Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread)
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@ghost said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
This pisses me off, greatly, being a Destiny 2 fan and all.
Somewhere along the timeline, these greedy motherfuckers forgot that they were in the business of providing entertainment to us for trade, not proving us with a means to supplying them with a constant revenue stream.Uh. No. Getting a constant revenue stream is literally the number one purpose of their (and most profit-based) business.
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@lithium Oh you don't even need to learn how to code it; there are games programs out there for building games, specifically on mobiles now. All you need is Kate Upton's boobs.
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@insomnia said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@lithium Oh you don't even need to learn how to code it; there are games programs out there for building games, specifically on mobiles now. All you need is Kate Upton's boobs.
Can confirm that the presence of Kate Upton's bosom does at least guarantee your app a click and a view of the reviews from me which is more than most apps get.
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@theonceler said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@ghost said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
This pisses me off, greatly, being a Destiny 2 fan and all.
Somewhere along the timeline, these greedy motherfuckers forgot that they were in the business of providing entertainment to us for trade, not proving us with a means to supplying them with a constant revenue stream.Uh. No. Getting a constant revenue stream is literally the number one purpose of their (and most profit-based) business.
No, I understand from a business perspective what business is.
What I was trying to say is that I'm not a fan of this strange shift from "we make an entertainment product for consumers who enjoy videogames" to "we make an impulse transaction product with an associated video game."
This is about greed, not about the product. This is about mutating an existing product that has done well for decades into building a revenue stream by means of psychological manipulation.
The patented microtransaction tool is specifically designed to utilize the psychology of reward, competitiveness, and the negative reinforcement of failure to drive sales.
What the fuck ever happened to just putting out a fun game? Quid pro Quo? You make a fun game and I'll buy it?
This transition to manipulation of the customer base is really mean spirited from a consumer standpoint. In fact, I might even read up on the legality behind designing monetary systems to specifically psychologically generate a feeling of need, and whether or not consumers are truly being preyed upon.
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@ghost said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@misadventure Short version: Activision patented a microtransaction+matchmaking system that will provide options for advertising in-game for items/purchases that require hard currency, and then the matchmaking system will purposefully pit players who opt-in/buy-in against players who don't.
At least they patented it so it’s less likely to be used by anyone else.
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The games you want just don’t make enough money.
Boy it’d be nice to embed a tweet right here, but whatever, read this tweet storm from game biz journo Mike Futter. He does a good job of running down the changes that are getting single player buy-and-done games canceled while P2P goes on strong. The gist is that $60 per person just isn’t enough these days and season passes patched the problem for a while but now even they aren’t doing it anymore.
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Then gaming is dying and I am willing to let it go.
Too many indie games nowadays prove that it doesn't take millions to produce good titles. I rarely if ever by AAA titles any more, and definitely will not do so until they get discounted. I'm happy to let Big Games die. Most of the Big Game houses run shady business practices anyway.
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I don't buy that $60 per person isn't enough for a second. Especially not when companies set unrealistic expectations for the money they claim they need to earn. They're not happy earning money, they want to earn ALL the money and anything short of that is called a failure.
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Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.
GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.The ones that aren't profitable as the ones that are closing.
f2p/p2w though, it grabs at the fast and easy money, which there is a lot of so it is more profitable.Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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@theonceler said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
The games you want just don’t make enough money.
Boy it’d be nice to embed a tweet right here, but whatever, read this tweet storm from game biz journo Mike Futter. He does a good job of running down the changes that are getting single player buy-and-done games canceled while P2P goes on strong. The gist is that $60 per person just isn’t enough these days and season passes patched the problem for a while but now even they aren’t doing it anymore.
This is like saying all those poor multi-billion dollar companies don't make enough on their web sites so need to just apply those billions of ad-spaces to make up for their losses.
Yea, pull the other one. It's got bells on it.
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This is just someone in the P2P industry who is pushing back against all of the pushback that they are finding is starting to arise in mobile gaming. People that I know are sick of getting pinged constantly for in-game purchases. I know parents who have grounded kids, taken phones, because of $100 bills attached because of P2P in-app purchases.
Read the reviews of many in-app-purchase games on Google Store and you'll see that the numbers of people swearing it off are rising (at least that is what I see).
So this sounds like a prominent game developer with a Twitter following trying to crowd-convince other developers to bandwagon with him, so that his company is propped up.
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@lithium said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.
GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.Is WoW buy to play? It has a monthly subscription, and you can buy some things (not terribly important) which grant advantages, such as gold.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@arkandel said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@lithium said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.
GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.Is WoW buy to play? It has a monthly subscription, and you can buy some things (not terribly important) which grant advantages, such as gold.
I think the worst thing you can buy on WoW right now is an instant leveler but that doesn't really allow you to win the game since you still have 0 knowledge of how to effectively play your class.
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@alzie said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@arkandel said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@lithium said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.
GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.Is WoW buy to play? It has a monthly subscription, and you can buy some things (not terribly important) which grant advantages, such as gold.
I think the worst thing you can buy on WoW right now is an instant leveler but that doesn't really allow you to win the game since you still have 0 knowledge of how to effectively play your class.
You misspelled best thing! I hate levelling.
But to also be honest, levelling doesn't teach you anything about playing your class in any environment worth a damn at max level - there's no reason to maximize your DPS rotations, your intended spec is possibly different than what you're using to level up (you can level as a healer for example but it's hardly the best way), there are no raids, little PvP if any, and in 5-mans everything dies too fast.
You're just killing 10 bears, rinse, repeat for 110 levels.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@arkandel said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@lithium said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.
GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.Is WoW buy to play? It has a monthly subscription, and you can buy some things (not terribly important) which grant advantages, such as gold.
Yes, you still have to pay for the base game, too. Possibly expansions to some degree or another, though they seem to be doing mostly battle chests with that stuff these days.
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@arkandel Well, I meant worst thing in terms of a pay 2 win mind set. There's nothing really pay 2 win in the WoW store and the instant level scroll is the worst thing you can bring up. Which is why I also brought up that it's not really a good pay 2 win item anyways since, as we both said, you get to max level and know absolutely nothing about playing the game so lose anyways.
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I always preferred Eve Online because you don't buy the base game, it's free. You can (now) pay a monthly subscription for a 'junior' character, with limited skill abilities, slower training, etc. I preferred Eve because there is no grinding, and the focus of the game wasn't individually-aimed, it was group-aimed. People play Eve to participate in the faction wars (for the PVPers) and economic production and money-making (for PVEers), commonly both.
I don't play any more, but it is the only MMO that I could get into... and mainly because of the non-grinding. You go do things not to learn a skill, but to have fun at the thing.
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@arkandel said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@alzie said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@arkandel said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
@lithium said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
Buy to play is dying? No. It's just not as absurdly profitable as it was. It is still profitable if the company is ran properly.
GW2, still profitable.
WoW, still profitable.
Hell even original EQ and EQ2 are still profitable.Is WoW buy to play? It has a monthly subscription, and you can buy some things (not terribly important) which grant advantages, such as gold.
I think the worst thing you can buy on WoW right now is an instant leveler but that doesn't really allow you to win the game since you still have 0 knowledge of how to effectively play your class.
You misspelled best thing! I hate levelling.
But to also be honest, levelling doesn't teach you anything about playing your class in any environment worth a damn at max level - there's no reason to maximize your DPS rotations, your intended spec is possibly different than what you're using to level up (you can level as a healer for example but it's hardly the best way), there are no raids, little PvP if any, and in 5-mans everything dies too fast.
You're just killing 10 bears, rinse, repeat for 110 levels.
Say leveled...
...you get levelled.
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As long as micro-transactions remain profitable and unregulated, this sort of thing just gets worse, not better. The line betwen 'p2w' and 'freemium' is honestly a lot blurrier than we'd like to think.
