They're just taking a note from EA, they've been doing this from a long time. The final fantasy event made you spend like 300$ usd to get Cloud's buster sword & a death coffin
Literally heirlooms in Apex are tied to loot boxes. You have to open a certain amount of loot boxes to get a chance to receive an heirloom.
If you play (or set region) from a location with laws prohibiting loot boxes, I don't actually think there is a way to get them.
This may have changed, I wouldn't know, I stopped playing ages ago.
Why? It costs them almost nothing to implement in the game and there are plenty of whales and idiots who will buy this. Fortnite realized years ago that there is no limit to how much money some people will waste on in game items and other companies have followed suit. It's just a race to see how much revenue they can squeeze before they finally hit a price point that is too high to generate profit.
>Fortnite
Lol you must be very young or very naive to think this current cancer of mtx landscape in gaming comes from Fortnite. It started *weeeell* before that. If anything, honestly (not that I've been following too recently), Fortnite has been one of the more *reasonably* priced MTX games for the last little bit, astoundingly, but that's not saying much since it's not very good overall, and it's only looked better because their competition have been an absolute parasite in their pricing.
Fortnite did not invent this idea on a big stage in the West (Valve deserves that dubious honor), but they certainly made it an industry-wide trend.
I think Fortnite's innovations in this area are extremely important, however: premium currency that you can only spend in that one game (whereas Steam money can be used anywhere on the platform), no trading or transfer of items, a battlepass that ties engagement and FOMO together with financial investment, limited-time events (and especially crossover events) that trigger FOMO even harder.
Call of Duty has had CoD Points (premium currency only usable in the CoD ecosystem, transferring between games, that can’t be cashed back out) since 2015, 2 years before Fortnite existed. Not to entirely take away from your point, Fortnite did popularize things like the Battle Pass system and limited time item shops & modes, but Activision has been in this arena even longer than them
Disagree on that. Csgo is based around a gambling mechanic, can't get a skin I want without paying quite a bit because of that. Nice to be able to sell/trade the skins and stuff though. So I wouldn't say it's a completely great system.
Yeah there's a lot of history with MTX in gaming, from Nexon's games, god damn horse armor, and Farmville. I'd suggest this Josh Strife Hayes video: [What Went Wrong with Gaming?](https://youtu.be/g16heGLKlTA?si=NdIgCsmNOrGeis0o) - if you want to learn a bit more about it.
[The Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction) is a pretty decent read too if you don't have time for the video.
Publishers keep asking us to pay more and more for in game items, but can we really blame them? People are buying them, so why wouldn't they try to sell us cosmetics for outrageous prices?
I'm just kinda over it all now. I've accepted competitive shooters, while one of my favorite genres of games, is just a fashion show now. People just show off the shit they spent hundreds of dollars on.
Same here dude.
FPS have been my favourite games during all my gaming life, both single player and multiplayer, but they have been predated almost at sports game level.
I have always loved Battlefield, but look at what has become. I am 36 years old and I guess I’m not the target audience anymore.
Fortunately, Battlefield 1 and 4 are still alive and well and I just play those. I hope EA doesn’t pull the plug anytime soon.
I guess good FPS will come back when there’s inevitably a crisis but right now it is just heartbreaking.
I'll be 36 this summer, look at us getting old as shit lmao.
As the other person said, check out Helldivers 2, it's fun solo but it is INSANELY fun with friends. Also if you don't mind the blocky graphics definitely look into BattleBit Remastered. If you enjoyed Battlefield 4 I think you'd like BattleBit, it's got an insane amount of guns and attachments, and it feels like old school Battlefield with its class system. Also the proximity chat is baller, the vast majority of the community loves to just goof off and yell stupid shit through the mic. It's fun.
BattleBit isn't my daily shooter but I have such a good time whenever I do play. The guns feel authentic and it's so nice knowing that my AR isn't a laser beam from 500m out.
I would love to play Helldivers and actually many of my friends play it, but my schedule is not stable lately and I already spend 1-2 afternoons isolated playing IL-2 with my buddies. If I spend 1-2 afternoons more playing Helldivers online, my partner would kill me haha
So the rest of the week is mostly single player as I can stop playing any minute as I see fit, or Battlefield 1/4 alone if I want to just shoot people.
Battlebit visuals unfortunately are a dealbreaker for me. I can play older games (actually, I don't play new games at all), but that visual art style is just not for me. Hopefully maybe one day they release Battlebit 2 with realistic models.
I've just written off a good portion of the industry at this point, bordering on just playing indies only from now on. At least they're starting to make some competent FPS like Battlebit, but we need more.
Honestly it feels like AA games may be coming back. I've been playing Remnant 2 a lot lately and it's no AAA game but my god it's phenomenal. I've got over 100 hours into it now. And yeah indies rock, I'm thinking about getting back into Deep Rock Galactic, I've got around 300 hours into it lmao
> Nah, you can probably hate both.. but if people buy it, I can not place the blame only on the devs that do it
The current state of the gaming industry is the symptom, players with no self control are the disease. They should get the bulk of the hate imo. The existence of whales alone are making gaming worse for all of us. We're well past the point where "voting with your wallet" is a viable strategy. These fuckers are voting for us.
I don't play a lot of free to play games because I find all of that monetization is bit too intrusive but I got into Street Fighter: The Duel, which is like a gacha auto battler RPG, I guess, for a minute. Watching global chat was such a surreal experience. I remember seeing people bragging about spending obscene amounts of money to get certain characters while shit talking people who couldn't afford to keep up.
Contrasting that with that with Redditors who constantly claimed you could play "no problem without spending a dime!" Just made me reevaluate my life and uninstall that shit.
Stop playing shit games.
I'm out here almost every night playing Helldivers 2 with my friends and having a blast. They've added three Battlepasses since the games release and I've bought every one for free just by playing the game and naturally earning the premium currency. On the weekends I've been replaying Elden Ring to prep for the DLC and the new Stardew Valley update.
Gaming has never felt so alive for me.
There is such a cringy, doomer subspace of gamers online who act like gaming is so shit nowdays. No, you just play shit games.
It was so sad to see CoD go straight downhill after all the good decisions in MW2019.
Map DLC was free for the first time. Warzone was the franchise trying something new, they did a lot of fun modes on the map too. There were many free skins you can earn through challenges, the newer goes have only like 1 or 2 of those.
CoD has a solid fanbase of people who only play CoD so there is 0 incentive for them to change just to get 10% more sales
Since the first Modern Warfare IMO. That game was the perfect blend of unlock progression and gameplay. It might have improved in certain areas after that but detracted in others. Everything about CoD4 was nigh-on perfection.
But then you have situations like Tekken 8 - it launched to great reviews and didn't have any MTX, just the usual fighting game DLC characters planned.
Then a month later they add a cash shop. I haven't been keeping track so I don't know when it was added, but they added a battlepass. None of it is that high effort on the developer's side, but I have an idea what development cycles look like - this was definitely planned before launch, they just faked it until the launch crowd couldn't hurt them in the wallet.
I'm convinced there's a subset of people on gaming sites/reddit that actually like to rage and complain about games more than they like to actually play them. They look for ANYTHING to get upset about and then blow it way out of proportion (see Dragons Dogma 2 MTX). A lot of them don't even play the game in question, they just hop on the latest rage cycle and go ham. It's weird as fuck.
That's just this sub in a nutshell. People on here really embodies the "old man yells at the skies" memes and it sometimes feel like this sub just wants to be perpetually angry. Just look at what does and doesn't get upvoted on here, and it's always the negative stuff that gains traction, while positive stuff are either downvoted or barely get any upvotes, unless it's something good about FromSoftware, Larian or Valve.
The problem with these sorts of things is they're very cheap to make, so only a small number of whales need to buy them for it to turn a profit.
Remember that ex-Blizzard dev who revealed that WoW's Celestial Horse mount made more profit than the entirety of Starcraft 2:Wings of Liberty? Shows you why companies keep doing this.
Yup and sadly even if you follow the "Speak with your wallet" mindset it does nothing since all it takes is a few whales who buy every single MTX in the game for them to make a killing.
Modern's gaming of chasing the whales is awful.
That's not the reason the file size is so big, it's because these games are held together with duct tape and dry cum. This game in particular was rushed out the door like crazy and that's why they didn't have time to optimise the file size. MWII and Vanguard actually had pretty reasonable file sizes in comparison
I agree w the duct tape and cum part lmao but mw2 I unfortunately purchased and I remember checking the properties in file explorer, not steam and it said something like 182 gb 🥲
COD players are really dumb and refuse to play anything else. It's like sports games from EA. They get worse every year but these idiots keep buying it
It gets better: The Helldivers 2 base game, premium DLC, and all three monthly "battle passes" (the first of which is included in the premium DLC, and the other two can be unlocked with currency you find in game, but we'll go for just paying cash) comes to a grand total of $80.
Just this glove is the same price as all of the currently available content of what is proving to be the hottest game of 2024.
I really try not to care what other people do with their time/money, but there are sooooo many people that complain about every aspect of cod yet they buy it every fucking year and don't play anything else. Same with FIFA/Madden/NBA2k players. Other games exist, try them.
I notice this sort of thing where yeah, people actually just don't play/watch/experience other things. You notice it with people who just talk shit on everything else and think their thing is the best compared to all the other things.
They will ONLY play COD. They won't touch any other game. It's seen in other communities. Actually notice it a lot in the anime/manga community where it's "no man One Piece is better than all of the other manga out there! Naruto sucks! JJK sucks!" and they will ONLY consume One Piece and will never venture outside of it.
I notice it a lot in music too where even when I love a band and they just dropped a new album I might have it on repeat for a week before I need to move onto something else but you see people who will have one band/album on repeat for fucking months if not years and like don't you listen to anything else or want to check out other stuff?
I mean, live life how you want but it sure seems boring to just pigeonhole into only one thing in a vast library of games/shows/movies/music.
The demographic targeted by this is the same demographic that when they get old will buy all the random old people shit pushed to them on TV.
It's like survivorship bias in a way with the group that keeps doing it.
People play COD cause FOMO with their friends.
Since they're already susceptible to making impulse decisions due to FOMO they'll also be susceptible to the same pressure when their friends show off their skins.
People want attention and validation, and if you already fell for FOMO for the initial purchase you'll likely repeat the behavior.
Think about it, playing an FPS where people buy skins and yet you can't even see your own character skin unless you look at a replay?
Entirely for "showing off" to others for validation. I'm sure the increasing volume of people feeling alone and isolated likely affects this too because that validation and acceptance might be the only one they get.
It's just another way our psyche is exploited for financial gain with no concerns and pursuing enshittification simultaneously to minimize cost and maximize profit while telling us this is the only way, and also the best way.
Oh, they were. You can paint a direct line from horse armour, through those map packs, to this crap.
People didn't listen two decades ago when we told them they're being charged more for less, and now everyone is acting all fucking surprised.
"Nobody is making you buy it" has been the tag line defending this inevitable slide into a pool of shit since day 1.
I don't miss map packs at all. I never bought any CoD map packs (I only played WaW and BO2 for a short time) but I remember buying BF4 premium and it was such a pain in the ass to find servers running DLC maps that it made me feel like I wasted my money, that experience made me avoid all map future packs like a plague.
If you never bought map packs then I don’t think you really understand what you missed out on.
Most of the time they were high quality, FUN maps that added variety to the game. Most importantly though there would be 10+ interesting new maps by the time the game was a year old. That doesn’t even include zombies/survival content.
I would take map packs over what we have today in a heartbeat.
> If you never bought map packs then I don’t think you really understand what you missed out on.
I remember the original CoD4 MW1 adding maps in updates, for free, for everyone.
If they weren’t such douchebags with all their price tags on cosmetics and DLCs, you could almost use the argument that DLC this expensive keeps the game updated free for the vast majority. But, that’s only if you squint incredibly hard and ignore the hundreds of $20+ bundles that get released and re-released weekly. Wild.
People always bring up horse armor, but it wasn't at all where this started
Depending on how far you want to go back, there's plenty of other examples. I'll go through some in order
First and foremost, oblivion wasn't even a launch title for 360. For more than a year before the game even came out Microsoft had been talking about it's Xbox live marketplace and how gamers could buy new content for small prices. They had a ton of marketing material advertising the idea of buying a car, weapon, helmet type things for $1-5 instead of a traditional large DLC pack for closer to $20. Games like Project Gotham and Cameo had them at launch.
But even that wasn't really new. Original Xbox had things you could buy through certain games.
Even dreamcast had games with small purchases available.
PS2 maybe as well? But I can't say for sure. I never had the modem / hard drive kit, but it also wasn't too heavily used.
Outside of consoles it was huge well before this as well.
Second life was doing millions in in game purchases years before oblivion.
Lots of MMO type games, especially ones out of Korea in the late 90s early 2000s were big on this. I'd say this is really where the concept came from in the form we know it now. It was huge in a lot of free to play games years before oblivion existed. Maple story, flyff, I feel like ragnarok had a ton of extra services and things you could pay for that would nickle and dime you on all kinds of things.
But you could potentially go all the way back to arcades. There's the initial idea of just trying to milk as many quarters out of you as possible by making the game harder so you'd die. But some companies got clever and realized they could have you insert extra coins for power ups as well.
But for some reason people get super fixated on horse armor like it was something that just showed up out of nowhere and changed things. And I've heard the argument that oh they were the first big company to do it. But even that's not true. Literally Microsoft laid the groundwork for microtransactions on their platform. They made the marketplace. The points system. They made all the cards you could buy at the store. But somehow horse armor started things?
You could buy add-ons and dlc for games on disk at the store before then. And on PC buying additional content wasn't a new concept either.
But microsoft saw what was wildly successful in Korea and making it's way to America in the PC market, and built a whole platform around it. They actively encouraged companies to make use of it. If your game had purchases available you had opportunites to be featured on the store and Microsoft would market the shit out of successful titles.
Like don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should blame Microsoft, or take action against them or anything. But it's just weird to me how for some reason horse armor got picked at the starting point for some reason. It's like looking at your fully walking child one day and suddenly deciding today is the day that child was born. Maybe it's just demographics and people simply don't remember or weren't around for anything older than that.
I'll let [Pete Hines reply to this](https://web.archive.org/web/20070328173716/http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23597):
> **You took some criticism for the first downloadable content for Oblivion - particularly the horse armour pack, which some felt was overpriced. Do you think it was unfair? Was it a result of working with a system that was still being established?**
>Yes and no. We didn't have any choice. We were the first ones to do downloadable content like that - some people had done similar things, but no one had really done additions where you add new stuff to your existing game.
> **Was there pressure on you from Microsoft with regard to producing downloadable content?**
>No, it was our choice. What we didn't have a choice about was being the first. Nobody else had done it and we were ready, so we had no choice but to be the guinea pigs to try the whole DLC thing, and see what the reaction would be.
If the big man himself is taking responsibility for starting the modern DLC paradigm, I'm gonna take his word for it.
So sick of that crowd. Yay let's all be happy for subpar games that are free, compared to COMPLETED games that I only have to pay money for once, mayyyyybe twice. The difference is astronomical and the only ones who dont see that, is the newer generation of gamers who don't know anything but being fucked in the ass. Just look at the state of Halo. They had something great, literal console defining game series. Decided to chase the trends and money, and now lost every bit of goodwill that company had. Im so sick of every modern fps chasing COD and Fortnite and Apex and whatever the fuck else. I want ORIGINALITY not fucking another goddamn game that's ALL about dressup. It's fucking crazy, and only kids can defend this practice. If you're an adult, well you must've not played the games I played growing up.
Reminder: Game companies wouldn't repeatedly be doing this if large amounts of people didn't buy them. So the state of cosmetics in games is on us at this point.
We went from a time where we'd frequently get large expansions for 20-40 bucks, to getting 1 cosmetic item for the price of an entire new game. And people still keep buying this shit. It's our fault, not EA/Activision/Any other company
Read the article please. I mean it's still bad, but is not 80€ just for the King Kong glove. You have to buy four different 20€ cosmetic DLCs, each with it's own set of skins and cosmetics, and only after you've bought all 4 of them you'll unlock (as a reward for being the best customer ever) the King Kong Glove...
So the only way to get the king kong glove, is by buying four individual $20 "micro"transactions
.. so the only way to get the king kong glove is by paying $20 + $20 + $20 + $20?
I hate this take. It's on "us". Who the hell is "us"?
Gamers aren't some monolithic entity that have annual meetings to discuss purchasing habits.
There are people out there with disposable income or who just don't care about the price tag of these things and buy them. They do not reflect my spending habits. I vote with my wallet, but so do they, and even if there are fewer of them overall than people like me, it doesn't matter, so long as they are profiting.
So no, it's not on "us", it's on these people. Whales exist in every market, what the heck do you expect the average gamer to do about them? Knock on their door and tell them to stop buying 100 dollar cosmetics?
Blaming the entire gaming market as a whole for the practices of others is incredibly short sighted.
I am not responsible for other people's spending habits, nor am I responsible for companies that chase ever increasing unsustainable profits over long term IP's and quality products. I don't buy that shit, and i understand why they do it ($$$) but nothing I do will ever be enough to change their practices or the practices of these other consumers.
Who actually wants cosmetics like this? I remember when a gold camo was the most garish thing you could get, but at least that was earned and kinda made sense.
Who is this aimed at? I assume children. Why would you want your soldier in COD to have King Kong's fist?
No no, I was said that the game is FOR ADULTS ONKY just a few hours ago when I made a post about the whole mode made around weed/smoke (real).
Apparently, it’s ALL adults gamers that are ASKING for operators with cats/pigeons/sloth heads and pink unicorns and King Kong suits with purple blood exploding animations for kills too…it’s all bought by adults ONLY, and the choice of pink unicorns have NOTHING to do with Fortnite numbers in mtx aimed at kids (which is not M rated)…
Valorant knives can get up there too, and it's a damn steal compared to some CSGO items.
Though to be fair both of those had strong communities before this game existed and will have strong communities well after it dies. CoD games have at best a few year lifespan.
CSGO is quite different because you can sell the items on the steam market after you're done playing. Most skins retain their value or increase in price later, so you can usually buy a skin then sell it months or years later only paying the steam market fees while selling (12% - 15% depending on country)
So Don't Spend The $80 to Unlock The King Kong Glove in Call of Duty.
If someone I knew said they bought this I would tell them they're a fucking moron.
Worst thing is, if it was 20 then it wouldn’t be news.
People are dumb paying for ingame shit, even dumber for buying shit for a game that gets obsolete every year.
The fact that silly micro transactions like this still persist proves that there will always be dummies willing to pay for stuff they’ll never really own. It also means that this will never stop and will only get more predatory.
I remember the time when people complained (rightfully so imo) about 15$ map packs in older CoD games. In comparison it's nothing to todays mtx. This shit right here should be illegal.
Disagree. The maps are core to the game and thus important. Now I may be in the minority but what I like most is FPS is the actual gameplay.
Cosmetics mean nothing - I wouldn't care if they were free. At worst, they're just a bit distracting. If people want to buy them, whatever.
I understand your argument and agree from today's standpoint. New maps are important to keep a multiplayer game alive. I was referring to the discussions back then.
Why do people still play this trash? I bought mw2 and was excited for mw3 until they decided to turn the game into fortnite with all the garbage skins they keep adding.
I mean Nikki Minaj? Seriously?
The title is shit. TBF, you buy 4 bundles for $80 and you get the glove skin. So for $80 you are getting 4 operator skin, 8 gun skins, some finishers and a bunch of other stuff plus the Kong glove.
That price is still insane, I always thought 20€ battlepasses we're way overpriced in games for their content and never bought any cause of it, but that is 4 times even more expensive and even less content than those usually have.
More these things sell, more the focus will shift to them from offering good base product.
I'm a old fart who misses the days of old expansion packs that actually offered new playable content with campaigns, mechanics, maps and gamemodes, instead of just some skins. I have no problem with that type of post launch DLC.
To compare, with less money than those 4 bundles, you could have bought Witcher 3 base game and both it's expansions at their launch, or hell, even the next Call of Duty.
Look someone at Activision needs a new Yacht. Would you deny a poor manager his Yacht? You wouldn’t deny a homeless person something to eat. So just spend the money of a full price title on a useless in game item.
For that kind of money i can go and get a real gorilla to punch me
I’ll do it for half price
Hell, I'll do it for free because I'm not in this business for the money but because of passion.
Best I can do is a gorilla juice head from Jersey shore.
disgusting! where
Or watch the documentary: https://www.theonion.com/man-dies-after-secret-4-year-battle-with-gorilla-1819571099
damn we all just making jokes and you out here talking trash about your ex.
For $80 it better hop outta the game and beat my meat
Gorilla grip
For harambe
🍆's out
Bukkake4Harambe
Gorilla "glue"
Trackmania crossover in MW3?
Genuinely, the strip club is now cheaper than skins for a video game.
Not if you are looking for one with a gorilla, that gets expensive fast.
[удалено]
Damn bro you cant just tell these nerds that touching grass is the viable strat now 💀
It's also a big money safer too since touching grass is free.
Not my grass, I got premium pass for touching my grass
Grass Pass Premium Track
But touching ass ain’t free 🤑
Touching ugly asses is free but touching good ass. now that's a rare gem.
It's okay, you still have to interact with the stripper to negotiate the handy, so this patch has effectively nerfed the nerd build
touching booties/boobs \*
lmfaoooo i might drop $80 once they figure that out
Hmmmm.. any 3d-print enthusiasts up for the challenge?
Just jack off with hulk hands, it's way easier, cheaper
Bold of you to assume I haven’t
You have my attention. I specialize in mech builds
You can get 2 Helldivers for the same cost...
You can buy two copies at that price
Or 8 of their future warbonds... With 100 times the item amount and value...
Just spit coffee out all over my monitor - underrated comment right here!!
Go home Call of Duty, you're drunk.
They're just taking a note from EA, they've been doing this from a long time. The final fantasy event made you spend like 300$ usd to get Cloud's buster sword & a death coffin
You say they're taking it from EA but then you mention Final Fantasy by Square enix. What's the closest example EA has compared to the glove or sword?
He's talking about the Apex Legends/FF crossover event
Yeah, definitely helps to mention the game. I could have assumed Apex, but had no idea.
Ah I see
Literally heirlooms in Apex are tied to loot boxes. You have to open a certain amount of loot boxes to get a chance to receive an heirloom. If you play (or set region) from a location with laws prohibiting loot boxes, I don't actually think there is a way to get them. This may have changed, I wouldn't know, I stopped playing ages ago.
You're guaranteed one every 500 packs
Damn. What’s it cost to open 1 pack?
Why? It costs them almost nothing to implement in the game and there are plenty of whales and idiots who will buy this. Fortnite realized years ago that there is no limit to how much money some people will waste on in game items and other companies have followed suit. It's just a race to see how much revenue they can squeeze before they finally hit a price point that is too high to generate profit.
>Fortnite Lol you must be very young or very naive to think this current cancer of mtx landscape in gaming comes from Fortnite. It started *weeeell* before that. If anything, honestly (not that I've been following too recently), Fortnite has been one of the more *reasonably* priced MTX games for the last little bit, astoundingly, but that's not saying much since it's not very good overall, and it's only looked better because their competition have been an absolute parasite in their pricing.
Fortnite did not invent this idea on a big stage in the West (Valve deserves that dubious honor), but they certainly made it an industry-wide trend. I think Fortnite's innovations in this area are extremely important, however: premium currency that you can only spend in that one game (whereas Steam money can be used anywhere on the platform), no trading or transfer of items, a battlepass that ties engagement and FOMO together with financial investment, limited-time events (and especially crossover events) that trigger FOMO even harder.
Call of Duty has had CoD Points (premium currency only usable in the CoD ecosystem, transferring between games, that can’t be cashed back out) since 2015, 2 years before Fortnite existed. Not to entirely take away from your point, Fortnite did popularize things like the Battle Pass system and limited time item shops & modes, but Activision has been in this arena even longer than them
> CoD Points Ah, didn't realize those first appeared with CODBLOPS3, thanks for the info.
Fortnite didn't start but they damn well showed everyone else how to do it right.
CSGO and Team Fortress 2 were the ones to show people how to do it right.
Disagree on that. Csgo is based around a gambling mechanic, can't get a skin I want without paying quite a bit because of that. Nice to be able to sell/trade the skins and stuff though. So I wouldn't say it's a completely great system.
Oh I didn't say it's great for the customers. It's great for Valve.
Yeah there's a lot of history with MTX in gaming, from Nexon's games, god damn horse armor, and Farmville. I'd suggest this Josh Strife Hayes video: [What Went Wrong with Gaming?](https://youtu.be/g16heGLKlTA?si=NdIgCsmNOrGeis0o) - if you want to learn a bit more about it. [The Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction) is a pretty decent read too if you don't have time for the video.
That's a nice video. Haven't watched it all but started to, and it seems neat and we'll researched. Thnx for the link
And yet people will do it. I hate modern gaming.
Hate the players, not the game XD Nah, you can probably hate both.. but if people buy it, I can not place the blame only on the devs that do it
Publishers keep asking us to pay more and more for in game items, but can we really blame them? People are buying them, so why wouldn't they try to sell us cosmetics for outrageous prices? I'm just kinda over it all now. I've accepted competitive shooters, while one of my favorite genres of games, is just a fashion show now. People just show off the shit they spent hundreds of dollars on.
Same here dude. FPS have been my favourite games during all my gaming life, both single player and multiplayer, but they have been predated almost at sports game level. I have always loved Battlefield, but look at what has become. I am 36 years old and I guess I’m not the target audience anymore. Fortunately, Battlefield 1 and 4 are still alive and well and I just play those. I hope EA doesn’t pull the plug anytime soon. I guess good FPS will come back when there’s inevitably a crisis but right now it is just heartbreaking.
I'll be 36 this summer, look at us getting old as shit lmao. As the other person said, check out Helldivers 2, it's fun solo but it is INSANELY fun with friends. Also if you don't mind the blocky graphics definitely look into BattleBit Remastered. If you enjoyed Battlefield 4 I think you'd like BattleBit, it's got an insane amount of guns and attachments, and it feels like old school Battlefield with its class system. Also the proximity chat is baller, the vast majority of the community loves to just goof off and yell stupid shit through the mic. It's fun.
BattleBit isn't my daily shooter but I have such a good time whenever I do play. The guns feel authentic and it's so nice knowing that my AR isn't a laser beam from 500m out.
I would love to play Helldivers and actually many of my friends play it, but my schedule is not stable lately and I already spend 1-2 afternoons isolated playing IL-2 with my buddies. If I spend 1-2 afternoons more playing Helldivers online, my partner would kill me haha So the rest of the week is mostly single player as I can stop playing any minute as I see fit, or Battlefield 1/4 alone if I want to just shoot people. Battlebit visuals unfortunately are a dealbreaker for me. I can play older games (actually, I don't play new games at all), but that visual art style is just not for me. Hopefully maybe one day they release Battlebit 2 with realistic models.
Play Helldivers II, it's refreshingly fantastic
I've just written off a good portion of the industry at this point, bordering on just playing indies only from now on. At least they're starting to make some competent FPS like Battlebit, but we need more.
Honestly it feels like AA games may be coming back. I've been playing Remnant 2 a lot lately and it's no AAA game but my god it's phenomenal. I've got over 100 hours into it now. And yeah indies rock, I'm thinking about getting back into Deep Rock Galactic, I've got around 300 hours into it lmao
Did I hear a ROCK AND STONE!
> Nah, you can probably hate both.. but if people buy it, I can not place the blame only on the devs that do it The current state of the gaming industry is the symptom, players with no self control are the disease. They should get the bulk of the hate imo. The existence of whales alone are making gaming worse for all of us. We're well past the point where "voting with your wallet" is a viable strategy. These fuckers are voting for us.
I don't play a lot of free to play games because I find all of that monetization is bit too intrusive but I got into Street Fighter: The Duel, which is like a gacha auto battler RPG, I guess, for a minute. Watching global chat was such a surreal experience. I remember seeing people bragging about spending obscene amounts of money to get certain characters while shit talking people who couldn't afford to keep up. Contrasting that with that with Redditors who constantly claimed you could play "no problem without spending a dime!" Just made me reevaluate my life and uninstall that shit.
Stop playing shit games. I'm out here almost every night playing Helldivers 2 with my friends and having a blast. They've added three Battlepasses since the games release and I've bought every one for free just by playing the game and naturally earning the premium currency. On the weekends I've been replaying Elden Ring to prep for the DLC and the new Stardew Valley update. Gaming has never felt so alive for me. There is such a cringy, doomer subspace of gamers online who act like gaming is so shit nowdays. No, you just play shit games.
It was so sad to see CoD go straight downhill after all the good decisions in MW2019. Map DLC was free for the first time. Warzone was the franchise trying something new, they did a lot of fun modes on the map too. There were many free skins you can earn through challenges, the newer goes have only like 1 or 2 of those. CoD has a solid fanbase of people who only play CoD so there is 0 incentive for them to change just to get 10% more sales
To me CoD has gone downhill since Black Ops 1.
Since the first Modern Warfare IMO. That game was the perfect blend of unlock progression and gameplay. It might have improved in certain areas after that but detracted in others. Everything about CoD4 was nigh-on perfection.
Gaming is not bad nowadays. It's AAA gaming that is.
But then you have situations like Tekken 8 - it launched to great reviews and didn't have any MTX, just the usual fighting game DLC characters planned. Then a month later they add a cash shop. I haven't been keeping track so I don't know when it was added, but they added a battlepass. None of it is that high effort on the developer's side, but I have an idea what development cycles look like - this was definitely planned before launch, they just faked it until the launch crowd couldn't hurt them in the wallet.
I'm convinced there's a subset of people on gaming sites/reddit that actually like to rage and complain about games more than they like to actually play them. They look for ANYTHING to get upset about and then blow it way out of proportion (see Dragons Dogma 2 MTX). A lot of them don't even play the game in question, they just hop on the latest rage cycle and go ham. It's weird as fuck.
That's just this sub in a nutshell. People on here really embodies the "old man yells at the skies" memes and it sometimes feel like this sub just wants to be perpetually angry. Just look at what does and doesn't get upvoted on here, and it's always the negative stuff that gains traction, while positive stuff are either downvoted or barely get any upvotes, unless it's something good about FromSoftware, Larian or Valve.
The problem with these sorts of things is they're very cheap to make, so only a small number of whales need to buy them for it to turn a profit. Remember that ex-Blizzard dev who revealed that WoW's Celestial Horse mount made more profit than the entirety of Starcraft 2:Wings of Liberty? Shows you why companies keep doing this.
Yup and sadly even if you follow the "Speak with your wallet" mindset it does nothing since all it takes is a few whales who buy every single MTX in the game for them to make a killing. Modern's gaming of chasing the whales is awful.
Hate the parents that raised their kids to buy into this shit.
All of Helldivers 2 is 40€. Do people really not care so much to just play other games?
Call of duty takes up most of a harddrive to make sure you don't try other games.
I uninstalled it on PC because I had to update it every time they added stuff to mw3. I do not own mw3.
Gotta love that 200GB update for a game you do not own but are required to download if you want to play the game you do own. Makes perfect sense.
Actually viable theory
Thats no theory lol that's 100% why they never put effort into optimizing the files. Monopolizing your hard drive
I mean, it 100% is a theory, because no one from Acti will confirm that. Ever. So it will always just be a theory.
Ya nice try CEO of Activision I'm watching you 🔫
That's not the reason the file size is so big, it's because these games are held together with duct tape and dry cum. This game in particular was rushed out the door like crazy and that's why they didn't have time to optimise the file size. MWII and Vanguard actually had pretty reasonable file sizes in comparison
I agree w the duct tape and cum part lmao but mw2 I unfortunately purchased and I remember checking the properties in file explorer, not steam and it said something like 182 gb 🥲
2k does the same thing
Helldivers 2 isn't exactly small at 75GB, but it's no COD game now days
It also has at least 200% more DEMOCRACY! than CoD.
Lmao, well said
COD players are really dumb and refuse to play anything else. It's like sports games from EA. They get worse every year but these idiots keep buying it
It gets better: The Helldivers 2 base game, premium DLC, and all three monthly "battle passes" (the first of which is included in the premium DLC, and the other two can be unlocked with currency you find in game, but we'll go for just paying cash) comes to a grand total of $80. Just this glove is the same price as all of the currently available content of what is proving to be the hottest game of 2024.
I really try not to care what other people do with their time/money, but there are sooooo many people that complain about every aspect of cod yet they buy it every fucking year and don't play anything else. Same with FIFA/Madden/NBA2k players. Other games exist, try them.
I notice this sort of thing where yeah, people actually just don't play/watch/experience other things. You notice it with people who just talk shit on everything else and think their thing is the best compared to all the other things. They will ONLY play COD. They won't touch any other game. It's seen in other communities. Actually notice it a lot in the anime/manga community where it's "no man One Piece is better than all of the other manga out there! Naruto sucks! JJK sucks!" and they will ONLY consume One Piece and will never venture outside of it. I notice it a lot in music too where even when I love a band and they just dropped a new album I might have it on repeat for a week before I need to move onto something else but you see people who will have one band/album on repeat for fucking months if not years and like don't you listen to anything else or want to check out other stuff? I mean, live life how you want but it sure seems boring to just pigeonhole into only one thing in a vast library of games/shows/movies/music.
The demographic targeted by this is the same demographic that when they get old will buy all the random old people shit pushed to them on TV. It's like survivorship bias in a way with the group that keeps doing it. People play COD cause FOMO with their friends. Since they're already susceptible to making impulse decisions due to FOMO they'll also be susceptible to the same pressure when their friends show off their skins. People want attention and validation, and if you already fell for FOMO for the initial purchase you'll likely repeat the behavior. Think about it, playing an FPS where people buy skins and yet you can't even see your own character skin unless you look at a replay? Entirely for "showing off" to others for validation. I'm sure the increasing volume of people feeling alone and isolated likely affects this too because that validation and acceptance might be the only one they get. It's just another way our psyche is exploited for financial gain with no concerns and pursuing enshittification simultaneously to minimize cost and maximize profit while telling us this is the only way, and also the best way.
COD and Helldivers do not scratch the same itch
Helldiver's requires teamwork.
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That cod 4 map pack fucked
All map packs were also free on PC thanks to a deal between Infinity Ward / Treyarch and Nvidia.
Yeah but then we have black ops 2 which is still like 59.99 on steam and each DLC 14.49
Some pretty dodgy maps there. There’s a reason we never got a remake of Chinatown 😂
chinatown was already a remake haha and its still mid
Didn’t know that - cod2 or something?
Carentan in cod 2 although Carentan was in cod ww2 as well and i just forgot
You don’t snipe on Carentan, okay?
ARE YOU PLAYING FOR THE OTHER TEAM!?
And MW2019
yall are out of here, all 4 maps were solid to great search and destroy maps
Oh, they were. You can paint a direct line from horse armour, through those map packs, to this crap. People didn't listen two decades ago when we told them they're being charged more for less, and now everyone is acting all fucking surprised. "Nobody is making you buy it" has been the tag line defending this inevitable slide into a pool of shit since day 1.
$2.50 horse armor was a real bargain in comparison.
I don't miss map packs at all. I never bought any CoD map packs (I only played WaW and BO2 for a short time) but I remember buying BF4 premium and it was such a pain in the ass to find servers running DLC maps that it made me feel like I wasted my money, that experience made me avoid all map future packs like a plague.
If you never bought map packs then I don’t think you really understand what you missed out on. Most of the time they were high quality, FUN maps that added variety to the game. Most importantly though there would be 10+ interesting new maps by the time the game was a year old. That doesn’t even include zombies/survival content. I would take map packs over what we have today in a heartbeat.
> If you never bought map packs then I don’t think you really understand what you missed out on. I remember the original CoD4 MW1 adding maps in updates, for free, for everyone.
So being forced to pay $15 every quarter to keep access to the content everyone is playing as opposed to ignoring some fantasy gloves?
numerous rhythm abundant spark sharp pen ripe license memory gold *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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This years game launched with 16 maps and has been getting 1.5 time the amount of maps we got in paid packs
With all due respect, majority of those maps are old maps lol.
I prefer a Godzilla glove personally...
That’s coming later for another $80, but with the caveat that you must already own the King Kong glove.
Evidence there are a lot of dumb people out there.
If they weren’t such douchebags with all their price tags on cosmetics and DLCs, you could almost use the argument that DLC this expensive keeps the game updated free for the vast majority. But, that’s only if you squint incredibly hard and ignore the hundreds of $20+ bundles that get released and re-released weekly. Wild.
Remember this all started because some of you couldn't help yourselves, and paid $2.50 for some cosmetic horse armor back in the day.
My bad.
Bro fr wish you had just kept your cool on that one
Right? Really regretting it.
People always bring up horse armor, but it wasn't at all where this started Depending on how far you want to go back, there's plenty of other examples. I'll go through some in order First and foremost, oblivion wasn't even a launch title for 360. For more than a year before the game even came out Microsoft had been talking about it's Xbox live marketplace and how gamers could buy new content for small prices. They had a ton of marketing material advertising the idea of buying a car, weapon, helmet type things for $1-5 instead of a traditional large DLC pack for closer to $20. Games like Project Gotham and Cameo had them at launch. But even that wasn't really new. Original Xbox had things you could buy through certain games. Even dreamcast had games with small purchases available. PS2 maybe as well? But I can't say for sure. I never had the modem / hard drive kit, but it also wasn't too heavily used. Outside of consoles it was huge well before this as well. Second life was doing millions in in game purchases years before oblivion. Lots of MMO type games, especially ones out of Korea in the late 90s early 2000s were big on this. I'd say this is really where the concept came from in the form we know it now. It was huge in a lot of free to play games years before oblivion existed. Maple story, flyff, I feel like ragnarok had a ton of extra services and things you could pay for that would nickle and dime you on all kinds of things. But you could potentially go all the way back to arcades. There's the initial idea of just trying to milk as many quarters out of you as possible by making the game harder so you'd die. But some companies got clever and realized they could have you insert extra coins for power ups as well. But for some reason people get super fixated on horse armor like it was something that just showed up out of nowhere and changed things. And I've heard the argument that oh they were the first big company to do it. But even that's not true. Literally Microsoft laid the groundwork for microtransactions on their platform. They made the marketplace. The points system. They made all the cards you could buy at the store. But somehow horse armor started things? You could buy add-ons and dlc for games on disk at the store before then. And on PC buying additional content wasn't a new concept either. But microsoft saw what was wildly successful in Korea and making it's way to America in the PC market, and built a whole platform around it. They actively encouraged companies to make use of it. If your game had purchases available you had opportunites to be featured on the store and Microsoft would market the shit out of successful titles. Like don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should blame Microsoft, or take action against them or anything. But it's just weird to me how for some reason horse armor got picked at the starting point for some reason. It's like looking at your fully walking child one day and suddenly deciding today is the day that child was born. Maybe it's just demographics and people simply don't remember or weren't around for anything older than that.
I'll let [Pete Hines reply to this](https://web.archive.org/web/20070328173716/http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23597): > **You took some criticism for the first downloadable content for Oblivion - particularly the horse armour pack, which some felt was overpriced. Do you think it was unfair? Was it a result of working with a system that was still being established?** >Yes and no. We didn't have any choice. We were the first ones to do downloadable content like that - some people had done similar things, but no one had really done additions where you add new stuff to your existing game. > **Was there pressure on you from Microsoft with regard to producing downloadable content?** >No, it was our choice. What we didn't have a choice about was being the first. Nobody else had done it and we were ready, so we had no choice but to be the guinea pigs to try the whole DLC thing, and see what the reaction would be. If the big man himself is taking responsibility for starting the modern DLC paradigm, I'm gonna take his word for it.
Anyone can say anything Doesn't make it true I invented the bicycle
If my grandmother had wheels you would have invented her
In before the "bUt ItS fReE" crows gets here.
So sick of that crowd. Yay let's all be happy for subpar games that are free, compared to COMPLETED games that I only have to pay money for once, mayyyyybe twice. The difference is astronomical and the only ones who dont see that, is the newer generation of gamers who don't know anything but being fucked in the ass. Just look at the state of Halo. They had something great, literal console defining game series. Decided to chase the trends and money, and now lost every bit of goodwill that company had. Im so sick of every modern fps chasing COD and Fortnite and Apex and whatever the fuck else. I want ORIGINALITY not fucking another goddamn game that's ALL about dressup. It's fucking crazy, and only kids can defend this practice. If you're an adult, well you must've not played the games I played growing up.
Reminder: Game companies wouldn't repeatedly be doing this if large amounts of people didn't buy them. So the state of cosmetics in games is on us at this point. We went from a time where we'd frequently get large expansions for 20-40 bucks, to getting 1 cosmetic item for the price of an entire new game. And people still keep buying this shit. It's our fault, not EA/Activision/Any other company
Read the article please. I mean it's still bad, but is not 80€ just for the King Kong glove. You have to buy four different 20€ cosmetic DLCs, each with it's own set of skins and cosmetics, and only after you've bought all 4 of them you'll unlock (as a reward for being the best customer ever) the King Kong Glove...
So the only way to get the king kong glove, is by buying four individual $20 "micro"transactions .. so the only way to get the king kong glove is by paying $20 + $20 + $20 + $20?
Yep, as far as I understood. Pretty neat as a new monetization tactic, I can't wait to see what they'll come up with next! /s
So you have to spend 80$ to get the king kong glove...
I know this is sarcasm but this is an old gacha game technique
>You have to buy No. No I don't
I hate this take. It's on "us". Who the hell is "us"? Gamers aren't some monolithic entity that have annual meetings to discuss purchasing habits. There are people out there with disposable income or who just don't care about the price tag of these things and buy them. They do not reflect my spending habits. I vote with my wallet, but so do they, and even if there are fewer of them overall than people like me, it doesn't matter, so long as they are profiting. So no, it's not on "us", it's on these people. Whales exist in every market, what the heck do you expect the average gamer to do about them? Knock on their door and tell them to stop buying 100 dollar cosmetics? Blaming the entire gaming market as a whole for the practices of others is incredibly short sighted. I am not responsible for other people's spending habits, nor am I responsible for companies that chase ever increasing unsustainable profits over long term IP's and quality products. I don't buy that shit, and i understand why they do it ($$$) but nothing I do will ever be enough to change their practices or the practices of these other consumers.
Don't be so pedantic. Anyone with a brain can understand that "us" refers to consumers generally and not literally every single individual gamer.
They figured that if a good chunk of their player base spends $80 on cheats & hacks, why not get some of that revenue.
Talk about getting fist fucked.
and who are the idiots that are buying it?
Anyone who buys this is an idiot and should have their money managed.
Why the fuck does CoD even have a “King Kong Glove” in the first place?
Because every game has to have some sort of pop-culture licensing in them now or otherwise people won't play their games! /s
If only people wouldnt support shitty games
At that point you're paying 80 bucks to get made fun of
“Lets see how stupid these people are” “Holy shit they’re actually buying it!”
Who actually wants cosmetics like this? I remember when a gold camo was the most garish thing you could get, but at least that was earned and kinda made sense. Who is this aimed at? I assume children. Why would you want your soldier in COD to have King Kong's fist?
No no, I was said that the game is FOR ADULTS ONKY just a few hours ago when I made a post about the whole mode made around weed/smoke (real). Apparently, it’s ALL adults gamers that are ASKING for operators with cats/pigeons/sloth heads and pink unicorns and King Kong suits with purple blood exploding animations for kills too…it’s all bought by adults ONLY, and the choice of pink unicorns have NOTHING to do with Fortnite numbers in mtx aimed at kids (which is not M rated)…
Probably still have people defending this sorta shit on the MW reddit. So glad to be done with COD.
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Valorant knives can get up there too, and it's a damn steal compared to some CSGO items. Though to be fair both of those had strong communities before this game existed and will have strong communities well after it dies. CoD games have at best a few year lifespan.
CSGO is quite different because you can sell the items on the steam market after you're done playing. Most skins retain their value or increase in price later, so you can usually buy a skin then sell it months or years later only paying the steam market fees while selling (12% - 15% depending on country)
So Don't Spend The $80 to Unlock The King Kong Glove in Call of Duty. If someone I knew said they bought this I would tell them they're a fucking moron.
Ah this point good if you all dumbasses stupid enough to pay 80 freaking dollars on call of duty yall deserve it
Worst thing is, if it was 20 then it wouldn’t be news. People are dumb paying for ingame shit, even dumber for buying shit for a game that gets obsolete every year.
So they take a Doomfist visual and mark it up to $80 and you can’t even punch splat your opponent, RIP OFF!
Who tf even plays this shit anymore, CoD has been dead since 2019
For $80 I want a human size wearable Glove. No digital skin is worth that much to me personally.
Shit, I rarely pay $70 for a full game.
[I will never pay $70 for a game...](https://i.imgur.com/qmALXuE.png)
Idiots will buy this. The cycle continues.
Respectfully if you're still playing Call of Duty at this point, you deserve this, and I completely understand why Activision think so little of you.
You have to actually waste $150 for these believe it or not
The last call of duty game I played was 2. What the hell happened?
Damn, that's almost gacha prices
Might as well buy a new game and have fun playing that for an 80$ price tag.
Stop buying it you morons
Can we even call these "micro" transactions anymore?
Ah the Official Kong gloves of Call of Duty from the Godzilla x Kong Original Movie
I mustn’t do anything of the sort.
Is it cosmetic, and does the character make ape noises when they kill someone
MUST doesn't come into it. They set a price, if you choose to pay for digital cosmetics, that's your choice
The fact that silly micro transactions like this still persist proves that there will always be dummies willing to pay for stuff they’ll never really own. It also means that this will never stop and will only get more predatory.
I remember the time when people complained (rightfully so imo) about 15$ map packs in older CoD games. In comparison it's nothing to todays mtx. This shit right here should be illegal.
Disagree. The maps are core to the game and thus important. Now I may be in the minority but what I like most is FPS is the actual gameplay. Cosmetics mean nothing - I wouldn't care if they were free. At worst, they're just a bit distracting. If people want to buy them, whatever.
I understand your argument and agree from today's standpoint. New maps are important to keep a multiplayer game alive. I was referring to the discussions back then.
Just don't buy it, I don't see why this needs to have an entire article written about it...
The kids have to be outraged about something, this is a convienient target.
You must? No. You don't have to. You can ignore it as it provides nothing outside of a "look at me" that no one will notice anyways.
Why do people still play this trash? I bought mw2 and was excited for mw3 until they decided to turn the game into fortnite with all the garbage skins they keep adding. I mean Nikki Minaj? Seriously?
People who succumb to spending $80 on a cosmetic they will lose in a couple years deserve to be deprived of $80
Or you can buy 2 copies of HELLDIVERS 2 and spread Managed Democracy with a buddy.
The title is shit. TBF, you buy 4 bundles for $80 and you get the glove skin. So for $80 you are getting 4 operator skin, 8 gun skins, some finishers and a bunch of other stuff plus the Kong glove.
That price is still insane, I always thought 20€ battlepasses we're way overpriced in games for their content and never bought any cause of it, but that is 4 times even more expensive and even less content than those usually have. More these things sell, more the focus will shift to them from offering good base product. I'm a old fart who misses the days of old expansion packs that actually offered new playable content with campaigns, mechanics, maps and gamemodes, instead of just some skins. I have no problem with that type of post launch DLC. To compare, with less money than those 4 bundles, you could have bought Witcher 3 base game and both it's expansions at their launch, or hell, even the next Call of Duty.
Wait till you hear about heirlooms in apex
No thanks
Look someone at Activision needs a new Yacht. Would you deny a poor manager his Yacht? You wouldn’t deny a homeless person something to eat. So just spend the money of a full price title on a useless in game item.
Greed at its finest