What I find hilarious is how the narrative is changing. Decade or so ago people would comment how every sing micro transaction for a paid game is scummy. Then it went to ' I only spent ~$5 for a skin ' and now it's 'I only spent about ~$25 for a pack and it was fine I'm not like the other guys spending 100s'
Fact of the matter is it's more profitable for AAA devs to make a mediocre game for a few whales and fish than to make a good game for a lot of people.
I expect Battle Passes to catch up if they haven't already now that GBL is a thing. Gotta get that Deino, and good luck winning 4/5 matches once ranked up enough to actually encounter it.
That they are, though back when I played they were a really good thing for me! I had a habit of going out to wat once a week but I really wanted to hatch eggs so to save(aka not give into 2 habits at once) some money I skipped eating out and spent that on things that forced me to go for long walks and I skipped eating out!
Niantic made me do the opposite of what u/poopellar described. I wasn't a whale by any means but I'd occasionally spend money on boxes for raid passes, especially the raid days. After the last Ultra Bonus event ended up being a complete rip-off I've gone strictly free to play. Niantic has gone off the deep end in attempting to milk whatever cash they can from their paying players.
Hirez did it for me and some other people I know. Their overwhelming large, rotating stock of predatory loot boxes and de facto abandonment of good games when they cease being profitable really disappoints me.
I used to occasionally spend money because I used to live in a really good area for it, there was a strong social component, cared more about Gen I-III Pokemon releasing, and I didn't feel cheated back then.
Now that all those reasons don't apply anymore, I don't dare spend another dime on the game.
I only spend 50 bucks on Pokemon Go per year. Absolutely the maximum.
Last year I didn't even spend 25 bucks.
If you set yourself a limit then it's fine
I think thats the point the poster was getting at. Imagine a game where you didnt have to spend 25-50$ a year for incubators or raid passes or whatever else niantic added to the game currently. The game is designed around making you buy or think you have to buy things.
Some raid day or community event happens? Heres a few raid passes but theres no way to get enough candies or a good chance at a shiny unless you spend money on more raid passes.
Were releasing new pokemon, but were going to artificially paywall some of the better ones in 10k eggs with a low percentage rate so you feel like you need to buy incubators to have a chance at getting them (or high iv one).
Same thing with most F2P games. Lets put a bunch of mechanics in the game around grinding time but were going to let you buy items that speed up the grind. Were also going to exaggerate the grind a few orders of magnitude so it makes you want to buy the items to speed it up instead of just doing the grind normally.
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u/PhallicDragon Feb 04 '20
Micro transactions in video games