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It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

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Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#591

Post by cherioo »

robertlagrant wrote: post #586
csa wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now it’s all SaaS where you have to pay monthly and choose from different pricing tiers or ala carte feature options to ‘win’ in a business sense. While some businesses abuse SaaS pricing (e.g., MS office for very basic uses, acrobat pro for basic uses, etc.), I think the SaaS pricing model has aligned the interests of developers and consumers (esp. smaller devs and smaller consumers) in a way that has allowed a wi…

I still don't understand how people sell small SAAS products with the per-country VAT rules.

By using SAAS payment product that solves that for them!

Which makes for a reasonable SAAS model given changing nature of tax system.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#592

Post by lcw »

pdimitar wrote: post #577
lcw wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What point are you making? I'm making a point that you can spend $100k on cosmetics in Roblox or Fortnite, and people do spend thousands of dollars over time almost unknowingly. I assume you would think this is bad right? If manipulative psychology is the issue at hand than quantitatively speaking if you spend 10k on cosmetics or 10k on p2w through manipulative psychology what is the ethical difference? If you think…

> I assume you would think this is bad right? Of course I agree with that. I was under the impression that we're not discussing whether addiction is bad -- it's widely known that it is. I was arguing that "Minecraft and Roblox and millions of other games feed off the weak minds of virtual cosmetic addicts" does not at all make the pay-to-win model of other games okay. Because it did seem like you went off on a whatab…

Yeah I feel you. I don't think I was whataboutism-ing. The parent comment said PoE is fine because it's just cosmetics in game that you can buy. I guess I should have said you could spend thousands of dollars on PoE on cosmetics, but I'm just stating that one isn't better than the other. The main topic to me is that people are saying they don't like p2w games, and it feels like a weak argument if you say you don't like manipulative psychology in MTX but you actually are fine with it in regard to cosmetics because it doesn't impact your experience.

I just get this vibe that people don't think through their stance these days. They just want what they want, and use ethics to support their point when they don't really have a consistent sense of morality to speak of.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#593

Post by nightski »

iaaan wrote: post #580
lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

I feel like we're well past due for some kind of price hike on AAA video games. Games were $60 when I was a kid, and inexplicably, they still are, for the most part. Unfortunately, since investors have figured out that the subscription model extracts the most profit possible, I have a feeling we're going to be seeing more and more of that rather than a simple price increase. Wouldn't surprise me if we even see Steam…

The market has been rapidly expanding for a long time, hence less need to increase prices. That plus if you include special, gold, ultimate editions, dlc packs, microtransactions, etc prices have been going up.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#594

Post by abletonlive »

peanut_worm wrote: post #562
lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

Elden Ring was exactly "make good game, sell it" and it sold very well.

diablo immortal is going to make A LOT more money than elden ring, so your example is not a good one. not even in the same universe.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#595

Post by cableshaft »

reggieband wrote: post #579

I know this is a crazy thought and not inline with a lot of the blizzard hate - but why don't games like this allow more gifting style mechanics? I consider the Twitch gift sub market. And I consider that weird crypto game Axie Infinity. It seems we are only considering the purchasing power of whales that want to flex. What about whales that want to collaborate. Whales that want to demonstrate their generosity. I rem…

This was one thing I appreciated about Pokemon Go! when it first came out and everyone was playing it. It's one of the only free-to-play games that got me happily buying the in-game currency to buy items, because I could buy and use the (don't remember what it was anymore, too long ago, I'm sure someone else here remembers) item that attracted Pokemon to my area for a half hour at a time, and all players in the region benefitted.

So I was buying and deploying these things over and over again just so my wife and kids in the area could have more fun. I specifically remember we attended a wedding at Disney World and my wife (girlfriend at the time) couldn't move around because of a recent surgery (I pushed her around Disney World in a wheelchair the whole time), so me buying those things let her capture Pokemon from our hotel room, and I could see a bunch of other people in the area playing as well. I hope I helped several kids enjoy playing the game more during that time.

I'd love more games to have something similar. If something only benefits me in a game I don't feel too motivated to buy it, as I can usually just deal without and progress slower, of just play a different game altogether.

It doesn't have to be specific to your physical region (although I think that helps, it was cool to think I was helping people near me), but maybe just where you're at within a game world, or something.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#596

Post by duskwuff »

minimaxir wrote: post #589
reggieband wrote: post #579

I know this is a crazy thought and not inline with a lot of the blizzard hate - but why don't games like this allow more gifting style mechanics? I consider the Twitch gift sub market. And I consider that weird crypto game Axie Infinity. It seems we are only considering the purchasing power of whales that want to flex. What about whales that want to collaborate. Whales that want to demonstrate their generosity. I rem…

There are a few F2P games which offer a wishlist/gifting mechanic. (I know Path of Exile does). Unclear how successful it would be.

Even Path of Exile only allows gifting microtransactions through explicit interactions with support, and they're somewhat picky about verifying that you're buying the items for someone you know personally -- they're going out of their way to avoid letting players trade in-game equipment for paid cosmetic items.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#597

Post by interroboink »

Hemospectrum wrote: post #566
peanut_worm wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elden Ring was exactly "make good game, sell it" and it sold very well.

The "no longer works" comment clearly refers to the business model, ie. ignoring the quality or popularity of the product itself and just looking at the balance sheet. The gambling (microtransaction) model is enormously more profitable than the classical "just sell a game" model. Elden Ring was spectacularly well received and has sold millions of units, but it's "only" a game. There's no casino in the back, and there…

Maybe I misunderstand you, but if the "no longer works" comment refers to the business model as you say, then the person you replied to is saying "no, it can still work as a business model — here's an example."

It may not work as well or as easily, but I don't think that's the point being made.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#598

Post by elromulous »

lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

> It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds and thousands of dollars".

Fwiw, I would be onboard with some kind of model where one pays a small monthly (or additional fee) for continued updates. For instance, I play a few multiplayer games (overwatch, hunt showdown) and I'd be ok paying $1 a month or so to support continued updates / balancing etc. It seems like companies are missing the boat on the nominal recurring fees (vs say, the WoW level subscription of tens of dollars a month).

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#599

Post by Jenk »

snek_case wrote: post #585
wbobeirne wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You end up with a huge security incentives problem. If there's a way to extract the value from one account and give it to another, you massively increase the incentive to phish users, set up black markets for buying items off of a hacked account, or just transfer it to your own.

You could set up a payment system to buy items that's not a player account. You buy an item just to give. There's still a phishing incentive, but is it worse than any of the other content you can buy online?

Credit Card theft/fraud is why. If it was possible to "transfer" funds like this then mechanisms for fraudulent purchases will increase dramatically. Eve Online introduced purchasing in-game currencies because it was rife on the "black market" anyway and they also saw a huge number of fraudulent purchases and/or charge backs. 3rd party grey "broker" sites popped up with way below market rate prices, 99% of which are using fraudulent CCs to fund them, and bot accounts to transfer the in-game stuff.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#600

Post by countrpt »

effingwewt wrote: post #552
stevenjgarner wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I need to play to understand, but it sounds like “gacha” machines behave like in-game vending machines where the player can purchase "features" to enhance their avatar etc.? Or do I have that wrong? I just assumed that those “gacha” machines are code libraries in gaming engines (Unity, Godot, GameMaker: Studio, etc), and that maybe a “gacha” machine code library is available open source or in some other fashi…

No, they are wosrse. Gacha games are mostly card-puller games. You pay $X for X pulls, with more expensive packages giving more pulls with a supposed higher success rate of 'winning' (getting a good/rare pull). They use hidden weights, as well as max item rolls per day. This means that to keep items rare via artificial scarcity they will only allow so many of those cards to be pulled per X hours/days/whatever but the…

There are many gacha games on the market today that do post their odds and where player-validated data seems to support it. (Some jurisdictions like China and Japan require these kinds of disclosures.) But there are also a lot of markets that don’t require these kinds of disclosures and where there isn’t enough player data to draw a conclusion. So, in that case, how could you have confidence that they are not doing what you suggest? Even if they were, would it even be illegal? (If you never post what the odds are in the first place, is it fraud to keep changing the rules?)

This is why I’ve always been a bit surprised developers haven’t done more to get ahead of these kinds of issues with responsible disclosures and transparency, because it seems to be just inviting regulation. I honestly don’t think most F2P games pull the kinds of slimy tricks you’re accusing them of (most just use simple loot tables and RNG), but there’s nothing holding them accountable to say they can’t because everything is opaque.

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