Paid content in videogames (DLC, loot boxes, passes, currencies, "surprise mechanics" and - new! - pay more or wait!)

Anything to do with games at all.
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Knoyleo
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Knoyleo » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:00 am

Interesting Medium post on playing through compulsion, which obviously touches on loot boxes and other randomised rewards, even if the article is largely talking about Vermintide 2, which doesn't actually have paid loot boxes.

https://medium.com/@caseyexplosion/symp ... f3a291dac9

But when I say that it felt like it was manipulating me, I am not kidding. I may not have handed over any cash for lootboxes, but I sure as hell was driven to acquire them through play. Limited time events when there were exclusive skins were the worst, especially if there was a skin for one of your favourite characters. Like the Snow Owl skin for Ana. I wasn’t just playing because I was enjoying the game; I was playing to level up and earn a lootbox, so I could get a chance at that elusive skin, and pretty soon I noticed myself continuing to play in spite of not enjoying it any more. I was playing compulsively.

I never did get that Snow Owl skin before the event was over, it didn’t drop, nor did I have enough ingame currency to afford it, and that made me feel frustrated and annoyed. I stopped playing after that, because it made me realize that I was playing more out of compulsion than enjoyment. I put a lot of hours into Overwatch, and in the end the game made me resentful of that. So I uninstalled it.


This sums up my relationship with so many modern games, where I find myself continuing to play, even though I'm not really enjoying it anymore. I want to complete this set, I want to unlock that item, I need to get that skin. All those arbitrary box ticking exercises become more important than just enjoying the game. If I feel like completing the game in that "perfect" way isn't attainable, I'll probably bin off the whole thing, rather than just decide not to do the grinding or the fetch quest.

pjbetman wrote:That's the stupidest thing ive ever read on here i think.
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Trelliz
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Trelliz » Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:19 am

EA refuse to take microtransactions out of Fifa in Belgium, so they are going to defend them in court as this is now "a criminal matter"

:fp:

I look forward to seeing EA's handwringing and barely-human "experts" explaining why exploiting people, in some cases to the tune of thousands of dollars, is all about player choice and how they're really the victim in all this.

jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.
jawafour
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by jawafour » Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:09 am

Trelliz wrote:..."player choice"...

I can't read that term now without imagining Jim Sterling's style of saying it :lol: .

I heard a real-life story about "additional content purchases" at the weekend. A few months ago, one of my elder nephew's mates asked for some Fortnite DLC for his birthday and his nan bought it for him; this was done by entering her debit card details into his Xbox system. Over the subsequent months the lad kept asking his nan if he could download "other stuff" and his nan, not really understanding what he was doing or what charges were involved, said yes.

A while later the nan spoke to the lad's mum and mentioned that her money seemed tight; her balance was lowering and she couldn't work out why. Cue the lad admitting to his mum that he'd been purchasing Fortnite and FIFA DLC packs... to the tune of £1,400. The lad's dad then contacted Xbox and discovered that the total purchases over the past three to four months had now totalled £2,300.

Apparently Xbox (Microsoft) are now working with the family to reduce that charge; I guess to try and avoid more unwanted headlines. The dad literally smashed the boy's Xbox and made him work alongside him on some decorating jobs during the school holidays.

I'm not blaming the publishers or Microsoft for this incident. The lad was silly and his parents / nan should have had a tighter reign on his console expenditure. Even so, publishers will be willing to do almost anything to keep loot boxes in place as it is such a huge cash generator for them.

Tl;dr "player choice".

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Moggy
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Moggy » Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:52 am

jawafour wrote:
Trelliz wrote:..."player choice"...

I can't read that term now without imagining Jim Sterling's style of saying it :lol: .

I heard a real-life story about "additional content purchases" at the weekend. A few months ago, one of my elder nephew's mates asked for some Fortnite DLC for his birthday and his nan bought it for him; this was done by entering her debit card details into his Xbox system. Over the subsequent months the lad kept asking his nan if he could download "other stuff" and his nan, not really understanding what he was doing or what charges were involved, said yes.

A while later the nan spoke to the lad's mum and mentioned that her money seemed tight; her balance was lowering and she couldn't work out why. Cue the lad admitting to his mum that he'd been purchasing Fortnite and FIFA DLC packs... to the tune of £1,400. The lad's dad then contacted Xbox and discovered that the total purchases over the past three to four months had now totalled £2,300.

Apparently Xbox (Microsoft) are now working with the family to reduce that charge; I guess to try and avoid more unwanted headlines. The dad literally smashed the boy's Xbox and made him work alongside him on some decorating jobs during the school holidays.

I'm not blaming the publishers or Microsoft for this incident. The lad was silly and his parents / nan should have had a tighter reign on his console expenditure. Even so, publishers will be willing to do almost anything to keep loot boxes in place as it is such a huge cash generator for them.

Tl;dr "player choice".


Over £2k :dread:

I can remember my cousin did something similar 5 years or so ago. He kept purchasing packs for FIFA and ran up a few hundred quid on my uncles credit card. He knew what he was doing as well as he had taken the card and added it to the console himself. :lol:

All these horror stories have convinced me that my lad isn’t having a modern console, I’ll get him a Megadrive when he is older and he can stick with that.

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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by jawafour » Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:58 am

Moggy wrote:...my lad isn’t having a modern console, I’ll get him a Megadrive when he is older and he can stick with that.

Sir, you are a man of taste and culture. Your boy will learn well about videogaming from such a bedrock of history!

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Jenuall
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Jenuall » Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:30 am

Even though I've locked down the purchasing settings on things like phones and tablets at home and I don't leave the kids unattended with these devices, I still worry that one of them is going to press the wrong button and I'm going to end up another one of these people with a "my kids ran up thousands of pounds on loot boxes" story!

Going down the Megadrive route may be the only safe approach, but you need to make sure it's enticing enough for them. I tried to get my kids to play on the SNES classic recently and they told me "Daddy, the game's you used to play are so rubbish! It's boring! Let us play the good Mario Kart!". My childhood cut down to size in but a few short sentences. :cry:

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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by jawafour » Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:37 am

Jenuall wrote:...I tried to get my kids to play on the SNES classic recently and they told me "Daddy, the game's you used to play are so rubbish! It's boring! Let us play the good Mario Kart!". My childhood cut down to size in but a few short sentences. :cry:

:lol: . I recall my nephews reacting to my DS... they griped that the graphics were too blocky and they didn't want to play on it. They also think that the Wii and 360 are too old to use now :lol: .

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Photek
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Photek » Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:39 am

This Fortnite gamepass stuff made me mildly interested in that game so now that I have it in PUBG and Rocket League I'm well chuffed.

I'm part of the problem. Seriously tho, firing up PUBG to shoot 20 tyres out, give yourself 200 health and kill someone with a DMR/Sniper makes the game FAR more entertaining.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Moggy » Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:49 am

jawafour wrote:
Jenuall wrote:...I tried to get my kids to play on the SNES classic recently and they told me "Daddy, the game's you used to play are so rubbish! It's boring! Let us play the good Mario Kart!". My childhood cut down to size in but a few short sentences. :cry:

:lol: . I recall my nephews reacting to my DS... they griped that the graphics were too blocky and they didn't want to play on it. They also think that the Wii and 360 are too old to use now :lol: .


Kids. :x

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Trelliz
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Trelliz » Tue Sep 11, 2018 11:11 am

jawafour wrote:
Jenuall wrote:...I tried to get my kids to play on the SNES classic recently and they told me "Daddy, the game's you used to play are so rubbish! It's boring! Let us play the good Mario Kart!". My childhood cut down to size in but a few short sentences. :cry:

:lol: . I recall my nephews reacting to my DS... they griped that the graphics were too blocky and they didn't want to play on it. They also think that the Wii and 360 are too old to use now :lol: .


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jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by jawafour » Tue Sep 11, 2018 11:14 am

Trelliz wrote:
jawafour wrote:
Jenuall wrote:...They also think that the Wii and 360 are too old to use now :lol: .


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I know, man. I guess that, to them, a decade is almost as long as their lives so far... it's relatively ancient.

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Rax
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Rax » Tue Sep 11, 2018 11:43 am

I had a thought the other day, the 90s to my daughter is the same as the 60s to me. So when she becomes aware of the N64 and stuff, she will view it the same way I would have viewed vinyl or black and white TV, absolutely strawberry floating acient and backward. It blew my mind a little bit.

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by OrangeRKN » Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:00 pm

When I was born the SNES was already out, but my first console was a NES. So it can definitely be done!

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Trelliz
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Trelliz » Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:03 pm

Bringing this back on-topic a bit, also kids these days (old man yells at cloud.jpg) are growing up seeing all these lootboxes, fixed-time battlepasses etc. as normal - that you have to keep pumping cash into a game.

jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.
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Sandy
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Sandy » Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:15 pm

OrangeRKN wrote:When I was born the SNES was already out, but my first console was a NES. So it can definitely be done!


My first console was a borrowed NES we got after the SNES was released. Got a mega drive after that once the Saturn had come out.

My first console that I got during it's life cycle was the N64 and I loved it but was still more than happy with the older consoles and games.

Our neighbours kid came round the other day and we left him playing Kid Chameleon and he played it for ages.

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Manwell Pablo
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Manwell Pablo » Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:28 pm

jawafour wrote:
Trelliz wrote:..."player choice"...

I can't read that term now without imagining Jim Sterling's style of saying it :lol: .

I heard a real-life story about "additional content purchases" at the weekend. A few months ago, one of my elder nephew's mates asked for some Fortnite DLC for his birthday and his nan bought it for him; this was done by entering her debit card details into his Xbox system. Over the subsequent months the lad kept asking his nan if he could download "other stuff" and his nan, not really understanding what he was doing or what charges were involved, said yes.

A while later the nan spoke to the lad's mum and mentioned that her money seemed tight; her balance was lowering and she couldn't work out why. Cue the lad admitting to his mum that he'd been purchasing Fortnite and FIFA DLC packs... to the tune of £1,400. The lad's dad then contacted Xbox and discovered that the total purchases over the past three to four months had now totalled £2,300.

Apparently Xbox (Microsoft) are now working with the family to reduce that charge; I guess to try and avoid more unwanted headlines. The dad literally smashed the boy's Xbox and made him work alongside him on some decorating jobs during the school holidays.

I'm not blaming the publishers or Microsoft for this incident. The lad was silly and his parents / nan should have had a tighter reign on his console expenditure. Even so, publishers will be willing to do almost anything to keep loot boxes in place as it is such a huge cash generator for them.

Tl;dr "player choice".


I dunno, It is a little dumb yes and It'd seem second nature to those of us who game ourselves to protect our details. But how easy it is to use a card once the details of a card have been entered just the once is not really made clear. Along with loads of other things that are potentially going to cause a problem for kids.

They should really make some kind of video for parents to watch upon purchasing a games console for a child these days and have everything from safe guarding in regards to online interactions to stopping gooseberry fool like the above. A lot of parents these days are from a generation when a games console was something you popped a game into in order to play it, there is so much more to it these days.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Moggy » Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:36 pm

Rax wrote:I had a thought the other day, the 90s to my daughter is the same as the 60s to me. So when she becomes aware of the N64 and stuff, she will view it the same way I would have viewed vinyl or black and white TV, absolutely strawberry floating acient and backward. It blew my mind a little bit.


Scary isn't it!

I was born in 1980, which means my birth was closer in time to the Second World War than it is to today. :dread:

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Photek
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Photek » Tue Sep 11, 2018 2:04 pm

Moggy wrote:
jawafour wrote:
Jenuall wrote:...I tried to get my kids to play on the SNES classic recently and they told me "Daddy, the game's you used to play are so rubbish! It's boring! Let us play the good Mario Kart!". My childhood cut down to size in but a few short sentences. :cry:

:lol: . I recall my nephews reacting to my DS... they griped that the graphics were too blocky and they didn't want to play on it. They also think that the Wii and 360 are too old to use now :lol: .


Kids. :x

When my daughter was only a few months old, she managed to crawl over to my Xbox 360 controller and proceed to buy Eternal Sonata digitally. My missus didn’t even hear the thing come on. I wouldn’t have minded so much but I already had it on disc! :x

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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by NickSCFC » Tue Sep 11, 2018 2:21 pm

Moggy wrote:
Rax wrote:I had a thought the other day, the 90s to my daughter is the same as the 60s to me. So when she becomes aware of the N64 and stuff, she will view it the same way I would have viewed vinyl or black and white TV, absolutely strawberry floating acient and backward. It blew my mind a little bit.


Scary isn't it!

I was born in 1980, which means my birth was closer in time to the Second World War than it is to today. :dread:


I can see what you mean, but I don't think pop culture has changed that much between now and the mid 90s compared to the mid 90s and the mid 70s.

When she looks back at those N64 games, sure the graphics will be rough, but she'll instantly Mario, Link and Donkey Kong, the 3D renderings on the game boxes are nearly identical now. Go back to the mid 70s and all you'll find is a space invader pixel.

I made a thread on it

t:gaming-hasnt-changed-much-since-1998?f=2

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Trelliz
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PostRe: Paid content in videogames (DLC, season passes, micro transactions and loot boxes)
by Trelliz » Tue Sep 11, 2018 3:04 pm



:roll:

jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.

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