It will never be the norm. It's one of the reasons AAA gaming is fading away. I'm at the point where I will not buy a game until I read plenty of reviews and find out how bad the microtransactions are. If everyone did that, the gaming industry would take a huge financial hit and quickly change course.
From what you said that you remember challenges in the games to unlock stuff. That hit hard. I remember that that was basically the only reason to care about cosmetics, so you can go brag to your friends. Now, it's like you buy something and you don't even want to let your friends know that you've bought it because you know for a fact it's a waste of money. (I haven't done in game skins at all for years now, but it causes games to be ruined.) I would much rather unlock something, feel accomplished, and be able to say, for instance, "I beat Halo LASO alone to unlock this." Hayabusa armor for Halo 3 I believe.
So... FOMO, False value, price anchoring, bundles, 'sales', left over money, inefficiency, flashy adverts, crossovers, convolution, gambling, and now peer pressure. This is every single tactic that I can think of that COD/Activision uses to beg for money. JFC
I have no issue with buying merch or skins for a game as long as the game is fun and doesn't intentionally waste my time. I buy skins for Rust for example, and on the marketboard you're getting things for less than a quid. I'll happily drop 20 extra noop on something if I know I'm getting a lot of good quality skins, but this paying 20 lids for a colour change is a joke.
I have completely detached myself from such gaming. I see no fucking purpose to be a sweaty "gameplay worker" in order to extract value out of my "battle passes". You can no longer even have fun, you literally have to log in every day (like you're going to work, saturdays and sundays included) and farm this shit, but you first have to pay for the privilege of having to earn it in the first place.
Man, Call of Duty isn't even recognizable anymore. They've sacrificed so much creativity for the sake of money that it's almost depressing. I hope karma comes for Activision for their shitty business practices
I feel like the fact that they've managed to coast for this long just speaks to how incredible the work of the designers who got to actually focus on fun > profits was. I'm sure some people dgaf and whale for them, but I have a feeling a LARGE percentage of the rest of their playerbases are stuck in games/IPs they used to love. I can't imagine thaaaat many people voluntarily opt in to games that are built entirely around monetization like this.
@Graavigala85 well that was never going to happen. For the original post I was hoping Microsoft would pull on the reins a little but I don't pay Activision games since ghosts or ww2
That only if you expect Microsoft to actually get involved with these studios and fire the leaders of these studios responsible for this crap. Microsoft won't do that until it's too late pretty much. Look at 343 and Halo: Infinite. It would've been nice to see Microsoft learn their lesson and actually crack down on their studios from being stupid.
It truly is the decision that keeps paying off isn't it? It's like an investment, every annual quarter you get to point and laugh and realise how great of a decision it was to not touch their shit.
Yeah, they really should be getting involved with the studios they get immediately when they get these studios, especially if they aren't in great shape. At this point, they should not be focused on making 'all' of the money and rebuilding the reputation of their studios.
@@urazz7739I’m pretty sure Microsoft is getting involved. This greediness is microsofts doing 😂. This was the whole point in acquiring abk to completely cash cow call of duty and the mobile market…..
@@jakubekch.3621 but I’m sure Microsoft encouraged them to continue. Bobby is out remember? Abk probably talked about being more consumer friendly and misft said nah keep doing what you’re doing it’s going perfectly. Quit acting as if Microsoft has absolutely nothing to do with things getting way worse suddenly 😂.
It's so sad that this probably won't get better until it gets much much worse, largely because there's a sizeable chunk of consumers that defend this sort of stuff
Microtransactions have proved to be a slip-in-slide directly to exploitation of a player base. I also remember when cosmetics in game were something you just got access to OR could eventually unlock just by playing the game. No limited times to trip your FOMO, no nickle-and-dime to chip away at what seems a reasonable price. At worst back then, it was just some time playing the game.
I definitely contributed to this problem. The one redeeming factor that MW2 had going for it was DMZ, and I was absolutely part of the problem. I bought black cell battlepasses for just 1 skin and maybe 1 or 2 blueprints. I also bought a lot of bundles just for operator skins, my whole group did.but DMZ became infested with hackers as soon as the dlc called MW3 launched and I have since moved on. I guess I trolled myself?
This really reminds me of when they used to monetize maps behind map packs, so if your friends had the map packs and you didn't it, split the community up. This is just the dumber version because it's paywalling and splitting players based on progression boosting...
I feel like the main issue is we are becoming more and more accepting of micro transactions. We need to come out against all even games like helldivers where we pretend it’s ok cause they are doing it the “right way” After all lots of these games did it the “right way” when they began. But we won’t. So company’s will still know if they weather the temporary anger people won’t care in a week or so and buy it.
I appreciate your commitment to calling out scummy practices that slowly erode at the purity of fun games. And to those who simply say “just don’t buy it”, it’s almost like they are incapable of future pacing trends. I think there is some general bias from every young generation that since they see themselves as the future, they think their current version of the world is here to stay. But eventually they learn that their version of the world fades away to yet a new generation. And the things they thought were set in stone are now changed. Look to the past to prepare for the future.
Buying a loot box or a "gacha pull" or whatever the kids are calling it now is gambling, and raising the price on each "pull" of that slot machine is milking a bad habit. Either sell the stuff outright, or, preferably, let us unlock this stuff by finding it in the single player campaign or beating specific challenges. That's the way god intended. I still think it's hilarious looking at Crash Team Racing's remake and seeing the STARK difference in unlocking the original unlockables by proving your skill in specific challenges, versus the new way that involves either spending a ridiculous amount of time grinding coins, or spending real money to buy the fake money to buy the characters. One's impressive and rewarding, the other's manipulative and hollow.
The meta of video game dlc is to find a way to get players themselves to shame their friends for not also buying the dlc. Making it so your friend directly contributes to you not getting the bonuses you paid for because he didnt pay for them as well... That's a great way to do that.
$90 to play a WoW expansion 3 days early. Buy awful looking skins for $16 and pressure your friends too, otherwise you're wasting time. Yeah, that Microsoft deal is really coming along. I'm never buying anything from them again.
The best part is when you either can't play the 3 day early access you paid for cause it's broken or it plays wonderfully until the launch update happens and then it becomes broken 😂
@@e3vL1 You'd normally be right, but this is not a singleplayer game. It's an MMO. The first week's launch hype where we all get along and explore a new world matters a whole lot more than the weeks and months that follow an expansion (or at least the same). It's a race, but you can pay to not have your legs cut off at the start, like everyone else. Doesn't feel good either way. They didn't have to do this by the way, retail player numbers are at a historical low, and the past expansion launches have already been very smooth.
The problem for activision with peer pressure skins is that it also backfires, it squeezes more money from the die hard player base, but also puts up a barrier to entry for the rest. Try convince a friend to play a game, if then you need to pressure that person to also buy a skin, it would be a much tougher sell. My guess is that this boosts short-term revenue and hurts in the long-term.
Didn't even talk about how Hearthstone tripled the requirement for weekly quests for the Tavern Pass which if you bought at the start of the expansion just happen to just go over the refund window period.
We used to make the "skin diff" joke in games like League and Overwatch when your team had fancier skins than the other team. It was never supposed to be an idea pitch to these fools.
I got better value out of those "Hulk gloves" that lit up and said "Hulk smash!", or the "Thing gloves" that were the same thing, but said "It's clobberin' time!".
We need countries to start passing legislation that make any transactions that will lead to gameplay modifying functions/features illeagal (ie paying directly or with premium currencies purchasable by cash)
"You think you do, but you don't". Actually true in this case. What is needed is for people to stop giving Activision money. Any attempts at legislation will fail. Companies will find other way to screw over customers and/or game the system. Go play something else, stop supporting those corpos. P2W isn't even bad. You think any backlash about it would be even a tiny fraction as loud if it was all just honest "here's 10$ gun that has stats superior to any other gun"? It's the scummy ways monetization is implemented (and researched) that's the issue. (in ideal world we would also get ability to host private servers where we could disable p2w items, so skill-purists can enjoy the game as much as people with extra spendable income).
This seems a lot like the old facebook casual game MO of tying advancement, or at least grind reduction, to harassing your friends about the game in order to drive onboarding. Honestly a little surprising that shame restrained them this long.
Gaming studios nowadays either want the gamers to focus on AI or don’t game at all. If the people don’t jump to AI there won’t be a WEB 3.0 for those that are just “casually gaming.” It’s like a new social hierarchy of some kind.
Remember how kids were/are getting bullied for having basic skins in fortnite? Now they can also get bullied for not buying the exp boost skin in cod as well!
I've never been a fan of chance or gambling when I spend my money. I want to know exactly what I'm spending my money on. I don't like loot boxes. I don't play a game to wonder what's going to happen. I play a game to escape from what's happening.
The most optimal path is to leave the gambling site on mobile only, and using what you get in it to be used on the other platforms, so that non-mobile players of the game will be forced to go play the mobile game to get them.
Ages ago, i went to a lazer tag event. I am a nerd. A nerd friend was having his stag, at a lazer tag place. So. I went. By the end of the evening, i learned one of the group was a "role player". Basically, a subscriber to the site. They kept his stats on their leaderboard, and he had orher perks. The one that caught my attention was he had an abbreviated downtime for his gun when he was tagged. He knew he had x seconds of immunity, so he'd scout out his opponents and he knew exactly where he could shoot them from on the complicated wooden maze. He was an eccellent shot, and used each advantage to the max. Why should modern games not be like real life? With "role players" in every game, making the game die, because it is not fair. I think obvious inequity will kill the game. I walked away from lazer tag because unless you paid extra you couldmt keep up. Any computer game is the same. The marketplace kills it with lack of funding. Or it doesn't. I can't see people paying anything for a game that makes them obviously inferior.
With abk not being cash positive for Q3 but being over 50% of the gaming division's revenue... its no wonder theyre scrambling to make any money they can. Its going to take 20 years for MS to make back the 69B it paid for abk
I actually really like the first stories concept. I think that the execution is terrible but it's a really neat idea to reward people for showing solidarity. I have had multiple times where I would be playing League of Legends and I would notice that someone on my team has the same skin line that I had. So I would switch over, and then they would switch off of that skin, because they actively did not once to have the same skin as someone else on their team
"Make your friends buy this thing" Yeah... that's great Activision, because that's what my friends want, to be harassed by me to buy things... That's going to go down very well. Kinda like recruit a friend on WoW, it doesn't work because everyone already knows about WoW, people who know about it, play it and recruiting new people to play it is incredibly difficult. Most people just make their own account. I recall seeing similar on I think it was Netflix "Tell your friends about Netflix!" sorry... who the hell doesn't already know it exists? Most of all though, I just don't badger my friends about things. I don't tell them to buy things, I don't try and filch money out of them... Which is probably a big part of why I have friends. I haven't chased them all away.
I lost interest in Activision after they lost their license for the Star Trek RPG series and cancelled one of the Star Trek games back in the 80 and 90.
I saw the black cell bs when I was still playing MwII and thought it was a scam. I didn’t bother buying MWIII cuz I knew it was gonna be more of the same with the battle pass being cut back further in favor of the black cell that costs more
It's infuriating seeing this happen and people STILL PAY FOR IT. Like come on guys. They will stop doing this if it stops working it really isn't that hard of a problem to solve
i already bought this in dead by daylight when the best way to get bloodpoints was by buying leatherface for $5 who had a perk that let you get double bloodpoints every game
Holy shit that Keep gacha. Acti have managed to out-gacha the Asian mobage markets. They're more predatory then a shovelware korean cashgrab. They've reached heights of greed and villainy that no-one thought possible until now.
idk why ppl cry about this, to me DMZ UAV starter packs were the gameplay drawing line, XP bonuses are not P2W, unlike Self R and free UAV, nice research bellular
That's a new low from Activision. That will be hard for kids with parents that don't have the economy or stupidity to buy them bundles. The pressure and being left out from a "friend" group is not good at all for the younger generation 😔
i mean, they've already had pay to win op weapons before, weapons exclusive to lootboxes, and a patented gameplay adjustment thing to make excessive buyers get better matches.
You get what you pay for. In this meaning if you keep paying them for their actions, then they will keep trying to fleece you for even more money. And that is a fugly skin on top of it.
I mean, to be fair, they are spending like a billion dollars on cod team refunds. And canceling all fees or buy ins. So no more 25m per team to play. The thought of the fact that they can lose all of that income and be fine really makes me wonder how much they were making when they were.
You're missing a big point on the gambling in the mobile version. No, it won't "make it into the main platforms", because this is how they plan on getting around anti-gambling laws. "Call of Duty doesn't have any gambling mechanics IN it." No, you have to go somewhere ELSE, gamble THERE, and get the rewards in Call of Duty.
After leaving pvp multiplayer games behind for years, I find myself drawn back to just check on how horribly things have progressed every now and then. It's like some horror clown show. I hate it, but I just can't look away.
Something tells me Activision Blizzard will be the core reason Microsoft suddenly slams the hammer down and starts cracking down on what their developer studios are doing. Obviously, Bobbies' corruption and influence have permeated the entire studio to the point that nothing short of the hammer coming down will stop it from spreading or getting worse.
Which game was it that basicly did the "the Keep" thing (looked exactly the same as this), but made it so that the epic and legendary item always dropped last? Was it cod mobile? Feels like something they would try.
They had this slot machine system for Call of Duty Mobile, but that game gets away with it because despite being a gacha, it's handily the best COD game in the last decade. (New seasons, maps, weapons, all from every cod and brand new for free, each month, and with new BR/MP modes)
I've never seen the screen of the CoD battlepass before but that Godzilla NES map looking nightmare is literally the worst battlepass and design of one I have ever seen in my life. What the hell have we come to?
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It will never be the norm. It's one of the reasons AAA gaming is fading away.
I'm at the point where I will not buy a game until I read plenty of reviews and find out how bad the microtransactions are. If everyone did that, the gaming industry would take a huge financial hit and quickly change course.
@BellularNews are you ever going to discuss the "elephant in the room"?
From what you said that you remember challenges in the games to unlock stuff. That hit hard. I remember that that was basically the only reason to care about cosmetics, so you can go brag to your friends. Now, it's like you buy something and you don't even want to let your friends know that you've bought it because you know for a fact it's a waste of money. (I haven't done in game skins at all for years now, but it causes games to be ruined.) I would much rather unlock something, feel accomplished, and be able to say, for instance, "I beat Halo LASO alone to unlock this." Hayabusa armor for Halo 3 I believe.
Guys look up sker ritual if you like zombies it’s a good replacement I really really recommend it
make your friends buy your skin the best 😂
So... FOMO, False value, price anchoring, bundles, 'sales', left over money, inefficiency, flashy adverts, crossovers, convolution, gambling, and now peer pressure. This is every single tactic that I can think of that COD/Activision uses to beg for money. JFC
99% of Activision employees work on coming up with methods to rip you off.
Multiplayer games are no longer about skill or having fun. It is about who spends more money on them. I refuse to participate on this bullshit.
They want to be the american equivalent of the korean gaming playscape, as p2w and gacha are normalized there.
I have no issue with buying merch or skins for a game as long as the game is fun and doesn't intentionally waste my time. I buy skins for Rust for example, and on the marketboard you're getting things for less than a quid. I'll happily drop 20 extra noop on something if I know I'm getting a lot of good quality skins, but this paying 20 lids for a colour change is a joke.
It's not all multi-player games. Try some indie stuff like Lrthal Company
I haven't touched a MP game for over a decade now, due the MTX and live service ****
I have completely detached myself from such gaming.
I see no fucking purpose to be a sweaty "gameplay worker" in order to extract value out of my "battle passes". You can no longer even have fun, you literally have to log in every day (like you're going to work, saturdays and sundays included) and farm this shit, but you first have to pay for the privilege of having to earn it in the first place.
Man, Call of Duty isn't even recognizable anymore. They've sacrificed so much creativity for the sake of money that it's almost depressing. I hope karma comes for Activision for their shitty business practices
Pretty sure Karma did kick Activision in the balls at some point but it wasn't hard enough...
oh it will, give them two more years and 3 more layoffs
I feel like the fact that they've managed to coast for this long just speaks to how incredible the work of the designers who got to actually focus on fun > profits was.
I'm sure some people dgaf and whale for them, but I have a feeling a LARGE percentage of the rest of their playerbases are stuck in games/IPs they used to love. I can't imagine thaaaat many people voluntarily opt in to games that are built entirely around monetization like this.
They peaked with world at war and the first modern warfare though black ops 1 was great then its downhill since
call of doodoos hasn't been recognizable since forever
Wasn't Microsoft supposed to magically fix Activision Blizzard? I haven't heard from these people for some time. I wonder if they still have hope.
Just like Destiny was supposed to be fixed after Bungie left activision
@@Graavigala85no excuses. Microsoft was supposed to make them better remember
@Graavigala85 well that was never going to happen. For the original post I was hoping Microsoft would pull on the reins a little but I don't pay Activision games since ghosts or ww2
That only if you expect Microsoft to actually get involved with these studios and fire the leaders of these studios responsible for this crap. Microsoft won't do that until it's too late pretty much. Look at 343 and Halo: Infinite. It would've been nice to see Microsoft learn their lesson and actually crack down on their studios from being stupid.
Remember when we hoped they fixed Bethesda? Yeah... me neither
“Activison sinks lower.”
That’s an ever green breaking news story.
Next story "Activision has gone underground!"
Soon activision will get lower enough for breaking in hell. They will feel in home
Just waiting for news that Activision's buying a drilling company so they can dig even LOWER.
@@MorbidEelthey already were. Clearly they've dug themselves through the entire earth and Ended up on australia
5:35 "Unfortunately, not THAT Tracer."
Give it time. Activision will probably find a way to shoehorn Tracer into a CoD game.
For now, play with Lilith with assault rifle 🥴
I have never felt more vindicated in my decision to leave Activision games behind.
Amen.
I never touched them in the first place
It truly is the decision that keeps paying off isn't it? It's like an investment, every annual quarter you get to point and laugh and realise how great of a decision it was to not touch their shit.
Microsoft's hands off approach working wonders
Yeah, they really should be getting involved with the studios they get immediately when they get these studios, especially if they aren't in great shape. At this point, they should not be focused on making 'all' of the money and rebuilding the reputation of their studios.
@@urazz7739I’m pretty sure Microsoft is getting involved. This greediness is microsofts doing 😂. This was the whole point in acquiring abk to completely cash cow call of duty and the mobile market…..
hands off? Do you seriously believe they are hands off?
I mean... It's Activision
I doubt Microsoft had anything to do with it
More likely they would've done it regardless of their buy out
@@jakubekch.3621 but I’m sure Microsoft encouraged them to continue. Bobby is out remember? Abk probably talked about being more consumer friendly and misft said nah keep doing what you’re doing it’s going perfectly. Quit acting as if Microsoft has absolutely nothing to do with things getting way worse suddenly 😂.
We have gone from "HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSION OLD MAN!" To "Why should we even bother"
The disconnect between consumer and companies are just shifting deeper and deeper. Executives really do not know how real life works at all
They’ve been drowning in money for so long that they don’t know what it’s like to not have money.
It's so sad that this probably won't get better until it gets much much worse, largely because there's a sizeable chunk of consumers that defend this sort of stuff
Microtransactions have proved to be a slip-in-slide directly to exploitation of a player base. I also remember when cosmetics in game were something you just got access to OR could eventually unlock just by playing the game. No limited times to trip your FOMO, no nickle-and-dime to chip away at what seems a reasonable price. At worst back then, it was just some time playing the game.
Anyone still playing COD in 2024 deserves everything they get
Well said, Dude.
As everything progressive.... more you pay, more they expect. The only winning move is to not play the game.
Give an Inch, And modern Cooperate suits will try to take the fucking Province.
And so it went, the slippery slope slid and the already flimsy defense of "it's just cosmetic" completely eroded.
"Imagine you have four friends" - now now Bellular, be kind 😂
F∆∆∆ Activision!!!
I definitely contributed to this problem. The one redeeming factor that MW2 had going for it was DMZ, and I was absolutely part of the problem. I bought black cell battlepasses for just 1 skin and maybe 1 or 2 blueprints. I also bought a lot of bundles just for operator skins, my whole group did.but DMZ became infested with hackers as soon as the dlc called MW3 launched and I have since moved on. I guess I trolled myself?
Well, you seem to have learned a lesson from it, knowing what you got "scammed" on. Identifying the issue is a great start!
This really reminds me of when they used to monetize maps behind map packs, so if your friends had the map packs and you didn't it, split the community up. This is just the dumber version because it's paywalling and splitting players based on progression boosting...
I feel like the main issue is we are becoming more and more accepting of micro transactions.
We need to come out against all even games like helldivers where we pretend it’s ok cause they are doing it the “right way”
After all lots of these games did it the “right way” when they began.
But we won’t. So company’s will still know if they weather the temporary anger people won’t care in a week or so and buy it.
Watching this 10 years ago would seem like a bad satire
In other news the sun is bright.
Breaking News this just in: Water is wet.
I appreciate your commitment to calling out scummy practices that slowly erode at the purity of fun games. And to those who simply say “just don’t buy it”, it’s almost like they are incapable of future pacing trends.
I think there is some general bias from every young generation that since they see themselves as the future, they think their current version of the world is here to stay. But eventually they learn that their version of the world fades away to yet a new generation. And the things they thought were set in stone are now changed.
Look to the past to prepare for the future.
I’m starting to feel differently about things like, if there are idiots that’ll keep buying into the stupidity then go for it
There is an old saying in my country: As long as there is cattle, there will be butchers.
Buying a loot box or a "gacha pull" or whatever the kids are calling it now is gambling, and raising the price on each "pull" of that slot machine is milking a bad habit. Either sell the stuff outright, or, preferably, let us unlock this stuff by finding it in the single player campaign or beating specific challenges. That's the way god intended.
I still think it's hilarious looking at Crash Team Racing's remake and seeing the STARK difference in unlocking the original unlockables by proving your skill in specific challenges, versus the new way that involves either spending a ridiculous amount of time grinding coins, or spending real money to buy the fake money to buy the characters. One's impressive and rewarding, the other's manipulative and hollow.
The meta of video game dlc is to find a way to get players themselves to shame their friends for not also buying the dlc. Making it so your friend directly contributes to you not getting the bonuses you paid for because he didnt pay for them as well... That's a great way to do that.
People need to stop support this company....wtf kind of insanity is this.
You'd think MS would turn things around. Instead it got worse.
@@e3vL1
Microsoft? I really hope you didn't actually think a corporation would care about it's customers.
Just when you think they can't be more insidious.
if you thought that, then you aren't paying attention.
$90 to play a WoW expansion 3 days early. Buy awful looking skins for $16 and pressure your friends too, otherwise you're wasting time. Yeah, that Microsoft deal is really coming along. I'm never buying anything from them again.
Yeah there's a trend with 3 days early lately. Cashing in on the streamer crowd I guess. normal consumers rather just wait till launch than pay extra
The best part is when you either can't play the 3 day early access you paid for cause it's broken or it plays wonderfully until the launch update happens and then it becomes broken 😂
@@e3vL1 You'd normally be right, but this is not a singleplayer game. It's an MMO. The first week's launch hype where we all get along and explore a new world matters a whole lot more than the weeks and months that follow an expansion (or at least the same). It's a race, but you can pay to not have your legs cut off at the start, like everyone else. Doesn't feel good either way.
They didn't have to do this by the way, retail player numbers are at a historical low, and the past expansion launches have already been very smooth.
The problem for activision with peer pressure skins is that it also backfires, it squeezes more money from the die hard player base, but also puts up a barrier to entry for the rest.
Try convince a friend to play a game, if then you need to pressure that person to also buy a skin, it would be a much tougher sell.
My guess is that this boosts short-term revenue and hurts in the long-term.
Silly Activision, whales don't have friends!
I didnt know i needed this until you explained it buying asap
With these predatory micro transactions makes me think Bobby never left.
Didn't even talk about how Hearthstone tripled the requirement for weekly quests for the Tavern Pass which if you bought at the start of the expansion just happen to just go over the refund window period.
We used to make the "skin diff" joke in games like League and Overwatch when your team had fancier skins than the other team. It was never supposed to be an idea pitch to these fools.
Hey, it looks like Bobby was quite a convenient scapegoat.
Aimbot providers are less exploitative than Activision.
“Money money money arghargharghargh!!!!!!!”
I got better value out of those "Hulk gloves" that lit up and said "Hulk smash!", or the "Thing gloves" that were the same thing, but said "It's clobberin' time!".
How did go from games about jingoistic power fantasies to slot machines and 24/7 Halloween?
"SNOOP DAWG" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I haven't bought a COD game in 13 years. Saw it going down hill all the way back then. Can't imagine how people are playing it today.
Tarkov said hold my beer and watch this
We need countries to start passing legislation that make any transactions that will lead to gameplay modifying functions/features illeagal (ie paying directly or with premium currencies purchasable by cash)
"You think you do, but you don't".
Actually true in this case. What is needed is for people to stop giving Activision money. Any attempts at legislation will fail. Companies will find other way to screw over customers and/or game the system.
Go play something else, stop supporting those corpos.
P2W isn't even bad. You think any backlash about it would be even a tiny fraction as loud if it was all just honest "here's 10$ gun that has stats superior to any other gun"? It's the scummy ways monetization is implemented (and researched) that's the issue.
(in ideal world we would also get ability to host private servers where we could disable p2w items, so skill-purists can enjoy the game as much as people with extra spendable income).
I’m pretty sure you could get a stock in the S&P 500 for this price at this point
And yet the CoD sheep are still: If YoU DoNt LiKe iT, DoNt bUy iT." This is what happens when you don't speak up and blindly throw money at a company.
I can't wait until those exp bonuses expire in between seasons so you have to buy that seasonal exp boost every time.
damn bro i never knew a fraction of their monetization this stuff is WILD
This seems a lot like the old facebook casual game MO of tying advancement, or at least grind reduction, to harassing your friends about the game in order to drive onboarding. Honestly a little surprising that shame restrained them this long.
Consumers that participate are the only ppl we can blame.
It doesn't need a Bobby for Activision to be greedy
I just started reporting these companies to the FTC for predatory practices. Not that it's doing anything, but it makes me feel good.
Gaming studios nowadays either want the gamers to focus on AI or don’t game at all.
If the people don’t jump to AI there won’t be a WEB 3.0 for those that are just “casually gaming.” It’s like a new social hierarchy of some kind.
Remember how kids were/are getting bullied for having basic skins in fortnite? Now they can also get bullied for not buying the exp boost skin in cod as well!
If the "bullying" you received in school was just someone making fun of your video game skin, you had it GOOD in school.
I've never been a fan of chance or gambling when I spend my money. I want to know exactly what I'm spending my money on. I don't like loot boxes. I don't play a game to wonder what's going to happen. I play a game to escape from what's happening.
Bravo! I've never seen someone take early 20 minutes to say, "Don't play this trash."
The most optimal path is to leave the gambling site on mobile only, and using what you get in it to be used on the other platforms, so that non-mobile players of the game will be forced to go play the mobile game to get them.
No matter how bad monetization gets, so long as cod players keep playing cod, activision is gonna keep pushing that depth.
Ages ago, i went to a lazer tag event. I am a nerd. A nerd friend was having his stag, at a lazer tag place. So. I went.
By the end of the evening, i learned one of the group was a "role player". Basically, a subscriber to the site. They kept his stats on their leaderboard, and he had orher perks. The one that caught my attention was he had an abbreviated downtime for his gun when he was tagged. He knew he had x seconds of immunity, so he'd scout out his opponents and he knew exactly where he could shoot them from on the complicated wooden maze. He was an eccellent shot, and used each advantage to the max.
Why should modern games not be like real life? With "role players" in every game, making the game die, because it is not fair.
I think obvious inequity will kill the game. I walked away from lazer tag because unless you paid extra you couldmt keep up. Any computer game is the same. The marketplace kills it with lack of funding. Or it doesn't. I can't see people paying anything for a game that makes them obviously inferior.
Why did CoD abbreviate "CoD Points" ???
Activision's mask is firmly off and it's just phantom Bobby Kotick underneath.
With abk not being cash positive for Q3 but being over 50% of the gaming division's revenue... its no wonder theyre scrambling to make any money they can. Its going to take 20 years for MS to make back the 69B it paid for abk
I actually really like the first stories concept. I think that the execution is terrible but it's a really neat idea to reward people for showing solidarity. I have had multiple times where I would be playing League of Legends and I would notice that someone on my team has the same skin line that I had. So I would switch over, and then they would switch off of that skin, because they actively did not once to have the same skin as someone else on their team
"Abusive Activision monetisation? Pah, what's new. Like it could possibly get worse."
Ok, I was wrong.
"Make your friends buy this thing" Yeah... that's great Activision, because that's what my friends want, to be harassed by me to buy things... That's going to go down very well.
Kinda like recruit a friend on WoW, it doesn't work because everyone already knows about WoW, people who know about it, play it and recruiting new people to play it is incredibly difficult. Most people just make their own account. I recall seeing similar on I think it was Netflix "Tell your friends about Netflix!" sorry... who the hell doesn't already know it exists?
Most of all though, I just don't badger my friends about things. I don't tell them to buy things, I don't try and filch money out of them... Which is probably a big part of why I have friends. I haven't chased them all away.
Looks like that Golden Parachute for Bobby was way too expensive for the company
Gonna wait for Grey Zone Warfare and give them my money instead
I lost interest in Activision after they lost their license for the Star Trek RPG series and cancelled one of the Star Trek games back in the 80 and 90.
I saw the black cell bs when I was still playing MwII and thought it was a scam. I didn’t bother buying MWIII cuz I knew it was gonna be more of the same with the battle pass being cut back further in favor of the black cell that costs more
So glad we gave up on CoD long ago. We dont buy their games so we dont need to worry about this. Simplae as that.
It's infuriating seeing this happen and people STILL PAY FOR IT. Like come on guys. They will stop doing this if it stops working it really isn't that hard of a problem to solve
Halo Reach allowed you to unlock the extremly elusive Reach armor in Halo 3. This shit has been going on for a loooong time.
i already bought this in dead by daylight when the best way to get bloodpoints was by buying leatherface for $5 who had a perk that let you get double bloodpoints every game
You should look into the Tatkov situation
The best way to end the grind, is to never start in the first place.
Holy shit that Keep gacha. Acti have managed to out-gacha the Asian mobage markets. They're more predatory then a shovelware korean cashgrab. They've reached heights of greed and villainy that no-one thought possible until now.
idk why ppl cry about this, to me DMZ UAV starter packs were the gameplay drawing line, XP bonuses are not P2W, unlike Self R and free UAV, nice research bellular
Activision being exploititive truly insane
That's a new low from Activision. That will be hard for kids with parents that don't have the economy or stupidity to buy them bundles. The pressure and being left out from a "friend" group is not good at all for the younger generation 😔
@@SimuLord true that bro 👍🏼
Yeah.. left COD years ago after Black ops 2. Never looked back.
seeing all this happening in CoD, I am surprised they don't make WOW F2P and then do the same for it
I'm just sitting over here playing factorio, and patting myself on the back for not buying "Triple AAA" Vomit
i mean, they've already had pay to win op weapons before, weapons exclusive to lootboxes, and a patented gameplay adjustment thing to make excessive buyers get better matches.
Yes yes, but where is the kitchen sink? i feel that this is missing from the game.
10:1 🎰 He didn’t pay to farm last season’s sword
Nawh bro, ya can't get me to give Activision any money, let alone cosmetics.
You get what you pay for. In this meaning if you keep paying them for their actions, then they will keep trying to fleece you for even more money. And that is a fugly skin on top of it.
I mean, to be fair, they are spending like a billion dollars on cod team refunds. And canceling all fees or buy ins. So no more 25m per team to play. The thought of the fact that they can lose all of that income and be fine really makes me wonder how much they were making when they were.
You're missing a big point on the gambling in the mobile version. No, it won't "make it into the main platforms", because this is how they plan on getting around anti-gambling laws. "Call of Duty doesn't have any gambling mechanics IN it." No, you have to go somewhere ELSE, gamble THERE, and get the rewards in Call of Duty.
After leaving pvp multiplayer games behind for years, I find myself drawn back to just check on how horribly things have progressed every now and then. It's like some horror clown show. I hate it, but I just can't look away.
Something tells me Activision Blizzard will be the core reason Microsoft suddenly slams the hammer down and starts cracking down on what their developer studios are doing. Obviously, Bobbies' corruption and influence have permeated the entire studio to the point that nothing short of the hammer coming down will stop it from spreading or getting worse.
If you'd told me that the graphic at 5:58 was a skill tree from some absolutely horrid extraction shooter, I might well have believed you.
Ahh yes, the legally distinct pyramid scheme
I genuinely thought Call of Duty would get better with all the MTX when they were bought by MS… I didn’t expect it to get worse
Wasn't tying sales together considered an anti-trust violation?
Gross.
Which game was it that basicly did the "the Keep" thing (looked exactly the same as this), but made it so that the epic and legendary item always dropped last? Was it cod mobile? Feels like something they would try.
They had this slot machine system for Call of Duty Mobile, but that game gets away with it because despite being a gacha, it's handily the best COD game in the last decade.
(New seasons, maps, weapons, all from every cod and brand new for free, each month, and with new BR/MP modes)
I've never seen the screen of the CoD battlepass before but that Godzilla NES map looking nightmare is literally the worst battlepass and design of one I have ever seen in my life. What the hell have we come to?