Designer intend matters.
Yes, people who use RMT are paying to win. But “pay to win” is usually a description of game design. Of a developer making a game where you can pay them for power.
RMT is “only” someone cheating. Which is still bad, and they should be banned.
I should have made it clear that cosmetic mtx should be linked to goals like a kickstarter project. For example, after X total number of cosmetic mtx, a new monster type is added , or a new class is added, or new legendaries are added, seasonal features, etc,. It’s a lack of creativity with this kind of thing that’s frustrating - they could have done something like this back in 2015 imo and it might have been fine.
Without linking the mtx to some kind of tangible benefit to the playerbase there’s no way to know if they’re just being used for another Kotick yacht. Completely agreed there.
And as we know, D4 will have cosmetic mtx in all regions, a paid base game, and paid expansions lol. Taking no chances.
Directly improving gameplay, player experience, etc, no. I don’t think there really is. Indirectly, even it would feel like stretching it, I believe there is.
While I read most of OP’s post here, didn’t really spend the time to evaluate what his stance is, no disrespect, so forgive me if this is just a repetition of his, but I believe mtx (cosmetic only) in game, a steady, continuous profit for the game can lead to shareholders, executives not pull the plug, or reduce the budget on the game’s development. Which in turn, will impact, indirectly, player experience and whatnot. This thread is pretty much talking about how the higher-ups at Blizz (or Acti-Blizz) pulled the plug prematurely (in his opinion) for D3 so.
No matter how good, or bad, relationship between the consumer and the company is, it’s still just business. Both sides need to be happy for the best outcome. And I believe cosmetic mtx is the least evil? bad practice? consumer unfriendly? one out there.
I like how FO76 do it. You can grind and get the items from the store that way or if theres something you really like, just spend some money.
I know people hate P2W but the truth is that Entropia Universe is still alive even after 20 year.
Lootboxes works nicely for company like EA with tons of Sport fans.
This 1 paragraph alone just shows why debating with you isn’t even worth it’s minutes 
We’ve already established that you hate D3 and don’t even try to debate. You’ve apparently created a troll account that should have been named fountain of eloquence:
2 Likes
This has to be stated in the ToS. And the follow-up will be constant transparent profits declaration from the company to its player base. Needless to say no big company will ever do this. Best you can hope is 50% from your MTX purchase to be directed to that game.
Just more resources to support it should be enough. Of course we all can be naive and say Blizzard is worth billions, they have the money without MTX, but that’s just not how things work. A solid stream of revenue coming in provides the resources to steadily fix bugs, make balance changes, add content, and so on.
Part of the reason D3 saw a massive slowdown in Bot combat a year or so after RoS launched was due to no more revenue coming in. More revenue would have meant a second, or more, expansion(s), potential for more classes, quicker bug fixes, more botting bans and combatting, the flower overhaul could have happened years ago, seasons could still have unique items and maybe more diverse or involved themes, PvP could have been fixed and expanded upon, and more.
Revenue is key to making, keeping, and improving games. So innocuous cosmetic MTX is important for that revenue. Now, does it improve the game? If you count support good for the game then the answer is yes.
This ain’t a Kickstarter with stretch goals.
It sounds right coming from the marketing department. And simply because good people want to reward the developers, who are working hard on the videogames. However, sadly, all of it is not true. WoW has a steady flow, because of the subscriptions, and a in-game shop (mtx), and a new expansion roughly every 2 years. Yet, it is full of bots and underground markets with rmt, and carrying nabs through mythics for money, or boosting arena ratings. The sad truth is, all the MTX, and so on, are just milking the customers, so that the chief officers, have bigger bonuses at the end of every year, because they have pleased the shareholders. Being a publicly traded company is trying to turn your videogames into the money printing software. Making money is the only goal. All of those marketing people, etc, don’t care one bit about videogames and gamers. They don’t even understand videogames.
Context is key here. We were talking about D4. This has nothing to do with the monetization practices of other games. Would MTX be needed if D4 had a sub? No. Does MTX provide additional revenue that can be use to support said game? Yes. Regardless, revenue is needed to support. Without it you get nothing but minor things like we see with D2 and D3. I’ll still contend any big thing we get/got in D3 was from the cancelled second expansion. The new enemies, zones, boss, the Necro, the new sets, and the follower overhaul were all to be in that second expansion. The only reason we got them was because they were already in the works.
If D3 had consistent revenue, there would be a lot more content than what we have now.
MTX isn’t milking the customer since people make their own decision to but and support. No one has to. The fact you need to in WoW, would be the better game to claim milking.
Or Activision could have done what Vivendi did for years and pocket all the profits beyond the bare minimum needed to keep the Blizzard alive.
Covered that already. Sure if you want to act naive about how businesses run. Vivendi was glad to wash their hands of Blizzard. They were trying to sell them or merge them before the Activision acquisition and merger
I’m being cynical not naive. Vivendi’s history with Diablo III and WoW was pretty heinous and Activision can be pretty rapacious at times too.
Gotcha. I also think I misread what you wrote as Vivendi propping up Blizzard projects. That’s where the naive aspect comes in. It’s just feasible to constantly use revenue from other sources to support a non revenue ge erating product. It can be done, but it’s clearly not what AB is interested in doing.
It’s true Activision could be complete angels about it too. It just depends on what they know we don’t.
1 Like
Right and DIV is not a free product. Plus the ingame shop is confirmed already. Will be milking at its finest. I’ve been through the same “loop”, discussions and all of that bs, for over 20 years now. This is why, some companies and some games do stand out. That is why they become timeless Classic masterpieces, whatsoever. Obtain legendary status. Like DII did. Activision of today, however, is just the same as any other publicly traded videogame company. There is one short- and one longterm goal. Shortterm: Maximize profits. Longterm: Make all of the money in the world.
Yes. WoW is the case in point. I don’t mean to flame or gaslight or troll, but are you really that blind? You were given an example of a game, that has everything you listed in it. Every possible way of monetization, owned by the same company, that makes DIV now. Literally same people, with same goals and same intentions gave the project named Diablo IV a greenlight. Also, Diablo Immortal, man.
Yes, but it won’t, because minizing costs is one of the staples of literally any business in the world. That being said, however, not all of it is done with the bad intentions. Like put the minimum effort in, get the most profit. Not everybody is blatanly looking for the shortcuts, while completely disregarding the customer base. Diablo Immortal, man.
Unless the DIV will make insane profits (which it probably won’t) and be anywhere close to WoW (constant paid for expansions, ingame shop mounts) - you won’t get anything major coming for DIV. DIII, looks like, was intented to have more or less the same model, just without the montly subs. Well, players didn’t like the game itself aka “not Diablo, too flashy, story is bad, etc”, so they just moved on. It isn’t because DIII made no money, it is because, the marketing people came to the conclusion, that DIII doesn’t have a chance to make all the money in the world.
Correct, which is why, it shows, that they’ve completely lost interest in the game/franchise whatsoever. And right after the bad word was spread by the community of players and right after the RMAH was going to be shut down. Everything “we get” in D3 now, could be released in like 2 years, if it would be funded. But the continous support is not something the company is interested in. You need another example of pretty much the same story? Actually, even worse story, cause players got a sexual intercourse from another company: Anthem.
D3 made plenty of money, ok? The vanilla alone, that has sold like 30 million copies very fast (and continues to sell them even now btw!! like the d2r preorder packs, etc). Back in the day, at 60 bucks a pop, worldwide it meant: 1.800.000.000 in sales alone! Without the RMAH, and before RoS. How is that is not a win, huh? Did Activision spent like 2B dollars to create, sell and distribute Diablo 3? No. That is just impossible. They want to make money, pocket it, move onto the next money making thing. Why don’t you understand this? Or, more like: Why do you refuse to acknowledge it?
So, nobody knows the real numbers, because they weren’t disclosed (maybe yet). But let’s be generous and safely assume, that Diablo III production cost was around 100m dollars. (which is more less what SCII was rumored to cost). Let’s be even more generous and assume, that another 100m was spent on ads/marketing and maybe, partly some infrastructure (servers) too. They’ve made 10 times that amount. 10 times. If half of that insane sume of money, that D3 (before RoS) made, were spent on D3 itself, you could have like 10 more expansion packs. Because, using 1B dollars you can make, AT LEAST, 5 brand new Diablo 3 games.
It is and this argument has also been debunked. If, it were truly “optional”, how come I can’t obtain the cosmetics, sold in the shop, through the gameplay? How come my game is more grindy, if I don’t pay for XP boost? And IF it is truly optional, why are the trying to hit me with fomo all the time? Just why? They can put it in the shop once and forever. Why is it always limited time? How do even “exclusive limited” editions exist in purely digital distributions of the game? What’s so “limited and exclusive” in a couple of lines of code or a couple of database entries, that you can’t just copy and paste? I’ll tell you. Its all marketing tricks. None of them understand or care for videogames as for videogames. And for the players as players. They see you as a customer, that is to be milked dry and then tossed away, when you’re not the most profitable anymore. This is why Diablo Immortal even exists. Wake up, my friend. This is all a big money making machine and nobody aims to create a masterpiece/a work of art of a videogame anymore*. It isn’t profitable for the shareholders and chief officers. People, who want all of that money “NAAAO!”.
-
- except for, perhaps, some Indie companies.
P.S.: And why all of them keep doing it? Because you keep giving them YOUR money. Way more, than it actually costs. And way more than needed to support any videogame in existence.
No, it’s not needed is the thing. It was a service that people used so the expanded. It wasn’t needed, rather a happy bonus stream of revenue.
Cosmetics are not needed nor essential for anything in any game other than personal gratification. If you feel the need to obtain every cosmetic, that’s on you.
I also differentiate between simply keeping a game alive and improving it through updates. Take an “always online” stance like Blizzard has done for D3 and seemingly D4 isn’t so much a choice of the player than it is their own. As a result, that’s a cost they willingly assume and we shouldn’t be held accountable for.
From there, sure, how the money hits their pocket is a factor. D3 was B2P. Lots and lots and lots of copies were sold. The money was there, Blizzard chose not to reinvest. There’s no real sugar coating that fact. D3 players got hosed here. Could we speculate internal business drama was also a factor given people quitting over time? I wouldn’t rule it out, but pragmatically, there’s not really a shortage of coders out their to make games. The problem is likely a direct result of those not in the trenches (CEOs/stock holders) thinking they know what’s best for both the employee and consumer when they really don’t.
But subscription models also don’t guarantee a whizbang product. WoW had something like 13m subs at some point. At $15/mo, that’s $195 million per month. Where did it go? How much went back into WoW specifically? I’d be very, very, very surprised if that number went past 2m on average. Server hardware replacements may occasionally spike the number, but the brunt is still going to have to go to people. Compound this with the usual accusations that the game has gone to hell since X expansion of choice and some could further correlate this to a lack of funds being invested in what they want out of the game.
Probably one of my bigger beefs with the subscription model, particularly for MMOs, is that it doesn’t actually differentiate from what a given player wants. I’m not a hardcore raider, for example, but I have no problem recognizing that small subset of a given game community is very vocal and very greedy when it comes to attention and dollars behind their desires. If a company had the balls to put forth an itemized sub checklist where players could only access the content they marked, you’d probably discover that things like the raiders are bleeding significant resources from those more interested in open world activities, crafting/gathering, RP elements like Housing, new gear art, various mini-games, better (seasonal) events, and so on. So, let’s say WoW did get that 3m/mo and only 5% of players checked the Raider box: Would 15k/mo sustain the development of raids? I’d say no. Financially speaking, should that mean raids should even be developed? The cold truth is that they honestly shouldn’t be, and this isn’t just a WoW problem. Nonetheless, stubborn perception of what a MMO is tries to mandate their presence, and this serves as a subset of irresponsible uses of cash that players give to the providers that said providers get to work with a fraction of. And this doesn’t change even if you swap from sub to B2P or even MTX.
Of course, one can also look to the reviled mobile market and see that a game generating fat stacks doesn’t make it better. Let’s look at Genshin Impact as the most recent craze. It generated $80m shortly after launch, but here we are maybe half a year later with people complaining that there hasn’t been any real new content added after the first month, with the more average player catching up a month or two after. There comes a point where we have to stop and realize that it’s not just some players outpacing development, but that development is being a bottleneck because it’s not getting the money it needs to better try to keep up with players. The game has also been plagued with major account security issues, where something like 2FA hasn’t even been implemented. If we ask why, we can’t say it’s the player’s fault. We can’t say it’s the grunt coder’s fault. Position heads may bear some level of responsibility, but odds are it’s the money above them that’s calling the shots and is subsequently more fixated on short-term financial gains than long-term player satisfaction. Of course, Genshin also manifests some of the worst facets of MTX/P2W, and like any online only title, can disappear one day without the players being able to jack about it. Which is a huge problem of its own within gaming.
So, again, there is a difference between merely keeping a game online and improving it over that same span of time. We all know D3 could’ve been leagues better than it is now. We could probably be 3 expansions in by now, at a level 90 cap, and have a lot more variety to our endgame. But Blizzard gave up. The players didn’t ask them to. Even if RoS sold only 10% of vanilla, that’s still 3+ million sales. The vast majority of games out there never break 1 million. What we can therefore assert is a case of AAA stupidity and an unwillingness to go the extra mile to fix their own mistakes (in this case, caused by vanilla’s launch) and win back players.
Of course, there’s also that part of me that’s old enough to remember when games were launched fully completed and anything found within could be earned by playing. This is where I tend to rally against cosmetics because just putting them in a shop means you don’t get activities that correlate to their acquisition. It’s a lazy implementation. And should said cosmetic boom in popularity, you can also bet the related artists don’t see a significant pay bonus. So, not only are coders/scenario designers given less work, the artists are likely fleeced. Players also lose out if they can’t earn the item in-game, or happen to be forced into an incessant, unfun grind if freemium currency can somehow be earned. Should it be considered P2W if people can skip that sort of BS? I’d argue yeah, even for cosmetics.
The industry at large is simply being mismanaged. Things like Kickstarters may be an attempt to work independently of the blah, but they’re probably more miss than hit between overpromising or letting backers pervert the original game’s vision. Just watching people argue what D4 should do here tells me a lot about how public opinion would forge a garbage game because they don’t look 2 or 3 steps past a proposed feature. At the same time, you never see these same know-it-alls that are allegedly in majority converging to make their own godly game through KS and proving their naysayers wrong.
Rambly, yeah, but my point stands. More money never seems to guarantee better results because the people who should be controlling the purse strings for a game’s benefit aren’t. Aside from much needed lootbox/gacha reform, legislation to force 90% reinvestment back into an online game that made said money has been one of my long-time desires for the industry.
1 Like
Dr. Evil and I share that ambition too.