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I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often hold up Rocket League as an example of a great free-to-play game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of

• Sebguer 5y ago
  Is 1) actually still true? I haven't played recently, but I recall quite a few chests that you have to buy keys for in order to get items out of?
  • birdyrooster 5y ago
    They got rid of keys a couple years ago. Now they have blueprints instead.
  • meonmyphone 5y ago
    Instead of crates, there are now blueprints. And instead of keys, there's credit to unlock the item of the blueprint. And instead of item drops, there are blueprints. There are still lootboxes, but these can be obtained only in events or challenges.
• meonmyphone 5y ago
  While I agree Rocket League is a good example of a free to play with cosmetics, I think it got worse with the blueprint system. Now you're limited to one item per week (from the blue lootbox). And if you get the blueprint of item you want, you can't pay only for that item, you need to buy a package of credits, that may be more than you actually need.
• holler 5y ago
  One complaint I've had with RL recently is that it seems like they've put all their energy into new visuals and cosmetics while leaving the game mostly unchanged. The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to the mix; spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the center, figure 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1), etc. I guess it's simple and works but it'd be cool to see new gameplay related updates.
  • Daneel_ 5y ago
    They did this a long time in the past (See: Rocket League Rocket Labs) and it was near-universally disliked. The complication when it comes to adding new features is that Rocket League is built on top of a bespoke scripting engine that was discontinued after Unreal Engine 3, so they have to fully recreate RL in UE5. Because of this they don't want to put any additional resources into new features for UE3 since it's wasted effort once the game transitions to the new engine.
    • holler 5y ago
      Interesting, have they said much about that or when to expect it? I did like that game mode where the ball would gravitate towards the goal!
      • IshKebab 5y ago
        They turn those weird modes and maps on occasionally - called Limited Time Modes. The only genuinely new one they've done for years was the NFL mode, which they presumably got paid for and wasn't very good.
      • Sturmis 5y ago
        Ball gravitating towards the goal has been available as a Limited Time Mode on a few occasions, it's called Heatseeker IIRC.
    • Arrath 5y ago
      I know I was always in the minority, but I loved the Rocket Labs maps and wished for more funky, mind bending ones.
• tomatowurst 5y ago
  it's also super hard to build a great f2p and i think CSGO easily is the best. they bootstrapped it for almost 2 decades from a mod made by Minh Le to what it is today and I must say it is the only f2p game I regularly play. simply because it actually pays to play. I've made about $20 bucks this month from just selling cases given out randomly at the end of each match. It cost me nothing to buy yet the in game items (cosmetic skins that don't influence gameplay) regularly sell for good money. it also make sense to buy the keys to unlock the cases sometimes simply because you might unlock a skin that fetches far more money. so it is a bit like gambling in that aspect. i'm just constantly amazed how they were able to pull the economics behind this. clearly the ppl who expect a 10~100x ROI on their keys must outnumber those selling the cases. I mean I can imagine a bunch of people just farming cases day and night. Perhaps even a sophisticated AI could pull it off since the in game drops aren't even correlated with your performance. even more impressive is how this is all legal since it really is gambling of sorts.
  • mnsc 5y ago
    > ... i think CSGO easily is the best ... > ... so it is a bit like gambling ... I hate what video games have become.
    • tomatowurst 5y ago
      I don't mind CSGO's flavor since it doesn't cost you money like poker but I can absolutely see somebody trying to buy multiple keys in hopes of unlocking a really good skin. again this doesn't impact the gameplay at all and I'm happy to earn some money. was able to buy another title on steam with the money accrued
      • bigDinosaur 5y ago
        I don't know if you're just naive or not, but you're paying with literally the most valuable currency you have. That doesn't mean it isn't fun to do so, although there's a very high chance you'll come to regret the number of hours pumped into such games and the way they kept you engaged in their dopamine loop.
• mschuster91 5y ago
  > Are you surprised when you can’t resell a shirt you wore for a year at the same price as when you bought it? No, because the market for second-hand clothing is extremely oversaturated and clothing, particularly "fast fashion", simply does not last long enough to live a useful second life any more. A video game skin however does not degrade, it will look the very same (or better) even in two decades.
• therouwboat 5y ago
  "Are you surprised that people don’t just wear monochrome black shirts in real life?" No and thats why its silly to say rocket league items have no impact on gameplay, ofcourse its nicer play with hot wheels car that has animated decals than grey corolla. I would like game to be more like "if you get this good, you get these cool items" instead of something like "if we put paid rewards right next to free rewards, then 15% of our playerbase is going to buy paid tier." :/ I had no problem with dlc cars, it felt like I was supporting the game, now it feels like I'm being manipulated to give money to somebody who owns rocket league.
  • imiric 5y ago
    > now it feels like I'm being manipulated to give money to somebody who owns rocket league. Epic Games. Why are we surprised by this when they saw a cash cow when they bought it, and have done nothing but turn it into another Fortnite? I think this type of game needs its own genre. Fortnite, RL, GTA Online, Warzone... They all follow the same model of "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it" perpetually by squeezing as much revenue as you can from your users". I was a huge RL fan in 2015/16. It started going down hill sometime after that and EG has run it into the ground.
    • cinntaile 5y ago
      > They all follow the same model of "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it" perpetually by squeezing as much revenue as you can from your users". It's a viable business model and it allows players to enjoy the game for many years to come. What bothers me a little is that these revenue extracting schemes are usually very complicated and are probably complicated because it allows them to extract as much money as possible from a small subset of players. Like casino's and mobile games.
    • gigaflop 5y ago
      "Live Service" or "Games as a Service" may be the vocab you're looking for. The game exists as a monetization engine. Some amount of fresh content is required to keep feeding the machine, but the goal is generally to let the machine run while dropping in bits of content and purchasable junk for the players to consume.
• madrox 5y ago
  I think a lot of people naively think of moves like this as pure money grabs and don’t appreciate that a lot of these moves are out of survival…especially for games like Rocket League that require a sufficient player base to even be a viable live service game.
  • ricardobeat 5y ago
    Rocket League reached something like 50 million players in its first year. They’ve likely earned over a billion dollars so far. This is not about survival, just squeezing your cash cows.
  • badsectoracula 5y ago
    Well, Rocket League doesn't need to be a "viable live service game", it could just be a regular multiplayer game that gives you a client and server executable to run your own. It isn't like not being a live service game killed Quake 3, for example.
    • tjader 5y ago
      I don't believe RL or other modern online games could survive with even a tenth of the player base if they didn't have decent matchmaking, and you can't have decent matchmaking if you depend on players finding each other outside the game and one of them running a server and sharing the IP address. It's way too much friction to expect most players to do that.
      • badsectoracula 5y ago
        You can still run a default/master server.
      • paulmd 5y ago
        Console games survive perfectly fine without any sort of anticheat/etc, maybe that would be bad for PC gaming but games could sustain their player base without anticheat, and matchmaking is neither necessary (lots of multiplayer games just don't use it at all) nor is it particularly expensive to run if that's all you're doing. Obviously that would be a problem on the PC but games would remain popular and publishers would get paid without either of those things. Games as a whole wouldn't go anywhere. They just make more money this way.
• qwery 5y ago
  The whole 'preying on the vulnerable' thing kind of puts me off. But I want to respond to this: > The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals Cosmetic items are not just visual though. They are real elements in the game. Cosmetic items are interactive. They are unlockable, collectable, wearable items. Further, visuals do impact the gameplay. You could argue about the difference between "gameplay" and "visuals" but each supports/influences the other and both are critical elements of almost every videogame. However you divide up the parts of a game, they all affect each other. Generally speaking, having all of the elements working together makes for a better game. Monetisation strategies like microtransactions, loot boxes, etc. are also part of the game. However, the goal of such parts is not aligned with that of the others. The game is compromised by the introduction of the monetisation strategies. > why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a video game? Nobody is surprised by this.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • SentientNo4 5y ago
    > Cosmetic items are not just visual though. They are real elements in the game. Yes, I really hate this argument that cosmetics are not gameplay. Visuals are a huge part of what makes a game, no one would be happy if games shipped without textures and shaders and people would have to pay to unlock them.
    • cupofpython 5y ago
      >people would have to pay to unlock them see: Halo Infinite Want to be black? that will be $10 please
    • nopcode 5y ago
      A better phrasing is whether they offer a competitive advantage.
      • hutzlibu 5y ago
• Yizahi 5y ago
  "It's only cosmetics shop" is a cancer that's killing AAA game industry. Games are designed from ground up not being fun themselves but to be filled with dark patterns, ads, artificial focus on the shop items and so on.
• somedude895 5y ago
  Even with Rocket League microtransactions are a bad idea. It incentivizes the developer to make attaining items through gameplay a slog in order to get you to skip that by paying up. If there was no way to get those items through mtx, they'd make the process of getting them fun. Also, games are supposed to be a form of escapism, where the gameplay matters, not who you are and how much money your parents make. You can argue in favor of the game itself being free allowing people to save 10 or 20 bucks. But gameplaywise Microtransactions inevitably make the gameplay experience worse, without exceptions.
  • tjader 5y ago
    Anectdata: I have over 2000 hours of Rocket League, never once spent any money on it after purchasing it and never one have I felt that my fun was impacted by the available microtransactions. Nothing that can be purchased in the game affects gameplay, it's all just cosmetics.
    • elcomet 5y ago
      you didn't even buy the fennec car?
      • tjader 5y ago
        I'm not sure, why do you ask specifically about the Fennec? I have bought some items, but only by trading free drops for keys/credits.
        • elcomet 5y ago
          It seems to be the most common item people buy (because it can actually slightly affect your performance as it better matches the hitbox, and it is the most used competitively). I know a lot of people who never bought a single item, except for the fennec.
          • tjader 5y ago
• onpensionsterm 5y ago
  But I paid for a game that wasn't free-to-play
• phelm 5y ago
  I can't believe how many people care about the cosmetics, I've been playing RL for years, unlocked heaps of things to wear but never changed the appearance of my car once. All I really care about is playing and trying to win, although sometimes other peoples cars do look cool, I have no desire to update mine.
• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Yeah, cosmetic items are the least bad solution to this problem since they provide zero advantage to players. They're there for people who want to look cool online which is fine. Paying for items that impact the game balance turns them into spending competitions: whoever pays the company the most money wins. Games designed like this are not even worth playing. I fell for one of these money sinks once, never again.
  • 3a2d29 5y ago
    Plus having cosmetic items essentially subsidizes the game for everyone, aka its free because money can be made off those that want to spend on cosmetics.
• criddell 5y ago
  > Are you surprised when you can’t resell a shirt you wore for a year at the same price as when you bought it? The complaint isn't about depreciation but rather the inability sell the items at all.
  • dado3212 5y ago
    There are market places for selling items, both for in game cash and real money. I agree that it’s a legitimate criticism that it’s not in actual game itself, but then you develop weird incentive structures like FIFA’s pack openings taking precedence over actually playing soccer, which also feels bad, and potentially more exploitative (if I just hit this rare car I could turn a profit!!)
• nanochad 5y ago
• ericsoderstrom 5y ago
  I think it is a problem though when a game's revenue mostly comes from cosmetics, as it shifts the developer incentives away from "developing a game that lots of people want to buy and play" to "making the type of game that lends itself well to lots of cosmetic micro transactions". These are often pretty different types of games and it would be sad if the former were entirely replaced by the latter.
  • tomtheelder 5y ago
    Fundamentally the biggest driver of selling cosmetics is still just the size of your player base. Companies are still really out there trying to make sure people play their games. Exceptions exist (I'm looking at you mobile games), but for the most part I don't see a massive shift in incentives. IMO the big change is to do with the lifecycle of games. Previously you release a new title, maybe a few DLCs, and then you move on. The game is done, you have to do something else, a sequel, a new IP, whatever. That was true for all games, multiplayer included. Now (for multiplayer) the idea is to try different releases until one sticks, and then try and make that game evergreen. The dream being something like League of Legends, which has been printing money for over a decade. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate I suppose.
  • AlwaysRock 5y ago
    Yeah but if the game isnt interesting than the cosmetics dont sell.
• skazazes 5y ago
  This reminds me of an old trick from the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare days. You could edit the player model skins locally if you had the correct Photoshop plugins installed. Players would just spray over the character model skins with blaze orange so you could pick people out from across the map, even if they were hiding in deep vegetation. Eventually the 'pro-mod' developers caught on and implemented some client side hash checking but the public non 'pro-mod' servers were never protected against this afaik
• plaguepilled 5y ago
  This arguments premise is flawed. Cosmetics are not nearly that resource intensive to produce, so its not about 'wearing nice clothes' a-la real life, where good materials are more expensive to produce. Attaching a price tag is PURELY for the benefit of the publisher. Attaching real world costs to purchases in games also disproportionately targets neurodivergent and fiscally uneducated people. That seems like a fairly malicious business practice. Microtransaction apologism is not a tractable stance, ever.
  • ratorx 5y ago
    There is a real world equivalent which affects many more people. Wearing nice clothes might mean wearing well-made clothes, or wearing branded clothes. Although there is some correlation, there are definitely examples of moderate quality clothes being sold for insane prices because of a brand. Not to say that micro transactions are good practice or that they can’t be dealt with independently, but micro transactions are a very similar problem to real world cosmetics. Sure you could argue that just having some correlation between true quality and perceived value is good enough, but I’d argue that charging for more visually appealing and better designed models ALSO is not zero correlation.
  • dado3212 5y ago
    There is still the value of creating the model asset, though I agree that it’s a cost that doesn’t scale with how many people buy it (except for maybe some of the song packs, not sure how RL’s royalty package is structured). Why does attaching real world costs to purchases in-game strike you as “malicious” but not the real world cost of buying the game?
    • plaguepilled 5y ago
      The issue is twofold. The first issue is that like I originally mentioned, microtransactions disproportionately affect neurodivergent individuals because of the addictive mechanics used to implement them. The concept of 'whales' is a term used to refer to big spenders in a game economy without fully examining the reason they are spending so much. For example, where you can only buy one copy of Elden Ring, you could easily buy a new copy of Forza every year and buy each car, which may be a compulsion if you have OCD, for example. The same argument could be (and should be) made against tiered subscription services in games. If there is a lootbox mechanic involved, the issue is only compounded further as it is an introduction of gambling mechanics. In some cases, it can be worth examining the presence of envy economics 'Oooh I want was they have! How much is it? Oh I want it more now I know!'. The second issue is the scale difference is ridiculous. The amount of dev and artist time to produce a game sits at around 1.5 to 4 years and sometimes much more. There is a large number of artistic assets that are used in combination with code when making a game and those assets are paid for using the proceeds from the game sales. When micro transactions are produced, a fraction of those assets are divided out of the main game (or less often, added later) and can be produced on a 6 month cycle to be sold separately. To be explicit, the amount of assets made in a microtransaction is FAR less than those used to make the game, but often the price of the microtransaction does not reflect this (again, refer to Forza and the $200 car dlc for a minimum-$100 game). This means that either the publisher or the developer team (including art team) is receiving that margin, and if you think the developers are receiving a proportionate amount of that margin then I have some bad news for you. To be clear, I think game monetisation is OK. But that does not mean all forms of monetisation are OK, and it definitely does not mean that diluting a product in a harmful way is OK.