• Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 years ago

      The wild thing is, people still buy them. “The gameplay is derivative and insipid, it was delivered buggy and unfinished, it’s barely different than the last one they published, and the business model is outright predatory.”

      “Yeah, but it’s Star Wars.”

      • Nakedmole@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        I will never understand. I for myself simply ignore games with micro transactions at this point with the only exception of games that have exclusively cosmetic stuff as micro transactions. Fuck pay to win!

  • Yewb@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    2 years ago

    Every single roblox game is designed to maximize micro transactions into blantent money extracting games.

    • TheFogan@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      2 years ago

      Not neceserally but I think it has the same issue as say the google play store. IE roblox promotes the games do the best at extracting profit. There’s lots of games that are well thought out that don’t make much money. and they are burried somewhere on page 50+ hidden between a bunch of thrown together test projects etc…

  • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    2 years ago

    Everyone is like “well no shit” but I honestly didn’t know. I don’t play the game. It’s good to hear about, especially for parents.

    • dack@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, people online have been talking for a long time about how exploitive Roblox is. However, it’s still very popular and I know many parents who let their kids play it. I think most parents just think it’s like Minecraft, and don’t realize the effect micro transactions has.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        I’m a bachelor in my 30’s, Roblox wouldn’t have been targeted at me, but my children…which I don’t have. So the first I heard of Roblox was a Youtube video essay titled something to the effect of “I made a video about how exploitative Roblox is, and then it got worse.”

  • Nakedmole@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 years ago

    Loot boxes that you buy with real money are gambling for children in general, not just in Roblox.

  • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    2 years ago

    Forget the kids and ignore the odds. Any game taking real money is a scam.

    (No that doesn’t mean buying games. No that doesn’t mean subscriptions. No that doesn’t mean expansions. No that doesn’t mean card games. No that doesn’t mean arcades. Jesus Christ, do people find a lot of ways to get mad about nonsense, whenever I say this.)

    Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. Absolutely fucking nothing. All possible forms are abuse, built on how games by definition invent value for worthless elements that can be arbitrarily granted or withheld. That is what makes them games.

    The business model is intolerable - and if we allow it to continue, there will be nothing else. It’s the dominant strategy. Your disgust and non-participation will never outweigh some tiny fraction of people getting taken for obscene quantities of real money in exchange for incrementing a variable. It’s in free mobile trash. It’s in $70 “AAA” flagship-franchise titles. It’s in single-player, multi-player, subscription MMOs - it’s in everything. There is zero incentive for them not to try robbing you like this. Companies that don’t rob you will make less money than companies that do.

    Only legislation can fix this.

    Ban the entire business model. (No that doesn’t mean games. No that doesn’t mean content. Jesus Christ, am I tired of dealing with pearl-clutching nonsense, just to say “fuck lootboxes.”)

    Overt abuse gets disguised. It’s still abuse. All they’re getting better at is how deep the hooks can slide before people notice.

    Content is the bait on this hook. All it’s doing is disguising the abuse. The abuse remains. The abuse is the entire point. The abuse is the only part that makes money.

    This business model is a threat to the entire medium, and the only real solution is dead simple. We will be fine without it. We will only be fine, without it.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        Lootboxes aren’t “buying content.” Buying a game, is. Buying DLC, is. Gambling on a hat that’s already in the game you’re playing is plainly something different, and increasingly, that’s the only source of revenue.

        This is not theoretical. We’re already in a stupid sci-fi future where four-billion-dollar games can be “”“free”“” and somehow convince people to spend thousands of dollars apiece on a deluge of random bullshit which is also allegedly free. And it’s not even possible to have a sane argument about this shit-show, because people pretend they don’t understand the thing all these games do.

        I want video games to make money the way they did in 2008.

        Do you have an opinion about that?

        If it goes ‘then games would magically look like 2008 forever,’ stop.

        If it goes ‘but then they’d make 2008 kinds of money,’ stop.

        This is new. This is bad. This is spreading. We should stop it.

        • MomoTimeToDie@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          2 years ago

          I want video games to make money the way they did in 2008.

          Do you have an opinion about that?

          No. Buy those games if you like them. They’re still everywhere. You’re free to spend money however you like.