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Depends on how you define tricked. The whole practice relies heavily on FOMO driven by artificial scarcity. It's all psychological manipulation, that many of us

Depends on how you define tricked. The whole practice relies heavily on FOMO driven by artificial scarcity. It's all psychological manipulation, that many of us are susceptible to even if we think we aren't. I bring it up because games like Overwatch 2 get regularly shit on for introducing things like a battle pass and paid skin shop. Those rely on FOMO as well, but not nearly to the same extent. There are no gambling mechanics, and there is no Blizzard-sanctioned auction house where the most desirable items sell for thousands of dollars. The most desirable cosmetics in the game can be had for 10 dollars plus spending some time playing the game. As a player, it also just feels really shitty that customizing my character the way I want is reliant entirely on blind luck through gambling mechanics or spending obscene amounts of money. So if Blizzard is gonna take heat for this (and they do deserve at least some of it), then Valve absolutely should get raked over the coals for their far worse system.

dcow 3y ago
Pokemon as an entire game relies on artificial scarcity and psychological manipulation. It's just a fixed cost up front for the game (and arguably not even strictly so these days with Pokemon Go). Same with any game ever that has loot and drop tables. Allowing people to pay more money to get more drops is the only thing that's really changed. And honestly it seems the feedback depends entirely on how "sleazy" the game studio's street reputation is. Dota2 cosmetics are considered tasteful while Genshin Impact is "gacha". But heh even Genshin gets a pass because it's such a good game and not one of those mobile penguin island simulators (which even get a good rap in many circles for being cute and fun to play). My new thesis is: if "winning" is "looking cool by getting good loot", then allowing people to pay for drops is effectively pay to win. I think this nuance is often skipped over in the conversation about whether some new game's micro-transaction framework is sleazy or not.

dcow 3y ago

Pokemon as an entire game relies on artificial scarcity and psychological manipulation. It's just a fixed cost up front for the game (and arguably not even strictly so these days with Pokemon Go). Same with any game ever that has loot and drop tables. Allowing people to pay more money to get more drops is the only thing that's really changed. And honestly it seems the feedback depends entirely on how "sleazy" the game studio's street reputation is. Dota2 cosmetics are considered tasteful while Genshin Impact is "gacha". But heh even Genshin gets a pass because it's such a good game and not one of those mobile penguin island simulators (which even get a good rap in many circles for being cute and fun to play). My new thesis is: if "winning" is "looking cool by getting good loot", then allowing people to pay for drops is effectively pay to win. I think this nuance is often skipped over in the conversation about whether some new game's micro-transaction framework is sleazy or not.