Computer I am sick of Free 2 Play games [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Kalmageddon

2014-05-06, 11:08 AM

As the title says, I'm done with them.
When they first started popping up I had more free time than I have now and thought "great, I can play for free and buy whatever I want later!".
It wasn't until I got into Planetside 2, Warframe and recently War Thunder that I realized three things:

1- I don't have the time to grind anymore. I want to jump in a game where everyone is on equal footing, with no progression system whatsoever, where only skill matters.
Often times in a Free 2 Play I find myself having a sub-par experience under the premise that I will have a better time "later" when I finally unlock the good stuff. I want none of that, as I said I have neither the time nor the patience of going through something like that.

2- Even if I had the time to play and the patience to grind, Free 2 Plays game desing is always on the side that basic things sucks and that anything you can grind or buy later will be miles better, be it by virtue of more flexibility or straight out more power.
I find it bad design when a game introduces equipment and items that no-one is going to use if he has a choice, or that restricts you from finding your playstyle by forcing you to play something you don't enjoy and that is deliberately boring for hours only to have the privilege of later trying something different that you might not even like.

3- Even if you sink some money into a typical Free 2 Play, you still haven't got anything close to the full experience. Most Free 2 Play are acutally subscription based games in disguise. What do I mean by that? I mean that the amount of money you would have to spend to buy everything from the beginning is ridicolous, in the triple digits magnitude, but "luckly" a lot of Free 2 Play games have so called Premium accounts that make the grind a lot easier, so that in exchange of periodic cash injections (coincidentally something along the lines of 12-15 $ or € a month) the game is played the way it's meant to be played and enjoyed.
You see, at the beginning I thought that Free 2 Play would have meant "you play for free but to have the full experience you would have to pay an amount equal to roughly a full priced game", like 60 € or so, which I would be fine with if I really like the game. Nope. Basically no Free 2 Play title does that.

I have come to the conclusion that Free 2 Play exist solely to milk gamers and to lure them into spending far more cash into a game then they would have done by paying full price from the beginning. The Free 2 Play model is a direct hinderance to good game design and balanced multiplayer and yet it continues to grow. I really hope we get to a point where we can go back to full priced games, expecially when it comes to certain multiplayer genres, maybe with optional Free 2 Play attached as a secondary option and not as the main business model around which the game is designed.
I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter. Do you like Free 2 Play games over titles that requires you to pay but at least give you access to all the content right away? If so, why?

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 11:32 AM

Kalmageddon

2014-05-06, 11:56 AM

Hmm, more detailed thoughts later--but are you sure these are consequences of the F2P model, or merely specific problems in F2P implementation?

(After all, Team Fortress 2 is all about the hats. That's the only reason to give money to it. :smallbiggrin: )

Fairly sure, yes.
Team Fortress 2 is a pretty big exception but by no means significative. It's a game by Valve and this alone means everything, probably no other company would be able to pull it off. It also wasn't always F2P if I'm not mistaken, only when it was already popular did the shift happen. So it wasn't designed with that philosophy in mind.
So I would leave TF2 out of the discussion for simplicity's sake.

Hiro Protagonest

2014-05-06, 12:06 PM

A subscription cost?! To play an MMO?! Which didn't also cost me sixty dollars on top of it?! Terrible!

Really, at some point in PlanetSide 2, you're going to have the anti-tank turret, and a matching set of Fractures/Ravens/whatever the VS has for MAXes, and a set of rocket pods for your fightercraft, and the rocket launchers of your choice (I just recommend getting the two regular lock-on + dumbfire ones for 250 certs a piece, ignore the fancy stuff that costs 1000 for one). And at that point, you can just play for free from then on. Or you can play free from the start and just log in every day or so for your free twelve certs from logging in. Of course, if you keep multiple characters, it gets trickier. But you can still be good from the start, you know. Just be an engineer and place down ammo boxes and repair some MAXes and watch the certs roll in. And you'll be really helping your Heavies and MAXes too.

Warframe? Warframe's pushing it more. It is really grindy and has a "leveling" system of sorts as you upgrade weapons and get Formas/Reactors/Catalysts. You will have to pay for slots or trade for platinum that someone else has paid for at some point unless you're willing to only keep a few weapons and frames. But it's entirely about the grind. Warframe is Grinding: The Game. There is nothing to it but the grind. And since its gameplay and challenge aren't robust enough to make the player feel satisfied about grinding, that fails, but that's DE's fault, not F2P's.

The F2P model mostly is for teenagers with lots of free time but not a lot of money, and that's the big thing. How many teenagers are willing to shell out sixty bucks for Titanfall?

Nadevoc

2014-05-06, 12:11 PM

Hiro Protagonest

2014-05-06, 12:13 PM

There are a number of F2P games like TF2 or DotA2 where the only things you purchase are cosmetic. Then there are games like League where they make an effort to keep things balanced - any champions you unlock should be on relatively equal footing, so it's not straight upgrading through underpowered gear.

It really does sound like your complaint is with implementation.

I wouldn't mention TF2 or DotA 2. Valve is so rich from Steam they can afford to make F2P models that are unfair to other companies.

LoL is more balanced. But is it possible to buy Runes with premium currency?

Nadevoc

2014-05-06, 12:19 PM

I wouldn't mention TF2 or DotA 2. Valve is so rich from Steam they can afford to make F2P models that are unfair to other companies.

LoL is more balanced. But is it possible to buy Runes with premium currency?

In a discussion on F2P implementation, I 100% should be able to mention some of the big F2P games. I've also run across other, smaller-name games that do it that way, though I can't remember them off-hand.

No, runes can't be purchased with RP (the for-cash currency)

Kalmageddon

2014-05-06, 12:24 PM

No. In a discussion on F2P implementation, I 100% should be able to mention some of the big F2P games. I've also run across other, smaller-name games that do it that way, though I can't remember them off-hand.

No, runes can't be purchased with RP (the for-cash currency)

I would argue that it's not ok to talk about Valve titles, as Jade Dragon mentioned, they can do business models that no other company would be able to sustain. Also, once again, TF2 wasn't always F2P so my problems with game design in F2P games does not apply to it, since that's not how that title was born.

I would be curious about smaller companies and games that do that though, you should really try to remember a few names, otherwise I'll just assume that there aren't actually any.

Larkas

2014-05-06, 12:26 PM

LoL is more balanced. But is it possible to buy Runes with premium currency?

It is, but it's by no means necessary. I have plenty of heroes unlocked, but the one I'm best at is Ashe, which you should be able to get as soon as you finish the tutorial. And then there are the weekly free heroes, which can help figuring out if you like them before buying (with in-game cash, of course :smalltongue: ).

I will agree that your problem is mainly with the implementation, but I'll also say this: it's so freaking easy to mess up the implementation that this game-by-game issue might as well be generalized to the paying method. I mean, I can count good F2P games in the fingers of one, maybe two hands.

Divayth Fyr

2014-05-06, 12:27 PM

No. In a discussion on F2P implementation, I 100% should be able to mention some of the big F2P games.
Those two examples work as good as saying that buying a Lamborghini Veneno is a good way to make you feel better. Some people could afford it, but most can't. Similiarly, Valve can afford to have games working in a way that wouldn't work for any smaller company.

Hiro Protagonest

2014-05-06, 12:28 PM

Actually, there is Path of Exile, which is only cosmetics in the cash story.

Personally I don't really like it because I quickly get bored of that kind of gameplay and the fact that you can dodge attacks by moving around means it's just engaging enough that I have to pay attention. Also I don't think there's a pause button.

Nadevoc

2014-05-06, 12:34 PM

Kalmageddon

2014-05-06, 12:56 PM

It's 100% absolute BS to say "I hate all F2P games because they're set up like this. No, you're not allowed to talk about F2P games that are set up differently."

DotA2 was set up as is from the start, so the "wasn't like that at launch!" bit doesn't work there.

It's been months since I looked for F2P games so I really don't remember the others. I don't feel like hunting down games to prove a point, especially when I've already given two that prove it.

What part of "it's a Valve game" you don't understand?

Also, if we want to nitpick, yes, my problem is with the implementation of the F2P model, but as others have said, if the vast majority of F2P games fall neatly in my complaints then I might as well generalize.
I also said in the OP that for me, a fair F2P model would be one where I can buy everything there is to buy (with the possibile exception of cosmetic items, I'm fine with them being microtransactions) for a reasonable sum of money, so of course it would be theoretically possibile to have a F2P model that pleases me, it's just that it doesn't seem to happen most of the times.
A F2P game where you pay only for cosmetic items is also something viable, of course, but it seems only Valve can really pull it off, as mentioned. I would love to be able to play a game that has the content and the polishing of a full priced game for free, only paying for cosmetic items. I would absolutely love it.
Is this what F2P means most of the times, nowdays? Hell no.
Therefore, I have a problem with F2P.

Chen

2014-05-06, 01:01 PM

There are plenty of free to play MMOs that are legitimately free to play. Tera Online gives you some benefits in a faster mount, some exp/gold boosts per day and extra daily quests for example. None of those things are necessary and even hinder your game play much at all. Arguably the dailies and exp/gold boosts are really only a factor once you've finished leveling and are trying to make money. Rift is pretty similar if I recall correctly. Star Trek online is somewhat similar though the grinding times for the best ships can be long. Path of Exile is just cosmetics and storage space as well. No in game need for paying at all.

DarkLightDragon

2014-05-06, 01:03 PM

Rodin

2014-05-06, 01:04 PM

Gunbound was one of my early F2P favorites. There were tons of costumes and such that could give massive stat bonuses, but there was also an equally popular "no avatar bonuses" mode that made the costumes purely cosmetic. I always stuck with the no avatars mode so I could play as Indiana Jones with no consequence.

Looking the game up, I'm amazed to see that it's still around after...10 years? Good grief. I wonder if they kept the balanced version around or if they've gone to the dark side.

Emperor Ing

2014-05-06, 01:08 PM

A big part of the problem with the F2P model is that either part of the challenge is seeing how far you can get without paying a dime, or players feel extorted out of their money buying things just to advance in the game. Fixing the F2P model is easy. Just make microtransaction items that people want to buy. TF2's hats have zero mechanical effect, but people want to buy them because of how silly/cool they can make their character look.

Math_Mage

2014-05-06, 01:12 PM

It is, but it's by no means necessary. I have plenty of heroes unlocked, but the one I'm best at is Ashe, which you should be able to get as soon as you finish the tutorial. And then there are the weekly free heroes, which can help figuring out if you like them before buying (with in-game cash, of course :smalltongue: ).
Influence points are not premium currency--everyone grinds for those. IP boosts aren't worth it. For that matter, XP boosts are only worth it for people making smurf accounts.

Kalmageddon

2014-05-06, 01:15 PM

I like to think of F2P games as a free trial. If I like what I see, I'll consider giving the developers a bit of well-earned cash.

RIFT is a pretty good one in my opinion. It has some unique and interesting mechanics, and I'm quite a few levels in without worrying about having to drop a pantload for my fun.

Kalmageddon, you're coming across as incredibly condescending and childish. Yes, TF2 and DotA are by Valve, but company size was not the point of this thread. The point is they're F2P games with a business model that doesn't screw over players who don't have a disposable income. That is what you asked for in the OP. You don't have to play Valve games, but don't piss on people for suggesting them.

I'd say that "condescending" is exactly how I would define someone that tells me what the discussion I opened myself is about.
As for childish, that's just a gratuitous insult you threw in there for good measure, so... I don't care. :smallwink:

Back on track:
And I aknowledged that those F2P models work. The point I'm trying to make is that far too often F2P means predatory business model that tries to milk cash out of the consumer with a frustrating and sub par free experience, with excessive grinding and so forth. Do you disagree and if so why? My experience so far has showed me that F2P is not something that benefits the consumer unless he's willing to pay far more then a full priced game would cost.

Those two examples you keep throwing around can't keep an entire business model secure from criticism, expecially when they are made by a company that could release the next Half Life for free, at a loss, only to curb any competition and still make profit in the long run. Valve would do it if they thought it was the right move, they can affort to thanks to Steam. This is why I don't consider helpful quoting their business model as examples. If you disagree with this premise, fine, but then we can't really have a discussion if we don't agree on the premise, can we?

Larkas

2014-05-06, 01:16 PM

Influence points are not premium currency--everyone grinds for those. IP boosts aren't worth it. For that matter, XP boosts are only worth it for people making smurf accounts.

Eh, he mentioned runes, I thought he was talking about RP?

PhantomFox

2014-05-06, 01:20 PM

Eh, he mentioned runes, I thought he was talking about RP?

Everything in League of Legends can be bought with stuff you get through gameplay except skins, which are exclusively cash based. But they're purely cosmetic. The only advantage of buying stuff with money instead of grinding for points is that you get what you want faster, but it gives you no appreciable competitive advantage.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 01:47 PM

Failbetter Games has a rather interesting business model with its F2P game Fallen London. It's a model that's certainly garnered my goodwill, to the point where I like spending money on it. You get an expansive game, filled with a story and lore to explore. Progressing means that you get access to more of that content, as your character advances. (The game itself is best played in short spurts here and there, but if you really feel impatient, you can always spend money to refresh your actions. Honestly, though, they refresh at a very reasonable rate--and the company even doubled the number of actions per refresh that players get, without seeing a significant revenue drop.)

What else can you pay money for? Well, the bulk of money purchases unlock new stories. Some of this gets you unique stuff, but it doesn't power-creep anything, especially because the game's about progressing through bits of story. Honestly, what you're paying money for is story content, not stat boosts. In turn, the main game gives you glimpses of what the pay-locked content contains, which is what invites players to unlock it. It's a really neat model.

RE: Valve, it's worth noting that TF2 has, in fact, been incredibly profitable (http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/03/08/how-and-why-team-fortress-2-made-valve-super-rich). Kal, it seems like the "Valve can afford this strategy" point was about the fact that Valve could afford to sink money into a F2P model that doesn't really earn money.

But the fact of the matter is, Valve has made F2P a moneymaker. Which means that F2P doesn't by nature require an irritating model to begin with. A game like TF2 is proof that yes, F2P is viable and not necessarily money-bleeding.

Blizzard's game Hearthstone is also one to keep an eye on: while (like any CCG) it's certainly possible to sink lots of money into buying packs, it's just as possible to collect cards by simply playing the game--and I'm not just talking about the normal progression in some F2Ps, I'm talking about "playing a few games here and there gives you more than enough gold to buy a new pack of cards every week". That's more than enough to keep playing in a decent level of play, and it's a sight more generous than a game like Magic.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 01:48 PM

The point I'm trying to make is that far too often F2P means predatory business model that tries to milk cash out of the consumer with a frustrating and sub par free experience, with excessive grinding and so forth.

Define predatory business model. EVERY business model exists to get the most possible money for a given good or service. No business exists to sell items at a 'fair' price. Fairness is subjective, and depends on the purchaser. Unless they're relying on fraud or exercise control over the market supply to deny alternatives, where is the predation?

As far as F2P being grindy, oh hell yes. Its intended to stretch the time and money the consumer puts in relative to the pixels or pleasure derived to the breaking point. If they don't butt up against that point theyre not making as much money as they could, if they go past it theyre not making as much money as they could. Its the same function the subscriber based MMOs have had for years, but more flexible for the end user.

The increased flexibility allows the income model to be applied to a broader range of games and gives the producer a wider potential customer base. You can play a F2P model less frequently without feeling you lost money on the subscription. The potentially larger number of accounts helps normalize use loads and helps with keep the world/matchmaker filled with activity.

You're looking at a fork in the line of production. On the one hand you will have the disposable, fixed price games which have fixed content and development (read as fixed cost). On the other you have open ended continuously consumed games which are constantly being added to, which requires continuous income streams. Even the "fixed" cost games can have continuous costs from matchmaking services and multiplayer servers and can benefit from having F2P elements tacked on (ME3 multiplayer).

F2P is a good development for gaming in general regardless of whether specific producers get the balance wrong. If they do, they go out of business. If they don't, someone disagrees with your value assessment. Such is the marketplace.

tyckspoon

2014-05-06, 01:54 PM

Define predatory business model.

Dang near everything King Games (the Candy Crush Saga people) make? Not only are they working in completely derivative styles of games (every King game I'm aware of has been done better, earlier, by somebody else. Usually PopCap) they quite deliberately design the levels of their games so that you eventually hit points where you must either pay significant amounts of money to force through them with either purchasing extra moves or buying large supplies of powerups.. that or get once-in-a-lifetime lucky that the piece generation algorithm throws you the exact series of cascades and combo-clears that satisfies whatever weird requirement that level has. And then you get to do it again five levels later after a breather set of actually beatable levels.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 02:05 PM

Dang near everything King Games (the Candy Crush Saga people) make? Not only are they working in completely derivative styles of games (every King game I'm aware of has been done better, earlier, by somebody else. Usually PopCap) they quite deliberately design the levels of their games so that you eventually hit points where you must either pay significant amounts of money to force through them with either purchasing extra moves or buying large supplies of powerups.. that or get once-in-a-lifetime lucky that the piece generation algorithm throws you the exact series of cascades and combo-clears that satisfies whatever weird requirement that level has. And then you get to do it again five levels later after a breather set of actually beatable levels.
Yeah; there's absolutely some implementations of F2P games that are predatory. Most social media games fall into this category. And there's so many of them.

But honestly, I think it's easy enough to avoid games of that type. Plus, a tiny bit of research never hurt anyone. I can reliably puzzle out what sort of game something is with a little Internet digging.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 02:05 PM

I have come to the conclusion that Free 2 Play exist solely to milk gamers and to lure them into spending far more cash into a game then they would have done by paying full price from the beginning. The Free 2 Play model is a direct hinderance to good game design and balanced multiplayer and yet it continues to grow.

Your conclusions are 100%, dead-on correct. Free to Play games aren't free to play at all. They're 'Pay to Unlock'. No, it doesn't matter whether the items are cosmetic or not. It doesn't matter whether the system is well-implemented or badly implemented. It's an economic race to the bottom. Let me explain why:

When you're developing a game to include micro-transactions, you have two problems. Problem number one: You now divert a substantial amount of budget to creating content for the sole purpose of creating marketable items for your user base. Simply put, less money for content that all players can enjoy, more money for content gated behind a micro-transaction. Problem number two: Humans are subjected to some very pernicious cognitive biases (http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/03/why-we-buy-how-to-avoid-10-costly-cognitive-biases.php), which F2P and micro-transactions ruthlessly exploit. Rather than focusing on making a game more fun, this economic incentive encourages developers to put in operant conditioning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning) mechanics aimed at building player compulsion. Problem number three: The way F2P games make more money is milking it from addicted players. This is the most cynically exploitative trend in the F2P market. In a front-loaded game purchase, the development costs and profit margin for a game title is spread over the entire player base. In F2P, it's exclusively shouldered by the players who shell out for unlocks. Problem number four: In competitive games, the free tier players are fodder for the paying players. The expression goes like this: "If you're not paying for the product, you ARE the product". In the case of PvP free games, you're a punching bag for someone who laid out the money to beat you.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 02:06 PM

Dang near everything King Games (the Candy Crush Saga people) make?

Distill that a bit. Remove the fluff and obvious distaste and boil it down to the model itself. They build games that require you to Insert coin to continue... I realize the folks here tend to be a bit younger but I'm old enough to remember arcades full of such games. Games which were impossible to beat without a stack of quarters. Arcades more or less went under when gaming at home went mainstream, particularly networked/social gaming, but what was wrong with the Coin to Continue model itself?

Frankly, not my cup of tea. But I wont agree to it being predatory unless or until that company takes action, outside the production of games, to put popcap or other competition out of business. Say, working out agreements with Google to deny them adspace or something.

Litewarior

2014-05-06, 02:07 PM

People love goals. If the only goal given to you is 'beat this game', you will eventually grow tired of the game, since you haven't reached any of your goals. If you have a lot of smaller goals, then you will keep trying for the goal. In F2P games like the ones you describe, the smaller goals are unlocking the items.

Also, keep in mind that these companies are owned by businesses, and businesses are out to make money. If the free to play model makes them more money than otherwise, then who are we to condemn them?

Additionally, F2P games tend to have a longer play time than other games might. Many RPGs have little replay value, since once you beat game, that's it. F2P games by the nature of their business model need to be able to draw the player in for a lengthy period of time so that you want to spend money on it. If you spent $60 for 50 hours of enjoyment, or $200 for 200 hours of enjoyment, the latter is more effective on a timed basis.

Ionbound

2014-05-06, 02:11 PM

Well, the question here is: Is Planetside 2 or Guild War 2 are more exploitative than, say, EVE Online or WoW, storyline aside. And I'm not going to say anything more as I don't have a whole lot of experience in the MMO scene, and so I don't want to sound stupid.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 02:12 PM

Distill that a bit. Remove the fluff and obvious distaste and boil it down to the model itself. They build games that require you to Insert coin to continue... I realize the folks here tend to be a bit younger but I'm old enough to remember arcades full of such games. Games which were impossible to beat without a stack of quarters. Arcades more or less went under when gaming at home went mainstream, particularly networked/social gaming, but what was wrong with the Coin to Continue model itself?
Heh, there's this too. I keep forgetting that no, these sorts of games aren't new at all. "Coin to Continue" indeed. Darn those microtransaction arcades.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 02:19 PM

Games which were impossible to beat without a stack of quarters. Arcades more or less went under when gaming at home went mainstream, particularly networked/social gaming, but what was wrong with the Coin to Continue model itself?

The prices in arcades reflected genuine costs that had to be borne by the arcade and the arcade game manufacturer. An arcade pays rent, staff feeds, purchases or leases actual arcade games, and has to budget for maintenance (replacement parts, cleaning products, etc.). Those costs aren't nearly equivalent for most F2P titles.

Also, the coin to continue model was more or less evenly applied: everyone paid the same quarter per game. While there was some variation on value derived for some games, in the average case, most players got the same results. What changes in F2P is that only some players will actually sink a quarter into the machine, and that fact skews the design of the game.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 02:20 PM

Additionally, F2P games tend to have a longer play time than other games might.

Only by virtue of time-limited reward schedules and endless repetition.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 02:27 PM

There are a few ways F2P games go bad. You should be relatively fine if you look for and avoid games that have them.

Pay2Win is the obvious one. If a game is bad without spending money, but spending a lot of money is game-breaking, avoid it. If there's a cap on how much you can usefully spend, the game may be okay as long as you and a lot of other players are all willing to spend that much; at that point the game is less like F2P and more like a retail game.

Pay2Skip is just as bad. If the developers expect you to pay to play the game less, that implies they think the act of playing the game has negative value to you. Which, if they're right, means you shouldn't be playing it.

You should also watch out for games that sell things that decrease the value of existing investments. This usually looks like the not-awful Pay2Win case at first, except they keep adding more and more expensive and powerful purchases.

(@ninjas)
Arcade style pay per play games can be okay as well, but they aren't really F2P. However, unlimited continues do start to look like Pay2Win after a while.

Math_Mage

2014-05-06, 02:32 PM

Your conclusions are 100%, dead-on correct. Free to Play games aren't free to play at all. They're 'Pay to Unlock'. No, it doesn't matter whether the items are cosmetic or not. It doesn't matter whether the system is well-implemented or badly implemented. It's an economic race to the bottom. Let me explain why:

When you're developing a game to include micro-transactions, you have two problems. Problem number one: You now divert a substantial amount of budget to creating content for the sole purpose of creating marketable items for your user base. Simply put, less money for content that all players can enjoy, more money for content gated behind a micro-transaction. Problem number two: Humans are subjected to some very pernicious cognitive biases (http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/03/why-we-buy-how-to-avoid-10-costly-cognitive-biases.php), which F2P and micro-transactions ruthlessly exploit. Rather than focusing on making a game more fun, this economic incentive encourages developers to put in operant conditioning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning) mechanics aimed at building player compulsion. Problem number three: The way F2P games make more money is milking it from addicted players. This is the most cynically exploitative trend in the F2P market. In a front-loaded game purchase, the development costs and profit margin for a game title is spread over the entire player base. In F2P, it's exclusively shouldered by the players who shell out for unlocks. Problem number four: In competitive games, the free tier players are fodder for the paying players. The expression goes like this: "If you're not paying for the product, you ARE the product". In the case of PvP free games, you're a punching bag for someone who laid out the money to beat you.
Problem #4 contradicts "No, it doesn't matter whether the items are cosmetic or not." If the items are cosmetic, free players aren't punching bags for paying players.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 02:33 PM

The prices in arcades reflected genuine costs that had to be borne by the arcade and the arcade game manufacturer. An arcade pays rent, staff feeds, purchases or leases actual arcade games, and has to budget for maintenance (replacement parts, cleaning products, etc.). Those costs aren't nearly equivalent for most F2P titles.

Also, the coin to continue model was more or less evenly applied: everyone paid the same quarter per game. While there was some variation on value derived for some games, in the average case, most players got the same results. What changes in F2P is that only some players will actually sink a quarter into the machine, and that fact skews the design of the game.

First, no not everyone paid the same quarter per game because you weren't paying for the game. You were paying for a Continue. And the value of that Continue depended on the skill of the gamer and the experience they had with that game, which itself is a measure of previous quarters expended.

Second, you are applying what I said to F2P as a whole rather than the specific model mentioned by the previous poster. Don't generalize and equate the Coin to Continue model spoony brought up to all F2P.

Finally, the costs involved one way or another do not change the ethics inherent to the model. They can move the floor of the price point, below which the company goes out of business. A company is not predatory simply because you believe their product is priced too high. That is an opinion based on your own valuation of money, and others will have differing valuations.

edit: I see it daemon, I just think someone who thinks one or the other is exploitative in the first place would give you a better answer.

Ionbound

2014-05-06, 02:34 PM

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 03:33 PM

There are a few ways F2P games go bad. You should be relatively fine if you look for and avoid games that have them.

Pay2Win is the obvious one. If a game is bad without spending money, but spending a lot of money is game-breaking, avoid it. If there's a cap on how much you can usefully spend, the game may be okay as long as you and a lot of other players are all willing to spend that much; at that point the game is less like F2P and more like a retail game.

Pay2Skip is just as bad. If the developers expect you to pay to play the game less, that implies they think the act of playing the game has negative value to you. Which, if they're right, means you shouldn't be playing it.

You should also watch out for games that sell things that decrease the value of existing investments. This usually looks like the not-awful Pay2Win case at first, except they keep adding more and more expensive and powerful purchases.

Seconded! I think that zeroing in on these is much more helpful than generalizing all F2P games as bad. I am definitely onboard with the idea that "Pay to Skip" and "Pay to Win" are bad things.

Larkas

2014-05-06, 03:38 PM

Everything in League of Legends can be bought with stuff you get through gameplay except skins, which are exclusively cash based. But they're purely cosmetic. The only advantage of buying stuff with money instead of grinding for points is that you get what you want faster, but it gives you no appreciable competitive advantage.

I know that. I said that I have plenty of heroes unlocked, have I not? :smallconfused: Still he mentioned runes, which I equated to RP, which means rune points.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 03:42 PM

I know that. I said that I have plenty of heroes unlocked, have I not? :smallconfused: Still he mentioned runes, which I equated to RP, which means rune points.

RP is "Riot Points". :smallsmile: You buy runes with IP or RP.

Math_Mage

2014-05-06, 03:47 PM

RP is "Riot Points". :smallsmile: You buy runes with IP or RP.
Nitpick: there is no way to directly buy runes for RP.

Rodin

2014-05-06, 03:53 PM

Quoted because it was at the bottom of the page, and I think this is important.

I had an interesting reaction with WoW and Guild Wars 2.

When playing GW2, I discovered that my bank was shared across all characters and that to expand it, I would have to pay more money. This immediately put my back up and I quit, and didn't return. My outrage was centered on the money grab, and how in WoW I had a separate bank for each character.

But of course, in WoW I wasn't getting those bank slots for free. I was paying $10 (or however much it was) a month for that privilege. The WoW cost was out of sight, out of mind. The GW2 cost was immediate, and offensive, even though I could have bought enough bank slots for me to never run out of space, ever, for a fraction of the price I ultimately paid for WoW.

Is it a cash grab? Or is it financing the upkeep of the servers, like we were told was happening with WoW?

Hiro Protagonest

2014-05-06, 03:59 PM

I had an interesting reaction with WoW and Guild Wars 2.

When playing GW2, I discovered that my bank was shared across all characters and that to expand it, I would have to pay more money. This immediately put my back up and I quit, and didn't return. My outrage was centered on the money grab, and how in WoW I had a separate bank for each character.

But of course, in WoW I wasn't getting those bank slots for free. I was paying $10 (or however much it was) a month for that privilege. The WoW cost was out of sight, out of mind. The GW2 cost was immediate, and offensive, even though I could have bought enough bank slots for me to never run out of space, ever, for a fraction of the price I ultimately paid for WoW.

Is it a cash grab? Or is it financing the upkeep of the servers, like we were told was happening with WoW?

I think it's similar with EVE and Ps2 even. EVE is a subscription-based MMO, which will automatically turn people off. HOWEVER, with EVE, it's like "if you start getting enough in-game money, you don't have to pay for your subscription any more!". With PlanetSide 2, it's like "you wouldn't have to grind so much, if you paid for a subscription or just bought some premium currency!". I don't think it's as big a difference, but it's there.

Ionbound

2014-05-06, 04:09 PM

I'm not saying they're not different. Of course they're different, they're completely different models. The question is whether or not one model is worse than the other? I don't know. I honestly want to know.

Larkas

2014-05-06, 04:12 PM

RP is "Riot Points". :smallsmile: You buy runes with IP or RP.

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110820025843/templates/images/b/b2/Eusa_doh.gif I'll go stand in a corner, forget I was ever here. :smallredface:

Bucky

2014-05-06, 04:22 PM

F2P in a competitive game (like the OP seems to want) is a much harder sell than F2P feeding an in-game economy as in an MMO. A competitive game is expected to be fair, or approximately fair, whereas an economy is about building an advantage over time. And if players pay money for an advantage, it harms the competitive balance but is an extension of what MMO players were already doing.

On the other hand, adding grinding for the sake of grinding to a competitive game just trashes the balance (looking at you, LoL).

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 04:28 PM

Seconded! I think that zeroing in on these is much more helpful than generalizing all F2P games as bad. I am definitely onboard with the idea that "Pay to Skip" and "Pay to Win" are bad things.

What exactly is pay to skip? Wouldn't that necessarily include any premium XP booster, or, for instance, the purchase of weapons in PS2? If you could spend a dollar to double your xp/cert gain for a day/month/year would you? In essence, are other people allowed to determine what their time is worth to them, or do we intend to constrain everyone to the same time/money valuation as I have?

As for pay to win... well...

Everyone rags on it as this terrible curse of all curses which plague free to play. Um, can anyone point it out? Where is it in practice?

Honestly the closest I can think of is the purchase of weapons in PS2. Even there, it fails. Pay only weapons offer no benefit that I am aware of. You're left buying weapons sooner than you otherwise could (see above). If you're comparing the state of someone who has purchased that weapon to someone who has not, thats more a balance concern. And frankly its one you could say plagues every multiplayer with a progression over time of some sort.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 04:38 PM

What exactly is pay to skip? Wouldn't that necessarily include any premium XP booster, or, for instance, the purchase of weapons in PS2? If you could spend a dollar to double your xp/cert gain for a day/month/year would you? In essence, are other people allowed to determine what their time is worth to them, or do we intend to constrain everyone to the same time/money valuation as I have?

You are assuming, as is the business model, that time spent playing the game has a negative value. That if they let me spend $1 to grind 2 hours' less for my XP target, I'd do that and spend 2 hours doing something else.

If they want to make games with a negative value to me, fine, I'll just not play them at all. For free.

As for pay to win... well...

Everyone rags on it as this terrible curse of all curses which plague free to play. Um, can anyone point it out? Where is it in practice?

I thought I defined it.

Pay2Win is when unlimited real money is game-breaking, balance wise, compared to any free or even cheap options.

Some people also use it for cases where cheap options are game-breaking compared to free ones.

Ionbound

2014-05-06, 04:39 PM

The thing about Planetside 2, at least in my opinion is that A) The starting weapons are very much use-able and effective against the other ones, and B) It's quite easy to grind Certs, and still play the game like you normally would. This is due to the design that you get the most XP for capturing objectives and helping your squad/platoon/empire. It's still Pay2Skip, but it's tolerably so due to specific design choices.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 04:45 PM

I thought I defined it.

Pay2Win is when unlimited real money is game-breaking, balance wise, compared to any free or even cheap options.

Did not ask for a definition. I asked for an example.

The thing about Planetside 2, at least in my opinion is that A) The starting weapons are very much use-able and effective against the other ones, and B) It's quite easy to grind Certs, and still play the game like you normally would. This is due to the design that you get the most XP for capturing objectives and helping your squad/platoon/empire. It's still Pay2Skip, but it's tolerably so due to specific design choices.

In this sense pay2skip as a model, a pure concept, is not bad. It comes down to how much you skip and what that will cost you. Which is a value judgement. If its a bad deal the company goes under or changes their set up. Either way, problem solved imo.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 04:54 PM

Did not ask for a definition. I asked for an example.
Buying extra moves in Candy Crush Saga. These can be chained together to remove the action limit, which is the main difficulty regulator.

(Disclaimer: based on second hand information.)

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 05:03 PM

These guys must be total ***** because thats the second time someone has brought that group up. We covered that one towards the end of page 1.

It helps to separate Coin to Continue from pay2win. P2W carries the connotation of competition. That there is a free playing loser on the other end. I take it to mean there is no such viable example?

For C2C games I'm going to have to rely on my baldness (read age). Back in the arcades it became a competition, whether with yourself or others, to see how well you could do for the quarter. Be it high score or how much it cost to finish the game. Like I said, never was my cup of tea but some like it.

Math_Mage

2014-05-06, 05:05 PM

9mm

2014-05-06, 05:10 PM

Really, at some point in PlanetSide 2, you're going to have the anti-tank turret, and a matching set of Fractures/Ravens/whatever the VS has for MAXes, and a set of rocket pods for your fightercraft, and the rocket launchers of your choice (I just recommend getting the two regular lock-on + dumbfire ones for 250 certs a piece, ignore the fancy stuff that costs 1000 for one). And at that point, you can just play for free from then on. Or you can play free from the start and just log in every day or so for your free twelve certs from logging in. Of course, if you keep multiple characters, it gets trickier. But you can still be good from the start, you know. Just be an engineer and place down ammo boxes and repair some MAXes and watch the certs roll in. And you'll be really helping your Heavies and MAXes too.
Honestly, the Novelty of PS2's World War One gameplay (THANKS LATTICE SYSTEM!) will wear off long before you've unlocked all that.

The thing about the Free 2 Play model is yes, what the store is selling is convenience and time. And yes it is designed that the timed save would be worth it. It becomes a grey line of when the time saved is greater then the timed earned.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 05:16 PM

Fine. Classic Altiel. Online CCG. Starter decks were trash, and the overpowered rarer cards had such low drop rates that grinding at the maximum possible speed came nowhere close to keeping pace with power creep.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 05:32 PM

Problem #4 contradicts "No, it doesn't matter whether the items are cosmetic or not." If the items are cosmetic, free players aren't punching bags for paying players.

If the game isn't competitive, it's not relevant. You're right, hats in TF2 don't count, but I think everyone on the planet would agree that more maps for TF2 would be a far better use of developer funds than HATS.

9mm

2014-05-06, 05:43 PM

Ionbound

2014-05-06, 05:44 PM

Honestly, the Novelty of PS2's World War One gameplay (THANKS LATTICE SYSTEM!) will wear off long before you've unlocked all that.

The thing about the Free 2 Play model is yes, what the store is selling is convenience and time. And yes it is designed that the timed save would be worth it. It becomes a grey line of when the time saved is greater then the timed earned.

Eh, that's subjective. People will get sick of WoW's medieval fantasy, or EVE's...whatever, before the free trial expires. It depends on someone's tastes. And if someone is willing to grind, especially in a game as easy to as PS2, more power to them. What the real thing I'm interested in here is which model is more exploitative of the gamer, Subscription or F2P, King Games and similar BS like that not withstanding. Currently, I think it's subscription. And so far, I haven't seen any counterpoints.

Psyren

2014-05-06, 05:46 PM

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 05:51 PM

Going to need some background on some of these. I mean, google is one thing but all I can find are things like "Altiel relaunch" or "attempt to revive game from 2003". Which I can only assume means the original died. As is expected, if it were pay2win as you describe. As much as players hate it, so do developers. Its just not as profitable.

If the game isn't competitive, it's not relevant. You're right, hats in TF2 don't count, but I think everyone on the planet would agree that more maps for TF2 would be a far better use of developer funds than HATS.

Would you be willing to pay Valve for maps? Are no TF2 maps being created in the meantime, or is the map generation just too slow in your opinion?

Ionbound

2014-05-06, 06:00 PM

This is a must-watch video on the subject: Extra Credits - Microtransactions. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXA559KNopI)

Particularly 2:12 when they discuss the ways to do F2P/microtransactions correctly.

That is an awesome video and I agree with everything they say. Extra Credits, again, you prove yourselves to be awesome.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 06:05 PM

First, no not everyone paid the same quarter per game because you weren't paying for the game. You were paying for a Continue. And the value of that Continue depended on the skill of the gamer and the experience they had with that game, which itself is a measure of previous quarters expended.

You paid a quarter to START. Yes, better players could make a quarter last longer, but in virtually every case, there was not that much variation in time played per quarter. Sure, there's older arcade games with known exploits like Pac Man and Galaga, but those were extinct by the mid-80s.

Second, you are applying what I said to F2P as a whole rather than the specific model mentioned by the previous poster. Don't generalize and equate the Coin to Continue model spoony brought up to all F2P.

I merely refuted your stated equivalence between 'insert coin' to 'free to play'. They're not the same, they're not remotely similar.

Finally, the costs involved one way or another do not change the ethics inherent to the model. They can move the floor of the price point, below which the company goes out of business. A company is not predatory simply because you believe their product is priced too high. That is an opinion based on your own valuation of money, and others will have differing valuations.

Yes, they ABSOLUTELY change the ethics of the model. Why do you think we have regulation in monopolistic markets? Why do we not make it legal to sell drugs and cigarettes to children? Why are casinos heavily regulated? Why can only states run lotteries? Because of ethics. But this is all besides the point: F2P is making games bad, right now. Whether a 'pay as you go' model made sense 30 years ago is fundamentally irrelevant.

Brother Oni

2014-05-06, 06:20 PM

People will get sick of WoW's medieval fantasy, or EVE's...whatever, before the free trial expires.

Eve is a sci-fi submarine simulator. :smalltongue:

Hiro Protagonest

2014-05-06, 06:21 PM

You are assuming, as is the business model, that time spent playing the game has a negative value. That if they let me spend $1 to grind 2 hours' less for my XP target, I'd do that and spend 2 hours doing something else.

This comes down to whether or not you're fine with F2P models being shorthand for "look, you can pay with time or you can pay with money".

I'm fine with it. It means that the guy with a full-time job can pay and get the stuff he wants to really play with, and the teenager who has six hours of free time can just play to grind for it.

---

As for getting bored with PlanetSide 2: it comes down to whether or not you're in an Outfit or a small group that's not an Outfit but still forms invite-only squads regularly. So basically the same as any other MMO. But at least you're improving your skill at shooters while doing it.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 06:21 PM

I merely refuted your stated equivalence between 'insert coin' to 'free to play'. They're not the same, they're not remotely similar.

You made no such refutation as I made no such assertion. Again, we were talking about a specific game/business model. And quite an old one. So, theres that.

Why do we not make it legal to sell drugs and cigarettes to children?

....riiiiight. Ok. So you deciding someone has priced something too high compared to the value derived or cost to produce is immoral, and invites you to send in the Guys with Guns (read, government) to put an end to the terrible evil.

Off topic: look up Prohibition in the United States. Illegalizing intoxicants does the opposite of what is intended. A topic best suited for another board altogether though.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 07:15 PM

This comes down to whether or not you're fine with F2P models being shorthand for "look, you can pay with time or you can pay with money".

Translation: they are designed to waste my time in an attempt to get more money out of me.

Siosilvar

2014-05-06, 07:23 PM

Translation: they are designed to waste my time in an attempt to get more money out of me.

Whether or not your time spent is "wasted" depends on how much you enjoy the game (and, by extension, whether or not the devs are half-decent).

Psyren

2014-05-06, 07:26 PM

Translation: they are designed to waste my time in an attempt to get more money out of me.

The bad ones are made that way, yeah. The good ones can be played entirely for free, provided you're willing to put in the time.

Grif

2014-05-06, 07:42 PM

Hiro Protagonest

2014-05-06, 07:54 PM

I'm surprised no one brought up World of Tanks/WarThunder as yet another example of a successful Free to Play game.

Like most other F2P, almost all the content in the game can be accessed given time, and real-life cash are used to speed up the process.

OP mentioned War Thunder, I've never played it.

Haven't played much World of Tanks either. I prefer combined arms.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 08:35 PM

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 09:20 PM

the accountant wouldn't. Valve has to pay for those servers somehow.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Dedicated_server_configuration

No, they don't.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 09:30 PM

You made no such refutation as I made no such assertion. Again, we were talking about a specific game/business model. And quite an old one. So, theres that.

You make a faulty comparison, I poke holes in said comparison. Yeah, I'm going to call that a refutation.

....riiiiight. Ok. So you deciding someone has priced something too high compared to the value derived or cost to produce is immoral, and invites you to send in the Guys with Guns (read, government) to put an end to the terrible evil.

Reductio ad absurdum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) won't get you out of the fact that making blatantly addictive game mechanics and monetizing them is unethical. No, I don't think we need tax-funded game police, but I do think what many F2P publishers pull is flatly and cynically unethical.

Off topic: look up Prohibition in the United States. Illegalizing intoxicants does the opposite of what is intended. A topic best suited for another board altogether though.

Just because prohibition is bad doesn't mean taking drugs is good. At no point did I suggest that the solution to unethical game design was to bring the full force of government regulation to bear. That was all you. I'm just using the example of unethical and questionable business practices being related to pricing, human behaviour, and even gaming (in this case, gambling) to refute your argument that 'just because you won't pay it doesn't make it a rip-off'.

The bad ones are made that way, yeah. The good ones can be played entirely for free, provided you're willing to put in the time.

So in other words, time-sink or cash. Yeah, I'm going to agree with Bucky here. Effectively what this model of free-to-play does is turn free-tier players into gold-farmers for paid-tier players, and creates the gold-sinks to soak the paid-tier players for loot which, in a normal game, they'd be able to acquire through play in a reasonable time-frame.

Psyren

2014-05-06, 09:36 PM

If the game isn't competitive, it's not relevant. You're right, hats in TF2 don't count, but I think everyone on the planet would agree that more maps for TF2 would be a far better use of developer funds than HATS.

Is it though? Maps are costly because they must be properly designed, developed and then playtested. The additional revenue they would bring in is miniscule because for the map to be popular you have to make it free anyway. A hat, being purely cosmetic, takes much less effort, and you can charge as little or as much as you want.

Look at LoL - they've operated on 3-4 maps for years and they are running the most massive F2P in existence. When asked if they would make more maps, Morello rightly pointed out that professional sports like football have been playing on the same map for decades.

PhantomFox

2014-05-06, 09:48 PM

Reductio ad absurdum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) won't get you out of the fact that making blatantly addictive game mechanics and monetizing them is unethical.

... isn't that the entire point of the video game industry as a whole?

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 09:52 PM

Is it though? Maps are costly because they must be properly designed, developed and then playtested. The additional revenue they would bring in is miniscule because for the map to be popular you have to make it free anyway. A hat, being purely cosmetic, takes much less effort, and you can charge as little or as much as you want.

You're making my point for me, you know, right? Yes, the hats are more profitable, I don't dispute that. In fact, I assert it, because it's the wildly higher profitability which drives the business to get into making hats instead of making games. My point is what would actually make the game more fun? What would add real replay value? My vote is for maps over hats. If your vote is for hats, then I guess you like doing the same stuff over and over again, and that's a subjective matter I'm not qualified to dispute, not being you.

[/QUOTE]Look at LoL - they've operated on 3-4 maps for years and they are running the most massive F2P in existence. When asked if they would make more maps, Morello rightly pointed out that professional sports like football have been playing on the same map for decades.[/QUOTE]

I prefer not to look at LoL, or any other MOBA, since it's basically an incredibly dumbed-down version of a far better game: Warcraft III. LoL only demonstrates one simple market principle, the same one that made the VHS tape beat the Beta-Max: Cheap beats good in most markets. It's why people buy consoles instead of PCs, it's why people shop at Wal-Mart, it's why people complain about school performance but refuse to pay teachers more.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 09:52 PM

... isn't that the entire point of the video game industry as a whole?

Uh, no. For example, there are companies that make a series of fun but disposable games and build a fanbase around them.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 10:00 PM

... isn't that the entire point of the video game industry as a whole?

No. By itself a game is just entertainment. There's no conditioning making you pick up a copy of risk or chess or go. There's no reward schedule (http://cdn.baekdal.com/2014/taxi-inapp.gif), there's no mechanical inducement to repetition of a task. And to be clear, it's not the operant conditioning I object to, it's the payment model hooked to the back of it. If you like Diablo III, and want to hammer the same bounty runs for eight hours a day, who am I to judge you? Addictive pastimes wouldn't work if they weren't fun on some level. Where I have a problem with it is when you're making the game LESS fun for the explicit purpose of extracting money from your players. Which is what F2P inevitably must do. If the game's fun for free, why pay?

PhantomFox

2014-05-06, 10:00 PM

Uh, no. For example, there are companies that make a series of fun but disposable games and build a fanbase around them.

I'm guessing we're working under different views of 'addictive' then. The way I was seeing it, companies make fun games that make you want to pay money for them, and then have you play it so much that you want to buy the next game they make that's like the first.

Psyren

2014-05-06, 10:09 PM

My point is what would actually make the game more fun? What would add real replay value? My vote is for maps over hats. If your vote is for hats, then I guess you like doing the same stuff over and over again, and that's a subjective matter I'm not qualified to dispute, not being you.

Actually my vote is for neither. New maps might add replay value, but that does very little to attract new players (who wouldn't be tired of the existing ones) and the current players are apparently satisfied overall with the status quo. Hats mean nothing to me either, though evidently some will pay for them, and if the folks willing to pay for them exceed the cost to create them then they may as well make them than not.

I prefer not to look at LoL, or any other MOBA, since it's basically an incredibly dumbed-down version of a far better game: Warcraft III. LoL only demonstrates one simple market principle, the same one that made the VHS tape beat the Beta-Max: Cheap beats good in most markets. It's why people buy consoles instead of PCs, it's why people shop at Wal-Mart, it's why people complain about school performance but refuse to pay teachers more.

It's more that simple and easy beats complex and unwieldy. LoL, like the DotA mod that inspired it, stripped out the nonessential aspects of WC3 and delivered on the core engagement of piloting a champion at the head of an army vs. another champion at the head of their own army. Managing resource nodes, defending expansion bases, even controlling more than one hero at once are all merely window dressing to that experience, and LoL struck gold when they realized it.

You appear to be trying for some kind of quality indictment with your analogies but that doesn't really work. All of the extra features/capabilities of WC3 don't matter if nobody wants to use them, or pay for them for that matter.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 10:14 PM

I'm guessing we're working under different views of 'addictive' then. The way I was seeing it, companies make fun games that make you want to pay money for them, and then have you play it so much that you want to buy the next game they make that's like the first.

I've never heard anyone describe, say, a Mario game as addictive.

Where I have a problem with it is when you're making the game LESS fun for the explicit purpose of extracting money from your players. Which is what F2P inevitably must do. If the game's fun for free, why pay?

This is also wrong. For example, Dwarf Fortress does just fine by presenting the game for free and holding out a tip jar. Which has no in-game effect whatsoever.

It may be common, but it's not inevitable.

Ionbound

2014-05-06, 10:16 PM

I've never heard anyone describe, say, a Mario game as addictive.

Really? You've never heard of someone call Mario addictive? I'm not sure how to respond to that.

Psyren

2014-05-06, 10:19 PM

Where I have a problem with it is when you're making the game LESS fun for the explicit purpose of extracting money from your players. Which is what F2P inevitably must do. If the game's fun for free, why pay?

Again, only the badly designed ones do this.

I really recommend you watch the video I linked further back, it discusses how F2P games can avoid this trap and still turn a profit off of those who want to pay, without feeling like they're being forced to.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 10:25 PM

You make a faulty comparison, I poke holes in said comparison. Yeah, I'm going to call that a refutation.

Actually, when you create an argument the other didn't make and knock that down its not called a refutation. Just fyi.

We can keep going around in circles, but it wont accomplish much. I need only point to the candy crush saga game tykcspoon brought up, which he points out has gameplay designed to be make the player fail on a regular basis. Getting past the fail requires input of Coinage to Continue. Quick recap for the audience.

it's the wildly higher profitability which drives the business to get into making hats instead of making games.

Its the wildly entertaining aspect of the game which prompts people to throw money at Hats. If they did not value their pastime, they wouldn't make it profitable. Your issue isnt with Valve, its the players. Bludgeoning people because they have different tastes and values is tactless.

Psyren

2014-05-06, 10:28 PM

There's a great video on Candy Crush's design/monetization (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz4WXVNq7v8) too.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 10:34 PM

You appear to be trying for some kind of quality indictment with your analogies but that doesn't really work. All of the extra features/capabilities of WC3 don't matter if nobody wants to use them, or pay for them for that matter.

You appear to be trying to make up facts that support your argument. Warcraft III was a critically acclaimed game that sold 3 million units, plus 5 million more with the expansion pack, and its popularity in tournament play was only eclipsed by the launch of Starcraft II. The comparison to LoL's subscription numbers has nothing to do with the base popularity of the game, just better localization in offshore markets, particularly China. Accessibility, not merit.

Psyren

2014-05-06, 10:36 PM

You appear to be trying to make up facts that support your argument. Warcraft III was a critically acclaimed game that sold 3 million units, plus 5 million more with the expansion pack, and its popularity in tournament play was only eclipsed by the launch of Starcraft II. The comparison to LoL's subscription numbers has nothing to do with the base popularity of the game, just better localization in offshore markets, particularly China. Accessibility, not merit.

Of course it was lauded and successful - for its time. LoL came out over half a decade later. If all it truly was, was the boiled down shell of WC3 you suggest it is - if it truly added nothing special to the formula of its own - then it wouldn't have been so successful despite relying on such old mechanics. And therefore you are gravely mistaken.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 10:39 PM

Its the wildly entertaining aspect of the game which prompts people to throw money at Hats. If they did not value their pastime, they wouldn't make it profitable. Your issue isnt with Valve, its the players. Bludgeoning people because they have different tastes and values is tactless.

Look, I have no issue with hats, just the cynical wallet-grab the publisher makes to get money for them. Why not just put the hats in as something you earn through play? Then they would actually be MORE rewarding, in my opinion. I'm not denying that TF2 is fun. It's great fun. And I don't begrudge Valve for making money. I just would like for game publishers to resort to less cynical methods of making it.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-06, 10:41 PM

Why can't we just play the games we want? Why do we have to spend money on them? I can't believe how companies employ the cynical cash grab of selling their games! :smallbiggrin:

(For the record, there's plenty of HATS you can earn without paying. :smallsmile: )'

Also, Imma go grab popcorn for the "LoL is not a Real Game" posting.

Arbitrarity

2014-05-06, 10:43 PM

My point is what would actually make the game more fun? What would add real replay value? My vote is for maps over hats. If your vote is for hats, then I guess you like doing the same stuff over and over again, and that's a subjective matter I'm not qualified to dispute, not being you.

The entire point of multiplayer games is that gameplay varies when you add other people. Evidently the entire concept of multiplayer gaming is fundamentally flawed and should cease at once.

Look at LoL - they've operated on 3-4 maps for years and they are running the most massive F2P in existence. When asked if they would make more maps, Morello rightly pointed out that professional sports like football have been playing on the same map for decades.

I prefer not to look at LoL, or any other MOBA, since it's basically an incredibly dumbed-down version of a far better game: Warcraft III. LoL only demonstrates one simple market principle, the same one that made the VHS tape beat the Beta-Max: Cheap beats good in most markets. It's why people buy consoles instead of PCs, it's why people shop at Wal-Mart, it's why people complain about school performance but refuse to pay teachers more.

Stop Having Fun Guys (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanHater)

Why not just put the hats in as something you earn through play? Then they would actually be MORE rewarding, in my opinion. I'm not denying that TF2 is fun. It's great fun. And I don't begrudge Valve for making money. I just would like for game publishers to resort to less cynical methods of making it.

........
...........
................someone else want to tell him?

I have a question. How do people feel about pay for progression in power-varying games like STO, Clash of Clans, and so on? On the one hand, someone can drop thousands of dollars to zoom to the endgame and beat up everyone else (except those who spent years playing already), but on the other hand, those veterans can definitely compete.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 10:44 PM

Of course it was lauded and successful - for its time. LoL came out over half a decade later. If all it truly was, was the boiled down shell of WC3 you suggest it is - if it truly added nothing special to the formula of its own - then it wouldn't have been so successful despite relying on such old mechanics. And therefore you are gravely mistaken.

Localization, price, network externalities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect). All topped off with the free to wait model we've all come to know and loathe.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 10:46 PM

There's a great video on Candy Crush's design/monetization (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz4WXVNq7v8) too.

Ah, thanks Psy. Now it makes much more sense. So it is coin to continue as they dangle success in front of you. Clever.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 10:47 PM

Psyren

2014-05-06, 10:50 PM

Localization, price, network externalities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect). All topped off with the free to wait model we've all come to know and loathe.

Those are factors, sure, but none of those would have mattered if it was just dressed up 6-year old mechanics with no innovation of its own.

I just would like for game publishers to resort to less cynical methods of making it.

Microtransactions - when done right - are a boon, because they allow you to charge the amount people are willing to pay. Other monetization models must come up with a flat fee, either charged up front or periodically via subscription, and then cram every square peg player into that round hole. This both alienates those players who are unwilling to pay, while not providing any additional benefit for the ones who truly enjoy the experience and wish to pay more.

Bucky

2014-05-06, 10:54 PM

I have a question. How do people feel about pay for progression in power-varying games like STO, Clash of Clans, and so on? On the one hand, someone can drop thousands of dollars to zoom to the endgame and beat up everyone else (except those who spent years playing already), but on the other hand, those veterans can definitely compete.

Ethical concerns aside, I would recommend against joining such a game once it's established, because it will be unreasonably expensive and/or time-wasting to get at the real game.

If too many people think like that, it becomes a bad idea from a business perspective because it shortens a game's lifespan.

Also, established veterans might feel betrayed that they put in all that hard work to get to the top only to have some rich kids get there with 1% of the effort.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a fan of "power-varying games" in general.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 11:02 PM

I tried STO. I spent a little seed money, but rapidly became bored with the eternity grind of Fleet Credits and Dilithium chores that they draped in front of their cash for lockboxes scheme. Suffers from the same tired race to the bottom that all F2P dross does.

Then it seems the issue here is they're putting the price per unit of time too high, or the time per unit of value too high. I read it a bit like saying theres too many trash mobs in JRPGs. Forced leveling because you need to be -> this tall to advance the plot. Experience gain per fight too low to drag out the length of game play artificially. Im thinking FF2 versus Chrono Trigger. Grindy gameplay versus having everything metered out so A to B travel was enough to move on.

At its core, both that and this issue with STO seem to be about the utility you derive per time input. Which wouldn't be a mechanical issue, its more a numbers one. You want rewards sooner than they offer.

The_Jackal

2014-05-06, 11:04 PM

Microtransactions - when done right - are a boon, because they allow you to charge the amount people are willing to pay. Other monetization models must come up with a flat fee, either charged up front or periodically via subscription, and then cram every square peg player into that round hole. This both alienates those players who are unwilling to pay, while not providing any additional benefit for the ones who truly enjoy the experience and wish to pay more.

Disagree. Microtransactions encourage developers to put rewards behind a paywall. It divides players into suckers and mooches, instead of fairly dividing the costs of game development across the player-base. It also produces horribly ominous press-releases like this (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/world-of-warcraft-studio-beefing-up-its-microtransaction-efforts/1100-6417150/). Translation: We're looking into more innovative ways of leeching cash out of our paying customers.

Then it seems the issue here is they're putting the price per unit of time too high, or the time per unit of value too high. I read it a bit like saying theres too many trash mobs in JRPGs. Forced leveling because you need to be -> this tall to advance the plot. Experience gain per fight too low to drag out the length of game play artificially. Im thinking FF2 versus Chrono Trigger. Grindy gameplay versus having everything metered out so A to B travel was enough to move on.

At its core, both that and this issue with STO seem to be about the utility you derive per time input. Which wouldn't be a mechanical issue, its more a numbers one. You want rewards sooner than they offer.

But to induce you to spend folding money on the rewards, they jack up the natural amount of effort required to obtain them into the non-fun territory. If that weren't the case, the microtransaction strategy can't succeed, because too few of the players are so impatient as to shell out dough for the shortcuts. Yes, some non-F2P games suffer the same problem (notably in cases where development cash dried up before better interim content could be completed), but the pernicious incentives to offend in this regard are innate in the F2P model.

Arbitrarity

2014-05-06, 11:13 PM

Disagree. Microtransactions encourage developers to put rewards behind a paywall. It divides players into suckers and mooches, instead of fairly dividing the costs of game development across the player-base. It also produces horribly ominous press-releases like this (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/world-of-warcraft-studio-beefing-up-its-microtransaction-efforts/1100-6417150/). Translation: We're looking into more innovative ways of leeching cash out of our paying customers.

Disagree. Microtransactions are more efficient, economically. They let developers capture the maximum amount of consumer surplus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_surplus). This means they create more value for more players, while simultaneously maximizing developer revenues. The cost of game development is divided in the most fair possible manner; by how much players are willing to pay.

Putting rewards behind a paywall can be a problem, but most such games wither due to losing their free player base (assuming you are referring to games with pay-exclusives that aren't cosmetic. If you're referring to STO for progression "rewards", I'll address that seperately) Well-designed microtransactions give players free "paid" currency, which is beneficial for all the reasons explained by Extra Credits.

Impnemo

2014-05-06, 11:19 PM

Translation: We're looking into more innovative ways of leeching cash out of our paying customers.

to induce you to spend folding money on the rewards, they jack up the natural amount of effort required to obtain them into the non-fun territory.

Well, yes, isn't every business? And every consumer is looking for innovative ways of getting what they want for less. Or free. Also the sun sets in the west, Im told it will rise in the east.

All told, its simply a matter of free to play forcing people who don't pay to spend too much time playing the game to advance. I have a hard time accepting that as pernicious. At least to the consumer. If it is done wrong, its "having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way" to the producing company's margins.

warty goblin

2014-05-06, 11:39 PM

I cannot for the life of me understand F2P games. If I want to do exactly the same thing over and over again to get shinier ways to do the same thing over and over again, I've got Sacred II. For which I paid the princely sum of $20, and can play whenever I like without worrying about premium currency, non-premium currency, whether I'd be having more fun if I hacked up some cash for a different skin or bigger inventory or faster leveling or whatever.

For all those times I don't want to do exactly the same thing over and over again to get shinier ways to do the same thing over and over again, I've got pretty much every other game on my harddrive.

Rodin

2014-05-07, 12:04 AM

A lot of the difference in micro-transactions is the "do I feel cheated" test.

An example:

While playing DOTA2, I got an item at the end of a game - a lockbox. Intrigued, I checked it out, and saw that I could get an armor piece to customize one of my heroes.

Then I looked at it some more. It wasn't a full model - it was a single armor piece. At random. And I had to pay to buy the key.

Transparent CCG draw. I know how addictive those are from several years of playing Magic, and 5 more playing Poxnora. I declined, because it felt like a dirty trick - an item dropping that I can't use without paying money, and what's more I don't know what I'm buying. No thanks.

When I gave LoL a try, I saw that the various characters had full skins that you could buy. I researched the skins on Youtube, and bought one for my favorite character.

In neither case was I going to gain anything - no new gameplay, just a new look for a character. But in one case I felt like the developers were trying to extract as much money as possible from me, and in the other case I did not.

Another comparison - Mass Effect 2 and 3 DLC. There were some where I got new characters, complete with new quests, and others where I could get overpowered weapons. The first took a game which already felt complete and added more to it - the second felt like Pay to Win, and buying not very much for the price.

I am happy to spend money on DLC and new skins and such when the price feels right. In the case of LoL, the original game was free and I played for a significant amount of time before deciding to buy something. Even then, I gave myself a $30 limit, because that's about how much I was willing to spend on a full game. Yes, I could spend hundreds on the game, but the portions of the game I don't want I don't end up paying for. In the case of Mass Effect, the full game felt like, well, a full game. Anything after that was gravy, and the price of the DLC could be weighed on the merits of the DLC. Citadel was $15, and that's about how much it felt like it was worth - if anything, it was a bit cheap for the sheer amount of awesome.

Dragon Age:Origins on the flip side had some really shady DLC. I meet a character, and they start to tell me about a grand and glorious quest, and then "INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE"? No, just no.

-----

I'm perfectly fine with F2P, micro-transactions, DLC and all that jazz. But it comes with a condition: The developer has to respect me. Additional cool stuff to add to a game I already love? Great! Here's my credit card. Locking out major features and trying to trap me with casino antics? Release the developer-hunting hounds with bees in their mouth.

Psyren

2014-05-07, 12:22 AM

It divides players into suckers and mooches

It's hard to take you seriously when your world is this black and white. You're only a sucker if you didn't get your money's worth of value out of whatever it was you paid for, and that's as true for a hat as it is for faster leveling speed or extra bag space. For me, playing through a game once at regular speed might be enough, and I end up finding the end-game content more enjoyable and want to try a different class at it, so I'd pay for the speed boost because my time is worth more to me than the couple of dollars the boon would cost. It's simple economics.

Avilan the Grey

2014-05-07, 01:07 AM

I skipped three pages. So this might have been settled already but I definitely agree that it is BS to "outlaw" discussion about F2P titles that come from specific companies. It invalidates the OP's argument completely.
Not only are Valve's games F2P, but if anyone here honestly think they are making a loss on them that person have failed how capitalism works.

Edit: Pay to Skip, which is the most common model at the moment work well on some games, and is a pure trap on others.
On games like Simpsons - Tap It Out or Family Guy - The Quest For Stuff (yes I play both) the time doesn't really matter. It is pure convinience if you choose to pay real money to advance a task. I have no problem with that, because I am fairly patient.
Dungeon Keeper on the other hand...

Other good F2P games:

Dr Who Legacy definitely. Everyhing is grindable by free except the fan area, which costs a one-time fee of $2. Of course it is an endorsed BBC product, which means they can't get too greedy or BBC would look bad.

Hearthstone - Heroes Of Warcraft is a completely free game. NOTHING is exlusive content, but of course you can buy booser packs if you are lazy. But maybe we aren't allowed to talk about Blizzard either becasue it doesn't fit the OP's image of what a F2P game is?

Path Of Excile has already been mentioned.

Knaight

2014-05-07, 02:13 AM

Also, keep in mind that these companies are owned by businesses, and businesses are out to make money. If the free to play model makes them more money than otherwise, then who are we to condemn them?
You do realize that the reasoning here justifies basically any any action taken by a business (I also suspect you meant game when you said company)? For instance, I could say:

"Also, keep in mind that these pharmaceuticals are owned by businesses, and businesses are out to make money. If dumping their chemical waste directly in the reservoir makes them more money than otherwise, then who are we to condemn them?"

That is, of course, transparently ridiculous. Being profitable does not magically make an action ethical. You could say that the game company - pharmaceutical company comparison is absurd, and I'd generally agree, but the things that make it absurd aren't actually relevant to the reasoning used here.

Yes, they ABSOLUTELY change the ethics of the model. Why do you think we have regulation in monopolistic markets? Why do we not make it legal to sell drugs and cigarettes to children? Why are casinos heavily regulated? Why can only states run lotteries? Because of ethics. But this is all besides the point: F2P is making games bad, right now. Whether a 'pay as you go' model made sense 30 years ago is fundamentally irrelevant.
And on the other side, we have this. Pointing out that business ethics is, in fact, a thing can be useful - the quote above your seems to deny it's existence after all. That doesn't extend to demonstrating that this particular model of game monetization has a different ethical basis than a different particular model.

Fundamentally, micro-transactions just allow buying the parts of a game one wants without the rest. It's not all that different from being able to buy only some games out of a series, rather than having an entire series put together and sold as one game.

To use a very abstract example - say there's a single player adventure game, which can be played through using one of 9 different classes. It could just be released as a 40 dollar game, and for the sake of argument let's say it's good enough that the 40 dollar game method would work. Odds are that most people wouldn't really care about all 9 classes. Similarly, plenty of people wouldn't necessarily want to spend 40 dollars. Intermittent sales and such are one way of solving this. Another would be to release 1 class for free with the download, and sell the other 8 at 5 dollars each, making up for the price drop on a per game basis (anywhere between 0 and 40 dollars) with volume. Or it could be priced higher, with the total cost baseline being more about how many classes people who would buy the game as a lump sum are actually buying it for.

I'd agree that a number of free to play games to have rather exploitative models, starting with basically every Facebook game. I wouldn't consider it inherent to the system, and would consider things like League of Legends an example of it working well. There's a bunch of heroes, people only buy what they're interested in (with the reasonable possibility of just getting them without purchasing), and there are also aesthetic options. When it comes to the amount people actually tend to want, it's as cheap as a typical lump sum game, and it offers just as much, along with being rather more expansive than it otherwise would be as far as the number of characters and such go.

I say this as someone who really, really doesn't get the appeal of the whole genre it's in at all.

Avilan the Grey

2014-05-07, 02:48 AM

You do realize that the reasoning here justifies basically any any action taken by a business (I also suspect you meant game when you said company)? For instance, I could say:

"Also, keep in mind that these pharmaceuticals are owned by businesses, and businesses are out to make money. If dumping their chemical waste directly in the reservoir makes them more money than otherwise, then who are we to condemn them?"

This is a horrible argument borderlining Reductio ad absurdum.
For one thing, one action is LEGAL, the other is ILLEGAL.

Knaight

2014-05-07, 03:17 AM

This is a horrible argument borderlining Reductio ad absurdum.
For one thing, one action is LEGAL, the other is ILLEGAL.

And that right there would be one of the numerous better arguments that could have been made in defense of micro-transactions, in lieu of saying that it's okay because it makes money. It, along with a whole bunch of other things, couldn't also be used in the chemical dumping example.

I'm not calling them equivalent. I'm pointing out that the specific reason given in defense is useless, as that exact same reason can be used to cover all sorts of things that are obviously completely out of line. Which is, incidentally, what Reductio ad absurdum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) actually is. You'll note that it isn't a logical fallacy, but rather a way to demonstrate that one exists elsewhere.

Avilan the Grey

2014-05-07, 03:47 AM

And that right there would be one of the numerous better arguments that could have been made in defense of micro-transactions, in lieu of saying that it's okay because it makes money. It, along with a whole bunch of other things, couldn't also be used in the chemical dumping example.

I'm not calling them equivalent. I'm pointing out that the specific reason given in defense is useless, as that exact same reason can be used to cover all sorts of things that are obviously completely out of line. Which is, incidentally, what Reductio ad absurdum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) actually is. You'll note that it isn't a logical fallacy, but rather a way to demonstrate that one exists elsewhere.

And by pointing it out your argument fails, because they are NOT equivalent, by a longshot. Seriously, your arguments (both the original, and this) are very very flawed. You might WANT for micro-transactions to illegal, but they aren't. You might consider them the moral equivalent of dumping chemical vaste, but very few people would agree with you.

Oh, and there IS no logical fallacy. Except YOURS. Again, Micro-transactions are legal. And so companies can use that market model to make money. You try to equivalent this to a heinous criminal act, hence your logic fails.

Godskook

2014-05-07, 04:07 AM

I prefer not to look at LoL, or any other MOBA, since it's basically an incredibly dumbed-down version of a far better game: Warcraft III. LoL only demonstrates one simple market principle, the same one that made the VHS tape beat the Beta-Max: Cheap beats good in most markets. It's why people buy consoles instead of PCs, it's why people shop at Wal-Mart, it's why people complain about school performance but refuse to pay teachers more.

1.Do you even League, bro?

2.The RTS and MOBA genres are distinctly separate, and offer different gaming experiences. Comparing League to Warcraft III makes about as much sense as comparing Meatboy to Castle Crashers. Or apples to hotdogs.

3.People buy consoles because they're entirely better for certain types of games, as well as being optimized for certain types of gamers. Castle Crashers and Super Mash Bros are just more fun with a controller in your hand and facing a big screen TV.

4.League of Legends has a rather *MASSIVE* amount of depth to it, provided by various things, from the constant patching, the inherent cyclical imbalances of champion design, to the inherent depth of quality pvp play(provided by counterplay!).

5.Betamax lost the format war, not because it was expensive, but because it was needlessly expensive. As well as poorly optimized to actually accomplish the jobs consumers wanted a videotape to accomplish. It doesn't really matter that betamax was originally 4%(seriously, why does 4% matter more to some people than all the usability value VHS brings to the table?) better than VHS in picture quality when betamax tapes simply weren't long enough to contain feature films or to record anything longer than an hour. On top of this, Sony was intentionally conceding the fight by withholding licensing from 3rd party companies. This meant that only people who bought Sony could have betamax or use it, but *EVERYONE ELSE* could use VHS. Not just the JVC customers, but also Panasonic, Mitsubish, RCA, etc. Basically, Sony was trying to create a monopoly with a bad product while JVC was trying to create a profit on a good product. Nobody should be surprised that VHS won. At this point, I'm left wondering why you're trying to compare MOBAs to VHS within the context of your post, since your post seems to be implying the exact opposite of what the comparison would suggest.

Knaight

2014-05-07, 04:14 AM

And by pointing it out your argument fails, because they are NOT equivalent, by a longshot. Seriously, your arguments (both the original, and this) are very very flawed. You might WANT for micro-transactions to illegal, but they aren't. You might consider them the moral equivalent of dumping chemical vaste, but very few people would agree with you.
I'll spell this out simply, as the last post apparently didn't work. I have no issue with micro transactions. I don't consider them even remotely comparable to dumping chemical waste in drinking water. My problem is with the reasoning Litewarrior gave.

Oh, and there IS no logical fallacy. Except YOURS. Again, Micro-transactions are legal. And so companies can use that market model to make money. You try to equivalent this to a heinous criminal act, hence your logic fails.
:smallsigh:
Yeah, no. I'm not calling micro-transactions equivalent to any heinous criminal act. I'm saying that a particular defense given (it's profitable, therefore it is good) is useless, because that defense also works on the heinous criminal act.

I also don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm saying that companies can't use the market model to make money, as it doesn't come from anything I wrote. "Profitable actions are not inherently good" is very much not the same thing as "Micro-transactions are evil and shouldn't be used to make money", and my position has always been the former.

Avilan the Grey

2014-05-07, 04:56 AM

I'll spell this out simply, as the last post apparently didn't work. I have no issue with micro transactions. I don't consider them even remotely comparable to dumping chemical waste in drinking water. My problem is with the reasoning Litewarrior gave.

:smallsigh:
Yeah, no. I'm not calling micro-transactions equivalent to any heinous criminal act. I'm saying that a particular defense given (it's profitable, therefore it is good) is useless, because that defense also works on the heinous criminal act.

I also don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm saying that companies can't use the market model to make money, as it doesn't come from anything I wrote. "Profitable actions are not inherently good" is very much not the same thing as "Micro-transactions are evil and shouldn't be used to make money", and my position has always been the former.

Very well, I stand corrected on what your opinion on Microtransactions are. It was a natural assumtion since you seemingly went into Reducto Ad Absurdum just to show how henious they are.
However, the argument you used above is still not a valid argument.

Again, your argument that a criminal act can be defended against with the same argument as pointing out that something is legal, when the criminal act is in fact not legal (:smallsigh:) should make it clear to anyone that your argument isn't valid.

NEO|Phyte

2014-05-07, 05:48 AM

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Dedicated_server_configuration

No, they don't.

Yeah, Steam doesn't run off of peoples' dedicated servers. Just a heads-up.

Grif

2014-05-07, 06:17 AM

2.The RTS and MOBA genres are distinctly separate, and offer different gaming experiences. Comparing League to Warcraft III makes about as much sense as comparing Meatboy to Castle Crashers. Or apples to hotdogs.

I'd say the only reason he made the comparison was that Aeon of Strife, and later DotA, the predecessor of the three(?) main MOBA F2P games in the market, started with Warcraft III custom maps. But that reasoning breaks down when you consider how far MOBA has gone since version 5 of DotA, with all the contents and changes added that truly turned it into a genre of its own.

DarkLightDragon

2014-05-07, 07:13 AM

Nice to see people have decide talking about Valve isn't a crime.

On TF2: I think more weapons would be nice, and I know other people who would like weapons instead of YET MORE COSMETICS, but you've gotta admit, coming up with something new AND balanced isn't easy.

More maps would be just sweet. There's Moonbase being worked on right now, which I'm excited for, but that's just one.

Those aside, there are a lot of neat cosmetics and HATS!!! available, and as has been pointed out, they're a successful moneymaker. People like the optional thing, they pay money for the optional thing, people who can't or won't pay aren't at a gameplay disadvantage, everyone wins.

On Nexon: Someone wondered if they still had a hideous microtransaction system. The answer is "Hell yes." Not only do they have a pay to win mindset, but I have this story:

When I played one of their games a while back, I paid some money because I saw a thing I was interested in at a hefty discount. When I went to buy the thing, I was told that I didn't have the correct premium currency that the discount was for. After myself and another user who'd run into the same problem sent in tickets, we were told that yeah, we needed the other currency.

Never mind that the advertisement for the discount was misleading. Never mind that they have two types of premium currency in the first place that are functionally identical. Never mind that one gets discounted while the other doesn't. We were SOL. Had I not flown into a rage, bought the thing anyway and promptly uninstalled, I would have demanded a refund. I was so foolish.

Oh, and their premium currencies expire if you go a certain time without buying anything. No saving in chunks or keeping leftovers aside for you, little Timmy!

On microtransactions in general: They are a necessity in F2P games. The people who make them have to get money for it somehow. Those of you with jobs wouldn't do what you do entirely for free, would you?

That aside, there's definitely good and bad ways to handle it (see above examples). Most of them, though, shouldn't be compared to criminal acts.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-07, 09:36 AM

Bucky

2014-05-07, 09:56 AM

What you're saying is that a single $60 paywall that blocks off all the content is better than a bunch of paywalls that block off portions of the content, then?

Because I'm all for the option that lets me pick and choose which content I get to see. That way, I don't wind up paying for content that interests me less. That's how microtransactions work at their best.

This is the Paid DLC model. It isn't usually considered Free to Play any more than a coin-op arcade is.

Psyren

2014-05-07, 10:24 AM

At its best, NO content should be behind a paywall. What companies should paywall instead, as noted in the videos I linked, are convenience and cosmetics.

If a player is skilled/dedicated enough, s/he should be able to experience everything a F2P has to offer completely for free, and companies have to be okay with some portion of their playerbase doing exactly that.

For example, limited character slots - a player can still play every race/class in the game, but if they are playing for free they can only maintain so many combinations at once and must delete one to make room for others. They can still experience all the content, just not simultaneously. Or bag space - the players can still find every item, but carrying them all will require some harder choices than if they were a paying player. Or leveling speed - getting to cap might be slower for the free player, but once they hit 60 or 70 or whatever the number is, they will be equal in potential power to the paying player who got their faster. (At least, not factoring in any additional post-cap grinding the paying player may have done.)

Bucky

2014-05-07, 10:34 AM

At its best, NO content should be behind a paywall. What companies should paywall instead, as noted in the videos I linked, are convenience and cosmetics.

Disagree strongly on convenience. Making players pay for convenience means that they are not only deliberately inconveniencing their players, but also admitting the game design does not require it. To make more money, they make the game worse.

On the other hand, content behind a paywall is just pay-DLC with a free demo again. These were successful and acceptable before F2P and I see no reason to stop doing it.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-07, 10:37 AM

This is the Paid DLC model. It isn't usually considered Free to Play any more than a coin-op arcade is.
Hmmm. But it'd be F2P if the core content was free.

Psyren

2014-05-07, 11:01 AM

Disagree strongly on convenience. Making players pay for convenience means that they are not only deliberately inconveniencing their players, but also admitting the game design does not require it. To make more money, they make the game worse.

That depends on your definition of "worse." It is quite possible to level up too quickly, particularly if by doing so you miss out on other elements/rewards - quest chain storylines, additional loot, reputation, achievements, challenge, PvP brackets, outgrowing level-appropriate dungeons for a matching system etc. For those players who care about those things, a baseline fast leveling speed can be a burden. But letting players opt into it - and attaching a price commensurate with its value - lets the players who value fast advancement more than these other elements get what they want, and for the developers to gain resources that can be put towards continued development/enhancement of the game in the process.

Ionbound

2014-05-07, 11:14 AM

Kalmageddon

2014-05-07, 11:19 AM

I would like to talk about the notion that games that let you unlock things that have a direct mechanical benefit (items, weapons, upgrades) either by paying directly, paying for ulocking them faster or by grinding are not Pay 2 Win.
I somewhat disagree, and here's my logic:

Such games don't prevent you from earning the OP items (or just the really useful ones) in ways other then simply playing. So by that logic many people think that it doesn't count as Pay 2 Win simply because given enough time anyone can have the stuff that makes people "win". Nothing prevents you from sinking hours into grinding to earn them, after all, other people simply choose to do that faster.
Right, but what about the grinding itself? While you are griding for better gear you are still playing the game, right? Your K/D ratio, Win-Loss ratio is still there, right? So logically, you are, for a time, palying the game with sub-par equipment and consequently losing against those that have the better stuff because they bought it right away.
Consequently, aren't those people paying to win, literally?
In a game where everyone has to grind you still lose against people with better gear, of course, but that at least required them the same amount of time and effort it's going to be required from you. People that jump into the game, buy a bunch of weapons, find out the OP one and start using it far before anyone else has had the time to grind for it are paying to win, there is no way around that.
The fact that you can eventually acquire said OP items doesn't mean a thing, for a time you are cannon fodder against those people that bought what they needed without any effort or time required.

Also, many F2P games introduce new items that are in an incredibly OP state at realease, so people buy them, then later on they get nerfed, so people that have to grind for them haven't had the time to enjoy them in their OP state, but still got fragged by them when other people bought them right away. Let's not even pretend this isn't done on purpose on many occasions.
Do you see what I mean?

Psyren

2014-05-07, 11:29 AM

I am going to take a leaf out of Psyren's book, and link an Extra Credits: Doing Free to Play Wrong (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0) I think this details a lot of the problems people have with F2P, and talks about a better way to do it. So, yeah. Watch that, seriously.

I love, love, love the money bomb example. I could just imagine dropping one of those babies in the AH or something and watching chat come to life.

Also, many F2P games introduce new items that are in an incredibly OP state at realease, so people buy them, then later on they get nerfed, so people that have to grind for them haven't had the time to enjoy them in their OP state, but still got fragged by them when other people bought them right away. Let's not even pretend this isn't done on purpose on many occasions.
Do you see what I mean?

That's selling power, and even if they plan to make that power available to everyone eventually, that's still a clear example of what NOT to do.

The_Jackal

2014-05-07, 11:34 AM

Well, yes, isn't every business? And every consumer is looking for innovative ways of getting what they want for less. Or free. Also the sun sets in the west, Im told it will rise in the east.

Of course they want to make money. But they have to want something else, too: A good product. If you're a game programmer and you just want to make money, do everyone a favor and get an IT job at a regular company. You'll make more money, and you'll be happier. TRUST ME.

It's hard to take you seriously when your world is this black and white. You're only a sucker if you didn't get your money's worth of value out of whatever it was you paid for, and that's as true for a hat as it is for faster leveling speed or extra bag space. For me, playing through a game once at regular speed might be enough, and I end up finding the end-game content more enjoyable and want to try a different class at it, so I'd pay for the speed boost because my time is worth more to me than the couple of dollars the boon would cost. It's simple economics.

And if you'd just bought the friggen game like a normal paid title, they wouldn't put in the molasses trap at the endgame to induce you to pay them. F2P makes games WORSE. It makes good games mediocre, and bad games horrible, because it perverts game design in the name of profit. LOL might be a good game, if you think so, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But it would absolutely be a better game if you just paid when you got in and unlocked new characters in a normal, non-grueling progression. The same is true of Hearthstone. Great game, too bad it has this free-to-play BS turning what should be a simple exercise of unlocking all the cool cards into a infinite grind for gold and dust.

And on the other side, we have this. Pointing out that business ethics is, in fact, a thing can be useful - the quote above your seems to deny it's existence after all. That doesn't extend to demonstrating that this particular model of game monetization has a different ethical basis than a different particular model.

My point is that ethical behavior is a spectrum, not a binary equation, something that seems to be lost on this crowd. Yes, there rare greater and lesser offenders in the F2P game market. There are slight odours and awful stenches. But I can't find a single instance of F2P games that are legitimately good for the game.

Fundamentally, micro-transactions just allow buying the parts of a game one wants without the rest. It's not all that different from being able to buy only some games out of a series, rather than having an entire series put together and sold as one game.

Sure. That's great. So if I want to play Starcraft II, it would let me buy the campaigns and not worry about playing multiplayer. Too bad that's not what F2P really does.

This is a horrible argument borderlining Reductio ad absurdum.
For one thing, one action is LEGAL, the other is ILLEGAL.

And the basis for what we make legal and illegal is ethics. When you condone unethical behavior because it's profitable, you invite that sort of argument.

1.Do you even League, bro?

Please don't call me bro. It's rude. No, I do not League.

2.The RTS and MOBA genres are distinctly separate, and offer different gaming experiences. Comparing League to Warcraft III makes about as much sense as comparing Meatboy to Castle Crashers. Or apples to hotdogs.

Considering the whole genre was born out of a WCIII trigger map, I'm going to call that statement patently false. MOBA is a RTS with the S removed.

Yeah, Steam doesn't run off of peoples' dedicated servers. Just a heads-up.

Steam makes money by selling games. Mostly non-valve games, not by selling hats to TF2 players.

What you're saying is that a single $60 paywall that blocks off all the content is better than a bunch of paywalls that block off portions of the content, then?

Because I'm all for the option that lets me pick and choose which content I get to see. That way, I don't wind up paying for content that interests me less. That's how microtransactions work at their best.

Yes, I'm saying exactly that, because putting the paywall in distorts the design of the game. It induces the designers to think about squeezing players for cash instead of what their true focus should be: Making the game fun. If the combined cost of all the paywall unlocks matched the up-front cost of the game, it wouldn't be such a problem. If I could just pay my $60 and have a non-F2P experience, that would be fine. But that doesn't work economically.

Look, before the F2P wave, the old version of F2P was the 'Demo'. Games would release the first few levels of a game, and you'd get to try it out before you decided to sink your hard-earned money on it. It was a better system, and it produced better games. It didn't produce more profitable games, but the fact that it's profitable doesn't change the fact that it's worse. (which I take to be Knaight's whole point).

Bucky

2014-05-07, 11:50 AM

Jackal, if you want a good example of F2P that demonstrably doesn't make the game worse, look at event tickets in DotA 2.

The same is true of Hearthstone. Great game, too bad it has this free-to-play BS turning what should be a simple exercise of unlocking all the cool cards into a infinite grind for gold and dust.

I view Hearthstone as a pretty good competitive arcade style game (Arena) strapped to a bunch of grindy ways to avoid paying for it. Or, alternatively, they use the F2P mode to attract players for the 'real' game, which is Arena.

Considering the whole genre was born out of a WCIII trigger map, I'm going to call that statement patently false. MOBA is a RTS with the S removed.
Nitpick - Aeon of Strife was a Starcraft map, not WCIII.

CarpeGuitarrem

2014-05-07, 11:54 AM

Considering the whole genre was born out of a WCIII trigger map, I'm going to call that statement patently false. MOBA is a RTS with the S removed.
Considering that D&D was born out of a wargame, I'm going to consider that every edition of D&D is basically the same as Warhammer. D&D is a wargame with the "war" removed.

:smallwink:

Steam makes money by selling games. Mostly non-valve games, not by selling hats to TF2 players.
Uh, did you see the link I posted where it explained that, actually, TF2 does turn a profit? A pretty substantial profit? More of a profit than when you had to buy the game?

Yes, I'm saying exactly that, because putting the paywall in distorts the design of the game. It induces the designers to think about squeezing players for cash instead of what their true focus should be: Making the game fun. If the combined cost of all the paywall unlocks matched the up-front cost of the game, it wouldn't be such a problem. If I could just pay my $60 and have a non-F2P experience, that would be fine. But that doesn't work economically.

Look, before the F2P wave, the old version of F2P was the 'Demo'. Games would release the first few levels of a game, and you'd get to try it out before you decided to sink your hard-earned money on it. It was a better system, and it produced better games. It didn't produce more profitable games, but the fact that it's profitable doesn't change the fact that it's worse. (which I take to be Knaight's whole point).
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the old version of F2P was "shareware". It didn't pan out, financially.

Also, I would argue that in a lot of F2P games, the combined price of the unlocks is generally equivalent to the up-front cost of the game. It's been pointed out that these games often have a lot of content. Probably more than the $60 you're ascribing to them.

efdf

2014-05-07, 12:15 PM

And if you'd just bought the friggen game like a normal paid title, they wouldn't put in the molasses trap at the endgame to induce you to pay them. F2P makes games WORSE. It makes good games mediocre, and bad games horrible, because it perverts game design in the name of profit. LOL might be a good game, if you think so, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But it would absolutely be a better game if you just paid when you got in and unlocked new characters in a normal, non-grueling progression. The same is true of Hearthstone. Great game, too bad it has this free-to-play BS turning what should be a simple exercise of unlocking all the cool cards into a infinite grind for gold and dust.

it's quite possible that people are arguing that f2p games can have normal, non-grueling progression and still turn a profit because people are willing to pay for secondary features completely unnecessary to the game as a whole (most common example is cosmetic changes). in fact, it was the complete point of the passage you quoted and responded to here.

so how is this an adequate response? or even a response at all?

psyren: i can play through the game at regular speed and pay for enhanced speed
the jackal: they wouldn't put in the molasses trap at the end game

if some $60 game allowed you to hit a button and instantly fight the last boss would you argue that the rest of the game is now grueling progression? or just the way the game was intended to be played in the first place...

Psyren

2014-05-07, 12:18 PM

And if you'd just bought the friggen game like a normal paid title, they wouldn't put in the molasses trap at the endgame to induce you to pay them.

You keep using loaded words like "trap" and "sucker" as though being willing to pay for something that you enjoy - or more accurately, those parts you enjoy of a larger whole - is a cardinal sin of some kind. Why is that?

If it were a "normal paid title" it might have failed. An up front cost often shuts out the crucial 14-21 market that lack disposable income, yet have the free time to frequent forums, create strategy guides and update wikis. It forces everyone, from the guy willing to pay only $5 to the guy willing to pay $500, to pay the same price - alienating the former and losing revenue on the latter. And then you and everyone else would be left with nothing at all. Clearly many of these F2P titles are enjoyed by many; particularly massively multiplayer titles that rely on other players to be a key component of the content, and I'd much rather have them than not.

F2P makes games WORSE.

No, poor design does that. This is as true for F2P as it is for subscription, pay upfront and hybrid models.

LOL might be a good game, if you think so, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But it would absolutely be a better game if you just paid when you got in and unlocked new characters in a normal, non-grueling progression.

As EC pointed out, LoL does F2P very well. All the characters can be unlocked using in-game currency. Sure it takes (much) longer, but if you already enjoy the game you probably won't even notice the time passing. After all, it's not like the paid champions are any more powerful than the free ones - if your playstyle matches them, they can perform well even at high levels of skill.

Knaight

2014-05-07, 12:21 PM

It didn't produce more profitable games, but the fact that it's profitable doesn't change the fact that it's worse. (which I take to be Knaight's whole point).

My point actually has nothing to do with the quality of Free to Play games. It has to do with how, in general, profitability doesn't inherently make something good. It's about an argument used more than the topic itself.

Merellis

2014-05-07, 12:51 PM

As EC pointed out, LoL does F2P very well. All the characters can be unlocked using in-game currency. Sure it takes (much) longer, but if you already enjoy the game you probably won't even notice the time passing. After all, it's not like the paid champions are any more powerful than the free ones - if your playstyle matches them, they can perform well even at high levels of skill.
Don't forget the weekly free champions that let you get a taste of everyone as you go.

And the fun fact that all runes are IP only, so you need to play to get them anyway. :smallbiggrin:

Impnemo

2014-05-07, 03:23 PM

Translation: We're looking into more innovative ways of leeching cash out of our paying customers.

to induce you to spend folding money on the rewards, they jack up the natural amount of effort required to obtain them into the non-fun territory. If that weren't the case, the microtransaction strategy can't succeed, because too few of the players are so impatient as to shell out dough for the shortcuts. Yes, some non-F2P games suffer the same problem (notably in cases where development cash dried up before better interim content could be completed), but the pernicious incentives to offend in this regard are innate in the F2P model.

Of course they want to make money. But they have to want something else, too: A good product. If you're a game programmer and you just want to make money, do everyone a favor and get an IT job at a regular company. You'll make more money, and you'll be happier. TRUST ME.

Ok. They want to make money. Finding ways to monetize gameplay is "pernicious". Except making money is ok if they just go away and dont make any games at all. Because then they get more money and we get... what exactly? Im failing to see how any of this is a Good Thing™.

Avilan the Grey

2014-05-07, 03:31 PM

The same is true of Hearthstone. Great game, too bad it has this free-to-play BS turning what should be a simple exercise of unlocking all the cool cards into a infinite grind for gold and dust.

---

And the basis for what we make legal and illegal is ethics. When you condone unethical behavior because it's profitable, you invite that sort of argument.

I definitely disagree on Hearthstone. I don't see a problem with it at all. Oh and btw it is vastly cheaper than any Tabletop Card Game since it is impossible to get any cards for free in such a game. Period.

As for ethics... Exactly. I don't see how your point is relevant. But maybe I'm not Lawful Good and therefore accepts a grey scale of morals. Plus I might just not consider microtransactions as such unethical, any more than I consider say the fact that you have to pay for food unethical. Think about it, unless you pay money you will starve to death. How is that for unethical behavior?

It is HOW you do it and WHAT you charge for that can be unethical. Hearthstone and PoE is not unethical.

Godskook

2014-05-07, 03:42 PM

Please don't call me bro. It's rude. No, I do not League.

Like ever?

Considering the whole genre was born out of a WCIII trigger map, I'm going to call that statement patently false. MOBA is a RTS with the S removed.

No, it isn't. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awesomenauts) MOBA exists as a distinct concept that trancends its genealogy. You can have, as linked above, MOBA games that are most closely related to a multiplayer megaman game, or you can have a MOBA that is built out of the same engine as WoW or Guildwars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smite_%28video_game%29)

Math_Mage

2014-05-07, 06:00 PM

Oh no, F2P video game publishers can cynically exploit their userbase for money!

You know who else can do that? Video game publishers.

---

Also, we haven't talked about a major benefit of F2P games, which is that it's much easier to create and sustain a multiplayer community when the barrier to entry is low.

Hiro Protagonest

2014-05-07, 07:05 PM

Oh no, F2P video game publishers can cynically exploit their userbase for money!

You know who else can do that? Video game publishers.

Yeah if you want to argue about the horrible unfairness of the F2P model, go argue it to an Australian.

Impnemo

2014-05-07, 08:16 PM

It is HOW you do it and WHAT you charge for that can be unethical. Hearthstone and PoE is not unethical.

I want to point out that profitability and profit seeking, in itself, is ethical behavior. Seeking a raise at work is not unethical, you're just selling your labor at a higher price. Charging as much as the consumer is willing to pay for a Space Monocole, even if its $70, is not unethical. If there is a way that is unethical, its that it is not as profitable as lowering the cost and selling volume.

Diverting the argument from this basis and arguing pollution in the name of profit is bad, and therefore profit seeking is bad, does not follow. Everything you do, make, sell, or purchase has an impact. The impact is more or less acceptable based on the general well being of the community.

The more well off the more concern you can afford to such things. As an example, dark age Europe virtually deforested the continent for wood. Unethical? Its easy to say, but if we had the option of being exposed to the elements or not having fuel to cook or stay warm what choice would we make? Refined oils are the clean burning alternative fuel to wood, dung, and coal. But we are reaching a point where not even that is sufficiently acceptable. But acceptance of the impact, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the drive for profit, explicitly.

The_Jackal

2014-05-07, 08:34 PM

Uh, did you see the link I posted where it explained that, actually, TF2 does turn a profit? A pretty substantial profit? More of a profit than when you had to buy the game?

At no point did I suggest that hat sales were unprofitable. But saying that Valve needs to sell hats to turn a profit or pay for their dedicated servers is false.

In case I haven't made it apparent enough, I don't care whether a particular cost model is profitable or not. That's entirely orthogonal to my point, which is that F2P presents pernicious incentives to developers which harm the quality of games.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the old version of F2P was "shareware". It didn't pan out, financially.

No, shareware has nothing to do with F2P, at all. Totally irrelevant to this discussion.

Also, I would argue that in a lot of F2P games, the combined price of the unlocks is generally equivalent to the up-front cost of the game. It's been pointed out that these games often have a lot of content. Probably more than the $60 you're ascribing to them.

You're completely, abjectly, utterly wrong. The full cost of every League of Legends character is nearly $2000. You can sink hundreds of dollars down Hearthstone and still be nowhere near a complete collection. Star Trek Online makes you gamble on lockboxes, instead of just buying the junk you want, so it's another infinite dollar vacuum. It's this fact why I divide free-to-play gamers between moochers and suckers.

The_Jackal

2014-05-07, 08:52 PM

You keep using loaded words like "trap" and "sucker" as though being willing to pay for something that you enjoy - or more accurately, those parts you enjoy of a larger whole - is a cardinal sin of some kind. Why is that?

It's not a cardinal sin, but it does make you a chump. If it makes you feel any better, I myself have been that chump, but at least I have the clarity of vision to understand when someone's gotten the better of me because of my aforementioned human mental defects (http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/03/why-we-buy-how-to-avoid-10-costly-cognitive-biases.php).

If it were a "normal paid title" it might have failed.

So you're telling me that if it had to pass the 'worth $60 test', it would have failed? And you're telling me that that ISN'T an implicit endorsement of my theory that the game isn't as good as a regular AAA title?

An up front cost often shuts out the crucial 14-21 market that lack disposable income, yet have the free time to frequent forums, create strategy guides and update wikis. It forces everyone, from the guy willing to pay only $5 to the guy willing to pay $500, to pay the same price - alienating the former and losing revenue on the latter. And then you and everyone else would be left with nothing at all. Clearly many of these F2P titles are enjoyed by many; particularly massively multiplayer titles that rely on other players to be a key component of the content, and I'd much rather have them than not.

And I'd rather not have them. I'd rather that 14 to 21 year olds without enough money to drop on a $60 game spend more time getting good grades or exercise and less time plinking away at some meaningless virtual drudgery to earn a digital quarter. I'd rather have developers spend money on titles that are worth the price you paid for them. I'd rather play an MMO where I don't have to eyeroll at free-tier players who are too under-geared to contribute because they don't have an even playing field with the subscribers.

No, poor design does that. This is as true for F2P as it is for subscription, pay upfront and hybrid models.

Poor design makes games bad too? That sure is an incisive bit of logic there. Seriously, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is NO free-to-play game that wouldn't be better (to play, not as a business) without the free-to-play system.

As EC pointed out, LoL does F2P very well. All the characters can be unlocked using in-game currency. Sure it takes (much) longer, but if you already enjoy the game you probably won't even notice the time passing. After all, it's not like the paid champions are any more powerful than the free ones - if your playstyle matches them, they can perform well even at high levels of skill.

I'll have to take your word for it. What I don't have to take your word for, however, is that the game would be more fun for everyone if everyone could earn all the playable characters in a reasonable human time-frame.

I definitely disagree on Hearthstone. I don't see a problem with it at all. Oh and btw it is vastly cheaper than any Tabletop Card Game since it is impossible to get any cards for free in such a game. Period.

Comparing a game's profit model to Magic the Gathering's is not going to convince me of its native merit. That said, at least in MtG and other CCGs (pre-online), the cards you buy are an actual physical good, and the costs are reflective of that.

As for ethics... Exactly. I don't see how your point is relevant. But maybe I'm not Lawful Good and therefore accepts a grey scale of morals. Plus I might just not consider microtransactions as such unethical, any more than I consider say the fact that you have to pay for food unethical. Think about it, unless you pay money you will starve to death. How is that for unethical behavior?

It is HOW you do it and WHAT you charge for that can be unethical. Hearthstone and PoE is not unethical.

The unethical part is where you're using brainwashing techniques on children (inside that crucal 14-21 year old range) to get them to buy your overpriced virtual goods using forced artificial scarcity.

Math_Mage

2014-05-07, 08:56 PM

You're completely, abjectly, utterly wrong. The full cost of every League of Legends character is nearly $2000. You can sink hundreds of dollars down Hearthstone and still be nowhere near a complete collection. Star Trek Online makes you gamble on lockboxes, instead of just buying the junk you want, so it's another infinite dollar vacuum. It's this fact why I divide free-to-play gamers between moochers and suckers.
You can keep repeating those words, but you can't put any moral force behind them. The 'full cost of every League of Legends character is' not something anyone pays. The full cost of any League of Legends character is not something anyone needs to pay, ever. Hearthstone is a huge step up from the usual TCG business model and barriers to entry are slim. Can't comment on STO as I haven't played--but when the moochers, suckers, and devs all need each other to make the game happen, and are all happy with the game, none of them are ethically compromised.

Put it another way--often as not, the game you think is made worse by going F2P couldn't be made at all P2P. League would have died stillborn. Hearthstone would have gone nowhere. The value of those games is contingent on the existence of a playerbase, which doesn't happen in the first place if there's a big pay barrier at the front gate. Unless you can argue those games are of absolute negative value, you don't have an argument.

Impnemo

2014-05-07, 09:06 PM

at least I have the clarity of vision to understand when someone's gotten the better of me because of my aforementioned human mental defects (http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/03/why-we-buy-how-to-avoid-10-costly-cognitive-biases.php).

And once more we see that anyone who disagrees or has a different opinion is simply a defective person. I didn't see that one in Nicomachean Ethics, was it from How to Win Friends and Influence People?

Also, from that link you posted the only item even partly relevant seems to be this one:

When buying or selling you have to try and be dispassionate. Be aware that unless you set limits, your unconscious may take over.

Try being a bit more dispassionate and a bit more rationale about this whole thing.

Bucky

2014-05-07, 10:05 PM

If anyone want a more blatant example of F2P gone bad, check out this review (http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=1076) of the Sim's Social. Or skip to the punchline:

The optimal strategy for playing it is to pay a little over $20,000 and click a couple thousand times. Congrats, you won. Actually playing the game enough to win is considerably more expensive.

You're completely, abjectly, utterly wrong. The full cost of every League of Legends character is nearly $2000. You can sink hundreds of dollars down Hearthstone and still be nowhere near a complete collection. Star Trek Online makes you gamble on lockboxes, instead of just buying the junk you want, so it's another infinite dollar vacuum. It's this fact why I divide free-to-play gamers between moochers and suckers.

Merely being really expensive is one thing. But $2000 doesn't even buy the full game. For that you need $2000 PLUS a few hundred hours of grinding for runes.

Avilan the Grey

2014-05-07, 10:48 PM

Comparing a game's profit model to Magic the Gathering's is not going to convince me of its native merit. That said, at least in MtG and other CCGs (pre-online), the cards you buy are an actual physical good, and the costs are reflective of that.

---

The unethical part is where you're using brainwashing techniques on children (inside that crucal 14-21 year old range) to get them to buy your overpriced virtual goods using forced artificial scarcity.

So you do consider Steam unethical because they charge the same for a game as the local game store?

...As for children... First of all, not all countries has 21 as the age of Adulthood. Sweden, for example, has 18 (and an age of sexual consent of 15). Second is it more unethical to sell them this, or candy? As long as their parents are okay with it...

Oh and here's two words for you: Disney Infinite. And another: Skylanders.
...But of course we don't have to go that far. How about non-digital stuff? Pokemon, Transformers, He-Man, My Little Pony...

Bucky

2014-05-07, 11:40 PM

Oh and here's two words for you: Disney Infinite. And another: Skylanders.
...But of course we don't have to go that far. How about non-digital stuff? Pokemon, Transformers, He-Man, My Little Pony...

Charges of 'manipulation of children' become increasingly clear-cut as the age and subtlety involved decrease.

To whit: A game presents a kid with a cute woodland animal. Then tells them it will kill the animal unless they pay $5. This seems pretty unethical.

I have been told FrontierVille does exactly that.

t209

2014-05-07, 11:41 PM

...But of course we don't have to go that far. How about non-digital stuff? Pokemon, Transformers, He-Man, My Little Pony...
Ummm, About the last part, you never been to a famous thread with grown men, do you?

Avilan the Grey

2014-05-08, 01:22 AM

Ummm, About the last part, you never been to a famous thread with grown men, do you?

No, but it is irellevant to the argument. MLP is designed to make 6 year old girls cry for MOAR PONYS. That a small section of grown men likes the cartoon created to sell MOAR PONIES (and due to some weird fluke happens to be well made) is irellevant.

Charges of 'manipulation of children' become increasingly clear-cut as the age and subtlety involved decrease.

To whit: A game presents a kid with a cute woodland animal. Then tells them it will kill the animal unless they pay $5. This seems pretty unethical.

I have been told FrontierVille does exactly that.

I have no idea if this is true, but it has already been addressed above:
To paraphrase myself: Microtransactions in itself is not unethical. It can be unethical depending on what, and how, you sell.

Godskook

2014-05-08, 03:01 AM

You're completely, abjectly, utterly wrong.

Yeah, he walked into a bad argument, but I want to address the following because I think you're trying to make a wider point about League than merely refuting Carpe's point:

The full cost of every League of Legends character is nearly $2000. -snip- It's this fact why I divide free-to-play gamers between moochers and suckers.

Sure, League is stupidly expensive if your goal is to own everything as quickly as possible, but League isn't designed to accommodate that goal. Its designed under the assumption that you really don't need more than a few dozen champions to enjoy the game for long enough to buy everything you'd literally ever need with in-game currency.

First, its trivially easy to unlock a core set of cheap champions and enough runes to run them by the time you hit lvl 30. On top of this, once you hit that point, it takes a good deal of time to become competent on new champions, something you haven't even fully done with the champions you already own. Assuming you take ~50 games per champion you buy(which is fair for people who aren't prone to impulse purchases), you make a solid 1200 in-game currency off the most expensive champs.

If you want to play League without being a sucker or a mooch, just buy a few skins for your favorite champs, and enjoy that you can participate in *all* the in-game content without ever having to spend a dime on League.

Castaras

2014-05-08, 04:17 AM

Dunno if it's been mentioned but Path of Exile is a free to play game that's truly free - all microtransactions are cosmetic (excepting increased number of stash tabs, which is quality of life only). I'm a huge fan of it and play far too much of it.

They're currently preparing to do a charity 2 week race (new league, everyone starts with nothing, 5 highest level surviving players get items) with raffled prizes distributed to people at various tiers (some ingame stuff, some real life computer gizmos), and a microtransaction that's going purely to charity. :smallsmile:

NEO|Phyte

2014-05-08, 04:30 AM

Castaras

2014-05-08, 04:41 AM

Didn't PoE start literally selling the ability to win back in April?

Ah yes, the "win" you could buy as a micro transaction on April 1st. :smallbiggrin: I bought 50. :smalltongue:

Pay to win nuuuuuuuuu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w19sqGjmNlY).

Merellis

2014-05-08, 06:55 AM

Ah yes, the "win" you could buy as a micro transaction on April 1st. :smallbiggrin: I bought 50. :smalltongue:

Pay to win nuuuuuuuuu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w19sqGjmNlY).

Geez, that $7.50 price tag for those 50 seems insane. How many times did you win? :smalltongue:

Sad I missed the April Fools joke for it, but oh well.

Castaras

2014-05-08, 07:07 AM

I'm keeping them in reserve for the most opportune win moments - dying in hardcore, 6 linking an item, corrupting an expensive unique into a rare.... :smallwink:

Merellis

2014-05-08, 07:09 AM

WINNING~! :smallbiggrin:

seriously though, PoE is a fun game, I just can't seem to solo at all. *sobs*

Knaight

2014-05-08, 01:27 PM

Diverting the argument from this basis and arguing pollution in the name of profit is bad, and therefore profit seeking is bad, does not follow. Everything you do, make, sell, or purchase has an impact. The impact is more or less acceptable based on the general well being of the community.

Then it's a good thing nobody has actually said that profit seeking is bad. The most that has been said is that things done to seek profit are not inherently good, with dumping toxins in a river being a good example of that because basically nobody is going to contest that one.

The original argument responded to was, flat out, it is good because it is profitable. It was expressed in a somewhat longer way, but that was the argument. That argument fails, because if it is taken as true things like dumping chemical waste into drinking water are also good, which is completely ludicrous.

Gaelbert

2014-05-08, 04:24 PM

Without following this thread down the rabbit hole it has appeared to dive into, I'd like to propose Lord of the Rings Online that did F2P right. Or at least used to, I haven't played so much recently. It originally started on the standard MMO subscriber model, but went F2P a couple years ago. Subscibers at that point received a lifetime VIP status, giving them 500 TP (purchased currency) a month and special status, allowing them to receive the new zones and expansions for free if they don't waste their TP on other things. As a F2P myself, I played the game for long enough (~40 hours) to realize that it was a game I wanted to make an investment in. So I ended up buying the Mines of Moria expansion, which gave me subscriber status for a month and lifelong Premium (which unlocks certain things permanently, for all characters). TP are used to buy cosmetics (although you can find some pretty cool ones in game), unlock certain things such as larger bank accounts, horse riding skills, and a wallet upgrade, as well as quests, dungeons, and the like. If you play past the starter areas, you will have to use TP to unlock additional areas for you to level up in.
However, TP can also be earned in game through completing deeds. And if you want to have a halfway decent character, you'll need to grind those deeds by midgame eventually. You get enough TP through deeds to unlock pretty much all the content you need to make it to endgame (although if you want to have all the zones, you'll probably need to pay or grind TP on alts). It sat better with me than most F2P models because paying for TP allowed you to skip the deed grinding at first, but if you do complete the deeds you'll have a stronger character, and you'll need to do those even if you pay for TP. I saw it as a reverse of the standard "Pay to win" assumption because you can pay, but if you just rely on buying your way to endgame you'll be useless. Don't know if it's still like that, but it worked pretty well for me. I spent $20 on the game total, and ending up getting much, much more quality playing time (~400 hours) than I do in most games.

Impnemo

2014-05-08, 05:00 PM

The most that has been said is that things done to seek profit are not inherently good, with dumping toxins in a river being a good example of that because basically nobody is going to contest that one.

I agree in principle that not all things done for profit are good, but I do contest that example. I was trying to point out thats a moving goal post, the valuation is subjective. Things acceptable today will not be tomorrow. Things not acceptable today were acceptable or even necessary yesterday. If our own valuation of such is not fixed, others must likewise have different valuations at any given point in time.

Example, pollution is bad. Ergo wanting less pollution is good. They changed the required formulation of diesel fuel around 2004ish to put out less pollution, so thats good right? Except according to the EPA doing so would have no measurable benefit. It did have a measurable cost, as the price of fuel went up.

So the "toxins r teh bad" I get, but to a point. That point is going to differ depending on just how well off you are. So even something so simple and seemingly universal as this has to have caveats.

And we have been having an argument over whether selling things people are willing to pay for is inherently "cynical" or "pernicious". Or that profit is only ethical when based on the cost to produce rather than value derived by the consumer. Or that being willing to pay for, or derive value from, these things makes one a mental defect. So profit motive is being judged here, among other things.

Knaight

2014-05-08, 06:58 PM

So the "toxins r teh bad" I get, but to a point. That point is going to differ depending on just how well off you are. So even something so simple and seemingly universal as this has to have caveats.

Somehow, I think that straight waste dumping in a river that provides drinking water is past just about everyone's point, which is why I used it.

Similarly, the idea being pushed here is that deliberately exploiting human biases to make profits is bad. I'd contest that to some extent, and contest the idea that the Free to Play model has that built into a much greater one, but those are the points being made. "All profit is bad" is not a point being made. "Everything profitable is good" has been made.

Impnemo

2014-05-08, 09:40 PM

Somehow, I think that straight waste dumping in a river that provides drinking water is past just about everyone's point, which is why I used it.

I want to make it clear that I agree with you, but I'm still going to disagree with this one thing. There was a story not long ago how a major city had flushed umpteen million gallons of drinking water from an open air reservoir because some drunk had peed in it. People can't get their head past the squick factor as soon as words like 'toxin' or 'waste' are invoked.

Chemicals were placed in the water. At what concentration? What affects will this have? Does it outweigh having the medicine? What alternative is there in manufacturing it? Usually different techniques reduce rather than eliminate the impact. The implication is a negative impact, but I want to point out that is not a given. Things which had a positive impact in the past are negative now, things positive now will be negative in the future. Weirder still, things assumed negative turn out to be neutral. Its variable and subjective.

Example: automobiles. The internal combustion engine provided us with means of transport without relying on animals. This does tremendous, positive things for sanitation particularly in a city (also helped cause the Polio epidemic - a negative). Then the cars pile up and produce smog. So you put a catalytic convertor on them and clean up the exhaust, no more smog. 40 years later and thats no longer enough. Similar things happen with manufacturing, even today we allow certain levels to be discharged which will not be acceptable tomorrow. This subjectiveness is one reason pollution reduction and controls agreements largely ignore the developing world.

"All profit is bad" is not a point being made

Im not arguing that profit motive itself is sufficient to justify an action as 'good'. We agree. I'm quibbling over whose valuations get used and when. And someone Im trying to be considerate here actually has said profit seeking is 'bad'. 'Profits not directly linked to cost of operation is unethical' has been made in this thread and lies in direct contradiction to profit motive, which naturally seeks the highest price point the market/consumer is willing to bear.

Were on tangents here.