Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Dude....we didn't have the internet. Video games were not mainstream enough to be advertised in prime time. If you wanted to know what was up, you needed to read the magazines. The only reason I knew Final Fantasy existed is because of Nintendo Power. It made me want to buy the game. I did end up buying the game. So....yeah, game makers benefited ALOT from that shit.
You do understand, I assume, that Nintendo is just one publisher which also happened to be the dominant console maker back in the day right? What about all of the other devs? Did they have magazines too?

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
What does it cost to open the black box? If it's equal to the average of 50 memory cards, 600 broc & cheese, 250 tic tacs, and 100 polished stones. Then it seems pretty fair to me.
Whatever it's cost, you'd be GAMBLING for your memory card. The Nile is also a river in Egypt.

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Whaaaaaaaaaaat???? You mean you made a purchase decision based on your own needs, preferences, and budget all under your own free will??? How the fuck did you do that with all these greedy corporations controlling your mind!!!???
LOL. I'll bite.

It wasn't thrown into my face. My progression was not hampered because I lacked it. It was not cut out from the game prior top release just to be readded as paid content later. They were upfront about it back then. It did not cost more than the game itself.

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
This statement provides some insight into your flawed thinking. Playing video games is not an "accomplishment". You're playing with a toy.
Exactly, but one which wants to manipulate you into dumping all your money into it, for no reason other than to keep playing with the toy. Don't throw in money, the toy becomes tough; throw in money, the toy becomes easy. The amounts of money are not children's candy prices either.

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Why? Who is getting hurt? You and Oskar keep saying how much money the game will make.....so obviously they have an audience that isn't too offended by what they're doing.
An audience that doesn't KNOW what they are doing, banana. There is massive a difference.

Ever heard of the frog in the boiling pot metaphor?

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Your use of the term "progress" suggests that you take your video games a little too seriously. They're not real Jack. Ok?
The money you lose at them is very real. Thank you for slowly arriving at some sense.

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
It's not gambling cuz baseball cards.
Another false equivalency. Great.

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Honestly, this feels more and more about you not wanting to pay, and less and less about keeping kids away from slot machines.
Say it upfront and if I want I'll pay. Why the dishonesty? Why the bullshit? Why the insistence that gambling isn't gambling? Why the SAAS while insisting I pay for entry as well?

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Well beanie babies don't actually 'do' anything. They exist to be collected. So in order to accomplish the goal of a complete collection, you did in fact need at least one of every specific beanie baby.
You can collect them? Which means they have actual, intrinsic value right?

[quote="Banana"]Well maybe you pirated it by word-of-mouth, but if you follow the chain backward, Konami got paid somehow./quote]



I learned of it organically, so no, Nintendo didn't get paid on that one thing, as, you know, they owned Nintendo Power and not Konami.

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Also the word "hampered" implies that there is some verifiable minimum standard of progression speed in video games. There isn't. I've been playing Clash of Clans for 5 fuckin years and I'm still on town-hall level 9. I've spent more than a year just upgrading walls. It's a grind. But if someone spends money to buy gems and get to level 10 before me...so be it. I wouldn't say that my progress has been "hampred" by not spending money. I progressed through the game at a pace and investment total that best suited my needs. If the game didn't offer me that choice, then I would have simply played a different game.
You play mobile games. I don't, because I despise the "free" mobile game accepted monetization practices. I would not want for full price console games to become like "free" mobile games, because, again, I PAID TO FUCKING PLAY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Throw in there the fact that I do not wants kids gambling (for memory cards, keeping in line with the analogy earlier which you found so fair), and then you get the entire argument for the millionth time.

[quote="Banana"]Ok....so 'it's all up to you'. Great, we agree. Play fast, play slow, it's all up to you. Some people might choose to play 'the long way', but are also willing to pay extra for a boost. How does that diminish YOUR experience?
/quote]

Ever heard of multiplayer? PVP? That damned activision patent I just showed you? Why, oh enlightened banana, do you think the focus is so much on multiplayer battles nowadays? Combat prioritization, fuck story. Why do you think this is?

Quote Originally Posted by Banana
Also the word "hampered" implies that there is some verifiable minimum standard of progression speed in video games. There isn't. I've been playing Clash of Clans for 5 fuckin years and I'm still on town-hall level 9. I've spent more than a year just upgrading walls. It's a grind. But if someone spends money to buy gems and get to level 10 before me...so be it. I wouldn't say that my progress has been "hampred" by not spending money. I progressed through the game at a pace and investment total that best suited my needs. If the game didn't offer me that choice, then I would have simply played a different game.
There isn't. They just make any progress impossible. Here, a spreadsheet for you as an example.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...dhQ/edit#gid=0

[quote="Banana"]Why? Who is getting hurt? You and Oskar keep saying how much money the game will make.....so obviously they have an audience that isn't too offended by what they're doing./quote]

Kids, gambling. People with gambling tendencies being exposed to gambling while others swearing up and down it isn't gambling. People who want to just play single player games with certain monopolized ips. People who buy the games expecting to play the game hitting grindwalls and paywalls. General game design is getting hurt too. I can keep going.

[quote="Banana"]Stop with this....13 year olds don't have credit cards!!! An adult has to intervene in order for the 13 year old to spend any money. Yes, he can buy gift cards and use them online but he's limited by A) how much cash he has, and B) How often he can get to a store that sells gift cards. He can't go into debt. He can't blow off the mortgage payment to buy more lootboxes. And if he really is in a situation where he's spending "too much" on this stuff, then the overwhelming contributing factor is a lack of parental oversight. While that's sad, it's certainly not the job of the video game industry to sacrifice potential profits just to pick up the slack for a few bad parents./quote]

I will stop when they stop targeting these games at kids. Need for Speed: Payback has lootboxes and progression hampering in it, for christ sakes. 2017 will go down in history as The Year of the Lootbox.


I'm done bro. Keep trolling.