Gaming

[Day]

2 minutes ago, Lambchop said:

Bit like football then...

Similarities are there but you buy a ticket to watch athletes perform, not directly making PayPal donations to some random Joe that’s playing a video game which anyone can pick up at the shop and play themselves. 

[McRainy]

By the same token anyone can kick a ball about. Is it not just another form of paying for entertainment, when all’s said and done? We might perceive a qualitative difference, but it’s just a different choice. 

Only playing devil’s advocate, I know nothing about it. 

[StringerBell]

12 hours ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

Is he a bit of a knob? Of course. That doesn't mean a lot of what he says about the business practices of the likes of EA aren't right (in my view at least).

Ah he’s said and endorsed a few things that get my goat. To be fair he’s not as bad as the other gaming fatty Bob Chipman.

On lootboxes, not a fan at all. I’m playing Battlefront 2 and it’s an extremely irritating way to progress. However, the fact that there’s a degree of separation between the real money and the purchase of the loot box probably means it’s less an example of gambling than buying a pack of panini stickers.

Edited February 7, 2018 by StringerBell

[StringerBell]

6 hours ago, Lambchop said:

By the same token anyone can kick a ball about. Is it not just another form of paying for entertainment, when all’s said and done? We might perceive a qualitative difference, but it’s just a different choice. 

Only playing devil’s advocate, I know nothing about it. 

Careful, the market dictating somebody is getting well paid for somebody they love doing? You’ll be extolling the virtues of capitalism in a minute.

 

[StringerBell]

7 hours ago, David said:

Similarities are there but you buy a ticket to watch athletes perform, not directly making PayPal donations to some random Joe that’s playing a video game which anyone can pick up at the shop and play themselves. 

I think I’ve got what it takes to be a twitch streamer. Still working on my moobs though. Cleavage sells.

[McRamFan]

Humans are addictive by nature, just one of many ways to exploit that weakness.

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

1 hour ago, StringerBell said:

Ah he’s said and endorsed a few things that get my goat. To be fair he’s not as bad as the other gaming fatty Bob Chipman.

On lootboxes, not a fan at all. I’m playing Battlefront 2 and it’s an extremely irritating way to progress. However, the fact that there’s a degree of separation between the real money and the purchase of the loot box probably means it’s less an example of gambling than buying a pack of panini stickers.

The problem for me isn't the loot box itself, it's the ages to which they are marketed. As an adult I can make a choice to buy or not whilst underatanding the element of chance and overall odds of getting what I want. I doubt my 15 year old brother really thinks about it whilst blasting his Christmas money on Overwatch skins then complaining when he gets none of the stuff he was after. It's not like he can trade as you would with stickers or collectable card games.

[McRainy]

1 hour ago, StringerBell said:

Careful, the market dictating somebody is getting well paid for somebody they love doing? You’ll be extolling the virtues of capitalism in a minute.

 

You assume, incorrectly, that anyone who can see the flaws in total deregulation must be an authoritarian Stalinist. 

There are other options. 

[SaintRam]

Just now, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

The problem for me isn't the loot box itself, it's the ages to which they are marketed. As an adult I can make a choice to buy or not whilst underatanding the element of chance and overall odds of getting what I want. I doubt my 15 year old brother really thinks about it whilst blasting his Christmas money on Overwatch skins then complaining when he gets none of the stuff he was after. It's not like he can trade as you would with stickers or collectable card games.

Aye RNG without trading is obnoxious. I can get by with games like CS:GO, TF2 and Rocket League's loot box system because you can trade the items. I'd still prefer they not be there, but being able to trade the items is a silver lining.

When cash shops were first introduced (mostly in MMORGPs), they used to have all the items as separate individual purchases where you could just pick what you bought. 

Then, for less money, they had little RNG collections where you got a random item but it cost less money.

Eventually, they removed the option to just buy what you wanted for more money, and then increased the price of the "loot boxes".

 

Personally, I'm comfortable with loot boxes if its possible to just purchase the item I want individually. I'd just do that. But I understand why many people aren't comfortable with even that situation. It preys on folk.

When lootboxes first started as a model, I didn't realise the reality of them and was pretty happy just to spunk money away (don't worry not too much), because they caught me in a mentality that I was just sitting there having fun with my friends and they were just part of the game. In hindsight, if gamers had developed the problem they have with lootboxes now back when they first started as a business model I don't think they would have gotten off the ground.

[Srg]

The problem is full AAA releases carving up games, withholding content, inbalancing the game just to get money from microtransactions. EA are the biggest scumbags of the lot. Absolutely destroying that Star Wars game to the point where they had to patch the progression system once they disabled the microtransactions after the huge backlash - just proving the point that they were completely game altering to a fault. Yet they don't care, because they still make billions because they invented ultimate team game modes on every sports franchise they own the monopoly on.

Other games have had microtransactions bolted onto the game after the fact due to greedy producers, again, ruining the entire game. Biggest example of this would be the newest Deus Ex, which Square Enix ruined by doing this. But they're not the only ones.

If you pay for a full price game, you should get the full game. This is just the latest iteration of the games industry finding another way to get all of the money, rather than just a boat load of it. They have tried before with online passes required to try and kill the preowned market, massive pre-order bonus culture to entice presales to pay for the game before it's even made and alike.

I don't have any issue with free games, like League of Legends, or cheap games like Rocket League making their money through skins and other cosmetics - which have no effect on the balance of the game. Where Rocket League and League of Legends does it right, is that there's a very limited number of items you can possibly get in any given Rocket League box, of which you can trade afterwards anyway, and League of Legends lets you buy the actual item you want. Even then, it's not ideal, but at least these games don't charge you £45 to play it to begin with, before letting you know you've only got a small portion of the game, and you have to grind an ungodly amount of time to do the cool stuff with shelling out yet more money.

The Asian market has at least taken the step of making games disclose the odds on each item in loot boxes, it's a small step, but it's showing how it is being now thought of as gambling.

Games like Overwatch are always given an easy ride on this, but they shouldn't be. Mainly because it's Activision, and they tried to patent a matchmaking system which would literally put people without any DLC items against people with them, to make them want to buy them. They have loot boxes with a huge number of items in them, with such tiny odds, and it very much preys on the haves and have nots, and specifically a younger audience.

[StringerBell]

45 minutes ago, Lambchop said:

You assume, incorrectly, that anyone who can see the flaws in total deregulation must be an authoritarian Stalinist. 

There are other options. 

You assume, incorrectly, that I’m in favour of total deregulation. Capitalism has brought the success to Twitch stars, the system you don’t like.

[Mafiabob]

Thank you guys..... appreciate the info on skins and loot boxes. Opening my eyes a bit more to other areas. 

[McRainy]

2 hours ago, StringerBell said:

Capitalism has brought the success to Twitch stars, the system you don’t like.

I’ve no idea what ‘Twitch stars’ is. 

Never mind. 

[r4derby]

On 07/02/2018 at 09:19, Srg said:

The problem is full AAA releases carving up games, withholding content, inbalancing the game just to get money from microtransactions. EA are the biggest scumbags of the lot. Absolutely destroying that Star Wars game to the point where they had to patch the progression system once they disabled the microtransactions after the huge backlash - just proving the point that they were completely game altering to a fault. Yet they don't care, because they still make billions because they invented ultimate team game modes on every sports franchise they own the monopoly on.

Other games have had microtransactions bolted onto the game after the fact due to greedy producers, again, ruining the entire game. Biggest example of this would be the newest Deus Ex, which Square Enix ruined by doing this. But they're not the only ones.

If you pay for a full price game, you should get the full game. This is just the latest iteration of the games industry finding another way to get all of the money, rather than just a boat load of it. They have tried before with online passes required to try and kill the preowned market, massive pre-order bonus culture to entice presales to pay for the game before it's even made and alike.

I don't have any issue with free games, like League of Legends, or cheap games like Rocket League making their money through skins and other cosmetics - which have no effect on the balance of the game. Where Rocket League and League of Legends does it right, is that there's a very limited number of items you can possibly get in any given Rocket League box, of which you can trade afterwards anyway, and League of Legends lets you buy the actual item you want. Even then, it's not ideal, but at least these games don't charge you £45 to play it to begin with, before letting you know you've only got a small portion of the game, and you have to grind an ungodly amount of time to do the cool stuff with shelling out yet more money.

The Asian market has at least taken the step of making games disclose the odds on each item in loot boxes, it's a small step, but it's showing how it is being now thought of as gambling.

Games like Overwatch are always given an easy ride on this, but they shouldn't be. Mainly because it's Activision, and they tried to patent a matchmaking system which would literally put people without any DLC items against people with them, to make them want to buy them. They have loot boxes with a huge number of items in them, with such tiny odds, and it very much preys on the haves and have nots, and specifically a younger audience.

Spot on @Srg the biggest problem with the games industry at the minute is paying more and more expensive prices for games that are giving you less and less.

the idea of DLC is to give you an extra bit of adventure on top of the game you bought. Yet we now have a model where games are released with 80/75/60% etc available and a season pass requires to access the whole title.

There are still games and companies being made the right way - Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an enormous game, fully playable without any add on needed. The DLC they’ve released adds to the game as optional quests, in no way impacting the main game and yet still being a worthwhile extra

[Day]

Fortnite coming to iOS with PC cross play, not a watered down version either.

Android sometime in the future as they are rubbish phones like I keep telling people.

https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnite-is-coming-to-mobile-and-will-support-crossplay-with-pc/

[Lander]

Anyone playing Fortnite on Xbox?

[Animal is a Ram]

I'm gonna sound about 50 here..

But what is Fortnite? All I know of it is that some of the Cubs and Scouts I lead are now obsessed with some weird dance moves.

Still fully absorbed in Elite Dangerous, nothing else is sparking my interest at the minute.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Animal is a Ram

[McRainy]

2 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

 

I'm gonna sound about 50 here..

 

Oi!!

[Animal is a Ram]

4 minutes ago, Lambchop said:

Oi!!

Sorry. 

[LesterRam]

7 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

I'm gonna sound about 50 here..

But what is Fortnite? All I know of it is that some of the Cubs and Scouts I lead are now obsessed with some weird dance moves.

Still fully absorbed in Elite Dangerous, nothing else is sparking my interest at the minute.

2 weeks