I love how Garbaj's community is growing. People in comments doesn't annoy. They just put their own opinion and that generates a respectful discussion. Love it, Great videos man!
@@garbaj Here's the thing, I'm a future game dev and all I got is ideas and paper, I'm a knight in shining armor for the game industry, I will avoid what today's industries are doing, these things will not be in my games: Microtrans: I don't want people to think they can just buy their way into my games, I want it like the whole game is there like the old days, instead, you'll earn it within the game, achievements, skins, stuff, it's all earned and I won't be a tyrant and make you do a impossible task and I won't make that task too soft (unless it's a joke). Useless Skins: I won't have these in, I will have them have meaning, for example, I'm making a toy army men game, and skins will just not be digital pixels, they'll do something, making their value go up instead of doing nothing and that's stale, and I'm also tired of over sexually skins, like that women that walked fowerd swaying her hips, barely any armour like what's the deal, I unload a magazine on the legs and she's crippled I don't understand the logic here besides of lust. I'll have logic instead of lust. Valve: I won't abandon the games, like how, their my creations. Pointless DLCs: I'll have DLCs, but they won't be pointless. They'll mean something.
@@devoutmordexfollower5289 You'll be waiting for a long time, it might not get on steam until a few more years, I got a lot and I'll be working on them a lot, some multitasking, but I can tell you some of them sorta. One will be called Deccoso Burg, basically another TF2. Another is a Toy Army Men game that's immersive, don't know the name yet. And a Halo like game called Spryer. These are all future games, probably got to wait till I get to college or even out, I'm just on paper and ideas for now, but I can tell you these will come out good or not. Making my own company might help get this out the way I want to might help too. All you have to do is wait, or you can help me make ideas for these 3 games, the others besides these are a series and I want it to be a secret for now, but these 3 are on my mind now. The best thing is they will be cheap and be the full game till updates and DLCs, and absolutely garentee no Microtrans, you'll earn stuff instead of pay to win, I'll make it the best I can, so pick one and I'll tell you all about it, these are no secret games, 1 is about competition and fun, one is just fun, and the other is fun and competition, but all have fun so it can survive.
These companies literally make their biggest margins from lootbox mechanics. Gambling psychology and blurred laws makes this very appealing to all AAA gaming companies. Clarification: By loot boxes I mean anything monetized and randomized. So things like TCG card booster packs, simple "surprise mechanics", and such all included.
What games made after 2018 uses loot boxes? Regulations in the EU made it a headache to implement loot boxes, so they're typically avoided now. The Season Pass has been shown to be much a more profitable and reliable way to get users to shell out cash on a regular basis.
I think it heavily depends on the game, whether or not the "grind" is a good thing. For example, Borderlands is, in theory, very grindy... but even when you are farming for a drop, the game is still fun. Plus, it's deeply satisfying to get a rare drop! Along with that, certain games like Animal Crossing and basically any roguelike are based around doing the same thing every single time, with enough variation to make it enjoyable. Speedrunning should be mentioned too, as it has a similar premise. The problem here I think is that it's so hard to nail down what makes a grind fun, since there's so many different things that are theoretically "grindy" while still being very enjoyable
I feel like grind becomes a problem when it becomes a necessity. Single player games that have no end are without a doubt going to require a lot of grind, so it makes sense if they have it. As long as the developers make it intresting enough, you can keep the grind. However, once grinding is put into a multiplayer game, it becomes a different story. I can't stand playing Destiny because of all that I need to do in order to simply compete against people. Grinding through hours and hours of killing AI enemies just to get a slightly better gun is unappealing. The worst culprit of grind is mobile games. These games force you to play thousands of hours to unlock everything, or just have you pay a bunch of money to instantly do all of it. Whenever Clash Royale increased the level cap from 13 to 14, a lot of FTP players couldn't keep up as PTW players instantly had an edge over them. The only multiplayer games with grind that I can stand is CoD and Titanfall 2. You unlock almost everything very quickly, rewarding you with a new gun, cosmetic, or ability after 1-2 games. Most people don't like grind, that's why Battlefront 2 failed on release. Companies like it because it gets players to spend a couple of more hours on their game, but I would say majority of people hate it. The problem is that there isn't a single solution to it, and that every game is different. However, I would think that most games eould benefit by cutting back on the grind a little bit
For me personally, I enjoy grinding when I'm allowed to slowly chip away at it without any pressure. When a game imposes a time limit or if there's a sense of urgency about completing the grind, that's when it goes from being fun to being a "job"
It depends on the game, Borderlands I don't really like the grind because it feels inconsecuential, you get loot all the time and when you get the one you want you'll replace it way too soon, but that's a different thing, this kind of microtransaction works in games like Apex Legends where the journey to get X or Y character isn't the important part, the important and fun part is the use of the character and mastering it, that's the good part, for roguelikes it's different, the grind, playing a run and another and another it's the fun part, you start, lets say in The Binding of Isaac, you get a bunch of items that make that run unique, maybe a good build, maybe a bad one, or even a funny one, after completing the run you get new items that make that in theory repetitive action absolutely different because the build you'll get now will be unique and different from the last one. You can look for a full save file if you want, but different from most online games, the fun part it's not the end, it's the journey to get there
That taxonomy wasn't designed specifically to talk about monetisation. It was meant to help designers focus on tailoring their experience to their player base, it was about making better games. Using it to try and get money out of people feels really slimy.
@@garbaj Doing design on these principles is why i moved from F2P game design to data analysis. I hope i can find a job in PC/Console game design. I know that it's the big companies started to do this stuff too, but there is still a lot of smaller ones.
Bartle's taxonomy is old and not really that useful anymore. Player motivation models are much more recent and more useful in my experience. See Quantic Foundry playe motivations.
Not only that, but boosters "real" boost is much higher than it looks because of the repair/ammo costs offset. So if you make 10k per match, but spend 5k on repairs, your net worth is 5k of progress. However, if you have a +100% booster, your net worth goes to 15k, which is TRIPLE the progress, and that's just disgusting.
Unless you're someone who doesn't have to work, it's impossible to get to higher tiers without paying. As an aviation buff the game draws me in, but holy crap was my jaw on the floor when I saw that one vehicle costs the same as A WHOLE TRIPLE A GAME! There are no poor people in jets...
I had already seen the "let's go whaling" video long ago, but that video is mostly about MOBILE/Gacha games. This doesn't mean cosmetics are not profitable, not at all. (as you seem to suggest at the beginning of the video) The biggest talking point of the whaling video, is a meaningful addition of monetization to the Bartle's player types model. Which is just one of the simplest of many models to categorize players in. Which is: sell advantage to killers (pay to win) Sell convenience to achievers (Example: Clash of clans extra builder huts) Sell customization to socializers (Skins and cosmetics) Sell content to explorers (DLC and story) I also like to describe "killers" as simply competitive players, you don't have to kill other players in your game to want to be better than them and compete with them. I know you are just sharing your journey of learning about things in these videos, and I actually learned very useful things from your videos about scopes in FPS games. But game design is often misunderstood.
Good point on the differing context. It would make sense that a medium with more avenue for the meaningful appreciation of a gamer commodity would shift the balance in its favour (while also acknowledging that people remain people regardless of the nature of the device used). I admit that Optimizers/Achievers and Competitors/Killers seem very closely related, even if the core of their motives may differ.
The main takeaway from the let's go whaling example and my video is that most mtx income comes from the Achievers. I never said that skins are not profitable, only that they represent a much smaller portion of revenue. Whether it's mobile, pc or console, the psychology behind getting people to pay doesn't change. Yes, I'm new to game design, yes I have many things to learn, but we can speak to each other like the fully grown adults that we are. There is no need for condescension.
@@garbaj as he said, in mobile games with super inflated grind that is true, but for your game you might wanna look the monetization of team fortress paladins and overwatch, there is little gameplay to unlock there, it is mostly skins, paladins had the cards for a time and it almost killed the game until they unlocked all the cards because it ruined the balance mobile games are usually time gated, and that is why people pay, you cant git gud your way out of the grind, you wait or you pay the Dota 2 monetization i find interesting, the game gives items for free and you can sell items to other players, since the money cant leave the game steam gets all the money that is put in, and also a cut of every sale so the available money in the games get reduced over time so the items cant just change hands for ever without more money being put in the system, that is harder to implement but i think is a really fair and engaging system
I feel very bad about it, because they are basically creating the problem and selling the solution, on purpose, they aren't being mindful or nice, not at all. They are profit-seeking, that's all they do in general, we have few exceptions that actually respects your time with meaningful content without the need for grinding to get to it, specially on the indie side
Or, they actually make a good game with a good progression designed for children to play. But people with less free time are being monetized to because those people also happen to have money
Bro ive been seeing u since the day u made how to make a fps on godot i still remember when u had 7k subs iam really happy that people found out abt u Ty for teaching me stuff on godot :D
The issue with this type of micro-transaction is that it incentivizes poor progression balance and design. When the devs have the excuse of “well you can just pay to skip the grind” then they’re more likely to be too heavy handed with the grind and give the game poor progression balance in general. This was the case with HALO infinite and with Star Wars Battlefront. In order to sell more boosts, they didn’t just make the game grindy, they made the grind itself convoluted and unenjoyable.
Sounds a lot like GTA online. Although the recent Contract update made the grind less tedious as the missions were decently fun and not actually impossible, and the payout was good. Another issue with GTA isn’t the tediousness, it’s how difficult the missions are. The modern enemy AI is stupid OP, often headshotting from nowhere, not appearing on the minimap, and ramming your car off the road.
@@atinofspam3433 Thats why i started hacking in that game, ive never hacked in any other game, but GTA V online was just so grindy, so i bought a modmenu for 5 bucks and had infinite money. That kinda what they are forcing with that model, either people spend ridiculous amounts of money on fake shit, or they start hacking.
@@pjubo Yeah, GTA5 is an odd case where it's legitimately cheaper to sidestep their anticheat indefinitely than play the game as they clearly intend. This is unironically what's kneecapped idle/clicker games as well. When someone says idle games one of three images pops into your head, a slow AF mobile game with ads every 10 seconds, a PC game that pushes MTX so hard you just find a save editor, or the handful of actually innovative games... that are likely just text and numbers on a github page set up as someone's first 'game'. Luckily larger game markets can reliably fall back on indie developers, so we're not likely to see a similar fate with the RPG or FPS genre any time soon. It's still a great preview of where these pay to progress type MTX could go in the long run though.
This reminds me of Guild Wars: It was made for people who work with the goal in mind that by playing 1-2 hours a day you could make some good progress and easily reach maximum level in the span of 1 or 2 months (considering that is a MMO). And I kinda like that business model, especially now that I don't have much free time: you pay immediatly for the game and you can enjoy a mmo without grinding. Sadly you can't just keep a multiplayer game online by just selling the game one time, so skins, xp boosts and such seems to become a necessity to keep the game "free" on each update
I wonder how much of it is necessity vs maximizing profit. Game companies have the right to maximize profit, but man does it feel bad as the consumer at times
@@garbaj in games like battlefield and call of duty it is not a necesity, they make a new game every 2-3 years, they could make money only of the sales of the game, for long term games like apex legends there is the fact that it is free to play so it is more justified
Some of the balance here should come from companies realizing that having a dedicated and active community is in its own way profitable because no one wants to play a game that feels like it’s dying, rewarding players that keep your game alive and healthy should be on a developers radar.
Something to consider - long grind times can be used as an anticheat measure. Really puts the ante in anticheat when getting banned results in needing to spend legitimate time grinding just to get to a point to where you can cheat again.
On an unrelated note, I found your channel as per usual, the dreaded youtube algorithm and actually like how honest, straight forward and simple your videos are
I think the battlepass model is also a very good source of revenue, if not the best. You have all 4 in one - grind for achievers, xp boost for killers, customization for socializers and content for explorers + it acts as an ice break since it's a really good deal (cheap compared to amount of content) and act as a retention. You jump on this fabulous offer and develop a habit of playing because the only downside is : you having to play in order to get rewards. It's a hook - players hook and money hook. Once you are hooked, they win.
Exactly, the only reason I grinded Fortnite for more than 2 hours per day is because I had bought the battle pass on the last month of the season and I wanted to get my money's worth... Otherwise I used to play only a few times a month with friends. But after that, I haven't touched it other than when my little cousins come to my house and want to play.
I'd love it if more games adopted Halo Infinite's permanent battle pass strategy with no time limit to complete them, but judging how the game's doing right now, I doubt we'll see much more of that
Planetside 2 is a perfect example of a game where they understood this and it’s clear that most of peoples money is spent on new weapons or attachments and not cosmetics, but is still not pay to win.
i remember hearing a big game dev say somewhere (it might have even been from lets go whaling): its important not to make a game require too much skill, grind should be the main form of progression. and with grind, comes the dollars
Even without watching this video or referenced one, I would have told you that the biggest profit in gaming comes from selling energy boosts in mobile games with those types of mechanics. Generally when they have competitive/leaderboard events in those games the only way to get to the top is to spend thousands on energy refills. Even to just get the "decent" low tier event items either requires that you saved up on the free energy refill items and really grind out the event or you pay at least a little bit on more energy.
What pisses me off about this is that "competitive" games locking all their classes/weapons away is self defeating. Not having access to all the strategies kindof ruins it. For Free games it might be okay if its not too bad but as the game grows it takes longer and longer to get all the characters. ALSO for full price games that is totally unacceptable. Honestly if grinding was for the free version of a game and you could pay for the full version and get characters that havent been released yet that could work, but the thing is this model turns most games into subscription services because you have to pay up every update, and thats no fun. I miss buying a game and owning it and all its content. My favorite games rn (deep rock galactic and risk of rain 2) Show that a studio can easily live off this system with some noninvasive DLC (DRG gives out paid cosmetic supporter DLC and Risk of rain 2 has content DLC that combined with the base game is still less than 60$)
Also power creep is a really annoying factor of games that have that. All the newer characters feel way more flesh out while the older ones are still slow and/or clunky.
I would say that locking content in competitive games becomes a problem if the content gives you an edge over the competition. It might be unintentional, but that way it becomes a pay to win mechanic.
You’re content is great, recently getting into game dev and although I don’t understand how all the stuff is implemented bare bones, I love learning about the concepts so when I have the knowledge to implement them myself I can, keep it up !
The perfect game to account for, in respect to this video, is Escape from Tarkov. The progression is really really long, but you're not forced to go down that route. Tarkov's main attraction is the player-player interaction, whether it's PVP or VOIP or Coop, etc. The quests that Tarkov offers are only secondary to that attraction but it's still fun to go through the grind of getting the Kappa container. I think games that have less focus on story like tarkov, should adopt that sort of mentality, where progression is only secondary to gameplay.
Im more of an explorer myself. I love exploring every inch of a games map. Even if its outside the intendable play area. I love also breaking games with glitches. So more content gives me more than double the playtime than someone just focusing on the story. I try to get the most out of my games and its so fun just messing around
I'd say I miss the "good old days" when they would sell you the game and then you'd own the game but tbh that's not too terribly long ago. I think (like you mentioned) ftp multiplayer games will always be expensive to upkeep, so I think this pushes devs into mtx that can feel predatory on players. My fear of progression boosters/grind skips is that games will be built around them. Like, the game will be ftp but is built in a way that makes the mtx almost required.
2:54 My favourite unlocking system is one that is slow enough to let you try each customization and see what suits best with you while giving the option to pay to unlock everything you want
Companies need to first balance progression to ensure things aren't being earned at such a low rate that the players get bored before feeling rewarded, but not so fast that it feels unearned. THEN they allow players to pay as an option to increase progression
I think the key is this question "is it pay to WIN?" Although designers don't force you to play, if you do play, and want to win, are you forced to grind/buy in order to stand a reasonable chance? Or do you grind/buy because it's what you want to dodges? Does it add more abilities, enhancements, etc, or does it make the absolute difference in being able to win. In Warzone, I was always able to to make it to the end. I never won, but the difference in winning was never because of my gear. It was strategy and dumb luck. The people I lost to usually were obviously very skilled. Anybody can get the drop in anyone,, and everyone starts out the same. In a p2w game like Warface, the Victor is consistently decided by who has the more expensive gear, or who can get away with cheating.
Exactly! I feel like GTA 5 online’s inflation has now gotten to an absurd level of grinding required for just the most basic content, and it just seems ridiculous to go through the online experience without spending a dollar.
Dude I literally came down here to make a comment about Warframe. I love that game to pieces but goddamn some of those frames feel like they were never meant to be unlocked through grind (*cough* Gauss *cough*) and are only supposed to be bought with plat. It fucking sucks.
@@snaildad193 Lmao, thought you were gonna use Grendel as an example. That farm is actual bullshit. Also it does seem like the shiny better versions are easier to farm than the base models, meaning if you're not an avid collector or don't need to have everything day 1 chances are you'll wait for a couple years for the frame you want to "properly" release.
@@snaildad193 I still have a voice clip of a friend of mine screaming in agony that his nth run of sanctuary onslaught didn't drop khora. Amazing how it's easier to farm a full Chroma P + Rubico P set than get some of the base frames.
1:42 When ever I play rainbow six siege I always see about half of all players wearing skins, sometimes more, but occasionally I find lobbies with only a few people wearing skins
just like i thought clash of clans was fair since you could unlock everything for free and you could eventually reach the top, until i realized every 3 months they added a new year of content to unlock, and the top players got free gems, so once they got there it was easier to stay there, then i made a new account and stayed at the town hall level 7, which is the more balanced level of the game
Grind when there's no money at stake can be fine (e.g. offline games/older games) - unfortunately with the money part - much like a casino, you can never be sure how stacked the grind curve is. That always sticks in the back of my mind. Not to mention if said progression has a meaningful gameplay impact (e.g. weapon unlocks/attachments or new characters with more powers) then that shifts the balance of matches based on which teams/players have the most strategic options due to paying the most e.g. CoD, League, Battlefiled, Apex etc
Grind is about repeatedly overcoming obstacles to get a reward. Grind is more acceptable when the obstacles are in the players control(like using a specific character/weapon or playing a certain map), the rewards are optional(cosmetics & side-grades*), & the amount of grinding is manageable to trivial. Grind is frustrating when the obstacles are outside the players control(time restrictions & winning matches in team focused games), the rewards are mechanical advantages(power-ups & other upgrades), & the amount of repetition excessive. Ideally, only one aspect will be "frustrating" about the grind. I think grind works best when it's a milestone marker. Play 100 rounds to unlock a hat, Get 1000 Kills with a gun to unlock a new skin for it, etc. The milestone system disincentivizes "grind skipping" monetization because that would invalidate the achievement aspect. TBH I think monetizing grind always makes it look like "selling a solution to an artificial problem", even if the grind itself isn't bad. It also makes it look like the game isn't worth playing because you can "pay to not play it". Which if that's the case, then why should anyone waste money on it if it isn't even worth playing? *Side-grades can fall into bad grind territory when the side-grads act effectively as upgrades against the starter gear.
One form of monetization that I've seen in chinese card games but not western ones, is "early pay, early play". New content is put behind a barrier of paid currency, and after a while slowly gets added to F2P content. The game I played was a card game, and it did have some broken P2W stuff, (like spending money to increase your max health) but had a focus on PvE content and guilds. Their first expansion was behind paid currency, but slowly, they added some of the commons and rares to drops from PvE content, and eventually the card packs became accessible to a F2P player. I honestly think letting people buy the cards a week early is fine and an interesting way to get revenue, as long as the waiting period isn't too significant. Maybe in western games it could be a week or two.
It is inherently distasteful to manufacture a problem and sell a solution. Grind is game companies putting flies in your soup and charging you to remove them.
I've heard of these before but watching this video I was thinking about Battlepasses, they give you skins and other cosmetics through playing the game but you can also unlock the levels by paying. It'd be interesting to see the crossover between Achievers and Socializers when it comes to just battlepasses since I think there is at least some overlap there. Btw when you mention the majority don't spend money on cosmetics it made me think of VALORANT, it's extremely rare to see someone not have any skins in that game and if there is someone who don't have skins everyone instantly assume they are a smurf. My perspective might be skewed here because I'm playing in the higher ranks and typically people in higher ranks have played more so they are more likely to spend money. Are VALORANT and CS outliers or is my perspective skewed?
IDK, valorant has skins that genuinely look nice, as well as having every skin be time-limited to encourage hasty buying. CS has a massive amount of personalisation options (tf2 to an even greater extent) and shows your personal weapon names and descriptions to the people you kill, which encourages people to pay for tags to give their weapons funny names and descriptions. The inflated price of many skins on the CS market also means that people will unbox to try and make a profit, which leaves most players with several skins lying around.
I was looking for a Comment about Valorant. I hardly ever see a person without at least a vandal or phantom skin. I’ve spent more money then i’de like to say but it happens gradually which is what gets you.
2:50 I disagree on that point. I started to really hate battle pass when valve really cranked the grinding aspect on it. So you pay a fee to give you objective that not only force you to play the game, but to play the game in a way you don't intend. Like playing a role you don't like, and if you are 'killer' (play in comp), it's not a good idea to leave your comfort zone and get harrased. It also cut time you wanted to spend grinding on comp into casual.
1:38 IRT cosmetic skins - this CAN be profitable, but requires two things: 1) Being affordable 2) Being aesthetically pleasing Funnily enough, your backroll footage of Apex while discussing that reminded me just how terrible that game fails at #2. IMO, NONE of the skins in that game are aesthetically pleasing. They're honestly kinda lame, or if not lame they are so visually busy that looking at them is an eyesore. I can think of only two games that did very good-looking skins consistently: CSGO, and Fortnite. The former benefits from crowd-sourcing the skins out, which I believe leads to overall better results; creators have to compete with each other to get noticed by Valve, so they'll work harder. Fortnite has the benefit of a very flexible art style, and the ability to combine original and third-party licensed content almost seamlessly. Both of those games are the only games I spent any amount of money on skins for, for those reasons. Granted all of this is my opinion; tastes in art vary from person to person. But my general point is that cosmetic skins may not sell that well just cause they aren't all that good.
I would like the say, that the Bartle player types are a very old form of putting people into boxes, but people can't always be put into boxes as they behave different on different occasions. But you can still use Bartle Player Types for stuff like this, as it felt like a good way to use that way of thinking.
"Next time you're in a multiplayer lobby, take a mental note of how many people are wearing paid skins, you'll find it's a very small number." Valorant is the exception to this. Blew my mind how they'd release $60 gun packs regularly and just a couple days after dropping, every 10-man match would have 3-5 people with them. At least towards the beginning, I assume new pack sales have slowed down now. But most players seem to have bought at least one, with many having bought multiple. Valorant must have killed on cosmetic sales.
I'm one of this. I'm not the type to spend money on in game items. But valorant somehow makes me want to buy them. I don't have enough to buy the more expensive ones, but I have couple skins from the battlepass. Now that I stopped playing valorant, I started to collect dota skins instead. Dota skins are significantly cheaper than valorant. But, considering the amount that I bought, I've probably spend same amount of money for both.
IMO every game with a forced grind is bad by default. It's a good thing they're easy to avoid. I love that when I buy a Nintendo game, I instantly get all the fun with no strings attached.
This is what makes games worse. Look at how the microtransactions in Shadow of War literally imploded because of how badly they impacted the integrity of the game as a whole. Companies like Ubisoft will deliberately make bigger and grindier games simply to sell the XP boost. It's disgusting. They want you to feel like you have to pay extra so that you don't "have to" play more of the game they designed.
They also tied cosmetics to p2w elements, thus partially bypassing the negative stigma around it, and thus are able to sell to Killers too. This is like some kind of mental IRL sorcery.
Exactly gaming isn't about an enjoyable experience a lovable story or good characters anymore it's about taking your hard earned money from your pockets by creating another job you have to pay to work.
the thing about cosmetic is people usually only buy things for their main or fav hero/ champion so with multiple character, only a small fragment will be bought for each player
I think this argument heavily relies on the type of game. For example, rust is a game where you can only purchase cosmetics. No further elaboration needed.
Here's a thought, if you make xp boosts, you have to make the base xp gain bad to make the boosters worth it, so you actively have to design a bad game to sell the xp boosts. you have just created a problem and are a selling the solution. it is essentially a racket. so these kinds of microtransactions is why games are what they are these days, and it's not good.
@@Unknown_Genius the fact the xp boosts exist at all, makes the base xp gain bad, so you would still have ended up designing a bad base game. the point of xp boosts is there to inform you that the base xp gain is bad so as to incentivise their purchase, otherwise what would be the point. it's not a matter of perception that the base gain is bad, it's an actual fact that it is. e.g. you have a game in which it takes 20 secs to level up whatever, but the xp boosts cuts it down to 10, that base 20 will still have been purposefully bad design on your part, even if you introduce the xp boosts later. you still end up selling a solution to problem that you created. In contrast to xp boosts, there's cheats (used to be (ah, good times)). cheats can achieve the same thing as xp boosts, but because they're called cheats, and applying them is usually onerous, they don't make the base xp gain a bad design. but the xp boosts, are the intended way to play game by their simple presence, because, well, game devs want you paying for their game, and now they're selling something that just shouts "hey, here's an official and allowable method of skipping all that game that we painstakingly designed."
@@Unknown_Genius if you're not going to bother reading a response, who would then read yours? and if you haven't read it what points would you then be responding that I need to account for? you logic is weird, but you keep doing you, my dude.
@@Unknown_Genius This is what happens when you don't read, and you have now ended up repeating your assertion, and throwing in a few more, because ... who knows. People still pay other people games to play games even now with the prevalence of xp boosts, but that's outside of the devs' control and so are irrelevant to the point I was making. xp boosts weren't introduced to solve this problem. Levelling systems aren't a poorly thought out system (see, I can make assertions too), they can be poorly thought for certain game genres, but in and of themselves, they're not because games are largely(not only) a visual medium, levelling systems are a good way of representing progression.
@@Unknown_Genius "wrong, I didnt throw in more, as its still the same as my original comment with extra detail added as the previous apparently had been to complex." not it wasn't, this you attempting to rehabilitate your position. you introduced an external factor that neither you nor I had previously mentioned. "name one game in existence, that implemented leveling for the purpose of showing progression" every RPG in existence ever.
@@Unknown_Genius except there really isn't another better way of doing it in gaming, as you haven't provided an example of how it can be done better, just merely asserted that there is (you do that a lot). it's an explicit and over-exaggerated simulation of the real world. the better you get, the more things you can do, the more options are available to you. Also, now you're twisting the example I provided as an of good levelling systems that you asked for, into an example of minimizing the grind to level up. Dishonest, bad faith argumentation, or just poor reading comprehension (also, probably the reason why you didn't read my initial response to you), take your pick of your motivations. Looks like your own ideas were too complex for you to keep track of.
The grind is starting to get absurd in CoD. It wasn’t unbearably awful in MW2019 and Cold War but it’s gotten worse for Vanguard. My biggest gripes are the speed of which you get weapon levels and the level requirements for camo challenges. It would be such a nice change if you got 3 attachments per level (lowering most guns max level below 30) and removing level requirements for camos. Also unlocking camos should give weapon XP.
Running server is not cheap? It is literally free if you allow people to have access to their own dedicated server, this is how it was made before and how the best games do it today. The only ones not doing it are the garbage like EA, Ubisoft and console games compagnies. Grinding was developed to take money from people, all these micro transactions bs was crafted with social engineering studies. Here are some rules people should follow: - never buy a game that has micro transactions (if it's only cosmetics it's okayish I'd say) - never buy a multi player game where only the company have access to dedicated servers
Usually the "gameplay-unlocked cosmetics" take significantly longer to unlock than in the years before the microtransaction explosion, so it's still a means of intentionally manipulating people into spending money. It used to be that the grind was created to be fun for its own sake. Now the grind is used as a punishment for not playing ball.
I'm so glad you watched that video. I don't remember if I was the one who recommended it, but I recommend that video often, so I may have been, haha. As a game developer, its something to be aware of, so that you can find consumer-friendly alternatives to these less ethical methods.
There is another form of monetization, THE HOLE, once you’ve made 1 purchase or many it becomes harder to leave the game as you feel you’ve made an investment. The longer you stay the more you may very well spend
3:16 you are extremely correct, in war thunder if you don’t want to spend money you have to grinds for like 6 months straight to maybe fly a modernish aircraft
i like that when you said about that people are not buying cosmetics much, you showed Apex legends, the game where for some reason most of the players have bough event and legendary stuff
The taxonomy seems to be missing WHALES which are real and significant. It depends on the game but I know that in games with leaderboard, many players will dump thousands on a regular basis to stay atop the leaderboard. The largest spenders are those with a reputation and an ego linked to such a competition.
I recommend the mental checkpoint video on f2p games if someone wants more information on how these companies make money and what strategies they employ
The other day i told a friend that bought an agent in valorant "why did you do that you could unlock it for free" but after watching this video it made all the sense, my friend has very little time to game (it was still a bad buy because he was 1 or 2 matches away from unlocking it xd)
Many free games resort to season pass models, which is basically all of it and more. They may contain unlockable cosmetics, XP boosts to get levels faster, a seasonal story if there is one, and maybe some super-OP PvP gun (which of course gonna be nerfed, but not immediately, he-he). Thus you can target all those categories of players at once.
That's a good point. For example, i bought the battlepass in Valorant. As i dont always play but want to unlock everything that i paid for, i'm making sure i make as much daily/weekly missions as possible to gain xp faster. I need to because otherwise i wouldn't be able to go through the battlepass. I understand that if someone is not going to finish it in time, he/she might want to buy the rest of the xp necessary to complete the battlepass and therefore, see the "investment" as fulfilled.
When you think about it, instant buy is the msot profitable one, like for example, battlepass levels. Lots of people with money gonna just skip to the end so they don't need to grind the game, and can just enjoy the stuff they get.
I love how Garbaj's community is growing. People in comments doesn't annoy. They just put their own opinion and that generates a respectful discussion. Love it, Great videos man!
Thanks, I really do appreciate that sweet sweet respectful discussion. I'm very grateful for all the support I've received
@@garbaj Here's the thing, I'm a future game dev and all I got is ideas and paper, I'm a knight in shining armor for the game industry, I will avoid what today's industries are doing, these things will not be in my games:
Microtrans: I don't want people to think they can just buy their way into my games, I want it like the whole game is there like the old days, instead, you'll earn it within the game, achievements, skins, stuff, it's all earned and I won't be a tyrant and make you do a impossible task and I won't make that task too soft (unless it's a joke).
Useless Skins: I won't have these in, I will have them have meaning, for example, I'm making a toy army men game, and skins will just not be digital pixels, they'll do something, making their value go up instead of doing nothing and that's stale, and I'm also tired of over sexually skins, like that women that walked fowerd swaying her hips, barely any armour like what's the deal, I unload a magazine on the legs and she's crippled I don't understand the logic here besides of lust. I'll have logic instead of lust.
Valve: I won't abandon the games, like how, their my creations.
Pointless DLCs: I'll have DLCs, but they won't be pointless. They'll mean something.
@@garbaj My man, seeing Loba's ass convinced me to try apex legends
@@kagemushashien8394 sounds great, lmk what the name is so I can get it on steam when it comes out
@@devoutmordexfollower5289 You'll be waiting for a long time, it might not get on steam until a few more years, I got a lot and I'll be working on them a lot, some multitasking, but I can tell you some of them sorta.
One will be called Deccoso Burg, basically another TF2.
Another is a Toy Army Men game that's immersive, don't know the name yet.
And a Halo like game called Spryer.
These are all future games, probably got to wait till I get to college or even out, I'm just on paper and ideas for now, but I can tell you these will come out good or not. Making my own company might help get this out the way I want to might help too.
All you have to do is wait, or you can help me make ideas for these 3 games, the others besides these are a series and I want it to be a secret for now, but these 3 are on my mind now.
The best thing is they will be cheap and be the full game till updates and DLCs, and absolutely garentee no Microtrans, you'll earn stuff instead of pay to win, I'll make it the best I can, so pick one and I'll tell you all about it, these are no secret games, 1 is about competition and fun, one is just fun, and the other is fun and competition, but all have fun so it can survive.
These companies literally make their biggest margins from lootbox mechanics. Gambling psychology and blurred laws makes this very appealing to all AAA gaming companies.
Clarification: By loot boxes I mean anything monetized and randomized. So things like TCG card booster packs, simple "surprise mechanics", and such all included.
Those who add gambling systems to games should be drawn and quartered
:(
What games made after 2018 uses loot boxes?
Regulations in the EU made it a headache to implement loot boxes, so they're typically avoided now.
The Season Pass has been shown to be much a more profitable and reliable way to get users to shell out cash on a regular basis.
@@thespawner lol, lootboxes are still allowed
That's why the EU regulations were actually beneficial. Kids won't be exposed to gambling as easily.
That thumbnail hits
Thank me Later 1:43
Just start playing apex legends, or fortnite.
Loba A.K.A that character is lesbian
I think it heavily depends on the game, whether or not the "grind" is a good thing. For example, Borderlands is, in theory, very grindy... but even when you are farming for a drop, the game is still fun. Plus, it's deeply satisfying to get a rare drop! Along with that, certain games like Animal Crossing and basically any roguelike are based around doing the same thing every single time, with enough variation to make it enjoyable. Speedrunning should be mentioned too, as it has a similar premise.
The problem here I think is that it's so hard to nail down what makes a grind fun, since there's so many different things that are theoretically "grindy" while still being very enjoyable
I feel like grind becomes a problem when it becomes a necessity. Single player games that have no end are without a doubt going to require a lot of grind, so it makes sense if they have it. As long as the developers make it intresting enough, you can keep the grind. However, once grinding is put into a multiplayer game, it becomes a different story. I can't stand playing Destiny because of all that I need to do in order to simply compete against people. Grinding through hours and hours of killing AI enemies just to get a slightly better gun is unappealing. The worst culprit of grind is mobile games. These games force you to play thousands of hours to unlock everything, or just have you pay a bunch of money to instantly do all of it. Whenever Clash Royale increased the level cap from 13 to 14, a lot of FTP players couldn't keep up as PTW players instantly had an edge over them. The only multiplayer games with grind that I can stand is CoD and Titanfall 2. You unlock almost everything very quickly, rewarding you with a new gun, cosmetic, or ability after 1-2 games. Most people don't like grind, that's why Battlefront 2 failed on release. Companies like it because it gets players to spend a couple of more hours on their game, but I would say majority of people hate it. The problem is that there isn't a single solution to it, and that every game is different. However, I would think that most games eould benefit by cutting back on the grind a little bit
Hey, at least borderlands doesn’t eat your money, and it’s still fun, coming from a borderlands fan.
For me personally, I enjoy grinding when I'm allowed to slowly chip away at it without any pressure. When a game imposes a time limit or if there's a sense of urgency about completing the grind, that's when it goes from being fun to being a "job"
It depends on the game, Borderlands I don't really like the grind because it feels inconsecuential, you get loot all the time and when you get the one you want you'll replace it way too soon, but that's a different thing, this kind of microtransaction works in games like Apex Legends where the journey to get X or Y character isn't the important part, the important and fun part is the use of the character and mastering it, that's the good part, for roguelikes it's different, the grind, playing a run and another and another it's the fun part, you start, lets say in The Binding of Isaac, you get a bunch of items that make that run unique, maybe a good build, maybe a bad one, or even a funny one, after completing the run you get new items that make that in theory repetitive action absolutely different because the build you'll get now will be unique and different from the last one.
You can look for a full save file if you want, but different from most online games, the fun part it's not the end, it's the journey to get there
@@garbaj agreed
That taxonomy wasn't designed specifically to talk about monetisation. It was meant to help designers focus on tailoring their experience to their player base, it was about making better games. Using it to try and get money out of people feels really slimy.
The whole F2P business model lives on this.
@@vitahamin It isn't just F2P, take one look at DBD
Watching that Let's go whaling video definitely did not improve my faith in humanity
@@garbaj Doing design on these principles is why i moved from F2P game design to data analysis. I hope i can find a job in PC/Console game design. I know that it's the big companies started to do this stuff too, but there is still a lot of smaller ones.
Bartle's taxonomy is old and not really that useful anymore. Player motivation models are much more recent and more useful in my experience. See Quantic Foundry playe motivations.
"Grinding takes longer and longer":War Thunder in a nutshell
Not only that, but boosters "real" boost is much higher than it looks because of the repair/ammo costs offset. So if you make 10k per match, but spend 5k on repairs, your net worth is 5k of progress. However, if you have a +100% booster, your net worth goes to 15k, which is TRIPLE the progress, and that's just disgusting.
Almost every dlc is pay to play and worth an entire game each there's well over 1000$ in dlc.
Unless you're someone who doesn't have to work, it's impossible to get to higher tiers without paying.
As an aviation buff the game draws me in, but holy crap was my jaw on the floor when I saw that one vehicle costs the same as A WHOLE TRIPLE A GAME!
There are no poor people in jets...
@@VikingTeddy that´s why i don`t have jets
The comment I was looking for
I had already seen the "let's go whaling" video long ago, but that video is mostly about MOBILE/Gacha games.
This doesn't mean cosmetics are not profitable, not at all. (as you seem to suggest at the beginning of the video)
The biggest talking point of the whaling video, is a meaningful addition of monetization to the Bartle's player types model. Which is just one of the simplest of many models to categorize players in.
Which is: sell advantage to killers (pay to win)
Sell convenience to achievers (Example: Clash of clans extra builder huts)
Sell customization to socializers (Skins and cosmetics)
Sell content to explorers (DLC and story)
I also like to describe "killers" as simply competitive players, you don't have to kill other players in your game to want to be better than them and compete with them.
I know you are just sharing your journey of learning about things in these videos, and I actually learned very useful things from your videos about scopes in FPS games. But game design is often misunderstood.
Good point on the differing context. It would make sense that a medium with more avenue for the meaningful appreciation of a gamer commodity would shift the balance in its favour (while also acknowledging that people remain people regardless of the nature of the device used).
I admit that Optimizers/Achievers and Competitors/Killers seem very closely related, even if the core of their motives may differ.
The main takeaway from the let's go whaling example and my video is that most mtx income comes from the Achievers. I never said that skins are not profitable, only that they represent a much smaller portion of revenue. Whether it's mobile, pc or console, the psychology behind getting people to pay doesn't change. Yes, I'm new to game design, yes I have many things to learn, but we can speak to each other like the fully grown adults that we are. There is no need for condescension.
@@garbaj as he said, in mobile games with super inflated grind that is true, but for your game you might wanna look the monetization of team fortress paladins and overwatch, there is little gameplay to unlock there, it is mostly skins, paladins had the cards for a time and it almost killed the game until they unlocked all the cards because it ruined the balance
mobile games are usually time gated, and that is why people pay, you cant git gud your way out of the grind, you wait or you pay
the Dota 2 monetization i find interesting, the game gives items for free and you can sell items to other players, since the money cant leave the game steam gets all the money that is put in, and also a cut of every sale so the available money in the games get reduced over time so the items cant just change hands for ever without more money being put in the system, that is harder to implement but i think is a really fair and engaging system
Competitive players do not play nor gain any satisfaction from p2w, those are killers
where Killer more the people who want their names on leaderboards things like that
I feel very bad about it, because they are basically creating the problem and selling the solution, on purpose, they aren't being mindful or nice, not at all. They are profit-seeking, that's all they do in general, we have few exceptions that actually respects your time with meaningful content without the need for grinding to get to it, specially on the indie side
Or, they actually make a good game with a good progression designed for children to play. But people with less free time are being monetized to because those people also happen to have money
Deep rock galactic comes to mind for the golden standard for me.
@@CoolSs I agree that's a very good example of a game that respects your time
@@CoolSs A wild rock and stoner I see.
I get that game companies need to make money, but some of the methods they use is all but racketeering
THICC Thumbnail Garbaj
Bro ive been seeing u since the day u made how to make a fps on godot i still remember when u had 7k subs iam really happy that people found out abt u Ty for teaching me stuff on godot :D
Holy shit this comment made me realize how far he's come. I first saw the valorant demake I think or the view model stuff.
Ikr! man's been consistently producing good content in there own style for ages now lol. so proud of them :)
That thumbnail hits different 🤧
The issue with this type of micro-transaction is that it incentivizes poor progression balance and design. When the devs have the excuse of “well you can just pay to skip the grind” then they’re more likely to be too heavy handed with the grind and give the game poor progression balance in general. This was the case with HALO infinite and with Star Wars Battlefront. In order to sell more boosts, they didn’t just make the game grindy, they made the grind itself convoluted and unenjoyable.
Sounds a lot like GTA online. Although the recent Contract update made the grind less tedious as the missions were decently fun and not actually impossible, and the payout was good.
Another issue with GTA isn’t the tediousness, it’s how difficult the missions are. The modern enemy AI is stupid OP, often headshotting from nowhere, not appearing on the minimap, and ramming your car off the road.
@@atinofspam3433 Thats why i started hacking in that game, ive never hacked in any other game, but GTA V online was just so grindy, so i bought a modmenu for 5 bucks and had infinite money. That kinda what they are forcing with that model, either people spend ridiculous amounts of money on fake shit, or they start hacking.
@@pjubo Yeah, GTA5 is an odd case where it's legitimately cheaper to sidestep their anticheat indefinitely than play the game as they clearly intend. This is unironically what's kneecapped idle/clicker games as well. When someone says idle games one of three images pops into your head, a slow AF mobile game with ads every 10 seconds, a PC game that pushes MTX so hard you just find a save editor, or the handful of actually innovative games... that are likely just text and numbers on a github page set up as someone's first 'game'. Luckily larger game markets can reliably fall back on indie developers, so we're not likely to see a similar fate with the RPG or FPS genre any time soon. It's still a great preview of where these pay to progress type MTX could go in the long run though.
One of the things that killed Tribes: Ascend
This reminds me of Guild Wars: It was made for people who work with the goal in mind that by playing 1-2 hours a day you could make some good progress and easily reach maximum level in the span of 1 or 2 months (considering that is a MMO). And I kinda like that business model, especially now that I don't have much free time: you pay immediatly for the game and you can enjoy a mmo without grinding.
Sadly you can't just keep a multiplayer game online by just selling the game one time, so skins, xp boosts and such seems to become a necessity to keep the game "free" on each update
I wonder how much of it is necessity vs maximizing profit. Game companies have the right to maximize profit, but man does it feel bad as the consumer at times
@@garbaj in games like battlefield and call of duty it is not a necesity, they make a new game every 2-3 years, they could make money only of the sales of the game, for long term games like apex legends there is the fact that it is free to play so it is more justified
Lol the thumbnail hahahhahaha
they make their money via infinite money glitches, ofcourse
Some of the balance here should come from companies realizing that having a dedicated and active community is in its own way profitable because no one wants to play a game that feels like it’s dying, rewarding players that keep your game alive and healthy should be on a developers radar.
This man has the most controller like mouse movements I’ve ever seen. It’s honestly pretty impressive
Something to consider - long grind times can be used as an anticheat measure. Really puts the ante in anticheat when getting banned results in needing to spend legitimate time grinding just to get to a point to where you can cheat again.
I absolutely love your videos. They're always an interesting subject and there's no extra waffle or padding out. Fantastic work.
On an unrelated note, I found your channel as per usual, the dreaded youtube algorithm and actually like how honest, straight forward and simple your videos are
I think the battlepass model is also a very good source of revenue, if not the best.
You have all 4 in one - grind for achievers, xp boost for killers, customization for socializers and content for explorers + it acts as an ice break since it's a really good deal (cheap compared to amount of content) and act as a retention. You jump on this fabulous offer and develop a habit of playing because the only downside is : you having to play in order to get rewards.
It's a hook - players hook and money hook. Once you are hooked, they win.
Exactly, the only reason I grinded Fortnite for more than 2 hours per day is because I had bought the battle pass on the last month of the season and I wanted to get my money's worth... Otherwise I used to play only a few times a month with friends. But after that, I haven't touched it other than when my little cousins come to my house and want to play.
I'd love it if more games adopted Halo Infinite's permanent battle pass strategy with no time limit to complete them, but judging how the game's doing right now, I doubt we'll see much more of that
@@garbaj People obsess way too much over exclusivity of items from previous BPs so I like the sound of a permanent BP.
@@garbaj honestly the only good battlepass I have ever played was in mcc as infinite's was just a sad imitation
@@koftespiess agreed
Planetside 2 is a perfect example of a game where they understood this and it’s clear that most of peoples money is spent on new weapons or attachments and not cosmetics, but is still not pay to win.
i remember hearing a big game dev say somewhere (it might have even been from lets go whaling): its important not to make a game require too much skill, grind should be the main form of progression.
and with grind, comes the dollars
I really like this guys commentary and thoughts on stuff it nice to put on a video and listen to some interest shtuff while playing a game
Even without watching this video or referenced one, I would have told you that the biggest profit in gaming comes from selling energy boosts in mobile games with those types of mechanics. Generally when they have competitive/leaderboard events in those games the only way to get to the top is to spend thousands on energy refills. Even to just get the "decent" low tier event items either requires that you saved up on the free energy refill items and really grind out the event or you pay at least a little bit on more energy.
What pisses me off about this is that "competitive" games locking all their classes/weapons away is self defeating. Not having access to all the strategies kindof ruins it. For Free games it might be okay if its not too bad but as the game grows it takes longer and longer to get all the characters. ALSO for full price games that is totally unacceptable.
Honestly if grinding was for the free version of a game and you could pay for the full version and get characters that havent been released yet that could work, but the thing is this model turns most games into subscription services because you have to pay up every update, and thats no fun. I miss buying a game and owning it and all its content. My favorite games rn (deep rock galactic and risk of rain 2) Show that a studio can easily live off this system with some noninvasive DLC (DRG gives out paid cosmetic supporter DLC and Risk of rain 2 has content DLC that combined with the base game is still less than 60$)
Also power creep is a really annoying factor of games that have that. All the newer characters feel way more flesh out while the older ones are still slow and/or clunky.
Honestly, you arent gonna be good enough to compete on a high level while also not playing long enough to have unlocked all the content anyways
This feels like a direct attack to rainbow six
@@CommandoBlack123 fair enough, but having those options in low level comp without annoying monetization would be neat.
I would say that locking content in competitive games becomes a problem if the content gives you an edge over the competition. It might be unintentional, but that way it becomes a pay to win mechanic.
i love to see the normally un- seen details in games and how much effort they put into it.
You’re content is great, recently getting into game dev and although I don’t understand how all the stuff is implemented bare bones, I love learning about the concepts so when I have the knowledge to implement them myself I can, keep it up !
The perfect game to account for, in respect to this video, is Escape from Tarkov. The progression is really really long, but you're not forced to go down that route. Tarkov's main attraction is the player-player interaction, whether it's PVP or VOIP or Coop, etc. The quests that Tarkov offers are only secondary to that attraction but it's still fun to go through the grind of getting the Kappa container. I think games that have less focus on story like tarkov, should adopt that sort of mentality, where progression is only secondary to gameplay.
Im more of an explorer myself. I love exploring every inch of a games map. Even if its outside the intendable play area. I love also breaking games with glitches. So more content gives me more than double the playtime than someone just focusing on the story. I try to get the most out of my games and its so fun just messing around
Same
That's an old vid but SO CRUCIAL and everyone needs to see it. Thanks for spreading the SOOTH!
Dang congrats on 270k subs! I remember when you were at like 500. Great vid! :D
I'd say I miss the "good old days" when they would sell you the game and then you'd own the game but tbh that's not too terribly long ago. I think (like you mentioned) ftp multiplayer games will always be expensive to upkeep, so I think this pushes devs into mtx that can feel predatory on players. My fear of progression boosters/grind skips is that games will be built around them. Like, the game will be ftp but is built in a way that makes the mtx almost required.
the tittle made me click this video not the thumbnail, I promise
2:54 My favourite unlocking system is one that is slow enough to let you try each customization and see what suits best with you while giving the option to pay to unlock everything you want
Companies need to first balance progression to ensure things aren't being earned at such a low rate that the players get bored before feeling rewarded, but not so fast that it feels unearned. THEN they allow players to pay as an option to increase progression
I think the key is this question "is it pay to WIN?" Although designers don't force you to play, if you do play, and want to win, are you forced to grind/buy in order to stand a reasonable chance? Or do you grind/buy because it's what you want to dodges? Does it add more abilities, enhancements, etc, or does it make the absolute difference in being able to win. In Warzone, I was always able to to make it to the end. I never won, but the difference in winning was never because of my gear. It was strategy and dumb luck. The people I lost to usually were obviously very skilled. Anybody can get the drop in anyone,, and everyone starts out the same. In a p2w game like Warface, the Victor is consistently decided by who has the more expensive gear, or who can get away with cheating.
Exactly! I feel like GTA 5 online’s inflation has now gotten to an absurd level of grinding required for just the most basic content, and it just seems ridiculous to go through the online experience without spending a dollar.
It costs more to play gta online than just playing story mode
Great channel. Lucky I discovered you.
found your channel, very good content ty
Mobile games have been doing for at least a decade, and it's totally ruined the entire mobile game market
Warframe: You could either spend $40 or spend $40 of your time. Decide now.
Dude I literally came down here to make a comment about Warframe. I love that game to pieces but goddamn some of those frames feel like they were never meant to be unlocked through grind (*cough* Gauss *cough*) and are only supposed to be bought with plat. It fucking sucks.
@@snaildad193 Lmao, thought you were gonna use Grendel as an example. That farm is actual bullshit. Also it does seem like the shiny better versions are easier to farm than the base models, meaning if you're not an avid collector or don't need to have everything day 1 chances are you'll wait for a couple years for the frame you want to "properly" release.
@@kiwi3085 Dude YES I literally joked with my friend when Harrow Prime dropped I was like "Oh sweet I can finally play Harrow"
@@snaildad193 I still have a voice clip of a friend of mine screaming in agony that his nth run of sanctuary onslaught didn't drop khora. Amazing how it's easier to farm a full Chroma P + Rubico P set than get some of the base frames.
@@snaildad193 I was the same way with Nidus
another Garbaj banger
1:42 When ever I play rainbow six siege I always see about half of all players wearing skins, sometimes more, but occasionally I find lobbies with only a few people wearing skins
It's sad sto see AAA gaming is going downhill. Every game sometimes feels p2w.
BTW GARBAJ, THAT THUMBNAIL IS SUSSY
LMAO YES
got loba on my mind
@@garbaj 🤨
@@garbaj a what
just like i thought clash of clans was fair since you could unlock everything for free and you could eventually reach the top, until i realized every 3 months they added a new year of content to unlock, and the top players got free gems, so once they got there it was easier to stay there, then i made a new account and stayed at the town hall level 7, which is the more balanced level of the game
Grind when there's no money at stake can be fine (e.g. offline games/older games) - unfortunately with the money part - much like a casino, you can never be sure how stacked the grind curve is. That always sticks in the back of my mind.
Not to mention if said progression has a meaningful gameplay impact (e.g. weapon unlocks/attachments or new characters with more powers) then that shifts the balance of matches based on which teams/players have the most strategic options due to paying the most e.g. CoD, League, Battlefiled, Apex etc
Grind is about repeatedly overcoming obstacles to get a reward. Grind is more acceptable when the obstacles are in the players control(like using a specific character/weapon or playing a certain map), the rewards are optional(cosmetics & side-grades*), & the amount of grinding is manageable to trivial. Grind is frustrating when the obstacles are outside the players control(time restrictions & winning matches in team focused games), the rewards are mechanical advantages(power-ups & other upgrades), & the amount of repetition excessive. Ideally, only one aspect will be "frustrating" about the grind.
I think grind works best when it's a milestone marker. Play 100 rounds to unlock a hat, Get 1000 Kills with a gun to unlock a new skin for it, etc. The milestone system disincentivizes "grind skipping" monetization because that would invalidate the achievement aspect. TBH I think monetizing grind always makes it look like "selling a solution to an artificial problem", even if the grind itself isn't bad. It also makes it look like the game isn't worth playing because you can "pay to not play it". Which if that's the case, then why should anyone waste money on it if it isn't even worth playing?
*Side-grades can fall into bad grind territory when the side-grads act effectively as upgrades against the starter gear.
@@Daehpo those are good points imo
One form of monetization that I've seen in chinese card games but not western ones, is "early pay, early play".
New content is put behind a barrier of paid currency, and after a while slowly gets added to F2P content.
The game I played was a card game, and it did have some broken P2W stuff, (like spending money to increase your max health) but had a focus on PvE content and guilds.
Their first expansion was behind paid currency, but slowly, they added some of the commons and rares to drops from PvE content, and eventually the card packs became accessible to a F2P player.
I honestly think letting people buy the cards a week early is fine and an interesting way to get revenue, as long as the waiting period isn't too significant. Maybe in western games it could be a week or two.
Thank you for making this video.
It is inherently distasteful to manufacture a problem and sell a solution.
Grind is game companies putting flies in your soup and charging you to remove them.
I've heard of these before but watching this video I was thinking about Battlepasses, they give you skins and other cosmetics through playing the game but you can also unlock the levels by paying. It'd be interesting to see the crossover between Achievers and Socializers when it comes to just battlepasses since I think there is at least some overlap there.
Btw when you mention the majority don't spend money on cosmetics it made me think of VALORANT, it's extremely rare to see someone not have any skins in that game and if there is someone who don't have skins everyone instantly assume they are a smurf. My perspective might be skewed here because I'm playing in the higher ranks and typically people in higher ranks have played more so they are more likely to spend money.
Are VALORANT and CS outliers or is my perspective skewed?
IDK, valorant has skins that genuinely look nice, as well as having every skin be time-limited to encourage hasty buying. CS has a massive amount of personalisation options (tf2 to an even greater extent) and shows your personal weapon names and descriptions to the people you kill, which encourages people to pay for tags to give their weapons funny names and descriptions. The inflated price of many skins on the CS market also means that people will unbox to try and make a profit, which leaves most players with several skins lying around.
I was looking for a Comment about Valorant. I hardly ever see a person without at least a vandal or phantom skin. I’ve spent more money then i’de like to say but it happens gradually which is what gets you.
love your vids man, could listen to u talk about this shit forever
keep up th great work bro
2:50 I disagree on that point. I started to really hate battle pass when valve really cranked the grinding aspect on it. So you pay a fee to give you objective that not only force you to play the game, but to play the game in a way you don't intend. Like playing a role you don't like, and if you are 'killer' (play in comp), it's not a good idea to leave your comfort zone and get harrased. It also cut time you wanted to spend grinding on comp into casual.
1:38 IRT cosmetic skins - this CAN be profitable, but requires two things:
1) Being affordable
2) Being aesthetically pleasing
Funnily enough, your backroll footage of Apex while discussing that reminded me just how terrible that game fails at #2. IMO, NONE of the skins in that game are aesthetically pleasing. They're honestly kinda lame, or if not lame they are so visually busy that looking at them is an eyesore.
I can think of only two games that did very good-looking skins consistently: CSGO, and Fortnite. The former benefits from crowd-sourcing the skins out, which I believe leads to overall better results; creators have to compete with each other to get noticed by Valve, so they'll work harder. Fortnite has the benefit of a very flexible art style, and the ability to combine original and third-party licensed content almost seamlessly. Both of those games are the only games I spent any amount of money on skins for, for those reasons.
Granted all of this is my opinion; tastes in art vary from person to person. But my general point is that cosmetic skins may not sell that well just cause they aren't all that good.
what about Valorant skins? i'd say they are good as hell, tho sometime they are kinda... distracting (especially when one isn't used to them, like me)
Gave you a like just for the thumbnail lol Loba booty too OP
I would like the say, that the Bartle player types are a very old form of putting people into boxes, but people can't always be put into boxes as they behave different on different occasions.
But you can still use Bartle Player Types for stuff like this, as it felt like a good way to use that way of thinking.
"Next time you're in a multiplayer lobby, take a mental note of how many people are wearing paid skins, you'll find it's a very small number."
Valorant is the exception to this. Blew my mind how they'd release $60 gun packs regularly and just a couple days after dropping, every 10-man match would have 3-5 people with them. At least towards the beginning, I assume new pack sales have slowed down now. But most players seem to have bought at least one, with many having bought multiple. Valorant must have killed on cosmetic sales.
I'm one of this. I'm not the type to spend money on in game items. But valorant somehow makes me want to buy them. I don't have enough to buy the more expensive ones, but I have couple skins from the battlepass. Now that I stopped playing valorant, I started to collect dota skins instead. Dota skins are significantly cheaper than valorant. But, considering the amount that I bought, I've probably spend same amount of money for both.
IMO every game with a forced grind is bad by default. It's a good thing they're easy to avoid.
I love that when I buy a Nintendo game, I instantly get all the fun with no strings attached.
Man I was waiting for garbaj to go deep into explaining how video games pull coomers
That thumbnail and the title are a stroke of creative genius.
This is what makes games worse. Look at how the microtransactions in Shadow of War literally imploded because of how badly they impacted the integrity of the game as a whole.
Companies like Ubisoft will deliberately make bigger and grindier games simply to sell the XP boost. It's disgusting. They want you to feel like you have to pay extra so that you don't "have to" play more of the game they designed.
They also tied cosmetics to p2w elements, thus partially bypassing the negative stigma around it, and thus are able to sell to Killers too. This is like some kind of mental IRL sorcery.
You have indeed opened my eyes
love your content
If only games were made for the most fun instead of being rushed and stuffed with microtransactions for the most money
Exactly gaming isn't about an enjoyable experience a lovable story or good characters anymore it's about taking your hard earned money from your pockets by creating another job you have to pay to work.
You clicked on this video for the thumbnail.
No, you
the thing about cosmetic is people usually only buy things for their main or fav hero/ champion so with multiple character, only a small fragment will be bought for each player
WTF I checked out the linked video and it's from a conference that I participated in, I can even hear my loud chuckle in the beginning of the talk!
I think this argument heavily relies on the type of game. For example, rust is a game where you can only purchase cosmetics. No further elaboration needed.
Isn't rust a pretty social game though?
Here's a thought, if you make xp boosts, you have to make the base xp gain bad to make the boosters worth it, so you actively have to design a bad game to sell the xp boosts. you have just created a problem and are a selling the solution. it is essentially a racket. so these kinds of microtransactions is why games are what they are these days, and it's not good.
@@Unknown_Genius the fact the xp boosts exist at all, makes the base xp gain bad, so you would still have ended up designing a bad base game. the point of xp boosts is there to inform you that the base xp gain is bad so as to incentivise their purchase, otherwise what would be the point. it's not a matter of perception that the base gain is bad, it's an actual fact that it is. e.g. you have a game in which it takes 20 secs to level up whatever, but the xp boosts cuts it down to 10, that base 20 will still have been purposefully bad design on your part, even if you introduce the xp boosts later. you still end up selling a solution to problem that you created.
In contrast to xp boosts, there's cheats (used to be (ah, good times)). cheats can achieve the same thing as xp boosts, but because they're called cheats, and applying them is usually onerous, they don't make the base xp gain a bad design. but the xp boosts, are the intended way to play game by their simple presence, because, well, game devs want you paying for their game, and now they're selling something that just shouts "hey, here's an official and allowable method of skipping all that game that we painstakingly designed."
@@Unknown_Genius if you're not going to bother reading a response, who would then read yours? and if you haven't read it what points would you then be responding that I need to account for? you logic is weird, but you keep doing you, my dude.
@@Unknown_Genius This is what happens when you don't read, and you have now ended up repeating your assertion, and throwing in a few more, because ... who knows. People still pay other people games to play games even now with the prevalence of xp boosts, but that's outside of the devs' control and so are irrelevant to the point I was making. xp boosts weren't introduced to solve this problem.
Levelling systems aren't a poorly thought out system (see, I can make assertions too), they can be poorly thought for certain game genres, but in and of themselves, they're not because games are largely(not only) a visual medium, levelling systems are a good way of representing progression.
@@Unknown_Genius "wrong, I didnt throw in more, as its still the same as my original comment with extra detail added as the previous apparently had been to complex." not it wasn't, this you attempting to rehabilitate your position. you introduced an external factor that neither you nor I had previously mentioned.
"name one game in existence, that implemented leveling for the purpose of showing progression" every RPG in existence ever.
@@Unknown_Genius except there really isn't another better way of doing it in gaming, as you haven't provided an example of how it can be done better, just merely asserted that there is (you do that a lot). it's an explicit and over-exaggerated simulation of the real world. the better you get, the more things you can do, the more options are available to you. Also, now you're twisting the example I provided as an of good levelling systems that you asked for, into an example of minimizing the grind to level up. Dishonest, bad faith argumentation, or just poor reading comprehension (also, probably the reason why you didn't read my initial response to you), take your pick of your motivations. Looks like your own ideas were too complex for you to keep track of.
The grind is starting to get absurd in CoD. It wasn’t unbearably awful in MW2019 and Cold War but it’s gotten worse for Vanguard.
My biggest gripes are the speed of which you get weapon levels and the level requirements for camo challenges.
It would be such a nice change if you got 3 attachments per level (lowering most guns max level below 30) and removing level requirements for camos. Also unlocking camos should give weapon XP.
(
MW grinding is a breeze compared to CW and VG
@@_MerpMcDerp
I exclusively played CW Zombies so that might be why it wasn’t unbearable.
the thumbnail sums it all up pretta fairly
Running server is not cheap? It is literally free if you allow people to have access to their own dedicated server, this is how it was made before and how the best games do it today. The only ones not doing it are the garbage like EA, Ubisoft and console games compagnies.
Grinding was developed to take money from people, all these micro transactions bs was crafted with social engineering studies.
Here are some rules people should follow:
- never buy a game that has micro transactions (if it's only cosmetics it's okayish I'd say)
- never buy a multi player game where only the company have access to dedicated servers
CLICKBAIT
Oh yeah. That video was eye opening
thanks for another great video 👍
makes sense - the shortcut packs for bad company 2 / BF games caught the interest of some of my friends back in the day
Usually the "gameplay-unlocked cosmetics" take significantly longer to unlock than in the years before the microtransaction explosion, so it's still a means of intentionally manipulating people into spending money.
It used to be that the grind was created to be fun for its own sake. Now the grind is used as a punishment for not playing ball.
I'm so glad you watched that video. I don't remember if I was the one who recommended it, but I recommend that video often, so I may have been, haha.
As a game developer, its something to be aware of, so that you can find consumer-friendly alternatives to these less ethical methods.
There is another form of monetization, THE HOLE, once you’ve made 1 purchase or many it becomes harder to leave the game as you feel you’ve made an investment. The longer you stay the more you may very well spend
@@Unknown_Genius tru
The thumbnail is absolutely hilarious
atrioc's marketing monday video about gacha games is a great one about dis topic, he even mentions the same vid u did
3:16 you are extremely correct, in war thunder if you don’t want to spend money you have to grinds for like 6 months straight to maybe fly a modernish aircraft
i like that when you said about that people are not buying cosmetics much, you showed Apex legends, the game where for some reason most of the players have bough event and legendary stuff
I’m going to file this one under “Dark Truths of The Universe” hahaha
“There are four types”
*I am the four types*
im blown away. instant sub!!!!
The taxonomy seems to be missing WHALES which are real and significant. It depends on the game but I know that in games with leaderboard, many players will dump thousands on a regular basis to stay atop the leaderboard. The largest spenders are those with a reputation and an ego linked to such a competition.
I think that thumbnails is the best seller
1:41 Aight, bet. *Joins a tf2 lobby*
this is literally the last thumbnail i'd expect from you (not disappointed tho)
I recommend the mental checkpoint video on f2p games if someone wants more information on how these companies make money and what strategies they employ
Nice and fair thumbnail
The other day i told a friend that bought an agent in valorant "why did you do that you could unlock it for free" but after watching this video it made all the sense, my friend has very little time to game (it was still a bad buy because he was 1 or 2 matches away from unlocking it xd)
Many free games resort to season pass models, which is basically all of it and more. They may contain unlockable cosmetics, XP boosts to get levels faster, a seasonal story if there is one, and maybe some super-OP PvP gun (which of course gonna be nerfed, but not immediately, he-he). Thus you can target all those categories of players at once.
dang that thumbnail was fire 🔥🔥🔥
That's a good point. For example, i bought the battlepass in Valorant. As i dont always play but want to unlock everything that i paid for, i'm making sure i make as much daily/weekly missions as possible to gain xp faster. I need to because otherwise i wouldn't be able to go through the battlepass. I understand that if someone is not going to finish it in time, he/she might want to buy the rest of the xp necessary to complete the battlepass and therefore, see the "investment" as fulfilled.
God tier thumbnail
When you think about it, instant buy is the msot profitable one, like for example, battlepass levels. Lots of people with money gonna just skip to the end so they don't need to grind the game, and can just enjoy the stuff they get.
Elden Ring, Minecraft, and Deep Rock never asked me for money to make the un-fun part of the game go away so I'll just keep playing those.