Someone Made Pay 2 Win: The Game And Its Hilarious

[@Nerathul1]

One trick they missed is having 50 different currencies that you have to transform between them, it helps obscure how much money people spent. "Oh you need 100 diamond, but to get diamond you need mine keys to find the mine boss, and to get keys you need to spend Platinum which is bought with money." Or how princing is usually in unusual amounts that always leave with with too little or just a little extra money "Item cost 1000 platinum, but the closest pack is 1200p, but if you buy another 500 you can buy the cool magic horse too!" or the opposite Need a 1000? Well your choices are 800p or 1600p. Also make sure grinding is tediously slow but you can buy XP or drop boosts!

[@BAD_HOBO]

Is this Warfarm?

[@newp0rt]

ik you said platinum maybe as a generalization but warframe is the worst example. i never spent a dime on that game but played like a p2w player simply by farming high priced items and selling them through its ingame market. i have every prime frame, color template, riven mods, i wanted all for free.

[@newp0rt]

if you EVER spent money on platinum thats your fault. 1000 plat can be farmed just by simply doing normal things. farm some easy but moderately priced mods or prime parts, sell them in trade chat, farm some kuva and roll some riven mods. i made well over 30k plat just rolling and selling rivens.

[@titusfortunus2916]

@@newp0rt "If you spent money on platinum, that's your fault. All you have to do to make it is to farm some highly-prized objects, then sell it to someone else who... spent money on platinum." ? bro the market is dictated by the spenders. If literally everyone did what you did... you wouldn't make any platinum, because no one would buy platinum so there'd be none to sell.

[@kcp9746]

@@titusfortunus2916 as a free player like him I sadly have to say you are absolutely right. Warframe lets particularly willful players work around having to spend real money, but they still have to spend lots of their time and use plat other players spent money on. The only free plat any player gets is 50 plat upon starting a new account, its a pittance in the long run and clearly designed to incentivize people to understand the value of it early on, one of many ways the game tries to lure you in and wear at you to get you to spend money. Sure, its true that Warframe does better than other P2W games by not completely walling you off from progression or content, letting players trade plat, and not having an initial buy-in price or lootboxes. Its less predatory than many other games, but it is still predatory. It has to be in order to be lucrative as a free game, clearly skins alone just aren't enough, at least for DE.

[@theepicslayer7sss101]

the biggest bombshell drop was that this game was made in 2015... those practices are now so commonplace that i was sure this was made today... in other words there are probably even more tricks they use that added to that list!

[@wurgel1]

in 1 word? season-pass

[@superpnutbutter8608]

Common, too common. I once argue about predatory game design, and the other person argue and protect the game like a brain-dead zombie. Painting the game and the company as a saint for making such a good game for free, and blaming people who tell otherwise as wrong/no self control. They talk about these terrible design as if it was a good thing, saying it agonizing but never question why it even exist in the first place. I know they're being manipulated, but, come on man. Fuck Genshin Impact, and fuck people who protect Genshin Impact. I wasted hours of my life argue and try to expose the secret to you, but you don't even want to learn. Have fun being slave to that shitty ass game.

[@oniryuuko]

Alternate take: Every company who hears that pay to win freemium games are profitable and got into the business had their dev team find this tutorial game.

[@pdpgb]

I can think of a few more related specifically to gacha games which are now very popular.

[@ev6558]

The practices were commonplace in 2015 as well, evidently you were just in diapers at the time.

[@michel0dy]

Opening a premium box to receive an item unusable by your class is a classic

[@anonamos225]

class ick good one

[@christopherkarr1872]

@@anonamos225 Did you pat yourself on the back for discovering an unintentional pun? If so, I like your style.

[@pavelstoikov3780]

@@anonamos225 🤡🤡

[@hanielarindel1408]

Yep, that's why most of RPG gamers play offline RPGs because RPG is a great game genre, look at baldurs's Gate. I don't know why companies keep trying P2W games on RPGs, when they have great succesful examples of RPG like Baldurs Gate, Path of Exile or Skyrim.

[@WarFoxThunder]

Ikr

[@MetalFlowerMaster]

I like that as soon as this video ended I got an ad for a pay 2 win mobile game

[@randomassjellyfish]

This comment is sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends

[@waleedabdullahkhan5706]

​@@randomassjellyfishthere are still someone who plays that?

[@prodigy4776]

Did you just say raid? Raid shadow legends play now for "freeeeeeeee"

[@Ivyleaf2]

I think the final secret being a let down is a lesson in itself. Some people spend all this money expecting to get something grand and the just end up disappointed

[@porkch0mp538]

its the same psychology as gambling

[@robertwildschwein7207]

The secret should have been showing what else the player could have gotten for the money that he chose to spent on this subpar "RPG".

[@LoLaSn]

@@porkch0mp538 Gambling actually has a chance to pay off, even though it likely won't

[@billdecompsa4705]

​@@LoLaSnit's all about THINKING it has a chance to pay off. Same mentality.

[@rareraven]

​@@LoLaSnit doesn't. Even believing that it does, takes something from you. Something more than just physical.

[@karaokehammick5215]

There was always that trick they would use. Like you have to buy crystals and they only come in packs of 10 20 50 or 100. Meanwhile the stuff you buy with the crystals are like 8, 15, 35, and 70 or something like that. You wind up being left with crystals and tempted to buy more because they are just sitting their being wasted. It is so obvious what they are doing.

[@kwayke9]

Isn't this trick literally everywhere? This one's over a decade old lol (and is why I'm in favor of banning premium currencies, massive transparency problem)

[@JimsyFlimsy]

Pokémon GO is good at getting away with this because you can earn (up to) 50 coins per day but a lot of the stuff costs 10-30 days worth of grinding, it's literally impossible to buy all the new stuff as it comes out.

[@Narrator007]

That reminds me of an old grocery store trick, where hot dog buns used to be sold in packs of 10, while hot dogs were sold in packs of 8.

[@cx24venezuela]

Tokenizations, like in casino, travel miles, porn pages, and so on. If You pay a token , then you lost track of how much money something cost.

[@matthewharrington420]

@@kwayke92 decades. Maplestory

[@dani33300]

11:38 The moment he defeated the pvp challenger a message popped up announcing immediate closure of the server and discontinuation of the game. That point hit home the hardest. All your purchased power deleted in a single act.

[@CappyK]

We've all been victim of this. Although I expected "UPDATE: New Orange + 5 tier gear available!" where they just recolour some gear and put bigger numbers on it, meaning you now have to grrrrrrrrind your fingers raw to stay current.

[@CriticalCrazy]

I bought overwatch but couldn’t play it because my internet was too bad, when I finally could, the game was deleted, overwatch 2 is free but anything you had was ported over. I didn’t have anything, and as petty as it sounds, I was looking forward to unlocking the heroes one-by-one...

[@chancepaladin]

or they keep accepting $ while you find out the game hasn't been maintained for two years.

[@1337Koios]

@@CriticalCrazy You don't unlock the heroes in Overwatch, you amass cosmetics over time. That's what got ported over.

[@ReeSean7]

“We thank you for all the support you’ve given us” = Thanks for the money, chump

[@clyax113]

I'm sad you didn't talk about how right at the end the game tells you that the MMO is losing service, you're thanked for your support, you can't play the game anymore in any way (except those who crack the server and pirate it), and you don't get your money invested back. This is a *huge* aspect of games as a service. I wish you mentioned it in this video when it was presented.

[@cloggedpitot1]

Learned this with Blue Hole studios (scummiest devs ever) when they shut down Tera. Their loot box system was criminal. Would love it if they all went to prison.

[@quickdraw6893]

Battleborn wasn't an MMO per se, but another strong example of this. It may have gotten swallowed in the OW hype and forgotten by the wider gaming community, but it still had a dedicated fanbase that loved to play. But it was always online only and shut down, leaving everyone on it in the cold. It took YEARS for a working crack of it to happen, and the one there is now is still extremely early in development and without multi-player or meta progression components. So. Thanks modern devs for making your game so difficult to actually play.

[@Kugrox]

marvel heroes. i preordered the villain pack then got banned before it came out, no refunds, i didnt even do anything. appeal was "overlooked" for 3 months then denied after no further communication. and my dumbass made a new account and bought everything again, then it got shut down.

[@legna1932]

​@@KugroxI want to say sorry for you, but dude that's on you at that point

[@paddy1144]

And above we have the people who don’t read TOS and don’t understand business

[@theendlessdaydream6442]

Watching the video of game developers at a conference discussing how to use psychological tricks commonly uses by casinos was very eye opening. The worst part is that these "games" aren't regulated. Kids can't walk into a casino and gamble but a mobile game? Starting them young and when they have little to no understanding of value vs shiny fake object.

[@jimmy13morrison]

The reason why its not regulate is because you always receive something just like buying a pack of pokemon cards even if you dont pull out a mega rare you end up with pokemon cards so its not considered as a lottery

[@theendlessdaydream6442]

@@jimmy13morrison You end up with piece of cardstock, just like a baseballcard. Arguably, there might be some value in it for resell. How you gonna resell a custom skin or a time booster item? It's also a bit harder for a kid to go to the store and buy some pokemon cards in massive bulk without cash. Most kids don't have access to their moms and dads credit card. But it's pretty easy to swipe the numbers and enter it into their phone when parents aren't looking. I've seen these games "bundle packs". It is very easy to spend hundreds of dollars at a time on chance boxes, time boosters, and any other random in game items.

[@jimmy13morrison]

@theendlessdaydream6442 i completely agree im just saying why legally its not considered gambling

[@Alpha-kt4yl]

@@jimmy13morrison It may not be legally considered gambling, but the laws should be changed so that it is legally considered gambling. It uses all of the same tricks as gambling, so it should be considered gambling.

[@EdyAlbertoMSGT3]

@@Alpha-kt4yl Soo basically, the only differience between gambling and "totally not gambling" is getting something worth nothing, instead of literal nothing. I find it hilarious.

[@Robonator14]

I have worked for a publisher of trashy-MMOs and honestly, it is so much worse than you think. For some bigger-profile games, there were literally psychologists working together with management to figure out new ways to motivate people to stay/spend more money. It is also not the devs that are behind this, but usually upper management that does not know and does not care about games. They see a product and they want this product to generate money. For that they put an enormous amount of pressure on the producers, devs, marketing & co and if you don't follow you will be replaced by someone who does. To these people, the average player that does not, or only spends a comparatively little amount of money, is essentially worthless, because why care about the guy who spent 150$ when there are 5 others that spent 11k? And i can absolutely confirm that if you spend enough money, you will get better treatment to a degree and your voice will matter more.

[@titusfortunus2916]

unfortunately, unless you see people directly, you really can just see people as a statistic. For example, using your example, 5 people each spending $11,000? comparatively, if there were 70 people that each offered to spend $150, they would still not be worth as much. The exact number being 73.333. Basically... those 5 people each are worth 14.666 people (EACH!). And 11,000 is cute in terms of spending, there can be people that spend up to $100,000 in a game. that ONE PERSON is worth more than 9 of the $11,000 spenders, who are each worth more than 14.666 of the $150 spenders, who are EACH worth 5x more than the $30 spenders. So the question quickly drifts from "how do we make a great game people enjoy?" to "How do we increase the profit as much as possible to collect another $100,000 out of those $100,000 targets?" aka whale-hunting.

[@gts2550]

Thank you for your insight. These can't be called something so innocent as games. These look and feel more like exploitative schemes packaged as games. They are predatory to the extreme and employ every known exploit to get the consumer addicted and keep them there. It wouldn't be surprising if in the near future they gradually get the treatment the once legal addictive psychotics got.

[@porkch0mp538]

its casino science. gaming turned into casinos as soon as mtx made its way into AAA and they all became live service

[@xaviermagnus8310]

Worse what 80% of the money comes from 1% of the players.

[@cloudnine5651]

not true about devs not behind this. most devs ARE behind stuff like this. quit spreading lies

[@raider3167]

The fact that I’d never heard of this game before today is a sign that the developer was right and he was silenced for it.

[@enderallygolem]

That or the more probable reason that it isn't interesting enough to gain any popularity

[@matthewjones39]

Bait

[@suprememasteroftheuniverse]

The only thing ixdxixoxtxs can come up with is conspiracy theory. Incredible.

[@a.w_.]

Or it just didn’t have very good marketing but I guess conspiracies are more fun

[@ev6558]

Or maybe it's the fact that it was never intended to be a serious game, and the joke it's based around has already been made by pretty much anyone who has ever played a videogame.

[@matthewn4896]

@11:10 A number of years ago, a developer (I can't remember who, i want to say EA, but it might have been Activision,) applied for a patent on a matchmaking system they'd developed, that matched newer players, not just with much higher leveled players, but specifically with people who had spent a lot of real money on gear, and skins, and whatever, so they'd get completely stomped and be "encouraged" to purchase premium equipment. I believe their wording was something along the lines of "This will enhance our ability to extract value from the player base."

[@christophedlauer1443]

thankfully enough "software patents" for dribble like this are only valid in the US, or I would have patented the concept of binary years ago.

[@tapwatersoup6027]

This was from Activision o think with their EOMM

[@Frost.x7x]

Probably Ubisoft. The dirty bastards

[@G00GleIsACr33p]

Activision for CoD, but EA was floating the idea of charging players for reloading in the middle of matches as well.

[@steven401ytx]

Wait I think they might be out to make money! This is huge

[@Pottzy]

I love the other funny point of spending insane amounts of time(or money) to upgrade gear only for it to look identical

[@EdyAlbertoMSGT3]

Or ugly.

[@thomasfplm]

I just remembered a cousin of mine telling me that in the game he was playing, the best skin was the free one, because the other ones were so colorful that the opponents had an easier time spotting and reacting to you, while he frequently got remained unnoticed.

[@supermexicanroboninja3116]

DQ9 was bad about that. It was always disappointing when, after hours of grinding for materials, the armor didn't actually change. BUT! It was a DS game. A MASSIVE DS game where you could sink a hundred hours into the story and quests and still have a lot left to discover. And for the most part, there is a huge variety in the armor you can get, even if some of it looks identical when upgraded. Compared to something like Destiny 2 where you have maybe two dozen unique looking sets, total.

[@cx24venezuela]

Other tactic is make you use premium currency each time you die.

[@lanthanumlanthanium6373]

A bunch of advertisements popped up

[@cattrucker8257]

The "money spent total" counter alone could've prevented a great many spenders from going off the deep end had it been implemented in any in-app-purchase based game.

[@adamsmall5598]

Which is why they do the exact opposite: force you to buy in game currency, to buy other in game currency, at confusing rates, so that you have no idea what anything is worth in terms of real cash value.

[@PrimordialNightmare]

@@adamsmall5598 while the obfuscation is definitely a big point for buying in game currency I think it's also a legal safety net for the company around preventing in game items having real lifew value. don't remember any of the intricacies though.

[@Splatcake]

​@@adamsmall5598you can do the math your self ajd find out earing cost $20 and a new dress is $180

[@burgersbeansandchips]

Lots of mobile games do it as an achievement and whales see it as a flex

[@joule400]

@@adamsmall5598 i've really hoped for EU or something to step in and enforce that all purchases of digital goods must be done with direct real world money payment without any conversions to gems or what ever first

[@styxzero1675]

The dedication of making an entire game just to prove a point, I love it. Gaming landscape today is a joke and 99% of the mmos released are absolute dogshit p2w garbage. Also sure value is subjective, but how do you know that you have not been brainwashed into beliving that the game actually holds value to you by the literal psychologist they employ for these type of games to extract as much money as possible for players, rather than it being your own free will that decided it. That is the terrifying part about how devious these game developers are.

[@wesendreizehn6710]

Its not just games, the entire society runs this way, actually.

[@sydneygray986]

Also, not the developers themselves in bigger games tbh. It's the executives man. I'm sure most people who develop games want to make something that's fun and enjoyable but they have to add in the suck for the company to release it.

[@MrEshah]

Game devs are in a way a bit like veterinarians, they get into the business all bright eyed and full of enthusiasm. Then after awhile they realise their job is mostly to put down animals.

[@LtCommanderTato]

@@sydneygray986 They are as guilty as the executive. If everybody rise and say enough is enough things can change. Executives cant make games.

[@sydneygray986]

@@LtCommanderTato I understand the point you're trying to make, but you're talking about their livelihood. Everyone in the work force in general won't complain or change anything until you start messing with their money. The developers are there to make the game. The executives are there to sell the game and make profits. A publishing company is no different than any other employer, and if you don't do what they want then you will be replaced by someone who will. It's not the developers' job to strong-arm the studios. They do their work to collect a paycheck like anywhere else. The only way to see a change is through consumers to stop buying the games who heavily push the features we would like to see disappear. Sadly, there is no way for everyone to get on board with that, which even if you could, the vast majority of revenue is generated by whales. So publishing studios hear us say we don't want this, but they put the system in anyways and then it still prints money for them. Sorry man, but the MTX/loot box cancer is here to stay. Unless you can get the government to legislate against those practices it's going to continue. Fat chance of that since most of them are old enough to remember when dirt was a new thing. Same as executives they're just looking for the bag, and everyone else who isn't contributing they don't care. Tl;Dr It's the consumer's job to get the game studios to change not the developers. We wield the power with our wallets, but too many people keep opening them for this crap.

[@KoffinKat]

Reminds me of the games "DLC Quest" and "I Can't Believe It's Not Gambling". Both are excellent parodies on the gaming industry's monetization practices, I wholeheartedly recommend that ppl check them out.

[@ummwhodidnt]

👀

[@dutchy1121]

Which is why Diablo Immortal is banned in The Netherlands (where I live).

[@mancamiatipoola]

@@dutchy1121 You spelled "Immoral" wrong. Ironically, me and 2 pals went into Diablo Imooral and we played through the story while also following the MACRO transaction scandals of the game. We finished the campaign and we never touched it again. It felt like a pretty generic mobile ARPG but with pretty gfx. We intentionally skipped the pvp because we already figured it would be ridiculously unbalanced just to get new players to invest in pvp gear, as shown in this video. Also, i remember playing a game on flash portal sites that was called "Upgrade complete" and it was also a meme at the micro transaction plaguing mobile games. The game was a vertical shooter with a tiny space craft and you started with a ship that was made up of like 10 pixels, no sound and one single pea shooter. You had to upgrade everything in the game, including the graphics, buying sound effects, music, more weapons, and so on. It was hilarious because after investing some in-game money the game looked like a great 16-bit era vertical shooter. XD

[@IIMiikexDII]

I know its just a small clip in the beginning but failing a 71% chance enhancement like 3 times in a row on BDO is so damn relatable lmao

[@Enderplays12]

@@justiful9215 That's the gambler's fallacy. Your odds don't improve.

[@diablo.the.cheater]

@@Enderplays12 In some games they actually do improve, as in they are artificially improved by the code so people fall in the gambler fallacy even more by making it partially true after you spend enough.

[@MuffHam]

@@justiful9215 Yeah i stopped playing BDO because of the grind and upgrade system. They they made the whole game like the Season servers it would be MUCH better.

[@chrismanuel9768]

​@@Enderplays12No, they literally do. It's a gameplay system.

[@SougoUltimateSadist]

i had a game where it failed at 100% succes rate and it just killed my mood for a loong time. all those % displayed there are 100% fake, never regained trust in these games.

[@tanostrelok2323]

The "Player won thing" announcement was always funny to see, especially when the game has tools to locate users and stuff and you find out that they either don't exist or aren't even logged into the game, lol

[@MrNone-d5s]

Common strats in failing or trash gacha games is Bob got an "X "5* character

[@Hevach]

I once saw my own name in one of those and it's like... No I didn't I'm slogging through newbie zones with vendor trash gear.

[@AYAKXSHI]

Also you notice it says [ALL SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT]

[@anthrazite]

​@Hevach In that case I would've taken a screenshot and asked support where my item is lmao

[@dfaveteranofsui-cultist3596]

In game called "Overdox" it's a real thing, when I play that game there's an announcement when someone got a legendary equipment. I saw my name when I got my first legendary, I also saw my friend name and he indeed got his legendary equipment.

[@Acaykath]

Theres also the "pick one of three" trick where there is supposedly a premium reward hidden, but in realit is is chance based where it is 80% chance to get the crappy reward, 19.9% chance to get the not quite trash reward, and a snowballs chance in hell of getting the premium reward. Then you can watch a video or purchase a premium subscription for a chance of opening a second box.

[@Boris-Vasiliev]

Your reward was decided before you pick anything in those "pick one of three". Your game just fills two other options with random items.

[@cx24venezuela]

Or with radomized premium items

[@ev6558]

This is why casinos love video card games so much. Don't have to pay wages to a dealer, and you can program the machine to always give the player the exact same odds and disregard any circumstances that might help the player in an actual, physical card game.

[@DaveSmith-cp5kj]

@@ev6558 I never understood the video card machines. Like the whole point of gambling is the experience and ambiance, not sitting down at a table is like robbing yourself of what you are paying to be there. I guess it also leverages that most people are antisocial and won't sit at a table if they aren't with friends.

[@Talik13]

I consider myself lucky. I had a very rude awakening to all of these tricks back before micro transactions - my account got hacked and I lost hundreds of hours of progress in an MMO that I also spent real money on (for subscriptions, like Runescape). After going through the stages of grief, I realized that the entire game was just a giant grind and what I really enjoyed was the friends I hung out with while playing... That lead to D&D and the rest is history

[@thezyreick4289]

but the real question is how much have you spent on dice, handbooks, and minis >xD

[@thecoolestofthe834s2]

@@thezyreick4289 way less than an mmo subscription you want to pay 15 dollars for a year of runescape? nah thats just one MONTH dog

[@einkar4219]

looking how dnd5e is going currently it is kinda ironic

[@flonkplonk1649]

@@thezyreick4289probably way less than a Warhammer 40k player

[@Jacksonvillian904]

RuneScape is not a pay to win game lol.

[@Clawthorne]

That tip about new classes being added that are ridiculously OP compared to older classes made me think of WoW. It always confused me how Blizzard, with all the time they had to work on it, always managed to make new classes OP as hell and then taking forever to balance them. Well... now that makes sense. It was probably intentional, to drive sales of new expansions by having a new class that was OP tied to the expansion.

[@furiousdestroyah9999]

There's also this in mobas, they add op new characters (of course only bought through the store) that powercreep the older ones so you feel obligated to buy them if you actually wanna win and then nerf them later. Funniest thing is the specific company of the game I play did this again *just* after writing an apology to all players for the previous overpowered character, who went months without getting nerfed, absolutely dominating the game. You gotta get your money where you can I guess

[@gabrielsantosbastos5257]

For honor never changes

[@pdpgb]

It's standard power creep. The new thing has to be super powerful to make you want it. And then the next new thing has to be even more powerful to make you want that. A few cycles of this and any of the old stuff that used to be good becomes not viable unless they buff it.

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

Don't need to think of an old game like WoW. Total War Warhammer started doing that really heavily since TW3. I loved the game before that. Now every new faction that comes is broken, in comparison to the old ones that keep getting less and less useful against the new DLCs.

[@Ryquard1]

Evoker was never op

[@TheDapperDragon]

I'll throw in an anecdote about the confirm messages being fake. When I played DFO as a lad, I actually messaged the name of the upgradee to congratulate them, only to be given a 'player does not exist' response. Never thought much of it til today.

[@MitchManix]

Interesting…

[@MurseSamson]

Yeah, I've experienced this a few times in my days. Not really sure if the player was on a different shard, had just logged out, or had blocked all communication somehow. In some MMOs you could /inspect someone, no matter the distance. A few times it worked just fine. Other times,... "Player not found."

[@Dzexel]

or do like me and replace letters from differen alphabets and changing lowercase L with upper case i and vice versa

[@singingpipes]

Not true of Flyff, one of the most pay to win games (that I absolutely love). The people on the server-wide messages are definitely people.

[@NebucadLaVey]

sales promotion - human mind are so easy to manipulate, unfortunately

[@ladyalicent705]

Another trick is what I call the ‘flashback scene’ trick, where as part of the ‘story’ you will play an extremely powerful character with end game gear during the game’s prologue, after which, you will play as a trashy character with starter gear. This gives the player a taste of what they ‘could have’, and encourages them to spend thousands upon thousands to reach that goal

[@AYAKXSHI]

Omg yes then they use these crazy abilities that some how you lose access too after falling off a cliff during a fight scene with no explanation at all to how you lost them

[@ViolosD2I]

To be fair, starting "in medias res" like that to give people an idea of what to expect before going to the slow-ish tutorial is a viable way to create interest even with no money involved. Can be overdone of course.

[@qq84]

It was in the video with the feather trick.

[@Toxic2T]

this happens alot in racing games aswell. Look at NFS Most Wanted and TDU2 intros.

[@04liverydesign7]

At least in most wanted you could earn the car back and many other cars doing some effort without spending any money, you paid for the game once and got the whole game, unlike nowadays where we have incomplete racing games, but thanks to modders we can have everything we want in every racing game.

[@Valchrist1313]

The real predatory systems are the ones that draw you in for months with a social group and daily routine before cranking up the screws with events and new areas that require payment to be competitive, if not to participate with your friends and peers period.

[@tach5884]

They learned that from cults.

[@declanclaus6681]

Destiny.

[@Nnexialist]

Staright up Destiny

[@Sebastian-oz1lj]

hearthstone ?

[@mattc9598]

the speed feather thing was actually brutally brilliant. Imagine if you started Skyrim or Fallout running faster and then suddenly had to pay a bit to keep that speed. Plenty would have done so

[@Echs_D33]

Or just speed cripple/horse tilt to get around.

[@Grivian]

@@Echs_D33 No there would be an outrage from the fans and bethesda would eventually remove it.

[@Qeqoification]

@@Grivian You mean the ones "They have to make money... studios are now biGgErrr... why are you poOr?"

[@asmosisyup2557]

A lot of games give things like trial mounts to new players and/or during quests in the main story that can't be repeated. Just a taste padiwan, just a taste...

[@stena85]

I am pretty sure SW the old republic had this when I played it

[@TheDapperDragon]

If it were me, I would have the game auto delete the save. To drive home the point that at the end of the day, all of that money can be gone with the flip of a switch, leaving you with no legendary weapons, no titles, no nothing. Of course, I see why he did the 'value is up to you' thing. He did warn you, he makes F2P games. He's still gotta keep players coming back.

[@KTraftonB]

^^this

[@MitchManix]

Too true

[@jamesryan099]

They kinda did, if you pay attention to small details that are very easily missed I'm pretty sure I saw a message pop up at the end where it said this games service is now ending thank you for supporting us or something of the like.

[@BMoser-bv6kn]

@@jamesryan099 Yep. This is especially insane with mobile games, since they almost never go into a maintenance mode after updates end. You either have to accept that the experience will be fleeting, or you can wait a couple years to see if a game remains popular enough to continue to exist. Seeing games shut down after a few months isn't uncommon. Some corps really half-ass these things and constantly throw garbage minimum-viable-projects at the wall; if you thought there wouldn't be a market for Squaresoft's King's Knight game, you're smarter than whoever initiated that project...

[@xaviermagnus8310]

​@BMoser-bv6kn It's worse than that. There are groups buying out the games and then running it into the ground squeezing the established whale juicing practices.

[@MatteBlacke]

I used to play one of those mmo castle games. You know the kind where you have your castle, upgrade buildings and train troops to fight other players. They had an event where it was literally. “Let’s see who can spend the most this weekend!” No effort to obscure the cash grab. And people spent. The top players spent thousands each month. Absolutely insane.

[@rebootxd6012]

GoodGame Empire? I remember that game and it fits your description perfectly haha

[@jonasfernades241]

Maybe those people on the cashboards aren't even real people (even though there are people that do It). The idea is to make you think: There is this guy who spent 5000$, so If i spend like 50$ ir 100$ i wont feel guilty because there are worse people but i am not one of 'em

[@adamkraken1799]

Ark of war does that too. Which sucks cuz that game had a cool premise. Fuck 7 pirates

[@tonyli1622]

Yes, tournaments are what really tell you how effective mobile games are at extracting cash. You're free to play and have the productivity of 10 after playing 3 hours a day? Well, the top 10 players have the productivity of 100. Are they min maxing gameplay 24 hours a day? Maybe they're cheating? Or maybe it's the ability to spend real money to speed up tasks and complete tournament goals? What's ironic is that at the end of the day, spending hundreds of dollars on a tournament will net you........maybe another 40 dollars of premium currency that is useless outside of the game.

[@mattc9598]

@@jonasfernades241 either they are fake like you said, OR, it is money laundering.

[@bigbadsauce92]

I like how the armor set you were upgrading was called "Rental Set", I think it represents how all the cool gear you get is only temporary. You've got the raid gear on to make you 1000 power? cool! new dlc makes that set useless even tho you spent xx hours and xx currency to get it!

[@FlowerSong606]

Not to mention theres actual mmos that give u temporary armor and clothes ect Things they make u pay for that are like... actual money and last 7-30 days depending on how much u want to spend lol

[@mancamiatipoola]

I remember playing a FPS game that had a big ingame store where you could buy any kind of weapon. Literally p2w stuff like powerful weapons that could be bought for cash. But for a LARGE amount of normal currency you could rent a weapon for 1 day. Basically giving f2p players a tiny taste of that power then taking it away the next day. Realistically you would rent the weapon only for 2-3 hours of play time until you got off. And it would take you more than 2-3 play sessions to make that money back in the game. That shit turned me off so hard that i dropped the game after playing a few days.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Even better, make powerful items that you buy time-limited. You can't even "buy" pay 2 win stuff, you can only rent it. One of the fairest game with that mechanic was an FPS called Blacklight Retribution. Yes, you could buy powerful guns with real money. Or you could rent them with ingame currency. The thing that made it fair was the amount. Getting a powerful gun cost like 1500 currency for a week, but with each match you get around 100-200, depending on how well you did. So if you play 2 matches per day, less than an hour, you'd get more than those 1500. Which means even the most casual player had no trouble getting the funds. Another interesting thing is if a game has a season pass. And a paid version. But as part of the season pass you get premium currency. And if you have the paid season pass, you'll get more currency that it costs to buy the pass. So you buy once and continue enjoying the premium rewards. But you have to keep playing, so the goal of the publisher is not to get your money with the pass, but keep you in the loop. Because you might spend money elsewhere in the game. Personally, I do play a bunch of f2p games. But only those where the cost is fair. Imagine a regular MMO subscription. That is like 10-15 per month. Or you buy the newest CoD for 70 and the game is replaced a year later. If the game is perfectly playable without spending, and spending less or equal to a paid game is more fashion and convenience instead of removing arficial tedium.

[@hugehappygrin]

Dark Iron items in WoW were good until Cataclysm, then they were useless trash. the global cool down is another BS time waster.

[@ashwinnmyburgh9364]

I never skip quest dialogue. EVER. I'd feel like I missed something. Also, as someone who isn't very wealthy, and thus played a ton of free to play games, this gives me flashbacks. I have never spent money on one of those money-grabbing aspects, but man...trying to play a game and enjoy yourself while navigating that mess of ads and pay to win trash can be hard.

[@rasmachris94]

The one thing they missed was the call to action quest that pulls you into the store for a free purchase item instead of giving you the item like the speed buff automatically at the start. This is to get players used to entering the shop so they're more often exposed to shop items and more likely to buy.

[@EarthboundX]

@@rasmachris94 Did games do that before 2015? I have to imagine there's been tons more garbage monetization methods invented since 2015.

[@abepl]

I don't think I've read a single Quest giver line in any MMO, it's like insta skip, it will show up on the map as a marker and it most likely be a "fetch" quest with some silly story of granpa losing his hammer in the well.

[@Rhamirezz85]

I skip all dialogs in mmos :D I dont giva damn.

[@lefterismplanas4977]

If you never skip side quest dialogues , like me. Then try reading through all of the dialogue for "Daiya's Three-Day Reverie" from genshin impact. Ugh... I'm feel slightly angrier just by remembering it

[@skaruts]

Some 12-15 years ago I started playing a P2W browser game called Seafight, because many of my _normie_ friends were playing it. This was one of my first times playing a P2W game, so I had no idea about any of this. But a few months and about 200€ later I started noticing the shadiness of their business model: among other things, you never really progressed in any significant way without paying, you were only ever given the illusion that you could progress without paying. I then lectured all my friends about that at the pub, and... no one cared. They all kept playing that crap for years. And of course, they all resorted to cheating (playing dishonestly themselves) by using bots to do the grinding for them, because of course the game never progressed in any honest way. But even then, the pace of their progression with cheats was still that of a snail compared to what it would be if they paid money for stuff. Since then I have a special place in my turds for P2W games... And tbh I can't think of a P2W model that isn't wrong.

[@oompalumpus699]

Yep. P2W games stay because idiots love playing them.

[@spacewargamer4181]

Well, I can, OW(ironically) and Apex did.

[@mattaaron6142]

Allods online has a fairish take: f2p p2w and a p2p fair server. Both models have faults but both are quite successful without forcing payments to progress.

[@noop9k]

I'll play devil's advocate for a moment. See, busy people who work and earn money also want to play games and most importantly, win in PvP. But they absolutely can't spend even 5% of the time some nolifers are spending. Have you heard the proverb "work smarter, not harder"? So they work their job for a hour or two (that can sometimes be more complex and fullfilling than what you do in the game) and this lets them save several hours of game time and get ahead of those pathetic jobless nolifers ;) Ultimately, they buy extra status affirmation for being richer than you. You can spend 10 hours doing utterly meaningless simulated crap in a videogame, or you could less time doing something actually valuable IRL and get rewarded by it in a game. :) (Doesn't mean I actually support or play P2W games)

[@Levi_Ackerman_005]

I feel like the only game that made P2W sort of right is RuneScape. That's the only game that comes to mind that made it sort of right I guess.

[@AlaiaSkyhawk]

That game definitely highlights the BS so many games use these days. Great vid, Mitch :)

[@vallenshield4236]

I tend to leave games like this

[@Juggs009]

Somewhere, studios are looking at this and taking notes

[@JimiGosu]

I'm glad I was alive before MMO's were like this. Glad I got to play so many MMO's that weren't shameless cash grabs. Unfortunately, I'm also left with no choice but to lament their passing. 🙁

[@alyasVictorio]

​@@JimiGosuDon't worry, Albion has anything that other MMOs haven't, but also has fair share of both pros and cons in comparison to them yet there are no P2W there

[@Mr.Verethron]

"These days" are the last 10-15 years.

[@Warslayer999]

this game/video made me question the one thing in those games i never thought i'd have a second thought about, the messages of people actually getting a high quality item of the cash shop being fake. i never even once thought those could be fake to lure you in to buy more cash shop loot boxes or such, count my mind slightly blown

[@Ptmkn]

Not only can they be fake, they're not above recycling announcements. I remember playing an alt in Star Trek Online and seeing an announcement my main had won top prize from a box. The same prize I'd won about a year ago. The worst part was having to explain that to a couple other players that wanted to trade for it.

[@DeadlyNightshadeZ]

The thing about the "players getting achievements" messages being fake. I checked this too. Playing Star Trek Online, I noticed the name of one of my friends "just got a legendary t6 ship" from a loot box. The guy wasnt even online. It takes real players names, who are not online, and then tells the server that they got some sweet loot by spending real money. Now, it actually does produce these messages if you do it, but it also makes them even if you dont.

[@paolarei4418]

Nice now i hate that "user got (ultra rare thing) from (something)"

[@MickHaggs]

@@paolarei4418 honestly, seeing a message like that pop up on my screen is an instant uninstall for me. I don't give a fuck what xX_420MILFSLAYER69_Xx got, and fuck you for telling me.

[@pugofwarbr]

there is a game that i play, and sometimes get notifications of a player that got that 0.01% rare item, since seems to the a global server, its bound to happen, they dont show the ones that got crappy itens.

[@HonkiePlonkie]

same goes for casino's, always announcing big jackpots through the whole building. I don't even know if that is real or not. Never took contact with the people who won it. But damn, it has influence on people.

[@hackerx7329]

Are you sure it wasn't just a similar name or even the same character name with a different account at handle since the game allows for that? Given all the people selling ships on the exchange and the numbers of them you see flying in TFOs people obviously are getting them. You also never have to spend a single cent of your own money. In over 10 years the only money I have spent is on two charity bundles on groupees with codes to redeem and the one time somebody gave me a gift card code for like 1000 zen. The company has never had any payment info from me. If you really want to try the lock boxes for yourself the odds are quite poor of getting one of the jackpot prize packs but you can just buy the keys on the exchange too. Don't get me wrong, I'm certain lots of other people are in fact actually spending real money but my main character is a Ferengi and yes he does have the T5 and T6 Ferengi ships and the shuttle and all 3 of those were lockbox items. Over 80 zen store ships unlocked and counting not to mention the giant list of event ships. You can spend real money if you are impatient or you can game the system and just get almost everything for free eventually. As far as I know the only content you can't get for free by grinding out dilithium and selling it on the exchange or doing events are the rewards locked as only being available for lifetime subscribers.

[@rubenlarochelle1881]

5:44 I have played Travian for years as a kid, where at the start you get a week of premium, after which you almost feel powerless. I was just a kid but the tactic was quite clear, and yet the "Your feather has expired, you can't run now" still gets used to this day...

[@cx24venezuela]

Travian, Ikariam, spaceinvasion, DarkOrbit, wow, i really miss My infancy

[@0cidd0]

I played a lot tribal wars, and after a time it’s impossible if you don’t pay. Now have the rise of kingdoms, that can be the most pay2win ever. If you have money you literally can burst thousands and thousands of troops in a minute

[@luisrb2112]

​@@0cidd0ive played that game even when it was called rise of civilizations. By the time i played that game (cuz i obv dont play it now) i always wondered how the hell people managed to get so strong the firsts days of a server

[@luisrb2112]

And well i assumed money did help you moderately, but not to the point you get like a million power, i had to get to 50,000 of power, then jump to a new generated server and still be weaker than anyone else, at that point you realise, even with all the effort, someone who pays is always 1 step above you

[@ootdega]

Always throw away all the booster items the game gives you at the start. ALWAYS.

[@alterranlongbow5067]

2:20 in no man's sky theres an NPC on most space stations that hands out simple side quests i never read the dialogue until i noticed one of the quests for killing sentinels was called "curious tastes" the description for the quest went something like "the client seeks to ingest pugneum (common sentinel drop) to become the ultimate lifeform. but as they currently are not the ultimate lifeform, they cannot kill sentinels, and need you to do some first to get them started."

[@skyking4557]

I mean they know normal player won't noticed anything so they have fun with the description.also NMS has minimal P2W

[@nethandelwampa116]

What’s crazy to me is plenty of games play like this and people still play them. One of my guys at work plays a game called desert online or something like that. It’s literal days of grinding for levels unless you pay for xp boosts and stuff 8 different types of currency etc he is one of the highest levels in the game and has spent upwards of 30k playing it, doesn’t care and is proud to talk about it

[@GodOfPlague]

black desert online... aka my 2nd job in a fantasy world

[@nethandelwampa116]

Thats the game, yeah he talks about it all the time. You probably know him lol@@GodOfPlague

[@secretname2670]

As a rule of thumb, I only play games that are crackable or have single-purchase type of acquirement. Saved me a lot of trouble.

[@ThatSimpleton1915]

@@secretname2670Still there are games that you still have to pay for that still have an additional hundreds of dollars to spend

[@jcdesantis69]

He spent 30,000 dollars on a game? this cant be right... who except a millionare could afford it? you say he works with you so he obviously isnt or he wouldnt be working. Sounds like hes lying which is why he not ashamed.

[@PiroteusGaming]

There was one thing missing... the quick upgrade button which costs 120% of the normal upgrade materials but you only have to klick one button instead of draging it over and over again

[@soramercury7074]

wait, this is a thing in some games?

[@silphonym]

@@soramercury7074 sadly, yes

[@soramercury7074]

@@silphonym idk what to say anymore. I was done with believing in humanity quite a while ago, but i keep getting surprised how far people can possibly go beyond stupidity and greed.

[@TheEmolano]

I never saw this, I guess I can descend more into the pit lol

[@firdausmuntazar3699]

looks like undawn vibes

[@Jammonstrald]

My favorite (as in the one I hate the most) that games pull is the "obtain x items" quest or crafting requirement, where the item is randomly dropped from something (with corresponding low drop rate). It's particularly insidious to me, because on the surface it seems harmless enough, but it instigates the sunk cost fallacy mindset with regards to time and primes you to accept it in the overarching structure of the game. My prime example is when all my friends were going crazy over WoW back when it originally got released, and so I finally tried playing it by starting a new character on a friend's account. I'm pretty sure the actual first quest I got was "obtain 10 wolf pelts" or something similar. So I go to the area with wolves, kill a wolf; no pelt. "Strange that the wolf didn't have a pelt" I said. I kill five wolves; no pelts. I kill another 2 or 3, and one of them dropped a pelt! "How many wolves am I going to have to kill for these damn pelts?" I asked. I clear the area of wolves, and get maybe 2 pelts. "How am I supposed to get 10? There are no more wolves". My friend tells me I have to wait for the wolves to respawn and clear the area again. "WHAT? That's ridiculous!" I immediately saw it for the time sink that it was. It was deliberately designed to waste the player's time (time that was being paid for with a subscription) and was using variable-ratio reinforcement (aka gambling) in order to hook people into the task. I ended up having to clear the area 3 or 4 times to get the wolf pelts I needed, which took maybe half an hour or more. For the intro quest that was to show you how completing quests works. It immediately trained players to expect they will need to waste unreasonable amounts of time on menial tasks with progress gated by a random reward schedule. WoW, for me, marked the transition of games from being games into the sophisticated Skinner boxes they are today.

[@Ramifen]

are you a psych major? lol

[@friendlyplayer92]

I mean, MMOs were always time sinks. Thats why i never play them. There are hundreds of amazing non-p2w games out there so gaming is doing very well. Just dont play shitty games

[@Jammonstrald]

@@Ramifen I have a piece of paper sitting in an envelope somewhere that says I paid enough money to be able to claim I know psychology.

[@Ramifen]

im tryna be like u @@Jammonstrald

[@Jammonstrald]

@@Ramifen nice! good luck, it's a fascinating field, but with a lot of ego (Ironically) attached to how it is taught and what the field "should" say or be. If you can find some good teachers hold on to them for dear life. If you can't, I recommend to do as much outside exploration of its histories and personalities/ideas as you can fit into your time. A lot of academia seems more interested in churning out business psychologists who can figure out how to trick people into paying for battle passes than exploring how to understand and heal our inner worlds. But there's a lot more money in one than the other, unfortunately.

[@qbxricky5315]

This would be a interesting idea for a game franchise. You get an “allowance” of “real money you can spend” and tax brackets are the difficulty of the game, F2P being essentially very hard and oil prince being very easy. And have a bunch of silly quests like this and in the end you take down the big micro transaction monster

[@thomasfplm]

I would add that people should get a random family in their "real lifes" and "jobs" to define this allowance.

[@qbxricky5315]

@@thomasfplm yea that’s what I mean, like a difficulty system but it’s like, parents make -50k a year, +50k, +100k, +500, +1mil and that determines the actual difficulty like you know how you pick your parents in GTA online, you do that but with wealth and it chooses your base income and allowance for what you can spend the “real currency” on.

[@andrefasching1332]

​@@qbxricky5315parents make..... I wish back for the times when it was natural for kids to talk about their own unrealistic earning instead of that of their parents. Just make it simple and Have your character have a good job, inherit something or idk... have stocks.

[@Barryseal-n8e]

What would be hilarious is just like in the real world people would cheat and you would have tax evasion entire networks lined up n ready to commit fraud. hacks all of it this game would be nothing but cheaters with the fools paying real money to compete with hacks. I almost want to see the cluster fuck you call a game get made.

[@shinobuoshino5066]

@@andrefasching1332 there are people who kill their parents for their wealth, so better be careful, boomer.

[@ImSquiggs]

This is a cute idea. Reminds me of DLC Quest - a cute little 2D platformer I played years ago where you had to buy DLC for every little thing in the game, like sprinting, sound effects, jumping, or even just moving left haha.

[@WakkasLove]

I never skip NPC text in MMOs. I don't know why; but it is part of the RPG experience and helps with immersion.

[@SoftisNelaris]

I don't tend to skip story stuff in general, but that's probably because writing is my top priority in a game... Whether it be plot, characters, worldbuilding, etc. It doesn't even need to be amazing, just enough to make me want to continue it.

[@aaftiyoDkcdicurak]

I'm there to play a game, not read a novel. I don't care if it's part of the main story only a miracle could keep me reading for more than 2 minutes.

[@amiablereaper]

It's always so saddening to see people mass skip dialogue in ffxiv, it's so good and so so critical to understanding what's going on

[@KaioKenneth4]

Congratulations, you fell for the obvious call to action for engagement in the comments, which helps the algorithm of course. You can still get scammed even while watching a video about exposing scams. Nothing is holy or sacred anymore. And yes, I realize the irony of me adding yet another comment. Next time, let’s just keep our keyboards to ourselves.

[@dram3711]

​@@KaioKenneth4dude, what?

[@AComfyKnight]

I have a friend that plays multiple MMOs who tries to get me to play one or another every once in a while, this is spot on in my experience. It's so transparent if you know about the mechanics, and it hurts to see people fall right into it

[@Supremax67]

The problem is people don't want to pay for a subscription model, so here we are with a model that is 100 times worse. People need to stop being cheap, no one wins in those scenarios.

[@indigo7898]

To some people playing this type of game is actually a fun experience, the pay to win aspect can sometimes be ignored if you dont bother with pvp and just want to play with friends Is what they use to rope you in, and once you spent enough time the dungeons become so artificially difficult that you either pay or grind for eternity

[@nope.0.]

​@@Supremax67I've seen game subscriptions that would run over £100 a year. And that's with a fundamentally broken energy based system that just would give you a bigger meter that fills faster.

[@Supremax67]

@@nope.0. -- game subscriptions that are optional to play are not the game subscriptions I am referring to.

[@fish7678]

@@Supremax67 Path of Exile seems like a good shot. All the MTX are either cosmetic or stash tabs for more storage (which you don't need until after you've tried out the game and already decided if you want to keep playing or not).

[@Bee_Mavrick]

The psychology into making games is wild. And a whole lot more predatory then is led on to believe

[@sirverbalot]

This game is satirical gold, and your commentary makes it that much better. Brilliant.

[@TheMoulie]

Your WoW horse story rang a bell. I was a WoW beta tester and played from the moment went gold right up until I was farming the hunter armour set. It was warmaster voone in lower black rock spire who did it for me. He supposedly dropped the set gloves. On the 200th kill without seeing them drop I quit out of the game, deleted it and never looked back.

[@Vittrich]

i remember running ubrs 15 hours a day(so probably 3 times with the awesome group finding) to get my priest T0 shoulders, not because i needed them, because they where the last piece of the set missing. so after around 200 runs, they finall dropped and got rolled away by a mage, because ubrs was a 15 man instance back then.

[@ticket2heavenn]

Had a stroke reading that

[@JK-1975]

I got the whole Tier 2 armor set for hunter on WoW, and the bow/staff, only to see it eclipsed by level 63 greens in BC, that's when I lost my cool. I still played it after that, but never again would I care about "epic" gear. Stopped playing after WotLK.

[@justanotheryoutubeaccount2270]

There were (and still probably are, but I haven't played for years) many mounts like that, but Lich King horse wasn't a good example as it dropped on every kill. Of course, only one player in the raid could get it per week...

[@redelfshotthefood8213]

I quit wow after the first 2 hours. Kill 10 wolves or some such. Kill this mini-boss... but really, use a fast tiny damage spell quickest to tag the mini-boss as your kill once the other players kill it with big damage spells/attacks. So unfun. Like Diablo, but duller. With longer pointless quests.

[@kaleido9631]

Wow.... this was eerie actually. Like it's dystopian. I don't play games with monetization shit, usually, so this was a learning experience for me.

[@HUYI1]

Sadly kids of today think something like this is completely normal, sad times

[@tantank]

@@HUYI1 games are the way to go if you want to shape the mind of an impressionable child, since it's illegal for kids to go into casinos or just gamble with real life money in general

[@sirflimflam]

You know, it's funny. South Korea dove into individual monetization so incredibly early compared to the west, I remember thinking it could never work in the west (and frankly I was glad it wouldn't). Jump forward to today and I wish I could go back to that earlier time so bad. Back when games were finished when they were first sold, back when content wasn't aggressively scaled back so they had room for DLC. Back when singleplayer games didn't sell "time savers" and instead just had dev cheat codes that weren't removed from the final version of the game.

[@Vittrich]

Softnyx, an SK publisher had Gunbound in 2003 and Rakion in 2005. We played the S out of Gunbound, sometimes 20+ dudes in TS played at the same time and while people could buy gear we had to play for, it was easy doable and no big deal to "work" for it, but around 2004 they changed the itemisation, deleting previously owned gear and currency and made it that only players who paid got gear permanently and the f2p players had to rent(max 1 week, depended on how many gems you paid) way worse gear, so while previous gear had something like 5% more attackdamage on ulti(which was also the rent gear), new gear now had "your ulti cant miss and deals 50% more dmg", so we quitted. in Rakion people could buy gesr for lvl 1 that we were not able to get for hundreds if not thousands of hours, so these games killed themselves in literally weeks in the EU because no one right in their mind would pay for this stuff around 2000. Literally all my friends would have made fun of me and refused to play with a "cheater" and i still would get called names today because of this, i promise.

[@sirflimflam]

@@Vittrich Wow you just gave me a huge hit of nostalgia. I remember Gunbound. I too spent a ton of time in that game before it imploded itself.

[@adisca2k]

Subscriptions are needed to keep the servers up and the updates comming for online games, while DLCs can extend your experience with the game, sometimes being even as good as a 2nd game for a smaller price. Unfinished games would have been sold in the past if they could update them as easily as today, many games had rushed parts due to time constraints and might have been improved. The bad experiences come from the abuse of these features, not the features themselves. But microtransactions have no pros. They fill the game with adds, they lock away content and make the gameplay worse (why make the game less tedious and more enjoyable when we can offer the players a shortcut with a pricetag). Not even paying for the game can save you from them. There might be some games that managed to include microtransactions without downgrading the gameplay, but they are drops in an ocean. And the worst part is that they are profitable, otherwise they would have be gone before we knew it, so they are here to stay.

[@Olothur]

You know that you can still play that old games?.. No-one is forcing you to buy fresh early access 2023 crap.

[@sirflimflam]

@@Olothur Indeed, why would I ever want new experiences when I can just replay the same old games until the day I die?

[@asmosisyup2557]

World boss has a 6 hour timer, and has a 1/10,000 drop rate. You can buy premium items that increase your drop rate. The MVP (player who deals most damage) gets loot rights. Loot boxes with similar rates in the premium shop.

[@raitonodefeat6503]

I always have a code that follows, "When a game offers real money transactions, you are as much obligated to cheat through the game with no moral delima", if a game exploit you, you can exploit it as much as everyone can.

[@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233]

As soon as a game has a ingame-money currency exchange or robber mechanics I instantly uninstall the game.

[@ViolosD2I]

Yeah, how abut just not play?

[@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051]

@@ViolosD2I So, you are the sheep whale who loves those games, huh.

[@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233]

@@ViolosD2I maybe I did not know before.

[@scientificthesis]

The counterpart to pay2win is IRL trading. Game make you pay money? Make money from game.

[@Elmorwen]

The secret is legit. You've put a value on it yourself, you waited that it's going to be something worth putting hours into this game. And the secret pointed out just that.

[@kcthorne5969]

And legitmate thanks to you for playing your role in the current gaming landscape: Creating the hyperedited playthrough/guide so I can take a shortcut and learn from your mistakes, not having to figure it out for myself or, even better, letting me play it vicariously through you, letting you do all the hard work while I lay on my couch and mindlessly consume snacks.

[@chloegrobler4275]

:aware:

[@archiveacc3248]

Lol he even misses the biggest point from this game (the servers being shut down)

[@asellusaustralis261]

Best representation of late medieval armour in the whole game industry, btw

[@KyrosQuickfist]

Chance based nonsense exists in games because gambling is addictive. The worst pay2win games employ auction-house style bidding. Bidding against another player in "PvP" or even bidding against a bot that you think is a player, the amount you are spending is only relevant to the amount other people are spending in the end. Therefore, you must outbid the player/bot. Then when you think you've won, they introduce the cross server events.

[@alewis514]

yes, gambling is very addictive. I play a lot of Path of Exile and that game has a fuck ton of gambling on just about any stage. There are chance-based systems to roll affixes on gear - that's expected But then there are flat out gambling mechanics like stacked deck - random divination card Or harvest craft - sacrifice X divination cards and receive between 0 and 2X of the same cards Or ancient orb - transform items into random unique Or...or...orr... this game is full of it. But there is the good part - all this gamba is for ingame currency. You play the game, kill monsters, clear maps, whack bosses - and get currency. You can spend it on gear or gamba. Your choice.

[@fenrirgg]

Flashbacks from playing dark orbit, I used to farm for 4-5 hours daily! so I could make a bid at the auction every day to TRY to buy a weapon or shield 😂

[@redelfshotthefood8213]

I broke my addiction to a game when I realized the arenas were always won by the whales. And they ran 3 arenas a week! (The previous title from this company had arenas 4 times a year. That a huge ramp up on a revenue stream! Because you could pay to reuse your champions by wiping out their cool down periods)

[@AdrianCeroni]

Thank you for your service. I wouldn't have the patience to play this through.

[@FirestormDDash]

I never skip Runescape quest text. Always the funniest or most interesting stuff. Its not just filler.

[@KingOfMilfgaard]

I always give games the benefit of the doubt with quest dialogue, if it repeatedly is not worth it then I will begin skimming and if it ends up hitting a point where im skipping all dialogue I will typically not continue playing the game. If its a game and setting that Im really invested in (FFXIV, Elden Ring, BG3, etc) then I almost always read literally everything and actively seek out Dialogue to learn more about the world

[@krel3358]

I found one aspect of free to play games like card games/deck building is they usually give you a bunch of free stuff at first enough to build a basic deck and play but then grinding the game for free content even while successful goes at a snails pace while even if you are skilled you will eventually get to a point where you are playing against people who have spent money on the game and have perfect decks to the point that even if you are as good as them you will lose because you dont have the legendary or epic stuff you need creating frustration and temptation to spend money to remain competitive. Theres the other aspect is that usually these games are very low budget so they might offer you a 5-10$ deal for a combo purchase that is worth the money, most people wouldnt shy away from 5-10$ once and then quit playing the game after they get bored of it, but that 5-10 dollars is pure profit say you get 10,000 asses in the seats to play and they each spend 5$ and due to distribution of phones or steam its quite easy to get them there with no overhead for you, you just made $50,000 off of 10,000 people spending 5 bucks once, not to mention if you get say 100,000 people and on top of the $5 they spend $2.50 three times on little things hoping to get lucky and then out of that 100,000 people you got into playing the game 50 of them are whales who spend $1000s on stupid cosmetics or buying everything because they want every type of deck to be viable based on the games meta. Heroes of the Storm was a F2P game designed by the devs who wanted it as a love letter to the fans and had a poor monetization system that was purely cosmetic while also allowing players to just easily grind the game when Heroes 2.0 came out to earn all the skins if they wanted to, especially giving loot and xp boosts to veteran players based on the levels of their characters played. Activision canceled development on that game within a year and a half because they could not monetize the game successfuly and while being at the peak of popularity and happiness of the player base due to the devs being good, it just cost too much money for the CEOs. Coupled with the failing forced esports scene. Again going to Blizzard-Acti and WC3 reforged its very clear no attempt to monetize the game beyond the initial first purchase price of $40-$50, its clear from the graphics and promises made of re-done animated cutscenes that WC3 reforged would have taken much more resources to develop a polished product so it was released as a half finished mess while everyone forgot about that debacle as activision knew that with the blizzard brand they could release Diablo 4, 3 years later with no hitch because people dont have long term memories while loving brand recognition. Nevermind that they actually develop a good product its about psychological exploitation and gameplay loops, and brand awareness rather than making something thats good, if you pay off 50 influential e-celebs and women to play your game, get megan fox to advertise it you can use marketing, status and superificial graphics to get people to spend 90$ on a multiplayer game 4 days early because you dont want to miss out on the fun.

[@redelfshotthefood8213]

Let’s not forget the battle pass that you need to visit to get in game rewards... and constantly see what you’re missing out on by not spending money. And... by the way... they totally can add paid in game bonuses in the future. Once the whales complain...

[@meepdhctdjsh]

another 2 things they missed here. daily log-in streaks to keep people playing daily in hopes of getting better rewards each time, or rewards and heart-warming messages to people who haven't played in a while finally coming back. another thing, updates. many of these P2W games have updates at a set interval, like every friday, 2nd wednesday of every month, hell, maybe even daily updates that don't really add that much but they keep players coming back to check out the new updates, and veteran players from leaving, thinking the game's been abandoned and that they should move on to something else. claim that their gonna add something new and exciting, like a complete overhaul of a mechanic, a new character to play as, new and "unique" items to break the meta, etc., that's coming just around the corner, keeping people on the edge of their seats with anticipation, only for it to never happen, or for them to wait until everybody just forgets that such an update was planned so that players can be surprised that it came out.

[@jackjones2454]

It truly is scary how much of this game can be applied to the modern day.

[@username1660]

This is essentially the same as saying 'DAE think Idiocracy a documentary?!'

[@RoomerJ]

It's a modern game........

[@mahmood481]

All of it

[@GreenManaYo]

@@RoomerJ he wrote "modern day" tho

[@INFJ-ThaneTr]

Scary? You, the consumer, allowed it to happen over the past 20 years. Why are you scared now?

[@rift8966]

A picture of Maria Brink is _always_ worth it.

[@lordromanyx]

As a former BDO player with over 1300hrs, this hit home very very hard.

[@Tymbee]

Never played another online game that actively encouraged you to idle overnight, to fish or level stamina, etc. There's a good game in there somewhere, but my god it has some obscene grinding.

[@protonjones54]

What's bdo

[@The13thGhostBunny]

@@protonjones54 Black Desert Online.

[@Tymbee]

Black Desert: Online@@protonjones54

[@kadrikarakoc807]

@@Tymbee idling overnight? that explains why all BDO players have unbelieveable playtimes.

[@SkaterJay789]

I love that it moves 10 cents a clicks, as sort of a reminder of how painful it is to part with your money

[@Kiragura]

This kinda reminds me of playing Wizard 101 years ago and certain areas were locked off and you had the option of buying wizard coins with real money or you could go to the fair in game and grind for them by playing little mini games that gave at the most 5 to 10 coins depending on how well you did in the mini game.

[@loftus8660]

"Returning to the marriage ending, birthday party booking that is the town's wizard" 🤣🤣🤣 Your way with words is absolutely fantastic, bravo good sir!

[@alexwallach7683]

Another great vid Stewie! I'm old enough to remember when video game arcades were a big thing. I used to pump $10 - $20 into one of those easily - a lot of money in those days (for young people watch the movie Wayne's World, when his show gets a video archade owner as a sponser). So it occurs to me that monetisation is nothing new. Games used to be about getting kids to pump coins endlessly into a machine. For a brief period PC's and consoles gave us the 'illusion' of game 'ownership', wherein, we got used to the idea of 'buying' a game and taking it home to play as much as we want for no further expense. However, technology has again found a way to get us back into pumping coins into a machine again. I'm suprised that playstation and microsoft haven't figured out yet that if you just gave the consoles away for free, the games for free, and just then monetisied the crap out of everything in the games they would probably make a shittonne more money than their current model of business. 🤔

[@ericoschmitt]

I've thought the same about smartphones too. Then make money out of ads and app purchases everywhere. But giving hardware away would also mean some people would find ways to jailbreak them, thus get free devices.

[@MyMediaConsulting]

​@@ericoschmittCompanies gave away phones in the late 1990s and 2000s. When phones weren't free they would be highly discounted. Then the companies charged for every text you sent. There was a pool of usable minutes you received for calls and every call before 9pm used those minutes. If you ran out of minutes it would be $0.15 - $0.50 a minute. If you went in to roaming (leave your assigned coverage area) they charged you even if you had minutes. On top of that if you wanted a ring tone it was $0.99 - $2.00. People also paid for ring back tones that would change the sound people heard when they called you.

[@oompalumpus699]

But today, you own the gaming machine. So, you should also own the games you buy.

[@oompalumpus699]

You make a good point though, which is why I'm only looking for indie games or older titles.

[@creditcrazy597]

Shhh don't give them ideas there are at least some decent games there still

[@AzzRushman]

It's honestly a very informative game. It even has a reason to being tedious. I was always interested in MMO economy, be it raw money drop or valuable item generation. In Lineage 2, world bosses appeared every week (one of them every other week), each could drop a named accessory with special qualities which was highly priced in trades. I remember, as a solo player, had to grind for a full endgame gear in order to get a chance to trade for one of those super expensive items. Every week a bunch of those items were generated, but their prices never went down. Maybe it was a price manipulation tactic by the same 2 or 3 competitive alliances fighting over them during world bosses spawn times while I was slowly progressing as a solo player, or maybe they all prioritized wearing the items instead of selling them, and even if 4 of the same named accessories were generated per month, maybe only one of those was put on sale. The only moment one of those items' prices went down was when the planets aligned and two alliances were eager to sell their named accessory during the same time window.

[@Squeek801]

Pretty sure upgrade systems like the one shown here are what have caused me to leave many an MMO. I don't mind some grinding mobs for fun drops, but forcing me to give up items and time for a CHANCE to make another item (that I'll probably end up replacing anyway) better just sucks all the life and immersion out of me. And I do read quest text! I like finding out about the world, and you never know if some humor and/or heart was put into the writing. Ouch, finding out that this was released years ago and things have remained the same (or lets face it, gotten worse) is pretty disheartening.

[@cwolfxuk-other]

Your style of narration is PERFECT for this video!

[@vesavius]

The truth is that MMORPGs were always 'pay to win'... Except the currency was time. Anyone that was time rich had the advantage.

[@zerogrey3798]

Yeah back in the day when in WoW people used to talk about welfare epics thinking they were bashing on casuals, fact was they were insulting themselves because you had to be jobless and collecting welfare in order to have the time to do all the raids to get that amazing gear.

[@ImSaixe]

sheer commitment also gets you far. but that's just torture if you're forcing yourself.

[@storage9578]

Ultima online had already botters and account sales. Read once some dude made 20k/month running a bot farm. In absence of devs offering p2w you still can always buy from third party. The problem with devs getting into it however is now they are incentivized to make the game worse to profit more.

[@gargaduk]

So then turn it into the real expression: Play to win.

[@ryanstradford9771]

@@zerogrey3798 No thats certainly not true, but if that makes you feel better then sure bud

[@arcr1790]

4:45 lecture 2 was exactly how I lost my innocence as a F2Per. There was this game called Fightback that had this offer with the in-game premium money. Curiously, you were able to earn said money by playing the game. When I finally got enough, the offer never showed up again. Words can't describe my emotions at that moment.

[@HeyItsPM]

what?

[@ZAWARUD00]

@@HeyItsPM That's pretty clear: say the game offers you something good for 1000 gems. You grind for a while to get the 1000 gems, but as soon as you have them, you don't see the deal anymore.

[@HeyItsPM]

@@ZAWARUD00 understood thanks for clarifying.

[@addictedtochocolate920]

I like how this of all games makes you start the game with a historically accurate knight. I would pay for many games to have armor and weapons like those.

[@spacewargamer4181]

Mount and Blade or Kingdom Come Deliverance

[@addictedtochocolate920]

@@spacewargamer4181KCD, yes. Mount and Blade? Arguably no if we get into details

[@Green__Ghost]

​@@addictedtochocolate920M&B Bannerlord has pretty accurate weapons and armor, it IS set in an imaginary world so there's some creative license taken but the vast majority of equipment is very historically accurate.

[@Wyk_]

@@spacewargamer4181 and none of these games are p2w...

[@addictedtochocolate920]

@@Green__Ghost Some of the equipment, but then again the way in which it is used and mixed isn't very realistic. Anachronisms and exaggerations are common, but i guess I'm just very demanding when it comes to this subject. Even KCD has issues with its helmets and armor.

[@zbyszkopt6433]

When I opened up the video an ad popped up and it was some gameplay for "AFK journey". I find it hilarious with the title of the video

[@robertandersson3417]

The anchoring effect is truly fearsome. Once you are invested you are stuck in the swamp and it will take a will of steel to get out.

[@PuskasMarton]

After playing (and mostly enjoying) Dislyte, the rule I made for determining if a game is a scam is by looking at the enemy designs and counting the number of times they ask for money.

[@Icemario87]

what do the enemy designs tell you?

[@Speed001]

@@Icemario87 Dev budget/focus

[@Icemario87]

@@Speed001 lack thereof or something specific?

[@JustaGuy_Gaming]

My favorite bit is always when they shut down the servers without notice, often selling MTX options the day before shut down. In fact when a game fails bad enough it can literally be weeks after release if it requires servers for hosting.

[@Steamboat72]

That "secret" is like actually paying for therapy.

[@22Mathers]

I’m only 2 minutes in, and the sword sheath being on the same side as the hand wielding the sword is killing me.

[@specifiedhuman]

It allows drawing into a reverse grip easier to make proper fighting harder

[@1lukeycharmz]

@@specifiedhuman Ah yes, the reverse grip... A truly formidable method. Against the wielder that is.

[@SheoGotSomeCheese]

@@1lukeycharmz You can't even throw the pommel to end the ennemy rightly.

[@nemoguy]

@@SheoGotSomeCheese Lmao

[@wintaaaaa]

"The game universe will be shut down starting from today. Us at (dev team name here) thank you for all the support you've given us." My god, this is so accurate to 2014 😭

[@ootdega]

I put 200 dollars into TERA, which is a LOT for me, and all I did with it was buy shit from the broker, to sell it cheaper to people who actually needed it. Then I went back to it last year, only to find out that my founder's account was permanently lost because I missed the window to migrate it to Gameforge. Except the game still recognized my username and password on the new client, it just wouldn't let me play it. So the accounts were deleted manually, and maliciously. But it was shut down just a few months later, so I guess it doesn't matter.

[@GumbyRoffo]

OH Starwars The Old republic

[@wintaaaaa]

@ootdega i cant see your comment on youtube but damn

[@ootdega]

@@wintaaaaa I'm sure KZbin has a great reason to shadowban my comment.

[@TheZombiesAreComing]

@@ootdega Yep, Tyranny

[@ZealothXyven]

I have a remarkably simple policy of dealing with games. Once I have purchaed the game itself, I will never spend anymore real-world money in-game, period. If the game fails to be fun and enjoyable from that state, I don't play it.

[@DatMageDoe]

A couple other ones: Bundling. Players may only want a certain item from the bundle, but either A: the only way to buy the item is in a bundle with unwanted items, or B: is a much better value when purchased as part of the bundle instead of piecemeal. As such, players are tempted to spend more than they normally would, justifying it by saying it's a better deal. Accomplishment Specials. Players are more likely to pay when they are happy, so laying a strategically good sale which happens to coincide with the player hitting a major accomplishment like defeating a boss for the first time (when they are happy overcoming the challenge) is common. Predatory Pricing. Putting prices at slightly less than the amount of premium currency required, leaving some leftover premium currency, and irritating the player into purchasing something to use it. Can also take the form of a bundle which is barely too much for commonly bought premium currency bundles (ex. pricing an item at $26, but only offering premium currencies in multiples of $5), requiring the player to spend significantly more than the sticker price.

[@ootdega]

A new one I've come across is "only put the limited-time item you actually WANT into the prize pool AFTER you've spent a minimum amount of money." $60 in this case, for a single outfit. The other items are all garbage. *But your first roll is free!* Because of course it is. *But we give out a free outfit for people who work for it!* The outfit is for a unit you will _never, ever use,_ unless you want to deliberately handicap yourself just to use the outfit. You earn it via a login bonus system, so all you have to do is login a certain number of days to get it. *Easy, right!?* 18 days, in this case. You don't wanna miss it, do you? Then they put all the other outfits into the limited-time event _cutscenes,_ to force people to see them. But don't make ALL of them available for purchase. Keep people waiting for the other ones to be released. Introduce new characters in the cutscenes. Put them on the _front page_ of the event. But don't make them available. Get people to ASK for it first. *Don't worry, we put characters into the normal gacha pool after the rate-up event is over!* But not always. Make some of them permanently missable, and make those units absurdly powerful. But not in terms of direct damage. That would be too obvious. Only the most competitive people, the ones who make spreadsheets to calculate the OPTIMAL metagame, (AKA the ones who spend the most money,) will actually know how powerful they are. *But if you have 200 tickets, you can buy the unit outright!* You get one ticket per gacha roll, and they never expire! Except there are two different tickets, split between the normal gacha and the event gacha. And the normal gacha ticket only lets you buy _duplicates._ *Good news! We don't have an energy system, so you can play as many stages as you want!* Except you can only play them once, and then they disappear forever. Once you clear every stage in a given map, there is no reason to EVER go there again. The power requirements also increase with every stage, and if you don't meet those requirements, even by a single point, your stats will take a 25% debuff. If your power score is half or less, that's a 90% debuff to ALL stats. This is never told to you, of course. The debuff only happens in the background once you start the stage. For the free (or unskilled) players, this makes the power increase from spending money feel _much_ more powerful. But then it wears off once the requirements get too high, and if you want to keep that power going, you need to spend more money. _But wow, that increase was powerful!_ Repeat. There is a ranking system to reward people for increasing the power of their units. These are separated by class, manufacturer, weapon, etc. The top rank of _every single one of these_ is held by the same person. I have still made it to the top 1% in PvP without spending a cent. But I'm never going to be higher than rank 5. Every rank beyond that is held by whales. And at the top: You guessed it, the same guy, absolutely impossible to touch. _Twenty times_ the power of rank 2. If you guess the game I'm talking about, you get a 10% odds bonus to your next gacha roll. Honest.

[@DougMarv]

OMG. So specific lmao And I'm really curious now!

[@DougMarv]

Your didn't explain but I got it, the number one is a dev or bot xD

[@ootdega]

The game is Nikke. Worst part is I still like the game.

[@Sorain1]

@@ootdega I recognized that the moment you mentioned the power requirement situation. Thus no guessing.

[@paolarei4418]

​@@ootdegathx i will never play It :)

[@insertshadowyhere]

The most ironic part is that this is a really good guide on how to make a p2w game

[@sonicszuetomyt5448]

Stop

[@chase5298]

my good idiot this is just satire of things that already happen. no guide is needed

[@dimyell]

​@@chase5298yep, the most helpful advice of sunk cost fallacy and baiting with 'sales' is something literally every mobile game does, except maybe FGO because that playerbase doesn't care about their wallets

[@Mmogurl]

I made a video about quitting BDO after dealing with trying to raise coursers and get dream horses.. The enhancement system is bad, but man the horses were worse. You can't even participate in most cases unless you spend.. or unless you save up enough event items... or are otherwise singularly rich in game from doing other things. When they upped the price of the cron stones, it really screwed the whole thing up too and basically ensured people had to buy costumes to break them down into cron stones.. Then again, the company running it was called Pearl Abyss.. and the in game currency are pearls.. So just imagine throwing all those pearls into the abyss, along with your wallet.. At least they warn you though.. even if you don't pick up on it until later.

[@gelman4u]

Loved this video that randomly appeared in my feed. First of all the game is quite funny and educational. Second you put a picture of Maria Brink. Who I've seen many times but going to see again in November. 🤘

[@oni-one574]

I still think games like this should be regulated as addictive substances and thus, 18+.

[@matthewcarroll2533]

Right there with you, unfortunately in the USA at least, corporations run the country not the politicians so I doubt anything that rakes in huge money will ever get regulated to a sufficient degree.

[@plasmacutter8940]

This business model should be banned, or at least stripped of intellectual property protection by amendments to law to discourage them in places where they cannot be.

[@s1nnocense]

i would hate to need to prove my age every time I install a new game.

[@kekconnoisseur9809]

​@@s1nnocensethen don't install games

[@redelfshotthefood8213]

As games with addictive monetization are literal firehoses of profits... a lot of money will pour into politicians coffers to prevent this law.

[@tenalpoen]

In some countries where games are forced to publish drop rates from the gamble boxes, it's still a lie. There are already patents for multiple systems designed to circumvent this rule and to provide fake proof that they are following it when someone buys a truckoad of lootboxes to test it. You get a drop when they decide it's time for you to get it.

[@MochaKimono]

I can confirm that *some* of the server-wide "so-and-so has earned a super pooper scooper" messages in Neverwinter Online were genuine, because it guaranteed embarrassing yourself in front of your friends by exposing that you had been opening lockboxes in the middle of a conversation and *that* was the one time you got the legendary mount drop, of course. I have fond memories of seeing the regular "i slept with a magma brute" [sic] and no one in my guild ever being able to confirm if that was a real whale or just a mod having a laugh with the fake names.

[@PoulChuck]

the worst is when the in game gold from looting is useless as a different currency is used for actual game progress

[@NightcoreNewbie]

I can already see the speedrun category. "Beat this game without spending anything." 😆

[@martincassidy2102]

lol would not suprise me if the dev thought of this and put a lock on how high you can level so say you get to lv9 upgrade to premium account to unlock higher levels

[@Laezar1]

@@martincassidy2102 Nah, players who don't spend anything are great for P2W games, they are player who typically spend an absolutely unrealistic amount of effort on the game and will defend it with their lives while serving as plausible deniability that the game is P2W. You need to have a pathway to the end for free players so that a lot of player will try to enter it thinking they won't pay which gives the opportunity to tempt them into paying. Which becomes wayyy easier once players spent a lot of time into the game. And you can even argue "well I spent so much time on the game it's only fair that I pay a little" but that's how you end up putting a foot into the psychological tricks that make you spend a lot more than is reasonable. So yeah, you don't need to make the game impossible to play f2p just so ridiculously high investment that the players who will persevere will be so invested they're basically walking advertisement billboards.

[@walterwhite415]

Leaderboard would probably be like: " DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF,.."

[@Reishadowen]

Sarcastic, comedic wit is one of the best ways to inform people that I've ever seen.

[@oompalumpus699]

On a serious note, thank you for helping make this indie title more visible.

[@maxinac]

That feather running speed debuff is diabolical. That would be SO FRUSTRATING 😂

[@muffinconsumer4431]

That’s just the mount system in most MMORPGs now lol

[@Krawurxus]

So.. the quest text reading thing. I CAN do it but I have to really exercise strict discipline to do so consistently. For example, I recently played Morrowind for the first time after it didn't "klick" for me in my very early teens. Knowing what I was getting myself into, I read every last text box and there was some absolutely worthwhile stuff in there, for both the chuckles and the depravity.

[@matthewcarroll2533]

Without knowing any better, I'd think the game didn't "click" for you BECAUSE you didn't read the text. Lol, I'm just imagining how on earth anyone would know where to go in Morrowind without reading...

[@Krawurxus]

@@matthewcarroll2533 No it didn't click because I was like 11 and the game didn't deliver the kind of action-packed spectacle I was looking for at the time.

[@TehButterflyEffect]

​@@KrawurxusMan I played the SNOT out of Oblivion when I was 13. Up until I broke the game. My mana wouldn't regen anymore so I gave up. On like my fifth playthrough.

[@winoodlesnoodles1984]

12:40 - They may be called VIPs on the company side, but they are known as whales on the user side. This is for a reason. A whale in a pay to win is seen as similar as a whale in a poker game. Basically someone with more money than sense. Having said that, this is so hillarious in might be fun to dig up the game to see how silly it truly is. Also, I'm a bit of an oddball. I own "Horizon Zero Dawn", but will never play it. It really isn't my kind of game, but I enjoyed playthroughs from a couple youTubers so much that I bought the game to support the studio.

[@celticc9580]

It's often not that a whale has less sense, it's that the value of a dollar is less to them. If you make $10 million per year, blowing few thousand on poker to blow off some steam is equivalent to someone who makes $15 /hr full time spending like $100

[@sapien82]

i just read quest dialogue out of habit from playing older games where you did actually have to read to gain clues to the quest and actually have to use your brain to figure out some quest related info , not just be given a map marker and told exactly what to do , games used to offer a challenge, i guess gamers dont want to use their brains that much anymore, I wish they would make games with this old school vibe .

[@tylerbreau4544]

It's not that gamers dont want to use their brain, it's just they want to get to the action which often does require thinking a little bit... About the fight and its mechanics. I.e, the pre-end game is meaningly and a waste of time mentality.

[@NonJohns]

Even further still, the problem is exacerbated by game companies wanting to make games overly accessible so they spoon feed. And the nongamers can have fun

[@thejunktownsheriffkilliand4800]

The thing is, reading dialogue requires the bare minimum of thinking. Players do want to think. Perfecting rotations or knowledge of gear usage based on what is happening currently. Healers distributing healing evenly and efficiently. Reading dialogue is a slog sometimes. I read all dialogue in ESO, and even talk with the random non-importrant NPCs in towns etc. But sometimes I skip something in a major quest just to go ahead and finally progress.

[@TheArenaGod]

Maria Brink???? My wife and I love her. Bro you got a sub. I can't believe you spent so much time and money on this video. Thanks for the pain. Love it. I play League of Legend if you ever want to play and lose a bunch of times trying to do something funny.

[@SloRush]

This video is exactly what I feel when I attempt playing any MMORPG

[@FuraFaolox]

have you tried Final Fantasy XIV? it fortunately doesn't have these kinds of issues

[@SloRush]

@@FuraFaolox Nah but in terms of MMORPGs I've tried WoW, Neverwinter, Lost Ark, and Black Desert. Idk if you'll consider Diablo 4 beta and Destiny MMOs but I've played those as well. I watch a couple channels that have played Final Fantasy MMO but never thought of trying it

[@FuraFaolox]

@@SloRush Destiny is very much an MMO. idk about Diablo though bc i have never played them

[@thetruegoldenknight]

In general, I totally get that feeling. Even the best in the whole genre can't escape that bland, repetitive experience. And believe me, old and new, I've been there.

[@maigistr]

@@SloRushi would genuinely recommend giving Final Fantasy XIV a go. it's the only MMO i play these days due to it not having a P2W business model. the story is great too, if you're into that.

[@incredibleflameboy]

I dont think the final secret is actually exposing pay to win games. Theres very much a feeling of "pay to win is actively trying to rip you off but if you want to be ripped off, well, get your wallets out because I also endorse that under the guise of it has value to you."

[@kenji214245]

Man i would love to see a newer game like this but including all the tricks that where included in that large report released a while back on predatory game mechanics. XD

[@jaimdiojtar]

Gacha and add that you need like getting the same character 20 times to max him out and that you need 7 of the same weapon lol

[@roverbann7042]

@@jaimdiojtarGenshin Impact

[@-Seaheart-]

Can you send the link to said report, please?

[@Uranium-jj7le]

@@-Seaheart-same here

[@albertwesker2k24]

When the speed feather expired Metin 2 came to my mind. You literally have to buy "wind shoes" for real money to run fast which is course expires after a while.