a traditional MMO model with a mind blowing
| storyline, often considered to be the best story of all the FF
| games. Don't regret the monthly fee at all; also a great game.
|
| 3) Apex Legends, a F2P game that I've spent uh...exactly $0
| dollars on in the last year. (Sometimes the F in F2P really
| _does_ mean "free"!) It's worth significantly more than I've
| paid for it. (And the only reason I play Apex is to play with a
| couple of friends, one of whom is a struggling student who
| couldn't easily afford to buy the latest COD or whatever. The low
| barriers to entry to F2P games can have real benefits.)
|
| 4) Europa Universalis IV, which has a fairly traditional "buy it
| upfront" model along with various expansions and DLC, except like
| most Paradox games, it has a simply absurd number, and they're
| pretty pricy, which means I've spent a uh.....let's just say a
| lot money on EUIV. Significantly more than the other three games
| combined. And I have spent a somewhat ridiculous number of hours
| on it, and I did enjoy them, but was it worth it? Hard question.
|
| So while it's a great rant about how video games have become
| nothing but loot boxes, but my personal experience is that the
| overwhelming majority of games I play are _not_ F2P, the only F2P
| game I play I 've spent $0 on in the last year (and lifetime
| something like $20?), and the only game I feel a _little_
| exploited by has a traditional "pay upfront" business model.
|
| OP asks how you'd feel if you were asked for extra money while
| watching a movie, but actually, if you go to a movie theatre and
| the popcorn and sodas are _stupidly_ expensive. But...you don 't
| have to buy them?
| automatic6131 wrote:
| Apex Legends is a game that I've currently got over 1000 hours
| in, which has been a consistent 1 to 2 hours most days since
| launch three years ago.
|
| I've also spent roughly $1000 dollars in it too to get the
| "cool" skins. But I don't mind this since I've also subsidized
| many free players to pay $0 and enjoy it with me and there's no
| gameplay advantage so I don't feel like it's cheating (and it
| means there aren't any gross practices)
|
| Now, World of Tanks, there's a game full of dark patterns and
| gross monetization.
| nopcode wrote:
| $1 per hour is a good rate.
|
| I compare it to the cost of other forms entertainment
| (cinema, theme park, gocarting, sports event, ...)
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| You can play those beautiful single player games that have none
| of these problems, or play rocketleague for the gameplay instead
| of trying to play "pimp my car" while playing rocketleague. I
| think it's good training for life: practice with temptetion with
| something as cheap as a videogame and stretch your "resistence"
| now, so that later when your income increases even further, you
| will avoid spending on way more expensive things. I'm talking by
| experience, wasted quite some money in league of legends, but I
| don't play it anymore
|
| I played yesterday night couch coop rocketleague with my friends
| (my daughter, me, my wife and 2 friends), we have the basic cars
| and had a great time with that game.
|
| And yes, bought the game for super cheap long time ago
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > You can play those beautiful single player games that have
| none of these problems
|
| I was never a small studio lover, until all the large studios
| started really sucking.
|
| Tunic, Subnautica, Hollowknight, Outer Wilds are absolutely
| must plays. Tunic being the latest which has been the closest
| I'll ever get to playing A Link To The Past for the first time
| again.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Exactly. Well, some indie games are now _extremely good_ ,
| way better than big studios. FTL: Faster Than
| Light Ori and the Blind Forest (doesn't count as indie)
| Ori and the Will of the Wisps Invisible Inc.
| Hollow Knight XCOM Dyson Sphere Program
| Kerbal Space Program (to be fair, this is not really for
| everyone) XCOM 2 Assault Android Cactus (great
| for coop!) Factorio Dark Souls 1 and 3 (big
| studio) Frostpunk Hellpoint Sundered
| Starsector EXAPUNKS Monster Hunter World:
| Iceborne (yeah, this is from a big studio)
|
| My list is really long, so I'll stop there, this is already
| years of gaming
| gigaflop wrote:
| The big studios sucking has, for better or worse, reduced the
| amount of time I spend on games.
|
| They don't survive if they don't do something right. Compare
| that to the big studios who churn out their yearly releases,
| and get by because they're still milking a cash cow that
| dominates the 'gaming' headspace for people who prefer to
| turn on a console and stay busy.
| rafadc wrote:
| IMHO the video game scene is better than ever. Maybe you don't
| like what 90% games have become and that is fair. But go to
| itch.io and you will find a wide array of different games that
| will for sure suit your tastes. Maybe they are not that popular.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Cosmetics are a fine business model. I am more worried about the
| assholes who think it's fine to play a game for dozens or
| hundreds of hours without buying any. These are the entitled
| freeloader scumbags who ruin it for everyone else (by forcing
| gamedevs to use P2W instead of cosmetics to stay in business),
| not gamedevs
| chemmail wrote:
| Have you tried reselling clothes? Unless its some hypebeast crap,
| which isn't even made for wearing, goodwill might not even want
| it.
| toastar wrote:
| I don't engage with purchasable wearables (or super hero movies)
| but I do like the Captain America example buried in this post. A
| more practical offering like the choice to pay a tiny fee to
| unlock a few supplementary scenes about a character's back story
| while streaming something seems like an inevitability - unless
| I'm missing something and it's already been done?
| dehrmann wrote:
| What you do is show a QR code in the theater, make people scan
| it, and if enough people in that showing do, you get the bonus
| scene.
| XCSme wrote:
| I think the given example is really bad, Rocket League does free-
| to-play in one of the best ways possibles. I never spend any
| money on their IAPs nor do I care about them, I still feel like I
| have access to more customization/items than I have the time to
| use.
|
| A "better" example are games that have the goal of progression
| (e.g. city builders, like Clash of Clans) and then simply lock
| that progression behind a paywall, giving you the option to
| either wait for hours or pay a "small" amount to skip waiting.
| epgui wrote:
| This is how I feel about "growth" as a _business function_.
|
| Obviously growth is desirable, but "growth engineers" and
| "growth" teams, in my experience, tend to create and/or operate
| within perverse incentive structures, and tend to focus more on
| gimmicks and trivialities than on core product/user value.
| screye wrote:
| I don't agree.
|
| The industry has begun splintering in the same manner as
| Hollywood. Disney releases popcorn-entertainment and makes money
| off merchandise. Indie studios are creating quality movies of a
| tier that we never used to see before. Lastly, have some quirky
| bigwigs (wes anderson, Edgar Wright) who reliably create highly-
| stylized memorable if familiar works.
|
| Epic, EA and Ubisoft are the Disney equivalents. Nintendo, CDPR,
| Naughty Dog, Kojima, From Software are your quirky stylized
| studios. Then you have indie studios making games like Hades,
| CupHead and Hollow Knight that provide excellent & complete
| experiences at the fraction of the investment. You get to pick
| which one you want.
|
| Microtransactions are mostly restricted to the big studios.
| Restricting core gameplay aspects via microtransactions or
| Pay-2-win setups are pretty scummy. But, MMORPGS had those
| problems in the late 90s. So, it isn't new by any means. In cases
| where smaller games have microtransactions, they tend to be
| limited and exclusively cosmetic. The fact that I have played
| hundreds of hours of Rocket league and Dota without spending a
| single dollar, is a testament to how secondary the cosmetics are
| to the core gameplay loop.
|
| I actually wonder if systems built to exploit whales are
| unethical. In some sense, the poor get to enjoy polished games
| because the rich are willing to pay an exponentially greater sum
| to look pretty in game. I don't think that's entirely bad.
|
| Now, I do dislike 'loot boxes' with a passion. They play with our
| 'monkey brain', forcing us to buy more before our consciousness
| is able to intervene. Younger kids are even more susceptible and
| it serves as a gateway into gambling addictions. This part of
| dota and rocket league is reprehensible.
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| Nintendo is definitely Disney or Warner Bros. They've been
| around forever, have lots of family friendly IP, and
| occasionally break out the lawyers and smack the hell out of
| groups that aren't even vaguely infringing on their IP. They
| say "be afraid of the mouse" but also be afraid of Mario.
|
| Penguinz0 has a whole series on youtube as to why they're a
| terrible company.
|
| You also left out Activision/Blizzard, which is not yet M$
| property, and is arguably a Disney, far more than Epic.
| smordistan wrote:
| Nintendo is most certainly Disney, not quirky. The Zelda series
| might be an exception but the rest of Nintendo's IP is very
| Disney-eqsue.
| jerryxiao wrote:
| You could have played supertuxkart.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It's good that there's plenty of games the author probably hasn't
| played yet.
|
| I get pressing back against what seems like to be a _growing_
| trend of exploiting whales (although that doesn 't seem to be the
| exact point they're trying to make), but on the other hand there
| are a few Castlevania games I can play on my 3DS that I missed
| when they first came out. I'd just as soon play one of those than
| worry about what's on Steam.
|
| And on the other finger, even if you only care for contemporary
| games, Elden Ring just came out and has a TON of content before
| having to buy any DLC/whatever.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Video game industry was slow at this approach and there was
| significant push back on all these things. Pay to win vs drm vs
| gamergate stuff. The industry didn't care at all about any of the
| push back.
|
| It's actually interesting to see how much the gaming industry
| doesn't give 2 squats about what online chat says. The gaming
| industry has dealt with online chat since basically forever. I
| remember counterstrike 1.5 pre-steam in the early 2000s and
| learning all kinds of new pejoratives. Gaming industry understood
| that the 12 year old edgy angsty teens are going to say all kinds
| of idiotic stuff. I am guilty of this indictment for when I was
| 12.
|
| This is something a ton of other industries have not learnt yet.
| These other industries are looking at what is being said online
| and are responding like they need to take those opinions as
| truth.
|
| Then again that's also why Elon Musk is mocking Netflix:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503287788652871680
|
| 1 million likes and 150,000 retweets because he's not wrong.
| mmacvicarprett wrote:
| You are missing one big and relevant point, the goal is not to
| get money for every small change but that now nobody needs to pay
| $20 to play the game. It is done to grow the game but by
| drastically increasing its reach. For a competitive multiplayer
| game that is a very good thing.
| conjectures wrote:
| Meanwhile (probably elsewhere on HN), someone is hating on web3.
| Which might enable reselling all this junk.
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| I play Fall Guys and Warzone, both of which offer cosmetic
| modifications that are unlockable both through gameplay and by
| purchasing them. IMO, the cosmetics are little more than flair
| that add a little bit of fun and personal expression to the
| experience. Along with the "Battle Pass" model, where users are
| rewarded for regular play during content "Seasons", these mini-
| economies incentivize people to play regularly (which improves
| multiplayer games on a lot of levels) and incentivize the
| developers to continually add content. People that get these
| cosmetics enjoy having a distinctive profile in a social
| experience they spend a lot of time in and subsidize gamers that
| enjoy robust free experiences (e.g. kids/teens who provide a lot
| of excellent competition). It's all a win-win-win-win in my book.
|
| I'm 41 years old and have fond memories of the old days of
| packaged buy-once games, but the modern battle pass/cosmetic
| standard seems like a much more realistic way of having a
| consistently updated experience with strong engagement year-
| round.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| yeah I kinda hated the idea of the free to play model at first
| but since getting more into multiplayer games I think free to
| play model help keep them healthy and populated so it seems
| like a win-win to me. I'm glad not every game uses that model
| though.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Yeah the Rambo skin was worth $10 and it added to the
| experience. I don't mind paying extra for it.
|
| However Warzone is a prime example of cosmetics affecting the
| game - remember any of the scandals (DMR-gate of Dec 2020),
| when the desire to sell weapon blueprints / Battle Pass pushes
| the designers overpower the new weapons. It's subtle but very
| toxic. Or the Roze skin. Even if that one wasn't intentional
| they can't change/remove it now because people paid for it.
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| Yeah, there's room to quibble when it comes to Warzone, but
| it really doesn't add up to much in my view. The most
| gamebreaking advantages - The Roze skin and the broken Mac-10
| blueprint - were basically accidents when it was a fairly
| young game (< a year old), and almost all of them were
| freebies included in the basic battle pass (so essentially
| free for anyone that plays regularly). Statistical anomolies
| still come around and "break" the game every once in a while,
| but it's really reached a point where most of the main
| weapons are well balanced to the point that I often think I
| would have been best off sticking with some of the first guns
| I levelled up.
|
| Most blueprints effectively just make levelling up new
| weapons a more pleasant experience, maybe saving you 1 - 2
| hours for $20.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My son is a fan of
|
| https://krunker.io/
|
| where the "trading items" aspect adds a lot of fun to the game. I
| am generally skeptical of "the metaverse" but Krunker shows that
| item trading can be fun, you just don't need a blockchain to do
| it.
| astrobe_ wrote:
| FWIW, that's one reason why I turned away from commercial games
| and play almost only FOSS games.
|
| Yes, they don't have an income so they are at least 10 years
| behind on tech and generally have less good assets (textures,
| shaders, sound) (there are exceptions), yes, the player base is
| more on the 10,000s at best than on the million (an obvious
| problem for multiplayer games), but on the bright side their
| decisions are not _tainted_ by profitability or business model
| considerations.
|
| For instance, to replace Rocket League, OP could try the soccer
| mode of SuperTuxKart.
| amatecha wrote:
| This seems like a good time to mention this site
| DarkPattern.games[0] which lists mobile games that utilize such
| things as loot boxes, etc. and actually has quite some
| granularity over the different types of mechanics and how that
| game rates for those. For example, games which force you to wait
| some duration of time before being able to proceed, or force you
| to watch an ad, or other things like that.
|
| "A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to
| a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player
| with a positive outcome for the game developer."
|
| The site also lists games which rank very well in this regard,
| and _don't_ contain such dark patterns. IMO a great place to find
| some games which actually show some respect for the person
| playing the game. :)
|
| [0] https://www.darkpattern.games/
| vmception wrote:
| I just wish someone would make the mobile game shown in the ads
|
| Unlike in the days of olde where ads had to look better than
| the game, the games in the mobile ads look like real games that
| would be fun to play
| Kiro wrote:
| I don't like how some of my favorite mechanics (grinding,
| guilds) are listed as dark patterns.
| j_4 wrote:
| In another comment you've admitted to spending $10k on some
| games, so clearly the patterns are doing their job.
|
| These things are specifically made to create a strong
| addiction and wring the max possible amount of money out of
| people whether they can afford it or not. If you are in the
| former camp then you do you, but it doesn't make them not
| dark.
| Kiro wrote:
| The games I like grinding in (Factorio/Satisfactory,
| survival games) and with guilds (World of Warcraft) are not
| the same I spend money in. I feel it's unfair to use
| another unrelated comment of mine and make assumptions on
| that.
|
| The rest of the mechanics (especially the ones making me
| spend money) I have no problem calling dark patterns.
| j_4 wrote:
| Then the site mostly agrees with you on that, and I do as
| well. These things are only dark patterns because they
| usually interlock with the money sinks. I'd say they
| still mostly cater to an addictive personality, but it's
| a very mild vice when the game's design doesn't follow
| the incentive to cash in on that.
| greazy wrote:
| You like grinding? Never heard anyone say this!
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Meh, if you don't like FTP and loot boxes avoid those games.
| There's lots of good more traditional titles out there, indie
| games, MMOs, and yes FTP games. Choice is better than ever.
| silisili wrote:
| There are still a ton of solid games that aren't constantly
| asking for money. TLOU, Elden Ring, RDR2 to name three huge ones.
| I'm 50/50 on Ubisoft because their games are still great
| standalone, but do offer IAP that I just ignore.
|
| I'm OK with those offering freemium and such so long as it
| doesn't kill off the old model. I don't think it will.
| trinovantes wrote:
| The problem with Ubisoft's model is that it affects game
| balance. Before when there's a problem with a game, the
| developers will patch it for free. Now, solutions are sold as
| IAP. It's even worse when the problems are now intentional.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| Wait, what? You have to pay for bugfixes?
| trinovantes wrote:
| You have to pay for fixing poor game design or balance.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Game trainers exist, at least on PC and Android. I feel no
| qualms about using trainers to grant myself unlimited in-game
| currency rather than buying their IAP ones.
| trinovantes wrote:
| Personally I enjoy games that bring a good challenge with
| the tools provided. The existence of IAP gates those tools
| or artificially inflates the challenge e.g. buy level
| boosts because the game purposely give little experience.
|
| I find giving myself unlimited resources (e.g. with cheat
| codes in the old days or with credit cards today) greatly
| diminishes the experience. At that point, why even bother
| playing? There's other mediums of entertainment that makes
| colors splash on monitors.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Sure, it doesn't have to be unlimited resources, you can
| give yourself however much you feel would balance the
| game to your fairness level. I just meant that it's one
| way to remove IAP gates as you mention.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Oh come on... GTA(3, VC, SA) with cheats were great games
| to play... get all the weapons, be invincible, destroy
| everything, instead of a baseball bat, use a rocket
| launcher, instead of a bike, drive a tank.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| God mode tends to be fun for an hour or so
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| It's also fun to go through the missions, without doing
| the hard part.
| brootstrap wrote:
| There are countless indie games out there too worth all your
| time and more. If you like elden ring you need to experience
| the whole soulsborne series. AAA games are as trash as they've
| ever been.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Is Elden Ring not a AAA game?
| s-lambert wrote:
| Elden Ring is published by Bandai Namco, which makes it an
| AAA game; Bandai Namco is larger than Ubisoft which is where
| most of the "AAA = bad" games are from.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I will say that RDR Online pushes you hard towards micro
| transactions. That said, the single player game is worth $60 on
| its own, so I don't mind just skipping the online.
| supramouse wrote:
| I'm not 50/50 on ubisoft, they sell level boosts and stat
| upgrades in a singleplayer games (assassins creed) it's
| hilarious
| silisili wrote:
| I've played every Far Cry and AC game. Never did I buy an
| upgrade or boost, or feel that one was needed to be honest.
| bikingbismuth wrote:
| I agree re: Ubisoft. I played through Far Cry 6 and never felt
| like I was missing out by avoiding the micro transactions.
| MaurizioPz wrote:
| For those that want the free games, but don't like the dark
| patterns, I feel like I need to mention
| https://f-droid.org/en/categories/games/index.html where you can
| find a lot of good games. Most are simple and with basic graphic,
| but for a quick time waster they are great. I've sunk a lot of
| time on these:
|
| - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shattered...
|
| - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.lonami.klooni/
| unhammer wrote:
| and https://nobsgames.stavros.io/
| exodust wrote:
| They raise an interesting point I've wondered about, in regards
| to movies:
|
| > " _Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they
| ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America
| use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?_ "
|
| While that example is unlikely, we may in the future see paid
| narrative arcs. The base movie might be free, taking you to a
| certain point in story where you're presented a fork in road. One
| path is free with low budget action, the other paid and contains
| more action, more sex and big budget scenes!
| pevey wrote:
| I'm not a fan of loot boxes or "free to play," but it's hard to
| take this complaint about dark patterns seriously on a site with
| a blocking popup and back-button jankiness.
| josephg wrote:
| Yeah I always wonder about the click-through rates of popovers
| asking users to install a native app. They have to be tiny.
|
| "Like our content? Install our app so we can send you
| notifications and monetise you better!" - no, I'm not enjoying
| your content. I haven't even read any of it yet. Your obnoxious
| pop up is the only content I've seen so far and it makes me
| want to pour water in your server rack. I'm not going to
| install your app.
| graynk wrote:
| Multiplayer games are a very small subset of video games
|
| "video games" have not "become" anything, they're basically the
| same, unless you choose to play exclusively AAA blockbusters and
| online free2play.
| [deleted]
| boredumb wrote:
| Just imagine in game purchasable cosmetic items as a buy-only
| NFT.
| allo37 wrote:
| I wonder how much of this is driven simply by the fact that games
| are often bought by young people.
|
| I remember when I was a kid/teenager I just didn't have much
| money, so if I wanted a game I either had to save for it or ask
| my parents. But if a game was free, then no problem, right? Just
| download and enjoy! And the microtransaction-based content
| addition is much more allowance-friendly than a monthly
| subscription or a large (for a kid) upfront cost.
| augstein wrote:
| Maybe some use case for NFTs after all. Link the stuff you can
| get through playing a game or buy ingame for cash to a NFT and
| boom, players really own that stuff and are free to sell it on
| the secondary market.
| bccdee wrote:
| You're describing Diablo 3's famously unpopular and disastrous
| auction house. Adding resale would just make everything worse
| -- especially if you rope NFTs into it for no reason.
| Ekaros wrote:
| On other hand Valve's model doesn't seem too hated. And I got
| my Steam Deck out of it. I much prefer some chance to get
| money I invested back, even as only store credit.
| Beltiras wrote:
| I don't play the F2P games on PC. Got one of those on my phone
| which is a good turd-passing helper (come to think of it, aren't
| all phone games F2P P2W games?).
|
| I only buy quality games that are worth the money spent. Bought
| Factorio in Early Access, paid money for Rogue Tower the other
| day. Come to think of it, maybe games have taken a turn for the
| worse. I'm spending less on games over time at least.
| taylorius wrote:
| I think the idea of Marvel films asking for extra cash in
| realtime to watch a "secret" extra scene is something that they
| just haven't thought of doing yet.
| emsixteen wrote:
| I'm not sure the author is aware that a paragraph can in fact
| contain _more_ than one sentence.
|
| First paragraph is a 135 word sentence. Two of the other
| paragraphs are a single meandering sentence. Questions are the
| only break in the exception.
|
| Come on.
| ED_Radish wrote:
| > at least you can resell your barbie and resell the hat but we
| don't have that privilege because Valve determined we are not
| worthy of it
|
| Isn't valve the only company that lets you resell cosmetics?
| OtomotO wrote:
| As a (non game) developer, I can say, thay free to play is
| instantly dead on arrival for me.
|
| The moment something is known to become or becomes free to play
| is the moment I lose all interest.
|
| The dishonesty in the system itself is what makes this unbearable
| for me.
|
| Developers need to eat, Managers need to eat, Marketeers need to
| eat... And sometimes psychologists doing evil mindtricks and
| supporting gambling addictions need to eat too... Or buy a lambo,
| or two.
|
| I don't care whether it's only cosmetic or not, I have and will
| never support that business model
| sofixa wrote:
| I disagree. There are ways to do it in which it's obvious where
| the business model is, and it isn't too forceful or gambling.
|
| The World of Tanks/Battleships/Warplanes series, are free to
| play, with progression through experience ( you unlock higher
| level machines based on xp points you accumulate through
| playing and success at it), or through paying to go up the
| ladder faster or unlock special machines. You can play the free
| version just fine ( a paying user against you doesn't have a
| serious advantage), and the developers make enough money from
| the paying users who enjoy the exclusive machines or earning xp
| faster. Why shouldn't i enjoy a free game i know someone pays
| for ( and that someone needs me there too, if there aren't
| adversaries you can't play)?
| some_random wrote:
| Those games absolutely nickel and dime you. Get a new tank?
| Want to use your old, well trained crew? Pay up premium
| currency. Garage slots cost money, crew quarters cost money,
| they have that weird experience system that costs money, etc.
| Not to mention that the grind gets insane at high tiers, you
| certainly _can_ play exclusively f2p but there are a shit ton
| of hooks to get you to pay up.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Isn't WoT the game where you can pay to get slightly better
| bullets? Even if that's just a small bonus, that makes it P2W
| instantly.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| Yes, and they used to be premium, real money shells only.
| But years ago they made them simply purchaseable with
| ingame money. But to have any of that spare, you need to
| play with "premium" time (which is fairly easy to get for
| free) or be really good at the game.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Ah, I guess that makes it a more complex thing to argue
| about. I only played it many years ago for a short time
| and remembered the golden bullets that were real money
| only.
| dkersten wrote:
| The problem I have with these games is they are almost
| universally tuned to make them very time consuming and grindy
| if you don't pay.
|
| That is, instead of the game being balanced for what feels
| good to play, they are balanced so that they feel good when
| you pay more and otherwise are not so annoying that you quit,
| but annoying enough to push you to pay.
|
| Its not: here's a good game, but you can buy these things
| with real money. Its: here's a game that we purposely made a
| bit too time consuming and annoying, but you can buy these
| "time savers" to make it be fun all the time instead. Any
| game that sells real-money "time savers" is by definition a
| badly balanced game. The solution to a badly balanced game
| that becomes tedious is not to sell "time savers" (or skips:
| "buy the tank now and skip the grind for it"), its to
| rebalance the game to remove or reduce the tedium.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| That is just certain games that rightfully have a bad
| reputation, not all F2P games. As others said, in rocket
| League or Fortnite you don't get advantages from buying
| things. You can buy levels in Fortnite, but they only
| unlock cosmetics.
| dkersten wrote:
| It depends on the game. If cosmetics are the only (or
| primary) reward a game offers, then I still feel that it
| matters. If cosmetics are a purely orthogonal thing, then
| I agree that its not an issue.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Fortnite only has cosmetics as rewards if you buy the
| battle pass, which costs less than 10$ for a season that
| usually lasts about 3 months. That is less than for
| example World of Warcraft used to cost, which was more
| like 15$/month (iirc).
|
| It is an ongoing massively multiplayer game which also
| incurs server costs, so I don't think asking for a
| voluntary subscription is too much.
| wink wrote:
| I think context matters a lot.
|
| If it's an F2P MMO then it's not a decision on a whim by the
| studio/publisher - it's been the default for a few years and
| good luck launching a subscription MMO in the last few years.
|
| If it's an AAA single player title and you have loot boxes then
| it's just someone being greedy.
|
| If it's a mobile game then it would probably not exist without
| f2p.
|
| But I get your point, I used to not like this F2P trend but
| over the years I actually like to not completely stop playing
| some MMOs because I don't want to pay the sub. With F2P I can
| login three times per month and play for an hour. This might be
| different if I was willing to pay 10$ for 3h of play.
| freedom2099 wrote:
| I hear you! Same goes for me... if a game is free to play for
| me it's a NO GO!
| rovek wrote:
| For me the biggest negative to F2P is in competitive games, so
| especially Rocket League in this case, because being F2P means
| that the competitive element and matchmaking system is 100%
| worthless.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Why is it worthless? Aren't for example a lot of chess
| servers also free to play, and thousands of chess players
| play there all the time?
| danaris wrote:
| Many of the most popular esports are free to play. Is the
| competitive element and matchmaking system of TF2, DOTA2 or
| LoL worthless?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| League of Legends is the most popular competitive game in the
| world, and is free to play. Calling the competitive aspect
| and matchmaking worthless in f2p games is incredibly naive.
| asdfasxcdf wrote:
| slightwinder wrote:
| > The dishonesty in the system itself is what makes this
| unbearable for me.
|
| How is it dishonest? F2P does not automatically mean using dark
| patterns or openly making it Pay2win. Cosmetics are the prime
| example of an honest F2P, as they have zero impact on the game
| and still allow the developers to eat.
|
| Do you consider demos also dishonest?
| qwery wrote:
| > Cosmetics are the prime example of an honest F2P, as they
| have zero impact on the game
|
| To have zero impact on the game, they'd have to not be a part
| of the game. Or have ever existed at all, really.
|
| But if you think they are so meaningless, why do you think
| people buy them? Also, don't you think convincing someone to
| buy _nothing_ sounds like something a con artist would do?
|
| > allow the developers to eat
|
| How do microtransactions feed developers? Do you just mean
| because its their job to build the game? (which necessarily
| includes the various monetisation systems)
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > But if you think they are so meaningless, why do you
| think people buy them?
|
| Because they're fun.
|
| Some people are willing to spend $5 so that their Rocket
| League car is the Batmobile. It has no effect on the
| mechanics of the game (Your car's hitbox is still the same,
| and it has the same speed/acceleration), but makes the game
| that much more enjoyable for the player.
|
| In Splitgate (F2P FPS), I bought the battle pass for $10
| because I wanted my assault rifle to look like it was made
| of cardboard. The damage and accuracy didn't change. It's a
| purely cosmetic effect that I thought was amusing.
|
| > How do microtransactions feed developers? Do you just
| mean because its their job to build the game? (which
| necessarily includes the various monetisation systems)
|
| Don't act like you think you know what was meant. It's
| annoying and smells like bad faith.
| duckmysick wrote:
| I've been wondering why we have such different reactions to
| free to play games and free software. I know gaming has
| different value proposition, but free software and services
| share a lot of similarities. It's not just feeding the
| creators. There are tricks and "addictions" too. Do you like
| the free version but want to scale up, remove that restrictive
| license, or unlock new features? No problem, just pay up a bit.
| It's no big deal; look at our landing page where you can see
| other players - I'm sorry, other businesses - who happily have
| done that. Some even do cosmetics too (we'll show your logo and
| remove ours in the UI facing your customers).
|
| Is it dishonest? I don't know. But the tactics are similar.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I think the issue is that it doesn't do what it says on the
| box, or if it does, there are disclaimers in super-tiny
| print.
|
| I'm not big on games, and even less so on mobile, but I
| remember that the ones I've tried to kill time during my
| commute, I could basically play them for 5 minutes if I
| didn't want to buy gems or whatever.
|
| This, to me, looks much more like the "shareware" / demo
| versions of old than "free to _play_ ". And I think I'd see
| them in a better light if they were upfront about it.
|
| To compare this with an "open source with paid features"
| product I'm familiar with, Elasticsearch, they're much more
| clear about it. At the time, it didn't even support TLS, no
| authentication, etc. You were of course on your own if you
| couldn't figure something out. But you'd know this upfront,
| and you didn't have to reboot the cluster every 10 minutes or
| 100 searches.
| [deleted]
| bootloop wrote:
| This is absurd. So you also don't use any software products
| which are a) free to use or b) habe a free tier?
| jeegsy wrote:
| I dont think an f2p game and your typical "open-source"
| software have anywhere near the same business model.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I don't think they meant OSS per-se. I mean, compare Google
| services with a popular f2p game like Valorant. Google
| mines your data to target advertisements at you on a
| psychological level. In Valorant, you can spend money to
| make your gun look cooler.
|
| I think the latter business model is very respectable
| because it's not sneaky and it isn't manipulating me nearly
| as much. You can have hardly any money at all, play on a
| crappy computer, and still have a huge amount of fun in the
| game. You could even be very competitive. And all for free!
| Not even at a cost to your privacy! And you can optionally
| "donate" money to the project if you want to support the
| game and get a neat cosmetic. How is that not a great
| business model for me as a consumer?
| mmcdermott wrote:
| Not the GP, but I have a hard pass rule on F2P as well. My
| reasons for it are two-fold. The biggest one is that I just
| don't want to deal with it. I spend my entire day "doing
| business." Games are a place away from all that and I don't
| want the F2P shop to intrude on my time away from the rat
| race. The other reason is that in the vast majority of
| scenarios, F2P creates incentives on the developer to create
| games that feature things I don't like (grinding and
| lootboxes being examples).
| midasuni wrote:
| Back in the 90s shareware was common, you'd get the first
| level of Duke Nukem, but to get the rest you had to pay
|
| That's closer to the "free tier" stuff, and a very different
| model to modern "freenium" games.
| rchaud wrote:
| First level? They gave away Part 1 of the whole game!
|
| The full game included a Part 2 and Part 3.
| rolph wrote:
| also if you wanted to you could generate your own levels
| and manipulate the skins for the game. there used to be a
| big scene for this spanning many games, for free and thats
| the kind of game i want to pay 50 or 60 bucks for and get a
| disk or zip. beyond that it seems im not a gamer
| anymore,specifically because of what contemporary gaming
| has become.
| OtomotO wrote:
| Counterquestion: Do they entice gambling?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| bootloop: have you tried machine zone or other popular FTP
| "games"?
|
| These "games" are HIGHLY MANIPULATIVE. They use bullying,
| false cult inclusion, peer pressure, gambling reward ration,
| false emotional and time investment, and outright slot
| machine tactics to extract money from players.
|
| They are worse than Las Vegas gambling by a country mile,
| since at least Las Vegas gambling is open and honest about
| the fact that the house wins and has established rules.
|
| The social bullying that comes from "fake players" that are
| paid employees of the company is among the most disturbing
| aspect of these games. They exists to "shake down" players to
| upgrade with paid upgrades, to sow conflict, etc.
|
| The rules of these "games", including the value of in-game
| currencies of dizzying types, is routinely nerfed/devalued at
| rates similar to the more comical instances of hyperinflation
| in the real world.
|
| These "games" are at the extreme end of the spectrum for now.
| What is truly disturbing is that practically every "platform"
| of gaming drools over the revenue streams they produce. It is
| a sad dark gravity hole that is sucking the entire industry
| towards it. It is the depravity of capitalism in action, the
| almighty dollar destroys any idealism.
|
| Aside from that, the appalling ad and currency extraction
| tactics used by virtually every "free to play" kids game is
| perhaps more distrubing, not because of the extreme tactics
| of the MZ games, but because the target audience is young
| children with demonstrably biological inability to properly
| regulate the addiction and investment behaviors involved.
|
| Rather than a 10 second toy ad "hooking" a kid, you have a
| program that can spend an hour or more "hooking" a kid with
| tactics that aren't as immediately apparent to regulators in
| their manipulation.
| tsuujin wrote:
| > Rather than a 10 second toy ad "hooking" a kid, you have
| a program that can spend an hour or more "hooking" a kid
| with tactics that aren't as immediately apparent to
| regulators in their manipulation.
|
| Fun fact, in the US it was not permitted to advertise to
| children on TV at all between the late '40s and early '80s.
| It was only because Reagan reversed these laws that
| advertising to children because permissible and common on
| tv.
|
| Many other countries still prohibit or limit advertising to
| children today.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_to_children
| Kiro wrote:
| Good thing they have whales like me who will spend 100x of what
| you would have paid. They don't need you when they can milk me.
| soultrees wrote:
| Genuine question out of curiosity - what do you get out
| spending that much on a game? I've heard some whales spending
| 10-20k a week and that's probably not even the highest. Do
| you get genuine enjoyment out of it or do you ever feel
| fleeced at all?
| Kiro wrote:
| It depends on what kind of loot box. For cosmetics it's
| pretty random. When the game itself feels stale I want a
| new outfit to make it feel fresh.
|
| For P2W it's a treat after I've been grinding freemium for
| a while. It's like opening a beer on Friday after work. I
| don't spend 10-20k a week but I do occasionally spend that
| amount on one game during its whole lifetime. However, that
| also means I've gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment out
| of it.
|
| But yes, while I'm only a 1000x (1000x compared to someone
| who just pays $20 upfront) there are certainly people who
| are 1000000x and much bigger whales than me. I can't speak
| for them.
| dvlsg wrote:
| I think that's part of the problem. Because skipping the
| grind by paying money is seen as a treat, game companies
| now have the incentive to turn their games into a chore
| on purpose to convince people to treat themselves.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| The beer on Friday metaphor resonates with me (even
| though I don't drink beer), that's how I perceive buying
| in game items. Out of curiosity which game(s) did you
| spend 10-20k on?
| yomly wrote:
| I think those numbers are all relative?
|
| If you're a bored prince with billions of liquid cash and
| even more billions of yielding assets, do you really care
| about 10-20k of weekly outlays?
|
| Or reduce the scale, if you have 100k annual salary, do you
| miss that $3 a day you spend on coffee or $5 a week you
| spend on mobile gaming? ... or $15.99 a month you spend on
| Netflix?
|
| Everyone has a thing and a threshold they are comfortable
| spending on. Some people want 4 wheels that will take them
| from A to B and other people are willing to spend $500 a
| month to get a Tesla.
|
| We focus on digital goods because they have a perceived
| cost of zero to manufacture and are transient (one day the
| game will no longer work) but fail to spot that the value
| we heap on many material goods are social and most of us do
| not buy goods for life (hence why r/BuyItForLife is a
| subculture rather than conventional wisdom)
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Just to follow up on what you said, one of the things
| I've learned after a couple of years in online retail is
| that a huge proportion of people genuinely enjoy spending
| money.
|
| They don't consider the opportunity cost or feel the pain
| of lost potential, but get a rush of "feeling rich"
| whenever they spend $50 on a T-shirt they'll wear once.
|
| It's cross-cultural, natural psychology, and I doubt
| it'll go anywhere.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| A lot of people have this; I certainly do: when I buy
| something new it _feels_ good, for a short time.
|
| I actually live a fairly frugal life, and I think
| acknowledging this is important: "do I really want or
| need this or am I just making myself feel better for a
| few hours?"
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Some people have enough money that they don't care about
| the money. But other people become addicted and end up
| spending money they don't have.
|
| Just like some people dropping 100k in Vegas in a weekend
| are paying for the experience and VIP treatment and
| others just need one more bet to replenish Johnnys
| college fund.
| yomly wrote:
| sincere question - how big of a problem (in terms of
| #people suffering) is there of people spending beyond
| their means on online cosmetics?
|
| I could see <18s getting into trouble but are there
| adults legit bankrupting themselves from paid-for
| cosmetics?
|
| How common is the pattern for paid-for lootbox cosmetics
| (as compared to buy-it-now) cosmetics? Wouldn't say I'm
| particularly deep in either the RL/Fortnite ecosystem..!
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I only have anecdotes, not stats. But some people do ruin
| their lives with F2P gaming addictions.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Paid for cosmetics? Not likely to be very many people
| bankrupting themselves.
|
| But Pay-To-Win games like Clash of Clans? I don't have
| any research, but if I was a gambling man, I'd bet at
| least a few thousand.
| foobarian wrote:
| I don't spend near as much as GP but I found that I am OK
| spending a comparable number (or a little more) to a
| classic boxed game such as a console title, so around
| $50-$100, if I enjoy the game enough. Two examples: Roblox
| and Genshin Impact.
|
| Me and the kid got into Roblox entirely for free. Beyond
| all the games she enjoys even without any paid features, we
| got a dead-simple game creation platform with world-class
| MMO built in. I thought that was nice enough to warrant
| buying a few gift cards for her and the peers.
|
| We got into GI for free as well. I was apprehensive at
| first because I heard from friends that GI is an evil gacha
| game preying on addict personalities. But once we started
| it we enjoyed the artwork and the game so much through the
| hours of main quest lines and beautiful content that I
| thought it was as good or better than Zelda BOTW so why not
| kick back at least the BOTW purchase price?
| legalcorrection wrote:
| This is like bragging about being in the demographic that
| keeps celebrity gossip tabloids afloat. Do you also lose a
| lot of money on MLM schemes? Are Vegas casinos comping week-
| long stays for you?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| You are implying that F2P is unethical. What Kiro is
| saying, I believe, is that the person they responded to had
| an invalid point.
|
| Someone was suggesting that F2P is inherently dishonest
| because "developers need to eat" and clearly there are
| unethical moneymaking behaviors happening.
|
| Kiro is saying "No, it isn't inherently unethical, and
| there are people like me willing to spend the money on
| cosmetics and lootboxes to cover the development of the
| game".
|
| You are making the same logical fallacy (or simple opinion)
| that "There is no way for F2P is ethical".
| Kiro wrote:
| I'm not into MLM schemes (or gambling) but I do love
| celebrity gossip. Since apparently you get to decide what
| interests are cool or not, I would love to hear what kind
| of amazing things you are into!
| legalcorrection wrote:
| Mostly telling people on the internet that they are
| wrong.
| Loughla wrote:
| This is either the most amazingly self-aware joke I've
| seen, or a completely tone-deaf unbelievably cynical
| response. I can't tell.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| What for example is dishonest about the "free-to-play" of
| Rocket League or Fortnite? It literally is free to play.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Call it trial version then. ; )
| aftergibson wrote:
| I'm in the same boat, I have the self control not to be affected
| by these tactics, I also don't want to ban these types of
| monetisation but I do feel the industry needs a regulatory
| reality check.
|
| Gambling mechanics (loot boxes) are having a similar
| psychological effect to regular gambling and "self regulation"
| means those at risk are unprotected. Is there a way to setup
| gambling limits on FIFA loot boxes right now? What about children
| who haven't the cognitive ability to reason about these things,
| are they barred like a casino?
|
| Again don't want to block innovation and alternative monetisation
| opportunities, but we should do better at protecting the
| vulnerable.
| exdsq wrote:
| Thankfully there are games like the Soulsbourne series! I found
| Japanese studios are the better ones nowadays for 'genuine' games
| based on a one-time sale. GTA V is releasing a $5.99 subscription
| service that basically lets you buy micro transactions at a
| discount.
| jdlyga wrote:
| The real problem with modern games is they're too focused on
| making the biggest most important game possible instead of making
| the game fun. I think development teams and budgets have gotten
| too large. It's the constraints that really bring out people's
| creativity.
| rolph wrote:
| chiming in late here, but it looks like a substantial portion of
| the thread is about monetization of skins, and items.
|
| that seems to be what video games have become.
|
| I remember the days of tombraider and all the skins, and modding
| kits available. this was grassroots stuff to begin with.
|
| eventually the industry realized that server subscriptions were
| not enough, and commercialized the elements of the gameplay.
|
| ive never purchased a console, and i think Torchlight [0] is the
| most recent game i have in the MAME machine.
|
| the last 20 years of gaming is mostly gone in this direction and
| has little appeal, other than hacking around in a graciously
| received console from the closet, that was designated as
| {bookend} .
|
| i think GOG is about as good as it gets now.
|
| [0] https://gog-games.com/search/torchlight
| k12sosse wrote:
| Escape From Tarkov is a most impressive video game. It's
| challenging, provides a path to success, and there is no pay2win.
|
| There _are_ varying tiers of support of the developer which only
| provide you with quality of life improvements, such as a larger
| backpack (stash) for storing items between sessions ( 'raids').
| All of those gains are achievable in-game with no requirement to
| purchase anything but the base video game.
|
| It's quite an achievement, and very fun. I can say that as
| someone who's played video games since monitors had two colours.
| It's not your average video game, but it's base recipe are
| already being copied out to new games (The Cycle). The idea of
| persistence of character is quite refreshing in a die-and-
| respawn-without-consequence state of the FPS world.
|
| Also I just wanted to point out from the article:
|
| > We used to laugh of people buying hats for barbie and now we
| are bigger fools than them, at least you can resell your barbie
| and resell the hat but we don't have that privilege because Valve
| determined we are not worthy of it, once you stop playing a game
| 100% of the money you spend on it disappears, you can't recover
| any of it, not 50%, not 20%, just nothing, doesn't matter if you
| already spend $20 bucks on it or $3000.
|
| That is more or less incorrect to state. Valve may not offer a
| way to redeem in-game loot back to real dollars, but you can sell
| in-game loot on the steam marketplace for valvebucks. It's up to
| the developer to implement. But for example, you can sell your
| PUBG skins on the marketplace. So while the money is still "gone"
| from your "real world wallet", it's not locked out of having
| "value" which restores the value back into the "steam wallet",
| which can be used in lieu of "real world" money in the future.
|
| I once sold an in-game item for $40 in valvebucks. Not exactly
| the $1,000 CS:GO knife skins, but hey, it's not nothing.
| deathcalibur wrote:
| I'm confused about the hate towards Valve since they have created
| the steam marketplace where you can sell and buy in-game items,
| to literally address one of the main points of this article. The
| problem is that Rocket League isn't using this system (I guess, I
| don't play it).
| deltaonefour wrote:
| If you think the industry is shit right now, you haven't been
| gaming. Literally OP article didn't even mention Elden Ring the
| greatest Triple A game that's trending right now.
|
| Elden Ring is the opposite of everything OP mentioned and you
| can't criticize the industry without bringing up the IT game that
| is literally the opposite of the entire article.
|
| The golden age of the gaming industry is right now. That goes for
| triple A games AND indie games.
|
| The whole DLC BS is this annoying side thing among triple A
| studios but it has nothing to do with overall trend of the
| industry.
| homerhomer wrote:
| Steam is the best thing to happen to gaming. My library is always
| updated. I'm able to play most of my catalog of games on Windows,
| Linux and here soon on Chromebooks. Since I started to use Steam
| I have amassed a HUGE library that I periodically have dig into
| and find stuff. It's really is amazing. Yep, I can't sell old
| games and yes there's a bunch of freemium games that are focused
| on addicts but who cares. Yep Rocket League you changed. I still
| play it but if I decide not to there's a ton of other games for
| my attention.
| vpilcx wrote:
| I think the number one thing, at least for me, that keeps Steam
| so competitive is its refund policy. Devs, especially indie
| devs who make short games, hate it, but I don't know any other
| platform that has something like it.
|
| For those unfamiliar, you can return and refund any game that
| you've played less than 2 hours. Now this obviously sucks for
| any games that are less than 2 hours in their entireity. (Maybe
| they need to adjust it to less than an hour?)
|
| But for someone like who can't afford to waste money on games
| that they aren't going to play, this is great. I just bought a
| game (Phantom Doctrine) on Playstation. It was $6 which is a
| really good price. I'd been wanting to play it for a very long
| time. I was very disappointed. It's like X-Com with a spycraft
| theme but much worse gameplay. Played an hour and knew I'd
| probably never play again.
|
| I've bought four games on Steam and returned all of them. Most
| because they just didn't run on my computer. The fourth one, I
| just didn't like very much after about ten minutes.
|
| One thing that does suck, if you're not aware of it, is Early
| Access games that just get dropped. I can name half a dozen
| games off the top of my head that I spent good money for and
| the dev just dropped development halfway through or released a
| shitty buggy product. But I think as long as you wait at least
| a year to buy an Early Access game, you should be fine.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| The old ways persist. Good games are easier than ever to find and
| in great quantity. So what, now you want lawsuits and legislation
| to destroy the fremium model? I'll just be over hear playing
| games I want to play, unaffected by the network effect because I
| don't care what strangers play. I play with my friends and we
| play games that are old, indie, fun, run on anyone's machine, and
| can be played in person on a couch if we want. There's free bots
| for discord poker with friends. There's countless pick up and
| play fremium online titles to chose from. There's decades' worth
| of system's libraries available on emulators. What are you
| complaining about again?
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I agree with this; there are these and other problems. However,
| not all computer games are designed like this.
|
| My opinion is, the game should be made to be standalone. No
| internet connection should be required for the game to work
| (unless you wish to join an official tournament that runs using
| the internet, perhaps). It should be independent of the time,
| date, etc. It should be independent of other instances of the
| same game on the computer.
|
| There are other problems too with some games, such as some are
| too easy. Some have too many cutscenes. Some take up too much
| disk space and/or RAM. etc.
|
| Fortunately, there are still some good ones. One case of this is
| some people will write a computer game for older systems (e.g.
| NES/Famicom) and then you can run in an emulator of your choice
| (or on the real hardware if you have it); the emulator may
| include capabilities such as controls remapping, save states,
| etc. But there are also games written for native code too, that
| can also be good.
|
| See comment 30827853 (and its replies) for some comments about
| dark patterns; I will write a comment there, too (later today,
| probably).
| tyrfing wrote:
| It's a great business model for multiplayer games. They live and
| die on the basis of network effects, and gating access behind a
| $25-60 upfront payment means most games die from gradual
| attrition - which is just sad to watch happen when it's an
| enjoyable but niche game. Subscriptions are dead, with even
| Blizzard struggling to make it work, and most DLC models just
| don't work for multiplayer.
|
| Looking at my Steam library, I only regret the $60 AAA titles
| I've bought and never found interesting enough to play beyond a
| few hours. $60 for 15 hours of gameplay, or an optional $100
| after 150 (or 1500) hours? I know which I prefer.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| It's a business model that works off of whales. It's predatory
| and exploits the same people that gambling does.
| Kiro wrote:
| I'm a whale and I don't feel exploited. I don't like gambling
| but I like buying chests. People spending money on trips or
| cars, things I have no interest in, are also exploited in
| that case.
| freedom2099 wrote:
| But you do like gambling! Buying chests is exactly that!
| Just like a casino gambler might prefer blackjack over
| roulette!
| Kiro wrote:
| No, in most games I know what I'm getting so there's no
| randomness. I buy a chest of 1000 gems in order to buy X
| in game. How is that gambling? Sure, some games force the
| randomness on me through chests with unknown content but
| that's not what I'm paying for.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| "Chest of gems" != Loot box (which is probably what
| freedom2099 meant when they said "chests")
| Kiro wrote:
| Not sure why you're telling me that. freedom2099 is the
| one conflating things. The article is about Rocket
| League, a game without loot boxes.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Ah good point
| smabie wrote:
| So what's the problem? Everybody is getting what they
| want.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| >most DLC models just don't work for multiplayer.
|
| I vastly prefer the freemium model because of this. It's great
| compared to before when we had sequels, expansion packs or even
| map packs that was the only way to get new content. But that
| new content wasn't available to people who didn't buy it, so
| now the playerbase will be split each time new content is
| released.
| midasuni wrote:
| Back when I played games we used to make our own maps, and
| share them for free on various sites
| the_jeremy wrote:
| To expand, DLC models for multiplayer either split the
| community (only people who purchased the DLC can join this
| lobby) or they inevitably make the game pay-to-win. If I'm
| going to get shot by a $20 sniper rifle, I'd rather it have the
| same stats as the one I have access to.
|
| I will say it sucks when the cosmetic item you want is only
| available via lootbox, but at least for Counter-Strike Global
| Offensive (another Valve title) you can buy either boxes or the
| exact item you want. I think Valve is pretty far from the worst
| offender here.
| 8note wrote:
| The most famous one, fortnite, splits users by being able to
| express themselves or not.
|
| If you pay, you're a member of the community, if not, you're
| not
| oneoff786 wrote:
| I don't play fortnite and have no interest in it. But this
| always sounded weird to me. If it's so extreme to be seen
| as F2P... can't you just buy a single cosmetic outfit and
| call it a day? There's no way people are keeping track of
| whether you rotate your wardrobe or care if you happen to
| like a random skin, right?
|
| It's like, $1 for an arbitrary skin, no?
| whynaut wrote:
| Are you referring to emotes? (I don't play fortnite)
| Nowado wrote:
| Most likely, almost verbatim, to that video specifically
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0
| ridgered4 wrote:
| I'm always the wrong guy to ask as a customer what business
| model to use to make money, but I remember reading some Call of
| Duty required people to buy maps or else you couldn't join
| multiplayer servers with them. There was a lot of predictable
| complaining that there weren't many players on the servers
| using the new maps. It honestly sounded exhausting to keep
| track of as a player to me and like it would server to
| repeatedly split the player base until the population died out.
| gigaflop wrote:
| I'm not a console user, but ran into this when Modern Warfare
| 2 brought it to the PC (I think. If not MW2, then one of the
| early Black Ops titles). I was too young to have my own way
| to purchase them, but never felt the motivation to pay up, so
| I'd just get auto-kicked by the system if a lobby started
| with a map I didn't have access to.
|
| I haven't played Call of Duty in a long time, but when I
| heard that Modern Warfare Remastered would have some maps
| locked behind a DLC[0] (along with the rest of the shitshow
| surrounding its release), I knew that I'd probably never buy
| another one of those titles again. I think the last I bought
| was MW2 or BO2.
|
| On PC, in Modern Warfare 1, the maps were made available for
| free, while they cost extra for consoles. Modern Warfare
| Remastered 'conveniently' left them out of the base game, but
| charged a higher-than-original price for the pack, for all
| platforms. Consider that a remaster is generally supposed to
| contain all content (i.e. game + DLC), and this was a slap in
| the face to my younger self.
|
| [0]https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/Variety_Map_Pack
| [deleted]
| prohobo wrote:
| This economic model for games is kind of required at this point,
| but the author is hitting on something true about the industry:
| it's not as good as it used to be.
|
| The golden age of gaming ended somewhere in 2005-ish, and now the
| vast majority of games are derivative and often _worse_ than the
| originals in terms of gameplay. They sell because people like new
| content. They are also less about the art, and more about the
| money. That may have always been the case in some sense, but I
| know that studios used to be very proud of their achievements and
| had ambitious visions for their IP.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, the gaming "industry" is basically dead.
| The few exceptions are games like Dank Souls and Path of Exile,
| which bring something _new_ to their respective genres. I know
| Dark Souls is technically a sequel, but that 's the version of
| the game that first went mainstream, and is considered the
| corner-stone of the franchise. The point is, those are the kinds
| of games that actually matter to me, everything else is content.
|
| Rocket League is one of the "real" games, and yeah the micro-
| transactions are annoying but it works well for that specific
| game. I'm not sure how to improve the monetization to make it
| feel more fair to consumers, and the developers need money, so
| what's the alternative? Keep cranking out crappy sequels?
| holoduke wrote:
| I don't agree. Mobile gaming went to the roof in terms of
| annoying monatization models. But you still have good games.
| The Witcher 3, Mass Effect. Minecraft. All pretty good games
| with no real shortcomings.
| EugeneOZ wrote:
| RDR2 was released in 2018, it's the best video game in the
| history of humanity, so your date of the golden age is not
| correct.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| RDR2 was a masterpiece.
|
| I wouldn't call it the best video game in the history of
| humanity. Certainly the most immersive open world game in the
| history of humanity with a story and cinematic flair on par
| with the best films from Hollywood. An achievement by
| rockstar that has yet to be toppled. No other open world game
| including their own GTAV even comes close. Not even elden
| ring beats it.
| vharuck wrote:
| >The golden age of gaming ended somewhere in 2005-ish, and now
| the vast majority of games are derivative and often worse than
| the originals in terms of gameplay.
|
| Major studios produce derivative, uninspired, and stale
| sequels. Much like the movie and television industries. They're
| in it to make money. So their products will be interesting
| enough, and often show the desires of the creative employees.
| But their decisions are strongly driven by profit, and they
| have to regularly publish something even if their creatives
| have writer's block or a desire to totally pivot a project.
|
| Real gems are produced by the middle-sized studios that grew
| from talented developers and great designers. I've only ever
| learned of them through word of mouth, and even then I only
| enjoy half the games I try.
|
| >Path of Exile
|
| Best example of freemium, IMO. Cosmetics are a big source of
| income, but the developers still put out new game mechanics
| every couple of months. Bug and quality-of-life patches are
| frequent. There is a category of real-money purchases that
| affect gameplay (storage tabs to help organize items you
| collect), but I don't mind it. Once bought, they're available
| to all your characters forever. Not having those tabs only
| became a problem after many (>100) hours in the game. So I saw
| it as upgrading from the trial version. I've spent less than
| $100 on it, but have played for almost a decade.
| royjacobs wrote:
| >The golden age of gaming ended somewhere in 2005-ish.
|
| This kind of statement definitely requires a source.
|
| >They are also less about the art, and more about the money.
|
| There have never been more experimental and indie games
| released than now.
| xeornet wrote:
| Not sure a source is required when he's simply providing an
| opinion, albeit assertively.
| alex_sf wrote:
| There are definitely dark patterns, dishonestly, manipulation to
| drive sales in F2P games. That's not a good thing.
|
| However, most of the people criticizing this did not grow up
| poor. When I was a kid, there were a ton of video games I would
| have loved to play, but my family couldn't afford it.
|
| Nowadays, everyone can play. The difference between the haves and
| have-nots are cosmetics. Better than that: in most games, the
| best cosmetics can often be unlocked purely (and only) by skill.
| A poor kid may not have as many skins or whatever, but they can
| still unlock things.
| lofatdairy wrote:
| Honest question: I understand the gripes about lootboxes being
| toxic because gambling systems are generally manipulative, but I
| don't know how to respond to "Just don't buy them". They don't
| affect gameplay, they're really just there as whale bait, but if
| you're invested in the game you don't necessarily have to get
| invested in cosmetics.
|
| The only two games I play these days both happen to be gacha
| games, and actually I see a lot less complaints about the
| toxicity of these luck-based systems in those communities. Maybe
| it's because they're more used to them, maybe it's because most
| other gacha games include pity systems, but it seems weird to me
| that the most vocal complaints are over systems with no bearing
| on gameplay when gacha games limit free access to new characters
| and, by extension, progress.
| 015a wrote:
| My response to "just don't buy them":
|
| 1) "Whales" keep nearly all of these games going. "Vote with
| your wallet" is a misnomer because in typical democratic
| systems a vote is a vote; but capitalism isn't a democracy and
| a very small portion of the playerbase will actually sustain
| the game near-singlehandedly. Its not a situation where enough
| people don't buy it and the game company changes; its a
| situation where enough people don't buy it, and are missing out
| on a piece of the game due to not buying it, while the elite
| 0.1% buy everything.
|
| 2) "They don't alter gameplay". That's an interesting argument.
| Take a game like Animal Crossing; would being able to buy a
| sweet ass new table for your house "alter gameplay"? Isn't
| aesthetic _the gameplay_? I truly and deeply believe that its
| difficult to draw this line in _any_ game; where the
| "gameplay" stops and suddenly the "stuff that doesn't matter so
| sell it" starts; if the product has value, such that people buy
| it, then it must be an important part of the game. It may not
| affect the competitive balance, but that isn't the entire game;
| the developers put time into the visual aesthetic of the game,
| and to assert that the items are ok to sell simply _because_
| they don 't affect the gameplay trivializes the items'
| importance.
|
| Moreover, in a much smaller way; in every game I've played,
| these items _do_ affect competitive balance. Often in subtle
| ways. In Valorant, having a cool gun skin can often mean eight
| year olds on your team asking for you to buy the gun for them,
| so they can use it (sometimes, promising a re-buy in return,
| then not doing it lol). In Apex Legends, some hero outfits
| legitimately camouflage you with the environment than others.
| In Dead By Daylight, the Feng Ming wearing the bright pink
| jacket _will_ be tunneled by the killer more than everyone else
| wearing drab browns and torn jeans. To assert "the way you
| look doesn't impact the gameplay" is trivially and wholly, if
| not sometimes subtly, incorrect; games are visual, looking good
| asserts a socioeconomic power structure which can impact team
| cooperation, all of this _does matter_.
|
| But, to clarify; gaming companies need to make money. For
| online service games, its not enough to just sell the game for
| $70 and call it good for life; even doing so can be a death
| sentence for the game, as the barrier to entry is so high no
| one joins in to even play. Loot boxes are extremely bad, and
| games which sell them should be held to the same legal
| standards as gambling (Overwatch, Apex Legends, Rocket League,
| DOTA2, CS:GO, etc). A cash-for-item storefront is better
| (Fortnite, Valorant, Warzone, Dead by Daylight, Sea of Thieves,
| Halo Infinite, etc). Battle Passes are probably one of the best
| solutions I've seen yet; they're effectively an optional
| subscription service to the game, with resetting progression
| (players love progression). Pure subscription services are
| rare, but also a great solution; CS:GO has one, but WoW was the
| better example; there was a time when you simply paid to play,
| and everything cool you could get was bundled into that
| subscription. Today, things have changed, and they're double-
| dipping revenue models, like most of the games listed above.
| emilsedgh wrote:
| I only play Dota and no other game and I think how the game
| works is extremely fair. It's free to play. For all. Can you
| believe that? And it only charges you for skins that have no
| competitive edge. How is that not fair? I mean there's not a
| single dark ui pattern to trick you into doing it.
|
| I honestly think we've become too entitled.
| boomlinde wrote:
| I don't think "just don't buy them" is meant as a wallet vote
| here. It looks more like a prompt to spend your resources on
| things you enjoy rather than things you don't enjoy. There is
| as far as I can tell no shortage of PC games that you only
| have to pay for once. I have hundreds of games on just my
| Steam account, of which only a handful will ask for change
| for some hats or whatever; things I deemed irrelevant to my
| enjoyment when I got them.
| josephg wrote:
| > They don't affect gameplay
|
| This opinion might vary by the person and the game. I was
| playing some free-to-play game the other day which was like you
| described - it had a store and some tokens, and a way to slowly
| gain the premium token as you played.
|
| But I found there to be something deeply gross about it which
| did impact my gameplay experience. I'm playing a game (rather
| than doing something else) because I want a curated experience
| of fun. Tokens like this make the relationship adversarial. In
| this case, the game has some mechanics which it keeps waving in
| your face - "quick! Click now to spend 2 whatevers to have a 4
| hour boost!" And I have to actively avoid the shiny fun part
| because it costs real money to do. It makes the experience
| tiring in the same way shopping is tiring. Is the game trying
| to be fun or not? Pick a lane.
|
| That said, I enjoyed Dota2 for many years even though it had
| hat stores and loot boxes full of art. I'm not sure what the
| difference is - I think I just never really had to resist the
| pull to pull out my credit card in dota. And I payed way more
| as a result! I chipped in a few dollars each year for the
| international prize pool, and that was a blast.
| claaams wrote:
| The difference is that the game was competitive and the
| cosmetics had 0 impact on the game mechanics itself. Other
| games like you describe constantly remind you that you don't
| have enough credits to buy the thing, you're earning them
| just at a rate too slow to matter. You're always being nudged
| to think about the mtx system and it's a core aspect of the
| gameplay and it's exhausting.
|
| For me it makes a game feel like a second job. I'm not
| wealthy so I'm trying to save and make something for myself
| but playing these games just feels like experience the same
| dread and fear i have in reality.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| If you only care about yourself, sure - "just don't buy them"
| is a good answer. The problem comes when you look at the
| industry level, at the games that get allowed to be made, and
| at the people they hurt.
|
| The vast majority of "free to play" games would not be able to
| make a profit of they didn't find a few players willing to
| spend huge amounts of money on them. Thousands of dollars, from
| people who often can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on
| a hobby.
|
| And not only are these games sustained by such people, they
| actively seek to find and exploit them, with game mechanics and
| presentation designed to hook a certain kind of psyche - people
| with gambling or other mental issues, and children.
| iswu wrote:
| I am a game developer. I have been part of the industry for a few
| years now.
|
| I am working on a product with a new company I formed.
|
| The economics are interesting. I pay, upfront, all capital
| required to get the product ready for viewing.
|
| Hackers and exploiters can probably destroy the experience for
| players because an indie studio is going to struggle to have any
| proactive anticheat.
|
| Lag, poor networking, and poor performance can also kill the
| experience fir players and result in a negative review.
|
| Delivering a game that covers the bases here well enough to not
| be turned into a meme or review bombed is a scarey endeavor.
|
| Who knows, maybe the market looks and decides the game just isn't
| cool enough?
|
| I hope for success on my project. I wont be doing any
| microtransactions initially because I am too focused on the other
| considerations.
| sabujp wrote:
| This is all due to having a device in your pocket constantly
| connected to the sum of all human knowledge. This device created
| an attention economy that forces producers/developers to create
| ever increasing ways of engaging your attention for as long as
| possible. Mobile game spend was $80 billion in 2020, PC $37
| billion, and consoles $45 billion [1]. There are still games out
| there that don't go the loot box route, but perhaps they aren't
| as popular (addictive) as the free loot box ones, specifically
| due to the reason mentioned in the parentheses.
|
| [1] : https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-
| games/2021/05/27/mobile...
| sidlls wrote:
| Video games are like this because people pay for it. It didn't
| start like this. Back when packaged games (i.e. shrink-wrapped
| cd/dvd cases) were the way games were delivered we had "online"
| modes that generally cost a fixed amount (including $0) to
| access. Then someone would experiment with something like a power
| up or level up for some tiny cost, or a "bundle" of them, etc.
| and guess what: the market overwhelmingly went for it. It made
| more money because it both had higher per-transaction revenue and
| more people converting to pay it. Then came the whales (things
| like Saudi princes blowing $10s or $100s of thousands on FIFA
| cards or whatever) and the industry never looked back.
|
| Video games are what they are for the same reason Marvel
| Character CGI-fest Sequel/Spinoff X blows away the box office
| every summer.
| bccdee wrote:
| Actually there's a strong power law going on with
| microtransactions. Most players don't spend any money at all on
| them; some spend a couple bucks on an item or two. The model
| becomes profitable because of the top 1% of spenders --
| "whales," in industry parlance -- some of whom have deeply
| unhealthy relationships to the gambling mechanics and social
| pressures underlying microtransaction economies.
|
| So it's not exactly true that the public are voting with their
| wallets here. It's a profitable business model, but the
| majority of people do not engage with it, and consumers as a
| whole would be better-off if it died out.
| sidlls wrote:
| Whales are outsized in many games, but non-whales contribute
| substantially to this model.
| danybittel wrote:
| It is almost like the business models are adjusting to the
| reality of the world. With massive inequality, especially in
| a global market. And an "entitlement" that digital products
| should be free or dirt cheap. If you think about it it's sort
| of a wealth redestribution. One extreme example was that
| Movie ticket business, that basically paid movie tickets with
| investor money.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| This presumes the whales can afford to spend the way they
| do. Which isn't true for gambling addicts either. And that
| the profits end up in the hands of workers rather than in
| the pockets of investors.
| mrjangles wrote:
| It sounds to me like what you are saying is that developers
| have discovered it is best to offer an amazing free product
| to the whole world in order to get them involved in the game,
| and then this attracts rich people, who then go ahead and pay
| for the whole things themselves. But if you don't attract the
| little guy with free stuff, you don't get a great game, and
| so you don't attract the rich people.
|
| Seems like a good system that everyone happy with. If they
| weren't happy they would go play other games that aren't
| free.
| fsh wrote:
| Gambling addicts are financing these games. Most of them
| are not rich at all.
| lifeformed wrote:
| It's not attracting rich people, it's attracting addicts.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| They don't attract rich people, they attract gamblers. And
| they are incentivized to convert more people into becoming
| gamblers.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Some games are starting to remove the gambling. The
| article's author is outdated on Rocket League which has
| since removed the lootboxes. Valorant never had any.
| sidlls wrote:
| Hardly. The whales are not always rich: often they're just
| addict-type personalities who are extremely irresponsible
| with their money.
|
| It's not a healthy business model for consumers, but ever
| since I saw the start of this industry trend I've come to
| view consumers of it (in aggregate) as being of poor
| judgement if not outright stupid. So they kind of reap what
| they sew, and the rest of us must work harder to find
| quality. Just like in everything else really.
| flanking_pajama wrote:
| In all fairness, Rocket League may be the only "free to
| play" game that warrants the term "amazing". I'm glad it
| keeps something like RL around, but let's be real: this
| game model tends to rake in the cash even with the most
| generic games.
|
| Frankly I'm torn: people can buy digital stickerbomb skins
| if they want, but it's obviously a bit of a "cheat code" to
| a profitable game and probably takes a lot of
| developers/money away from more interesting parts of the
| industry.
|
| It'd also be more forgivable if it didn't seem popularity
| creates nearly immortal games that too often become
| stagnant and overrun with toxic players despite still being
| profitable enough to "keep alive", i.e. payday 2,
| planetside 2
| mcv wrote:
| Reminds me again of "when you don't have to pay for it,
| you're the product, not the customer". Here, all the free
| players are opponents necessary to attract the whales.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| But that applies even to paid games. It's very hard to
| attract players to games if it's mainly multiplayer and
| there's no one to play against. Both players and
| developers do want an active playerbase, and free to play
| significantly lowers the barrier of entry for potential
| players.
| mcv wrote:
| So maybe free-to-play simply has to be the future of
| multiplayer games?
|
| And yet they put me off because you're constantly
| confronted with mechanisms designed to make you pay. I
| don't mind paying for a game, but once I'm playing, I
| want to focus on the game, not the payment.
| elefanten wrote:
| The megawhale point is a bit overmade. F2p games have vastly
| different payer distributions by genre, platform, business
| model, monetization strategy and other factors.
|
| Addictiveness and addiction are issues with and around
| gaming, for sure. But the reliance of f2p games on entranced,
| pixel-charmed addicts is also overstated. A good number of
| free to play games have lifespans measured in decades, they
| can function like a highly social, off-and-on hobby. People
| are willing to spend $20 to go to the movies a few times per
| year. How's it different to spend that on a game you get
| hundreds of hours of entertainment from?
| slightwinder wrote:
| It's not always gambling. There are also collectors and
| people who just like to show off. Also, the usually f*ing
| rich dude who has no understanding on the difference between
| $2 and $20k. Games today are the new social club, where you
| go and meet and show off your life. And as there are corners
| for the average people, there are also corners for the rich
| and powerful. There are some games which really just exist so
| rich dudes can casually meet and show off how much money they
| spend on some stupid skin. Similar, some other games have
| pay2win, because enough rich people live by the philosophy
| that money can buy you anything, including an easy win.
|
| The gambling-games are only the most obvious whale-traps, and
| they usually not even aim for the filthy rich, but the middle
| class rich. The rich rich-games are less obvious, because the
| casuals are not rich enough to even get high enough in that
| game to gain access to the juicy parts.
| cercatrova wrote:
| They _are_ voting with their wallets. It 's just that not
| every vote has a value of 1; their vote is the number of
| dollars they spend.
| rockbruno wrote:
| >Video games are like this because people pay for it.
|
| I hate this argument because it implies you have any power in
| this situation. They don't do this because the majority likes
| it, they do it because there's a select group of whales that
| are willing to spend ungodly amounts of money on this crap.
| They're the ones who dictate how these games operate and no
| amount of "vote with your wallet" would change it.
| jeegsy wrote:
| > I hate this argument because it implies you have any power
| in this situation.
|
| Yes you do. While there is little we actually control in our
| complex world, we are at least in control of our
| discretionary purchasing decisions. Sure, you as an
| individual might not make a dent in the company's profits but
| thats not the point. You are making a decision on principle,
| thats all that matters.
|
| If we cant get this part right, what hope do we have for more
| important stuff like voting in actual elections?
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Yeah no. There are still plenty of games, both indie and non-
| indie, which millions of players who don't whale can play,
| containing at most DLC which is effectively an expansion on
| top of an otherwise complete base game. If you don't want to
| play these games, there are still plenty of options. Enough
| developers haven't sold their souls yet, either.
|
| Reality is, the market meets a demand where there is a
| demand. The developers are not the sole responsible people
| for choosing to put in gambling gimmicks, incomplete games
| for 25-60 bucks, DLC which should've been base, P2W, etc.
| There is just as much of a responsibility on customers to
| vote with their money, or vote for laws to ban this shit if
| it becomes evident people can't control themselves as a
| whole. We haven't reached the critical mass where you don't
| have other options yet, and it looks like we won't for quite
| some time.
|
| Meanwhile almost every indie trying to fit in the market and
| come with their passionate solution is met with a dire
| reality that selling games takes a tremendous amount of
| effort for anyone who doesn't have a giant brand behind them.
| keithnz wrote:
| I mostly don't really mind, there is just so many games out there
| these days, and so many ways to play lots and lots of games for
| very little money. Mostly the extras are not pay to win, but
| there are a number that are pay to fast forward. Some are pay to
| fast forward and no reasonable way to earn the thing in a game in
| a reasonable time, those ones are a bit evil (GT7 being the
| latest version of that ). Overall though, for far less $s than in
| the past, you can play a heck of a lot games if you don't get
| sucked into paying for loot boxes / upgrades / cosmetics.
| EugeneOZ wrote:
| The author expects too much for $20 per few years.
| fifticon wrote:
| No, we just prefer games not structured to suck :-)
| remmargorp64 wrote:
| The cosmetics in Rocket League are entirely optional. The game is
| great and amazing to play even if you completely ignore all of
| the cosmetics.
|
| The fact that the author is citing the freemium model of Rocket
| League as their reason for not playing it anymore make me lose
| all respect for their article.
| cudgy wrote:
| > ... a game I spend more than 2000 hours is now a game I hate
| ...
|
| Ouch. Who cares about loot boxes when the opportunity cost of
| playing a silly game like that is equal to a years worth of their
| wages.
| neoyagami wrote:
| Any kind of phone/freemium monetization tactic (out of cosmetics
| ofc) must be barred imho. this just give tools to corporations to
| pry on their consummers.
|
| And the whole lootbox thingy is... to be honest embarassing, look
| what they did to Gran Turismo :\
| kgwxd wrote:
| I've played a ridiculous amount of Rocket League. "30 minutes per
| day were more than enough to get all the wardrobe" is just not
| true. Keys and locked loot boxes were in the game years ago, it
| was terrible, it was taken out well before it went FTP. Now,
| every seasons has free stuff, a few of them are random, and
| random blueprint drops after matches that can be unlocked with
| credits, but you know exactly what you're buying. There's a
| "Rocket Pass" which gets you a lot more stuff including exactly
| enough credits to buy the next season pass with, but nothing in
| the Rocket Pass is random and it doesn't get you any more chances
| at random stuff. You can't buy the random stuff anymore, on
| purpose.
|
| I buy the pass every season, even though I've been wearing the
| same things for years, because I can afford it, and would like to
| see the game (more specifically, the servers) live forever.
| q-big wrote:
| > Can you imagine if other art mediums where this ridiculous?
| Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask
| you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use
| his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? Or you are
| reading a cooking e-book that asks you for one dollar for each
| desert decoration recipe you want to unlock?
|
| Don't give managers bad ideas.
| darkwater wrote:
| I think the idea is already there, they just miss the technical
| capacity for now to implement it.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| Over the last few years I have gotten hundred of hours of
| enjoyment from games like League of Legends, Valorant and Halo
| Infinite and couldn't even tell you how to spend money on those
| games if I wanted to. I honestly doubt I would have ever picked
| up any of those games if they were not free and I'm guessing
| since many other would say the same thing the lobbies would be
| empty and the games would die. In those case the free model is
| great and I don't feel like there is any loss for someone not
| wanting to spend money on them.
|
| I think those cases are different than the mobile app style which
| makes no sense to me since many of the games are single player so
| nobody will see the skins or whatever anyway.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| "Laurey LoL statistics indicate players spend an average of $92
| a year on the game."
| XCSme wrote:
| The thing about IAPs in games is that most money comes from
| whales, people spending thousands of dollars for
| customizations or pay-to-win items, this rises the average by
| a lot. It would be nice to see the distribution of payments.
| dematz wrote:
| This is the only thing that makes me pause before
| dismissing the article as ridiculous in cases where it's
| people choosing to spend money on cosmetics. There might be
| whales who are addicted to the spending or gambling
| somehow.
|
| Otherwise as someone noted it's just price discrimination,
| and in a way that lets people try and play games for free.
| Really I love what video games have become.
| hfourm wrote:
| I may spend 100-200 a year on Valorant. However, I am getting
| way more per hour value out of it than say, a 50 - 60$ single
| player game that I quit after a single play through. Or
| worse, the 50-60$ AAA titles that popup every few years, get
| a swarm of players in the first few months, then die off as
| the ADHD Twitch community moves to something else.
| andechs wrote:
| The median spend might be zero $ per year.
| spiderice wrote:
| Also might be more.
|
| And with a game like Lol, where it is literally pay to win,
| I wouldn't be surprised if it were more.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| League doesn't feel pay to win at all to me, yeah you do
| have to play or pay to unlock champions but they are not
| necessarily better champions in most cases (for new
| players at least).
| comrh wrote:
| What aspect is pay to win?
| Strom wrote:
| You need to pay for champions, they are not unlocked for
| free.
| philipov wrote:
| You do not have to pay for champions, you can unlock them
| for free using easily-obtainable Blue Essence. Paying to
| unlock champions is pay-to-progress, because it gets you
| caught up to everyone else faster, but doesn't give you a
| competitive advantage.
| setr wrote:
| You say progress, but it's kind of both an endless
| treadmill and you're weaker usually by lack of options;
|
| When I used to play LoL, like 5-7 years ago, I was
| playing a rate of like 3-4 hours daily, which barely
| scraped by the amount of essence needed to buy the next
| releases champion, let alone the runes system they had
| introduced at the time (don't know if it's still around)
| which had a fairly dramatic impact on the early game
| especially for specific characters.
|
| That is, while technically the game could be played
| purely on free tier and eliminate any competitive
| advantage... it requires a _lot_ of effort to keep up.
| Not nearly as bad things like FarmVille used to pull, but
| definitely enough to say that ponying up cash is
| eventually needed.
|
| And having more options available to you (both characters
| and runesets or whatever they do now) is definitely an
| advantage, and a significant one at that
| philipov wrote:
| You don't need options. It's best to play around 3
| champions for your main position, and 1 or 2 for the
| other 4 positions. That means you want around 11
| champions in your pool. More than that is too difficult
| to improve with. Let's round that up to 16 champions and
| give a bit more flexibility and experimentation. This is
| all you really need, and you will get it very quickly. By
| the time the meta changes, or you've played it enough to
| consider changing direction, you'll have more champions
| unlocked.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| You can get some for free. You certainly might be
| attached to a particular one and want to buy it, but the
| game is balanced enough that you can easily win with a
| champion that is easy to get.
|
| I had a lot of luck with Sona, for instance, who I got
| for free right away.
|
| (Sometimes I think it would be fun to play League again
| but I can't stand the thought of being tied up for 45
| minutes)
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The best champions for new players are the ones you start
| with though. By the time you're ready for the other ones
| you've earned enough in game money to buy them.
| philipov wrote:
| There are plenty of pay-to-win games, but LoL is not one
| of them. LoL has cosmetics, and pay-to-progress, but
| there's nothing you can buy that will give you an
| advantage in-game over people who play for free.
|
| Unlocking new characters with RMT is not pay-to-win,
| because all the characters are obtainable for free
| without requiring unreasonable effort. You're not forced
| to get them from random lootboxes like Gacha games, and
| having every character doesn't give you an appreciable
| advantage except at perhaps the highest level of play.
| spiderice wrote:
| You and I clearly have a different definition of pay to
| win. If I start the game on a new account, and don't have
| access to the same champions as my enemy from game 1
| unless I spend money, then the game is pay to win.
| Period. The fact that I could pay money, in that moment,
| to win, means the game is pay to win.
|
| Edit: Further, here is an article[1] breaking down how
| long it would take to unlock all champions without paying
| money. 9.5 years playing 1 game/day. It's absurd to
| pretend that isn't "pay to win". By that definition,
| Clash of Clans isn't pay to win either, because
| technically you could grind the game for 100 years
| without paying for anything and get really far.
|
| [1] https://www.dexerto.com/league-of-legends/lol-fan-
| works-out-...
| sheepybloke wrote:
| I would heavily disagree. LoL now practically throws
| champions and skins at you now with some of their
| currency systems. I think the other thing is that you
| don't need all the champions unlocked to be good. You
| would probably do better by choosing a set couple of
| champs and getting good at those. Yes, meta's change, but
| that is on top of good mechanics. LoL is a lot of things,
| but I would strongly argue against pay to win.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| But you're not paying to win. You're just paying to have
| a different experience. In fact, when you start your best
| shot at winning is with the champions they give you,
| since they're the easiest. League is better described as
| pay to lose if anything.
| xeromal wrote:
| I'm in your camp. I'd posit an additional piece of my thinking.
|
| I feel like gaming, even with microtransactions, is probably
| one of the most affordable pieces of entertainment you can
| have.
|
| During covid, the height of my old-man gaming, I was probably
| playing an hour or two each day and 4 hours each weekend.
| That's about 700-800 hours a year I play. If I spent 200$ in
| skins on COD's battlepass, that is still an incredibly cheap
| amount of fun I've gotten for a whole year when the entire
| world was closed and I couldn't get out and have fun. I really
| don't see why people complain so much. Coin-operated arcades
| were literally a microtransaction model from the 70s and 80s!
|
| I'm paying 25 cents an hour on a game with a lot more labor
| involved than an old arcade game.
| matt_s wrote:
| I think I saw that some of the old arcade games were actually
| rigged to get harder at certain points to get more
| quarters/tokens put in them, then there was the countdown
| timer after you died where you could continue if you put more
| money in.
|
| Video games are for-profit companies and these days they are
| in heavy competition with each other and all the other
| distractions around.
|
| I can easily spend about $40-50 to go to a movie with the
| family and if the movie sucks it feels like a waste of 2
| hours. Same amount of money on a game will get you 10x plus
| more time of entertainment.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, that's exactly what I was getting at. I've wasted way
| more money on bad movies than games.
| auto wrote:
| My experience lines up with yours, as a looong time Halo
| veteran who is a bit bummed with the state of Infinite, I'm
| happy to not pay a cent, despite spending thousands on Halo
| over the years. I've also spent a decent amount of the previous
| year playing Valorant, and I almost feel bad that I've paid
| nothing for it, but the the problem is that apparently the
| economists Riot employs have figured the sweet spot for selling
| in game items is $20+ (with many items in the 30-40 range),
| which is just too much for a single item for me.
|
| The irony is that if gun skins were all $5-10, I'd probably
| have already spent over $100 on them. Oh well, time to queue up
| again and contribute nothing back.
| sheepybloke wrote:
| I completely agree! I feel that way about Hearthstone
| Battlegrounds cosmetics. I've been playing a lot and thought
| I might buy a skin pack or two to vary the experience up a
| bit, but all of the packs were more than $20 a piece! I was
| totally down for like $5-15, but once you hit $20, it's a
| like a switch flips in my brain to not worth it...
| Hasu wrote:
| Queueing up IS contributing something back - it's a
| multiplayer game, so every person playing is helping keep
| queue times low. It also gives Riot a MAU and DAU which they
| probably track internally to determine how successful a game
| is (and thus how much to invest in more content for that
| game).
| vl wrote:
| > despite spending thousands on Halo over the years
|
| But how could you have spent thousands? Original Halos don't
| have micro transactions.
| auto wrote:
| Slightly disingenuous to say I spent thousands on Halo
| _specifically_ , but I used to run LANs/tournaments, so at
| one point or another I've owned multiple copies of every
| installation in the series, bought multiple of the same
| consoles for the sole purpose of those events, combined
| with controllers, etc.
| vl wrote:
| We still have Halo LAN party with friends every week.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| This is just a self-inflicted bubble problem. There are now so
| many interesting games without any dark patterns on Steam alone
| that one can spend an entire lifetime playing awesome games
| without ever encountering a single loot box, just step a bit
| outside the AAA and mobile bubbles.
| Lazare wrote:
| Quite right.
|
| If there's a golden age of video gaming, we're living in it
| now. The sheer _quantity_ of quality, innovative games out
| there is almost absurd.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I disagree. There are previously popular genres that are
| either in sharp decline or basically dead (RTS comes to
| mind). Other genres (MMOs) have been almost completely taken
| over by games with freemium models and there are few options
| available if you're not into that. Finally, games on the
| world's most popular computing/gaming platform in the world
| (cell phones) are almost all freemium/gacha. This is
| extremely disappointing.
|
| The indie scene is, indeed, vibrant - but there's a limit to
| the kinds of games that can come from a small team with a
| small budget. Meanwhile, extensive monetization is creeping
| into more and more big franchises and studios. See: the
| recent Gran Turismo 7 controversy.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| But there have been so many games created that it's
| possible to spend ages just going through one's Steam
| backlog without having to bother with modern games. I'm
| currently playing Fallout: New Vegas and the original
| F.E.A.R.
|
| Who needs modernity?
| Lazare wrote:
| > There are previously popular genres that are either in
| sharp decline or basically dead (RTS comes to mind).
|
| And other genres that are extremely popular that didn't
| exist a few years ago. Also, there _are_ good new RTS
| titles out there, even if there 's nothing with the
| popularity that Starcraft or whatever had back in the day.
|
| > Other genres (MMOs) have been almost completely taken
| over by games with freemium models and there are few
| options available if you're not into that.
|
| The most popular MMOs right now is likely FFXIV (not
| freemium), followed by WoW (not freemium). (Or it might
| still be the other way around; either way...) There _are_ a
| lot of freemium model MMOs around, but most of them
| launched with a subscription model, failed to compete with
| the dominant subscription model MMOs, and fell back to
| freemium to try and survive. Taken as a whole, the genre is
| absolutely dominated by the subscription model; that 's
| where the players and money is. And while no, there aren't
| a ton of subscription options, that's largely an inevitable
| consequence of the business model, which has vicious
| network effects.
|
| There isn't a freemium MMO developer out there that
| wouldn't trade a kidney in a heartbeat to become the next
| Everquest/WoW/FFXIV. Conversely, if WoW ever went freemium,
| it would be universally recognised as a sign of abject
| failure and a last attempt to try and stabilise the game
| financially before the servers get shut down.
|
| > there's a limit to the kinds of games that can come from
| a small team with a small budget
|
| The limit exists, but it seems to be ever receding into the
| distance. Valheim or Rimworld are both stunning, developed
| on a shoestring budget by tiny teams.
|
| > Meanwhile, extensive monetization is creeping into more
| and more big franchises and studios.
|
| You don't _have_ to play games from the big franchises or
| studios.
| chronolitus wrote:
| I was reminded of this when I ended up on reddit's Unity
| development subreddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/top/)
|
| The daily amount of creativity, talent and technical ability
| blows my mind!
| brailsafe wrote:
| You're right, but only for you. This only works if all you want
| to do is play arbitrary interesting games, but that's almost
| never what anyone wants to do. The author liked Rocket League,
| and paid money for it, then disagreed with its direction. I
| like WoW. I disagree with a lot of its direction. Would I play
| anything else? Maybe, but probably not.
|
| Everyone is playing Elden Ring. If I wanted to play it, but
| disagreed with the same things, I couldn't play other games and
| get the same experience.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _The author liked Rocket League, and paid money for it, then
| disagreed with its direction._
|
| If you gets _years_ of enjoyment out of a game you spent $20
| on, I think you 've come out ahead in all measures. I think
| that's the most important thing to not lose sight of. Now, I
| totally get expressing disagreement over the direction of a
| game, but at the end of the day it's probably unreasonable to
| expect to enjoy the experience of a particular game (or any
| single thing, really) forever. Games change, gamers change.
| tqi wrote:
| The author of this article doesn't want to do the work to
| change their bubble, they want everyone else to change.
| idleproc wrote:
| Partly. I stopped playing multiplayer games years ago because I
| was missing out on so many good single player ones. But wanting
| to play an online multiplayer game these days puts you in a
| very large bubble with very few options. After scanning the top
| 10 multiplayer games on twitch it seems the majority follow
| similar principles.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| My biggest problem with MP games is that there is little room
| for casual gamers in these competitive games anymore. It
| stops being fun when you get dunked on repeatedly and it's
| getting harder to find community servers where people are
| playing for fun and not to win and clip it for
| twitch/YouTube/tiktok.
| idleproc wrote:
| Yes. I used to play Counter-Strike (pre 1.6) at a fairly
| high level. But it was still basically goofing around
| compared to what is expected of even novice players in
| Counter-Strike these days. I guess a lot of people want to
| be the next esports/twitch star and unless you're a god
| gamer you're ruining their chances.
| somedude895 wrote:
| It's a wonderful time to be a gamer. I mainly avoid AAA and
| have found a lot of joy with things like Outer Wilds, Project
| Zomboid and Rimworld.
|
| However, seeing my favorite franchises go down the drain when I
| would have loved to keep immersing myself in those worlds still
| makes me bitter over the direction the AAA gaming industry is
| taking. So I get that people complain.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I agree 100%.
|
| Kena Bridge of Spirits and Tony Hawk 1 + 2 HD are amazing games
| and have no DLC.
|
| It's a very complicated problem to solve, on some level adults
| have the freedom to be self-destructive. In another business
| case, dating apps are known to knowingly allow fake profiles to
| roam to encourage people to subscribe. And even after that, you
| have various freemium add-ons.
|
| Between this, and a very scary experience, I haven't used an
| app in years and I actually meet much higher quality people
| now.
|
| But adults have a right to spend their money whichever way they
| choose, if you enjoy spending 200$ or $300 a month on free to
| play games, and chatting with bots, enjoy yourself.
|
| The bigger issue with much of this stuff is there's no clear
| cap on how much money you can spend, so the bulk of freemium
| revenue comes from a tiny percentage of consumers.
|
| Like an addict will steal to finance their addiction, you'll
| have cases where someone will just steal their mom's credit
| card to buy Fortnite skins or Tinder boosts.
|
| I think a good compromise would be to restrict games with free
| to play mechanics to adults, as in if you're not at least 18
| you're not allowed to play games with loot boxes. Once you're
| an adult, gambling is fine.
|
| At the same time, I also respect the countries who have just
| banned this form of gambling outright. As it appears the
| Netherlands has.
|
| https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-il...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > I think a good compromise would be to restrict games with
| free to play mechanics to adults, as in if you're not at
| least 18 you're not allowed to play games with loot boxes.
| Once you're an adult, gambling is fine.
|
| Yes. As it stands many of these games are simply an end-run
| around gambling laws. It would be nice if games with these
| mechanics were clearly labelled (ESRB is showing its conflict
| of interest here) and rated 18+.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Absolutely, if we all just acknowledge this is gambling I
| think some progress can be made on allowing adults to
| gamble.
|
| I personally think the legal age to gamble or drink should
| be 18, but to comply with state law it's not unreasonable
| to say restrict boxes to those 21 and over.
| henriquecm8 wrote:
| You talk about not being able to resell the cosmetics because
| valve doesn't allow, but many games on steam allow that, and it's
| up to the developer to implement the integration with steam
| market. It probably also gets harder to implement if the game is
| available in more than one storefront/platform.
|
| You can't withdraw the money from steam, you can only spend it on
| other games or the market, but there are some 3rd party sites
| that you to sell these cosmetics and withdraw the money, but
| thrusting them is up to you.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Millions of children in the world do not have the money to spend
| $20 (quoted price for a game in the blog) for one game. Loot
| boxes subsidize games for these children.
| SuperSandro2000 wrote:
| I still don't regret buying Factorio for a whopping 1 Cent per
| hour.
| mouzogu wrote:
| Games, like many things lost their soul around 2007 with the
| release of the iPhone. The world has gone in a different
| direction, the worser timeline perhaps.
| theknocker wrote:
| honkycat wrote:
| While it is true that there are a ton of great games out there,
| the reality is that if you enjoy multiplayer, community matters A
| LOT.
|
| There was an excellent game released recently called Chivalry 2.
| It was an extremely fun "realistic-ish" sword fighting game with
| huge servers and excellent implementation.
|
| Last time I checked, nobody was playing. This is true for SO MANY
| interesting multiplayer games.
|
| So I feel what this person is saying. Popular multiplayer games
| are not to my taste these days ( I miss Quake III ). And there
| isn't a huge community for a lot of the games I am interested in.
| So it goes.
|
| Another thing is: A lot of these games are made for young people.
| So yes they do dumb dances and are cringe-y but you have to just
| get over that. I very normal and was really into zombies when I
| was 11, I'm sure I would be doing the Fortnite dances as well.
| Though I may have been contrarian and into PUBG...
| Flankk wrote:
| Talk about entitled. Freemium exists because of piracy. Why blame
| the video game industry for something caused by criminals.
| Developers need to eat too.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Let me correct you: Freemium exists because a bunch of
| nihilistic dipshits decided that it was OK to charge users not
| to endure a completely fabricated delay just because they knew
| they would pay to progress in the game. Also that people
| realized that things nonessential to game progression such as
| emotes and outfits were valuable to users in multiplayer games.
|
| Piracy has existed as long as games have and continues to this
| day, and yet FOR SOME REASON, gaming (not the casino kind) is
| the most profitable entertainment industry in the world at this
| time.
|
| Want to know the truth? Only poor people pirate (just like any
| criminal, you usually have to be poor to be motivated to be a
| bad actor), so the vast majority are not actually lost sales.
| As soon as game lovers get some cash, they throw down to get
| the games they want.
| fifticon wrote:
| I tend to not wholly agree. While I have spent insane amounts
| of money on both computer games and movies, some of us pirate
| simply to get rid of obnoxious DRM crap. As an example, I
| find it infuriating that my multimedia setup involves two
| separate but identical DVD players, just to get around DVD
| region crap. I regularly play minecraft together with my
| daughter on our LAN, but recently I've had to configure two
| extra dummy accounts just to be able to continue playing with
| her, to get around Microsoft now requiring all mojang
| accounts be 'migrated' to microsoft accounts. Including their
| dark pattern, where your initial account is locked and
| flagged for 'suspicious activity' ( _), so they can try to
| squeeze your mobile phone number out of you, if you want to
| play the game you BOUGHT, after 7 days have passed. (_ )
| There IS no 'suspicious activity', their activity log
| indicated 5 logins FROM MY HOME ADDRESS, which by the way
| reveals that they are continously tracking the lat/lon
| coordinates of me playing the minecraft game I PAID FOR.
|
| And not only poor people pirate, or commit any crime in
| general. It works in reverse. Activities by poor people, that
| rich people don't appreciate, is what our society labels
| 'crime'. When rich people commit unwanted activities, it is
| called 'privilege'. There is a reason poor people are
| incarcerated in prisons, whereas rich people are fined for
| their transgressions. I have yet to hear of more than a
| single person (a swiss guy) going to jail for what transpired
| in 2007 and 2008. If anybody got in prison for that in 2008,
| it was the victims. I too hate what modern games have become.
| And I hate that I used to be able to buy movies as perpetual
| DVDs, but that big business privilege in the intervening 20
| years have changed the laws into "you have a right to RENT
| movies from us".
| peepop6 wrote:
| Completely wrong. It would exist either way because recurring
| revenue is better for business.
| mattigames wrote:
| Citation needed, a lot of the games sell pretty well without
| using freemium, things like Doom Eternal, Resident Evil 8, et
| al, plus a lot of games have fremium over already asking for
| full price, things like Call Of Duty Cold War.
| serf wrote:
| > Freemium exists because of piracy.
|
| what horse-shit, let's see the numbers.
|
| my personal take : freemium exists because the video game
| industry figured out to exploit the gambling bugs in the human
| psyche to leverage them to gain even further profit.
|
| If piracy killed gaming so badly, how are the market numbers
| represented from now (when piracy is rampant and distribution
| is easy) from then (let's say the 80s or early 90s when
| distribution was near impossible and DRM wasn't needed as
| physical copying was prohibitive enough?)
|
| Gee, a quick search shows me that the video game industry is
| bigger than it ever has been, and the growth hasn't ever
| plateau'd. In fact, if the industry was in danger from piracy
| destroying all revenue it'd be easy to show me the dip where
| freemium tactics began to help the recovery -- can you point
| that dip out to me?
|
| I haven't been able to find that dip.
|
| Hypothesis : the adoption of freemium tactics had nothing to do
| with loss-of-sales revenue and everything to do with increasing
| profits.
| dud6ehrcuu wrote:
| Ekaros wrote:
| Wasn't piracy pretty rampant in 80s and 90s? At least on PC
| and other home computers? Ofc, it was not online, but friend
| to friend and via some BBS...
| falcolas wrote:
| I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of the "it's fine because
| it's just cosmetics, and it doesn't affect the game" line of
| reasoning.
|
| Because that's patently not true. If cosmetics didn't affect the
| gaming experience, they wouldn't be worth anything. Certainly not
| worth paying above and beyond the purchase price for.
|
| Cosmetics are just the easiest to monetize and normalize, to the
| point where players will now defend full priced games for
| offering cosmetic microtransactions. It's a shame. Likely a
| windmill-tilting cause, but a shame nonetheless.
| telchior wrote:
| As someone who has worked in F2P games: you're quite wrong that
| cosmetics are "easy to monetize". Good god, it's HARD.
|
| Because the only way it works, at a scale that can support a
| studio, is if people really, really love the game. Even
| something that can capture attention for dozens of hours may
| not be good enough.
|
| As a gamer, you're looking at something like Rocket League and
| going "oh yeah, it's so easy! They just make a skin and it
| sells!" But, uh, no. It's the 0.001% elite of all games. And
| they only have an "easy" time selling cosmetics in the sense
| that they already did the much harder work of making something
| amazing. Kinda like it's easy for Google to make money from
| ads; you need the killer product first.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| They said "easi _est_ to monetize _and_ normalize ", not
| "easy to monetize".
|
| Also, your argument seems irrelevant. Making a successful
| anything is hard. The fact that you may make money off of a
| mediocre shrink wrapped clone of a clone of a clone when you
| hook a few suckers selling time crystals for hundreds of
| dollars is not an achievement, and not something that anyone
| should feel entitled to. And yet, it's 99.99% of the mobile
| "gaming" market...
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Not sure I agree with such a sweeping opinion about 'what video
| games have become'. I've been playing video games since the early
| 90s and quite frankly I've never been happier with my gaming
| career like I've been in the past 4-5 years. And haven't been
| paying anything for it (aside from the price of the game). Maybe
| I'm playing the 'wrong' games? I also don't play any EA games out
| of principle..
|
| I do agree with the underlying sentiment. But these pay for play
| schemes are so easy to ignore. I play CS:GO and get a lot of
| enjoyment out of it without paying for skins or special weapons
| or whatever.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Another way of looking at it is that there is a vast, almost
| infinite quantity of quality games being created by independent
| studios.
|
| If you don't like one game, there's vast, vast choice.
|
| Go support the little guy by exploring the games on Steam and
| become happy again with what games have become.
|
| I don't think many of the independent games have
| microtransactions. They might have ads.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Choice that's full of crap is worse than no choice at all - it
| completely buries any decent game in a mountain of unplayable
| garbage that's not even worth the free wifi to download. PC and
| Console are not at that level yet, but mobile gaming is
| impossible to access, as for any 1 decent or good game that
| might exist, there are literally thousands of crap ones that
| try to waste your time, get you addicted, and make you pay
| hundreds of dollars (!!!) to survive.
| DaveSapien wrote:
| At great expense to my carrier I have out and out refused to take
| part in creating these predatory practices. If you could hear the
| contempt that "some" game devs have for their customers, you
| might never buy a game ever again. It really is quite
| shocking...and the contempt exists from top to bottom, its
| everywhere. That isn't to say there's not a vast number of of
| honourable people in the industry, not at all. It's only to say
| that we as a whole are allowing the demons run amok.
|
| I have seen the damage that compulsive behaviour can do to our
| most vulnerable in society. Lives ruined, homelessness, suicide,
| familial dissolution, the list goes on. Children, people with
| mental dysfunctions, suffers of brain injuries, even people with
| Parkinson's disease (on l-dopa).
|
| All the people in our society that can control themselves the
| least are the target. And these people are precisely the target,
| specifically these people, the 0.001% of players that make up the
| majority of their revenue. Some companies find out who they are
| and continually and specifically court them with free t-shirts,
| beta access, 'free' in-game gifts, etc. In some companies its a
| whole department that do this kind of customer management.
| Developing personal relationships all to keep them hooked.
|
| Now most companies don't do this, its much more automated and in-
| game that this Catfishing, if I can use a term like that.
|
| At the fundamental level predatory games are not actually games
| they are variable ratio reinforcement schedule machines. Think
| Guinea pigs in a lab being rewarded for pushing a button. An
| ultra advanced slot machine that continually changes it's odd's
| depending on what the app thinks you will be vulnerable too. And
| it attacks. Now, if you aren't a vulnerable person you will see
| the obvious things like the pop-ups asking you to spend money or
| a timer mechanism. And you might think how stupid people must be
| to fall for that, but you wont see the game's dynamic balancing,
| because you are not the target. If you're not the target you will
| never progress further up the attack protocol. So it will always
| just look like an innocent game to most people.
|
| Its insidious and immoral. (I'm mostly talking about mobile
| games...mostly)
| stuu99 wrote:
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Having worked in the games industry on Facebook and mobile
| games, I don't think your perspective is representative.
|
| Most f2p games are targeting a % mix of whales, dolphins,
| flounders, guppies. You might shoot for 0.1% whales, 10%
| dolphins,40% flounders, 50% guppies.
|
| The whales will have an outsized impact on revenue for their
| count, and you largely can't plan for them to arrive. They're
| typically (very) wealthy people for whom spending $10,000 on a
| game is cheaper than the watch on their arm. Game companies
| absolutely set up a VIP customer service team for these
| players, this is the experience they expect everywhere in life.
| It's the difference between them playing your game for 2 months
| or 6 with a significant revenue impact.
|
| Dolphins will be upper-middle class big spenders. They might
| try to collect every premium hat in your game, or regularly
| spend during special events. Again to them dropping $200/month
| in a game is not a hardship. In fact it's cheaper than most
| other hobbies they could do with their affluence like golf or
| skiing.
|
| Next is the flounders, the goal is just to get them to spend at
| all. There might be some singular obviously valuable purchase
| in the game such as a season pass. This is basically game
| subscription services repackaged for the modern day.
|
| The rest don't pay. You keep guppies around in hopes you can
| graduate them to flounders at some point down the line. In the
| meantime, they are cannon fodder for your matchmaking queues.
|
| None of these psychographic groupings aim to exploit easily
| manipulated people. Rather the pay bands expand to match the
| disposable income of various economic classes. This is the same
| thing that has happened in other industries for a very long
| time. Some people rent skis, some bring their own, others hire
| personal trainers, and some rent the entire ski club for a
| private event. Go to a concert and some have nosebleed seats,
| others are front row, some watch from boxes, others pay to meet
| & greet the band after the show.
| MMS21 wrote:
| Basically, if you see the trap you aren't the target. Wow I
| never thought of it that way.
| einpoklum wrote:
| IMHO, purely-online or mostly-online games which are not
| community-run FOSS are fundamentally suspect :-( I'm not saying
| they are all problematic, but my basic tendency would be to steer
| away from those.
|
| Also - old-school games, people... by now, there are over 40
| years of games if you count old-time stand-alone consoles
| (Galaxian anyone?) that's probably more than you could play in a
| lifetime of gaming. Ok, maybe not, but more than you could play
| in a lifetime of gaming in your spare time if you are actually
| holding down a job :-P And the best thing is that those games
| either don't have a way to scam you, and the ones which do (say
| online games with vanity item monetization) from 10 years ago
| probably don't work anyway these days.
| d--b wrote:
| Is Apple partially to blame?
|
| Did they purposefully push the loot box model by promoting games
| that were doing it because they took a cut on every transaction?
| yuzugit wrote:
| Apple is now pushing against it. For legal and marketing
| reasons. The apple arcade model is the opposite of that: no
| online required, no IAP. I think the loot boxes model is slowly
| dying in flavor of subscriptions, battle pass and other
| mecanisms like that.
| sircastor wrote:
| I can't speak to the historical component of this, but I
| suspect that this came about as a natural evolution of in-app
| purchases. As soon as players could spend money in game, game
| companies had an additional revenue stream. I doubt we can
| blame Apple any more than Microsoft or Sony.
| omgmajk wrote:
| I mostly hate what mobile games have become. It feels like there
| are pretty much zero games that you can play that doesn't have
| microtransactions or a wait time between stuff. Unless you go
| into the premium store and then most games require a controller -
| which I don't want to use.
| anon23anon wrote:
| I personally don't see the big deal in paying $5-$10 for a
| video game. Yes I realize for people in the third worlds that's
| a lot of money but if you're struggling w/ food and water
| spending money on games for your phone is probably just a bad
| idea overall.
| tejohnso wrote:
| > Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask
| you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use
| his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?
|
| I don't think that's a fair comparison. It's more like offering
| to have him use a special limited edition outfit rather than his
| well known outfit. And I don't see what the big deal is. You can
| get the standard cost experience, or the higher fee, upsell
| experience. It's not uncommon, and it's not a major problem. Just
| pay for what you want. (And learn to want less).
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| phatbyte wrote:
| "...you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask
| you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use
| his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?..."
|
| For the love of whatever-god-or-not-you-believe, don't give them
| ideas
| fattless wrote:
| Going to repost something I wrote up earlier on a similar topic,
| regarding how games are changing their designs to push players to
| buy things.
|
| "The worst part of this trend to me is how many games sacrifice
| their identity to fit the mold that is now most profitable, it
| feels so soulless. This is all from my own experience/memory.
|
| Every game needs live service, seasons, and a battle pass. While
| I appreciate that it can keep the game fresh and evolving over
| time, I think a lot of times its harmful. Sometimes a relatively
| simple game is blown out of proportion over time and id almost
| rather a stagnant game. Furthermore, gameplay can suffer too. In
| my opinion R6 siege started really strong, but has gone downhill
| recently, most obviously in operator design. Real power creep is
| sometimes an issue as well, somewhat recently I remember there
| were one or two operators added that felt like almost direct
| upgrades to base game ones. In its case, both the art style and
| operator design suffered from being stretched out for so long. Or
| RDR2, who sells most of the content through their premium
| currency and whose movement between the single player and online
| is so drastically different that fights online look like smash
| bros melee matches with frantic strafing and rolling. Compare
| this to titanfall 2's design, which has remained stagnant
| (because it was killed a long time ago), but incredibly
| successful maintaining a large player base to this day.
|
| Cod and pubg have sacrificed their art style and aesthetic, MW
| went from "realistic" tactical characters to jigsaw puppets and
| neon, out of place outfits. It's like power creep, but for
| ridiculousness, skins have to get crazier and crazier because
| sometimes it keeps people buying them because its funny. It fit
| in fortnite because it was cartoonish and ridiculous from the
| beginning, but through MW and CW lifespan you can see the art
| style gradually decay. These game aren't really meant to be taken
| seriously, but it always kinda put me off. Not necessarily making
| an argument about my taste, but rather how the games stray more
| and more from their original vision, driven by micro
| transactions. Battlefield has thrown out their traditional
| classes for specialists following in r6 and other hero shooters
| footsteps, part of me always kinda felt like it was to sell skins
| for each specialist, but I might be wrong here.
|
| This isnt the biggest deal, especially not within the games
| industry, but frustrating to see innovation slowly be stamped
| back into the mold. There are many games that hold true to their
| visions or fill these voids especially in the indie scene but the
| state of AAA gaming and how it molds to the market is a little
| disappointing to me."
| onedognight wrote:
| I hate that this site breaks the back button to keep on people on
| their site. That's worse than loot boxes in my mind.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I can't imagine this ever being intentional. No one tries to
| leave a site and goes "Well the button didn't work, guess I'll
| keep browsing".
|
| It's pretty much always the result of a broken redirect /
| history api usage. You go back to the page which redirected
| causing it to redirect again.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| Complaining that games use dark patterns while posting on a
| site that uses even worse patterns. That's a paddlin'.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| You have a chance to win a functioning back button in a loot
| box.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'd buy _that_ for a dollar.
| Semaphor wrote:
| I'm glad there is this whole parallel universe of amazing single
| player (or MP-optional) games with absolutely no dark patterns,
| loot boxes or any of the shit people who play MP games have to
| put up with.
|
| I buy a game, and unless I get the DLC(s)/Expanions pack(s),
| that's all I'll ever have to pay. Civilization V: Over 2000
| hours. Pathfinder: Kingmaker/Wrath of the righteous: Over 1000
| hours each. Stellaris [0]: Almost 1000 hours.
|
| [0]: Some people hate the Paradox DLC style, personally I think
| it's amazing. Content DLCs are accompanied by free feature
| patches, cosmetic/minor DLCs are well, minor. No one forces you
| to get all of them. And thanks to this DLC policy, Stellaris will
| soon turn 6 years old while still getting regular updates.
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Grim Dawn also has a ton of content without any psycho crap
| built-in. MP is optional but adds fun and has a good community
| too.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Some people hate the Paradox DLC style, personally I think
| it's amazing
|
| Yep. Some people might argue that this or that mechanic should
| be in the base game because it's too important, but in general
| the Paradox model is great. Games get interesting new content
| many years after release, which you have to pay for, but it
| enables Paradox to actually do the work. The latest DLC for
| Hearts of Iron 4 took more than a year to develop and
| drastically changed the game ( it added logistics, trains,
| depos) for the better. If it were not paid, they wouldn't have
| been able to afford it.
| Neivis wrote:
| It's true that they add more content per DLC, but I question
| the amount it adds versus the price they include.
|
| In addition, I noticed every new paradox release their base
| game tends to be broad, but shallow; almost as if it was
| intentional. They fill in depth with DLCs which one could
| argue should've been there in the first place. Try playing
| any of their recent games without DLC.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Often, content also does end up in the base game after some
| time. It happened with Utopia for Stellaris, most of what it
| initially offered is now included in the base game.
|
| And people who can't or don't want to pay still get some
| benefit as part of the features are always public and not
| DLC-only.
| sofixa wrote:
| And there are promos a few times per year where all the
| DLCs are available at a huge discount. And now there's a
| monthly subscription for all the DLCs. So there are
| multiple options available to get DLCs. All in all, not a
| bad way of doing things.
| Sander_Marechal wrote:
| From an engineering perspective I wonder how sustainable that
| is. For every new DLC X you need to test with (X-1)!
| combinations of previous DLCs. Sure, not all DLCs interact
| with each other but many will in some limited way.
| Semaphor wrote:
| They have been following this model for years, CK 1-3, EU
| 1-4, Victoria 1-2, Stellaris. So it seems to be pretty
| sustainable?
| swilliamsio wrote:
| It is a common joke among fans for these games that Paradox
| Interactive does not have a QA department, given how
| incredibly buggy their DLCs are at launch.
| billfruit wrote:
| Paradox DLC policy is problematic I feel: they gate some of the
| visual flair and more troublingly some of the soundtrack behind
| payed DLC. How would it be if a movie charged you extra for
| listening to its score?
|
| Also the large number of DLC makes it difficult to determine
| what set I may have do give a canonical experience or if it is
| even viable gameplay wise.
| jorams wrote:
| > and more troublingly some of the soundtrack behind payed
| DLC. How would it be if a movie charged you extra for
| listening to its score?
|
| Why is it problematic that they include extra music in
| expansions? They're not leaving out an essential part of the
| game you bought, just adding more of it when you buy DLC. The
| base game soundtrack is so good that there are times I just
| pause the game and listen to the music.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Also the large number of DLC makes it difficult to
| determine what set I may have do give a canonical experience
| or if it is even viable gameplay wise.
|
| I like this about Paradox games. When you buy a DLC, it
| doesn't merely expand the game, it totally alters it. I can
| see why people don't like this, but sometimes, a total
| reimagining of a game is fun. Especially in strategy games.
| nprateem wrote:
| Speaking of which EU4 is currently on humble bundle. You can
| get it and all DLC for PS20
|
| https://www.humblebundle.com/games/europa-universalis-iv-com...
| mcphage wrote:
| Or... you could just buy it all from Steam, where right now
| it's going for only... $384.89.
|
| Huh.
| jcranmer wrote:
| If you're going to pick up EU4, wait until one of the times
| it goes on sale (it does so frequently). You'll be able to
| get a bundle with the main game and most of the expansions
| for ~75% off the bundle price (itself a decent discount
| over buying everything individually).
| mcphage wrote:
| The person I was responding to mentioned that it was on
| sale in a Humble Bundle for $20--I was just amazed at how
| big the price difference was!
| ajmurmann wrote:
| The same is true for most AAA single player games as well. God
| of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Souls
| games. None of these have microtransactions.
|
| The milk only seems to sour once there is a significant
| multiplayer component. GT7 sticks out as a recent example where
| the presence of multiplayer negatively impacts single player as
| well.
| Semaphor wrote:
| I wouldn't know, I hate action games and I'm not sure there
| are other AAA games ;)
| slightwinder wrote:
| Hasn't Paradox this sneaky thing going, where they put new
| mechanics from DLCs into the main game, but only useable by the
| AI? Thus shifting the balance slowly against the player and
| forcing them on the long run to buy DLCs to get a fair balanced
| game again.
|
| Similar to things happening in MMOs with extensions. A new
| extension usually forces most players to buy it fast, so they
| can continue to play with the other players, access new raids,
| skills and gain from the new items on the market.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Not for Stellaris, but considering that their games are
| pretty much about emergent stories, I wouldn't even complain
| about it. For MP only the host needs to have the DLCs.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Honestly, these are a lot closer to "Expansion Packs" of the
| old days than what a lot of people think of as DLC. It's maybe
| a distinction without a difference, but expansion packs didn't
| sell you horse armor they sold horse armor+a new campaign+some
| new player classes or something.
| BigJono wrote:
| Civ V is an interesting case, since there's another thread in
| here somewhere about companies charging to fix design mistakes,
| and Civilization was really one of the OGs when it comes to
| that.
|
| I wouldn't say Vanilla Civ V was _bad_ , but it wasn't great. I
| probably wouldn't recommend it without the two expansions. I
| guess it's a moot point these days though since it's all sold
| together.
| Semaphor wrote:
| A mod from the early days of Civ V was Communitas [0], it
| became the Community Balance Patch and is nowadays called Vox
| Populi [1]. It vastly improves AI, balance and adds a ton of
| features. There is still regular development, with stable
| versions being released every 1-2 months.
|
| Without this mod I'd have long stopped playing Civ V, and the
| lack of such a fix/balance mod (Civ V had an official source
| release and SDK which is what made the mod possible) is why I
| can't get into Civ VI
|
| [0]: https://civmodding.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/balance-
| units/
|
| [1]: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-
| how-t...
| BigJono wrote:
| Yeah I've been playing the same mod for years now too. It's
| basically the 3rd expansion as far as I'm concerned haha.
|
| I just remember picking up Civ V when it came out and going
| back to Civ IV because it got boring after a while. I loved
| the main changes (more vibrant and realistic graphics
| style, one unit per tile combat), but the systems didn't
| seem that fleshed out yet and the games were a bit
| repetitive. I don't think the game really hit it's stride
| until the first expansion, so it felt a bit like having to
| buy the game twice just to get a good product.
| Semaphor wrote:
| I honestly can't remember :D Only about 300 hours were
| unmodded ;)
| antisthenes wrote:
| I'll be the first person to jump on the hatewagon towards pay2win
| and lootbox gacha games, but...hear me out. You can just _NOT_
| play those games.
|
| The amount of games available on Steam is such that you can play
| indie games, old classics and anything to your liking for
| _decades_ , while _completely_ avoiding the types of game the
| author laments about.
|
| There were plenty of just horrible, bad games back in the day
| too. Games that would crash all the time, had terrible gameplay,
| graphics, story, you name it. You just avoided the bad ones.
| powerapple wrote:
| when you grow old, you start to hate every new change :)
| soared wrote:
| 1. Most art is like the example given, not just video games. For
| the avengers, you can watch the movies at the theatre but you
| need to pay another $10/mo for Disney+ to watch their tv series.
| Art, NFTs. Etc.
|
| 2. There are many games that aren't loot box-esque. To say "video
| games have become this" is very unfair.
| sabujp wrote:
| I recently got my kids playing Trackmania to help their eye hand
| coordination. It operates on the freemium model but the free
| version is adequate enough since there are enough tracks every
| season and enough previous seasons available to keep them engaged
| during daily video game time. You can also download user created
| tracks (or create your own!) and addons that keep things
| interesting. Hopefully ubisoft doesn't switch this to the loot
| box model, once you start adding incentives and milestones,
| that's when things start getting addictive.
| cwkoss wrote:
| This is happening to all IP industries and leaking into other
| ones. You no longer buy a song, movie, ebook, or game and truly
| own it. You get a non-transferrable license that only last as
| long as you don't do anything to anger the fickle platform
| overlords.
|
| You can't lend IP you've purchased to a friend. You can't resell
| your content to others. Even consumer electronics are becoming
| increasingly worthless, as they require perpetual internet
| connection so they can rent seek via subscriptions and ads for a
| device you already paid for.
|
| The idea of ownership is being destroyed, and consumers'
| ambivalence to this is extremely disappointing to me.
|
| It should be illegal to have "buy" button when the purchaser
| doesn't really own anything.
| ghostDancer wrote:
| The new generations are being taught to not have anything but
| to have access to it, songs, games, movies, ... . They don't
| know anything else and the ubiquity of access to everything
| makes them think it will always be there. I see it with my son
| and friends. And when I try to explain them they look at me
| like an old man shouting at the clouds (it's almost literal).
| When I try to explain my son that is better to buy buy, even if
| it's more expensive, the physical copy of a game instead of the
| digital copy he understands it but can't see the problem, I
| guess till he lose something won't realize.
| rchaud wrote:
| I think most people snap out of it though. The turning point
| is when they go on Netflix/Prime and type in a TV show, and
| see the autocomplete, only to be shown a screen saying they
| don't actually have that show.
| vpilcx wrote:
| libraryatnight wrote:
| "here is this fun simple game called Rocket League, its about
| playing something like soccer but with cars, a few years ago I
| paid around 20 dollars for it, back then you were able to earn
| all the garments (hats, wheels, et al) for your cars just by
| playing the game, 30 minutes per day were more than enough to get
| all the wardrobe"
|
| Not true. It had crates that dropped and you had to buy keys to
| unlock them for randomized drops. At least now you know what
| you're buying if you choose to unlock an item.
|
| "a game I spend more than 2000 hours is now a game I hate -and
| don't play, of course-."
|
| This seems ridiculous to me. The game is the same, if you love
| the game, why would you stop playing because of cosmetics? Just
| don't buy them, use the free ones they give out. Or, rid yourself
| of the notion you must have every cosmetic, and kick a game you
| love that is also a live service a few bucks now and again for
| something you particularly like.
|
| There's so many terrible free to play games out there with dark
| patterns and predatory tactics, Rocket League is hardly the enemy
| here.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| For me the problem is not so much the direct consequences of
| paying, but the subtle hidden differences between a game that
| offers things to buy and one that doesn't. The amount of money
| you will pay for something will never be worth the time you'd
| spend to unlock it for free. Maybe you can pay $1 dollar for
| something that would take a couple of hours of play time to
| unlock. Who has a shitty job that pays $0.50 an hour? So, the
| whole thing loses meaning completely. Why bother? I don't know.
| Free to play games are to me simply another type of infinite
| scroll.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| I play Fortnite which is from the same company as Rocket League
| (afaik). I think their model is extremely fair. You can play for
| free, and you can buy outfits that don't give you any advantage
| in the game.
|
| At first coming with "old gamer mindset" I also thought "who
| would ever pay for that nonsense". But now I simply see it as
| supporting a creation I enjoy. I buy the "battle pass" every
| season (maybe 8$), and every couple of months perhaps a funny
| skin.
|
| Back in the day, I think a World of Warcraft subscription was 15$
| per month, so I still pay far, far less than I would have paid
| for WoW.
|
| There are other games that annoy me, as they basically push
| gambling onto my kids. They will literally have a push
| notification telling them to try a spin on the lucky wheel.
| cletus wrote:
| In the early smartphone era I was extremely bullish on mobile
| gaming. I expected a creative explosion and a golden age of
| gaming due to the power, convenience and (inevitable) ubiqutity.
|
| But then in-app purchases happened and we got to see first hand
| what happens with developers have seamless integration into a
| payments infrastructure combined with the ability to push updates
| constantly and easily. This really should've been no surprise
| because the addiction-loop of Farmville and the like were already
| established. Even so, I was surprised.
|
| "Gaming" is now about "micro" (they're not that micro)
| transactions and a highly-A/B-tested loop optimized to get users
| to log on every day, do some menial task, get th eillusion of a
| reward and to want tomsething that is in the distance and only a
| few dollars away.
|
| I can't necessarily blame game developers for this. We as users
| are really to blame ultimately. But it means that games that are
| actually games where you just buy the game and play the game
| without spending additional money are a rarity.
|
| And that is sad.
| chii wrote:
| > games where you just buy the game and play the game without
| spending additional money are a rarity.
|
| it might look like a rarity, but it's not imho. The absolute
| amount of indie games that come out, even if you don't include
| the free ones (which would only push the numbers higher) is
| absurd. have a look on itch.io, let a lone steam.
|
| The quality varies, but it's acceptable. The "golden age" of
| gaming, back in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, don't compare to
| today in terms of quality and amount.
|
| It's only a rarity if you count monetary successes and the
| ratio of commercial successes vs the number of games. Success
| is always a rarity, and it's sad that exploitative games tend
| to be more successful - but they aren't the only ones with
| success.
|
| And these mobile exploitative games aren't all that different
| from the arcades of yester-decades. I do agree that the arcades
| require honed skills, where as today's mobile pay to win games
| cannot be won via pure skill - the key differentiating factor.
| teddyh wrote:
| Benjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw (of _Zero Punctuation_ )
| agree with you:
|
| https://www.escapistmagazine.com/what-the-hell-happened-to-m...
| arealaccount wrote:
| Just started playing fortnite after resisting cause free to play
| rules. Its a really fun game, and theres no buying competitive
| advantage.
|
| I bought a skin to support the devs, just like I did on Among Us.
|
| As a generally "always by the cart" type of person, I think I'm
| starting to come around to the "pay what you want" model.
| [deleted]
| nstart wrote:
| There's definitely a tasteful way to do this model. Dota 2,
| Fortnite, and Brawlhalla are examples of good ways to do this.
| To me, it comes down to two things:
|
| 1. Should not be able to purchase a competitive advantage
|
| 2. Should be able to purchase the item you want.
|
| Re the second point, if you want the rare items and that
| involves gambling random item opaque loot boxes, that's an
| abusive relationship. If it involves purchasing the item
| directly, or buying a box where you can see all the items
| inside of it, that's a respectful relationship. Purchasing the
| item directly is the most preferred.
|
| Games that do this entire model badly involve Hearthstone and
| any number of mobile games made by Supercell.
|
| Some people might balk at the idea of purchasing any further
| items, but personally, I don't see anything particularly wrong
| with allowing cosmetics to be purchased and applied as a model
| that enables people to have a great free experience.
| bccdee wrote:
| Fortnite's a good example about how your two rules aren't
| enough, actually. Because of the way the game's designed, it
| pressures its audience (of primarily children) into
| purchasing microtransactions, to the point where there's been
| widespread bulling of kids who don't pay for premium Fortnite
| skins [1].
|
| For a more detailed exploration of the dark side of
| Fortnite's monetization model, check out "Manufactured
| Discontent and Fortnite" [2].
|
| [1]: https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-
| defa... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0
| Falkon1313 wrote:
| Children are going through the entire evolution of a
| society in the course of a few short years, when they're
| young and don't have a lot of perspective yet. They've
| always been jerks to each other. Fortnite didn't start
| that, and it's extremely unlikely that it has had any
| effect on it at all.
|
| If not that, they'd bully each other about something else.
| When I was growing up, us kids who played Battletech and
| had a Nintendo were cool, and the Robotech kids with their
| Segas were the jerks (of course they'd say the opposite).
| Kids who weren't into games would pick on each other over
| other stuff, like having a generic notebook instead of a
| Trapper Keeper with a cool design.
|
| The idea that Fortnite is pressuring kids to be mean to
| each other is just as overblown as all the other "think of
| the children!" claims. From "Rock n Roll is the devil's
| music!" to the Satanic Panic over Dungeons and Dragons and
| beyond. People will always claim that something is making
| the kids bad, but no, that's just how kids are. Old people
| have just forgotten what kids are like.
|
| You can also find plenty of anecdotes of kids helping each
| other out in team mode, or building creative mode areas in
| games where they can cooperate and have fun, giving an
| escape and some camaraderie to other kids who don't
| normally have that in their lives.
| mrwww wrote:
| I played apex legends for free for nearly a year before buying
| any silly cosmetics. Granted, now that i do i am hooked and have
| overall paid more than if i had paid 60 for apex to begin with,
| but i think its a good volontary subscription model. And since
| there isn't any pay to win aspect, i'm totally fine with this
| business model.
| pmontra wrote:
| On the other side, I'd pay an extra to buy a fully unlocked Gran
| Turismo because I don't want to spend time to get driving license
| again for the nth time, money for the nth time, tracks, cars,
| etc. It's a total waste of time. Let me drive and that's it. So I
| didn't buy any of the most recent versions of the franchise. A
| loss for sellers, I can play with what I already have.
| japhyr wrote:
| My son is eleven, and he has been so frustrated so many times
| when he's found what he thought was a good game, only to discover
| that it's a pay-to-win game.
|
| I've learned in this thread that there are games where most or
| all of the IAPs are cosmetic, and don't give players significant
| advantages. My son already plays Rocket League. Can anyone
| recommend other good games where you don't have to buy your way
| to competitiveness?
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Single player games. Stuff made by Larian for Coop DnD.
|
| Deep Rock Galactic for Coop mining fun.
| scrapcode wrote:
| MOBAs League of Legends and DOTA2 are FTP but the acquisition
| of a wider variety of characters in LoL is excruciatingly slow
| without paying. The communities also seem extremely toxic in my
| limited experience.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > Can anyone recommend other good games where you don't have to
| buy your way to competitiveness?
|
| Single-player games, and a handful of MMORPGs.
|
| Minecraft and Terraria would both probably be good for an
| 11-year-old. CS:Go of course if you want an actual
| _competitive_ game.
|
| And Dota 2, if you're OK with your son becoming an addicted
| degenerate.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| > Can you imagine if other art mediums where this ridiculous?
| Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask
| you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use
| his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?
|
| I would happily have this be an option if it meant that Netflix
| was free. I wouldn't spend a dime.
| balls187 wrote:
| Two Words: Elden Ring.
|
| 90+ hours into the game. 100% pure joy.
|
| > a game I spend more than 2000 hours is now a game I hate -and
| don't play, of course-.
|
| 2000 hours is quite a lot of time to invest in a game. I imagine
| the longevity for the game is because the developers were
| updating the game, which was funded by the very things the author
| is complaining about.
| trinovantes wrote:
| Not a big surprise that freemium games are a lot more profitable.
| A single whale provides more revenue than thousands of casual
| paying members and a smaller target audience is a lot easier to
| optimize for
| vparikh wrote:
| In the end - I don't blame the developers. They are a business
| and in it for the profits. The game is just a byproduct.
|
| The public votes with their dollars - and judging by the
| popularity of these "features" - people are more than okay with
| it.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Yeah, I just avoid sucky games that do shit like that. You should
| too. Those "video games have become" apparently the ones you
| chose to play and not the ones you didn't choose to play...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Right, I've been playing _Kirby and the Forgotten Land_ for the
| past hour. No microtransactions to speak of.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I have 424 Steam games and not a single one is a freemium
| game, funny how that works
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| ^ I can't speak for which 424 games you have in your
| library, but careful with the terminology--there are
| (sadly) lots of paid games with microtransactions and dark
| patterns.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I get that. I detect it and I consciously don't
| participate in it. If you understand and recognize the
| dark pattern, you can opt-out.
| fifticon wrote:
| Not always true. Minecraft started out as a great game, and
| parts of it still is, but Microsoft bought it up and is busy
| stuffing it full of crap.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Why do people blame Minecraft for this and not Microsoft?
| Microsoft has been pulling these sorts of quasi-ethical moves
| for decades now
| peepop6 wrote:
| There are games like Elden Ring that are purely addictive and
| immersive through great game design.
|
| And then there are MMOs and mobile games that are purely
| addictive through dirty psychological and immoral tricks.
|
| Just don't play the latter. Those games (like modern WoW, HS,
| gacha games, etc) are garbage that will be looked at in disgust
| in the future.
| auriplane wrote:
| Rocket League is both at the same time, an absolutely brilliant
| core game (albeit with extreme QA problems), with manipulative
| and unethical business practices layered on top, both to keep
| people playing and to monetize those people.
| bhedgeoser wrote:
| I use a stocktane and still buy stuff from time to time cos I
| know that money for the servers has to come from somewhere.
| tsujp wrote:
| I hate lootboxes that paywall actual gameplay content; however
| the ones the author is complaining about are PURELY COSMETIC.
| There isn't a faster, more powerful car that is earnable via
| lootbox exclusively. The only things Rocket League gives you via
| lootboxes (as the author also knows and states) are the livery,
| hats etc. None of these make your car faster, make it more
| nimble, or give you any advantage over another player.
|
| Also, $20 for 2,000 hours of entertainment is a pretty good deal
| right? Go to see a movie and that's about $20 for 1.5 - 2.5 hours
| entertainment.
|
| I suppose after your purchase the company running and developing
| Rocket League who hire real people to work on the game, who host
| servers to facilitate the multiplayer experience are expected to
| run until bankruptcy?
|
| The part about targeting lootboxes towards children (cosmetic
| only or not) is valid though because (cosmetic or not) that, to a
| child, helps develop gambling addiction or tendencies. However,
| for adults cosmetic-only lootboxes are fine and a perfectly
| reasonable strategy to ensure you can support a game in the long
| term for people who are entitled enough to think a one-time $20
| purchase means someone has to host them a server, and employ a
| development team for at least 2,000 hours of gameplay.
| gxqoz wrote:
| I don't play too many games anymore, but as a player I've been
| able to have more than enough content in the last 15 years of
| gaming without literally ever encountering a lootbox. This is
| mainly due to my preference for Nintendo and indie games. But
| there's enough games out there that you can basically choose your
| own adventure.
| arrakis2021 wrote:
| Elden Ring has given us a new hope.
| otikik wrote:
| Agree 100% with OP.
|
| I feel a visceral repulsion against any game with a buyable
| virtual currency. It's such a blatant manipulation tactic. And
| then there's loot boxes, which is gambling. Usually targeting
| teenagers or children. It's disgusting.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| > Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask
| you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use
| his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?
|
| Jesus Christ don't give those fucks any ideas
| meibo wrote:
| Support real independent studios and self-publishing developers,
| they're the ones with the creativity and freedom to advance the
| medium.
| Aissen wrote:
| Before they were bought-out, Psyonix (Rocket League Studio) was
| a real independent, self-publishing studio. They created
| something unique that still has no equivalent.
| wink wrote:
| I think that's an overly general view and in my experience you
| have to decide case by case, but of course you're free to ignore
| anything you don't like.
|
| Take Guild Wars 2 for example, it used to be Buy To Play with an
| excessive ingame shop that sells not only cosmetics but also
| quality of life improvements, but no 'power items'. I love this
| model, I bought it years ago on a sale and was happy to give them
| money for expansions and cash shop items because it's a nice game
| with an MMO scope, I want it to survive.
|
| Star Wars: The Old Republic launched as a subscription game and
| went F2P but with certain benefits once you had subbed for a
| month once. Many people were upset about some of the things they
| locked and you only get the full experience (or the newest
| expansion) if you subscribe, but over the years I did spend some
| time in f2p and I think it's fine.
|
| I guess in general I don't have a problem with free games with a
| big cash shop (unless it's pay to win), but maybe that's because
| I either play a game for 10h and then not touch it again (so free
| would be... I don't see the limitations before I stop) or I'm
| playing it for years (then I pay hundreds in subscription fees or
| if it was a one-time purchase and I feel bad not giving them
| money after a while).
| quxbar wrote:
| Modern AAA games are like Opera - marvelous and the pinnacle of
| human creativity and talent at some moments, and at other times a
| freakin' slog through boring ceremony gated by overt classism.
| babyshake wrote:
| > Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask
| you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use
| his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?
|
| I don't think it would be this exactly, but I can absolutely see
| this type of thing happening.
| bambax wrote:
| > _once you stop playing a game 100% of the money you spend on it
| disappears, you can't recover any of it, not 50%, not 20%, just
| nothing (...) Can you imagine if other art mediums were this
| ridiculous?_
|
| Well, we're getting there. Streaming services, and all
| subscription offerings, are systems where you don't own anything,
| and you lose everything the moment you stop paying.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| The difference here is that the value proposition of a
| streaming service is pretty clear up front. Whereas in a
| context of f2p games, you're given the impression that you're
| actually acquiring ownership over the digital assets you're
| buying.
|
| Clearly, that's not the case. You're not buying IP rights of
| those assets. You only buy a license to consume those assets.
| kgwxd wrote:
| When I go to the movies, 100% of the money I spend disappears.
| It's ridiculous.
| Loughla wrote:
| It's the same with concerts and theaters and other live
| venues as well.
|
| I think you might be on to something with this. "Big Art" is
| out to make sure I can't own anything. At all.
|
| That's why netflix made sure that you can't go to the store
| and buy movies anymore.
| peter-m80 wrote:
| I play a lot of videogames and never opened loot boxes or bought
| skins.
| nanochad wrote:
| mbg721 wrote:
| Video games and board games have kind of the same dilemma--the
| medium has matured to the point that further sophistication isn't
| necessarily an improvement. A good computer game might be an
| indie game that looks like it could have been made 20 years ago,
| because the assumption that more tech equals better games doesn't
| hold anymore. The board-game world is lagging a little behind
| that; right now the big trend is "legacy games", where you play
| through a campaign one time and you're done. I think it's a
| similar idea, though--the art for the sake of art designers in
| both cases can do their thing, and the big money is in "Sequel
| II: Let's Do It All Again, Again".
| tehredplague wrote:
| If it's purely cosmetic and gives no advantage (outside them
| style points) then I don't care. As for whether or not you "own"
| what you're paying for. These things that merely represent
| physical objects, but are in fact just pixels. Well you've gotta
| let that one go. Would you complain about how every time you buy
| a cheeseburger after you eat it your money was wasted because you
| no longer own a cheeseburger? I doubt it. Perhaps there's a
| valuable lesson to be learned here. If you think by spending
| money you will enhance you're experience, then you paid for the
| experience not the material possession. kaboom.
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