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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#451
post #398

I think overwatch is the best fps in the world. I love the game mechanics. Meanwhile, Im realizing blizzard encourage smurfing, meaning have several accounts, to constantly win against lower skilled players in competitive, instead of playing against players of their own skills. You now see entire teams "deranking" meaning losing on purpose, to lose skill rating, so they can climb all over again. It ruins the game. Ot…

> best fps in the world

Have you played for very long? I originally got into it several years ago, a little before Moira was announced. After a while, it felt like everything devolved into samey-ness, especially when the maps stagnated.

Not long after the hamster showed up, my whole group of friends had also gotten bored of it.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#452

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.

The author of this article doesn't want to do the work to change their bubble, they want everyone else to change.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#453
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Are you surprised that people don’t just wear monochrome black shirts in real life?" No and thats why its silly to say rocket league items have no impact on gameplay, ofcourse its nicer play with hot wheels car that has animated decals than grey corolla. I would like game to be more like "if you get this good, you get these cool items" instead of something like "if we put paid rewards right next to free rewards, the…

> now it feels like I'm being manipulated to give money to somebody who owns rocket league. Epic Games. Why are we surprised by this when they saw a cash cow when they bought it, and have done nothing but turn it into another Fortnite? I think this type of game needs its own genre. Fortnite, RL, GTA Online, Warzone... They all follow the same model of "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it" perpetually…

> I think this type of game needs its own genre. Fortnite, RL, GTA Online, Warzone... They all follow the same model of "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it" perpetually by squeezing as much revenue as you can from your users".

that's called "live service". In theory. A lot of games try to skip the "build a game that's actually fun and reasonably complete" part and just race to dump it on the market as soon as it's barely (or not even) playable and think they'll add content later. That's not live service, that's early access, and it's killed BFV and then BF2042 after it, Anthem, etc. EA is very very bad about this.

But yeah, when you hear a publisher say that a game is going to be a "live service", that's what it means, they want to do the fortnite model and squeeze ongoing revenue from the player base by whatever means. Sometimes it's cosmetic-only, sometimes it's not (R6: Siege), sometimes it starts one way and then becomes gameplay-affecting 6 months or 12 months down the road when they've got a player base who's attached to the game.

Of course, just like changing the game to add P2W elements after the fact, sometimes they won't. Valve basically abandoned TF2 about 5 years ago, they are still raking in money from it (it's still a top-10 game on steam...) but they won't even keep up with anti-cheat let alone continue development. Or even continue live service. No live service, only pay. And nor will they even allow the community to fix the game on their own, like Team Comtress 2...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnBDMZ-9-Dw

Re: I hate what video games have become

#454
I’m confused about the hate towards Valve since they have created the steam marketplace where you can sell and buy in-game items, to literally address one of the main points of this article. The problem is that Rocket League isn’t using this system (I guess, I don’t play it).

Re: I hate what video games have become

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I enjoy games that bring a good challenge with the tools provided. The existence of IAP gates those tools or artificially inflates the challenge e.g. buy level boosts because the game purposely give little experience. I find giving myself unlimited resources (e.g. with cheat codes in the old days or with credit cards today) greatly diminishes the experience. At that point, why even bother playing? There's…

Oh come on... GTA(3, VC, SA) with cheats were great games to play... get all the weapons, be invincible, destroy everything, instead of a baseball bat, use a rocket launcher, instead of a bike, drive a tank.

God mode tends to be fun for an hour or so

Re: I hate what video games have become

#456
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question out of curiosity - what do you get out spending that much on a game? I’ve heard some whales spending 10-20k a week and that’s probably not even the highest. Do you get genuine enjoyment out of it or do you ever feel fleeced at all?

It depends on what kind of loot box. For cosmetics it's pretty random. When the game itself feels stale I want a new outfit to make it feel fresh. For P2W it's a treat after I've been grinding freemium for a while. It's like opening a beer on Friday after work. I don't spend 10-20k a week but I do occasionally spend that amount on one game during its whole lifetime. However, that also means I've gotten thousands of h…

I think that's part of the problem. Because skipping the grind by paying money is seen as a treat, game companies now have the incentive to turn their games into a chore on purpose to convince people to treat themselves.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#457
You talk about not being able to resell the cosmetics because valve doesn't allow, but many games on steam allow that, and it's up to the developer to implement the integration with steam market. It probably also gets harder to implement if the game is available in more than one storefront/platform.

You can't withdraw the money from steam, you can only spend it on other games or the market, but there are some 3rd party sites that you to sell these cosmetics and withdraw the money, but thrusting them is up to you.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#460
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The dishonesty in the system itself is what makes this unbearable for me. How is it dishonest? F2P does not automatically mean using dark patterns or openly making it Pay2win. Cosmetics are the prime example of an honest F2P, as they have zero impact on the game and still allow the developers to eat. Do you consider demos also dishonest?

> Cosmetics are the prime example of an honest F2P, as they have zero impact on the game To have zero impact on the game, they'd have to not be a part of the game. Or have ever existed at all, really. But if you think they are so meaningless, why do you think people buy them? Also, don't you think convincing someone to buy nothing sounds like something a con artist would do? > allow the developers to eat How do micro…

> But if you think they are so meaningless, why do you think people buy them?

Because they're fun.

Some people are willing to spend $5 so that their Rocket League car is the Batmobile. It has no effect on the mechanics of the game (Your car's hitbox is still the same, and it has the same speed/acceleration), but makes the game that much more enjoyable for the player.

In Splitgate (F2P FPS), I bought the battle pass for $10 because I wanted my assault rifle to look like it was made of cardboard. The damage and accuracy didn't change. It's a purely cosmetic effect that I thought was amusing.

> How do microtransactions feed developers? Do you just mean because its their job to build the game? (which necessarily includes the various monetisation systems)

Don't act like you think you know what was meant. It's annoying and smells like bad faith.

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