Funny. My worst fear is being stuck in the middle of the ocean with no boats or land in sight. But I’m trying to be more open-minded so I guess I shouldn’t judge.
… but also at the same time my greatest fear about the gaming industry is that all indie games will start having battle passes and subscriptions. But I guess some people who still think the base version of Call of Duty is worth the yearly $70 subscription fee might be deathly afraid of being reminded that MW3 is actually just MW2 with a few new guns.
You know what’s crazy? The original Modern Warfare 3 from 2009 is still $40 on steam. Black Ops 2 from 2012 is $60.
COD pricing is insane. For comparison the Halo MCC which includes six games, two of which are remastered, is $40.
I think CoD pricing is affected by the fact that usually, it's mum that's paying for it
Are zoomers lining up around the block to play the Black Ops 1 campaign? Just seems absurd after over a decade to not drop the price to a reasonable level.
No, I don't believe that's the reason.
The reason is most likely because they want people to always but the newest game because they don't want to split up their player base.
They are smoking unfiltered crack at activision-blizzard. Just don't play them. Or pirate. Not like they are a very wonderful company to their own employees.
In fact, it's actually better to pirate them and use Plutonium for Multiplayer. This is due to the fact that many pre-Infinite Warfare Call of Duty titles have unpatched RCE vulnerabilities that Activision never bothered to fix, but have been in Plutonium.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-20817
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-2190/Activision.html
Jesus, thank you for the heads up. That's scary.
Battle passes are fine when done right. Deep Rock Galactic, for example, adds all the cosmetics from the pass into the random loot pool after the season ends.
Most battle passes fucking suck though. Like in overwatch where you pay for the privilege of unlocking things through dozens of hours of gameplay.
Ye, ghostship gaming has nailed it. Some items even go into the store and can be bought with earned currency.
The game is so good that I'm serious considering buying some dlc to support them.
I don't play the game a ton anymore, but back when I was super into it, I bought all four of the DLC out at the time for that exact reason. I rarely even use the cosmetics included, I just think the devs are awesome.
I see where you’re coming from, but if the game is designed in a way where it feels like it’s trying to convince me that playing the game for a larger amount of time is worth a reward and not rewarding in its own right then something is definitely off
So you're against unlocking things through play? Stay away from the rouge-like genre then, you would hate it.
Just about any game that is designed to be played more than once (i.e. not story games like the Witcher) will have some sort of in-game rewards to keep it fresh. Like the Binding of Isaac where you have over a thousand different items to unlock through gameplay. But live service games need a way to keep their game fresh for even longer than most. Themed unlockable cosmetics are a great way to do it. As long as they're not capitalizing on FOMO, I do not see any problem with it.
I’m not against unlocking things through play, I’m against unlocking things through play-time and that includes “experience points.” Cool stuff should be unlocked in the game, not once the game determines you have played it long enough to have earned something.
For example, unlocking new weapons in Dead Cells because you found them, even if by random chance, is better than unlocking new skins in DOOM Eternal because you played (not won or lost, just played) the same level enough times over to have “earned” them. Wasting time is not an accomplishment.
Yes, unlocks by random chance also technically could be considered unlocks by sufficient play-time, but I’d consider that different because you should be able to accept that you will never unlock certain items.
Yeah, I disagree completely and I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this lol. If I complete a mission in Deep Rock Galactic and am awarded a random cosmetic, I can't see how that's better than gaining EXP for a battle pass and unlocking a reward I actually want. Especially when there is no way to buy battle pass tiers (so no time-gated pressure to spend money for a cosmetic you really want) and the loot is mixed into the other loot pools at the end of the season anyway (so no FOMO).
...is better than unlocking new skins in DOOM Eternal because you played (not won or lost, just played) the same level enough times over to have “earned” them
Also, in DRG, the vast majority of both your regular and battle pass EXP come from successfully completing missions. You might get a hat or two if you play and lose a hundred games (you still get a tiny amount of EXP for enemy kills and stuff), but the vast majority of all your battle pass loot is obtained after actually winning games. So that's not even relevant for this game.
The only negative thing I will say about battle passes as a concept is that they're currently in every fucking game ever. Just like loot boxes, one person thought up a neat idea and everybody else and their mother hopped on board and are riding that shit to hell and back. Really doesn't encourage innovation.
Is this the equivalent of lemmy karmawhoring? I can't see how this is related to the acquisition.
No, because Lemmy has no karma system.
Activision fuckups are Microsoft fuckups now. Microsoft and lots on industry observers claimed that Microsoft taking over Activision would be such as good change. Turns out: It wasn't, just as the fullscreen CoD ad on Xbox was not a positive change.
The acquisition has barely even started. I don't think Microsoft has a single say in this games development yet.
Acquisition is completed. Announced mid October. It's not like independent Activision had any power to show full screen ads to Xbox users before.
I don't see how a game which was developed pre MS has anything to do with MS fucking up? That's a soceopathic obsession with hating something, 99.99999% of people won't think of blaming a company for this.
The game will be released by Microsoft. It's that simple. They are free to delay the release by a bit and rework the bad things. But they don't.
You seemingly don't understand how an acquisition works
They control Activision now. No grey area. Just like Microsoft controlled to show full screen ads to Xbox users.
That's not how it works when major companies buy one another, it generally takes years for integration efforts wherein prior leadership and plans remain mostly unchanged for more then half that time.
So who is responsible for the fullscreen CoD ad on Xbox then if not Microsoft? Seriously, you're delusional if you think that Microsoft higher ups have no power to order the Activision leadership around.
Ah, the arrogance of not knowing what you don't know. Except people are telling you that you are lacking knowledge of mergers, and you're still demanding that you're right. So now it's willful ignorance.
Absolutely nobody countered the argument of the fullscreen CoD ad on Xbox. Nobody except Microsoft proper greenlit that.
Ok!
Microsoft can advertise for their new properties. That doesn’t require any high level coordination between company leadership.
Anything game development wise is pretty much certainly not had any impact from Microsoft at all. MS is a very slow moving company, and corporate acquisitions aren’t an overnight deal. It can take years to transition old leadership out and implement new plans.
So if the acquisition resulted in the first ever fullscreen ad on Xbox, the acquisition did not lead to positive change. Thanks for confirming me.
The acquisition has resulted in next to nothing other than some joint advertising. This really just makes you look like you have no idea how corporate company structure works.
Honestly Activision was shit before, just more shit now
Worst fear hey