this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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I'll die charging the hill.
So you can "earn" the stuff in-game: so what? That doesn't excuse it at all and I don't know why people repeat this. They aren't mad the item can be earned, they are mad it is sold. These seem like the same issue but they are not. Conflating them as the same issue is a poor attempt to deflect the justified frustration of the people who paid for this game. Their frustration is a basic part of human psychology. It is why we do not allow steroids in sports. It is why we separate boxing matches by weight. There is a fundamental understanding of "fairness" that every leftist should understand and this encroaches on that understanding. As a leftist you should understand how this is indicative of a greater inequity between what is accessible to those with wealth and those without in our society and you should be upset that it has not only consumed our working lives but now consumes our leisure as well.
In so far as your comments on the Rift companions being gated; I'm afraid you've put the cart before the horse. They are selling the solution to a problem they designed. This is the exact kind of toxic gameplay elements that people criticize the very existence of cash shops for. We aren't talking about some cosmetics here. The fact that you are trying to pass that off as a good thing shows just how lost in the sauce you are.
All these systems that must be interacted with in this way are things that must be programmed and tested. It hurts to see a game get blasted for performance issues when those same programmers may have been working on this garbage instead. Would their time have been better spent making sure the game ran nicely? Absolutely. But hey, at least they got the rift crystals and character editor token working right in the cash shop and isn't that what really matters?
You mentioned that it's not a big deal to have pay-2-win in a single player game. "Who cares," you say? Well, uh, a load of people. Why attempt to invalidate their concerns? Very toxic behavior in service to the greedy corporation, comrade. Do better.
lmao this is funny imagery for a argument. i wonder what rhetorical stakes are? cannons? does your argument give you a horse?
my arguments have a saber. all the coolest charges in war involved sabers
Sports are irrelevant here. It is a singleplayer game. Enjoy it how you like.
All this amounts to is putting cheatcodes behind a paywall. And cheatcodes have been gone for decades. If we're really going to split hairs about this nobody ever complained about the Nintendo Hotline or the various other premium-cost official cheat hotlines in the back of the manuals back in the glory-days people imagine.
Sports are just games. Either way, it's an analogy about the psychology of fairness and equity so I feel it is relevant in that way. Perhaps that didn't occur to you in which case I apologize for not being clear enough. It being a singleplayer game is not relevant to this psychology as I explained. If your enjoyment of the game comes from the accomplishments in the game then those accomplishments being trivialized by a cash shop will diminish your enjoyment of the game. This, again, is part of this fundamental element of human psychology I was talking about which is why I mentioned it.
In regards to the Nintendo hotline and such, yeah, we did complain about it. I know, because I was a child during that era (I am old) and I was complaining about it along with my friends. We just didn't have the internet at the time to have a nice record of it. We did it the old fashioned way; face to face while trading pornographic magazines we stole from our fathers.
Games played against one another.
It's not fundamental because it's clearly not something that applies to everyone. It does not diminish my enjoyment of the game, I do not care because it does not affect me. If it doesn't apply to everyone it's not fundamental, it's social and/or environmental in some way.
If it does bother me, doesn't that make it fine to complain about it? If I don't like seeing microtransactions in a game I paid full price for (or even just the trend of this happening across the industry), or if I don't like knowing that some features in the game that used to be free were put into a cash shop, or if I don't like that executives are trying to monetize every aspect of my experience, even after they've already gotten money out of me, shouldn't it be well within my right to criticize the game and company for degrading my experience?
And if you truly aren't bothered by it but see that some people are, should you really be trying to defend the practice? You have every right to not be bothered by in-game monetization and not complain about it, but do you really need to try and convince other people that are bothered by it that it isn't really such a big deal?
"It doesn't bother me personally therefore it is not predatory or anti-consumer or pay-2-win."
You can't see the genius of this position.
It doesn't have to apply to every single person to be fundamental. Some people are not pressured by FOMO. Some people are not tricked by dark patterns. Yet these things play on fundamental psychological phenomena of the human mind.
Whether or not a game is played against another is not relevant as to whether or not it is pay-2-win. At all. Not even a little bit, as a treat.
You misunderstand.
This isn't your average pay2win situation where you can ~totally~ earn your way to the important stuff. This is as if the Publisher told the Development team to put the cheapest healing potions from the first shop in the village ALSO for sale on the RMT shop. It's in bad taste, it's exploitative, but it's also hilariously irrational all things considered.
The reason why this became a PR loss is because they also removed the Start New Game button after your begin the game. So that lead to a belief that you gotta buy Art of Metamorphosis for 1,99. All in all it leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouths in the pettiest, least lucrative way possible.
No, I understand just fine. Your reply confirms what I know. It's pay-2-win stuff. What you are saying is the usual pay-2-win scenario. Convenience items, usually trivial ones, and other currencies that are harder to obtain to get advantages in the cash shop. All earnable, albeit some rarer ones more slowly, in-game. It's your average mobile game microtransaction slop.
Not at all. The usual pay2win scenario involves two things. First you actually get something. Second, that something takes a wild amount of time to acquire through normal means. When I said 'what if the first, shittiest health potion was also on a cash shop for some reason' I was not exaggerating in any way.
Cash shops have been normalized in an infinite number of ways. There are entire games built around selling cosmetic skins or characters. Capcom has consistently chosen the worst of all worlds with every single one of their games, selling nigh useless things that (rightfully) draw people's ire.
I reject your second criteria outright. It is ridiculous. If you can pay to get something that gives you an advantage it is pay-2-win. Even if that thing is attainable fairly easily in the game. In the case of this game, there are items, that are rare that are sold. So even by your own criteria this is pay-2-win. By mine, it is pay-2-win. It is pay-2-win.
I think this definition is different from the usual definition of pay-2-win. The way I've always seen it described, "pay-2-win" refers to a micro/macro transaction that more or less renders the general content meaningless. So in an 80-hour long game, it would give you the items and gear that would allow you to skip the first 75 hours of it. Persona 5 is a decent example, allowing you to summon level 80+ personas from the very start of the game (well, as soon as you unlock above-level fusions).
The microtransactions in Dragon's Dogma 2 give you an advantage, certainly, and are a scummy practice by out of touch Capcom executives. But in my experience, your definition of pay-2-win is not the common one. That's why people here agree with your points but are confused about your conclusion
The way you've just described pay-2-win is literally the first time I've ever heard it described as such in 40 years of my life.
Either way, this a big movement of the goalposts. You are narrowly defining the term in such a way that so few games would qualify. Hell, Genshin Impact wouldn't even qualify by your definition (but is still pay-2-win by my definition). Sure you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new characters and weapons but you'd still need to DO the content. The only thing that would count is things like level skips you can buy in WoW, and yet the pushback from WoW players is that this is not pay-2-win because just getting to the endgame isn't "winning". So, I reject your definition as being a commonly accepted one because in the MMO community (a community of MILLIONS of players) it is a constant struggle in these discussions due to people literally rejecting that definition.
If I'm being honest, and I don't mean this in an insulting way at all, I do not believe you've really considered this issue deeply before in the past. I think your definition and defense of the game is very "vibes"-based. And, look, that's okay. Most people aren't borderline obsessive over stuff like this and just live their lives, which is fine and normal. But coming to the defense of a game because you have some outlandish definition of a term that I think most people are somewhat settled on is a bold move.
I think ultimately there are two commonly accepted ways people see as pay-2 win:
Cash shop that gives you any advantage in the game at all. (Most who accept this are still fine with cosmetic-only cash shop items.) This is my stance, of course.
Cash shop items that gives you a competitive advantage that you otherwise could not easily obtain through gameplay (or is completely locked behind the cash shop entirely).
I have assumed this entire time you were of the latter crew. I did not expect to see a definition of pay-2-win that not only have I never heard of but seems so outside the normal discourse I've never even considered it before right this moment.
Okay, I'm really not a fan of your tone, nor your insinuation that I am "borderline obsessive" about the game in a way that is not "fine or normal". I respect your experience and what you have previously seen of pay-2-win discourse. I admit it was wrong of me to use the term "usual definition". It was not my intention to imply that my experience is the objectively correct one, nor to demean any different takes on the issue. I merely intended to offer the perspective I have personally seen online about pay-2-win mechanics, even if it was a perspective you have not seen before. The internet is full of gaming discourse, and it is only natural that many definitions and descriptions exist.
That being said, I certainly do not deserve the way you have worded your reply to me. I would have loved to discuss the matter further if you had simply rejected my definition and offered more of your own perspective. Your comment comes across as needlessly hostile, describing my honest perspective as some sort of freakish screed by an overly-obsessive gamer.
Like, "literally the first time I've ever heard it described as such in 40 years of my life"? "Most people aren't borderline obsessive over stuff like this"? "...you have some outlandish definition"? "...I think most people are somewhat settled on is a bold move"? "not only have I never heard of but seems so outside the normal discourse I've never even considered it"?
Where do you get off typing in such an inordinate, degrading tone to a comrade on this website? Over a simple video game discussion? Type like this all you want to Reddit libs, but I certainly don't appreciate it here. The degree that you have gone to in order to thoroughly trash my perspective in the span of a single reply is beyond the pale. If you wanted to reply, you should have stuck with your first paragraph, which is much more reasonable, and has the MMO perspective that I personally did not consider. If my original comment came across as smug or rude, I promise you it was unintended, and would have expressed myself more clearly if you had said so. But I will certainly not discuss this with you now.
Next time, if you feel the need to type: "I don't mean this in an insulting way at all", think about rewriting your comment.
I wasn't saying you were being obsessive. I was saying that I am. I'm saying you are fine and normal because you are not obsessive but I didn't want to be insulting implying that you were just a "normie" as they say. I've reread what I wrote and I think that is clearly stated. It confuses me that you came away with the opposite meaning.
Secondly, my tone was not intended to be insulting and tone is difficult for even skilled writers to convey well through text. I am neither; just a shit-brained millennial with too much free time and not enough income like most of us who is, half the time, commenting while stoned to the bomb age.
I do stand by my comment in that I was genuinely confused in that I have never seen that specific perspective presented before. I don't think stressing that is insulting. And I did find it bold to assert that this was commonly accepted as I had never heard it before quite in the way you defined it. I think a sentence like, "not only have I never heard of but seems so outside the normal discourse I've never even considered it", is not at all insulting. What struck me most was your inclusion of "meaning" as a criteria.
However, all that said, insult is not for the speaker to determine but rather the listener and if you say my comment was insulting then it was. My intent was not malicious and I'll try and do better in the future. There is no need for hard feelings in this space especially over a silly topic with such low stakes.
Oh and as an aside, there is a really good video that quite literally just dropped by Josh Strife Hayes on YouTube about this and he discusses all kinds of aspects of pay-2-win and even, I think, briefly touches on some of the perspective you presented. I don't agree with all of it but like most content he produces it is very well considered and worth the watch if you are interested.
There's no albeit, there's no rare ones on that list
It is mentioned in the very first post. Rift Crystals. They are not super common.
But let's not digress. Their commonness or rareness is not particularly relevant. Either way selling items that give an advantage is pay-20win.
I'll die reinforcing the flank of this (ant)hill (or whatever).
First of all I'm not trying to defend Capcom here, these microtransactions are obviously stupid as fuck. But they are nothing but additions made by out-of-touch executives at the last possible minute. In comparison to the predatory design found in 90% of videogames made today it barely even registers on the scale of bullshit. It's so half-assed they don't even allow you to buy the packs that give you in-game currency more than one time. The game was clearly not designed with this in mind and at no point does it feel like any of its design was altered so you'd be inclined to spend money on the microtransactions.
Every single live-service game that works on the users FOMO is a hundred times more predatory than this. Cosmetics in multiplayer games are a hundred times more predatory than this (sure they don't "affect gameplay" but they are most often the only way to make your character be in any way unique compared to the other players and always function as displays of wealth to an audience of literal children). I'd even argue that shit games like the lauded "Vampire Survivors", which is five bucks and doesn't feature any microtransactions is more predatory since it's from the ground up designed to hit your dopamine receptors just the right amount with no other apparent goal in mind other than to lobotomize you for half an hour whenever you play it.
Every single fucking mobile game is literally eating peoples brains as they play them and this is the shit people get mad about? This is at least still a videogame designed and made by people who have some goals besides brainwashing its users into becoming whales. Yeah it fucking sucks that there's barely any devs left who are completely free from this bullshit, but I'd gladly take this bullshit over the other 99% of games that are designed to be microtransaction-machines first.
You are agreeing with me. You point out that this game is pay-2-win but just that others in the market are worse. Sure, I agree. This game is pay-2-win and others are worse. Welcome to my side. The march up the hill isn't so bad and there's a nice breeze.
Yeah I agree with you, except for the fact where I think it's important to actually look at the actual games, how they are designed and how things like microtransactions work within them and not just spout "pay-to-win" like it somehow means the same thing in battlefront 2, world of tanks, some mobile idle game, the resident evil 4 remake or this game.
You are paying for things that give an advantage in a game. In some that advantage is gainable in the game. In some it is not. In some that advantage is huge. In some it is trivial. But fundamentally it is all the same at it's core. It is the purchasing of that advantage that makes it pay-2-win even if the specific variations and severity differs from product to product.
I fully agree it's worse in other games. Sure, that's a gimme.
You're charging a hill that was erected in like 2010 lol. Look at every single game Capcom has released for the last two decades and you'll see the same thing
So? It was bad then and it is bad now. A bad thing doesn't stop being bad if enough time has passed that it has become normalized. Reject the settler mindset and be better.
Of course it's bad, but it's just so fucking weird to get up in arms about it now lmao. Like why is this the one
Also you get a ton of rift crystals what are you talking about in the other reply
Gaming has sucked for more than a decade. At a certain point, people need to either develop their own games/mods or find a better hobby. But malding about how games suck (after buying them no less) is just pathetic at this point. How much did malding about horse armor back in '06 amount to?