Re: FREE GAME: Black Desert

Spalls Hurgenson  <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

I mean, Steam disagrees with you. There are three DLC/MTX packs that
would add $70 to the game. They add new gear, additional storage,
funny-money ("pearls") for in-game purchases and numerous cosmetics.
Maybe you can also get it by endless grinding, but it's also available
for sale... and you know that most people are going to get it via the
cash purchase.

Sorry, but none of that is actual downloadable *content*.  It doesn't
unlock any activity, character class, place or story in the game.
This is an imporant distiction because many free-to-play games encourage
you to spend money by locking actual content behind a paywall.  None of
the stuff in these bundles really alievates the grinding you need to do
progress in the game.  Also, most of the stuff in the bundles is I've
gotten for free, some many times over.

The three bundles are also overlapping and mutually exclusive, you
can't buy all three.  The Traveller Edition is just the game itself.
The Explorer Edition bundles some premium items with the game.
The Conquerer Edition includes everything in the Explorer Edition, plus
some more premium items.  The bundled premium items in these packages
appear as two seperate DLC items in Steam because that how Steam works,
but they're just a bundle of "MTX".

I agree with Zaghadka: they're whale-hunting.

I mean sure, the game's business model is built around selling things.
But I've played this game for 6 years now and the amount of money I've
spent on the game is $0.  I know from experience it really doesn't put a
lot of pressure on you to actually buy anything.  If you're the sort of
person that feels they need to buy every flashy new cosmetic that comes
out, than yah, you're going feel the need to get the credit card out
on a regular basis.  I think most people spend some money at the start,
probably not fully understanding what they're buying, but I don't think
the average player actually spends that much money on the game.

So yah, they want whales to spend a lot of money, but also they want a lot
of people to play the game.  They want the game to look alive, and they
want a large player base to who can spread the word to their friends.
The whales, the virtual fashion addicts, the people who need to flex
their wealth, all subsidize the game for a majority of players like me
that have spent little or nothing on the game.

Compare that to an old-school MMORPG with a $15/mo subscription that went
free-to-play, but still requires that you pay $15/mo to access most of
the game's content.  Compare that to a free-to-play gatcha game, that
either requires that you be extreamly lucky or spend hundreds of dollars
on pulls to get the characters you want.  Destiny 2 is the closest
game I've played in terms of being playable without spending money,
but a lot of the game's content (actual content, not just cometics)
requires spending real money to access.

--
 l/  //   Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
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