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Disposable Scud posted:I spend 500 on candy wtf is wrong with that You were tricked because they didn't force you to buy the 128 pack of snickers instead of one at a time.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 01:46 |
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# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:09 |
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Spending 500 bucks on candy is A-OK so long as you do it because you just like candy. Also, you fat.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 01:48 |
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Morter posted:especially because MHW is explicitly not a pay-to-win game. I have no dog in this particular (MHW) race, however Overwatch is likewise a game where nothing you buy via lootboxes affects the gameplay per-say, but discounting the social aspect of multiplayer games seems like you're throwing out a pretty big component of how people enjoy these games and the effect that has. People refer to Warframe as "Fashionframe", to give one example. You can put a lot of FOMO and pressure on people through that. OW is deffo a bad one because lootboxes suck lol, I'll grant that at least MHW is letting you target exactly what you want, but it still kinda sucks that it's not something you unlock while playing or as part of a chunky DLC purchase or whatever. poo poo, reminder that kids playing Fornite with default skins are apt to get bullied IRL as a result. I'm sure this is a narrow example and isn't in fact a terrifying vista into what these games will be going forwards. Cardiovorax posted:That's a facetious argument, You literally compared Kinder Eggs to lootboxes, lol, and by extension pretty much said gambling addiction is bullshit. Cardiovorax posted:What, you imagine all that cosmetic DLC was free to design and create? Cosmetic unlocks used to just be part of the game, and it seemed like having them in didn't bankrupt dev studios. Curious.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 01:48 |
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KazigluBey posted:Cosmetic unlocks used to just be part of the game, and it seemed like having them in didn't bankrupt dev studios. Curious. Congratulations! You've unlocked the "Games cost more to produce now" argument even though player counts are way up and distribution costs are way down, and publicly traded companies engaging in MTXs have some of the biggest profit margins in the loving world.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 01:53 |
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Never pay more than $0.00 for post launch content. (this is just a reference/joke post, i don't care whatchy'all do, DLC/mtx wise ) Morter fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Sep 27, 2020 |
# ? Sep 27, 2020 01:55 |
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Morter posted:Out of curiosity, how many people percentage wise, of those who play MHW, do you think 'fall for' whatever predatory tactics you're asserting the store has? Just how many really trip into the impulse/habit of collecting more than they need to for the sake of it? Do you imagine it's a significant amount? Do you think 'even one is too many'? Not a rhetorical question. exploiting a single person to make a video game is one too many. obviously in games that extends far beyond getting people to buy microtransactions and into their development as well, but it again doesnt erase the issue of mtx targeting people who cannot control themselves. also there is a situation possible where people who cannot control themselves spend too much on models which arent predatory. however mhws model is absolutely targetting people, there is literally no justification for the amount and overall price of the cosmetics. it is specifically designed to be exploitative. Morter posted:seems to boil down to preying on a rather small group of whales--or people who are just irresponsible with money. I certainly don't blame the latter for falling for the kind of poo poo that Destiny 2 does, but for this game, I feel like that's a stretch to say that they specifically displayed their cosmetics that way in order to be perceived that way. i think the choice of language here is very telling, that you dont blame people for falling for what d2 does, but feel for this game they are to blame. i think that that is a very weird deliniation. i do not believe anyone is to blame, even in situations where they arent being targeted. however in this case they are which puts the blame on whoever decides to try and take advantage of it. Morter posted:I sincerely want to see your point without arguing about it, but unless I'm reading you wrong, I'm just not getting it. It seems very elaborate to exploit money from what I'd imagine is very few, especially because MHW is explicitly not a pay-to-win game. it doesnt matter how few people it is when you are selling something that costs you very little to make and each person who does go all in and buy them all provides you with a gigantic profit. also the pay to win argument is frankly severely flawed. while those models are far more blatent, the cosmetic model isnt suddenly fine when its done in this way. Cardiovorax posted:That's a facetious argument, because you could say that about any amount of content so long as it does not match your arbitrary measuring stick for what is or isn't 'worth paying for as extra content.' do you truly believe that the 200 pieces of cosmetic dlc amount to more than ten times the cost of the entire game and dlc? do you believe this is a sane and defendable pricing structure? if it isnt then why is it priced in this manner? what is the intent? that last question is very important. Morter posted:Ah, okay, this is a different argument, and personally not one I'm well equipped for. I don't plan to persuade you on changing your mind, but I see it like this: there is a very big difference between ongoing development requiring payment and $400 of trinkets. a huge gulf. i also prefer content to be free and if there has to be paid additions then for them to be cosmetic, but it is the specific structure of the cosmetic mtx in this game i am taking issue with here. it is the specific marketing and packaging of them.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 01:56 |
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Stux posted:do you truly believe that the 200 pieces of cosmetic dlc amount to more than ten times the cost of the entire game and dlc? do you believe this is a sane and defendable pricing structure? if it isnt then why is it priced in this manner? what is the intent? that last question is very important. I just object to the idea that it's predatory in a world where pay-to-win games exist, when it's comparatively speaking so benign.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 01:59 |
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Cardiovorax posted:Realistically? Making a lot more money than the content is worth from something that is very easy and cheap to produce. I won't defend that, because profiteering is absolutely what this is. Corporations do that, and gently caress them for it heartily. There's a reason I don't spend money on cosmetic content and it's not only because I don't care. The other half is "gently caress this poo poo trash garbage which is not worth a tenth of what it costs." yeah again i have far more issue with pay to win stuff and lootboxes. i do not disagree that they are worse at all, however i dont personally feel that means i have to let other, relatively more benign but still bad, things by with a pass. in fact thats kind of what a lot of gaming companies are going to be betting on as lootboxes are forcibly removed from regions, we'll get stuff that isnt as bad and theyll hope we'll go "this is ok" because our expectations have been put in the dumpster lol
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:02 |
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Fair enough, this is not something I think can be reasonably argued with. The videogame industry is one big ripoff from front to end and much of it is just inexcusable. I just hate it when people act like things such as nuance don't exist. They do and pretending they don't just makes us look like idiots when we protest against something genuinely objectionable.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:04 |
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Cardiovorax posted:There's this brand of little candy eggs in my home country that have little toys or collectible figures inside of them. Nobody considers them predatory for not coming in two hundred dollar bunches that guarantee that you will have one of every figure included with them, even though it would take a silly amount of money to collect them all. Not even people who agree with the idea that loot boxed should legally be considered gambling do. Uh, actually, isn't that type of chocolate egg (are you talking about Kinder Surprise?) specifically marketed at children, not for the value proposition of the actual chocolate but for the toy, and encourages kids to purchase multiple to try to get all of the toys in season? It is somewhat predatory. That doesn't make it the literal worst. It's the same as gacha, just wrapped in chocolate. The pricing convention of marking everything at say, £7.99 instead of £8, is also predatory. All of these little psychological marketing tricks are predatory. The majority of for-profit products have predatory elements baked into their sales strategies. Capitalism is all about these predatory tactics. Morter posted:I can't help but consider the current state the best compromise, because everyone gets more of the hard work that would likely be enough to be another expansion. There is the argument of some people are more susceptible to such pricing/content delivery strategies and the general playerbase is being propped up by whales, which can be a considerable moral concern in the case of those with limited funds being attracted to each microtransaction without being abreast of the greater whole. It remains problematic. It's as you say - a compromise. Is Monster Hunter World the most problematic? Definitely not. It's relatively speaking rather good about things. But it's not faultless. Cardiovorax posted:What, you imagine all that cosmetic DLC was free to design and create? Just one last thing - yes, actually, on paper. Don't know how Capcom specifically does things, but a lot of creative industry accounting (and management accounting in general) likes to shift cost centres around on different projects in order to over-exaggerate a success and emphasise a failure. I actually fully expect that in order to give a better show to shareholders, the idle art teams were set to create new assets or brush up assets rejected/set aside from the full game for sale as DLC but under a shell team within the parent company. Sorry for the tangent, but I find this stuff fun. TLDR: Predatory does not mean The Worst. Most sales tactics under capitalism are predatory. Even if it's relatively benign, it is predatory.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:07 |
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For that matter if you feel like you're buying MTXs to "support the devs" you might want to look into what particular publisher they're working under and what the conditions are like there. I'm pretty sure that buying one of the supporter packs in Deep Rock Galactic or Path of Exile is literally support to devs that see direct gains from those sources. On the flip-side there isn't a single MTX you can buy in an Activision-Blizzard game that's actually "supporting" the relevant dev team, and Acti-Blizz are just as apt to enact mass firings during moments of record profits than during lean times. Not sure how things are like at Capcom, I'd always prefer to imagine good rather than ill. e.: n/m, not worth it KazigluBey fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Sep 27, 2020 |
# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:08 |
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Frankly it had not occurred to me that someone would look at the 42 dangly things you can hang on your weapon, and decide to buy all of them (even one at a time over a long period). I figured they were there for the same reason that a store has a rack of 50 different kinds of sunglasses: to increase the chances that I see something I like, and decide to buy one thing instead of zero things. But I guess our brain worms are many and varied.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:09 |
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Uh, actually, isn't that type of chocolate egg (are you talking about Kinder Surprise?) specifically marketed at children, not for the value proposition of the actual chocolate but for the toy, and encourages kids to purchase multiple to try to get all of the toys in season? It is somewhat predatory. That doesn't make it the literal worst. It's the same as gacha, just wrapped in chocolate. Triarii posted:I figured they were there for the same reason that a store has a rack of 50 different kinds of sunglasses: to increase the chances that I see something I like, and decide to buy one thing instead of zero things. But I guess our brain worms are many and varied.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:11 |
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What I get from this is that spending money on video games is immoral, because you're being tricked into exchanging your money for useless garbage. Honestly that is probably logically sound, so fair. mycot fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Sep 27, 2020 |
# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:17 |
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Okay but why (4 stars though)
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:19 |
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i remember a time when people made fun of paying for horse armor in elder scrolls now that'd get a "oh, you want the developers from a AAA studio to go hungry??? gently caress you"
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:19 |
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Cardiovorax posted:children pay a minor additional amount of money to get something that no adult would care about, except for the type who specifically cares about it and as such only has themselves to blame. I think for a ~1 product that is pretty okay. This sure scans differently if you sub in Lootbox or Fifa Pack for that Kinder Egg analogy while being closer to the heart of the actual discussion. Cardiovorax, just checking, but do you believe gambling addiction is real? This has gone way off the discussion about MHW because as much as I agree with Stux my "at least..." argument is that at least the MHW MTXs are a-la-carte and you can just buy what you want instead of having some kind of rotating store limited-availability FOMO bullshit or even worse have them squirreled away in a gambling box. Several times the cost of the game in MTXs is still kinda grody to me, tho.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:23 |
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Cardiovorax posted:children pay a minor additional amount of money to get something that no adult would care about, except for the type who specifically cares about it and as such only has themselves to blame. I think for a ~1€ product that is pretty okay. Dude this is what people get mad about, spending compulsions and addictions are real medical issues and you're kinda being lovely and reductive about this and exploiting children is obviously predatory.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:24 |
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Is Monster Hunter World the most problematic? Definitely not. It's relatively speaking rather good about things. But it's not faultless. That was exactly why I started posting on this: it was being called predatory for a reason I couldn't understand, versus a bevy of reasons I couldn't find issue with (that I already explained). I have no reason to make people want to like MHW's mtx but I found it benign, compared to what's out there. I'm not calling them faultless, but they're certainly not what I would call evil just for having a high dollar amount of optional content.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:24 |
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Hub Cat posted:Dude this is what people get mad about, spending compulsions and addictions are real medical issues and you're kinda being lovely and reductive about this and exploiting children is obviously predatory. Sorry if I offended anyone with that. I was just trying to be equitable about it.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:26 |
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A lot of people prepared to stay in Omelas ITT
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:26 |
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Cardiovorax posted:Sorry if you feel that way. KazigluBey posted:This has gone way off the discussion about MHW because as much as I agree with Stux my "at least..." argument is that at least the MHW MTXs are a-la-carte and you can just buy what you want instead of having some kind of rotating store limited-availability FOMO bullshit or even worse have them squirreled away in a gambling box. Several times the cost of the game in MTXs is still kinda grody to me, tho. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Sep 27, 2020 |
# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:27 |
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Cardiovorax posted:I just don't agree that every time people spend money on something they don't really need or which isn't worth the money, it's also automatically something that falls under addiction issues. Cool, because nobody has argued this. The 7th Guest posted:the FOMO thing in games I think bothers me the most because it's how games snooker kids into spending tons of money ie Fortnite. if you have default skin you're bullied by other kids. it's hosed up It gets even neater when you realize that EG is making the Fortnite devs crunch to get post-release cosmetics out fast enough, in what's probably the only (I hope) example of a game where continually purchasing MTXs inflicts some kind of actual tangible harm on the developers involved in creating them. KazigluBey fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Sep 27, 2020 |
# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:28 |
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KazigluBey posted:It gets even neater when you realize that EG is making the Fortnite devs crunch to get post-release cosmetics out fast enough, in what's probably the only (I hope) example of a game where continually purchasing MTXs inflicts some kind of actual tangible harm on the developers involved in creating them. epic's crunching does make their whole "we're for bettering the industry!" bullshit hollow as gently caress. this week they formed a multi-developer alliance about 'seeking fairness in app store policies' and it's like, huh, interesting, so you would say that you've brought others together into some sort of.. union, to collectively bargain for better treatment... The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 27, 2020 |
# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:38 |
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To the folks that are still struggling with this, the simple explanation is that lots of people care about cosmetics (and thusly assign value to them), even if you personally do not. Like I really don't know how else to phrase it other than that bluntly simple and basic. They're not necessarily all whales buying up whole collections of overpriced DLC, but the desire to look cool concurrently with doing cool stuff in a video game is pretty dang straightforward. Add to that a general desire for personal expression and social pressures in multiplayer games and you get a really easy hook to entice people to fork over extra money. Where you see a strong divide between "gameplay" and "aesthetics" a lot of people just...don't. MHW is not merely a game about hitting monsters with increasingly bigger sticks, it's a game about doing that while also looking fabulous. Just like Fortnite is about looking cool while building walls and shooting people and TF2 is about stomping noobs while wearing a giant flaming hat and etc. To use an example from a game without MTX, Fashion loving Souls. You do not get stat bonuses against Gwyn for showing up looking like a sparkly ghost pimp yet mysteriously people still go out of their way to dress crazy in Dark Souls anyway. Even to the opposite extent, dressing in such silly, showy ways that the game is actively harder as a result. I can't help but feel like you gotta be really drat tuned out to see yeeeeeeears of unlockable skins, character creators, cosmetic pre-order bonuses, cosmetic DLC/MTX, cash shops, etc. etc. and to all that just and go "well I don't really care what my character looks like so I dunno what all the fuss is about". Also, The 7th Guest posted:i remember a time when people made fun of paying for horse armor in elder scrolls
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:46 |
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probably relevant that the reason epic games broke apple’s TOU and kicked off a gigantic lawsuit impacting the entire industry is because they wanted to make it easier for kids to spend money on skins without their parents noticing if you don’t think this stuff is predatory by design you’re kinda just a giant sucker Augus fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Sep 27, 2020 |
# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:47 |
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John Murdoch posted:I can't help but feel like you gotta be really drat tuned out to see yeeeeeeears of unlockable skins, character creators, cosmetic pre-order bonuses, cosmetic DLC/MTX, cash shops, etc. etc. and to all that just and go "well I don't really care what my character looks like so I dunno what all the fuss is about".
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 02:48 |
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I do care about looking fabulous, but MHW provides all the cosmetic customization I need just through its in-game systems. And I'd much prefer to have a cool hat because I made it out of the skin of a dragon that I killed instead of by paying $3.99 on a store page, because it makes my appearance something I've earned and gives it a connection to my character's journey. That's why I never even sought out the DLC store to see what it had to offer (and if all it has is stuff like little dangly bits for your weapon, then the gear you're crafting is going to have a much bigger visual impact than the bought stuff anyway). I recognize that there's a different, "conspicuous consumption" kind of motivation behind buying cosmetic items, where you're showing either that you care enough about the game to spend extra money on it, or that you're just wealthy and can afford to throw money around senselessly, but that particular aspect has never appealed to me personally.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 03:01 |
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Also re: "you don't have to buy ALL the cosmetics" and "how could you waste tons of money on frivolous things?" please remind yourself what thread you're posting in. If your backlog is greater than like, 3 games then the concept shouldn't be a big mystery to you.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 03:56 |
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John Murdoch posted:If your backlog is greater than like, 3 games then the concept shouldn't be a big mystery to you.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:02 |
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John Murdoch posted:If your backlog is greater than like, 3 games then the concept shouldn't be a big mystery to you. They're not in my backlog if I choose to give up on them, fucker Speaking of fashion, I spent hours making up this outfit for a specific loadout i compulsively made on the fly earlier this afternoon. You couldn't buy this. Any MTX you buy for MHW couldn't show off as much as this--I think the most would be a weapon pendant which you could barely see as it swings all the time even on a holstered weapon. I don't think they compare at all with skins for destiny 2/overwatch/TF2 hats...but I don't think anyone cares about that distinction.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:02 |
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All kidding aside, I do not think I have any games in my backlog that cost me more than ten cents per, because basically all of it is bundle crap. If I were paying actual money for them, I would not have a backlog.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:04 |
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KazigluBey posted:I have no dog in this particular (MHW) race, however Overwatch is likewise a game where nothing you buy via lootboxes affects the gameplay per-say, but discounting the social aspect of multiplayer games seems like you're throwing out a pretty big component of how people enjoy these games and the effect that has. People refer to Warframe as "Fashionframe", to give one example. You can put a lot of FOMO and pressure on people through that. OW is deffo a bad one because lootboxes suck lol, I'll grant that at least MHW is letting you target exactly what you want, but it still kinda sucks that it's not something you unlock while playing or as part of a chunky DLC purchase or whatever. MHW is fine but games like Fortnite are absolutely predatory and their community only reinforces the predation.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:09 |
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Continued Serious Sam 4 thoughts: Gadgets become very important as the game goes on and you will definitely suffer from “Harder fight around the corner” syndrome. Especially since they aren’t exactly common things to find and you in fact do need to save them just for more obvious arena fights. I’m sure there’s a bunch in secret areas I haven’t found but in typical Serious Sam fashion some of these secrets are let’s say counter intuitive. Also remember that you can select gadgets in the weapon wheel which also slows down time, otherwise you have to put away your weapon and scroll through them in real time. Dual wielding everything is fun once you get the skills to do it. A double barrel shotgun that had to reload after every shot isn’t so slow any more once you can just fire the other one while you wait.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:32 |
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Morter posted:You couldn't buy this. Any MTX you buy for MHW couldn't show off as much as this--I think the most would be a weapon pendant which you could barely see as it swings all the time even on a holstered weapon. I don't think they compare at all with skins for destiny 2/overwatch/TF2 hats...but I don't think anyone cares about that distinction. I do wanna reiterate that I don't have anything against MHW specifically. It's simply that the "it's just cosmetics" thing is a huge bugbear of mine. Even as someone who has struggled with that kind of stuff, if I actually played it I doubt the weapon charms would be on my radar at all. But if you can straight-up buy cool stuff for your apartment or wacky cat skins or w/e that might be a different story. I'd also probably stress the gently caress out about every limited time event item.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:41 |
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re: the time-limited quests and events in MHW. If you don't care about the raids, you can just cheat the items in, it's as simple as downloading a text file from Nexus mod and buying it ingame. IIRC you can even force the game to spawn certain quests through file edits.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:50 |
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Anybody having issues using PayPal on Steam? I tried checking out about twenty minutes ago, but it gave me an error after I put my password, I ran into an error every time I tried to do it again. I logged into Steam via my browser, but now it won't let proceed because it says I've tried to make too many purchases.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 04:53 |
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fwiw i routinely get sucked in by MMOs and similar things and for a while raided pretty high end content in ffxiv, with all the time-limited stuff gating that implies. MHW is an exceedingly mild variant of those things, with the content being on very generous windows and schedules. the little tchochkes you can get put on your sword or whatever and the little room stuff you can get (which most people never engage with in teh first place) is exceedingly mild compared to say the intensity with which OW skins or FFXIV clothes etc. are shoved at you. it's pretty stark. Although if you have a feeler out for this stuff I can see how it would trigger those instincts if you were ready to condemn something for it. In a perfect world would games have DLC? probably not imo, because they'd be free and worked on artisanally by small teams of people who freely chose to make something together in their off time. I doubt you'd really have such a thing as a 'professional toymaker' in a world without capitalism. It does kind of go back to this idea of 'no ethical consumption under capitalism' which is mostly just used a weak dodge to justify buying whatever from whomever and not caring about where your money goes or how its used. But the truth of that saying is that basically every act of buying and selling is going to be somehow predatory. I don't really care that much for viewing the evils of society through consumer advocacy - it's kind of a schizophrenic point of view, you see how things impact consumers simultaneously through how they're screwed and how they profit from extraction of the wealth of other countries and the people who live there, simultaneously making them oppressed and oppressor, not really leading toward any kind of solution for how things should work. I really think the perspective ought to be on the labor of the workers creating the games and the labor of the technicians creating the hardward the games are made on, and the labor of the miners breathing in toxic fumes as they mine the rare earth minerals and silicon and various elements that are used to create these consumer electronics. It ought to be on the carbon footprint of creating these fundamentally disposable gaming machines and the waste that generates. I don't argue that consumer protections aren't important - the predatory nature of capitalism depends on their ability to pull you into their orbit and get you to spend to justify these insane cycles of spending and exploitation. But staying in teh mode of consumer advocacy feels like spending a lot of time focusing on a paper cut next to a guy whose arm is chopped off. Yes "everyone has it worse somewhere, that doesn't nullify the harm inflicted to me" but how much more empowering would it be to focus on a problem you can change by being in a union or fighting collectively, than from the extremely powerless perspective of a consumer? your only real choice is to play the game or walk away - not that much fun of a fight to pick, IMO. Meanwhile your position at a job working could get you much more say over your life by bargaining collectively at it.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 05:07 |
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Max Wilco posted:Anybody having issues using PayPal on Steam? I tried checking out about twenty minutes ago, but it gave me an error after I put my password, I ran into an error every time I tried to do it again. I logged into Steam via my browser, but now it won't let proceed because it says I've tried to make too many purchases. I haven’t had that happen lately but I’ve had it happen five or six times this year. No idea how to predict when it’ll strike, but I’ve learned to not try to repeat the transaction when it happens. Check your purchase history for any pending purchases.
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 05:14 |
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# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:09 |
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fez_machine posted:A lot of people prepared to stay in Omelas ITT I am now going to spend the rest of my life in a white painted room sitting on a stool eating ethically sourced gruel because someone might buy too many pixel tchotchkes
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# ? Sep 27, 2020 05:18 |