Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think
I'm talking to you. You're living in fantasy land claiming these games could be the exact same thing without the business model that made them possible. They would not.
Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.
"We" includes the guy saying "skins are fine," in reply to the same comment.
Yes, optional skins are fine. I agree with that statement.
If I buy the game, right now, all of those characters are in the game... but I don't get them. I can get my ass kicked by them. But I can't select them.
This is a good thing, because it means that you can still remain compatible with any opponent even if you choose to stay on the base game. The alternative was the old model where you HAD to buy every upgrade from Street Fighter IV to Super Street Fighter IV to Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition to Ultra Street Fighter IV, or else you were left behind and could no longer play with the rest of the playerbase that moved on to the latest edition.
Would you rather have that be mandatory? Is that the model you want to go back to?
I don't think you understand how much work it takes to design and balance that many characters in a serious competitive fighting game. Serious question, do you play competitive fighters at all, do you know anything about how they work?
In fact, the best way to ensure they're all polished is to start small and expand incrementally over time. This is the right model for a competitive fighter. You're deliberately ignoring the path to get from point A to point B if you think that in your world it would just be the final version right away. I'm saying that in your world, the fighting games I know and love would not be the games that I know and love.
Personally, my favorite game of all time is Skullgirls, and they have been very open and transparent about all the expenses involved in developing a much smaller cast. Look up their finances, look up how long it took their small team to get from the eight characters at launch to what they have today. And I'm very happy with every cent I spent on that game, they didn't scam me by offering more of my favorite game. This is a game that has entertained me for a decade. Even if I count all the money I've spent on traveling to tournaments, which is far more than I spent on the game, it's still quite possibly the most efficient form of entertainment I've ever gotten my money's worth from.
Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.
I'm not missing, I'm saying that your hardline stance against things being sold isn't reasonable.
This is an entire market of games where you can pay $1000 and still not have the whole thing.
Those aren't the games we're talking about. We're talking about DBFZ, an example of fixed DLC being sold at a reasonable price, which you want to dishonestly conflate with more predatory models in order to say that nothing should be sold ever.
DLC is honest. I get a thing in exchange for money. I know what the price tag is, and I'm happy to pay what I think is a fair price. And I only pay once to keep the thing I paid for, unlike a subscription.
Let me just cut straight past all your deflecting. Do you think that the final version of DBFZ, with all of its DLC, sold at its price, should be able to exist in this form?
I do want updated games, yes. My favorite games wouldn't be my favorite games if 1.0 was all we ever got.
Some games have predatory models, and I do oppose that. But only when it actually is predatory. I take issue with how you're trying to say nothing should ever be sold, even when what's being sold is perfectly fair.
And you know goddamn well that fighting games had incremental re-releases, decades before this abuse was possible.
Of course I know, I know how much it fucking sucked! No one wants to go back to that!
You'd rather spend $60 on Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, then spend $60 on Street Fighter II': Champion Edition, then spend $60 on Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, then spend $60 on Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, then spend $60 on Super Street Fighter II Turbo?
That's better to you than being able to get the patches for free, with the option of buying characters at a reasonable price, all while still retaining compatibility with opponents on the latest version even if you don't spend a dime?
How is that better? How?
Or, if you want continuing revenue for an online service - make it a service. Sell subscriptions. Oh sorry, do people not like that?
No, no I don't like that! I would much rather buy a character once than have to subscribe to them forever! If I buy a character I get to keep them, if I subscribe I don't. And I'm not getting gouged, I know what the price tag is. If anything, a subscription is gouging because I have to keep paying again and again in order to keep what I should've only had to pay for once.
I'm actually baffled that you're seriously trying to suggest subscriptions as a better alternative. Like... seriously? Really?
I do not respect the dishonest conflation of 'FighterZ doesn't get to expand forever' with 'FighterZ would be banned.'
FighterZ as we know it would not exist in your world. In your world, it'd just be the 1.0 base game and that'd be it, but I know you know we're talking about what FighterZ was able to become over the course of its lifespan thanks to DLC.
You're taking this needlessly aggressive tone accusing us of misconstruing you, but I know you know damn well what we're saying here while you keep misconstruing us. Don't accuse me of being dishonest when you're playing dumb like this.
We're saying the games we like couldn't exist without the business models you want to ban. How does something like Dragon Ball FighterZ continue to expand if you are forbidding them from selling anything that would make character expansions possible?
If you want to say "nothing should cost money ever", then the natural outcome of that is that we just don't get new characters anymore. In effect, you are banning these games by making it impossible for them to exist like this.
If you want to say that certain types of business models, like paying for RNG where you don't know what you're buying, are predatory, I would be with you on that.
But your extreme hardline stance of "nothing should cost money ever" is not a reasonable place to draw the line. At least some of what you're railing against should be perfectly fine.
The problem with a hat like this is that if I saw this person from a distance, I wouldn't look closely enough to read it.
With gachapon, you always "win," there is no chance that your money is spent and you get nothing in return.
Although you're technically getting something, typically the common items are nearly worthless, and may as well be nothing. You only "win" when you actually get the ultra rare 5* SSR Jackpot waifu.
that you downloaded the actual game from local corner stores (like 7/11)
No, games were broadcast via satellite modem - hence the name.
The live radio dramas were only part of a few special event titles, but there was a lot more on the service, including standard downloads of both retail games and Satellaview exclusives.
I do. But to me, step one of filtering out Sturgeon's Law is looking in the right place - platforms that are not overflowing with so much poison that I already know I'm unlikely to ever find what I want.
If they want to share that creativity, share it on a platform where the people who would most appreciate it will actually play it.
So what, you just buy games at random and hope maybe you landed on something good? Without anything that would make for an informed purchase? Sounds like a horribly inefficient way of running headfirst into Sturgeon's Law.
Mobile is so thoroughly dominated by gacha that any game that tries to have an ethical business model has almost no hope of succeeding on the platform, no hope of competing with the endless sea of gacha.
And I'm sure you're about to cherry-pick like two counterexamples, but I know you know that those exceptions are so scarce that I have every reason to decide that it simply isn't worth my time to go out of my way looking for them.
Word of mouth is certainly a large part of it, yes. People talk about successful games. One way or another, the games I like make it onto my radar when I see buzz about them.
But what are the most successful games on mobile? What are the games mobile gamers talk about? Gacha. It's all gacha. Whatever else is out there, nobody's talking about it and I'm never going to see it. Nor do I have any reason to go searching through a toxic cesspit in the hopes that maybe I'll eventually find something, when it is far easier to look elsewhere, on platforms that haven't been thoroughly corrupted by the race to the bottom.
But again, the real takeaway I want to stress is that the market has been this way for long enough that both gamers and developers know the well is poisoned, and it will never be unpoisoned. The fact that mobile has become dominated by gacha has reinforced itself - everyone not interested in gacha has left the platform, and mobile developers will keep selling more gacha because that's what the remaining audience wants. They even know that the average mobile gamer won't spend money on a more ethical business model.
I know that developers know that I know that this is what mobile is. The way I see it, mobile itself has become a red flag. If a game is trying to be more than gacha trash, well why don't the developers have the sense to put it on other platforms where non-gacha gamers are? If not, they're shooting themselves in the foot and I have no pity.
At least Action 52 never tried to financially ruin gambling addicts.
You didn't answer the question.
It's a good thing that this model allows them a source of revenue to develop more content, while still being able to offer patches for free so that players on the base game still get to enjoy compatibility. That's good. The alternative is we either break compatibility, or the content doesn't get made at all since you don't seem to want anyone to get paid to make it.