I think cosmetics can be fine, but they aren’t always. I remember spending a lot of time and effort unlocking all the armor in Halo 3, and it made it feel rewarding. Now, skins can be interesting customization, but they’re never rewarding.
I like MTX to an extent, because it let’s other people pay for continued development of games I like. However, even cosmetics only absolutely still has an opportunity cost to the feel of the game that’s being payed. I think we should all be aware of this. I know at this point most people probably don’t remember when cosmetics were opportunities to make the game feel more fun, not just products to sell, but that is how it used to be.
Oh, definitely. The one issue with cosmetic DLC is that they used to be unlockable. Sometimes paid cosmetics are more development work than the kinds of things that were unlocked in-game back in the day, but not always.
Sometimes cosmetic DLC is a way to support the developers. Sometimes cosmetic DLC is a cashgrab. But if the game stands on its own, players generally aren’t missing much if cosmetics are paid DLC. Smash Bros. Ultimate comes to mind – there’s plenty of stuff to unlock in the game even with lots of costumes and such being behind paywalls.
The problem is what follows from microtransactions. When the managers see line go up because they released a paid element to the game, all the incentives push toward more paid elements. This means any dev hours that can be redirected away from work on the core game to the paid elements will be redirected.
Regarding the first point, if they can hire someone to make a feature happen, and maybe get an unpredictable increase in revenue, or hire someone to crank out cosmetics, which are much easier to make, and for which they often have metrics to show how much they expect to get, which do you think they’ll pick?
As for the second, I’m not sure if I’m understanding you.
I’m not talking about firings, or even other specific examples. The talk of hiring A vs B is just an example, not the whole concept. I’m talking about the inputs that influence internal decisions. Microtransactions incentivise decisions that put the focus on generating microtransactions, often to the detriment of other objectives.
And, okay, I get you now. DLC is kind of a case by case thing, but still not great to me. Some devs put out incredible DLCs that actually add something to an already complete game. However, some companies put things into DLC that should just be in the base game. (playable characters, etc.) The practice of having paid DLCs incentivises that approach, so I’m not a huge fan, even if some of them are good. It’s kind of like political donations. I can like the effect some of them have, but I recognize the problems that come from a system that uses them.
I have to say that the customer holds some of the blame. If people are obsessively buying cosmetics that do nothing and that’s the only way the game is being sustained…either the game is that good already, or the players are the reason the game sucks.
When players need to spend money to be competitive, I think it’s fair to place the blame jointly on both the devs/publisher and the players. When spending money doesn’t change the game OR provides new content, it generally indicates that the player base is happy with what they’re spending money on. I don’t think that’s a problem.
Enh… iffy hand wiggleI tend to put blame more at the point of informed decision-making.
In the same way I wouldn’t blame a person from the 1930s for their lung cancer after their doctor sold them cigarettes, I wouldn’t blame gamers for the DLC. A huge percentage of gamers are kids, legally incapable of giving informed consent. Many others are people who have never had the chance to learn the implications of their buying habits. It’s hard to blame people who aren’t making an informed decision.
The people at dev companies on the other hand, are immersed in the gaming world. It’s effectively a form of incompetence or negligence to not pay attention to the industry if that’s your job. They are either knowingly engaging in the practice, or failing to pay attention to the effect they are having on the world.
Part of it is the question of where you assign fault in a bad system. These days, and I’d hope you can agree, slavery is bad. But where should the blame lie if you lived in ~1800s America? Should it be on the producers, who choose to use slave labour, on the providers, who capture the slaves, on the legislators, who make/keep it legal, or on the customers, who choose to buy the fruits of slave labour? They all could be said to play a part but I’m inclined to find the customers, who have the least power in the system, have the least blame as well.
I think you’re making large reaches in your analogies. Are we supposed to have the government come in and bad cosmetic DLC, and then fight a war over it that splits the country (or world) in two? Lol
My point is that cosmetic DLC (and expansion packs) isn’t the problem – the problem is loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions.
I just wanted an unambiguous evil to serve as an example. You’ve gotten lost in taking the example as the point again. It’s an analogy, not an exact replication of of a previous event. See the similarities between the two and not the particulars of either one. That’s the point of an analogy.
The point is that the system of microtransactions incentivises the bad results (manipulative practices and distortion of decisions) without necessitating the good. (enjoyable content) As long as paid DLC exists, there are reasons for people to use paid DLC to manipulate people out of their money. However, nothing about paid DLC means there will necessarily be benefit to anything other than revenue, and things that exist within DLC could exist without it. I’d try to give another illustrative example but I don’t know if it would help.
You don’t understand the use of analogies. Common enough. Many people can get lost in them. Not a big deal. Not your fault.
You do understand them, but were actively trying to focus on the ways the chosen analogies were not one to one with the object instead of on the point the analogies were only used to illustrate. This falls under the category of bad-faith communication.
I assumed you were well-meaning in assuming your ignorance. Was I wrong?
Microtransactions have gone wildly past financing devs
The entirety of the Starcraft wings of liberty campaign made less money than a single mount cosmetic in WoW. That money definitely didn’t to to the developers
Xenia/RPCS3/Cemu can be used to emulate the old console editions. You just need a update with a new enough version fore the minigames. Alternatively i believe the PS3 edition still has the servers up for multiplayer (RPCS3 has their own servers too but idk if those do battle minigames). i’d assume the Xbox one edition’s servers are still up too
My N64 stuff is laying around my house in random places because my oldest nephew (just became a teenager) absolutely loves retro hardware. So much fun.
Illusion is hilariously overpowered and underrated in that game (once its leveled up higher). I rushed max pickpocketing, then pickpocketed back the money from the illusion trainer at the college.
Theres also invisibility and dagger fighting; holding invis without releasing it makes it trigger after you swing
Theres also invisibility and dagger fighting; holding invis without releasing it makes it trigger after you swing
Meanwhile, in Morrowind you can just enchant a dagger to cast invisibility on strike all by itself. (Not sure if that’s still possible in the newer games or not.)
My mortality in video games waivers all the way from stopping at traffic lights to modding in God Mode to going HAM on every NPC within firing distance. It all depends on how my day has been.
Filmweb, poza tym, że często promują recenzje idiotów i nie da się wejść bez adblocka nie jest złą opcją. Na pewno lepszą od IMDB (Amazon). TMDB wydaje się spoko, ale to dalej komercyjna platforma o ile się orientuję. Możesz mieć oczywiście coś lokalnego, ale wtedy nie ma wygody dostępu z różnych urządzeń, albo wymaga to trochę więcej wysiłku. Jest takiego softu sporo.
I remember walking in to Toys R Us and seeing N64 on display when it first launched. You could stand in line and wait for your chance to play. I had been too young to really follow or know about the launch, but I thought the 3D graphics looked incredible. Initially I had thought it was some hyped up version of Super Mario RPG because that was the most “3D” looking Mario game that had existed to date.
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