New Halo 1 cosmetic armor in Halo Infinite costs twice as much as Halo 1 itself, straining recent fan goodwill
The throwback skin's $22 price hasn't gone over particularly well.
The whales will buy it and satisfy the management who approved this piece of shit price
It's honestly sad. The whales are just a different form of gambling addicts, the wasted money isn't even a factor for some people.
Oblivion's Horse Armor dlc has more worth than this
Oblivion's Horse Armor DLC also didn't cost more than Oblivion either.
You can get the whole MCC on sale for less...
Nah. Things like this aren't meant to have a large appeal. It aims to expoilt the few customer with lack of financial control. 'Just not buying' doesn't really hurt the company since it didn't really cost anything in the first place. It is (like a scam) designed to filter out financially irresponsibile people and extract as much money as possible from them.
Your non-participation counts for nothing, versus the minority of people suckered into throwing in arbitrary quantities of money for fuck-all.
Only legislation can fix this. This business model is a scam. Maximum revenue comes from addiction and frustration. If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.
Only legislation will fix this.
If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.
What kind of legislation, though? Loot boxes seem like an easy one to write: gambling is illegal already in a lot of places. When it's just exploitative greed, I'm not sure how it's technically so different from charging exorbitant rates for swag at a baseball game or something. Or charging a few thousand bucks for a purse at some high-end fashion retailer.
To be clear: I loathe the FOMO trends in game development, overpriced skins, micro/macro-transactions, and all the "credit/XP boosters" type bullshit. Turning money into ingame currencies to obfuscate actual prices, the general design of games frontloading fun and then squeezing dollars out of you to feel that same high again....I'm just skeptical that there's anything to do about it from a legal perspective that doesn't apply to most of the rest of the capitalist enterprises out there. Please though, I want to be wrong about this, so any examples of how to curb some of these excesses would be great.
Stop letting games take real money.
(Not: stop charging money for games. Not: end subscriptions. Not: make games free. I will not be tolerating any bullshit today from people who refuse to acknowledge how "microtransactions" are the topic and the problem.)
All forms of this are just lootboxes with more steps. We all finally admit lootboxes are bullshit, right? Even the most diehard kneejerk 'but it's cosmetic!' yeahbutts are quick to say some it's not awful, like lootboxes. But they're all just gentler ways of taking unlimited quantities of your actual money.
Nothing inside a video game should cost money.
It's a fucking game. It's not real.
The game itself can and should cost money - the rise of allegedly-free wallet siphons proves how lucrative that bullshit is. They don't need your money up-front; they'll get more from wearing you down. But the fact the same bullshit is in flagship AAA games, including some which want to charge ninety goddamn dollars up-front, and have a subscription, proves they can take you both ways, because you don't really have a choice. This shit is in everything. It is infecting the entire medium, and making the path to maximum revenue a matter of addiction and frustration. We were never going to shop our way out of it. We have to tell the whole industry it's simply not allowed.
Why? Don't buy the armour. Let the whales pay to keep the lights on.
Only legislation will fix this.
Legislation can't fix stupid. We have to let people be able to hurt themselves or we are no better than slaves. Because at that point gov is dictating every aspect of our lives. Freedom isn't free from consequences, but it's worth it.
Only legislation will fix this.
You say this for everything, holy shit man.
"Only legislation will fix this" was your response to WoW charging extra for early access, to Mortal Kombat having paid fatalities, to a Disney game not being free-to-play when it leaves early access, to a translation error from a developer who does not speak English and/or the developer adding paid DLC to their $20 game, to a free mobile game having in-app purchases.
I'm really starting to think that you truly believe game developers should perform unpaid labor.
'You say this every time a product is treated like a service! Make up your mind!!!'
Most of those aren't even different situations - they're all blatantly about charging real money inside video games. Just like this. "Microtransactions" are intolerable bullshit, and they're in fucking everything.
I say this a lot because IT'S IN EVERYTHING. Hello, and welcome to the point! This greedy exploitation is the dominant strategy. It sucks for everyone, customers and developers alike, because you can either become this kind of (eugh) "live service," or make less money than the suits expect. So every genre, every price point, fuckin' single-player games, will grow this rot, and then try to soak you for unlimited quantities of real-life currency.
This needs to stop. There is only one way that happens.
Wow dude, you really need a hobby.
Exec: People need to take the story of Halo srs, I'm told that means something to your silly game about space fascists fighting robots or whatever.
Dev: Okay, how about you unlock them after completing the campaign once?
Exec: I don't understand. Where did we make money that way?
looks at final fantasy xiv's cash shop .
Or frankly any online game, live service or not.
This model is not new or unusual and these prices aren't out of line with industry comps.
I don't really like it, but it's barely news that game companies continue to adopt this monetization strategy.
Anime and mmos almost always seem to have their specific whales who WILL dress up their avatar.
Combined? 🫣😬
Bro it's cosmetic who gives a fuck. Just play the game and buy the reasonably priced skins. Better yet, just don't buy the skins at all. People are so fucking entitled holy shit.
People are tired of being subjected to psychological manipulation to throw endless quantities of money at the products they already fucking bought, just so they can look slightly different. A feature that used to be taken for granted, and is the bare fucking minimum of developer effort.
How you look in a video game should not cost real money.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
Psychological manipulation because my guy can only be bright green not dark green.
These are just different ways the company would profit from their game. You play the game for the gameplay and that's all that matters.
Besides, what if you really like the game and just literally want to donate to the company? I know I did for rocket league, and bought a skin for like $20 when I got the game itself for like $15 or some shit. I thought the game was worth way more with how much fun I had with it. Same for games that let you "buy" the OST. Everyone knows this is bullshit just ignore it.
