What do you guys think of physical goods that are purchased with a random chance to get the thing you want? Baseball card packs for instance? LEGO also has a line of random minifigure packs you can buy, and there are a lot of similar things for transformers, minions, marvel heroes, and other toy brands where you pay a couple bucks for a sealed pack and you get a little toy.
Not trying to defend loot boxes I'm actually just curious if there is a perceived difference when it's physical goods vs. digital.
What do you guys think of physical goods that are purchased with a random chance to get the thing you want? Baseball card packs for instance? LEGO also has a line of random minifigure packs you can buy, and there are a lot of similar things for transformers, minions, marvel heroes, and other toy brands where you pay a couple bucks for a sealed pack and you get a little toy.
Not trying to defend loot boxes I'm actually just curious if there is a perceived difference when it's physical goods vs. digital.
If you're charging real money for a consumable in-game resource or item, you've already crossed the line.
Yeah, those are bullshit too.
What about something like double XP for a week?
If you're charging real money for a consumable in-game resource or item, you've already crossed the line.
I think pay to win/pay to accelerate are horrible and shouldn't exist. Pay to win is bad for obvious reasons. And pay to accelerate shows me your game is a grind not worth playing. Otherwise, its cool for me.
When the entire industry has "crossed the line" and consumers are still more than happy to pay for that, it just means the line has moved. Or maybe there was never a line in the first place outside of your head.
I don't know - I've always heard that the level of buy-in on this stuff is low, but that it doesn't matter. You get a small percentage of whales and they're enough to cover the vast majority of players and bring in a profit, and that's talking about free to play games.When the entire industry has "crossed the line" and consumers are still more than happy to pay for that, it just means the line has moved. Or maybe there was never a line in the first place outside of your head.
I don't know - I've always heard that the level of buy-in on this stuff is low, but that it doesn't matter. You get a small percentage of whales and they're enough to cover the vast majority of players and bring in a profit, and that's talking about free to play games.
Can we really say that its the customers that allow this, broadly speaking, if its only a tiny percentage of them?
By the same logic I have no idea how you're supposed to defend the line really, since even if the vast majority of us don't buy in, these techniques still pay off.
You don't have to actively buy-in to support it. Anyone who is happy to play a game that has microtransactions, enjoys it, and tells other people about it, is contributing success to the game. Anyone who buys a full priced game with microtransactions in it is supporting the game. It shows that having microtransactions is not detrimental to sales and popularity - but rather it is the opposite, not only does it not have an impact on sales and popularity, it opens up an additional revenue opportunity since some people are willing to pay for it. It is win-win and there is almost no reason not to do it if your game can support it. That's the reality.
Am I still allowed to say I think the reality is shitty?
Because it is.
Eh, when developer like Capcom try to skimp on the budget with Marvel I, resulting in rough visual and lower character count, people crucify them despite the actual gameplay mechanics looking great...Except games don't have to cost that much to make. That's the industry's fault not mine.
Not to mention Nintendo doesn't have microtransactions in ARMS or Splatoon, yet I'm getting plenty of free content.
Overwatch sold several times more than both those games combined. They can more then afford to give out free content.
If games had to be more expensive (they don't) then I'd rather see something like Titanfall 2's cosmetic DLC, instead of a loot box or premium currency system.
Sure. Like how I think fidget spinners are dumb as fuck.
It's true.
But at least there's no arbitrary limit on how many times you can use them, so at least they have that going for them.
Don't give them ideas... lol.
I'm curious where people think the line is?
If you pay for the season pass the line is included, or you can buy just the line itself for $4.99.
Are loot boxes ever ok?
Good:
Bad:
- Cosmetic items that amount to tipping the developer for a game you love
- Meaningful content expansions for a game that already feels like a complete, full-priced offering
- Pay-to-win competitive advantages for sale
- Consumable items of any kind
- Content that felt like it was missing from the full-priced offering, like a meaningful ending
- Any form of gambling for rare items
- Constant in-your-face offers
I don't understand understand why people are so against them. If they were mandatory like many mobile games, I'd get it, but they're not. It's optional. It literally has no effect on you if you don't want it to.
I can count the number of games I've bought something in on one hand (with fingers left to spare). I don't feel like the ones who asked for money screwed me over. I don't feel like the times I've paid were the worst decision of my life. Hell I've bought physical goods which I regret far more.
No one blinks an eye when a coffee shop says "want to pay 20p extra for our Colombian coffee?" You say yes, or you say no. Then 10 mins later you've finished your coffee and you don't even think about it again. But when a game that you spend 100s of hours with says "want a cool lookin' character for £3?" People throw a fit and act like it's the fall of Rome.
Sure! So long as you dont sell them. Discovering loot in game with the potential for rare items is a very effective mechanic that plays on the same reward feedback mechanism without the predatory revenue model.
No one blinks an eye when a coffee shop says "want to pay 20p extra for our Colombian coffee?" You say yes, or you say no. Then 10 mins later you've finished your coffee and you don't even think about it again. But when a game that you spend 100s of hours with says "want a cool lookin' character for £3?" People throw a fit and act like it's the fall of Rome.
Sure! So long as you don't sell them. Discovering loot in game with the potential for rare items is a very effective mechanic that plays on the same reward feedback mechanism without the predatory revenue model.
Very true.
CorrectMMOs and loot-a-thons with randomized stats/etc. like Diablo have been doing this for decades. I don't think it's in line with the question you were asking in the OP.
Some people are incredibly delusional. Y'all expect to pay $60 for a game, when games cost more than ever to make and cost less thanks to inflation than they did 15 years ago.
Microtransactions are an amazing deal. They let people buy games for cheaper than they should cost, and allow other people to foot the bill. Those micro transaction payers are subsidising your $60 game.
Without them, you'd be paying $100+.
Microtransactions are great, as long as they're not pay-to-win or required. They allow more people to have access to more games.
This topic (stamina bars) came up in KHUX discord recently. It feels a lot like stamina are there more as a staple, a set of old shoes, whatever you want to call it, similar to crosshairs in an FPS, or 'turn based' as an idea for JRPGs, and it's what the game does with it in terms of usability to suit its target userbase that defines it.
It's more of like a precedent - when people play a new game and it's got a stamina gauge you kind of have an idea what to expect in terms of framework, i.e. limited time events, random gacha/lootcrate-based progression, etc. but by itself it's... really dated.
As an analogy, FF1-style turn based is... really outdated, but yet Bravely Default built on that to present a really engaging extension.
If you look at it another way, yes, it's 'outdated' by itself but it sets a baseline against which the extended system measures itself against. For example, KHUX has extended periods of what they call "0AP", where everything literally costs zero stamina. Sure you farm the shit out of stuff during 0AP, but you basically can have a gauge along the lines of 'well, I did 100 times of this 20AP quest which would have been 2000AP, which would have been equivalent to X number of full bars or Y number of minutes of natural regen'.
As another example, Granblue Fantasy throws AP (stamina) pots at you, with each one being 50AP, or 4h10m of natural regen. People save up and spend literally hundreds of them a day on events with loot they want, the largest perpetrator being so-called Guild Wars, especially in a close fight. In this instance, the stamina bar, while useless on its own, still serves as a gauge or yardstick as to which AP pot consumption is measured against. The game would simply fail without this AP pot system in place, because people are spending literally weeks of natural stamina regen in one sitting.
Many others, like FFRK, share currency between gacha pulls and stamina refreshes. I feel like coming into 2017, this is becoming an inferior model, as it basically punishes your userbase by forcing a decision as to whether to roll (well, literally gamble) for progression vs play more. BUT on the flipside, FFRK has, as a basic design principle, leaned towards more casual play - rewards are frontloaded to first-time completion, meaning after a certain point you can waste a lot of stamina regen and still remain reasonably cutting edge.
I think the big thing is, gacha games as a meta design philosophy have realized now that
1) trying to monetize by timewalling people into paying for more stamina doesn't work
2) stamina limits the amount people can play for extended periods of time, which then sucks for retention
the games that don't understand these two shortcomings basically lose out to games that do. Obviously there are a lot of other factors like the game design itself being engaging, progression for F2P not being insurmountable while still having a reachable carrot, 'fair' and/or transparent gacha rates that all factor into retention, but stamina really is a big factor that separates or defines what kind of userbase a gacha game develops a few months into its lifespan.
Tangential and I'm not sure how useful this is to you but gating time as an incentive to 'go faster', which essentially was the primary means of Facebook/social games, and thus grandfathered into the typical western-style mobile F2P monetization model, seems to have become less and less appealing over the years, no thanks in small part to heavy-handed hit-you-on-the-nose examples like EA's short-lived Dungeon Keeper mobile.
It worked a lot more in an era past, that's for sure. Farmville being the best example of this.
I think a lot of it has to do with context and expectation, and that gate has long closed.
The line is basically when people stop paying.
Hah, I think Japanese games have basically perfected it and you're seeing Western games catch up to find models that "justify" the gacha systems we've seen.was actually going to post your blogpost
here it is anyway
https://medium.com/cultural-panoptic...s-a866dce1649a
Hah, I think Japanese games have basically perfected it and you're seeing Western games catch up to find models that "justify" the gacha systems we've seen.
I feel it's a great read because it breaks down why people still 'put up' with it. Aside from great gameplay (which, without, they're likely to have moved on, as we both agree here, and which audiences can easily get their fix from in non-gacha frameworks what with all the great games being constantly released today) the other factors, like continuous events, community, laughing at other people's hilariously bad or good pulls, essentially are an extension of the Games as a Service model that MMOs pioneered.
In many ways, watching the story unfold and experiencing the side stories in standalone giants like Granblue is akin to watching a TV series and experiencing it for the first time alongside the rest of the community/fanbase, and I feel that's also one of the large draws that the more successful/longstanding games achieve.
I actually wanted to make a topic about the article with my own thoughts, but never had the time.
You look at it the other way, where Blizzard continues to support Overwatch for "free" without making you buy new characters or new maps.I think of Microtransactions in general more like a "tipping jar" for games I really like. Only "problem" is that most games where I would be inclined to give the devs something extra don't have microtransactions because usually only games by big publishers feature them (or F2P games obviously). And as much as I enjoy Overwatch, I don't feel any incentive to shoot some more money to those poor starving folks at Activision.
Like, I wouldn't mind some MTA in Hitman to support IO or studios like Larian or Obsidian as long as all the stuff you can buy is just cosmetic garbage. But when a game comes from a multi-billion company like Activision it just seems pathetic to me.
Was actually going to post your blogpost. Here it is anyway - it's still a great read.
https://medium.com/cultural-panopti...l-of-japanese-free-to-play-games-a866dce1649a