It can be the least predatory mtx system ever, being in a paid game is still not acceptable and I’ll die on that hill. Never bought anything with a shop or battle pass and won’t start now.
I agree if those things leverage fomo to get people to pay. In helldivers you can earn that currency just playing the game so if you have less time to play you have the option of purchasing the currency and their versions of battle passes are always available to buy and work on at your leisure.
It started with “It’s just a silly horse armor DLC, just don’t buy it!”, continued with “It’s just cosmetics bro, just don’t get them!”, then we got “The shop is fine though, you can get the currency ingame!” and got to “The timed battle pass is fine, you also get free stuff!”. You can draw your own line for mtx, but slowly we’re both approaching and crossing it if you accept anything before that.
The way I see things, “the least pressured to buy stuff” reads like “the least aggressive cancer”. Sure, it could be worse, but like, you’ve still got cancer. There’s still the ideal option of being healthy instead.
I’m actually not making any of those arguments and disagree with all of them myself. My issue with mtx is generally that they prey on people with psychological tactics that are proven to work on a lot of (generally vulnerable and younger) people. Helldivers does none of that, it’s not “least pressured to buy stuff”, you’re not pressured at all.
And I know I’m being a little sensitive here but it really sucks to lose someone from cancer and see someone comparing it to a shop in a video game of all things.
I appreciate the consideration and at the end of the day I really agree with you and it sucks to see the state of the industry as a whole right now and really hope we can get back to being respected as consumers some day.
Having the option to use real money is the problem. Nothing is stopping them from adding more and more expensive stuff until you cannot grind it anymore. That’s how we went free cosmetics to 60+ bucks for skins.
Oh, they can add content not included in the original purchase? And they ask me to buy those things they worked on if I want to play with them? Fucking monsters… someone needs to stop them.
You know, drip feeding stuff is no fun. Paying for trivial things is no fun either. We used to get full-blown expansions for the price some companies want for a single skin.
Instead of adding stuff to a shop, games could get actual new content. Instead of buying every asset separately, they could all be thrown in with said new content. Like, yeah, they should get paid for their continued work, but that does not mean the consumer should be milked for every penny.
Sure, and it’ll be unacceptable when that actually happens. Saying “X is unacceptable because think about what they might do in the future” isn’t really an amazing argument if they’re not doing it now.
Unpopular opinion but I think it’s acceptable as long as its optional especially as multiplayer game where they are hosting servers. Those aren’t cheap and I don’t have the game so I wouldn’t know but if they do release more multiplayer content for free, I think it’s further justification because that’s better than paid content packs. As an example, CoD on PC had a recurring issue of DLC content being useless since too little people would buy them. Titanfall saw this issue as well and it was even worse due to the smaller player base. So with Titanfall 2 they just made it free and added cosmetics microtransactions that were actually reasonably priced.
Maybe this is not the solution for everything but as long as it has no bearing on gameplay what’s the harm? If you’re not one to spend on microtransactions then you only get the benefits. I don’t think a more benign implementation should be criticised just because we fear the potential of it potentially becoming worse.
To each their own, but I think this is a bit extremist. Life isn’t black and white. Free games with mtx can be good or bad, paid games without can be good or bad.
Just not buying solely because it has a shop/battle pass means you miss out on a lot of games where it has zero meaning and you’re not allowing any nuanced discussion to happen on the issue.
There are so many games available without microtransactions that I can happily never play one and not feel I’m missing out. We’re having the nuanced discussion now!
I think there need to be a balance. If it’s a service game, they need money to keep servicing the game. There is a fine line between a reasonable voluntary option to support a game in exchange for some symbolic cosmetic and gross predatory practices.
I don’t think every topic deserves nuance. Every mtx shop is predatory, every successful service game lives off whales. You’d just draw an arbitrary line at how aggressivly they hunt whales, but they need them all the same. Even if you can get everything with ingame currency drops, if people wouldn’t spend enough, the game wouldn’t get new content.
The only fair solution is to scrap mtx entirely and make all service games subscription based. But people aren’t ready for that, this conversation often comes down to “as long as they don’t exploit me, I’ll take my free games”.
I would not call Deep Rock Galactic predatory… They release one! cosmetic pack for each season, and that’s it? There is no whales to catch, because in that case it’s very limited how much you can even spend. Like 10 euro every 4-5 months and that’s it. Is that predatory to you?
I honestly can’t answer you, I don’t know anything about the game besides seeing it everywhere for years. Stuff like: How in your face is advertising? Do season even add anything besides these packs? Are they missable? The only thing I can say for sure: I dislike how they present multiple bundles with varying amounts of DLC on their steam page. Without prior knowledge I’d have to go through everything and check if I’d be missing out on some actual DLC content and I’d assume there are people buying an actually reasonably priced game for over a 100 bucks because they want all DLC assuming it’s real content. Sure, that’s on them not checking, but also kinda on the developer naming it stuff like “Deluxe” or “Master” Edition instead of “All Cosmetics Edition” or something among those lines.
Regardless, even if it is an genuine exception, they add massive content updates and don’t push these packs at all. Do they even make a profit then? Massively successful games like DRG, Terraria or Stardew Valley can do whatever they want - they have funded themselves more or less for life already and probably would still sell anyways. Normal service games need to turn a profit with their updates which still means either having a subscription or predatory mtx.
It’s OK for people to spend as much money as they want supporting a game. If you enjoy the work that a developer does for a live service game, it makes sense to fund their business.
I paid for a couple of the cosmetic packs in DRG for example. They genuinely made a great game, and they released additional content as well. I like that I’m not pressured into a subscription, and I can choose how much extra money I want to throw their way.
Destiny 2 is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. The DLC is very expensive, each pack corresponding to the cost of a full game, and there are several of these packs at least. That being said, some people really like Destiny 2. Who am I to say that their spending is wrong? It’s their hobby, and they’re funding it by supporting the company that makes the content for them.
It’s OK for people to spend as much money as they want supporting [gambling]. If you enjoy the work that a developer does for a [gambling service], it makes sense to fund their business.
Would you feel the same about your paragraph with these changes? Destiny 2 used to have full blown loot boxes after all.
I think it is important to still ralley against predatory mtx mechanics even if they don’t work for you. Other people don’t necessarily have full control over their own spending habits and by allowing these systems we openly allow developers to exploit these people. Luckily we started having laws against gambling mechanics (although Gacha is still a thing), but there are still many other psychological tricks at play for almost all of these shops.
If it were a level playing field I’d be inclined to agree with you, but it isn’t. These companies are hiring specialists in the psychology of creating a sense of need where there is no need. It doesn’t work on everyone for everything but there are people who are susceptible to these techniques and they’re the people funding everything. The issue isn’t people spending their money on what they want, it’s them being put in the situation where they feel compelled to purchase things and encouraged to do so by companies who know full well that these people can’t handle it and will cough up the dough no matter what comes their way.
There’s merit to that, but keep in mind that sometimes the game is bound to a service for the sake of enabling microtransactions to begin with, and if not for that they would have let players to host their own servers. This has happened to most multiplayer games from larger publishers.
The complaint accuses the initiative of “systemic concealment of major contribution,” violating EU stipulations requiring citizens to report any sponsor contributions over €500.
The complaint cites PC Gamer’s interview with Scott from June, in which he said “there have been many weeks on the campaign where I’ve been working 12 to 14 hours a day to keep things moving to get signatures.” That promotional work, the complaint argues, amounts to “€63,000-147,000 in professional contribution” if he’d charged a “market rate” of “€50-75/hour.”
It’s also not how the EU’s disclosure requirements work. As Scott notes in the video, the EU’s citizens’ initiative rules say that “individuals providing non-financial support, such as volunteering, are not considered sponsors under the ECI Regulation and do not need to be reported.”
If the petition heads to the Commission after its petition deadline on July 31, we can expect to see even more exciting rhetorical maneuvers.
I sure hope that the EU can withstand these 4D chess 900 IQ rhetorical maneuvers.
Wait wait they are guesstimating how much would Scott have had to earn from the movement via his volunteer work, and pose that Labor as a donation????? They are a joke. I'm sure they know what volunteer means, with the amount of volunteer overtime that they strongly suggest (or else) their workers to do.
Pretty sure that‘s what Money told them to do. By the way, anyone found the corespondent law? When it comes to things like that ChatGPT is worse than bing
honestly though, the game is a complete package AND it doesn’t come with a bunch of fucking microtransactions/live-service/etc. etc. Gaming is the one area where I think we would all like to see our games be made the same way they were 10-15 years ago, instead of the bullshit from today.
You should see unions soon. Gaming industry is going to force every game designer and developer under a union because of the insecurities. A union guarantees they can’t fuck with you like the crunches. Or the absolute worse is when they have to do unpaid overtime which I think is illegal.
True, I didn’t really mean it to that extreme. and yea not saying gaming industry was perfect, there was plenty to gripe about in the past. Just on average, as a whole, the industry seems worse. The one exception I think are Indie games.
Maybe raise a stink with your attorney general and/or representative, too. The whole idea that a company can sell licenses for something and then arbitrarily decide they don’t want to do it anymore and revoke all the licenses doesn’t sound legal. And if it is, it doesn’t sound like it should be.
Not in this case, seeing that progress is stored online.
Who says that the game you care about tomorrow won’t do this next? Why be against an action/not care about something that can only benefit players now and in the long term?
The Crew was great in its time. It was basically the bridge between Test Drive Unlimited (superior open world gameplay) and early Forza Horizon (superior driving physics). Later Forza Horizon games simply took all the good gameplay features from both TLU and The Crew and is unmatched in quality now.
The Crew 2 was worse than both its predecessor and the competing Forza Horizon at that time, so if you were talking about that I’d half agree. But it’s still a problematic industry trend worth stopping.
Never has it been easier for small people to attempt to knock people down to their level. It’s a shame people feel alright being so nasty to a complete stranger
NZXT Flex customers have never experienced a pre-tax subscription price increase and will never experience one unless they decide to switch subscription tiers.
I think they’re forgetting the part where GN themselves were a NZXT flex customer who experienced subscription price increases. So this statement is already proven to be false before they even said it.
The same Hasbro that tried to make a land grab for all D&D derivative content by changing their Open Game License to grant them irrevocable, perpetual rights to it. This is not a nice company as they demonstrate time and again.
So maybe it’s time the RPG community stopped thinking Hasbro are ever going to change, mourn for what D&D has become, but move onto something else.
Yeah Pathfinder 2e is good. It’s more crunchy than 5e, but that also means there are rules for most situations that come up. I like the 3 action system, much better than the old, “main action, swift action, move action, move- equivalent action” thing the old version had going on.
I have a group of friends, half in same town as me, half on the other side of the country, that get together once a week ion discord and play dnd via a self hosted foundry virtual tabletop docker. We used to play 5e but we decided to try out pathfinder 2e to see if we liked it and we haven’t gone back, pathfinder is fantastic. The flexibility with the actions makes it feel like you always get a chance to do something and you aren’t just wasting your turn when you are getting into position or whatever. Feels close enough to 5e that most of your intuition will be pretty close, just use a different website to look shit up. Highly recommend pathfinder!
What? We don’t have a plethora of other games here in the US? I’ll have to remind the owners of all those shops that those hundreds of other games they’re selling currently only exist outside of the US. How embarrassing for us…
The OGL License happened after Larian teamed up with Hasbro to make Baldur’s Gate 3. Thankfully Larian is still independent so it can continue on to make better RPGs without Hasbro.
Most of the planets are dull on purpose because my graphics card catches fire if there’s too much excitement on screen. Thanks for looking out for me, Todd!
This is absurd, considering Mike Johnson doesn’t work for a living. None of these government officials do anything worthwhile but still get paid for it.
Pays well too. The price of their morality for a lifetime of pay and free healthcare. Because let’s face it, these idiots get FEHB healthcare for life for being in congress because they made it so. They get a salary AFTER they served too, after Min 5 years, but they get 80% of their salary as part of a pension. Insane nonsense if you stay for 20 years compared to what we get.
So there is an anti-trust lawsuit against steam, but not apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft… Etc of those giant companies who literally destroy everything in their way? Please tell me they’re next?
There are anti trust lawsuits going on with most the companies you listed though? Microsoft had one in the early tech days that they won, but there’s probably going to be another one soon…
GN sticks to tech news, and I respect that that Steve sticks to his area of expertise when it comes to reporting on issues in the tech field. LTT has repeatedly shown glaring errors in their testing, and that’s what was reported on by GN.
The staff and professional issues the company faces are for an entirely different style of journalism, and I do hope someone picks up that story.
Linus has always struck me as someone who would be kinda cool to be friends with, but the worst person to be your boss. He can be arrogant, dismissive of employee ideas, and penny pinching. I’ve seen it time and time again in videos where he participates, and it’s always rubbed me the wrong way. I only hope the people who faced discrimination and burnout at LTT are in better places now and have found ways to let their obvious expertise shine.
I also hope one of these employees can summon the strength to report LMG to the relevant Canadian authorities for their blatant abuse of their employees. No matter the “opportunities” and employer offers, or the “contracts” they make employees sign, workers have rights, and their should be a reckoning when those rights are violated.
Yeah, Canada is not the country to fuck with people’s rights in. Many still do, of course, but if they actually fight back companies will usually be willing to give 5 figures once their lawyers get word of what’s happening, in hopes of avoiding the 6 or 7 figure judgement that the courts might give them.
Btw, if you want to learn about your rights, take a course meant to train HR people. It’s their job to protect the company and they need to know where the lines are to do so effectively.
Don’t wanna say I was expecting it but I was always kinda waiting for “something” to come out of ltt. A bunch of tech bros in their 30s still making penis and 69 jokes every video doesn’t seem like a good environment lmao
Yeah enough of their company culture had leaked into their videos and through some of the things Linus had said that I wasn’t really that surprised to see that thread. The power imbalance was thrown around for jokes and Linus comes off as a stingy bastard who will spend a ton of money in some places and then complain about a relatively trivial expense elsewhere. And the way he talks about it implies that he thinks everyone sees it that way.
There’s a web tool that estimates the value of your Steam account by looking at all the games you own, but it can’t tell you how precisely much you’ve actually spent on Valve’s wallet-plundering platform, microtransactions and all.
If you bought on sales or Humble Bundles then this number will be so far off its useless. If you only buy new and retail then I feel bad for you sucker.
After many years of selectively evaluating and purchasing bundles as my main source of new games, I've come to wonder if it would've been better to just buy the individual games when I wanted to play them at whatever the available price was - the rate at which I get through games is far lower than the rate at which games are available in "good" bundles. In the end I'm not even sure if I've saved money (because of how many games have been bought but are as-of-yet unplayed) and it does take more time to evaluate whether something's a good deal or not.
The upside is way more potential variety of games to pull from in my library, but if I only play at most like 1-2 dozen new games a year then I'm not sure that counts for much 🫠
A bit tangential, but I also feel a lot of people make the same mistake with GamePass. I buy a lot of gameson release day (mostly indies, but also some AAA), so theoretically I should be the target audience for GamePass, but I did the math once for a three-month period and came out at a loss if I had bought GamePass.
Based on nothing but anecdotal evidence, the type of person to get GamePass also typically enjoys a lesser variety of games on average, making the cost/benefit ratio even worse.
I guess I’m a weird one. I’ve saved so much money using Game Pass it’s not even funny. Throw in the pc version, and I’ve saved even more. I can try so many different genres I wouldn’t typically risk my money for. I have also avoided buying games I thought I would love but then ended up hating.
Yeah, I don’t think I make that many that wrong purchases, although that doesn’t mean that a lot of games I enjoy end up unfinished due to limited time. When it comes to testing games, one thing that’s neat is that demos got a huge revival in the last few years, particularly due to Steam Next Fest.
Looking at the current line-up, I’ll say that right I’d probably come to a different conclusion, seeing as Blue Prince, South of Midnight and the new DOOM are all included. Then again, I use Linux, so I wouldn’t be able to use Game Pass even if I wanted to.
I let the charity be the deciding factor. Some times I will just get a bundle and move the sliders all the way over for EFF because I would have donated to them anyways. Other times I see that the cause (relief, children, etc) is just worth doing. If I don’t play the games, at least the money was not wasted.
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