Can Epic Go strawberry float Themselves?

Jenuall wrote:Are two people engaging one another in the game going to have a different experience because one of them is wearing a paid for skin? Are the functional aspects of their encounter going to change in any way? I don't think so. I guess it may cause players to adapt their behaviour to a degree ("I'm going to go after anyone dressed as X in this game because I hate X", "We're both dressed as characters from Y, let's work together!") - but then part of the problem is that the capabilities of these online realities (certainly in the case of something like Fortnite which is fairly streamlined functionally) don't really offer the sort of tools required to properly support this emergent behaviour in a powerful way? Without the ability to effectively communicate how a players cosmetic choice has altered my behaviour as their competitor or companion then how has their actual experience changed? If I kill them because I hate the way they're dressed does that come across as my motivation or as far as they are concerned is it just another random death?

If you play with the default skin you will constantly get called a noskin, people will assume you're a noob, and people won't want to be in a team with you and will adjust how they play accordingly

It kind of makes a big difference

You make some interesting points. But I suppose I like to think that people's appearances in what they wear has less of an affect than you do, and your comparisons to people wearing stuff in games are indeed comparisons with for example how kids might behave in the playground (skaters, goths, grunge kids, emos, metalheads etc) it's worth also remembering that kids are the primary audience for this kind of things and Fornite is massive in schools at the moment, so yeah some kids are going to see that their friend plays as a similar avatar every day for say 2-4hrs but they have a cool hat and if they see it they will want it too.

That's where value commercially starts to emerge, if someone wants something enough they will pay for it regardless of what its intrinsic worth is. you have fashion items with the same intrinsic functional and material worth that cost literally hundreds or even thousands of times more than their equivalent. But you can buy a fake and the only difference is the knowledge of whether or not that is a fake, the image is the same (kind of veering to a different point, I guess kids do download Pokemon for Pokemon go so they have done nothing to earn it).

Jenuall wrote:What actually is the rationale behind paying out some of the sums that people do for purely cosmetic items in stuff like Fortnite? Do people really care that much about what stupid hat they are wearing when they kill a stranger in a computer game?

"My victory over LisaSimpson45 will feel all the sweeter because I am wearing this jesters costume and can do a custom taunt when I kill them!"

"Costmetic" items in the real world serve some purpose in terms of what they communicate about someone and acting as social indicators which people use to portray an image, to attract or intrigue others, to indicate belonging to a particular sub group etc. But all of that ultimately relies on some follow up activity - someone see's you are wearing the football shirt of the team you both support and engages you in conversation, someone is dressed the way you like and you try and chat them up etc. In these games there doesn't seem to be scope for that kind of activity so the baubles are literally just here for the sake of being baubles?

It’s not something I have ever bothered with, but I can kind of see why people want to have certain looks or items for their characters. It’s like on a character customisation screen, you spend time and effort changing the looks and clothing of your character.

I wouldn’t do it, but I can also sort of understand why people might pay for a more powerful weapon or for an increased level, that actually does change the game for you.

I can’t understand paying money for a really expensive but purely cosmetic item though.

OrangeRKN wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Are two people engaging one another in the game going to have a different experience because one of them is wearing a paid for skin? Are the functional aspects of their encounter going to change in any way? I don't think so. I guess it may cause players to adapt their behaviour to a degree ("I'm going to go after anyone dressed as X in this game because I hate X", "We're both dressed as characters from Y, let's work together!") - but then part of the problem is that the capabilities of these online realities (certainly in the case of something like Fortnite which is fairly streamlined functionally) don't really offer the sort of tools required to properly support this emergent behaviour in a powerful way? Without the ability to effectively communicate how a players cosmetic choice has altered my behaviour as their competitor or companion then how has their actual experience changed? If I kill them because I hate the way they're dressed does that come across as my motivation or as far as they are concerned is it just another random death?

If you play with the default skin you will constantly get called a noskin, people will assume you're a noob, and people won't want to be in a team with you and will adjust how they play accordingly

It kind of makes a big difference

But what if I come on with my noskin and pwn them all with my uber-l33t mad skillz?

I do see your point though, customisation as a indicator of skill is a valuable function in games, but surely being able to buy cosmetic skins goes against that somewhat. An "all the gear but no idea" kind of scenario - looking the part doesn't actually mean you know what you are doing, and vice versa?

Green Gecko wrote:You make some interesting points. But I suppose I like to think that people's appearances in what they wear has less of an affect than you do, and your comparisons to people wearing stuff in games are indeed comparisons with for example how kids might behave in the playground (skaters, goths, grunge kids, emos, metalheads etc) it's worth also remembering that kids are the primary audience for this kind of things and Fornite is massive in schools at the moment, so yeah some kids are going to see that their friend plays as a similar avatar every day for say 2-4hrs but they have a cool hat and if they see it they will want it too.<br class=""><br class="">That's where value commercially starts to emerge, if someone wants something enough they will pay for it regardless of what its intrinsic worth is. you have fashion items with the same intrinsic functional and material worth that cost literally hundreds or even thousands of times more than their equivalent. But you can buy a fake and the only difference is the knowledge of whether or not that is a fake, the image is the same (kind of veering to a different point, I guess kids do download Pokemon for Pokemon go so they have done nothing to earn it).

Interesting, I think your right in that the largest market for this stuff is kids and there the value of the cosmetic items is actually more about how it affects their interactions with their peers outside of the game than any impact it may have on the game itself.

Just thinking about this more I guess a large part of both real and digital customisation isn't about reality it's about desire and perception - someone buying an expensive watch doesn't know that anyone will actually notice it and therefore gain them something, they just know what they want it to achieve and the impression they would like it to give to other people, beyond that all the buyer can do is hope that they are right!

Jenuall wrote:I do see your point though, customisation as a indicator of skill is a valuable function in games, but surely being able to buy cosmetic skins goes against that somewhat. An "all the gear but no idea" kind of scenario - looking the part doesn't actually mean you know what you are doing, and vice versa?

Yeah, it's a bad indicator. People use it regardless.

But that just makes it more fun to prove them wrong imo

Moggy wrote:

Jenuall wrote:What actually is the rationale behind paying out some of the sums that people do for purely cosmetic items in stuff like Fortnite? Do people really care that much about what stupid hat they are wearing when they kill a stranger in a computer game?

"My victory over LisaSimpson45 will feel all the sweeter because I am wearing this jesters costume and can do a custom taunt when I kill them!"

"Costmetic" items in the real world serve some purpose in terms of what they communicate about someone and acting as social indicators which people use to portray an image, to attract or intrigue others, to indicate belonging to a particular sub group etc. But all of that ultimately relies on some follow up activity - someone see's you are wearing the football shirt of the team you both support and engages you in conversation, someone is dressed the way you like and you try and chat them up etc. In these games there doesn't seem to be scope for that kind of activity so the baubles are literally just here for the sake of being baubles?

It’s not something I have ever bothered with, but I can kind of see why people want to have certain looks or items for their characters. It’s like on a character customisation screen, you spend time and effort changing the looks and clothing of your character.

I wouldn’t do it, but I can also sort of understand why people might pay for a more powerful weapon or for an increased level, that actually does change the game for you.

I can’t understand paying money for a really expensive but purely cosmetic item though.

Yeah, wanting a certain look is fine and I'll often spend time tweaking and playing around with the options the game gives me to get a character looking right, but as you say I can't understand feeling the need to pay money to get something specific!

Jenuall wrote:Just thinking about this more I guess a large part of both real and digital customisation isn't about reality it's about desire and perception - someone buying an expensive watch doesn't know that anyone will actually notice it and therefore gain them something, they just know what they want it to achieve and the impression they would like it to give to other people, beyond that all the buyer can do is hope that they are right!

Yeah man you pretty much just nailed how the fashion industry converts "pain" into value and THEN charges a lot of money for it, if you wanted to learn more about it more frankly I'd recommend looking into some marketing and business theory, shady as strawberry float.

Someone also mentioned kitting a character/avatar out with lavish guns/armour etc. well they are often quite obviously terrible in the game, those people are usually campers/griefers who have a spammy playstyle that doesn't use skill and so they get merked by people who can quickly take apart their approach to the game, often with hilarious results and using the most basic weapons (humiliation) like a knife in counter strike for example. For example I really enjoyed repeatedly targeting this guy in Splatoon wearing the amiibo gear (which is just another form of paid DLC) just camping with a rapid fire weapon over and over again in the exact same spot. I probably wouldn't have done that if the guy (a) wasn't playing like a dick and (b) wasn't wearing this "power armour" that evidently made them feel invisible. They actually sucked because they couldn't overcome the most basic tactics in the game (swimming in the ink and creeping up on them) and just kept repeating the same pattern.

I think the psychology behind it really is as simple as 'it looks cooler' which it does. When you're the age that this stuff is targeted at, that is enough when you don't have a fully developed appreciation of the real world cost.

Then again I may be doing kids knowledge of economics a disservice.

Green Gecko wrote:For example I really enjoyed repeatedly targeting this guy in Splatoon wearing the amiibo gear (which is just another form of paid DLC) just camping with a rapid fire weapon over and over again in the exact same spot. I probably wouldn't have done that if the guy (a) wasn't playing like a dick and (b) wasn't wearing this "power armour" that evidently made them feel invisible. They actually sucked because they couldn't overcome the most basic tactics in the game (swimming in the ink and creeping up on them) and just kept repeating the same pattern.

They were probably 12

Yeah, that occurred to me too, so I felt it was an important life lesson. I enjoy beating up kids.

*kind of* related:

EPIC RELEASES $12,000,000 OF PARAGON CONTENT FOR FREE

Epic Games has released $12,000,000 of content from Paragon, Epic’s high-end action MOBA, for free to all Unreal Engine 4 developers. The assets, built at a cost of over $12,000,000, encompasses 20 triple-A characters and over 1,500 environment components from Paragon.

All of this content is now available inside the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Download the Paragon packs for free and use them in your own UE4 projects, with no strings attached!

And this isn’t the end of it! Additional characters from Paragon will be released over the coming months.

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/paragon

I was talking to a teacher friend of mine and she was saying kids get bullied if they don't have customer gear in Fortnight.

That's... very cool actually

EDIT: The free content not the kids being bullied

lex-man wrote:I was talking to a teacher friend of mine and she was saying kids get bullied if they don't have customer gear in Fortnight.

Ugh, I'm really hoping this pay to customise your character gooseberry fool has blown over by the time my kids are old enough to be playing games.

Who am I kidding, it's clearly only going to get worse.

Jenuall wrote:Who am I kidding, it's clearly only going to get worse.

Purchase the Controls Pack (just £4.99!) to customise your controls preferences! And the UI Pack (only £4.99!) to change the screen layout! These packs are also available as a part of the annual pass (just £34.99!).

jawafour wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Who am I kidding, it's clearly only going to get worse.

Purchase the Controls Pack (just £4.99!) to customise your controls preferences! And the UI Pack (only £4.99!) to change the screen layout! These packs are also available as a part of the annual pass (just £34.99!).

A peak at the future there from NostraJawas. Darkest timeline confirmed, abandon all hope!

Jenuall wrote:

jawafour wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Who am I kidding, it's clearly only going to get worse.

Purchase the Controls Pack (just £4.99!) to customise your controls preferences! And the UI Pack (only £4.99!) to change the screen layout! These packs are also available as a part of the annual pass (just £34.99!).

A peak at the future there from NostraJawas. Darkest timeline confirmed, abandon all hope!

You have to laugh at Jawa’s naivety that it’ll only cost £4.99 to customise controls.

It’ll be at least £39.99 and you will have to pay it every single time you want to alter the controls.

Moggy wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

jawafour wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Who am I kidding, it's clearly only going to get worse.

Purchase the Controls Pack (just £4.99!) to customise your controls preferences! And the UI Pack (only £4.99!) to change the screen layout! These packs are also available as a part of the annual pass (just £34.99!).

A peak at the future there from NostraJawas. Darkest timeline confirmed, abandon all hope!

You have to laugh at Jawa’s naivety that it’ll only cost £4.99 to customise controls.

It’ll be at least £39.99 and you will have to pay it every single time you want to alter the controls.

Surely it'll depend on which of the 35 different special editions they pre-order through their favourite influencer's twitch store page?

Trelliz wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

jawafour wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Who am I kidding, it's clearly only going to get worse.

Purchase the Controls Pack (just £4.99!) to customise your controls preferences! And the UI Pack (only £4.99!) to change the screen layout! These packs are also available as a part of the annual pass (just £34.99!).

A peak at the future there from NostraJawas. Darkest timeline confirmed, abandon all hope!

You have to laugh at Jawa’s naivety that it’ll only cost £4.99 to customise controls.

It’ll be at least £39.99 and you will have to pay it every single time you want to alter the controls.

Surely it'll depend on which of the 35 different special editions they pre-order through their favourite influencer's twitch store page?

You purchased the PewDiePie™ Legendary Deluxe® edition of Halo© 7™ (Early Access) which entitles you to 5 free rounds of control customisation!

Next they'll start implementing cool down timers on this stuff:

"I'm sorry, you need to wait 4 hours and 23 minutes before you can change your settings again, OR pay 100 MegaBucks™ to unlock now!!!!"

Jenuall wrote:You purchased the PewDiePie™ Legendary Deluxe® edition of Halo© 7™ (Early Access) which entitles you to 5 free rounds of control customisation!

Wow, if we were in school i'd bully you for not buying the Syndicate™ Pre-order only, exclusive Ultimate Elite Platinum Deluxe® Operator edition (with exclusive beta access, icons, and weapon skins) that is a perfectly reasonable £300.