Amaranthar said: Ahh, but it does change your game play, in various ways.
First of all, with rare exceptions, every player wants to progress as fast as possible.
So if you aren't buying Cash Shop potions, reagent or herbs, special gear, or whatever the game offers, you can't fight the tougher MOBs and gain XP or Skill faster, when you run out.
And then you have to spend play time gathering and making said items, or gaining gold from weaker MOBs or otherwise, in order to get ready to fight the tougher MOBs. (That gets old pretty fast, when you know that others are skipping this game play by just buying from the CS.)
And you can bet your first born that most of these games are designed so that you will run out. That you will feel a NEED to buy from the CS.
It's all about "fairness" in this. Cash Shops put you in the position of buying or lagging behind.
I want to address Grind.
Ok, here is the thing. When games were Subbed, they have arbitrary massive grinds that existed for no other reason than to be time sinks to keep players playing the game, and this keeping their subs active.
Same with Time gated content, like only being able to do Raids once a week.
And I think I am going to use that as an example as anyone that has played Old School MMO's know about Raid Time gates. While this varies game to game, It still comes down to roughly you need to wait about a week between raids.
So, for the sake of simplicity, lets Take that whole Time gate on Raids, where you can only do it once a week.
In a sub game, your only option is to wait, what you do with that wait time, has no bearing, but you will have to wait till next week if you want to do this raid again.
In a Cash Shop game, they have exact same mechanic of waiting a week to do the raid again, but you can buy a bypass timer from the store if you want to do the raid again in less than a week.
Ok, so no doubt in this situation, people would cry the store is unfair, but it's not really unfair, the Time Gate existed in both games, and was purely arbitrary to stall the players so they would have to invest money into the game one way or another, either to bypass the wait, or to keep their sub active to endure the wait.
In the end, in this situation, the overall gameplay has not changed, the gate is still there, with the only differences being in the Sub based game, I will Pay AND Wait., and in the cash Shop game I will only pay if I want to bypass the wait.
Now, as you said, players, at least some of them, as we both know there is a huge divide between Casuals and hardcore players, and by and large Casuals could not give two flying fucks ducks about getting to end game as fast as possible.
Now the problem still sits, about "Buying or Lagging behind" no different really, because even in the Sub game, those that need to be ahead, will buy what they need from RMT sources, so, even in the Sub game, where you will spend the sub, players will still spend even more to be ahead of anyone and everyone else.
From the Dev's point of view, they might as well sell the Raid Bypass themselves since players will drop cash to stay ahead, this way they make the money that the RMT's would have made, and they keep it a bit more fair, as anyone can safely buy from them, as a trusted source.
Personally this is why I am a fan of bound coveted items, so they cannot be sold, and need to be earned by the players themselves.
It might sound gamy, but it keeps things fair, where if you have it, you earned it.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Oh it will most certainly happen because gaming has gone down the shit hole thanks to big business.
Remeber the old days people would argue about stuff in games then the majority would simplify it by saying gameplay>all?The other half would argue that FUN trumps all but either way gaming was all about FUN or gameplay.
NOW?...gaming has a new definition gaming=business,now it is the business side of gaming that trumps everything and by a wide margin and that is NOT the direction gaming should be headed.The businesss side means we are not aiming for HQ FUN interactive games,we are aiming for the consumers wallets.
It took a massive push back from all corners to slow down or stop loot boxes.It doesn't matter because everyday top execs are looking for new ways to make more money,trying to get blood from a stone.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Oh it will most certainly happen because gaming has gone down the shit hole thanks to big business.
Remeber the old days people would argue about stuff in games then the majority would simplify it by saying gameplay>all?The other half would argue that FUN trumps all but either way gaming was all about FUN or gameplay.
NOW?...gaming has a new definition gaming=business,now it is the business side of gaming that trumps everything and by a wide margin and that is NOT the direction gaming should be headed.The businesss side means we are not aiming for HQ FUN interactive games,we are aiming for the consumers wallets.
It took a massive push back from all corners to slow down or stop loot boxes.It doesn't matter because everyday top execs are looking for new ways to make more money,trying to get blood from a stone.
I blame the RMT people, who showed the Developers that people will spend money to get game items they did nothing to earn.
If those bastards never existed.. we would not be where we are now.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Really, when you think about it, the entire rise of the Cash Shop, stems from RMT among players, from Gold Selling to Power Leveling, to players selling rare and hard to get gear for money.
The CASH SHOP, has always been there, and at first, Developers tried to fight it, they did all kinds of things to stop it, from just saying they do not support it, to outright banning accounts for engaging in it, to trying to suing the hosts of these auction sites, in short they put in a lot of effort to stop this kind of thing, and EQ I know for a fact would tell the players that if they got shafted by any "Off Site" deal, no matter what it was, that they would not do anything at all to help them resolve it, they were on their own, and might even lose their OWN account if what they did was against the TOS of the game.
and yet.. These offsite (and often illegal) RMT CASH SHOP grew. There was a demand from players to buy any advantage they could get, and they were willing to do so with cash in hand, and they did not care about legality of it.
That is also why we have all kinds of hack and cheat programs today. Players will spend money to have any advantage they can get, and do not care about the fairness of the game, they want to win, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
This is why there are so many addons for WoW, some of them very legit, some of them no so legit, and even WoW went on to realize that these "Add On's" were required for their players to be top level, so in some cases, they made them game features.
This embracing of the nature of the players is really the reason for the Modern MMO Cash Shop.
Sure, some might have issues with it, but anyone that sold their account, or any of their game product, is in no place to fuss about the morality of the Cash Shop.
And at least the Cash Shop is supported by and managed by the Game itself, is at least honest, if something happens or goes wrong, you can contact Customer Support and get it resolved.
So, until the day comes that RMT can be removed, the Cash Shop will be there, because the only real combat to RMT is for the Devs to just sell the shit themselves.
I am waiting for the Devs of FPS and the like to sell Aim Bots, as we are already seeing "Assisted Targeting" only a matter of time before they sell the Overlays and Aim Bots themselves as opposed to fighting against hackers.
But in all this.. the Problem is not the game.. it's the players.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Really, when you think about it, the entire rise of the Cash Shop, stems from RMT among players, from Gold Selling to Power Leveling, to players selling rare and hard to get gear for money.
The CASH SHOP, has always been there, and at first, Developers tried to fight it, they did all kinds of things to stop it, from just saying they do not support it, to outright banning accounts for engaging in it, to trying to suing the hosts of these auction sites, in short they put in a lot of effort to stop this kind of thing, and EQ I know for a fact would tell the players that if they got shafted by any "Off Site" deal, no matter what it was, that they would not do anything at all to help them resolve it, they were on their own, and might even lose their OWN account if what they did was against the TOS of the game.
and yet.. These offsite (and often illegal) RMT CASH SHOP grew. There was a demand from players to buy any advantage they could get, and they were willing to do so with cash in hand, and they did not care about legality of it.
That is also why we have all kinds of hack and cheat programs today. Players will spend money to have any advantage they can get, and do not care about the fairness of the game, they want to win, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
This is why there are so many addons for WoW, some of them very legit, some of them no so legit, and even WoW went on to realize that these "Add On's" were required for their players to be top level, so in some cases, they made them game features.
This embracing of the nature of the players is really the reason for the Modern MMO Cash Shop.
Sure, some might have issues with it, but anyone that sold their account, or any of their game product, is in no place to fuss about the morality of the Cash Shop.
And at least the Cash Shop is supported by and managed by the Game itself, is at least honest, if something happens or goes wrong, you can contact Customer Support and get it resolved.
So, until the day comes that RMT can be removed, the Cash Shop will be there, because the only real combat to RMT is for the Devs to just sell the shit themselves.
I am waiting for the Devs of FPS and the like to sell Aim Bots, as we are already seeing "Assisted Targeting" only a matter of time before they sell the Overlays and Aim Bots themselves as opposed to fighting against hackers.
But in all this.. the Problem is not the game.. it's the players.
This is disingenuous of you, Ungood. You hate RMTers. But you'll accept CS's, the biggest form of RMT, but only because the RMTers force it and it's sanctioned?
Naa. I don't accept any of that.
I've outlined above how to push RMTers into a corner that's more like their early days, rather than what it's grown into these days.
Really, when you think about it, the entire rise of the Cash Shop, stems from RMT among players, from Gold Selling to Power Leveling, to players selling rare and hard to get gear for money.
The CASH SHOP, has always been there, and at first, Developers tried to fight it, they did all kinds of things to stop it, from just saying they do not support it, to outright banning accounts for engaging in it, to trying to suing the hosts of these auction sites, in short they put in a lot of effort to stop this kind of thing, and EQ I know for a fact would tell the players that if they got shafted by any "Off Site" deal, no matter what it was, that they would not do anything at all to help them resolve it, they were on their own, and might even lose their OWN account if what they did was against the TOS of the game.
and yet.. These offsite (and often illegal) RMT CASH SHOP grew. There was a demand from players to buy any advantage they could get, and they were willing to do so with cash in hand, and they did not care about legality of it.
That is also why we have all kinds of hack and cheat programs today. Players will spend money to have any advantage they can get, and do not care about the fairness of the game, they want to win, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
This is why there are so many addons for WoW, some of them very legit, some of them no so legit, and even WoW went on to realize that these "Add On's" were required for their players to be top level, so in some cases, they made them game features.
This embracing of the nature of the players is really the reason for the Modern MMO Cash Shop.
Sure, some might have issues with it, but anyone that sold their account, or any of their game product, is in no place to fuss about the morality of the Cash Shop.
And at least the Cash Shop is supported by and managed by the Game itself, is at least honest, if something happens or goes wrong, you can contact Customer Support and get it resolved.
So, until the day comes that RMT can be removed, the Cash Shop will be there, because the only real combat to RMT is for the Devs to just sell the shit themselves.
I am waiting for the Devs of FPS and the like to sell Aim Bots, as we are already seeing "Assisted Targeting" only a matter of time before they sell the Overlays and Aim Bots themselves as opposed to fighting against hackers.
But in all this.. the Problem is not the game.. it's the players.
This is disingenuous of you, Ungood. You hate RMTers. But you'll accept CS's, the biggest form of RMT, but only because the RMTers force it and it's sanctioned?
Naa. I don't accept any of that.
I've outlined above how to push RMTers into a corner that's more like their early days, rather than what it's grown into these days.
That's the answer. The rest is bunk.
No Wait one moment right there, lets not confuse Retail with RMT.
To the Devs, this is their product, they made the game, they maintain the game, they own the game, and like any service industry, they have every right to sell their product as they see fit.
RMT is like subletting, Where someone sells someone else's service, often without their knowledge or consent, which unless allowed by the contract is often very illegal.
Now, I have already said many times across this forums that I firmly believe that MMO's should just sell content and thus allow players to play the game and earn their rewards, like the Original Turbine Model, which was the best model for an MMO. They sell adventure packs, and the players buy the packs and do the content for the rewards. This is also why I support things like bound items, so they can't be sold or traded to other players and are a mark of having earned what you have.
Which.. IMHO, is how a MMO should be.
But the Shit Show that is Todays Cash Shops, is purely the fault of RMT by players, that is undeniable.
If you look at the Cash Shop, it's the same shit that players went 3rd party RMT players for.
EXP boons, level-ups, and all the junk they have to make leveling go faster have replaced the RMT Power Levelers.
Loot, like directly selling loot to players in the CS, from cosmetic skins to mini pets, to the best items in the game have replaced the RMT item farmers.
Loot Boxes were an evolution that never needed to happen however, and that's a shit show that should be removed, as I can support an honest trade, but gambling crap like that, is just bullshit.
But the CS is just a Retailer selling their Product to a Market that already existed, which, I guess as the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them.
But I'll say it again, the problem was not the game, it was the players.
As you have said.. Everyone wants to get things as fast as possible, too many were willing to break the rules to get there, and opened the door to a very lacerative business, I really can't blame the retailer for cashing in on that, as opposed to wasting money fighting it.
Not to get political, but it's like how Colorado opted to stop fighting pot smokers, and instead legalized it, sold it legally in stores were they could tax it, and made shit tons of money off that.. Honestly.. I don't see the fault in the logic.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Really, when you think about it, the entire rise of the Cash Shop, stems from RMT among players, from Gold Selling to Power Leveling, to players selling rare and hard to get gear for money.
The CASH SHOP, has always been there, and at first, Developers tried to fight it, they did all kinds of things to stop it, from just saying they do not support it, to outright banning accounts for engaging in it, to trying to suing the hosts of these auction sites, in short they put in a lot of effort to stop this kind of thing, and EQ I know for a fact would tell the players that if they got shafted by any "Off Site" deal, no matter what it was, that they would not do anything at all to help them resolve it, they were on their own, and might even lose their OWN account if what they did was against the TOS of the game.
and yet.. These offsite (and often illegal) RMT CASH SHOP grew. There was a demand from players to buy any advantage they could get, and they were willing to do so with cash in hand, and they did not care about legality of it.
That is also why we have all kinds of hack and cheat programs today. Players will spend money to have any advantage they can get, and do not care about the fairness of the game, they want to win, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
This is why there are so many addons for WoW, some of them very legit, some of them no so legit, and even WoW went on to realize that these "Add On's" were required for their players to be top level, so in some cases, they made them game features.
This embracing of the nature of the players is really the reason for the Modern MMO Cash Shop.
Sure, some might have issues with it, but anyone that sold their account, or any of their game product, is in no place to fuss about the morality of the Cash Shop.
And at least the Cash Shop is supported by and managed by the Game itself, is at least honest, if something happens or goes wrong, you can contact Customer Support and get it resolved.
So, until the day comes that RMT can be removed, the Cash Shop will be there, because the only real combat to RMT is for the Devs to just sell the shit themselves.
I am waiting for the Devs of FPS and the like to sell Aim Bots, as we are already seeing "Assisted Targeting" only a matter of time before they sell the Overlays and Aim Bots themselves as opposed to fighting against hackers.
But in all this.. the Problem is not the game.. it's the players.
This is disingenuous of you, Ungood. You hate RMTers. But you'll accept CS's, the biggest form of RMT, but only because the RMTers force it and it's sanctioned?
Naa. I don't accept any of that.
I've outlined above how to push RMTers into a corner that's more like their early days, rather than what it's grown into these days.
That's the answer. The rest is bunk.
No Wait one moment right there, lets not confuse Retail with RMT.
To the Devs, this is their product, they made the game, they maintain the game, they own the game, and like any service industry, they have every right to sell their product as they see fit.
RMT is like subletting, Where someone sells someone else's service, often without their knowledge or consent, which unless allowed by the contract is often very illegal.
Now, I have already said many times across this forums that I firmly believe that MMO's should just sell content and thus allow players to play the game and earn their rewards, like the Original Turbine Model, which was the best model for an MMO. They sell adventure packs, and the players buy the packs and do the content for the rewards. This is also why I support things like bound items, so they can't be sold or traded to other players and are a mark of having earned what you have.
Which.. IMHO, is how a MMO should be.
But the Shit Show that is Todays Cash Shops, is purely the fault of RMT by players, that is undeniable.
If you look at the Cash Shop, it's the same shit that players went 3rd party RMT players for.
EXP boons, level-ups, and all the junk they have to make leveling go faster have replaced the RMT Power Levelers.
Loot, like directly selling loot to players in the CS, from cosmetic skins to mini pets, to the best items in the game have replaced the RMT item farmers.
Loot Boxes were an evolution that never needed to happen however, and that's a shit show that should be removed, as I can support an honest trade, but gambling crap like that, is just bullshit.
But the CS is just a Retailer selling their Product to a Market that already existed, which, I guess as the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them.
But I'll say it again, the problem was not the game, it was the players.
As you have said.. Everyone wants to get things as fast as possible, too many were willing to break the rules to get there, and opened the door to a very lacerative business, I really can't blame the retailer for cashing in on that, as opposed to wasting money fighting it.
Not to get political, but it's like how Colorado opted to stop fighting pot smokers, and instead legalized it, sold it legally in stores were they could tax it, and made shit tons of money off that.. Honestly.. I don't see the fault in the logic.
RMT means Real Money Trade and refers to specific content. That's entirely different than selling a service. They are selling content that otherwise would be part of the game's play.
I suppose you and I will never agree on this. So be it.
Comments
Ok, here is the thing. When games were Subbed, they have arbitrary massive grinds that existed for no other reason than to be time sinks to keep players playing the game, and this keeping their subs active.
Same with Time gated content, like only being able to do Raids once a week.
And I think I am going to use that as an example as anyone that has played Old School MMO's know about Raid Time gates. While this varies game to game, It still comes down to roughly you need to wait about a week between raids.
So, for the sake of simplicity, lets Take that whole Time gate on Raids, where you can only do it once a week.
In a sub game, your only option is to wait, what you do with that wait time, has no bearing, but you will have to wait till next week if you want to do this raid again.
In a Cash Shop game, they have exact same mechanic of waiting a week to do the raid again, but you can buy a bypass timer from the store if you want to do the raid again in less than a week.
Ok, so no doubt in this situation, people would cry the store is unfair, but it's not really unfair, the Time Gate existed in both games, and was purely arbitrary to stall the players so they would have to invest money into the game one way or another, either to bypass the wait, or to keep their sub active to endure the wait.
In the end, in this situation, the overall gameplay has not changed, the gate is still there, with the only differences being in the Sub based game, I will Pay AND Wait., and in the cash Shop game I will only pay if I want to bypass the wait.
Now, as you said, players, at least some of them, as we both know there is a huge divide between Casuals and hardcore players, and by and large Casuals could not give two flying fucks ducks about getting to end game as fast as possible.
Now the problem still sits, about "Buying or Lagging behind" no different really, because even in the Sub game, those that need to be ahead, will buy what they need from RMT sources, so, even in the Sub game, where you will spend the sub, players will still spend even more to be ahead of anyone and everyone else.
From the Dev's point of view, they might as well sell the Raid Bypass themselves since players will drop cash to stay ahead, this way they make the money that the RMT's would have made, and they keep it a bit more fair, as anyone can safely buy from them, as a trusted source.
Personally this is why I am a fan of bound coveted items, so they cannot be sold, and need to be earned by the players themselves.
It might sound gamy, but it keeps things fair, where if you have it, you earned it.
Remeber the old days people would argue about stuff in games then the majority would simplify it by saying gameplay>all?The other half would argue that FUN trumps all but either way gaming was all about FUN or gameplay.
NOW?...gaming has a new definition gaming=business,now it is the business side of gaming that trumps everything and by a wide margin and that is NOT the direction gaming should be headed.The businesss side means we are not aiming for HQ FUN interactive games,we are aiming for the consumers wallets.
It took a massive push back from all corners to slow down or stop loot boxes.It doesn't matter because everyday top execs are looking for new ways to make more money,trying to get blood from a stone.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If those bastards never existed.. we would not be where we are now.
The CASH SHOP, has always been there, and at first, Developers tried to fight it, they did all kinds of things to stop it, from just saying they do not support it, to outright banning accounts for engaging in it, to trying to suing the hosts of these auction sites, in short they put in a lot of effort to stop this kind of thing, and EQ I know for a fact would tell the players that if they got shafted by any "Off Site" deal, no matter what it was, that they would not do anything at all to help them resolve it, they were on their own, and might even lose their OWN account if what they did was against the TOS of the game.
and yet.. These offsite (and often illegal) RMT CASH SHOP grew. There was a demand from players to buy any advantage they could get, and they were willing to do so with cash in hand, and they did not care about legality of it.
That is also why we have all kinds of hack and cheat programs today. Players will spend money to have any advantage they can get, and do not care about the fairness of the game, they want to win, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
This is why there are so many addons for WoW, some of them very legit, some of them no so legit, and even WoW went on to realize that these "Add On's" were required for their players to be top level, so in some cases, they made them game features.
This embracing of the nature of the players is really the reason for the Modern MMO Cash Shop.
Sure, some might have issues with it, but anyone that sold their account, or any of their game product, is in no place to fuss about the morality of the Cash Shop.
And at least the Cash Shop is supported by and managed by the Game itself, is at least honest, if something happens or goes wrong, you can contact Customer Support and get it resolved.
So, until the day comes that RMT can be removed, the Cash Shop will be there, because the only real combat to RMT is for the Devs to just sell the shit themselves.
I am waiting for the Devs of FPS and the like to sell Aim Bots, as we are already seeing "Assisted Targeting" only a matter of time before they sell the Overlays and Aim Bots themselves as opposed to fighting against hackers.
But in all this.. the Problem is not the game.. it's the players.
You hate RMTers.
But you'll accept CS's, the biggest form of RMT, but only because the RMTers force it and it's sanctioned?
Naa. I don't accept any of that.
I've outlined above how to push RMTers into a corner that's more like their early days, rather than what it's grown into these days.
That's the answer.
The rest is bunk.
Once upon a time....
To the Devs, this is their product, they made the game, they maintain the game, they own the game, and like any service industry, they have every right to sell their product as they see fit.
RMT is like subletting, Where someone sells someone else's service, often without their knowledge or consent, which unless allowed by the contract is often very illegal.
Now, I have already said many times across this forums that I firmly believe that MMO's should just sell content and thus allow players to play the game and earn their rewards, like the Original Turbine Model, which was the best model for an MMO. They sell adventure packs, and the players buy the packs and do the content for the rewards. This is also why I support things like bound items, so they can't be sold or traded to other players and are a mark of having earned what you have.
Which.. IMHO, is how a MMO should be.
But the Shit Show that is Todays Cash Shops, is purely the fault of RMT by players, that is undeniable.
If you look at the Cash Shop, it's the same shit that players went 3rd party RMT players for.
Loot Boxes were an evolution that never needed to happen however, and that's a shit show that should be removed, as I can support an honest trade, but gambling crap like that, is just bullshit.
But the CS is just a Retailer selling their Product to a Market that already existed, which, I guess as the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them.
But I'll say it again, the problem was not the game, it was the players.
As you have said.. Everyone wants to get things as fast as possible, too many were willing to break the rules to get there, and opened the door to a very lacerative business, I really can't blame the retailer for cashing in on that, as opposed to wasting money fighting it.
Not to get political, but it's like how Colorado opted to stop fighting pot smokers, and instead legalized it, sold it legally in stores were they could tax it, and made shit tons of money off that.. Honestly.. I don't see the fault in the logic.
That's entirely different than selling a service.
They are selling content that otherwise would be part of the game's play.
I suppose you and I will never agree on this. So be it.
Merry Christmas, my friend.
Once upon a time....