I want to shed light on a tactic that involves collecting data as you play, feeding this data into complex algorithms and models that then alter the rules of your game under the hood to optimize spending opportunities.

  • missingno@fedia.io
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    11 hours ago

    And you know goddamn well that fighting games had incremental re-releases, decades before this abuse was possible.

    Of course I know, I know how much it fucking sucked! No one wants to go back to that!

    You’d rather spend $60 on Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, then spend $60 on Street Fighter II’: Champion Edition, then spend $60 on Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, then spend $60 on Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, then spend $60 on Super Street Fighter II Turbo?

    That’s better to you than being able to get the patches for free, with the option of buying characters at a reasonable price, all while still retaining compatibility with opponents on the latest version even if you don’t spend a dime?

    How is that better? How?

    Or, if you want continuing revenue for an online service - make it a service. Sell subscriptions. Oh sorry, do people not like that?

    No, no I don’t like that! I would much rather buy a character once than have to subscribe to them forever! If I buy a character I get to keep them, if I subscribe I don’t. And I’m not getting gouged, I know what the price tag is. If anything, a subscription is gouging because I have to keep paying again and again in order to keep what I should’ve only had to pay for once.

    I’m actually baffled that you’re seriously trying to suggest subscriptions as a better alternative. Like… seriously? Really?

    I do not respect the dishonest conflation of ‘FighterZ doesn’t get to expand forever’ with ‘FighterZ would be banned.’

    FighterZ as we know it would not exist in your world. In your world, it’d just be the 1.0 base game and that’d be it, but I know you know we’re talking about what FighterZ was able to become over the course of its lifespan thanks to DLC.

    You’re taking this needlessly aggressive tone accusing us of misconstruing you, but I know you know damn well what we’re saying here while you keep misconstruing us. Don’t accuse me of being dishonest when you’re playing dumb like this.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      9 hours ago

      Subscriptions are honest. Like actual sales - where you get a thing you didn’t have, in exchange for money. Paying money, to be allowed to use part of the game you already have, is not a sale.

      SF6 fucking launched with $120 in DLC. Like yeah, you bought the game, at full price… but fuck you, pay us again. Breaking up the fuckening into individual characters, trickled out over years, is psychological manipulation to disguise that abuse.

      And I’m not getting gouged, I know what the price tag is.

      … the fact you can pay hundreds of dollars and still not have all of a 1v1 fighting game is not made problematic through mystery. No shit you can see the price tag. That price is obscene. Past abuses being worse is no kind of excuse.

      I swear to god, Capcom could charge the price of a whole game for each new character bundle, and there’d still be people up my ass about how it must be fine because it was the same in the 90s. You know how I know? Because they do. Annual character passes are $30! Does that get you everything that comes out, that year? Does it, fuck.

      I know you know we’re talking about what FighterZ was able to become

      Of course you do, because it’s what that paragraph was about. How am I the one “playing dumb?” You’re still insisting there’s no way a game could be updated - aside from the other two ways you don’t like! - so that’s the same as the game being banned. Because saying it’s banned sounds really bad, and serious, and is totally the same thing as saying Capcom doesn’t need real negotiable currency in order to change the color of a character’s pants.

      But hey, this is only the shallow end of a business model that’s turning the games industry into a frustration-based casino. Why worry?

      • missingno@fedia.io
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        5 hours ago

        DLC is honest. I get a thing in exchange for money. I know what the price tag is, and I’m happy to pay what I think is a fair price. And I only pay once to keep the thing I paid for, unlike a subscription.

        Let me just cut straight past all your deflecting. Do you think that the final version of DBFZ, with all of its DLC, sold at its price, should be able to exist in this form?