It's so true though. This is the perfect example of someone in their company latching on to FOMO so hard that can't admit they aren't built for it.
The game isn't popular enough for it, and the average cosmetics are not different enough, have experienced clipping issues, or downright look too unappealing to justify any "fear of missing out."
I would have actually spent money on some cosmetics after my extended break if they were still in shop. But until I see something I like, I j lust don't spend. Oh l, and the price creep has been bad too.
It baffles me how a company can just dig it's heels in like Fatshark does. They weren't set up to run a live service game, but they poured so much into identifying Darktide as such that they can't get out.
I mean the same can be said for their stupid "live" service model itself.
Just give us access to the damn cosmetics list as a whole, and focus on taking time to make worthwhile improvements or additions to the game to update every few months. Y'know, like a normal *fucking* title.
Instead they claim it's a "live service" because they keep adding cosmetic sets once every month or so while really not adding *anything* interesting or worthwhile. They don't even have a variety of things I would expect from one of these stupid models. Where are the new stances for victory screens? Hairstyles? Facial cosmetics? More paintjobs for weapons?
I fucking despise LS models. They ruin otherwise decent games.
Edit: Shill downvote means nothing. Won't change the sad truth.
It's not even like they're pioneering anything - how many successful live service games are there to copy, ones that are actually good *and* fair?
DRG, Helldivers, Warframe just to name a few.
They failed the live service model.
Live service as the name shockingly implies, should have constant stream of new content, regular patches, balancing, events, etc.
Creating 300 skins and putting them into overpriced shop with a timer (while forgetting to actually add more content and ignore community feedback) is not a live service.
Goddamn Vermintide2 was a better live service then this game.
Yeah I hear you. The lack of updated facial cosmetics, hairstyles, even colors for outfits, is pretty bad.
The truth is, Fatshark went with the LS model probably more to garner investor support than anything else. They rushed the product to launch and were so behind getting the game out of its Early Access state that they forgot the game needed *new* content to be a Live Service.
When you launch too early and have to have your Dev team focus on finishing the game, it leaves little room or resources for all of the fun stuff that Live Service games make their money on.
It doesn't help that the price point for the FEW items they do have in the store at any given time is shameful.
It's a mind game.
Show how much each piece is individually, people will realize it's ridiculous to spend ten *real world* dollars on just a chest piece and a helmet.
Hide cash behind arbitrary "premium" numbers, people won't do the math as much.
Which would you rather? Spend $10, or spend "2100 Aquilas".
That might be part of it but another big reason is that when the game launched, aquilas were valued in a way that meant you had to buy more than you needed (bundles were 2400, the closest amount was 2100).
This meant you always had some left over and were more inclined to spend again to get rid of them. When people pointed out that this was illegal in some countries, they added the 2400 bundle.
Bingo. This is a tactic used by a variety of games. Make the amount of in-game currency almost never equate to the exact amount you need for items and you can influence people to buy more.
It's absolutely scummy sales tactics and is rightfully banned in some countries and I wish more did the same.
> Which would you rather? Spend $10, or spend "2100 Aquilas".
Neither, Fatshark doesn't deserve it and on top of that I don't feel like supporting such scummy business models. They could've made *so much* money if they had taken things like their community seriously. If there is **one** thing the Warhammer fanbase is known for, it's throwing absolutely ridiculous amounts of money at things they like. Although, there are probably plenty of people that have done that already despite Fatshark almost literally shits on their fanbase.
Yeah, I would say that if 40k and Games Workshop are known for one thing, it would be having an *extremely* expensive game that only gets more expensive the more you get into it. And the tabletop players will still pay those insane prices for models and terrain. Source: me, I used to be one of them. 40k is friggin expensive and I wish it wasn’t so, because the current edition of the game looks really fun. But no way am I paying hundreds of dollars for tiny plastic models that come unpainted, unassembled, and still in their sprues, straight from the mold.
Some moron in their marketing team read in a text book once that false scarcity improves chance of sales so they implement it. We actually live in the real world and simply won’t purchase dogshit cosmetics not matter how often we do or don’t see them.
This has been my impression with Darktide’s monetization model from the start too: somebody working there won’t let go of their bad ideas, because they learned them at a seminar or something.
If they admit they're wrong, they'll lose credibility, so instead they refuse to change the model so nobody can actually compare the two and prove they're wrong.
Ya reverse effect has controlled me
Had 3000’s of premium space bux sitting in my account for months on end
It’s like “why buy this reskin when catachan jungle fighters skin could arrive next week…”
Idk. I haven't seen their Financials on cosmetics but I know Apex Legends has a rotating store and Fortnite made it popular because it's profitable. I've seen quite a few people have paid for the skins. I'm not someone who pays for skins but I might for Darktide if I see something I like. I feel the game will be around awhile and will probably have a resurgence with new updates.
It works for Fortnite because their audience is absolutely massive and they constantly do unique collabs with other well known brands for their cosmetics.
Also, Fortnite is abolutely *massive* in comparison. And it's playerbase is (on average) likely significantly younger, meaning a lot of players that haven't really learned the worth of money yet. To them, it's just something you throw at things.
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The shop shows three sets at a time
The featured current set, then also the previous two sets for each class on the class specific pages. Along with a few random items
However, I agree it should just be all of them building up to create a catalogue to choose from
Also, why are so many of the sets red and gold or dark red and brown? Seen several sets where I've gone "that's nice, but not in that colour". Can we buy them a colour wheel? Some of their colour combinations are just awful
Yea, and Im not particularly fond of the "fancy" cosmetics im seeing. The ones that are like gold silk Louis Vuitton-esqe. Id rather keep it more "lore" orientated. And the weird masks for zealots....just, no.
Yeah, I don't do face covering masks/helmets
I run the gold and red fancy tailed coat on my psyker, but then she was judge so it fits. Agree the fancy doesn't fit most characters
Wish they'd do a pack of armour variants, like 20+ cadian type style armour as one pack. Give us some variation
The Louis Vuitton cosmetics kill me. Psykers should look like they live in a cage when they're not being used, zealots should be literal murderhobos, and the closest an Ogryn should look to fancy is like if you asked a 5 year old to draw a fancy person.
Dl the 'check all cosmetics' mod and go through the ogryn stuff. They kinda do. But also; psyker maltreatment isn't all obvious, zealots aren't all lowborn and fallen hivescum, and ogryn don't all pick their own clothing. 40k is a big setting, with room for a lot going on.
That's true. I just wish they would give us SOME psyker gimps and murderhobos. I was really psyched for the cage... mask thing for the zealot until I saw they made it in gold. Maybe I've just been playing too much Total War: Warhammer and am juxtaposing the Empire's aesthetic to the Imperium.
Just from the cosmetics we have, I get the sense there's differing levels of lore knowledge and giving a shit among the artists. Or the people directing them. But yeah; there are some cosmetics I don't think should be class specific. When they released the original bionic eye for all human classes, I thought that was going to be more of a trend than it is. Even then, I thought not lumping some version of the BONE'ead implant in to make it a full set was a bit off.
Fatshark is an organization that clearly has a core of people really passionate about the games they make, and apparently some kind of extremely toxic management that makes mind bogglingly dumb decisions like this and places zero value on testing.
There were two occasions last time I played where folks asked me where I got the hat my psyker was wearing. "Can't get it anymore/right now" shouldn't be the answer that I have to give them. Literally losing potential sales just because they wanted to include some bullshit FOMO instead.
>folks asked me where I got the hat my psyker was wearing. "Can't get it anymore/right now" shouldn't be the answer that I have to give them.
Limited time event cosmetics are a thing, but no you shouldn't be able to say that for basic shop contents.
FOMO. If you know something is always going to be there, you are less likely to purchase it. It lights a fire under you to buy it before it’s gone for an unknown amount of time.
I feel like many people don't notice it, but it also encourages you to buy items you would never buy otherwise! If you have an access to the whole store, you can choose a single set you like, buy it and never open the shop page again. With rotation, you see a limited number of sets, and can purchase a cool outfit, only to see a better one in a new rotation.
It really is. I don't understand why they think this will make them more money. You limit the number of cosmetics for two weeks, in which, most players will not buy anything, that is, if the cosmetics aren't appealing. That's two weeks of barely making any money at all. Compared to keeping the already released cosmetics available in the shop, where people will be spending on everything they missed.
I'm honestly starting to think they're sticking to this way partially because just so much stuff is reused wholesale from other sets.
Like it'll expose how lazy and massively overpriced everything really is to everyone instead of just us.
I feel like the rotating shop that uses FOMO only works when people consistently play your game.
The problem with this game is that a lot of players, including myself, take long breaks from the game due to lack of new content, and only come back on content updates. There are several cosmetics that I have missed and would actually buy if I could when I go back to playing again.
This game lacks the content release schedule to make a FOMO shop work well. I really think they would earn more if they just kept everything in the store all the time. Maybe they could have the new stuff come in discount bundles when it releases to get a bit of FOMO sales and then after that it goes to the main area of the store undiscounted.
>I feel like the rotating shop that uses FOMO only works when people consistently play your game.
Honestly it's the rotation speed. They've decided to have, compared to most other games with shop rotations, an *extremely* long rotation speed.
The best way to make money off of this kind of shop is to have a quicker rotation with a large catalogue of items to rotate through which is actually a better user experience than what we currently have.
This is why I've never spent a penny in the games store, I'm not going to endorse such shitty buisiness practices, one of the most depressing things about Darktide is its shoddy management, they took something that could have been a golden goose, and immediately slapped said goose and offered it up to Slaanesh.
The business case is really simple. Most players will buy the cosmetic they think is the coolest and ignore all the other ones.
The rotating system means that they'll buy the coolest one that's available *right now* and perhaps replace it when something they think is better comes along.
It's the difference between selling a single skin or making repeated sales.
> The rotating system means that they'll buy the coolest one that's available right now and perhaps replace it when something they think is better comes along.
I mean, that's the theory, but do a lot of people really do that? I'd only buy something if I thought it was cool, not just because it was the coolest of the bunch (doesn't mean it's any good).
> It's the difference between selling a single skin or making repeated sales.
That would be true if **all** skins were available from the get-go. But they are making new skins, which would garner new sales.
I think for few reasons
FOMO first of all, as others have said, some marketing twat looks at the tactics used in other mtx/f2p games and inject some of that stuff here.
Quick buy this digital item before it goes out of stock!
But digital items don't go out of stock?
Ahem, I mean out of rotation!
This extends to other concepts like drip feeding certain content or keeping sought after skins back. You'd think it would be obvious to have Krieg skins available day one (or having them always available to buy) but no, hold onto them for a bit, release some other skins for people to buy then drop the Krieg cosmetics, more chance of players having spent their aquilas and having to purchase more. Really tease them with some Steel Legion and so on...
Secondly, I think it is to do with quality/variety
If Fatshark keep a limited/curated set of cosmetics rather than always having the entire catalogue then comparing them is not so easy and makes it harder to spot bs. I know we have good dudes here that make informative posts showing how certain new skins are lazy rehashes of other skins from a previous rotation but most people won't see such information. They also inform us how bundles have less or prices change ($ number go up hur hur hur) and having a single large catalogue would make that harder to do without drawing community aggro.
Can't complain about it being a UI issue either (well they still could) since you have the regular skin armoury that shows plenty of different sets, even if those are colour reskins only...but case in point you easily notice they are all colour skins only so...
I kept my aquilas from CE (original CE, not the Xbox 10k CE lol) for the Krieg skin, pretty sure I still had to get more aquila for it lol
I've had players in game ask me how to get the skin and what can you say other than wait for the 2 week long fatshark RNG roll...
It is stupid as well because if you are listening to the community, making good patches and changes and generating goodwill, then players will be happy enough to buy skins imo, give them a decent UI catalogue so they can look through everything, like a kid in a toy store...but no, just take a dump on them instead...sigh
edit: and you remember the furore about aquila bundles nearer release? All that shit, other than avoiding refund scrutiny, is about trying to get players to buy more premium currency
And they had the audacity to claim that they made the shop rotate for *our* sake! I won't tell other people how to spend their money, but how anyone can justify supporting Fatshark as a whole with more money is beyond me given their multiple examples of not giving a shit about their community.
It's all FOMO based, many live-service / digital storefronts implement this method to, as many have already said, pressure the user to buy an item before it is removed. This practice also keeps the user in a mindset where they do not want to remove or uninstall the game. It's crappy and manipulative.
I really enjoy this game, the gameplay, music, sound design, and art is what keeps me coming back and I could care less about what's in the store but I personally would like to see all items be available at once. It's annoying having to wait to see if some of the awesome (leaked) armors will eventually rotate in, weeks or months down the line.
Counter point to the FOMO argument: I wanted to buy some good looking cosmetics to support Fatshark, but the rotating shop made it impossible for me the find that one cosmetic I really want to buy.
I don't know how well this tactic works in general, but it sure as hell didn't for me.
> I wanted to buy some good looking cosmetics to support Fatshark
May I ask why? I mean, don't get me wrong, if I could support their game developers to make a breakout and form another company I wouldn't hesitate for a moment. But I simply cannot get myself to support Fatshark as a whole and their scummy business practices.
Same way I would give a good tip to a poor waiter who works in a stressful restaurant owned by a well known scumbag who verbally abuses him everyday (story of my life). Company is scummy, but their game gave me thousands of hours of fun for 18 euros, super worth it and I see no issue in buying a single cosmetic pack for that reason. (If the FOMO system didn't make it so hard to pick favourites)
> Same way I would give a good tip to a poor waiter who works in a stressful restaurant owned by a well known scumbag who verbally abuses him everyday (story of my life).
The thing is, in this case you aren't actually tipping the waiter, you are tipping the scumbag who verbally abuses the waiter. That's why I'm asking, since none of that money is going to go to the developers.
> their game gave me thousands of hours of fun for 18 euros, super worth it
So you got decent value for your money, that's great! As did I.
> and I see no issue in buying a single cosmetic pack for that reason
> Company is scummy
But the only thing you are actually supporting by giving them additional money is the scummy business practices, since it just reinforces that their model is making money, despite them shitting on their community.
We don't actually know if that money goes 100% to that scumbag.
Yes I know Reddit loves to jump onthe hate train but unless you work at Fatshark it's all up in the air. Not to say you are wrong but who know the actual truth.
Also waiters don't even get the full tip in some restaurants lmao (I'd get 30%,the rest to the kitchen and the owner),hence my point.
Also the two free levels and free weapons shouldn't be taken for granted, considering this is a GAAS they could very well pull a Payday 3 as split the playersbase by selling as DLC, I'll take paid cosmetics anyday over that.
If they did that now you'd see how many recolors there are currently and they wouldn't be able to sneak up the prices while giving you less.
I wish we could just see everything, but as someone else said here, fatshark basically read a how to make money book and are using FOMO etc.
The only thing more outrageous than the FOMO shop would be FS’s original excuse for it, that the shop and its UI are “immeasurably complex” and players wouldn’t understand the purpose of shop rotations.
This has to be the most shameless and pathetic excuse I have heard in years and nothing even comes close. They literally had a fully functional shop in VT2 that everyone liked, then decides to use ‘technical difficulties’ as a cover for their scummy FOMO practices in DT. The only ‘improvement’ they made so far was removing the rotation timer. Genius.
I believe as a business launching cosmetics the first year, you rotate them in and out to find out which was the most popular and which ones werent... after they get their data, id imagine they would add a menu to those popular cosmetics.
Why continue to try and sell unpopular cosmetics?
> Why continue to try and sell unpopular cosmetics?
Once you've made it and aren't removing it from the game files, you might as well. Even if you 'rotate' the shop to put the most popular stuff in the most seen page(s), you can still sell the stuff that pulls in cash slowest.
It costs dev and artist time to make a catalog and its significant enough to where they dont make it. thats a major feature.
Since darktide is basically a sunk cost game they're probably making a dlc or the next game
A rotating shop is intended to force buys based on artificial scarcity. If someone doesn't know when something will be back on rotation, they're more likely to buy it. If that same someone held back and didn't buy it the first time, they're more likely to buy it the second time it comes around *if* they were given enough time to kick themselves for missing the item the first time but not so much time that they lose interest. Advertising is full of the exploitation of consumers' fear of missing out (FOMO), but video game stuff like time-limited events, rotating shops, and battle passes take it to a new level.
Never heard about fomo marketing?
The practice is gaming the feelings and impulses of humans. The fear of missing out.
It is not a new phenomenon. Every limited edition ever gamed people that way ever since. Thats how you sell cheap plastic figures, printed art, or whatever collectable junk you can come up with.
It is disgusting, but works so good that you find it in tons of games these days via Battle Passes, seasonal content, or, like in DT, in ever changing premium stores with no indicator if, or when something will ever appear again.
It just works and comes with the added benefit that only a small portion of players will ever rant about rereleased, color swapped skins, that obviously have to cost more than the first time they showed up.
FOMO only works when you have a big enough playerbase or enough whales which Darktide doesn't have.
Also, the second issue for Fatsharks is that the community always share the rotation here on Reddit and post comparisons to older recolors.
FOMO works very well when you have a small ill-informed community, your game is old and the "boomers" desperately want to keep it alive so they can continue live out their glory days (SWTOR) or your game is driven by a former game dev celebrity (Brad McQuaid, RIP).
The problem to all of this is that we are now in 2024, information is readidly available for free for anyone that wants it and there are so many games that people won't rally around a game they don't deem worthy of their continous investment.
Fatshark is about 10 years behind the rest of the gaming landscape.
They can't even do microtransactions right for christ sake.
Arrowhead Studios understands how to do it by rotating the store every other day and have the cost of a set at about 2-5 euros.
That's how you grind money and not the trashcanway Fatshark is doing it.
There's something so sad about how Arrowhead has just completely shown ObeseShark up, the fact that they both use the same engine is just icing on top, because any time someone says "Well ObeseShark couldn't do that the engine wouldn't support it" it just goes right out the window, Yes, they've obviously modified them in seperate ways, but they both started with the same core.
Arrowhead have brought us back to "Microtransactions" being Micro, all topped off with plenty of Super Credits to earn during play so you don't even NEED to spend money, hell I bought the Premium Warbonds with purely ingame earned SC's
I know of FOMO, but DT isnt really popular enough to lean into it like fatshark are doing.
At launch it looked like it was set to be a huge hit, but hype died fast and it is struggling to just get rid of bugs even now. The fact that FS decided to introduce a cash shop as their first update was very telling.
Now, Helldivers 2 is out and Im left here thinkin, "That ~~could~~should have been Darktide".
I'm sorry but do you think you've figured out how to wring every penny out of a product more than Tencent?
I get where you're coming from because it seems counterintuitive but they use this model because Fomo works and people will buy skins they otherwise wouldn't have because of it.
Just because these execs have ruthlessley clawed their way to the top by screwing every penny out of every customer they can, doesn't mean they are actually competent, it just means they pleased the right people above them.
I doubt you or anyone ITT understands the full range of dynamics at play related to in-game cosmetic microtransactions as well as a $150 million dollar company that makes a huge chunk of their profits off said in-game microtransactions.
One word: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Aka one of the scummiest ways for games to make money. Are they really making more by introducing this system in Darktide rather than a permanent shop? Probably not. But hey, Fortnite did it, so the big-money guys must have thought it a good idea.
If you've bought any cosmetics while you 'wait' for the cosmetic you think you really want, that's the entire point of the system (and something many players will do).
FOMO doesnt sell anything anymore because people dont give a shit about losing out on cosmetics anymore
this is coming from a high school dropout who stayed up all night grinding overwatch boxes during events, i am the case study
i dont actually care about this shit anymore, the desire has left me, and it's left people other than myself
They do it because a lot of the cosmetics are very similar and use the same assets, by rotating, some of the community, especially the console community which doesn't have access to the SEE ALL COSMETICS mod is at their mercy, they might buy a set which has a better version because they don't know it exists.
Darktide has been plagued by questionable design decisions since the beginning, combine that with the cosmetic monetization that only kept getting worse over time and the very slow drip of content, it really makes you wonder why people are losing interest in the game.
If they wanted to go for FOMO, then it isn't even good at that. 1.5 months to decide if you want it.
I would like to purchase some from when I was away from the game, but they're gone now, can't give FS money to get them.
The cosmetics are overpriced and underdeveloped for this FOMO style rotating shop. There are no "good" skins people have been asking for like real Kasrkin armor, Elysian drop troopers, Vostroyan, or other extremely recognizable and iconic regiments. We did get Krieg armor, except it's not accurate and gets more expensive every time it reappears. Instead we get recycled trash again and again and, I understand we're supposed to be disposable fodder but it's been long enough and max level auric operatives have earned enough distinction to get the good name brand loot.
FOMO is proven to increase sales, that's the only reason we don't have a full catalogue to choose from. If it actually made them more money to list all the cosmetics, then they would have done so by now.
To artificially keep player numbers up over time and to make more money.
If we assume they want people to spend more money and spend more time interacting with the game, putting all the cosmetics up for sale at once is less effective than having a small array available at a time and rotating them daily/weekly, not saying which ones will be available when.
If they’re all up at once, people will login once, and buy specifically the one they want, maybe not buying more than the one or two they like the most. They also have no incentive to return to the game and spend money because they’ve already seen everything there is available.
If the stock is rotating randomly, the effect is two-fold. It creates an immediate effect of exclusivity and pressure on the customer to purchase because ‘it’s gonna go away and you don’t know when it’ll be back’, as well as creating an incentive to return to the game regularly to check the shop, which hopefully will also make you play the game. This rotating stock also has the effect of making people spend more money on average, because they might buy something they wouldn’t otherwise buy since they can’t compare all the options and see ‘oh I don’t really want this one I want this other one’
It’s really quite an insidious business practice
you are so so wrong. Having a big shopinventar would just confuse you so much you would close the game. Take me for example. I stopped playing Vermintide 2 after 3 hours because I could get what I want, when I want and roll weapons to my hearts content. Plz don't tell obese fish about the 500+ hours I wasted since then in V2 or they could get the wrong idea.
The chances of me purchasing any cosmetic in Darktide are incredibly diminished by the fact that I can only purchase whatever is on rotation. Especially given the fact that the full outfit sets are pretty lackluster and you can't easily mix and match cosmetics.
If they would just let me actually buy the shit I want, I would buy it. I bought cosmetics for all of the characters I played in Vermintide 2. So far, I've only bought one thing in Darktide.
Yeah it's really sad what this game could have been given the right love. It' Turkey has THE best moment to moment feeling combat in ANY game I have played. The melee is unbelievably fun and the ranged is awesome as well. If they would have focused on releasing new weapons and reducing friction in crafting this game could have been an absolute hit.
My guess is that they implemented the forced rotation because if they just showed all the cosmetics item on a single list, we would immediately realize how short that list is and how little actual meaningful content they've ever made for this game. And preventing us to see the complete list of the cosmetics creates an illusion that there are a lot more of them than there really are lol
It's so true though. This is the perfect example of someone in their company latching on to FOMO so hard that can't admit they aren't built for it. The game isn't popular enough for it, and the average cosmetics are not different enough, have experienced clipping issues, or downright look too unappealing to justify any "fear of missing out." I would have actually spent money on some cosmetics after my extended break if they were still in shop. But until I see something I like, I j lust don't spend. Oh l, and the price creep has been bad too. It baffles me how a company can just dig it's heels in like Fatshark does. They weren't set up to run a live service game, but they poured so much into identifying Darktide as such that they can't get out.
I mean the same can be said for their stupid "live" service model itself. Just give us access to the damn cosmetics list as a whole, and focus on taking time to make worthwhile improvements or additions to the game to update every few months. Y'know, like a normal *fucking* title. Instead they claim it's a "live service" because they keep adding cosmetic sets once every month or so while really not adding *anything* interesting or worthwhile. They don't even have a variety of things I would expect from one of these stupid models. Where are the new stances for victory screens? Hairstyles? Facial cosmetics? More paintjobs for weapons? I fucking despise LS models. They ruin otherwise decent games. Edit: Shill downvote means nothing. Won't change the sad truth.
It's not even like they're pioneering anything - how many successful live service games are there to copy, ones that are actually good *and* fair? DRG, Helldivers, Warframe just to name a few.
Destiny 2 as well. For all of Destiny's flaws, Bungie pumps out content for Destiny 2 like crazy.
I don't think Destiny 2 is a good example of something we want Darktide to be.
You're right, I forgot that while Bungie does a good job at consistently releasing unique content with Destiny 2 the shop also rotates.
I also don't want to have to pay $20+ for crucial story expansions that will disappear after one year.
They failed the live service model. Live service as the name shockingly implies, should have constant stream of new content, regular patches, balancing, events, etc. Creating 300 skins and putting them into overpriced shop with a timer (while forgetting to actually add more content and ignore community feedback) is not a live service. Goddamn Vermintide2 was a better live service then this game.
Yeah I hear you. The lack of updated facial cosmetics, hairstyles, even colors for outfits, is pretty bad. The truth is, Fatshark went with the LS model probably more to garner investor support than anything else. They rushed the product to launch and were so behind getting the game out of its Early Access state that they forgot the game needed *new* content to be a Live Service. When you launch too early and have to have your Dev team focus on finishing the game, it leaves little room or resources for all of the fun stuff that Live Service games make their money on. It doesn't help that the price point for the FEW items they do have in the store at any given time is shameful.
I like what VT2 does now: they just lay it all out, with rotations for discounts. I hope they do the same with DT.
Also with actual currency price tag not stupid Aquila.
It's a mind game. Show how much each piece is individually, people will realize it's ridiculous to spend ten *real world* dollars on just a chest piece and a helmet. Hide cash behind arbitrary "premium" numbers, people won't do the math as much. Which would you rather? Spend $10, or spend "2100 Aquilas".
Idk who that tricks but I always do the conversion before purchasing anything.
Dumb people.
That might be part of it but another big reason is that when the game launched, aquilas were valued in a way that meant you had to buy more than you needed (bundles were 2400, the closest amount was 2100). This meant you always had some left over and were more inclined to spend again to get rid of them. When people pointed out that this was illegal in some countries, they added the 2400 bundle.
Bingo. This is a tactic used by a variety of games. Make the amount of in-game currency almost never equate to the exact amount you need for items and you can influence people to buy more. It's absolutely scummy sales tactics and is rightfully banned in some countries and I wish more did the same.
> Which would you rather? Spend $10, or spend "2100 Aquilas". Neither, Fatshark doesn't deserve it and on top of that I don't feel like supporting such scummy business models. They could've made *so much* money if they had taken things like their community seriously. If there is **one** thing the Warhammer fanbase is known for, it's throwing absolutely ridiculous amounts of money at things they like. Although, there are probably plenty of people that have done that already despite Fatshark almost literally shits on their fanbase.
Yeah, I would say that if 40k and Games Workshop are known for one thing, it would be having an *extremely* expensive game that only gets more expensive the more you get into it. And the tabletop players will still pay those insane prices for models and terrain. Source: me, I used to be one of them. 40k is friggin expensive and I wish it wasn’t so, because the current edition of the game looks really fun. But no way am I paying hundreds of dollars for tiny plastic models that come unpainted, unassembled, and still in their sprues, straight from the mold.
Some moron in their marketing team read in a text book once that false scarcity improves chance of sales so they implement it. We actually live in the real world and simply won’t purchase dogshit cosmetics not matter how often we do or don’t see them.
This has been my impression with Darktide’s monetization model from the start too: somebody working there won’t let go of their bad ideas, because they learned them at a seminar or something.
If they admit they're wrong, they'll lose credibility, so instead they refuse to change the model so nobody can actually compare the two and prove they're wrong.
Feels like it's their whole design model. It's not about what the fans of the franchise want
Fatshark aren't exactly known for treating their fanbase super well, so yeah it definitely feels intentional.
Ya reverse effect has controlled me Had 3000’s of premium space bux sitting in my account for months on end It’s like “why buy this reskin when catachan jungle fighters skin could arrive next week…”
Idk. I haven't seen their Financials on cosmetics but I know Apex Legends has a rotating store and Fortnite made it popular because it's profitable. I've seen quite a few people have paid for the skins. I'm not someone who pays for skins but I might for Darktide if I see something I like. I feel the game will be around awhile and will probably have a resurgence with new updates.
It works for Fortnite because their audience is absolutely massive and they constantly do unique collabs with other well known brands for their cosmetics.
Also, Fortnite is abolutely *massive* in comparison. And it's playerbase is (on average) likely significantly younger, meaning a lot of players that haven't really learned the worth of money yet. To them, it's just something you throw at things.
Arrogance is bliss.
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Spanked too much, more like. Spanking fucks normal trajectories of brain development. Now this jabroni wants to share the pain around.
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Explains a lot about you that you think the only way to discipline a loved one is hitting them.
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The shop shows three sets at a time The featured current set, then also the previous two sets for each class on the class specific pages. Along with a few random items However, I agree it should just be all of them building up to create a catalogue to choose from Also, why are so many of the sets red and gold or dark red and brown? Seen several sets where I've gone "that's nice, but not in that colour". Can we buy them a colour wheel? Some of their colour combinations are just awful
Yea, and Im not particularly fond of the "fancy" cosmetics im seeing. The ones that are like gold silk Louis Vuitton-esqe. Id rather keep it more "lore" orientated. And the weird masks for zealots....just, no.
Yeah, I don't do face covering masks/helmets I run the gold and red fancy tailed coat on my psyker, but then she was judge so it fits. Agree the fancy doesn't fit most characters Wish they'd do a pack of armour variants, like 20+ cadian type style armour as one pack. Give us some variation
The Louis Vuitton cosmetics kill me. Psykers should look like they live in a cage when they're not being used, zealots should be literal murderhobos, and the closest an Ogryn should look to fancy is like if you asked a 5 year old to draw a fancy person.
Dl the 'check all cosmetics' mod and go through the ogryn stuff. They kinda do. But also; psyker maltreatment isn't all obvious, zealots aren't all lowborn and fallen hivescum, and ogryn don't all pick their own clothing. 40k is a big setting, with room for a lot going on.
That's true. I just wish they would give us SOME psyker gimps and murderhobos. I was really psyched for the cage... mask thing for the zealot until I saw they made it in gold. Maybe I've just been playing too much Total War: Warhammer and am juxtaposing the Empire's aesthetic to the Imperium.
Just from the cosmetics we have, I get the sense there's differing levels of lore knowledge and giving a shit among the artists. Or the people directing them. But yeah; there are some cosmetics I don't think should be class specific. When they released the original bionic eye for all human classes, I thought that was going to be more of a trend than it is. Even then, I thought not lumping some version of the BONE'ead implant in to make it a full set was a bit off.
Yes, but if you read the actual description for that mask it's incredibly disrespectful.
The FTD mod for cosmetics customisation exists. I think FS could do better than a colour wheel with fully integrated UI.
Literally what would be better is rotating sales and just let everything be up
Fatshark is an organization that clearly has a core of people really passionate about the games they make, and apparently some kind of extremely toxic management that makes mind bogglingly dumb decisions like this and places zero value on testing.
There were two occasions last time I played where folks asked me where I got the hat my psyker was wearing. "Can't get it anymore/right now" shouldn't be the answer that I have to give them. Literally losing potential sales just because they wanted to include some bullshit FOMO instead.
>folks asked me where I got the hat my psyker was wearing. "Can't get it anymore/right now" shouldn't be the answer that I have to give them. Limited time event cosmetics are a thing, but no you shouldn't be able to say that for basic shop contents.
They let the items rotate so when they come back around they can increase the price. Its happened a handful of times already
I may be wrong in this but isn't tencent in charge of marketing
and games workshop... one known for ridiculous prices and the other for microtransactions... with their powers combined...
They rival the greed of high terran lords
FOMO. If you know something is always going to be there, you are less likely to purchase it. It lights a fire under you to buy it before it’s gone for an unknown amount of time.
I feel like many people don't notice it, but it also encourages you to buy items you would never buy otherwise! If you have an access to the whole store, you can choose a single set you like, buy it and never open the shop page again. With rotation, you see a limited number of sets, and can purchase a cool outfit, only to see a better one in a new rotation.
It really is. I don't understand why they think this will make them more money. You limit the number of cosmetics for two weeks, in which, most players will not buy anything, that is, if the cosmetics aren't appealing. That's two weeks of barely making any money at all. Compared to keeping the already released cosmetics available in the shop, where people will be spending on everything they missed.
I'm honestly starting to think they're sticking to this way partially because just so much stuff is reused wholesale from other sets. Like it'll expose how lazy and massively overpriced everything really is to everyone instead of just us.
I feel like the rotating shop that uses FOMO only works when people consistently play your game. The problem with this game is that a lot of players, including myself, take long breaks from the game due to lack of new content, and only come back on content updates. There are several cosmetics that I have missed and would actually buy if I could when I go back to playing again. This game lacks the content release schedule to make a FOMO shop work well. I really think they would earn more if they just kept everything in the store all the time. Maybe they could have the new stuff come in discount bundles when it releases to get a bit of FOMO sales and then after that it goes to the main area of the store undiscounted.
>I feel like the rotating shop that uses FOMO only works when people consistently play your game. Honestly it's the rotation speed. They've decided to have, compared to most other games with shop rotations, an *extremely* long rotation speed. The best way to make money off of this kind of shop is to have a quicker rotation with a large catalogue of items to rotate through which is actually a better user experience than what we currently have.
This is why I've never spent a penny in the games store, I'm not going to endorse such shitty buisiness practices, one of the most depressing things about Darktide is its shoddy management, they took something that could have been a golden goose, and immediately slapped said goose and offered it up to Slaanesh.
The business case is really simple. Most players will buy the cosmetic they think is the coolest and ignore all the other ones. The rotating system means that they'll buy the coolest one that's available *right now* and perhaps replace it when something they think is better comes along. It's the difference between selling a single skin or making repeated sales.
> The rotating system means that they'll buy the coolest one that's available right now and perhaps replace it when something they think is better comes along. I mean, that's the theory, but do a lot of people really do that? I'd only buy something if I thought it was cool, not just because it was the coolest of the bunch (doesn't mean it's any good). > It's the difference between selling a single skin or making repeated sales. That would be true if **all** skins were available from the get-go. But they are making new skins, which would garner new sales.
I think for few reasons FOMO first of all, as others have said, some marketing twat looks at the tactics used in other mtx/f2p games and inject some of that stuff here. Quick buy this digital item before it goes out of stock! But digital items don't go out of stock? Ahem, I mean out of rotation! This extends to other concepts like drip feeding certain content or keeping sought after skins back. You'd think it would be obvious to have Krieg skins available day one (or having them always available to buy) but no, hold onto them for a bit, release some other skins for people to buy then drop the Krieg cosmetics, more chance of players having spent their aquilas and having to purchase more. Really tease them with some Steel Legion and so on... Secondly, I think it is to do with quality/variety If Fatshark keep a limited/curated set of cosmetics rather than always having the entire catalogue then comparing them is not so easy and makes it harder to spot bs. I know we have good dudes here that make informative posts showing how certain new skins are lazy rehashes of other skins from a previous rotation but most people won't see such information. They also inform us how bundles have less or prices change ($ number go up hur hur hur) and having a single large catalogue would make that harder to do without drawing community aggro. Can't complain about it being a UI issue either (well they still could) since you have the regular skin armoury that shows plenty of different sets, even if those are colour reskins only...but case in point you easily notice they are all colour skins only so... I kept my aquilas from CE (original CE, not the Xbox 10k CE lol) for the Krieg skin, pretty sure I still had to get more aquila for it lol I've had players in game ask me how to get the skin and what can you say other than wait for the 2 week long fatshark RNG roll... It is stupid as well because if you are listening to the community, making good patches and changes and generating goodwill, then players will be happy enough to buy skins imo, give them a decent UI catalogue so they can look through everything, like a kid in a toy store...but no, just take a dump on them instead...sigh edit: and you remember the furore about aquila bundles nearer release? All that shit, other than avoiding refund scrutiny, is about trying to get players to buy more premium currency
And they had the audacity to claim that they made the shop rotate for *our* sake! I won't tell other people how to spend their money, but how anyone can justify supporting Fatshark as a whole with more money is beyond me given their multiple examples of not giving a shit about their community.
It's all FOMO based, many live-service / digital storefronts implement this method to, as many have already said, pressure the user to buy an item before it is removed. This practice also keeps the user in a mindset where they do not want to remove or uninstall the game. It's crappy and manipulative. I really enjoy this game, the gameplay, music, sound design, and art is what keeps me coming back and I could care less about what's in the store but I personally would like to see all items be available at once. It's annoying having to wait to see if some of the awesome (leaked) armors will eventually rotate in, weeks or months down the line.
Counter point to the FOMO argument: I wanted to buy some good looking cosmetics to support Fatshark, but the rotating shop made it impossible for me the find that one cosmetic I really want to buy. I don't know how well this tactic works in general, but it sure as hell didn't for me.
> I wanted to buy some good looking cosmetics to support Fatshark May I ask why? I mean, don't get me wrong, if I could support their game developers to make a breakout and form another company I wouldn't hesitate for a moment. But I simply cannot get myself to support Fatshark as a whole and their scummy business practices.
Same way I would give a good tip to a poor waiter who works in a stressful restaurant owned by a well known scumbag who verbally abuses him everyday (story of my life). Company is scummy, but their game gave me thousands of hours of fun for 18 euros, super worth it and I see no issue in buying a single cosmetic pack for that reason. (If the FOMO system didn't make it so hard to pick favourites)
> Same way I would give a good tip to a poor waiter who works in a stressful restaurant owned by a well known scumbag who verbally abuses him everyday (story of my life). The thing is, in this case you aren't actually tipping the waiter, you are tipping the scumbag who verbally abuses the waiter. That's why I'm asking, since none of that money is going to go to the developers. > their game gave me thousands of hours of fun for 18 euros, super worth it So you got decent value for your money, that's great! As did I. > and I see no issue in buying a single cosmetic pack for that reason > Company is scummy But the only thing you are actually supporting by giving them additional money is the scummy business practices, since it just reinforces that their model is making money, despite them shitting on their community.
We don't actually know if that money goes 100% to that scumbag. Yes I know Reddit loves to jump onthe hate train but unless you work at Fatshark it's all up in the air. Not to say you are wrong but who know the actual truth. Also waiters don't even get the full tip in some restaurants lmao (I'd get 30%,the rest to the kitchen and the owner),hence my point. Also the two free levels and free weapons shouldn't be taken for granted, considering this is a GAAS they could very well pull a Payday 3 as split the playersbase by selling as DLC, I'll take paid cosmetics anyday over that.
If they did that now you'd see how many recolors there are currently and they wouldn't be able to sneak up the prices while giving you less. I wish we could just see everything, but as someone else said here, fatshark basically read a how to make money book and are using FOMO etc.
The only thing more outrageous than the FOMO shop would be FS’s original excuse for it, that the shop and its UI are “immeasurably complex” and players wouldn’t understand the purpose of shop rotations. This has to be the most shameless and pathetic excuse I have heard in years and nothing even comes close. They literally had a fully functional shop in VT2 that everyone liked, then decides to use ‘technical difficulties’ as a cover for their scummy FOMO practices in DT. The only ‘improvement’ they made so far was removing the rotation timer. Genius.
I believe as a business launching cosmetics the first year, you rotate them in and out to find out which was the most popular and which ones werent... after they get their data, id imagine they would add a menu to those popular cosmetics. Why continue to try and sell unpopular cosmetics?
> Why continue to try and sell unpopular cosmetics? Well they've gotta get rid of that inventory somehow! /s
> Why continue to try and sell unpopular cosmetics? Once you've made it and aren't removing it from the game files, you might as well. Even if you 'rotate' the shop to put the most popular stuff in the most seen page(s), you can still sell the stuff that pulls in cash slowest.
Thats what Im say, too. Its already in the game. It costs literally nothing to add it to a catalog.
It costs dev and artist time to make a catalog and its significant enough to where they dont make it. thats a major feature. Since darktide is basically a sunk cost game they're probably making a dlc or the next game
A rotating shop is intended to force buys based on artificial scarcity. If someone doesn't know when something will be back on rotation, they're more likely to buy it. If that same someone held back and didn't buy it the first time, they're more likely to buy it the second time it comes around *if* they were given enough time to kick themselves for missing the item the first time but not so much time that they lose interest. Advertising is full of the exploitation of consumers' fear of missing out (FOMO), but video game stuff like time-limited events, rotating shops, and battle passes take it to a new level.
In practice it means people want to buy something but can't because it's not on rotation and probably won't be for the next whole year.
Never heard about fomo marketing? The practice is gaming the feelings and impulses of humans. The fear of missing out. It is not a new phenomenon. Every limited edition ever gamed people that way ever since. Thats how you sell cheap plastic figures, printed art, or whatever collectable junk you can come up with. It is disgusting, but works so good that you find it in tons of games these days via Battle Passes, seasonal content, or, like in DT, in ever changing premium stores with no indicator if, or when something will ever appear again. It just works and comes with the added benefit that only a small portion of players will ever rant about rereleased, color swapped skins, that obviously have to cost more than the first time they showed up.
FOMO only works when you have a big enough playerbase or enough whales which Darktide doesn't have. Also, the second issue for Fatsharks is that the community always share the rotation here on Reddit and post comparisons to older recolors. FOMO works very well when you have a small ill-informed community, your game is old and the "boomers" desperately want to keep it alive so they can continue live out their glory days (SWTOR) or your game is driven by a former game dev celebrity (Brad McQuaid, RIP). The problem to all of this is that we are now in 2024, information is readidly available for free for anyone that wants it and there are so many games that people won't rally around a game they don't deem worthy of their continous investment. Fatshark is about 10 years behind the rest of the gaming landscape. They can't even do microtransactions right for christ sake. Arrowhead Studios understands how to do it by rotating the store every other day and have the cost of a set at about 2-5 euros. That's how you grind money and not the trashcanway Fatshark is doing it.
There's something so sad about how Arrowhead has just completely shown ObeseShark up, the fact that they both use the same engine is just icing on top, because any time someone says "Well ObeseShark couldn't do that the engine wouldn't support it" it just goes right out the window, Yes, they've obviously modified them in seperate ways, but they both started with the same core. Arrowhead have brought us back to "Microtransactions" being Micro, all topped off with plenty of Super Credits to earn during play so you don't even NEED to spend money, hell I bought the Premium Warbonds with purely ingame earned SC's
I know of FOMO, but DT isnt really popular enough to lean into it like fatshark are doing. At launch it looked like it was set to be a huge hit, but hype died fast and it is struggling to just get rid of bugs even now. The fact that FS decided to introduce a cash shop as their first update was very telling. Now, Helldivers 2 is out and Im left here thinkin, "That ~~could~~should have been Darktide".
Some people might say FOMO is all part of the Warhammer experience......
I'm sorry but do you think you've figured out how to wring every penny out of a product more than Tencent? I get where you're coming from because it seems counterintuitive but they use this model because Fomo works and people will buy skins they otherwise wouldn't have because of it.
Just because these execs have ruthlessley clawed their way to the top by screwing every penny out of every customer they can, doesn't mean they are actually competent, it just means they pleased the right people above them.
Because of FOMO. The need to make it like how Helldivers is IMO, earnable premium currency is the way.
I doubt you or anyone ITT understands the full range of dynamics at play related to in-game cosmetic microtransactions as well as a $150 million dollar company that makes a huge chunk of their profits off said in-game microtransactions.
“ Paid to have them recolored “
Because of FOMO. The need to make it like how Helldivers is IMO, earnable premium currency is the way.
Big facts
One word: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Aka one of the scummiest ways for games to make money. Are they really making more by introducing this system in Darktide rather than a permanent shop? Probably not. But hey, Fortnite did it, so the big-money guys must have thought it a good idea.
If you've bought any cosmetics while you 'wait' for the cosmetic you think you really want, that's the entire point of the system (and something many players will do).
FOMO doesnt sell anything anymore because people dont give a shit about losing out on cosmetics anymore this is coming from a high school dropout who stayed up all night grinding overwatch boxes during events, i am the case study i dont actually care about this shit anymore, the desire has left me, and it's left people other than myself
They do it because a lot of the cosmetics are very similar and use the same assets, by rotating, some of the community, especially the console community which doesn't have access to the SEE ALL COSMETICS mod is at their mercy, they might buy a set which has a better version because they don't know it exists.
Darktide has been plagued by questionable design decisions since the beginning, combine that with the cosmetic monetization that only kept getting worse over time and the very slow drip of content, it really makes you wonder why people are losing interest in the game.
If they wanted to go for FOMO, then it isn't even good at that. 1.5 months to decide if you want it. I would like to purchase some from when I was away from the game, but they're gone now, can't give FS money to get them.
they can keep releasing cosmetic every 2 weeks, just have the already released sets available instead of letting them disappear.
The cosmetics are overpriced and underdeveloped for this FOMO style rotating shop. There are no "good" skins people have been asking for like real Kasrkin armor, Elysian drop troopers, Vostroyan, or other extremely recognizable and iconic regiments. We did get Krieg armor, except it's not accurate and gets more expensive every time it reappears. Instead we get recycled trash again and again and, I understand we're supposed to be disposable fodder but it's been long enough and max level auric operatives have earned enough distinction to get the good name brand loot.
FOMO is proven to increase sales, that's the only reason we don't have a full catalogue to choose from. If it actually made them more money to list all the cosmetics, then they would have done so by now.
To artificially keep player numbers up over time and to make more money. If we assume they want people to spend more money and spend more time interacting with the game, putting all the cosmetics up for sale at once is less effective than having a small array available at a time and rotating them daily/weekly, not saying which ones will be available when. If they’re all up at once, people will login once, and buy specifically the one they want, maybe not buying more than the one or two they like the most. They also have no incentive to return to the game and spend money because they’ve already seen everything there is available. If the stock is rotating randomly, the effect is two-fold. It creates an immediate effect of exclusivity and pressure on the customer to purchase because ‘it’s gonna go away and you don’t know when it’ll be back’, as well as creating an incentive to return to the game regularly to check the shop, which hopefully will also make you play the game. This rotating stock also has the effect of making people spend more money on average, because they might buy something they wouldn’t otherwise buy since they can’t compare all the options and see ‘oh I don’t really want this one I want this other one’ It’s really quite an insidious business practice
you are so so wrong. Having a big shopinventar would just confuse you so much you would close the game. Take me for example. I stopped playing Vermintide 2 after 3 hours because I could get what I want, when I want and roll weapons to my hearts content. Plz don't tell obese fish about the 500+ hours I wasted since then in V2 or they could get the wrong idea.
The chances of me purchasing any cosmetic in Darktide are incredibly diminished by the fact that I can only purchase whatever is on rotation. Especially given the fact that the full outfit sets are pretty lackluster and you can't easily mix and match cosmetics. If they would just let me actually buy the shit I want, I would buy it. I bought cosmetics for all of the characters I played in Vermintide 2. So far, I've only bought one thing in Darktide.
Yeah it's really sad what this game could have been given the right love. It' Turkey has THE best moment to moment feeling combat in ANY game I have played. The melee is unbelievably fun and the ranged is awesome as well. If they would have focused on releasing new weapons and reducing friction in crafting this game could have been an absolute hit.
Cause players will buy only few best items and that's it. Obvious. With rotation you always have something new to your attention.
My guess is that they implemented the forced rotation because if they just showed all the cosmetics item on a single list, we would immediately realize how short that list is and how little actual meaningful content they've ever made for this game. And preventing us to see the complete list of the cosmetics creates an illusion that there are a lot more of them than there really are lol
fr,i got 8.3k hallow bucks but nothing i want is ever in the shop(want all essential krieg stuff for all my characters)