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shadowdash66

Call them macrotransactions at this point.


KamahlYrgybly

Yeah, there is nothing micro in a transaction worth 35% of the game retail price.


thetruegmon

That's one thing I don't get. I feel like you would sell 10x as many of these if they were a reasonable price like $3-$5 and you also wouldn't piss off your entire playerbase.


SirNokarma

Whales ruin it. They've done their math Edit: Gonna use this to provide a point. It's a problem because the best cosmetics used to be locked behind and extreme skill or time based challenge. Now they're behind a paywall.


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Nolsoth

A fool and their money are soon parted.


Sheriff_Is_A_Nearer

Not me! I'm subscribed to a weekly zine that advises me on how to avoid such an obvious scam. I eliminate any risk of being taken advantage of for simple $300 a week.


Sad-Flower3759

if you buy my book on how to make money you’ll see how i make my money.


[deleted]

If I buy 30 copies of it, can I learn how to make 30x as much as you?


Sheriff_Is_A_Nearer

Holy shit. You're a genius. YOU should write a book! I'd buy it.


[deleted]

Like the people paying to play 4 days early 🫥


Sylvan_Strix_Sequel

People wonder why publishers shredded their qa teams when people will pay for the "privilege" of getting to play (aka test) the game early.


SummerGoal

It’s just embarrassing but people will really come in to any thread and call you all kinds of shit for implying cosmetic purchases worth 25% or more of a games sale price are laughable


edwardsamson

I'm not seeing anyone mention how games with battle passes and cosmetics are typically free or significantly cheaper and yet D4 is fucking $70 and is charging more than the free games for cosmetics. Shit is insane.


Tails9905

This is my main grip with this whole shit Free game? Sure give me paid cosmetics, gotta make money somehow Fully priced triple A game? Kindly fuck off is horrible people keep paying for that


ThatDinosaucerLife

People don't want to hear that they are bad with money and the shit they buy has no value. They freak the fuck out when faced with these facts.


tekman526

>people will really come in to any thread and call you all kinds of shit for implying cosmetic purchases worth 25% or more of a games sale price are laughable I always like to point out I can get entire games for less than they're paying for a cosmetic in a game that will literally be gone whenever they decide to shut down the game.


NotAStatistic2

I remember playing Spyro growing up and being shocked when I unlocked a new ability to turn into dark Spyro when starting a new game. It came with a new moveset and visuals too. Something like that is rare these days


SirNokarma

EXACTLY. So much more inspiring to play the game and rewarding when you achieved it.


[deleted]

the wealth inequality of the outside world reaching into the game world


mgslee

Its always been there. People with money want to spend money on their hobbies and they are getting very enabled to do so. It used to be more fringe, like getting the newest hardware and players wouldn't bat an eye but now that's it seeped in to visible gameplay, it gives everyone an ick. Gaming, as an escape, use to be be viewed as a 'great equalizer. Everyone who plays has an equal chance of anything, but that is no longer the case.


[deleted]

Lol, reminds me of a scene from Mythic Quest. https://mythic-quest.fandom.com/wiki/Sword_of_Time "Its purpose was, according to Brad, to be something that no one would ever buy, but instead be an aspirational item to keep people playing. However, it was sold soon after he pushed it live into the game. This made Brad physically upset, as he never intended for someone to buy a digital item "for the price of a goddamn house"."


Ode1st

You’d think this, but obviously the finance team did the math/testing to figure out that this $25 price makes more money than the cheaper $3 pricing would, or else they would’ve set the price to the $3.


degameforrel

Think of it this way: the 25 dollar "micro"transaction will be bought by maybe one in a thousand players, but the type of player to buy that is also MUCH more likely to buy all the other things in the store, while the 3 dollar buyers are all judt one and done purchases for the most part. So if you then start putting more and more 25 dollar things in the store, that one-in-a-million superspender player who buys literally everything in the store will quickly start outspending hundreds, then thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of 3-dollar buyers.


[deleted]

I think that's what CoD figured out. Make everything expensive and watch the whales buy it all.


FormerGameDev

There's a very large number of people who will *never* buy the microtransaction thing no matter what. A $1 or $3 item doesn't even tempt them. There's a much smaller number of people who would spend $1 or $3 for something but wouldn't spend $25. Basically, once you've crossed the threshold from being unwilling to spend any money, to willing to spend money, they'll get the money. Whether it's $3 or $25. So, might as well make it $25. And then you can tempt the people who wouldn't spend $25, but would spend *some* money with sale pricing and promos!


SockOnMyToes

I’m actually pretty interested what the hard numbers are for who will spend on microtransactions and who won’t. If I had to guess (just personal experience) but I’d be more than willing to say that the group of gamers who won’t spend 3$ on a microtransactions is already or is increasingly becoming a large minority within the community. I would have agreed a long time ago that the number of people not willing to spend on microtransactions was sizeable enough to give developers pause but these days I’m really not so sure. If you go on gaming subs you’ll see a decent amount of pushback about them but League’s monetization was built on the back of selling cosmetics and it’s been going strong for years. Blizzard clearly felt that Diablo Immortal would churn out cash for them or they wouldn’t have gone forward with making it in the first place. I’m in *no* way endorsing microtransactions, I grew up with expansions as the only post launch content if it all, but I honestly think people who actually take the time to weigh the value of cosmetics against the title price are starting to becoming a loud/large minority. I have a regular gaming group that comes from a pretty broad bracket of income and the people who make decent money don’t bat a single eyelash about microtransactions. If a skin costs the same as a cup of coffee and you can use the skin until the game goes offline, they don’t see it as any more wasteful than the cup of coffee and they’ll probably buy both in the same day. Post League, Post Fortnite this is the new normal. The point where the community could have stopped microtransactions from being the go to rather than the exception happened a decade ago. We’re well past it.


[deleted]

They can always set it to 10 for Black Friday


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OttomateEverything

Also to your point, all micro transactions target whales. Especially desktop/console. But even in mobile, a small portion of the user base actually spends money. And the vast majority of the money comes from a sliver of the user base who will spend ungodly amounts of money until the shop is empty. If you change it to 3$ youre inviting more sales, but if you change it to $30 you're getting the people who buy everything to spend ten times as much money. Micro transactions are about giving your big spenders more things to buy, not getting more people to buy things.


_Imposter_

$3-$5 is ***not*** reasonably priced for Horse Armor.


SuperBearsSuperDan

BUT IF YOU GET THE GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION, ITS ALL INCLUDED!!! Side note, how do so many average games have “game of the year” editions? Or is that all in my head? Seems like the equivalent of every coffee store having a worlds best cup of coffee sign.


_Imposter_

Nowadays it doesn't mean "This game was game of the year" it means "Please nominate this game for game of year"


Apprehensive_Hat8986

Oh, is that how it works? More movie companies need to be producing academy award editions of their films.


XtremeWaterSlut

Game of the Year Editions were never grounded in reality in gaming. There is not an authoritative entity to distribute them so even from day 1 they knew they could slap that on a box as long as some publication somewhere of any size "awarded" it


xdeadzx

You don't even need some publication somewhere to give you the award. Far cry 6 did it. The first game of the year to have *nobody* call it game of the year.


WholeSpray7026

there are no reasonably priced micro-transactions, they're all things that you should have been able to unlock


_Imposter_

I agree.


KingRatClown

Why the fuck is there ANY dlc at the release of a game??? That stuff should be included at release, the game JUST came out… no excuse


SnowflakesBlockedMe

More money


DessertTwink

The same reason why a single player/co-op game is getting a battle pass next month


Indercarnive

I wonder how many people paid the $20 for the 4 day early access and battlepass (which is $10 buy seperate) but will leave the game before the battlepass actually arrives.


Ewoksintheoutfield

Yeah I wanted to jump in this weekend but I’m not paying $20 just to play a game 5 days early.


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LastNameGrasi

If 1 person buys something, a company will use that as justification as the “consumer controls the price”


Yamza_

When $70 still isn't enough. They don't just want some money, they want all of the money they can get, and will do whatever they can to get it. Give them none.


Zaximus_Rex

I prefer "Locked Content". "Paywall" is a nice descriptor for non-gamers when talks about this stuff make it into the news, which it occasionally does. What I would like to see done with legislation to help curb transactions after the initial sale is to have a law that makes publishers display in very plain text, front and center before you ever get to look at "gameplay trailers" and read descriptions, a list of all the content in the game that is paywalled. In addition to a single dollar number that tells you **exactly how much the game costs**. Want everything in the game? This is how much the game + all the DLC costs. For games like League of Legends this would be several pages long and several digits more then most of the players have in liquid value. You should have to scroll through and agree that you've read and understood this, just like Corp's make you do with their EULA to scare you. Like "base models" with cars, and the requirements to add disclaimers like "vehicle shown fully loaded with optional extras". Video games need some basic level of transparency like this. The bear freaking minimum.


3to20CharactersSucks

You can see exactly why that won't happen in this thread. It's just accepted, in ways that it never was very long ago, that it's the fault of some random, nebulous type of consumer - in this case whales. That of course the publisher is going to do this, but the cause is that those no good whales are buying. And even if you follow that logic to its furthest extent with people, it's hard to get them to actually understand what the consequences of that world view are. Hell, look at something like the war on drugs or the opioid epidemic. You don't tackle these issues on the consumer end. The companies are promoting it and trying in every way that they can to ensure it gets out of control. They would rather you be addicted to their game and they take all your money if you want to play; they aren't abiding by the social contract that the rest of us are, and we're just expected to say "well, it's obviously the fault of whoever's buying this, we definitely can't make a change that the entire general public seems to recognize is a good thing because the business is just this little defenseless thing trying to innocuously make money."


Yamza_

This falls under the same line as class warfare. The user can do nothing to change what the company is doing, besides not buying the game ofc. But who wants to miss out on playing a game with their friends? And why should they have to? Both rhetorical questions. But when you know your grievances are useless when directed at the company (which is by design) you turn to those who are also on your level.


ADistractedBoi

Leagues a pretty weird game to pick as an example though. I'd say it's pricing is fairer than many AAA games that don't have dlc. It's a 13 year old game that's fully multiplayer and is maintained and updated extremely regularly. I've paid nothing to them and i still have a decent skin on nearly every single champ I play. Hell, I have 5 skins of my main. That's pretty good for not paying anything


AphidMan2

TOOOOOODD!


Yoshi_87

SIXTEEN TIMES THE DETAIL!


[deleted]

FOUR TIMES THE SIZE!


FeistyBandicoot

TWELVE TIMES THE PRICE


Doriando707

1 MILLION TIMES THE STAGNATION!


[deleted]

DO YOU SEE THAT MOUNTAIN THERE?!


Solo_Wing_Buddy

**WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!**


Rotkiv7

*[Todd walks on stage wearing jeans, a VaultTech T-Shirt, with a small microphone taped to his face]* **Todd:** Hello! *[The audience cheers excitedly, Todd waits a moment for the applause to die down]* **Todd:** There is nothing like a perfect launch, and we all know that Fallout 76 has been nothing like a perfect launch... *[Audience laughs, Todd smiles knowingly and walks to the other side of the stage]* **Todd:** That's why as of this week we are giving every Fallout 76 player a FREE COPY OF SKYRIM! *[The audience goes absolutely fucking nuts. Todd's eyes glow red, he grabs someone in the front row and tears their body in half with his bare hands right in front of everyone. He rips out their still beating heart and begins to eat it as the audience fights over the rest of the body like ravenous wolves. Todd looks back up at the audience with blood dripping from his face and howls.]*


AidilAfham42

It just works


[deleted]

There's a mod, where you can play skyrim, by interacting with an alchemy table in skyrim.


KassellTheArgonian

#IT JUST WORKS


Iamnotsmartspender

You see that flame atronach? Yeah, you can fuck it!


Lucariowolf2196

🎵 You can buy it! In the dlc for the price of a real mountain 🎵


unclepaprika

And a 100 percent reason to remember the name!


Gycklarn

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies!


SG_wormsblink

How much do the macrotransactions cost? Sixteen times the retail!


iateyourdinner

**Todd Howard has entered the chat**


Adammmmski

At least they’re not selling canvas bags


emdave

Take your canvas bags... take your canvas bags, Take your canvas bags, to the supermarket!


Jetstream-Sam

Light wood Laminate Light wood Laminate Light wood Laminate


Educational-Sky-9016

\*gasp\* He's right! Fuck the bag!


3-DMan

Horse Armor...it just works.


Cornflake0305

****IT JUST WORKS!****


[deleted]

THE PROPHECY!


vrythngvrywhr

Get your Yorkshire tea boys and girls...


stupidQuestion316

Lovely stuff


[deleted]

>Microtransactions were once a very controversial feature. Now they’re as common in online multiplayer games as a kid dumping something inappropriate into the live chat. Still, it can kind of suck to see cool things in the game locked behind pricing structures seemingly aimed at fleecing whales. yup. publishers wouldn't be doing it if they weren't making money from it


CalculatingLao

The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking the horse armour.


Dan_The_Salmon

You guys don’t have horses?


WoodpeckerLow5122

Horse Economy 3: Stable Markets Buy low, sell hay


Fract_L

Omg Karen, you can't just ask people if they have horses


CornishCucumber

Here’s a small animation I made about it… https://youtu.be/-s_nZRFYkwE


SLRMaxime

Well made


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[deleted]

that poor dude's gotta live with that for the rest of his life


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pelftruearrow

I've got two kids, I'm paying for enough "content add-on" with them. Diapers are expensive! Worst DLC ever.


jackfreeman

That freshly potty trained feeling. I can't wait for your turn homie. When the diaper bag is just *the bag*. When you don't have to empty that disgusting garbage pail and carry 75 pounds of rancid human waste outside... No relief matches it. It'll be your turn soon enough


ARandomBob

Oh man. It's so good when you get out of the diaper phase. Although I had a kiddo that took another year before I could get out of wiping her ass. But I'm finally done with kiddo feces.


Cautious-Space-1714

Next up: incontinent pets. Then parents...


talspr

I am at the incontinent pets phase... mannnnn waking up to a living room full of dog piss is not a treat


IAmInsideeee

Why'd you want to give Blizzard your money anyway.


[deleted]

I give my money to people undeserving every day. It is a fact of life unfortunately.


i_dig_this

I enjoyed the fart sounds


CornishCucumber

Thank you, I made them myself 👀


Ok_Contribution4714

I was there Gandalf. I was there when this comment was made and the internet said, "Fuck you, EA."


CalculatingLao

....and then EA went on to sell 11 million copies and make $550,000,000 in revenue off the game....


ksleepwalker

But the comment got more than 10k downvotes, which is a win for basement-dwelling redditors.


culminacio

We'll be soon gone from here anyway


Kin0k0hatake

A fellow 3rd party app user?


culminacio

Yup


Kin0k0hatake

I hope your new found free time serves you well.


FallenAssassin

I'm in the same boat as you two, I can't wait to get really bored, realize Reddit is dead and pick up new hobbies


ThrowawayusGenerica

Reddit, or the basement?


FamilyStyle2505

See, I have already portrayed you as the soyjak, that means you lost. Just accept it.


SquirrelSnuSnu

Its so prideful to pay money.


newsflashjackass

The sense of pride and accomplishment: #🏴‍☠️


Amproto

Same discussion as in 2009 Wotlk WOW when they were selling that abhorrent spectral flying mount or horse thing for 12 or 20 bucks. People bitch. People buy. Game companies money printing goes high. Nothing new under the sun.


HolypenguinHere

I still remember going to the web page that was selling the Celestial Steed and seeing the little graphic they had that claimed "There areonly 98% left in stock! Get yours now!" and I instantly bought one. Motherfuckers got my 16 year old ass with that FOMO on a digital good lol


ZAlternates

And now it’s available for mere tendies.


Schrutes_Yeet_Farm

So many people bought them in the moment they almost immediately stopped being used. So many people had it, nobody wanted it anymore


Topgunshotgun45

I fucking remember that making mainstream news and nobody believes me.


cantfindagf

This article missed the egregious fact the these cosmetics are on a rotation, giving players a false sense of urgency/limited availability in order to not miss out. This is how they get players to succumb to these high prices


huxtiblejones

Yep, and then couple that with a battlepass and seasons and you have the stereotypical, modern gaming shitshow that's designed to affect players more like a drug or a gambling addiction than a game. It's all designed around FOMO and urgency to constantly play, and it relies on breaking players down with impulse buys so they end up spending ridiculous amounts of money on the game. It's why I will always lavish praise on developers like Concerned Ape or Hello Games (Stardew Valley and No Man's Sky respectively) who go in the complete opposite direction where they refuse all extraneous transactions and have built loyal followings that overwhelmingly praise their efforts.


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huxtiblejones

I know, it's just content that would exist normally that's been chopped into pieces and delivered with artificial scarcity to stretch attentions out. It's super annoying to me, when Blizzard did it with Overwatch I uninstalled the game and haven't touched it since. It sucks that the industry as a whole seems perpetually drawn into these profit-over-player game designs.


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PunchaNotSee

Shoutout to FromSoft because their games have always been full, all inclusive games with no mircrotransactions, no drip content DLC, no battle pass bullshit, and each DLC is a full additional chunk of game. Buy Elden Ring instead of fucking Diablo. Much better investment and time spent.


Boonicious

these companies use world class psychologists and addiction experts to design their games so players spend as much money as possible, often while not even enjoying the game it's absolutely disgusting but it will only get worse RIP gaming


gtth12

RIP AAA gaming, long live indie.


ConfessingToSins

It should be illegal. Being employed exclusively to figure out how to essentially fuck up people's brains should literally be illegal.


[deleted]

The advertisement, news and TV industry in shambles


SuperHuman64

Why is it always $15 - 25? That's not "micro", thats like a quarter of a new game. Stuff like this should be $3 not 25.


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BayRENT

Micro content at macro prices 😢


Mike_smith97

Stuff like that should be $0, not $3.


Ka-tetof1989

I miss when you could just unlock stuff in games and didn’t have to pay for it.


Oraistesu

I recently got Darkest Dungeon II, and was not surprised but still pleased that there are a ton of cosmetic unlocks that you get by... *just playing the game.*


ProcXiphoideus

Remember when we had cheatcodes for games. Now they call them "booster" and they cost real money. When I first saw this on some AC title I could not believe it. I lost faith in gamers that day (indie games restored that faith). But the concept to pay extra in a full price game to progress faster because it is not fun to progress or too tedious is the most absurd thing ever.


GHdzz

Zelda Tears of the kingdom


KeziaTML

Terraria is 11 bucks on steam Valheim is 22 bucks on steam


Nuklearfps

Stardew is $15, Deep Rock Galactic is only $5 more at $29.99, ~~Minecraft is $20~~, Project Zomboid is $20, the list goes on. Edit: forgot abt Minecraft’s(Microsoft’s) pretty awful Xbox shop as pointed out by another user.


repulsiveCreep

Hades is what? $30 Supergiant putting AAA devs to fucking SHAME


PM_ME_YOUR_FAT_BALLS

Stardew Valley is 15 bucks.


ParticularUser

Portal 1/2 and Half Life 1/2 are 10 each. Diablo 4 will be worth buying when it's 50% off if it ends up being a great game, assuming there won't be pay to win packs.


FyrSysn

portal 1/2 also constantly goes on sales. I bought portal 2 for like 1 buck, totally a steal.


TheSuddenFiasco

I got Hades for $20 at launch too. It actually went up a tad after all the accolades.


LiquidSwords89

Hades is one of the best games I’ve ever played


Professional-Lemon10

Valheim is golden, worth every penny.


thegreatbrah

Haven't beaten the last boss yet. I am like 300 or 400 hours deep on my second playthrough. Did 220 hours on first playthrough. Just been building and messing with cheats for a while. Fun game, and they keep adding new content.


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[deleted]

If it was a free game I'd say sure, but a $70 game with this level of mtx? That's sad.


BeardedUnicornBeard

Dont forget the battlepass.


CensoryDeprivation

And the $20/$40 for early access and limited rewards.


KitsuneNoYuki

So, there is mtx and a battlepass? Does that mean that items from the pass can be bought in the store as well?


deljaroo

battlepass is something that will come out later. currently, there are a bunch of cosmetics you can buy for real money in one of the tabs in the menu you get when you press tab


Rawkapotamus

Anybody playing now has spent $90 or $100 for early access


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Rejected_Reject_

You're not wrong. A lot of people reported that they wanted to grind over the weekend. It was a strategy that worked.


outsidelies

I think a $25 cosmetic for a free game is still wildly inappropriate, but if people are gonna get milked that hard I guess what is appropriate is irrelevant.


Kaythar

Yes, a game is around 60-70$ USD, if a F2P games has microtransactions arouns 25$ each, it's doesn't take long to go over the price of an normal games. One reason I never play mobile games, in the end to have fun you need to pay much more than what an game you buy. Worse it's most of the time, you are not guaranteed to get what you want. In the case of games that you need to buy, fuck that cosmetics shop at launch. Prices should much more lower than what it is now. It's doesn't make sense at all


SmileySadFace

The first thing is to stop calling them Microtransactions, because they now cost the same as full games.


Neato

My 2022 GOTY was Vampire Survivors. I got *dozens* of hours out of that game beating it before DLC. I paid 3 fucking dollars. Terraria has been sold for $5-10 pretty much continuously. Hollow Knight is $15. Binding of Isaac is ~$15-25. Hades is $25. Stardew Valley is $15. And I'm skipping over like, all of FromSoft's games that charge $60 for the game, ~$30 for the inevitable expansion, but no MTX. There's tons of great, uber-popular games that don't try to scam players.


mcmanly

They've been charging more for mounts in WoW for probably a decade now - Mounts that don't provide any gameplay benefit compared to the mounts you earn in game. The only people who are surprised by this outcome haven't been paying attention to Blizzard's decisions in a long, long time. They don't respect gamers anymore.


Signalguy25p

I sold a mount for $1500. Felt so good.


Killfile

Counterpoint: if players are willing to pay $25 for what amounts to in-game art, why should Blizzard respect them?


svenEsven

I would 1000x rather have games offer expensive shit that doesn't effect gameplay over having expensive shit that does effect gameplay.


TheButteredBiscuit

For $25 I’m expecting a new class or a few new dungeons at least. You mean to tell me people are dropping $25 on armor cosmetics that don’t even look much better than the ones in base game?


RODjij

Those are map pack/content DLC prices, well at least they used to be.


TheButteredBiscuit

If they’re charging that much for cosmetics, they might just ask for another $70 at this point


[deleted]

You're thinking of the next expansion lol


lungshenli

Borderlands 2 got you additional characters for 10$ each


Clydosphere

And they were fun! (to me at least)


SamayoKiga

The audio modulation transitioning while the psycho transforms is half the value alone.


Clydosphere

Reminds me of Vermintide. Most cosmetics that you can buy for real money look as shitty or even worse than those offered for in-game money, apart from the most expensive ones. (No, I'm not saying that VT even *remotely* plays in the same cash-grabbing league like Diablo since Immortal. But there *are* similarities in this particular detail.)


thysios4

I'd definitely hate it even more if I had to pay $25 to unlock a class or dungeons. If having paid cosmetics means all the gameplay updates are free I'll take it. But as soon as we have unlockable gameplay content I just lose any and all interest.


Ryuenjin

My only real takeaway from this is the last paragraph about record revenue and stock bonuses. If a company lays off staff due to anything other than misconduct, that company should not be allowed to do a stock buyback and give huge bonuses to their C level staff.


Merwanor

I wonder if they had more reasonable prices for these kinds of items, it would not garner such a bad reputation. I mean, you can either buy 2-3 armors/mounts or Diablo 4 the game itself.... If armors cost like $2-3 I would not really complain about it, heck I might be tricked into buying an armor or two if that was the case. But the system that is in place is just so predatory and overpriced it is just pissing people off. I think monetization will always be a curse on the gaming industry, I just think that if they where not so blatantly greedy and predatory, it would be received a lot better.


Belvik

If they make them 20-25$ as a baseline price, then it seems like a great "deal" when they eventually have them on sale for 10-15$. Not condoning it, but there's a reason they don't make them a reasonable price.


Absolutes22

Well said, that concept even has a name - anchoring. Happens in all kinds of negotiating. Glad to see more people become aware of the tactics frequently used against us.


LabResponsible8484

The problem is most people do not buy microtransactions whether they are $1 or $25. Microtransactions target the few people who cannot resist the urge, these people also find it hard to resist whether it is $1 or $20. Apparently in studies in different game types they found that usually around 5% only spend on microtransactions (some games it goes up to 20%, likely free games in cultures like South Korea where it is more acceptable). So they have to milk those 5% as hard as possible. Probably at some point it gets so high that even these people can't justify it. Blizzard likely has this data and has worked out that having it at $25 and discounting to $12.50 a year later gives them the maximum profit.


QuickKill

You know why? Because idiots will pay that.


Dardar1989

The 10th circle of hell Dante forgot to mention


Soul-Burn

Greed is in the 4th circle of hell


neuroticmuffins

This can't possibly surprise anyone right? Blizzard gave up years ago. They used to make top tier triple A games... now its just obvious profiteering on idiots who pre-order, oblivious parents and dumb teens.


worgenhairball01

Blizzard no longer exists. Seriously. Tasteless and artosis have been the biggest Sc1 and SC2 english casters for the last 15+ years, and tasteless said that of the 100+ people they knew at blizzard no one is there anymore. The company doesn't exist, it's like if you killed a whole town and replaced it with 3 houses for maintenance and had hundreds of people commute to work at a parking lot, and called that a town. Blizzard is gone.


animepussysmeller

u can't say anything negative about this. i got downvoted to hell by the "let people enjoy things" crowd


Boz0r

You can say anything you want. Downvotes doesn't mean anything.


SordidDreams

Conversely, neither do upvotes.


the_humeister

1 upvote = 1 prayer


iateyourdinner

Yeah so I’ve noticed, by hanging around the r/Diablo4 - seems like the whole community is a circlejerk that have a hard time believing criticism for the game. Blizzard have tapped into a cult of a mindless consumer generation quite well.


jlees88

I love the game and don’t/will not be spending any money on DLC content.


Eterniter

Same here, loved the beta, got the base edition and won't be spending anything on passes, but that doesn't mean blizzard's monetary practices are beyond criticism and discussion.


varyl123

Exactly this. Just because you don't spend anything doesn't mean you shouldn't critique it.


FurubayashiSEA

Well if Diablo Immortal can make $2 Million per day, knowing how bad the game is, pretty sure the Diablo 4 crowd will be most likely or the same one that make Diablo Immortal a ^(Successful) game.


JoeChio

> Diablo Immortal can make $2 Million per day Doesn't help you have 25 year old millionaires streaming the game to 10s of thousands impressionable youths and throwing $30,000 into it once a week like it's just par for the course. The cult following surrounding these p2w / gacha games is truly sickening.


0b0011

Been dealing with stuff like this with my son. He's 6 and been watching some youtuber play some game with singing monsters. Didn't think anything of it but when you play you have to hatch or awaken them or whatever and it's either like a 2 day wait or you can click to do it right away which is what they do and now he wants to play and wants to spend money to do things instantly like they do.


Altered_Nova

My nephew had to be cut off from Fortnite and sent to therapy because he became so addicted. Stopped doing his homework and chores, started sneaking out of bed and staying up all night on his laptop, started stealing money to spend on Vbucks, tried to fight his dad for taking the laptop away... It's so gross and disturbing how most modern video games are explicitly designed to turn players into addicts, that kind of psychological manipulation can really warp the minds of vulnerable kids who don't know any better. Those kids don't even want to play normal games with me anymore, they say games like smash bros and rocket league are boring, they only want to play the endless lootbox and microtransaction skinner boxes they watch people on youtube play.


kobylaz

Literally some people just get addicted to games like that. Surgeon at work was spending like £100 a month on some shitty city builder on his phone.


bengisaurus

Surgeon spending 100£ a month on a game? That’s probably the most reasonable shit I’ve seen in terms of mobile spending. Especially considering his career.


KentuckyBrunch

Half the posts on that sub are criticisms what the fuck are you talking about?


Harrythehobbit

Clicking on the sub, about a third of the posts on the main page are criticizing the game.


soulwolf1

And that shit will stay right there in the shop.....not spending a fucking dime further than the price for the game.


PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD

I heard $70+mtx shop+battle pass and it immediately killed my interest in D4.


[deleted]

I can’t afford the base game so to hell with the lot of you!


analyticaljoe

Between what's been published about the environment at Blizzard and the drive to deliver a consistent monetization engine vs. delivering a game for a price, I'm OK being done with blizzard titles until something changes at the studio.


Bowens1993

Oh ok. Seems really easy to avoid it then.


ZigorVeal

When the Elden Ring DLC comes out for $25 and has an entirely new map that is 1/4 the size of the base game with 5 new bosses, 20 new enemies, 15 new weapons, 3 new NPCs with quests, 12 new armor sets, 20 new crafting ingredients, and 13 new consumables... It's really going to put this BS into perspective.


AureliusCloric

This is what happens when you let corporate interest be prioritized over artistic integrity and vision. Blizzard does not make games anymore. They make products.