Earlier quoted context omitted.
The replacement is not another business model
Sure that's a nice thought.. Then reality comes knocking.
See capitalist realism
It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
761–769 of 769 posts
Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#762Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simon Sinek has a really good point in his book "Start With Why" that basically says selling your company is a complete failure, because you basically lose your autonomy and ability to adapt to unique market conditions that let companies be successful in the first place.
If you sell your company, presumably you don't care about its future success anymore and now you have a bunch of money with which you can do whatever you want.
Partially yes, your incentives change and skin in the game as well
Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#763Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#764Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nobody is saying that you can't play these games. The Dutch and Belgian government quite literally are saying that you can't though. Of course, in practice it just means Dutch and Belgian players will pretend they're from another European country via VPN. > Those gaming companies just have to accept that their products are a form of gambling and will be regulated and taxed as such. I'm not sure if you're saying thi…
No, the Dutch and Belgian governments are saying you CAN play the game as long as it's changed to remove gambling aspects or is sold as a gambling product with all the consequences that entails. Activision Blizzard doesn't want to do that. Not the fault of governments And as for the (im)possibility to develop games that follow the laws of all countries: that had been successfully done for decades. It just doesn't inv…
>No, the Dutch and Belgian governments are saying you CAN play the game as long as it's changed to remove gambling aspects or is sold as a gambling product with all the consequences that entails.
In other words, they're saying that you cannot play the game.
>Activision Blizzard doesn't want to do that. Not the fault of governments
If I were Dutch and wanted to play the game, then it wouldn't be Blizzard stopping me from playing. It would be the Dutch government. That is quite literally their fault.
The Dutch government is saying that they know how I should live my life better than I do.
>And as for the (im)possibility to develop games that follow the laws of all countries: that had been successfully done for decades. It just doesn't involve predatory microtransactions
Yeah, good luck with that. Hope you have some extremely deep pockets to fund it yourself, because nobody's going to invest in it if the projected returns suck. Video game prices have stayed at the same level or even decreased over the years while costs to develop have gone up, because players aren't willing to pay the inflation adjusted price for them. They also expect way more complex technical work on the games.
And even when you make all that work the players will still jump to games like Diablo Immortal instead, regardless whether your local government bans the game or not. Getting around region locks in gaming isn't exactly new.
Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#765Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diablo Immortal earned $800k in its first 24 hours .
Elden Ring earned $720m in the first 2 weeks, which averages ~$51m a day.
> which averages ~$51m a day.
Until it doesn't. We're not talking about the same thing here because one is a one-time payment (license) vs on-going (loot boxes / SaaS). I'm highly critical of loot box (p2p) games, but you're on-going payments do pay for content in the future. Companies who charge once have very little incentive to maintain the software (assuming it requires it to).
Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#766The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy the game? As a different example - I'm sure it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to max out your characters and gear in Genshin Impact, but I've played very enjoyable 100h+ and it's perfectly fine even if you don't have the max ascended characters and gear, I have a feeling those are there basically for the wales to spend money on but aren't necessar…
I feel the same way.
I don't have too many compunctions about games whose revenue models gate the top 5% of possible progress. If Diablo 3 had a feature where you need to pay money to unlock the last 10% of each primal ancient item (so F2P would only get 90% perfect rolls), I don't think my game play experience would change in the least and I've put a lot of hours into that game.
Games should not be about wringing money out of people - but games need to get revenue somewhere. Asking everyone to pay before playing at all is not a clearly better (or more moral) system.
Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#767Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, most "super rich" people don't get "super rich" by doing super stupid things.
The Chinese proverb “rags to rags in three generations” says that family wealth does not last for three generations. The first generation makes the money, the second spends it and the third sees none of the wealth.
One explanation could be a difference between China and the West. Historically the West relies on primogeniture where the eldest son inherits a vast majority of the fortune and other sons need to move out and build a career for themselves. Classical China OTOH would split their fortune (which for 90% of folks was land since most were farmers) between their sons. Primogeniture encourages maintaining wealth across generations through the eldest son while the latter could mean the fortune gets spread out and eventually lost within 3 generations. For example, see research by Thomas Piketty about how ppl who were rich in 16th century Italy are still absurdly rich today.
Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#768Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diablo 4 will probably just be a normal PC game too. Those freemium mobile games are always scammy but that doesn't mean there aren't endless classic business model games.
A publisher that has tasted fast cheap low value entries has a hard time justifying risky quality entries when the risk of failure is much higher. We're seeing the reality-tv moment in video games with mobile freemiums and it's frightening. I feel like Square-Enix is the perfect nexus if these market forces. I'm not even sure they'll bother with AAAs after making so much money off their low effort mobile cash cows.
At least sqeenix just sold off a number of their studios and franchises so at least someone else can still make good games with them.
Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
#769It'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…
Indeed. I'm personally not a victim of loot boxes and exploitative P2W tactics because I just don't buy them. But I just want to pay some amount once and have a good game in my Android phone, without ads and without constantly nagging me to spend more! I'll pay $60 also if the game is good, I just don't want to be put into a Skinner box constantly trying to milk my "engagement" and my pockets. Is that so much to ask?…
> Indeed. I'm personally not a victim of loot boxes and exploitative P2W tactics because I just don't buy them.
You are still subject to the game design that is made to push you towareds paying instead of focusing on making the game fun.