How should online video games make money?

.

do you mean poorfags

Selling single items has been working pretty well for Star Citizen

Yes it is.

Just allow private servers owners to set up payment options for big games without a minimal cut for the devs.

Donations are already a thing for small servers.

Star Citizen is a cult.

I hope the new US law fucks Roberts in the ass. Dumb cunt needs to learn how anti consumer he is.

Is Star Citizen a game yet?

Star Citizen will be reality before the game becomes a reality

No. The first star system still isn't complete. Missing major gameplay loops and "careers" like salvage. Trading barely works and simple movement is still bugged. Falling through ships into nothing, etc.

How would it? The amount of game mecanics-related goods and resources wouldn't change.

Lootboxes are not "unethical", buyer's remorse is not the fault of the business selling them, it's the fault of the buyer purchasing stuff without understanding what the transaction means.
Lootboxes are purchases, gambling has the chance of you losing your money and getting nothing in return, lootboxes will ALWAYS give you something in return, just because the perceived value of what you got is unsatisfactory doesn't mean what you got isn't the same value as what you paid for it.

A fool and his money are soon parted.
If a package menu item on a fast food store actually cost more than buying the individual menu items, the customer only has themselves to blame for not doing the math.

Attached: lootbox.png (671x651, 587K)

kek, imagine having paid for this shit

I dunno. How did games of years past do it?

>Businesses should be assholes

Gee, that's great for this industry. Thanks, sophomore year business major. Those companies really needed your help :^)

This. Heroin addicts aren't exploited by drug dealers and pharma companies. They're just idiots

>businesses exist to make profit
>people make conscious choice to give them money

It is not the business' responsibility to stop people from being shit at financial management, that would be denying the person's right to purchase whatever they want.
The most a business can do is put a warning label.

>But think of the poor companies!!

They can make money without exploiting people, y'know. Like making good products and not glorified waifu jpeg slot machines.

>gambling has the chance of you losing your money and getting nothing in return, lootboxes will ALWAYS give you something in return
So if a casino just gives you a cookie anytime you would've lost money then it's not gambling?

Yes.

The product sells, that means it's a good enough product.
>exploit
It's not exploitation, people who buy lootboxes do so because they WANTED to buy them, they are expected to understand what purchasing lootboxes entail as rational consumers.
It is their freedom and their right to buy stuff, in this case, lootboxes.

The argument that it's not unethical is stupid, because everyone knows it's unethical. You'd be better served arguing that the ethics are irrelevant

>It sold so it's good
The customer is retarded. A rock in a box made millionaires out of people back in the 70s.

Just let retards be retards, why does society need to baby them?

That's true though I mean you have to be absolutely fucking retarded to not know the effects of most drugs on the body and the consequences. No one misses this lesson in school.

It's about as hard to miss as the fucking weeks worth of Holocaust nonsense they hammer into kids brains during the WW2 parts of history class.

Sell the game once and let the players host the servers. You know, like we used to have before call of fucking duty.

Yes it is

Develop and finish the game, then sell it. It worked for 20 years before corporations decided they could leverage the internet to make games a """service"""

Society often protects those thst cannot protect themselves

It's not like they're being forced to buy anything here, they just made the decision to spend money when they rationally shouldn't.
It's blurring the lines between personal freedom and protection.

We're getting dangerously close to thst fake Ben Franklin quote

Most casinos provide food and drinks for free as long as you are gambling. So they do

Imagine paying 3000 dollarydoos for a carrier in this

Because those retards impact me. I don't give a fuck if you want to go bankrupt yourself in a closed box. The second it has an effect on me I'm going to war on your asshole.

How do they impact you?

The psychology behind loot boxes are legitimately exploitative. They urge people to collect a set, to only spend $2.99 for 500 gems or whatever because "MEGA DEAL". They are designed to peel into that urge that it's cheap, you have good odds, and you should collect everything. They also make it extra flashy when you pull what you want, so you release that sweet dopamine.

This is why it's exploitative and predatory. Sure, you and I both know loot boxes are retarded and you have to be an idiot to spend on micro transactions, but other people don't. And the more money shitty micro transactions make, the less GOOD games we have. And I want good fucking games.

theguardian.com/games/2018/may/29/gamers-politicians-regulation-video-game-loot-boxes

>urge
>should
At no point does a game force people to buy lootboxes, they have to make the personal choice to buy them and nobody should tell them they don't have the right to do so.

Something to chew on is how retarded people are in general. Look at the proliferation of MLM shit. The fact of the matter is kids shouldn't have access to a credit card in the first place. Nothing should default to save CC details; it should be opt-in only. Other than that while I think lootboxes are dumb as fuck and exploitative in nature, I am also wary of any regulation as to what content can or cannot exist in a videogame. As for OP, he's retarded and loves dicks. Video games make a fucking lot of money. Marketing only costs so much because large publishers are chasing the dragon. The fucking irony.

They PREY on that URGE to make people THINK they SHOULD. I made the words capitals so you understand. Why are you trying to protect companies so hard, are you a shill or a cynical faggot?

I agree with most of you say. CCs definitely shouldn't be saved because it would mitigate a lot of the issues. While I am wary of a slippery slope, regulating something like loot boxes seems like only a net win to me.

They shouldn't make money.

Every corporation has been doing this kind of shit for years now, why is it gaming in particular that annoys you so much compared to say, a fast food place.

It's just marketing

spend less making the game or marketing the game then
When you make a product you decide how much you are going to spend making it

if its too expensive to make games now, then just make less expensive games its that fucking easy

runescape sells membership as an ingame item
4m gp for membership right now and membership usually costs like £7

economy is doing just fine

why does fifa have a rating of 3+ if it has gambling in it? surely the game should be rated as 18+

you only need one form of continuous payment, be it mtx, subs, or regular expansions and there is nothing wrong with any of those options as long as you are clear about how the game will be monetized. the problem is when games like wow are triple dipping and adding those additional monetization methods onto the game after years of existing player investment

Dont care if some retard emptys his bank on lootboxes, I just dont want them in games they annoy me, so ill just use the retards as an excuse to try and get them banned

works for the left wing all the time

Diablo 1 has been "up" for 19 years.

They dont need shit.

this server upkeep costs literally nothing
development of extra content costs money, but just sell the extra content as dlc or an expansion and be done with it

fuck microtransactions any game with them is immediately devalued as the full price doesnt get you the whole game.
I dont pay $60 for any game if it has microtransactions, I dont see it as worth the money

I'm down for killing gacha mechanics everywhere, not just gaming. But we're on Yea Forums and we're talking about gaming.

Retard.

At no point are people FORCED to buy things, if they truly are so stupid that they still want to buy lootboxes, they should have the FREEDOM OF CHOICE to do so.
Are you in favor of Eugenics too? Taking away people's ability to choose to have children because their genetics are not to your liking?

The fuck? I've never heard of fastfood gachas, you get what you pay for word for word, there is no open the box and discover if you bought big mac or fries shit.

>Are you in favor of Eugenics too?
Actually yes, niggers should be steralized

It's the "MEGA DEAL" thing to urge people to buy menu sets, when in reality those menu sets are actually cheaper if you just buy them individually rather than a set.

blogs.findlaw.com/common_law/2018/04/judge-mcdonalds-extra-value-meals-dont-need-to-cost-less-than-individual-items.html

The same logic applies here, just because they're trying to get you to buy something doesn't mean they're deceiving you.