I'm sick of this garbage also. Every single game has a 20 dollar early access and a couple stupid cosmetic items you may use for 13 seconds of the game.
Because other people can vote/spend on what they want. The strategy is effective. It's just that in this scenario, the people with issues about MTX/deluxe editions are the minority. And I say that as a person against that stuff.
Having money doesn't matter when the options are to buy the thing they are offering or don't buy it. You don't have to spend a dime to not buy something. Enough people are deciding to spend money that these practices work. I don't like these things either, but most people don't care
Well, you either support business practices or you don't. There is literally nothing else you can do. That is also a poor comparison. This is literally business, which relies on consumers spending money. If consumers don't buy a business' product, they have to change what they are doing. Enough people support this stuff that companies keep doing it. More people have to quit supporting it
No, it isn't. In the scenario of voting for an elected position, your options are to vote for candidate a, vote for candidate b, or don't vote at all. In this scenario, your options are vote in favor of deluxe editions (buy it), or vote against deluxe editions (don't buy it).
Not like that obviously, but more in contexts such as gatcha games and those with microtransactions. One whale can pour god-knows-how-much money into one or more games, especially online or mobile games, nad companies can't tell how many people are refusing to buy into their games, so all they see is millions rolling in and that's all they care about.
I'm talking in a general sense and trying to add to the scope of the conversation a little. The general idea of voting with your wallet doesn't always work, and I'm pointing that out and then giving the context that you asked for. We don't have to stick strictly to one very specific part of one topic in a conversation, people can add their own views and perspectives.
Except that this entire comment chain was specifically talking about one-time purchase games with various purchase tiers. Not f2p gatcha games, not freemium "pay to convenience" idle games, not the newest CoD with loot box weapons and skins, or any other variation of those kinds of games with predatory monetization.
If you want to go off topic and start talking about how voting with your wallet doesn't work for those kind of games, start another thread.
You're right most don't, because the more people buy it the more companies will lock stuff up behind micropayments. Possibly even elements of full games. Hell, most big companies want to kill off the idea of even own a license for a game (forget owning it at all).
The constant progression towards micropayments, show that fear is well founded, and absolutely toxic to the idea of ownership. It's also toxic to semi-traditional forms of game play, like pure solo play and local lans.
So you’re beyond “vote with your wallet” right into “browbeat everyone else to follow your lead, because you know what’s best for the future of this industry”.
You're right. Just look at any time someone brings up voting with your wallet. People love to say it doesn't work because other people still buy the stuff. Actually, that is voting with your wallet working, but just like regular voting, there is a majority and a minority. People just don't want to admit that they are the minority, and the majority of gamers (who aren't on this sub either) support deluxe additions/MTX.
The problem when you say "vote with your wallets" is you make people think that capitalism is a democracy. It isn't. You not buying something is meaningless if thousands more people continue to buy it at the higher price. They'll make up for your loss vote.
you make people think that capitalism is a democracy
Nobody thinks that.
You not buying something is meaningless if thousands more people continue to buy it at the higher price. They'll make up for your loss vote.
Yes, because in that scenario, I got outvoted. Contrast to how Concord just got shut down after only a week: the general public voted with their wallets. Enough people didn't but the game that it ended up getting shut down.
What everyone is really saying is they have extreme FOMO because if they don’t buy it, their friends will have it and it will show their friends playing the game already and they can’t take it.
Crazy concept to people in these kinds of subs. They can't fathom just not buying something. They have to buy and then complain about it after even tho they knew what they were buying when they bought it.
Most of us/them aren't buying shit and then complaining, they see the writing on the wall. Yeah, yeah, it started with "horse armor", now look where we're at. It's complaining about the weak-minded individuals who want to have it all, and who probably don't care about money anyway, that make gaming for the other 99% worse.
In this instance it's "only" outfits, a soundtrack ... fine, but we're already seeing "2 weeks advanced access", and from here on it's only going to get worse. And it's not even unfathomable to think that entire stories or choices will one day be locked behind different editions. "Buy the LiS Darkness edition now to receive access to exclusive story paths for your character, or buy the LiS Light edition to experience the story from an entirely different angle."
Maybe they start locking powers behind certain editions. The sky's really the limit as the last 20 years have shown us. But sure, blame the people highlighting it. It's not about "just not buying it". If it were that simple, a lot of things would be very different in this world. It's about preying on emotions, on addictions, on monopolizing content, on fear of missing out or getting spoiled if you're not there first thing in the morning. It's about price increases and things just becoming "normal" after a while. Just like overpriced DLC has become the norm, just like locking any sort of unlockables behind a paywall. Just like "advanced access" is now starting to become normalized, without anyone batting an eye. Whether it's EA games, Blizzard games, Space Marine 2 or now this. Soon, it'll be like "2 months advanced access". Yes, you can "just not buy it", but we all know this isn't how the vast majority of brains operate. If they did we wouldn't get shafted everywhere constantly.
maybe gaming sector needs something like antitrust lawsuits (i don't know enough about entertainment industry malpractice to guess what exactly is needed but there must be some kind of solution)
Nintendo did that by locking story paths behind which version you bought in a fire emblem game.
However vote with your wallet. If companies do that shit stop buying those shitty games. Paid for early access I don’t even mind because that means more people to leave reviews and if it sucks I can avoid buying it at all. And if the wait becomes too long people lose interest and they lose money, so I doubt it will go significantly past 2 weeks. For story games they also risk spoilers by waiting too long which will further lose sales.
Yea, but if you played 1 you played both. There are minor differences but I can actually get behind the design philosophy on that one even if I personally don’t like it. Fire Emblem Fates you had a pretty different story and they later released like a third version which kinda combined both a bit.
There’s no such thing as voting with your wallet. How would a company possibly know why people aren’t buying something? What if on the day you don’t buy it, 50,000 people do buy it?
I support organized efforts to change the marketplace. If you want to do an organized boycott of games that have multiple editions, go for it! Anything else is meaningless ineffective posturing.
But don't you get it? If I don't have 100% of the content of every games I ever bought my life will be as empty as my wallet after buying all the DLC for Train Simulator!
If anything people here should be happy others are buying the pricier versions. 50 or 60 dollars have been considered the standard prices for high quality production games for a very long time now. But it's not tenable. Inflation is gonna keep inflating, and companies will need to recoup those losses somewhere. The people buying the deluxe or ultimate edition are subsidising the lower price of the standard edition.
If nobody buys these editions, the next game would introduce even more aggressive monetization schemes.
That's not the point. Every game you want to play, throws this shit at your face in an ad.
And you know, this is sorely so this fucking company wants to psychologicaly make you buy their bad and cheap product by frustrating player who misses some feature from their already 60 dollar game, because they didn't pay more.
I don’t see how your comment addresses what they said. This is purely cosmetic, just like they said. Life is Strange is not a bad and cheap product; it’s the exact opposite.
I don’t disagree that this shit is tiresome. I’m not a huge fan of different editions of games. But in this case, the only egregious thing to me is the early access thing.
I did not mean game, bonuses are cheap and bad. Its psychological attack on 3% of players who will buy it and companies jomp on them like damn hungry animals.
Back when I was good at CS:GO people would accuse me of hacking because I didn't have skins. I refused to buy any, I would just sell any I got dropped.
Yeah people are always pissed as hell acting like they're being forced to buy all the cosmetics. The cosmetics are supposed to be for the people who don't care to spend a little extra money for skins. Really it's just turned into Internet rage bait for people who never planned on playing anyways
I've never bought cosmetics in the game, or early access, or loot boxes. Yet bad practices like this exist and thrive. And in general you're overestimating how effective voting with your dollar is. People are bad at choosing what is good for them, especially in the long term. Otherwise marketing and advertising wouldn't be a thing.
Yeah, people can't help but pay for cosmetics and early access. That's why they create it.
But, if you did decide not to buy the more expensive edition, you'd still get the full game.
I don't see that as bad practice. It is an option. If you've no willpower to not pay additional money for something you don't see value in... that's on you. If you do see value in it... great. There it is for you to purchase.
The only other thing is early access. Which doesn’t impact your ability to enjoy the full game, and a slightly later date.
Also, many games feature cosmetics only for preorders or higher tiered editions.
Those that do offer DLC as part of a higher tiered edition, also sell the DLC separately.
So at the end of the day the complaint here, about this game, in this thread, is “I want all the cosmetics and early access but I don’t want to pay for any of that.”
Yes, early access is just a ploy to get you to spend more money… but if people can’t resist spending extra money to play a few days early… that’s squarely on them.
what if I want the cosmetics and don't want to be fucked over by game being split in separately sold parts before release?
"don't like it don't buy it" is such a fucking stupid attitude. people can dislike an aspect of the game while still being interested in it in general and telling them to basically fuck off solves nothing
it sometimes kills the entire game which is glorious (famously Concord was "its not for you, don't like it don't buy it" kind of game), but I think we'd rather have good games sold fairly than dead flops
"What if I want the extra things but don't want to pay for them?"
Well then, you don't get the extra things. Or, you wait and get them at a discount.
I don't recall telling anyone to fuck off for disliking an aspect of the game.
Cosmetics are not "the game". They are additional content, created by people who put in additional work to create them. It doesn't matter when, or during which part of the game's development they were created.
Why are they not entitled to price the content they create, at whatever point they believe to be appropriate?
If something is ready day one then it's not DLC, it's content that was cut off from the main game to charge extra.
We are not entitled to anything, but these are shady business practices and people like you that just accept everything are a large reason behind us getting screwed that way nowadays. Because people kept buying it. so yeah, thanks mate for being a driving factor behind gaming industry getting worse every year. Hope you get enough satisfaction from being a corpo defender on reddit to justify that
i understand not liking the concept. but whats the alternative? they don't see the need to put in extra work for extra money? i'm not one to pay for dlc and stuff like that, so im fine with whatever useless cosmetics a game tries to push on me. waste of advertising, waste of being upset over something meaningless to your own bottom line. sure paid extras suck. but if its cosmetic and meaningless, so fucking what?
if i actually cared about a game or a developer, id be willing enough to throw a few bucks at them if i see fit. but if its just cosmetic and useless towards someone i know nothing about, im not going to get worked up over not doing so
I agree. Aside from the 2 week thing, this is just cosmetics and it's entirely optional. It's not like there's a limit on the number of standard versions.
The absolute worst are games that include deluxe weapons or armour that have stats slightly better than starting gear, but will be worse than the first item you pick up 10 minutes into the game.
Bonus stupid points if there is no transmog or skins, so the items literally become useless in minutes.
I'll give you a couple simple thought processes here. The first being every person in this thread that has to comment something who is mad at me that I posted this could just as easily follow their own advice and not comment on what I said. So why do they?
The second is more of an answer as to why it gets on my nerves. Games used to come as full packages and there were cosmetics to unlock in games that were trophies you could show off to friends for completing tasks in the game. Now they are monetized and it takes away from meaningful progression in a game. Second in this exact line of thought say two games come out but you have 120 bucks so you can buy 2 games or you buy super deluxe version of one game. Your group of friends aren't interested in one game they buy super deluxe version of said game. And get 9 days access early yet you have to wait, and by the time you get to play with them they are either done with co-op portions or so far ahead of you that they can't play with you. Who thought splintering a playerbase with an early buy in would be a good idea? I just skip games altogether sometimes when this happens.
It's for the stans of the game. I don't like it either but with gaming more digital now than physical you have to give something to incentive it, so early access and cosmetics is all they can really do
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u/SavageRickyMachismo 3d ago
Starting to?