Battle pass games
- Thread starter porkpie28
- Start date
Not a huge fan of battle passes. Maybe I'm old school, but I like playing games at my own pace and not being pressured by battle passes, timers, and the like. Sometimes I don't really have time to play for weeks at a time... and then there is the occasional day where I can get a nice long gaming session in. Don't like to be missing out on parts of the game because of this.
No.
...
I guess I'll say more than that.
If you're charging people for something in a game, don't put limits and timers on it. It's a game, it's digital, any small time limit or restriction is entirely arbitrary, a limit has no reason to exist, so why would you put limits on something people are handing money over for?
I'm being facetious of course, I know why they do it, to keep you coming back. If you forget a day or two, you'll play twice as much the following four days to make up for it because you paid for this, you're losing money if you don't get the most out of it no matter how little. It's forcing you to develop a habit of playing their game as regularly as possible so that you'll spend all your free time on it. They're asking for money for you to develop a potentially crappy habit in order to line their pockets.
It's yet another manipulative way companies are preying upon and cultivating addiction and Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).
They've learned that lootboxes haven't gone down well with people, especially with laws and legislation coming into place in certain countries, certain companies being fined and taken to court for unregulated gambling and giving access of gambling to children (because yes, EA, it's gambling, no matter what you dress it up as). Some publishers have stopped releasing games in certain countries or even outright cancelled games because having to modify and release Lootbox free versions of their games for certain countries or stick a giant 18+ or a AO/R rating on the box just isn't worth releasing the game at all. Lootboxes are over, there's too much hassle and negativity around them, they need something more subtle, more marketable and less overtly obvious to be something massively problematic such as gambling.
Battlepasses though? That isn't as instantly recognisable as a problem. Your players are playing the game, that's it, there are no dirty tactics and manipulation there, right? They're just playing a game, harmless fun. There's absolutely no gambling whatsoever, players are guaranteed to get the prizes if they put enough time in...So what's the problem if you can sell them something artificially limited if they keep playing the game they're playing anyway? No harm, right? Just keep playing the game, bro...And never stop, or else you're losing money and you'll never get that skin we're """offering""" which your friend has. You want the skin too, don't you? Yea, Craig has it, do you want it too? Craig is cool, you're just wearing default skins, you lameo. You want to show everybody how good you are by unlocking the skin, yea? C'mon, keep playing and never stop.
Take away the restrictions? Sure, whatever, that's less disgusting. I may even buy a battle pass if I could stop playing, come back 2 years later and finish off unlocking stuff then. That's not what companies want me to do though, they don't want me to maybe unlock that stuff years later, they want to keep me there trying to unlock it now so that playing the game will become a habit and I'll definitely be around for when they release the next one which "I may as well buy, I'm playing anyway". They don't give a crap whether or not you get the big prize at the end, they just want to make sure you're still playing when the next one comes out.
"And the game is free!". Sure, sounds like a fair trade-off on the surface. "But they have to make money somehow!". Of course, that old chestnut! That's because they know they'll potentially make far less money selling 10 million units at RRP £60 (not including Sales etc) than getting a fraction of 50 million players in a free to play game buying battle passes every season for the foreseeable future. These aren't poor struggling Publishers just looking to get paid for their work, it's all very cold and calculated. Hence why so many publishers have sank millions into developing these types of game that absolutely failed and were dead on arrival. It doesn't matter that it failed because the money they lost is nothing compared to the money they could earn if and when they hit the jackpot, so they'll just try again until a game doesn't fail. You think EA cares that Anthem was a stillbirth? Square particularly cares that Marvels Avengers is a fairly big flop? Nah, whatever money they lost is nothing compared to the potential earnings their next attempt at a F2P game with questionable monetisation could make.
$25,000,000 for a one time purchase, $399,500,000 for some of the battle passes some of the time. EA could plop out like 12 more failures like Anthem as long as the 13th one was a success.
Anything other than the initial purchase of a game and any well crafted and meaningful expansions can absolutely go the F' away. NONE of these ever increasing amounts of money grabs will ever be a good thing for a game. Battle passes are just the latest in a lineage of crappy publishers doing crappy things to pull money out of peoples wallets until they find something better and more subtle. We've had this so many times now. This is the "Horse Armour" of the current gaming landscape.
...
I guess I'll say more than that.
If you're charging people for something in a game, don't put limits and timers on it. It's a game, it's digital, any small time limit or restriction is entirely arbitrary, a limit has no reason to exist, so why would you put limits on something people are handing money over for?
I'm being facetious of course, I know why they do it, to keep you coming back. If you forget a day or two, you'll play twice as much the following four days to make up for it because you paid for this, you're losing money if you don't get the most out of it no matter how little. It's forcing you to develop a habit of playing their game as regularly as possible so that you'll spend all your free time on it. They're asking for money for you to develop a potentially crappy habit in order to line their pockets.
It's yet another manipulative way companies are preying upon and cultivating addiction and Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).
They've learned that lootboxes haven't gone down well with people, especially with laws and legislation coming into place in certain countries, certain companies being fined and taken to court for unregulated gambling and giving access of gambling to children (because yes, EA, it's gambling, no matter what you dress it up as). Some publishers have stopped releasing games in certain countries or even outright cancelled games because having to modify and release Lootbox free versions of their games for certain countries or stick a giant 18+ or a AO/R rating on the box just isn't worth releasing the game at all. Lootboxes are over, there's too much hassle and negativity around them, they need something more subtle, more marketable and less overtly obvious to be something massively problematic such as gambling.
Battlepasses though? That isn't as instantly recognisable as a problem. Your players are playing the game, that's it, there are no dirty tactics and manipulation there, right? They're just playing a game, harmless fun. There's absolutely no gambling whatsoever, players are guaranteed to get the prizes if they put enough time in...So what's the problem if you can sell them something artificially limited if they keep playing the game they're playing anyway? No harm, right? Just keep playing the game, bro...And never stop, or else you're losing money and you'll never get that skin we're """offering""" which your friend has. You want the skin too, don't you? Yea, Craig has it, do you want it too? Craig is cool, you're just wearing default skins, you lameo. You want to show everybody how good you are by unlocking the skin, yea? C'mon, keep playing and never stop.
Take away the restrictions? Sure, whatever, that's less disgusting. I may even buy a battle pass if I could stop playing, come back 2 years later and finish off unlocking stuff then. That's not what companies want me to do though, they don't want me to maybe unlock that stuff years later, they want to keep me there trying to unlock it now so that playing the game will become a habit and I'll definitely be around for when they release the next one which "I may as well buy, I'm playing anyway". They don't give a crap whether or not you get the big prize at the end, they just want to make sure you're still playing when the next one comes out.
"And the game is free!". Sure, sounds like a fair trade-off on the surface. "But they have to make money somehow!". Of course, that old chestnut! That's because they know they'll potentially make far less money selling 10 million units at RRP £60 (not including Sales etc) than getting a fraction of 50 million players in a free to play game buying battle passes every season for the foreseeable future. These aren't poor struggling Publishers just looking to get paid for their work, it's all very cold and calculated. Hence why so many publishers have sank millions into developing these types of game that absolutely failed and were dead on arrival. It doesn't matter that it failed because the money they lost is nothing compared to the money they could earn if and when they hit the jackpot, so they'll just try again until a game doesn't fail. You think EA cares that Anthem was a stillbirth? Square particularly cares that Marvels Avengers is a fairly big flop? Nah, whatever money they lost is nothing compared to the potential earnings their next attempt at a F2P game with questionable monetisation could make.
$25,000,000 for a one time purchase, $399,500,000 for some of the battle passes some of the time. EA could plop out like 12 more failures like Anthem as long as the 13th one was a success.
Anything other than the initial purchase of a game and any well crafted and meaningful expansions can absolutely go the F' away. NONE of these ever increasing amounts of money grabs will ever be a good thing for a game. Battle passes are just the latest in a lineage of crappy publishers doing crappy things to pull money out of peoples wallets until they find something better and more subtle. We've had this so many times now. This is the "Horse Armour" of the current gaming landscape.
I see your point it is like me in fall guys I forget to log in today so over the weekend I will need to play more so I can get the battle pass done and with loot boxes overwatch 2 will not be having them at all it’s a battle pass
The only battle pass game I play is Fortnite. I don't love the idea of battle passes, but I enjoy Fortnite so much that I make an exception. The nice thing about Fortnite is, you get a certain amount of free V-bucks every season, so eventually you can afford a battle pass, without actually having to spend any RLC. And, once you have purchased one battle pass, you earn your V-bucks back each season from having the battle pass, plus extra, so it will pay for itself each season. Then you can start saving up for skins you like in the shop using the extra. That being said, you do have to complete the entire battle pass for that to happen, but there are some modes in Fortnite that allow you to earn XP pretty passively, so it's not that hard to get to level 100 and unlock all your V-bucks.
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