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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#131

Post by School-Cotton »

thot_experiment wrote: post #107
JKCalhoun wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, people blame the developers, blame the publishers, but I think the sad truth is, gamers themselves shoulder much of the blame. Somehow the public came to believe that everything should be free. Maybe it was the internet? Maybe it was sites/apps like Facebook? Regardless, when a great piece of software that happens to have a price tag fails to sell, whose fault is that? Don't blame developers/publishers for goin…

Artificial scarcity is bad, actually. Things that don't cost money to duplicate should be free, we need UBI and maybe a general shift to patronage-based models, luckily this is starting to happen. There are also plenty of games that implement a cometic lootboxes that don't impact gameplay model that are totally fine.

Lot of assertions here about how society should be run without any actual argumentation.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#132

Post by chefandy »

bradknowles wrote: post #57
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly makes you think as someone who "dabbles in games" to be entitled to profit? AFAIK it costs $100 +30% to publish on Steam. It only takes 260 people to buy your game at 50 cents to break even. If your game can't sell 260 copies at 50 cents then it's just that, worthless. Why not just release your game for free, for free? Does it have to be on Steam? Does it have to make money?

Do you have to eat? Do you have to have a place to sleep? Seems to me like making a reasonable amount of money to help towards these goals is not an unreasonable thing to hope for. But maybe you can prove me wrong?

I chastised a friend for getting so upset after losing half a dozen travelers checks on vacation. Get a grip — it’s $2 worth of paper. If you can’t afford to replace that you can’t afford to be on vacation.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#133

Post by vparikh »

In the end - I don't blame the developers. They are a business and in it for the profits. The game is just a byproduct.

The public votes with their dollars - and judging by the popularity of these "features" - people are more than okay with it.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#134

Post by flanking_pajama »

mrjangles wrote: post #98
bccdee wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there's a strong power law going on with microtransactions. Most players don't spend any money at all on them; some spend a couple bucks on an item or two. The model becomes profitable because of the top 1% of spenders — "whales," in industry parlance — some of whom have deeply unhealthy relationships to the gambling mechanics and social pressures underlying microtransaction economies. So it's not exactly tr…

It sounds to me like what you are saying is that developers have discovered it is best to offer an amazing free product to the whole world in order to get them involved in the game, and then this attracts rich people, who then go ahead and pay for the whole things themselves. But if you don't attract the little guy with free stuff, you don't get a great game, and so you don't attract the rich people. Seems like a goo…

In all fairness, Rocket League may be the only "free to play" game that warrants the term "amazing". I'm glad it keeps something like RL around, but let's be real: this game model tends to rake in the cash even with the most generic games.

Frankly I'm torn: people can buy digital stickerbomb skins if they want, but it's obviously a bit of a "cheat code" to a profitable game and probably takes a lot of developers/money away from more interesting parts of the industry.

It'd also be more forgivable if it didn't seem popularity creates nearly immortal games that too often become stagnant and overrun with toxic players despite still being profitable enough to "keep alive", i.e. payday 2, planetside 2

Re: I hate what video games have become

#135

Post by olau »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #126
holler wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One complaint I've had with RL recently is that it seems like they've put all their energy into new visuals and cosmetics while leaving the game mostly unchanged. The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to the mix; spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the center, figure 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1), etc. I guess it's simp…

Not that I'm outright opposed to this kind of thing, but often messing with core mechanics in wacky ways is a lot more fun on paper than in practice. There's a lot of games that have a sort of boring standard (SC2's 1v1 ladder maps are all same-y, nobody competitive plays Smash with items on, etc.) and the fact that you see this pop up repeatedly in unrelated communities should probably tell you something. IMO, when…

You're probably right, but I still think we should add another ball to soccer/football and see what happens.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#136

Post by otikik »

Agree 100% with OP.

I feel a visceral repulsion against any game with a buyable virtual currency. It’s such a blatant manipulation tactic. And then there’s loot boxes, which is gambling. Usually targeting teenagers or children. It’s disgusting.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#137

Post by sircastor »

d--b wrote: post #128

Is Apple partially to blame? Did they purposefully push the loot box model by promoting games that were doing it because they took a cut on every transaction?

I can’t speak to the historical component of this, but I suspect that this came about as a natural evolution of in-app purchases. As soon as players could spend money in game, game companies had an additional revenue stream. I doubt we can blame Apple any more than Microsoft or Sony.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#138

Post by tsimionescu »

lofatdairy wrote: post #23

Honest question: I understand the gripes about lootboxes being toxic because gambling systems are generally manipulative, but I don't know how to respond to "Just don't buy them". They don't affect gameplay, they're really just there as whale bait, but if you're invested in the game you don't necessarily have to get invested in cosmetics. The only two games I play these days both happen to be gacha games, and actuall…

If you only care about yourself, sure - "just don't buy them" is a good answer. The problem comes when you look at the industry level, at the games that get allowed to be made, and at the people they hurt.

The vast majority of "free to play" games would not be able to make a profit of they didn't find a few players willing to spend huge amounts of money on them. Thousands of dollars, from people who often can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on a hobby.

And not only are these games sustained by such people, they actively seek to find and exploit them, with game mechanics and presentation designed to hook a certain kind of psyche - people with gambling or other mental issues, and children.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#139

Post by yuzugit »

d--b wrote: post #128

Is Apple partially to blame? Did they purposefully push the loot box model by promoting games that were doing it because they took a cut on every transaction?

Apple is now pushing against it. For legal and marketing reasons. The apple arcade model is the opposite of that: no online required, no IAP. I think the loot boxes model is slowly dying in flavor of subscriptions, battle pass and other mecanisms like that.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#140

Post by hanselot »

telchior wrote: post #86
holler wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One complaint I've had with RL recently is that it seems like they've put all their energy into new visuals and cosmetics while leaving the game mostly unchanged. The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to the mix; spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the center, figure 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1), etc. I guess it's simp…

Fair criticism, but one that is only relevant in the first place because of freemium. Prior to that business model, there was no such thing as a company continuing to provide regular, ongoing support to a 7 year old game of the non-subscription variety. I mean, how or why would they? You release something; it makes 90% of its lifetime revenue in year 1; if you continue working on it for 6 more years, you're out of bu…

Back then: Pay for Game when it releases, launch day it mostly works, or the studio is dead.

Now: Pay for game prior to its release, launch day, people will tell you the bugs are actually features, studio milks franchise forever.

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