I am susceptible to FOMO, and I know it. Specifically, things that can be grinded for free, not caring about paid outfits as much. Only occasionally do those get me, but I weigh the cost/benefit much more. I try to limit my multiplayer games. The time between Rifts was like a nice break, but now that they do game modifiers between them all, it’s clear that BHVR wants people playing DBD 7 days a week. They aren’t nearly the worst about this, but I have noticed they’re trying to step it up.
Im nearly the opposite of fomo. I want to be special, so if everyone else is useing a skin, i dont want to use it. Also if i think a company is abusing limited time offers to get me to buy, i dont buy no matter what out of spite😅
@ but think of it this way: if you grind the special skin and then wait 7 months to a year, suddenly way less people have it and it feels unique by then
This is the shit that kills games for me. The devs expect you to play 7 days a week to unlock any of the cool shit they give away for free. I'm someone who plays many different games and bounces between them frequently, and therefore I am not able to unlock any of the cool limited time cosmetics in ANY of the games unless I play only that game for like a month straight.
bruh i bought a rift and i think its actually kinda crazy that if u finish the whole rift you can buy the next one from the real money coins you get back from it. they have an exact amount for the next rift in every rift. the whole thing is to get all those coins u gotta finish the whole rift which indirectly makes u play the game more to finish it in time. if they just had a system where u just buy every rift, the game wouldnt be as successful in keeping players in the game, which is more important then a one time transaction for a rift because more time in game = more time to contemplate buying a paid skin or dlc.
the main problem is that BHVR shuold allow us to play rifts/battle passes from the past, like halo infinite or deep rock galactic does. Halo Infinite is the only game and company that does it right
It’s so sad to me that BHVR initially had a shop system for DBD that didn’t utilize limited time skins at all and then added them in as a feature later. One of the greatest things about the in-game store was that you could buy whatever, whenever, but now they arbitrarily lock entire collections to 2 or 3 week spans of time each year. Personally speaking, my mindset is “well, if they’re adamant about preventing me from buying those skins, then I guess I just won’t.” It’s pretty much helped me develop an immunity to their FOMO tactics.
It's sad, but it makes a lot of sense for BHVR. DBD lives because there is an active community. They showed multiple times, that their goals and updates focus more on gaining new players, than keeping the old ones. Now limited time events/cosmetics/content is perfect to keep people interested in the moment. The players need to be active at the moment, to get the limited time stuff or experience the limited time event. DBD really only stays for as long as people play it and people still play it, because it gets updates and new content. To stop people from leaving while they are working on bigger updates and more content, they can just put time limited stuff in, like a "battle pass" or some cosmetics.
There's only so much fomo you can take before you give up and can't feel it anymore. Having other things to do such as taking care of a kid accelerates the loss of fomo.
Fomo is irational and it's to mane you buy something without thinking about it, once the fomo item is gone you stop caring, so if you actually miss it you very quickly just stop caring about it
I'm someone who is autistic and have chronic depression. I go to therapy, been doing so for several years, I've changed jobs to work on my mental health and I take antidepressants. I also have terrible impulse control, part of where I lie on the ASD-spectrum. Games are my favourite thing in the world, they have been so since the earliest years of my life. I know that I am susceptible to FOMO and other exploitative tactics. But I dont want to stop playing games either, I dont want to give up on a part that keeps me stable. But I'm also someone who needs to stop playing certain games because when my depression is at its worst I basically cant think rationally. And that sucks. Im lucky to have the financial stability to not get in trouble most of the time, but I really wish I didnt need to protect myself. I wish that I didnt need to go out of my way to work with my therapist on how to "trick" my brain into avoiding impulse purchases. I wish I wasnt constantly told to "just dont buy it". I like dressing up my characters in games, and show that off to the world. I'm just looking for moments of fun, and I'm really really tired of needing to abandon games once I realise my spending has gone out of control. I just want to enjoy the hobby that I've had since I was a kid
I think there's a middle ground between "unable to handle the emotion of missing something" and "emotionally uncaring of that thing or missing it". And that middle ground comes in a couple flavors. One being things you can grind for, but don't have the time to do so before it's gone. I've played plenty of games where you can buy the thing during the event, or do a bunch of grinding that I might not be able to do. And if I can't do it, it's often because I have work. But I have work, so I can just by it. If it were in a shop rotation or just added to a premium shop forever, I'm no longer incentivized to get it now and I can wait for a better paycheck week, or I can grind long term as a goal. Another flavor being inconvenience of waiting. Some games have shop rotations that re incredibly slow, and only get slower as the devs add more items. It might be slightly financially inconvenient to pick it up now, but what if I have to wait 6 months to see it in the shop again? What if I can't log in when it is back up and miss it entirely? The fear in FOMO isn't always debilitating fear, or inability to resist. Sometimes it's just intentionally inconveniencing your customers with regret of not getting it when they had the chance. It's intentionally not respecting player's time and effort. And I think that's the majority of FOMO as a marketing scheme, not just whales.
One thing that really pissed me off wasn't the FOMO itself but the fact the BHVR FOMOfied a few skins that had been in the game for years. The people who happened to buy Krampus Trapper before me didn't have to wait a whole ass year just to have a chance to buy it but now I DO.
DbD costs money to play. Period. The skins cost way too much for a "Not free to play game." PoE, Marvel Rivals, Fortnite and OW are all F2P. DbD has balls charging what they charge for cosmetics.
Agreed on all but Overwatch 2, that game has a terrible battle pass. To be fair, it’s a blizzard game, and they have always been one of the worst offenders when it comes to monetization in the industry no matter what genre they’re in. So they’re a little unique.
My older brother years and years ago said "We buy to support, we don't buy to own." I have bought a lot of POE cosmetics I have bought some titles multiple times sometimes to give to friends sometimes to just have. POE players in general say "We buy to support this game." and so long as the game continues to make pro-player choices, they are given a lot of rope on other stuff like monetization. I also played a lot of Marvel snap and often times I felt like morally I couldn't buy something in that game because I would be contributing in some small way to the monster of some predatory monetization schemes. If I spend 200 dollars to accelerate my collection I am rewarding a game for gatekeeping progression behind American Dollars which isn't something I want to do. I think fundamentally people push back on games when they don't think their interests are a high priority, the more disgruntled the community, or the more the players feel like they are being treated like piggybanks the less they are willing to contribute to those systems.
This. Snap was one of my examples too. What you said here is a huge part of why some free games are okay and some free games are predatory. They get you with the 'free' part, then try and keep you long enough to spend money on it so that they can hold you with sunk cost fallacy. A GOOD game that's free but the devs are cool and you can buy things to support it? Cool. That's like subscribing to someone's Patreon or something. I have a feeling POE is an exception to the rule not a rulemaker.
I know it wasn't brought up in the video. But Riot games has been doing this for $250-$500 skins that you have to literally GAMBLE for. And I think that's hit a point where lawmakers should actually get involved to stop that shit. It's preying upon people with control issues and basically just making them gamble an insane amount of money for it. People have literally gone into debt over it and it's absolutely disgusting.
Lawmakers have been cracking down on these game companies right and left. The company then stalls with their lawyers. They are seldom made to actually change it.
i literally stopped playing overwatch when my favorite youtubers started glazing overwatch's F.O.M.O bc "its the industry standard so its ok" and like, no the fuck it isnt
trust me fomo hits me hard. and it 100% is fear of missing out. i have issues with strong fears of regret and i do not want to regret not getting something. it's something i have to actively try and regulate every day with every game. i think the biggest issue i have with dbd's cash shop is the way it went from 'we won't do limited time cosmetics' to 'you get access to these once a year'.
I believe in government regulation of companies and not even just FOMO in gaming but companies in many industries use so many tactics of preying on people's fears and insecurities and the government or some higher authority needs to intervene and prevent situations like that from happening because it is incredibly immoral to abuse one's damaged mental health to profit. I random idea im giving here in the gaming industry should be that anything that is a limited time thing to obtain in a game that wont come back should NEVER cost money I think it is okay to make people play your game a lot so they can obtain something but making those people LOSE money because of their non perfect mental capacity is just insane.
Fortnite is a big game for this and im surprised it wasnt brought up during the video. Until VERY recently, battle pass skins were completely exclusive to the seasons they were released in. Its how battle passes themselves became commonplace, and many companies still follow this formula to this day. Battle passes sell almost exclusively off FOMO and it works extremely effectively, as their now widespread use can indicate.
the biggest thing about this recently for me has been league of legends. Riot has been releasing, and will be doing so more in the future, extremely high priced skins for popular characters. It's a very predatory practice as they promote it as an "exclusive and premium" thing to have, but you only have a month to get it and to get the skins you have to spend money on a gacha, which you're only guaranteed to get after spending $250 on said gacha. The chances of getting it even after spending $200 is around 30%, so theyre promoting this insanely overpriced skin but theyre justifying inflating the price by making it temporary and marketing it as a premium good. They also released a really awful and predatory skin for Faker (basically the most well known league player if not the most well known esports competitor) for $500... yeah 500 USD. For a skin. In league of legends. For one character. It's incredibly predatory to do this type of thing, there are genuinely mentally ill people who will buy things like this because of fomo, peer pressure etc and will do stupid things to buy it. I think it's a genuinely concerning thing that should be frowned upon and I'm really happy to see Scott talking about this. We can't be letting huge billion dollar companies get away with manipulating and preying on people because it's just going to teach them that they should do it more to profit more, which is exactly what Riot is doing, making gacha skins monthly that cost $250 to get guaranteed and if you don't get it in that month then F you cus you just wasted the $100 you saved up that month.
I dont think its good to have the mindset of "just accept that its going to happen", the reason that people will continue to suffer from this is BECAUSE it is so commonly exploited by corporations. Setting a standard so that its not accepted and reducing that will always be a good thing. Most corporations will do anything they can to make money and having general restrictions on these types of practices is strictly positive. Also regarding POE, I just think people dont complain about it because the demographic who is typically vocal about this kind of thing does not generally overlap with the demographic that plays POE. I personally did try POE for a bit a year or so ago and really hated the monetization locking quality of life behind a paywall and having cosmetics be so expensive and limited.
@@ScottJund well its a deeper rooted issue than just 1 industry, the problem is the systems and the systems can change if people dont get entirely complacent
@Aly_Cute I don't think lack of overlap in PoE is the reason. Most people in Poe (I hope) are aware how expensive this game is. Imo the only reason they don't get shit for it because they treat players with respect. For example: -stash tab prices stayed the same for ages -we get huge sales every so often -we get expansions in sizes of AAA dlcs (or bigger) every 3-4 months -every league we get free skins for completing challenges (which are enjoyable for most people) and free skins are as good or better sometimes than paid ones -game is free to try and require at most 20 usd to play endgame as a new player I could rant about it for a while. TLDR; They got a lot of good will from players because of consistant choices to make players happy. Bcs of that players feel good about supporting their favourite game instead of feeling like 'signing pact witht the devil'.
@@ScottJund Don’t be intentionally dense. The point isn’t that corporations will ever stop wanting to make money. The point is that they will *always* make money at the cost of everything else whether it be product quality or mental health(see: suicide rate of gambling addicts) and therefore need to be kept in check by regulation, voluntary pushback from consumers, or both.
I think the main contributing factor of being a victim of FOMO (as well as addiction) is being unable to set your priorities correctly. My friends in college used to gamble all the time so I joined them, but after moving into my own house and no longer getting maintenance loans I realised that I can’t gamble that much money away anymore and I have to prioritise my bank account for rent and food. And even at that time, I would buy all the brand new games on Steam and skins on DBD until I took a step back before buying and said to myself “do I really need this more than 15-50 bucks? Probably no.” Do I still want to gamble? Hell yeah. I grew up playing CSGO, of course I love gambling. But I’m able to set my priorities straight and seeing things in a long term scope, because if I do that, I can realise in a few weeks time after the skin is gone off the store, see someone use it in game, and consciously realise “oh, I don’t miss having that skin, yeah that 15 bucks definitely wasn’t worth it.” Those who have FOMO buy out of short term impulse without having a long term vision, and that sadness of FOMO definitely wears off after a surprisingly short while
For me it’s usually battlepasses and certain event skins (like Halloween/christmas). This especially gets bad when it’s for a character I main or particularly like. This gets especially really bad in gacha games (like identity v) where these cosmetics can go upwards of 500 dollars. It’s a big reason I’m upset at riot right now, for implementing their new gacha skin system for the “exalted” skins
It also really sucks because I’m stretched really thin between a lot of games, since most games nowadays have battlepasses and limited events that only last for days at a time. So here I am, having to grind 4 games at once for fear that I won’t be seen as a proper player if I don’t get the cosmetic. Sadly, sometimes this thinking isn’t even wrong. For some games, overwatch for example, you get pretty excluded from groups of players that like the same character as you for not having a certain cosmetic. Mercy players are a prime example of this.
My brother is VERY VERY susceptible to FOMO. Even though he doesn’t play DBD he buys nearly every licensed killer that comes out because he’s afraid that behavior is going to lose the license like they did with demogorgon.
Yeah, FOMO sucks. DBD has 5 whole time-limited collections right now in the in-game store that will be vaulted for a full year whenever the Bone Chill event ends. It's anti-consumer and pretty stupid. In the end, it's the concept of exclusivity that hurts everybody.
@@BarnesFlam Imma be honest, I dont consider seasonal cosmetics fomo. I actually like seasonal cosmetics that are only available at certain times of year. See I think DBD is perfectly fine, and is among the most anti fomo in the industry.
@@BarnesFlam Ive play ALOT which is exactly why I know DBD is among the best for fomo. It has the second best battle pass system ive ever seen, and if the worse thing you can bring up is seasonal cosmetics I think thats a damn good sign. Also what are you missing out on? They always come back next year, there is literally nothing you are missing out on.
Scott the difference between PoE and DbD is POE is free to play. You can beat the entire game without spending a single dime. Because there was no cost upfront, and no mandatory DLC, people care a lot less about POE's monetization. With DBD, not only is the game paid, not only are there mandatory DLC's to keep up with the meta, but there is ALSO FOMO on top of that. That's why it's unacceptable in Dbd but most people don't care about PoE. It isn't actually "the exact same".
Another comparison you should/could make is Warframe vs Destiny's monetisation schemes. People are a lot more forgiving of warframe for very similar reasons.
@@ScottJund Except it isn't because of the context in which the fomo exists, which I just explained. PoE is a free game. DBD is a paid game with lots of DLC, and FOMO on top of that. PoE is much less predatory with its monetisation in comparison. When people complain about FOMO in dbd, they aren't doing so in a vacuum. They have the broader context in mind. You can't treat FOMO as separate from the rest of any game's monetisation, it's inseparable and that context matters when drawing a conclusion.
@@clocked0 ...so again, its different levels of predation. its still predatory practice, you just feel like DBD's is more severe, but we are talking about different levels of the same exact thing.
@@ScottJund Predatory Fomo is still bad no matter who is doing it, however PoE is more acceptable because of the above reasons. Multiple things can be true. @clocked0 is right. You can't view this in a vacuum. Clocked isn't saying the methods of Fomo is different, merely the context in which they exist and WHY people are more accepting of it in a Free to Play game vs a Paid to Play game.
the reason gaming companies do limited time cosmetics is solely to try to boost their sales in a short period and unfortunately a lot of people don't have the spare funds for such things and miss out on it and sucks, I've been victim to that and is the main reason why I dislike FOMO. Its just them being greedy and nothing else and no need for it in any space at all.
I think the defining factor for when monetization like this is acceptable is 2 factors: Goodwill between the developers and the community, and just how good of a game it is. BHVR doesn't really have a high level of either of these, the game constantly breaks, and updates that have many months of effort in them still have game breaking bugs put out at release. The fact that they are willing as a studio (not saying it is any individual dev) to release updates that break the game worse than it is, and charge a pretty penny for it as well, gives the impression that the development cycle is only trying to maximize profit instead of building a fun, enjoyable game. Which there is other studios that are able to make polished games while also giving the opposite impression, showing it is possible. just my two cents on it.
I feel like this was preventable like 10 years ago. Nowadays, when you point out that something is predatory, there is a surprisingly big chance that you'll receive backlash from fans saying that either 1. they (company) need to make money somehow 2. just don't buy it lol 3. they give out free stuff from time to time, isn't that enough for you? We somehow went from $2 horse armor, which was unacceptable at the time, to people defending $20 time-limited skins. We're so far gone, it's practically impossible to go back. The worst examples of that are kids who were born in a world which was already ok with predatory microtransactions. Most people (mostly casuals) who buy this stuff don't even spend time on social media forums, see f.e. FIFA. So yeah, the only thing we can do is to slowly back out of this mess, step by step, slowly but surely. Teach the young folk that they're being sold overpriced content, push the boundary by praising new and more player-friendly practices, and make a big hoopla whenever a company tries to do something scummy again.
I think we tolerate less sh*t from DBD because of the total disconnection of BHVR with their own game and playerbase: game breaking bugs, OP perks, bad killers with lots of bugs that are 'fixed' by simply making buffing every aspect of them instead of addressing the bugs (houndmaster), very slow fixing of current bugs or quality of life, and I can go on and on...
I think some free games are actively more predatory, personally. When you want to start playing DBD, there's already a price of entry there, but the number of pay to win add ons is itself is extremely intimidating and over time increasingly unfair. There's a lot of games like that, but DBD add $10-$15 temporary availability skins as well--that said, you can always access a number of them, and variants, simply by playing the game. I have a lot of really nice skins for DBD that I bought with shards. Three games = guaranteed currency. Free games, however, seem to be experimenting with how much they can get away with from whales alone. Take the Marvel games of Marvel Rivals and Marvel Snap. Rivals has $22 skins, 7 temporary availability shop skins so far by the end of December (for a total of $152), the same month it launched. It's also given away four temporary availability skins so far (one alpha. one beta, one for Xmas, one for Twitch rewards). Unlike DBD there is NO WAY to get extra currency to buy skins by continuing to play the game--once you've maxed out what's available (enough to buy one skin), that's more or less it, and you can already see the community reacting negatively to discovering this fact. The extremely successful Marvel Snap is worse imo. $15 a month on the pay to win battle pass (you don't earn currency back to purchase it again, and the variants are that month only), for a total of $180 a year just on the pass--and buying card variants in the shop is $20 all the way up to $100 per card, with now thousands of randomized variants. I've watched people 'unpack' $500 worth of imaginary made up fake trading cards that only exist when you're logged into the game; pixels copy and pasted for whoever purchased the code for them, and I'll be honest it makes me nauseous. There is that feeling of FOMO, sure, but I think the fact that the price of entry is so high to 'being part of the club' is the bit that annoys me the most. Rather than give more people in your free player base the pleasure by making it affordable for everyone, they make it more beneficial to people who already have much more comfortable lives and money to burn on imaginary joy pixels--all so 3k people have the code to unlock the thing already installed on their PC instead of 12k people having it and paying 1/4 less for the privilege. Maybe it's a class thing, growing up without access to luxuries, but it makes you feel like a second class citizen when you're gaming in a free game alongside someone who's literally spent thousands on it. The deeper into the game you get, and the more energy you see spent on whales vs. actually supporting the game for everyone else, the more love is lost with the community. That's what DBD did. That's what Snap did. It's what I can guarantee Rivals is going to do, too.
To be fair to the self-control section, out of all my friends, I am the only one to regularly check my bank/card statements. Most just assume it was all legit because they don't have the time to fine-toothed comb over for discrepancies.
Limited stuff are really bad for disabled people because when it’s only earn-able through playing a bunch we miss out. My migraines mean I can’t play games for really long periods of time nonstop and sometimes have to just be in a dark room and it sucks. It makes me sad when I miss out cause of something I can’t help. It’s worse when you can buy stuff to skip and it’s feels like I’m being charged for being disabled
The problem with FOMO cosmetics is that it directly harms player expression. This is something that is directly led by emotion as it is purely related to aesthetic opinion and self expression. Players want to feel connected to the character they are playing and cosmetics are a great option to do this. The problem is that there are very rarely methods nowadays to obtain this customization without paying an absurd amount of money. FOMO increases this already existing issue by encouraging people to be more willing to spend money they should be spending out of fear of missing out on the cosmetic, on top of this said cosmetics then become completely unobtainable, essentially wasting the artists time that would otherwise add to a large catalogue of cosmetics for the purpose of fleecing the players for more money. Then you introduce battle passes which encourage players to spend time in games that they wouldn't normally spend grinding for a cosmetic instead of enjoying the game because they fear they may miss out on it, this leads to toxicity due to players feeling forced to play a game they don't want (very bad) for the purpose of inflating player retention numbers. All of this replaces a healthy cosmetic system which can be used by players to express themselves, because with a FOMO led in-game store why would you implement a free way to get cosmetics that are actually good?
Can you digress this from a game in which skins are earned some other way? Take, for instance, an action game where you unlock costumes through challenge achievements, but one handicapped player has lots of trouble completing that particular challenge.
@@Katana314 So people shouldn't be given rewards for achievements in the form of cosmetics because it could cause those who do not have the time nor experience with the game to be unable to obtain those cosmetics? I feel as if that's a very big strawman. Though i can see you point when it comes to limited time events (big reason i dislike battle passes) i do not see it being valid if there is no time restriction on obtaining the aforementioned cosmetic. No matter how difficult it is to obtain, the player would have the ability to work towards it in their own time if they wished to, the only time this would become next to impossible would be if the reward required a certain leader-board ranking as it would force said player to likely play in ways they don't want to get an advantage to obtain the reward.
The thing I don't like about fomo is I play games on and off. Sometimes I play it 5 hours a day, then I don't touch it for a month. Most battle pass/event/fomo stuff in games wants you to play the game all the damn time without leaving the game more than a day. If there is anything limited then I just have to randomly be playing the game at that time or I will never get it. If it's cosmetic then I usually don't care but if it's progression related then that sucks balls. And there are so many games that want your constant attention, it's hard to juggle more than a few
If you're interested in learning about FOMO and related issues, I recommend you familiarize yourself with the concept of Tolerable Level of Permanent Unhappiness. I think the term comes from discourse about toxic relationships where one partner abuses the other but the abused one doesn't leave because "it's not so bad". Fundamentally, the problem in this is that all abuse is bad but we draw arbitrary lines to permit some of it, finding excuses and justifications. FOMO is predatory by design and has no real justification in a digital world; digital goods are not a limited resource, the only reason why a digital good would disappear forever is because the seller wants it that way. And they do want it that way because that makes them quick and easy money now by preying on vulnerable individuals. I'm on the camp that says FOMO should be abolished and those who use it deserve condemnation.
For me, FOMO is a barrier, not a net. Knowing that I'm prevented from participating in or obtaining certain content in a game because it was time-sensitive feels like getting ripped off, so I avoid games that do this once they've been out for a while.
"Curious how people will voluntarily take showers but will avoid standing in the rain when the action is the same, I find that hypocrisy fascinating" -Scott "what is context" Jund
that doesn't make any sense in regards to what i said. you're trying to have your "i am very intelligent moment" giving me shit when you are literally doing that exact thing lol
@ScottJund nah plenty of peeps are roasting you for this and you haven't really addressed it that I've seen. Dbd using fomo is just objectively not the same as poe using fomo, due to context. Imo mostly due to being free to play, that alone makes a huge difference
@@Doomguy82984 Exactly. The FOMO could be the exact same in terms of how it's implemented, but the *context* is where the difference lies. If we want to have a broad conversation about FOMO in general and whether it's good or bad, that's one thing. But saying that a FtP game with it is the same as a Paid to Play game with it kinda misses the point.
@@Doomguy82984 i think what he means is by definition both games have FOMO but people dont wanna hate on GGG because its 99% cosmetics. league of legends is a free game but people are hating on riot because they are trying to implement gacha with FOMO in the game again purely cosmetic
@@Doomguy82984 Yea, the most important argument Scott already mentioned. Dbd is already pay to win so adding fomo on cosmetics is bs but, well... dont forget to vote on bhvr in labor of love
The only way to battle FOMO is by educating people how they are being manipulated. Most people can't stand the idea of someone getting over on them. You can never eliminate it, only control it. Like weeds or roaches.
People don't care for fomo poe because it's really hard to show off the cosmetics to other people. How to fix the problem? Easy. The governments need to act, if you offer digital products (such as skins) there is no reason for it to ever be limited and that shit should straight up be illegal
Maybe I misunderstood but you seemed to imply there's those who have no self control and those that do (or just don't care) and no in between. I'd say I'm in between. A lot of the time I don't care and think to myself how much will I really use the skin. If the answer is not often I don't buy and don't care but now and then I'll see a skin in leaving the store and I think "Oh, I might want to use it (even though I know I probably wont) and I cave an buy it just because it's leaving the store.
There have been a few studies looking at bullying related to skin ownership among schoolchildren in Norway, which may be related. Social anxieties and pressures can be pretty overwhelming with people starved for feelings of community inclusion.
Fomo in games is very real, especially in games where you can get more free things by playing more or completing certain stuff it keeps you hooked playing
My thing about DBD’s cosmetic system is that there’s SO many different options in so many different styles and neat opportunities to get free things. The free track of the battle pass usually has nice things for a lot of different characters. And a lot of cosmetics you can get with the free currency for playing. So I don’t care about the costs of things in dbd. You can get a LOT for free if you’re just patient
I think FOMO just happens to align with the "pay to accelerate" sort of model a lot of companies try to capitalize on. You mentioned adults with jobs falling victim to it but I think it doesn't even have to be so much of a lack of willpower but more of just a lack of time and energy. That's why almost every battle pass comes with some sort of way to buy more levels, since a lot of people will commit money to it and realize they're just too tired or busy from work, and that another 5 dollars or so is just the quick solution to what woulda been a few more days of grinding something out. I think FOMO mostly has a presence cos it's adjacent to that market or whatever, since putting a time limit on people is a quick way to make people with less time to spend feel pressured to pay up.
I dislike FOMO aspects in games because I feel that for the longest time it was antithetical to games. I enjoyed gaming as a hobby because it was something I could pick up, put down and then come back to later without having to be anxious about missing out on things. Especially nowadays that I am older and work a job that has me on shift 12+ hours plus community volunteering, it feels like I am being punished for not having enough time anymore to dedicate to all these different games with limited windows, so I have become much more scrupulous about what I give my time to. Singleplayer games get my attention first.
I'm glad that DBD is my only multiplayer game, because as a completionist that loves singleplayer games with lots of collectibles and variety of content, I HATE not getting everything in a game. I suffer from FOMO really bad, but I'm glad it doesn't mess up my money situation much, as many things on dbd that are limited are free. And the rift stuff is a one time payment as long as you finish it, so it's not costing me money every few months. Most I'll do is buy a new skin for my main survivor when they release, and maybe try to have a good skin for each killer, as long as it's not default and looks good, I'm happy.
When behaviour told the community stranger things was leaving DBD my head went FOMO and i instantly bought everything. From killer/survivors to all skins. When they announced stranger things will come back with all killer/skins 1 - 2 years later. That was the moment i will never buy a skin anymore in any game. The only thing i buy is the Rift pass because i get my money back and i will get like 15 - 20 skins for those 10 bucks.
There are actually some occasions where I think FOMO can have a positive effect for the purposes of gathering. When the carnival is in town, you can tell your friends “Hey, the carnival is this weekend! Only that weekend! Let’s go!” And people can plan around that. It centralizes the day of community. If the carnival was always there, people would go at random times or not care about going with their friend the weekend they’re going. I still acknowledge there’s a vein of exploitation when it comes to selling skins with a psychological ploy. Mostly, I want to be okay with things like Final Fantasy’s events where everyone happens to gather in Gridania’s event plaza wearing Santa or bunny outfits.
Its especially people with adhd (like myself) and OCD that are suseptible to it. The idea that you look at a "collection" of something and see that Locked icon and know you will never be able to get it again ugh thats the worst It makes me mad cause when there is a cool skin i dont wanna think: step 1 to get this skin, build a timemachine
Fomo kinda works in reverse for me. If I join a game late and see something I want and can't get because it was limited time I will often quit that game.
A lot of game companies have FOMO about missing out on the FOMO trend. Eventually fomo will be ineffective, companies want to dogpile it while they can.
FOMO when BHVR release a paid killer or survivor with overturned, P2W perks is the real issue in my opinion. Some people end up getting FOMO and buying DBD DLC only to abuse new, blatantly OP perks BHVR knowingly released because they know those perks will eventually get nerfed.
My cure for FOMO is time. After a few years I just stop caring. Why would I care about the exclusive 2024 skin when I already have the exclusive ones from 2023, 2022, 2021, etc.? I already have one that's MORE rare. I don't need to collect every new thing. Like i can't imagine a scenario where someone in the future would ever give a shit that I have something other than the earliest exclusives in a game.
I think the biggest example of fomo in modern gaming is battlepass and battle pass style systems. The persistent issue I find with them is that i pay for a product and if i dont use that product enough within a certain amount of time I may lose access to it. This doesnt result in fomo for me, but it does dissuade me from buying it, artifical lifespans to digital products is very close to the definition of fomo.
I used to suffer from grind to earn FOMO but once you break the cycle once it's broken forever. I really do hate what battlepasses in particular do to how people approach games. Especially when a company makes their battlepass grindier and grindier as time goes on.
The big thing looking at DBD in comparison to other games is that it picks up a free-to-play monetization model. You get into DBD and you are immediately assaulted by new pop-ups for collections. Your screen gets filled up with archive challenges that lead to the battle pass just like fortnite does it. Even the new free blood points you get as a weekly reward has you opening up the store page to get it. Things like this may not affect someone like me or you, it's intentionally designed to throw it in the face of someone who has a fear of missing out. In path of exile an actual free to play game the only time I see the store is when I missclick the store button. DBD also does things like linking sets that don't need to be linked despite community backlash and have made skins that were not tied to events only accessible during events years after the skins launched. I think DBD gets a lot more shit because the store is just in your face so much more often. The average casual POE player probably can't tell you how much a skin is worth but a DBD player definitely could even if they only hop on the game for 3 hours a week
Nah. This shit needs to be talked about as often as possible, because people will dismiss it if you don't constantly bring it up. Especially those that don't care how something is made and just want to get back to their call of duty, which is far more people than is ok.
I came to the conclusion that if I find myself to be playing a game just because I feel the need to outside of pure enjoyment (FoMO, excessive daily rewards, etc.) I generally just stop playing the game, and these days I'm pretty good at spotting it before I even pick up a game so I never even start playing. A lot of these game publishers, devs, executives, or whoever is making these core predatory concepts, need to be given their own fear of missing out. At least for me they are missing out on a potential customers, and I know in the grand scheme of their business, it doesn't make much of a dent, but as more and more people come to the same conclusion, eventually they will need to change. We're seeing a lot of love for indie games in the past couple years and I think a lot of that is purely because those games are often made because someone thought of a fun idea, not because some executive wanted to optimize money extraction, and at some point the actual optimized money extraction will overlap with just making a good fun game.
I've been trying to juggle 5 different games' winter event quests every single day on top of all of my other responsibilities bc I'm afraid of missing out.
I cant stop looking at how the mustache-gap is much shorter on one side of Scott's face than the other. You do you man but I can't take my eyes off it.
No matter what is done, the number of people who will spend money on microtransactions far outweighs the number of people who will NEVER spend money on microtransactions. Even if it's something they want. Whales aside, there is no way to protect people from themselves. Things will always be this way, and they will only get worse unfortunately.
I think that adding in "Usability" also really helps Path of Exile's case of being accepted. Every character can wear everything you buy. Sure there's weapon skins but I think that's the only case. DbD doesn't have characters sharing outfits (At least to not to the extent of PoE if it exists.)
Just some random thoughts on topics I think you missed or didn't discuss. Some of the acceptance I think depends on how much the game pushes or incentivizes a microtransactions and purchases. POE for example is largely a game about building a character and watching big number go up. Aside from the stash tabs (which don't really have FOMO other than sales) you don't see your character closely in detail very often if at all, and the look of your character is less important than what it does. On the other hand, your average gacha game is essentially locking new gameplay and characters behind a paywall that is also gambling. Not only do you "sort of" need to purchase it to play with the new character, but you also have to gamble for it, which makes it far less acceptable as it starts to feel like a necessity to play the game further. I could be wrong on all that, but that's my two cents on why some games with the same thing don't get lambasted for it like others do. Completely agree that game companies are not targeting kids for purchases as that would not be sustainable, but it is perhaps fair to criticize them for presenting a FOMO experience to a younger audience. In general, younger kids aren't as emotionally developed and it could be harmful long term to constantly present FOMO to them in games. Granted, part of this is just a "good parenting" problem to not let them play too much games (healthy balance) and also to teach them about FOMO and that the feeling is temporary (and no harm will come if they do miss out), but I can definitely still see why presenting FOMO to children, especially if they become your primary audience, is going to be lambasted. And it probably should be, to some degree.
As someone who has never had money to spend freely, I just don’t see how someone can regularly feel the need to spend $10 or whatever on a skin. Like that could be a few meals for me and I rarely feel enough joy out of seeing my game character dressed up in a rare outfit to justify not just saving my money. I get buying the occasional thing if you play a lot but I see so many people just buying stuff they barely want just because they can and it kinda disgusts me. I know it’s a predatory marketing tactic but reckless consumers are the real issue
I think we are getting close to having to put some laws in place with companies and developers in gaming industry. I don’t mind buying to help support but a lot of these companies are becoming to greedy. Sorry but a skin costing more than $10 that isn’t license is insane. It only takes about 5 people to buy a $10 skin for them to pay for the artist.
I think about Warframe for this topic too. The key difference is, Warframe (and I think POE) are not pay to win at all. You can grind to get basically every gameplay-affecting object. You can pay to bypass the farming, but you can't pay to differentiate your play experience for other players in any major way. They are also predominantly Player Vs Environment/Mob games, not PVP. DBD by comparison is pay to win PVP in the sense that there are survivor perks and killer powers/perks which differ in gameplay efficacy. Some are locked behind a premium currency (auric cells) rather than currency that's attainable by playing the game (iri shards). While you can grind shards to get licensed character perks based on the luck of them showing up as a random weekly offering, you can't grind for licensed killers at all. Those powers are forever locked behind premium currency. Its PVP nature also makes that feel more competitively inhibiting for some gamers. While I don't agree with this as an argument, I think that's what occurs in people's heads to create such a disdain for DBD. I think talking specifically about cosmetics in DBD distracts from their real issue of gameplay-affecting objects being locked behind a premium currency in a game they already paid for (the overall issue with game-effecting DLC throughout the industry). I have zero issue with companies making money. If they make money, they create experiences we (hopefully) enjoy. Artistic/creative people need to eat too. I think the issue (for the people that have it) is less about the exploitation and more about the differentiation in experience. It doesn't hold water logically though. Whether we like it or not, an individual's buying power tends to dictate their consumer experience.
tbh i don't feel that early access for a few days is a good example of FOMO. you're not missing out; you're just getting something a bit later and that something will always be there for you to buy and experience.
@Leaf__22 can you give examples of that? the only online game i play is dbd, so it's kinda difficult to imagine successful online games with early accesses throughout their lifetime
Nice rocko's modern life tshirt! Rocko and Ren and Stimpy were two of my dad and I's favorite shows back in the 90's, miss dad he passed in 2022. Apex legends and DBD are the kings of FOMO. If BHVR just did their battle passes so they were playable later like in Halo Infinite or in DRG, the game would be amazing. But BHVR don't care about us, they only care about money.
I of course, speak for myself when I say this, but FOMO only really affects me if the cosmetic is good and so in that instance, I can understand the feeling of FOMO for people. For example, when the AOT skins came out, I bought the AOT skins for Oni and spirit, and I haven’t bought another skin for them since because those skins are so cool and I don’t need any other skins but if I did miss those skins, I would be super sad because of how cool they were
The most popular form of fomo in gaming recently are battle passes. BUT there are games doing it right. For example DRG and SAR save their bps and you can finish them later. But fomo has also good side, having rare skin that can't be obtained anymore is kind of prestige, something to show of. But i would love if more games adapted possibility of doing old bps whenever you want.
i think there should be some rule where anything that is "limited" has to rerun within a certain amount of time, i think if all games had to do this they wouldn't bother making so much stuff exclusive, and if things still where, at least they would have to rerun them so the people worried about missing out probably wouldn't impulse buy as much of the stuff they don't really care about just cuz its limited.
Tangent since PoE monetization was mentioned I was certainly more receptive to Path of Exile monetization when they were an indie company making a game, and the 'supporter packs' actually supported the development, but back around Bestiary League they got bought up by Tencent, and I no longer felt like my support was needed when they had infinite money at their back. In regards to pushback, and lines, but not particularly about FOMO, there was a time when GGG tried to introduce an MTX-recycling lootbox, that you could feed duplicate microtransaction items into, and POTENTIALLY get something new - the community exploded in anger, and they ended up dropping the concept.
"PoE doesn't get much shit for its monetisation" is straight up not true. The reason I never jumped on PoE is the amount of trash their monetisation gets which I discovered when trying to get more info on the game.
On the other hand, never heard much hate for the monetisation in dbd. On others topics, sure, but not about monetisation. It's probably there, but I personally never encountered it... I think ever.
@@ScottJund In all seriousness, the game used to get quite a lot of ass for its monetisation since you need to pay for the QoL features, and the market, assumingly, is an asinine mess that requires real money or absurd time investment and you need to use it to play high-end content. That's the gist I got from browsing info on monetisation in PoE several years back.
I don’t think it’s necessarily about those who are the most affected by FOMO, just by nature it makes people spend ANY amount of money they otherwise wouldn’t if not for time exclusivity. Even as generous and frequent as steam sales are for example, they still make people buy games they otherwise wouldn’t, contributing to the $19,000,000,000 spent on unplayed games on steam. You can justify it for a specific company, but the practice by definition involves profit via exploitation.
Taking advantage of people with a lack of self-control is one thing, but it goes much deeper than that. It's often people who are addicted to the game, or they're depressed, and just in general easily able to be manipulated. Yes, they will suffer no matter what, one way or the other, but these companies still take advantage of them on purpose. There's no reason a Battle Pass needs to expire, but it does. The other thing is that even if their goal is to take advantage of these people it still has an affect on normal people. There is no shortage of amazing games that have been ruined because the developers promote FOMO, or P2W aspects, so that all that's left of your game are the people who think they can't walk away. DBD for example, they're happy to throw away all they've created in Rifts for FOMO, yet they have no issue keeping every single Tome for you to do at any time. You can spend $20 on a battle pass, that still demands you actively play the game to obtain its rewards. Often a casual player can't even make that work so they're immediately incentivized to pay money to get the tiers they're missing, so the initial investment feels worth it. That isn't even entirely a self-control thing. You're paying a monthly subscription to something that not only demands your money, but your time.
The best example is likely children and teens. Children in general do not have the emotional stability for impulse control. No fault of their own, of course, as they aren't expected to. We know the stories of kids taking their parents' credit cards and buying hundreds of dollars worth of in-game currency or cosmetics. F.O.M.O likely enhances this when cosmetics are limited time. As kids get older, it sometimes becomes less about impulse and more about fitting in. My friends have this, so I have to have it, or my favorite streamer always uses this skin. All the pros have this, and I need it to be better. Little things like that can make impulse harder to control regardless of maturity.
One big FOMO moment in my time is "Gates of Ahn'Qiraj Event". If you played WoW at that time, you know what I am talking about. May not be a monetary thing, but it was a huge time commitment and a perfect connection in January 2006.
It works on people who are susceptible to it, and those people have seemingly been increasing in numbers. Why that is, I don't really know. What I do know is that the moment a person realises that the thing they covet doesn't actually matter, and they don't actually need it, FOMO stops working on them.
You don't have to experience the feeling of FOMO yourself to imagine how bad it can be. If you have a game that you love and/or some degree of empathy toward your fellow players, wouldn't you feel bad that the game you play is preying on people's weaknesses--those they can't do anything about themselves? In games where those practices are even more aggravated, yet just as much commonplace like gacha games, wouldn't you feel somewhat embarrassed to admit you play games like that, or similarly, knowing you had a friend who has spending issues, how could you recommend it to them, even if the game was good and you just wanted to share the things you like with them? Even if something doesn't hurt me personally, it's hard to stand by something that hurts those who can't help themselves, even if they are a minority.
Is Scott going to delete this video? I don’t wanna miss this one but I can’t watch it right now
Why would he suddenly delete this video?
@@andrewpowell3723 it's a joke...
@@andrewpowell3723 Since he Privated his "Dracula is better than Spirit" you gotta FOMO-watch all of his vids before they're unlisted.
@@YillanTheVillain lol Ty kindly. Haven't really watched Scott's videos since DS2 days. Wasn't in on the joke T_T
@@andrewpowell3723You didn't miss anything.
I am susceptible to FOMO, and I know it. Specifically, things that can be grinded for free, not caring about paid outfits as much. Only occasionally do those get me, but I weigh the cost/benefit much more.
I try to limit my multiplayer games. The time between Rifts was like a nice break, but now that they do game modifiers between them all, it’s clear that BHVR wants people playing DBD 7 days a week. They aren’t nearly the worst about this, but I have noticed they’re trying to step it up.
Im nearly the opposite of fomo. I want to be special, so if everyone else is useing a skin, i dont want to use it. Also if i think a company is abusing limited time offers to get me to buy, i dont buy no matter what out of spite😅
@ but think of it this way: if you grind the special skin and then wait 7 months to a year, suddenly way less people have it and it feels unique by then
This is the shit that kills games for me. The devs expect you to play 7 days a week to unlock any of the cool shit they give away for free. I'm someone who plays many different games and bounces between them frequently, and therefore I am not able to unlock any of the cool limited time cosmetics in ANY of the games unless I play only that game for like a month straight.
bruh i bought a rift and i think its actually kinda crazy that if u finish the whole rift you can buy the next one from the real money coins you get back from it. they have an exact amount for the next rift in every rift. the whole thing is to get all those coins u gotta finish the whole rift which indirectly makes u play the game more to finish it in time. if they just had a system where u just buy every rift, the game wouldnt be as successful in keeping players in the game, which is more important then a one time transaction for a rift because more time in game = more time to contemplate buying a paid skin or dlc.
the main problem is that BHVR shuold allow us to play rifts/battle passes from the past, like halo infinite or deep rock galactic does. Halo Infinite is the only game and company that does it right
It’s so sad to me that BHVR initially had a shop system for DBD that didn’t utilize limited time skins at all and then added them in as a feature later. One of the greatest things about the in-game store was that you could buy whatever, whenever, but now they arbitrarily lock entire collections to 2 or 3 week spans of time each year. Personally speaking, my mindset is “well, if they’re adamant about preventing me from buying those skins, then I guess I just won’t.” It’s pretty much helped me develop an immunity to their FOMO tactics.
FOMO is a good thing! for cosmetic items or non-gameplay changing things.
@@davidcorodeanu4535did you even watch the video?
@@davidcorodeanu4535 hahahahahahahahahaha.. you're kidding right? Exploiting the human psyche for profit is a good thing in your eyes??????????????
@@davidcorodeanu4535 found the BHVR employee
It's sad, but it makes a lot of sense for BHVR. DBD lives because there is an active community. They showed multiple times, that their goals and updates focus more on gaining new players, than keeping the old ones. Now limited time events/cosmetics/content is perfect to keep people interested in the moment. The players need to be active at the moment, to get the limited time stuff or experience the limited time event. DBD really only stays for as long as people play it and people still play it, because it gets updates and new content. To stop people from leaving while they are working on bigger updates and more content, they can just put time limited stuff in, like a "battle pass" or some cosmetics.
There's only so much fomo you can take before you give up and can't feel it anymore. Having other things to do such as taking care of a kid accelerates the loss of fomo.
Basically, having a life makes fomo go away. 😅
this is super true, once you you slip from fomo to . . ."knowing you wont be able to keep up, so not bothering with any of it" you dont come back.
Fomo is irational and it's to mane you buy something without thinking about it, once the fomo item is gone you stop caring, so if you actually miss it you very quickly just stop caring about it
I get fomo when i watch my friends edge without me
same
get this man a true
Goon me goon me
U can join my gaggle of goons
real.
I'm someone who is autistic and have chronic depression. I go to therapy, been doing so for several years, I've changed jobs to work on my mental health and I take antidepressants. I also have terrible impulse control, part of where I lie on the ASD-spectrum. Games are my favourite thing in the world, they have been so since the earliest years of my life. I know that I am susceptible to FOMO and other exploitative tactics. But I dont want to stop playing games either, I dont want to give up on a part that keeps me stable. But I'm also someone who needs to stop playing certain games because when my depression is at its worst I basically cant think rationally. And that sucks. Im lucky to have the financial stability to not get in trouble most of the time, but I really wish I didnt need to protect myself. I wish that I didnt need to go out of my way to work with my therapist on how to "trick" my brain into avoiding impulse purchases. I wish I wasnt constantly told to "just dont buy it". I like dressing up my characters in games, and show that off to the world. I'm just looking for moments of fun, and I'm really really tired of needing to abandon games once I realise my spending has gone out of control. I just want to enjoy the hobby that I've had since I was a kid
I think there's a middle ground between "unable to handle the emotion of missing something" and "emotionally uncaring of that thing or missing it". And that middle ground comes in a couple flavors.
One being things you can grind for, but don't have the time to do so before it's gone. I've played plenty of games where you can buy the thing during the event, or do a bunch of grinding that I might not be able to do. And if I can't do it, it's often because I have work. But I have work, so I can just by it. If it were in a shop rotation or just added to a premium shop forever, I'm no longer incentivized to get it now and I can wait for a better paycheck week, or I can grind long term as a goal.
Another flavor being inconvenience of waiting. Some games have shop rotations that re incredibly slow, and only get slower as the devs add more items. It might be slightly financially inconvenient to pick it up now, but what if I have to wait 6 months to see it in the shop again? What if I can't log in when it is back up and miss it entirely?
The fear in FOMO isn't always debilitating fear, or inability to resist. Sometimes it's just intentionally inconveniencing your customers with regret of not getting it when they had the chance. It's intentionally not respecting player's time and effort. And I think that's the majority of FOMO as a marketing scheme, not just whales.
One thing that really pissed me off wasn't the FOMO itself but the fact the BHVR FOMOfied a few skins that had been in the game for years.
The people who happened to buy Krampus Trapper before me didn't have to wait a whole ass year just to have a chance to buy it but now I DO.
DbD costs money to play. Period. The skins cost way too much for a "Not free to play game." PoE, Marvel Rivals, Fortnite and OW are all F2P. DbD has balls charging what they charge for cosmetics.
Agreed on all but Overwatch 2, that game has a terrible battle pass.
To be fair, it’s a blizzard game, and they have always been one of the worst offenders when it comes to monetization in the industry no matter what genre they’re in. So they’re a little unique.
@brad1426 OW has the WORST battle pass for sure.
The problem are the idiots who buys them. They simply wouldn't do it if they didn't profit off of it.
@@RaffoPhantom Feng mains
Why do you think ow has the worst bp? What makes it so bad
My older brother years and years ago said "We buy to support, we don't buy to own." I have bought a lot of POE cosmetics I have bought some titles multiple times sometimes to give to friends sometimes to just have. POE players in general say "We buy to support this game." and so long as the game continues to make pro-player choices, they are given a lot of rope on other stuff like monetization.
I also played a lot of Marvel snap and often times I felt like morally I couldn't buy something in that game because I would be contributing in some small way to the monster of some predatory monetization schemes. If I spend 200 dollars to accelerate my collection I am rewarding a game for gatekeeping progression behind American Dollars which isn't something I want to do.
I think fundamentally people push back on games when they don't think their interests are a high priority, the more disgruntled the community, or the more the players feel like they are being treated like piggybanks the less they are willing to contribute to those systems.
This. Snap was one of my examples too. What you said here is a huge part of why some free games are okay and some free games are predatory. They get you with the 'free' part, then try and keep you long enough to spend money on it so that they can hold you with sunk cost fallacy.
A GOOD game that's free but the devs are cool and you can buy things to support it? Cool. That's like subscribing to someone's Patreon or something. I have a feeling POE is an exception to the rule not a rulemaker.
This makes more sense to me than, “I guess we’re all just hypocritical”
Every time you brought up not caring about cosmetics in the past, I imagine you as a guy who goes on tech support threads and says "mine works"
"It works on my machine."
@@lojk2 the period is really the icing on the cake
underrated comment
Some people genuinely believe the million dollar company cares about them and don’t see shit like “seasonal cosmetics” as F.O.M.O
I know it wasn't brought up in the video. But Riot games has been doing this for $250-$500 skins that you have to literally GAMBLE for. And I think that's hit a point where lawmakers should actually get involved to stop that shit. It's preying upon people with control issues and basically just making them gamble an insane amount of money for it. People have literally gone into debt over it and it's absolutely disgusting.
Lawmakers have been cracking down on these game companies right and left. The company then stalls with their lawyers. They are seldom made to actually change it.
i literally stopped playing overwatch when my favorite youtubers started glazing overwatch's F.O.M.O bc "its the industry standard so its ok" and like, no the fuck it isnt
trust me fomo hits me hard. and it 100% is fear of missing out. i have issues with strong fears of regret and i do not want to regret not getting something. it's something i have to actively try and regulate every day with every game. i think the biggest issue i have with dbd's cash shop is the way it went from 'we won't do limited time cosmetics' to 'you get access to these once a year'.
I believe in government regulation of companies and not even just FOMO in gaming but companies in many industries use so many tactics of preying on people's fears and insecurities and the government or some higher authority needs to intervene and prevent situations like that from happening because it is incredibly immoral to abuse one's damaged mental health to profit. I random idea im giving here in the gaming industry should be that anything that is a limited time thing to obtain in a game that wont come back should NEVER cost money I think it is okay to make people play your game a lot so they can obtain something but making those people LOSE money because of their non perfect mental capacity is just insane.
Fortnite is a big game for this and im surprised it wasnt brought up during the video. Until VERY recently, battle pass skins were completely exclusive to the seasons they were released in. Its how battle passes themselves became commonplace, and many companies still follow this formula to this day. Battle passes sell almost exclusively off FOMO and it works extremely effectively, as their now widespread use can indicate.
the biggest thing about this recently for me has been league of legends. Riot has been releasing, and will be doing so more in the future, extremely high priced skins for popular characters. It's a very predatory practice as they promote it as an "exclusive and premium" thing to have, but you only have a month to get it and to get the skins you have to spend money on a gacha, which you're only guaranteed to get after spending $250 on said gacha. The chances of getting it even after spending $200 is around 30%, so theyre promoting this insanely overpriced skin but theyre justifying inflating the price by making it temporary and marketing it as a premium good. They also released a really awful and predatory skin for Faker (basically the most well known league player if not the most well known esports competitor) for $500... yeah 500 USD. For a skin. In league of legends. For one character. It's incredibly predatory to do this type of thing, there are genuinely mentally ill people who will buy things like this because of fomo, peer pressure etc and will do stupid things to buy it.
I think it's a genuinely concerning thing that should be frowned upon and I'm really happy to see Scott talking about this. We can't be letting huge billion dollar companies get away with manipulating and preying on people because it's just going to teach them that they should do it more to profit more, which is exactly what Riot is doing, making gacha skins monthly that cost $250 to get guaranteed and if you don't get it in that month then F you cus you just wasted the $100 you saved up that month.
Yea I was already waning off of league but this was the last straw for me.
Seems to me like they’re targeting dumbasses and if you’re dumb enough to fall for it you deserve it
Welcome to apex legends
@@theanimestarter1697 bro apex skins cost like $20 thats nothing
I dont think its good to have the mindset of "just accept that its going to happen", the reason that people will continue to suffer from this is BECAUSE it is so commonly exploited by corporations. Setting a standard so that its not accepted and reducing that will always be a good thing. Most corporations will do anything they can to make money and having general restrictions on these types of practices is strictly positive. Also regarding POE, I just think people dont complain about it because the demographic who is typically vocal about this kind of thing does not generally overlap with the demographic that plays POE. I personally did try POE for a bit a year or so ago and really hated the monetization locking quality of life behind a paywall and having cosmetics be so expensive and limited.
my thoughts exactly ty for this
Well if you want to live in a fantasy land In which corporations suddenly don't prioritize making money id love to join you
@@ScottJund well its a deeper rooted issue than just 1 industry, the problem is the systems and the systems can change if people dont get entirely complacent
@Aly_Cute I don't think lack of overlap in PoE is the reason. Most people in Poe (I hope) are aware how expensive this game is. Imo the only reason they don't get shit for it because they treat players with respect. For example:
-stash tab prices stayed the same for ages
-we get huge sales every so often
-we get expansions in sizes of AAA dlcs (or bigger) every 3-4 months
-every league we get free skins for completing challenges (which are enjoyable for most people) and free skins are as good or better sometimes than paid ones
-game is free to try and require at most 20 usd to play endgame as a new player
I could rant about it for a while.
TLDR; They got a lot of good will from players because of consistant choices to make players happy. Bcs of that players feel good about supporting their favourite game instead of feeling like 'signing pact witht the devil'.
@@ScottJund Don’t be intentionally dense. The point isn’t that corporations will ever stop wanting to make money. The point is that they will *always* make money at the cost of everything else whether it be product quality or mental health(see: suicide rate of gambling addicts) and therefore need to be kept in check by regulation, voluntary pushback from consumers, or both.
i hope didnt miss out on this video
I think the main contributing factor of being a victim of FOMO (as well as addiction) is being unable to set your priorities correctly. My friends in college used to gamble all the time so I joined them, but after moving into my own house and no longer getting maintenance loans I realised that I can’t gamble that much money away anymore and I have to prioritise my bank account for rent and food. And even at that time, I would buy all the brand new games on Steam and skins on DBD until I took a step back before buying and said to myself “do I really need this more than 15-50 bucks? Probably no.” Do I still want to gamble? Hell yeah. I grew up playing CSGO, of course I love gambling. But I’m able to set my priorities straight and seeing things in a long term scope, because if I do that, I can realise in a few weeks time after the skin is gone off the store, see someone use it in game, and consciously realise “oh, I don’t miss having that skin, yeah that 15 bucks definitely wasn’t worth it.” Those who have FOMO buy out of short term impulse without having a long term vision, and that sadness of FOMO definitely wears off after a surprisingly short while
For me it’s usually battlepasses and certain event skins (like Halloween/christmas). This especially gets bad when it’s for a character I main or particularly like. This gets especially really bad in gacha games (like identity v) where these cosmetics can go upwards of 500 dollars. It’s a big reason I’m upset at riot right now, for implementing their new gacha skin system for the “exalted” skins
It also really sucks because I’m stretched really thin between a lot of games, since most games nowadays have battlepasses and limited events that only last for days at a time. So here I am, having to grind 4 games at once for fear that I won’t be seen as a proper player if I don’t get the cosmetic.
Sadly, sometimes this thinking isn’t even wrong. For some games, overwatch for example, you get pretty excluded from groups of players that like the same character as you for not having a certain cosmetic. Mercy players are a prime example of this.
this is why I love deep rock galactic. Every cosmetic from every season is available for unlock
My brother is VERY VERY susceptible to FOMO. Even though he doesn’t play DBD he buys nearly every licensed killer that comes out because he’s afraid that behavior is going to lose the license like they did with demogorgon.
Yeah, FOMO sucks. DBD has 5 whole time-limited collections right now in the in-game store that will be vaulted for a full year whenever the Bone Chill event ends. It's anti-consumer and pretty stupid.
In the end, it's the concept of exclusivity that hurts everybody.
Sure as hell beats Fortnite having over 50% of its skins being impossible to obtain in 2024
@luderezeus For sure, but it is still bad, and I don't want any whataboutisme to serve as a excuse as why DBD can't drop all FOMO together
@@BarnesFlam Imma be honest, I dont consider seasonal cosmetics fomo.
I actually like seasonal cosmetics that are only available at certain times of year.
See I think DBD is perfectly fine, and is among the most anti fomo in the industry.
@@luderezeus Then you have clearly not played enough games at all. Disagreeing with what is basically the definition of FOMO isn't smart.
@@BarnesFlam Ive play ALOT which is exactly why I know DBD is among the best for fomo.
It has the second best battle pass system ive ever seen, and if the worse thing you can bring up is seasonal cosmetics I think thats a damn good sign.
Also what are you missing out on? They always come back next year, there is literally nothing you are missing out on.
Scott the difference between PoE and DbD is POE is free to play. You can beat the entire game without spending a single dime.
Because there was no cost upfront, and no mandatory DLC, people care a lot less about POE's monetization.
With DBD, not only is the game paid, not only are there mandatory DLC's to keep up with the meta, but there is ALSO FOMO on top of that.
That's why it's unacceptable in Dbd but most people don't care about PoE.
It isn't actually "the exact same".
Another comparison you should/could make is Warframe vs Destiny's monetisation schemes. People are a lot more forgiving of warframe for very similar reasons.
But it is the same. You just accept it more. They still both feature limited time expensive skins you don't "need"
@@ScottJund Except it isn't because of the context in which the fomo exists, which I just explained. PoE is a free game. DBD is a paid game with lots of DLC, and FOMO on top of that. PoE is much less predatory with its monetisation in comparison.
When people complain about FOMO in dbd, they aren't doing so in a vacuum. They have the broader context in mind. You can't treat FOMO as separate from the rest of any game's monetisation, it's inseparable and that context matters when drawing a conclusion.
@@clocked0 ...so again, its different levels of predation. its still predatory practice, you just feel like DBD's is more severe, but we are talking about different levels of the same exact thing.
@@ScottJund Predatory Fomo is still bad no matter who is doing it, however PoE is more acceptable because of the above reasons. Multiple things can be true. @clocked0 is right. You can't view this in a vacuum. Clocked isn't saying the methods of Fomo is different, merely the context in which they exist and WHY people are more accepting of it in a Free to Play game vs a Paid to Play game.
the reason gaming companies do limited time cosmetics is solely to try to boost their sales in a short period and unfortunately a lot of people don't have the spare funds for such things and miss out on it and sucks, I've been victim to that and is the main reason why I dislike FOMO. Its just them being greedy and nothing else and no need for it in any space at all.
When it comes to consumer vs corporation always take the side of the consumer.
I think the defining factor for when monetization like this is acceptable is 2 factors: Goodwill between the developers and the community, and just how good of a game it is. BHVR doesn't really have a high level of either of these, the game constantly breaks, and updates that have many months of effort in them still have game breaking bugs put out at release. The fact that they are willing as a studio (not saying it is any individual dev) to release updates that break the game worse than it is, and charge a pretty penny for it as well, gives the impression that the development cycle is only trying to maximize profit instead of building a fun, enjoyable game. Which there is other studios that are able to make polished games while also giving the opposite impression, showing it is possible. just my two cents on it.
I feel like this was preventable like 10 years ago. Nowadays, when you point out that something is predatory, there is a surprisingly big chance that you'll receive backlash from fans saying that either 1. they (company) need to make money somehow 2. just don't buy it lol 3. they give out free stuff from time to time, isn't that enough for you?
We somehow went from $2 horse armor, which was unacceptable at the time, to people defending $20 time-limited skins. We're so far gone, it's practically impossible to go back. The worst examples of that are kids who were born in a world which was already ok with predatory microtransactions. Most people (mostly casuals) who buy this stuff don't even spend time on social media forums, see f.e. FIFA.
So yeah, the only thing we can do is to slowly back out of this mess, step by step, slowly but surely. Teach the young folk that they're being sold overpriced content, push the boundary by praising new and more player-friendly practices, and make a big hoopla whenever a company tries to do something scummy again.
Always a fan when you talk about this stuff. Thanks Scott!
I think we tolerate less sh*t from DBD because of the total disconnection of BHVR with their own game and playerbase: game breaking bugs, OP perks, bad killers with lots of bugs that are 'fixed' by simply making buffing every aspect of them instead of addressing the bugs (houndmaster), very slow fixing of current bugs or quality of life, and I can go on and on...
Then stop playing the game
I think some free games are actively more predatory, personally. When you want to start playing DBD, there's already a price of entry there, but the number of pay to win add ons is itself is extremely intimidating and over time increasingly unfair. There's a lot of games like that, but DBD add $10-$15 temporary availability skins as well--that said, you can always access a number of them, and variants, simply by playing the game. I have a lot of really nice skins for DBD that I bought with shards. Three games = guaranteed currency.
Free games, however, seem to be experimenting with how much they can get away with from whales alone. Take the Marvel games of Marvel Rivals and Marvel Snap. Rivals has $22 skins, 7 temporary availability shop skins so far by the end of December (for a total of $152), the same month it launched. It's also given away four temporary availability skins so far (one alpha. one beta, one for Xmas, one for Twitch rewards). Unlike DBD there is NO WAY to get extra currency to buy skins by continuing to play the game--once you've maxed out what's available (enough to buy one skin), that's more or less it, and you can already see the community reacting negatively to discovering this fact.
The extremely successful Marvel Snap is worse imo. $15 a month on the pay to win battle pass (you don't earn currency back to purchase it again, and the variants are that month only), for a total of $180 a year just on the pass--and buying card variants in the shop is $20 all the way up to $100 per card, with now thousands of randomized variants. I've watched people 'unpack' $500 worth of imaginary made up fake trading cards that only exist when you're logged into the game; pixels copy and pasted for whoever purchased the code for them, and I'll be honest it makes me nauseous.
There is that feeling of FOMO, sure, but I think the fact that the price of entry is so high to 'being part of the club' is the bit that annoys me the most. Rather than give more people in your free player base the pleasure by making it affordable for everyone, they make it more beneficial to people who already have much more comfortable lives and money to burn on imaginary joy pixels--all so 3k people have the code to unlock the thing already installed on their PC instead of 12k people having it and paying 1/4 less for the privilege. Maybe it's a class thing, growing up without access to luxuries, but it makes you feel like a second class citizen when you're gaming in a free game alongside someone who's literally spent thousands on it. The deeper into the game you get, and the more energy you see spent on whales vs. actually supporting the game for everyone else, the more love is lost with the community. That's what DBD did. That's what Snap did. It's what I can guarantee Rivals is going to do, too.
To be fair to the self-control section, out of all my friends, I am the only one to regularly check my bank/card statements. Most just assume it was all legit because they don't have the time to fine-toothed comb over for discrepancies.
Limited stuff are really bad for disabled people because when it’s only earn-able through playing a bunch we miss out. My migraines mean I can’t play games for really long periods of time nonstop and sometimes have to just be in a dark room and it sucks. It makes me sad when I miss out cause of something I can’t help. It’s worse when you can buy stuff to skip and it’s feels like I’m being charged for being disabled
The problem with FOMO cosmetics is that it directly harms player expression. This is something that is directly led by emotion as it is purely related to aesthetic opinion and self expression. Players want to feel connected to the character they are playing and cosmetics are a great option to do this. The problem is that there are very rarely methods nowadays to obtain this customization without paying an absurd amount of money. FOMO increases this already existing issue by encouraging people to be more willing to spend money they should be spending out of fear of missing out on the cosmetic, on top of this said cosmetics then become completely unobtainable, essentially wasting the artists time that would otherwise add to a large catalogue of cosmetics for the purpose of fleecing the players for more money. Then you introduce battle passes which encourage players to spend time in games that they wouldn't normally spend grinding for a cosmetic instead of enjoying the game because they fear they may miss out on it, this leads to toxicity due to players feeling forced to play a game they don't want (very bad) for the purpose of inflating player retention numbers.
All of this replaces a healthy cosmetic system which can be used by players to express themselves, because with a FOMO led in-game store why would you implement a free way to get cosmetics that are actually good?
Can you digress this from a game in which skins are earned some other way? Take, for instance, an action game where you unlock costumes through challenge achievements, but one handicapped player has lots of trouble completing that particular challenge.
@@Katana314 So people shouldn't be given rewards for achievements in the form of cosmetics because it could cause those who do not have the time nor experience with the game to be unable to obtain those cosmetics?
I feel as if that's a very big strawman. Though i can see you point when it comes to limited time events (big reason i dislike battle passes) i do not see it being valid if there is no time restriction on obtaining the aforementioned cosmetic. No matter how difficult it is to obtain, the player would have the ability to work towards it in their own time if they wished to, the only time this would become next to impossible would be if the reward required a certain leader-board ranking as it would force said player to likely play in ways they don't want to get an advantage to obtain the reward.
The thing I don't like about fomo is I play games on and off. Sometimes I play it 5 hours a day, then I don't touch it for a month. Most battle pass/event/fomo stuff in games wants you to play the game all the damn time without leaving the game more than a day. If there is anything limited then I just have to randomly be playing the game at that time or I will never get it. If it's cosmetic then I usually don't care but if it's progression related then that sucks balls. And there are so many games that want your constant attention, it's hard to juggle more than a few
If you're interested in learning about FOMO and related issues, I recommend you familiarize yourself with the concept of Tolerable Level of Permanent Unhappiness. I think the term comes from discourse about toxic relationships where one partner abuses the other but the abused one doesn't leave because "it's not so bad". Fundamentally, the problem in this is that all abuse is bad but we draw arbitrary lines to permit some of it, finding excuses and justifications. FOMO is predatory by design and has no real justification in a digital world; digital goods are not a limited resource, the only reason why a digital good would disappear forever is because the seller wants it that way. And they do want it that way because that makes them quick and easy money now by preying on vulnerable individuals. I'm on the camp that says FOMO should be abolished and those who use it deserve condemnation.
For me, FOMO is a barrier, not a net. Knowing that I'm prevented from participating in or obtaining certain content in a game because it was time-sensitive feels like getting ripped off, so I avoid games that do this once they've been out for a while.
"Curious how people will voluntarily take showers but will avoid standing in the rain when the action is the same, I find that hypocrisy fascinating"
-Scott "what is context" Jund
that doesn't make any sense in regards to what i said. you're trying to have your "i am very intelligent moment" giving me shit when you are literally doing that exact thing lol
@ScottJund nah plenty of peeps are roasting you for this and you haven't really addressed it that I've seen. Dbd using fomo is just objectively not the same as poe using fomo, due to context. Imo mostly due to being free to play, that alone makes a huge difference
@@Doomguy82984 Exactly. The FOMO could be the exact same in terms of how it's implemented, but the *context* is where the difference lies. If we want to have a broad conversation about FOMO in general and whether it's good or bad, that's one thing. But saying that a FtP game with it is the same as a Paid to Play game with it kinda misses the point.
@@Doomguy82984 i think what he means is by definition both games have FOMO but people dont wanna hate on GGG because its 99% cosmetics. league of legends is a free game but people are hating on riot because they are trying to implement gacha with FOMO in the game again purely cosmetic
@@Doomguy82984 Yea, the most important argument Scott already mentioned. Dbd is already pay to win so adding fomo on cosmetics is bs but, well... dont forget to vote on bhvr in labor of love
The only way to battle FOMO is by educating people how they are being manipulated. Most people can't stand the idea of someone getting over on them. You can never eliminate it, only control it. Like weeds or roaches.
People don't care for fomo poe because it's really hard to show off the cosmetics to other people.
How to fix the problem? Easy. The governments need to act, if you offer digital products (such as skins) there is no reason for it to ever be limited and that shit should straight up be illegal
Maybe I misunderstood but you seemed to imply there's those who have no self control and those that do (or just don't care) and no in between. I'd say I'm in between. A lot of the time I don't care and think to myself how much will I really use the skin. If the answer is not often I don't buy and don't care but now and then I'll see a skin in leaving the store and I think "Oh, I might want to use it (even though I know I probably wont) and I cave an buy it just because it's leaving the store.
felt good in my soul to hear Scott call BHVR "Hitler" ...accurate
The Only FOMO I get is not completing an Event Tome and such.
There have been a few studies looking at bullying related to skin ownership among schoolchildren in Norway, which may be related. Social anxieties and pressures can be pretty overwhelming with people starved for feelings of community inclusion.
Fomo in games is very real, especially in games where you can get more free things by playing more or completing certain stuff it keeps you hooked playing
My thing about DBD’s cosmetic system is that there’s SO many different options in so many different styles and neat opportunities to get free things. The free track of the battle pass usually has nice things for a lot of different characters. And a lot of cosmetics you can get with the free currency for playing. So I don’t care about the costs of things in dbd. You can get a LOT for free if you’re just patient
I think FOMO just happens to align with the "pay to accelerate" sort of model a lot of companies try to capitalize on. You mentioned adults with jobs falling victim to it but I think it doesn't even have to be so much of a lack of willpower but more of just a lack of time and energy. That's why almost every battle pass comes with some sort of way to buy more levels, since a lot of people will commit money to it and realize they're just too tired or busy from work, and that another 5 dollars or so is just the quick solution to what woulda been a few more days of grinding something out. I think FOMO mostly has a presence cos it's adjacent to that market or whatever, since putting a time limit on people is a quick way to make people with less time to spend feel pressured to pay up.
I dislike FOMO aspects in games because I feel that for the longest time it was antithetical to games. I enjoyed gaming as a hobby because it was something I could pick up, put down and then come back to later without having to be anxious about missing out on things. Especially nowadays that I am older and work a job that has me on shift 12+ hours plus community volunteering, it feels like I am being punished for not having enough time anymore to dedicate to all these different games with limited windows, so I have become much more scrupulous about what I give my time to. Singleplayer games get my attention first.
0:44 my dude you just answered yourself why FOMO a thing (for others though, since you say you personally dont care)
MORE JUND GAMING INDUSTRY COMMENTARY 🦅 RAHHHHH 🦅 🎉
I'm glad that DBD is my only multiplayer game, because as a completionist that loves singleplayer games with lots of collectibles and variety of content, I HATE not getting everything in a game. I suffer from FOMO really bad, but I'm glad it doesn't mess up my money situation much, as many things on dbd that are limited are free. And the rift stuff is a one time payment as long as you finish it, so it's not costing me money every few months. Most I'll do is buy a new skin for my main survivor when they release, and maybe try to have a good skin for each killer, as long as it's not default and looks good, I'm happy.
If it's cheap, but if they're charging a finger for it, then they can keep their digital garbage on their imaginary dusty shelf.
My boy, this digital slop is what all true normies strive for.
When behaviour told the community stranger things was leaving DBD my head went FOMO and i instantly bought everything. From killer/survivors to all skins. When they announced stranger things will come back with all killer/skins 1 - 2 years later. That was the moment i will never buy a skin anymore in any game. The only thing i buy is the Rift pass because i get my money back and i will get like 15 - 20 skins for those 10 bucks.
thats different tho they legitimately lost the license and had to remove the content as a result. they then gained the license again
There are actually some occasions where I think FOMO can have a positive effect for the purposes of gathering. When the carnival is in town, you can tell your friends “Hey, the carnival is this weekend! Only that weekend! Let’s go!” And people can plan around that. It centralizes the day of community. If the carnival was always there, people would go at random times or not care about going with their friend the weekend they’re going.
I still acknowledge there’s a vein of exploitation when it comes to selling skins with a psychological ploy. Mostly, I want to be okay with things like Final Fantasy’s events where everyone happens to gather in Gridania’s event plaza wearing Santa or bunny outfits.
Its especially people with adhd (like myself) and OCD that are suseptible to it. The idea that you look at a "collection" of something and see that Locked icon and know you will never be able to get it again ugh thats the worst
It makes me mad cause when there is a cool skin i dont wanna think:
step 1 to get this skin, build a timemachine
Fomo kinda works in reverse for me. If I join a game late and see something I want and can't get because it was limited time I will often quit that game.
Same.
A lot of game companies have FOMO about missing out on the FOMO trend.
Eventually fomo will be ineffective, companies want to dogpile it while they can.
FOMO when BHVR release a paid killer or survivor with overturned, P2W perks is the real issue in my opinion.
Some people end up getting FOMO and buying DBD DLC only to abuse new, blatantly OP perks BHVR knowingly released because they know those perks will eventually get nerfed.
My cure for FOMO is time. After a few years I just stop caring. Why would I care about the exclusive 2024 skin when I already have the exclusive ones from 2023, 2022, 2021, etc.? I already have one that's MORE rare. I don't need to collect every new thing. Like i can't imagine a scenario where someone in the future would ever give a shit that I have something other than the earliest exclusives in a game.
Bg3 also upgraded everyone who preordered the standard edition to the deluxe sooo basically anyone who preorder played early
the only fomo I've ever had in DBD is the honeycomb Billy weapon because Billy was pretty ass last year
Scott missed Wraith's holiday weapon last year and this is his cope session.
I think the biggest example of fomo in modern gaming is battlepass and battle pass style systems. The persistent issue I find with them is that i pay for a product and if i dont use that product enough within a certain amount of time I may lose access to it. This doesnt result in fomo for me, but it does dissuade me from buying it, artifical lifespans to digital products is very close to the definition of fomo.
I used to suffer from grind to earn FOMO but once you break the cycle once it's broken forever. I really do hate what battlepasses in particular do to how people approach games. Especially when a company makes their battlepass grindier and grindier as time goes on.
The big thing looking at DBD in comparison to other games is that it picks up a free-to-play monetization model. You get into DBD and you are immediately assaulted by new pop-ups for collections. Your screen gets filled up with archive challenges that lead to the battle pass just like fortnite does it. Even the new free blood points you get as a weekly reward has you opening up the store page to get it.
Things like this may not affect someone like me or you, it's intentionally designed to throw it in the face of someone who has a fear of missing out. In path of exile an actual free to play game the only time I see the store is when I missclick the store button.
DBD also does things like linking sets that don't need to be linked despite community backlash and have made skins that were not tied to events only accessible during events years after the skins launched.
I think DBD gets a lot more shit because the store is just in your face so much more often. The average casual POE player probably can't tell you how much a skin is worth but a DBD player definitely could even if they only hop on the game for 3 hours a week
On today's episode of "Scott is a Decade late to the party"
Nah. This shit needs to be talked about as often as possible, because people will dismiss it if you don't constantly bring it up. Especially those that don't care how something is made and just want to get back to their call of duty, which is far more people than is ok.
There’s currently a FOMO cosmetic in the DBD shop, I’d say this is a pretty timely video
To both of my replies: never said this wasn't a relevant video, just that the title is hilariously a decade late, it rose forever ago
Fair enough.
I came to the conclusion that if I find myself to be playing a game just because I feel the need to outside of pure enjoyment (FoMO, excessive daily rewards, etc.) I generally just stop playing the game, and these days I'm pretty good at spotting it before I even pick up a game so I never even start playing. A lot of these game publishers, devs, executives, or whoever is making these core predatory concepts, need to be given their own fear of missing out. At least for me they are missing out on a potential customers, and I know in the grand scheme of their business, it doesn't make much of a dent, but as more and more people come to the same conclusion, eventually they will need to change. We're seeing a lot of love for indie games in the past couple years and I think a lot of that is purely because those games are often made because someone thought of a fun idea, not because some executive wanted to optimize money extraction, and at some point the actual optimized money extraction will overlap with just making a good fun game.
This is exactly what Fortnite is doing right now with Renegade Raider. Warframe as well with the heirloom skins.
I've been trying to juggle 5 different games' winter event quests every single day on top of all of my other responsibilities bc I'm afraid of missing out.
I cant stop looking at how the mustache-gap is much shorter on one side of Scott's face than the other. You do you man but I can't take my eyes off it.
idk if it's been rising, marvel rivals just released and battlepasses can be completed after the end date, super anti fomo.
No matter what is done, the number of people who will spend money on microtransactions far outweighs the number of people who will NEVER spend money on microtransactions. Even if it's something they want. Whales aside, there is no way to protect people from themselves. Things will always be this way, and they will only get worse unfortunately.
I think that adding in "Usability" also really helps Path of Exile's case of being accepted. Every character can wear everything you buy. Sure there's weapon skins but I think that's the only case. DbD doesn't have characters sharing outfits (At least to not to the extent of PoE if it exists.)
Just some random thoughts on topics I think you missed or didn't discuss.
Some of the acceptance I think depends on how much the game pushes or incentivizes a microtransactions and purchases. POE for example is largely a game about building a character and watching big number go up. Aside from the stash tabs (which don't really have FOMO other than sales) you don't see your character closely in detail very often if at all, and the look of your character is less important than what it does. On the other hand, your average gacha game is essentially locking new gameplay and characters behind a paywall that is also gambling. Not only do you "sort of" need to purchase it to play with the new character, but you also have to gamble for it, which makes it far less acceptable as it starts to feel like a necessity to play the game further. I could be wrong on all that, but that's my two cents on why some games with the same thing don't get lambasted for it like others do.
Completely agree that game companies are not targeting kids for purchases as that would not be sustainable, but it is perhaps fair to criticize them for presenting a FOMO experience to a younger audience. In general, younger kids aren't as emotionally developed and it could be harmful long term to constantly present FOMO to them in games. Granted, part of this is just a "good parenting" problem to not let them play too much games (healthy balance) and also to teach them about FOMO and that the feeling is temporary (and no harm will come if they do miss out), but I can definitely still see why presenting FOMO to children, especially if they become your primary audience, is going to be lambasted. And it probably should be, to some degree.
I can't stop looking at the last "O" without a "." after it
As someone who has never had money to spend freely, I just don’t see how someone can regularly feel the need to spend $10 or whatever on a skin. Like that could be a few meals for me and I rarely feel enough joy out of seeing my game character dressed up in a rare outfit to justify not just saving my money. I get buying the occasional thing if you play a lot but I see so many people just buying stuff they barely want just because they can and it kinda disgusts me. I know it’s a predatory marketing tactic but reckless consumers are the real issue
I used to have this until I realized games are just games. They don't affect my real life
I think we are getting close to having to put some laws in place with companies and developers in gaming industry. I don’t mind buying to help support but a lot of these companies are becoming to greedy. Sorry but a skin costing more than $10 that isn’t license is insane. It only takes about 5 people to buy a $10 skin for them to pay for the artist.
I think about Warframe for this topic too. The key difference is, Warframe (and I think POE) are not pay to win at all. You can grind to get basically every gameplay-affecting object. You can pay to bypass the farming, but you can't pay to differentiate your play experience for other players in any major way. They are also predominantly Player Vs Environment/Mob games, not PVP.
DBD by comparison is pay to win PVP in the sense that there are survivor perks and killer powers/perks which differ in gameplay efficacy. Some are locked behind a premium currency (auric cells) rather than currency that's attainable by playing the game (iri shards). While you can grind shards to get licensed character perks based on the luck of them showing up as a random weekly offering, you can't grind for licensed killers at all. Those powers are forever locked behind premium currency. Its PVP nature also makes that feel more competitively inhibiting for some gamers.
While I don't agree with this as an argument, I think that's what occurs in people's heads to create such a disdain for DBD. I think talking specifically about cosmetics in DBD distracts from their real issue of gameplay-affecting objects being locked behind a premium currency in a game they already paid for (the overall issue with game-effecting DLC throughout the industry).
I have zero issue with companies making money. If they make money, they create experiences we (hopefully) enjoy. Artistic/creative people need to eat too. I think the issue (for the people that have it) is less about the exploitation and more about the differentiation in experience. It doesn't hold water logically though. Whether we like it or not, an individual's buying power tends to dictate their consumer experience.
tbh i don't feel that early access for a few days is a good example of FOMO. you're not missing out; you're just getting something a bit later and that something will always be there for you to buy and experience.
Depends on what game it is. Definitely sucks in multiplayer games
@Leaf__22 can you give examples of that? the only online game i play is dbd, so it's kinda difficult to imagine successful online games with early accesses throughout their lifetime
Nice rocko's modern life tshirt! Rocko and Ren and Stimpy were two of my dad and I's favorite shows back in the 90's, miss dad he passed in 2022.
Apex legends and DBD are the kings of FOMO.
If BHVR just did their battle passes so they were playable later like in Halo Infinite or in DRG, the game would be amazing.
But BHVR don't care about us, they only care about money.
I of course, speak for myself when I say this, but FOMO only really affects me if the cosmetic is good and so in that instance, I can understand the feeling of FOMO for people. For example, when the AOT skins came out, I bought the AOT skins for Oni and spirit, and I haven’t bought another skin for them since because those skins are so cool and I don’t need any other skins but if I did miss those skins, I would be super sad because of how cool they were
Off topic but looking good today my guy
The most popular form of fomo in gaming recently are battle passes. BUT there are games doing it right. For example DRG and SAR save their bps and you can finish them later. But fomo has also good side, having rare skin that can't be obtained anymore is kind of prestige, something to show of. But i would love if more games adapted possibility of doing old bps whenever you want.
i think there should be some rule where anything that is "limited" has to rerun within a certain amount of time, i think if all games had to do this they wouldn't bother making so much stuff exclusive, and if things still where, at least they would have to rerun them so the people worried about missing out probably wouldn't impulse buy as much of the stuff they don't really care about just cuz its limited.
Tangent since PoE monetization was mentioned
I was certainly more receptive to Path of Exile monetization when they were an indie company making a game, and the 'supporter packs' actually supported the development, but back around Bestiary League they got bought up by Tencent, and I no longer felt like my support was needed when they had infinite money at their back.
In regards to pushback, and lines, but not particularly about FOMO, there was a time when GGG tried to introduce an MTX-recycling lootbox, that you could feed duplicate microtransaction items into, and POTENTIALLY get something new - the community exploded in anger, and they ended up dropping the concept.
"PoE doesn't get much shit for its monetisation" is straight up not true. The reason I never jumped on PoE is the amount of trash their monetisation gets which I discovered when trying to get more info on the game.
On the other hand, never heard much hate for the monetisation in dbd. On others topics, sure, but not about monetisation. It's probably there, but I personally never encountered it... I think ever.
Brother the game is free
Yeah, and I'm not nearly rich enough to play free-to-play games.
@@ScottJund In all seriousness, the game used to get quite a lot of ass for its monetisation since you need to pay for the QoL features, and the market, assumingly, is an asinine mess that requires real money or absurd time investment and you need to use it to play high-end content. That's the gist I got from browsing info on monetisation in PoE several years back.
DbD has a system where you could expect from a F2P game, not a paid one
Burnice PFP ❤ based
In another episode of an old man explaining simple concepts to children-or adult-sized children-who have no clue how the world functions.
I don’t think it’s necessarily about those who are the most affected by FOMO, just by nature it makes people spend ANY amount of money they otherwise wouldn’t if not for time exclusivity. Even as generous and frequent as steam sales are for example, they still make people buy games they otherwise wouldn’t, contributing to the $19,000,000,000 spent on unplayed games on steam. You can justify it for a specific company, but the practice by definition involves profit via exploitation.
Taking advantage of people with a lack of self-control is one thing, but it goes much deeper than that. It's often people who are addicted to the game, or they're depressed, and just in general easily able to be manipulated. Yes, they will suffer no matter what, one way or the other, but these companies still take advantage of them on purpose. There's no reason a Battle Pass needs to expire, but it does. The other thing is that even if their goal is to take advantage of these people it still has an affect on normal people. There is no shortage of amazing games that have been ruined because the developers promote FOMO, or P2W aspects, so that all that's left of your game are the people who think they can't walk away. DBD for example, they're happy to throw away all they've created in Rifts for FOMO, yet they have no issue keeping every single Tome for you to do at any time.
You can spend $20 on a battle pass, that still demands you actively play the game to obtain its rewards. Often a casual player can't even make that work so they're immediately incentivized to pay money to get the tiers they're missing, so the initial investment feels worth it. That isn't even entirely a self-control thing. You're paying a monthly subscription to something that not only demands your money, but your time.
"I don't want to victim blame,"
...Proceeds to victim blame through the rest of the video
im glad i didnt miss out on this video
The best example is likely children and teens. Children in general do not have the emotional stability for impulse control. No fault of their own, of course, as they aren't expected to. We know the stories of kids taking their parents' credit cards and buying hundreds of dollars worth of in-game currency or cosmetics. F.O.M.O likely enhances this when cosmetics are limited time. As kids get older, it sometimes becomes less about impulse and more about fitting in. My friends have this, so I have to have it, or my favorite streamer always uses this skin. All the pros have this, and I need it to be better. Little things like that can make impulse harder to control regardless of maturity.
One big FOMO moment in my time is "Gates of Ahn'Qiraj Event". If you played WoW at that time, you know what I am talking about. May not be a monetary thing, but it was a huge time commitment and a perfect connection in January 2006.
It works on people who are susceptible to it, and those people have seemingly been increasing in numbers. Why that is, I don't really know.
What I do know is that the moment a person realises that the thing they covet doesn't actually matter, and they don't actually need it, FOMO stops working on them.
I definitely struggle with this for that dopamine rush of having the new hotness especially for the few games I play regularly.
You don't have to experience the feeling of FOMO yourself to imagine how bad it can be. If you have a game that you love and/or some degree of empathy toward your fellow players, wouldn't you feel bad that the game you play is preying on people's weaknesses--those they can't do anything about themselves? In games where those practices are even more aggravated, yet just as much commonplace like gacha games, wouldn't you feel somewhat embarrassed to admit you play games like that, or similarly, knowing you had a friend who has spending issues, how could you recommend it to them, even if the game was good and you just wanted to share the things you like with them?
Even if something doesn't hurt me personally, it's hard to stand by something that hurts those who can't help themselves, even if they are a minority.