Tobold's Blog
Monday, July 29, 2024
 
A tax on competitiveness

I have played Gacha games like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail in the past. I don't insist on playing those completely for free, but do spend moderate amounts of money to grab the high value for money "introductory offers" and the like. I tend to have myself under control, don't go overboard with the spending, and I am certainly not a "whale". I play the game for a while, get bored, and drop out, like with any other game. In my I'm leaving Genshin Impact post on this blog, I wrote a line saying "My dream game would be Genshin Impact with turn-based combat.". So I am looking forward to trying out Sword of Convallaria coming out on August 1st, a strategy RPG with turn-based combat which is also a Gacha game. And I couldn't help but notice that the Gacha system is very interesting and favorable for me.

Games need to make money. The big question is how the cost should be distributed among the different players. The "everybody pays exactly the same" system, like a one-time purchase, has some advantages, but also some disadvantages: Some players are going to get far fewer hours out of that one-time purchase than others. In games that let you interact with other players online, like MMORPGs, there is also an observation that the most hardcore, most competitive players are not only using more of the game's resources than casual players; they also are more likely to get into conflicts with other players over their competitiveness: Casual guilds have a lot less guild drama than competitive ones. Some MMOs in the past have put few restrictions on PvP, which gave rise to the "player killer", the type of person who likes making the game miserable for other players. And if you consider a player who spends a huge amount of hours in an online game, and spends his accumulated power to basically spoil the game for another player, who will now play even less, the question arises of why it would be considered fair if both of these are paying the same for the game. Shouldn't there be a tax on the more competitive players, especially if they negatively impact the game experience for others?

Sword of Convallaria has several different game modes. One of which is a single player story mode. And that mode is not only the most casual mode of the game, it is also the cheapest, and least affected by monetization. You can apparently take your favorite Gacha characters with you into that mode, but it isn't as if they would give you a huge advantage there or you'd hit a paywall in the story if you didn't bring somebody expensive. The monetization with Gacha characters is instead nearly exclusively targeted at the most competitive players, and especially for the PvP part. If you want to be a player crushing other players, you need to be a whale, and that is fine by me. My plan is to do some very limited spending on favorable offers (there usually are some, especially at launch), play a bit of the Gacha part of the game, but mostly concentrate on the story part. Let the whales finance the game, while I get to play at less than I pay for a traditional single-player game.


Comments:
By now I must have played many thousands of hours of F2P titles, including several gacha games, at least one of which I played almost daily for more than a year. As far as I can remember, I have never spent a cent on any of them and in almost all cases I've never seen any point in doing so. If I did, it would only be to buy permanent cosmetic items, for which I do see some limited, aesthetic purpose.

I certainly wouldn't spend money on buying pulls for gacha characters or items. If I got to the poiont where the gameplay was no longer satisfying with the ones I was getting for free, I'd just leave that game and move to another. It's not like there's a shortage of them. If you consider the value proposition, an indie game might cost $10-20 to buy and give 10-20 hours of gameplay; an AAA title might cost $60+ and give 60-70 hours. If a free title gives 30-50 hours entertainment before the p2w element kicks in, surely that's far better value even if you have to stop at that point.

Has anyone ever played a f2p title where the story was so compelling and intriguing that it felt worth paying money to fiond out how it ended? I certainly haven't. Most of them are generic and predictable and even the best are eminently disposable as fiction. If it's the gameplay that's the attraction, surely something very similar can be found in any number of games so moving on to the next ought to provide just as much fun for no money at all.

It beats me how these games make enough to keep going at all let alone the huge profits some of them do make but clearly other players find them a lot less easy to swap in and out than I do.
 
Why shouldn't someone who spends more time doing something have an advantage against someone who just casually participates?

If I play basketball a couple hours a month I'd expect to get crushed by someone who plays everyday.

I don't reslly play gacha games or P2W games. I don't mind dropping some money into a F2P game if I'm enjoying it but most of the time I'm not playing them long enough to do that. I also have 0 interest in purely cosmetic paid items so even F2P games that I've played for years like Overwatch I don't spend money on.

It's obvious I'm in the minority as these games are becoming more and more standard across the gaming industry.
 
Apart from the pure economics, the question is if the ethics of this kind of monetization is something we want in society. Look on youtube for "Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play", but there are many presentations on the subject which make for an interesting view.
 
Tobold: "[…] a one-time purchase, has some advantages, but also some disadvantages: Some players are going to get far fewer hours out of that one-time purchase than others. […]"
Yes, but for that you can look at reviews, watch videos, etc. before you buy. Unless you want to be an early adopter and have the benefit of being the first to enjoy or be disappointed.
The biggest advantage for me with a one time purchase (or flat subscription) is that you are done spending. Everything is available to you and there is no additional cost.

In the majority of free p2w titles the 30 to 50 hours Bhagpuss mentions are artificially crippled 10 to 20 hours of gameplay and then filled with annoying reminders of buying this and buying that.
The gameplay loop is also often not linear and starts slow with you unlocking and progressing to more complex things only to grind to a halt when the more interesting parts appear as well as the p2p wall.

Tobold: "[…] Casual guilds have a lot less guild drama than competitive ones. […]"
Casual guilds have casual drama that is mostly centered around social issues. You have hundreds of casual guilds coming and going because they can’t rally around a core idea like competitive guilds.

Tobold: "[…] Shouldn't there be a tax on the more competitive players, especially if they negatively impact the game experience for others? […]"
Are we still talking about a pvp game? Because when you sign up for one, then you have agreed to there being a player killer: you or someone else. I mean if you play against your wife and she wins, has she negatively impacted your gameplay? Yes, if your gameplay was to win. Maybe, if your gameplay was to play and she wins in a handful of turns.
 
I am strongly suspicious of using morale to estimate the monetisation scheme of a game - excluding true scams here. Monetisation have two impacts : how much you are willing to pay, and the impact on gameplay. Deciding which payment model is more fair or unfair does not really make sense. The far more interesting point is : what type of gameplay and behavior it incites ? What are the benefits and disadvantage, and how it match the game. Pay2Win incites frequent new things to buy and quick obsolescence. Single payment incite to not maintain the game. Free2Play will offer a good first hours. Monthly payment will incite long term investment.
As a player, it is good to understand that because it will help filter out the games. You want to try a lot of games for low cost ? Free2Play is for you. You want to invest for years in a game ? Monthly payment is a way to go. You have disposable income but low time, and you want to sometimes win ? Pay2Win is the type of game you will enjoy. You want to immerse in a story with a end ? One-time purchaise is the way to go.
Bhagpuss is the very best exemple of that.
 
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