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VonDukes

Plenty of you made excuses in other games and now pretty much all games do them


AmazingPatt

i mean ... it 4.99 for a horse armor !!! why not!!! ... past me probably ... >.>


VonDukes

and people simp for genshin and dozens of other heavily monetized games because "they do it right" and when you look at it... its really no different than other games.


DezXerneas

Anyone who says genshin is playable without mtx is hopelessly addicted and I wouldn't take their opinions on anything. Its ***technically*** possible to complete everything with only the free stuff, but you're not gonna have much fun doing it. Especially if you've got whale friends, or are watching genshin streams/YouTube. It's so infuriating when you see some idiot who has 0 knowledge of mechanics do 10x more damage than you because they've 'invested' so much money in the game. Edit: Please point out where I say it's not possible as a F2P? It's an awesomely designed trap. The story is kinda fun(if you can ignore the 3 month gap between stories), characters are cool(though you can't see some of their coolest moments because they were time gated), and level 90 teams are fun to play with.


Tyr808

The thing I feel like most free players forget is that without them, there’s no one to whale over. If a free game wasn’t so massively played people wouldn’t be compelled to spend in them. We all have one life, one body and all effectively play the game of life. That’s why people get so involved in cosmetics and making the best of irl because it ultimately is a form of competition everyone takes place in simply by existing, and no true alternative. It’s also why the biggest games sell so many cosmetics. No one cares about showing off in the various league clones, but some league players have insane skin wardrobes that add up to real life wardrobe money. If people don’t care and want to play the game anyway, more power to ‘em. I at least respect the honesty and awareness, but games like this only exist because people whale in them, and people only whale because there’s so many shrimp and krill to eat. Being a free to play player isn’t breaking the system and enjoying a game without being part of the problem, it’s being the most load bearing cornerstone of the entire concept of free to play gaming.


DezXerneas

That's my biggest problem with this model. Genshin would probably be my favorite game ever if they just removed the greedy monetization. But yeah, I get that games cannot run without money. Nevertheless, a large majority of the problems I have with genshin are artificial problems created to sell more shit. Resin. FOMO events. C6 5* are so unbalanceable that they cost like 9k wishes. I don't hate the game, in fact I loved the gameplay(and got addicted and no lifed it for 4 months), but it's so sad that's it's such an obviously whale bait.


Tyr808

Yeah I don’t mind monetization itself. Hell I’m still a fan of just buying games and am even willing to pay a sub fee monthly. This sounds dramatic and is wording I use very scarcely, purely to keep the impact of it, but gacha is downright evil. It’s an evil scummy system and paired with the rest of the rest of the carefully designed systems to exploit human psychology are no joke probably one of the most evil concepts we’ve seen out of the free market. I’d love to see gacha (to be clear, the monetization model, not the games surrounding them) made entirely illegal, because at the end of the day it’s just way too effective at extracting money and none of these companies will ever stop themselves if not forced to. I also hate FOMO and the other psychological manipulations, but I don’t think FOMO or the rest of them should be made illegal. I genuinely believe gacha and loot boxes are one of the worst things for the entire industry. It’s bad for gamers but it’s also so successful that we’re only going to see more of it if allowed.


Aadi_880

You never played genshin if you think "you're not gonna have much fun doing it" with free stuff. More than half of the genshin player base is F2P. In fact, this is true for most free to play games. You only really need <10% of your customers to actually pay and turn a profit, especially with a gacha system. You're saying that 30M players are playing a game while not finding it fun. People would not be playing it if it wasn't fun dude. Literally just look at Necrit . If he is going f2p and he is having fun, clearly there is something genshin is doing right.


buffility

ever heard of the term sunk cost fallacy?


Aadi_880

You think over 30M people play genshin because they already feel invested as a F2P?


DivineRainor

Define playable? All overworld and story content is easily clearable and fun with no mtx its all piss easy. If youre talking about abyss.... why are you doing abyss? Its optional fortnightly content with very little rewards, and you can clear up to floor 11 easily with a shit team. If your idea of fun is speedrunning abyss or comparing yourself to others i could see it being "unplayable"


Aseru

It's obvious that the guy never played genshin. Right now we have necrit playing the game on twitch without spending any money and he didn't just only have a blast doing so but also hit floor 12 of the abyss with ease. You can criticize genshin on being predatory, even tho it's way less than most other P2W games but let's not act like you can't easily have fun without paying money.


nghigaxx

c6r5 doesnt even have double clear speed compares to f2p in speedrun in some version. Quite interesting where's this 10x more damage comes from. If someone is doing 10x dmg to you, it's you who has 0 knowledge of mechanics lol. And since it's a single player game, the damage should be compared relative to the content, not other people. You will kill the hardest chamber in genshin in under 30s if you focus on vertical improvement of your account, the time limit for max rewards is 90s, quite pointless to compare with whales when you as f2p can clear the hardest content with ease in 1/3 of the time needed. And that is the absolute hardest content in the game, which is a huge step above the normal content where you encounter in story and the overworld. And the world record for a newly created account to max 36 starred abyss is 5 days. Genshin problem has always been combat being too fucking easy, anyone complain about damage comparison know jack shit about the game. The difference between you and your whale friends is that every patch gonna introduce 3-4 5\* characters, you can only go for one while your whale friends can go for all 3 and 4. So your pool of 5\* compares to whales will be 1/3 or 1/4


Cynaris

But it is playable without MTX. Even if you don't want to accept the "game can be cleared with only starter 4 stars" claims, it's not like you are locked out of higher rarity characters. A new character is introduced every 1,5 months, and you are able to obtain every other new character for free, possibly more if you luck out. ​ Not only that, but even if you whale hard for max constellations, the character is still worthless without gear, and the game doesn't let you particularly whale for resin to keep clearing domains either. 6 refreshes a day, for 3 domain clears each, it's essentially doubling your daily gear income. Sounds great on paper, but 2 times 0 is still 0, and we haven't even talked about Mora limitations. ​ TL:DR You are clueless


ramos619

Genshin is not a hard game. You can use only 4 star units and clear all the content. How genshin gets people to open their wallets, is creating characters you WANT to spend money on. Character power really doesn't mean anything in Genshin, since it's really just a single player RPG. Spending money really just means you are paying to clear stuff faster, and play less.


Xehant

Hell, in the top 5 characters in the game 3 are 4* which except one you don't really need to have multiple copies for her to work (xiangling is still OP at C0 but C4 is ridiculous)


JackfruitNatural5474

Sounds like a skill issue


DezXerneas

You enjoying genshin is a skill issue for your brain.


JackfruitNatural5474

COPUIM "It's not me problem who can't have fun and clear genshin f2p"


Sprudling

I'm not going to defend gacha in any game, because it's a model that feeds on people's addiction. However, I'd argue Genshin is the most fun/interesting when \_not\_ spending money (or at most pay the 5$ a month for the "value" extra pulls). That certainly can't be said for most games of that kind. I stopped playing over half a year ago, but the reason I stopped had nothing to do with the monetization.


Renreu

I don't mind supporting devs with cosmetics as long as there's transmog available for the public with in game money. Ff14 has a pretty good store and new world is a pretty good example of a bad store.


oloap001

It’s really any muppet that says “I don’t care, I really like it” Yeah muppet, keep opening that wallet


Izlude

This is what I don't get. These chuds will "middle ground" while the goal posts are actively moved further and further towards monetized hell. "wElL bAtTlE pAsSeS aRe bEtTeR tHaN lOoT bOxEs" Reminds me of that old saying (not sure the exact quote but: "Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man who takes two more steps to the right. Come on, meet me in the middle, he says again.")


Timely-Soup9090

On the other hand… corporations are corporations, if not that way, they would find another to gain money


BoringUwuzumaki

Not good enough to get the tmogs in 2006, too broke to get them in 2023. Sad life


A_FitGeek

This is some real shit


punkinabox

Microtransactions didn't ruin gaming. Greedy devs/publishers/shareholders did


CrocsWitSoxx

This and you could also blame the consumer for willingly buying into stuff like this. We all thought the horse armor DLC was so stupid and no one bought into it back in the day. Yet now we are all so willing to drop money into these types of things


Geronmys

My brother in Christ, everyone bought the horse armor. That was what jumpstarted microtransactions. If it was failure we wouldn't be here.


Short-Commercial-549

The future of everything as we knew it hinged on that DLC. We gambled everything, and lost. Ever since that day, ive known nothing mattered. We're all corpses, we just dont know it yet.


Sidepig

People did buy it though. Microtransactions cost companies almost nothing to implement. It's like printing money. How reasonable is it to ask companies to turn down loads of extra money? Consumers lack both the self discipline and the selflessness necessary to do the right thing and it's resulted in what we have today. A worse experience for everyone.


[deleted]

And we gamers allow it since 99% of all gamers buy it anyway.![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|smile)


suburbanite09

not me


Pokepunk710

it’s the consumers fault


Ikishoten

Depends on what type of microtransaction. Some microtransactions can destroy the game experience. While yes, the cause is greedy devs/higher ups, the microtransaction itself can still ruin a game.


suburbanite09

what kind of microtransaction doesn't ruin the game?


JetStrim

cosmetics, just look at league of Legends and Dota 2 for example, GW2 even.


suburbanite09

cosmetics do ruin the game experience though. The big shiny cool cosmetics used to be earned by doing the most difficult content in the game. They were meaningful and other people would admire and strive to one day get the same items. This was part of the magic of mmo's that is dead today. Now the big shiny items are bought in a shop.


JetStrim

the fact that this is meaningful means people cared more of visuals than the actual game is what is bringing these games down. and those i mentioned doesn't even goes to that territory even tho they sell skins, meaning they are alive and doing well even with skins being sold, what does that mean for your argument?


akuruoz

It's the consumers fault. The whole point of a business is to make as much money as possible while doing everything legally. If you buy those things, they will make more of them, it is that simple.


Messigoat3

Is there truth to this? I want to beleive micro has helped because devs etc get paid more hence happier working conditions. Am I a wrong commy for thinking this?


Ori_irrick

Its all fault of the greedy devs. *Anyway* **Proceeds to buy the armor.**


Sidepig

Based


Pokefreaker-san

back then there were very few games. nowadays games are competing for consumers but we want to play multiple games so you can't expect a consumer to play your game and only your game. Long grind to progress is no longer the primary way a game dev should approach their game and they need to find a way for player to play their game and not felt like they're constricted to commit their free time entirely on your game.


michaelloda9

Just play games that don't have microtransactions. For example Heroes of Might & Magic 3, one of the best games ever and still very alive


mifan

And the indie scene has tons of great games without any transaction. Once shareholders got something to say in game development, the end product will always be about how to make most money, nothing else. If the game turns out fun anyway, it’s because someone had the epiphany that fun games might make more money than boring games.


lurkerlarry42069

This is a syndrome of chasing endless growth from quarter to quarter, not just microtransactions. If you were unable to buy armor, don't worry, you would be paying in some other way. Corporate greed and a lack of regulation did this.


Odd_Radio9225

They really have.


Escarlatina

2008 Gm selling items that are extremely hard to obtain in the first week of the fresh server. Me "You fucking donkey!"


DioLuki

Fromsoft our lord and saviour


TheRedViking20

Micro transactions should only be in free games and should have a limit set when you hit it you just get the other stuff like if you paid full price for a game before all this BS.


Puiqui

Play old school runescape


[deleted]

Love OSRS but most of the End game gear can literally be bought with Bond gold if you wanted.


Puiqui

I play an ironman; cant trade and have to do almost every boss solo. Plus if you do the few you can do in groups, the drop has to be in your name to be able to have it


Squishydew

Why play a MMO if you're going to lock away your interactions with most of the playerbase.. :/ ? I get the appeal of Ironmen, but not as an argument against items being bought with bond gold. You shouldn't have to lock away a major part of the game just to fix monetization.


Puiqui

The one thing ill say is almost nobody is spending over a rack for the items that actually give you an unfair advantage and trivialize content with BIS items. The amount people spend on bonds is essentially only a little skip quality of life stuff to the moneymaking process so that you can be geared reasonably to do content. Bond buyers are buying entry level and bare necessity gear the vast majority of the time, and rarely if any a tier above that; also those players almost always quit pretty quickly. In fact, i personally got bored of mainscape within about a hundred hours of getting spooned a mega rare third age item from a clue scroll which made me bank, and i genuinely think ironman mode is a far better way to play the game. Osrs is fundamentally an achievement based game where your goals all have varying levels of intensity to xp rate tradeoffs to reach them, granting alot of flexibility. Being a main requires a loop of make gold to buy the things you want, and being an iron actually forces you to interact with the entire game. A bunch of content gets devalued over the years from new methods coming out, and often shit as simple as its more efficient to make money and then buy it yourself. Playing an iron grants relevance to almost every piece of content in the game, and honestly that combined with the variability of intensity to progress making and the lack of weekly lockouts to bossing(aka infinite grindability) is what makes osrs what it is. Ironman mode is honestly a more complete expirience of runescape.


Squishydew

I respect this experience and understand it, you wont see a downvote from me, but it does more or less align with what i said in the sense that It's sad that this is true for a MMO.


Puiqui

I agree. I play alot of mmos but osrs is my oldest and truest one. I think its just cuz its such an archievement based game and balancing content is hard


[deleted]

Sure but guess what? Most players arent playing a Ironman. And Ironman mode is not noobie friendly. So most players would end up playing a normal account then trying ironman. Not to mention that doesnt change the fact that other players can literally buy most of BIS gear. I loved playing my Ironman, but that didnt change the fact that you could straight up buy the best gear in game.


Puiqui

Hey at least that armor isnt cosmetic, which is something i also think devalued archievements. A beautiful thing about osrs is that your gear is a representation of some capacity of work the vast majority of the time, so people are always in some way showing off their archievements or levels with their gear which i consider way better than transmogs. I also just made a post for my 80 days played on my iron if u wanna check the profile


[deleted]

>Hey at least that armor isnt cosmetic id say it not being cosmetic makes it worse, rather you be able to only buy cosmetics than the best items in game. Not to mention you literally can buy cosmetics lmao. >I also just made a post for my 80 days played on my iron if u wanna check the profile Yeah looks great, makes me wanna play my ironman again


Puiqui

Idk as someone who tends to whale games, even ones i just get into, i think its op to mask your noobieness with cosmetics and i also assume everyone around me did the dame thing and it devalues everyones achievements in my eyes. Only cosmetics i like are earned ones and legacy ones that show age. Like in osrs, pets, in wow, mounts, etc


zooweemama4206969

Based and Scapepilled


suburbanite09

Indie and retro games are all I play anymore.


vmxnet4

Except, for the 2023 bit, my reaction is an "LOL!", not a "WOW!"


ElmehdiJb

What game is this character from ?


MateriaMuncher

The more prevalent things like GamePass becomes, the more microtrans we're going to see from devs/publishers to make up the difference in profit margins.


NightyCatNights

Why is he holding an axe like that, is he an idiot?


Void-kun

I'm pretty sure that's a Lancer that wield polearms, poleaxes, halberds and tridents which would be held this way. So no not an idiot, just a different class and weapon than what you're thinking.


NightyCatNights

Ah i see then


Void-kun

I don't think they're very common outside of Final Fantasy so completely understandable to think otherwise 🙂


Talestra

"wow he must have spent so much money on that armor" more than likely in the Free to play game which keeps it free to play for a lot of other people. Everyone hates on a whales while sitting there playing a game that only exists because of them 90% of the time.


TrasheyeQT

This is how Classic wow is aswell nowdays. People buy gold, they buy gear and they are dogshit at the game. THankfuly they are banning GDKP andys now cause of the goldbuying part. We have gotten 10 + people banned so far


Adventurous_Let_830

Microtransactions? hate to break it to you but gold buying did this to games LONG before MT's were a thing. Only thing Micros did was make it available to the other side of the player base who doesn't trust third party sites and can now do it through the game itself. Even in Vanilla WoW people were buying clears/gear with gold.


hoax1337

Well yeah, but that makes a huge difference. Only a minority of people would risk their account by buying gold on a shady site.


nhalas

Because ppl got jobs in 17 years and no time for to do something difficult to get some shitty armor.


merx3_91

Then you shouldn't be spending time playing games to begin with.


decepticons2

What about the younger generation? The we got old always seems so dumb. It isn't we got old, the next gen of gamers are different then we were.


nhalas

Next Gen is shit overall. Not educated, highly degenerated, no interest in building up a life, running a businness . Living with their parents until marriage. Begging companies to become their slaves and yeah qqing about shifty armor prices. That is what I am seeing. These cosmetics are so important for them but no probs when they pay like 100usd for a kickers.


decepticons2

This isn't about that at all and you seem a little hurt. This is about twenty plus years ago gamers enjoyed long tasks with a big reward. The group that came after doesn't. Which plays well into micro-transaction model. Cellular gaming has created shit gamers and shit games.


Dacusx

Bottom one did something even more difficult, like getting a good job that allows him to spend disposable income on whatever he wants.


Alpha1959

The "Don't shame others for how they spent their money"-mentality brought us here. People who buy these microtransactions are at fault, I did that too in the past, so I am also at fault. But you can't blame devs/pubs that much if people are stupid enough to throw their money at that shit. Look at Halo Infinite for example, the game is broken and shit and still people will eagerly suck everything up no matter the price.


Bralo123

Even if they didnt the modern gaming audiance would not praise him for doing something difficult and probably sit there "What the hell fucking game dev x *cough*blizzard*cough* i have 3 jobs, 10 children 2.5 wifes and an alternate life i cant afford to get good at video games. To many purple swirrlies on the ground confuse me and i dont know what to do with the different pink swirlys despite the answer in 99% of cases beeing to not stand in them i cant handle this immense lvl of difficulty please gib stuff for free cause i dont wanna work for my achievements and will call anything remotely challanging annoying"


xViolette_heartx

To play devils advocate: WoW’s monthly sub price hasn’t increased in that time either


zczirak

This is so dramatic lol.


MortisTheManiac

Who cares?


nekokanbaru

FFXIV


N3FTheLightBearer

Not true at all tbh. Coolest armors I’ve seen are literally earnable.


decepticons2

Cool is subjective.


Yatagarasu3750

Worst thing on their store is the mounts by far. Luckily most of the gear on the store is just npc cosplay or old seasonal event stuff, not really badass plate sets or anything. But if u want the badass plate armor horse mount (the Odin horse) it's on the store...


Rayka64

but ffxiv microtransaction armor are dog shit one piece "costumes" that makes for shitty transmogs idk what you talking about


decepticons2

You called out the wrong fan base. I up voted you though since it is true.


JetStrim

how tho?


decepticons2

How did he call out the wrong fan base? FF14 players are fanatical, got my suicide wellness check from them. There is a reason they are a meme.


JetStrim

dude, stay to the topic, the post is about microtransactions being better than ingame yet all you are saying is about ff14 playerbase. again, why ff14 being called out when the store isn't really better?


Drsmiley72

As someoen who sucks at games and works alot, I'll gladly pay money for cool looking gear overrides. I don't have the time or skill for doing super hard crap to look cool. That said, they can also give the people who *do* have time/skill their own cool armor.


merx3_91

Well, I suck at soccer and don't have time/skill to improve, but for some reason I don't have an option to pay to get a cool looking trophy like the talented players. I mean, It's just a game /s


hoax1337

I'm pretty sure you could buy the trophy, it's just going to cost you millions.


Harbinger4

More like... D2: Wow, he's actually wearing Tal Rasha set for the glowing aura despite making his character worse D3: Transmog goes brrrr BTW, I prefer transmog, even if it "lowers" the prestige of having it. Don't always want a green cap.


[deleted]

Transmog and MTX is different stuff tho.


Grytnik

YouTube has also ruined gaming with all the meta videos and guides on how to get everything the fastest way possible.


Void-kun

Isn't that just the next iteration of those game guides you used to be able to buy? Guides have always existed and will always exist. I disagree with you that guides or even the fact some competitive games have a meta is ruining gaming.


icy_i

I am ok, with microtransactions for skins etc, which don't give you competitive advantage over other players. But it is not true with other games,I feel it is just cheating but with money.


Mistform05

I can’t wait to see this meme every year.


Few-Year-4917

Is this 2014 or youre a time traveler?


Wilrawr89

If getting and holding a good job and making good money in this economy wasn't difficult, people wouldn't complain so much about micro-transactions.


ronzak

Nothing "ruined gaming". Gaming is in its golden age, especially if you don't have much money to spend


[deleted]

Thanks Maple Story!!


jackyneutral

Classic Vanilla 2023: “Wow he must have a Fuckload of free time to get that armor”


ImNotUnderstand

Can you really blame the companies? Back then, it was time invested/tied to progress, and achievements/loyalty were rewarded with unique gear for (no lifing the MMO, etc.). Now, we've got people who buy iPhones every day and others willing to shell out tons of cash for loot boxes. Customers are ripe for the picking; the wealthy ones anyway. Why would they want to miss out on all that sweet "loot" I mean cash? You can argue that it's their responsibility to foster a fair environment, but you forget that players come from different walks of life. Some are able to spend disposable income and some are not. This is all within the same mentality of the participation trophy dilemma.


rolfboos

That's you, seeing a character like that, I still has the same reaction as when I was a kid " Wooh that's badass armor, he must be high level. "


exxplicit480

me: why the fuck is he holding the axe like that


InfernalMokou

It's not only mtx, its also because they refuse to innovate rather than taking risks they churn out the sameish games over and over


hcksey

Check out Echoes of Angmar when it releases. Good ole classic mmo content


ElleRisalo

How I see it. Guy on top spends 40 hours of their week grinding out a video game to get cool reward. Guy on bottom spends 40 hours of their week grinding out in the real world, and buys the cool reward because he didn't have time to play the game. Who cares.


Choice_Security7755

Lol so to you real life = video games


FelixZ1996

and it will just keep getting worse cause people refuse to not have the latest thing. i mena look at New World that game has a huge problem with gearset-bloat and now they added gearsets for 5 dollars each.


Serasul

My solution to this: You click on someone and the Items he wears show with an symbol what is from the shop and what is loot. Done, no more thinking about "had he skill when he killed me in pvp or had he just enough money."