Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Live Service Games Are Here to Stay”.
Next up, how was your Thanksgiving uh we’re Canadians, so that was a while ago, um quite a while ago, but it was pretty good um yeah thanks good turkey, quick question: do you think season-based say fortnite war zone, things like that will outperform traditional games like say: Titanfall, 2 or Minecraft that are less less online. I think what he means is uh games that have significant changes in Cycles games as a service, a that isld to you as more or l, a single that you can toay the same and not change um. I mean, I think, the Market’s kind of spoken. I think, especially the games that are popular with the younger generation they’re season based there there’s there’s a lot of games as a service going around right now and as much as we may or may not like it.
Personally, I don’t think, there’s really anything that Luke or I can do to change any of that. The good news is that more traditional style game monetization strategies are still here: they’re, not going anyway balers G, three, I was just gon na yeah. They always get a shout out. I was just gon na say like some of the really Banger games. Lately, don’t have that Elden ring balers Gate 3 really just killed it.
Lots of people still playing those games really really good sales throughout people think very highly of the game and they have very consumer-friendly monetization models, but I also feel like that’s kind of like saying yeah like the traditional, unique IP and the cinema is not dead. Look at Oppenheimer, but it’s like okay yeah, but what about all there are a lot of other examples, the other movies there struggled. Wasn’T there a topic like not even that long, maybe last week or the week before, where it was like uh some Mount or something that they sold on the store for Wow made more money than all of Starcraft wings of Liberty, which is the original release of The game – oh no, I yeah, I I think, that’s a thing. Um mount for wow makes more money than C2.
Former blizzard developer. Jason Hall has claimed that a single microtransaction mount in World of Warcraft made more money than the full Starcraft 2 game, highlighting the profitability of microtransactions in gaming yeah. So the problem with all this stuff is that um people keep Buy buying it and the whole vote with your wallet thing works both ways: um, it works in the way that most people use it by you know, don’t buy the thing that you think is bad, But it also works when you use your wallet it it works when you spend money right and positive. Reinforcement is a lot stronger than negative reinforcement if you give them money for something once even if you they, even if you don’t give them any money.
The second time they do it or the third time they do it or the fourth time they do it they’re going to keep doing it because they’re going to know that on the fifth or the sixth, maybe we just got to tweak these colors here or play Around with balance there eventually there’s, you will give them money again, there’s games where they will make microtransaction items for individuals. They don’t even tell them about it, but they’ll know there’ll be like some whale that, like really likes, I don’t know um Color, Purple, sure yeah really likes purple, uh plate, armor sure, whatever something so they’ll make like a a pack for like effectively that person like There there are companies that actually do that and to be clear guys. This is not conspiracy, theory stuff – this is stuff, Luke actually knows, and we are not talking about a $ 20 piece of armor. For that person.
We are talking like a $ 500 piece of armor, put it on the store and everyone can buy it, but they know that one person will buy it or that four people – yes, you know those going to buy it. So that justifies the art time that goes into developing this thing CU. Some of these companies will have that’s just called. That’S just harpooning yeah, it’s a totally that’s a thing um, but they’ll have analytics on their whales so that they know what colors they like.
What themes they like, all this different type of stuff, what holidays they like? Probably that one I don’t know, but that makes sense – I wouldn’t be surprised yeah. So I don’t know so it’s terrible and it’s your fault, yeah kind of it is actually Gamers fault. It might not be your fault individually, but it is Gamer’s fault collectively, I’m speaking to Gamers. Collectively we are the ones.
Gamers are the ones that made FIFA Ultimate Team, so incredibly profitable mhm and you can’t undo that now, they’re going to they’re going to keep chasing that gam are the ones that sure screamed a lot when horse armor first came out, but then were complained that there Wasn’T enough things on the store in Halo infinite that blew my mind when, like the top posts on the subreddit for Halo infinite for a while were like, why isn’t there more things that I can buy like I still stubbornly just wear the stock armor good hell! Yeah they changed the color on me, though. It’S not gray anymore, it’s like blue or something oh, but I just wear whatever the default is. That is what I will always wear in Halo, infinite. I’Ve earned Cosmetics, oh yeah, and I will not touch them. I will not use them, I’m no nope NOP on principle.
I will not stand there in my like flame Helmet or whatever. During that obnoxious, open opening cinematic thing where you have to look at everyone’s Cosmetics before the match starts my favorite one is when you just for some reason spawn like way out of the line, so it like it Scrolls through everybody and you’re, just like not there And then it has to like whip the camera way over, so it can get you into game. I’Ve actually never seen that.
That’S great, really a that happened a lot around launch um, h, ouch that might have been part of it, but infinite just didn’t. Have any content at launch yeah? I agree there. There was specifically post specifically complaining about that.
There wasn’t enough stuff to buy um. I there was definitely also a lot of posts about how there wasn’t very much content. There wasn’t Forge there wasn’t all of these. Many other things um, but I was. I was just stunned that, like of all the things you’re here to complain about you’re, complaining that you can’t spend more money on Cosmetics, um, something that I’m finding that’s. I don’t know if this is just a person thing or not, but I’m finding in a lot of games where you know. Maybe it’s like a whatever you call.
It season pass type of game where you you get part of it as a free player, but then there’s like oh the really juicy stuff is locked. So infinites like this, like you, said, you’ve unlocked Cosmetics. You just don’t put them on I’m finding that the the default Cosmetics are starting to actually like to me at least look pretty cool cuz. You just never see them.
Cuz people are always going to put on at least the ones that they got for free, so, like the rarest Cosmetics are, are the non- ones like the? These? Are the default ones, especially once you’re like leveled up so you’re matchmaking against people that have been playing for a while and stuff? It’S hilarious. I was playing counter- strike the other day and I saw someone with the default skin USP like the counter Terror starting pistol. Yeah – and I was like w that looks pretty cool, I wonder like what that is, and then it ended up being the default skin one I was like oh wow. I haven’t seen that in so long it like actually looks pretty good. That’S hilarious. It’S like I’m too Chad to have any kind of like trash on my gun, yeah yeah, all right yeah, I don’t know, I think it looks great .