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As an adult who’s partner plays Fortnite with her cousins and occasionally gets dragged in, I haven’t seen this. I’ve spent maybe 25, and it seemed pretty obv

As an adult who’s partner plays Fortnite with her cousins and occasionally gets dragged in, I haven’t seen this. I’ve spent maybe 25, and it seemed pretty obvious what was going on. Maybe I just haven’t found the dark pattern path. It should be clear what’s going on before charging. I don’t love the “v bucks” vs real dollars they charge for things. though I get that the reward for those who grind isn’t actual dollars. As someone who let a younger person play on my laptop, I will note my balance was quickly brought down to 0 though I had some new “emotes”.. lesson learned. I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out.

hinkley 4y ago
I play Civ VI on my tablet to wind down, and I’m not happy about owning the whole thing on Steam and only half on iOS. They need a license transference process. If memory serves Klei might have a solution for this but I haven’t bought anything on steam in some time so I may be thinking of some other game.
- bellgrove 4y ago
  It would be nice to get a discount on already owned games when purchasing on another platform, but I disagree that it should just be free (if I understood what you mean about license transference). Porting a game to another platform is non-trivial - I think a fair compromise would be a discount. Otherwise the cost of games in general would have to go up to subsidize the labor to bring content to all platforms.
- airstrike 4y ago
  I'm honestly more upset about how shitty it is to download DLCs and mods on iOS. The whole thing is botched beyond belief
ChickenNugger 4y ago
>I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out. Unfortunately the only way to fight that is to not pay for anything else, but companies also know that's where the money's at. I paid $40 for Overwatch. ActiBlizzard replaced what I paid for with F2P "Overwatch 2" and added "battle passes" and overpriced skins, and they seem to be going that way permanently now. That is, I don't have access to Overwatch, the product I paid full price for, anymore. And the PvE content they marketed Overwatch 2 as still hasn't materialized either.
Falkon1313 4y ago
As an adult who plays Fortnite (and has since the relatively early days of Battle Royale mode), I agree. I didn't even enter a credit card at all for a few years, and once I did decide to buy in, there was a full checkout process. Even after they had my card info, there was no ambiguity when I was buying something. I do understand that might be different on consoles though, since consoles have such a constrained and clunky UI compared to a PC. That seemed to be what the main complaint was getting at - apparently on consoles the 'view skin from your locker' button that you use to take a look at it is the same button used to one-click buy one from the shop? That certainly does sound like a dark pattern! As for 'v-bucks', which aren't real money, I don't mind them. If you do stuff in-game you get tons of free v-bucks. I bought the battle pass once a couple years ago and it's been free ever since then, because doing the quests gives you enough v-bucks to buy the next one and, over time, enough free v-bucks for some skins too. Again if you get the battle pass once and play it, you'll end up with tons of free skins too. And they're all just cosmetic. And sure, I'd generally rather just pay once for many games, but I think Fortnite actually does quite a good job when it comes to justifying paying more than once. Every season there are new maps, new characters, new mechanics, sometimes whole new game modes. It really does keep the game fresh and fun. And keeps the player base coming back for years so there are always people to match against. The "pay once and then that's all there will ever be" model very often sees a quick short life for online activity. Before long only a few die-hards are still around trying to find others to play with. And then the company shuts down the servers. Being able to self-host servers can help a small game live longer. But a game that requires 100 players per match? It would probably be a wasteland in a few months once the initial mass got bored.

hinkley 4y ago

I play Civ VI on my tablet to wind down, and I’m not happy about owning the whole thing on Steam and only half on iOS. They need a license transference process. If memory serves Klei might have a solution for this but I haven’t bought anything on steam in some time so I may be thinking of some other game.

bellgrove 4y ago
It would be nice to get a discount on already owned games when purchasing on another platform, but I disagree that it should just be free (if I understood what you mean about license transference). Porting a game to another platform is non-trivial - I think a fair compromise would be a discount. Otherwise the cost of games in general would have to go up to subsidize the labor to bring content to all platforms.
airstrike 4y ago
I'm honestly more upset about how shitty it is to download DLCs and mods on iOS. The whole thing is botched beyond belief

ChickenNugger 4y ago

>I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out. Unfortunately the only way to fight that is to not pay for anything else, but companies also know that's where the money's at. I paid $40 for Overwatch. ActiBlizzard replaced what I paid for with F2P "Overwatch 2" and added "battle passes" and overpriced skins, and they seem to be going that way permanently now. That is, I don't have access to Overwatch, the product I paid full price for, anymore. And the PvE content they marketed Overwatch 2 as still hasn't materialized either.

Falkon1313 4y ago

As an adult who plays Fortnite (and has since the relatively early days of Battle Royale mode), I agree. I didn't even enter a credit card at all for a few years, and once I did decide to buy in, there was a full checkout process. Even after they had my card info, there was no ambiguity when I was buying something. I do understand that might be different on consoles though, since consoles have such a constrained and clunky UI compared to a PC. That seemed to be what the main complaint was getting at - apparently on consoles the 'view skin from your locker' button that you use to take a look at it is the same button used to one-click buy one from the shop? That certainly does sound like a dark pattern! As for 'v-bucks', which aren't real money, I don't mind them. If you do stuff in-game you get tons of free v-bucks. I bought the battle pass once a couple years ago and it's been free ever since then, because doing the quests gives you enough v-bucks to buy the next one and, over time, enough free v-bucks for some skins too. Again if you get the battle pass once and play it, you'll end up with tons of free skins too. And they're all just cosmetic. And sure, I'd generally rather just pay once for many games, but I think Fortnite actually does quite a good job when it comes to justifying paying more than once. Every season there are new maps, new characters, new mechanics, sometimes whole new game modes. It really does keep the game fresh and fun. And keeps the player base coming back for years so there are always people to match against. The "pay once and then that's all there will ever be" model very often sees a quick short life for online activity. Before long only a few die-hards are still around trying to find others to play with. And then the company shuts down the servers. Being able to self-host servers can help a small game live longer. But a game that requires 100 players per match? It would probably be a wasteland in a few months once the initial mass got bored.