Today’s Jim Sterling video on what’s going on with NBA 2K18 has convinced me that we need a new “wtf…” thread here in the Video Game section because shit like this is happening every week now, and this latest one is fucking appalling.
Fuck me. The sooner some of the people in the game publishing industry fall down a manhole, the better. This really is becoming one of the worst industries which pains me to say, because I love gaming. I just hate what certain clueless people in the industry are doing.
AI read an article recently (can’t remember where) that talked about how the gaming industry was becoming more and more like the gambling industry. Coming up with all kinds of ways to leech as much money as possible out of its audience.
Microtransactions in full price games are fucking disgusting. Plain and simple and I’ll never fucking support them.
If only other people would do the same. Cause the reason they pull this shit is cause it fucking works.
The whole loot box situation has gotten wildly out of hand. I can accept them in Free-To-Play games because they’re a means of providing income to games which don’t have box prices, but the use of them in games where you’ve already handed over your $60 is detestable. What’s going on with Shadows Of War is one of the most horrible game practices I’ve seen in a while, and Warner Bros should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
APeople like to rag on EA or Ubisoft for shady shit, and with good reason, but WB Games has been the evilest and shadiest company when it comes to this stuff for a while now.
It’s at the point when I simply refuse to buy one of their games at launch. And will instead wait till the Special Editions with all DLC are available at discount in a year or two.
Yeah, Injustice 2 managed to avoid it by making the whole equipement aspect worthless in multiplayer, so I caved in with that game…but Shadow of War’s microtransactions look awful.
And NBA 2K18 already slashed the prices for their microtransactions after the outrage.
Not that I have had much interaction with microtransactions outside of Destiny and Overwatch but the latter I think did things right to a large degree. Lootboxes were pure cosmetics and did not affect gameplay. Have I spent a metric fuckton of money on costumes for my OW characters? Yes. But Blizzard created a game that was fun to play, had an amazing lore behind it and were very good to their community so I had very little problem paying for the game 3-4 times over.
If you want Shadows Of War’s true ending - you’re either going to have to grind like playing the game was your second full time job, or you’re going to have to use your ca$h to buy the loot boxes they’ve added to the game.
Oh, Warner Bros. You really are the worst gaming company.
A[quote name=“catartik” url=“/community/t/159637/wtf-is-the-latest-gaming-outrage-about#post_4378586”]Warner Bros. video game branch has to make up for the amount of money it’s film division is set to lose on Blade Runner 2049.[/quote]
This is unashamedly lazy of me, but can someone concisely explain the ‘loot box’ phenomenon to me, and how it’s different to other microtransactions? I’m seeing talk of it everywhere, but I’m not sure I’ve played a game that features them.
ASo, with regular microtransactions, you will have certain items, whether cosmetic or otherwise, that you can pick and purchase at certain prices.
What loot boxes do, is they take those same items, jam a couple into a mystery box and then sell those to you. It turns into gambling then essentially cause it forces you to buy a lot for a simple chance to get the item you want.
F2P mobile companies found a long time ago people respond better to the chance of purchases and snazzy little opening animation than they do just purchases.
If something costs $100 of ‘stuff’ to buy, people won’t ever save for it. If something costs a dollar for a 1 in 100 chance to appear, they’ll spend $100 to get it.
Every game has loot boxes now. PUBG has them for cosmetics, and frankly, my character is dressed about as well as I care, so i literally just open the boxes and sell them. For REAL money on the steam store.
Okay I see why people hate them. As a general rule I never touch microtransactions as a matter of principle. Games that essentially need you to buy into them in order to properly enjoy the game can kindly fuck off.
I have no problem wit microtransactions or loot boxes as long as they dont limit gameplay, unlike in this case; guess I’ll watch the True Ending in youtube!
I blame Overwatch personally. Previously only Free To Play games would try this shit and nobody had a problem because those games needed some way of paying for themselves. Overwatch showed that there’s a large number of people who will happily embrace the same system in their $60 game.
Forza tried it, there was a backlash, they dialled back. Forza is doing it again now.
I mean, we complain about these games being ‘full price’, but bear in mind the cost of games has not increased with the cost of development. We just aren’t prepared to pay the extra twenty to thirty dollars that really should be tacked onto these games these days due to their increased cost of production. I think this model is here to stay unfortunately, and all we can do is punish the worst offenders.
If a system is reasonably fair I can cope with it (i.e it’s only cosmetics), but what EA is currently trying with SWBF2 is unforgivable. No multiplayer game should feature a system where you can purchase in-game advantages over others, and locking them inside a lootbox so twelve year old kids can use their parents’ credit cards to beat their school friends is adding insults to injury.
I honestly worry what gaming is going to look like in two or three years.
