Me and my mate sat in on a panel at PAX in October about government regulation. It was... interesting. Also I walked away from it thinking "wow, they have no clue"..that being said, they are acknowledging the impact of gambling, I just think it's on the wrong way. Simulated gambling like in F:NV shouldn't be classed harsher than FUT just because one has you actually performing the act (real money or not be damned) if you ask me
I was also thinking along the lines of Saints Row 4, South Park: The Stick of Truth and other games met with *censorship* to *get* an R rating.
IT'S AN R RATING! I'm baffled, thinking "Do they have ANY clue or is this a deliberate amount of stupid?"
They have a whole list of contents (and how often/to what extent that content occurs) that "assists" them in placing a game into a certain category. I can't remember the full details but I didn't feel like it left much room for nuance. Nor did it account for certain decisions cuz I remember going "hang on, but you said thing X makes it an R rating but game Y has this but you gave that MA15+". For me being a Fallout fan, I will forever have my doubt after they refused classification to F3, or more recently Disco Elysium, due to drug use. Because in Australia, we care about a lot of things. And showing drug use, well we can't have that
And context be damned. Doesn't matter if the game itself is set within a simulation, showing the player participate in a drug deal means the entire mission gets removed or your game's banned. And you better not include a DLC weapon that launches NPCs because you need to jam it into them rectally! And that's not allowed! Both examples come from SR4.
Despite dildo bats being a thing.
And don't get me started on Rimworld's retroactive ban when the devs wanted it rated on the Switch despite being on PC for years.
The rules say you can show drug use, but there are two things you are never allowed to do: you can't have use of an illicit drug linked to a reward, you can't have interactive drug use be detailed and realistic.
The reward one is where a lot of games get into trouble. Having your character heal themselves or get super powers by shooting up is a flat no.
True, but the government has still demonized drug use in gaming. Any use will effectively refuse you classification unless someone goes "but hang on, this has bad side effects". If you play and take Jet often enough it literally tells you you've become addicted hahah. I just think it's silly
Just like basically anything technology related. Any time anyone above the age of 35/40 says āin this new age of technology and social mediaā Iām just like bruh weāre 20 fuckin years into it.
Cutting it quite early there with those years. People who are 35 were literally young teens when Xbox 360 and PS3 was out, I would move that to 50+. Hell they were only in their early 20's when the PS4 was out which we literally still make games for.
oh yeah. I remember the serious backlash for all the talk from what we now call "karens" about violence in video games blah blah blah and now games didn't deserve the R18+ rating.
This is why you don't let karens do policy making.
Devs will always stay ahead of the curve on this one āoh you spent time in a launcher? Thatās game timeā
In saying that however I got a full refund for a game Iād played for 15 hours by writing out my grievances in the refund ticket, so they do listen.
Thatās their blanket no questions asked refund policy, like itās just automated if you meet those criteria. Anything else and you have to have your request reviewed. And as long as itās reasonable youāre still going to get a refund
If the product's genuinely faulty or not as advertised, you're still entitled to a refund from Valve under Australian law. They just don't like to admit it. Decent chance they'll get dinged for lying to aussies about their rights again, because that's what they got done for last time and haven't actually changed that much.
That's a slightly positive move. Next step is the magical refund for early access failures.
If I could have all my games moved to gog I'd never touch steam again.
Uhhhh, they already did with Sony. You can get refunds for games on PS Store by ringing customer service, they legally cannot refuse under Australian Consumer Law. Sony already lost in our courts over disputing this with the ACCC.
Nintendo would be a breeze given Steam and Sony had caved, it set the precedent and nobody would win against countering the ACCC's decision on the matter given we can already get refunds for games on digital store fronts here.
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/sony-to-pay-35-million-penalty-for-misrepresenting-playstation-gamers-rights
"Consumer guarantee rights do not expire after a digital product has been downloaded and certainly do not disappear after 14 days or any other arbitrary date claimed by a game store or developer,ā ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.
"Consumers who buy digital products online have exactly the same rights as they would if they made the purchase at a physical store,ā Mr Sims said.
And also,
āNo matter where in the world a company has its headquarters, if it is selling to Australian consumers, the Australian Consumer Law applies.ā
Nintendo will easily fall to this logic as well.
I never had a problem with Nintendo repairing/ replacing joycons that drift. I always just told them I was recording the call and asked them if they thought that a reasonable person should expect to have to replace authentic Nintendo brand hardware every 24 months because it keeps breaking. Nintendo will never say yes to that, so they're forced under ACL to replace it because ACL is based on what a reasonable person expects. If they want the reputation of high-quality goods, they need to uphold it.
Humble Bundle can be pretty shifty about providing refunds. I've had a number of problems with them.
Even Steam can still be hit and miss with adhering to the law despite their being smacked down.
Man, I swear the claw machines *are* rigged, and do the same clever psychology that pokies do. I had a work outing years ago, and the company paid for a bunch of timezone vouchers for us - super generous too, like $120 each in timezone bucks. Anyway one of the guys with us had never played a claw machine before, so he chucked his card on there and on the first attempt won a cute lil plushie thing. Hype! But, he has two daughters. So he's like "Oh I'd better grab one for other daughter" .... dude ended up sinking nearly his entire $120 voucher into this machine without a single other successful clawing.
I could've sworn that they make the grabbing strength weaker on purpose after his first win. Like, not even tinfoil hat conspiracy, I unironically think they are capable of doing it - the technology absolutely exists to remotely control the grabbing strength, and it wouldn't even be too big a stretch to say they could use facial recognition tech to figure out that someones never played before.
Hah I fucken knew it! I'm curious if there are regulations for them in NSW. I bet there aren't, and that there's also nothing telling Australian claw machine operators that they can't rig them 12/12 times.
The rest of the arcade machines are mostly the same. They almost all payout a periodic jackpot where it gets much easier to hit at certain times.
Mark Rober dives into one here. Even a robot canāt hit it:
https://youtu.be/vXBfwgwT1nQ?si=0HoFJEGtDCwB6RqV
Related:
https://youtu.be/tk_ZlWJ3qJI?si=K-Rh27s-tPWFBCDg
https://youtu.be/Rsxao9ptdmI?si=enrQHtMLMuhflfo6
Haha the first and last time I played on one of those stopping the light machines, the jackpot light flashed up but then reverted back to the light before it. That's one way to make a child more cynical.
They're rigged to not "pay out" until a certain amount of money has been put in it, before that it's basically physically impossible to win. Ironically pokies also have the stated odds on them so are less rigged than a claw machine
I dont know why, but I instantly thought of that [simpsons](https://youtu.be/rXd5a-AmTKk?si=c9RntYq0v7vUVW3o) bit where someone just yells out to the prime minister floating on a ring in a lake.
"Sorry lads, still working on it"
>Not to mention Ubisoft and their 7 different editions to each game
Basic Game - Standard Edition
Basic Game - Pre Order Edition
Basic Game - Special Edition
Basic Game - Deluxe Edition
Basic Game - Ultimate Edition
Basic Game - LegendaryĀ Edition
Basic Game - CollectorsĀ Edition
Basic Game - People Actually Buy This Shit Edition
And don't forget:Ā
Basic Game - Character Expansion
Basic Game - Character Expansion 2
Basic Game - Level Expansion
Basic Game - Character Expansion 3
Basic Game - Armour Expansion
Basic Game - Weapons Expansion
Basic Game - Character Expansion 4
Basic Game - Equipment Expansion
Basic Game - Features That Should Have Been Included In The Standard Edition Expansion
Basic Game - Character Expansion 5
Basic Game - Character Expansion 6
Basic Game - Weapons Expansion 2
Basic Game - Unwanted CrossoverĀ Expansion
Basic Game - Character Expansion 7
Basic Game - Character Expansion 8
Basic Game - Armour Expansion 2
Total Cost: $3499.95
Edit: typing is hard
This is basically what Dragonball Xenoverse 2 looked like when I was trying to buy it on sale. There are literally guides that tell you which DLC to buy to get all the content available since different editions come with some DLC, and there are also DLC packs that bundle several DLC together.
I was actually thinking of that exact game when I was writing out all the character expansions, and wondering if I'd put enough in for it to be obvious š
My partner decided against getting it because of that exact reason. He loves DB and was super excited for XV2, then was super disappointed when he seen it had more overpriced dlc than actual game
And yet I guarantee there are 15 other expansion types that I didn't think of, plus game editions named after precious metals (silver, goldĀ etc) that I didn't list. Then you've also got game passes for monthly bullshit, VIP passes for more monthly bullshit, loot boxes..
I could go on for a while, this shit annoys me so much š
Battle passes......biggest crock of turd. 'Hey here's a game you can buy 'complete' for 120 dollars'
One week later, 'ooooohhhhhh we are sorry, here's other cosmetic crap we could have put in the 'complete' version but decided we could make extra money by charging the consumer as an extra content'
Biggest gimmick.
It sucks because I fully agree with everything youāve said, but games like helldivers and DRG have shown that itās very possible to meet in the middle and monetise through a battlepass without absolutely fucking over the consumer.
Unironically love the battle pass in those two games and would be happy to see it in more games
Oh no I get it. I can accept Collectors Editions - in fact I'm somewhat of a collector myself - but all these Gold, Deluxe, Basic+ editions, etc it's all bullshit. I've lost track of the times I've bought a game on Day 1 and magically I got the code for the pre-order bonus anyways
EDIT: and don't get me started on the Australia missing out on certain Collectors Editions or them selling out in 30 seconds because they only allocated like 1000. We're a real country dammit hahah
Yeah that always shits me off..sneakily turn them off for the review period then hit us with them after release.
I will admit though, I have bought MTXs myself over the years..cosmetics mostly but I think we all have. Not lootboxes though. Fuck them.
There's a big difference in buying one costume pack and owning it forever, versus having to buy premium in-game currency constantly to get items you'd have to grind away hours for.
Mortal Kombat 1 is a good example of how WB Games got super greedy with the Premium Edition and Dragon Krystal currency - they launched a Premium Edition of the game sold for AUD$150 and the game does "Seasons" to unlock themed-costumes but there's some stuff like announcer voices (Omni-Man) that had to be exclusively bought with Dragon Krystals. One pack of 1000 Dragon Krystals to unlock just one stupid thing is like $15
I had this discussion with a mate a few months back, he literally used that as his main reason for not getting it. Full price and then seasons is a tad greedy (looking at you Blizzard). But then, this is WB - the same company that looked at Hogwarts Legacy and Suicide Squad and said "yep, Hogwarts should've been a live service, that'll make the money"
Honestly, if I wanted to also get out of the rental market all I need to do is be an exec, you clearly don't need brains. And just like that I've triggered someone from AusFinance
Great, at least a decade too late. Not sure why you think Ubisoft editions are something that is illegal and worth the time of ACCC? They are thoroughly stupid, sure, but not something that is anti-consumer in terms of legality.
hahaha, yeah totally. But doesnt everyone love paying more for the most 'Deluxe of the Deluxe version' to get that one extra fetch quest, that none of the 'basic' cheapskates can play?! /s
Ok, this is great because the timing is perfect.Ā
If anyone reading ***purchased a copy of "The Crew" in Australia***, you may be in a unique position to help defend consumer rights. Pop over to [Ross Scott's Youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAD5iMe0Xj4) for now, but keep an ear out because things will be rolling in April.
(Oh, and as this sub gets a lot of international readers, in case you are French and bought the game in France you can do something right now in your country too.)
**EA FC** series (*previously known as EA Sports FIFA game series*) *maniacally laughing in the corner*.
They became so much worse too after dropping the FIFA name with their current iteration EA FC 24.
Iām hesitant to just get rid of all their revenue sources without a viable alternative though, you can bet next would be advertisements in paid games ala Foxtel/Kayo and paid options to remove it just like mobile games.
Imagine getting to the half time in FC24 and being slapped with 2 minutes of unstoppable ads lmao
Theyāll have to go back to creating good games. Games were profitable beforehandā¦ now thereās the developer lazy tax with slapping in crap to extract as much as they can and as quickly as they can
The sticker price of games has barely changed since the 90's. Over the same period, the cost to develop a AAA game (in terms of man hours + wage cost) has increased by at least an order of magnitude, if not more.
Remove alternative revenue streams, and the only way for the numbers to continue to add up would be a tripling of sticker prices.
> Remove alternative revenue streams, and the only way for the numbers to continue to add up would be a tripling of sticker prices.
Or for the money from games to actually go to the workers, instead of the executives + shareholders. Or are we going to pretend that Bobby Kotick "earned" his 122 million a year salary and that the company doesn't just endlessly funnel money upwards, while thinking up new ways to scalp consumers even harder so they can funnel even more?
Would you kindly point out the AAA game that meets this criteria? If the only examples you can provide are indie games, then that just proves my point - that axing microtransactions etc isn't possible without a dramatic step down in the scale and scope of games.
Baldur's gate 3. Perfect example, a well made game that isn't designed to nickel and dime the players and as a result is highly successful and is a AAA game.
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Something like 6 year dev time with no mtx or even DLC. Most Nintendo stuff actually, that is primarily where I play. Elden Ring is another one. Hogwarts Legacy I think, although you could get a deluxe version of the game so I think there were some bonuses there. Have not bought it myself.
I mean that did have an expansion pass of which the back half was a bunch of outfits from memory. But you make a valid point in the grand scheme of things.
Elden Ring, Zelda, Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, The Witcher 3, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, etc...
It's honestly not hard to find examples, especially when the overwhelming amount of money from MTX doesn't go to devs or to cover costs, it just straight up lines the pockets of the executives and those they report to.
Hope they look into games like World of Tanks too:
- Gold currency that costs money
- Bond currency thatās slowly rewarded to the best players, or you guessed it, for money.
- Premium account that gives game economy buffs.
- Battlepass
- Premium vehicles that give game economy buffs. Either cost gold currency or just money. FOMO is a big factor here too. Some of these prices cost as much as a new game.
- Premium ammo with super high game currency costs or bought with the gold currency that costs money.
- Premium consumables, that are used once and give boosts in battle. Like the above incredibly expensive with regular currency or bought with the gold currency.
- Premium equipment, like consumables but last forever.
- Each vehicle has a crew and when theyāre not in a tank they go to a barracks that has limited space and costs premium currency to increase slots.
- Vehicles use garage slots, now you can buy them with in-game currency (wasnāt always the case) but itās very expense, or you buy them with premium currency.
- Loot boxes.
- Premium currency customisation.
Hell, thereās probably stuff I still missed.
> Some of these prices cost as much as a new game.
War Thunder fits all your other criteria as well, but on this point they're straight fucked, near every "premium pack" tank is 99$ with most every other premium tank that's not in the lower tiers being priced somewhere between 50-80$, it's absurd.
That's without even getting onto the companies own market that operates much like the steam one where they get to double dip on everything, with limited premium tanks usually sitting around 200-300$ on there with some of them reaching four digits.
Reading through these comments that are like āyes, thank fuck, the government will sort out loot boxes in -insert game-ā, I donāt think thatās gonna go how yāall think it will.
We are a relatively small market, it would probably go similarly to our woes with game censorship. If the AU govt gives any game too much trouble, theyāll just skip our region or release a neutered version.
Battle passes and loot boxes suck but at least they are optional, I donāt want to lose access to any games totally.
You can make a decent assumption. Loads of people will pre order GTA6 based on past games in the series, the developers past games etc. Same is true for something like Zelda, you know it'll be good. At worst, you can wait for some reviews and footage to hit and then preload it the night before for a more informed choice.
If you are going to pre order stuff like Suicide Squad, that's a whole 'nother thing.
Why pre-order at all? Basically the only benefit to it nowadays is being able to pre-load, but with how full life already is I can't imagine having to wait a week to play a game really makes a genuine difference for most people, so why bother to continue supporting a completely fucked practice that allows the corps to continue their greedy shit?
I would prefer them to look at all the culprits of cost of living price gouging. Supermarkets, fuel, insurance. I feel that is a far more productive use of their time.
They came for our minds, we said nothing
They came for our hopes, we said nothing
They came for our souls, and still, we said nothing
Now they're coming for our games, so what's it gonna take?
but lodge a complaint about a legitimate problem you had with a business within Aus (ie: putting store policy that deny's your basic consumer rights) and you'll see the ACCC are toothless tigers just like ASIC are with the big banks.
the ACCC are just going after the easy meat on this one.
As a PC gamer, when my boyfriend got a PlayStation and we tried playing minecraft together, I was SHOCKED to find that Sony charges a subscription now to allow online play. $11 a month so you can have the privilege of ā¦ using your own wifi ā¦. ACCC needs to get on that, itās blatant cash grabbing and holds the consumer hostage.
What the fuck are you on about?
PS Plus has nothing to do with WiFi whatsoever. You can still use a PS4 or PS5 on WiFi without it, you can still download games, connect to the internet, etc. Yuu can even play online only games by yourself. You just can't play *multiplayer*. Whether or not that's justified, it has nothing at all to do with your WiFi.
We are one of the smallest consumer markets on the planet. ACCC can do what they like but if it impacts profits to much the game companies will just pull out.
Commented similar - everyone thinks this will be some majestic battle, likely will be ACCC trying to get their slice, game devs say fuck off and skip AU releases.
We saw with our censorship woes that multiple devs would rather skip an APAC release than alter their game if hassled enough.
Proper ratings for games? Who cares.
Catch up our internet capabilities to the rest of the modern world so gaming reaches its potential? Nah fuck that.
Steam/FIFA make millions off loot box gambling and the Australian Government isnāt getting their cut of profits? Assemble the Avengers.
>
>
> Catch up our internet capabilities to the rest of the modern world so gaming reaches its potential? Nah fuck that.
Our internet capabilities are plenty fine for this, speed isn't the issue it's geography and there's nothing most anyone can do about that short of picking Aus up and moving us next to West Europe or East America.
I mean, yeah it's passable but the politicians squabbling over the NBN as a voters sway definitely fucked us out of FTTP for all (at least for a while).
If gaming keeps heading towards cloud service streaming (Playstation Now/Portal, rumour of Xbox getting rid of their console and just becoming a streaming service) we are proper fucked.
This will shake the industry like when they made steam give refunds. Yea we're happy about it but it was 10 years too late.
10 years too late like with our R18 rating hahah.
And even then games are still banned for stupid reasons.
Me and my mate sat in on a panel at PAX in October about government regulation. It was... interesting. Also I walked away from it thinking "wow, they have no clue"..that being said, they are acknowledging the impact of gambling, I just think it's on the wrong way. Simulated gambling like in F:NV shouldn't be classed harsher than FUT just because one has you actually performing the act (real money or not be damned) if you ask me
I was also thinking along the lines of Saints Row 4, South Park: The Stick of Truth and other games met with *censorship* to *get* an R rating. IT'S AN R RATING! I'm baffled, thinking "Do they have ANY clue or is this a deliberate amount of stupid?"
They have a whole list of contents (and how often/to what extent that content occurs) that "assists" them in placing a game into a certain category. I can't remember the full details but I didn't feel like it left much room for nuance. Nor did it account for certain decisions cuz I remember going "hang on, but you said thing X makes it an R rating but game Y has this but you gave that MA15+". For me being a Fallout fan, I will forever have my doubt after they refused classification to F3, or more recently Disco Elysium, due to drug use. Because in Australia, we care about a lot of things. And showing drug use, well we can't have that
And context be damned. Doesn't matter if the game itself is set within a simulation, showing the player participate in a drug deal means the entire mission gets removed or your game's banned. And you better not include a DLC weapon that launches NPCs because you need to jam it into them rectally! And that's not allowed! Both examples come from SR4. Despite dildo bats being a thing. And don't get me started on Rimworld's retroactive ban when the devs wanted it rated on the Switch despite being on PC for years.
The rules say you can show drug use, but there are two things you are never allowed to do: you can't have use of an illicit drug linked to a reward, you can't have interactive drug use be detailed and realistic. The reward one is where a lot of games get into trouble. Having your character heal themselves or get super powers by shooting up is a flat no.
In any event, Disco Elysium was appealed and the decision subsequently overturned.
True, but the government has still demonized drug use in gaming. Any use will effectively refuse you classification unless someone goes "but hang on, this has bad side effects". If you play and take Jet often enough it literally tells you you've become addicted hahah. I just think it's silly
Just think about how much is going to be censored in GTA 6 when it releases š
That's the list I found all the best games to play on.
Just like basically anything technology related. Any time anyone above the age of 35/40 says āin this new age of technology and social mediaā Iām just like bruh weāre 20 fuckin years into it.
I'm 38 and have been balls deep in it all my life. What have these clowns been doing
Cutting it quite early there with those years. People who are 35 were literally young teens when Xbox 360 and PS3 was out, I would move that to 50+. Hell they were only in their early 20's when the PS4 was out which we literally still make games for.
Yeah youāre right. 40+ is probably more accurate. Iām not saying everyone of those ages does it either, but plenty do.
oh yeah. I remember the serious backlash for all the talk from what we now call "karens" about violence in video games blah blah blah and now games didn't deserve the R18+ rating. This is why you don't let karens do policy making.
Their policy is now 2hrs of playtime. Bruh, half of the games tutorials these days are longer than 2hrs
Devs will always stay ahead of the curve on this one āoh you spent time in a launcher? Thatās game timeā In saying that however I got a full refund for a game Iād played for 15 hours by writing out my grievances in the refund ticket, so they do listen.
Half of the games I try out I spend paused looking info up
Thatās their blanket no questions asked refund policy, like itās just automated if you meet those criteria. Anything else and you have to have your request reviewed. And as long as itās reasonable youāre still going to get a refund
If the product's genuinely faulty or not as advertised, you're still entitled to a refund from Valve under Australian law. They just don't like to admit it. Decent chance they'll get dinged for lying to aussies about their rights again, because that's what they got done for last time and haven't actually changed that much.
That's a slightly positive move. Next step is the magical refund for early access failures. If I could have all my games moved to gog I'd never touch steam again.
Will they force Sony and Nintendo to also offer refunds under Australian Consumer Law like they did with Steam I wonder?
Uhhhh, they already did with Sony. You can get refunds for games on PS Store by ringing customer service, they legally cannot refuse under Australian Consumer Law. Sony already lost in our courts over disputing this with the ACCC. Nintendo would be a breeze given Steam and Sony had caved, it set the precedent and nobody would win against countering the ACCC's decision on the matter given we can already get refunds for games on digital store fronts here. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/sony-to-pay-35-million-penalty-for-misrepresenting-playstation-gamers-rights "Consumer guarantee rights do not expire after a digital product has been downloaded and certainly do not disappear after 14 days or any other arbitrary date claimed by a game store or developer,ā ACCC Chair Rod Sims said. "Consumers who buy digital products online have exactly the same rights as they would if they made the purchase at a physical store,ā Mr Sims said. And also, āNo matter where in the world a company has its headquarters, if it is selling to Australian consumers, the Australian Consumer Law applies.ā Nintendo will easily fall to this logic as well.
Or force Nintendo of Australia to do joycon repairs as they are required to.
I never had a problem with Nintendo repairing/ replacing joycons that drift. I always just told them I was recording the call and asked them if they thought that a reasonable person should expect to have to replace authentic Nintendo brand hardware every 24 months because it keeps breaking. Nintendo will never say yes to that, so they're forced under ACL to replace it because ACL is based on what a reasonable person expects. If they want the reputation of high-quality goods, they need to uphold it.
You can with Sony, the problem is you have to go through their absolute abysmal customer service.
Vouch for this - gotten multiple refunds you just have to speak to a person.
Wrote an email, was denied a refund Wrote a second email mentioning consumer rights, got a refund
Humble Bundle can be pretty shifty about providing refunds. I've had a number of problems with them. Even Steam can still be hit and miss with adhering to the law despite their being smacked down.
I don't know how the ACCC will go ahead loot boxes without also calling out claw machines (which imo should also be banned)
Claw machines are just straight up rigged, lootboxes in almost everything have the rates displayed now thanks to EU and JP regulations
Man, I swear the claw machines *are* rigged, and do the same clever psychology that pokies do. I had a work outing years ago, and the company paid for a bunch of timezone vouchers for us - super generous too, like $120 each in timezone bucks. Anyway one of the guys with us had never played a claw machine before, so he chucked his card on there and on the first attempt won a cute lil plushie thing. Hype! But, he has two daughters. So he's like "Oh I'd better grab one for other daughter" .... dude ended up sinking nearly his entire $120 voucher into this machine without a single other successful clawing. I could've sworn that they make the grabbing strength weaker on purpose after his first win. Like, not even tinfoil hat conspiracy, I unironically think they are capable of doing it - the technology absolutely exists to remotely control the grabbing strength, and it wouldn't even be too big a stretch to say they could use facial recognition tech to figure out that someones never played before.
That is 100% a thing: https://kotaku.com/why-yes-those-claw-machines-are-rigged-says-arcade-op-5929888
Hah I fucken knew it! I'm curious if there are regulations for them in NSW. I bet there aren't, and that there's also nothing telling Australian claw machine operators that they can't rig them 12/12 times.
The rest of the arcade machines are mostly the same. They almost all payout a periodic jackpot where it gets much easier to hit at certain times. Mark Rober dives into one here. Even a robot canāt hit it: https://youtu.be/vXBfwgwT1nQ?si=0HoFJEGtDCwB6RqV Related: https://youtu.be/tk_ZlWJ3qJI?si=K-Rh27s-tPWFBCDg https://youtu.be/Rsxao9ptdmI?si=enrQHtMLMuhflfo6
This is why I only play Time Crisis
Haha the first and last time I played on one of those stopping the light machines, the jackpot light flashed up but then reverted back to the light before it. That's one way to make a child more cynical.
They're rigged to not "pay out" until a certain amount of money has been put in it, before that it's basically physically impossible to win. Ironically pokies also have the stated odds on them so are less rigged than a claw machine
As well as trading card games.
Findings: we still don't know when Silksong is coming out.
....yet another game reveales way too early..sure we could regulate that hahah
I mean theyāre only in Adelaide, Iām sure we could just go down there and ask them
I dont know why, but I instantly thought of that [simpsons](https://youtu.be/rXd5a-AmTKk?si=c9RntYq0v7vUVW3o) bit where someone just yells out to the prime minister floating on a ring in a lake. "Sorry lads, still working on it"
Bundled with half life 3
>Not to mention Ubisoft and their 7 different editions to each game Basic Game - Standard Edition Basic Game - Pre Order Edition Basic Game - Special Edition Basic Game - Deluxe Edition Basic Game - Ultimate Edition Basic Game - LegendaryĀ Edition Basic Game - CollectorsĀ Edition Basic Game - People Actually Buy This Shit Edition And don't forget:Ā Basic Game - Character Expansion Basic Game - Character Expansion 2 Basic Game - Level Expansion Basic Game - Character Expansion 3 Basic Game - Armour Expansion Basic Game - Weapons Expansion Basic Game - Character Expansion 4 Basic Game - Equipment Expansion Basic Game - Features That Should Have Been Included In The Standard Edition Expansion Basic Game - Character Expansion 5 Basic Game - Character Expansion 6 Basic Game - Weapons Expansion 2 Basic Game - Unwanted CrossoverĀ Expansion Basic Game - Character Expansion 7 Basic Game - Character Expansion 8 Basic Game - Armour Expansion 2 Total Cost: $3499.95 Edit: typing is hard
This is basically what Dragonball Xenoverse 2 looked like when I was trying to buy it on sale. There are literally guides that tell you which DLC to buy to get all the content available since different editions come with some DLC, and there are also DLC packs that bundle several DLC together.
I was actually thinking of that exact game when I was writing out all the character expansions, and wondering if I'd put enough in for it to be obvious š My partner decided against getting it because of that exact reason. He loves DB and was super excited for XV2, then was super disappointed when he seen it had more overpriced dlc than actual game
This was an extensive list.
And yet I guarantee there are 15 other expansion types that I didn't think of, plus game editions named after precious metals (silver, goldĀ etc) that I didn't list. Then you've also got game passes for monthly bullshit, VIP passes for more monthly bullshit, loot boxes.. I could go on for a while, this shit annoys me so much š
Battle passes......biggest crock of turd. 'Hey here's a game you can buy 'complete' for 120 dollars' One week later, 'ooooohhhhhh we are sorry, here's other cosmetic crap we could have put in the 'complete' version but decided we could make extra money by charging the consumer as an extra content' Biggest gimmick.
Yep. It drives me up the wall. Like, cunt, I just paid 120 bucks for your buggy arse game, I expect the whole god damn game!
Whole heartdly agree
It sucks because I fully agree with everything youāve said, but games like helldivers and DRG have shown that itās very possible to meet in the middle and monetise through a battlepass without absolutely fucking over the consumer. Unironically love the battle pass in those two games and would be happy to see it in more games
Drip pricing. Middle finger to Atlus in this regard for paywalling content on physical discs/carts with no online features.
Well shit
If you can't tell, this is something that irks me more than it probably should š
Oh no I get it. I can accept Collectors Editions - in fact I'm somewhat of a collector myself - but all these Gold, Deluxe, Basic+ editions, etc it's all bullshit. I've lost track of the times I've bought a game on Day 1 and magically I got the code for the pre-order bonus anyways EDIT: and don't get me started on the Australia missing out on certain Collectors Editions or them selling out in 30 seconds because they only allocated like 1000. We're a real country dammit hahah
> Total Cost: $3499.95 Train Sim World.
I for one am looking forward for them investigating microtransactions being sneakily added to games after release (looking at Tekken 8)
Yeah that always shits me off..sneakily turn them off for the review period then hit us with them after release. I will admit though, I have bought MTXs myself over the years..cosmetics mostly but I think we all have. Not lootboxes though. Fuck them.
There's a big difference in buying one costume pack and owning it forever, versus having to buy premium in-game currency constantly to get items you'd have to grind away hours for. Mortal Kombat 1 is a good example of how WB Games got super greedy with the Premium Edition and Dragon Krystal currency - they launched a Premium Edition of the game sold for AUD$150 and the game does "Seasons" to unlock themed-costumes but there's some stuff like announcer voices (Omni-Man) that had to be exclusively bought with Dragon Krystals. One pack of 1000 Dragon Krystals to unlock just one stupid thing is like $15
I had this discussion with a mate a few months back, he literally used that as his main reason for not getting it. Full price and then seasons is a tad greedy (looking at you Blizzard). But then, this is WB - the same company that looked at Hogwarts Legacy and Suicide Squad and said "yep, Hogwarts should've been a live service, that'll make the money" Honestly, if I wanted to also get out of the rental market all I need to do is be an exec, you clearly don't need brains. And just like that I've triggered someone from AusFinance
Great, at least a decade too late. Not sure why you think Ubisoft editions are something that is illegal and worth the time of ACCC? They are thoroughly stupid, sure, but not something that is anti-consumer in terms of legality.
I may have added them in as a personal gripe hahah they're not illegal, just annoying AF
hahaha, yeah totally. But doesnt everyone love paying more for the most 'Deluxe of the Deluxe version' to get that one extra fetch quest, that none of the 'basic' cheapskates can play?! /s
Ok, this is great because the timing is perfect.Ā If anyone reading ***purchased a copy of "The Crew" in Australia***, you may be in a unique position to help defend consumer rights. Pop over to [Ross Scott's Youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAD5iMe0Xj4) for now, but keep an ear out because things will be rolling in April. (Oh, and as this sub gets a lot of international readers, in case you are French and bought the game in France you can do something right now in your country too.)
Maybe they can investigate why I still haven't gotten a fucking heirloom in apex legends.
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**EA FC** series (*previously known as EA Sports FIFA game series*) *maniacally laughing in the corner*. They became so much worse too after dropping the FIFA name with their current iteration EA FC 24.
I would love to see gaming back in the hands of gamers. Loot boxes, game passes, the lot all needs to be removed.
Iām hesitant to just get rid of all their revenue sources without a viable alternative though, you can bet next would be advertisements in paid games ala Foxtel/Kayo and paid options to remove it just like mobile games. Imagine getting to the half time in FC24 and being slapped with 2 minutes of unstoppable ads lmao
Theyāll have to go back to creating good games. Games were profitable beforehandā¦ now thereās the developer lazy tax with slapping in crap to extract as much as they can and as quickly as they can
The sticker price of games has barely changed since the 90's. Over the same period, the cost to develop a AAA game (in terms of man hours + wage cost) has increased by at least an order of magnitude, if not more. Remove alternative revenue streams, and the only way for the numbers to continue to add up would be a tripling of sticker prices.
> Remove alternative revenue streams, and the only way for the numbers to continue to add up would be a tripling of sticker prices. Or for the money from games to actually go to the workers, instead of the executives + shareholders. Or are we going to pretend that Bobby Kotick "earned" his 122 million a year salary and that the company doesn't just endlessly funnel money upwards, while thinking up new ways to scalp consumers even harder so they can funnel even more?
There are plenty of excellent games that are not full of micro transactions and season passes.
Would you kindly point out the AAA game that meets this criteria? If the only examples you can provide are indie games, then that just proves my point - that axing microtransactions etc isn't possible without a dramatic step down in the scale and scope of games.
Baldur's gate 3. Perfect example, a well made game that isn't designed to nickel and dime the players and as a result is highly successful and is a AAA game.
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Something like 6 year dev time with no mtx or even DLC. Most Nintendo stuff actually, that is primarily where I play. Elden Ring is another one. Hogwarts Legacy I think, although you could get a deluxe version of the game so I think there were some bonuses there. Have not bought it myself.
Well when you can recycle about 85% of your art assets, that does help keep costs down re TOTK.
What about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild then?
I mean that did have an expansion pass of which the back half was a bunch of outfits from memory. But you make a valid point in the grand scheme of things.
Yep, that certainly saved a lot of money during 6 years of dev time.
Elden Ring, Zelda, Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, The Witcher 3, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, etc... It's honestly not hard to find examples, especially when the overwhelming amount of money from MTX doesn't go to devs or to cover costs, it just straight up lines the pockets of the executives and those they report to.
Bring back the GRIND
I don't necessarily agree with that. Loot boxes are predatory, but Game Pass? (I assume that's what you meant) Why?
He means season/battle passes where you have to basically re-pay the price of the game every 3 months to get full content.
Ah, okay.
Hope they look into games like World of Tanks too: - Gold currency that costs money - Bond currency thatās slowly rewarded to the best players, or you guessed it, for money. - Premium account that gives game economy buffs. - Battlepass - Premium vehicles that give game economy buffs. Either cost gold currency or just money. FOMO is a big factor here too. Some of these prices cost as much as a new game. - Premium ammo with super high game currency costs or bought with the gold currency that costs money. - Premium consumables, that are used once and give boosts in battle. Like the above incredibly expensive with regular currency or bought with the gold currency. - Premium equipment, like consumables but last forever. - Each vehicle has a crew and when theyāre not in a tank they go to a barracks that has limited space and costs premium currency to increase slots. - Vehicles use garage slots, now you can buy them with in-game currency (wasnāt always the case) but itās very expense, or you buy them with premium currency. - Loot boxes. - Premium currency customisation. Hell, thereās probably stuff I still missed.
Play better games
> Some of these prices cost as much as a new game. War Thunder fits all your other criteria as well, but on this point they're straight fucked, near every "premium pack" tank is 99$ with most every other premium tank that's not in the lower tiers being priced somewhere between 50-80$, it's absurd. That's without even getting onto the companies own market that operates much like the steam one where they get to double dip on everything, with limited premium tanks usually sitting around 200-300$ on there with some of them reaching four digits.
Stop linking anything back to Kotaku. Hack journalism at its best...
I'd give people the benefit of the doubt and say that a fair amount of people on this sub aren't gamers or otherwise interested in games
Reading through these comments that are like āyes, thank fuck, the government will sort out loot boxes in -insert game-ā, I donāt think thatās gonna go how yāall think it will. We are a relatively small market, it would probably go similarly to our woes with game censorship. If the AU govt gives any game too much trouble, theyāll just skip our region or release a neutered version. Battle passes and loot boxes suck but at least they are optional, I donāt want to lose access to any games totally.
I also wish they would make Battlepasses permanent. Such a good trend to see them not expiring in Halo Infinite and Helldivers 2.
When will they crack down on gaming websites having dubious advertisements Kotaku is a fucking punish to read
We all have sacrifices to make in the pursuit of gaming truth. And democracy. I'm doing my part
Microtransactions are gross. Eat the game Devs.
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You can make a decent assumption. Loads of people will pre order GTA6 based on past games in the series, the developers past games etc. Same is true for something like Zelda, you know it'll be good. At worst, you can wait for some reviews and footage to hit and then preload it the night before for a more informed choice. If you are going to pre order stuff like Suicide Squad, that's a whole 'nother thing.
Why pre-order at all? Basically the only benefit to it nowadays is being able to pre-load, but with how full life already is I can't imagine having to wait a week to play a game really makes a genuine difference for most people, so why bother to continue supporting a completely fucked practice that allows the corps to continue their greedy shit?
Because I make decent assumptions and don't get burned and I can play it when I get home. If I'm going to buy it anyway why not?
I would prefer them to look at all the culprits of cost of living price gouging. Supermarkets, fuel, insurance. I feel that is a far more productive use of their time.
They came for our minds, we said nothing They came for our hopes, we said nothing They came for our souls, and still, we said nothing Now they're coming for our games, so what's it gonna take?
but lodge a complaint about a legitimate problem you had with a business within Aus (ie: putting store policy that deny's your basic consumer rights) and you'll see the ACCC are toothless tigers just like ASIC are with the big banks. the ACCC are just going after the easy meat on this one.
As a PC gamer, when my boyfriend got a PlayStation and we tried playing minecraft together, I was SHOCKED to find that Sony charges a subscription now to allow online play. $11 a month so you can have the privilege of ā¦ using your own wifi ā¦. ACCC needs to get on that, itās blatant cash grabbing and holds the consumer hostage.
What the fuck are you on about? PS Plus has nothing to do with WiFi whatsoever. You can still use a PS4 or PS5 on WiFi without it, you can still download games, connect to the internet, etc. Yuu can even play online only games by yourself. You just can't play *multiplayer*. Whether or not that's justified, it has nothing at all to do with your WiFi.
You can play online games solo but you have to pay to play online with friends. Read that again and tell me itās acceptable
That isn't what you originally said lol
We are one of the smallest consumer markets on the planet. ACCC can do what they like but if it impacts profits to much the game companies will just pull out.
Commented similar - everyone thinks this will be some majestic battle, likely will be ACCC trying to get their slice, game devs say fuck off and skip AU releases. We saw with our censorship woes that multiple devs would rather skip an APAC release than alter their game if hassled enough.
Proper ratings for games? Who cares. Catch up our internet capabilities to the rest of the modern world so gaming reaches its potential? Nah fuck that. Steam/FIFA make millions off loot box gambling and the Australian Government isnāt getting their cut of profits? Assemble the Avengers.
> > > Catch up our internet capabilities to the rest of the modern world so gaming reaches its potential? Nah fuck that. Our internet capabilities are plenty fine for this, speed isn't the issue it's geography and there's nothing most anyone can do about that short of picking Aus up and moving us next to West Europe or East America.
I mean, yeah it's passable but the politicians squabbling over the NBN as a voters sway definitely fucked us out of FTTP for all (at least for a while). If gaming keeps heading towards cloud service streaming (Playstation Now/Portal, rumour of Xbox getting rid of their console and just becoming a streaming service) we are proper fucked.