This seems so much more egregious than other titles though. Especially super successful games like Genshin.
I love Genshin. You can play totally F2P and clear all PvE content, plus the writing and music have been surprisingly good.
That said, should Genshin ever implement PvP, it would certainly be P2W since primogems (the in-game currency) can go directly towards better weapons and skills.
So itās sort of like the old, old dream of ājust sell one of these to every person in China and weāll be rich?ā Except it is āletās just sell one $0.99 microtransaction to every man, woman, and child on Earth and weāll be rich?ā
Except now itās marketing to teh whales, āletās sell just one!ā
I always thought it was insanely dumb that they didnāt have more expansions for D3 considering it was one of the best selling games of all time. So if adding some cosmetic nonsense for people to buy gets us actual long term support and expansions, Iām all for it.
Iām sure there was more to it, and devs pulled to other projects, etcā¦but it was almost criminal that it got one real expansion and then a trickle of content that was apparently from a scrapped expansion afterwards (which was really cool stuff).
So hopefully theyāve learned from the shit fiesta that went on, because there is still nothing out there that feels as snappy and awesome as the combat loop in D3.
The expansions wonāt be free. Their price should pay for their development.
I mean, Reaper of Souls wasnāt free and they released the Necro later as DLC. So they could have done more paid expansions, but they chose not to.
Right as rain. They could and should have released a lot more content for D3.
My point was that thereās no need to sell cosmetics to finance DLC. The DLC is sold in exchange for money.
I have a feeling they didnāt bother since the removal of the auction house eliminated the only easy source of recurring revenue and they hadnāt built in the option of selling stuff on the side like WoW (or loot box crap like HoTS or Overwatch).
I could be wrong, but if so them building in small cosmetic stuff from the start could just make it have a longer support tail for all the management profit assholes that ruin everything they touch.
DLC, cosmetic sales, and some sort of seasonal battle pass are my predictions.
I donāt mind any of that so long as the core single-player experience with the cool cutscenes isnāt affected.
Iām totally fine with seasonal battle passes as long as it funds ongoing development. If they donāt really do anything (new content wise) with the seasons and instead I have to get access to it via $40-50 expansions, then no thanks.
If the battle pass funds ongoing development, then new content DLCs will be free, right?
Right?
Thatās right, right?
You arenāt arguing for monetizing a full-price game just for the sake of it, right? That would be anti-consumer, right?
The above was a bit tongue-in-cheek, if that didnāt come across. I would accept a battle pass and paid cosmetics in a $60 game with $40 expansions, in that I would still buy the game if it appealed to me, but I wouldnāt be happy about it one bit.
I guess it would probably be a combined expansion plus season pass, true. Depends on how frequently and consistently they can get the new stuff out.
For the record, Iām hoping not to play D4. Iām weak, though.
It took a lot for me not to play D:I, once reviews said it was a well-made fun game at its heart. I canāt imagine D4 would be monetized anywhere close to that level.
I assume D4 is going to follow the CoD model with seasonal Battle Passes with free and paid tracks, and cosmetic DLC stuff. I hope we get normal story expansions as well.
Soooo many games do the battle pass with free/paid tracks, I really had lost track of where it came from.
Cash shop, season/battle pass, cosmetics, etc.
Reading the section on Season Pass and the Shop, that all sounds ā¦ reasonable, actually. It doesnāt sound like I have to mess with any of it, as someone who doesnāt care about cosmetics.
As I predicted, its the Call of Duty model.
That sounds fine to excellent, depending on the section being discussed. Nothing about this is a turn off or anything - I mean, I played a lot of MtG Arena back in the day and that was a very enjoyable experience without spending any money. Of course, I expect Diablo 4 to be an expensive AAA game out of the box, so there better be some damn cool transmorg/cosmetic stuff available for players not delving into the shop.
I think it was Path of Exile that had really cool elemental effects on weapons gated behind the cash/cosmetic shop. That shit was fucking dumb. If I find a cool sword that deals extra fire damage, it better engulf my blade in flames dammit.