How is their monetization in any way shape or form proportional to their cost of operating this game? More importantly why adopt this now, under these pretenses, when Dota apparently ran just fine...
How is their monetization in any way shape or form proportional to their cost of operating this game? More importantly why adopt this now, under these pretenses, when Dota apparently ran just fine for years on a far better monetisation scheme?
I don't even mind the proportionality between operating cost and profits since I have no problem with a cheaply produced but excellent game making a lot of money. Aside from the ethics of it...
How is their monetization in any way shape or form proportional to their cost of operating this game?
I don't even mind the proportionality between operating cost and profits since I have no problem with a cheaply produced but excellent game making a lot of money. Aside from the ethics of it (which is an ugly and well-discussed topic), what bothers me the most is that there is no reasonable option left for people who want to pay something in between zero and whale-level money (like hundreds of dollars). On the one hand, you need the 95% of players who rarely if ever buy loot boxes to fill servers, on the other, you need to make that money back from those 5% of players who will pay. Since so few people pay, they'll have to pay a lot to balance things out and you can only achieve that through gambling-like hooks.
That means the game now needs a mechanic that essentially lets people feel perpetually "missing out". "Free" players can't complain ("yea, I guess it would be cool to have that card but I can't complain, I play for free!") about things feeling lacking, you have to pay for the permission to want more, at which point you're in whale territory which means reasonable one-time payments don't exist by design. If you only pay $5 or even $50, you'll get "slightly better" but no way they'll make you feel satisfied at this point. They now know you're willing to pay so they dangle the better options even more obviously in front of you, with open ended spending.
I wouldn't mind, for example, a yearly $20 expansion with a fixed set of cards. If everyone would buy that, we wouldn't have a problem and Valve would probably make the same amount of money. But only like 5% of people buy that shit if there's a "free" option and they wouldn't even start playing the game if there wasn't. You wouldn't get the millions of people not paying for loot boxes and you wouldn't get the 5% of that paying ridiculous sums, at which point we're full circle. There's no room for a reasonable payment anymore because there's only really two extremes: Free and overpriced.
It's kinda obvious that the gambling aspect is what holds up the whole loop and it's absolutely despicable how unashamedly the entire industry milks it. I have lost all respect for Valve.
Not sure if you saw the recent update addressing the communities concerns on the monetization - https://steamcommunity.com/games/583950/announcements/detail/2535985526495756390 I was a little...
Not sure if you saw the recent update addressing the communities concerns on the monetization -
I was a little worried, but seeing these changes and working out what I'd be able to do with my initial $20 purchase made me happy again. They do not want to give cards away for free so that the cards themselves have value. Allowing them to be recycled into tickets puts a floor on the cards value as well.
Heh, sounds like you are being cautiously pessimistic, I think I'm cautiously optimistic. I've never really felt ripped off by valve previously. As you say, let's see how it rolls out to the...
Heh, sounds like you are being cautiously pessimistic, I think I'm cautiously optimistic. I've never really felt ripped off by valve previously. As you say, let's see how it rolls out to the public, and how quickly they address issues as they come up.
I usually judge games based on how much I've spent vs how much entertainment I've had - $20 is a low enough bar, that I'm good if I only get 5-10 hours out of it.
The update today implements the system: That's a better rate than I was expecting, and means that the floor for a card's value should effectively be 5 cents. A pack has 12 cards, so even in the...
You can now recycle cards into event tickets at a rate of 20 cards to 1 ticket. There is a "Recycle Cards" tab accessible from the collection. Note that each card will currently show "N/A" where the market price would be until the market is open. Sort by market price will sort by mana cost until the market is open.
That's a better rate than I was expecting, and means that the floor for a card's value should effectively be 5 cents. A pack has 12 cards, so even in the absolute worst case, a $2 pack will have $0.60 worth of cards in it.
How is their monetization in any way shape or form proportional to their cost of operating this game? More importantly why adopt this now, under these pretenses, when Dota apparently ran just fine for years on a far better monetisation scheme?
I don't even mind the proportionality between operating cost and profits since I have no problem with a cheaply produced but excellent game making a lot of money. Aside from the ethics of it (which is an ugly and well-discussed topic), what bothers me the most is that there is no reasonable option left for people who want to pay something in between zero and whale-level money (like hundreds of dollars). On the one hand, you need the 95% of players who rarely if ever buy loot boxes to fill servers, on the other, you need to make that money back from those 5% of players who will pay. Since so few people pay, they'll have to pay a lot to balance things out and you can only achieve that through gambling-like hooks.
That means the game now needs a mechanic that essentially lets people feel perpetually "missing out". "Free" players can't complain ("yea, I guess it would be cool to have that card but I can't complain, I play for free!") about things feeling lacking, you have to pay for the permission to want more, at which point you're in whale territory which means reasonable one-time payments don't exist by design. If you only pay $5 or even $50, you'll get "slightly better" but no way they'll make you feel satisfied at this point. They now know you're willing to pay so they dangle the better options even more obviously in front of you, with open ended spending.
I wouldn't mind, for example, a yearly $20 expansion with a fixed set of cards. If everyone would buy that, we wouldn't have a problem and Valve would probably make the same amount of money. But only like 5% of people buy that shit if there's a "free" option and they wouldn't even start playing the game if there wasn't. You wouldn't get the millions of people not paying for loot boxes and you wouldn't get the 5% of that paying ridiculous sums, at which point we're full circle. There's no room for a reasonable payment anymore because there's only really two extremes: Free and overpriced.
It's kinda obvious that the gambling aspect is what holds up the whole loop and it's absolutely despicable how unashamedly the entire industry milks it. I have lost all respect for Valve.
Not sure if you saw the recent update addressing the communities concerns on the monetization -
https://steamcommunity.com/games/583950/announcements/detail/2535985526495756390
I was a little worried, but seeing these changes and working out what I'd be able to do with my initial $20 purchase made me happy again. They do not want to give cards away for free so that the cards themselves have value. Allowing them to be recycled into tickets puts a floor on the cards value as well.
Heh, sounds like you are being cautiously pessimistic, I think I'm cautiously optimistic. I've never really felt ripped off by valve previously. As you say, let's see how it rolls out to the public, and how quickly they address issues as they come up.
I usually judge games based on how much I've spent vs how much entertainment I've had - $20 is a low enough bar, that I'm good if I only get 5-10 hours out of it.
The update today implements the system:
That's a better rate than I was expecting, and means that the floor for a card's value should effectively be 5 cents. A pack has 12 cards, so even in the absolute worst case, a $2 pack will have $0.60 worth of cards in it.