What if people just voted with their wallets?

[Makabreska]

Unfortunately, there seems to be plenty of addicts, shills, and whales that will pay the fees anyway.

Blizzard is more than happy to exploit that despite the damage it’s doing to their reputation.

The store stuff doesn’t actually bother me much, other than the services. If someone wants to buy an overpriced mount or pet I don’t care much.

The inflated fee prices for simple services however does bother me, since those are essential services, and exploiting that is just wrong and dirty to me.

I think the best hope is a better company comes along and makes a game about equal or better.

I’m not saying Riot is that company, but that MMO is the next one with a shot (though I doubt they’ll ethically be much better).

FF14 is catching up, there is a great team of people leading that game, but there is too many road blocks in that game preventing it from being amazing. If they do a FF17 down the road, I think it’ll have a shot.

Riot is DEFINITELY not that company. Go check Valorant 100$ skin bundles. And calling all people who buy stuff like that "addicts, shills, and whales" doesn't help the discourse. They also vote with their wallets, just not the way you would like.

[Lochton]

Hey.

What is the reasoning behind people not just voting with their wallets?

If you think something is greedy, overpriced or what not, then why not just don't buy it?

Is this some OCD thing where people have to have every mount or service just because it's available?


If you don't buy it, they don't get money, Quite simple.

Voting with your wallet is like throwing the towel in the ring. By this statement, I am respecting people who choose to quit because they do not enjoy the game, and believe doing so will send a message to the company, but they are basically leaving the game in the hope that someone else gets it fixed before they return. And sadly, this just gives it less chance to find solutions, unless of course, you share your feedback on the forum and/or bug reports before making your departure. I know we, the players, do not get many visible signs that Blizzard staff reads the forum but one can do one's part to try and help the game if one cares. And this statement only counts for subscriptions and gametime.

For the store, it is completely different, and optional. You do not have to purchase a damn thing in the store if you do not wish to. There is no forcing, there is no demand, there is just your choice.

[Not A Cat]

So is that how this whole thing started with Micro transactions?

That just a select few started buying every thing while every one else protested?

But since the products still sold the companies saw the money flow and just kept going?

That's capitalism. If you put something on the market and people flock to it and buy it, why stop producing it?

[Mojo03]

Riot is DEFINITELY not that company. Go check Valorant 100$ skin bundles. And calling all people who buy stuff like that "addicts, shills, and whales" doesn't help the discourse. They also vote with their wallets, just not the way you would like.

Yup, sadly you’re probably right about Riot.

Never said “all”.

Seems like the shoes fits one of those for you...

[erifwodahs]

Who says they don't?

Only about 2% of the playerbase actually posts on forums. Generally because they have some complaints.

It could well be that those complaining here, DO vote with their wallets. Doesn't mean there's no market.

This. But if you go to FB page i.e. or even quite a few people here are defending price of 35$ for character copy. On WoW EU fb fan page you will get literally trashed for saying that this is wtf price. So many moms and dads there just shitting on people for saying this is wrong

[Nerovar]

I remember a time when there was outrage when Bethesda made a 2.50$ horse armor DLC for TESIV. This shit has been so normalized over the last 15 years that I don't see it going away no matter if most people oppose it or not. If anything, it's going to get worse. Keep in mind that these things are probably profitable even if less than 1% of the playerbase buy it.

At this point the only thing you can do is only buy games from indie developers and hope they won't get absorbed by some big company like Bethesda/ActiBlizz/EA etc. too soon.

[Nalam the Venom]

That's capitalism. If you put something on the market and people flock to it and buy it, why stop producing it?

De-railing my own thread now

But...

When did Video games become about "Making the most money" ?

It felt like back when i was growing up in the 90's-2000's a lot more games were just "Passion projects" to make good games for people to enjoy

[Veggie50]

If there exists a market for gold selling despite Blizzard offering legit gold through safe methods then we can assume the threshold to not offer those things must be incredible low to still pull a profit, meaning "voting with your wallet" is not gonna work even if 90% stop buying mounts. The remaining 10% will make anything profitable and thus any action the majority takes will seem pointless. Mounts etc. are basically free money even if just 0,1% of the playerbase buy them. It doesn't take a shit-ton of work to create a mount let alone a pet. Cosmetics are one of the easiest and cheapest MTX you can produce as a gaming company. Skins especially have a ROI (return of investment) out-scaling basically anything else you could make, including huge expansions. 1 person can create a skin in a day and sell them for 20$, the profit margin is gigantic compared to any other content.

Humans pay obscene amounts of money to stand out, humans love to feel special, that's the target audience, and it's huge.

I agree, individual impact is not likely to sway decisions.

But the question OP is asking does not look at the efficacy of voting with your wallet, but why people don’t vote with their wallet. People do.

[Makabreska]

Yup, sadly you’re probably right about Riot.

Never said “all”.

Seems like the shoes fits one of those for you...

Your assumptions keep failing you.

- - - Updated - - -

De-railing my own thread now

But...

When did Video games become about "Making the most money" ?

It felt like back when i was growing up in the 90's-2000's a lot more games were just "Passion projects" to make good games for people to enjoy

When they discovered how insanely profitable micro transactions are (actually it goes way before that). But these are mostly biggest companies, plenty of devs who don't fixate on $$$.

[Mojo03]

Hey.

What is the reasoning behind people not just voting with their wallets?

If you think something is greedy, overpriced or what not, then why not just don't buy it?

Is this some OCD thing where people have to have every mount or service just because it's available?


If you don't buy it, they don't get money, Quite simple.

I think you can break up the store in 2 sections.

Services = I “need” this to fundamentally play the game correctly.

Vanity items = I “want” this because it’s cool.

It’s wrong and dirty to charge a premium for what people “need”, but kinda sorta reasonable to charge a premium for what they “want”.

Speaking with your wallet works for the “wants”, but not very well for the “needs”.

[Nalam the Venom]

I agree, individual impact is not likely to sway decisions.

But the question OP is asking does not look at the efficacy of voting with your wallet, but why people don’t vote with their wallet. People do.

I don't think "Voting with your wallet" can be effective unless every one collectively do it at the same time.

[Sughs]

They do, many people buy mounts, boosts, pets, etc. I don't buy them because I don't think they are worth the money they ask for, I wouldn't buy them even if I was a millionaire. People buy things because they are pretty, not because they need it, just like in real life. It's a mentality really and why billionaires and millionaires don't feel bad for "poor people".

[Makabreska]

I don't think "Voting with your wallet" can be effective unless every one collectively do it at the same time.

What? Since when it has to be unison? It's all about majority, like with every voting. Majority of people, or majority of $ spent is ok with all that, so unfortunately it seems that the procedure will keep going on.

[Not A Cat]

De-railing my own thread now

But...

When did Video games become about "Making the most money" ?

It felt like back when i was growing up in the 90's-2000's a lot more games were just "Passion projects" to make good games for people to enjoy

Making games takes a lot of resources, and resources cost money, a shit ton of it. That means taking money from investors, players via crowdfunding, accepting a deal from predatory publishers etc.

Either way you have to appeal to certain people with money, or else you can't make a game.

[Makabreska]

Making games takes a lot of resources, and resources cost money, a shit ton of it. That means taking money from investors, players via crowdfunding, accepting a deal from predatory publishers etc.

Either way you have to appeal to certain people with money, or else you can't make a game.

Making games takes a lot of resources, yet Bobby gave himself ez 200mil bonus (yes, I know it was reduced, but not all), similar to other CEOs. If these companies would cut those retarded gifts, or spent less money on marketing with all them celebrities, then suddenly they would have much more resources on games themself.

[Prag]

De-railing my own thread now

But...

When did Video games become about "Making the most money" ?

It felt like back when i was growing up in the 90's-2000's a lot more games were just "Passion projects" to make good games for people to enjoy

When 13,000,000 people are happy to spend $40 on an expansion and $15 a month, people look at that product differently.

[Not A Cat]

Making games takes a lot of resources, yet Bobby gave himself ez 200mil bonus (yes, I know it was reduced, but not all), similar to other CEOs. If these companies would cut those retarded gifts, or spent less money on marketing with all that celebrities, then suddenly they would have much more resources on games themself.

Well that's a different conversation entirely and one of the flaws of capitalism. Big players get bigger and eat the small players. And it sucks because voting with your wallet with companies like EA, Activision, TakeTwo, Ubisoft, Nintendo etc. ends up hurting developers and people low on the corporate ladder while people like Bobby don't hurt at all.

[Azerate]

People do vote with their wallets. The ones whining on the forums are those who lost but still think they matter more than the majority.

[MoanaLisa]

A lot of people do, I'm sure.

What's annoying is that they think they have any rights at all to be telling others what to do with their money, what to and what not to enjoy, among other things.

I mean, seriously, once you quit and then spend several weeks / months / years complaining about the game—the only sensible reason to be doing so is to be drawing attention since while I'm sure Blizzard looks in here once in a while, nearly all of what gets posted here is 100% irrelevant compared to their official forums—there's no special reason to pay any attention to that.

Anyway, I'm sure lots of people vote with their wallets. The fact that they don't come here in great masses to tell us so doesn't mean anything. Those threads aren't helpful anyway which is why they're always closed.

Subscribe or not, buy stuff from the store or not, use their cash services or not, it's still a vote. Your wallet is still involved.

[Hellobolis]

If you think something is greedy, overpriced or what not, then why not just don't buy it?

People do vote with their wallet when something is overpriced.

But there is an entire science devoted to finding the difference between "expensive" and "too expensive".

e.g. people are emotionally invested in their characters, that's something you can exploit to get people to pay more. (realistically, cloning a character is just to get you a warm fuzzy feeling inside that "it still exists", most people won't actually make use of the copied character.)