missingno comments on Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think

Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think (www.gamedeveloper.com)

submitted 1 year ago by ryanee@fedia.io to c/games@sh.itjust.works

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I want to shed light on a tactic that involves collecting data as you play, feeding this data into complex algorithms and models that then alter the rules of your game under the hood to optimize spending opportunities.

[–] missingno@fedia.io 2 points 1 year ago* (13 children)

And you know goddamn well that fighting games had incremental re-releases, decades before this abuse was possible.

Of course I know, I know how much it fucking sucked! No one wants to go back to that!

You'd rather spend $60 on Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, then spend $60 on Street Fighter II': Champion Edition, then spend $60 on Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, then spend $60 on Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, then spend $60 on Super Street Fighter II Turbo?

That's better to you than being able to get the patches for free, with the option of buying characters at a reasonable price, all while still retaining compatibility with opponents on the latest version even if you don't spend a dime?

How is that better? How?

Or, if you want continuing revenue for an online service - make it a service. Sell subscriptions. Oh sorry, do people not like that?

No, no I don't like that! I would much rather buy a character once than have to subscribe to them forever! If I buy a character I get to keep them, if I subscribe I don't. And I'm not getting gouged, I know what the price tag is. If anything, a subscription is gouging because I have to keep paying again and again in order to keep what I should've only had to pay for once.

I'm actually baffled that you're seriously trying to suggest subscriptions as a better alternative. Like... seriously? Really?

I do not respect the dishonest conflation of 'FighterZ doesn't get to expand forever' with 'FighterZ would be banned.'

FighterZ as we know it would not exist in your world. In your world, it'd just be the 1.0 base game and that'd be it, but I know you know we're talking about what FighterZ was able to become over the course of its lifespan thanks to DLC.

You're taking this needlessly aggressive tone accusing us of misconstruing you, but I know you know damn well what we're saying here while you keep misconstruing us. Don't accuse me of being dishonest when you're playing dumb like this.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Subscriptions are honest. Like actual sales - where you get a thing you didn't have, in exchange for money. Paying money, to be allowed to use part of the game you already have, is not a sale.

SF6 fucking launched with $120 in DLC. Like yeah, you bought the game, at full price... but fuck you, pay us again. Breaking up the fuckening into individual characters, trickled out over years, is psychological manipulation to disguise that abuse.

And I’m not getting gouged, I know what the price tag is.

... the fact you can pay hundreds of dollars and still not have all of a 1v1 fighting game is not made problematic through mystery. No shit you can see the price tag. That price is obscene. Past abuses being worse is no kind of excuse.

I swear to god, Capcom could charge the price of a whole game for each new character bundle, and there'd still be people up my ass about how it must be fine because it was the same in the 90s. You know how I know? Because they do. Annual character passes are $30! Does that get you everything that comes out, that year? Does it, fuck.

I know you know we’re talking about what FighterZ was able to become

Of course you do, because it's what that paragraph was about. How am I the one "playing dumb?" You're still insisting there's no way a game could be updated - aside from the other two ways you don't like! - so that's the same as the game being banned. Because saying it's banned sounds really bad, and serious, and is totally the same thing as saying Capcom doesn't need real negotiable currency in order to change the color of a character's pants.

But hey, this is only the shallow end of a business model that's turning the games industry into a frustration-based casino. Why worry?

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[–] missingno@fedia.io 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

DLC is honest. I get a thing in exchange for money. I know what the price tag is, and I'm happy to pay what I think is a fair price. And I only pay once to keep the thing I paid for, unlike a subscription.

Let me just cut straight past all your deflecting. Do you think that the final version of DBFZ, with all of its DLC, sold at its price, should be able to exist in this form?

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (10 children)

I'm not participating in your all-or-nothing hypothetical. We just discussed how this exact game could have emerged without this exact business model.

And the version of the game with all the damn characters is the version where you had to keep paying to get all the damn characters.

If you mean, from today onward, should the game be priced piecemeal on Steam, then no. But it doesn't magically revert to its launch state. I want them to sell the whole game... like regular. This is not a sprawling MMO. There's not terabytes of content. It's a 1v1 fighter with like thirty characters. If Arc honestly thinks the damn thing should be $130 when everything's 70% off, let them stick that single price on it, and good fucking luck.

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[–] missingno@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

I don't think you understand how much work it takes to design and balance that many characters in a serious competitive fighting game. Serious question, do you play competitive fighters at all, do you know anything about how they work?

In fact, the best way to ensure they're all polished is to start small and expand incrementally over time. This is the right model for a competitive fighter. You're deliberately ignoring the path to get from point A to point B if you think that in your world it would just be the final version right away. I'm saying that in your world, the fighting games I know and love would not be the games that I know and love.

Personally, my favorite game of all time is Skullgirls, and they have been very open and transparent about all the expenses involved in developing a much smaller cast. Look up their finances, look up how long it took their small team to get from the eight characters at launch to what they have today. And I'm very happy with every cent I spent on that game, they didn't scam me by offering more of my favorite game. This is a game that has entertained me for a decade. Even if I count all the money I've spent on traveling to tournaments, which is far more than I spent on the game, it's still quite possibly the most efficient form of entertainment I've ever gotten my money's worth from.

Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (8 children)

You’re deliberately ignoring the path to get from point A to point B if you think that in your world it would just be the final version right away.

Who are you talking to?

We just discussed how to incrementally build a game, without this specific business model. I am only against the business model. Do you know how to address that, without slapfighting a strawman? 'Game design is hard' doesn't excuse this creeping systemic abuse.

Again: this is the low end, and it still expects $130 for an eight-year-old 1v1 fighter. 70% off. This business model inflates prices to the absurd extremes, even when it's not an antipattern vortex.

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[–] missingno@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

I'm talking to you. You're living in fantasy land claiming these games could be the exact same thing without the business model that made them possible. They would not.

Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

We don't have to leave your stated examples to find disproof of your pet dichotomy. SF4 had the same kind of evolution while selling versions like they still came on cartridges. It's possible. You just don't like it.

Unless you mean one single byte of FighterZ being different would be a completely different game, in which case, just, shut up. You keep trying to treat any change what-so-ever as equivalent to the whole game ceasing to exist. That's horseshit. You need to stop.

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[–] missingno@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago* (5 children)

I already told you that SF4 is exactly what people don't want to go back to. The game was widely criticized for the fact that you had to buy every upgrade or be left behind. You might be the only person in the world who thinks that's better than what we have now.

By the way, despite characters not being DLC when they should've been, SF4 did sell costume DLC, which you seem to think is the worst thing ever. IIRC, the kicker with SF4's costumes is that your opponent couldn't see them unless they also bought the costumes, and that was also something people disliked because they didn't want to buy costumes no one will see.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

That is what it means, to sell content. That is what actual expansions are. This song-and-dance where you have the whole game, but you're not allowed to really have the whole game, is inseparable from everything you would call predatory. It's only a matter of degrees.

One of the several alternatives you've repeatedly ignored is that these additions can be added to the game people already bought. Surprisingly, this does not involve slave labor for artists, because games that stay popular keep selling more copies. Do they make as much money? No. But it turns out maximum corporate revenue is not a guideline for ethics.

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