Featured Blog | Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think
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I want to shed light on a tactic that involves collecting data as you play, feeding this data into complex algorithms and models that then alter the rules of your game under the hood to optimize spending opportunities.

I want to shed light on a tactic that involves collecting data as you play, feeding this data into complex algorithms and models that then alter the rules of your game under the hood to optimize spending opportunities.

  • missingno@fedia.io
    1·
    8 hours ago

    We can’t go back to an objectively worse model because no consumer in the world besides you would be okay with it now that a better model is possible. You cannot be serious trying to say you think we’d ever go backwards.

    The current model is updating the game. Everyone gets to play the latest update even if you do not pay for the DLC.

    I am also still baffled that you can somehow claim with a straight face that subscriptions are better. Subscriptions are a lock-in model that threaten you with losing everything as soon as you stop paying, so you’ll have to keep paying forever to keep your game. If anything in this conversation is predatory, it’s subscriptions!

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      7 hours ago

      ‘Stop calling everything predatory, you’re killing the word!’

      I didn’t call everything pr–

      ‘You know what’s predatory? Paying for services!’

      I’m out.

      • missingno@fedia.io
        1·
        7 hours ago

        Please explain to me how a lock-in model that forces you to keep paying forever in order to keep what you already paid for is better than just being able to buy something once and have it.

        • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          5 hours ago

          The comparison is wrong. If the products you demand require continuing revenue - a subscription model allows rational consumer decisions. That’s why most consumers look at it and say ‘no thanks.’ Real-money charges inside games make more money than subscriptions, not because anyone wants to pay $130 for a video game, but because it obfuscates that price.

          The real question is, if FighterZ has now been funded by all those piecemeal sales, and is - in its current state - your favorite game… why the fuck isn’t it $60 to buy it all once?

          Like, you don’t want the Street Fighter IV model where each normally-priced game is a tiny upgrade. But you can buy whatever the last version of SF4 is, at a normal price, and it’s the whole goddamn game. If FighterZ doesn’t seem to be getting any more updates or content, why is it still priced for excuses about development costs?