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https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/668861
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – November 18
• ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – November 19, 9:00AM EST (14:00 UTC) - 6:00PM EST (23:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: EU megaserver for maintenance – November 19, 23:00 UTC (6:00PM EST) - November 20, 17:00 UTC (12:00PM EST)
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/668861
Monetisation of New Systems
-
DieAlteHexe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).
?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?
Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...
Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.
Are you ******* kidding me
Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...
Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?
I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.
The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.
TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.
And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?
Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.
[Edited for quote]
Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.
I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.
Eh, I'm of the school of thought that it's not gambling because you actually end up with something but that horse has been beaten nigh unto death. I rarely buy crates anymore for other reasons.
I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.
I dunno, 7500 doesn't fall in my "fairly reasonable" category but that's obviously subjective.
As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.
Yup, for completionists, it's a rock and a hard place.
Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.
Can't say much here aside from if it were easily done, they would have done it. They're not stupid and any time they have issues affecting large amounts of customers, they aren't going to just shrug it off.
If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.
I guess here's where we differ. In the 20+ years I've been MMOing, I know that they never will be as good as customers and developers want them to be. Once I reached that point, it's been a whole lot less frustrating for me. I admit last week did have me growling a bit. I've left games entirely or taken breaks in the past to see if things improved if they got to be too much for me to tolerate.
I guess for me, I'm too invested in terms of progressing through the end-game at this point. I'm so close to a lot of things that i can't take a break or give it up now. No chance. I just want it to be better. And it never seems to get better. I don't let it affect my lifr but when I am on here it definitely affects my discourse and attitude with the game.
I'm sure many people feel that I am toxic towards the game and the devs but if I could get a ZoS employee to sit with me for a day while I play and see the issues we contend with on Xbox every day, they would be shocked and I'm sure they would start to understand my attitude.
Also I bought the grim whatever and Frostcaster motif and I think they were only like 2500 crowns. I think 7500 is for like the Mazzatun and others. That is too expensive.
I can relate. I've walked away from end-game characters in many, many games. When it's no longer fun for me or becomes "work", that's it, I'm done.
The thing I like and hate about MMOs is that they are always a work in progress. Sometimes they're really good, sometimes things go wrong and sometimes there are ongoing issues that never get fixed. I learned to roll with that, set my limits and stick to them. When it gets too frustrating, break time or move on.
I don't think they would be shocked. I think they are well aware of issues in their game. What we don't know is the "why" of it and what holds up fixes. This is their livelihood and I'd wager they're no more happy about the problems than you are. I've worked in and owned a dev house and watched coders tear their hair out trying to fix things so I'm not one to think they don't care or are being lazy. It's too much work and stress to keep doing it if you don't care.
That said, I too would love to sit down and chat with them. Would love to know why some of these issues are so tough to get sorted.
Dirty, filthy casual aka Nancy, the Wallet Warrior Carebear Potato Whale Snowflake0 -
Apache_Kid✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).
?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?
Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...
Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.
Are you ******* kidding me
Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...
Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?
I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.
The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.
TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.
And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?
Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.
[Edited for quote]
Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.
I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.
Eh, I'm of the school of thought that it's not gambling because you actually end up with something but that horse has been beaten nigh unto death. I rarely buy crates anymore for other reasons.
I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.
I dunno, 7500 doesn't fall in my "fairly reasonable" category but that's obviously subjective.
As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.
Yup, for completionists, it's a rock and a hard place.
Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.
Can't say much here aside from if it were easily done, they would have done it. They're not stupid and any time they have issues affecting large amounts of customers, they aren't going to just shrug it off.
If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.
I guess here's where we differ. In the 20+ years I've been MMOing, I know that they never will be as good as customers and developers want them to be. Once I reached that point, it's been a whole lot less frustrating for me. I admit last week did have me growling a bit. I've left games entirely or taken breaks in the past to see if things improved if they got to be too much for me to tolerate.
I guess for me, I'm too invested in terms of progressing through the end-game at this point. I'm so close to a lot of things that i can't take a break or give it up now. No chance. I just want it to be better. And it never seems to get better. I don't let it affect my lifr but when I am on here it definitely affects my discourse and attitude with the game.
I'm sure many people feel that I am toxic towards the game and the devs but if I could get a ZoS employee to sit with me for a day while I play and see the issues we contend with on Xbox every day, they would be shocked and I'm sure they would start to understand my attitude.
Also I bought the grim whatever and Frostcaster motif and I think they were only like 2500 crowns. I think 7500 is for like the Mazzatun and others. That is too expensive.
I can relate. I've walked away from end-game characters in many, many games. When it's no longer fun for me or becomes "work", that's it, I'm done.
The thing I like and hate about MMOs is that they are always a work in progress. Sometimes they're really good, sometimes things go wrong and sometimes there are ongoing issues that never get fixed. I learned to roll with that, set my limits and stick to them. When it gets too frustrating, break time or move on.
I don't think they would be shocked. I think they are well aware of issues in their game. What we don't know is the "why" of it and what holds up fixes. This is their livelihood and I'd wager they're no more happy about the problems than you are. I've worked in and owned a dev house and watched coders tear their hair out trying to fix things so I'm not one to think they don't care or are being lazy. It's too much work and stress to keep doing it if you don't care.
That said, I too would love to sit down and chat with them. Would love to know why some of these issues are so tough to get sorted.
Maybe the game is too far ahead of its time and for many machines.
Either way it's nice you have such a great attitude about getting frustrated
Edited by Apache_Kid on April 17, 2018 5:53PM0 -
JKorr✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
New motifs are good and they'll look nice but let's be honest if this system is what it seems then the motifs will be the mundane cultural ones from each update but all the "cool" stuff will be in the store for money.We still got new motifs in the game? There's 4 with upcoming chapter. But does seem something is wrong with people not being happy with content rewards.
It's just sad that dungeons which have little value to run now lost a great chance to have some low % drops to encourage players to get back into them.
Just get right with RNGeezus... Have you read in the patch notes where these motifs are Crown Store exclusives??
There is a difference [for me] of offering items for sale at a fixed price whatever that might be, and offering items that have no fixed price because you're depending on rng to get them. Buy one crate with a fixed price; get anything but what you want and are willing to pay a set price for. Continue buying crates attempting to get that item you want, and the final price will be Divines only know. I've linked multiple threads where people literally spend over a thousand dollars for crates chasing that one item they wanted. Which is exactly the behavior the monetizer is aiming for.
I have the Frostcaster motif. It was crown store only. I saw a price and could decide whether I wanted it that much or not. I've bought other motifs from the crown store for a set price. I won't buy the gamble crates where the price is only ?????
2 -
DieAlteHexe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).
?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?
Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...
Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.
Are you ******* kidding me
Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...
Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?
I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.
The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.
TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.
And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?
Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.
[Edited for quote]
Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.
I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.
Eh, I'm of the school of thought that it's not gambling because you actually end up with something but that horse has been beaten nigh unto death. I rarely buy crates anymore for other reasons.
I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.
I dunno, 7500 doesn't fall in my "fairly reasonable" category but that's obviously subjective.
As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.
Yup, for completionists, it's a rock and a hard place.
Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.
Can't say much here aside from if it were easily done, they would have done it. They're not stupid and any time they have issues affecting large amounts of customers, they aren't going to just shrug it off.
If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.
I guess here's where we differ. In the 20+ years I've been MMOing, I know that they never will be as good as customers and developers want them to be. Once I reached that point, it's been a whole lot less frustrating for me. I admit last week did have me growling a bit. I've left games entirely or taken breaks in the past to see if things improved if they got to be too much for me to tolerate.
I guess for me, I'm too invested in terms of progressing through the end-game at this point. I'm so close to a lot of things that i can't take a break or give it up now. No chance. I just want it to be better. And it never seems to get better. I don't let it affect my lifr but when I am on here it definitely affects my discourse and attitude with the game.
I'm sure many people feel that I am toxic towards the game and the devs but if I could get a ZoS employee to sit with me for a day while I play and see the issues we contend with on Xbox every day, they would be shocked and I'm sure they would start to understand my attitude.
Also I bought the grim whatever and Frostcaster motif and I think they were only like 2500 crowns. I think 7500 is for like the Mazzatun and others. That is too expensive.
I can relate. I've walked away from end-game characters in many, many games. When it's no longer fun for me or becomes "work", that's it, I'm done.
The thing I like and hate about MMOs is that they are always a work in progress. Sometimes they're really good, sometimes things go wrong and sometimes there are ongoing issues that never get fixed. I learned to roll with that, set my limits and stick to them. When it gets too frustrating, break time or move on.
I don't think they would be shocked. I think they are well aware of issues in their game. What we don't know is the "why" of it and what holds up fixes. This is their livelihood and I'd wager they're no more happy about the problems than you are. I've worked in and owned a dev house and watched coders tear their hair out trying to fix things so I'm not one to think they don't care or are being lazy. It's too much work and stress to keep doing it if you don't care.
That said, I too would love to sit down and chat with them. Would love to know why some of these issues are so tough to get sorted.
Maybe the game is too far ahead of its time and for many machines.
Either way it's nice you have such a great attitude about getting frustrated
Eh...I can't comment on that. Not a hardware geek. I'm playing on a 4 year old system and it's okay. I've a new box incoming and am looking forward to seeing how that goes.
My attitude is due to laziness.
I don't like to waste time anymore being pissed off. Too old for that. Too pragmatic. Too many alternatives. It about killed my soul to leave LoTRO (I love that whole story) but it just wasn't working for me. I might have sulked for a few days.
Dirty, filthy casual aka Nancy, the Wallet Warrior Carebear Potato Whale Snowflake0 -
Subversus✭✭✭✭✭
✭Seraphayel wrote: »They just want to squeeze out money of every possible aspect of the game.
I really really really don't like this. Why is the nice stuff Crown Store related? They don't add any new mounts or nice things to the base game that you can unlock or achieve, everything goes straight to the Crown Store. Why even ESO+? It already feels like a F2P game with all the stuff you can buy in the shop. And it won't get any better, it will get worse.
I really don't like this massive monetizing aspect of the game. It's just lame and disappointing for every loyal player.
Why is the nice stuff on the crown store? Because crown store keeps the game running. Not game purchases or subscriptions. Crown store purchases. This is how they get money to convince the publisher that the game is worth keeping alive and money to keep the game running and introduce new patches.0 -
MadLarkin✭✭✭✭This is why I have been so adamantly against certain moves ZOS has made with ESO. They keep inching ever forward with more and more ways to lock content (cosmetics ARE content, as they are a part of the game) behind new pay walls. And every time they take a little bit more, people jump to their defense. "They have to make money SOMEHOW," or "this isn't that big of a deal." I do agree that most of the individual items isn't a huge deal (barring crates), but when taken on the whole, its clear that ZOS's primary focus is on squeezing as much money as possible out of the playerbase, which is important, but should always take a back seat providing a meaningful and rich experience for the players. The monetization is now both front seats, and two of the back seats, with player enjoyment and experience being assigned to the back middle seat.
There is a problem with the fact that people can buy the base game, pay for chapters, subscribe, spend hundreds on crown crates and store cosmetics, and still have features of gameplay systems locked behind paywalls. There needs to be a tipping point where a certain type of buyer has access to EVERYTHING a game has to offer. Doesn't matter if "its just cosmetic," no game should be what is essentially a bottomless pit for player's bank accounts.
It really sucks because a ton of this stuff would really improve the gameplay experience. Locking more cosmetics and the awesome mounts behind gameplay achievements would make ESO infinitely more rewarding. Tying the number of available outfit slots to the number/type of motifs found would be cool. But they won't do that. They'll keep inching more and more into the crates. More and more into the store. Keep introducing new "free" mechanics that actually have some portion of their functionality behind a paywall. I'm wondering how far it needs to go before we have a Battlefront 2 type blowback. Does it really need to enter strictly P2W territory before the majority speaks up?7 -
Turelus✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭
We've seen where the trend takes us.B2P for a BASE and DLCs, ESO+, "Microtransactions"... not enough they need more
It's not that bad yet... but where will this trend take us
Removal of the option to buy all items from crates with gems. Breaking new motifs into chapters and placing them in Crates.
If those two alone don't show where this is heading and set off some alarm bells for people I don't know what will.
@Turelus - EU PC Megaserver
"Don't count on others for help. In the end each of us is in this alone. The survivors are those who know how to look out for themselves."13 -
MadLarkin✭✭✭✭ParaNostram wrote: »Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.
The beauty of capitalism is that people can also choose to tell them to shove their business model where the sun doesn't shine and take their money elsewhere.1 -
anitajoneb17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭And every time they take a little bit more, people jump to their defense. "They have to make money SOMEHOW," or "this isn't that big of a deal."
If I may clarify here, whenever I say "this isn't that big of a deal" or anything equivalent, I do not defend ZOS. I protect myself from frustration and my wallet from emptiness.Doesn't matter if "its just cosmetic," no game should be what is essentially a bottomless pit for player's bank accounts.
Now I will defend ZOS from false accusations here. Every individual is responsible for his own bank account. ZOS doesn't blackmail anyone nor points a gun at anyone's face.
Proportion and perspective, guys, pleeeease...
2 -
Turelus✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭
True enough but surely you agree that their marketing choices like many in the gaming industry currently are very predatory.anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Doesn't matter if "its just cosmetic," no game should be what is essentially a bottomless pit for player's bank accounts.
Now I will defend ZOS from false accusations here. Every individual is responsible for his own bank account. ZOS doesn't blackmail anyone nor points a gun at anyone's face.
Proportion and perspective, guys, pleeeease...
We are responsible for our own accounts, however they'll do their damnedest to try and break us into spending.
I do agree though, better to keep hyperbolic statements and overreaction to a minimum, I've tried to highlight my own such cases of this.
@Turelus - EU PC Megaserver
"Don't count on others for help. In the end each of us is in this alone. The survivors are those who know how to look out for themselves."2 -
Kanar✭✭✭✭✭
✭I agree ZoS is over monetizing new systems and charging way too much for those systems. When every new system is created with monetization in mind, then it reduces the quality of the system because those compromises are in place to allow zos to collect money.
DLC and chapters are developed as paid expansions and base game improvements are supposed to be base game. But even those are designed in a way where they can charge crowns, like the ridiculous outfit slot cost.3 -
MadLarkin✭✭✭✭anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »And every time they take a little bit more, people jump to their defense. "They have to make money SOMEHOW," or "this isn't that big of a deal."
If I may clarify here, whenever I say "this isn't that big of a deal" or anything equivalent, I do not defend ZOS. I protect myself from frustration and my wallet from emptiness.Doesn't matter if "its just cosmetic," no game should be what is essentially a bottomless pit for player's bank accounts.
Now I will defend ZOS from false accusations here. Every individual is responsible for his own bank account. ZOS doesn't blackmail anyone nor points a gun at anyone's face.
Proportion and perspective, guys, pleeeease...
Don't misunderstand me. I fully believe someone can manage their finances however they like, because its none of my damn business. However, we can also speak up against what we perceive to be anti-consumer business models. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. There is a lot of value (if you will) in being able to place a dollar amount on "the complete experience" for a game. With ESO, that dollar amount continues to skyrocket, and I don't find that to be an acceptable way of treating one's customers.10 -
DieAlteHexe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭
True enough but surely you agree that their marketing choices like many in the gaming industry currently are very predatory.anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Doesn't matter if "its just cosmetic," no game should be what is essentially a bottomless pit for player's bank accounts.
Now I will defend ZOS from false accusations here. Every individual is responsible for his own bank account. ZOS doesn't blackmail anyone nor points a gun at anyone's face.
Proportion and perspective, guys, pleeeease...
We are responsible for our own accounts, however they'll do their damnedest to try and break us into spending.
I do agree though, better to keep hyperbolic statements and overreaction to a minimum, I've tried to highlight my own such cases of this.
Now, granted, I've not watched television in 15 years but don't all companies do their utmost to get you to buy? They use sex, peer pressure etc. Marketing...it's not for the faint of heart, I guess or all's fair in love and...marketing?
I'm just stubborn enough to baulk when I feel a company is pushing too hard. Show me the damn product, tell me about it and leave off the "but ALLLLLL the cool folks have this" or "booooooobs!!!". Then I'll consider buying.
What gets me here is the "limited" bits. Not surprised as this is another age-old method to entice but I think sometimes the(time frame) is just too short.
I think crates should be done away with and everything just..."here, buy this or don't" and that's not due to any "gambling" distaste, more due to widening the buyer pool. 'Course I could be barking up the wrong tree on that one because, thankfully, I don't think like a marketer. Edited by DieAlteHexe on April 17, 2018 6:19PM
Dirty, filthy casual aka Nancy, the Wallet Warrior Carebear Potato Whale Snowflake2 -
Jhalin✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭There’s so little incentive for semi-serious players to actually go out and play the game.
Nearly all rewards are directly tied to vHM completions and speed runs and no-deaths, which are obtainable by a small margin of players.
There’s no cosmetics for doing normal or even standard vet dungeons aside from a handful of dyes.
There’s no in-game earnable mounts, only the same three purchasables with no prestige to them at all.
Old dungeons without the latest BiS are completely ignored if they aren’t pledges. When’s the last time you heard someone asking for an Arx group?
The insistence on mandatory cash purchases to engage in new systems reeks of consumer exploitation. Primarily Jewlery Crafting, but the Outfit system was clearly a highly sought after feature because the defaults of the game and restrictions (via monster helms and special weaps) enforced on it drove people bonkers.
I don’t run dungeons because I have my gear. I don’t do pledges because there no good rewards from the keys. I only bring my healer to vet runs because there’s nothing appealing about face rolling normal for gear I don’t need.
Veteran players need some kind reward for sticking around, and with the direction the game is taking, we’re not getting it.9 -
anitajoneb17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭True enough but surely you agree that their marketing choices like many in the gaming industry currently are very predatory.
We are responsible for our own accounts, however they'll do their damnedest to try and break us into spending.
Yes, they are predatory. But so are the marketing choices of any other big company out there ! Do you spend time thinking and debating over the predatory practices of, say, BP, Wallmart, Amazon, L'Oréal, whatever ?
The difference is that the nature of the game AND the communication strategy of MMOs make us feel like we're a community.
Therefore we expect more on the "moral/friendly" side and less on the business side. But the truth is, as much as we like Gina and Jess, as we think Rich is talented and Finn is funny, in the end we're ... customers. That's all. I try to never lose sight of this - again, to avoid frustration.
Edited by anitajoneb17_ESO on April 17, 2018 6:23PM1 -
Adernath✭✭✭✭✭DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).
?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?
Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...
Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.
Are you ******* kidding me
Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...
Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?
I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.
The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.
TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.
And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?
Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.
[Edited for quote]
Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.
I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.
Eh, I'm of the school of thought that it's not gambling because you actually end up with something but that horse has been beaten nigh unto death. I rarely buy crates anymore for other reasons.
I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.
I dunno, 7500 doesn't fall in my "fairly reasonable" category but that's obviously subjective.
As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.
Yup, for completionists, it's a rock and a hard place.
Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.
Can't say much here aside from if it were easily done, they would have done it. They're not stupid and any time they have issues affecting large amounts of customers, they aren't going to just shrug it off.
If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.
I guess here's where we differ. In the 20+ years I've been MMOing, I know that they never will be as good as customers and developers want them to be. Once I reached that point, it's been a whole lot less frustrating for me. I admit last week did have me growling a bit. I've left games entirely or taken breaks in the past to see if things improved if they got to be too much for me to tolerate.
I guess for me, I'm too invested in terms of progressing through the end-game at this point. I'm so close to a lot of things that i can't take a break or give it up now. No chance. I just want it to be better. And it never seems to get better. I don't let it affect my lifr but when I am on here it definitely affects my discourse and attitude with the game.
I'm sure many people feel that I am toxic towards the game and the devs but if I could get a ZoS employee to sit with me for a day while I play and see the issues we contend with on Xbox every day, they would be shocked and I'm sure they would start to understand my attitude.
Also I bought the grim whatever and Frostcaster motif and I think they were only like 2500 crowns. I think 7500 is for like the Mazzatun and others. That is too expensive.
I can relate. I've walked away from end-game characters in many, many games. When it's no longer fun for me or becomes "work", that's it, I'm done.
The thing I like and hate about MMOs is that they are always a work in progress. Sometimes they're really good, sometimes things go wrong and sometimes there are ongoing issues that never get fixed. I learned to roll with that, set my limits and stick to them. When it gets too frustrating, break time or move on.
I don't think they would be shocked. I think they are well aware of issues in their game. What we don't know is the "why" of it and what holds up fixes. This is their livelihood and I'd wager they're no more happy about the problems than you are. I've worked in and owned a dev house and watched coders tear their hair out trying to fix things so I'm not one to think they don't care or are being lazy. It's too much work and stress to keep doing it if you don't care.
That said, I too would love to sit down and chat with them. Would love to know why some of these issues are so tough to get sorted.
Very true indeed. I have no problem if they work on the game content, but as an experienced MMO-gamer I know very well that the big problem starts if they continue working on their monetisation system.
It seems that here ZoS is starting to follow the trap so many MMOs have gone: Turning their game into a shop in which one can show-off his hard earned real life money instead of their in-game achievements - until the entire game is ruined. The gambling boxes were already borderline. No one wanted it, no one called for it! We had a thread of around 100 pages as far as I remember, in which nearly the entire community was against this move. The game with crown store and the P2P model was perfect, but now I can only watch and see how my beloved game goes down the drain because of the greed of a few people.
This is a confirmation that crown crates are really the biggest mistake in ESO history. All the motifs made for it could be put in the store for a fair and clean way to earn money, but instead we have a gambling mechanic on top of a subscription model. This gambling mechanism is a cheap and greedy way of earning money, and on the same level as so many trash fail games out there.
Really 'great' how this is all going ...Edited by Adernath on April 17, 2018 6:23PM6 -
Rohamad_Ali✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Apologizing for not having time to read entire thread but are these cosmetic only and direct purchase outside crown crates ? I'm guessing these are not like monster helmets with stats ?0 -
DieAlteHexe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »Apache_Kid wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Carbonised wrote: »Also, Turelus you forgot to mention that they have now also gone from selling Crown Store exclusive motifs, to Crown Crate exclusive motifs cut up in pieces and sold to us in parts via the gambling system (good luck trying to catch them all!).
?? Would you please explain what you're referring to ? I haven't seen any motif being included in crates... is that new on PTS ?
Yes it's on the PTS. The new crates will drop the Maomar motif, which looks pretty dang awesome, but only from crates, and only single pages of the motif. So you're going to have to spend a huge amount of dollars and battle RNG hidden inside RNG if you want the entire motif ...
Just another step down the slippery slope of [snip] business practises that this company is infamous for now.
Are you ******* kidding me
Tis True, but ask the Zo$ defenders, this is acceptable cause, profit and cosmetic and cause reasons...
Oh yea? I would love to know what the real profits of this game are. This isn't a normal business, once they design something and sell it, there are no other manufacturing expenses and they can sell as many as they want til the end of time. So how much money has actually been generated by the crates and the $150 homes and the $40 mounts?
I bet if the player-base saw the profits this game generated we would be absolutely sick.
The performance on Xbox is abysmal, players have been crashing multiple times a day with it being worse since Dragon Bones and it's straight radio silence.
TAKE SOME OF THIS MONEY THAT WE THROW AT YOU AND RE-INVEST IT BACK INTO YOUR GAME.
And now you're putting INDIVIUDAL MOTIF PAGES IN CRATES?
Nah my outrage levels are off the charts. Performance on my platform has gotten drastically worse in the last year and a half I've been playing this game and instead of making it marginally better all they do is try to suck even more profit out of the game. Absolutely sickened by this news about the maomer motif.
[Edited for quote]
Heh, I got over feeling sick about humongous profits with MS and Apple. Astounding and I guess there really is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to money. This new motif thing, should it go live, means simply to me I won't buy. It's a step to far even for this whale. Only thing I can do is not buy into it.
I'm not going to purchase it either because I will not gamble for it.
Eh, I'm of the school of thought that it's not gambling because you actually end up with something but that horse has been beaten nigh unto death. I rarely buy crates anymore for other reasons.
I didn't have a problem with the crown store exclusive motifs because the price was fairly reasonable and we knew what we were going to get.
I dunno, 7500 doesn't fall in my "fairly reasonable" category but that's obviously subjective.
As a player who knows every style in the game and someone with OCD completionist tendencies, this one is really going to hurt. All the gold and time spent on acquiring worm cult motifs just to know that in 6 weeks, I will never know every style in the game again. Yeah it's stupid that would bother me but it does.
Yup, for completionists, it's a rock and a hard place.
Also, about the profits, I wouldn't have an issue with this as much if the game performance on Xbox wasn't so abysmal. We crash daily due to coding errors and performance in trials and Cyrodiil is horrible. They keep shoving more ways to generate revenue into the game yet performance has gotten worse over the last year and a half I've been playing, not better. This isn't about a moral thing with the profits it's about game performance being total **** while they are selling gamble boxes and $120 dollar houses like hot cakes.
Can't say much here aside from if it were easily done, they would have done it. They're not stupid and any time they have issues affecting large amounts of customers, they aren't going to just shrug it off.
If their game actually performed like all the other video games I played, i swear to you I wouldn't be here complaining about any of this. They bring this upon themselves by doing nothing to alleviate the constant stream of new bugs and performance issues while sucking more money out of or bank accounts.
I guess here's where we differ. In the 20+ years I've been MMOing, I know that they never will be as good as customers and developers want them to be. Once I reached that point, it's been a whole lot less frustrating for me. I admit last week did have me growling a bit. I've left games entirely or taken breaks in the past to see if things improved if they got to be too much for me to tolerate.
I guess for me, I'm too invested in terms of progressing through the end-game at this point. I'm so close to a lot of things that i can't take a break or give it up now. No chance. I just want it to be better. And it never seems to get better. I don't let it affect my lifr but when I am on here it definitely affects my discourse and attitude with the game.
I'm sure many people feel that I am toxic towards the game and the devs but if I could get a ZoS employee to sit with me for a day while I play and see the issues we contend with on Xbox every day, they would be shocked and I'm sure they would start to understand my attitude.
Also I bought the grim whatever and Frostcaster motif and I think they were only like 2500 crowns. I think 7500 is for like the Mazzatun and others. That is too expensive.
I can relate. I've walked away from end-game characters in many, many games. When it's no longer fun for me or becomes "work", that's it, I'm done.
The thing I like and hate about MMOs is that they are always a work in progress. Sometimes they're really good, sometimes things go wrong and sometimes there are ongoing issues that never get fixed. I learned to roll with that, set my limits and stick to them. When it gets too frustrating, break time or move on.
I don't think they would be shocked. I think they are well aware of issues in their game. What we don't know is the "why" of it and what holds up fixes. This is their livelihood and I'd wager they're no more happy about the problems than you are. I've worked in and owned a dev house and watched coders tear their hair out trying to fix things so I'm not one to think they don't care or are being lazy. It's too much work and stress to keep doing it if you don't care.
That said, I too would love to sit down and chat with them. Would love to know why some of these issues are so tough to get sorted.
Very true indeed. I have no problem if they work on the game content, but as an experienced MMO-gamer I know very well that the big problem starts if they continue working on their monetisation system.
It seems that here ZoS is starting to follow the trap so many MMOs have gone: Turning their game into a shop in which one can show-off his hard earned real life money instead of their in-game achievements - until the entire game is ruined. The gambling boxes were already borderline. No one wanted it, no one called for it! We had a thread of around 100 pages as far as I remember, in which nearly the entire community was against this move. The game with crown store and the P2P model was perfect, but now I can only watch and see how my beloved game goes down the drain because of the greed of a few people.
This is a confirmation that crown crates are really the biggest mistake in ESO history. All the motifs made for it could be put in the store for a fair and clean way to earn money, but instead we have a gambling mechanic on top of a subscription model. This gambling mechanism is a cheap and greedy way of earning money, and on the same level as so many trash fail games out there.
Really 'great' how this is all going ...
Gaming is now Big Business. Once the industry saw what Blizz pulled off, everyone wanted to do the same. Things have changed a lot due to that. Profit, especially in situations with shareholders. The amount of money spent on development is insane! Gotta get that back and turn a profit or fall by the wayside.
And we, the gamers, usually don't get heard when the shareholders are shouting and the beancounters are whinging.
On the flipside, we do have some amazing games as a result.
Dirty, filthy casual aka Nancy, the Wallet Warrior Carebear Potato Whale Snowflake0 -
DieAlteHexe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭ParaNostram wrote: »Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.
The beauty of capitalism is that people can also choose to tell them to shove their business model where the sun doesn't shine and take their money elsewhere.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, too many howl and stick around. Vote with your wallet is one of the best ways to convey dissatisfaction. Apparently that's not happening. Easier and less painful to shout about it than actually move on.
Dirty, filthy casual aka Nancy, the Wallet Warrior Carebear Potato Whale Snowflake1 -
GatheredMyst✭✭✭Just because something ends up on the crown store and you can't earn it via in-game means doesn't make things "predatory". They're optional, cosmetic, and don't have an impact on someone's gameplay.
Whether or whether not there are "good rewards" that are worth a player's time is a different conversation altogether.
I'm not blind to the fact that ZOS is a business. Businesses are meant to turn a profit, and considering the quality of content and the regularity of the updates that we have been getting? It's clear that this is also being re-invested back into the game, and not just contributing to the bottom line.
From my perspective?
I subscribe to the game. Haven't really unsubbed in a while. I often have more crowns than I know what to do with because I don't buy "all the things". Because of that, I end up with an ability to get most everything that I want from the Crown Store. Every so often? I'll dump another 20 bucks into the store to get a little extra. Because really, the 15 bucks a month that i'm spending isn't a terribly large amount of cash.
At the end of the day, the game being "Buy to Play" now with an option subscription means that there are going to be cosmetic items going up for sale to keep the bills paid, the devs fed, housed, and clothed, and the investors happy. That's just the reality of business, and I have no trouble with that. Especially considering the way that ZOS Monetizes things is far, far tamer than some other games I've seen.1 -
anitajoneb17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Very true indeed. I have no problem if they work on the game content, but as an experienced MMO-gamer I know very well that the big problem starts if they continue working on their monetisation system.
Well, in ESO's case you can't in good faith pretend that they don't work on the content. I have been playing on PTS for a few hours and you can see the huuuuge work and detail put into the new zone : esthetics, characters, stories. It's amazing. Something you don't simply spit in two months out of nothing. This is a loooong-temr investment.
You may accuse ZOS of cloudy moves regarding the crown store and crates. But you cannot say they don't release real, proper, ambitious and amazing content.I can only watch and see how my beloved game goes down the drain because of the greed of a few people.
... do you happen to realize that "that greedy person" is... you ? When you put your savings into the bank, you choose the product with the highest interest rate, don't you ? And the investors behind that market can provide the highest interest rates IF and ONLY IF they choose the investments with the highest return. Therefore companies (especially in investment-heavy sectors such as video games) are forced to make the highest possible profit.
It's not "a few greedy people". It's an entire system. We're all part of it - and so is ZOS.
1 -
anitajoneb17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Rohamad_Ali wrote: »Apologizing for not having time to read entire thread but are these cosmetic only and direct purchase outside crown crates ? I'm guessing these are not like monster helmets with stats ?
Apparently yes they're on direct purchases.
And yes it's purely cosmetics. It's monster-set looking skins for outfit slots.0 -
anitajoneb17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭There is a lot of value (if you will) in being able to place a dollar amount on "the complete experience" for a game. With ESO, that dollar amount continues to skyrocket, and I don't find that to be an acceptable way of treating one's customers.
That's very true.
Many players feel very strongly about "the complete experience" and want to have access to *everything*. I think that's where they trap themselves, and ZOS is only taking advantage of it.
Imagine you go to DisneyLand for a day. You have the entire park available and all activities are included in the day ticket.
But the bottle of Pepsi costs an outrageous 20 dollars !
Now you can either :
- spend the whole day complaining and raging at this obviously predatory price, write to the director, try to start a consumers' protest...
- Or you can bring your own coke, walk past the café and enjoy your day.
That's up to you...
1 -
Adernath✭✭✭✭✭anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Very true indeed. I have no problem if they work on the game content, but as an experienced MMO-gamer I know very well that the big problem starts if they continue working on their monetisation system.
Well, in ESO's case you can't in good faith pretend that they don't work on the content. I have been playing on PTS for a few hours and you can see the huuuuge work and detail put into the new zone : esthetics, characters, stories. It's amazing. Something you don't simply spit in two months out of nothing. This is a loooong-temr investment.
You may accuse ZOS of cloudy moves regarding the crown store and crates. But you cannot say they don't release real, proper, ambitious and amazing content.
I highly appreciate the work done for new content. But continue working on the monetization system is a dangerous practice. I have seen how other games went down the drain because of it and I do not want that the same happens with ESO. There is a point of no return for me.I can only watch and see how my beloved game goes down the drain because of the greed of a few people.anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »... do you happen to realize that "that greedy person" is... you ? When you put your savings into the bank, you choose the product with the highest interest rate, don't you ? And the investors behind that market can provide the highest interest rates IF and ONLY IF they choose the investments with the highest return. Therefore companies (especially in investment-heavy sectors such as video games) are forced to make the highest possible profit.
It's not "a few greedy people". It's an entire system. We're all part of it - and so is ZOS.
An investment has risk and rewards. Greed is a rather vague term and of course can be applied to everyone. But don't derail this topic, which is about ZoS practice, not mine: If one put too much risk into an investment (i.e. if I would be 'too greedy' in my words), then there is too much risk in loosing everything. That is what I am talking about with ZoS practice of trying to squeeze money out of the game. At some point you will lose your playerbase and have a game which can not be recovered anymore because it is totally screwed up due to mistakes made in the past.
0 -
MadLarkin✭✭✭✭DieAlteHexe wrote: »ParaNostram wrote: »Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.
The beauty of capitalism is that people can also choose to tell them to shove their business model where the sun doesn't shine and take their money elsewhere.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, too many howl and stick around. Vote with your wallet is one of the best ways to convey dissatisfaction. Apparently that's not happening. Easier and less painful to shout about it than actually move on.
I know I'm in the minority, but I did speak with my wallet and refrained from paying for anything beyond the base game. The plan had been to buy the DLC pack once it was released, but the crates destroyed my drive to do so. I only stick around because I see the enormous potential that is being squandered in favor of tidy profit margins, and I genuinely want a better fate than that for this game. However, something tells me we're already too late. They've ignored the community far too often and changed far too little.2 -
Juju_beans✭✭✭✭✭
✭DieAlteHexe wrote: »ParaNostram wrote: »Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.
The beauty of capitalism is that people can also choose to tell them to shove their business model where the sun doesn't shine and take their money elsewhere.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, too many howl and stick around. Vote with your wallet is one of the best ways to convey dissatisfaction. Apparently that's not happening. Easier and less painful to shout about it than actually move on.
From publicly traded game companies, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft...more than 50% of their revenue is coming from micro transactions.
Loot boxes started off as a way for companies to make money from free to play games.
It was a financial windfall and so got incorporated into most online games today and provide substantial amounts of revenue dollars.
0 -
DieAlteHexe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭DieAlteHexe wrote: »ParaNostram wrote: »Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.
The beauty of capitalism is that people can also choose to tell them to shove their business model where the sun doesn't shine and take their money elsewhere.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, too many howl and stick around. Vote with your wallet is one of the best ways to convey dissatisfaction. Apparently that's not happening. Easier and less painful to shout about it than actually move on.
I know I'm in the minority, but I did speak with my wallet and refrained from paying for anything beyond the base game. The plan had been to buy the DLC pack once it was released, but the crates destroyed my drive to do so. I only stick around because I see the enormous potential that is being squandered in favor of tidy profit margins, and I genuinely want a better fate than that for this game. However, something tells me we're already too late. They've ignored the community far too often and changed far too little.
I'm sorry, I wasn't clear, my bad! I meant leaving a game entirely, on principle.
Those shareholders and bean-counters can be "deaf" to objections but they do tend to notice a dive in subs/players.
But, Pandora's Box has been opened and there's no shutting it now. The industry has well and truly shifted.
Dirty, filthy casual aka Nancy, the Wallet Warrior Carebear Potato Whale Snowflake0 -
DieAlteHexe✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Juju_beans wrote: »DieAlteHexe wrote: »ParaNostram wrote: »Poor devs, being forced by the publishers and shareholders to butcher their own work just to make a few extra bucks for the ***holes with the money. Like, none of this money goes to hiring new people, to upgrading the servers, to producing more content, it's all just about enriching the already rich but hey that's this late capitalism for us.
The beauty of capitalism is that people can also choose to tell them to shove their business model where the sun doesn't shine and take their money elsewhere.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, too many howl and stick around. Vote with your wallet is one of the best ways to convey dissatisfaction. Apparently that's not happening. Easier and less painful to shout about it than actually move on.
From publicly traded game companies, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft...more than 50% of their revenue is coming from micro transactions.
Loot boxes started off as a way for companies to make money from free to play games.
It was a financial windfall and so got incorporated into most online games today and provide substantial amounts of revenue dollars.
Have a link for that? Not doubting you but I'm interested in just how far and how insidious this has become. TIA!
Oh, and I agree. I can't think of any MMO that I am familiar with (granted it's not a huge list and I am a bit picky as to my definition of MMO...WoW, SWTOR, LoTRO etc.) that hasn't gone down this path.
Dirty, filthy casual aka Nancy, the Wallet Warrior Carebear Potato Whale Snowflake0 -
Smokewood✭✭✭They are not in the business to make you happy, they are here to make money.
Only choice you have is to not buy their games.0 -
heaven13✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Some people just can't see the other side of the argument. Those of us who dislike crown crates and spending more than the cost of the game itself on a single cosmetic items are just "greedy for wanting everything" and "selfish" because honestly if we don't like it we shouldn't buy it (never mind that a good portion of us DON'T) and should be perfectly happy to watch as ZOS puts yet more and more content behind more of a paywall.
As someone else said in this thread: It's buy to play, purchasable DLC, separate purchase chapters, optional subscription, cash shop, AND crown gamble RNG crates. It's not enough for the suits. They don't care about their customers past how much they can pry out of our pockets. If they chase away long term players, oh well, there's a sucker born every minute! Doesn't seem to be much focus on retention and long-term customer satisfaction (unless you're a whale and by golly, don't worry, there's a new set of crown crates just around the corner!)PC/NAMountain God | Leave No Bone Unbroken | Apex Predator | Pure Lunacy | Depths Defier | No Rest for the Wicked | In Defiance of DeathMeet my characters :
Defanged the Devourer | Nature's Wrath | Relentless Raider | True Genius | Bane of Thorns | Subterranean Smasher | Ardent Bibliophile
vAA HM | vHRC HM | vSO HM | vDSA | vMoL HM | vHoF HM | vAS+2 | vCR+2 | vBRP | vSS HM | vKA | vRGIT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL THE SAME NOW, THANKS ZOS3