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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    Anybody could have seen that SWBF2 was going to have some sort of problems. There's some severe management disfunction when you can immediately tell that they dumped nearly all the time and money into the visuals and almost forgot to do any of the other stuff. Also while the rest of the industry was learning lessons about P2W transactions, everyone at EA was apparently too busy staring at meshes and textures to notice.
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  • thelastsonofzodthelastsonofzod Posts: 658 Arc User
    I think the 'Lockboxes as Gambling' issue is more likely to effect triple A publishing than it is smaller online games like Champions. I think what will happen, if pressure builds enough, is that the ESRB will step in and start treating lockboxes as gambling. When that happens it'll increase the rating to 'M' or 'A' for such titles, and potentially devastate such game's revenue streams.

    I don't think Champions still operates under the ESRB, though they still list a rating on their main page. If that is the case, such a move would have little real effect on the game, except for keeping it off of store shelves. That seems sort of a moot point. Even if Champions was 'A' rated, that probably wouldn't come to much as far as our gaming experience is concerned.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
  • thelastsonofzodthelastsonofzod Posts: 658 Arc User
    Most retailers won't sell an A rated game in the United States. So that could have a pretty big effect on market share for games to sell to that market.

    I don't see it effecting online game purchases much at all.
  • flyingfinnflyingfinn Posts: 8,408 Arc User
    All movie licensed games are crap.
    All game licensed movies are crap.
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    Any investor that didn't think there would be a day when loot boxes were going to cause governments of the world to take notice is a moron. China already regulates loot boxes and you can bet other countries have been watching what the game industry is doing before EA's current debacle.

    Has Disney thrown EA under a bus yet with some garbage about "we didn't know, honest"?

    I suspect at least some governments are going to try for regulation. Rep. Chris Lee's press conference compared loot boxes to Joe Camel and called the game an online, Star Wars themed casino. Won't be surprised to see "gateway to gambling" at some point. The ESRB "stepping up" isn't going to be good enough if loot boxes are considered gambling. And those regulations absolutely will effect Cryptic as well as every single other company that wants to sell loot boxes.

    We have no idea what kind of odds companies put on their loot boxes. If they are regulated as gambling, any hidden mechanics that do things like change the odds based on what you spend or diminish the chance of winning as you play is fraudulent. Scientific Revenue shows us that changing of prices dynamically is already a thing for micro-transactions and could very well be how video game companies handle loot boxes.

    Regulations also mean putting in measures to stop minors from gambling. Doesn't matter what the ESRB rating of this game is, it operates in California, which has rules that must be followed. If Cryptic isn't a slimebag company, following gambling regulation shouldn't be hard or prevent lock box sales. It will be annoying since there's a good chance loot boxes will need to be removed from loot tables / auction house / be BoP and keys will no longer be sold.

    Honestly, just buying the loot boxes directly from the cash shop and opening them without a second step of buying a damn key would be a nice QoL upgrade. People that don't like loot boxes can stop getting them in their inventory and people that do open them will be able to skip a pointless step. The contents can still be sold on the AH.​​
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    Personally I would want them to implement some sort of system where my odds of getting good stuff increases the more of a given lockbox I open. Sounds like a good deal to me.
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    sterga wrote: »
    Honestly, just buying the loot boxes directly from the cash shop and opening them without a second step of buying a damn key would be a nice QoL upgrade. People that don't like loot boxes can stop getting them in their inventory and people that do open them will be able to skip a pointless step. The contents can still be sold on the AH.
    As much as I'd like that (tired of having to constantly throw them away) I suspect the reason it's done the way it is now is to constantly wave them in people's faces. "Hey you! F2P scumbag! Look at this mystery box! Wanna know what's inside? End your F2P vegan ways, charge some Zen, then go pick up a key at the shop! You know you want to!" I have no idea if this current approach actually works, though.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Do ratings have any actual effect on anything?
    Yes, a lot actually. Prior to the rating system, games had to be made with all audiences in mind instead of just the intended audience. Games like Mortal Kombat (tame by today's standards) were highly controversial, and games like Final Fantasy 4 were strongarmed into editing a fair amount of their content/dialog to be as family-friendly as possible. Today, they serve as a guide to parents who might otherwise be out of touch with which games are what, and stores (if they do it right) can't sell M rated (or above) games to people under a certain age. So yeah, ratings have a pretty significant effect on games.​​
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  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    and another one.
    http://massivelyop.com/2017/11/24/australia-turns-up-the-heat-on-lockboxes/
    misleading title. one states gambling licensing department are looking at them
    considering it's the state with a pile of gambling machines/casinos. it's more likely they see more revenue to grab.
    http://massivelyop.com/2017/11/22/belgium-seeks-to-ban-lockboxes-as-gambling-plus-hawaii-and-france-weigh-in/

    --------
    actually the drops ingame instead of buying them frtom the zen store is the curiosity factor.If they are in the store, you don't think about them. If you have them in your bag , you do.
    same as the announcements, they are to remind people of what they are 'missing'
    ---------
    interesting- Marvel heroes closing down but cash shop still running. what was that about stripping as much money as you can.
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    I am aware of the armchair psychology that games use to pimp lockboxes. Isn't companies acting like sleazebags what caused this mess in the first place?​​
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    I dunno, with the number of pip squeaks I encounter in online games that they shouldn't be playing, I get the feeling that ratings are even less effective than "keep off the grass" signs.
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    Yeah, a lot of that is on the parents though. A retail grunt might not be able to sell the latest Grand Theft Auto to a 12 year old without getting in trouble, but there's no law against mommy going in, buying it, and then giving it to said 12 year old for his birthday. Still, it allows more mature (M-rated) games to exist on consoles, so that right there makes ratings worthwhile.​​
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  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    a business is in business to make money , specifically net profits.
    with the proliferation of Free to Pay (no typo) games. They to get money from somewhere apart from subs. Too many people saying"why should i pay subs when i can play this game for 'free'?"
    NW was designed as Free to Pay, it now has it's "not really a subs" system

    DCUO lockboxes- costumes- bop,
    furniture- bop, occasional potion- sellable
    that was it. no wonder they give them free with subs.
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    spinnytop said:

    I dunno, with the number of pip squeaks I encounter in online games that they shouldn't be playing, I get the feeling that ratings are even less effective than "keep off the grass" signs.

    Worse. It think it's more like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The M rating is like "hey look at the is cool stuff"!!!
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  • nephtnepht Posts: 6,883 Arc User
    aesica said:

    Yeah, a lot of that is on the parents though. A retail grunt might not be able to sell the latest Grand Theft Auto to a 12 year old without getting in trouble, but there's no law against mommy going in, buying it, and then giving it to said 12 year old for his birthday. Still, it allows more mature (M-rated) games to exist on consoles, so that right there makes ratings worthwhile.​​

    Actually when Moms or Dads come into my store to buy say a GTA or a Resident Evil game. I quite innocently talk about events that DID NOT HAPPEN in the previous games and if they go along the lines of "Yeah that part was great" I tell them to get the f&^% out my store U_U"

    Prob not great on the profit side of stuff as a disproving Dad myself I don't want kids playing stuff like that :I
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  • riveroceanriverocean Posts: 1,690 Arc User
    chaelk said:

    a business is in business to make money , specifically net profits.
    with the proliferation of Free to Pay (no typo) games. They to get money from somewhere apart from subs. Too many people saying"why should i pay subs when i can play this game for 'free'?"
    NW was designed as Free to Pay, it now has it's "not really a subs" system

    DCUO lockboxes- costumes- bop,
    furniture- bop, occasional potion- sellable
    that was it. no wonder they give them free with subs.

    I agree with you. A gaming companies first priority is to make money. Which is why I'm confused when people complain about things that these companies do to make money. Like, how do they expect the game keep going? Rainbows and fairy-farts don't pay salaries or keep the lights on. Gaming boxes are a necessary evil if people want free-to-play. The other option is subscription only.

    Money has to come in the door somehow. I've seen too many games close their doors much too soon.
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    There is a difference between making money in a fair and honest way and being a manipulative PoS. The latter will inevitably tank an entire studio and hurts the video game industry as a whole. The entire mobile gaming industry is going down the toilet because companies care about making money more than making quality games. In fact, Ramin Shokrizade talk about this in a recent Gamasutra article.

    Gambling boxes are NOT a necessary evil for f2p games, they just generate the fastest profit with the least effort. (There are some things in the comments from the above article that talk about this.) Most of the articles I read talk about how f2p games make the overwhelming majority of their money from a tiny portion of their users. That sounds like a terrible way to run a business. It means that companies are failing to convince most of their users that their games are worth spending money on. It's not an issue of "why should I pay subs when I can play for free" it's "this game isn't worth my money". The difference is between a frugal consumer and a poor quality game. I'm sure the game industry shifting blame to players makes them feel better about themselves, but it isn't keeping studios open.

    There are other ways that f2p games can / could be monetized. It just requires actual effort and planning instead of the quick cash grab.​​
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    Might be time to consider the fact that without these measures the F2P model simply isn't viable. Maybe F2P should go?
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    sterga said:

    There are other ways that f2p games can / could be monetized. It just requires actual effort and planning instead of the quick cash grab.​​

    Got an example of that? I keep getting the feeling it's like a gold unicorn. People keep talking about how awesome it is but... I've never seen one.
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    What do you think F2P games were doing before the lockbox craze? Hell, even CO didn't always have lootboxes.

    Path of Exile only started using gamble boxes recently. Before that, it was supporter packs and micro-transactions. They also have other ways of earning money that exited before the gamble box bandwaggon. There is also nothing saying that new, alternate ways to fund a game cannot be created.

    It's not a "gold unicorn". Other ways of monitization that have been successful already do and have existed. If gambling was so great for making money, you wouldn't have the abundance of trash on the mobile market. It's difficult to claim lootboxes are a necessary evil when so many game are of poor quality in the first place that so few want to spend on them. The industry has a massive problem with emulating the current hotness that isn't always the best or right way to go.​​
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  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    edited December 2017
    I'd honestly rather have loot boxes than some of the other bullshit nonsense F2P games use. These alternatives include (but aren't limited to):
    • Monetized time gates: Build/craft yourself some new gear, a building, or whatever. It takes hours or days unless you pay to instantly complete it. This can range from a mild annoyance (I'll collect my leet item tomorrow) or a hard obstacle that prevents you from progressing further in the game. (My building won't be completed until tomorrow, and without it, I can't advance to the next part of the game)
    • True pay to win: Let's say you need to refine/reforge/enchant/whatever your gear and fill it with socketing gems/etc to be able to compete with everyone else in a meaningful way. While some of it can be found in the world, it's always going to be a time consuming process to farm it, and even then, the worst games will always make sure that only gets you so far--to reach the highest numbers, you gotta pay. If you want to skip the farming, you also gotta pay.
    • "Events" (I loathe to call them events) centered around recharge/spending, where you get some sort of bonus currency, elite/limited-time reward, or other nonsense for either recharging the premium currency or consuming X amount of it within a limited timeframe. Typically rewards from these will powercreep spenders well past the average minnow or F2Per.
    • Resource race: The absolute worst F2P games use this. It's based on the idea that you can only acquire so many resources for character growth per day. Many are available just by playing the game, but of course you also need to hit the cash shop if you want to get the most possible and stay ahead of the curve. Not only does this force people to spend, but it keeps them hooked because missing a day means falling behind. It's arguably the most disgusting and predatory of the lot given the psychology it's based around.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Might be time to consider the fact that without these measures the F2P model simply isn't viable. Maybe F2P should go?
    It doesn't matter if anyone thinks F2P should go or not. Currently, the more honorable subscription model just isn't sustainable for many games out there (including CO) so F2P in its current, somewhat predatory form will be around until enough laws are passed to cut off all of its major (and generally seediest) revenue streams. The alternative calls for people wise up and cease contributing to games that heavily exploit these predatory practices. I know it's not always fair to blame the victim, but in this case, companies are going to keep being scumbags as long as it's profitable for them.

    Unfortunately, so many people just can't be reasoned with so it's a hopeless case. Trying to get them to stop spending on lottery boxes in games is like getting them to stop smoking cigarettes before (or even after) they get lung cancer, not pee on electric fences, or to support the political party that isn't trying to rob them blind in order to pay its wealthy donors.​​
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  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    the trouble is the proliferation of f2p games and the player turnover rate.
    how many games were there around in 2001 when wow came out and how many now?

    the amount of devs working on wow , as best i can find out , is in the hundreds. how many companies can afford that?
    ----------------

    I read somewhere, they get most of their money in the first month before players move to the next free game. Any still playing after that time are likely to stay for a while as they has an investment in the game.

    the same reasoning is used for subs.when people pay subs they are more likely to stay since they have money invested.
    look at NW vip program , a sub by any other name.
    ---------
    then there's all the people we've had on here saying;
    why should i pay a subs when i can play for free
    i'll get subs when (they do what i want)
    i play x amount of games , why should i pay subs on all of them( i resist the urge to say get a job, more money, less time)
    ---------
    TSW went 'f2p' by making subs optional, you still have to buy the game before you can download it though. so they get money whether you pay or not.
    their stipend only collects for 6mths, you don't use it. it vanishes.
    This is also manipulative, it works on the thinking."i'll lose money if i don't play."
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2017
    If only people would stop spending their money according to their own desires and would instead ask people who hate lootboxes about it first so they could stop accidentally spending their money on things they don't actually want. Kidding of course, it would be extremely condescending to try to refer to people as if they were somehow unconsciously spending their money on snake oil, the mindless dupes of sinister corporate masterminds.

    I don't see much coming of this personally. There will be some outrage, a lot big bold talk about "those evil corporations and their evil plans, twirling their evil mustaches!". There might be some sort of rating thing, or a law that says you have to list the chances, but nothing will actually change. After all, stores still sell cigarettes, casinos still have their doors open, you can still buy scratch off tickets at a gas station, and they'll still let you buy video games despite that itself being a gamble - you might be paying 60 bucks for something that sucks. At least F2P games let you play them for a bit before you spend any money, much less of a gamble there even with loot boxes.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    sterga said:

    What do you think F2P games were doing before the lockbox craze? Hell, even CO didn't always have lootboxes.

    Path of Exile only started using gamble boxes recently. Before that, it was supporter packs and micro-transactions.

    So both are former examples? In the case of CO we know the game wasn't profitable enough before.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    If what those games used to be doing was sufficient, then they would have stuck with it.
  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    "Being profitable enough" is incredibly subjective. Especially when you see so much rampant greed. EA would have made a profitable game without the gamble box BS, but they did it anyway because a lot of money from Star Wars fans wasn't good enough.

    CO has a long history of gross mismanagement and isn't exactly a high quality game. While PoE continues to expand to new markets around the world, CO has zero / negative growth. New players don't join a game because it has lockboxes. Looking at consumer backlash and regulations, it might even deter players now.

    PoE was profitable before and would most likely be profitable still, but may have slower studio growth, without lootboxes. PoE's population keeps going up, not down. Supporter packs, mtx, and other methods are still present so the loss of lootbox money wouldn't tank the studio. Outside of a few minor items, nothing in those lootboxes disappears forever as they always end up in the cash shop. In the end, the lootboxes weren't necessary for the game to succeed and don't need to exist for the game to be profitable.

    I could also point to League of Legends, which did not need or have lootboxes to become a massive game. Of course, it seems they too have jumped on that bandwagon. Sadly, nearly everyone is hellbent on tacking them in, which makes it hard to find examples unless you are aware of f2p games that were already doing well before adding the gambling.

    Anyone that wants more information, I highly recommend starting with Ramin Shokrizade's work as he has years of experience in f2p game monitization and a good track record with predicting industry issues.

    There are numerous issues with the video game industry that have lead to the point were're at now. F2P games being full of crap isn't the only problem.​​
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    "profitable enough" is nice, but "profitable enough to expand" is better. Businesses are always looking for some way to make more because, as my various business class teachers drilled into my head "If you're not growing, you're dying".

    It's not as if these video game developers are selling you a poisonous chemically addictive product that can shorten your life span, or producing something that hurts the environment. They produce a digital product and they let you know what you're getting into before you hand over your money. Everyone knows their loot boxes are random. There's really no argument for labeling what they do as "immoral".
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