Are we all letting Valve off easy for its loot crate economy?
  • webghost0101@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    75·
    5 months ago

    “I agree with a lot of the people who get mad about the DLC approach. I don’t really like the Icarus approach. We needed it to survive,” he said. "I actually think a lot of gamers don’t realize that 99% of devs out there are sitting there going, ‘I don’t like this.’”

    Game devs so often get public flack for decisions outside their control i really wanted to highlight this part

    • Jessica@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      5·
      5 months ago

      Yes seriously. Pot calling the kettle black. I’m one of the people who got burned by DayZ standalone. Fucker lied to our faces and said we needed to buy early because the price was just going to go up as more content was added and it reached feature parity with the Arma mod within like a year

  • DahGangalang@infosec.pubEnglish
    22·
    5 months ago

    Oh, I thought this was going to be about the trading cards they implemented in steam. Those are so lame and cheap I wasn’t bothered by this.

    For any non-readers-of-articles, this is about a loot box mechanic added to counterstrike (which is fair criticism imho)

    • Red_October@piefed.worldEnglish
      15·
      5 months ago

      Counterstrike has had loot boxes for many years, they weren’t recently added. What was recently added was a mechanic that allows 5 lower value items (certain gun skins) to be exchanged for a random higher value item (glove or knife skins). It’s acting to level the market. If anything, this change serves to inhibit loot box gambling by cutting the possibility of hitting a real money jackpot.

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyzBannedEnglish
        13·
        5 months ago

        If anything, this change serves to inhibit loot box gambling by cutting the possibility of hitting a real money jackpot.

        Oh, I didn’t think of that. With the smaller difference betwen the most expensive and least expensive items, gambling gets less random in terms of return.

        That’s an improvement, though I still think the whole systems should be taken out.

        That there is a “counter strike skins investment ‘industry’” is utterly insane.

      • Linnce@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        If you complete a set you get xp and level up your profile. I sell the expensive cards I get from my games and buy the cheap ones to get a full set. I’m on level 52 and I never put any money on steam for any reason other than buying games. My profile looks cool because of this and I like it.

      • AngryMob@lemmy.oneEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        They are needed to craft badges, which level up your profile. Higher level profile means more customization. So if youre into the social aspect of steam then they are required at least a little bit. Obviously for you they aren’t needed so yeah you can just sell them to others and make a buck, and thats a pretty cool system imo.

  • 100@fedia.io
    20·
    5 months ago

    ah yes dean “jump the ship” hall who fucked off dayz development when it released very half baked which almost killed the games future

    screw lootboxes too

    • Kronusdark@lemmy.worldEnglish
      19·
      5 months ago

      I definitely don’t deify him but it does help that he’s not taking his billions to try to weaken democracy… at least that we are aware of.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
    13·
    5 months ago

    Valve, however, has managed to neatly skirt regulatory efforts by charging players not for directly purchasing loot crates, which can be earned during gameplay, but for the keys required to open them.

    Wow, that’s fucking scummy

    Hall said that even he is frustrated by the “Paradox model” of paid expansion and DLC packs his studio RocketWerkz chose for its survival game Icarus after moving away from a free-to-play scheme.

    For Paradox games, it’s mostly nickel and diming since they know they’re working in a niche market. For Icarus, it’s a problem of wanting the game to stay relevant, paying for servers and not knowing when to say “ok, we’re done”.

    • Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.caEnglish
      17·
      5 months ago

      Valve loot boxes have always worked that way. They didn’t change them to skirt regulations. I don’t really find it very scummy at all. Nothing in the loot boxes can give you an advantage in the game. Most of the games that include this feature are free to play. This is how they make money from their game. The vast majority of people don’t pay very much at all. You can play the games and have tons of fun and never interact with the loot box system. It’s an optional thing for people who like the game so much that they want to pay. It’s basically donate to valve and have a chance to unlock a cosmetic item in game.

      • CTDummy@aussie.zoneEnglish
        10·
        5 months ago

        This completely ignores the fact that teenagers play the game, it’s essentially gambling, streamers spending decent time opening cases, FOMO, the status that comes with rare skins, skin markets and so on. I sorta of get what you’re saying insofar as not being PTW and cosmetics being the least obnoxious of this type of practice but it’s still super scummy. To the exclusion of CS2 and maybe a handful of other being free is the point, so they can get you into the slot machine that is these sort of mechanics and squeeze money from people (mostly kids). Don’t get me started on Valve generating billions from this and CS2 is still a mess.

      • workerONE@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        Some good points. I can’t remember where I saw this, but a game recently made their loot boxes randomly generate loot which was then shown to the player who had the choice of whether or not to open a box. This is much better than blindly opening boxes where you won’t know whether or not you will want the item inside.

    • RipLemmDotEE@lemmy.todayEnglish
      4·
      5 months ago

      Hall said that even he is frustrated by the “Paradox model” of paid expansion and DLC packs his studio RocketWerkz chose for its survival game Icarus after moving away from a free-to-play scheme.

      That pretty rich given how many DLCs Icarus has. He’s not wrong, but also shut the fuck up Dean, you’ve managed to ruin every game you built through incessant content updates no one wanted.

  • JTskulk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    5 months ago

    Just don’t gamble if you don’t like gambling (or if you like it too much). I never got into any skin microtransactions ever (except for a voice pack for Starcraft 2 which is something for myself and not something that other players see). I don’t play CS2 a lot, but when I do I have a good time and I just ignore all the skin stuff. It’s out of sight and out of mind. Other players show me their skins and ask if they’re cool. I don’t know man, I don’t do arts and crafts with my tools.

  • fuzzywombat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    This guy will get tons of flak and maybe even death treats for criticizing Valve. For whatever reason there is a rabid cult like following for Valve and Gabe Newell. I remember several years ago I said something like “Valve is still a company that’s out to make money at the end of the day” and several of my gaming friends instantly were no longer friends. It’s quite hilarious for me to just think about that even today.

    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.oneEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      I’m pleasantly surpised the “Steam Circle Jerk” group hasn’t shown up to defend Valve. Valve more or less controls the digital distribution of games, to point that if a dev’s game isn’t on Steam; they are taking a massive loss in potential revenue. We are being asked take Valve on a good faith that they won’t rat fuck the consumer.

      As you correctly pointed out, Valve’s main purpose to make money. Private or public, it’s only matter of time before a company rat fucks the consumer. More competiton is always better for the consumer.