[QUOTE=Medevila;52987066]Games like Overwatch dole out skins at a fair rate IMO, only the most obsessed of collectors would need to do more than just play the game to be satisfied
Loot boxes are a huge revenue and they aren't going away unless regulators step in and label it as gambling[/QUOTE]
The thing about overwatch lootboxes are the event skins. You never get skins you want during an event, tempting you to buy lootboxes for a chance to get them before the event ends.
[QUOTE=Str4fe;52987073]The thing about overwatch lootboxes are the event skins. You never get skins you want during an event, tempting you to buy lootboxes for a chance to get them before the event ends.[/QUOTE]
And its not like there is much of anything to those events [I]besides[/I] the cosmetics, aside from some mediocre game modes that get old pretty fast. Its pretty much just a glorified advertisement to buy their new skins. I think the biggest sign of this is the Uprising event. It doesn't make any sense for the new cosmetics added to be a timed event at all but Blizzard did that knowing that having it timed means people will be more willing to toss money to get the skins they want.
[QUOTE=Medevila;52987066]Games like Overwatch dole out skins at a fair rate IMO, only the most obsessed of collectors would need to do more than just play the game to be satisfied
Loot boxes are a huge revenue and they aren't going away unless regulators step in and label it as gambling[/QUOTE]
I don't know how many hours of OW you play per week but getting all of the event skins before it ends is [I]really[/I] unlikely for anybody playing it for reasonable amounts of time.
[QUOTE=Str4fe;52987073]The thing about overwatch lootboxes are the event skins. You never get skins you want during an event, tempting you to buy lootboxes for a chance to get them before the event ends.[/QUOTE]
Overwatch also used to reset your XP required for level up after each prestige you hit so you could technically get up to 20 "easy" lootboxes from events if you stopped playing just before you prestige and wait for the upcoming event to start.
Blizzard didn't like that because it made the playerbase dip before and after an event. And also reduced the number of people who buy early lootboxes.
What Overwatch does is as predatory as any other game with similar systems and you'd have to be naive to not see it like that.
I understand that people can be obsessive about skins, but honestly it's your fault if you feel the need to buy loot boxes for skins. I haven't spent a dime on Overwatch. The full games there, and if I don't get the skin I want, I just forget about it.
[QUOTE=omarfr;52987103]I understand that people can be obsessive about skins, but honestly it's your fault if you feel the need to buy loot boxes for skins. I haven't spent a dime on Overwatch. The full games there, and if I don't get the skin I want, I just forget about it.[/QUOTE]
This is a bit more than that though. Personally I'm not effected. But I do understand the reality that some people are more vulnerable to certain stimuli than I am and loot boxes much like slot machines are designed to break our very fragile brains.
[QUOTE=omarfr;52987103]I understand that people can be obsessive about skins, but honestly it's your fault if you feel the need to buy loot boxes for skins. I haven't spent a dime on Overwatch. The full games there, and if I don't get the skin I want, I just forget about it.[/QUOTE]
Congratulations, I'm proud of you!
Now think about those who are actually affected by this predatory system. "It's your fault if you have a gambling addiction", fucking seriously?
[QUOTE=omarfr;52987103]I understand that people can be obsessive about skins, but honestly it's your fault if you feel the need to buy loot boxes for skins. I haven't spent a dime on Overwatch. The full games there, and if I don't get the skin I want, I just forget about it.[/QUOTE]
Yup, and it's a drug addicts fault they feel the need to buy drugs
It just seems funny to me that these are games we're paying for too and then you have the RNG element of obtaining a skin. Getting F2P/mobile game elements in games you're spending £40-50 for just wouldn't be crossing minds years ago but now its everywhere.
cosmetics are fun for some people but some have the collectors mentality that they need everything so things like the event/holiday skins in Overwatch prey on those people because obtaining them all through normal play is likely not going to happen.
A bit unrelated to the whole spending money thing but still about skins/cosmetics. I honestly wish games had a default look mode that was just client side. Some things look obnoxious and I just want to play the game I bought at release.
[QUOTE=Pinut;52987154]It just seems funny to me that these are games we're paying for too and then you have the RNG element of obtaining a skin. Getting F2P/mobile game elements in games you're spending £40-50 for just wouldn't be crossing minds years ago but now its everywhere.
cosmetics are fun for some people but some have the collectors mentality that they need everything so things like the event/holiday skins in Overwatch prey on those people because obtaining them all through normal play is likely not going to happen.
A bit unrelated to the whole spending money thing but still about skins/cosmetics. I honestly wish games had a default look mode that was just client side. Some things look obnoxious and I just want to play the game I bought at release.[/QUOTE]
I will always go back to Oblivion's horse armour DLC for this kind of shit. Once we thought buying skins was the most egregious thing a company could do. Now people gleefully pay money for a [i]chance[/i] to get a skin. People get excited over the chance that they might not be wasting their money.
How fucked is it that people not only throw their limited and hard earned money at random chance but also defend multi-[b]b[/b]illion dollar companies who institute these systems by claiming they can't afford not to?
Hm... Jim is pushing his points a little, going as far as saying optional dressups having as much significance as overall art direction.
Loot-boxed cosmetics is a double-edged sword. Starting with the bad points because peeps are so eager to hear the worst, the profitability of it had an impact on development cycle, causing devs to put perhaps a little to much effort in producing them, as they generate the most revenue, as opposed to increased production on gameplay-related content. It being able to make much monies is largely thanks to the gambling and impulse aspect of lootboxes, and them being rationalized as harmless purchases. Cosmetics also play a psychological role in games, wearing something cool can change the perception of people, even toward themselves. A team full of epic looking gears can boost team morale; increased attention and bias towards those who stand out; performance may vary based on self-confidence; etc. Cosmetics, although 'optional', are vital elements in any social-based games and shouldn't be dismissed willy-nilly.
On the other hand, the current system of distribution ensures frequent doses of cosmetics. It makes the publishers big bucks, consumers celebrate good looking outfits, and the game gets more reasons for continued support. Harder-to-get cosmetic inflates their pride and sentimental value, as time gated legendary gears are greatly diminished if everybody owns them. The random reward system, while addicting, can persuade diversity: getting rare items for a neglected character could sway a player toward trying them out. Lastly, well, temptation can be great incentives to play the game.
it really sucks that formerly standard things like cheat codes or unlockable costumes have been relegated to paid DLC. remember the spiderman PS1 games that had like every spiderman suit ever as unlockables? i miss stuff like that
I miss changing my mech camos per mission in mechwarrior 4, it added a lot to the feeling and atmosphere to the game. The new mechwarrior singleplayer will probably be selling those skins, and MWO is selling gold mechs so thats fucked.
Sometimes I get the impression that Jim is going so hard on this topic because he's hitting a public nerve and it's getting him publicity.
How the [I]fuck[/I] do you argue "people who say locking cosmetics behind microtransactions isn't a big deal don' trespect artists" for an entire video? If anything it'd be the fucking opposite because the same overdone cosmetics he calls desirable in the video slowly butcher artstyles. Remember how TF2 was lauded for having literally one of the best realized styles in the history of videogames? I bet a lot of you don't, because that was a long fucking time ago, now. Remember when CS:GO's guns didn't all have ridiculous and/or edgy stickers and paint jobs on them that everyone is for some reason obsessed with getting solely because they're rare? Boy, that was real early on.
Look, a lot of people are saying "the best system is no payments period!" but I don't think that's ever been the [I]standard[/I] for games with a long shelf-life, ever. If they're supporting a game over the long term, they want the game to continue to support itself, they don't want to pay for it out of their coffers. Assuming that game publishers are never going to accept just updating your game for free forever, I think (at least for multiplayer games) cosmetic microtransactions are objectively the best option. No paying for weapons or buffs. No expansion packs or season passes dividing the community. It doesn't even have to be lootboxes, make it something like Titanfall 2 where you can earn skins but you have some extravagant premium skins you can pay for if you really, really want to. If this is a problem for you and you'd rather have an expansion pack than pay for a skin, I'm sorry to be so blunt but you're playing the game for the wrong reasons.
This is a bit irrelevant from the rest of my post too, but the "preying on gambling addicts" argument personally bugs me, a bit. Don't get me wrong, I get it and I think it's a fair argument in itself, but aside from the fact that Overwatch's cosmetics have no resale value like CS:GO's so you're getting literally nothing aside from a thing you can show off but nobody will care about, it's kind of how games work in general? I think cosmetic skinnerboxing takes it to a new level, but a shitload of games try to establish some kind of feedback loop and have you develop addictive tendencies. Most MMOs, along with WoW. Any multiplayer game with an EXP based progression system. Most F2P titles in general. Collectibles, which have given me a lot of trouble as someone with OCD who often feels heavily compelled to finish collecting them- even though I can't stand them. It's not the same thing of course because it doesn't involve money, but it still sucks pretty badly.
tl;dr I'd just prefer to have skins I don't have to pay for than have any other kind of monetization in a multiplayer game and I don't think "just don't monetize anything" is realistic for a game they're planning to support for several years. For singleplayer games, I think the best model is no microtransactions but DLC expansions that carry a significant amount of content, sort of like how Bethesda sometimes does it.
I always feel like I'm not touching on certain arguments when I get into this discussion, it's such a can of worms. If you disagree please feel free to reply, this is something I'm interested in arguing.
As much as Jim Sterling drops some good points, it takes him WAAAAY to long to say anything. His argument in this video is that features that contribute to the enjoyment of a game, should be included in the base game experience, citing cosmetics as his main case. He doesn't coherently make that point until about ten minutes in though. Until then, it's just vitriolic statements without any goal other then being angry.
I'd like to see him make his point at the very beginning, and then dive into details like any essay should. I never make it past five minutes in his videos because he usually just starts repeating himself. Someone like Bunnyhop is as much a storyteller as they are a commentator, and I feel like Jim Sterling could benefit from a similar approach.
[QUOTE=TheHydra;52987203]it really sucks that formerly standard things like cheat codes or unlockable costumes have been relegated to paid DLC. remember the spiderman PS1 games that had like every spiderman suit ever as unlockables? i miss stuff like that[/QUOTE]
Mario Odyssey does the same thing, and is the most recent game in memory to do it. It sold amazingly well because of how good the game is, and it just shows how greedy some companies are. You don't fucking need paid costumes/skins in a goddamn $40 game. If the game is good enough people will play it, stop trying to add gambling to games to entice addictions. It's really messed up.
[QUOTE=Zadrave;52987229]Mario Odyssey does the same thing, and is the most recent game in memory to do it. It sold amazingly well because of how good the game is, and it just shows how greedy some companies are. You don't fucking need paid costumes/skins in a goddamn $40 game. If the game is good enough people will play it, stop trying to add gambling to games to entice addictions. It's really messed up.[/QUOTE]
Sonic Forces did the same thing and it was released more recently than Odyssey. Not trying to discredit you or anything, just nitpicking.
Okay, asking this: assuming "just don't monetize your large-scale multiplayer game running for 3+ years straight period" isn't an option, what would you pick instead of paid cosmetics? (That aren't lootboxes, because fuck lootboxes.)
[QUOTE=Noob4life;52987201]Hm... Jim is pushing his points a little, going as far as saying optional dressups having as much significance as overall art direction.[/QUOTE]
Dota2 and TF2 are example enough to show that cosmetics can kill or heavily impact an artstyle.
[QUOTE=Louis;52987250]Dota2 and TF2 are example enough to show that cosmetics can kill or heavily impact an artstyle.[/QUOTE]
From what I understood Jim was speaking as though maintaining an artstyle wasn't as important as giving players the option to customize, calling standard Zenyatta "boring" in favor of a ridiculous Cthulu skin.
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987241]Okay, asking this: assuming "just don't monetize your large-scale multiplayer game running for 3+ years straight period" isn't an option, what would you pick instead of paid cosmetics that aren't lootboxes?[/QUOTE]
I want to say mappacks like Battlefield 3 and 4 did but in the long run it just ruins the playerbase. It divides everyone and when the game's time has passed(BF3 and 4 atm) it makes the situation even worse because some really good DLC maps/gamemodes might still be active but nobody plays on vanilla, and you're missing out unless you buy DLC for an old game player population of which is just remnants of what is used to be.
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987241]Okay, asking this: assuming "just don't monetize your large-scale multiplayer game running for 3+ years straight period" isn't an option, what would you pick instead of paid cosmetics that aren't lootboxes?[/QUOTE]
Accept the fact that you've already made over a billion dollars in profit and stop being a greedy cunt? Just a suggestion to EA and Blizzard there.
[QUOTE=Janus Vesta;52987266]Accept the fact that you've already made over a billion dollars in profit and stop being a greedy cunt? Just a suggestion to EA and Blizzard there.[/QUOTE]
Sure, let's ask a massive corporation to stop trying to make more money off of a successful entertainment product. Bound to work. Sure worked great with Valve, everyone's favorite nice-guy company.
Oh wait, they're arguably the worst of them all because with CS:GO and TF2 they've created an economy where you can make real life money by selling items in their market so now you have people literally gambling for money when they buy crates.
If you want lootboxes gone? Okay, great. Cool. But I don't think you're going to succeed in getting publishers to just stop profiting off of a game once they've made some arbitrary number considered 'enough' money and still continue to support it. They're going to want some kind of revenue coming in.
[QUOTE=Zadrave;52987229]Mario Odyssey does the same thing, and is the most recent game in memory to do it. It sold amazingly well because of how good the game is, and it just shows how greedy some companies are. You don't fucking need paid costumes/skins in a goddamn $40 game. If the game is good enough people will play it, stop trying to add gambling to games to entice addictions. It's really messed up.[/QUOTE]
Not only that, but whatever you CAN obtain in the game with amiibos is easily obtainable with in-game currency, so the amiibos feel like an added bonus rather than a paywall
I'll say one thing about DLCs or expansions over cosmetics, though. Despite potentially splitting the fanbase in a big way, it can also potentially communicate to publishers that you're more willing to buy [I]games[/I] than hats, and they'll direct development less to making as many hats as possible.
But I don't think people will ever stop buying skins, and as much as I'd like to believe that it's all the whales' fault, I think most people know someone who's bought a few hats or keys here and there- that shit adds up. All of this happened because everyone went hat-crazy when TF2 introduced microtransactions and they made more than they made off of the game itself.
So in a world where I don't think micro-focused development is ever leaving without unlikely government intervention which sounds like an entirely different can of worms with how fucked the US government is today, non-lootbox cosmetics I don't care about in the first place because I care chiefly about the gameplay experience are good enough for me, I guess.
[QUOTE=omarfr;52987103]The full games there, and if I don't get the skin I want, I just forget about it.[/QUOTE]
Yes, the art data for the cosmetic microtransactions exist on my hard drive, so I do have the "full game". But you are fucking lying to yourself if you think that any content that lives behind a loot box system - cosmetic or otherwise - is not part of the full game. Why would you even bother putting stuff behind microtransactions if you didn't think people wanted access to those items? Almost as if people want these things and they are preying on people's inability to control their impulses, no? And for only $2.50 a pop, why wouldn't you buy just a few?
Do you see how this is a problem yet?
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987219]Sometimes I get the impression that Jim is going so hard on this topic because he's hitting a public nerve and it's getting him publicity.
How the [I]fuck[/I] do you argue "people who say locking cosmetics behind microtransactions isn't a big deal don' trespect artists" for an entire video? If anything it'd be the fucking opposite because the same overdone cosmetics he calls desirable in the video slowly butcher artstyles. Remember how TF2 was lauded for having literally one of the best realized styles in the history of videogames? I bet a lot of you don't, because that was a long fucking time ago, now. Remember when CS:GO's guns didn't all have ridiculous and/or edgy stickers and paint jobs on them that everyone is for some reason obsessed with getting solely because they're rare? Boy, that was real early on.
Look, a lot of people are saying "the best system is no payments period!" but I don't think that's ever been the [I]standard[/I] for games with a long shelf-life, ever. If they're supporting a game over the long term, they want the game to continue to support itself, they don't want to pay for it out of their coffers. Assuming that game publishers are never going to accept just updating your game for free forever, I think (at least for multiplayer games) cosmetic microtransactions are objectively the best option. No paying for weapons or buffs. No expansion packs or season passes dividing the community. It doesn't even have to be lootboxes, make it something like Titanfall 2 where you can earn skins but you have some extravagant premium skins you can pay for if you really, really want to. If this is a problem for you and you'd rather have an expansion pack than pay for a skin, I'm sorry to be so blunt but you're playing the game for the wrong reasons.
This is a bit irrelevant from the rest of my post too, but the "preying on gambling addicts" argument personally bugs me, a bit. Don't get me wrong, I get it and I think it's a fair argument in itself, but aside from the fact that Overwatch's cosmetics have no resale value like CS:GO's so you're getting literally nothing aside from a thing you can show off but nobody will care about, it's kind of how games work in general? I think cosmetic skinnerboxing takes it to a new level, but a shitload of games try to establish some kind of feedback loop and have you develop addictive tendencies. Most MMOs, along with WoW. Any multiplayer game with an EXP based progression system. Most F2P titles in general. [I]Collectibles. [/I]It's not the same thing of course because it doesn't involve money, but it still sucks pretty badly.
tl;dr I'd just prefer to have skins I don't have to pay for than have any other kind of monetization in a multiplayer game and I don't think "just don't monetize anything" is realistic for a game they're planning to support for several years. For singleplayer games, I think the best model is no microtransactions but DLC expansions that carry a significant amount of content, sort of like how Bethesda sometimes does it.
I always feel like I'm not touching on certain arguments when I get into this discussion, it's such a can of worms. If you disagree please feel free to reply, this is something I'm interested in arguing.[/QUOTE]
Putting TF2's premium skins on the same level as lootboxes is wrong. I'm not sure if you are or not, but it seems that way.
Those are Microtransactions you can flat out buy the particular item you want.
No need to buy a thousand loot boxes to screw with your risk reward centre in your brain to have a chance to get the right item.
People don't really mind having to spend money as far as I can tell, what they mind is blatantly being bled for every little thing.
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987273]Sure, let's ask a massive corporation to stop trying to make more money off of a successful entertainment product. Bound to work. Sure worked great with Valve, everyone's favorite nice-guy company.
Oh wait, they're arguably the worst of them all because with CS:GO and TF2 they've created an economy where you can make real life money by selling items in their market so now you have people literally gambling for money when they buy crates.
If you want lootboxes gone? Okay, great. Cool. But I don't think you're going to succeed in getting publishers to just stop profiting off of a game once they've made some arbitrary number considered 'enough' money and still continue to support it. They're going to want some kind of revenue coming in.[/QUOTE]
I don't have a problem with them continuing to profit off of their game. This is a really bad strawman you've come up with here.
I have a problem with loot boxes more than Microtransactions or anything else. I actually think TF2 is the gold standard of how to do that right. Loot boxes are a very harmful facet of the gaming industry, they harm us as consumers, they harm addicts, and they harm the games in the long run.
Monetizing things isn't the issue. Wanting to make money isn't the issue.
[B]Wanting every game to make all the money is.[/B]
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52987316]Putting TF2's premium skins on the same level as lootboxes is wrong. I'm not sure if you are or not, but it seems that way.
Those are Microtransactions you can flat out buy the particular item you want.
No need to buy a thousand loot boxes to screw with your risk reward centre in your brain to have a chance to get the right item.
People don't really mind having to spend money as far as I can tell, what they mind is blatantly being bled for every little thing.[/QUOTE]
You can buy basic hats with regular money, yes (though I find it obnoxious that I had to go to a scrap banking website in the past to get new weapons without hassle)- but the whole clusterfuck of an economy that bloomed based off of the rarer unusuals and other limited items is pretty terrible. Shit, I was involved in it. I told myself when I was younger that I was going to get in the TF2 trading scene and trade up and gamble for rare items and fund my hobby in games with money gotten from hats. What did I get out of this? I lost a hat or two gambling, decided that this was a stupid idea, and stopped.
But there's no doubt in my [I]mind[/I] that some kid on there decided they were going to use the steam wallet card they got for christmas and gamble it all away on keys for the hope of getting an unusual hat out of it, and maybe they got like 5 bucks in regular hats nobody really wanted out of it in return. I think people let Valve off [I]far[/I] too easily when they talk about microtransactions, CS:GO is probably the worst example there is.
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52987316]I don't have a problem with them continuing to profit off of their game. This is a really bad strawman you've come up with here.
I have a problem with loot boxes more than Microtransactions or anything else. I actually think TF2 is the gold standard of how to do that right. Loot boxes are a very harmful facet of the gaming industry, they harm us as consumers, they harm addicts, and they harm the games in the long run.
Monetizing things isn't the issue. Wanting to make money isn't the issue.
[B]Wanting every game to make all the money is.[/B][/QUOTE]
I'm not sure it's a strawman considering I've seen the sentiment that games shouldn't have any monetization whatsoever on here before, up to the point where the post I responded to there is saying that non-lootbox pay-directly-for-hat microtransactions are heinously greedy coming from Overwatch or one of EA's games, unless he didn't read my post.
[QUOTE=omarfr;52987103]I understand that people can be obsessive about skins, but honestly it's your fault if you feel the need to buy loot boxes for skins. I haven't spent a dime on Overwatch. The full games there, and if I don't get the skin I want, I just forget about it.[/QUOTE]
I mean even if we do go with that line of logic - it's just anti-consumer. These things don't need to be turned into gambling. Why can we not just buy the skin we want?
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