The "games need extra income sources to make money for long-term support" argument falls right the fuck on its face when you remember that they charged $40 for the game to begin with. You can EITHER charge a premium base price OR go free to play with heavy microtransactions gatekeeping content. Doing both is just double dipping.
Consider that they're making fucking ludicrous amounts of money RIGHT NOW from sales of the base game. Maybe that won't be the case in 3 years, but they didn't implement lootboxes 4 years after launch, they had loot boxes in the game at launch. Nobody can claim that poor little blizzard wasn't making enough money year one of development to justify adding new content. If they reached a point where base sales we'rent cutting it they could switch to a F2P model down the line. Instead they just milked their whales for every drop.
Also remember that nobody would have actually bought the game if it weren't for the understanding that the game would receive long term support.
[QUOTE=Captain Chalky;52987360]This is all just semantics. Video games in general are full of concepts and terms that don't have one true meaning. "Gameplay" is one of those concepts. Technically it's true that cosmetics affect gameplay, since gameplay can encompass user experience. Technically it's also not.
But here is something else: [I]Cosmetic microtransactions do not affect game balance and do not offer unfair advantage in exchange of real world money[/I]. That's a bit longer sentence but it's what I mean when I say that "It's just cosmetic". And I'm going to stand by those words.
Cosmetics do not matter and as long as they are sold directly and through gambling, I will always be okay with them.[/QUOTE]
I hope you meant "not through gambling," but I generally agree on the whole. I have friends who care deeply about cosmetics to the point where they'll admit they play chiefly for the dress-up angle, but that doesn't change that you can go through the entirety of Destiny's SP without consciously applying cosmetics or play TF2 without using hats and it shouldn't have any negative effect on your experience unless you paid the 60$ price tag for skins in the first place
[QUOTE=Captain Chalky;52987360]Cosmetics do not matter[/QUOTE]
But what do you mean by this? You are right in saying they do not interfere with the actual gameplay loop, but they are such a prevalent part of today's games that I think it's disingenuous to say cosmetic items don't matter, even if it is a semantic argument. Cosmetics are super important to lots of people who play games like WoW, Destiny, Warframe, Fallout - the list goes on. Perhaps they aren't important to you personally, but there are countless AAA developers selling $60 games with $20 season passes who are nickel and diming these people who enjoy cosmetics, and there is nothing justifiable about that.
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987333]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]
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]
Skin events in Overwatch are very greedy, they're meant to encourage you to plow 50 hours in a month into the game or pay money to get the limited time items that you can't get otherwise.
This incentives people paying money for cosmetics.
If they were able to just buy the given object or item they wanted, they wouldn't be abusing people, and they'd be able to make money at the same time.
Also, games make more money now than ever. The idea they need to make a sustained long term profit is not entirely truthful.
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;52987364]The "games need extra income sources to make money for long-term support" argument falls right the fuck on its face when you remember that they charged $40 for the game to begin with. You can EITHER charge a premium base price OR go free to play with heavy microtransactions gatekeeping content. Doing both is just double dipping.
Consider that they're making fucking ludicrous amounts of money RIGHT NOW from sales of the base game. Maybe that won't be the case in 3 years, but they didn't implement lootboxes 4 years after launch, they had loot boxes in the game at launch. Nobody can claim that poor little blizzard wasn't making enough money year one of development to justify adding new content. If they reached a point where base sales we'rent cutting it they could switch to a F2P model down the line. Instead they just milked their whales for every drop.
Also remember that nobody would have actually bought the game if it weren't for the understanding that the game would receive long term support.[/QUOTE]
Paid expansions for full games have been a thing since DOOM and they've never really stopped. Some didn't use them, but it wasn't really the norm.
I never really said they needed the money, I just think they're going to try to make more money either way rather than just let money bleed when they hit a certain level of profit because they've made "enough" at some point. They're going to want to make more and more and grow their company, I just think that's the nature of a massive corporation. TF2 has made Valve truckloads of cash at this point, do you think they're going to roll back the mann co. store and let people get items more easily? Also, here's a thought, not really trying to make a point here but curious: If Overwatch had no microtransactions with their cosmetics for several years and then suddenly rolled out micros, would people be okay with that, you think? I'm not sure.
I've heard this last point a few times and I just don't agree at all. I thought it was really cool that Overwatch was offering free updates, but I also thought it was a fucking blast at launch and that it was more than worth the 40$ price, easily. I don't like the sentiment that if a game doesn't constantly update, it isn't worth anything. It's a recent sentiment and part of what's lead to our current situation where there are no singleplayer games and all multiplayer games are on a balancing tightrope with constant power creep.
[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]
Since Overwatch practically only releases skins as a means of adding content to the game (with how rare, few and far between, and usually disappointing/subpar gameplay updates are), they're the [I]only[/I] reward for playing, because the game doesn't really have enough readily available content to remain interesting on the merits of its gameplay alone.
Anyone who says cosmetics doesn't matter should be perfectly happy with the idea of graphics DLC where you have to pay £30 to get anything other than wire frames.
It's just cosmetics after all, it doesn't affect the gameplay.
[QUOTE=_Axel;52987120]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]
Not even just a gambling addiction. If you can't have YOUR avatar look the way you want, the game feels incomplete. So you spend money on the idea that having ____ will make the game more fun and interesting. Which if you could buy them straight, no problem. But instead you have to gamble so they can get more money than what the wanted items are actually worth.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52987391]Skin events in Overwatch are very greedy, they're meant to encourage you to plow 50 hours in a month into the game or pay money to get the limited time items that you can't get otherwise.
This incentives people paying money for cosmetics.
If they were able to just buy the given object or item they wanted, they wouldn't be abusing people, and they'd be able to make money at the same time. [/QUOTE]
I don't really disagree with this. My original post in this thread, meandering and poorly written as it is, is trying to say
-I think that if there are going to be microtransactions either way unless everyone on the planet stops paying for them or government regulation steps in, and there's nothing wrong with cosmetics as long as you're paying directly for them and you're not gambling
-Considering how so many systems in videogames today rely on fostering addiction and skinnerboxing, will people set their sights on F2P titles next? A [I]huge[/I] part of free to play games is fostering addiction and encouraging paying through repetitive gameplay grind-and-reward loops, will people be okay with that in the future? This has relevance to me despite not really being a point because my OCD gives me problems with these sorts of feedback loops.
-I'm a little skeptical on the point that cosmetics are just as important as gameplay affecting features in the grand scheme of things
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52987391]
Also, games make more money now than ever. The idea they need to make a sustained long term profit is not entirely truthful.[/QUOTE] As I said, I just think they're going to try either way because everyone does it, it's successful, and they're going to want to keep making more and more profit off of a product they're currently devoting attention to. I don't mean to defend it, I just think that's the way it is, I guess.
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;52987423]Anyone who says cosmetics doesn't matter should be perfectly happy with the idea of graphics DLC where you have to pay £30 to get anything other than wire frames.
It's just cosmetics after all, it doesn't affect the gameplay.[/QUOTE]
i mean people play dwarf fortress
But that's a pretty massive false equivalence. That's "the entire presentation of the game" vs "a hat you can wear in the game instead of the one you're currently wearing"
Not to say that it shouldn't bother anyone, but it doesn't bother me in Overwatch when I can't get a skin I liked because all of the defaults are still good and I don't really think anybody but me is really going to give a fuck whether I have a certain skin? So many people have Legendaries that it catches my attention more when someone [I]doesn't[/I] have one. Maybe if the skin is brand new it's a little unusual, I guess?
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987399]Paid expansions for full games have been a thing since DOOM and they've never really stopped. Some didn't use them, but it wasn't really the norm.
[/QUOTE]
Not sure how this is relevant, singleplayer games getting a lump sum of content for a reasonable lump sum of cash without any manipulative corporate bullshit isn't the same thing at all.
[QUOTE]I never really said they needed the money, I just think they're going to try to make more money either way rather than just let money bleed when they hit a certain level of profit because they've made "enough" at some point. They're going to want to make more and more and grow their company, I just think that's the nature of a massive corporation.[/QUOTE]
What "money bleed"? Blizzard's not bleeding money from overwatch, they're [I]still making boatloads of cash from base sales right now.[/I] The need to switch to a different business model to make a profit might occur some time down the line but microtransactions were in the game DAY 1. You'd have to be completely out of touch to think overwatch could be bleeding money only like a year and a half after launch, and completely dilusional to think it needed them to make a profit AT launch. Maybe it's the "nature" of a massive corporation to try to wring as many pennies out of consumers while providing less and less content, but it's still anti-consumer bullshit.
[QUOTE]TF2 has made Valve truckloads of cash at this point, do you think they're going to roll back the mann co. store and let people get items more easily?[/QUOTE]
TF2 is a free to play game. There's nothing wrong with their monetization strategy.
[QUOTE] If Overwatch had no microtransactions with their cosmetics for several years and then suddenly rolled out micros, would people be okay with that, you think? I'm not sure.[/QUOTE]
You conveniently left out the most important part of that statement, which is that they should [I]switch to a f2p model[/I] when base sales aren't cutting it.
[QUOTE]I've heard this last point a few times and I just don't agree at all. I thought it was really cool that Overwatch was offering free updates, but I also thought it was a fucking blast at launch and that it was more than worth the 40$ price, easily. I don't like the sentiment that if a game doesn't constantly update, it isn't worth anything. It's a recent sentiment and part of what's lead to our current situation where there are no singleplayer games and all multiplayer games are on a balancing tightrope with constant power creep.[/QUOTE]
Playercounts taper off when there's no balancing or additional content added to an allegedly competitive multiplayer game. Eventually people get bored of playing the same game for years and years. Whether you personally need additional content to want to play a game is irrelevant, because when playercounts drop off the game becomes effectively unplayable. The point is that treating support for a game as something that needs to be payed for in addition to the $40 base price ignores that fact that nobody would have payed $40 for the game if they knew it would never get updated and would be dead in a year. We were told there would be free content updates, and we payed for that as part of the asking price.
And power creep is the fault of bad balancing, it's not some inherent problem with adding new content.
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987433]I don't really disagree with this. My original post in this thread, meandering and poorly written as it is, is trying to say
-I think that if there are going to be microtransactions either way unless everyone on the planet stops paying for them or government regulation steps in, and there's nothing wrong with cosmetics as long as you're paying directly for them and you're not gambling
-Considering how so many systems in videogames today rely on fostering addiction and skinnerboxing, will people set their sights on F2P titles next? A [I]huge[/I] part of free to play games is fostering addiction and encouraging paying through repetitive gameplay grind-and-reward loops, will people be okay with that in the future? This has relevance to me despite not really being a point because my OCD gives me problems with these sorts of feedback loops.
-I'm a little skeptical on the point that cosmetics are just as important as gameplay affecting features in the grand scheme of things
As I said, I just think they're going to try either way because everyone does it, it's successful, and they're going to want to keep making more and more profit off of a product they're currently devoting attention to. I don't mean to defend it, I just think that's the way it is, I guess.
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
i mean people play dwarf fortress
But that's a pretty massive false equivalence. That's "the entire presentation of the game" vs "a hat you can wear in the game instead of the one you're currently wearing"
Not to say that it shouldn't bother anyone, but it doesn't bother me in Overwatch when I can't get a skin I liked because all of the defaults are still good and I don't really think anybody but me is really going to give a fuck whether I have a certain skin? So many people have Legendaries that it catches my attention more when someone [I]doesn't[/I] have one. Maybe if the skin is brand new it's a little unusual, I guess?[/QUOTE]
I don't really get your argument other than "loot boxes and addiction are fine. ignore it"
I'm so glad I went through my "skin addict" phase during tf2 where I could just grind scrap and trade that way, these days I'm just so overwhelmed with skins/cosmetics that I don't give a rats ass about them anymore if I have them I'll use them but I'm not spending a penny on them
[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]
It's fine if you don't really care about cosmetics/aesthetics or have the willpower to metaphorically forge your keyboard into a sword to join the backlash, but for the love of god at the very least don't be apologist about predatory cash-grabbing practices. Nobody will ever thank you for it, especially not the publishers.
The extra money they rake in won't come back around to improve your experience. Micro-transactions exist for the benefit of the shareholders and the company's bottom line; not you, the player. It's insanity to attempt to convince ourselves that whatever clever monetization scheme the industry comes up with next surely exists for a good reason, somehow, when there's no benefit in us doing so except to fool ourselves into thinking everything is fine.
Don't be okay with things that aren't beneficial to you as a consumer. Ideally try to push back against them, but as a bare minimum, don't enable them.
Games are way more expensive to make nowadays. Especially for professional studios. If they offer a shit load of optional content that doesn't affect gameplay so I don't have to pay over $100 for the game then it's fine by me.
[QUOTE=Lime-alicious;52987501]Games are way more expensive to make nowadays. Especially for professional studios. If they offer a shit load of optional content that doesn't affect gameplay so I don't have to pay over $100 for the game then it's fine by me.[/QUOTE]
They also make more than ever, they also pay their game developers pennies, and they don't pay taxes.
The amount of acceptance towards corporate dicking is just absurd
[QUOTE=Lime-alicious;52987501]Games are way more expensive to make nowadays. Especially for professional studios. If they offer a shit load of optional content that doesn't affect gameplay so I don't have to pay over $100 for the game then it's fine by me.[/QUOTE]
Nah mate, back then they actually had to make their own engines and stuff, nowadays they can grab unreal engine or unity or whatever for super cheap/free. Not to mention people LOVE to reuse their own shitty engine for things (looking at you Bethesda and DICE). If anything it's the other way around. Besides, why go through the hassle of making a new engine when you can just reuse one that's there? It's a hell of a lot cheaper. Hell, a lot of games nowadays you can see reused assets. That wasn't a thing back then nearly as much either.
[QUOTE=Zadrave;52987515]Nah mate, back then they actually had to make their own engines and stuff, nowadays they can grab unreal engine or unity or whatever for super cheap/free. Not to mention people LOVE to reuse their own shitty engine for things (looking at you Bethesda and DICE). If anything it's the other way around. Besides, why go through the hassle of making a new engine when you can just reuse one that's there? It's a hell of a lot cheaper. Hell, a lot of games nowadays you can see reused assets. That wasn't a thing back then nearly as much either.[/QUOTE]
Ever think they reuse their own engines [I]because[/I] of how much more expensive it is to make games? There has been an exponential increase in polygons since the dawn of 3D gaming. Yeah you can make a game real easy on Unity or UE4, but you still have to make your own assets if you want your game to be professional.
Also, I'm more talking about professional studios that actually provide DLC to pay for the game and server upkeep like CD Projekt, Blizzard, Psyonix, etc.. Of course there are still companies that go overboard and you can tell they do it purely for profit like Ubisoft, EA, Valve, etc..
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52987460]I don't really get your argument other than "loot boxes and addiction are fine. ignore it"[/QUOTE]
I must be a literal retard who is physically incapable of getting points across, I'm sorry.
No, I'm trying to say that straight cosmetic microtransactions are fine, lootboxes aren't. Something that most of the other people in this thread decidedly [I]have not[/I] been saying.
I wonder if people will go after F2P games or even MMOs next because they try [I]very hard[/I] to foster addiction in much the same way, it's how they survive as games and I wonder if it's okay there because it's what they have to do to survive as free games.
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;52987455]Not sure how this is relevant, singleplayer games getting a lump sum of content for a reasonable lump sum of cash without any manipulative corporate bullshit isn't the same thing at all.[/QUOTE]
Doom was just the example I used, multiplayer games offered expansions and map packs from fairly early on too, it just wasn't quite as explosive as it is today.
[quote]What "money bleed"? Blizzard's not bleeding money from overwatch, they're [I]still making boatloads of cash from base sales right now.[/I] The need to switch to a different business model to make a profit might occur some time down the line but microtransactions were in the game DAY 1. You'd have to be completely out of touch to think overwatch could be bleeding money only like a year and a half after launch, and completely dilusional to think it needed them to make a profit AT launch. Maybe it's the "nature" of a massive corporation to try to wring as many pennies out of consumers while providing less and less content, but it's still anti-consumer bullshit.[/quote]I'm just going to admit I put my foot in my mouth when I said "money bleed," that pretty clearly doesn't apply to Overwatch yet. However, the idea of a company no longer making money deciding not to monetize anything because they've made "enough" just doesn't work. If a game isn't currently making a decent profit, they aren't just going to go "well, we've made enough" while continuing to develop. Literally no one does this.
[quote]TF2 is a free to play game. There's nothing wrong with their monetization strategy.[/quote]
The situation with unusuals and the steam market seems like literal gambling to me except you can actually win money as opposed to skins that are on an objective financial level worthless, nobody's really responded to this.
[quote]
You conveniently left out the most important part of that statement, which is that they should [I]switch to a f2p model[/I] when base sales aren't cutting it.
[/quote]
Not a flawless idea. Overwatch already has a problem with hackers literally buying new accounts and toxic players, which a f2p model would make several levels worse if you remember TF2. Also, if you were used to free cosmetics for years- would you be okay with them suddenly being monetized after the game was made free to play, even though you'd already bought it full price? They'd probably have to make newer cosmetics harder to get or cosmetics would have to be absurdly hard to get to begin with. Also at the point where nobody's buying the game anymore, would there be a significant difference in making it free to play?
[quote]Playercounts taper off when there's no balancing or additional content added to an allegedly competitive multiplayer game. Eventually people get bored of playing the same game for years and years. Whether you personally need additional content to want to play a game is irrelevant, because when playercounts drop off the game becomes effectively unplayable. The point is that treating support for a game as something that needs to be payed for in addition to the $40 base price ignores that fact that nobody would have payed $40 for the game if they knew it would never get updated and would be dead in a year. We were told there would be free content updates, and we payed for that as part of the asking price.[/quote] I'm not sure if you're even right. People will play a good game if it's a good game, I'm actually a little insulted by the insinuation that a multiplayer game is worthless period if it's not constantly being updated; if a competitive game is good enough people will continue to play it with or without updates, though updates will certainly sweeten the deal to the everyman who isn't really interested in comp. Hell, I'd say it's more accurate that playercounts dip if a game doesn't have cosmetics. Fun fact: CS:GO, as good as it supposedly is, was teetering on [I]dead[/I] before a player economy was introduced and then woah it was the biggest thing. Of course it had been updated before, but that didn't really matter. No cosmetics, no reason to play, I guess.
[quote]And power creep is the fault of bad balancing, it's not some inherent problem with adding new content.[/quote]
Name a game with perfect balancing after adding years worth of new content. I'd be interested to hear about it.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52987511]They also make more than ever, they also pay their game developers pennies, and they don't pay taxes.
The amount of acceptance towards corporate dicking is just absurd[/QUOTE]
You're painting a fairly broad stroke here.
[QUOTE=Im Crimson;52987476]It's fine if you don't really care about cosmetics/aesthetics or have the willpower to metaphorically forge your keyboard into a sword to join the backlash, but for the love of god at the very least don't be apologist about predatory cash-grabbing practices. Nobody will ever thank you for it, especially not the publishers.
The extra money they rake in won't come back around to improve your experience. Micro-transactions exist for the benefit of the shareholders and the company's bottom line; not you, the player. It's insanity to attempt to convince ourselves that whatever clever monetization scheme the industry comes up with next surely exists for a good reason, somehow, when there's no benefit in us doing so except to fool ourselves into thinking everything is fine.
Don't be okay with things that aren't beneficial to you as a consumer. Ideally try to push back against them, but as a bare minimum, don't enable them.[/QUOTE]
I just prefer them to expansion packs and [I]specifically[/I] in multiplayer games when free updates aren't an option. I think the ideal is Titanfall 2, but TItanfall 2 failed spectacularly. Actually, interesting thing about Titanfall, I saw a few people call it "weirdly forgettable" and despite loving the game, I felt kind of the same. There was no game I enjoyed more, but it was so easy to just drop it and not play it for weeks on a dime. I think a large part of that was that people are just [I]that used to skinnerboxing,[/I] and Titanfall had basically none. You played the game to play the game, so it wasn't a compulsion- you played the game when you felt like having fun with it, despite the fact that it updated relatively often.
If we lived in a world where all AAA games came out and supported themselves for free forever I'd be down, but I don't think that's ever going to happen and just [I]given the option[/I] I'd rather let whales pay for skins than have to pay for an expansion to continue playing with the rest of community.
[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]
[IMG]http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1257/header.jpg?t=1447352643[/IMG]
This is what use to be known as a skin pack. You paid £5 (or there abouts), and in it you got what you see in the picture, they did absolutely nothing except change your appearance. Later on some of them were single charecters with unique voices which were somewhat extortionate but again it did not alter the game play. (Game affecting weapon packs came later but thats another story).
Anyway, these packs funded the development of free Killing floor 1 content for over 5 years, developers made money, people who liked the skins got them and everyone in the playerbase got free maps, skins, weapons and events as a result. The icing on the cake? No one got a damn gambling addiction from it.
I had no problems with that practice, Loot boxes can fuck off.
[QUOTE=Simplemac3;52987548]I must be a literal retard who is physically incapable of getting points across, I'm sorry.
No, I'm trying to say that straight cosmetic microtransactions are fine, lootboxes aren't. Something that most of the other people in this thread decidedly [I]have not[/I] been saying.
I wonder if people will go after F2P games or even MMOs next because they try [I]very hard[/I] to foster addiction in much the same way, it's how they survive as games and I wonder if it's okay there because it's what they have to do to survive as free games.
Doom was just the example I used, multiplayer games offered expansions and map packs from fairly early on too, it just wasn't quite as explosive as it is today.
[/quote]
What does that have to do with the argument though? Reasonably priced singleplayer expansions have nothing to do with this discussion.
[quote]
I'm just going to admit I put my foot in my mouth when I said "money bleed," that pretty clearly doesn't apply to Overwatch yet. However, the idea of a company no longer making money deciding not to monetize anything because they've made "enough" just doesn't work. If a game isn't currently making a decent profit, they aren't just going to go "well, we've made enough" while continuing to develop. Literally no one does this.
[/quote]
And nobody's arguing that they SHOULD, so it's a completely irrelevant strawman.
[quote]
The situation with unusuals and the steam market seems like literal gambling to me except you can actually win money as opposed to skins that are on an objective financial level worthless, nobody's really responded to this.
[/quote]
Buying crate keys should be regulated like gambling, yes. Kids shouldn't be allowed to buy those keys. But since TF2 is a F2P game, the actual monetization system is not an unreasonable trade-off. Having a gambling system for getting items, in addition to having other ways of getting cosmetics that aren't gambling isn't a bad tradeoff for a massive, otherwise free game. The problem is one of government regulation falling behind and not doing a good enough job of restricting sales to minors rather than a problem with that monetization system. Valve could also be doing a lot better job of stopping minors from buying those items as well.
[quote]
Not a flawless idea. Overwatch already has a problem with hackers literally buying new accounts and toxic players, which a f2p model would make several levels worse if you remember TF2. Also, if you were used to free cosmetics for years- would you be okay with them suddenly being monetized after the game was made free to play, even though you'd already bought it full price? They'd probably have to make newer cosmetics harder to get or cosmetics would have to be absurdly hard to get to begin with.
[/quote]
Well this is getting into the finer details of the switch between monotization strategies, but they could easily give additional content to people who bough the game at full price and start doling out paid skins in addition to free ones.
[quote] Also at the point where nobody's buying the game anymore, would there be a significant difference in making it free to play?
[/quote]
Yeah, that's exactly what TF2 did and there's still a really big community a decade after launch. They just time the switch so it occurs while there's still a big community of active players.
[quote]I'm not sure if you're even right. People will play a good game if it's a good game, I'm actually a little insulted by the insinuation that a multiplayer game is worthless period if it's not constantly being updated; if a competitive game is good enough people will continue to play it with or without updates, though updates will certainly sweeten the deal to the everyman who isn't really interested in comp. Hell, I'd say it's more accurate that playercounts dip if a game doesn't have cosmetics. Fun fact: CS:GO, as good as it supposedly is, was teetering on [I]dead[/I] before a player economy was introduced and then woah it was the biggest thing. Of course it had been updated before, but that didn't really matter. No cosmetics, no reason to play.[/quote]
This is flawed logic, you're saying that because a game once died because of something OTHER than lack of content, lack of content isn't related to a game's longevity. That's like saying that because a hotel with beds went out of business due to overpriced rooms, a lack of beds would never drive a hotel out of business.
You want an example of exactly what a good multiplayer game with no updates looks like? Look no further than TF2. Compare TF2's longevity on PC vs its longevity on consoles. On PC a decade later it still has well over 60,000 average concurrent players on its worst days, and nearly 100,000 after its last update. On consoles, where no updates have ever occurred, the game died many years ago.
Edit: Also aren't you are arguing against your own point? If games don't need new content to stay alive why do they need to scam whales to stay afloat?
[quote]
Name a game with perfect balancing after adding years worth of new content. I'd be interested to hear about it.[/QUOTE]
Name a game that's perfectly balanced at launch[I] without [/I]any new content added. Balancing is never an exact science, NOTHING is perfectly balanced. That doesn't mean power creep is inherent to adding new content.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;52987590]woe is me how do we monetize this 60 dollar game
surely it isnt monetized on the sole virtue of being a 60 dollar buy-in with no end of incoming sales throughout the games lifetime[/QUOTE]
If there wasn't DLC that $60 game would be $100
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=RichyZ;52987600]starcraft, a 60 dollar game with a 30 dollar expansion, is being patched to this day
not counting the remaster that got released, patches can be traced all the way up to 2009, then 2017
and there wasn't a single zerg egg consumable that gave you sick new skins for your units or whatever either[/QUOTE]
An isometric perspective game with small unit models is way cheaper to create speaking in just art assets alone.
and Starcraft 2 literally has paid skins.
[QUOTE=Lime-alicious;52987609]If there wasn't DLC that $60 game would be $100[/QUOTE]
you're forgetting about the $90 special edition, the $30 season pass, the $15 of extra DLC not in the season pass, the microtransactions, and the lootboxes that "$60" games these days have
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;52987619]you're forgetting about the $90 special edition, the $30 season pass, the $15 of extra DLC not in the season pass, the microtransactions, and the lootboxes[/QUOTE]
No I'm not. That's [I]why[/I] I'm saying this. Pay $100 for a game or $60 for a base game with optional content.
and I already said before that companies do take it overboard to the point where they are doing it for profit, like EA or Valve, and they're scumbags for it, but a high budget game isn't lasting long in this ecosystem without DLC, or they'd have to make it expensive as hell to even see a return.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;52987600]starcraft, a 60 dollar game with a 30 dollar expansion, is being patched to this day
not counting the remaster that got released, patches can be traced all the way up to 2009, then 2017
and there wasn't a single zerg egg consumable that gave you sick new skins for your units or whatever either[/QUOTE]
They cocked that up with the 2nd one. That one has skins and time-limited stuff that sucks. :(
[QUOTE=Lime-alicious;52987555]You're painting a fairly broad stroke here.[/QUOTE]
And you're speaking about a very narrow group of games developers and my "broad" statement applies to them
Lootboxes would only work if the drop rate was the same for every item in the box (no 'rare' items), and especially if "duplicates" don't exist.
"Oh look, you got that skin that costs 6000 gems but you have it already! Guess I'll give you 250 gems for it since you don't need a duplicate. :^)"
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
Not gambling my ass.
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
Actually you know what, they're absolutely right. Lootboxes aren't gambling, they're [i]far worse[/i] than gambling.
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;52987576]You think microtransaction money is used to fuel non-microtransaction content?[/QUOTE]
Do you mean they don't and should proceed with post-launch ops base on goodwill?
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;52987588]What does that have to do with the argument though? Reasonably priced singleplayer expansions have nothing to do with this discussion.[/QUOTE]
so you didn't even read the post got it
[quote]And nobody's arguing that they SHOULD, so it's a completely irrelevant strawman.[/quote] what the heck is the whole "they've made enough money, no micros period" thing about, then? some people on facepunch definitely have. i wouldn't bring up a point if i hadn't seen someone else make it in the past, dude.
[quote]
Buying crate keys should be regulated like gambling, yes. Kids shouldn't be allowed to buy those keys. But since TF2 is a F2P game, the actual monetization system is not an unreasonable trade-off. Having a gambling system for getting items, in addition to having other ways of getting cosmetics that aren't gambling isn't a bad tradeoff for a massive, otherwise free game. The problem is one of government regulation falling behind and not doing a good enough job of restricting sales to minors rather than a problem with that monetization system. Valve could also be doing a lot better job of stopping minors from buying those items as well.[/quote]
my only point was "people are way too eager to defend valve's system as fine when crates and unusual hats are literal gambling only with real money at stake to be made in the market afterwards" and i didn't say anything about being able to buy hats with microtransactions, even though we could go into the problems with a F2P system but that's an entirely different thread. The fact that TF2 was such a success with microtransaction items is the [I]reason[/I] valve has stopped developing singleplayer games and a large part of the reason why they and crates are so big right now.
[quote]
This is flawed logic, you're saying that because a game once died because of something OTHER than lack of content, lack of content isn't related to a game's longevity. That's like saying that because a hotel with beds went out of business due to overpriced rooms, a lack of beds would never drive a hotel out of business.
You want an example of exactly what a good multiplayer game with no updates looks like? Look no further than TF2. Compare TF2's longevity on PC vs its longevity on consoles. On PC a decade later it still has well over 60,000 average concurrent players on its worst days, and nearly 100,000 after its last update. On consoles, where no updates have ever occurred, the game died many years ago.[/quote]
I mean, TF2 on release also had a heckload of bugs and you had an updated version of it on PC you could play instead (eventually for free) so I think that's a little different from simply comparing two games, one with updates and one that doesn't. Look, updates will inflate player count, no doubt there- but I can't stand that a comp game isn't worth shit if it doesn't constantly update. How long has Melee been going? Several of the Street Fighter games? Quake? They aren't played today by the masses, but people who are fans still enjoy those games, and they will forever because they're super well made. I just think the idea that Overwatch's base game wasn't even worth 40$ is kind of the worst.
[quote]Name a game that's perfectly balanced at launch[I] without [/I]any new content added. Balancing is never an exact science, NOTHING is perfectly balanced. That doesn't mean power creep is inherent to adding new content.[/quote] power creep is fucking totally inherent to new content eventually, unless you're only adding new maps. People are going to decide for themselves whether a "sidegrade" is objectively better or worse no matter how hard you try, if you can keep adding meaningful content to a competitive multiplayer game without eventually making something totally imbalanced one way or another you are a [I]golden god[/I] of game balance
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=UberMunchkin;52987595][URL="http://killingfloor2.com/zedconomy/details.html"]And then KF2 happened[/URL] :frown:[/QUOTE]
so are we all forgetting that KF1 had literal paid weapon packs and one of them had a weapon that was basically obligatory until it got nerfed
not saying i'm totally in love with loot crates, i've never touched them and skin packs [I]are [/I]better- but having flare guns and that anti materiel rifle behind paid DLC was mad obnoxious
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