Current Events > Jim Sterling puts microtransaction apologists in their place

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TXWdyrqFP8

Absolutely brilliant, every single pathetic excuse I'vs heard CE's usual cabal of corporate thralls use time and time again get put down like nothing

This is why Jim Sterling truly is the best person on the internet
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inb4 ce just says don't buy them
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Who?
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ur a microtransaction
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Don't see the big deal with microtrasactions tbh
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Jim Sterling puts puts microtransaction apologists in their place
Scott Sterling takes soccerballs to the face
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alphagamble posted...

Don't see the big deal with microtrasactions tbh

completely changes the design/focus of a game. this is VERY obvious if you have ever played a smartphone game in the last few years but that model is starting to seep into your average PC and console game now too. basically a death sentence for video games IMO
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The craziest thing about microtransactions is that people fucking buy them.

People will literally spend hundreds of dollars on loot cases that drop random loot that is worth absolutely nothing.

I don't care who you are, if you waste real money on cosmetics you are dumb.

I remember in Ass Creed IV when you were advised at one point to either grind or buy the upgrades with real money.

That sucked.
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Bashes on micro transactions and bashes on Hellblade. If he wants to fight micro transactions maybe he should encourage people to buy games without them.
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clearaflagrantj posted...

The craziest thing about microtransactions is that people fucking buy them.

People will literally spend hundreds of dollars on loot cases that drop random loot that is worth absolutely nothing.

I don't care who you are, if you waste real money on cosmetics you are dumb.

This.

I shit on GTA Online all the fucking time, but at least you know what the fuck you're buying in that game even if it is overpriced.

Lootboxes and random drops are the dumbest things you can buy IMO.
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"What do the Starks say when it's winter?"

lol'd
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The goal is generally to take advantage of people with gambling issues. So the people buying them are dumb, but the people selling them are scum.

D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

Lootboxes and random drops are the dumbest things you can buy IMO.

Agree

And the only reason lootboxes/random drops exist is to provide a thinly veiled attempt at avoiding P2W status. Rather than allow you to purchase the best items in a given game, they allow you to purchase more chances at obtaining the best items. Thus, they can safely say "You can't buy the best items," giving them a shallow feeling of being on the moral high-ground.

We are screwed if this continues.
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He's 100% right about the "You can still get them in-game" argument and how it's bullshit. Yeah you can if you want to deal with artificially inflated grind to maybe get one item. That's the disease, it makes the "best" rewards in games designed to be almost out of reach so you're forced to buy them if you want them.
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Bligh_with_no_T posted...

The goal is generally to take advantage of people with gambling issues. So the people buying them are dumb, but the people selling them are scum.

the worst part is that i think a lot of the people that are buying these aren't dumb, they're kids who don't really know any better.

they just love the dopamine rush you get from getting a cool costume or skin or whatever from a loot box, so when these kids receive Xbox gift cards for their birthday or their parents put some money in their steam wallet, it all goes to virtual gambling since this kind of thing is proven to be addictive and effective
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I probably agree with what he's saying, but holy shit I had to turn that off after 15 seconds. I'm guessing it's supposed to be super cringey, but I couldn't even handle the intentional cringe.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFKnv1YzI3k

Here is another troubling video from a better YouTuber who points out that companies are avoiding taxes and making something like half their profits off of micro transactions. He focuses on Blizzard pretty heavily.
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DevsBro posted...

I remember in Ass Creed IV when you were advised at one point to either grind or buy the upgrades with real money.

That sucked.

Yea but it wasn't that time consuming to get it the legit way. Some games makes it near impossible though
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Games with microtransactions are foremost about making money. Fun takes a back seat if you're lucky. This is usually done by taking a good concept and making it shit on purpose so people will pay to bypass the shit parts.

Cabal of corporate thralls?
Given the subject matter, that comes of as highly pretentious.
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Yea but it wasn't that time consuming to get it the legit way. Some games makes it near impossible though

I mean, it did take me a couple days. It was a design decision based on selling the consumable DLC instead of providing an enjoyable or menaingful experience.

Of course, I ended up upgrading the ship all the way anyway because completionism but it would have been nice to do it with the end-story sidequest binge and such.
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Gacha based games have basically killed multiple franchises and mostly ruined mobile as a gaming platform and yet criticizing them tends to get serious backlash for reasons I don't really understand

I'm not a big fan of microtransactions in general but I can at least accept the kind where you pick something and pay for it and that's that. stop turning games into casinos
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LordRazziel posted...

Cabal of corporate thralls?
Given the subject matter, that comes of as highly pretentious.

Not at all, the same group of users routinely show up in my threads to make excuses to defend multibillion dollar corporations crying poor. It's insane
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ZombiePelican posted...

LordRazziel posted...

Cabal of corporate thralls?
Given the subject matter, that comes of as highly pretentious.

Not at all, the same group of users routinely show up in my threads to make excuses to defend multibillion dollar corporations crying poor. It's insane

I don't think they're colluding in any way, much less being part of any kind of group.
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The worst offender is loot boxes. I fucking hate that shit. I was so hyped for Anthem until I saw it had loot boxes and then I fucking dropped it.
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Jim Sterling can yell and scream about microtransactions all he wants, and I don't disagree with him, but as long as they're a successful business model they'll be around.

It's the people who are being taken advantage of that need to understand. Not the people who watch him on YouTube because they agree with him about most things already.
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justaguy3492 posted...

I probably agree with what he's saying, but holy shit I had to turn that off after 15 seconds. I'm guessing it's supposed to be super cringey, but I couldn't even handle the intentional cringe.

What's worse is that his toxic fanbase love that cringy trash.
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LordRazziel posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

LordRazziel posted...

Cabal of corporate thralls?
Given the subject matter, that comes of as highly pretentious.

Not at all, the same group of users routinely show up in my threads to make excuses to defend multibillion dollar corporations crying poor. It's insane

I don't think they're colluding in any way, much less being part of any kind of group.

I wasn't serious when referring to them as a cabal

>_>

NeonOctopus posted...

The worst offender is loot boxes. I fucking hate that shit. I was so hyped for Anthem until I saw it had loot boxes and then I fucking dropped it.

It's EA, what were you expecting?


How many times am I going to have to explain that publishers can never be trusted and will try to take as much money from you as they can get away with even if they know full well we hate it?
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ZombiePelican posted...

LordRazziel posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

LordRazziel posted...

Cabal of corporate thralls?
Given the subject matter, that comes of as highly pretentious.

Not at all, the same group of users routinely show up in my threads to make excuses to defend multibillion dollar corporations crying poor. It's insane

I don't think they're colluding in any way, much less being part of any kind of group.

I wasn't serious when referring to them as a cabal

>_>

NeonOctopus posted...

The worst offender is loot boxes. I fucking hate that shit. I was so hyped for Anthem until I saw it had loot boxes and then I fucking dropped it.

It's EA, what were you expecting?


How many times am I going to have to explain that publishers can never be trusted and will try to take as much money from you as they can get away with even if they know full well we hate it?

I didn't think you actually believed that. That's why I found it pretentious.
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LordRazziel posted...

I didn't think you actually believed that. That's why I found it pretentious.

I'm sorry for having a wide vocabulary I use, I'll dumb it down for you next time
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I've just stopped giving business to games that have a microtransactional P2W model.

That basically means I don't play videogames anymore.
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clearaflagrantj posted...

The craziest thing about microtransactions is that people fucking buy them.

People will literally spend hundreds of dollars on loot cases that drop random loot that is worth absolutely nothing.

I don't care who you are, if you waste real money on cosmetics you are dumb.

What blows my mind about this is the absolute shit-tier games that people do this with.

Some of the most seasoned gamers I know spent like $100 on buying new rifles for the mobile Deer Hunter games. The fuck is wrong with them.
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pinky0926 posted...

I've just stopped giving business to games that have a microtransactional P2W model.

That basically means I don't play videogames anymore.

That only kills a game series, not microtransactions.
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CableZL posted...

Jim Sterling puts puts microtransaction apologists in their place
Scott Sterling takes soccerballs to the face

Scott is a hero. Jim just mad he cant reach the lunch box

ZombiePelican posted...

LordRazziel posted...

I didn't think you actually believed that. That's why I found it pretentious.

I'm sorry for having a wide vocabulary I use, I'll dumb it down for you next time

There it is, again. I understood all the words.
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gacha games.

I played both FF gacha games and I spent like $200 on it and it was the most disgusting thing.

I took a step back and realized all I was doing was gambling, with no possible return. The only way to advance and complete higher tier dungeons and levels is to secure the best items and characters.

I'd be totally content if there was a one time option to pay a premium for all content for free, but there is little money there.
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Microtransactions don't bother me, rng boxes do.
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I Like Toast posted...

Microtransactions don't bother me, rng boxes do.

I can agree with this. The biggest problem I with micro transactions are they are not very "Micro." Just looking at the cost of some things and the cost of premium currency.

I wish I could think of a good example off the top of my head but I know some characters in mobile games translates to something like $6 dollars for a single character and $3 for a costume.
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I Like Toast posted...

Microtransactions don't bother me, rng boxes do.

enjoy playing Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite with 6 DLC characters on day 1 lol
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LordRazziel posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

LordRazziel posted...

I didn't think you actually believed that. That's why I found it pretentious.

I'm sorry for having a wide vocabulary I use, I'll dumb it down for you next time

There it is, again. I understood all the words.

Then what's the problem?
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Romulox28 posted...

I Like Toast posted...

Microtransactions don't bother me, rng boxes do.

enjoy playing Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite with 6 DLC characters on day 1 lol

I don't play mvc, I've spent money in mahvel heroes before they ruined it. I've bought costume packs game for dynasty warriors. I've bought stash in part of exile. Dota is the only game I buy rng boxes, but they at least don't allow duplicates, and I only do it for the compendium
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I don't like Jim Sterling as a person, but I generally agree with his points. (just not his numeric scores)

I realized how 'speed up' micro transactions on earn able items means they have designed the game around you paying so you don't have to play it years ago when mobile gaming started gaining traction. It is by far the worst, most useless and terrible design mantra in gaming today. I thought it was bad on mobile, where the game is free to play, when you are paying $60 for a game, then they expect you to want to pay more money to skip playing it, wut.
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One of my friends has spent over £150 on Pokemon Go. It's awful.
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I play Fire Emblem Heroes, and I can see just how quickly someone could break down and spend money on virtual currency for the chance of summoning the characters you want. There's a lot of pressure to keep up with the metagame, the characters you want to get have low percentage chances of appearing (which decrease as more characters are added to the game) and it's frustrating to finally get the character you wanted to summon but it has individual values (IVs) that aren't optimal.

I'm happy that I have yet to spend a dime on the game since its release in February. Hopefully this trend continues. I think the biggest issue isn't that people aren't stupid, far from that. But it's a lack of self-discipline to withstand all the balls the game throws at you to succumb to paying for orbs to summon more characters.

Last month, they introduced summer edition characters which if you liked any of the characters previously, you'd be tempted to try to summon. It takes roughly 100 orbs to summon the character you want if you only target summoning orbs of its color. Then the beginning of this month, they introduced more summer edition characters, one of which is critical to a specific niche, as well as 3 banners featuring other top tier characters that people are constantly on the lookout for. Tomorrow, they're releasing characters from FE Sacred Stones, and among them are characters that are going to drive certain playstyles.

There's no way you try all these banners and get the characters you want. Not without paying up. There's not enough free orbs to do so. It also doesn't help that they introduced a new feature where your first summon is free, so you're more inclined to want to finish the summoning session (5 summons but the cost drops after each summon 5->4->4->3->3 for a total of 20 orbs per session) since you're basically getting a discount.

l Dudeboy l posted...

It's the people who are being taken advantage of that need to understand. Not the people who watch him on YouTube because they agree with him about most things already.

It's usually the whales that complain the loudest about being taken advantage of by the business model.
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It honestly is one of the few things that gets me worked up. And I'm not even mad solely because companies are doing it, I am mad because the consumers are making it a brain-dead action for the companies, When mobile gaming and its terrible games and practices are WORKING several times better for the company than producing a regular game, what motivation is there to produce a quality product for the consumer?

Just look at what happened to Pokemon Go Fest, A terrible game that generated nearly a billion dollars on its own in 2016, and the people in charge can't manage to host an event without their already bare-bones game ceasing to function.

Mobile gaming generated over 40 Billion dollars last year. Console gaming generated less than 7.
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I hate microtransactions but it;s hard to blame companies for doing them when gamers keep paying for them

I think slapping people in the face is wrong but if someone went "Guys keep paying me $5 to slap them in the face" I'd find it hard to blame the slapper
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Megaman50100 posted...

It honestly is one of the few things that gets me worked up. And I'm not even mad solely because companies are doing it, I am mad because the consumers are making it a brain-dead action for the companies, When mobile gaming and its terrible games and practices are WORKING several times better for the company than producing a regular game, what motivation is there to produce a quality product for the consumer?

Agreed. I'm not really mad at developers. I'm mad at everyone who makes this the sensible and obvious choice for developers.
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