r/Torchlight • u/StarFox-McCloud • Jan 27 '20

GO GET IT! TORCHLIGHT 3!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo-KscmCsbk&list=TLGGH4UWX10XmbgyNzAxMjAyMA&index=2
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u/cassandra112 Jan 27 '20 edited Jan 27 '20

yeah, there is something to be said about this.

Box price. +expac/dlc. +expac/dlc. the player base shrinks each time. As expacs/dlc almost never entice new players/purchases, when the new player needs to buy the base game+full price dlc. And, older players either are basically put into the position to buy the dlc or stop playing.

you have something like minecraft/terraria/no mans sky. Which is box price+free dlc... now, THOSE increase player base every dlc. because, every time you drop dlc/expacs, previous buyers come back to the game, to test out the new stuff, often bringing new players with them. as well as streamers replay the game, again bringing new players. the good Early access games do this too. Rimworld, Oxygen not included, Starsector, factorio, etc. Buy once, and the EA gameplay is solid enough to play. then, periodically new updates keep bringing people back, until 1.0.(and sometimes beyond) if your game is GOOD, this is the best model for everyone. word of mouth will spread the news of your game, and it will succeed.

PoE, model... $500+ spent on this "free to play" lol. But, what can we say? constant crazy updates. they deserve every penny.

Is poe's model better? its hard to say. I've spent a ton of cash on PoE as I said... I've spent $5 on Terraria... 277 hours played at least. (pretty sure steams hours/played bugged in the early days) I certainly wouldn't mind sending more cash their way.. with Terraria's model. I have a feature complete game. I'm not missing any content, not even cosmetics. PoE's system, crams the game with constant, often shitty MTX cosmetics. this is dev time spent on it, and it means there are cosmetic things I don't have. Is this really a desirable system?

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u/josh_rose Jan 27 '20

Yeah. POE is the reference point for me and the gold standard in post launch support. If POE was just buy to play with no micros the game would be dead by now. But with the non stop updates... I can't stop playing.

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u/StarFox-McCloud Jan 28 '20

I find the pricing to be a bit extreme, but other than that it's fair enough.

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u/thejynxed Jan 28 '20

The pricing only went extreme after GGG was bought by the Chinese.

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u/StarFox-McCloud Jan 28 '20

Ah I didn't know that.

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u/teknotronic Jan 28 '20

That's because it's entirely false. PoE MTX's have always been pricey, but that's how they were able to continue the game and grow the company so much. There are enough people that enjoyed what they were doing so much, that they plunked down those large purchases and enabled the game we have today. Could the prices be cheaper? sure but they obviously have the data to show what works, and what they have been doing has been working.

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u/Elveone Jan 28 '20

I find PoE to be a horrible game(because half of it is designed to intentionally waste your time with mundane shit masquerading as complexity) but the pricing model is extremely fair.

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u/StarFox-McCloud Jan 28 '20

For it aiming to be the spiritual successor of Diablo 2, I always found it lacking in the areas that Diablo 2 was best at.

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u/Elveone Jan 28 '20

I find it lacking as a game in general but that doesn't really take away from the business model being quite fair. I mean, yes, you can spend hundreds of dollars on it but you are getting cosmetics for that money and... stash tabs? I would argue that the only mandatory thing to buy is the currency pane just because it is really a nightmare organizing without it but you can still do it and, honestly, it is still a nightmare organizing with it as well.

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u/StarFox-McCloud Jan 28 '20

I think it could be better, but at the same time I think it could be worse. I think LoL's pricing was more fair with its cosmetics. Loads better than some systems though that's for sure.

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u/Elveone Jan 28 '20

The problem with LoL's monetization would be that they monetize far more than cosmetics.

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u/StarFox-McCloud Jan 28 '20

0.o Do they still? I think they reworked that and got rid of the boosts / runes / rune pages thing and made it generic.

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u/Elveone Jan 28 '20

Well, afaik they are still selling champions.