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There is no RNG or luck based mechanic with Amiibos. Just a set price and a known outcome. Unless the luck is being able to find one in stock or something? I don't know how collectible they actually are.
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Nov 25, 2017 02:20
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Groovelord Neato posted:in the us console games (and pc ports of those games and blizzard games cuz they're assholes) are 59.99. I live in NY  In a related note I want to move out of NY so I can afford all the video games.
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Nov 25, 2017 02:24
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DancingShade posted:There is no RNG or luck based mechanic with Amiibos. Just a set price and a known outcome. In this case s.i.r.e. is talking about the chests the specific amiibo can spawn that can have one of the nostalgic pieces of armor/weapon but can just well have a weapon/shield/etc. you can find in the game proper. Nothing is stopping the player from reloading a save though so if you're in it for the costumes then you had to reload pretty often at launch. I think they did do something to tweak that eventually though in one of the updates since then. I'm not sure it could just be placebo.
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Nov 25, 2017 03:29
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Groovelord Neato posted:in the us console games (and pc ports of those games and blizzard games cuz they're assholes) are 59.99.  if full price for a game is $59.99 then how is $40 for Overwatch also full price, that sounds like it's $19.99 cheaper than full price
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Nov 25, 2017 03:32
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Viewtiful Jew posted:In this case s.i.r.e. is talking about the chests the specific amiibo can spawn that can have one of the nostalgic pieces of armor/weapon but can just well have a weapon/shield/etc. you can find in the game proper. Nothing is stopping the player from reloading a save though so if you're in it for the costumes then you had to reload pretty often at launch. Ah I see. That's an interesting design decision. I probably wouldn't have been happy experiencing that either.
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Nov 25, 2017 03:35
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:
pc games are all download. and if you wanna sell lootboxes your game should be zero dollars.
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Nov 25, 2017 03:36
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Snuffman posted:I looked at NHL18's HUT (because it's the only EA Sports game I own) and its a fascinating rabbithole of microtransactions. If the backlash gets as far as the sports games, EA's golden goose is well and truly cooked. FIFA in particular is the biggest thing they have, both in terms of cashflow and cultural significance. FIFA might not care much about introducing children to gambling because 1) sports betting is pretty much symbiotic with the whole drat industry and 2) they're evil lol. They will care if Concerned Mothers start banging the "FIFA is starting kids gambling  " drum, because they've got enough controversies to deal with. e: And when I say bigger, I mean that losing any of those IPs, or even losing the infinite cash postgame purchase models they've got going, could shutter EA. Check out the Skill Up video on page 7 for the low down - FIFA alone is a quarter of EA's revenue.The sports games are also far, far more likely to be played by children. My siblings wouldn't buy their kids Battlefront, but my nephews have a few of the FIFA and Need for Speed games between them. I'd probably better warn them about this poo poo. Murderion fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 03:38
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Groovelord Neato posted:pc games are all download. and if you wanna sell lootboxes your game should be zero dollars.
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Nov 25, 2017 03:38
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It’s extremely cool and good to have unregulated gambling aimed at children. It’s also a coincidence that so many stolen accounts on Xbox/PS4 are used to buy FIFA stuff.
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Nov 25, 2017 03:42
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:It’s extremely cool and good to have unregulated gambling aimed at children. Yeah that second part is something that never really got as much noise as it probably should have.
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Nov 25, 2017 03:44
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Does anyone have any actual research data on F2P mechanics being specifically targeted towards children and /or children making purchases are a significant problem? I work at a company that makes mobile F2P games and children are not a significant source of income - children making mistaken purchases are exceedingly rare. Actually, so are people that are horribly addicted and wasting their livelihood away on the games. The main source of income is whales, and those whales aren't often people taking out second or third mortgages to pay off their crippling lootbox debt, it's lawyers who have literally millions of dollars so who gives a poo poo if I drop a few grand on some game I find fun. I know that loot boxes certainly can be used to sell gambling to children in theory, but I haven't personally seen any evidence of that any more than violent games incite violence in children.
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Nov 25, 2017 04:31
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Lol @ anyone, regardless of career or income spending thousands of real world dollars on a Free 2 Play video game.
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Nov 25, 2017 04:36
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I effort posted this in the "ask a game dev" thread but it's more appropriate here. I'll preface this by saying that I don't think loot boxes are good, and this isn't meant to be a "stop complaining you nerds it could be so much worse  " because that's a lovely argument, and if anything this is meant as a warning of how bad poo poo can get if we don't do something about it. I also think it could make for some good discussion here. Anyways:I feel like most console/pc gamers have more or less ignored the mobile market as “that place where moms play candy crush” and haven’t realized the true levels of insanity that the mobile F2P market has truly reached, and the grim glimpse into the dystopian future it can provide. This is gunna be a lot of words, but I find this particular game endlessly fascinating in just how purely evil it is. Today I’m going to talk about Game of War. Now, I’m sure many of you have vague recollections of maybe hearing about Game of War at some point? It sounds like something you’ve heard of but you’re not sure. That’s completely intentional - the name is vague, so that if you see it on the app store (say, while searching for “Game of Thrones” or “war game”) you’ll feel like you’ve heard about it, and try it out. Or it’s possible you remember it from the tacky Kate Upton commercial during Superbowl 49. Anyways, you install it, launch it, mash through the tutorial, and get to see this:  Wow, that’s loving ugly, and that UI is terrible. It’s intentionally so. A screenshot doesn’t quite capture the ugliness, because almost EVERYTHING on that moves, even slightly or subtly. The game is specifically designed to be ugly, obtrusive, and overly complicated. They overload the player with stats that can be upgraded and technologies to research - 167 different stats to upgrade, and 237 different technologies to research (each with 10 tiers). Why make it so complicated? Because they want to hit you with that sunk cost fallacy HARD. You took all the time to figure out this obnoxious UI, no loving way I’m stopping now. It’s basically the Nigerian Prince of F2P games: it’s specifically trying to weed out everyone except a select few - the type of people who are going to muscle through obtuse UI and complex systems and get too deep into the game to quit out. In case you’re some kind of mad man and thought that the above didn’t look too bad, here’s what you find when you tap the plus sign in the bottom-right corner:  And yes, there’s more options if you continue scrolling down. Okay so the game’s ugly and confusing, whatever. How’s it play? It’s more or less similar to Civilization - you build a fortress, construct an army, send the army to go wipe out other fortresses. It starts slow and ramps up FAST. All those stats I mentioned earlier? They’re super important, because other players will be attacking your fortress even when you’re not playing. You can spend all day building up an army and building fortifications, only to wake up in the morning and find half of it destroyed. Okay, so let’s upgrade all 167 stats or whatever. Of course, this takes time - at first, only a few minutes, then a few hours, then a few days, then a few weeks, then a few months. Enjoy waiting literally six months for your next upgrade!…Or you could pay some of the in-game hard currency, gold. How do you get gold, by spending money, of course! Okay, let’s spend some cash then. The game screen is loving plastered with ads for promotions and deals and etc after all. The basic purchasing packages for gold come in three basic levels - a 4.99 package, a 19.99 package, and a 99.99 package. Quite a big jump there, huh? Well whatever, let’s buy the 19.99 package because my loving poo poo keeps getting destroyed. Fast-forward to the next day: Oh, the poo poo I built using that gold I bought got destroyed by someone else, so that 20 bux is down the drain. Whatever, let’s try buying the cheaper 4.99 package, maybe that way when we lose it, it won’t feel like such a waste Oh wait, you can’t buy the 4.99 package, or even the 19.99 package now. Once you buy a package, it’ll be disabled for six months, thus meaning you can only buy a more expensive one. It also disables any packages cheaper than the one you bought. Now we can ONLY buy the 99.99 package. Fast-forward five months, we get frustrated and decide to buy the 99.99 package. Now the timer has reset, so if we want to buy the 19.99 package we’ll need to wait ANOTHER six months. So we wait six months, and the 19.99 pack unlocks! What about the 4.99 pack? Well we’ll need to wait an additional six months (without making ANY purchases) for it to unlock, of course! This was also posted in the game dev thread, adding on to the insanity: MissMarple posted:Re: Game of War if you want the two most insidious things it does... Literally the only way to succeed in the game is to continuously buy the 99.99 package over and over to beef up your defenses, because if you don’t they’ll just get stomped on and obliterated. You need to keep paying that too, even if you constantly win, because soon your shirt will be worthless via inflation. People have been complaining about how loot boxes punish players who don’t spend money, but Game of War is a step ahead of that - they don’t want to punish players who don’t spend. If you don’t spend, they don’t want you playing their game at all, and the game will actively try to push you away and alienate you to get you to stop playing.
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Nov 25, 2017 04:43
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Oxyclean posted:There's something about this part that I think makes it worse/more insidious with the prices I've heard some CSGO stuff going for. Seems like the kinda of thing people would be tempted to actually gamble in hopes of getting something they can sell for a profit. But it also means that I can buy decent skins for a fraction of what developers would sell them for.
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Nov 25, 2017 04:44
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AndyElusive posted:Lol @ anyone, regardless of career or income spending thousands of real world dollars on a Free 2 Play video game. that loving guy someone posted about earlier in the thread that spent 5k a week on that lovely chinese mmo...
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Nov 25, 2017 04:55
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I gave up on mobile games long ago but a friend recently showed me a game they started playing on their phone that is literally a slot machine with purchasable currency.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:03
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:I gave up on mobile games long ago but a friend recently showed me a game they started playing on their phone that is literally a slot machine with purchasable currency. Yeah those are surprisingly popular, but mostly with older spouses who stay at home all day with too much money and nothing to do. You get a few thousand casino funbux free every day, if you lose it at the slots (which you will, because it's a loving slot machine so you're going to lose it eventually) then you either wait until tomorrow or spend some cash. And of course there's no way of exchanging those casino funbux for money, not even app store credit or anything. Spinning the slots is THE ENTIRE GAME. e: slot machines also do the crazy manipulative thing where you lose, but they make it feel like winning. For example: you spent 300 credits on this spin of the slot machine: CONGRATULATIONS YOU WON 100 CREDITS 🎉🎉🎉🎊✨✨  LET'S KEEP IT ROLLING AND SPIN AGAIN YEEEAAH (please don't think about the fact you actually lost 200 credits). Loot boxes do this poo poo all the time too.
CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 05:07
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CodfishCartographer posted:Yeah those are surprisingly popular, but mostly with older spouses who stay at home all day with too much money and nothing to do. You get a few thousand casino funbux free every day, if you lose it at the slots (which you will, because it's a loving slot machine so you're going to lose it eventually) then you either wait until tomorrow or spend some cash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtfQlkGwE2U
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Nov 25, 2017 05:09
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I am currently procrastinating but I'll see if I can't go get some numbers on children spending money on loot boxes of f2p games. A good majority of the children bit is just marketing players discontent to get people to do something about loot boxes. And it may be working enough to get the attention it deserves.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:16
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Related to all of this, one of those phone gatcha games, Final Fantasy Brave Exivus, had a hack recently! As in a few months ago. Phone posting so I can't grab the threads, but hackers kicked the door in, set the drop rate for the overpowered characters to be 99%, and gave everyone a large amount of premium currency poo poo. I want to say it was equal to the biggest package you could buy. Game underwent sudden emergency maintenance as the hackers posted a bitcoin ransom demand on the website, threatening to leak the main... something or other for the game if they weren't paid. Makes me wonder, what happens when crackers start going for the loot progression system?
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Nov 25, 2017 05:16
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CodfishCartographer posted:Yeah those are surprisingly popular, but mostly with older spouses who stay at home all day with too much money and nothing to do. You get a few thousand casino funbux free every day, if you lose it at the slots (which you will, because it's a loving slot machine so you're going to lose it eventually) then you either wait until tomorrow or spend some cash. Normally I’d assume it’s shady stuff that’s allowed on the Google Play store but I checked my iPhone and there is a loving casino category.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:18
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Lyrai posted:Related to all of this, one of those phone gatcha games, Final Fantasy Brave Exivus, had a hack recently! As in a few months ago. Phone posting so I can't grab the threads, but hackers kicked the door in, set the drop rate for the overpowered characters to be 99%, and gave everyone a large amount of premium currency poo poo. I want to say it was equal to the biggest package you could buy. There’s a category I see sometimes on YouTube that shows recent videos that are popular with gamers and it’s always stacked with videos on how to hack free credits in mobile games. They are obviously fake as hell but there are always a fresh batch when I look.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:27
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Re: Age https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/...gaming-content/ quote:According to PC and Video Games – DLC and Microtransaction Purchasing, the latest report from global information company, The NPD Group, among the U.S. population of males and females age 13-54, 28 percent have purchased additional video game content in the past three months, with males and teens being the primary purchasers. Microtransactions are purchased more often than downloadable content (DLC), at 23 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Finding a lot of places don't like to track what ages they are targeting and getting money from. Still looking though.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:31
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Lyrai posted:Related to all of this, one of those phone gatcha games, Final Fantasy Brave Exivus, had a hack recently! As in a few months ago. Phone posting so I can't grab the threads, but hackers kicked the door in, set the drop rate for the overpowered characters to be 99%, and gave everyone a large amount of premium currency poo poo. I want to say it was equal to the biggest package you could buy. lol good. The only reason I was able to enjoy GTA Online for as long as I did was because of the exploits early in the game and the 'goodguy' hackers who'd occasionally go hosing everyone down with internet funbux. GTA Online doesn't have lootboxes, but its progression is totally nutso. THE FUCKING MOON fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 05:33
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THE loving MOON posted:lol good. The only reason I was able to enjoy GTA Online for as long as I did was because of the exploits early in the game and the 'goodguy' hackers who'd occasionally go hosing everyone down with internet funbux. GTA Online doesn't have lootboxes, but it's progression is totally nutso. GTA Online is the one time I've seen a progression loop not only drag on longer than a full time job to get what you want, but introduced lobby based progression systems instead of instanced missions with high pay-outs that not only take forever, but can be instantly negated by other players who are encouraged to do so. That way, you're not only frustrated, you're -furious- so that you'll spend 20 dollars on an amount of fake money that usually only covers the third of the cost of the big expansion items. Once the hackers started getting banned ONLY if they were giving people money and they reset every one's bank balance, it was immediately time to uninstall.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:39
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A lot of what I am finding out about age groups is video game companies don't want to release that information. But I did find this. It doesn't have to do with microtransactions but should be useful if people believe anyone under 18 is opening a loot box and if that is gambling.  
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Nov 25, 2017 05:42
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THE loving MOON posted:lol good. The only reason I was able to enjoy GTA Online for as long as I did was because of the exploits early in the game and the 'goodguy' hackers who'd occasionally go hosing everyone down with internet funbux. GTA Online doesn't have lootboxes, but its progression is totally nutso. GTA Online doesn’t have the gambling element to purchases but a full price game that contains a currency pack that cost far more than the base game is hosed up. It’s funny that they haven’t somehow opened the in-game casino yet, at this point it seems like there was nothing legnally holding them back.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:43
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ChuckDeNomolos posted:GTA Online is the one time I've seen a progression loop not only drag on longer than a full time job to get what you want, but introduced lobby based progression systems instead of instanced missions with high pay-outs that not only take forever, but can be instantly negated by other players who are encouraged to do so. That way, you're not only frustrated, you're -furious- so that you'll spend 20 dollars on an amount of fake money that usually only covers the third of the cost of the big expansion items. Once the hackers started getting banned ONLY if they were giving people money and they reset every one's bank balance, it was immediately time to uninstall. It isn't enough that you literally spent like $100 real life dollars on a virtual car (again, no lootboxes, it really is that bad), but you have to spend like half the cost again on engine upgrades, tuning, handling, etc. Unless you got like 30 million from a hacker shooting 50k stacks at you and a bunch of other scrubs who are lined up against a wall with a minigun  edit: I forgot there was even supposed to be a literal casino coming down the pipes. Supposedly concerns with regulation is one of the reasons SEGA never brought PSO2 over stateside either. Maybe there's somebody high up at both companies who know the gravy train has gotta stop somewhere. I can't believe they'd leave all that money on the table though, no company would do that unless they hosed up. THE FUCKING MOON fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 05:46
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Xaris posted:Also on some ways, AAA games still costing $50-60 is the same as back in 1993, yet of course we've had a lot of inflation since then (equivalent to $80-90 today). i think no game wants to be at the forefront of gamer outrage over a $80 priced-game so they try to makeup revenue from the goony whales willing to pay thousands to somewhat subsidize the price, and DLC/Deluxe OCD editions.  in the 90s they sold 100k copies and it was a mega hit, today they sell 10 million and it's considered a flop. $60 is fair.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:50
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While GTA Online has obnoxious grade monetization and still currently lacks loot boxes you can expect that to change in their future products. Maybe they won't retrofit such a system into GTA5 but you can bet your rear end Rockstar are working on making Red Dead Redemption 2 revolve around it. They won't get far selling people different breeds of $50 horses. I think.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:53
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DancingShade posted:While GTA Online has obnoxious grade monetization and still currently lacks loot boxes you can expect that to change in their future products. I hope you're wrong, but I know you aren't.  Maybe the blow up will make them reconsider and just try to sell a good game with a suspiciously large number of cosmetic items available for free.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:55
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DancingShade posted:While GTA Online has obnoxious grade monetization and still currently lacks loot boxes you can expect that to change in their future products. It’s published by 2K and they are real bad too. I always wonder if the lootbox system in Borderlands 2 was planned to be a bigger thing at one point.
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Nov 25, 2017 05:55
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Let's imagine the future Red Dead Redemption core game play loop: Buy bags of bandit's loot for only $1.99 each, or 21 for $19.99 (best value). *opens bag* Oh another duplicate gunslinger's scarf. *opens bag* Oh great horseshoes that go +1% faster *opens bag* Dynamite Dan card: light sticks 20% faster *opens bag* Oh wow rare lever action rifle that does double damage what it uses cash shop only bullets? TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:It’s published by 2K and they are real bad too. I think Borderlands 2 was basically just Diablo loot but the gun grinder thing in the Pre-Sequel was the DancingShade fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 05:59
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Earwicker posted:So are trading cards considered gambling now too? Iirc there was a bunch of lawsuits back in the 90s over whether or not cards were gambling or not. I think the suits got tossed for standing as the litigants couldn't prove damages.
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Nov 25, 2017 06:11
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DancingShade posted:I think Borderlands 2 was basically just Diablo loot but the gun grinder thing in the Pre Sequel was the exact same consolation prize mechanic Asian F2P MMO publishers use so that even if you don't win the prize you want, buy enough loot boxes and eventually you'll be able to buy it at a grossly inflated price for consolation tokens or something. The shop that distributes the consolation tokens in PSO2 is called the recycle shop. Not really useful info, but kinda... I dunno funny I guess? PSO2's lootboxes are purely cosmetic and the shortcut items are available at a static price, no lootboxes involved.
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Nov 25, 2017 06:11
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DancingShade posted:Let's imagine the future Red Dead Redemption core game play loop: Borderlands 2 had a literal golden loot chest that you could only open with gold keys. For some reason the only ways to get those keys was codes from the developer that they handed out in batches. The whole this feels like an aborted lootbox system.
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Nov 25, 2017 06:14
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:Borderlands 2 had a literal golden loot chest that you could only open with gold keys. For some reason the only ways to get those keys was codes from the developer that they handed out in batches. It was a bad attempt to drum up social media presence
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Nov 25, 2017 06:15
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:Borderlands 2 had a literal golden loot chest that you could only open with gold keys. For some reason the only ways to get those keys was codes from the developer that they handed out in batches. Somehow I completely forgot about those. Huh. You're absolutely right.
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Nov 25, 2017 06:18
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DancingShade posted:Somehow I completely forgot about those. Huh. You're absolutely right. Yeah me too. I don't think I ever got anything really cool out of those either. That game was incredibly vulnerable to hacking in whatever guns you want, and I bet that's what tipped the balance against paid loot crates. If it was always online or whatever, who knows? Edit: for those of you who didn't play borderlands 2, you could use a trainer running in the background to guarantee drops and specific part combinations, including illegal combinations. They only ever got as far as deleting 'impossible' combinations. THE FUCKING MOON fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 06:26
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:Borderlands 2 had a literal golden loot chest that you could only open with gold keys. For some reason the only ways to get those keys was codes from the developer that they handed out in batches. At least there was no way to out right buy them? I don't think they were in any Mountain Dew bottles or Doritos bags. Hey there's another angle to look at. Keys inside your favorite Gamer Sankz and Drinkz
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Nov 25, 2017 06:26
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