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Improbable Lobster posted:Do AO games even come out? Last game I remember getting an AO was Manhunt 2 but I also haven't paid attention to the ESRB for equally as long. Game developers/publishers figured that out around that time of the huge controversy and I don’t think many if any have gone back
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# ? Jun 18, 2024 10:18 |
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AO basically only exists as a "Oopsie, take it back and try again" rating.
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Also getting a rating is voluntary and it's ironically easier to release a game that hasn't even been rated than one that was rated AO, much like film.
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I'm still confused at how microtransactions aren't OK but donating to streamers is totally Ok.
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There was that Hatred game that got tons of money from reactionaries while being a buggy and unfun piece of poo poo lol
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Spanish Manlove posted:I'm still confused at how microtransactions aren't OK but donating to streamers is totally Ok. Maybe people feel it more personable?
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Spanish Manlove posted:I'm still confused at how microtransactions aren't OK but donating to streamers is totally Ok. That's a really odd comparison, but I'll go with it for the sake of argument. Video game streamers are free to watch, right? So it's more akin to microtransactions in a free-to-play game which I'm pretty sure we're all okay with and accept as part of the package. You can donate to a streamer for (presumably) some sort of benefit, like a custom Twitch emote or access to subscriber-only chat or things like that, but if you don't you can watch normally. If streamers were charging a fee to watch them and also asking for more money on top, that'd be pretty lovely. Are there streamers out there selling loot boxes of Twitch emotes or some poo poo like that?
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Spanish Manlove posted:I'm still confused at how microtransactions aren't OK but donating to streamers is totally Ok. i'm confused why you're making this comparison.
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Also also, streamers are individuals that are, for the most part, using that money to fund their lives instead of pouring it all into huge dividends for shareholders who already make bank. Sort of the difference between shopping at a farmers' market vs Walmart.
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Spanish Manlove posted:I'm still confused at how microtransactions aren't OK but donating to streamers is totally Ok. What do those even have to do with eachother? Almost every dev in existence considers streamers a net benefit (it's basically free marketing), and donations from viewers support the streamer which means the company doesn't have to pay them directly. Where is the harm here? Edit: Are you seriously upset that streamers give out vanity emotes to donators or whatever? That's the only logical connection I can make between those two things, and it's an incredibly petty thing to be upset about compared to FIFA or Battlefront 2 or even Overwatch, all of which cost money up front. Random Asshole fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Feb 19, 2018 |
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streamer begging is a blight on this fair world that preys on children and socially deficient adults, but it's also mostly a separate phenomena.
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Spanish Manlove posted:I'm still confused at how microtransactions aren't OK but donating to streamers is totally Ok. This is about loot boxes not micro transactions in general. Want to pay $5 for a recolor of a skin? Knock yourself out. Feeding cash into a slot machine with a recolor as the reward is what’s kinda hosed up. Amusingly this means that the craziest of the f2p whale games aren’t really affected as they rely on cash being used for speeding things up instead of gatchas.
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Some people getting a couple dollars to make jokes and scream at jump scares on the internet is basically on the same level as multinational corporations raking in billions from microtransactions, when you think about it.
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I assume he was getting at the incentives that twitch and YouTube have for creating revenue streams and not the streamers themselves per se.
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Spanish Manlove posted:I'm still confused at how microtransactions aren't OK but donating to streamers is totally Ok. This is like comparing Ticketmaster surcharges on a $100 concert ticket to buying a t shirt from the band's drummer at a dive bar show but hey whatever man
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Also peoples' issue with lootboxes isn't the microtransaction aspect so much as the gambling aspect.
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i take issue with both.
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Groovelord Neato posted:i take issue with both. I mean microtransactions can be lovely but the entire crux of the rise of lootboxes is game companies collectively realizing that instead of simply letting people buy the thing they want that they can make more money by forcing them to go through a virtual slot machine for a chance to get it instead. At any rate, trying to compare lootboxes to streamer donations is kind of weird.
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The both involve money and video games, so if you ignore basically everything about the situation and look at it incredibly superficially...
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Is it better to have newly made content available via in-game currency (which you can also buy with real money) and no "real money only" content or is it better to just not really have extra content after launch? Loot boxes, I realize, are always anti-consumer but is in-game currency/real money conversion poo poo also just as bad?
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jokes posted:Is it better to have newly made content available via in-game currency (which you can also buy with real money) and no "real money only" content or is it better to just not really have extra content after launch? Loot boxes, I realize, are always anti-consumer but is in-game currency/real money conversion poo poo also just as bad? It’s not just as bad because it isn’t literally a slot machine
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jokes posted:Is it better to have newly made content available via in-game currency (which you can also buy with real money) and no "real money only" content or is it better to just not really have extra content after launch? Loot boxes, I realize, are always anti-consumer but is in-game currency/real money conversion poo poo also just as bad? Real money to fake money conversion is usually bad because the exchange rate is almost always tuned to encourage you to add "just a little bit more" real money by pricing things such that you're always left with a handful of Virtual Gem Shard Pieces left over that can't buy anything on their own, so you have to add some more to spend them and whoops, still some left over, etc. While I'm sure it would still attract derision and ire, vastly fewer people would have a problem if, for example, Blizzard just let you buy new character skins for X dollars straight up and call it a day. Oh, you want the new Hanzo skin? Okay, $2.50, done.
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Kai Tave posted:Oh, you want the new Hanzo skin? Okay, $2.50, done. sadly you're gonna have to move that decimal mark at least one step to the right
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Well, I’m not a fan of the “micro”transactions in Monster Hunter World, but when there’s no wacky in-game currencies or gambling involved it’s hard to complain compared to real poo poo out there.
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Kai Tave posted:Real money to fake money conversion is usually bad because the exchange rate is almost always tuned to encourage you to add "just a little bit more" real money by pricing things such that you're always left with a handful of Virtual Gem Shard Pieces left over that can't buy anything on their own, so you have to add some more to spend them and whoops, still some left over, etc. Yeah if they just said here's this new skin for $5 then it wouldn't be as bad. Still not great, but certainly better than what they do now. And they have done that recently, but only for the mostly lovely zero effort recolors for their league thing.
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Free to play game companies for the most part still haven’t figured out that if they sold their armour sets and weapons and dumb poo poo at 10 dollars instead of 25 they’d be making a lot more than 2.5x the revenue
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Bob NewSCART posted:Free to play game companies for the most part still haven’t figured out that if they sold their armour sets and weapons and dumb poo poo at 10 dollars instead of 25 they’d be making a lot more than 2.5x the revenue They're not after those people. They're out to maximize profit from the 1% of the playerbase who can and do spend thousands of dollars on this stuff.
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Bob NewSCART posted:Free to play game companies for the most part still haven’t figured out that if they sold their armour sets and weapons and dumb poo poo at 10 dollars instead of 25 they’d be making a lot more than 2.5x the revenue I'm not in the industry but I bet that games that spend tens of millions of dollars on development pay someone to run the numbers on this. My assumption would be that only whales/addicts pay for this stuff anyway so you might as well really soak them. But yeah, whenever I've considered buying something in a game with microtransactions the price always ends up being 3 or more time what I'd be willing to pay. People who think like that are probably not the target audience.
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Bob NewSCART posted:Free to play game companies for the most part still haven’t figured out that if they sold their armour sets and weapons and dumb poo poo at 10 dollars instead of 25 they’d be making a lot more than 2.5x the revenue I used to believe this too but game devs I've worked with and read articles from roundly debunk this. It's counter-intuitive in a way but that's the way it is. Also, Even if Blizz charged $25 for Overwatch skins they'd still make a lot less money than people playing slot machines.
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Personally I'm just miffed and find it incredibally outputting that 90% of games ruin the mood by repeatedly screaming at me to break out my wallet. I'll begrudgingly tolerate it if you literally hand me your product for free but that's about the only case where it should even be considered acceptable. e: like, remember when that one idiot in dragon age sitting in your camp with the doc mission hook was a horrible scandal? Go back to that FoolyCharged fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Feb 19, 2018 |
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FoolyCharged posted:Personally I'm just miffed and find it incredibally outputting that 90% of games ruin the mood by repeatedly screaming at me to break out my wallet. A character in the game called DLC hawker that any line of dialogue takes you to a fake pop up to some nonexistent expansion.
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Bob NewSCART posted:Free to play game companies for the most part still haven’t figured out that if they sold their armour sets and weapons and dumb poo poo at 10 dollars instead of 25 they’d be making a lot more than 2.5x the revenue Funny thing. Rift, a horrible MMO, was subscription based. Then they went f2p and put their cosmetic price point at like 20 bucks a skin. Since they were not selling anime waifu skins, non one bought any and they lost a lot of money. Now they are bringing back subs.
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super sweet best pal posted:Yeah, it sounds like those crazy spirit science videos from a few years ago. Art style looks similar too. Whenever people argue about Extra Credits I feel completely left out of the discussion because I can't listen to it long enough to form an opinion. I believe that he's a developer because it's obvious his day job doesn't involve customer service. Can you imagine going to a restaurant and having that voice explain the specials? Or calling any sort of help line and that picking up the phone?
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Skwirl posted:Whenever people argue about Extra Credits I feel completely left out of the discussion because I can't listen to it long enough to form an opinion. You can hear his actual voice in the Dark Souls videos and I think the latest Extra History Lies episode. Its bog standard American geek voice. I don't get the filter, it did turn me off the series at first. Now it's just kind of there and not really noticed.
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Paingod556 posted:You can hear his actual voice in the Dark Souls videos and I think the latest Extra History Lies episode. Its bog standard American geek voice. That's not his actual voice? He sounds like that on purpose?
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Third World Reggin posted:Funny thing. Rift had potential too ![]()
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Skwirl posted:That's not his actual voice? He sounds like that on purpose? lol at thinking that was his actual voice
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I'm always distrustful of youtube personalities who use an idealized clipart avatar of themselves instead of appearing on camera. Like what are you trying to hide.
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saving all the boys and girls online from my ghastly visage, duh
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# ? Jun 18, 2024 10:18 |
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Third World Reggin posted:Funny thing. I mean the key to any transaction, micro or no, is offering something people actually want to pay money for.
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