Amsai said: While I see where you are coming from Liav. As long as gaming companies see this as viable. They will continue to make these type games and it will be a downward spiral. Id like it to utterly fail so that game devs can move on to games that are made well and not just crap to get rich. There are plenty of very talented devs out there stuck at **** ass AAA studios. Im just in favor of innovation and that cant happen with everyone and there mother copying WoW or F2P or whatever.
I don't really agree. At least not today. It's just basic supply and demand.
That said, Pantheon is a shining example that despite the existence of pay to win games, there are still developers out there who care about making the game they want to make instead of making millions of dollars. That's what happens when your company is backed by investors who don't care about your vision.
Take Daybreak for example, the rotten, disgusting corpse of what used to be a marginally respectable company. They've been bought out by big money. They're cashing in on the DayZ clone fad with H1Z1, and basically letting all of their games go to ****.
In EQ, the absolute best experience you can get from the game is the progression servers. They know they don't have the talent or resources to design compelling endgame content, so they're just going to poop out progression servers for the remainder of EQ's existence while the live game servers continue to bleed players at an exponential rate.
I'm ranting.
The model needs to be re-thought. Perhaps a niche MMorpg needs to be thought of like investment property, you dont get rich, but its a stable income and a source of equity.
That being said, there is a reasonably cost effective way to earn additional dollars in the after market. Maybe giving players a hat ot T-shirt for free when theyhit a certian level, get them looking at the other wares.
WoW did an interesting thing, they sold a 3D printed model of your toon in its current armor/epic gear under a plastic (or glass?) dome.
That would be pretty cool and - considering how people like to collect pixels in armor or weapons; for instance- 3D print the "naked" toon, and then, sell armors/clothing/weapons seperately that the owner can place on the "naked" toon. You can only get those items that the player earned in game that are on the toon- maybe too hard to police.
Don't hate me! I dont like Pay to win at all! but t-shirts, hats, dolls (like above) especially personalized dolls, seems kinda neat.
I guess from the standpoint of it helping other games continue to exist and compete, I'm ok with some games doing it. I in no way would want it in Pantheon, but in a side game I could jump into occasionally to goof off in and still play without buying any of that stuff to get my instant gratification I may need to get out of my system after a bad week at work, it's fine.
Again, I am not advocating it in Pantheon before you guys break out the pitchforks and torches . :p I would never want it anywhere near Pantheon. In fact, Im kinda frustrated with the buying skill points in EVE they just introduced.
Despite the existence of these games, it has not had the affect some may think. I keep seeing claims that the genre died, however there has still been sandbox and hardcore games that have existed and we have more in development than ever before. The problem has been incompetent devs that release buggy garbage and don't iterate on what they release, so the game fails and doesn't grow.
People like to have super rare and hard to obtain items, even if those items do involve spending real life money to get them. I feel like CS:GO and DOTA2 and SWTOR have this model down best (yes I know other games use this model TSW, so forth). That is the model of buying "crates' or "chests" and opening them up for a chance at a rare item. Now I think that these should ONLY be cosmetic items, nothing to give you an advantage in game, or make your experience any easier. I recently read an interesting article about t-shirt cannons or foul balls at sporting events and why people go so freaking crazy about them. One of those things is that they are rare, of the 20k people in a stadium there might be only 15 t-shirts coming out of the cannon, people want to be one of those "lucky" people to get that crappy ugly $5 t-shirt that they will never wear their entire lives. I feel that this mentality carries over to video games as well. Make a cosmetic item in the shop that anyone can buy for $5 bucks and you'll sell a decent amount of them, but sell a crate with 1/50 chance to get the same item for $1 each crate and give it that "illusion" of rarity and you'll have people crawling over each other to get that T-shirt out of the cannon :)
pol1 said:People like to have super rare and hard to obtain items, even if those items do involve spending real life money to get them. I feel like CS:GO and DOTA2 and SWTOR have this model down best (yes I know other games use this model TSW, so forth). That is the model of buying "crates' or "chests" and opening them up for a chance at a rare item. Now I think that these should ONLY be cosmetic items, nothing to give you an advantage in game, or make your experience any easier. I recently read an interesting article about t-shirt cannons or foul balls at sporting events and why people go so freaking crazy about them. One of those things is that they are rare, of the 20k people in a stadium there might be only 15 t-shirts coming out of the cannon, people want to be one of those "lucky" people to get that crappy ugly $5 t-shirt that they will never wear their entire lives. I feel that this mentality carries over to video games as well. Make a cosmetic item in the shop that anyone can buy for $5 bucks and you'll sell a decent amount of them, but sell a crate with 1/50 chance to get the same item for $1 each crate and give it that "illusion" of rarity and you'll have people crawling over each other to get that T-shirt out of the cannon :)
I think this is a very true about how people view items. The main issue I see with P2W or even stores is they can start out with maybe cosmetic only, but they as greed or anything else occurs, they start to make it stat boosts and other P2W items. Also looking at like SWTOR and other games with cosmetic items in the store, it seems alot of times the dropped items don't look at sweet, instead the "pay for" items are the sweetest looking. So do you risk the idea of them investing heavily into a store so that people are paying real money, instead of having a chance of the drop occuring in game, even if small? I always enjoyed that about EQ1, and farming a mob just to get that one robe for my enchanter so I could look badass and everyone knew what I had.
P2W style of games are for arcade players and youth.
These types of games themselves do not matter, only the rhetoric and abrasion created within the game, to foster youth spending more & more on their character...
P2W is perpetrated on youth, because they have fragile egos and are more swayed by emotion. P2W offers no challenge and is not an actual game, but a buyers club.
Hieromonk said:P2W style of games are for arcade players and youth.
These types of games themselves do not matter, only the rhetoric and abrasion created within the game, to foster youth spending more & more on their character...
P2W is perpetrated on youth, because they have fragile egos and are more swayed by emotion. P2W offers no challenge and is not an actual game, but a buyers club.
I'm agreeing with Hieromonk?!
I think the P2W model is viable in certain types / styles of games. Sure. Oh, and it isn't dead by a long-shot.
But in games where the expectation going in is that time and investment = "the big payoff", P2W would be cheating.
I see nothing wrong with certain player-services costing real-life cash. I also have some leniency toward aesthetic character "costumes" and non-combat pets. But I would NEVER want to see actual player enhancements up for sale. Not in a "real" mmorpg.
Hieromonk says that, while failing to realize that most young people don't have the disposable income to spend on these games, while simultaneously seizing the opportunity in insult an entire demographic.
Liav said:Hieromonk says that, while failing to realize that most young people don't have the disposable income to spend on these games, while simultaneously seizing the opportunity in insult an entire demographic.
That's not how I read his post. I think he was saying that P2W is just a scheme, cleverly implemented, that drains money from people willing to spend on games. He does indicate that, in his opinion, this demographic happens to be young. I don't think he was slamming the younger generation of gamers, I think he was expressing distain for the companies more than willing to take money from younger gamers.
xtnpd said:That's not how I read his post. I think he was saying that P2W is just a scheme, cleverly implemented, that drains money from people willing to spend on games. He does indicate that, in his opinion, this demographic happens to be young. I don't think he was slamming the younger generation of gamers, I think he was expressing distain for the companies more than willing to take money from younger gamers.
Hieromonk said:perpetrated on youth, because they have fragile egos and are more swayed by emotion.
Not only is his assertion patently false, it's pretty obviously a broad generalization with a negative implication.
