• conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    You claiming it didn’t affect anything doesn’t make it reality.

    It’s fundamentally not possible for it not to change the design process of a game. Literally every game ever made with micro-transactions has been affected in one way or another, unless the first time the idea was discussed was after the game was shipped. “Just cosmetics” guarantees cosmetics that would have been earned with gameplay get taken away to be put behind a paywall, and all of the exploration and discovery involved in earning them is gone.

    All microtransactions make games worse, and all microtransactions are bad.

    • echo64@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      it’s the same system that was in the first game they just let idiots buy a thing to skip the mechanic. Unless you think this future implementation of micro transactions affected the past.

      • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        It’s not the same system. It’s new code, built and tuned for the current version of the game. And it’s literally impossible for it not to be affected by the knowledge that microtransactions were going to exist.

        But let’s play make believe that it was theoretically possible for any microtransaction to not be actively malicious. Lying about it would still make everyone involved a bad person.

      • nac82@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        The first game had a built in eternal ferrystone when it saw most of its success.

        In no way is paying 3$ for every ferrystone except 5 the same as an eternal ferrystone.

      • stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
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        8 months ago

        Absolutely.

        The key gambling system 100% impacted the community, who are the ones to provide gameplay to each other in these games.

        All previous Counter-Strike game had a 100% level playing field— all players had access to the same gear and visuals. This equity was very important to gameplay by keeping it competitive, specifically being able to recognize weapons and enemies easily.

        CS:GO took a sharp turn with this, effectively ending equity in the game. Not only did you have to spend money if you wanted you or your gear to look like others, but it also made it much more difficult to recognize enemies and gear people were carrying unless you more carefully inspected them. Bits sticking out around corners became much more difficult to recognize.

        There is likely much more impact to the game and its development on various levels, but this is a clear example of a negative impact of microtransactions being introduced.

        • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          And in TF2, where disabling skins is a console command away? Frankly surprised there’s no similar option in GO/2.

          • stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
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            8 months ago

            In TF2, players cannot completely disable the hats. It takes a server operator employing mods or plugins to disable them. The equity was there. It ended with CS:GO.

            As well, even if a player could opt out of seeing them, it doesn’t change the fact that the game was built around the gambling and still impacts other players you interact with.

            There are some non-competitive games I think handle cosmetic-only micro transactions well (ex: Last Epoch). But I don’t try to fool myself that it doesn’t impact development or gameplay.