Apex Legends - f2p Battle Royale out now (Xbox One, PS4 & PC)

[QualityChimp]

I dunno, man.

I hate lootboxes and the way the industry is going, but I wonder why people keep paying and playing.

"Oh, you've made this a pay-to-win game and I'm at a disadvantage now? I guess I'll have to play one of a zillion other games, bye."

Why don't more people vote with their wallets?

[eastyy]

I dunno, man.

I hate lootboxes and the way the industry is going, but I wonder why people keep paying and playing.

"Oh, you've made this a pay-to-win game and I'm at a disadvantage now? I guess I'll have to play one of a zillion other games, bye."

Why don't more people vote with their wallets?

Problem i feel are the whales, many people vote with their wallets but if there is one person who more than makes up for say ten people who are not spending then i find that a bit frustrating

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, but if those ten people quit, the whale eventually won't have anyone else to play against.

[Digfox]

Why don't more people vote with their wallets?

In short, because it doesn't work.

It can help individual projects to fail but given how successful these business models and microtransaction tactics have been it is not going to make developers and publishers change. We have evidence from the various independent studies that lootboxes and predatory monitisation are causing harm or are linked to other behavioural problems. Respawn can be aloof and disingenuous as they like but every day their game is profiting from those aggressive microtransactions. People should complain, criticise and hold companies to account. Indeed even help campaign for changes in law if thy believe in that strongly enough.

Respawn should speak out against death threats, abuse and harassment against their employees. Although name calling every single one of the customers 'Asshats' and 'freeloaders' isn't appropriate.

There is a trend of developers saying one thing and then doing the complete opposite. Something that Respawn has been rightly criticised on but continues to not really change. Again I think they deserve criticism for that. Also the two way communication that developers and publishers contribute towards means they can't be critical of their communities if they are being hostile and toxic in their own responses.

If you want to play a BR game right now, like many genres, there isn't really one example that isn't trying to nickel and dime you with aggressive microtransactions. So if you were really sticking to your principles and voting with your wallet you basically shouldn't be playing any BR game. That sucks.

[MartyG]

I dunno, man.

I hate lootboxes and the way the industry is going, but I wonder why people keep paying and playing.

"Oh, you've made this a pay-to-win game and I'm at a disadvantage now? I guess I'll have to play one of a zillion other games, bye."

Why don't more people vote with their wallets?

According to the devs who posted on that Reddit thread, most of them do. According to his post, people don't buy stuff even if they discount microtransactions, so there's no point in discounting them and may as well charge $170 as the small percentage of players that he said buy these things will still buy them regardless of price.

I'm not sure I totally believe that given Warframe's model, but I suppose they have the data to back their whale hunting that they're not sharing.

[Tobal]

Can't see this is a winning strategy, firing off insults at the whole community to lay in to a few nutters posting in reddit while mostly ignoring genuine criticism seems to the way of media PR nowadays.

the games MT is the worst i've come across. When you open a loot"tick" up you'll mostly get these uncommon skins or stat trackers, loottick cost 700 coins a go, which is £8 to buy 1000coins pack the lowest you can go.

Buying legendary skins which change the model cost 1200 coins so you'll need to speed £15 to get the 2000 coins pack and then hope the skin you want just happens to be in the shop(1 model type on a 3 day rotation), no direct way to get what you want. And that's without getting into newest stuff, no direct buying again, hope to get the skin you want before you hit that £130/150 max spend.

And with the slow updates (for reasons already mentioned), this all players have to interact with as player progression/growth.

As far as titanfall2 being sales failure getting bought up, they had a different tune at the time ( https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ti.../1100-6452273/ ) perhaps they should have fought harder to get released at different time, than to get lost between battlefield and CoD with little marketing.

[Tobal]

According to the devs who posted on that Reddit thread, most of them do. According to his post, people don't buy stuff even if they discount microtransactions, so there's no point in discounting them and may as well charge $170 as the small percentage of players that he said buy these things will still buy them regardless of price.

the discounts are cutting the legendary models from 1200 to 1000 coins so you can spend just £8 for 1 skin, and that's only for whatever legendary (single) model happens to be rotating in the store at that point, pretty poor showing.

[Asura]

If you want to play a BR game right now, like many genres, there isn't really one example that isn't trying to nickel and dime you with aggressive microtransactions. So if you were really sticking to your principles and voting with your wallet you basically shouldn't be playing any BR game. That sucks.

There kind-of is, though? Fortnite?

That game doesn't have lootboxes. It has season passes to buy stuff every 3 months which cost 10$, but they at the rate they add content, that's a steal if you're genuinely into the game (I mean what does 10$ buy; barely even a cinema ticket these days). There's more stuff to buy, but it's directly purchaseable and it's cosmetic; players only buy the stuff they like the look of, and I suspect most people don't buy very much once they've bought 2-3 things that round-out the appearance they want for their character.

If you're asking whether a game exists which is either completely free or sold for a one-off price, then no, there isn't one - but people genuinely like that these games have seasonal content, and no free or one-off-price game would have seasonal content for long.

[Digfox]

If you're asking whether a game exists which is either completely free or sold for a one-off price, then no, there isn't one

I don't think anyone here is asking those questions. It's fair to assess if a game's business model is fair, prices are not too expensive or is there a fair chance to obtain items, for example.

Fortnite might be a better example but it's still charging $20 for legendary skins (Apex is getting ripped for $18 skins), creating artificial obscurity through rotating items and using a fake currency to rip people off rather than use local pricing (again like Apex). Fortnite is still nickel and diming. It might not be as aggressive or use lootboxes but I wouldn't herald it as perfect. As you know most of these games are doing the same things that ends up in some customers spending more on them than any other game.

[MartyG]

You people don't look hard enough: https://animalroyale.com/

[Digfox]

[MENTION=42]MartyG[/MENTION]

Tbf there are loads of these 2D/Indie BR games. I played one through Chrome recently.

[MartyG]

And as was completely predictable, Respawn CEO issues an apology for his staff antagonising the Apex Legend issues

https://www.polygon.com/2019/8/19/20812983/apex-legends-respawn-forum-apology-vince-zampella-controversy-reddit

If you had "we will learn from all this" on your bingo card, you didn't win though.

[Digfox]

I thought it was quite a classy statement/move from Zampella. I think they had to apologise given the actions of their own staff.

[QualityChimp]

Respawn Dev: We Are Being “Incredibly Generous” With the Amount of Apex Legends Free Stuff We Give Out

[MartyG]

Other people charge money too is such a weak argument and justification - whataboutism of the microtransaction world.