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.
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.
Skins are fine. They are entirely optional. Something existing doesn’t mean you must own it.
That’s the part where we’re not going to agree. Well, the maximalist holier-than-thou stance in general. But otherwise, you see things existing as an affront to you personally. This skin was made by someone and put in the game, and so I’m entitled to it, so it either shouldn’t exist or it should be mine.
That just doesn’t track. I don’t feel any more entitled to some random bikini costume than I do to some random statue bundled with a collector’s edition. It’s faff some people may want, but I’m not being attacked because somebody is buying and selling collector’s edition of Cyberpunk for 200 bucks, just like way I’m not attacked by someone buying some in-game costume.
Also, you do know pro football players get bonuses per goal, right? That comparison means different things depending on whether you know that and both are confusing.
Woe betide the poor bikini artist!
Nevermind their efforts were directed that way so the publisher could rake in hundreds of dollars, per year, for what’s obviously the least impactful element of the game. Costumes would normally be an unremarkable detail - some callbacks, some easter eggs, whatever - but now they cost more than the rest of the fucking game.
Do you imagine they took more effort than the rest of the fucking game? Like the horny bonus costumes are worth more than all the effort spent on balance, and netcode, and designing the actual characters. I’ll assume not, and underline: that’s the total disconnect between price and value. That’s the predatory exploitation, laid bare.
Those skins are the entire reason the game exists. That’s what makes all the money. Street Fighter has been reduced to bait on that hook. And it still costs forty fucking dollars.
This subject has the most aggressively off-topic replies. ‘There’s different forms of value. Some are artificial. You can’t just buy more soccer goals.’ ‘Uh–! But–!’ No.