4 ms·

What point are you making? I'm making a point that you can spend $100k on cosmetics in Roblox or Fortnite, and people do spend thousands of dollars over time al

by lcw 4y ago

What point are you making? I'm making a point that you can spend $100k on cosmetics in Roblox or Fortnite, and people do spend thousands of dollars over time almost unknowingly. I assume you would think this is bad right? If manipulative psychology is the issue at hand than quantitatively speaking if you spend 10k on cosmetics or 10k on p2w through manipulative psychology what is the ethical difference? If you think I'm arguing for a side you are mistaken. I just don't think people actually care about people who are victims of this. They just don't like p2w games, and that's fine. I'm just calling a spade a spade. Also I feel like you are going down a rabbit hole of being gated on a game from being top 10 on a leaderboard, because the story mode and making it to level 60 seem completely accessible with no money. This is kind of a crazy path to walk down especially for PC gamers, who seem to be the most outraged, where affluence is definitely an advantage even if the game isn't the one making the money off it. For instance, the difference between a refresh rate of 250hz vs 60hz on a competitive FPS game. Try and tell me there isn't an advantage between a $800 gaming rig vs a $10k gaming rig...

pdimitar 4y ago
> I assume you would think this is bad right? Of course I agree with that. I was under the impression that we're not discussing whether addiction is bad -- it's widely known that it is. I was arguing that "Minecraft and Roblox and millions of other games feed off the weak minds of virtual cosmetic addicts" does not at all make the pay-to-win model of other games okay. Because it did seem like you went off on a whataboutism road. That the world is screwed up doesn't mean we have to give up. We can try and improve little corners of it.
- lcw 4y ago
  Yeah I feel you. I don't think I was whataboutism-ing. The parent comment said PoE is fine because it's just cosmetics in game that you can buy. I guess I should have said you could spend thousands of dollars on PoE on cosmetics, but I'm just stating that one isn't better than the other. The main topic to me is that people are saying they don't like p2w games, and it feels like a weak argument if you say you don't like manipulative psychology in MTX but you actually are fine with it in regard to cosmetics because it doesn't impact your experience. I just get this vibe that people don't think through their stance these days. They just want what they want, and use ethics to support their point when they don't really have a consistent sense of morality to speak of.
  - pdimitar 4y ago
    MTX are not inherently evil, for example I fully support one-time unlocks with MTX. It's a fair business model. (Although in these cases they might not be called MTX at all; probably "expansions" or "DLCs".) And the thing with cosmetics is that they're opt-in; whoever decides to never buy will also never be negatively affected -- which is not true for pay-to-win. I guess that's why there's this "evilest, eviler, evil and less evil" scale of game MTX. I personally would prefer all cosmetics be farmable but I'm okay with having those be also available for buying.
    - jamespo 4y ago
      You might not be negatively affected by not having cosmetics but evidently lots of players are.
  - nickjj 4y ago
    > I just get this vibe that people don't think through their stance these days. They just want what they want, and use ethics to support their point when they don't really have a consistent sense of morality to speak of. I thought it through and my stance is I do think there's a very big difference between p2w and cosmetic only cash shops from a moral stand point in the context of Diablo Immortal and PoE. I never felt like PoE was trying to push me into buying something. The purchases I've made (0 cosmetic btw, it's been all quality of life things) were on my own terms, I didn't feel manipulated in the slightest. There was no gambling mechanic, it was a straight "I give them money and they give me stash tabs" transaction, there's no catch. I don't need to login every day to keep them, they exist until PoE decides not to run PoE anymore. The above is a lot different than Diablo Immortal trying its hardest to convince you to buy something because it directly alters the core mechanics of an ARPG which is to make your character stronger by trying to get you to purchase items that make your character stronger. The whole system is set up to make you constantly evaluate "well, should I grind this out 8 hours a day for 4 months or spend $50 to have it in a few days?", and it's painfully obvious. These elements are also pushed into the game's UI so it's in your face all the time. They also took it 1 step further and introduced a lot of randomness into your real money purchases and they self destruct if you stop logging into the game. I was trying to compare this to a "real life company" like a casino or car salesman but somehow even they seem better from a morality standpoint when compared directly to Diablo Immortal. So yes, in my mind there is a big morality difference between these 2 games in how they operate their cash shop. One of them feels like inconceivably high pressure sales tactics designed to maximize profits at no cost while the other feels like a game that does everything in its power to kill you with kindness by providing value through entertainment in the game so you end up making purchases because you like the game and want to support the developers, what you get out of that is more like warm fuzzies and some quality of life enhancements (or cosmetic things if that's what you like).

by lcw 4y ago

pdimitar 4y ago

> I assume you would think this is bad right? Of course I agree with that. I was under the impression that we're not discussing whether addiction is bad -- it's widely known that it is. I was arguing that "Minecraft and Roblox and millions of other games feed off the weak minds of virtual cosmetic addicts" does not at all make the pay-to-win model of other games okay. Because it did seem like you went off on a whataboutism road. That the world is screwed up doesn't mean we have to give up. We can try and improve little corners of it.

lcw 4y ago
Yeah I feel you. I don't think I was whataboutism-ing. The parent comment said PoE is fine because it's just cosmetics in game that you can buy. I guess I should have said you could spend thousands of dollars on PoE on cosmetics, but I'm just stating that one isn't better than the other. The main topic to me is that people are saying they don't like p2w games, and it feels like a weak argument if you say you don't like manipulative psychology in MTX but you actually are fine with it in regard to cosmetics because it doesn't impact your experience. I just get this vibe that people don't think through their stance these days. They just want what they want, and use ethics to support their point when they don't really have a consistent sense of morality to speak of.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  MTX are not inherently evil, for example I fully support one-time unlocks with MTX. It's a fair business model. (Although in these cases they might not be called MTX at all; probably "expansions" or "DLCs".) And the thing with cosmetics is that they're opt-in; whoever decides to never buy will also never be negatively affected -- which is not true for pay-to-win. I guess that's why there's this "evilest, eviler, evil and less evil" scale of game MTX. I personally would prefer all cosmetics be farmable but I'm okay with having those be also available for buying.
  - jamespo 4y ago
    You might not be negatively affected by not having cosmetics but evidently lots of players are.
- nickjj 4y ago
  > I just get this vibe that people don't think through their stance these days. They just want what they want, and use ethics to support their point when they don't really have a consistent sense of morality to speak of. I thought it through and my stance is I do think there's a very big difference between p2w and cosmetic only cash shops from a moral stand point in the context of Diablo Immortal and PoE. I never felt like PoE was trying to push me into buying something. The purchases I've made (0 cosmetic btw, it's been all quality of life things) were on my own terms, I didn't feel manipulated in the slightest. There was no gambling mechanic, it was a straight "I give them money and they give me stash tabs" transaction, there's no catch. I don't need to login every day to keep them, they exist until PoE decides not to run PoE anymore. The above is a lot different than Diablo Immortal trying its hardest to convince you to buy something because it directly alters the core mechanics of an ARPG which is to make your character stronger by trying to get you to purchase items that make your character stronger. The whole system is set up to make you constantly evaluate "well, should I grind this out 8 hours a day for 4 months or spend $50 to have it in a few days?", and it's painfully obvious. These elements are also pushed into the game's UI so it's in your face all the time. They also took it 1 step further and introduced a lot of randomness into your real money purchases and they self destruct if you stop logging into the game. I was trying to compare this to a "real life company" like a casino or car salesman but somehow even they seem better from a morality standpoint when compared directly to Diablo Immortal. So yes, in my mind there is a big morality difference between these 2 games in how they operate their cash shop. One of them feels like inconceivably high pressure sales tactics designed to maximize profits at no cost while the other feels like a game that does everything in its power to kill you with kindness by providing value through entertainment in the game so you end up making purchases because you like the game and want to support the developers, what you get out of that is more like warm fuzzies and some quality of life enhancements (or cosmetic things if that's what you like).