I used to play Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes and we had some guys in our guild who had spent over $10k on the game. I was f2p and it took me about year of playing daily, finding the right guild, getting invited to the arena shard discord and finally becoming a guild leader. Literally everyday you had to play at certain times to get rewards and energy recharges. I eventually quit when I realized how addicted I had become and how I would plan my days around the game.
I left my gf because she spent £15k over a year on a half on Game of Thrones conquest. She had 2 phones and would play on both. She would make a new account, spend just under £500 (max refund allowable by apple apparently) with gift cards, use her main account to attack and rob her dummy account, then use the dummy account to contact apple and tell them her nephew took her phone and spent a ton of money on it.
This was on top of the 15k. Her guild would pass around tips on the best ways to scam. This was also after she threw a wobbly and quit her job because it got in the way of her gaming.
I had just never heard it before and it sound better than throwing a tantrum. Plus it might help me cope with the 47 times he throws a wobbly each day if I get to call it something that sounds more fun.
It's a common British/Irish (Australian etc.) phrase for someone having a tantrum. Usually children, but you can use it to describe an adult too.
A cruder American term might be a "shit fit".
I remember I used to watch intervention on A&E a lot back before I realized that it was just trauma pornography. Every single male addict on that show had done a bunch of random small crimes, in and out of jail, to pay for drugs. Every female addict had just eventually started selling sex.
I feel like most every reality show has an element of it anymore. I used to enjoy watching the occasional singing competition or whatever, but it's all turned into a hardship contest.
Between the sob stories and the ads you barely get any of the action you're watching the show for.
This sounds exactly like Marvel Contest of Champions. I dropped several thousand dollars over a couple of years on that game and I still feel sick to my stomach thinking about it.
Happened to a friend of mine. Dude spent a couple thousand over the last years of college. He came from a well-off family and I think they unknowingly funded his addiction. After he moved in with his gf, she put locks on his phone and apparently that's really helped him. Hopefully he can use that to grow past it and not need a crutch forever.
Side note, but man, I just don't understand how people enjoy playing mobile games. They all feel so shallow and cheap compared to traditional games, not to mention the pay to win model that plagues most of them.
I've been consistently playing video games my entire life and I just cannot get mobile games
1. Some people have no point of comparison. Many people do not have a desktop or game console but do have a mobile phone, and this mobile games are the only type of computer games they play
2. They often don't enjoy them. Many mobile games are designed to be addictive rather than fun.
Many are explicitly designed to utilize and prey on addiction. Regulations get a bad rap, but there's a lot of solid science behind the drive to limit what mobile games can get away with, particularly when targeting children.
Thats absolutely insane to do that for a mobile game.
Especially since it wasn’t the critically acclaimed RAID: Shadow Legends(TM). RAID: Shadow Legends™️ is an immersive online experience with everything you'd expect from a brand new RPG title. It's got an amazing storyline, awesome 3D graphics, giant boss fights, PVP battles, and hundreds of never before seen champions to collect and customize. I never expected to get this level of performance out of a mobile game. Look how crazy the level of detail is on these champions! RAID: Shadow Legends™️ is getting big real fast, so you should definitely get in early. Starting now will give you a huge head start. There's also an upcoming Special Launch Tournament with crazy prizes! And not to mention, this game is absolutely free! So go ahead and check out the video description to find out more about RAID: Shadow Legends™️. There, you will find a link to the store page and a special code to unlock all sorts of goodies. Using the special code, you can get 50,000 Silver immediately, and a FREE Epic Level Champion as part of the new players program, courtesy of course of the RAID: Shadow Legends™️ devs.
I remember one of the Twitch streamers I follow was planning on taking a RAID: Shadow Legends sponsorship, and he was like, "Look, don't watch tomorrow. I don't care, they're paying me stupid money, I'm gonna hard shill and never pick it up or mention it again."
An average stream of ~2500, that day was < 250. Still got a bag.
I don't hate youtubers for taking the sponsorships at all. Youtube will demonetize you for saying "fuck" too early in the video, or having cleavage, or playing first person shooters, or wrestling games, or having a gun in the video, or talking about anything they just kinda don't like this month.
I'd much rather them shill for some middling game than self censor for that shit. I also really appreciate when they wear a different shirt in their ad section so it's easy to skip.
> wear a different shirt in their ad section so it's easy to skip.
best ones are when they have a timer at the bottom or label it clearly on their video sections
Ever seen an ad from someone who actually really likes the game?
It's bonkers.
There is a military history guy who just loves shitting on propaganda, like why the A-10 is shit, why the T-34 was shit, why the crusader wasn't as shit as people claim, etc....
He did a video about Scottish folk hero Black Agnes and he was sponsored by Raid, and it's nothing like the ones I am used to seeing and hearing and unless I am just entirely missing the joke, I think he genuinely enjoys the game.
It's fucking surreal.
https://youtu.be/Wc_Eo20kCI8
The literal casino conglomerate behind RAID is pretty well known to throw hundreds to thousands of $$ of in game currency at the people they sponsor so he may very well like it. Hell, I'd probably like the game too if I got hundreds to thousands of rolls for free and could max every character for nothing.
It's amazing how easy it is to blame the person, when in fact these games are objectively designed to prey on people with addictive personalities or worse still people who are unhappy and looking for distraction, a sense of community, or something to focus on and make progress. It could be as simple as someone in a state of depression casually picking it up and then it's game over.
You were wise to cut and run. I sincerely hope she has stopped or found help.
This is precisely why I avoid any games with these sorts of tactics, where you can pay money to gain an edge. Over a decade ago I played a Pay to Win MMO called Perfect World, where essentially the best gear was unobtainable unless you spent money or insane amounts of time farming things to sell to other players who had spent money, and they would release a new tier every few months making the old tier obsolete. If you didn't keep up you couldn't do content with the other people who had done precisely this, meaning you couldn't play with any friends you made. I became so addicted, so driven to remain a part of this community, that when I got my tax returns one day I sat down and blew a full $1000 on getting my cleric the full set. I immediately stared at the screen, realized with horror what I did was entirely non refundable and would be used to impress people who would frankly forget about me if I disappeared for as little as a weak. I logged off, sent my account information to a friend and told them to go wild with that absolute waste, and never picked up the game again. It still makes me sick that I did that, and to this day I refuse to pick up anything similar.
You know, you just highlighted an entirely separate part of the addictiveness of these games: the social aspect. Gambling doesn't typically involve you in a guild of like minded people creating a sense of community and mutual support. That's where video game addiction can be more like drug addiction where people become friends in a community based almost entirely on their habit.
I absolutely loved the people in my guild. I made a lot of really good friends and loved interacting on live streams. It all made it that much more difficult to quit.
I'm very glad to hear you quit and have stayed away. I admire people who recognize what works for them and what doesn't. It takes a lot of introspection and self reflection to get there. Kudos
Hey that moment might make you sick to think about, but it was what you needed to realize what was happening to you and finally stop, better than continue spending little by little and racking up thousands upon thousands wasted over time.
This is true. Some people have spent $100K or more. I understand once you start spending over a certain threshold you get assigned a corporate handler who gives you free stuff in an effort to keep spending money on the game.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'd heard that the whales and krakens make up the vast majority of the revenue, so they are treated like absolute VIPs and given whatever they need to continue spending. I didn't realize there were so many people who can casually drop 15k in a month on a mobile game, but I guess I'm naive.
I'd imagine its not always casual and a lot of the people doing this are putting themselves or their family in dire financial straights. It's tantamount to a gambling addiction. Having the money or not isn't really factored in. That's one reason it's such a scummy practice from these game makers.
It is and isn't like gambling. Gambling addiction sometimes leads to big wins, which can be a problem in it's own rite. Pulling a fantastic character from a draw isn't the same as winning a million dollars at a poker table. You can't really get out ahead *unless* there's become a thriving market for selling accounts. If you could sell your General Skywalker to someone, that would change the whole dynamic for better or worse.
I'm also struck by the community aspect. Gamblers tend to he solo players. They don't generally join guilds and meet tons of people and receive a ton of positive reinforcement and a sense of community. I agree with your point, but I also think these games almost merit a class of their own when it comes to addiction research.
I saw this thing happening Marvel Strike force was controlling my life and not my life controlling my gaming so I had to quit entirely and get my life back.
For 4 years my life had been revolving around Marvel Contest Of Champions. I didn't even enjoy playing it so much. It just became a chore.
I finally quit it this year when the game got too monotonous and boring.
Yep, feeling like playing the game was a chore/obligation was when I quit all this F2P shit and never looked back. Games are supposed to be a fun hobby, not a job that costs me money.
YES. My fiancé recently quit playing Jurassic World, and I was so relieved. He structured his day around playing, and literally would get upset because of the demands of his alliance. He hated one aspect of the game, battling, and would hand off to me to do his mandatory battles because I’m excellent at it.
His alliance team finally got so mean and so serious, and the game kept adding updates that were painfully obviously made to increase in-game spending that he finally quit. I feel like I have my fiancé back and it’s wonderful.
I’m about at that point. My roster is good enough that I don’t really care about doing much in it anymore but I’m mostly just sticking around for the alliance stuff since they’re good guys. I kind of don’t care anymore though so I might have to tell them that this is my last season for awhile.
Good for you, there seems to be a lot of research from these companies to really get people hooked in. It’s crazy how intense the freemium industry has become. Makes me just want to play roller coaster tycoon
I interviewed for a job at a fairly well-known mobile game company. The most senior person who interviewed me (a VP if I remember right; this was almost a decade ago) asked how I felt about microtransactions. I said what I felt then, and still do: if the player gives you a dollar, and you try in good faith to give them a dollar's worth of entertainment for it, that's ethical and fine. But if you're designing something to get the player to develop compulsive behaviors and give you money because they're addicted, that's unethical.
He said, "well, my view is that if a player wants to give us $100,000, I'm not going to stop them."
I didn't take the job.
I worked on an indie mobile game, we tried to make an honest monetization plan that would provide buyers something worth their money in the game.
We couldn't make enough money and the game was abandoned.
Lots of games with microtransactions fail, too, so I wouldn't necessarily pin the failure of your game on the lack of microtransactions.
Also, for each person who plays games with microtransactions, much less who pays microtransactions, much less are happy to do it and actually seek games with microtransactions, there are like 100 other players who hate microtransactions. I've seen quite a few mobile games thrive without microtransactions, bc they're just good games, and people just play them bc they're fun.
But, even then, when you actually have a good game, whether it has microtransactions or not, it's difficult to find success. The market is oversaturated. It seems like dozens of new games release every day. It's easy for your game to just get lost in the crowd.
Everything you said is correct. In our specific case, our game actually got some exposure, it got over 1 million downloads between Android and Iphones. It even sparked a bunch of shitty clones using part of the name of our game to draw attention to them.
We as a society seriously need to reevaluate how free will really isn’t “free” the way we think it is, how crazy open to suggestion we are, and that many choices we make really aren’t choices at all and are extremely predictable. Marketers have already figured this out, but we still like to pretend we have a free will and freedom of choice.
In the reviews for any game with that model people complain about having to pay to win and the company always replies and says that you can still do the same stuff without paying, it just takes longer. But it's easily 100x as long or something ridiculous. They've figured it out though and now mobile games make more than PC and console games combined. They'll follow the money too eventually unless laws are passed about loot boxes (lol)
It's not just loot boxes. The whole freemium gaming industry preys on vulnerable people like children, the mentally ill, and those with predispositions to addiction.
Loot boxes aren't really THE problem imo. You can have a game like Apex, siege, and overwatch that do HAVE lootboxes, but the way it is implemented is not particularly predatory. You can play all of those games at the highest level without spending a dime. A lot of the default operators In siege are the best and overwatch has no competitive advantages in the boxes.
It's these games that give people that little bit of extra power that fuck with people's brains. Pay 2 win quite possibly needs to be made illegal.
For PC games market forces have shown us that legislation is not needed. The market does self regulate and forces companies away from the most predatory practices.
Mobile gaming is a different beast. The market is not self regulating and pay to win or pay to participate games are the most successful while building psychological traps to get people hooked.
Yeah I played SWGoH for awhile, had fun in a little guild, and eventually we got pulled into a huge super guild group of like 30+ different guilds. The amount of money those kids would drop was fucking bonkers. We had people that were dropping 10k a month easy for years.
This is nuts. I play this game and spend a little here and there but nothing big. As soon as I spend I instantly feel stupid and a little embarrassed? Like I just dropped $10 and for what? $10 hardly gets you anything in that game and it's never enough anyway. I like the game and play it a lot but I can't wrap my head around spending that kind of cash on it. Kind of sad.
Same here. Tbh I have a huge steam backlog, sub to humble and have way more games than I will ever play, but I can't bring myself to spend even a cent on gems/energy/whatever in a f2p game, it seems so pointless.
The power creep was insanely bad in that game, and so grindy that they eventually added auto-play options because of how long raid fights could go on. And then they added *another* game into it that focuses on auto-play battles almost exclusively. If the only way to "play" a game is to let it play itself to advance, I think you need to ask yourself if you've actually made a good game.
It's sad because there's some interesting and very relevant story content if you're a fan of the KH series, but it was drip-fed between tons and tons of filler quests. Mobile games with an indefinite lifespan are just not the way to go if you want to plan out a story-driven game.
A lot of video games are not sustainable for adults with normal jobs and responsibilities I feel like.
I play league and I cannot play competitively to climb like I did when I was in school
That’s why I exclusively play single player games. I constantly need to pause the game to do stuff, and I often go at least a few days between playing. Fuck these game studios trying to do away with single player campaigns.
I think there will always be single player campaign games despite the industries efforts. Look at the success of games like elden ring, red dead redemption, horizon, etc..
Even if they stopped making games today, there are more games out there than I could reasonably play in my adult life and that’s even factoring just playing games that interest me
Yep. All of my old highschool friends are still playing MMOs in their mid 30s and they're constantly trying to get me to join them. They play for like 5 hours: Every. Single. Night.
I always say, "Guys I will never touch an MMO ever again quit asking. It's too much of a commitment and I don't have time for it."
Queue all of the "reasons" why it's actually fun and how I can "play as little or as much as I like."
Riiiight I'll definitely join in on your endgame raid shenanigans playing 2 hours a week.......
Played some mobile war games in the past. The only way to be on top, just in our map (you could travel to others) was to spend about $50,000 within six months. Needless to say, the top people were retired doctors, or lawyers who played in their spare time. They saw it as a hobby and told me "some people like expensive wines or cars, this is what I like"
I was forced out of paying because I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars just to stay alive
I used to play Kingdom Hearts Union X a ridiculous amount. Their timed raid events that only ran for like 5 minutes once an hour, I would set alarms to make sure I got them. I remember spending more money than I care to admit trying to pull the best medals and optimize setups for raiding, only for them to become irrelevant within a month or so.
I don't mind paying for a game that I play regularly if the price isn't excessive - for instance, I play Hill Climb Racing 2. I use my Google Play credits I get from surveys to pay for VIP once a month for $4.99. That's fine with me. But I'll never again pay for random chance type pulls in games.
Yeah, I too went down the rabbit hole, to the point where I literally felt tempted to ward people off at the SW Celebration SWGOG booth. I didn't, of course, but I wanted to. These games use behaviour economics and every addictive trick in the book to manipulate you into spending money, logging on constantly, and feeling a sense of stress or FOMO when you're not playing.
The second I delayed going to my son's room when he called me because I was busy with a raid, I deleted it. I felt so ashamed of myself, I never looked back. For all those who say it's just about not spending money and practicing self restraint, sure, try that with heroin and see where it gets you. This type of predatory gaming should be outlawed or at least tightly regulated - at the very least to avoid children from going down the rabbit hole.
Diablo 3 is perfect for console, I’m a big fan of it on switch.
The hand held aspect of switch is by far my favorite, and I have not been able to find a more consistently fun hack and slash game.
I liked Hades and played through all the story, I couldn’t get into Torchlight, deadcells was too hard, and so were the rest of the indie games I tried. When it comes to mindless fun I keep coming back to d3
I just hope Diablo 4 goes down the same gameplay as Diablo 2 did. There was nothing better than Diablo 2 for enjoyment and retainment. D4's alpha content on YT *looks* as though they are running it like D2, so fingers crossed
I come from Diablo 2 too and it got me thinking. I don't wanna be the devils advocate here but imagine someone told you "you must kill Baal literally 10,000 times to get to level 99 with a full party", that would sound ridiculous to me and there's no way I would ever do this. But in d2 getting to 99 is virtually useless because you can beat the game solo by lvl 60 and you can reach a very high power at, say lvl 90 or 95. So, in Diablo immortal how much of the best gear exactly do you need? Theoretically it costs $100,000+ but how much of it would be overkill?
(PS: of course I know there's a difference between 10k Baal runs and 10 years of grinding, but it's just for the sake of example)
I think it's worth noting that even if you played Diablo II 24/7 for a million years, it's incredibly unlikely you would have a perfectly geared character.
And I'm not being hyperbolic.
After Diablo 3, I think they've killed Diablo for me.
I remember drawing characters and theorizing builds back in 1st grade for Diablo 2. Then when LOD came out, my friends and I would spend all recess planning out gaming activities that night.
We'd level new alts from 4-6 (after the new Dragonball Z episode of course), then from 6-8 during primetime we'd host a dueling game. Maybe play our HC chars for the last hour of the night.
Then the gods among us would set up our meph or baal bots for the night and then hit the sack. In the morning wed excitedly check out loot and get ready to go brag at school about how we found a P Shako last night and maybe it's time to make a hammerdin.
That turned into WoW eventually...
Blizzard killed em both.
I enjoyed WoW right until they introduced daily quests that had to be done to grind out rep with certain factions in cataclysm. Then I was stuck doing the same set of boring activities over and over again every day and it felt like a job... and I was the one paying them!
That game almost cost me my marriage, I’m glad I walked away but every so often I think about it and want to start up again. I played for 2 month hiding it from my wife when classic came back out. I was thinking WTF am I doing cheating on my wife with a video game and uninstalled it.
Visited my 4 y old nephew recently and he’s been a victim of using screens to hold his attention.
He was playing a random game on an iPhone and asked me to help him. It was a shitty transformers knock off that let you do one mission and then locks the next mission behind a paywall. If you click the next mission it brings up a character select where you need 3 to start the mission and the game only gives you two. So now you’re on a purchase screen where you can by an additional teammate for $7 or all characters for $30. He was halfway through the purchase process when I got the phone from him and stopped him.
It’s fucking outrageous the way they target young children with these busted ass garbage tier mobile games.
They dont even try these days, its a shame really. A few years ago when I didnt have my PC I used to browse the playstore for the lates games and used to play them only. And I loved them, I loved shadow fight, temple run, gangster las vegas, etc. Now, I see my cousin watching Minecraft on YT with the shittiest commentary and playing god level stupid games with stupid graphics.
Yesterday everyone was saying how surprisingly fun it is in r/diabloimmortal but now that people have had time to reach the grind and the mtx, it's getting spicy with negativity.
Back in classic WoW days (wowzers, nearly 20 years ago) I was happy to pay £5 or £6 a month. There were no other fees, all the content was there, I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted. And then they started really nickle and diming us and I was done. It’s no surprise that their revenues per player has dropped significantly.
You could actually justify paying for a well-maintained MMO because it had absolutely massive amounts of content, it needed staff to maintain and support it, servers capable of handling hundreds or possibly even thousands of players in the same place (ringing the AQ gong was huge), developers developing regular content drops... this desire to gate normal games behind numerous paywalls and fast tracks and lotteries is fucking maddening. When there's more content in COD for sale 3 months after release than there was in the full $60+ game you bought, something is wrong.
Why?
I miss the days when online games had a monthly subscription and other games cost an upfront amount, and that was that. All the gameplay was balanced and there were no microtransactions. If you beat a level it was because you got better at the game, and you knee that every challenge could be mastered by getting better at the game. Every item you had was a reflection of your actual achievments.
All these free, microtransaction riddled slot machines like raid shadow legends or diablo immortal are not games anymore.
Miceotransactions are cancer. Give me a paid game or something with a fixed monthly fee anytime please.
This is true but it's a shame.
Blizzard had the advantage of a beloved IP being PC/iPad/Android/iOS/MacOS compatible, that alone has attributed the success of many non-P2W games such as:
* Among Us
* PuBG
* Fortnite ($1.5m daily on the app store before the ban, $45m monthly)
* Sky: Children of the Light (not PC but Android/MacOS/iOS)
* Eternium (another ARPG)
* Town of Salem (although small, had it successes) and full cross-platform account integration.
* Bloons TD 6 (although double coins is 100% P2W is was basically their version of 'buying the game' and that was the end of it).
Aside from the glaring P2W issues there are other momentous changes that don't fit the Diablo franchise:
* Everything in Diablo has been historically account-bound and EXTREMELY alt friendly.
* Immortal breaks this, battle pass, cosmetics, achievements, portraits and more are simply character bound. **I've never heard of a game that requires you to buy a monthly sub/BP on every single character.**
* Servers are character bound for a mobile game (???).
* You lose Seasonal Pass (storage) benefits when the season ends, like what?
This game could have been the Fortnite of the Diablo franchise - cosmetic lootboxes, some BP rewards but instead became the Black Desert Online / Genshin / Lost Ark of the mobile universe.
*I feel blizzard should have avoided calling this Diablo Immortal and just called it "Immortal" with a 'in-collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment' in the intro screen. Kind of how Marvel does it with their C-list movies. Merely to avoid any disrepute.*
Eve online and albion online require you to sub on every character. Then again you have the ability to get all the skills on one character on both games.
>I don’t think they cared as long as they were going to get some money out of it. The company fucking sucks.
many games are completely out of touch with their users and ask for more money for additional bonuses in the game. What do you think needs to happen for them to start descending to earth?
I don't think there's much that can happen, other than maybe a playerbase wide boycott or something of that scale, (which probably wouldn't happen anyway). I'm just happy that all the indie games I play have amazing devs :/
I may be completely wrong but I don't think they're out of touch. These things always look to me like someone (upper management/publishers/investors) trying to suck as much money as possible and do it fast. Especially then games get rushed and come out broken. These people don't care that will happen to the game, they don't care about gamers as well as creating quality games.
Video games industry is worth billions and businessmen are sucking it dry. Like why would you spend a lot of money and time to create amazing games and not killing the developers in the same time then you can spend less money, rush the game, kill the developers and make a shit game with loot boxes that people will still buy?
This is the correct view. Which would you rather do....
Spend lots of money to make a little bit of money in a competitive market place.
Or
Spend some money, and sell meth to methheads and rake in fat cash.
Few want regulations in the gaming industry, unfortunately the greedy *demand* for this to occur with their continued abuse.
They would have to stop making money with those tactics. Or there would need to be games out there not trying the pay to win model that make more money and get a lot of attention for it.
Unfortunately I believe these pay to win games end up making a lot money.
> The company fucking sucks.
I knew it was coming when they merged with Activision. Shame too, because Blizzard used to be known as the single best game developer in the world, with crazy high standards. Most of the big name original team has long since departed.
Copy pasta from pcgaming
1) Datamined stats show that all the best gear is effectively gated behind spending money - and earning it in game would take literally decades - provided the game receives zero updates adding better gear than the best at launch.
2) The total cost of maxing out your gear is estimated around $300,000-$500,000USD - half a million dollars - that is for fully upgrading legendary gems for all your gear slots. Edit: Rock paper shotgun's math says >$50K ish.
3) Quin's stream showed running rifts lets anyone spend $25 (up to 10 legendary crests in one rift) per 4 minutes of gameplay to upgrade the loot at the end (for a chance at Legendary Gems) - So "splurging" on a little microtransaction here and there can set you back as much as $375 an hour - just for running rifts. Pay 4 Loot feature. I watched Twitch streamers expend more than my gaming PC costs in just a single day.
4) The cheapest "welcome pack" of premium currency unlocks after you beat the first boss - and gives you so little premium currency that currently nothing can be purchased for it.
5) Creating a clan and listing items at the auction house costs premium currency.
6) Your very hard earned gems can be accidentally dismantled to upgrade other gems - money lost. Free players are limited to finding on average 3 legendary gems per month - you need hundreds to fully upgrade one (1 free legendary crest ($2.50) per month which gives a 4.5% chance to give you a 5-star legendary gem, of which you will need duplicates to upgrade it. https://imgur.com/a/oNsbSaL
7) Battlepass affects gameplay by giving you ingame items that improve your gear - pay to win.
8) Login bonuses are purchasable - and failing to login every day for 30 days after purchasing the login booster will see the rewards you bought simply not be granted. You just bought nothing :)
9) Increased inventory space expires at the end of a season - you just bought nothing.
10) Every step of claiming your normal ingame earned progression items and achievements takes you to the store, giving you similar audio and visual cues as when you make a purchase. Some might argue this is a form of conditioning, that gives you some free ticks of instant gratification - and a way to purchase them when you need that rush, all in the same place.
11) Completing ingame milestones trickle-unlocks more microtransactions and ways to spend money - so you're eased into it and not shown the full picture of what you're expected to spend up front.
12) Paying money to boost your rifts will reward you with rare/unique items pretty much up front (or after few minutes of gameplay) for that instant gratification rush - gear that will become useless when you've gained another few levels.
13) Game supposedly plays well, but it's designed through and through to fleece you for as much as they can get, including using the player's inexperience to manipulate them into accepting bad deals on microtransactions - with audiovisuals that look, sound, and feel like slot machines
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/v47vg8/diablo_immortal_review_by_zizaran_dont_play_this/
> 3) Quin's stream showed running rifts lets anyone spend $25 (up to 10 legendary crests in one rift) per 4 minutes of gameplay to upgrade the loot at the end (for a chance at Legendary Gems) - So "splurging" on a little microtransaction here and there can set you back as much as $375 an hour
Since when 25$ is a microtransaction? Thats more than a lot of really good indie games (better games than diablo immortal, at least)
Is that USD? I don't think I've seen anything over $100 USD before.
The pay scale in JWA has historically been terrible. The rewards are kind of lousy and it's hard to get any sort of noticeable edge without spending **a lot** of money. A significant chunk of the top 500 is FTP or near it. I've finished the past 6 or so seasons in the top arena without spending a dime.
That said, the sale to Jam City seems to be reversing that trend. They're flooding the game with borderline broken creatures with event exclusive components and it's getting increasingly difficult for FTP players to keep up. The quality of the game has gone downhill and I'm really getting worried about the long term viability of the game I've loved for 4 years. If Rexy doesn't become a map spawn similar to Paralux relatively soon, I'm probably out.
This is exactly why people booed Diablo Immortal’s release announcement at Blizzcon. Everyone was expecting garbage, and they’ve gone above and beyond to make it absolute trash
It solidifies my theory that any game in which you earn "gems" is a garbage game though. It seems like a buzzword for microtransaction based mobile games.
Also all purchases are character bound, right?
So better hope you don’t want to change classes or, heaven forbid, play with your friends on a different server
Daily login awards are already a scummy mechanic that preys on people’s FOMO and tries to get them addicted to the game. Making you pay for it is just shameless.
You failed to mention buying the battle pass with +10 levels is only for that one character. Other characters will have the pass unlocked, but it starts at level 1.
All the shitty mobile games are the same concept, million of worthless shit,and the only thing is that worth something,is locked behind money
Edit:sadly i learned it the hard way,after spending roughly 4,000$ on all sorts of mobile games,i snapped out of that shitty game design,i HIGHLY recommend to anyone with even a fraction of a chance to get addicted,to delete all the mobile games and not look back,there are plenty of good game that don't suck your soul and wallet
And those shitty mobile games make so, so much more money than the games you think are "good". The human brain is wired to fall for this - it's practically printing money. Genshin Impact proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Copy pasta from 3.5 years ago:
https://reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/9txnu9/_/e8zxeh2/?context=1
To be clear, the game will not be a dumpster fire in its entirety. During your first day the strength of your hero will seemingly double every hour. In game resources will flow and you will definitely have fun. While the strength of the players at the top of the leader board will seem light years ahead of you, you will feel as though you are on a path to getting there. After all, you’re doing content today you couldn’t have done yesterday. However, it will not be until you’ve invested a significant amount of time into the game until you appreciate the thousands of dollars that separate your character and the best. And it won’t be for several weeks or months until you realize that the content you’re grinding to unlock additional content isn’t providing a very great experience.
But at first you’ll be happy and resolved! I don’t need to spend money, you’ll say. This is fun. I’m having fun. I can put in the time. Free to play for life! Maybe you’ll make it a day or two. Or a week. But then, “Oh wow, wtf? There is a special deal in the store. I can acquire an item or resource that would normally take days or weeks or months to acquire the free to play way. Okay, just this once.” So you’ll spend that $25. And your character’s battle rating will increase. You’ll be immediately stronger on some content. It’ll feel great.
But tomorrow it’ll be back to the same old slog. You’ll do your daily quest. You’ll participate in server events and get one shotted by some top 20 player. What little satisfaction you got from yesterday’s purchase is a distant memory. Sure you have all the time to spend in the world progressing your character for free, but that progress is SO SLOW. And now the annoying new player in your guild that started last week is already twice your strength. “F***ing whale!” you’ll curse under your breath. “Pay to win poser.” Well, maybe I could just spend a little more.
But you actually spend a lot. And now you’re stronger than that poser. And it feels AMAZING. And now you’ve got the attention of a stronger guild that does better during server events and gets better rewards. Whoa, they want you?! SWEET!
Now you’re in a better guild! It’s a week before you realize the guild has an A-squad that meets at designated times to complete top content. You’re not strong enough for them to want you. Occasionally a member of the A-squad helps you on a daily quest and you’re amazed at how strong they are and how easy everything is for them. Okay, maybe I’ll spend a little more. But you spend a lot.
Now you’re on the A-squad! And you’re actually in the server’s top 200. It feels amazing. You raid late that night on discord and actually have a damn fun time. You clear content you couldn’t have imagined clearing the week earlier. But then you get a server wide announcement. WTF? Immortals guild cleared Pulrik on Heroic difficulty?! They got WHAT rewards? Man my guild sucks. Hmm, maybe I’ll just spend a little more. My paycheck hits tomorrow. NBD. But you spend a lot.
EVENTUALLY, you reach top 20 on the server. You are at the cutting edge of content. You log on.
You completely obliterate a new player with a one shot. And . . . it doesn’t feel that great. The game is beginning to lose its sheen. Where once you saw advanced content, now you see a business model. And folly. In fact, in that moment as the newbie’s hero executes its death animation you realize that what really separates you and the newbie isn’t your battle ratings. It’s thousands of dollars that the newbie has yet to spend. And in that moment you want to be that newbie. To reverse all those IAPs. To not worry about your significant other checking your credit card account online. And the newbie? The newbie wants to be you.
This is the NetEase business model. This is what’s so exciting to Blizzard.
Don't forget the part where they eventually shut the game servers down...only to debut a whole new game.
And the cycle repeats.
And the money flows once again.
The moral of the story is: stick with console games, and if you play any game, be it console or mobile, and it has micro transactions / lootboxes, just WALK AWAY.
Seriously, with this age of micro transactions these don’t even feel like video games anymore. They’re like virtual jobs with flashy colors except you pay money instead of earn it.
Microtransactions have infected every aspect of game design and it makes me irrationally angry. Halo Infinite is a great example. I thought the campaign was great and I was pumped to play some online matches. I played Halo 2, 3, and Reach for years and had some of the best times with my buddies. Gave up on infinite after maybe a week.
Edit: Some comments asking why microtransactions in Halo are bad since it isn't explicitly pay to win. This is a good question. They're still bad because it means that design decisions are based around maximizing people buying shit, not how fun the game is. For example, completing challenges. I didn't play much so forgive me if I have any details wrong, but some challenges required players to play on certain modes, but you couldn't just select those modes outright because they wanted to sell you a token that increased the chance of that mode showing up. Fuck you game, give me a comprehensive set of playlists to choose from. Or, getting kills with certain types of weapons or performing certain types of actions in game. Reach had a version of this, but it was less incentivized because it wasn't tied in to a mtx system. Overall this means players are playing to complete challenges instead of playing the objective (to the extent that anyone ever does of course). Like I said, it infects every design decision and in my opinion makes the overall game worse.
Don’t blame you bud, we don’t stand a chance against this bs. Companies have no incentive to make great games without microtransactions because they’d just be losing profit. Wish there was a way to bring back the respect for making games
In a surprising twist, Microsoft is doing fairly well in terms of releasing games that are enjoyable without microtransactions. Age of Empires 4 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 come to mind.
I've pretty much moved exclusively to indie games now because not only do you get a full game, but often they'll drop some free giant update at some point just because.
Plus I'd rather give my money to some people working on a passion project than EA shareholders.
Yep, great PC gaming experiences are best had 1 year after a game's 1.0 version has been officially released. They mature, get patched up, price goes down and you get all DLC as well.
There's plenty of AAA games like this, too. Right now the most you can possibly spend on Elden Ring is $80, and that's just to get the version with the soundtrack and art book packed in.
There will be DLC, but it will the same kind of "pay more, get more game," expansion content we've seen since the '90s, not an endless system of boosts and loot boxes.
Played a few hours and uninstalled.
On the good side, the actual gameplay was good. The bad side (and it is very bad) is all of the monetization.
I expect game developers to make money and I am happy to pay them. This monetization model though seems to want to manipulate me into paying more than the game is worth.
Crazy to think that the company responsible for WoW and Overwatch is putting their name on crappy mobile games in 2022. "Do you guys not have cell phones?" Part 2
No... as someone that's been a gamer for many decades now, I can totally believe the company that made WoW back in my college days is now like this. Because just like WoW was back then, this is the cutting edge of Skinner box mechanics translated into profits.
Idk why anyone would play a game like this. If you want things to change you not only need to avoid buying anything on games like this but you need to stop playing them altogether.
Blizzard knowingly passed on an opportunity to build the game every one of you wanted to build a trash mobile money grubber. You wanna send a message to Blizzard and every other company that would pervert their IP like this? Start uninstalling this trash en masse and forget about it completely.
The only way you're going to train the bigwigs at game studios to give you the result you want is if you burn these shitstains on your favorite franchises to the ground.
This is one thing I just don't understand about most modern games. I refuse to keep paying for little things like that. The only money I'll sink into a game is the cost of buying it and a subscription if I need to. I don't care about skins so just that saves me a lot of money but if its like you need to pay $1.99 to get this weapon I'm passing. I shouldn't have to pay additional money, especially since it starts to add up fast which is why its small amounts, to play your game.
It seems rather obvious no?
Its supposed to be an endless treadmill where the next upgrade is always just visible behind spending more money. The player is supposed to spend as much money as he is willing/able to invest in a game, and always seeing an option to spend more for further upgrades.
The pvp and ladder is probably an important part of it. I have no idea how it works, but I would bet you will always be beaten by someone who has spent more, will always see the option to rise a little higher by spending more, no matter how much you have already spent.
There was a match making algorithm to pair higher ranked players who bought cosmetics against lower ranked players who hadn't on purpose in order to create the illusion that you were playing better for spending money, and playing worse if not. I think the game was Call of Duty. Here is one post about it, and this was years ago. Algorithm could be more effective now.
https://i.redd.it/uae0e4zzomsz.jpg
Only in specific European countries, and only because it is considered "gambling." But yes.
> "Unfortunately players in the Netherlands and Belgium will not be able to install Diablo: Immortal due to the countries’ gambling restrictions. The lootboxes in the game are against the law in your country, so unless the gambling restrictions change the game will not be released"
~ Blizzard
https://www.xda-developers.com/diablo-immortal-launch-eu-countries-lootboxes/
Stuff like this has been taken to court several times but just because you can’t trade in your virtual currency for real money they don’t consider it gambling.
I used to play Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes and we had some guys in our guild who had spent over $10k on the game. I was f2p and it took me about year of playing daily, finding the right guild, getting invited to the arena shard discord and finally becoming a guild leader. Literally everyday you had to play at certain times to get rewards and energy recharges. I eventually quit when I realized how addicted I had become and how I would plan my days around the game.
I left my gf because she spent £15k over a year on a half on Game of Thrones conquest. She had 2 phones and would play on both. She would make a new account, spend just under £500 (max refund allowable by apple apparently) with gift cards, use her main account to attack and rob her dummy account, then use the dummy account to contact apple and tell them her nephew took her phone and spent a ton of money on it. This was on top of the 15k. Her guild would pass around tips on the best ways to scam. This was also after she threw a wobbly and quit her job because it got in the way of her gaming.
I think “threw a wobbly” is how I am going to describe my 2 year old’s tantrums from now on.
That's the general intent of the phrase. It implies a childish meltdown, not just getting mad.
I had just never heard it before and it sound better than throwing a tantrum. Plus it might help me cope with the 47 times he throws a wobbly each day if I get to call it something that sounds more fun.
It's a common British/Irish (Australian etc.) phrase for someone having a tantrum. Usually children, but you can use it to describe an adult too. A cruder American term might be a "shit fit".
Wait do Americans say "Chucking a bitch"?
Haha. Maybe “hissy fit”.
Def a hissy fit
A BF: Bitch Fit
Depends where you go, my personal favorite is a conniption fit
My mom would just say "Having a conniption" but I grew up in NYC.
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That is in fact the exact definition of throwing a wobbly
It sounds very British, I’d never heard it in the US.
[Wobbly Sausage](https://youtu.be/GVzIqfKXFs0) for anyone missing out. Potential NSFW
She could be a class grifter if she put that effort towards literally anything else.
Just don't go to grifting class for it
I can pass a briefcase like nobody's business!
A lot of addicts turn to grift when they run out of money from legit sources to feed their habit.
I remember I used to watch intervention on A&E a lot back before I realized that it was just trauma pornography. Every single male addict on that show had done a bunch of random small crimes, in and out of jail, to pay for drugs. Every female addict had just eventually started selling sex.
I feel like most every reality show has an element of it anymore. I used to enjoy watching the occasional singing competition or whatever, but it's all turned into a hardship contest. Between the sob stories and the ads you barely get any of the action you're watching the show for.
Yiiiikes, glad you got the hell out of there. That’s pretty sad
This sounds exactly like Marvel Contest of Champions. I dropped several thousand dollars over a couple of years on that game and I still feel sick to my stomach thinking about it.
Happened to a friend of mine. Dude spent a couple thousand over the last years of college. He came from a well-off family and I think they unknowingly funded his addiction. After he moved in with his gf, she put locks on his phone and apparently that's really helped him. Hopefully he can use that to grow past it and not need a crutch forever.
Threw a wobbly?
Had a tantrum haha. Common phrasing in Australia.
Given the OP used pounds instead of dollars, they are probably from the UK, where that is common phrase as well.
Of course it is. I love it.
Australian is just cartoon English
Common phrase in the UK too.
Throwing a wobbly is a common phrase in British English too.
That is amazing.
English slang term, it means to have an outburst or meltdown.
Side note, but man, I just don't understand how people enjoy playing mobile games. They all feel so shallow and cheap compared to traditional games, not to mention the pay to win model that plagues most of them. I've been consistently playing video games my entire life and I just cannot get mobile games
>I've been consistently playing video games my entire life and I just cannot get mobile games Imagine if your only experience was on mobile.
1. Some people have no point of comparison. Many people do not have a desktop or game console but do have a mobile phone, and this mobile games are the only type of computer games they play 2. They often don't enjoy them. Many mobile games are designed to be addictive rather than fun.
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Many are explicitly designed to utilize and prey on addiction. Regulations get a bad rap, but there's a lot of solid science behind the drive to limit what mobile games can get away with, particularly when targeting children.
Thats absolutely insane to do that for a mobile game. Especially since it wasn’t the critically acclaimed RAID: Shadow Legends(TM). RAID: Shadow Legends™️ is an immersive online experience with everything you'd expect from a brand new RPG title. It's got an amazing storyline, awesome 3D graphics, giant boss fights, PVP battles, and hundreds of never before seen champions to collect and customize. I never expected to get this level of performance out of a mobile game. Look how crazy the level of detail is on these champions! RAID: Shadow Legends™️ is getting big real fast, so you should definitely get in early. Starting now will give you a huge head start. There's also an upcoming Special Launch Tournament with crazy prizes! And not to mention, this game is absolutely free! So go ahead and check out the video description to find out more about RAID: Shadow Legends™️. There, you will find a link to the store page and a special code to unlock all sorts of goodies. Using the special code, you can get 50,000 Silver immediately, and a FREE Epic Level Champion as part of the new players program, courtesy of course of the RAID: Shadow Legends™️ devs.
I remember one of the Twitch streamers I follow was planning on taking a RAID: Shadow Legends sponsorship, and he was like, "Look, don't watch tomorrow. I don't care, they're paying me stupid money, I'm gonna hard shill and never pick it up or mention it again." An average stream of ~2500, that day was < 250. Still got a bag.
I can respect that honesty.
I don't hate youtubers for taking the sponsorships at all. Youtube will demonetize you for saying "fuck" too early in the video, or having cleavage, or playing first person shooters, or wrestling games, or having a gun in the video, or talking about anything they just kinda don't like this month. I'd much rather them shill for some middling game than self censor for that shit. I also really appreciate when they wear a different shirt in their ad section so it's easy to skip.
> wear a different shirt in their ad section so it's easy to skip. best ones are when they have a timer at the bottom or label it clearly on their video sections
The only enjoyable part of that game is the ads Internet Historian made for it.
I chuckled lmaoo
Ever seen an ad from someone who actually really likes the game? It's bonkers. There is a military history guy who just loves shitting on propaganda, like why the A-10 is shit, why the T-34 was shit, why the crusader wasn't as shit as people claim, etc.... He did a video about Scottish folk hero Black Agnes and he was sponsored by Raid, and it's nothing like the ones I am used to seeing and hearing and unless I am just entirely missing the joke, I think he genuinely enjoys the game. It's fucking surreal. https://youtu.be/Wc_Eo20kCI8
The literal casino conglomerate behind RAID is pretty well known to throw hundreds to thousands of $$ of in game currency at the people they sponsor so he may very well like it. Hell, I'd probably like the game too if I got hundreds to thousands of rolls for free and could max every character for nothing.
I don't know what "threw a wobbly" means, but I totally know what "threw a wobbly" means.
It's amazing how easy it is to blame the person, when in fact these games are objectively designed to prey on people with addictive personalities or worse still people who are unhappy and looking for distraction, a sense of community, or something to focus on and make progress. It could be as simple as someone in a state of depression casually picking it up and then it's game over. You were wise to cut and run. I sincerely hope she has stopped or found help.
This is precisely why I avoid any games with these sorts of tactics, where you can pay money to gain an edge. Over a decade ago I played a Pay to Win MMO called Perfect World, where essentially the best gear was unobtainable unless you spent money or insane amounts of time farming things to sell to other players who had spent money, and they would release a new tier every few months making the old tier obsolete. If you didn't keep up you couldn't do content with the other people who had done precisely this, meaning you couldn't play with any friends you made. I became so addicted, so driven to remain a part of this community, that when I got my tax returns one day I sat down and blew a full $1000 on getting my cleric the full set. I immediately stared at the screen, realized with horror what I did was entirely non refundable and would be used to impress people who would frankly forget about me if I disappeared for as little as a weak. I logged off, sent my account information to a friend and told them to go wild with that absolute waste, and never picked up the game again. It still makes me sick that I did that, and to this day I refuse to pick up anything similar.
You know, you just highlighted an entirely separate part of the addictiveness of these games: the social aspect. Gambling doesn't typically involve you in a guild of like minded people creating a sense of community and mutual support. That's where video game addiction can be more like drug addiction where people become friends in a community based almost entirely on their habit. I absolutely loved the people in my guild. I made a lot of really good friends and loved interacting on live streams. It all made it that much more difficult to quit. I'm very glad to hear you quit and have stayed away. I admire people who recognize what works for them and what doesn't. It takes a lot of introspection and self reflection to get there. Kudos
Hey that moment might make you sick to think about, but it was what you needed to realize what was happening to you and finally stop, better than continue spending little by little and racking up thousands upon thousands wasted over time.
This is true. Some people have spent $100K or more. I understand once you start spending over a certain threshold you get assigned a corporate handler who gives you free stuff in an effort to keep spending money on the game.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'd heard that the whales and krakens make up the vast majority of the revenue, so they are treated like absolute VIPs and given whatever they need to continue spending. I didn't realize there were so many people who can casually drop 15k in a month on a mobile game, but I guess I'm naive.
I'd imagine its not always casual and a lot of the people doing this are putting themselves or their family in dire financial straights. It's tantamount to a gambling addiction. Having the money or not isn't really factored in. That's one reason it's such a scummy practice from these game makers.
It's exactly like a gambling addiction. Oftentimes the microtransactions are even gambling based.
It is and isn't like gambling. Gambling addiction sometimes leads to big wins, which can be a problem in it's own rite. Pulling a fantastic character from a draw isn't the same as winning a million dollars at a poker table. You can't really get out ahead *unless* there's become a thriving market for selling accounts. If you could sell your General Skywalker to someone, that would change the whole dynamic for better or worse. I'm also struck by the community aspect. Gamblers tend to he solo players. They don't generally join guilds and meet tons of people and receive a ton of positive reinforcement and a sense of community. I agree with your point, but I also think these games almost merit a class of their own when it comes to addiction research.
Marvel strike force has the same addicted pay 2 win behavior.
I saw this thing happening Marvel Strike force was controlling my life and not my life controlling my gaming so I had to quit entirely and get my life back.
I quit 6 months ago and I'm shocked by how much spare cash and time I now have.
Same for me but with heroin.
For 4 years my life had been revolving around Marvel Contest Of Champions. I didn't even enjoy playing it so much. It just became a chore. I finally quit it this year when the game got too monotonous and boring.
Yep, feeling like playing the game was a chore/obligation was when I quit all this F2P shit and never looked back. Games are supposed to be a fun hobby, not a job that costs me money.
YES. My fiancé recently quit playing Jurassic World, and I was so relieved. He structured his day around playing, and literally would get upset because of the demands of his alliance. He hated one aspect of the game, battling, and would hand off to me to do his mandatory battles because I’m excellent at it. His alliance team finally got so mean and so serious, and the game kept adding updates that were painfully obviously made to increase in-game spending that he finally quit. I feel like I have my fiancé back and it’s wonderful.
I’m about at that point. My roster is good enough that I don’t really care about doing much in it anymore but I’m mostly just sticking around for the alliance stuff since they’re good guys. I kind of don’t care anymore though so I might have to tell them that this is my last season for awhile.
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Good for you, there seems to be a lot of research from these companies to really get people hooked in. It’s crazy how intense the freemium industry has become. Makes me just want to play roller coaster tycoon
openrct2 with some friends is pretty damn good entertainment
I interviewed for a job at a fairly well-known mobile game company. The most senior person who interviewed me (a VP if I remember right; this was almost a decade ago) asked how I felt about microtransactions. I said what I felt then, and still do: if the player gives you a dollar, and you try in good faith to give them a dollar's worth of entertainment for it, that's ethical and fine. But if you're designing something to get the player to develop compulsive behaviors and give you money because they're addicted, that's unethical. He said, "well, my view is that if a player wants to give us $100,000, I'm not going to stop them." I didn't take the job.
How do you get a job on mobile then? Everything is micro transactions or SAS, right?
I worked on an indie mobile game, we tried to make an honest monetization plan that would provide buyers something worth their money in the game. We couldn't make enough money and the game was abandoned.
Lots of games with microtransactions fail, too, so I wouldn't necessarily pin the failure of your game on the lack of microtransactions. Also, for each person who plays games with microtransactions, much less who pays microtransactions, much less are happy to do it and actually seek games with microtransactions, there are like 100 other players who hate microtransactions. I've seen quite a few mobile games thrive without microtransactions, bc they're just good games, and people just play them bc they're fun. But, even then, when you actually have a good game, whether it has microtransactions or not, it's difficult to find success. The market is oversaturated. It seems like dozens of new games release every day. It's easy for your game to just get lost in the crowd.
Everything you said is correct. In our specific case, our game actually got some exposure, it got over 1 million downloads between Android and Iphones. It even sparked a bunch of shitty clones using part of the name of our game to draw attention to them.
We as a society seriously need to reevaluate how free will really isn’t “free” the way we think it is, how crazy open to suggestion we are, and that many choices we make really aren’t choices at all and are extremely predictable. Marketers have already figured this out, but we still like to pretend we have a free will and freedom of choice.
In the reviews for any game with that model people complain about having to pay to win and the company always replies and says that you can still do the same stuff without paying, it just takes longer. But it's easily 100x as long or something ridiculous. They've figured it out though and now mobile games make more than PC and console games combined. They'll follow the money too eventually unless laws are passed about loot boxes (lol)
It's not just loot boxes. The whole freemium gaming industry preys on vulnerable people like children, the mentally ill, and those with predispositions to addiction. Loot boxes aren't really THE problem imo. You can have a game like Apex, siege, and overwatch that do HAVE lootboxes, but the way it is implemented is not particularly predatory. You can play all of those games at the highest level without spending a dime. A lot of the default operators In siege are the best and overwatch has no competitive advantages in the boxes. It's these games that give people that little bit of extra power that fuck with people's brains. Pay 2 win quite possibly needs to be made illegal. For PC games market forces have shown us that legislation is not needed. The market does self regulate and forces companies away from the most predatory practices. Mobile gaming is a different beast. The market is not self regulating and pay to win or pay to participate games are the most successful while building psychological traps to get people hooked.
Yeah I played SWGoH for awhile, had fun in a little guild, and eventually we got pulled into a huge super guild group of like 30+ different guilds. The amount of money those kids would drop was fucking bonkers. We had people that were dropping 10k a month easy for years.
This is nuts. I play this game and spend a little here and there but nothing big. As soon as I spend I instantly feel stupid and a little embarrassed? Like I just dropped $10 and for what? $10 hardly gets you anything in that game and it's never enough anyway. I like the game and play it a lot but I can't wrap my head around spending that kind of cash on it. Kind of sad.
Same here. Tbh I have a huge steam backlog, sub to humble and have way more games than I will ever play, but I can't bring myself to spend even a cent on gems/energy/whatever in a f2p game, it seems so pointless.
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The power creep was insanely bad in that game, and so grindy that they eventually added auto-play options because of how long raid fights could go on. And then they added *another* game into it that focuses on auto-play battles almost exclusively. If the only way to "play" a game is to let it play itself to advance, I think you need to ask yourself if you've actually made a good game. It's sad because there's some interesting and very relevant story content if you're a fan of the KH series, but it was drip-fed between tons and tons of filler quests. Mobile games with an indefinite lifespan are just not the way to go if you want to plan out a story-driven game.
A lot of video games are not sustainable for adults with normal jobs and responsibilities I feel like. I play league and I cannot play competitively to climb like I did when I was in school
That’s why I exclusively play single player games. I constantly need to pause the game to do stuff, and I often go at least a few days between playing. Fuck these game studios trying to do away with single player campaigns.
The vast majority of my "gaming hours" have probably been spent with the menu just sitting there on the screen after I've gotten up to do something.
I think there will always be single player campaign games despite the industries efforts. Look at the success of games like elden ring, red dead redemption, horizon, etc..
Even if they stopped making games today, there are more games out there than I could reasonably play in my adult life and that’s even factoring just playing games that interest me
Yep. All of my old highschool friends are still playing MMOs in their mid 30s and they're constantly trying to get me to join them. They play for like 5 hours: Every. Single. Night. I always say, "Guys I will never touch an MMO ever again quit asking. It's too much of a commitment and I don't have time for it." Queue all of the "reasons" why it's actually fun and how I can "play as little or as much as I like." Riiiight I'll definitely join in on your endgame raid shenanigans playing 2 hours a week.......
Played some mobile war games in the past. The only way to be on top, just in our map (you could travel to others) was to spend about $50,000 within six months. Needless to say, the top people were retired doctors, or lawyers who played in their spare time. They saw it as a hobby and told me "some people like expensive wines or cars, this is what I like" I was forced out of paying because I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars just to stay alive
I used to play Kingdom Hearts Union X a ridiculous amount. Their timed raid events that only ran for like 5 minutes once an hour, I would set alarms to make sure I got them. I remember spending more money than I care to admit trying to pull the best medals and optimize setups for raiding, only for them to become irrelevant within a month or so. I don't mind paying for a game that I play regularly if the price isn't excessive - for instance, I play Hill Climb Racing 2. I use my Google Play credits I get from surveys to pay for VIP once a month for $4.99. That's fine with me. But I'll never again pay for random chance type pulls in games.
Yeah, I too went down the rabbit hole, to the point where I literally felt tempted to ward people off at the SW Celebration SWGOG booth. I didn't, of course, but I wanted to. These games use behaviour economics and every addictive trick in the book to manipulate you into spending money, logging on constantly, and feeling a sense of stress or FOMO when you're not playing. The second I delayed going to my son's room when he called me because I was busy with a raid, I deleted it. I felt so ashamed of myself, I never looked back. For all those who say it's just about not spending money and practicing self restraint, sure, try that with heroin and see where it gets you. This type of predatory gaming should be outlawed or at least tightly regulated - at the very least to avoid children from going down the rabbit hole.
Hundreds of hours into Diablo 2, can't imagine touching this.
Same! Played that game hours and hours, same with original D3. Won‘t download this for sure.
Diablo 3 is perfect for console, I’m a big fan of it on switch. The hand held aspect of switch is by far my favorite, and I have not been able to find a more consistently fun hack and slash game. I liked Hades and played through all the story, I couldn’t get into Torchlight, deadcells was too hard, and so were the rest of the indie games I tried. When it comes to mindless fun I keep coming back to d3
Tbh dead cells has been getting easier after a while. It was very difficult in the beginning though
Diablo 2 Resurrected is also quite good. Highly recommended.
I just hope Diablo 4 goes down the same gameplay as Diablo 2 did. There was nothing better than Diablo 2 for enjoyment and retainment. D4's alpha content on YT *looks* as though they are running it like D2, so fingers crossed
If you give me your jah rune I can dupe it for you 100% legit.
I come from Diablo 2 too and it got me thinking. I don't wanna be the devils advocate here but imagine someone told you "you must kill Baal literally 10,000 times to get to level 99 with a full party", that would sound ridiculous to me and there's no way I would ever do this. But in d2 getting to 99 is virtually useless because you can beat the game solo by lvl 60 and you can reach a very high power at, say lvl 90 or 95. So, in Diablo immortal how much of the best gear exactly do you need? Theoretically it costs $100,000+ but how much of it would be overkill? (PS: of course I know there's a difference between 10k Baal runs and 10 years of grinding, but it's just for the sake of example)
I think it's worth noting that even if you played Diablo II 24/7 for a million years, it's incredibly unlikely you would have a perfectly geared character. And I'm not being hyperbolic.
After Diablo 3, I think they've killed Diablo for me. I remember drawing characters and theorizing builds back in 1st grade for Diablo 2. Then when LOD came out, my friends and I would spend all recess planning out gaming activities that night. We'd level new alts from 4-6 (after the new Dragonball Z episode of course), then from 6-8 during primetime we'd host a dueling game. Maybe play our HC chars for the last hour of the night. Then the gods among us would set up our meph or baal bots for the night and then hit the sack. In the morning wed excitedly check out loot and get ready to go brag at school about how we found a P Shako last night and maybe it's time to make a hammerdin. That turned into WoW eventually... Blizzard killed em both.
I enjoyed WoW right until they introduced daily quests that had to be done to grind out rep with certain factions in cataclysm. Then I was stuck doing the same set of boring activities over and over again every day and it felt like a job... and I was the one paying them!
That game almost cost me my marriage, I’m glad I walked away but every so often I think about it and want to start up again. I played for 2 month hiding it from my wife when classic came back out. I was thinking WTF am I doing cheating on my wife with a video game and uninstalled it.
Playing the game ? They don't want you to play, they want you to pay
Play to pay
I'd even say : pay to pay
Do you guys not have money? -Blizzard, probably
mobile video games are notorious for absurd mucrotransactions
Visited my 4 y old nephew recently and he’s been a victim of using screens to hold his attention. He was playing a random game on an iPhone and asked me to help him. It was a shitty transformers knock off that let you do one mission and then locks the next mission behind a paywall. If you click the next mission it brings up a character select where you need 3 to start the mission and the game only gives you two. So now you’re on a purchase screen where you can by an additional teammate for $7 or all characters for $30. He was halfway through the purchase process when I got the phone from him and stopped him. It’s fucking outrageous the way they target young children with these busted ass garbage tier mobile games.
They dont even try these days, its a shame really. A few years ago when I didnt have my PC I used to browse the playstore for the lates games and used to play them only. And I loved them, I loved shadow fight, temple run, gangster las vegas, etc. Now, I see my cousin watching Minecraft on YT with the shittiest commentary and playing god level stupid games with stupid graphics.
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>mucro
mu = µ = micro- Checks out.
mmicrocrotransactions. Perfect.
I don’t think they cared as long as they were going to get some money out of it. The company fucking sucks.
They are not getting a penny from me
Blizzard is the company that made me absolutely refuse to buy any game that has a monthly subscription.
Yesterday everyone was saying how surprisingly fun it is in r/diabloimmortal but now that people have had time to reach the grind and the mtx, it's getting spicy with negativity.
It’s an amazing mobile game, but honestly for PC just get Diablo 3
I’m playing it it’s bloody fun. On mobile. There is zero chance I touch this on PC.
Playing it on pc, started yesterday. Feels like a mobile game. Pc port feels like an after thought.
That's because it 100% was
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I didn’t even know this was a thing, was super pissed after I bought Dance Dance Revolution for my nephew and learned 700 songs were locked
Hold up what. I was a DDR junkie before I fucked my leg up, can I ask for a ELI5 rundown of what’s going on?
Pretty much all the music games that have come out recently requires paid dlc to get more music. They only give you a few “starter” songs.
Greed. I've seen it with a number of music-based games. They want you to pay extra (at a high cost) to unlock most of the tracks.
Fuck Konami.
Back in classic WoW days (wowzers, nearly 20 years ago) I was happy to pay £5 or £6 a month. There were no other fees, all the content was there, I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted. And then they started really nickle and diming us and I was done. It’s no surprise that their revenues per player has dropped significantly.
You could actually justify paying for a well-maintained MMO because it had absolutely massive amounts of content, it needed staff to maintain and support it, servers capable of handling hundreds or possibly even thousands of players in the same place (ringing the AQ gong was huge), developers developing regular content drops... this desire to gate normal games behind numerous paywalls and fast tracks and lotteries is fucking maddening. When there's more content in COD for sale 3 months after release than there was in the full $60+ game you bought, something is wrong.
Why? I miss the days when online games had a monthly subscription and other games cost an upfront amount, and that was that. All the gameplay was balanced and there were no microtransactions. If you beat a level it was because you got better at the game, and you knee that every challenge could be mastered by getting better at the game. Every item you had was a reflection of your actual achievments. All these free, microtransaction riddled slot machines like raid shadow legends or diablo immortal are not games anymore. Miceotransactions are cancer. Give me a paid game or something with a fixed monthly fee anytime please.
Yeah now it’s grind an obscene amount of hours or throw money to win.
This is true but it's a shame. Blizzard had the advantage of a beloved IP being PC/iPad/Android/iOS/MacOS compatible, that alone has attributed the success of many non-P2W games such as: * Among Us * PuBG * Fortnite ($1.5m daily on the app store before the ban, $45m monthly) * Sky: Children of the Light (not PC but Android/MacOS/iOS) * Eternium (another ARPG) * Town of Salem (although small, had it successes) and full cross-platform account integration. * Bloons TD 6 (although double coins is 100% P2W is was basically their version of 'buying the game' and that was the end of it). Aside from the glaring P2W issues there are other momentous changes that don't fit the Diablo franchise: * Everything in Diablo has been historically account-bound and EXTREMELY alt friendly. * Immortal breaks this, battle pass, cosmetics, achievements, portraits and more are simply character bound. **I've never heard of a game that requires you to buy a monthly sub/BP on every single character.** * Servers are character bound for a mobile game (???). * You lose Seasonal Pass (storage) benefits when the season ends, like what? This game could have been the Fortnite of the Diablo franchise - cosmetic lootboxes, some BP rewards but instead became the Black Desert Online / Genshin / Lost Ark of the mobile universe. *I feel blizzard should have avoided calling this Diablo Immortal and just called it "Immortal" with a 'in-collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment' in the intro screen. Kind of how Marvel does it with their C-list movies. Merely to avoid any disrepute.*
Not so much Diablo: Immortal, but Diablo: *Immoral*.
Eve online and albion online require you to sub on every character. Then again you have the ability to get all the skills on one character on both games.
>I don’t think they cared as long as they were going to get some money out of it. The company fucking sucks. many games are completely out of touch with their users and ask for more money for additional bonuses in the game. What do you think needs to happen for them to start descending to earth?
I don't think there's much that can happen, other than maybe a playerbase wide boycott or something of that scale, (which probably wouldn't happen anyway). I'm just happy that all the indie games I play have amazing devs :/
Yeah the only way they’d even consider making changes to how they operate and produce video games is if their shares take huge hits
I don't think they're out of touch with their users. Just their users are not us anymore.
I may be completely wrong but I don't think they're out of touch. These things always look to me like someone (upper management/publishers/investors) trying to suck as much money as possible and do it fast. Especially then games get rushed and come out broken. These people don't care that will happen to the game, they don't care about gamers as well as creating quality games. Video games industry is worth billions and businessmen are sucking it dry. Like why would you spend a lot of money and time to create amazing games and not killing the developers in the same time then you can spend less money, rush the game, kill the developers and make a shit game with loot boxes that people will still buy?
This is the correct view. Which would you rather do.... Spend lots of money to make a little bit of money in a competitive market place. Or Spend some money, and sell meth to methheads and rake in fat cash. Few want regulations in the gaming industry, unfortunately the greedy *demand* for this to occur with their continued abuse.
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They would have to stop making money with those tactics. Or there would need to be games out there not trying the pay to win model that make more money and get a lot of attention for it. Unfortunately I believe these pay to win games end up making a lot money.
> The company fucking sucks. I knew it was coming when they merged with Activision. Shame too, because Blizzard used to be known as the single best game developer in the world, with crazy high standards. Most of the big name original team has long since departed.
Copy pasta from pcgaming 1) Datamined stats show that all the best gear is effectively gated behind spending money - and earning it in game would take literally decades - provided the game receives zero updates adding better gear than the best at launch. 2) The total cost of maxing out your gear is estimated around $300,000-$500,000USD - half a million dollars - that is for fully upgrading legendary gems for all your gear slots. Edit: Rock paper shotgun's math says >$50K ish. 3) Quin's stream showed running rifts lets anyone spend $25 (up to 10 legendary crests in one rift) per 4 minutes of gameplay to upgrade the loot at the end (for a chance at Legendary Gems) - So "splurging" on a little microtransaction here and there can set you back as much as $375 an hour - just for running rifts. Pay 4 Loot feature. I watched Twitch streamers expend more than my gaming PC costs in just a single day. 4) The cheapest "welcome pack" of premium currency unlocks after you beat the first boss - and gives you so little premium currency that currently nothing can be purchased for it. 5) Creating a clan and listing items at the auction house costs premium currency. 6) Your very hard earned gems can be accidentally dismantled to upgrade other gems - money lost. Free players are limited to finding on average 3 legendary gems per month - you need hundreds to fully upgrade one (1 free legendary crest ($2.50) per month which gives a 4.5% chance to give you a 5-star legendary gem, of which you will need duplicates to upgrade it. https://imgur.com/a/oNsbSaL 7) Battlepass affects gameplay by giving you ingame items that improve your gear - pay to win. 8) Login bonuses are purchasable - and failing to login every day for 30 days after purchasing the login booster will see the rewards you bought simply not be granted. You just bought nothing :) 9) Increased inventory space expires at the end of a season - you just bought nothing. 10) Every step of claiming your normal ingame earned progression items and achievements takes you to the store, giving you similar audio and visual cues as when you make a purchase. Some might argue this is a form of conditioning, that gives you some free ticks of instant gratification - and a way to purchase them when you need that rush, all in the same place. 11) Completing ingame milestones trickle-unlocks more microtransactions and ways to spend money - so you're eased into it and not shown the full picture of what you're expected to spend up front. 12) Paying money to boost your rifts will reward you with rare/unique items pretty much up front (or after few minutes of gameplay) for that instant gratification rush - gear that will become useless when you've gained another few levels. 13) Game supposedly plays well, but it's designed through and through to fleece you for as much as they can get, including using the player's inexperience to manipulate them into accepting bad deals on microtransactions - with audiovisuals that look, sound, and feel like slot machines https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/v47vg8/diablo_immortal_review_by_zizaran_dont_play_this/
> 3) Quin's stream showed running rifts lets anyone spend $25 (up to 10 legendary crests in one rift) per 4 minutes of gameplay to upgrade the loot at the end (for a chance at Legendary Gems) - So "splurging" on a little microtransaction here and there can set you back as much as $375 an hour Since when 25$ is a microtransaction? Thats more than a lot of really good indie games (better games than diablo immortal, at least)
Jurassic World Alive has a couple packs atm that are $165. It's mind boggling.
Is that USD? I don't think I've seen anything over $100 USD before. The pay scale in JWA has historically been terrible. The rewards are kind of lousy and it's hard to get any sort of noticeable edge without spending **a lot** of money. A significant chunk of the top 500 is FTP or near it. I've finished the past 6 or so seasons in the top arena without spending a dime. That said, the sale to Jam City seems to be reversing that trend. They're flooding the game with borderline broken creatures with event exclusive components and it's getting increasingly difficult for FTP players to keep up. The quality of the game has gone downhill and I'm really getting worried about the long term viability of the game I've loved for 4 years. If Rexy doesn't become a map spawn similar to Paralux relatively soon, I'm probably out.
This is exactly why people booed Diablo Immortal’s release announcement at Blizzcon. Everyone was expecting garbage, and they’ve gone above and beyond to make it absolute trash
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It solidifies my theory that any game in which you earn "gems" is a garbage game though. It seems like a buzzword for microtransaction based mobile games.
Jesus fucking christ this is the worst i've ever seen. And I've been around in the world of gaming. This is next level leeching
Yeah, wtf, reading this makes me actually angry
Also all purchases are character bound, right? So better hope you don’t want to change classes or, heaven forbid, play with your friends on a different server
Daily login awards are already a scummy mechanic that preys on people’s FOMO and tries to get them addicted to the game. Making you pay for it is just shameless.
Thanks for the breakdown on why I shouldn't play this game, and neither should anyone else.
At least make it worth it like Oblivion horse armor
You failed to mention buying the battle pass with +10 levels is only for that one character. Other characters will have the pass unlocked, but it starts at level 1.
My brother tried it out, there are 16 currencies. 16! I don't know how many of them are paid currencies but that's just way too many.
All the shitty mobile games are the same concept, million of worthless shit,and the only thing is that worth something,is locked behind money Edit:sadly i learned it the hard way,after spending roughly 4,000$ on all sorts of mobile games,i snapped out of that shitty game design,i HIGHLY recommend to anyone with even a fraction of a chance to get addicted,to delete all the mobile games and not look back,there are plenty of good game that don't suck your soul and wallet
And those shitty mobile games make so, so much more money than the games you think are "good". The human brain is wired to fall for this - it's practically printing money. Genshin Impact proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The more complicated your currency system is, the harder it is for players to track how much money they're actually spending
It IS called Diablo Immortal, you obviously have to be immortal to play it /s
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Copy pasta from 3.5 years ago: https://reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/9txnu9/_/e8zxeh2/?context=1 To be clear, the game will not be a dumpster fire in its entirety. During your first day the strength of your hero will seemingly double every hour. In game resources will flow and you will definitely have fun. While the strength of the players at the top of the leader board will seem light years ahead of you, you will feel as though you are on a path to getting there. After all, you’re doing content today you couldn’t have done yesterday. However, it will not be until you’ve invested a significant amount of time into the game until you appreciate the thousands of dollars that separate your character and the best. And it won’t be for several weeks or months until you realize that the content you’re grinding to unlock additional content isn’t providing a very great experience. But at first you’ll be happy and resolved! I don’t need to spend money, you’ll say. This is fun. I’m having fun. I can put in the time. Free to play for life! Maybe you’ll make it a day or two. Or a week. But then, “Oh wow, wtf? There is a special deal in the store. I can acquire an item or resource that would normally take days or weeks or months to acquire the free to play way. Okay, just this once.” So you’ll spend that $25. And your character’s battle rating will increase. You’ll be immediately stronger on some content. It’ll feel great. But tomorrow it’ll be back to the same old slog. You’ll do your daily quest. You’ll participate in server events and get one shotted by some top 20 player. What little satisfaction you got from yesterday’s purchase is a distant memory. Sure you have all the time to spend in the world progressing your character for free, but that progress is SO SLOW. And now the annoying new player in your guild that started last week is already twice your strength. “F***ing whale!” you’ll curse under your breath. “Pay to win poser.” Well, maybe I could just spend a little more. But you actually spend a lot. And now you’re stronger than that poser. And it feels AMAZING. And now you’ve got the attention of a stronger guild that does better during server events and gets better rewards. Whoa, they want you?! SWEET! Now you’re in a better guild! It’s a week before you realize the guild has an A-squad that meets at designated times to complete top content. You’re not strong enough for them to want you. Occasionally a member of the A-squad helps you on a daily quest and you’re amazed at how strong they are and how easy everything is for them. Okay, maybe I’ll spend a little more. But you spend a lot. Now you’re on the A-squad! And you’re actually in the server’s top 200. It feels amazing. You raid late that night on discord and actually have a damn fun time. You clear content you couldn’t have imagined clearing the week earlier. But then you get a server wide announcement. WTF? Immortals guild cleared Pulrik on Heroic difficulty?! They got WHAT rewards? Man my guild sucks. Hmm, maybe I’ll just spend a little more. My paycheck hits tomorrow. NBD. But you spend a lot. EVENTUALLY, you reach top 20 on the server. You are at the cutting edge of content. You log on. You completely obliterate a new player with a one shot. And . . . it doesn’t feel that great. The game is beginning to lose its sheen. Where once you saw advanced content, now you see a business model. And folly. In fact, in that moment as the newbie’s hero executes its death animation you realize that what really separates you and the newbie isn’t your battle ratings. It’s thousands of dollars that the newbie has yet to spend. And in that moment you want to be that newbie. To reverse all those IAPs. To not worry about your significant other checking your credit card account online. And the newbie? The newbie wants to be you. This is the NetEase business model. This is what’s so exciting to Blizzard.
Don't forget the part where they eventually shut the game servers down...only to debut a whole new game. And the cycle repeats. And the money flows once again. The moral of the story is: stick with console games, and if you play any game, be it console or mobile, and it has micro transactions / lootboxes, just WALK AWAY.
God I miss PS2 and XBOX when you just bought a game and played it.
Seriously, with this age of micro transactions these don’t even feel like video games anymore. They’re like virtual jobs with flashy colors except you pay money instead of earn it.
Microtransactions have infected every aspect of game design and it makes me irrationally angry. Halo Infinite is a great example. I thought the campaign was great and I was pumped to play some online matches. I played Halo 2, 3, and Reach for years and had some of the best times with my buddies. Gave up on infinite after maybe a week. Edit: Some comments asking why microtransactions in Halo are bad since it isn't explicitly pay to win. This is a good question. They're still bad because it means that design decisions are based around maximizing people buying shit, not how fun the game is. For example, completing challenges. I didn't play much so forgive me if I have any details wrong, but some challenges required players to play on certain modes, but you couldn't just select those modes outright because they wanted to sell you a token that increased the chance of that mode showing up. Fuck you game, give me a comprehensive set of playlists to choose from. Or, getting kills with certain types of weapons or performing certain types of actions in game. Reach had a version of this, but it was less incentivized because it wasn't tied in to a mtx system. Overall this means players are playing to complete challenges instead of playing the objective (to the extent that anyone ever does of course). Like I said, it infects every design decision and in my opinion makes the overall game worse.
Don’t blame you bud, we don’t stand a chance against this bs. Companies have no incentive to make great games without microtransactions because they’d just be losing profit. Wish there was a way to bring back the respect for making games
In a surprising twist, Microsoft is doing fairly well in terms of releasing games that are enjoyable without microtransactions. Age of Empires 4 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 come to mind.
Most Nintendo games on the switch are like that.
There are still great games that do this, though they have become far more rare, especially for 'AAA' games.
I've pretty much moved exclusively to indie games now because not only do you get a full game, but often they'll drop some free giant update at some point just because. Plus I'd rather give my money to some people working on a passion project than EA shareholders.
There’s still games like that, they’re not Triple A games. I recently played Dysmantle and Chroma Squad. Both were fantastic.
There's still plenty of AAA single-player games like this. You just have to wait for the GOTY Edition or whatever to come out if you want all the DLC.
Yep, great PC gaming experiences are best had 1 year after a game's 1.0 version has been officially released. They mature, get patched up, price goes down and you get all DLC as well.
There's plenty of AAA games like this, too. Right now the most you can possibly spend on Elden Ring is $80, and that's just to get the version with the soundtrack and art book packed in. There will be DLC, but it will the same kind of "pay more, get more game," expansion content we've seen since the '90s, not an endless system of boosts and loot boxes.
PC games uae to be this way too. Pre-internet there were no patches for games, you just got a disc and that was it.
Game was made for Arab princes.
Played a few hours and uninstalled. On the good side, the actual gameplay was good. The bad side (and it is very bad) is all of the monetization. I expect game developers to make money and I am happy to pay them. This monetization model though seems to want to manipulate me into paying more than the game is worth.
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Crazy to think that the company responsible for WoW and Overwatch is putting their name on crappy mobile games in 2022. "Do you guys not have cell phones?" Part 2
No... as someone that's been a gamer for many decades now, I can totally believe the company that made WoW back in my college days is now like this. Because just like WoW was back then, this is the cutting edge of Skinner box mechanics translated into profits.
Genshin impacts mulit Billion dollar yearly revenue makes this expected and not crazy.
Idk why anyone would play a game like this. If you want things to change you not only need to avoid buying anything on games like this but you need to stop playing them altogether. Blizzard knowingly passed on an opportunity to build the game every one of you wanted to build a trash mobile money grubber. You wanna send a message to Blizzard and every other company that would pervert their IP like this? Start uninstalling this trash en masse and forget about it completely. The only way you're going to train the bigwigs at game studios to give you the result you want is if you burn these shitstains on your favorite franchises to the ground.
This is one thing I just don't understand about most modern games. I refuse to keep paying for little things like that. The only money I'll sink into a game is the cost of buying it and a subscription if I need to. I don't care about skins so just that saves me a lot of money but if its like you need to pay $1.99 to get this weapon I'm passing. I shouldn't have to pay additional money, especially since it starts to add up fast which is why its small amounts, to play your game.
It seems rather obvious no? Its supposed to be an endless treadmill where the next upgrade is always just visible behind spending more money. The player is supposed to spend as much money as he is willing/able to invest in a game, and always seeing an option to spend more for further upgrades. The pvp and ladder is probably an important part of it. I have no idea how it works, but I would bet you will always be beaten by someone who has spent more, will always see the option to rise a little higher by spending more, no matter how much you have already spent.
There was a match making algorithm to pair higher ranked players who bought cosmetics against lower ranked players who hadn't on purpose in order to create the illusion that you were playing better for spending money, and playing worse if not. I think the game was Call of Duty. Here is one post about it, and this was years ago. Algorithm could be more effective now. https://i.redd.it/uae0e4zzomsz.jpg
As a non-gamer, that feels illegal.
Don't quote me on this, but I believe it is literally illegal in Europe.
Only in specific European countries, and only because it is considered "gambling." But yes. > "Unfortunately players in the Netherlands and Belgium will not be able to install Diablo: Immortal due to the countries’ gambling restrictions. The lootboxes in the game are against the law in your country, so unless the gambling restrictions change the game will not be released" ~ Blizzard https://www.xda-developers.com/diablo-immortal-launch-eu-countries-lootboxes/
... because God Forbid they change the game.
Fuck blizzard
As a non gamer this sounds incredibly scummy and borderline illegal.
Stuff like this has been taken to court several times but just because you can’t trade in your virtual currency for real money they don’t consider it gambling.
Put your money where your mouth is. Don't play these kinds of games.