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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#331

Post by elcomet »

tjader wrote: post #320
elcomet wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be the most common item people buy (because it can actually slightly affect your performance as it better matches the hitbox, and it is the most used competitively). I know a lot of people who never bought a single item, except for the fennec.

The Fennec's hitbox is the same as the Octane: https://twitter.com/RL_Support/status/1144311306415157248 As far as I know all custom cars have the same hitbox as one of the freely available cars.

The fennec hitbox is the same as the Octane, but the design of the car better matches the hitbox compared to the Octane. So you can be more precise with your touches.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#332

Post by [deleted] »

qwery wrote: post #211
dado3212 wrote: post #7

I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often hold up Rocket League as an example of a great free-to-play game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of cosmetic items through free play. 2) The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals. For the same reason that people wear nice clothes in real life, why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a video game? A…

The whole 'preying on the vulnerable' thing kind of puts me off. But I want to respond to this: > The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals Cosmetic items are not just visual though. They are real elements in the game. Cosmetic items are interactive. They are unlockable, collectable, wearable items. Further, visuals do impact the gameplay. You could argue about the difference b…

[deleted]

Re: I hate what video games have become

#333

Post by omgmajk »

I mostly hate what mobile games have become. It feels like there are pretty much zero games that you can play that doesn't have microtransactions or a wait time between stuff. Unless you go into the premium store and then most games require a controller - which I don't want to use.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#334

Post by tejohnso »

> Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?

I don't think that's a fair comparison. It's more like offering to have him use a special limited edition outfit rather than his well known outfit. And I don't see what the big deal is. You can get the standard cost experience, or the higher fee, upsell experience. It's not uncommon, and it's not a major problem. Just pay for what you want. (And learn to want less).

Re: I hate what video games have become

#335

Post by JKCalhoun »

Gigachad wrote: post #88
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…

Why blame anyone? Gamers get the content they want in the way they prefer to pay for it, developers and publishers get paid. The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that people prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play games. Just because it doesn’t match the Hacker News gaming utopia template doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong. This is especially true for multiplayer games where a lot of…

I agree. I too am, reluctantly, in the why-blame-anyone camp. I say reluctantly because I dislike the current state of affairs.

My critique, pushing as much of the blame onto the gamers, was meant to point out that everyone/no one is to blame.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#336

Post by dwild »

SentientNo4 wrote: post #236
qwery wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole 'preying on the vulnerable' thing kind of puts me off. But I want to respond to this: > The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals Cosmetic items are not just visual though. They are real elements in the game. Cosmetic items are interactive. They are unlockable, collectable, wearable items. Further, visuals do impact the gameplay. You could argue about the difference b…

> Cosmetic items are not just visual though. They are real elements in the game. Yes, I really hate this argument that cosmetics are not gameplay. Visuals are a huge part of what makes a game, no one would be happy if games shipped without textures and shaders and people would have to pay to unlock them.

> Yes, I really hate this argument that cosmetics are not gameplay.

I don't disagree that they do add something, but theses ones are not something that I want, nor that I need.

> if games shipped without textures and shaders and people would have to pay to unlock them.

I do have to pay for the textures and shaders... I did pay for them as a matter of fact. I didn't pay for the one not included, as I didn't want them. Some did want them, and did pay for them individually. Just like I didn't pay for Elden Ring but plenty did...

Now, when you bought that game, if you were expecting a specific amount of content, and you didn't get that content without paying more, I agree completely, that would be false advertising and that would be definitely wrong.

False advertising is definitely an issue in video games, there's so much overpromising and under-delivering but IAP isn't the issue there (though it definitely can be the reason for your false advertising). Until that part is handled correctly, the market did alleviate most of the false advertising by having an abundant amount of reviews and to me that's a not so bad way to deal with this.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#337

Post by rak »

tomatowurst wrote: post #115
dado3212 wrote: post #7

I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often hold up Rocket League as an example of a great free-to-play game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of cosmetic items through free play. 2) The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals. For the same reason that people wear nice clothes in real life, why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a video game? A…

it's also super hard to build a great f2p and i think CSGO easily is the best. they bootstrapped it for almost 2 decades from a mod made by Minh Le to what it is today and I must say it is the only f2p game I regularly play. simply because it actually pays to play. I've made about $20 bucks this month from just selling cases given out randomly at the end of each match. It cost me nothing to buy yet the in game items…

It gets even better.

With CSGO third parties were essentially selling games for actual currency instead of credit with Valve and using skins as currency for gambling on esports matches. A few of them also came up with other gambling games that didn't even involve esports.

It was also a great vehicle for money laundering: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/oct/30/counter-strike...

Wild times.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#338

Post by 999900000999 »

flohofwoe wrote: post #186

This is just a self-inflicted bubble problem. There are now so many interesting games without any dark patterns on Steam alone that one can spend an entire lifetime playing awesome games without ever encountering a single loot box, just step a bit outside the AAA and mobile bubbles.

I agree 100%.

Kena Bridge of Spirits and Tony Hawk 1 + 2 HD are amazing games and have no DLC.

It's a very complicated problem to solve, on some level adults have the freedom to be self-destructive. In another business case, dating apps are known to knowingly allow fake profiles to roam to encourage people to subscribe. And even after that, you have various freemium add-ons.

Between this, and a very scary experience, I haven't used an app in years and I actually meet much higher quality people now.

But adults have a right to spend their money whichever way they choose, if you enjoy spending 200$ or $300 a month on free to play games, and chatting with bots, enjoy yourself.

The bigger issue with much of this stuff is there's no clear cap on how much money you can spend, so the bulk of freemium revenue comes from a tiny percentage of consumers.

Like an addict will steal to finance their addiction, you'll have cases where someone will just steal their mom's credit card to buy Fortnite skins or Tinder boosts.

I think a good compromise would be to restrict games with free to play mechanics to adults, as in if you're not at least 18 you're not allowed to play games with loot boxes. Once you're an adult, gambling is fine.

At the same time, I also respect the countries who have just banned this form of gambling outright. As it appears the Netherlands has.

https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-il...

Re: I hate what video games have become

#339

Post by tjader »

elcomet wrote: post #331
tjader wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fennec's hitbox is the same as the Octane: https://twitter.com/RL_Support/status/1144311306415157248 As far as I know all custom cars have the same hitbox as one of the freely available cars.

The fennec hitbox is the same as the Octane, but the design of the car better matches the hitbox compared to the Octane. So you can be more precise with your touches.

Ah, I understand what you mean now. I can't say that feels relevant at all at my level of play.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#340

Post by JKCalhoun »

tsimionescu wrote: post #123
Gigachad wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why blame anyone? Gamers get the content they want in the way they prefer to pay for it, developers and publishers get paid. The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that people prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play games. Just because it doesn’t match the Hacker News gaming utopia template doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong. This is especially true for multiplayer games where a lot of…

That's not true though. No game lives off the general public buying a few cosmetics. It lives off a few addicted people buying thousands of dollars worth, while the vast majority pay nothing. It's a terrible business model that will hopefully be outlawed in the coming decade.

I had assumed those "few addicted people buying thousands of dollars worth" were instead just people with a lot of disposable income.

You could be right though, and it is addiction. That would in fact be uncool.

My only data-point though is a friend of mine who has spent hundreds of dollars (or more?) on Star Citizen ships and he is the disposable-income kind of gamer.

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