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- Fire seasoned devs - Realize production is lagging behind - Hire them back as temporary contractors - Invest in more bloat that does not increase profits - Make “premium” skins that cost the same as some AA games - Repeat
@@TinchoX we still need to see about that. It's unfortunate that it comes to this. But Riot gamers are the Mihoyo players of E-sports. Not only they are numerous, a not-so-little part of them won't think twice to spend. Most people that's not smurfing have skins in Valorant even in lower ranks. This is also a game where people spend a lot of time. It's much easier to spend larger amount of money to something you already like. Comes with a lot of excuses too. "Supporting the devs", "I already get my money's worth from the time I've spent", and so on.
@@Claudetwofunfi mean, i'm shocked at how many people I see that have the five hundred dollar version of the faker skin in platinum. and some of them are smurfs, so it's like, okay.I guess this is like an ego trip thing, i really don't get it, but either way, you're playing in platinum. With five hundred dollars scan, so presumably you have a challenger or a master account, and you also have a five hundred dollar skin there. Not all of them are smurfs, there's a lot of people that are where they're supposed to be, and they have the $500 skin, and I'm just like bro. Ari has fifty skins, there are other ones that look arguably better than this, one that don't cost five hundred dollars.Why would you do this
@@Velereonics Some people just have money to spend, that doesn't mean they spend it well... I can see that in other games. The First Decendant when a new character comes out, people already have bought the 100$ package day one. Mobile P2W games when DAY ONE a player already has >1mil points while new players are just at ~100k, thats usually 1000$ or more... I just "waste" money to buy a highend PC for 2-4000$ (every 2-4 years) to play all kinds of games, CP2077 but also Hollow Knight for example. :D
This is how government works as well. "The Big Con by Mariana Mazzucato describes exactly how governments fire their exprts and then hire consultants on whom they then become dependant.
Yeah I used to play league a lot, but the past few years it just seems like a job grinding out various events. I basically don't play anymore other than an occasional ARAM with some friends.
One misconception is that whales are rich. There may be a few rich people who have enough money that it just doesn't matter, but most whales are people who just spend every bit of cash they have the moment they get it.
I think usually the whales focus on one game at a time, which makes it possible to invest heavily in it. When you play like 5 games at the same time, you easily can't afford to spend a lot of money in each one.
And they'd always spend it on something. It's not LoL or gacha or loot boxes or whatever that are the "problem" here. If they didn't exist, they'd spend their time in some seedy gambling den. These people need help. They know they need help, but they don't want it. And to fight a gambling addiction, you first have to admit you have a problem. Otherwise nobody can help you. Certainly no laws. You'd just find ways around that.
@Diree I would argue that fewer people would fall into the gambling trap if the vice wasn't as prevalent. But I also agree that at some point, people need to be willing to accept help and take control of their lives to truly fix the problem.
@@jeremymercer5655 Its a personality disorder. Prevalence doesn't matter except for things that overlap where one is illegal and another is not. (Such as alcohol vs other safer recreational drugs). The point being that even if it wasnt there it would be something else to fill that void they have. Then depending on the issue exactly, having some outlet for it is better than 0 legal alternative as those people usually end up going the full way with whatever that is illegal, as since the least offending form of it is illegal already and it normalizes it in their brain as they step thru it. (Although I don't think there really is a decent outlet for someone stuck on gambling, maybe playing competitive mahjong? Lol)
@@mookieblaelocker6504 Considering that they generally pay much less for comparable skills vs other industries, I'd say that they ARE part of the problem. Not the whole of it, but they definitely contribute in multiple ways. The game industry is built on exploiting the passion of workers for low wages and long hours.
Back in the day, to get the ultra rare skins you had to perform some difficult to complete activity in-game that would prove how good you are. Now all you have to do is drop a few hundred
Back in the day, games cost less to make, and cost more than LoL (LoL is free to play). Friendly reminder that Path of Exile has the exact same business model as LoL and no one complains about them.
@@arcamean785 That's just it. This assumes a person isn't neurodivergent and has an inclination towards completion. Folks have emptied bank accounts, maxed out credit sources, and stolen from friends and family to satisfy their mental needs. And they can't stop themselves, even though they know it's breaking them. The only option they have is avoidance, which is why I'm glad this episode exists.
In Civilization Beyond Earth, there's a flavour text where it explains the culture leader Elodié wrote her first dissertation on the collapse of the video game industry in the 2020s and 2030s. I first read that in 2014 and wondered how in the hell something like that could happen. I've been thinking about that little text a lot lately.
I suppose you were quite young in 2014, because I have seen people talking about it since the very early 2010's due to the various DIE (Diversity, inclusivity, and equity) movements that had begun invading the gaming world and the corporate take overs that had led to it happening. Plenty of people have been warning about this for well over a decade now. Most people just didn't want to take part in politics, so only the bad guys took part.
@@hungrymusicwolf bullshit, this has absolutely nothing to do with that and folk like you that keep freaking insisting and blaming laws that requiring corps to do the bare freaking minimum while letting the true issues of corporate greed, and focusing on the wants of shareholders beyond all else. blaming all the issues on minority's asking for equal rights is such a freaking joke and completely ignoring the true issue's that come from late stage capitalism and lack of government regulation that protects customers and keeps shitty corps in line.
@@hungrymusicwolf Yeah but, who are the bad guys specifically? Because if it's the actual people behind all of this bullshit, it has nothing to do with DEI and everything to do with the unsustainable "line go up" mentality. The only people screaming about DEI are those who only want to scream about a random black person they saw because they have nothing better to do with their lives. "But but but, the DEI is making corpos-" Do absolutely NOTHING. They don't give a rats ass about being inclusive, diverse or giving people equality. Have you SEEN the wage disparity in the games industry? Do you seriously think the ghouls who call the shots at the top of these companies sucking the life out of a creative thing like gaming actually give a shit about that? The only thing they care about is making money. If being inclusive makes money, that's what they will do. If throwing hate speech loses them money, they stop doing it. If someone says something that hurts their wallet, they fire that person. Surprise surprise, DEI does very little to the bottom line and profit margins. Fun fact, gaming has been political sense doom. It's ALWAYS been political. Have you even played the first metal gear? What about modern warfare 1? Man spec ops the line sure ain't political, they really didn't want to take part in the POLITICS of talking about how the US regularly uses white phosphor chemical weapons on civilians while claiming it's just for smoke when there's literal action reports stating that these are effective weapons to be used on combatants. Here's the answer as to what's actually killing gaming. It's called "Line MUST go up". The pursuit of profit margins over everything else, where every single quarterly report needs to be higher than the last. The result of that causes companies to shotgun wages, stab loyal developers in the neck and throw them out right before earnings to 'cut costs' and push more and more and more and more and more egregious and ludicrous MTX just to get more money. Simple.
@@rainbowpixel_4145 why? If there isn't any turnover, then there is less opportunity for new people to join the team. I see the move as preventing stagnation, as well as keeping costs low.
@ I think the industry is shifting to a contractor/freelancer model and this is probably part of that. It means less people actually being part of the company. It means less labor regulations apply and often they prefer artist who live in places where the exchange rate benefits the corporation and the artists are deeply underpaid. Unfortunately I don’t think this is a case where theyre going to be hiring back to 100% and the total number of in house artists is probably gonna keep dropping. It’s depressing but I think the future of game art is predatory outsourcing.
The saddest part about the excessive monetisation is that it's going nowhere. Even tho the majority of players don't engage in macro transactions, there will always be a few who will always buy those. And companies quickly learnt that they can easily offset that low amount of always buying players by upcharging them hundreds per purchase. By bringing in the recent Faker skin - it earned 2.5 million $ during a single stream. With 500$ per pack, it means Riot only needed 5000 people out of millions playing LoL in order to earn this much.
If you don't want excessive monetisation, don't play games with excessive monetisation. That is not the same as playing the game anyway and not buy those items. If you really mean it, don't play any game from a studio that produces any games with excessive monetisation.
@@nodwick4231 "Easier said than done". There are millions of people who play those games either because they can't afford or run normal games as they tend to be not so demanding on weaker PCs or play because "the game is good despite the grind". They reality is that there are too many who chose those games for one or the other reason and a single person not playing it won't make a dent. You would have to drop the daily player count by 2/3rd for the paying ones to dip and as I've seen numerous time in previous "game boycotts"... that ain't happening.
@@DajovaI imagine Genshin's even worse, because Chinese seem to actively take pride in throwing money at gacha slop. With them, Japan, and S.Korea being the large audience, even if everyone in the west collectively dropped it and every other Mihoyo game, it wouldn't even make a dent
Nah it´s a great game, I have basically never encountered a game breaking bug in a game, you can still easily spend nothing and have unlimited competitive fun.
Quit more than 10 years ago (played it for about 3 years). Honestly, I don't get the fuzz about that game. I mean, it's basically a live service competitive game which ultimately means that they can mess with the balance any time they want. Want to sell some more skins of a newly introduced champion? Just make it OP for the first month or so, and then nerf it into the ground when suckers bought the champion and its skins. I've been playing Warframe for like 10 years or so, and that's also a live service game, but with the major difference that it isn't competitive. So what if a frame is not as strong or as optimal as another? You can still do a ton of content with the weakest frame in the game. Using the weakest champion in League for a specific role will only lead to your team hating you, the opponents laughing at you, and you're having a miserable time all around. So much content in a game like League and so many obsolete champions during specific metas. Hyper-competitive games where you have to unlock specific heroes or weapons to be on an even playing field. And that use a live service model are an absolute NO for me. Because one change of the meta, and you are screwed over. It's an unfulfilling treadmill and you are the guinea pig.
Thanks to Riot decision making, Vanguard included, the playerbase probably decreased by a decent amount. And the recent trend of expensive skins is probably the solution to regain the money they lost. It probably won't stop anytime soon.
Riot is completely owned by Tencent, which is (on top of being a hideously disgusting company itself the likes of which most Americans can't comprehend) completely owned the CCP, whose brutal lack of regard for humanity in general should need no elaboration. China buying up our beloved popular entertainment companies across the world is an encroachment and exertion of soft power, and we should all be genuinely worried about what that means for the future
@@nivyan they have a vast understanding of addiction and how to hide it in systems and benefit off it from the masses, you have to realize these are actual job positions that people get paid for
Why is EVERY BIG GAME COMPANY RACING TO THE BOTTOM? This is why ubisoft is floundering, this is why Indie games are booming while AA and AAA are losing ground.
They are addicted to "now" money and ignore "later" money even though "later" money is what made them profitable enough to look at "now" money. "Line Must Go Up" and now money gives them the illusion of line going up faster.
@@SlateBlueC4t idk what to tell you but look around, my two favorite games are indies (Dredge and Cassette Beasts) and one of them is still getting updates and improving on a predecessor that’s falling behind
Sorry take it as venting. To the ones that bought the 500$ skin: YOU ARE THE FUCKING PROBLEM! Sorry, I just had it with the lower common denominator that keeps giving the companies absurd amounts of money for awful products 😢
the problem is the companies being allowed to do this kind of thing those psychologically exploitative mechanisms need to be illegal - and that needs to be enforced hard. if you think those being exploited and abused are the problem... you will never find a solution, because all you can say is "stop being abused"... does that sound like a solution to you? what do you think will work in that case?
@@SharienGamingyes all those big companies probably have a full bunch of psychologists advising them too for maximum cash extraction. I am sure of that.
The problem is that a lot of people can dish out these amounts of money. Any hobby can make you splurge out unreasonable amounts of cash. No, the issue here are the tactics that manipulate people into buying these things. And I'm afraid to say it as EU citizen but.... EU parliament somehow waking up and deciding to crush some of these practices is our only hope.
I don't blame you, but it's 100% on the companies for it. There will always be some people who value something that highly in their favourite game and can afford it. The shame lies with greedy companies taking advantage of that.
They basically copied the Hoyoverse gacha model (80 pulls for a guaranteed max rarity drop, 0.5% starting rate but ramping up to an average of 1.5% by 79 pulls) but forgot that Hoyoverse games give you the equivalent of 0.5 pulls a day just by logging in and doing daily tasks (and have events giving you free pulls for logging in). At least with a Hoyogame people can work towards saving up. No such thing exists in any Riot games.
@@Atelier951 Hoyoverse games are a lot better than this not only because they actually provide a decent amount of free currency, but also because they have soft pity, where your chances to get the thing you want increase drastically the closer you get to the guarantee, to the point where you won't actually reach hard pity all that often. Also, Hoyoverse reruns things that they put on their banners. Riot isn't doing that, which is really scummy.
@@danielhounshell2526 and the content is easy enough (sometimes too easy) were you can best most of it with 4 stars and imprints are just for 5s is flex they only milk the casuls with login gem thing and battle pass both are cheap though they do dumb things like the login in you have to login or you miss the gems
They said the quiet part out loud? Ya. A lot of people have been doing that lately... seriously, have these companies forgotten we can chose NOT to give them money.
@@vanishingllama7342but most people don’t actually have a reason to not spend the money(assuming they actually have the disposable income). The vast majority of consumers don’t care about politics or working conditions or wage slavery. They don’t want to see hear or think about that during their hobby.
I feel like artists for things like this should have royalties just like actors and such anything that is created by talents and will make money in perpetuity should get money the same.
@Daniele-PierreDuLac I am saying that our system needs to change we are still working off a system where things were made and sold and that was it now things are made to be sold an infinite number of times if something you made will make money 1 time being payed 1 time makes sense but if the thing you made will make money for the next 20 years you should too. I am not saying this exact time it should because yes the way it works isn't like that the point is the system should change going forward.
It shouldn't. Because all anyone would ever do is the try to join a successful business to passively earn royalties rather than try to start their own.
@@johnoden5932 There are companies that already do this, see Valve for example, anyone can make Dota 2 skins and potentially profit from them if they're accepted by Valve and there are artists who do and make a lot. I think the person you're responding to is being unnecessarily dismissive but they do have a point, at the end of the day these artists agreed to the contract, even if yes I agree it's scummy it's not actually the companies' fault that they had contract regret after and realised they got screwed over. I'm reminded a bit of the Witcher book writer who took a cash payment and handed over his IP entirely to CD Projekt Red thinking he was being smart even though he was offered something like 5% I think it might have been ( Don't quote me on that ) in royalties. He clearly had no idea how big of a success it was and then proceeded to go after CD Projekt Red after like he was a victim. Let this be a lesson to anyone trying to get to the higher tiers of business, if you think it has the slightest chance of doing well always find a way of getting a percentage in profit through royalties or any other method so you don't get ripped off for your work. I'm not writing this as a justification for their behaviour, this is just the realities of a business deal younger generations especially need to take note of.
riot games is a studio that deserves to fail. They stopped caring about league a long time ago. I dropped league after vanguard happened and switched to linux mint as my daily driver and haven't looked back once.
Vanguard patch was the day I uninstalled, I'm not about to compromise my system to play a few ARAMs a week. Not sure why they thought that level of invasiveness was fine, but since they didn't roll it back, I'm guessing most of their players just didn't care.
Hey Bellular, I usually never comment on your videos, or even watch this style of yours, specifically. But today you did something right, and I gotta tell you. I watched this video all the way through, and I was confused when it ended cause I wanted more. The editing, the information presentation visually, and the topic most importantly, are all great and on point. Usually I feel like your videos in this style are just rambles of information and no order to their presentation. Today was so orderly and coherent and flowing. 🖖
I think this is the point. I think things are getting more expensive across the board, because the spending power of the middle class is shrinking, leaving only the super rich/whales as viable customers. So many businesses are pivoting towards catering to them only.
@@Mick0Mania I agree to an extent, but a community of any game is made on the back of the average player and if they are squeezed out the whales will loose the motivation as other players leave. Most loose any care to spend if the isn't anyone to brag to or stomp. The collect them all whale generally are not enough to sustain a game on their own.
@@TrackMediaOnly Then they'll just find a new product to milk. This game is not going to die overnight. Even if many players leave, the whales won't just stop their addiction and bail. This is how half-dead MMOs keep afloat. They just need the whales to stick around, and they will due to the sunken cost alone.
As long as they have a tight grip on the people that they really want who have no chance/interest of escape, they don't care. 1 guy spending $1000 beats out 10 guys spending $10
We can blame corporate greed all day... However, so long as people continue to supply revenue, making these greedy moves profitable, they will continue to implement them. Most have little willpower to stop themselves... especially if they are purchasing with someone elses money, such as a parent.
ah yes the old tune of "look at what you made me do to you" go ahead...keep blaming the victims rich and powerful corporation exploits people? thats fine, just dont get exploited lol
13:36 bro thankyou. I frequently talk about the monetization of Overwatch 2 on reddit and have to combat these arguments almost all the time. My usual response is, "if you REALLY don't care about cosmetics, then you shouldn't mind people complaining about them." Overwatch 2 feels more like a mall than a game with how much development effort goes into the cosmetics compared to the rest of the game. They killed the ambition of one of my favorite games and turned it into a husk to sell skins. 😢
There is no effort even in these skins. They're just selling epic quality skins as legendaries and recolors of OW1 skins at full price. They can't make PvE, they can't redo old maps without breaking lighting and they can't even make skins. Pathetic.
'radical management' 1. Fire seasoned devs ( because they disagree with you ) 2. Celebrate your unchallenged power 3. Scream at everyone , ( because nothing works and you don't know why its breaking )
I don't even play these games and I'm so tired of hearing about all of this gacha/monetization scheme BS. It's so obviously manipulative and cynical. The fact that it works so well is what's most depressing.
Stephanie Sterling said it best about “It’s just cosmetic” type defences. If it was just cosmetic and not everything is for you, why would these devs and publishers bother? Do you think they do all of this just to only adopt a handful of purchasers? Do you think they don’t want to create more customers? Do you honestly believe it doesn’t impact the overall designs of games?
It is absolutely not JUST cosmetic, to use the game For Honor as an example, the reason the playerbase stuck around for so long and is still keeping the game alive is because the devs for the most part listened to feedback about keeping the medieval aeshtetic and not just doing a bunch of fantasy visual effect skins for everything, People wanted the gritty metal aesthetic to be the main one
Come on, as much as I hate league, just cosmetic is still miles ahead of P2W or even "pay for convenience" type crap. That's what really hurts the game, because the devs create problems that can be solved with $$$
LoL isn't exactly F2P game either, to properly play it you need characters - to unlock them from fresh account you need either need to spend like what? 100$ to get some more competitive characters set? Or grind for like 5 years. To be fair LoL was full on freemium some years ago with mastery system that also needed either to be grinded or paid off or two same characters could do different amount of damage etc. I played this game very briefly but dedicated LoL players aren't really too objective in what money gives from new account perspective - stuff like that pushed me away rather quickly, especially that I hate grinding. That's the core issue, I'm pretty old-school, I have still similar expectations from the games like 20 years ago. Modern gamers are already heavily influenced to see a lot more things being acceptable and good news - it will be only worse in AAQ gaming, more and more of kids is growing up and are absolutely fine with very predatory monetization schemes as that's normal to them, they don't know any different... It's sad to see what gaming had become really.
I dont understand why people complain? It's YOU THE CUSTOMER who keeps buying their shit. Stop wasting money on their shit and the problem goes away. People need to start looking themselves.
Well, the thing is though, they don’t look at them as “artists.” They look at them as production workers that make the product. It has very little to do with art. But of course if they don’t say “art” then it just sounds cold… cause it is
that last 2 minutes is exactly it. full stop. im in my 40s and you could see the writing on the wall become crystal clear when fortnite was stealing dances and they were making money hand over fist on skins. selling map packs walked so selling skins could run.... the industry into the ground.
ive been a rocket league player/fan since day one. all of the development on the game we see these days goes to skins, rocket pass items, and license deals.
@@bigrob029 I remember Cathode Ray Dude going on about perfection in appliance/tech businesses during his look at Daystarter. Perfection is what drives skeevy business.
"It's only cosmetic" is the greatest lie that the videogame industry has ever told. It's the Kaiser Soze of videogame industry bs. With some manufactured consent sprinkled in.
The video game industry lie? People made the "it's only cosmetic" excuse and kept buying the cosmetics. The industry just follows trends, since mtx purchases are still trending up, that trend will be followed.
Fun fact: the "Pity" system is there not because the developers have a good heart, but because if they don't have one, the thing would be considered gambling.
@@Surkk2960 Already fallen for it and it's actually quite comfy in games actually built with gacha mechanics in mind. At least if the game is generous enough, I know I'll never spend $5000 in a single day on a gacha like what Fate Grand Order did. What a mess...
Mad respect for calling people out at the end. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to reporting on these scummy tactics! And thank you for the awesome content as always!
Everyone I know who was at one point a hardcore league player have by and large stopped playing. I think at this point the playerbase numbers have stagnated and are likely dropping. South Korea will always remain the largest country for League and SK is an absolute dystopia of people who are willing to spend money to make themselves look better in any way possible. This leads me to believe that they're basically at the point where the game isn't going to really go anywhere and they're looking to make as much money as possible by milking whoever is left. Riot, in general, is a mess. It's a miracle Valorant was even made considering that their devs constantly fail at making new games and can barely even manage new game modes in LoL. Their side projects have mostly failed or are in production limbo. Once again, I'm pretty sure if it weren't for South Korea, Riot's situation would be far worse.
I think League could definitely be stagnating, but I think the playerbase numbers, if they are dropping, are dropping very slowly. This is rather natural, though, for a game this old or at least it is expected. League is very old and Riot isn't dumb they know a new game or new projects are a necessity to grow forward, and so it will happen whether anyone likes it or not. Valorant is a recent result of this. You are right on SK though, it's a weird dystopian like place in which they care about image to a degree that is offputting.
What stops the studio they worked for from cutting off the royalty check shortly after sacking? Warner Bros. making their recent TV inaccessible, anyone?
@@ChickenCurry-w8s Not just because paying a worker less than 5% of the money they generate is immoral. But because the economy straight up cannot work with money being drained like that from the worker class. A company pays 100K, they make 1 million. Which means they have drained 900K from the lower class. Capitalism only works as a closed system, and closed systems cannot have infinite growth, SOMEONE has to loose that money.
Oh shit, Bellular has entered his Righteous Fury Crusader era. This man is on a mission and you can feel it at the end of the video. Dude, i am right there with you, told a friend that is about 15 years younger than me how we used to get the full game on release, there were no patches to fix stuff, it had to be done right the first time, and we got a ton more content out of a box price or sub then we did free to play cash shop and battle pass monetization predatory practices.
Content is what is more valuable than a skin. You're damn right it is... I purchased a new computer and got Star Wars Outlaws "Free"... Now they have skins on sale which are cool and all, but when I read the "Season Pass" comes with multiple DLC's I purchased it. And it also came with some skins. I have played thousands of hours of Valorant, I mean THOUSANDS... I have yet to buy even the battlepass because skins are not valuable to me. Since I get all the content the game has to offer for free... Why would I spend any money on it...
There is a massive difference between CSGO skins and League skins. CSGO skins are digital commodities that can be traded and sold for a profit, League skins are nontransferable items that are bound to your account. Allowing skins to be sold on a marketplace creates a whole other set of issues, but why anyone would care about spending hundreds of dollars on a League skin is beyond me.
As someone whom played in the toxic mines from 2009 till earlier this year and thinking about going back thank god I watched this. Over my entire time playing I've spent thousands supporting a game that I loved. If TotalBiscuit was able to see just how far RIOT has strayed I'm sure he would be yelling from the rooftops about this BS.
Arcane is like BG3: a very well crafted licensed release that gives life to an IP that's controlled by people who have no interest in anything but cash.
@@3DSCarnaje Just looking at Wikipedia, Larian first approached Wizards of the Coast but Wizards didn't trust them yet, but after Divinity: Original Sin 2, Wizards came to THEM. And it's based on Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition gameplay.
Look gacha is trash we all agree, But claiming that the IP is controlled by people who only care about money is an oversimplification. Riot actually turned down Arcane twice because the storytelling wasn’t strong enough, and they wanted to push the IP further. That’s why we ended up with such a well-crafted show. They invested heavily in a project that many thought would flop, but they believed in it enough to establish their own animation department. For the past decade, Riot has released monthly stories, even though only a small fraction of the player base reads them. They do this to build a rich and immersive IP. This year, they even created a dedicated IP department to ensure the development of their universe. They also invest in music videos, lore content, and other media to expand the world. To dismiss their efforts when you dislike something and only credit the artists when you like it shows a limited understanding of their commitment to the IP.
@@cosmosofinfinity Gotcha. I guess my memory was wrong about that then. Maybe influenced by the fact that (at least if my memory is working this time) WotC guards DND about as vehemently as Nintendo with their IPs.
Well, I see this all as an example of why we need that whole "Digital Bill Of Rights" to re-build the entire legal structure and definition of how this works and can work as well as protecting consumers. Of course it's also an example of why there will be opposition to ever doing such a thing, and a lot of opposition at that. My major issue with this sort of thing is that I think it's an example of why there is no such thing as a victimless crime, and "well people will buy it" is not a good excuse to justify this kind of thing, as when this happens it does damage the entire industry. I also think it's an issue because the entire way they can do this is dependent on a very abusive system when it comes to unprotected digital property. My big issue with skins, at any price, has always been that they are taking money and giving you nothing they can even guarantee perpetual access to. I also think $500 is ridiculous, when $200 used to be a lifetime MMO subscription.
The moment you give your company to MBA's you basically killed your company's sole. The endless greed for short-term and infinite growth of these MBA's are killing flourishing companies in every sector
depends on how the pity system works and if it's even viable as F2P to even reach it. If they make it a pain in the a.s.s to save your fre,e currency for it then yeah, it is trash. Because pity encourages saving until you can spark. But if you have to treat the game like a job, it isn't worth it. Then there's the mechanical aspect, like YuGiOh master duel that allows you to take SSR cards you don't want and break them down into rarity points so you can buy the cards you do want without spending a dime. Of course, it doesn't help that gacha games are often built on the framework of improvisation out of randomness, since you don't know what characters you'll get and have to make best use of them. Costumes don't work that way. So it begs the question as to why they aren't sold out right...
@@LoliconSamalik yeah though their are gacha i play if you get a same copy you get a currency and power up the character witch you can use it to buy another summon how much you get depends if the imprints of the character is maxed out its a refund and thats just the 4 stars
I'm sorry, but if you're spending money on skins for a game, then you get zero sympathy for feeling jipped on a cosmetic that does nothing for a game. It's the greatest scam this industry has ever had happen.
The live service videogame industry is the only one I know where competition backfired so badly and made stuff worse for us: instead of striving for a better product to attract and hold on to customers, game dev companies are cutting costs and using more aggressive monetization
They won't get me. Ever. It's funny because once i got wind of this system i thought to myself: 'I don't play gacha games', and suddenly my time spend on league decreased by about 90%, only the occasional ARAM.
13:50 Preach!! I wish devs (especially blizzard) would focus more on pumping out content rather than useless skins. Do you remember what skin or transmog you had on when you had that great win or beat that one raid? NO!! but I bet you remember the character you were playing
ME3 Multiplayer mentioned! The scary part about that is that ME3MP didn't have an infinite loot treadmill. You were working to complete a "manifest" of finite size. And based on the datamined droprates, it "only" takes about 4000 USD to get every piece of permanent equipment in the game. After that, even the most expensive loot box only gives one-time consumables , which also has an inventory cap of 255. So someone spent 10000 USD onlootboxes that couldn't possibly drop anything of value... no wonder EA took note.
Ubisoft also said the quiet part out loud when they said that you don't actually own any of your games, yet y'all started memeing on them with that quote. Next thing everyone realizes is that Steam were forced to let you know that it was indeed true :).
@@lycanwarrior2137 Yeah, but they've never shafted their customers with it. The system has only become more and more pro-consumer as years went on. - Accessible releases for indie developers. - Extremely generous tools for interacting with steam's API AND almost 0 restrictions on its usage (you don't even need a steam account). - The best Windows emulator for linux, which is still free to use since they decided to invest on the existing free alternative instead of monetizing their own private solution. - Cheap games adjusted for local economies. - The new family system allows adding friend's games to your account and no longer has a "1 player per library" limit nor does it require sharing passwords. - Free rewards just for playing that have monetary value (actually pay to earn, not just a pump and dump scam).
@@lycanwarrior2137you mean the least intrusive, reasonable implementation of drm. Onky idiot think that a game can be transacted online with some form of validation process.
Exactly. When people tell me that skins are optional, you don't have to buy them, why do you hate them so much? I don't hate them. But if I am going to give a company 20 bucks, I want to get something new for it. Imagine, you eat mashed potatoes. You paid for them, so you eat them everyday, because that's what you paid for. Now, you're getting a but tired of them, the enjoyment is dwindling. You would really like to add something to them. Hey, for ten bucks I can give you this fancy bowl to eat them out of. Okay. sure. Wait....it's still just mashed potatoes. Yeah, the bowl is pretty, but nothing changed. How about a shiny new spoon too! No. How about some salt and pepper? Some butter? A little seasoning to change it up. How about for a week or two you put some carrots in there? Maybe I can give you 20 bucks for some gravy. The point is that for the amount of money people are paying for a digital t-shirt, you can make a new game. You could make something new, fresh, or even just remake something old to modern standards. The reason games aren't innovating is because they don't have to. You will pay them to change the paint, rearrange the furniture. They don't need to build a new house, or add a new floor to the existing one. They can just make the walls a new color, and you will just pay for that and call it new. It's not. And it's one major reason why the industry is slowing to a point where games are not inspiring. The bare minimum exactly. And when you finally have enough, and the players start to go elsewhere, you just take the old game, add some of those long requested features, and call it 2.0 or 3.0....and in the worst case scenario you make a sequel. Same game, just some gimmicks to make it feel new and innovative. And you're cool with tossing those "new" things out when they majority doesn't like them, because you only added them to get the players back anyway. And then you recycle the old paint and rearrange the furniture again...rinse repeat. The wisdom that you should take from it is simple: Without incentive, innovation has no reason.
People are agnry today about the $500 skin the same way we were angry 15 years ago about day one DLCs The needle will move, it's inevitable, all because not enough people care in the end It's easier to screech about "the WOKES" for example, than it is to properly explain the predatory practices actually ruining gaming for all of us
As someone at a similar age to Michael, I can completely echo his sentiment at the end. Throughout the majority of my time gaming I can comfortably say I really don't like the way the industry is going in terms of monetisation. Times gone, when games wanted to sell DLC, it was actual content. Skins don't really scream 'content' to me. DLC used to be a mechanism of fan service. Players really loved the story of a culture/character, make a DLC around that. Expanding the lore on that topic, giving more to the players to fall in love with. I really struggle to support games that just want to monetise skins. Closest thing I can get to supporting a game that leans on these practices is with a battle passes. At least it is incentivising game play, rather then encouraging me to swipe for shinny things. And I am very much not alone in this, I only pay for things that will give me a reason to play. I don't see skins going away, they will always be here now. But devs are leaving players unfulfilled that want to pay to get something more then just shiny things.
No. Bullying never leads to anything good. But we should absolutely not acknowledge their fancy purchase, and thereby remove a large reason that you do such things.
They'll just do what Blizzard already does and bans you if you "harass other players." Not that I support bullying, but I also would like it if there was a viable way for the community to discourage each other from falling for these predatory antics of 90 dollar wow mounts.
You know who is also owned by Tencent? Digital Extremes. You know who DOESNT engage in this scumminess and is known for being incredibly player focused? Digital Extremes. This is 100% a RIOT problem, not a Tencent issue.
I’m reminded of Blizzard releasing a brutosaur mount today that retails for $90, and according to friends all of the WoW tokens are gone between NA and EU. The Star-Horse model continues to clop forward to thunderous profits and the rest of us suffer for it.
The end of the video is really important. That’s why “just don’t buy it” has never made sense. When games become stores, they get designed to sell, not to play.
It is worth noting FOMO works both ways, fear of missing out requires you to not be missing out. Now that you will have missed out, there is less reason to join this game. The less reason to join this game the more likely they will go the Smite Route. In other words the design of this is exclusivity that will drive League of Legends 2 to be made. You are paying money to drive the death of LoL and the skins you spend.
I'm heavily considering leaving any ecosystem that pushes such expensive macrotransactions. You can get MULTIPLE whole games worth of content for the price of one skin. No amount of investment into a game is worth the price of an entire game. I abandoned LoL and I abandoned Overwatch. I will not hesitate to abandon another game if it comes down to it. Especially when we were told "This is how we remain profitable and keep people employed". Predatory pricing has to stop.
There is no way, even if I had the money that I would ever spend that kind of $$ on a digital product with no lifespan beyond the life of the game. Now that artbook with the figures. It would still be in your bookshelf in 10-20 years. Totally worth it as it is your possession 100%.
I've just started playing league again (casually, not ranked or anything competitive) But got damn last time I played they had only just started introducing legendary skins like I think it was Ezreal or something, still had to buy rune slots thats how long ago it was. The amount of weird changes I've logged into is insane
As someone knows someone who owns every single skin, little legends, emote and chroma in the game - ever x: yes they exist. I hate it so much. I agree with Asmongold here. Virtual currencies should just go away. Things should just be able to bought 1:1 vs real money - straight forward. As someone who also drops money on Rito, and i don't mind doing so, I am glad that my fav characters aren't that popular. Still wondering if DJ Sona and Elementalist Lux will be upgraded to be an Exalted or not. Jinx basically has the same functionality as DJ Sona, minus the Music plus the HUD
@@solarydays They are trying to cut costs, not move their production which would increase costs. It has been confirmed generative AI is a factor and they are outsourcing to not have to pay wages
I really hate all the Gacha BS. It really is just manipulation of people with limited self control, which are mostly kids, people with ADHD and people, who are depressed or otherwise deeply unhappy. It should fall under the same laws as all other forms of gambling.
This doesn't get brought up much, but Riot recently completed and opened a hype new studio on Mercer Island. For non-Seattleites, Mercer Island is in the middle of Lake Washington and it's basically where a lot of the old money lives. Even the most modest of homes runs for well north of $1 million. The cost and overhead on this swanky new studio on this expensive peice of land has to be astounding.
Everywhere you look, someone wanting to make money is ruining something. And someone wanting to make a thing out of inspiration or love, is being bought and monetized
A friend of mine was laid off last year when they did the big cuts. He was one of the highest ROI people in his department and had worked there for 10 years. Every single one of these cuts is profit-driven. All of them, without exception.
Ah yes, the P2W arc begins. An item locked behind "luck-based item" locked behind a currency locked behind another currency that needs money to buy. Classic
Hey look... A person who has never played LoL before talking out of their ass. There's no such thing as P2W skin in LoL. P2W literally doesn't exist unless you are paying another person to boost your account and even then they actually have to win (which is not guaranteed) to do it.
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First
Keep it up!
this is a scam no one should sell out to it as its harmful for your audience.
@@thelightsilentI've heard that it's not very good, but what makes it a scam? Genuinely, I want to know
@@conallirvine5157 when you cancel they charge you a year after even after you cancel it. Theres a few videos of yt that expose it.
- Fire seasoned devs
- Realize production is lagging behind
- Hire them back as temporary contractors
- Invest in more bloat that does not increase profits
- Make “premium” skins that cost the same as some AA games
- Repeat
They are literally shooting themselves on the foot...
@@TinchoX we still need to see about that. It's unfortunate that it comes to this. But Riot gamers are the Mihoyo players of E-sports. Not only they are numerous, a not-so-little part of them won't think twice to spend.
Most people that's not smurfing have skins in Valorant even in lower ranks.
This is also a game where people spend a lot of time. It's much easier to spend larger amount of money to something you already like.
Comes with a lot of excuses too. "Supporting the devs", "I already get my money's worth from the time I've spent", and so on.
@@Claudetwofunfi mean, i'm shocked at how many people I see that have the five hundred dollar version of the faker skin in platinum. and some of them are smurfs, so it's like, okay.I guess this is like an ego trip thing, i really don't get it, but either way, you're playing in platinum. With five hundred dollars scan, so presumably you have a challenger or a master account, and you also have a five hundred dollar skin there.
Not all of them are smurfs, there's a lot of people that are where they're supposed to be, and they have the $500 skin, and I'm just like bro. Ari has fifty skins, there are other ones that look arguably better than this, one that don't cost five hundred dollars.Why would you do this
@@Velereonics Some people just have money to spend, that doesn't mean they spend it well...
I can see that in other games. The First Decendant when a new character comes out, people already have bought the 100$ package day one.
Mobile P2W games when DAY ONE a player already has >1mil points while new players are just at ~100k, thats usually 1000$ or more...
I just "waste" money to buy a highend PC for 2-4000$ (every 2-4 years) to play all kinds of games, CP2077 but also Hollow Knight for example. :D
This is how government works as well. "The Big Con by Mariana Mazzucato describes exactly how governments fire their exprts and then hire consultants on whom they then become dependant.
so glad I'm not really playing competitive fomo generators anymore
@@TheLumberjack1987 bang on
Yeah I used to play league a lot, but the past few years it just seems like a job grinding out various events. I basically don't play anymore other than an occasional ARAM with some friends.
1,700 hours and counting in "Dyson Sphere Program." And that's far from the only game I play ;)
as it was said "a fool and his money are soon parted"
weep not for the fools, weep that you weren't the one to take their money.
@@dkail08 "I don't play anymore" >plays still occasionally.
What a hypocrite League sucker.
One misconception is that whales are rich. There may be a few rich people who have enough money that it just doesn't matter, but most whales are people who just spend every bit of cash they have the moment they get it.
I think usually the whales focus on one game at a time, which makes it possible to invest heavily in it.
When you play like 5 games at the same time, you easily can't afford to spend a lot of money in each one.
And they'd always spend it on something. It's not LoL or gacha or loot boxes or whatever that are the "problem" here. If they didn't exist, they'd spend their time in some seedy gambling den. These people need help. They know they need help, but they don't want it. And to fight a gambling addiction, you first have to admit you have a problem. Otherwise nobody can help you. Certainly no laws. You'd just find ways around that.
@Diree I would argue that fewer people would fall into the gambling trap if the vice wasn't as prevalent.
But I also agree that at some point, people need to be willing to accept help and take control of their lives to truly fix the problem.
@@jeremymercer5655 Its a personality disorder. Prevalence doesn't matter except for things that overlap where one is illegal and another is not. (Such as alcohol vs other safer recreational drugs).
The point being that even if it wasnt there it would be something else to fill that void they have. Then depending on the issue exactly, having some outlet for it is better than 0 legal alternative as those people usually end up going the full way with whatever that is illegal, as since the least offending form of it is illegal already and it normalizes it in their brain as they step thru it. (Although I don't think there really is a decent outlet for someone stuck on gambling, maybe playing competitive mahjong? Lol)
@@1e0isfdkorblpg I am not convinced by that argument. I would need to see some sort of study to back up that theory.
I hate the inflation argument. Salaries didn't keep up and that is never taken into consideration.
It has always been known to play out like this, the public is a bunch of suckers
the method of distribution is also not taken into consideration. physical distribution was expensive compared to online distribution.
they do for most, plus QoL goes up year by year
Salaries SHOULD rise with inflation.
That’s not the gaming industries fault
@@mookieblaelocker6504 Considering that they generally pay much less for comparable skills vs other industries, I'd say that they ARE part of the problem. Not the whole of it, but they definitely contribute in multiple ways. The game industry is built on exploiting the passion of workers for low wages and long hours.
Back in the day, to get the ultra rare skins you had to perform some difficult to complete activity in-game that would prove how good you are. Now all you have to do is drop a few hundred
Back in the day, games cost less to make, and cost more than LoL (LoL is free to play). Friendly reminder that Path of Exile has the exact same business model as LoL and no one complains about them.
@@dimruby it is mainly because how riot changed and people expecting to stay at the same old practices
@@dimrubyits hard to complain about someone you've never heard of.
@@doommustard8818 Well that's cos you're not in their genre. They lead the ARPG genre, more so than Diablo does.
Back in the day, games were not free to play.
So long as idiots give their money companies will say "Screw you desire to get your monies worth, we want the whales".
Bingo. "We have met the enemy and he is us." They make this because it sells.
Whenever someone is rewarded for bad behavior you can expect more bad behavior.
Vote with your wallet.
@@arcamean785 That's just it. This assumes a person isn't neurodivergent and has an inclination towards completion. Folks have emptied bank accounts, maxed out credit sources, and stolen from friends and family to satisfy their mental needs.
And they can't stop themselves, even though they know it's breaking them. The only option they have is avoidance, which is why I'm glad this episode exists.
buddy, we have gacha games.
Not to mention, Blizzard was already selling cosmetics in a SUBSCRIPTION game
The -only- way to punish thi is to not play.
That the real Ahri statue of the Faker Skin was cheaper than the endlessly available digital Skin is still the funniest/saddest thing for me.
Corporate greed will kill the videogame industry
Corporate greed is killing everything in the West right now.
Already has
correction corporate greed HAS killed the gaming industry over the last decade
The Triple AAA industry for sure.
Indie games and even Double AA titles will continue to thrive and do well for themselves.
it will not, it will only kill AAA
the indie scene is blossoming like never before
In Civilization Beyond Earth, there's a flavour text where it explains the culture leader Elodié wrote her first dissertation on the collapse of the video game industry in the 2020s and 2030s. I first read that in 2014 and wondered how in the hell something like that could happen.
I've been thinking about that little text a lot lately.
could you paraphrase for us that haven't read it?
I suppose you were quite young in 2014, because I have seen people talking about it since the very early 2010's due to the various DIE (Diversity, inclusivity, and equity) movements that had begun invading the gaming world and the corporate take overs that had led to it happening. Plenty of people have been warning about this for well over a decade now. Most people just didn't want to take part in politics, so only the bad guys took part.
@@hungrymusicwolf bullshit, this has absolutely nothing to do with that and folk like you that keep freaking insisting and blaming laws that requiring corps to do the bare freaking minimum while letting the true issues of corporate greed, and focusing on the wants of shareholders beyond all else. blaming all the issues on minority's asking for equal rights is such a freaking joke and completely ignoring the true issue's that come from late stage capitalism and lack of government regulation that protects customers and keeps shitty corps in line.
@@hungrymusicwolf Your attempt at putting down what they said is quite odd. Perhaps you are the one that was "quite young" in 2014.
@@hungrymusicwolf Yeah but, who are the bad guys specifically? Because if it's the actual people behind all of this bullshit, it has nothing to do with DEI and everything to do with the unsustainable "line go up" mentality. The only people screaming about DEI are those who only want to scream about a random black person they saw because they have nothing better to do with their lives. "But but but, the DEI is making corpos-" Do absolutely NOTHING. They don't give a rats ass about being inclusive, diverse or giving people equality. Have you SEEN the wage disparity in the games industry? Do you seriously think the ghouls who call the shots at the top of these companies sucking the life out of a creative thing like gaming actually give a shit about that? The only thing they care about is making money. If being inclusive makes money, that's what they will do. If throwing hate speech loses them money, they stop doing it. If someone says something that hurts their wallet, they fire that person. Surprise surprise, DEI does very little to the bottom line and profit margins.
Fun fact, gaming has been political sense doom. It's ALWAYS been political. Have you even played the first metal gear? What about modern warfare 1? Man spec ops the line sure ain't political, they really didn't want to take part in the POLITICS of talking about how the US regularly uses white phosphor chemical weapons on civilians while claiming it's just for smoke when there's literal action reports stating that these are effective weapons to be used on combatants.
Here's the answer as to what's actually killing gaming. It's called "Line MUST go up". The pursuit of profit margins over everything else, where every single quarterly report needs to be higher than the last. The result of that causes companies to shotgun wages, stab loyal developers in the neck and throw them out right before earnings to 'cut costs' and push more and more and more and more and more egregious and ludicrous MTX just to get more money.
Simple.
As an artist who used to dream of working at riot this is incredibly depressing
@@rainbowpixel_4145 why? If there isn't any turnover, then there is less opportunity for new people to join the team. I see the move as preventing stagnation, as well as keeping costs low.
@ I think the industry is shifting to a contractor/freelancer model and this is probably part of that. It means less people actually being part of the company. It means less labor regulations apply and often they prefer artist who live in places where the exchange rate benefits the corporation and the artists are deeply underpaid. Unfortunately I don’t think this is a case where theyre going to be hiring back to 100% and the total number of in house artists is probably gonna keep dropping. It’s depressing but I think the future of game art is predatory outsourcing.
The saddest part about the excessive monetisation is that it's going nowhere.
Even tho the majority of players don't engage in macro transactions, there will always be a few who will always buy those. And companies quickly learnt that they can easily offset that low amount of always buying players by upcharging them hundreds per purchase.
By bringing in the recent Faker skin - it earned 2.5 million $ during a single stream. With 500$ per pack, it means Riot only needed 5000 people out of millions playing LoL in order to earn this much.
If you don't want excessive monetisation, don't play games with excessive monetisation. That is not the same as playing the game anyway and not buy those items.
If you really mean it, don't play any game from a studio that produces any games with excessive monetisation.
@@nodwick4231 you are the problem.
@@nodwick4231 "Easier said than done".
There are millions of people who play those games either because they can't afford or run normal games as they tend to be not so demanding on weaker PCs or play because "the game is good despite the grind".
They reality is that there are too many who chose those games for one or the other reason and a single person not playing it won't make a dent. You would have to drop the daily player count by 2/3rd for the paying ones to dip and as I've seen numerous time in previous "game boycotts"... that ain't happening.
@@nodwick4231 tell that to the gacha crowd, like genshin. its stupidly huge.
@@DajovaI imagine Genshin's even worse, because Chinese seem to actively take pride in throwing money at gacha slop. With them, Japan, and S.Korea being the large audience, even if everyone in the west collectively dropped it and every other Mihoyo game, it wouldn't even make a dent
I miss TotalBiscuit, but at the same time I'm glad he doesn't have to see what this industry has become.
Bullshit. He was a big advocate for these kinds of practices. You obviously never listened to the co-optional.
@@Dakkard Im gonna go with "citation required" on this one.
@@Dakkardmy source is:
@@Dakkard That’s a nice argument senator, why don’t you back it up with a source?
If he were alive today he'd probably be pretty occupied with having another meltdown over Trump.
Game with 15+ year old game-breaking bugs, outdated interface, the healthiest thing league players can do is quit cold turkey. Worked for me.
Grats :)
Nah it´s a great game, I have basically never encountered a game breaking bug in a game, you can still easily spend nothing and have unlimited competitive fun.
Was fully addicted until they completely break my champion by changing the map. Quitted and no regrets.
Quit more than 10 years ago (played it for about 3 years). Honestly, I don't get the fuzz about that game. I mean, it's basically a live service competitive game which ultimately means that they can mess with the balance any time they want. Want to sell some more skins of a newly introduced champion? Just make it OP for the first month or so, and then nerf it into the ground when suckers bought the champion and its skins.
I've been playing Warframe for like 10 years or so, and that's also a live service game, but with the major difference that it isn't competitive. So what if a frame is not as strong or as optimal as another? You can still do a ton of content with the weakest frame in the game. Using the weakest champion in League for a specific role will only lead to your team hating you, the opponents laughing at you, and you're having a miserable time all around. So much content in a game like League and so many obsolete champions during specific metas.
Hyper-competitive games where you have to unlock specific heroes or weapons to be on an even playing field. And that use a live service model are an absolute NO for me. Because one change of the meta, and you are screwed over. It's an unfulfilling treadmill and you are the guinea pig.
I get my MoBA fix through HotS or DotA now. I'll never give Riot another dime.
Forcibly infecting all of its users' PCs with Vanguard and having it run 24/7 wasn't enough, apparently.
I was quite reluctant to play LoL before, but since they added their rootkit it's 100% certain I will never return again.
Oh i almost forgor that Fortnut and ALSO are not workin in Linux. Two very nice features.
Thanks to Riot decision making, Vanguard included, the playerbase probably decreased by a decent amount. And the recent trend of expensive skins is probably the solution to regain the money they lost. It probably won't stop anytime soon.
@@cHowaito Forcing the herd out and then milking the remaining group even harder is just going to result in annihilation.
The people designing these monetization systems are genuinely some of the worst people ever.
Riot is completely owned by Tencent, which is (on top of being a hideously disgusting company itself the likes of which most Americans can't comprehend) completely owned the CCP, whose brutal lack of regard for humanity in general should need no elaboration. China buying up our beloved popular entertainment companies across the world is an encroachment and exertion of soft power, and we should all be genuinely worried about what that means for the future
They are geniuses, and people are stupid
Sure you can call the devil genius
@@user-eu2mg8lw2t 'Genius' implies creativity or intellect. This is neither.
@@nivyan they have a vast understanding of addiction and how to hide it in systems and benefit off it from the masses, you have to realize these are actual job positions that people get paid for
Why is EVERY BIG GAME COMPANY RACING TO THE BOTTOM? This is why ubisoft is floundering, this is why Indie games are booming while AA and AAA are losing ground.
They are addicted to "now" money and ignore "later" money even though "later" money is what made them profitable enough to look at "now" money.
"Line Must Go Up" and now money gives them the illusion of line going up faster.
And which indie games are booming?
@@SlateBlueC4t Factorio
@@SlateBlueC4t idk what to tell you but look around, my two favorite games are indies (Dredge and Cassette Beasts) and one of them is still getting updates and improving on a predecessor that’s falling behind
It's not just the games industry. Everything is turning into shit
Sorry take it as venting.
To the ones that bought the 500$ skin: YOU ARE THE FUCKING PROBLEM!
Sorry, I just had it with the lower common denominator that keeps giving the companies absurd amounts of money for awful products 😢
Is it venting if it's true?
the problem is the companies being allowed to do this kind of thing
those psychologically exploitative mechanisms need to be illegal - and that needs to be enforced hard.
if you think those being exploited and abused are the problem... you will never find a solution, because all you can say is "stop being abused"... does that sound like a solution to you? what do you think will work in that case?
@@SharienGamingyes all those big companies probably have a full bunch of psychologists advising them too for maximum cash extraction. I am sure of that.
The problem is that a lot of people can dish out these amounts of money. Any hobby can make you splurge out unreasonable amounts of cash.
No, the issue here are the tactics that manipulate people into buying these things.
And I'm afraid to say it as EU citizen but....
EU parliament somehow waking up and deciding to crush some of these practices is our only hope.
I don't blame you, but it's 100% on the companies for it. There will always be some people who value something that highly in their favourite game and can afford it. The shame lies with greedy companies taking advantage of that.
They basically copied the Hoyoverse gacha model (80 pulls for a guaranteed max rarity drop, 0.5% starting rate but ramping up to an average of 1.5% by 79 pulls) but forgot that Hoyoverse games give you the equivalent of 0.5 pulls a day just by logging in and doing daily tasks (and have events giving you free pulls for logging in). At least with a Hoyogame people can work towards saving up. No such thing exists in any Riot games.
@@Atelier951 Hoyoverse games are a lot better than this not only because they actually provide a decent amount of free currency, but also because they have soft pity, where your chances to get the thing you want increase drastically the closer you get to the guarantee, to the point where you won't actually reach hard pity all that often.
Also, Hoyoverse reruns things that they put on their banners. Riot isn't doing that, which is really scummy.
@@danielhounshell2526 and the content is easy enough (sometimes too easy) were you can best most of it with 4 stars and imprints are just for 5s is flex they only milk the casuls with login gem thing and battle pass both are cheap though they do dumb things like the login in you have to login or you miss the gems
They said the quiet part out loud?
Ya. A lot of people have been doing that lately... seriously, have these companies forgotten we can chose NOT to give them money.
@@vanishingllama7342 I'm still waiting for us to make that decision lol.
This fact is irrelevant when people will buy anyway.
@@IEgOImkAwx ... ya. But a guy can dream.
@@vanishingllama7342but most people don’t actually have a reason to not spend the money(assuming they actually have the disposable income). The vast majority of consumers don’t care about politics or working conditions or wage slavery. They don’t want to see hear or think about that during their hobby.
@@Daniele-PierreDuLac Good point 👉
I feel like artists for things like this should have royalties just like actors and such anything that is created by talents and will make money in perpetuity should get money the same.
Why? They are a contractor contracted for a job. They delivered and were paid.
the quality of the skins would probably go up too if the artists making them knew that the better they sold the more money they would make
@Daniele-PierreDuLac I am saying that our system needs to change we are still working off a system where things were made and sold and that was it now things are made to be sold an infinite number of times if something you made will make money 1 time being payed 1 time makes sense but if the thing you made will make money for the next 20 years you should too. I am not saying this exact time it should because yes the way it works isn't like that the point is the system should change going forward.
It shouldn't. Because all anyone would ever do is the try to join a successful business to passively earn royalties rather than try to start their own.
@@johnoden5932 There are companies that already do this, see Valve for example, anyone can make Dota 2 skins and potentially profit from them if they're accepted by Valve and there are artists who do and make a lot. I think the person you're responding to is being unnecessarily dismissive but they do have a point, at the end of the day these artists agreed to the contract, even if yes I agree it's scummy it's not actually the companies' fault that they had contract regret after and realised they got screwed over.
I'm reminded a bit of the Witcher book writer who took a cash payment and handed over his IP entirely to CD Projekt Red thinking he was being smart even though he was offered something like 5% I think it might have been ( Don't quote me on that ) in royalties. He clearly had no idea how big of a success it was and then proceeded to go after CD Projekt Red after like he was a victim. Let this be a lesson to anyone trying to get to the higher tiers of business, if you think it has the slightest chance of doing well always find a way of getting a percentage in profit through royalties or any other method so you don't get ripped off for your work.
I'm not writing this as a justification for their behaviour, this is just the realities of a business deal younger generations especially need to take note of.
riot games is a studio that deserves to fail. They stopped caring about league a long time ago. I dropped league after vanguard happened and switched to linux mint as my daily driver and haven't looked back once.
Vanguard patch was the day I uninstalled, I'm not about to compromise my system to play a few ARAMs a week. Not sure why they thought that level of invasiveness was fine, but since they didn't roll it back, I'm guessing most of their players just didn't care.
they care so little about league that they bring out arcane season2 organise worlds and msi, ye they obviously dont care lolz
@@esrasor they don't htey making arcane the cannon with the story of arcane conflicts with a lot of lore
Hey Bellular, I usually never comment on your videos, or even watch this style of yours, specifically.
But today you did something right, and I gotta tell you. I watched this video all the way through, and I was confused when it ended cause I wanted more.
The editing, the information presentation visually, and the topic most importantly, are all great and on point. Usually I feel like your videos in this style are just rambles of information and no order to their presentation. Today was so orderly and coherent and flowing. 🖖
To borrow a phrase. The more these companies try to tighten their grip the more people that will slip through their fingers.
Except that they DONT. They keep whaling it up and buying the skins.
I think this is the point. I think things are getting more expensive across the board, because the spending power of the middle class is shrinking, leaving only the super rich/whales as viable customers. So many businesses are pivoting towards catering to them only.
@@Mick0Mania I agree to an extent, but a community of any game is made on the back of the average player and if they are squeezed out the whales will loose the motivation as other players leave. Most loose any care to spend if the isn't anyone to brag to or stomp. The collect them all whale generally are not enough to sustain a game on their own.
@@TrackMediaOnly Then they'll just find a new product to milk.
This game is not going to die overnight. Even if many players leave, the whales won't just stop their addiction and bail.
This is how half-dead MMOs keep afloat. They just need the whales to stick around, and they will due to the sunken cost alone.
As long as they have a tight grip on the people that they really want who have no chance/interest of escape, they don't care. 1 guy spending $1000 beats out 10 guys spending $10
Do people never think about that everything they spend money on will be gone the moment Riot pulls the plug?
We can blame corporate greed all day... However, so long as people continue to supply revenue, making these greedy moves profitable, they will continue to implement them.
Most have little willpower to stop themselves... especially if they are purchasing with someone elses money, such as a parent.
Fight back by AFK-ing if they're on your team
@@IzzeTim I do lmao or just int and say i suck sorry
@@AmocideB oooo the inting route does sound a bit more enjoyable. Gonna steal that 😆
It's mostly working adults rationalizing away their unbridled consumerism.
ah yes the old tune of "look at what you made me do to you"
go ahead...keep blaming the victims
rich and powerful corporation exploits people? thats fine, just dont get exploited lol
People need to stop buying microtransactions, it's as simple as that.
This isn’t new. This is a loot box with extra steps
yes, and it should be made illegal in more places, we need to presure games companies to never do that again !
" _Surprise mechanics_ "
13:36 bro thankyou. I frequently talk about the monetization of Overwatch 2 on reddit and have to combat these arguments almost all the time. My usual response is, "if you REALLY don't care about cosmetics, then you shouldn't mind people complaining about them." Overwatch 2 feels more like a mall than a game with how much development effort goes into the cosmetics compared to the rest of the game. They killed the ambition of one of my favorite games and turned it into a husk to sell skins. 😢
There is no effort even in these skins. They're just selling epic quality skins as legendaries and recolors of OW1 skins at full price. They can't make PvE, they can't redo old maps without breaking lighting and they can't even make skins. Pathetic.
'radical management'
1. Fire seasoned devs ( because they disagree with you )
2. Celebrate your unchallenged power
3. Scream at everyone , ( because nothing works and you don't know why its breaking )
Claude AI is here to help.
I don't even play these games and I'm so tired of hearing about all of this gacha/monetization scheme BS. It's so obviously manipulative and cynical. The fact that it works so well is what's most depressing.
Stephanie Sterling said it best about “It’s just cosmetic” type defences.
If it was just cosmetic and not everything is for you, why would these devs and publishers bother? Do you think they do all of this just to only adopt a handful of purchasers? Do you think they don’t want to create more customers? Do you honestly believe it doesn’t impact the overall designs of games?
Absolutely, a lot of people are dense enough to believe the nonsense they're spouting.
When the monetization is all about cosmetics, everything else about the game is as well.
It is absolutely not JUST cosmetic, to use the game For Honor as an example, the reason the playerbase stuck around for so long and is still keeping the game alive is because the devs for the most part listened to feedback about keeping the medieval aeshtetic and not just doing a bunch of fantasy visual effect skins for everything, People wanted the gritty metal aesthetic to be the main one
Come on, as much as I hate league, just cosmetic is still miles ahead of P2W or even "pay for convenience" type crap. That's what really hurts the game, because the devs create problems that can be solved with $$$
LoL isn't exactly F2P game either, to properly play it you need characters - to unlock them from fresh account you need either need to spend like what? 100$ to get some more competitive characters set? Or grind for like 5 years.
To be fair LoL was full on freemium some years ago with mastery system that also needed either to be grinded or paid off or two same characters could do different amount of damage etc.
I played this game very briefly but dedicated LoL players aren't really too objective in what money gives from new account perspective - stuff like that pushed me away rather quickly, especially that I hate grinding.
That's the core issue, I'm pretty old-school, I have still similar expectations from the games like 20 years ago. Modern gamers are already heavily influenced to see a lot more things being acceptable and good news - it will be only worse in AAQ gaming, more and more of kids is growing up and are absolutely fine with very predatory monetization schemes as that's normal to them, they don't know any different... It's sad to see what gaming had become really.
Some companies just can't grasp volume sales. Make cheap skins, sell tons of them, keep people employed making more skins and content.
Step 1: don't play games from Riot Games.
Super easy.
Dont worry i dont because of vanguard LUL
Agreed! Only game of theirs i played was Valo, and god im glad i unisntalled it
Fools and their money will be soon parted
I dont understand why people complain? It's YOU THE CUSTOMER who keeps buying their shit. Stop wasting money on their shit and the problem goes away. People need to start looking themselves.
"This employee makes us money."
"That's great. They're fired."
... and capitalists wonder why people are starting to turn back toward unions.
Well, the thing is though, they don’t look at them as “artists.” They look at them as production workers that make the product. It has very little to do with art. But of course if they don’t say “art” then it just sounds cold… cause it is
This is my first time here. The journalism was absolutely phenomenal. Thank you for doing what you do. Knowledge is power
that last 2 minutes is exactly it. full stop.
im in my 40s and you could see the writing on the wall become crystal clear when fortnite was stealing dances and they were making money hand over fist on skins. selling map packs walked so selling skins could run.... the industry into the ground.
ive been a rocket league player/fan since day one. all of the development on the game we see these days goes to skins, rocket pass items, and license deals.
@@bigrob029 I remember Cathode Ray Dude going on about perfection in appliance/tech businesses during his look at Daystarter. Perfection is what drives skeevy business.
FINALLY CALLIN OUT RIOT GAMES, THE WAY THEY ARE ABUSING PLAYERS AND MURDERING GAME PLEASE DO SOMETHING
"It's only cosmetic" is the greatest lie that the videogame industry has ever told.
It's the Kaiser Soze of videogame industry bs. With some manufactured consent sprinkled in.
I mean, it IS only cosmetic.
It is everything else that's screwed.
The video game industry lie? People made the "it's only cosmetic" excuse and kept buying the cosmetics. The industry just follows trends, since mtx purchases are still trending up, that trend will be followed.
it's a good thing I dumped this NFT game a long time ago...
it sounds like Blizzard is aping off MMOs like Genshin and Tower of Fantasy, Injecting a Gacha Pool with whats called a "Pity" System.
Fun fact: the "Pity" system is there not because the developers have a good heart, but because if they don't have one, the thing would be considered gambling.
The only pity I have are for the addicts who are gonna fall for this system.
@@shroomer3867 Maybe not gambling in a literal sense, but strongly adjacent to it.
@@Surkk2960 Already fallen for it and it's actually quite comfy in games actually built with gacha mechanics in mind. At least if the game is generous enough, I know I'll never spend $5000 in a single day on a gacha like what Fate Grand Order did. What a mess...
It's pretty boneheaded to even make a gacha system for a game like this. It's a competitive game. It absolutely didn't need it...
Mad respect for calling people out at the end. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to reporting on these scummy tactics! And thank you for the awesome content as always!
Everyone I know who was at one point a hardcore league player have by and large stopped playing. I think at this point the playerbase numbers have stagnated and are likely dropping. South Korea will always remain the largest country for League and SK is an absolute dystopia of people who are willing to spend money to make themselves look better in any way possible. This leads me to believe that they're basically at the point where the game isn't going to really go anywhere and they're looking to make as much money as possible by milking whoever is left.
Riot, in general, is a mess. It's a miracle Valorant was even made considering that their devs constantly fail at making new games and can barely even manage new game modes in LoL. Their side projects have mostly failed or are in production limbo. Once again, I'm pretty sure if it weren't for South Korea, Riot's situation would be far worse.
I think League could definitely be stagnating, but I think the playerbase numbers, if they are dropping, are dropping very slowly. This is rather natural, though, for a game this old or at least it is expected. League is very old and Riot isn't dumb they know a new game or new projects are a necessity to grow forward, and so it will happen whether anyone likes it or not. Valorant is a recent result of this. You are right on SK though, it's a weird dystopian like place in which they care about image to a degree that is offputting.
Ugh, this move by Riot is plain disgusting.
Great work man, keep up spreading the word.
Artists should wise up and be paid in royalties to avoid being fired right after they finish their job and are no longer needed!
What stops the studio they worked for from cutting off the royalty check shortly after sacking?
Warner Bros. making their recent TV inaccessible, anyone?
why ? they got paid for their job.
@@ChickenCurry-w8s you cant be older than 16
@@ChickenCurry-w8s Not just because paying a worker less than 5% of the money they generate is immoral.
But because the economy straight up cannot work with money being drained like that from the worker class.
A company pays 100K, they make 1 million. Which means they have drained 900K from the lower class.
Capitalism only works as a closed system, and closed systems cannot have infinite growth, SOMEONE has to loose that money.
@@rompevuevitos222 *lose
Oh shit, Bellular has entered his Righteous Fury Crusader era. This man is on a mission and you can feel it at the end of the video. Dude, i am right there with you, told a friend that is about 15 years younger than me how we used to get the full game on release, there were no patches to fix stuff, it had to be done right the first time, and we got a ton more content out of a box price or sub then we did free to play cash shop and battle pass monetization predatory practices.
Video starts 4:42
@@MyOwnUTube1 👑👍
Content is what is more valuable than a skin. You're damn right it is... I purchased a new computer and got Star Wars Outlaws "Free"... Now they have skins on sale which are cool and all, but when I read the "Season Pass" comes with multiple DLC's I purchased it. And it also came with some skins. I have played thousands of hours of Valorant, I mean THOUSANDS... I have yet to buy even the battlepass because skins are not valuable to me. Since I get all the content the game has to offer for free... Why would I spend any money on it...
Every day we see proof that people are stupid.
Riot gaming is not for me. Tired of the obvious abuse in the industry.
It IS normal. Look at csgo skins.
This is the shit we live through today.
Trash game
There is a massive difference between CSGO skins and League skins. CSGO skins are digital commodities that can be traded and sold for a profit, League skins are nontransferable items that are bound to your account. Allowing skins to be sold on a marketplace creates a whole other set of issues, but why anyone would care about spending hundreds of dollars on a League skin is beyond me.
As someone whom played in the toxic mines from 2009 till earlier this year and thinking about going back thank god I watched this. Over my entire time playing I've spent thousands supporting a game that I loved. If TotalBiscuit was able to see just how far RIOT has strayed I'm sure he would be yelling from the rooftops about this BS.
Arcane is like BG3: a very well crafted licensed release that gives life to an IP that's controlled by people who have no interest in anything but cash.
I may be completely wrong on this, but I didn't think BG3 had ties to WotC?
@@3DSCarnaje Just looking at Wikipedia, Larian first approached Wizards of the Coast but Wizards didn't trust them yet, but after Divinity: Original Sin 2, Wizards came to THEM. And it's based on Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition gameplay.
Look gacha is trash we all agree, But claiming that the IP is controlled by people who only care about money is an oversimplification. Riot actually turned down Arcane twice because the storytelling wasn’t strong enough, and they wanted to push the IP further. That’s why we ended up with such a well-crafted show. They invested heavily in a project that many thought would flop, but they believed in it enough to establish their own animation department.
For the past decade, Riot has released monthly stories, even though only a small fraction of the player base reads them. They do this to build a rich and immersive IP. This year, they even created a dedicated IP department to ensure the development of their universe. They also invest in music videos, lore content, and other media to expand the world. To dismiss their efforts when you dislike something and only credit the artists when you like it shows a limited understanding of their commitment to the IP.
@@cosmosofinfinity Gotcha. I guess my memory was wrong about that then. Maybe influenced by the fact that (at least if my memory is working this time) WotC guards DND about as vehemently as Nintendo with their IPs.
@@liqiye3611 shill
You’re damn right it matters 👍 thanks for continuing to shed light on the monetization subject
Well, I see this all as an example of why we need that whole "Digital Bill Of Rights" to re-build the entire legal structure and definition of how this works and can work as well as protecting consumers. Of course it's also an example of why there will be opposition to ever doing such a thing, and a lot of opposition at that.
My major issue with this sort of thing is that I think it's an example of why there is no such thing as a victimless crime, and "well people will buy it" is not a good excuse to justify this kind of thing, as when this happens it does damage the entire industry.
I also think it's an issue because the entire way they can do this is dependent on a very abusive system when it comes to unprotected digital property. My big issue with skins, at any price, has always been that they are taking money and giving you nothing they can even guarantee perpetual access to. I also think $500 is ridiculous, when $200 used to be a lifetime MMO subscription.
The moment you give your company to MBA's you basically killed your company's sole.
The endless greed for short-term and infinite growth of these MBA's are killing flourishing companies in every sector
A "pity system" is just the second tier of emotional manipulation on top of the Skinner box that gacha offers.
depends on how the pity system works and if it's even viable as F2P to even reach it.
If they make it a pain in the a.s.s to save your fre,e currency for it then yeah, it is trash. Because pity encourages saving until you can spark. But if you have to treat the game like a job, it isn't worth it.
Then there's the mechanical aspect, like YuGiOh master duel that allows you to take SSR cards you don't want and break them down into rarity points so you can buy the cards you do want without spending a dime.
Of course, it doesn't help that gacha games are often built on the framework of improvisation out of randomness, since you don't know what characters you'll get and have to make best use of them. Costumes don't work that way. So it begs the question as to why they aren't sold out right...
@@LoliconSamalik the last point you made is super great
@@LoliconSamalik yeah though their are gacha i play if you get a same copy you get a currency and power up the character witch you can use it to buy another summon how much you get depends if the imprints of the character is maxed out its a refund and thats just the 4 stars
I'm sorry, but if you're spending money on skins for a game, then you get zero sympathy for feeling jipped on a cosmetic that does nothing for a game. It's the greatest scam this industry has ever had happen.
Buying physical items will always be better than digital
Hello there, new Brutausaur! What a topical video XD
Smells like oceanfront property. None of this has a meaningful value
One of the few upsides of climate change is seeing some richie's oceanfront property become all ocean and no front.
@@SimuLord That made me chuckle.
Actually, it's the other way around - the price of oceanfront property tells us a lot about the reality of climate change.
@@clray123agreed, weird that most people that push the narrative OWN oceanfront property
The live service videogame industry is the only one I know where competition backfired so badly and made stuff worse for us: instead of striving for a better product to attract and hold on to customers, game dev companies are cutting costs and using more aggressive monetization
They won't get me. Ever.
It's funny because once i got wind of this system i thought to myself: 'I don't play gacha games', and suddenly my time spend on league decreased by about 90%, only the occasional ARAM.
Man, that's crazy. Imagine if a company sold a mount for 80 dollars.
13:50 Preach!! I wish devs (especially blizzard) would focus more on pumping out content rather than useless skins. Do you remember what skin or transmog you had on when you had that great win or beat that one raid? NO!! but I bet you remember the character you were playing
ME3 Multiplayer mentioned! The scary part about that is that ME3MP didn't have an infinite loot treadmill. You were working to complete a "manifest" of finite size. And based on the datamined droprates, it "only" takes about 4000 USD to get every piece of permanent equipment in the game. After that, even the most expensive loot box only gives one-time consumables , which also has an inventory cap of 255. So someone spent 10000 USD onlootboxes that couldn't possibly drop anything of value... no wonder EA took note.
Ubisoft also said the quiet part out loud when they said that you don't actually own any of your games, yet y'all started memeing on them with that quote. Next thing everyone realizes is that Steam were forced to let you know that it was indeed true :).
Poetic justice since it was Steam/Valve who pioneered the whole always-online digital DRM launcher in the first place.
@@lycanwarrior2137 Yeah, but they've never shafted their customers with it.
The system has only become more and more pro-consumer as years went on.
- Accessible releases for indie developers.
- Extremely generous tools for interacting with steam's API AND almost 0 restrictions on its usage (you don't even need a steam account).
- The best Windows emulator for linux, which is still free to use since they decided to invest on the existing free alternative instead of monetizing their own private solution.
- Cheap games adjusted for local economies.
- The new family system allows adding friend's games to your account and no longer has a "1 player per library" limit nor does it require sharing passwords.
- Free rewards just for playing that have monetary value (actually pay to earn, not just a pump and dump scam).
@@lycanwarrior2137 people conveniently forget this.
@@lycanwarrior2137you mean the least intrusive, reasonable implementation of drm. Onky idiot think that a game can be transacted online with some form of validation process.
get rid of older, more expensive artists. bring in younger, cheaper artists. Yep, business...
I quit this greedy game since "Faker skin"
Exactly. When people tell me that skins are optional, you don't have to buy them, why do you hate them so much?
I don't hate them. But if I am going to give a company 20 bucks, I want to get something new for it.
Imagine, you eat mashed potatoes. You paid for them, so you eat them everyday, because that's what you paid for. Now, you're getting a but tired of them, the enjoyment is dwindling. You would really like to add something to them.
Hey, for ten bucks I can give you this fancy bowl to eat them out of. Okay. sure. Wait....it's still just mashed potatoes. Yeah, the bowl is pretty, but nothing changed.
How about a shiny new spoon too!
No. How about some salt and pepper? Some butter? A little seasoning to change it up. How about for a week or two you put some carrots in there? Maybe I can give you 20 bucks for some gravy.
The point is that for the amount of money people are paying for a digital t-shirt, you can make a new game. You could make something new, fresh, or even just remake something old to modern standards.
The reason games aren't innovating is because they don't have to. You will pay them to change the paint, rearrange the furniture. They don't need to build a new house, or add a new floor to the existing one. They can just make the walls a new color, and you will just pay for that and call it new.
It's not. And it's one major reason why the industry is slowing to a point where games are not inspiring. The bare minimum exactly.
And when you finally have enough, and the players start to go elsewhere, you just take the old game, add some of those long requested features, and call it 2.0 or 3.0....and in the worst case scenario you make a sequel. Same game, just some gimmicks to make it feel new and innovative. And you're cool with tossing those "new" things out when they majority doesn't like them, because you only added them to get the players back anyway.
And then you recycle the old paint and rearrange the furniture again...rinse repeat.
The wisdom that you should take from it is simple:
Without incentive, innovation has no reason.
People are agnry today about the $500 skin the same way we were angry 15 years ago about day one DLCs
The needle will move, it's inevitable, all because not enough people care in the end
It's easier to screech about "the WOKES" for example, than it is to properly explain the predatory practices actually ruining gaming for all of us
As someone at a similar age to Michael, I can completely echo his sentiment at the end.
Throughout the majority of my time gaming I can comfortably say I really don't like the way the industry is going in terms of monetisation.
Times gone, when games wanted to sell DLC, it was actual content. Skins don't really scream 'content' to me.
DLC used to be a mechanism of fan service. Players really loved the story of a culture/character, make a DLC around that. Expanding the lore on that topic, giving more to the players to fall in love with.
I really struggle to support games that just want to monetise skins. Closest thing I can get to supporting a game that leans on these practices is with a battle passes. At least it is incentivising game play, rather then encouraging me to swipe for shinny things.
And I am very much not alone in this, I only pay for things that will give me a reason to play. I don't see skins going away, they will always be here now. But devs are leaving players unfulfilled that want to pay to get something more then just shiny things.
I'll just say it, we need to bully people who buy skins.
We need to stop playing games that offer skins. That would really help.
Honestly, methinks that Korean game developers and Bethesda (horse armour, anyone?) need to be shamed for making this skeevy monetization mainstream
AFK-ing if they're on your team is solid move. My whole team has done it a few times. Feels good 😅
No. Bullying never leads to anything good. But we should absolutely not acknowledge their fancy purchase, and thereby remove a large reason that you do such things.
They'll just do what Blizzard already does and bans you if you "harass other players." Not that I support bullying, but I also would like it if there was a viable way for the community to discourage each other from falling for these predatory antics of 90 dollar wow mounts.
Man this shit needs to be regulated, all these companies fined and ban all loot boxes, in-game currency and other bs
Its owned by Tencent, 100% them behind this with all the gacha games.
@@DeathRebel369 maybe, but I don’t doubt those who work at riot want money. I doubt they’d need much convincing.
because as we know, a western owned studio would never stoop this low
the game already had Loot boxes long time ago
You know who is also owned by Tencent?
Digital Extremes.
You know who DOESNT engage in this scumminess and is known for being incredibly player focused?
Digital Extremes.
This is 100% a RIOT problem, not a Tencent issue.
@@NecroAsphyxia Fair point
I’m reminded of Blizzard releasing a brutosaur mount today that retails for $90, and according to friends all of the WoW tokens are gone between NA and EU. The Star-Horse model continues to clop forward to thunderous profits and the rest of us suffer for it.
We're all gonna look fondly back at cash shops. Pay your money Get your item! 😮
Not really, that was just as stupid. I look fondly back when you got the complete game and you unlocked stuff by playing the game.
The end of the video is really important. That’s why “just don’t buy it” has never made sense. When games become stores, they get designed to sell, not to play.
Calling it now, they're going to use AI as a base for the skins and then have people outsourced to make them look like a person made it
This is straight out from World of Warships menu - various premium containers work exactly like this for years already.
It is worth noting FOMO works both ways, fear of missing out requires you to not be missing out.
Now that you will have missed out, there is less reason to join this game. The less reason to join this game the more likely they will go the Smite Route. In other words the design of this is exclusivity that will drive League of Legends 2 to be made. You are paying money to drive the death of LoL and the skins you spend.
But the whales are already there. They don't care about getting more people when their targets are already paying
I'm heavily considering leaving any ecosystem that pushes such expensive macrotransactions. You can get MULTIPLE whole games worth of content for the price of one skin. No amount of investment into a game is worth the price of an entire game. I abandoned LoL and I abandoned Overwatch. I will not hesitate to abandon another game if it comes down to it.
Especially when we were told "This is how we remain profitable and keep people employed". Predatory pricing has to stop.
There is no way, even if I had the money that I would ever spend that kind of $$ on a digital product with no lifespan beyond the life of the game. Now that artbook with the figures. It would still be in your bookshelf in 10-20 years. Totally worth it as it is your possession 100%.
I've just started playing league again (casually, not ranked or anything competitive) But got damn last time I played they had only just started introducing legendary skins like I think it was Ezreal or something, still had to buy rune slots thats how long ago it was. The amount of weird changes I've logged into is insane
As someone knows someone who owns every single skin, little legends, emote and chroma in the game - ever x: yes they exist.
I hate it so much. I agree with Asmongold here. Virtual currencies should just go away. Things should just be able to bought 1:1 vs real money - straight forward.
As someone who also drops money on Rito, and i don't mind doing so, I am glad that my fav characters aren't that popular.
Still wondering if DJ Sona and Elementalist Lux will be upgraded to be an Exalted or not. Jinx basically has the same functionality as DJ Sona, minus the Music plus the HUD
The Riot matrix has you.
This isn’t the first time, you didn’t see the $200 Jhin skin before Ahri.
It was a recolor of a legendary. Now they're just selling brand new Ultimate LORE skin for 250 bucks, while limiting it with FOMO.
That studio had some of the most talanted artists in the industry... and they fired them lol Guess they trained their in-house AI enough I guess
@@solarydays They are trying to cut costs, not move their production which would increase costs. It has been confirmed generative AI is a factor and they are outsourcing to not have to pay wages
Love your stuff, keep up the good work!
I really hate all the Gacha BS. It really is just manipulation of people with limited self control, which are mostly kids, people with ADHD and people, who are depressed or otherwise deeply unhappy. It should fall under the same laws as all other forms of gambling.
Last time I played League of Legends there were only Riot Points, no other currencies, and it was perfect.
1:38 I will not hear it and stop the video. What you said there sounds like rationalizing and if part of the problem.
@@eno88I feel like its not what you think. he just talked about an art book he bought
What is the background music?
✊Millions Must Uninstall ✊
This doesn't get brought up much, but Riot recently completed and opened a hype new studio on Mercer Island. For non-Seattleites, Mercer Island is in the middle of Lake Washington and it's basically where a lot of the old money lives. Even the most modest of homes runs for well north of $1 million. The cost and overhead on this swanky new studio on this expensive peice of land has to be astounding.
Everywhere you look, someone wanting to make money is ruining something. And someone wanting to make a thing out of inspiration or love, is being bought and monetized
A friend of mine was laid off last year when they did the big cuts. He was one of the highest ROI people in his department and had worked there for 10 years. Every single one of these cuts is profit-driven. All of them, without exception.
Cant wait to see a bellular vid about the new wow brutosaur with this vid as a reference
Ah yes, the P2W arc begins. An item locked behind "luck-based item" locked behind a currency locked behind another currency that needs money to buy.
Classic
Hey look... A person who has never played LoL before talking out of their ass. There's no such thing as P2W skin in LoL. P2W literally doesn't exist unless you are paying another person to boost your account and even then they actually have to win (which is not guaranteed) to do it.
It's a surety that I'll never give Riot a dime of my money again, for anything. I hope many others will follow suit.