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.
We don’t have to leave your stated examples to find disproof of your pet dichotomy. SF4 had the same kind of evolution while selling versions like they still came on cartridges. It’s possible. You just don’t like it.
Unless you mean one single byte of FighterZ being different would be a completely different game, in which case, just, shut up. You keep trying to treat any change what-so-ever as equivalent to the whole game ceasing to exist. That’s horseshit. You need to stop.
I already told you that SF4 is exactly what people don’t want to go back to. The game was widely criticized for the fact that you had to buy every upgrade or be left behind. You might be the only person in the world who thinks that’s better than what we have now.
By the way, despite characters not being DLC when they should’ve been, SF4 did sell costume DLC, which you seem to think is the worst thing ever. IIRC, the kicker with SF4’s costumes is that your opponent couldn’t see them unless they also bought the costumes, and that was also something people disliked because they didn’t want to buy costumes no one will see.
That is what it means, to sell content. That is what actual expansions are. This song-and-dance where you have the whole game, but you’re not allowed to really have the whole game, is inseparable from everything you would call predatory. It’s only a matter of degrees.
One of the several alternatives you’ve repeatedly ignored is that these additions can be added to the game people already bought. Surprisingly, this does not involve slave labor for artists, because games that stay popular keep selling more copies. Do they make as much money? No. But it turns out maximum corporate revenue is not a guideline for ethics.
It is not inseparable from predatory, because it is not predatory to begin with.
The idea that they should just make all DLC free is not a viable alternative.
‘This is the gentle end of a spectrum where the far end is clearly predatory.’ ‘So this is predatory?’
Fucking aggravating.
Is DBFZ predatory or not?
Doesn’t seem to be.
The business model’s still intolerable.
Can you grasp that distinction?