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Chebucto Regional Softball Club

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  3. Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think
A forum for discussing and organizing recreational softball and baseball games and leagues in the greater Halifax area.

Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think

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  • missingnoM missingno
    I don't think you understand how much work it takes to design and balance that many characters in a serious competitive fighting game. Serious question, do you play competitive fighters at all, do you know anything about how they work? In fact, the best way to ensure they're all polished is to start small and expand incrementally over time. This is the right model for a competitive fighter. You're deliberately ignoring the path to get from point A to point B if you think that in your world it would just be the final version right away. I'm saying that in your world, the fighting games I know and love would not be the games that I know and love. Personally, my favorite game of all time is Skullgirls, and they have been very open and transparent about all the expenses involved in developing a much smaller cast. Look up their finances, look up how long it took their small team to get from the eight characters at launch to what they have today. And I'm very happy with every cent I spent on that game, they didn't scam me by offering more of my favorite game. This is a game that has entertained me for a decade. Even if I count all the money I've spent on traveling to tournaments, which is far more than I spent on the game, it's still quite possibly the most efficient form of entertainment I've ever gotten my money's worth from. Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.
    M This user is from outside of this forum
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    mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
    wrote last edited by
    #53
    > You’re deliberately ignoring the path to get from point A to point B if you think that in your world it would just be the final version right away. Who are you talking to? We *just discussed* how to incrementally build a game, without this specific business model. I am only against the business model. Do you know how to address that, without slapfighting a strawman? 'Game design is hard' doesn't excuse this creeping systemic abuse. Again: this is the low end, and it still expects $130 for an eight-year-old 1v1 fighter. *70% off.* This business model inflates prices to the absurd extremes, even when it's not an antipattern vortex.
    missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
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    • missingnoM missingno
      I'm not missing, I'm saying that your hardline stance against things being sold isn't reasonable.
      M This user is from outside of this forum
      M This user is from outside of this forum
      mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
      wrote last edited by
      #54
      You're repeatedly misrepresenting my stance after several clear and specific corrections.
      missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
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      • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
        > You’re deliberately ignoring the path to get from point A to point B if you think that in your world it would just be the final version right away. Who are you talking to? We *just discussed* how to incrementally build a game, without this specific business model. I am only against the business model. Do you know how to address that, without slapfighting a strawman? 'Game design is hard' doesn't excuse this creeping systemic abuse. Again: this is the low end, and it still expects $130 for an eight-year-old 1v1 fighter. *70% off.* This business model inflates prices to the absurd extremes, even when it's not an antipattern vortex.
        missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
        missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
        missingno
        wrote last edited by
        #55
        I'm talking to you. You're living in fantasy land claiming these games could be the exact same thing without the business model that made them possible. They would not. Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.
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        • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
          Skins are predatory bullshit. Skins are surely the majority of this abuse, by revenue. Skins are the easiest way to charge $1000 and still give someone a fraction of the content in one video game. Skins aren't trivial to create... but you sure can crank 'em out. The model I want to go back to is where buying the game means you get the whole god damn game. Letting people *have* content, but not *use* it, is inseparable from anything you'd acknowledge as predatory. We can try to split those hairs, and we would fail. Nothing short of addressing the *business model* will solve those problem. The only reason this bullshit can even sound defensible is that Capcom used to be even worse. Like if they sent a guy to your house to take a hammer to your cartridge, and now you can pay him five bucks at the door. Is that better? Probably. Is it tolerable? *Nope.* Imagine if this applied to literal versions. 1.1 drops, with bug fixes for save corruption and some balance tweaks, and Steam wants another ten bucks for it. Would you respect if someone scoffed, 'do you want them to make you buy the whole game again?' Plainly not. Incremental changes to the game you already bought... should just go in the game you already fucking bought... because you already fucking bought it.
          missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
          missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
          missingno
          wrote last edited by
          #56
          You didn't answer the question. It's a good thing that this model allows them a source of revenue to develop more content, while still being able to offer patches for free so that players on the base game still get to enjoy compatibility. That's good. The alternative is we either break compatibility, or the content doesn't get made at all since you don't seem to want anyone to get paid to make it.
          M 1 Reply Last reply
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          • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
            You're repeatedly misrepresenting my stance after several clear and specific corrections.
            missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
            missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
            missingno
            wrote last edited by
            #57
            You said "Nothing inside a video game should cost real money". Those are your words. If you want to claim that your stance is actually something else, why did you say those words?
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            • MudManM MudMan
              Man, you really should play the game if you're trying to be mad about the additional content. It's really good and it's ten bucks on sale right now. Forty to get all the extra content. Well worth it. The stamps are mostly premium edition filler. There are hundreds in the base game and nobody is particularly mad at the three jpegs they try to sell for two bucks as a way to pretend they added two bucks of value to your premium bundle. The music pack is pretty solid, though. Lots of licensed anime music. Can't argue with blasting out Solid State Scouter when playing with Bardock. Just... remember to disable it if you're going to stream the game, you *will* get dinged for copyright infringement on Youtube. You want to get mad about something? How about selling people music as part of a game and then accusing them of infringement for streaming the game they paid for? How silly is *that*?
              M This user is from outside of this forum
              M This user is from outside of this forum
              mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
              wrote last edited by
              #58
              'I consider this business model fundamentally intolerable, and its total price divorced from reality.' *'So why aren't you playing it?'* You are not a serious person.
              MudManM 1 Reply Last reply
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              • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                'I consider this business model fundamentally intolerable, and its total price divorced from reality.' *'So why aren't you playing it?'* You are not a serious person.
                MudManM This user is from outside of this forum
                MudManM This user is from outside of this forum
                MudMan
                wrote last edited by
                #59
                Who said "why aren't you playing it"? I said you *should* play it. Very different things. I know why you're not playing it. It's because you're a sourpuss that doesn't like good games and does like being angry on the Internet. I'm saying you should change that and play good games. Don't even need to spend hundreds on them. Just throw a tenner at them on sale, give them a look, maybe. Also, and I say this with utmost sincerity, I am not a serious person. Wish I was even less serious. I'm a bit too stiff for comfort, really.
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                • missingnoM missingno
                  I fundamentally disagree with your stance that any form of premium content is 'predatory'. You know what you're buying, and no one's putting a gun to your head forcing you to buy it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's predatory. Predatory is when gambling-based business models obfuscate true costs and result in players literally financially ruining themselves. Predatory is when FOMO strategies are aggressively pushed to pressure consumers into buying things they otherwise wouldn't. Predatory is when subscription services keep players locked into an ecosystem, with the threat that they'll lose everything if they stop paying (and it's still extremely weird to me that you called this better). If you want to go after that kind of stuff, I would be with you. But calling *everything* predatory actually just makes it harder to talk about real problems. You are ruining this word.
                  M This user is from outside of this forum
                  M This user is from outside of this forum
                  mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                  wrote last edited by
                  #60
                  Scams work by choice. Putting a gun to someone's head is a mugging. Scams, you walk into freely, and still get robbed. You don't quite get nothing... but for the money, you don't get much. What game could sell for $130, *on sale,* and be taken seriously? That shit only works because breaking it up into little pieces obfuscates the total cost. Same shit as "five easy payments!" in TV infomercials. And $130 is the low, low end. So many of these games, especially the ones that slog on for years, have *thousands of dollars* in stupid shit you can blow your money on. Gambling makes it worse - but worse isn't necessary, for it to be bad. > calling everything predatory Can we please go one interaction without you lying to me about my own opinions? I called skins predatory. Because Jesus Christ, have you seen Fortnite? They could ditch whatever mechanisms you consider beyond-the-pale, and the whole game would still exist as a funnel to exchange your whole wallet in exchange for playable references. I will again grant that this is the gentle end of the spectrum. But it's all the same spectrum. There's no hard cutoffs between thirty-seven characters at five bucks apiece, and pay-to-win weapon unlocks. Grinding instead would be worse. It's even less like an actual product. All incentives point straight toward maximum revenue through engineered frustration.
                  missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
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                  • missingnoM missingno
                    You said "Nothing inside a video game should cost real money". Those are your words. If you want to claim that your stance is actually something else, why did you say those words?
                    M This user is from outside of this forum
                    M This user is from outside of this forum
                    mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                    wrote last edited by
                    #61
                    And you keep pretending I said "nothing should ever be sold." Or “nothing should cost money ever.” Do you need a diagram?
                    missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • missingnoM missingno
                      I'm talking to you. You're living in fantasy land claiming these games could be the exact same thing without the business model that made them possible. They would not. Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.
                      M This user is from outside of this forum
                      M This user is from outside of this forum
                      mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                      wrote last edited by
                      #62
                      We don't have to leave *your stated examples* to find disproof of your pet dichotomy. SF4 had the same kind of evolution while selling versions like they still came on cartridges. It's possible. You just don't like it. Unless you mean one single byte of FighterZ being different would be a completely different game, in which case, just, shut up. You keep trying to treat any change what-so-ever as equivalent to the whole game ceasing to exist. That's horseshit. You need to stop.
                      missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
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                      • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                        We don't have to leave *your stated examples* to find disproof of your pet dichotomy. SF4 had the same kind of evolution while selling versions like they still came on cartridges. It's possible. You just don't like it. Unless you mean one single byte of FighterZ being different would be a completely different game, in which case, just, shut up. You keep trying to treat any change what-so-ever as equivalent to the whole game ceasing to exist. That's horseshit. You need to stop.
                        missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                        missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                        missingno
                        wrote last edited by
                        #63
                        I already told you that SF4 is exactly what people *don't* want to go back to. The game was widely criticized for the fact that you had to buy every upgrade or be left behind. You might be the only person in the world who thinks that's better than what we have now. By the way, despite characters not being DLC when they should've been, SF4 *did* sell costume DLC, which you seem to think is the worst thing ever. IIRC, the kicker with SF4's costumes is that your opponent couldn't see them unless they also bought the costumes, and that was also something people disliked because they didn't want to buy costumes no one will see.
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                        • missingnoM missingno
                          You didn't answer the question. It's a good thing that this model allows them a source of revenue to develop more content, while still being able to offer patches for free so that players on the base game still get to enjoy compatibility. That's good. The alternative is we either break compatibility, or the content doesn't get made at all since you don't seem to want anyone to get paid to make it.
                          M This user is from outside of this forum
                          M This user is from outside of this forum
                          mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                          wrote last edited by
                          #64
                          I did. I just didn't give you the clean yes-or-no you're prepared to posture about. > The alternative is we either break compatibility, or the content doesn’t get made at all since you don’t seem to want anyone to get paid to make it. Do you have object permanence? Because you keep pretending we didn't go over the obvious alternatives, repeatedly. You forgot your own examples include games that did not have this business model, but still plainly got made, and took a shitload of your money. Do you honestly not know the difference between "nothing inside a video game should cost real money" and "everything should be free?" Because that impossible confusion would explain a lot of this conversation. I know you understand charging money for things inside a game *can* be abusive. You have no trouble calling gambling or FOMO "predatory." Would you respect someone telling you, that just means you don't want those games made? Fortnite, *banned!* Call of Duty, *deleted!* Never made it past 1.0! How much of that shit would you take, from someone insisting "at least it's not pay-to-win?" Pay-to-win is worse, surely. So anything less abusive than that must be fine. And if you don't respect all the money developers get from pay-to-win, you must want them to to *starve.*
                          missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
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                          • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                            And you keep pretending I said "nothing should ever be sold." Or “nothing should cost money ever.” Do you need a diagram?
                            missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                            missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                            missingno
                            wrote last edited by
                            #65
                            If nothing costs money, nothing is sold. Are you trying to play dumb here?
                            M 1 Reply Last reply
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                            • MudManM MudMan
                              Who said "why aren't you playing it"? I said you *should* play it. Very different things. I know why you're not playing it. It's because you're a sourpuss that doesn't like good games and does like being angry on the Internet. I'm saying you should change that and play good games. Don't even need to spend hundreds on them. Just throw a tenner at them on sale, give them a look, maybe. Also, and I say this with utmost sincerity, I am not a serious person. Wish I was even less serious. I'm a bit too stiff for comfort, really.
                              M This user is from outside of this forum
                              M This user is from outside of this forum
                              mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                              wrote last edited by
                              #66
                              This is trolling. It'd be fine if we never talk again.
                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                                Scams work by choice. Putting a gun to someone's head is a mugging. Scams, you walk into freely, and still get robbed. You don't quite get nothing... but for the money, you don't get much. What game could sell for $130, *on sale,* and be taken seriously? That shit only works because breaking it up into little pieces obfuscates the total cost. Same shit as "five easy payments!" in TV infomercials. And $130 is the low, low end. So many of these games, especially the ones that slog on for years, have *thousands of dollars* in stupid shit you can blow your money on. Gambling makes it worse - but worse isn't necessary, for it to be bad. > calling everything predatory Can we please go one interaction without you lying to me about my own opinions? I called skins predatory. Because Jesus Christ, have you seen Fortnite? They could ditch whatever mechanisms you consider beyond-the-pale, and the whole game would still exist as a funnel to exchange your whole wallet in exchange for playable references. I will again grant that this is the gentle end of the spectrum. But it's all the same spectrum. There's no hard cutoffs between thirty-seven characters at five bucks apiece, and pay-to-win weapon unlocks. Grinding instead would be worse. It's even less like an actual product. All incentives point straight toward maximum revenue through engineered frustration.
                                missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                                missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                                missingno
                                wrote last edited by
                                #67
                                Can *you* go one interaction without the excessively hostile tone? We started this conversation because you said that the act of selling anything at all in games is predatory.
                                M 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • ? Guest
                                  curious about their opinions on games like apex legends that is absolutely a free to play game, but has a way to pay for characters instead of using the in game method.
                                  M This user is from outside of this forum
                                  M This user is from outside of this forum
                                  mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                                  wrote last edited by
                                  #68
                                  "Pay to skip the grind" is weaponized frustration. Free games that somehow make a billion dollars only exist to drag people across their wallet-hooks.
                                  1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                                    I did. I just didn't give you the clean yes-or-no you're prepared to posture about. > The alternative is we either break compatibility, or the content doesn’t get made at all since you don’t seem to want anyone to get paid to make it. Do you have object permanence? Because you keep pretending we didn't go over the obvious alternatives, repeatedly. You forgot your own examples include games that did not have this business model, but still plainly got made, and took a shitload of your money. Do you honestly not know the difference between "nothing inside a video game should cost real money" and "everything should be free?" Because that impossible confusion would explain a lot of this conversation. I know you understand charging money for things inside a game *can* be abusive. You have no trouble calling gambling or FOMO "predatory." Would you respect someone telling you, that just means you don't want those games made? Fortnite, *banned!* Call of Duty, *deleted!* Never made it past 1.0! How much of that shit would you take, from someone insisting "at least it's not pay-to-win?" Pay-to-win is worse, surely. So anything less abusive than that must be fine. And if you don't respect all the money developers get from pay-to-win, you must want them to to *starve.*
                                    missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                                    missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                                    missingno
                                    wrote last edited by
                                    #69
                                    >I did. I just didn't give you the clean yes-or-no you're prepared to posture about. If I ask you a yes-or-no question, and you say 'nuh-uh', you did not answer the question. In fact, you haven't answered a single question I've ever tried to ask you over the course of this conversation. Do you play competitive fighting games at all? Do you know anything at all of this world? Do you seriously think having to pay for every edition of SF2 and SF4 separately is somehow better than being able to continue playing against anyone even with the base game? Should the games I know and love be able to exist in the form that made them the games I know and love? >You forgot your own examples include games that did not have this business model, but still plainly got made, and had major updates, and took a shitload of your money. No, I gave you an example of a game that broke compatibility and was widely criticized for doing so. It is not a model that we should ever go back to, no one else in the world besides you likes that. The new model is better because it preserves compatibility. Do you understand the point I am making here? >I know you understand charging money for things inside a game can be abusive. Yes, sometimes some things *can* be. But you're arguing that *everything* is, and that is what I disagree with. And I feel that by being so aggressive towards things that are perfectly reasonable, you only end up making it harder to talk about real problems.
                                    M 1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • missingnoM missingno
                                      If nothing costs money, nothing is sold. Are you trying to play dumb here?
                                      M This user is from outside of this forum
                                      M This user is from outside of this forum
                                      mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                                      wrote last edited by
                                      #70
                                      >> Nothing *inside* a video game. That part is not optional. I've dealt with too many cranks who see me arguing - JUST SELL GAMES - and then go 'you want it for *free!*' I'd sound less hostile if you didn't need this explained five separate times. And it's not incidental, because you are now that crank, insisting "you don’t seem to want anyone to get paid to make [content]." Stop fucking that strawman.
                                      missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • M mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                                        >> Nothing *inside* a video game. That part is not optional. I've dealt with too many cranks who see me arguing - JUST SELL GAMES - and then go 'you want it for *free!*' I'd sound less hostile if you didn't need this explained five separate times. And it's not incidental, because you are now that crank, insisting "you don’t seem to want anyone to get paid to make [content]." Stop fucking that strawman.
                                        missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                                        missingnoM This user is from outside of this forum
                                        missingno
                                        wrote last edited by
                                        #71
                                        I know what you said, and I know we're on the same page because we've been talking about concrete examples where you say the DLC shouldn't be allowed to be sold. I don't know why you're up here trying to play some silly semantics games.
                                        M 1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • missingnoM missingno
                                          I already told you that SF4 is exactly what people *don't* want to go back to. The game was widely criticized for the fact that you had to buy every upgrade or be left behind. You might be the only person in the world who thinks that's better than what we have now. By the way, despite characters not being DLC when they should've been, SF4 *did* sell costume DLC, which you seem to think is the worst thing ever. IIRC, the kicker with SF4's costumes is that your opponent couldn't see them unless they also bought the costumes, and that was also something people disliked because they didn't want to buy costumes no one will see.
                                          M This user is from outside of this forum
                                          M This user is from outside of this forum
                                          mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
                                          wrote last edited by
                                          #72
                                          That is what it means, to sell content. That is what actual expansions are. This song-and-dance where you have the whole game, but you're not allowed to *really* have the whole game, is inseparable from everything you would call predatory. It's only a matter of degrees. One of the several alternatives you've repeatedly ignored is that these additions can be added to the game people already bought. Surprisingly, this does *not* involve slave labor for artists, because games that stay popular keep selling more copies. Do they make as much money? No. But it turns out maximum corporate revenue is not a guideline for ethics.
                                          missingnoM 1 Reply Last reply
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