Current Events > Why is "P2W" such a controversial term all of a sudden?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The term has always referred to buying power in games and any incarnation of that is P2W. This was the accepted definition since the very start. Horse armour or fifa or whatever. Nobody was upset at the term until very recently and now you have copium andies crawling out of the woodwork to try and change the definition
what happened?

...nobody was upset about the Oblivion Horse Armor?
What timeline have I jumped to now?

The micro-transactions are just getting more expensive for smaller gains. Early on it was cosmetic items. Now you need $50 for a level up item, or $20 for a chance at a good character or item. Also when this is applied to mobile games it gets more ridiculous.

RetroGamer68 posted...

...nobody was upset about the Oblivion Horse Armor?
What timeline have I jumped to now?

This

Also there's the fact they are for multiplayer games rather than single player games
Also there's the fact more people are simply aware of them. p2w has always been a dirty word in various communities, but they were often "contained" within their communities and have now got general awareness now it's more than the gacha/mobile games doing it.

*puts on astronaut suit and aims gun to back of TC's head*
Always has been.

I mean more in the sense you see more and more people nowadays trying to twist the definition of the phrase P2w away from buying player power, and argue how their games MTX isnt pay to win for whatever reason (not multiplayer, no scoreboard, can farm for 300 hours instead, etc).

Nobody is going to buy a game if it says World of Warcraft: Pay to Win.

Because the suits took over the industry and that inevitably brings shills. Video games fucking suck now. They're mainstream and popular, that means large swathes of people are here to mindlessly participate and be duped into falling for all sorts of silly shit.

Plus, a generation has grown up with it being a normalised feature in video games and probably have no expectations of games to contain cheat codes, unlockable characters or replay value. They're there to be scammed and move on. If they've fallen for the mtx shit and it's made them feel good before, there's a chance they're a little defensive of it.

You know what I never hear people bring up? Glitches. They used to be reviled for the most part, with a few exceptions that the player could exploit to their advantage, then youtube shows up and suddenly they're funny, points of intrigue, possibly even okay, few years later they've skipped a few steps and we've got games launching broken with a halfhearted promise to fix it later. 'A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game takes your money, laughs in your face then eventually most of you start mindlessly clapping along.'

k1zzl3_82 posted...

The micro-transactions are just getting more expensive for smaller gains. Early on it was cosmetic items. Now you need $50 for a level up item, or $20 for a chance at a good character or item. Also when this is applied to mobile games it gets more ridiculous.

Holy shit I didn't know it was that bad. Glad I didn't support P2W games or buy DLC like that.

It probably also has something to do with (iirc) Belgium and/or the Netherlands banning lootboxes, which brought this stuff into a mainstream spotlight

teep_ posted...

It probably also has something to do with (iirc) Belgium and/or the Netherlands banning lootboxes, which brought this stuff into a mainstream spotlight

did they ban them or just make companies release the drop rates for their items?

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Because the suits took over the industry and that inevitably brings shills. Video games fucking suck now. They're mainstream and popular, that means large swathes of people are here to mindlessly participate and be duped into falling for all sorts of silly shit.

Plus, a generation has grown up with it being a normalised feature in video games and probably have no expectations of games to contain cheat codes, unlockable characters or replay value. They're there to be scammed and move on. If they've fallen for the mtx shit and it's made them feel good before, there's a chance they're a little defensive of it.

You know what I never hear people bring up? Glitches. They used to be reviled for the most part, with a few exceptions that the player could exploit to their advantage, then youtube shows up and suddenly they're funny, points of intrigue, possibly even okay, few years later they've skipped a few steps and we've got games launching broken with a halfhearted promise to fix it later. 'A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game takes your money, laughs in your face then eventually most of you start mindlessly clapping along.'

my mans implied video games have been underground and unpopular until now XD
Dont even wanna read the rest

k1zzl3_82 posted...

did they ban them or just make companies release the drop rates for their items?

to my knowledge, lootboxes have to have a certain level of transparency or else it'll be considered gambling and the games will be given an adult-only rating

k1zzl3_82 posted...

did they ban them or just make companies release the drop rates for their items?

In April 2018, government agencies in both the Netherlands and Belgium ruled in quick succession that randomized loot boxes were illegal "games of chance" that provided players with items that have "variable market values." Activision Blizzard was among the many companies that have made changes to games in those countries in the intervening years, disabling loot box sales in Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch to comply with the laws.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/05/loot-box-laws-block-diablo-immortal-launch-in-some-european-countries/

The entire pay to win model has become much more predatory in recent years.

Due to all the time leading up to today about how addictive shitty free to play and pay to win games have become. They have the shit down to a science.

Lots of bright and flashy graphics and naming conventions for loot boxes to trigger people into enjoying the experience of opening them.

Daily "chores" to keep people coming back to get their free shit and to build a sense of a daily routine in players.

Limited time banners that may never come back to entice people into spending money to get that one character they really want before its gone forever.

Tie ins with other games and product to keep reminding you of the game.

Shit like "stamina" and only being able to do activities so many times before you have to wait (unless you pay a lil sumsum) to get you to come back and do more next week. Locking the grinding behind a paywall.

Its just exploiting the urge to gamble that so many have, and the rush of feeding that addiction.

They dont even need a super huge player base to thrive either. Just a group of dumdums to drain and they are set.

For clarification video games had a lower popularity ceiling that's unfortunately grown at the same rate gameplay and replay value took a backseat to being taken for a sucker. There was the nerd, addict or basement dweller stigma for a while obviously, but now everyone's some kind of 'ironic nerd' or they're seen as more socially acceptable since you've got 40-somethings who grew up with them. You get people pushing the 'video games are art' crap more. In the age of the internet journalists and other reviewers have found they can all band together and collectively push people toward overvaluing relatively unimportant things and ultimately making purchases for them. Forced meme culture is chaos and can give anything a free ride. All this brings in a lot of people who aren't coming for gameplay, possibly not even for the stories. They just hear it's popular, everyone else is doing it, most are multiplayer so there's always a chance of some zany interactions, they're bored and willing to feed their time to any distraction, lots of the games are free.

The F2P models also allow you to get more mileage out of the average casual. It's one thing to get him to buy a game (Best case scenario he buys it day 1 with the overpriced pre-order, maybe waits a while, or at long last buys it dirt cheap) Give him the game for free and repeatedly goad him into buying advantages, shortcuts with the reasoning that his time is more valuable than some silly game and he should be enjoying every moment, cosmetics if he's the kind who needs a big badge saying "I'm the coolest guy in this lobby." It's like they get them to conflate being a whale with being part of an exclusive club. It's grimy but it's cheaper than expansion packs or DLC, an easier sell than getting him to buy a game and in the age of social media so many people are so vain and that kind of ego is so easy to appeal to.
Belgium and the Netherlands shutting this shit down is the strategy and probably the top reason you'd get shills. Falls right in line with the 'No that's not gambling, those are surprise mechanics' bit either EA or Activision came out with a little while ago.