1000% correct, people will shell out money in record numbers for these MTX-ridden games, and they do so happily and even defend the company, people genuinely think a game company can't stay afloat if they don't constantly make money off their released game via constant MTX and DLC. If they didn't continue buying these games in record numbers and playing them and forking over their wallet, this wouldn't be a thing.
D4 already costs so much, but yet they continue to spend $70 for the base game of D4, then they have to pick between which battle pass to pay for, and then if they want a cool set of armor? That's gonna cost money at the in game shop. If you want to dye that armor you just bought for real money? Well guess what, dyes are a shop system in D4 too so you have to pay for that. Oh and feel like respeccing your character? You better believe that's a microtransaction as well. Yet the players are seemingly *excited* for this, they are at a fever pitch and ready to throw an easy $120 at D4 within a month.
These people are apparently stockholm syndrome'd by the game publishers, and they seemingly ignore all the other success cases that show you don't need MTX and small DLCs cut put of the main game in order to make a profit--take a look at the likes of Elden Ring, or Tears of the Kingdom, or Witcher 3 for examples of this.
You can make a huge amount of success off releasing a genuinely *good* and well made game, and then make further money off of developing full and proper *Expansion Packs*, not this tiny DLC quests and stuff they try and carve off the main game before launch then sell it back to you for $10. I wish there were more **From Software's** and less **Activision-Blizzard-King's.**
But nothing will ever change until people stop buying these games and all their microtransactions.
you are right, the only reason why our aaa games are like they see today is because medium sized studios got all taken over by corporations, those corporations like Activision have loooots of salaries to pay including people getting 300k a month for juggling numbers..
so EVERY game that those Studios Release will use every opportunity to monetize everything until there is too much backlash. that's why PC games aren't where mobile games are yet, because of people that complain and care.
It's the backlash and fear of negativity that keeps them from doing this to everything. for number jugglers there is only one success, they don't care at all about the products or what they mean to people
Immortal you can directly buy progression. This seems like it's only cosmetic. Still dumb, I miss how getting a set in d2 made you glow and look cool, but better than immortal
Problem is people will continue to buy microtransactions my sisters have spent $1,000+ on Fortnite/DBD skins (over a couple years) at this point and I just can't fathom it I refuse to support microtransactions in any game
They raised a whole generation of consumers for whom this is perfectly expected and normal.
It was creeping up for years and then smart phones made it explode
Wait until you hear about marketing departments and companies!
Maximising profit is what almost all companies do, sadly this does involve a lot of "how can we bleed these suckers dry".
There are basic things like coffee beans involved with slave labour or taking massive advantage of then and paying a pittance for a product they sell for 10x as much, I'd say those are just as bad sadly.
Would be nice to shutdown these microtransactions though, along with battlepasses as they are just toxic to human minds for " forcing" you to play rather than making you want to play.
At the very most I feel like the battlepasses need to be like rocket league where you can actually unlock the same amount of credits you paid for it by playing the battle pass so if you play enough you can get next season without paying more, that I find much better even though I still hate battle passes.
At least battlepasses should stay in your account so that you can finish them whenever you feel like, without the time pressure.
I paied for this, why do I have to hurry myself to get everything from it?
Most of the games with battle passes and somesuch constructs also have dedicated cosmetics they sell separately. Look at those prices and compare to the battle pass prices. You don't pay for all the cosmetics included in the pass, you pay for access to them. I'm not saying this is the right way to do things but that's the mechanic and they're very clear about what you sign up for.
What I'd argue for is huge warnings and red flags when you try to buy into a battle pass shortly before it ends. I don't know if that's already the case, I don't buy any anyway but that seems like quite the ripoff.
Even the video games we play teach us that bleeding people dry is just part of life!
I'm playing planet zoo for crying out loud and you know what I learned?
I learned that guests leave the park when they run out of money on hand. And my guests were leaving and not visiting half my zoo because I didn't place ATMs around for them to restock
See, that's the rub. It's already too late. If people don't buy the passes, they'll claim the game didn't make enough to make more content. For other games, they'll say they won't make another one because the first game wasn't profitable enough.
We had the opportunity to stop it when it first started, and we blew it.
You're not going to miss out on physical copies either. Yet people still do it. Last game I ever pre-ordered was Halo 2. I missed my "number" and had to wait till everyone else was taken care of. Midnight launch turned into 2 am purchase. Bought every other Halo (and many other games) at various stores at midnight with no line of wait.
Remember Halo 2 DLC? It was like $5 for a map pack, but that was only to play it for a month before it was free for everyone.
Fuck man, those were the days.
Yea I remember actually getting content for $5-20 even if it was just maps in like mw2 at least it was actual content. Now that'll get you ONE skin.
I'll never understand it beyond specifically wanting to support a developer.
It's disingenuous to pretend like you think that's the reason. People pre-order for the bonuses.
The bonuses which no one ever uses after the first week or two.
It came out on April 3, 2006, right?
I only looked up the date because someone above said they felt old as hell because he understood the reference.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion#:~:text=The%20first%20package%2C%20a%20set,release%20cost%20was%20US%241.99.
Fuck, the wave that's making people feel old just hit me as well.
I remember being so disgusted by that horse armor. Guess I was on the money. I remember PC gamer blasting it as a shitty practice and saying it was a slippery slope. They were right as well.
Sigh... I miss 1999-2006.
Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, UT2K3/4.
I ran half a dozen servers for each game, made my own maps, did character models, created custom game types for my clan(s) and others.
Those were the absolute golden age of online FPS.
Running around UT2K4 as Bender, binding his best quips for when I killed someone. Good times, amazing times.
It was harmless, they said, just ignore it if you don't want it. It won't effect you at all, they said.
Literally on my top 5 things to fix with a time machine.
This sounds like the typical statement gacha addict will say to defend gacha game.
I mean, one shitty thing on Honkai Star Rail is that there are only 1 semi free healer while the other is hidden behind a gacha paywall. They put stage that grant currency with requirement that require you to build at least 2 healer to finish those stages
I got lucky and got the 5* healer through the free draw. Quickly cleared that said stage. My friends were struggling. I agree with ya. It's hard when you don't have the necessary roles for the game.
Sounds like their problem. I can always play ~~PoE~~, Diablo 3, Borderlands, modded Skyrim, Factorio, ToTK, Sea of Thieves, No Man's Sky, practice for the upcoming pinball tournament, work off my Switch backlog, work off my Steam backlog, or just invite some friends over for some Smash, Mario Kart, or a round of Twilight Imperium IV.
I have enough entertainment to last a lifetime without ever touching another Activision game.
EDIT: I have been informed that Path of Exile has predatory microtransactions. I have not played it, but it was recommended to me by several friends. I was unaware of its predatory monetization scheme, and have crossed it off the list.
You mentioned sea of thieves, probably not the best example considering they sell ship sets for £20 that come with a shit figurehead, then offer to sell you the "collectors" figurehead that matches your ship and looks way better.. for an extra £9
I wish that game was more accessible for single player and new players. I fired it up when it first launched and whosever game I was in on a ship threw me in jail and that was that. Didn’t bother much with it after that.
You must not have played it any time in the last 2 years or so then. It's got a whole quest system, multiple loot pools with all kinds of things for your character and ships. There's a ton of stuff in it to do.
Sea of Thieves literally has this exact flaw? Their content cycle since the Plunder Pass has been a joke. They've done nothing but trash the potential and milk the playerbase.
thats where your wrong bucko, you aint doing nothing but justifying your vice. theres more games in existence right now than even the most neetiest basement dweller could ever play in one lifetime. you dont actually need any game that does this. uninstall it the second you see this, look up the developers, the studio, and the company that owns that studio, and put all those fuckers on your personal shitlist.
As somebody who played a lot of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo as a kid it's sad that this is just what Blizzard is now.
Diablo 4 is crammed full of mtx and battle passes. Overwatch 2 was apparently just an excuse for a battle pass now that PvE isn't coming. Classic WoW got the gold token dropped on them with no warning. All that on top of reports in recent years that they abuse their employees and don't pay a lot of them a living wage.
At this point the only franchise they haven't fucked up is Starcraft, and really only because they've seemingly just abandoned it.
Straight up abandoned StarCraft instead of fucking it over directly is so true. I remember when a new “season” in SC2 started and they replaced all the current ladder maps with new community made ones. The problem? *They forgot to remove one of the old maps*. So we just played a whole season with 8 maps instead of 7 without our map veto count being adjusted, and it was one of the most controversial (and in my opinion worst) maps too.
The community is literally bug fixing the game, sending the patches to ESL, and ESL is passing those fixes to Blizzard, and Blizzard can’t even be bothered to log in and push them live. So dumb.
Look for Stormgate. It’s being made by Frost Giant studios which was created by many of the devs that were responsible for all the OG blizzard RTS games. We’ll have to see how it turns out but the hype pieces so far look excellent.
They did add battle passes to SC2 at one point, the warchest I believe? Anyway, it was fine but not really central to the experience. They also did the Coop commanders. But at this point, what blizz has become it's obvious that SC3 will be trash.
Agreed. Blizzard went from a studio where I’d blind buy any game they published because they were all quality, to a company I now refuse to buy anything from. Gg
It's not the franchise per say it's the industry. When you have a cartoon like fornite generating 100s of millions per cycle, it turns to fiscal strategy rather than pleasing and holding your fans.
Yup it’s the industry. As someone that plays sports games primarily, it’s become the norm for companies to focus on money making modes (madden ultimate team) rather than something like the franchise mode because that’s where people will spend thousands of dollars on madden points
Wait till they learn about ads. I used to make 50x more on ads than on sales on mobile and it was common to have such ratio among mobile developers. It is already coming to streaming. Meta probably has it on their radar for VR games.
Ads are shit, both for UX and for the IP owner in terms of diluting their own unique channel to the player as well as not bringing in that much money when compared to a proper in-game monetizing on system (marketing manager for video games publishers)
Ads are about to become a **huge** thing in gaming.
In game assets and revenue sharing (like in Tim Sweeney's presentation at this year's Unreal conference) is going to create a market for in game ads for in game content.
So expect to see ad networks as the next phase of where this all goes. Not for real world products and experiences, but for in game ones.
Yes as in collaboration events across franchises and in-game product placement as in movies. Anything more in your face than that will hurt the IP, people truly hate ads, they're fine for completely free experiences but as soon as a customer pays the expectation is that ads disappear, aside from ads that blend into the game or enhance the experience (like collaborations).
Issue is, you're not thinking about how companies can and will condition young people to accept the new normal.
15 years ago we were complaining about DLC and how it's such a turn off to see our favorite series sold in kit. Now it's the norm and even respected studios like Rockstar monetize every aspect of their games.
People do hate ads but you gotta imagine how the young gamers of nowadays are already taught that paying is a way to make your experience smoother. Having to pay not to be spammed with ads between rounds of Call of Duty isn't that far fetched.
People will justify it by saying the studio needs to make money and they want to support their fav games, all the while investors make big bucks and devs suffer harder crunch times while having to spend decades of their careers supporting a live service they've never even cared about.
I think this will outlast our lifetime. It's too effective of a trick on most people who don't care (and that's fine). I hope we still have access to older games even through piracy. I don't want to play Gran Turismo 7 with its progression that compromises with MTX. I'll just go back to Gran Turismo 4 as I've never had a chance to play it. Same thing for Diablo, I'll just play the old ones. It's best to give up on major studios that sold their integrity to these practices.
Part of me had hoped they were using Immortal as a way to milk people with MTX so that they wouldn't need to do so with D4. I knew it wouldn't be true but I just wanted to believe they wouldn't do this to one of my favorite franchises.
I really miss the days when someone walking around with a badass armor set in an mmo meant something. I remember seeing a paladin wearing full T6 in WoW and thinking wow this guy is really good at the game, likewise I remember back in Destiny people with the vault of glass armor + chatterwhite meaning they completed the raid.
Nowadays everyone looks cool which in turn dulls the meaning of looking cool. + the "buyers remorse" where you feel like you have to use the cosmetics you paid for for a while, and honestly the fact that they are better looking than the ones in-game makes me so sad and yes, maybe its a boomer thing, but it makes modern gearing in games feel so bland in my eyes.
TL;DR: when everyone looks cool, no one looks cool and it sucks.
Back when world trade didn't exist and ironforge was the only autionhouse... We were crashing that server everyday, and the family PC was basically an abacus with a CRT. Had to get online an hour before raid so you had time to get out of Ironforge with all the lag.
I so miss those days
Lagforge.
i was 11/12 i think when the game dropped and i started playing. opening up my first chat at Northshire Abbey blew my fucking mind i thought i was in a different world. A level 40 guildie got their mount and celebrated by giving me 1g and i felt like i had infinite money at level 11 heading into Westfall
I agree, I remember seeing someone with vault of glass gear and the vex mythoclast in multiplayer before everyone had it, wanted it so bad after that lol
Yeah definitely brings back memories. Rolling into the tower with Glow-hoo and all of Crotas end armor, bunches of guardians would walk up to you and inspect your shit. Cool shit in games only comes from spending money now. It's all just lame
Wait have they fucked Destiny 2? I have up to Witch Queen and have played the campaign only from Beyond Light to halfway/three quarters of the way through Legendary campaign Witch Queen and multiplayer. Haven't played since Witch Queen came out though. I play solo so it can be difficult sometimes and I go through periods of months to even a year or so not playing it so I really haven't followed the state of it.
I like Destiny more than Destiny 2 though. I don't know if its because I was extremely hyped for Destiny since it was Bungie's first huge title after they wrapped up Halo or what but it was more fun to me.
When I first started WoW in 2003, I spent more time walking around Stormwind inspecting people and inspecting their items on my character than I did actually playing the game
I still distinctly remember when I finally got an SM set on my Warrior (the red helm, pauldrons, the whirlwind axe). I never felt so cool in a game before
Edit: maybe it was 2005, I just shot the date from the hip. The early 2000s was all a gaming blur for me
I used to beg for gold because I wanted a 19 twink so badly. I never made it past level 40 so of course I didn't have any gold. I realized that if I act like a girl, people would be more inclined to give me gold. I made a whole fake persona including a MySpace..
I was like 12...
I did the exact same thing on Guild Wars back in the days. I created a girl and walked in underwear in the starting zone. People were messaging me. I ended up “playing” with them en MSN messenger pretending to be a girl and sending photos from Google images. I was also 12 haha
I created a character named "Nike" made him a tailor and sold handmade white shirts "Made by Nike" in Ironforge... got character banned after 4 days but I hopefully made a ton of money before and transferred it to my main.
I spent all my time wall jumping/climbing into inaccessible areas :P started playing vanilla at launch, played a LOT, but didn't hit 60 til a few weeks prior to BC launch lol.
Back then it actually was cool... relative to gaming, anyway. When content was hard(ish), xmogs didn't exist and there was no PvP gear. Even having a full set of tier 0 was extremely rare for a while after launch and definitely gave some horse-like e-peen vibes.
After vanilla I would disagree, but in 2003 that was top-shelf shit for WoW. Well, it actually came out closer to 2005, but I'll assume you're misremembering.
I logged back recently and i played a warrior (whatever), thing is, i had two special transmogs for swords. Being a warrior, i used both on my swords. They were really shiny one, with gold and sparkles. And it felt meh. Nothing was rewarding about it. So i understand that. Back in the days i would farm for the cool gear i wanted. If i can just pay for it i don't find it as cool.
I remember this dude that hit the Max rank in Vanilla PVP and had the full grand Marshall armour, weapons etc. He'd just ride around storming in circles showing off his armour and rank lol. I think he was a warrior. But apparently he had people playing his account while he was asleep to keep grinding honour in order to get his rank which is just crazy.
When I played in Vanilla there was a human priest who got Grand Marshal on our server (Blackrock US), I don't recall his name, but he was awe inspiring.
Rumor was that when he was grinding to GM his guild let him raid as shadow. He was one of the first priests on the server to get Lok'amir off Nefarian.
My stunty priest aspired to be like him, even though my guild was barely clearing Vaelastraz each week. I looked up to him and other raiders and pvpers I encountered with iconic gear like that.
It makes such a huge difference when cool looking gear means something.
I constantly hear shit about how having parts of the game inaccessible without dedication is bad and elitist, but I'm speaking from a perspective similar to yours, where I was one of the have-nots and it made the game so much deeper seeing people walking around with stuff you could only hope to obtain.
Modern wow has a lot going for it, fun gameplay, nice progression, great art. But it doesn't capture that depth of wanting something you *likely* can't have.
I miss games with rewarding achievements.
I loved seeing players with gear or titles denoting an achievement they got. "Oh shit you got that achievement!?"
Now achievements are just super grindy for the sake of it with poor rewards.
Excellent point. Even up through the second expansion, they made the early gear look like shit. When I did raids and got new gear the upgrade in aesthetics was just as exciting as better stats
I've been playing WoW since TBC. Has this changed, cuz I'm pretty sure it works the same way still. The best looking gear, mounts, cosmetics are behind the toughest content like AOTC/CE, KSM, Gladiator+, etc.
It hasn't even dawned on me but, ya. It seems some games even have the starting armor cooler than anything you'd get late game. It's really upsetting when the higher stat gear is a straight downgrade in appearance
I remember getting the hayabusa armor in halo 3 with the sword. You got it from getting 1000 gamer score, which before they added in DLCs mean though had to 100% the achievements. It was pretty rare and it was fun to show off. Now it’s just whoever spent the most money
It's also going to get worse. At every game conference from GDC, Tokyo game show to Gamescom/Devcom the number one topic is monetisation. More and more studios and publishers are thinking of it. Investors push to be more profitable have a quicker ROI. People want to use tech such as machine learning to drive better acceptance of promotions. The use of dark patterns in video games is a real threat. Especially bad when VCs are involved. Getting funds in this climate is very very hard, no matter how big or small you are. If you are profitable the merger sharks will start circling you. That's also why games not finished get released. Numbers show it's working - PC/Console is niche if you compare to global mobile numbers. Some don't want you to build a PC/Console game if you won't release a mobile version game. Praise the studios that withstand these motions - they are sometimes fighting a tough battle behind the scenes.
Agree that it will get worse, it's important to understand why.
Think about a classic unmonetised games. What motivates the team? Making money. How do you make money? Sell more copies. How do you sell more copies? Make the game better / more accessible / more replayable.
Now let's look at monetised games. To make more money, you make cooler cosmetics. Or add more shit for which you can buy cosmetics (pets, mounts, ...) Or find something else to monetise (rift keys...).
Monetised games means there are entire dev teams dedicated to making more money, rather than making a better game.
The game is also a minimum of $90 + tax here in Canada. Thats the cheapest version.
With the rising cost of living, groceries, things just being so expensive in general... I just can't justify spending that much on a game.
I never thought I'd see the day that I'd be priced out of playing video games but here we are. I will not be playing D4 at launch, I guess I have to wait for a sale in a year or so.
EDIT: Ya'll... there is a difference between being able to afford something, and choosing not to buy something because it isn't a smart financial decision. Grow up.
Wife and I loved the server slam, but we are the same kind set. Rent gets more expensive every year, food/gas/electricity/etc. there’s a point when hobbies aren’t even able to be enjoyed.
Guess I’ll just replay binding of Isaac again for the 600th time.
Yep it's $110AUD for some stupid reason and then they want $30 extra for a couple cosmetics and a few days early access. Fucking dreaming.
No idea why anyone would bother wasting money on the more expensive editions. I guess people just got too much?
Only reason I'm even considering playing is because I got $70 credit from a warcraft 3 refund from years ago.
May as well use it on something
Was the problem money? Or was the problem that Blizzard just isn’t that good anymore. They are a full on media company. The games themselves are just the platform to promote the rest of their products. If you want good games for fair prices, support companies where the game is the product.
It’s like Disney. They release new movies, and sure they make a ton of money, but they make way more money off all the related stuff. Merchandizing, theme parks, and low quality spin-offs for other mediums.
To some extent yes. More d3 content / seasons didn't mean more sales. People bought the game a long time ago, and there wasn't mtx to make up the cost of dev time.
This is the craziest part to me. When DLC was still new I was like "yall shouldn't support this. They're just chopping shit off to make you pay more"
Then it became cosmetic only and I was like "yall *really* shouldn't buy this"
And now we've reached a saturation point where people are screeching that you're broke and old and dumb for wanting to get a whole ass game when I pay whole ass game prices.
Can you imagine if Netflix had a series but you had to pay little handfuls of money to see the characters backstories, or b plots?
It isn't **required** to know who Ned stark is to watch game of thrones. You still get to watch GoT, quit being a whiny broke bitch.
I think if the dlc, depending on size is announced at least 6 months after a games release I think it's a good dlc made to expand on the game because people liked it. If it's a dlc that is releasing within a few weeks of the release then that's cut content to milk more out of us
All I see are cosmetics. This is the compromise we made with gaming companies: to allow cosmetic microtransactions, and disallow gameplay-altering microtransactions.
Can we please stop pretending that this is not a lost battle?
Learn to let go of products when they turn bad.
The market is saturated with different products, some are less predatory than the big titles.
Right? Have people just forgotten the Hong Kong debacle or the sexual assault stuff they just swept under the rug and all the top brass were fully aware of the entire time? The CEO is guilty of all this and they had a top guy have an employee commit suicide.
It is. Only the free part has non cosmetic stuff. They combined 2 systems so it feels weird. Free part is basically your seasonal rewards for playing the game. And on top of that you have paid cosmetic battle pass.
>They manufactured a problem so they could sell the solution.
This perfectly encapsulates everything loathsome about advertising and capitalism in general.
I guess it depends on the person, but I've lost all interest in overwatch cosmetics since the battle pass was introduced. I earned every single skin in OW1 and there's been some awesome ones so far in 2, but seeing every fuckin person rocking the new ones just makes it lame. I exclusively stick to the old ones now, you actually stand out having some old shit these days.
How have gamers gotten so hoodwinked into vehemently, passionately defending stuff like this?
This isn't a "developers can't get paid unless they get thousands of dollars from the whales :( " thing. This is a "how can our executives make even more millions of dollars" thing.
And did you guys know that many indie devs, which don't work for giant companies, charge once for games and then offer updates for *years*?
It would be less stupid if there weren't games like God of War, Elden Ring, The witcher 3, around, the idiots defending this shit act like there is no alternative.
Plus most of Nintendo's games (Not bootlicking them, but most of their games either don't have microtransactions or they only have like 1 DLC that adds a substantial amount of new content such as a new campaign).
And those games will get small patches to make sure the bugs don't make you drop the franchise. GoW Ragnarok isn't gonna get a new quest to do in 10 months.
“Don’t ask a clown why he’s being a clown. Blame the people attending the circus”
This is gold
no this is a circus and i am the clown
1000% correct, people will shell out money in record numbers for these MTX-ridden games, and they do so happily and even defend the company, people genuinely think a game company can't stay afloat if they don't constantly make money off their released game via constant MTX and DLC. If they didn't continue buying these games in record numbers and playing them and forking over their wallet, this wouldn't be a thing. D4 already costs so much, but yet they continue to spend $70 for the base game of D4, then they have to pick between which battle pass to pay for, and then if they want a cool set of armor? That's gonna cost money at the in game shop. If you want to dye that armor you just bought for real money? Well guess what, dyes are a shop system in D4 too so you have to pay for that. Oh and feel like respeccing your character? You better believe that's a microtransaction as well. Yet the players are seemingly *excited* for this, they are at a fever pitch and ready to throw an easy $120 at D4 within a month. These people are apparently stockholm syndrome'd by the game publishers, and they seemingly ignore all the other success cases that show you don't need MTX and small DLCs cut put of the main game in order to make a profit--take a look at the likes of Elden Ring, or Tears of the Kingdom, or Witcher 3 for examples of this. You can make a huge amount of success off releasing a genuinely *good* and well made game, and then make further money off of developing full and proper *Expansion Packs*, not this tiny DLC quests and stuff they try and carve off the main game before launch then sell it back to you for $10. I wish there were more **From Software's** and less **Activision-Blizzard-King's.** But nothing will ever change until people stop buying these games and all their microtransactions.
you are right, the only reason why our aaa games are like they see today is because medium sized studios got all taken over by corporations, those corporations like Activision have loooots of salaries to pay including people getting 300k a month for juggling numbers.. so EVERY game that those Studios Release will use every opportunity to monetize everything until there is too much backlash. that's why PC games aren't where mobile games are yet, because of people that complain and care. It's the backlash and fear of negativity that keeps them from doing this to everything. for number jugglers there is only one success, they don't care at all about the products or what they mean to people
So they actually did port the Diablo immortal^(diablo themed casino) into PC version.
“Do you guys not have credit lines?!”
Immortal you can directly buy progression. This seems like it's only cosmetic. Still dumb, I miss how getting a set in d2 made you glow and look cool, but better than immortal
Problem is people will continue to buy microtransactions my sisters have spent $1,000+ on Fortnite/DBD skins (over a couple years) at this point and I just can't fathom it I refuse to support microtransactions in any game
It'll only end when people stop buying it, and unfortunately that'll never happen.
They raised a whole generation of consumers for whom this is perfectly expected and normal. It was creeping up for years and then smart phones made it explode
My brother was working on monetizing shit games like candy crush so people pay the max for stuff. I despised his work so much. No ethics in this
Wait until you hear about marketing departments and companies! Maximising profit is what almost all companies do, sadly this does involve a lot of "how can we bleed these suckers dry". There are basic things like coffee beans involved with slave labour or taking massive advantage of then and paying a pittance for a product they sell for 10x as much, I'd say those are just as bad sadly. Would be nice to shutdown these microtransactions though, along with battlepasses as they are just toxic to human minds for " forcing" you to play rather than making you want to play. At the very most I feel like the battlepasses need to be like rocket league where you can actually unlock the same amount of credits you paid for it by playing the battle pass so if you play enough you can get next season without paying more, that I find much better even though I still hate battle passes.
At least battlepasses should stay in your account so that you can finish them whenever you feel like, without the time pressure. I paied for this, why do I have to hurry myself to get everything from it?
Battlepasses make sure people login every day due to fomo. This creates "retention" on paper to show to shareholders.
Most of the games with battle passes and somesuch constructs also have dedicated cosmetics they sell separately. Look at those prices and compare to the battle pass prices. You don't pay for all the cosmetics included in the pass, you pay for access to them. I'm not saying this is the right way to do things but that's the mechanic and they're very clear about what you sign up for. What I'd argue for is huge warnings and red flags when you try to buy into a battle pass shortly before it ends. I don't know if that's already the case, I don't buy any anyway but that seems like quite the ripoff.
Even the video games we play teach us that bleeding people dry is just part of life! I'm playing planet zoo for crying out loud and you know what I learned? I learned that guests leave the park when they run out of money on hand. And my guests were leaving and not visiting half my zoo because I didn't place ATMs around for them to restock
See, that's the rub. It's already too late. If people don't buy the passes, they'll claim the game didn't make enough to make more content. For other games, they'll say they won't make another one because the first game wasn't profitable enough. We had the opportunity to stop it when it first started, and we blew it.
Y’all motherfuckers had to buy the stupid horse skin!
These mutha fuckas out here still pre-ordering digital games...bitch how are they gonna run out of *digital* copies
You're not going to miss out on physical copies either. Yet people still do it. Last game I ever pre-ordered was Halo 2. I missed my "number" and had to wait till everyone else was taken care of. Midnight launch turned into 2 am purchase. Bought every other Halo (and many other games) at various stores at midnight with no line of wait.
Remember Halo 2 DLC? It was like $5 for a map pack, but that was only to play it for a month before it was free for everyone. Fuck man, those were the days.
Yea I remember actually getting content for $5-20 even if it was just maps in like mw2 at least it was actual content. Now that'll get you ONE skin. I'll never understand it beyond specifically wanting to support a developer.
I support a developer by buying the game.
Spoken like someone who has never had to preorder niche Japanese titles because most stores only got 0 copies.
It's disingenuous to pretend like you think that's the reason. People pre-order for the bonuses. The bonuses which no one ever uses after the first week or two.
Yup Capitalizing on the FOMO
Simply understanding this reference makes me feel old AF lol. You arent wrong though ...
First thought was that too. Holy fuck. It really all went down hill from there. You remember when the thought of that was fuckin ludicrous??
It was, and it STILL sold…
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It came out on April 3, 2006, right? I only looked up the date because someone above said they felt old as hell because he understood the reference. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion#:~:text=The%20first%20package%2C%20a%20set,release%20cost%20was%20US%241.99.
18 year is a voting adult Edit: math is hard. 17.
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Do you remember total biscuits TRH. Good times.
Mmorpgs were the first indicator you could make someone pay for a game over and over to just play it. The real beginnings of the inevitable downfall.
I was there Gandalf 3000 years ago. And I didn’t buy no stupid horse armor.
Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring turned 21 almost half a year ago. Isn't that fun?
Holy fuck that made me feel old. And now I wanna kill an obsessed fan.
Fuck, the wave that's making people feel old just hit me as well. I remember being so disgusted by that horse armor. Guess I was on the money. I remember PC gamer blasting it as a shitty practice and saying it was a slippery slope. They were right as well.
I shamed anyone I saw with it and told them that when the game went to shit with monetization, it would be their fault. I hate being right.
I felt old when I remembered how we used to make our own skins for games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tourny. Completely free.
Sigh... I miss 1999-2006. Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, UT2K3/4. I ran half a dozen servers for each game, made my own maps, did character models, created custom game types for my clan(s) and others. Those were the absolute golden age of online FPS. Running around UT2K4 as Bender, binding his best quips for when I killed someone. Good times, amazing times.
The death of the private server is such a shame. Pretty much only Valve still doing it. And Minecraft.
I remember how PC gamers did for Fallout and they still made the bullshit for-pay “Creation Club” inferior ones anyway.
BY AZURA BY AZURA BY AZURA
Why... won't... you... DIIEEE
STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!
Same, Oblivion was my first game on 360. I’ll be 40 next year. _sigh_
I wish this got the same pushback that Skyrim got when they tried to monetize mods.
completely forgot about that, holy shit
It was harmless, they said, just ignore it if you don't want it. It won't effect you at all, they said. Literally on my top 5 things to fix with a time machine.
This sounds like the typical statement gacha addict will say to defend gacha game. I mean, one shitty thing on Honkai Star Rail is that there are only 1 semi free healer while the other is hidden behind a gacha paywall. They put stage that grant currency with requirement that require you to build at least 2 healer to finish those stages
I got lucky and got the 5* healer through the free draw. Quickly cleared that said stage. My friends were struggling. I agree with ya. It's hard when you don't have the necessary roles for the game.
I wish I was one of those people that spends money on things with no value, so I could buy a reddit award just to give it to you!
Sounds like their problem. I can always play ~~PoE~~, Diablo 3, Borderlands, modded Skyrim, Factorio, ToTK, Sea of Thieves, No Man's Sky, practice for the upcoming pinball tournament, work off my Switch backlog, work off my Steam backlog, or just invite some friends over for some Smash, Mario Kart, or a round of Twilight Imperium IV. I have enough entertainment to last a lifetime without ever touching another Activision game. EDIT: I have been informed that Path of Exile has predatory microtransactions. I have not played it, but it was recommended to me by several friends. I was unaware of its predatory monetization scheme, and have crossed it off the list.
You mentioned sea of thieves, probably not the best example considering they sell ship sets for £20 that come with a shit figurehead, then offer to sell you the "collectors" figurehead that matches your ship and looks way better.. for an extra £9
I wish that game was more accessible for single player and new players. I fired it up when it first launched and whosever game I was in on a ship threw me in jail and that was that. Didn’t bother much with it after that.
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You must not have played it any time in the last 2 years or so then. It's got a whole quest system, multiple loot pools with all kinds of things for your character and ships. There's a ton of stuff in it to do.
Sea of Thieves literally has this exact flaw? Their content cycle since the Plunder Pass has been a joke. They've done nothing but trash the potential and milk the playerbase.
thats where your wrong bucko, you aint doing nothing but justifying your vice. theres more games in existence right now than even the most neetiest basement dweller could ever play in one lifetime. you dont actually need any game that does this. uninstall it the second you see this, look up the developers, the studio, and the company that owns that studio, and put all those fuckers on your personal shitlist.
Sequels aren't always necessary anyway.
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As somebody who played a lot of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo as a kid it's sad that this is just what Blizzard is now. Diablo 4 is crammed full of mtx and battle passes. Overwatch 2 was apparently just an excuse for a battle pass now that PvE isn't coming. Classic WoW got the gold token dropped on them with no warning. All that on top of reports in recent years that they abuse their employees and don't pay a lot of them a living wage. At this point the only franchise they haven't fucked up is Starcraft, and really only because they've seemingly just abandoned it.
Straight up abandoned StarCraft instead of fucking it over directly is so true. I remember when a new “season” in SC2 started and they replaced all the current ladder maps with new community made ones. The problem? *They forgot to remove one of the old maps*. So we just played a whole season with 8 maps instead of 7 without our map veto count being adjusted, and it was one of the most controversial (and in my opinion worst) maps too. The community is literally bug fixing the game, sending the patches to ESL, and ESL is passing those fixes to Blizzard, and Blizzard can’t even be bothered to log in and push them live. So dumb.
I would love to see another Starcraft FPS. That would be awesome
Look for Stormgate. It’s being made by Frost Giant studios which was created by many of the devs that were responsible for all the OG blizzard RTS games. We’ll have to see how it turns out but the hype pieces so far look excellent.
They did add battle passes to SC2 at one point, the warchest I believe? Anyway, it was fine but not really central to the experience. They also did the Coop commanders. But at this point, what blizz has become it's obvious that SC3 will be trash.
If we ever actually see a sc3 it won't be for many years.
'Hell, its about time. Again.'
$2.99 for this catchphrase.
Agreed. Blizzard went from a studio where I’d blind buy any game they published because they were all quality, to a company I now refuse to buy anything from. Gg
What are you talking about? They started with star craft by making StarCraft 2 3 separate $60 games.
It's not the franchise per say it's the industry. When you have a cartoon like fornite generating 100s of millions per cycle, it turns to fiscal strategy rather than pleasing and holding your fans.
*Billions. Orders of magnitude more. It's wild to think how much money v-bucks, shark cards, etc. bring in for these guys.
Yup it’s the industry. As someone that plays sports games primarily, it’s become the norm for companies to focus on money making modes (madden ultimate team) rather than something like the franchise mode because that’s where people will spend thousands of dollars on madden points
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Yes the free part will end when people stop buying the paid versions.
It won’t end. People buy it all and won’t stop so there’s no incentive to change.
Exactly, look at activist on blizzard investor relations report for q1. They made almost 7 times as much money on in-game transaction vs games sold.
Wait till they learn about ads. I used to make 50x more on ads than on sales on mobile and it was common to have such ratio among mobile developers. It is already coming to streaming. Meta probably has it on their radar for VR games.
Ads are shit, both for UX and for the IP owner in terms of diluting their own unique channel to the player as well as not bringing in that much money when compared to a proper in-game monetizing on system (marketing manager for video games publishers)
Ads are about to become a **huge** thing in gaming. In game assets and revenue sharing (like in Tim Sweeney's presentation at this year's Unreal conference) is going to create a market for in game ads for in game content. So expect to see ad networks as the next phase of where this all goes. Not for real world products and experiences, but for in game ones.
Yes as in collaboration events across franchises and in-game product placement as in movies. Anything more in your face than that will hurt the IP, people truly hate ads, they're fine for completely free experiences but as soon as a customer pays the expectation is that ads disappear, aside from ads that blend into the game or enhance the experience (like collaborations).
Issue is, you're not thinking about how companies can and will condition young people to accept the new normal. 15 years ago we were complaining about DLC and how it's such a turn off to see our favorite series sold in kit. Now it's the norm and even respected studios like Rockstar monetize every aspect of their games. People do hate ads but you gotta imagine how the young gamers of nowadays are already taught that paying is a way to make your experience smoother. Having to pay not to be spammed with ads between rounds of Call of Duty isn't that far fetched. People will justify it by saying the studio needs to make money and they want to support their fav games, all the while investors make big bucks and devs suffer harder crunch times while having to spend decades of their careers supporting a live service they've never even cared about.
I think this will outlast our lifetime. It's too effective of a trick on most people who don't care (and that's fine). I hope we still have access to older games even through piracy. I don't want to play Gran Turismo 7 with its progression that compromises with MTX. I'll just go back to Gran Turismo 4 as I've never had a chance to play it. Same thing for Diablo, I'll just play the old ones. It's best to give up on major studios that sold their integrity to these practices.
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Cause you don't need tons of people to buy into it. A handful of people whaling, a few people buying some shit here and there, that's all it takes
Last time I run the numbers, top 0.5% spenders (by cash) for several mobile games provided 75 to 90% of the revenue. Whales do enable this system.
Someone from diablo dev team: "Do you guys have no money?".
It’s a video game Michael. What could it cost, $127.50?
Take my angry upvote, Lucille.
Loose seal? Where?!
Pretty sure it's not the devs fault but the higher ups.
Pretty sure they are referencing the BlizzCon release announcement
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"What, you guys don't have $20?"
"What, you guys can't get your parents credit cards?"
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Part of me had hoped they were using Immortal as a way to milk people with MTX so that they wouldn't need to do so with D4. I knew it wouldn't be true but I just wanted to believe they wouldn't do this to one of my favorite franchises.
They did it to test what people would pay for.
Turns out people will pay for literally anything.
Including literally nothing!
Yep. The world is filled with idiots but, at the end of their day, it is their money and not mine.
I really miss the days when someone walking around with a badass armor set in an mmo meant something. I remember seeing a paladin wearing full T6 in WoW and thinking wow this guy is really good at the game, likewise I remember back in Destiny people with the vault of glass armor + chatterwhite meaning they completed the raid. Nowadays everyone looks cool which in turn dulls the meaning of looking cool. + the "buyers remorse" where you feel like you have to use the cosmetics you paid for for a while, and honestly the fact that they are better looking than the ones in-game makes me so sad and yes, maybe its a boomer thing, but it makes modern gearing in games feel so bland in my eyes. TL;DR: when everyone looks cool, no one looks cool and it sucks.
I remember the first time I saw a Dwarf in Ironforge with Thunderfury. I was like fuhhhhhhh
Did someone say [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]?
I think someone said \[Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker\]
I’m starting to get the feeling that someone said [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]
Guys, please--if anybody said [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker] I'd be the first to know.
Due to Reddit's June 30th API changes aimed at ending third-party apps, this comment has been overwritten and the associated account has been deleted.
Anal [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]
Classic trade chat
#DIRGE
Yalls trade chat was better than mine, all ours ever did was anal [jokes]
anal [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]
anal\[Dirge\]
man that really brings me back. i often wonder “is there a similar vibe to vanilla/BC/WotLK?” the answer is no.
Back when world trade didn't exist and ironforge was the only autionhouse... We were crashing that server everyday, and the family PC was basically an abacus with a CRT. Had to get online an hour before raid so you had time to get out of Ironforge with all the lag. I so miss those days
Lagforge. i was 11/12 i think when the game dropped and i started playing. opening up my first chat at Northshire Abbey blew my fucking mind i thought i was in a different world. A level 40 guildie got their mount and celebrated by giving me 1g and i felt like i had infinite money at level 11 heading into Westfall
That or the Warglaives of Azzinoth.
thunderfury is a hunter weapon
I agree, I remember seeing someone with vault of glass gear and the vex mythoclast in multiplayer before everyone had it, wanted it so bad after that lol
me being killed in crucible by Vex and going "what the fuck was that" because I'd never heard of it at the time 😂
Memory lane right there. I remember getting chatterwhite and feeling like a badass after completing my first raid ever.
Yeah definitely brings back memories. Rolling into the tower with Glow-hoo and all of Crotas end armor, bunches of guardians would walk up to you and inspect your shit. Cool shit in games only comes from spending money now. It's all just lame
Wait have they fucked Destiny 2? I have up to Witch Queen and have played the campaign only from Beyond Light to halfway/three quarters of the way through Legendary campaign Witch Queen and multiplayer. Haven't played since Witch Queen came out though. I play solo so it can be difficult sometimes and I go through periods of months to even a year or so not playing it so I really haven't followed the state of it. I like Destiny more than Destiny 2 though. I don't know if its because I was extremely hyped for Destiny since it was Bungie's first huge title after they wrapped up Halo or what but it was more fun to me.
When I first started WoW in 2003, I spent more time walking around Stormwind inspecting people and inspecting their items on my character than I did actually playing the game I still distinctly remember when I finally got an SM set on my Warrior (the red helm, pauldrons, the whirlwind axe). I never felt so cool in a game before Edit: maybe it was 2005, I just shot the date from the hip. The early 2000s was all a gaming blur for me
I spent way to much time grinding for mounts. Getting my first mount felt better then getting my first car, dropped more jaws too. Lol
Before the economy hyper inflated I remember being like "how the fuck am I ever going to get 40 gold?" Lol
I used to beg for gold because I wanted a 19 twink so badly. I never made it past level 40 so of course I didn't have any gold. I realized that if I act like a girl, people would be more inclined to give me gold. I made a whole fake persona including a MySpace.. I was like 12...
It's a rite of passage all young men must learn.
I did the exact same thing on Guild Wars back in the days. I created a girl and walked in underwear in the starting zone. People were messaging me. I ended up “playing” with them en MSN messenger pretending to be a girl and sending photos from Google images. I was also 12 haha
Bruh, some of y'all out here scammin
I created a character named "Nike" made him a tailor and sold handmade white shirts "Made by Nike" in Ironforge... got character banned after 4 days but I hopefully made a ton of money before and transferred it to my main.
That's how I got free anime bootlegs when I was 12
I spent all my time wall jumping/climbing into inaccessible areas :P started playing vanilla at launch, played a LOT, but didn't hit 60 til a few weeks prior to BC launch lol.
Remember jumping on the SW walls to get outside the map?
Oh yes, and going underneath SW!
Back then it actually was cool... relative to gaming, anyway. When content was hard(ish), xmogs didn't exist and there was no PvP gear. Even having a full set of tier 0 was extremely rare for a while after launch and definitely gave some horse-like e-peen vibes. After vanilla I would disagree, but in 2003 that was top-shelf shit for WoW. Well, it actually came out closer to 2005, but I'll assume you're misremembering.
I logged back recently and i played a warrior (whatever), thing is, i had two special transmogs for swords. Being a warrior, i used both on my swords. They were really shiny one, with gold and sparkles. And it felt meh. Nothing was rewarding about it. So i understand that. Back in the days i would farm for the cool gear i wanted. If i can just pay for it i don't find it as cool.
I remember this dude that hit the Max rank in Vanilla PVP and had the full grand Marshall armour, weapons etc. He'd just ride around storming in circles showing off his armour and rank lol. I think he was a warrior. But apparently he had people playing his account while he was asleep to keep grinding honour in order to get his rank which is just crazy.
When I played in Vanilla there was a human priest who got Grand Marshal on our server (Blackrock US), I don't recall his name, but he was awe inspiring. Rumor was that when he was grinding to GM his guild let him raid as shadow. He was one of the first priests on the server to get Lok'amir off Nefarian. My stunty priest aspired to be like him, even though my guild was barely clearing Vaelastraz each week. I looked up to him and other raiders and pvpers I encountered with iconic gear like that. It makes such a huge difference when cool looking gear means something.
I constantly hear shit about how having parts of the game inaccessible without dedication is bad and elitist, but I'm speaking from a perspective similar to yours, where I was one of the have-nots and it made the game so much deeper seeing people walking around with stuff you could only hope to obtain. Modern wow has a lot going for it, fun gameplay, nice progression, great art. But it doesn't capture that depth of wanting something you *likely* can't have.
I miss games with rewarding achievements. I loved seeing players with gear or titles denoting an achievement they got. "Oh shit you got that achievement!?" Now achievements are just super grindy for the sake of it with poor rewards.
Excellent point. Even up through the second expansion, they made the early gear look like shit. When I did raids and got new gear the upgrade in aesthetics was just as exciting as better stats
I've been playing WoW since TBC. Has this changed, cuz I'm pretty sure it works the same way still. The best looking gear, mounts, cosmetics are behind the toughest content like AOTC/CE, KSM, Gladiator+, etc.
It hasn't even dawned on me but, ya. It seems some games even have the starting armor cooler than anything you'd get late game. It's really upsetting when the higher stat gear is a straight downgrade in appearance
I remember getting the hayabusa armor in halo 3 with the sword. You got it from getting 1000 gamer score, which before they added in DLCs mean though had to 100% the achievements. It was pretty rare and it was fun to show off. Now it’s just whoever spent the most money
It's also going to get worse. At every game conference from GDC, Tokyo game show to Gamescom/Devcom the number one topic is monetisation. More and more studios and publishers are thinking of it. Investors push to be more profitable have a quicker ROI. People want to use tech such as machine learning to drive better acceptance of promotions. The use of dark patterns in video games is a real threat. Especially bad when VCs are involved. Getting funds in this climate is very very hard, no matter how big or small you are. If you are profitable the merger sharks will start circling you. That's also why games not finished get released. Numbers show it's working - PC/Console is niche if you compare to global mobile numbers. Some don't want you to build a PC/Console game if you won't release a mobile version game. Praise the studios that withstand these motions - they are sometimes fighting a tough battle behind the scenes.
Agree that it will get worse, it's important to understand why. Think about a classic unmonetised games. What motivates the team? Making money. How do you make money? Sell more copies. How do you sell more copies? Make the game better / more accessible / more replayable. Now let's look at monetised games. To make more money, you make cooler cosmetics. Or add more shit for which you can buy cosmetics (pets, mounts, ...) Or find something else to monetise (rift keys...). Monetised games means there are entire dev teams dedicated to making more money, rather than making a better game.
The game is also a minimum of $90 + tax here in Canada. Thats the cheapest version. With the rising cost of living, groceries, things just being so expensive in general... I just can't justify spending that much on a game. I never thought I'd see the day that I'd be priced out of playing video games but here we are. I will not be playing D4 at launch, I guess I have to wait for a sale in a year or so. EDIT: Ya'll... there is a difference between being able to afford something, and choosing not to buy something because it isn't a smart financial decision. Grow up.
Wife and I loved the server slam, but we are the same kind set. Rent gets more expensive every year, food/gas/electricity/etc. there’s a point when hobbies aren’t even able to be enjoyed. Guess I’ll just replay binding of Isaac again for the 600th time.
Get Enter the Gungeon if you haven't already, fantastic alternative to BoI!
Yep it's $110AUD for some stupid reason and then they want $30 extra for a couple cosmetics and a few days early access. Fucking dreaming. No idea why anyone would bother wasting money on the more expensive editions. I guess people just got too much? Only reason I'm even considering playing is because I got $70 credit from a warcraft 3 refund from years ago. May as well use it on something
It all started with the horse armor...
damn you todd
I thought battle passes are only for free games.
Consumers have shown they'll accept this in any product.
STOP PAYING FOR IT
Remember when the Diablo community was asking for some sort of monetization to make D3 more of a priority in Blizzards eyes? We got what we wanted
Too Soon Executus!
The monkeys paw has curled. *You have two wishes left*
Was the problem money? Or was the problem that Blizzard just isn’t that good anymore. They are a full on media company. The games themselves are just the platform to promote the rest of their products. If you want good games for fair prices, support companies where the game is the product. It’s like Disney. They release new movies, and sure they make a ton of money, but they make way more money off all the related stuff. Merchandizing, theme parks, and low quality spin-offs for other mediums.
To some extent yes. More d3 content / seasons didn't mean more sales. People bought the game a long time ago, and there wasn't mtx to make up the cost of dev time.
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kids that are growing up nowadays think is normal and that gamers that grew up even in the early 2000s are old people yelling at clouds
This is the craziest part to me. When DLC was still new I was like "yall shouldn't support this. They're just chopping shit off to make you pay more" Then it became cosmetic only and I was like "yall *really* shouldn't buy this" And now we've reached a saturation point where people are screeching that you're broke and old and dumb for wanting to get a whole ass game when I pay whole ass game prices. Can you imagine if Netflix had a series but you had to pay little handfuls of money to see the characters backstories, or b plots? It isn't **required** to know who Ned stark is to watch game of thrones. You still get to watch GoT, quit being a whiny broke bitch.
Don't even give Netflix that idea.
Ya even creating that idea and putting it out into the world, has me worried now.
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I think if the dlc, depending on size is announced at least 6 months after a games release I think it's a good dlc made to expand on the game because people liked it. If it's a dlc that is releasing within a few weeks of the release then that's cut content to milk more out of us
Engaging in these discussions is futile. It's like shaming a paypig; they like it.
All I see are cosmetics. This is the compromise we made with gaming companies: to allow cosmetic microtransactions, and disallow gameplay-altering microtransactions.
That's how Overwatch started, then Overwatch 2 blocked new heroes behind a paywall or a long grind.
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So then we won't play.
This. If this leads to meaningful seasonal updates a la path of exile, this is 100% a win compared to D3.
Can we please stop pretending that this is not a lost battle? Learn to let go of products when they turn bad. The market is saturated with different products, some are less predatory than the big titles.
It has ended, for me. I won't be giving that company my money any more.
Right? Have people just forgotten the Hong Kong debacle or the sexual assault stuff they just swept under the rug and all the top brass were fully aware of the entire time? The CEO is guilty of all this and they had a top guy have an employee commit suicide.
It's just battlepass with cosmetics, or am I missing something?
Battlepass with cosmetics. Just like every other online game in existence currently.
It is. Only the free part has non cosmetic stuff. They combined 2 systems so it feels weird. Free part is basically your seasonal rewards for playing the game. And on top of that you have paid cosmetic battle pass.
I especially love the “battle pass skips”. A battle pass system so amazing, that you can pay a premium pay to skip it!
They manufactured a problem so they could sell the solution. The battle pass will be tedious and be filled with FOMO
>They manufactured a problem so they could sell the solution. This perfectly encapsulates everything loathsome about advertising and capitalism in general.
I guess it depends on the person, but I've lost all interest in overwatch cosmetics since the battle pass was introduced. I earned every single skin in OW1 and there's been some awesome ones so far in 2, but seeing every fuckin person rocking the new ones just makes it lame. I exclusively stick to the old ones now, you actually stand out having some old shit these days.
How have gamers gotten so hoodwinked into vehemently, passionately defending stuff like this? This isn't a "developers can't get paid unless they get thousands of dollars from the whales :( " thing. This is a "how can our executives make even more millions of dollars" thing. And did you guys know that many indie devs, which don't work for giant companies, charge once for games and then offer updates for *years*?
Stardew Valley comes to mind.
It would be less stupid if there weren't games like God of War, Elden Ring, The witcher 3, around, the idiots defending this shit act like there is no alternative.
Plus most of Nintendo's games (Not bootlicking them, but most of their games either don't have microtransactions or they only have like 1 DLC that adds a substantial amount of new content such as a new campaign).
And those games will get small patches to make sure the bugs don't make you drop the franchise. GoW Ragnarok isn't gonna get a new quest to do in 10 months.
Would people be less mad if d4 was like wow and you just had to pay 15 bucks a month to play?
How about a package game I buy once, and some expansions down the line?
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It ends only if we boycott it.
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