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[rubik's dude]

Gambling in the form of micro-transactions, releasing games that aren't fully completed and selling parts of it later as DLC, embargoing reviews up until the day of release, advertising games with features that never make it into the final product, just to name a few things that I'm referring to.

Not saying that games are worse than ever, but the industry seems so shady now, it almost feels like a scam because there's a ton of smoke and mirrors. You even have the whole movement of not pre-ordering games anymore to combat these types of commonplace practices by game development studios.

Obviously video games are a newer form of entertainment that haven't been around as long as other things, so being the wild west that it is, there are bound to be problems. But how do you see things improving from where we are now? Slow improvement over time? Some sort of regulatory power to act as an intermediate between game development studios and the consumers?

Edit: Messed up the title, some = so.

 

[ManaByte]

Gambling in the form of micro-transactions

Never bought MTG or Pokemon cards, huh?

 

[rubik's dude]

Never bought MTG or Pokemon cards, huh?

Just the theme decks.

 

[Salty Popsicle]

When smart-phone games became more profitable than a AAA game release on consoles/PC.

 

[PleaseDontBanMe]

 

[Andodalf]

When we stopped being 12

 

[synchronicity]

When the stupidity of the customer was fully comprehended.

 

[AJUMP23]

When did video games start making money?

 

[Zeroing]

I would say all started in the late 360/PS3 generation, that is where I remember seeing glimpses of shady practices. People were happy for paying for online, EA was fighting over used games, mobile game was starting to make an impact etc.

Also AA games were disappearing and gaming companies were looking into more ways to make money... Capitalism - you are only views as successful if you are making more money than one year ago.

Also we gamers let companies do whatever they wanted in the name of brand loyalty and some of us do not care about anything, as long they have their favourite game.

It is a mix of different things that made the gaming industry arrive at these practices currently and I think it will get worse.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

When MTX has been introduced.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

 

[Ellery]

The same that happens to everything. In the beginning the purity, passion, love and creativity creates something new and beautiful and eventually people with money make decisions to make more money.

 

[spawn]

From Wikipedia:

"In Western regions (North America and Europe) around 2009, the video game industry saw the success of Zynga and other large publishers of social-network games that offered the games for free on sites like Facebook but included microtransactions to accelerate one's progress in the game, providing that publishers could depend on revenue from post-sale transactions rather than initial sale.[18] One of the first games to introduce loot box-like mechanics was FIFA 09 in March 2009 which allowed players to create a team of association football players from in-game card packs they opened using in-game currency earned through regular playing of the game or via microtransactions.[21] Another early game with loot box mechanics was Team Fortress 2 in September 2010, when Valve added the ability to earn random "crates" to be opened with purchased keys.[9] Valve's Robin Walker stated that the intent was to create "network effects" that would draw more players to the game, so that there would be more players to obtain revenue from the keys to unlock crates.[18] Valve later transitioned to a free-to-play model, reporting an increase in player count of over 12 times after the transition,[20] and hired Yanis Varoufakis to research virtual economies. Over the next few years many MMOs and multiplayer online battle arena games (MOBAs) also transitioned to a free-to-play business model to help grow out their player base, many adding loot-box monetisation in the process,[20][22] with the first two being both Star Trek Online[23] and The Lord of the Rings Online[citation needed] in December 2011."

 

[Husky]

Loot boxes are even worse than gambling, because unlike at a casino, there's no way to win. No matter what you get, you still bought a microtransaction, you fucking mark.
Except with Valve's games. That's gambling.

Never bought MTG or Pokemon cards, huh?

Hah, the reason I refuse to play those kinda games is because I say they're pay-to-win

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Can anyone tell me if "Gambling in the form of microtransactions" is still a thing?

Overwatch did it but that game fell off a cliff. Feels like the majority of the biggest F2P games today don't have these forms of microtransactions.

 

[Lanrutcon]

"It's just cosmetic, stop whining" - Fucking idiots re. DLC, 2006

 

[GHG]

Look at the people who lead these companies:

Jim Ryan
Phil Spencer
Andrew Wilson
Randy Pitchford
Tim Sweeney
etc

They all tell lies for fun and bullshit their customers but people defend them. Is it any wonder? CDPR even decided they were missing out so joined in the fun last year.

Obligatory:

 

[hybrid_birth]

Look at the people who lead these companies:

Jim Ryan
Phil Spencer
Andrew Wilson
Randy Pitchford
Tim Sweeney
etc

They all tell lies for fun and bullshit their customers but people defend them. Is it any wonder? CDPR even decided they were missing out so joined in the fun last year.

Obligatory:

Same could be said about Wal-Mart, Target CEOs etc. they make millions while they pay most of their workforce peanuts. So much so that most Walmart employees are on government assistance.

Greed in the world is only getting worse.

 

[nush]

 

[RoboFu]

Put it this way. At the start It use to take about a year and 50k to make a AAA game.

also some games had bugs that broke the gane and could never be patched.

 

[Captain Toad]

Loot boxes are even worse than gambling

Excuse me, but we insist you refer to them as "surprise mechanics". Thanks.

 

[Beelzebubs]

He's not wrong...... Also the idea of day one patches have led to a lot of fuckery.

 

[Spidey Fan]

When this guys kids started playing video games.

I played a mobile game called summoners war. and we had a player names tomato. That guy spent more than $500k on that game. that is just 1 Chinese rich man. We have an esport game, and those players who play it spend way much more money.

Summoners War breaches $2 billion in lifetime revenue

Com2uS' mobile monster-collecting title Summoners War: Sky Arena has broken $2 billion in lifetime revenue . Not only has the turn-based strategy title hit the revenue milestone, making it one of...

www.pocketgamer.biz

Packs in this game cost 29.99$, 49.99$, 69.99$ and 99.99$. We also had a youtuber who spent more than $150k in 2018 before he quit the game. I spent around 150$ over my life time playing, and buying small packs. Spent more than 400$ buying accounts overtime. But i sold them, and made my money back (sold 1 account for 350$, and bought X1S). Sold 500$ worth of accounts on ebay, getting some of my money back. and i have 100$ worth of accounts to get it back. They are like selling your CD games, which you have used.
I wish i could have gotten a console early. If i did, i wouldn't have spent that much money on the game, and buying accounts like a retard. I cant help it. the game was good, and its still good. But lately i felt it was too money grabbing, and very aggressive p2w. they made it easier to progress now. You can still play it as f2p, and not spend a dime. the problem is once you find those selling accounts, its hard to stop.

Some other people who spent alot of money.

These are the Players Who Spent a Crazy Amount of Money on Microtransactions

Microtransactions have become a major part of gaming, especially with Free-to-Play titles becoming increasingly popular.

www.dailycal.org

This article ironically supporting spending money on games.

Big spending whales aren't the problem with free-to-play games | Opinion

You'd think, given the inevitable backlash reaction, that we would have long since moved past the point where mobile ga…

www.gamesindustry.biz

I look like this after remembering what I did.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Internet in consoles brought a lot of good things, but also bad things.

 

[FoundryMusic]

The 1970s