F2P is the Gaming Industry’s Most Successful Scam

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think parents get treated unfairly in these scenarios. It's already difficult keeping track of your kids as it is. The people who will demand perfect responsibility from parents are the same people get in accidents or lose their car keys occasionally like any normal person. A friend of mine accidently left his google account logged in on one of their PCs and his 6 and 8 year olds got onto to some game and blew a $1000 on microtransactions before his bank locked his account. While he managed to get most of it refunded he still took a hit. This is an engineer were talking about too, not grandma babysitting. Dude struggles on a daily basis to buy his kids digital stuff, which is everything now, while still locking them out with parental controls which distributors have only added over the years after massive backlash. They both make it incredibly enticing to buy every digitally, but don't provide smart counter-measures until the government cracks down. It's a total racket.

I didn’t mean to imply that parents need to be watching like hawks all the time, but more precisely the opposite like you described as they are often too distracted by life to do so. And that kinda leaves the door wide open for hog wild scenarios with credit cards. Like back in the day when kids used to call those celebrity hotlines racking up the phone bill.

 

[Dreiko]

We all know about the higher prices of things in other countries and I wont pretend to understand the economic differences.

I dont know the earnings differences in different places where things are way more expensive on paper like Australia or New Zealand, because while a game costs $110+ dollars I don't know how that difference plays out in someone's typical salary. So I wont.

As for the poor countries like Brazil in which only the super rich have consoles, I think you'd have to rule them out as well, because your statement implied that only well off people would even have the means to play any video games free or otherwise anyway.

What I will say is that, I don't believe that games are priced out of the market in which they exist. So while those GBA games might have cost you 65 euros, they were clearly priced within reason for most people in those locations otherwise they wouldn't have sold and they would have lowered the price because that's how business works.

So in other words, I feel like my point still stands.

I already clarified that people play f2p on old computers, not consoles, and if they get consoles (usually through paying installments on it and not all of the cost right up) use piracy to obtain games, which is how they get around the brazil style pricing.


Games are still profitable with few people buying them by overpricing enough. Basically they deal with the fact that most people use piracy by hiking up the prices safe in the knowledge that the people who do pay for them already can afford a higher price, which sure is sound business-wise but also doesn't solve the underlying issue driving people to piracy in the first place, if not exacerbating it even further.


Basically, they were priced within reason for the people already buying them, but when those specific people already were the few rich elites to begin with, that doesn't make gaming widely available, it just makes it profitable. And my point in being fine with f2p games is wholly in that it makes games more available, not due to the profits it generates.

 

[Gergar12]

I already clarified that people play f2p on old computers, not consoles, and if they get consoles (usually through paying installments on it and not all of the cost right up) use piracy to obtain games, which is how they get around the brazil style pricing.


Games are still profitable with few people buying them by overpricing enough. Basically they deal with the fact that most people use piracy by hiking up the prices safe in the knowledge that the people who do pay for them already can afford a higher price, which sure is sound business-wise but also doesn't solve the underlying issue driving people to piracy in the first place, if not exacerbating it even further.


Basically, they were priced within reason for the people already buying them, but when those specific people already were the few rich elites to begin with, that doesn't make gaming widely available, it just makes it profitable. And my point in being fine with f2p games is wholly in that it makes games more available, not due to the profits it generates.

In Brazil, a lot of it is their VATs and Tariffs.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Maybe I'm an old grouch, or maybe I'm a fucking idiot, but I have literally never paid for a free to play game, nor have I ever been tempted to.

If a game is balanced around premium guns or premium characters that you have to buy in order to be competitive then I just won't play the game because its balancing is crap and it will always be crap.

If a game locks cosmetics behind a paywall then I just don't give a shit. If I'm kicking the shit out of someone while using the default skin it makes them way madder anyway.

Like I've never even considered dropping money $20 on loot boxes or whatever else just because there's a fancy hat that I might get. I literally cannot relate to that mentality at all.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I think parents get treated unfairly in these scenarios. It's already difficult keeping track of your kids as it is. The people who will demand perfect responsibility from parents are the same people get in accidents or lose their car keys occasionally like any normal person. A friend of mine accidently left his google account logged in on one of their PCs and his 6 and 8 year olds got onto to some game and blew a $1000 on microtransactions before his bank locked his account. While he managed to get most of it refunded he still took a hit. This is an engineer were talking about too, not grandma babysitting. Dude struggles on a daily basis to buy his kids digital stuff, which is everything now, while still locking them out with parental controls which distributors have only added over the years after massive backlash. They both make it incredibly enticing to buy every digitally, but don't provide smart counter-measures until the government cracks down. It's a total racket.

There is a very easy solution to this problem DON'T LINK YOUR CREDIT CARD TO ANY ACCOUNTS.

Yes, it's very convenient to be able to pay for something with the touch of a button because your credit card is on file. Unfortunately that also leaves you vulnerable to your children buying things with a touch of a button when you aren't looking, or to hackers getting a hold of your credit card information after Sony or Microsoft, or Epic gets their customer data stolen...again.

You can choose not to have your credit card information saved and to input it each time. Inconvenient? Yes. Safer? Also yes. You can choose to buy point cards instead. Load up your kid with $20 of Fortnight bucks, or PSN points, or whatever and let them buy whatever they want. Once they're out of money they're out of money.

Solutions to these problems exist. They are inconvenient, but it's a lot more inconvenient to get a $5000 credit card bill because you weren't watching little Timmy playing Fortnight after you entered all your credit card info for him.

I'm a single person living by myself with no children and no one who can buy things with my money and I still don't have my credit card linked to any services and I don't use autopay for anything.

 

[Dreiko]

In Brazil, a lot of it is their VATs and Tariffs.

Yeah I mentioned that in a post typed before the one you're quoting, general taxing basically. I don't think you can even import a foreign normal-priced console since they will make you pay the difference if not more in customs.

 

[Agema]

They are free to play.

This is like a budget airline economic model.

If you just want a seat and handluggage, bring your own food and drink, your own entertainment and expect no frills, flights can be incredibly cheap. Or you can pay a lot more for a flight with a ton of options included that you don't need but many of which might make for a nicer flight. If you want to turn your budget flight into the same cost as a non-budget flight by buying a ton of their add-ins... that's kind of on you, and there's no point blaming the budget airline.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

There's no people spending 102 bucks, there's like 100s of people spending 0 bucks and one dude spending 20.000 bucks. So it's a net good for gaming and people who want to play games, and it also makes money off of rich fools.

Don't those mostly come from a few whales that literally spend thousands while most user pay nothing? Iirc fortnite doesn't sell power and I never cared for cosmetic so if some people want to spend boatload of money on skin means I can play games for free, I'm okay with that. See it as charity if you want.

I've played plenty of F2P game and I've never spent a dime on them, and F2P means competitive games can have a longer life and don't suffer as much from empty server syndrome.

Nope -

Study Says 69% Of 'Fortnite' Players Spend Money On The Game, $85 Spent On Average

It's amazing how well and how often Fortnite: Battle Royale is converting free players into paying players.

www.forbes.com

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

They are free to play.

This is like a budget airline economic model.

If you just want a seat and handluggage, bring your own food and drink, your own entertainment and expect no frills, flights can be incredibly cheap. Or you can pay a lot more for a flight with a ton of options included that you don't need but many of which might make for a nicer flight. If you want to turn your budget flight into the same cost as a non-budget flight by buying a ton of their add-ins... that's kind of on you, and there's no point blaming the budget airline.

That would make sense if the budget airline was breaking revenue/profit records for the airline industry. Maybe lately it does though?

 

[CaitSeith]

Also, the problem with free-to-play live service games is that they fill a market for people who don't think about value and after-purchase cost.

That's true. Try to calculate how much actual money would cost to get something in Fortnite and how much time would it take to get it for free and you'll find several obstacles in the storefront alone:

1. What's the cost of a V-buck? Do you base it on the cost of buying the minimum available bundle (1,000 for $9.99)? On the best value bundle (13,500 for $99.99)? Or the one that gives you enough to get the item (there are 2,800 for $24.99 and 5,000 for $39.99 bundles)? And that's omitting the limited time offers.

2. None of the bundles gives you the exact amount required for any of the items. So, do you calculate only based on the V-bucks spent? What about the V-bucks you didn't spend? To get your 1,200 v-bucks outfit you needed at least to buy two 1,000 bundle for $9.99 each or the 2,800 bundle for $24.99. No matter if you didn't spent all your v-bucks, you still were charged the full bundle price, and you can't get the rest refunded.

3. Speaking of limited time, that item/skin/pose you're aiming for is only available for 24 hours. The store has available only 10 to 13 items/skins at the time, and it rotates them daily. If you don't get it before it rotates out, who knows when it will become available again. So the storefront is designed not only to obfuscate monetary cost of the things in display, but also their time-effort cost.

 

[BrawlMan]

Exactly why I stay away from the free to play nonsense. I play real fucking videogames!

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[Agema]

That would make sense if the budget airline was breaking revenue/profit records for the airline industry. Maybe lately it does though?

They have been. In the EU at least, budget airlines have been hammering the older premium airlines, many of which have been frantically decreasing their seat widths, leg room, luggage capacities, reducing the complementary snacks, etc.

At the end of the day, if companies can make money off voluntary payments everyone wins. The company makes money. People can play for nothing. Other people who want to spend their money on skins and stuff just so they can look cool do so as they wish. If these sorts of things keep money rolling in, it motivates devs to continue supporting good games and extending their lifespans. We should not criticise companies for this even if they go back on their initial claims. We should encourage as many as possible to do it.

The only point I might draw the line is elements of people paying real money for randomness, and where this is arguably gambling.

The other potential downside of course is that sometimes we might want devs to not pour attention into a stale but still popular property, and go do something new.