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- Fire seasoned devs - Realize production is lagging behind - Hire them back as temporary contractors - Invest in more bloat that does not increase profits - Make “premium” skins that cost the same as some AA games - Repeat
@@TinchoX we still need to see about that. It's unfortunate that it comes to this. But Riot gamers are the Mihoyo players of E-sports. Not only they are numerous, a not-so-little part of them won't think twice to spend. Most people that's not smurfing have skins in Valorant even in lower ranks. This is also a game where people spend a lot of time. It's much easier to spend larger amount of money to something you already like. Comes with a lot of excuses too. "Supporting the devs", "I already get my money's worth from the time I've spent", and so on.
@@Claudetwofunfi mean, i'm shocked at how many people I see that have the five hundred dollar version of the faker skin in platinum. and some of them are smurfs, so it's like, okay.I guess this is like an ego trip thing, i really don't get it, but either way, you're playing in platinum. With five hundred dollars scan, so presumably you have a challenger or a master account, and you also have a five hundred dollar skin there. Not all of them are smurfs, there's a lot of people that are where they're supposed to be, and they have the $500 skin, and I'm just like bro. Ari has fifty skins, there are other ones that look arguably better than this, one that don't cost five hundred dollars.Why would you do this
@@Velereonics Some people just have money to spend, that doesn't mean they spend it well... I can see that in other games. The First Decendant when a new character comes out, people already have bought the 100$ package day one. Mobile P2W games when DAY ONE a player already has >1mil points while new players are just at ~100k, thats usually 1000$ or more... I just "waste" money to buy a highend PC for 2-4000$ (every 2-4 years) to play all kinds of games, CP2077 but also Hollow Knight for example. :D
@@arcamean785 That's just it. This assumes a person isn't neurodivergent and has an inclination towards completion. Folks have emptied bank accounts, maxed out credit sources, and stolen from friends and family to satisfy their mental needs. And they can't stop themselves, even though they know it's breaking them. The only option they have is avoidance, which is why I'm glad this episode exists.
Yeah I used to play league a lot, but the past few years it just seems like a job grinding out various events. I basically don't play anymore other than an occasional ARAM with some friends.
It isn't limited to those tho. Assassins creed. Fallout 76 Name a game and it likely has things sold for it that should be earned by playing the game. They give us less for more and we buy it every time and its everywhere. If you paid anything beyond the initial price to play the game you are the problem.
Back in the day, to get the ultra rare skins you had to perform some difficult to complete activity in-game that would prove how good you are. Now all you have to do is drop a few hundred
Back in the day, games cost less to make, and cost more than LoL (LoL is free to play). Friendly reminder that Path of Exile has the exact same business model as LoL and no one complains about them.
Nah it´s a great game, I have basically never encountered a game breaking bug in a game, you can still easily spend nothing and have unlimited competitive fun.
Quit more than 10 years ago (played it for about 3 years). Honestly, I don't get the fuzz about that game. I mean, it's basically a live service competitive game which ultimately means that they can mess with the balance any time they want. Want to sell some more skins of a newly introduced champion? Just make it OP for the first month or so, and then nerf it into the ground when suckers bought the champion and its skins. I've been playing Warframe for like 10 years or so, and that's also a live service game, but with the major difference that it isn't competitive. So what if a frame is not as strong or as optimal as another? You can still do a ton of content with the weakest frame in the game. Using the weakest champion in League for a specific role will only lead to your team hating you, the opponents laughing at you, and you're having a miserable time all around. So much content in a game like League and so many obsolete champions during specific metas. Hyper-competitive games where you have to unlock specific heroes or weapons to be on an even playing field. And that use a live service model are an absolute NO for me. Because one change of the meta, and you are screwed over. It's an unfulfilling treadmill and you are the guinea pig.
They said the quiet part out loud? Ya. A lot of people have been doing that lately... seriously, have these companies forgotten we can chose NOT to give them money.
@@vanishingllama7342but most people don’t actually have a reason to not spend the money(assuming they actually have the disposable income). The vast majority of consumers don’t care about politics or working conditions or wage slavery. They don’t want to see hear or think about that during their hobby.
In Civilization Beyond Earth, there's a flavour text where it explains the culture leader Elodié wrote her first dissertation on the collapse of the video game industry in the 2020s and 2030s. I first read that in 2014 and wondered how in the hell something like that could happen. I've been thinking about that little text a lot lately.
I suppose you were quite young in 2014, because I have seen people talking about it since the very early 2010's due to the various DIE (Diversity, inclusivity, and equity) movements that had begun invading the gaming world and the corporate take overs that had led to it happening. Plenty of people have been warning about this for well over a decade now. Most people just didn't want to take part in politics, so only the bad guys took part.
@@hungrymusicwolf bullshit, this has absolutely nothing to do with that and folk like you that keep freaking insisting and blaming laws that requiring corps to do the bare freaking minimum while letting the true issues of corporate greed, and focusing on the wants of shareholders beyond all else. blaming all the issues on minority's asking for equal rights is such a freaking joke and completely ignoring the true issue's that come from late stage capitalism and lack of government regulation that protects customers and keeps shitty corps in line.
@@hungrymusicwolf Yeah but, who are the bad guys specifically? Because if it's the actual people behind all of this bullshit, it has nothing to do with DEI and everything to do with the unsustainable "line go up" mentality. The only people screaming about DEI are those who only want to scream about a random black person they saw because they have nothing better to do with their lives. "But but but, the DEI is making corpos-" Do absolutely NOTHING. They don't give a rats ass about being inclusive, diverse or giving people equality. Have you SEEN the wage disparity in the games industry? Do you seriously think the ghouls who call the shots at the top of these companies sucking the life out of a creative thing like gaming actually give a shit about that? The only thing they care about is making money. If being inclusive makes money, that's what they will do. If throwing hate speech loses them money, they stop doing it. If someone says something that hurts their wallet, they fire that person. Surprise surprise, DEI does very little to the bottom line and profit margins. Fun fact, gaming has been political sense doom. It's ALWAYS been political. Have you even played the first metal gear? What about modern warfare 1? Man spec ops the line sure ain't political, they really didn't want to take part in the POLITICS of talking about how the US regularly uses white phosphor chemical weapons on civilians while claiming it's just for smoke when there's literal action reports stating that these are effective weapons to be used on combatants. Here's the answer as to what's actually killing gaming. It's called "Line MUST go up". The pursuit of profit margins over everything else, where every single quarterly report needs to be higher than the last. The result of that causes companies to shotgun wages, stab loyal developers in the neck and throw them out right before earnings to 'cut costs' and push more and more and more and more and more egregious and ludicrous MTX just to get more money. Simple.
The saddest part about the excessive monetisation is that it's going nowhere. Even tho the majority of players don't engage in macro transactions, there will always be a few who will always buy those. And companies quickly learnt that they can easily offset that low amount of always buying players by upcharging them hundreds per purchase. By bringing in the recent Faker skin - it earned 2.5 million $ during a single stream. With 500$ per pack, it means Riot only needed 5000 people out of millions playing LoL in order to earn this much.
If you don't want excessive monetisation, don't play games with excessive monetisation. That is not the same as playing the game anyway and not buy those items. If you really mean it, don't play any game from a studio that produces any games with excessive monetisation.
@@nodwick4231 "Easier said than done". There are millions of people who play those games either because they can't afford or run normal games as they tend to be not so demanding on weaker PCs or play because "the game is good despite the grind". They reality is that there are too many who chose those games for one or the other reason and a single person not playing it won't make a dent. You would have to drop the daily player count by 2/3rd for the paying ones to dip and as I've seen numerous time in previous "game boycotts"... that ain't happening.
@@DajovaI imagine Genshin's even worse, because Chinese seem to actively take pride in throwing money at gacha slop. With them, Japan, and S.Korea being the large audience, even if everyone in the west collectively dropped it and every other Mihoyo game, it wouldn't even make a dent
I feel like artists for things like this should have royalties just like actors and such anything that is created by talents and will make money in perpetuity should get money the same.
@Daniele-PierreDuLac I am saying that our system needs to change we are still working off a system where things were made and sold and that was it now things are made to be sold an infinite number of times if something you made will make money 1 time being payed 1 time makes sense but if the thing you made will make money for the next 20 years you should too. I am not saying this exact time it should because yes the way it works isn't like that the point is the system should change going forward.
It shouldn't. Because all anyone would ever do is the try to join a successful business to passively earn royalties rather than try to start their own.
@@johnoden5932 There are companies that already do this, see Valve for example, anyone can make Dota 2 skins and potentially profit from them if they're accepted by Valve and there are artists who do and make a lot. I think the person you're responding to is being unnecessarily dismissive but they do have a point, at the end of the day these artists agreed to the contract, even if yes I agree it's scummy it's not actually the companies' fault that they had contract regret after and realised they got screwed over. I'm reminded a bit of the Witcher book writer who took a cash payment and handed over his IP entirely to CD Projekt Red thinking he was being smart even though he was offered something like 5% I think it might have been ( Don't quote me on that ) in royalties. He clearly had no idea how big of a success it was and then proceeded to go after CD Projekt Red after like he was a victim. Let this be a lesson to anyone trying to get to the higher tiers of business, if you think it has the slightest chance of doing well always find a way of getting a percentage in profit through royalties or any other method so you don't get ripped off for your work. I'm not writing this as a justification for their behaviour, this is just the realities of a business deal younger generations especially need to take note of.
We can blame corporate greed all day... However, so long as people continue to supply revenue, making these greedy moves profitable, they will continue to implement them. Most have little willpower to stop themselves... especially if they are purchasing with someone elses money, such as a parent.
Why is EVERY BIG GAME COMPANY RACING TO THE BOTTOM? This is why ubisoft is floundering, this is why Indie games are booming while AA and AAA are losing ground.
What stops the studio they worked for from cutting off the royalty check shortly after sacking? Warner Bros. making their recent TV inaccessible, anyone?
riot games is a studio that deserves to fail. They stopped caring about league a long time ago. I dropped league after vanguard happened and switched to linux mint as my daily driver and haven't looked back once.
Vanguard patch was the day I uninstalled, I'm not about to compromise my system to play a few ARAMs a week. Not sure why they thought that level of invasiveness was fine, but since they didn't roll it back, I'm guessing most of their players just didn't care.
I think this is the point. I think things are getting more expensive across the board, because the spending power of the middle class is shrinking, leaving only the super rich/whales as viable customers. So many businesses are pivoting towards catering to them only.
@@Mick0Mania I agree to an extent, but a community of any game is made on the back of the average player and if they are squeezed out the whales will loose the motivation as other players leave. Most loose any care to spend if the isn't anyone to brag to or stomp. The collect them all whale generally are not enough to sustain a game on their own.
I don't even play these games and I'm so tired of hearing about all of this gacha/monetization scheme BS. It's so obviously manipulative and cynical. The fact that it works so well is what's most depressing.
They won't get me. Ever. It's funny because once i got wind of this system i thought to myself: 'I don't play gacha games', and suddenly my time spend on league decreased by about 90%, only the occasional ARAM.
Arcane is like BG3: a very well crafted licensed release that gives life to an IP that's controlled by people who have no interest in anything but cash.
Stephanie Sterling said it best about “It’s just cosmetic” type defences. If it was just cosmetic and not everything is for you, why would these devs and publishers bother? Do you think they do all of this just to only adopt a handful of purchasers? Do you think they don’t want to create more customers? Do you honestly believe it doesn’t impact the overall designs of games?
It is absolutely not JUST cosmetic, to use the game For Honor as an example, the reason the playerbase stuck around for so long and is still keeping the game alive is because the devs for the most part listened to feedback about keeping the medieval aeshtetic and not just doing a bunch of fantasy visual effect skins for everything, People wanted the gritty metal aesthetic to be the main one
Come on, as much as I hate league, just cosmetic is still miles ahead of P2W or even "pay for convenience" type crap. That's what really hurts the game, because the devs create problems that can be solved with $$$
Ubisoft also said the quiet part out loud when they said that you don't actually own any of your games, yet y'all started memeing on them with that quote. Next thing everyone realizes is that Steam were forced to let you know that it was indeed true :).
Fun fact: the "Pity" system is there not because the developers have a good heart, but because if they don't have one, the thing would be considered gambling.
No. Bullying never leads to anything good. But we should absolutely not acknowledge their fancy purchase, and thereby remove a large reason that you do such things.
Well said at the end there. People will say they're just cosmetics, they don't change the game, they don't matter. If that were true, why do studios charge for them? Why do they invest so much money in the making and marketing of them? Because they do matter.
13:50 Preach!! I wish devs (especially blizzard) would focus more on pumping out content rather than useless skins. Do you remember what skin or transmog you had on when you had that great win or beat that one raid? NO!! but I bet you remember the character you were playing
As someone knows someone who owns every single skin, little legends, emote and chroma in the game - ever x: yes they exist. I hate it so much. I agree with Asmongold here. Virtual currencies should just go away. Things should just be able to bought 1:1 vs real money - straight forward. As someone who also drops money on Rito, and i don't mind doing so, I am glad that my fav characters aren't that popular. Still wondering if DJ Sona and Elementalist Lux will be upgraded to be an Exalted or not. Jinx basically has the same functionality as DJ Sona, minus the Music plus the HUD
Everyone I know who was at one point a hardcore league player have by and large stopped playing. I think at this point the playerbase numbers have stagnated and are likely dropping. South Korea will always remain the largest country for League and SK is an absolute dystopia of people who are willing to spend money to make themselves look better in any way possible. This leads me to believe that they're basically at the point where the game isn't going to really go anywhere and they're looking to make as much money as possible by milking whoever is left. Riot, in general, is a mess. It's a miracle Valorant was even made considering that their devs constantly fail at making new games and can barely even manage new game modes in LoL. Their side projects have mostly failed or are in production limbo. Once again, I'm pretty sure if it weren't for South Korea, Riot's situation would be far worse.
I think League could definitely be stagnating, but I think the playerbase numbers, if they are dropping, are dropping very slowly. This is rather natural, though, for a game this old or at least it is expected. League is very old and Riot isn't dumb they know a new game or new projects are a necessity to grow forward, and so it will happen whether anyone likes it or not. Valorant is a recent result of this. You are right on SK though, it's a weird dystopian like place in which they care about image to a degree that is offputting.
The end of the video is really important. That’s why “just don’t buy it” has never made sense. When games become stores, they get designed to sell, not to play.
13:36 bro thankyou. I frequently talk about the monetization of Overwatch 2 on reddit and have to combat these arguments almost all the time. My usual response is, "if you REALLY don't care about cosmetics, then you shouldn't mind people complaining about them." Overwatch 2 feels more like a mall than a game with how much development effort goes into the cosmetics compared to the rest of the game. They killed the ambition of one of my favorite games and turned it into a husk to sell skins. 😢
that last 2 minutes is exactly it. full stop. im in my 40s and you could see the writing on the wall become crystal clear when fortnite was stealing dances and they were making money hand over fist on skins. selling map packs walked so selling skins could run.... the industry into the ground.
ive been a rocket league player/fan since day one. all of the development on the game we see these days goes to skins, rocket pass items, and license deals.
@@bigrob029 I remember Cathode Ray Dude going on about perfection in appliance/tech businesses during his look at Daystarter. Perfection is what drives skeevy business.
Imaging making a product that has a sale value of 500 and having someone else sell it. I mean it's normal everywhere but still a funny thing to see pronounced.
They added gacha into Little Legends and everybody said it would be fine. They expanded gacha in little legends and everybody said it wouldn't affect the main game. They added a little gacha into the main game and everybody said it was just a mild gacha system for the whales. Now we've got a full-blown gacha system for their next major skin release. Who wants to take bets on how long it takes for this to become their entire monetization system? This is what happens when you don't push back. God I'm glad I don't play this shit anymore. If you're a league player: drop that shit. I promise you, it will noticeably improve your life after you get over the withdrawal. The sunk cost isn't worth it.
We already have mythic essence though. so that's not new, and I don't actually mind that like if you put, if you do an event, you get essentially enough mythic. Essence to get a mythic skin because of like a several factors, because you get mythic essence in other ways as well. but I will pay the like $20 or whatever to do like II don't do every event. I always make sure I have enough to get a mythic skin.If I know there's one that I want so like I wanted hextech swain, so I did.... I don't even remember what the events are called cause I don't care, but I did one event, and then I had enough, and then I just sat on that until a rotated into the store. at this point I do like two events a year cause.There's usually not that many mythic skins that I want. But as far as special currencies go, it's an extremely predictable and reliable currency. I don't mind it at all. Because the things that you buy with it are not loot boxes. they're well defined.They have well defined consistent costs.
That part was said when the expensive jhin chroma got released so they warned us and they said if they have market for it which they have they will keep developing it
There's a problem with corporate greed, they get a taste of profit and want more each year, it's not enough to make $1million every year, no, it has to be $1million year one, $2million year two, $3million year 3 etc as if just being a profitable company isn't enough, it has to be profitable and growing constantly at any cost to the consumer even if it ends ultimately destroying the company because it's impossible to have infinite growth (unless you're Nvidia) eventually you hit a ceiling and then the only way is down when it becomes unsustainable
It is worth noting FOMO works both ways, fear of missing out requires you to not be missing out. Now that you will have missed out, there is less reason to join this game. The less reason to join this game the more likely they will go the Smite Route. In other words the design of this is exclusivity that will drive League of Legends 2 to be made. You are paying money to drive the death of LoL and the skins you spend.
Lots of companies say the quiet part out loud. The real question is, does it even matter? Will players of these games hold the companies accountable? No... no they won't. Just remember, when you open your wallet for pixels in League or for power in games like Lost Ark, you're not really getting *anything*. When those games are no longer playable, you can think about all the money you spent in these titles.
I started working in the gaming industry in 2007 and by now I am at a point where I decided to leave the industry. Luxury ingame skins are certainly part of my decision.
Path of Exile has the exact same business model and no one seems to complain about them. PoE releases new $120 supporter packs every few months. If you don't want to pay $200 for cosmetics then don't pay $200 for cosmetics.
We are done. Too many of them are consumers. I once had a friend that had a whole mental breakdown coz he couldnt confirm a payment in his gatcha game. They are literaly conditioned to consume.
This is like not related to the topic of the video, but in that art book, does she talk about? Like the development process for the style? because I felt like it was not always but a lot of times it was like building on clone wars, the 3d cartoon with asoka. Because that show started out and it was rough, like it was hard to look at, and it was really grainy, and they didn't really seem to understand or even be attempting to use lighting like they weren't really thinking about lighting, everything was really, really flat. it basically looked like jpegs being displayed on flat polygons. It was rough. anyway, the cool thing about that show was that every season there would be this dramatic jump quality. it felt like they were taking so much time in between the seasons. Figure out what was working, what were the strengths of this and what were weaknesses. Because they were the only ones that were doing anything like it. it was very anti pixar in its style. it was going in a completely different direction, like taking a different approach, kind of like the way tim burton is also going in a completely different direction, like there's no overlap between pixar and his type of thing. And the last few seasons, like 45 and six, and then later, seven, that show became breathtaking, like I don't even really remember what some of the episodes were necessarily about, but I remember where they occurred and just being dumbstruck by how beautiful it was at times. And their understanding of action cinematography and choreography is beyond what anything disney was able to do after they shuttered that show, and then, uh, awkwardly tried to reboot it. And arcane has pretty decent action too.They kind of are overly reliant on slow motion to highlight certain points in people fighting or running. i think what are games?It seems to have built on the most is lighting. the different ways that they did it, and the uh, breadth of intensities and colors and stuff that they went for was really good. (favorite was when they would use treat a a semi transparent material like smoke or water, not just as like a color dodge or a burn on the color behind it but it would be like, uh, function, so depending on the color behind it, that would change how it appears through the filter. it added so much depth to a lot of scenes) But tldr, does she talk about that kind of process, like how they come up with those types of things
We live in an age of gaming that is simultaneously one of the best, and one of the fucking worst we’ve been through. So many banger titles and experiences have come out in the last 5 years, while monetization and terrible games have arguably been cranked out at an even greater clip. It fucking sucks. Can we get the Riot of like 2012 back? The one that was flawed, sure, but had a lot of heart behind it.
I remember when we bought game content. I remember when the thing we expected from a game was fun. Paying real money for digital cosmetics has always made me feel uneasy and it has only become worse with time.
Why pay a veteran artist 6 figures to make something that an eager new artist is willing to do for 60% of the salary? It's not like LoL's art style requires the most talented artists.
When Overwatch first launched, I looked at it and ignored it, understanding the Korean-MMO levels of monetization. Of course now, I am knee-deep in retro-gaming and just got a MiSTer board.
8:41 "In Free to Play games they CAN NOT think of the value they provide you" Yeah, thats is 100% bs bro. There are plenty of F2P games with ethical monetization. Warframe is the best example.
"nobody's forcing you to buy it" Seems like we should review the importance of "precedent" Companies look at what's successful such as FAANG and think "hey maybe that's a good thing to copy for our company, they didn't even get in trouble by their customers so it must be ok" I think if we just look at recent years we can clearly see that happening... and many will often tell us directly that they are doing it.
When vanguard went live for league I refused to comply and played TFT on mobile. Now with the nerfs to season passes the game has become more of a gatcha game with high prices and very little value for the money spent.
Once again, why do people want to work for these companies when the reward for a job well done is being fired? Also, going from one scum tactic to another scum tactic isn't changing the fact you are using a scum tactic. Don't most nations have laws against whale hunting?
People are agnry today about the $500 skin the same way we were angry 15 years ago about day one DLCs The needle will move, it's inevitable, all because not enough people care in the end It's easier to screech about "the WOKES" for example, than it is to properly explain the predatory practices actually ruining gaming for all of us
I criticized the overwatch episode because Blizzard has been doing overwatch dirty by focusing on the cosmetics since it became the sequel, so it wasn't particularly interesting to hear about what I already kinda knew. 🙃
Unless you are overwatch, provide elite skins over the years, then when they drop overwatch 2 they make it all available in the store and shit on your FOMO trophies.
more likely tencent is going to shift the production to china, in recent years the number of chinese artists for league increased. while there are certainly really good western artists, china has much more of them
i'm 05:36 min into the video, and how Bellular is describing and phrasing things is getting me worried that riot will try to push a skin with a monthly sub... if that, is true and things catch up, i think it will be time to let the gamer hobiee goes.
Brand new super Nintendo games when the system was new were around 100 dollars or more per game... And that was in the 90s. 30 years ago. And we bought them.
Amazing that Blizzard and Riot are both doing the same thing. And it's going to work. Because there are people in the world who love buying expensive shit just for the sake of buying it.
I don't get why people are buying these outrageously overpriced skins (well, I actually do know but I wish they didn't), or any microtransactions where the value is clearly not that great. For the price of several new games you can get a single skin or just a mere chance of getting something in the case of a gacha game. These systems are clearly predatory. I might not care as much if I didn't know for a fact that people who can barely afford to buy them are doing so... this kind of stuff is ruining lives in some extreme cases. And as if milking the players wasn't enough they also treat loyal employees like crap. I honestly think the downfall of AAA gaming companies (and across all other industries as well) comes down to them becoming publicly traded.
My backlog of games is big. I can have myself entertained for years to come. I simply refuse to play games, that are taking the piss like this. Even if I do not intend to bys any of their skins - I will not provide a +1 to their player numbers.
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First
Keep it up!
this is a scam no one should sell out to it as its harmful for your audience.
@@thelightsilentI've heard that it's not very good, but what makes it a scam? Genuinely, I want to know
@@conallirvine5157 when you cancel they charge you a year after even after you cancel it. Theres a few videos of yt that expose it.
- Fire seasoned devs
- Realize production is lagging behind
- Hire them back as temporary contractors
- Invest in more bloat that does not increase profits
- Make “premium” skins that cost the same as some AA games
- Repeat
They are literally shooting themselves on the foot...
@@TinchoX we still need to see about that. It's unfortunate that it comes to this. But Riot gamers are the Mihoyo players of E-sports. Not only they are numerous, a not-so-little part of them won't think twice to spend.
Most people that's not smurfing have skins in Valorant even in lower ranks.
This is also a game where people spend a lot of time. It's much easier to spend larger amount of money to something you already like.
Comes with a lot of excuses too. "Supporting the devs", "I already get my money's worth from the time I've spent", and so on.
@@Claudetwofunfi mean, i'm shocked at how many people I see that have the five hundred dollar version of the faker skin in platinum. and some of them are smurfs, so it's like, okay.I guess this is like an ego trip thing, i really don't get it, but either way, you're playing in platinum. With five hundred dollars scan, so presumably you have a challenger or a master account, and you also have a five hundred dollar skin there.
Not all of them are smurfs, there's a lot of people that are where they're supposed to be, and they have the $500 skin, and I'm just like bro. Ari has fifty skins, there are other ones that look arguably better than this, one that don't cost five hundred dollars.Why would you do this
@@Velereonics Some people just have money to spend, that doesn't mean they spend it well...
I can see that in other games. The First Decendant when a new character comes out, people already have bought the 100$ package day one.
Mobile P2W games when DAY ONE a player already has >1mil points while new players are just at ~100k, thats usually 1000$ or more...
I just "waste" money to buy a highend PC for 2-4000$ (every 2-4 years) to play all kinds of games, CP2077 but also Hollow Knight for example. :D
So long as idiots give their money companies will say "Screw you desire to get your monies worth, we want the whales".
Bingo. "We have met the enemy and he is us." They make this because it sells.
Whenever someone is rewarded for bad behavior you can expect more bad behavior.
Vote with your wallet.
@@arcamean785 That's just it. This assumes a person isn't neurodivergent and has an inclination towards completion. Folks have emptied bank accounts, maxed out credit sources, and stolen from friends and family to satisfy their mental needs.
And they can't stop themselves, even though they know it's breaking them. The only option they have is avoidance, which is why I'm glad this episode exists.
buddy, we have gacha games.
Not to mention, Blizzard was already selling cosmetics in a SUBSCRIPTION game
The -only- way to punish thi is to not play.
so glad I'm not really playing competitive fomo generators anymore
@@TheLumberjack1987 bang on
Yeah I used to play league a lot, but the past few years it just seems like a job grinding out various events. I basically don't play anymore other than an occasional ARAM with some friends.
1,700 hours and counting in "Dyson Sphere Program." And that's far from the only game I play ;)
It isn't limited to those tho.
Assassins creed.
Fallout 76
Name a game and it likely has things sold for it that should be earned by playing the game.
They give us less for more and we buy it every time and its everywhere.
If you paid anything beyond the initial price to play the game you are the problem.
as it was said "a fool and his money are soon parted"
weep not for the fools, weep that you weren't the one to take their money.
Back in the day, to get the ultra rare skins you had to perform some difficult to complete activity in-game that would prove how good you are. Now all you have to do is drop a few hundred
Back in the day, games cost less to make, and cost more than LoL (LoL is free to play). Friendly reminder that Path of Exile has the exact same business model as LoL and no one complains about them.
Game with 15+ year old game-breaking bugs, outdated interface, the healthiest thing league players can do is quit cold turkey. Worked for me.
Grats :)
Nah it´s a great game, I have basically never encountered a game breaking bug in a game, you can still easily spend nothing and have unlimited competitive fun.
Was fully addicted until they completely break my champion by changing the map. Quitted and no regrets.
Quit more than 10 years ago (played it for about 3 years). Honestly, I don't get the fuzz about that game. I mean, it's basically a live service competitive game which ultimately means that they can mess with the balance any time they want. Want to sell some more skins of a newly introduced champion? Just make it OP for the first month or so, and then nerf it into the ground when suckers bought the champion and its skins.
I've been playing Warframe for like 10 years or so, and that's also a live service game, but with the major difference that it isn't competitive. So what if a frame is not as strong or as optimal as another? You can still do a ton of content with the weakest frame in the game. Using the weakest champion in League for a specific role will only lead to your team hating you, the opponents laughing at you, and you're having a miserable time all around. So much content in a game like League and so many obsolete champions during specific metas.
Hyper-competitive games where you have to unlock specific heroes or weapons to be on an even playing field. And that use a live service model are an absolute NO for me. Because one change of the meta, and you are screwed over. It's an unfulfilling treadmill and you are the guinea pig.
I get my MoBA fix through HotS or DotA now. I'll never give Riot another dime.
Corporate greed will kill the videogame industry
Corporate greed is killing everything in the West right now.
Already has
correction corporate greed HAS killed the gaming industry over the last decade
The Triple AAA industry for sure.
Indie games and even Double AA titles will continue to thrive and do well for themselves.
it will not, it will only kill AAA
the indie scene is blossoming like never before
I miss TotalBiscuit, but at the same time I'm glad he doesn't have to see what this industry has become.
I hate the inflation argument. Salaries didn't keep up and that is never taken into consideration.
It has always been known to play out like this, the public is a bunch of suckers
the method of distribution is also not taken into consideration. physical distribution was expensive compared to online distribution.
They said the quiet part out loud?
Ya. A lot of people have been doing that lately... seriously, have these companies forgotten we can chose NOT to give them money.
@@vanishingllama7342 I'm still waiting for us to make that decision lol.
This fact is irrelevant when people will buy anyway.
@@IEgOImkAwx ... ya. But a guy can dream.
@@vanishingllama7342but most people don’t actually have a reason to not spend the money(assuming they actually have the disposable income). The vast majority of consumers don’t care about politics or working conditions or wage slavery. They don’t want to see hear or think about that during their hobby.
@@Daniele-PierreDuLac Good point 👉
In Civilization Beyond Earth, there's a flavour text where it explains the culture leader Elodié wrote her first dissertation on the collapse of the video game industry in the 2020s and 2030s. I first read that in 2014 and wondered how in the hell something like that could happen.
I've been thinking about that little text a lot lately.
could you paraphrase for us that haven't read it?
I suppose you were quite young in 2014, because I have seen people talking about it since the very early 2010's due to the various DIE (Diversity, inclusivity, and equity) movements that had begun invading the gaming world and the corporate take overs that had led to it happening. Plenty of people have been warning about this for well over a decade now. Most people just didn't want to take part in politics, so only the bad guys took part.
@@hungrymusicwolf bullshit, this has absolutely nothing to do with that and folk like you that keep freaking insisting and blaming laws that requiring corps to do the bare freaking minimum while letting the true issues of corporate greed, and focusing on the wants of shareholders beyond all else. blaming all the issues on minority's asking for equal rights is such a freaking joke and completely ignoring the true issue's that come from late stage capitalism and lack of government regulation that protects customers and keeps shitty corps in line.
@@hungrymusicwolf Your attempt at putting down what they said is quite odd. Perhaps you are the one that was "quite young" in 2014.
@@hungrymusicwolf Yeah but, who are the bad guys specifically? Because if it's the actual people behind all of this bullshit, it has nothing to do with DEI and everything to do with the unsustainable "line go up" mentality. The only people screaming about DEI are those who only want to scream about a random black person they saw because they have nothing better to do with their lives. "But but but, the DEI is making corpos-" Do absolutely NOTHING. They don't give a rats ass about being inclusive, diverse or giving people equality. Have you SEEN the wage disparity in the games industry? Do you seriously think the ghouls who call the shots at the top of these companies sucking the life out of a creative thing like gaming actually give a shit about that? The only thing they care about is making money. If being inclusive makes money, that's what they will do. If throwing hate speech loses them money, they stop doing it. If someone says something that hurts their wallet, they fire that person. Surprise surprise, DEI does very little to the bottom line and profit margins.
Fun fact, gaming has been political sense doom. It's ALWAYS been political. Have you even played the first metal gear? What about modern warfare 1? Man spec ops the line sure ain't political, they really didn't want to take part in the POLITICS of talking about how the US regularly uses white phosphor chemical weapons on civilians while claiming it's just for smoke when there's literal action reports stating that these are effective weapons to be used on combatants.
Here's the answer as to what's actually killing gaming. It's called "Line MUST go up". The pursuit of profit margins over everything else, where every single quarterly report needs to be higher than the last. The result of that causes companies to shotgun wages, stab loyal developers in the neck and throw them out right before earnings to 'cut costs' and push more and more and more and more and more egregious and ludicrous MTX just to get more money.
Simple.
The saddest part about the excessive monetisation is that it's going nowhere.
Even tho the majority of players don't engage in macro transactions, there will always be a few who will always buy those. And companies quickly learnt that they can easily offset that low amount of always buying players by upcharging them hundreds per purchase.
By bringing in the recent Faker skin - it earned 2.5 million $ during a single stream. With 500$ per pack, it means Riot only needed 5000 people out of millions playing LoL in order to earn this much.
If you don't want excessive monetisation, don't play games with excessive monetisation. That is not the same as playing the game anyway and not buy those items.
If you really mean it, don't play any game from a studio that produces any games with excessive monetisation.
@@nodwick4231 you are the problem.
@@nodwick4231 "Easier said than done".
There are millions of people who play those games either because they can't afford or run normal games as they tend to be not so demanding on weaker PCs or play because "the game is good despite the grind".
They reality is that there are too many who chose those games for one or the other reason and a single person not playing it won't make a dent. You would have to drop the daily player count by 2/3rd for the paying ones to dip and as I've seen numerous time in previous "game boycotts"... that ain't happening.
@@nodwick4231 tell that to the gacha crowd, like genshin. its stupidly huge.
@@DajovaI imagine Genshin's even worse, because Chinese seem to actively take pride in throwing money at gacha slop. With them, Japan, and S.Korea being the large audience, even if everyone in the west collectively dropped it and every other Mihoyo game, it wouldn't even make a dent
I feel like artists for things like this should have royalties just like actors and such anything that is created by talents and will make money in perpetuity should get money the same.
Why? They are a contractor contracted for a job. They delivered and were paid.
the quality of the skins would probably go up too if the artists making them knew that the better they sold the more money they would make
@Daniele-PierreDuLac I am saying that our system needs to change we are still working off a system where things were made and sold and that was it now things are made to be sold an infinite number of times if something you made will make money 1 time being payed 1 time makes sense but if the thing you made will make money for the next 20 years you should too. I am not saying this exact time it should because yes the way it works isn't like that the point is the system should change going forward.
It shouldn't. Because all anyone would ever do is the try to join a successful business to passively earn royalties rather than try to start their own.
@@johnoden5932 There are companies that already do this, see Valve for example, anyone can make Dota 2 skins and potentially profit from them if they're accepted by Valve and there are artists who do and make a lot. I think the person you're responding to is being unnecessarily dismissive but they do have a point, at the end of the day these artists agreed to the contract, even if yes I agree it's scummy it's not actually the companies' fault that they had contract regret after and realised they got screwed over.
I'm reminded a bit of the Witcher book writer who took a cash payment and handed over his IP entirely to CD Projekt Red thinking he was being smart even though he was offered something like 5% I think it might have been ( Don't quote me on that ) in royalties. He clearly had no idea how big of a success it was and then proceeded to go after CD Projekt Red after like he was a victim. Let this be a lesson to anyone trying to get to the higher tiers of business, if you think it has the slightest chance of doing well always find a way of getting a percentage in profit through royalties or any other method so you don't get ripped off for your work.
I'm not writing this as a justification for their behaviour, this is just the realities of a business deal younger generations especially need to take note of.
We can blame corporate greed all day... However, so long as people continue to supply revenue, making these greedy moves profitable, they will continue to implement them.
Most have little willpower to stop themselves... especially if they are purchasing with someone elses money, such as a parent.
Fight back by AFK-ing if they're on your team
Its owned by Tencent, 100% them behind this with all the gacha games.
@@DeathRebel369 maybe, but I don’t doubt those who work at riot want money. I doubt they’d need much convincing.
because as we know, a western owned studio would never stoop this low
the game already had Loot boxes long time ago
Why is EVERY BIG GAME COMPANY RACING TO THE BOTTOM? This is why ubisoft is floundering, this is why Indie games are booming while AA and AAA are losing ground.
This isn’t new. This is a loot box with extra steps
Artists should wise up and be paid in royalties to avoid being fired right after they finish their job and are no longer needed!
What stops the studio they worked for from cutting off the royalty check shortly after sacking?
Warner Bros. making their recent TV inaccessible, anyone?
why ? they got paid for their job.
The people designing these monetization systems are genuinely some of the worst people ever.
Buying physical items will always be better than digital
riot games is a studio that deserves to fail. They stopped caring about league a long time ago. I dropped league after vanguard happened and switched to linux mint as my daily driver and haven't looked back once.
Vanguard patch was the day I uninstalled, I'm not about to compromise my system to play a few ARAMs a week. Not sure why they thought that level of invasiveness was fine, but since they didn't roll it back, I'm guessing most of their players just didn't care.
To borrow a phrase. The more these companies try to tighten their grip the more people that will slip through their fingers.
Except that they DONT. They keep whaling it up and buying the skins.
I think this is the point. I think things are getting more expensive across the board, because the spending power of the middle class is shrinking, leaving only the super rich/whales as viable customers. So many businesses are pivoting towards catering to them only.
@@Mick0Mania I agree to an extent, but a community of any game is made on the back of the average player and if they are squeezed out the whales will loose the motivation as other players leave. Most loose any care to spend if the isn't anyone to brag to or stomp. The collect them all whale generally are not enough to sustain a game on their own.
I don't even play these games and I'm so tired of hearing about all of this gacha/monetization scheme BS. It's so obviously manipulative and cynical. The fact that it works so well is what's most depressing.
They won't get me. Ever.
It's funny because once i got wind of this system i thought to myself: 'I don't play gacha games', and suddenly my time spend on league decreased by about 90%, only the occasional ARAM.
Step 1: don't play games from Riot Games.
Super easy.
Arcane is like BG3: a very well crafted licensed release that gives life to an IP that's controlled by people who have no interest in anything but cash.
Stephanie Sterling said it best about “It’s just cosmetic” type defences.
If it was just cosmetic and not everything is for you, why would these devs and publishers bother? Do you think they do all of this just to only adopt a handful of purchasers? Do you think they don’t want to create more customers? Do you honestly believe it doesn’t impact the overall designs of games?
Absolutely, a lot of people are dense enough to believe the nonsense they're spouting.
pepople tend to forget that tencent owns riot games and their biggest market is china. they are not making stuff for the west anymore
When the monetization is all about cosmetics, everything else about the game is as well.
It is absolutely not JUST cosmetic, to use the game For Honor as an example, the reason the playerbase stuck around for so long and is still keeping the game alive is because the devs for the most part listened to feedback about keeping the medieval aeshtetic and not just doing a bunch of fantasy visual effect skins for everything, People wanted the gritty metal aesthetic to be the main one
Come on, as much as I hate league, just cosmetic is still miles ahead of P2W or even "pay for convenience" type crap. That's what really hurts the game, because the devs create problems that can be solved with $$$
Ubisoft also said the quiet part out loud when they said that you don't actually own any of your games, yet y'all started memeing on them with that quote. Next thing everyone realizes is that Steam were forced to let you know that it was indeed true :).
Poetic justice since it was Steam/Valve who pioneered the whole always-online digital DRM launcher in the first place.
Do people never think about that everything they spend money on will be gone the moment Riot pulls the plug?
We're all gonna look fondly back at cash shops. Pay your money Get your item! 😮
Not really, that was just as stupid. I look fondly back when you got the complete game and you unlocked stuff by playing the game.
it sounds like Blizzard is aping off MMOs like Genshin and Tower of Fantasy, Injecting a Gacha Pool with whats called a "Pity" System.
Fun fact: the "Pity" system is there not because the developers have a good heart, but because if they don't have one, the thing would be considered gambling.
Some companies just can't grasp volume sales. Make cheap skins, sell tons of them, keep people employed making more skins and content.
It IS normal. Look at csgo skins.
This is the shit we live through today.
It's a surety that I'll never give Riot a dime of my money again, for anything. I hope many others will follow suit.
I'll just say it, we need to bully people who buy skins.
We need to stop playing games that offer skins. That would really help.
Honestly, methinks that Korean game developers and Bethesda (horse armour, anyone?) need to be shamed for making this skeevy monetization mainstream
AFK-ing if they're on your team is solid move. My whole team has done it a few times. Feels good 😅
No. Bullying never leads to anything good. But we should absolutely not acknowledge their fancy purchase, and thereby remove a large reason that you do such things.
Well said at the end there. People will say they're just cosmetics, they don't change the game, they don't matter. If that were true, why do studios charge for them? Why do they invest so much money in the making and marketing of them? Because they do matter.
13:50 Preach!! I wish devs (especially blizzard) would focus more on pumping out content rather than useless skins. Do you remember what skin or transmog you had on when you had that great win or beat that one raid? NO!! but I bet you remember the character you were playing
blizzard doesn't have the experts anymore to pump anything out
Every day we see proof that people are stupid.
As someone knows someone who owns every single skin, little legends, emote and chroma in the game - ever x: yes they exist.
I hate it so much. I agree with Asmongold here. Virtual currencies should just go away. Things should just be able to bought 1:1 vs real money - straight forward.
As someone who also drops money on Rito, and i don't mind doing so, I am glad that my fav characters aren't that popular.
Still wondering if DJ Sona and Elementalist Lux will be upgraded to be an Exalted or not. Jinx basically has the same functionality as DJ Sona, minus the Music plus the HUD
The Riot matrix has you.
As an artist who used to dream of working at riot this is incredibly depressing
Everyone I know who was at one point a hardcore league player have by and large stopped playing. I think at this point the playerbase numbers have stagnated and are likely dropping. South Korea will always remain the largest country for League and SK is an absolute dystopia of people who are willing to spend money to make themselves look better in any way possible. This leads me to believe that they're basically at the point where the game isn't going to really go anywhere and they're looking to make as much money as possible by milking whoever is left.
Riot, in general, is a mess. It's a miracle Valorant was even made considering that their devs constantly fail at making new games and can barely even manage new game modes in LoL. Their side projects have mostly failed or are in production limbo. Once again, I'm pretty sure if it weren't for South Korea, Riot's situation would be far worse.
I think League could definitely be stagnating, but I think the playerbase numbers, if they are dropping, are dropping very slowly. This is rather natural, though, for a game this old or at least it is expected. League is very old and Riot isn't dumb they know a new game or new projects are a necessity to grow forward, and so it will happen whether anyone likes it or not. Valorant is a recent result of this. You are right on SK though, it's a weird dystopian like place in which they care about image to a degree that is offputting.
The end of the video is really important. That’s why “just don’t buy it” has never made sense. When games become stores, they get designed to sell, not to play.
I quit this greedy game since "Faker skin"
Smells like oceanfront property. None of this has a meaningful value
One of the few upsides of climate change is seeing some richie's oceanfront property become all ocean and no front.
@@SimuLord That made me chuckle.
13:36 bro thankyou. I frequently talk about the monetization of Overwatch 2 on reddit and have to combat these arguments almost all the time. My usual response is, "if you REALLY don't care about cosmetics, then you shouldn't mind people complaining about them." Overwatch 2 feels more like a mall than a game with how much development effort goes into the cosmetics compared to the rest of the game. They killed the ambition of one of my favorite games and turned it into a husk to sell skins. 😢
When its a no self control contest and your opponent is the silly goose who keeps preordering shit games
She was fired because she delivered one new outfit every 2 months. Not one character model - one OUTFIT.
That's pathetic.
A "pity system" is just the second tier of emotional manipulation on top of the Skinner box that gacha offers.
that last 2 minutes is exactly it. full stop.
im in my 40s and you could see the writing on the wall become crystal clear when fortnite was stealing dances and they were making money hand over fist on skins. selling map packs walked so selling skins could run.... the industry into the ground.
ive been a rocket league player/fan since day one. all of the development on the game we see these days goes to skins, rocket pass items, and license deals.
@@bigrob029 I remember Cathode Ray Dude going on about perfection in appliance/tech businesses during his look at Daystarter. Perfection is what drives skeevy business.
how many millions can companies save by firing their executives and not having to pay their insane golden parachutes...
That the real Ahri statue of the Faker Skin was cheaper than the endlessly available digital Skin is still the funniest/saddest thing for me.
This video is even funnier now that WoW has released the $90 butasaur mount with AH and mailbox built in.
"I'd like to start by first saying thanks. Thank you for creating content that has generated this company millions of dollars; unfortunately..."
Imaging making a product that has a sale value of 500 and having someone else sell it. I mean it's normal everywhere but still a funny thing to see pronounced.
They added gacha into Little Legends and everybody said it would be fine. They expanded gacha in little legends and everybody said it wouldn't affect the main game. They added a little gacha into the main game and everybody said it was just a mild gacha system for the whales. Now we've got a full-blown gacha system for their next major skin release. Who wants to take bets on how long it takes for this to become their entire monetization system?
This is what happens when you don't push back. God I'm glad I don't play this shit anymore. If you're a league player: drop that shit. I promise you, it will noticeably improve your life after you get over the withdrawal. The sunk cost isn't worth it.
We already have mythic essence though. so that's not new, and I don't actually mind that like if you put, if you do an event, you get essentially enough mythic. Essence to get a mythic skin because of like a several factors, because you get mythic essence in other ways as well. but I will pay the like $20 or whatever to do like II don't do every event. I always make sure I have enough to get a mythic skin.If I know there's one that I want so like I wanted hextech swain, so I did.... I don't even remember what the events are called cause I don't care, but I did one event, and then I had enough, and then I just sat on that until a rotated into the store. at this point I do like two events a year cause.There's usually not that many mythic skins that I want.
But as far as special currencies go, it's an extremely predictable and reliable currency. I don't mind it at all. Because the things that you buy with it are not loot boxes. they're well defined.They have well defined consistent costs.
That part was said when the expensive jhin chroma got released so they warned us and they said if they have market for it which they have they will keep developing it
There's a problem with corporate greed, they get a taste of profit and want more each year, it's not enough to make $1million every year, no, it has to be $1million year one, $2million year two, $3million year 3 etc as if just being a profitable company isn't enough, it has to be profitable and growing constantly at any cost to the consumer even if it ends ultimately destroying the company because it's impossible to have infinite growth (unless you're Nvidia) eventually you hit a ceiling and then the only way is down when it becomes unsustainable
It is worth noting FOMO works both ways, fear of missing out requires you to not be missing out.
Now that you will have missed out, there is less reason to join this game. The less reason to join this game the more likely they will go the Smite Route. In other words the design of this is exclusivity that will drive League of Legends 2 to be made. You are paying money to drive the death of LoL and the skins you spend.
Really interesting that this is going on while China and some other eastern countries are cracking down on Gachas.
Lots of companies say the quiet part out loud. The real question is, does it even matter? Will players of these games hold the companies accountable? No... no they won't. Just remember, when you open your wallet for pixels in League or for power in games like Lost Ark, you're not really getting *anything*. When those games are no longer playable, you can think about all the money you spent in these titles.
I started working in the gaming industry in 2007 and by now I am at a point where I decided to leave the industry. Luxury ingame skins are certainly part of my decision.
Path of Exile has the exact same business model and no one seems to complain about them. PoE releases new $120 supporter packs every few months. If you don't want to pay $200 for cosmetics then don't pay $200 for cosmetics.
We are done. Too many of them are consumers. I once had a friend that had a whole mental breakdown coz he couldnt confirm a payment in his gatcha game. They are literaly conditioned to consume.
Ending was beautiful. We didn't realize how good we had it back then... Oh, hindsight is such a bittersweet thing.
Yeah this is just another reason why I quit once riot sold out to tencent, they're basically the hybrid between electronic arts & sony.
This is like not related to the topic of the video, but in that art book, does she talk about? Like the development process for the style? because I felt like it was not always but a lot of times it was like building on clone wars, the 3d cartoon with asoka.
Because that show started out and it was rough, like it was hard to look at, and it was really grainy, and they didn't really seem to understand or even be attempting to use lighting like they weren't really thinking about lighting, everything was really, really flat. it basically looked like jpegs being displayed on flat polygons.
It was rough. anyway, the cool thing about that show was that every season there would be this dramatic jump quality. it felt like they were taking so much time in between the seasons. Figure out what was working, what were the strengths of this and what were weaknesses.
Because they were the only ones that were doing anything like it. it was very anti pixar in its style. it was going in a completely different direction, like taking a different approach, kind of like the way tim burton is also going in a completely different direction, like there's no overlap between pixar and his type of thing.
And the last few seasons, like 45 and six, and then later, seven, that show became breathtaking, like I don't even really remember what some of the episodes were necessarily about, but I remember where they occurred and just being dumbstruck by how beautiful it was at times.
And their understanding of action cinematography and choreography is beyond what anything disney was able to do after they shuttered that show, and then, uh, awkwardly tried to reboot it.
And arcane has pretty decent action too.They kind of are overly reliant on slow motion to highlight certain points in people fighting or running. i think what are games?It seems to have built on the most is lighting. the different ways that they did it, and the uh, breadth of intensities and colors and stuff that they went for was really good. (favorite was when they would use treat a a semi transparent material like smoke or water, not just as like a color dodge or a burn on the color behind it but it would be like, uh, function, so depending on the color behind it, that would change how it appears through the filter. it added so much depth to a lot of scenes)
But tldr, does she talk about that kind of process, like how they come up with those types of things
Hello there, new Brutausaur! What a topical video XD
How funny that just now blizzard released a 90$ store mount
TLDR: Limited-time premium skins locked behind a Genshin Impact lootbox system. Hurray.
We live in an age of gaming that is simultaneously one of the best, and one of the fucking worst we’ve been through. So many banger titles and experiences have come out in the last 5 years, while monetization and terrible games have arguably been cranked out at an even greater clip.
It fucking sucks. Can we get the Riot of like 2012 back? The one that was flawed, sure, but had a lot of heart behind it.
People actually defended the skin pricing?
If not for everyone else suffering from it as well I would almost think they deserve to be fleeced.
Cant wait to see a bellular vid about the new wow brutosaur with this vid as a reference
I remember when we bought game content. I remember when the thing we expected from a game was fun. Paying real money for digital cosmetics has always made me feel uneasy and it has only become worse with time.
I stopped playing anything riot makes years ago and have never regretted the decision once
Why pay a veteran artist 6 figures to make something that an eager new artist is willing to do for 60% of the salary? It's not like LoL's art style requires the most talented artists.
It baffles me that not only people are still playing this crap, they're still paying for it.
I'm thankful cosmetics bring me no satisfaction at all and don't pay for any of this horse shit as I hold zero value to any of that slop.
When Overwatch first launched, I looked at it and ignored it, understanding the Korean-MMO levels of monetization. Of course now, I am knee-deep in retro-gaming and just got a MiSTer board.
I will not be playing Riot games. havent added them to the list of pubs I don't buy from cuz I never bought riot games.
So who will be cancelling their Netflix account in protest and not watch season 2 of Arcane? Yeah that's thought.
8:41 "In Free to Play games they CAN NOT think of the value they provide you"
Yeah, thats is 100% bs bro. There are plenty of F2P games with ethical monetization. Warframe is the best example.
Wow, how thoughtful of them! Glad they’re looking out for the players by introducing gambling to children and young adults
Except we ALREADY had a gatcha system with 200$ skins. They're adding another one on top of it.
"nobody's forcing you to buy it" Seems like we should review the importance of "precedent"
Companies look at what's successful such as FAANG and think "hey maybe that's a good thing to copy for our company, they didn't even get in trouble by their customers so it must be ok"
I think if we just look at recent years we can clearly see that happening... and many will often tell us directly that they are doing it.
"This employee makes us money."
"That's great. They're fired."
... and capitalists wonder why people are starting to turn back toward unions.
Riot Vanguard is a ring 0 (kernel level) custom anti-cheat data miner security software developed by Riot Games.
and their games have the fewest cheaters. thank you Riot Games.
When vanguard went live for league I refused to comply and played TFT on mobile. Now with the nerfs to season passes the game has become more of a gatcha game with high prices and very little value for the money spent.
Once again, why do people want to work for these companies when the reward for a job well done is being fired?
Also, going from one scum tactic to another scum tactic isn't changing the fact you are using a scum tactic.
Don't most nations have laws against whale hunting?
People are agnry today about the $500 skin the same way we were angry 15 years ago about day one DLCs
The needle will move, it's inevitable, all because not enough people care in the end
It's easier to screech about "the WOKES" for example, than it is to properly explain the predatory practices actually ruining gaming for all of us
I criticized the overwatch episode because Blizzard has been doing overwatch dirty by focusing on the cosmetics since it became the sequel, so it wasn't particularly interesting to hear about what I already kinda knew. 🙃
Unless you are overwatch, provide elite skins over the years, then when they drop overwatch 2 they make it all available in the store and shit on your FOMO trophies.
That studio had some of the most talanted artists in the industry... and they fired them lol Guess they trained their in-house AI enough I guess
more likely tencent is going to shift the production to china, in recent years the number of chinese artists for league increased. while there are certainly really good western artists, china has much more of them
i'm 05:36 min into the video, and how Bellular is describing and phrasing things is getting me worried that riot will try to push a skin with a monthly sub... if that, is true and things catch up, i think it will be time to let the gamer hobiee goes.
EVERYTHING BECOMES A CASINO
Dropping by me in general competition games 8 years ago was good idea 💀
Brand new super Nintendo games when the system was new were around 100 dollars or more per game... And that was in the 90s. 30 years ago. And we bought them.
At least you could sell the game afterwards. Used market was really a thing back then. Now you don't own it so you'll just have to suck it up.
Amazing that Blizzard and Riot are both doing the same thing.
And it's going to work. Because there are people in the world who love buying expensive shit just for the sake of buying it.
I don't get why people are buying these outrageously overpriced skins (well, I actually do know but I wish they didn't), or any microtransactions where the value is clearly not that great. For the price of several new games you can get a single skin or just a mere chance of getting something in the case of a gacha game. These systems are clearly predatory. I might not care as much if I didn't know for a fact that people who can barely afford to buy them are doing so... this kind of stuff is ruining lives in some extreme cases.
And as if milking the players wasn't enough they also treat loyal employees like crap. I honestly think the downfall of AAA gaming companies (and across all other industries as well) comes down to them becoming publicly traded.
My backlog of games is big. I can have myself entertained for years to come. I simply refuse to play games, that are taking the piss like this. Even if I do not intend to bys any of their skins - I will not provide a +1 to their player numbers.
Exactly why I stopped playing bigger games. Indies for the most part still are focused on content.