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Dota and our community have always strived towards a relationship of fairness and solidarity. Releasing an arcana for a hero that costs £50, cant be traded, and can only be purchased during a period, is utterly against the spirit of this .
It's a REALLY BAD business practice and i'm amazed that people are so stupid to not realise how ethically abhorrent it is and how it goes against everything we fight for as fellow gamers, consumers and developers
On May 20 2017 08:01 Bigtony wrote:
It's a cosmetic item. How is this any different from sports team releasing limited edition jerseys?
Because it's an arcana for a hero. It's not a healing ward for jug or pink slerk cosmetic or whatever. It's an arcana, something that everyone who plays and loves the hero should expect to be able to have a reasonable and spirited chance of aquiring, not because valve wants fucking £70 on a 3 month deadline, but because we, as a community of human beings, strive to uphold a standard of fairness and integrity that promotes solidarity, sharing and mutual enjoyment of a game we love.
This business practice with regards to the io arcana is utterly against the spirit of this
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I didn't know that Valve was forcing you to buy a £50 arcana item to win at Dota 2. Tough times, its almost like you don't have a choice in the matter and they just took it out of your bank account. In all fairness just pass on the item.
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Commend ME, support ME, don't steal MY courier, let ME mid, dont take MY kills, dont take MY exp, dont take MY lane, buy ME tango. Someone is going 0-3 early game ? REPORT THAT FEEDER. Someone is getting caught offguard ? LET HIM DIE, it's not worth it.
So much solidarity indeed.
I WILL GET ALL THE FARM and you will have to pick a support for ME, or else you don't want to win and will be reported, you will probably get one shot all game long btw but it doesn't matter since all you have to do is buy wards, sentries and dust for ME.
Sounds fair.
But then, they release a cosmetic item, which... breaks all of this.
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The only thing this community strives for is to feed hard and flame.
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It's a cosmetic item. How is this any different from sports team releasing limited edition jerseys?
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Katowice25012 Posts
On May 20 2017 01:15 FFGenerations wrote:
It's a REALLY BAD business practice and i'm amazed that people are so stupid to not realise how ethically abhorrent it is and how it goes against everything we fight for as fellow gamers, consumers and developers
my brother fought and DIED for us in the gamer wars and now this???????? valve!!!!!!! what have u done!!!!!!!!!!!
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On May 20 2017 08:01 Bigtony wrote:
It's a cosmetic item. How is this any different from sports team releasing limited edition jerseys?
Because it's an arcana for a hero. It's not a healing ward for jug or pink slerk cosmetic or whatever. It's an arcana, something that everyone who plays and loves the hero should expect to be able to have a reasonable and spirited chance of aquiring, not because valve wants fucking £70 on a 3 month deadline, but because we, as a community of human beings, strive to uphold a standard of fairness and integrity that promotes solidarity, sharing and mutual enjoyment of a game we love.
This business practice with regards to the io arcana is utterly against the spirit of this
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I actually agree with this. Yes, it just a cosmetic item, but it's unnecessarily greedy from Valve to not make it tradeable at all...So if I don't have the time to grind it our during this time or pay an obscene amount of money for a cosmetic, I can never have it. Feels pretty lame to me.
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I'm sorry but this is just silly.
It's an arcana, something that everyone who plays and loves the hero should expect to be able to have a reasonable and spirited chance of aquiring
It's a skin! It does nothing for you in game. Valve provides you with a game that's free to play and has exactly 0 pay to win features. You come off sounding like an entitled 12y.o. Valve owes you nothing.
As a company have to make money some way and they want to make a profit. How is that weird? You have to get out of your little bubble you live in. Money matters! Does that suck? Yes. Does that change anything? ROFL no.
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28084 Posts
On May 20 2017 17:35 FFGenerations wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2017 08:01 Bigtony wrote:
It's a cosmetic item. How is this any different from sports team releasing limited edition jerseys? Because it's an arcana for a hero. It's not a healing ward for jug or pink slerk cosmetic or whatever. It's an arcana, something that everyone who plays and loves the hero should expect to be able to have a reasonable and spirited chance of aquiring, not because valve wants fucking £70 on a 3 month deadline, but because we, as a community of human beings, strive to uphold a standard of fairness and integrity that promotes solidarity, sharing and mutual enjoyment of a game we love. This business practice with regards to the io arcana is utterly against the spirit of this
To be fair you can easily get 150-200 lvls yourself by just playing the game (maybe more, idk). If you already play a decent amount you can probably get this IO arcana for about the same price as other arcanas. If you buy the lvl 75 compendium and 1-2 lvl boosts then it will be slightly more than a normal arcana but you have to remember you're also getting a shit ton of immortals and other random stuff.
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2774 Posts
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On May 20 2017 17:35 FFGenerations wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2017 08:01 Bigtony wrote:
It's a cosmetic item. How is this any different from sports team releasing limited edition jerseys? Because it's an arcana for a hero. It's not a healing ward for jug or pink slerk cosmetic or whatever. It's an arcana, something that everyone who plays and loves the hero should expect to be able to have a reasonable and spirited chance of aquiring, not because valve wants fucking £70 on a 3 month deadline, but because we, as a community of human beings, strive to uphold a standard of fairness and integrity that promotes solidarity, sharing and mutual enjoyment of a game we love. This business practice with regards to the io arcana is utterly against the spirit of this
Honestly the Arcanas are one big money printing machine for Valve. Most of them are boring masses of shiny effects and they are all ridiculously overpriced. People pay 30 bucks for their hero glowing a bit and maybe having a slightly different slash animation.
So the Io Arcana is just more of the same trend. This time it's actually at least an original concept. But ofc they are going to milk the hell out of it.
Can't really blame Valve for it though, if ppl are buying they set the price, the memers wanted it, they got it. I'm a little surprised about the steep entry price considering that Io is one of the least played heroes in the game, but ppl are putting a lot of money in the compendium anyways.
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For all saying this is fair business, read up on Computer Aided Persuasive Technology or just Persuasive Technology and stop being so naive.
And as if Valve wouldn't already make enough money without limited bs.
The difference between a jersey? Well, you can't actually wear it?
No pay2win? I feel on Immortal Gardens it is easier to juke, but I guess one can disagree.
Still, the excuse of "Valve is a company and needs to earn money" is pretty short sighted.
Does this reason allow Valve to not pay translators? I mean Valve needs to earn money, right?!
If you change the industry to look at, this is actually a really dangerous statement.
Please think before legitimizing bad business practice.
The only reason this is slightly ok, is that we're talking about a game. But still, read up on persuasive technology.
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Valve can do whatever they want. It's not like this improves your win conditions in-game. They make their money any way they want - and if people want the cosmetic then they'll buy it. If they don't want it, they won't buy it. I don't get why people care this much. Everything was "fine" before, now they offer pixels that doesn't change anything relevant in the game for $110 and people are angry?
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Well Jisira, usually when something "suddenly" becomes a hot topic, it was building up for a while and uses a new fact (=the arcana) as a vent.
And Dota has become especially sparky and skins have become increasingly expensive.
The latter would be easier to swallow if we knew how much the artists get out of it.
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On May 22 2017 21:43 Jelissei wrote:
For all saying this is fair business, read up on Computer Aided Persuasive Technology or just Persuasive Technology and stop being so naive.
interesting phrase, apparently stanford has a department dedicated to this http://captology.stanford.edu/resources . another one that comes to mind is Valve intentionally only releasing 'half' of the juggernaut arcana for 2 days. but we all forget about these things very quickly, don't we
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@Jelissei
Honestly, do you think anyone who gets the Arcana thinks about the monetisation model? Valve has NEVER been transparent - what must happen to highlight this is a full stop of workshop submissions in order to force their hand. The community will forget about this too, this is no different.
Also, the Io Arcana is one milestone on this scale. How much does the Io Arcana really contribute to people pushing their levels? Do we know who made the Companion Cube Io Arcana?
I'm not saying that the discussion is bad, I'm saying that it's most likely not going to happen. The community needs to gather their voices and take unified action on a scale large enough for Valve to care, because my guess is that they are sitting pretty comfortably behind their (close to) bullet-proof glass.
@FFGenerations
Intentionally only releasing half of the Juggernaut Arcana for two days? Did they not fix it? Was it withheld from customers? I mean, if I buy two items online and one of them takes two days longer to ship than the other, usually I have to wait for both of them for those two days.
You're so intent on looking upon things as if they are intentionally malicious. I'm merely playing the devil's advocate but if we're pulling extremes - can't we regard the Juggernaut Arcana as a pre-release which was then released fully after two days?
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It's a been a while but I have been reading threads about monetisation of cosmetic items and of the translation of dota for a while. Also I've seen streams of artists complaining about the way Valve doing their business. Maybe it's because I'm interested in stuff like that, but I think it's more that such topics tend to re-emerge every so often.
This is but a feeling, but it seems to me it happened to Starcraft 2 as well. Not because of cosmetics but balancing, tournament format and lacking possibility for the community to be involved in changes. People were talking about it for a while, but they always got shut down for different reasons. Until at some point too many people felt it became too much and the game kinda died away.
And while I don't think it is very urgent for Dota 2, I would hate to see the game die because of an overload of cosmetics. That would be pretty dumb. Almost unbelievably dumb. As if we could not believe it happening at some point.
@Captology:
To my knowledge that was the initial name given by the inventor of the subject, B.J. Fogg. When his pupils continued and went on into businesses like Instagram, he kinda scolded them for using it for profit and not for the good of humanity ; )
@"Random Company" can do what they want:
They obviously cannot do what they want. We don't have a free market anywhere in the world and it's good that way. The last time we had completely free markets, companies were hiring mercenaries, fighting wars, buying and selling slaves.
This weird idea that free markets are a good thing bears any reason.
And that's just within law. If Valve isn't careful and overloads the game with "name_a_thing" people might get tired of it. In that sense, Valve can, but shouldn't for their own sake.
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@Jisira
I'm guessing you didn't follow the jug arcana release, because afaik there was no indication that a red version would be released. The green version was released and there was an enormous blowup about it being insufficient for an arcana, with people suggestion style/colour changes. Two days later, the red version was suddenly released, apparently in response to the complaints.
What really happened was that valve was engaging in a blatantly intentional marketing ploy to see what affect doing such a thing would have in persuading customers to buy the product.
It's a take on the idea that if you give a person 1 option, they will say 'yes' or 'no', but if you give them 2 options then they will be inclined to choose the preferable of the two options rather than a 'no' to both of them.
In this case, valve intentionally released a product that was considered substandard in order to re-release it a few days later with their (now almost trademark) 'We listened!'
In real terms, they done no additional work whatsoever on the product (it was designed to have two styles from the outset), but because of this manipulation of the customer they were able to influence additional purchases.
I'm not sure if i agree with the catchphrase 'persuasive technology', but it's without a doubt what they're doing. I think a more suitable term would be something like 'how far can we exploit brand loyalty' or more simply 'to what extent can we exploit a customer that has a high degree of emotional investment in our product'.
The topic is relatively new (so to speak) because video games are a more complex product than, say, foodstuff or clothing brands, and can garner far greater support and loyalty. You might closer compare the brand loyalty with something like high-end cars, where people are very loyal to a certain brand like Mercedes Benz, however the customers for video games are of course in a massively larger scale and there are almost infinite ways to exploit them using micro purchases.
In short, it is now more than ever that we should be concerned about getting a dick stuck up our asses without realising it.
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Very good description of the concept!
In gaming persuasive technology is usually called gamification. Meaning elements you know from games - that keep you playing - are used outside of games. In this case selling cosmetics.
For a good read about the topic: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
This has a positive outlook on the topic of gamification, showing how much good it has done and can do - if it is not used solely for the purpose of enriching yourself.
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I dont share your opinion. As far as Im concerned, they can sell the arcana at any price they want, same goes for everything in the game as long as it doesnt give an advantage aka P2W.
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Well, it gets weird in my opinion when they use proven methods of manipulating people into buying stuff.
Most people don't know how they get manipulated. The more often people get manipulated the more it seems like free will - when it isn't.
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On May 24 2017 22:32 Jelissei wrote:
Well, it gets weird in my opinion when they use proven methods of manipulating people into buying stuff.
Most people don't know how they get manipulated. The more often people get manipulated the more it seems like free will - when it isn't.
What does this even mean? Every time you watch an advertisement on TV is that suddenly weird? That is a proven method of manipulating people into buying shit.
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@Spicy_Curry
Without realising it, we are kept very safe from being overly manipulated by the people who have power over us. There is regulation in pharmaceuticals, regulation in foodstuffs, alcohol, tenancy agreements, all the way through to the regulation of household goods such as the materials we get in our clothing, pollution control on production, labeling standards and, of course, a myriad of advertising standards.
Alcohol, for instance: + Show Spoiler +In television advertising, you cannot link the consumption of alcohol to enhanced physical performance, create the impression that consumption contributes towards sexual success or is a means of resolving personal conflicts, and you cannot place emphasis on high alcoholic content as being a positive quality of the product.
Digital products allow for an endless variety of little marketing tricks that aren't as easy to pull off in the non-digital world. Valve doesn't have to physically re-stock its stores, or manufacture materials, or change shop signage or labeling across an entire country, like, say, a clothing store needs to. If Valve wants to manipulate you, it can do so with the click of a few buttons. And this doesn't relate to 'just' cosmetics. I'm talking maps, minigames, sounds, taunts, emoticons - whatever digital products there are: a whole world of new ways to exploit the consumer has now opened up to Valve, and, unlike other markets, it is completely unregulated.
Or, rather, it is something that Valve regulates, and you should be very, very aware of that.
Here is a copy of a larger response that I made:
This is following on from the discussion surrounding the manipulative techniques Valve use on us. For example the 'fake release' of a single-style Juggernaut arcana, and the introduction of the untradeable and prohibitively-priced Io arcana.
A user responded to the debate, saying, 'Everything you see is using manipulation to try to exploit you. Every product, every advertisement on TV.'
Another user said, 'If Valve is trying to manipulate me into wanting something I already want, that's fine by me!'
This is my response.
Without realising it, we are kept very safe from being overly-manipulated by the people who have power over us. There is regulation in pharmaceuticals, regulation in foodstuffs, alcohol, tenancy agreements, phone tariffs, all the way through to the regulation of household goods such as the materials we get in our clothing, pollution control on production, labeling standards and, of course, a myriad of advertising standards.
However, unlike with foodstuffs or clothing, *digital products* allow for a range of marketing tricks that aren't possible in the non-digital world. Valve doesn't have to physically re-stock its stores, or manufacture materials, or change shop signage or labeling across an entire country, like a clothing store needs to. If Valve wants to manipulate you, it can do so with the click of a few buttons.
And this doesn't relate only to digital cosmetics, such as the Juggernaut arcana. I'm talking maps, minigames, sounds, taunts, emoticons - whatever digital products there are: a whole world of new ways to exploit the consumer has been opened up to Valve, and, unlike other markets, it is completely unregulated. It has its own set of rules, and, right now, Valve is the one making them.
Let me talk you through this in a bullet-point fashion...
1. Regulation exists in almost all fields, whether we notice it or not, to protect us from unreasonable exploitation.
1. There are guidelines designed to protect the consumer from a) unreasonable inflation of prices for a product that a consumer is socially invested in (this happened with phone tariffs during the early years of mobile phones, until our governments stepped in). This relates to the Io arcana.
2. There are regulatory standards that prohibit a company from unfairly exploiting consumers with misleading marketing, such as staging the release of a substandard product in order to re-release the product two days later to garner undue customer appreciation and support. This relates to the Juggernaut arcana.
3. Marketing standards and regulation in digital products is a very new and unexplored field compared to marketing standards and regulation in non-digital products, due to the fact that digital products can be very rapidly altered, re-stocked and re-labelled.
4. Because of this, we need to be aware that, when it comes to digital products and Valve, no one is looking out for us like they usually are. You are vulnerable, and you are open to being exploited in ways that are new, effective and yet to be regulated.
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On May 25 2017 18:02 Spicy_Curry wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2017 22:32 Jelissei wrote:
Well, it gets weird in my opinion when they use proven methods of manipulating people into buying stuff.
Most people don't know how they get manipulated. The more often people get manipulated the more it seems like free will - when it isn't. What does this even mean? Every time you watch an advertisement on TV is that suddenly weird? That is a proven method of manipulating people into buying shit.
To the reply of FFGenerations I would add that yes, advertisement on TV is weird. It makes a product into a lifestyle. I find this extremely weird and I'm always surprised that people buy into this bs. But I do know, that I probably buy into this bs as well without realising it.
But I stopped watching TV because of it (and because of bad TV shows in Germany).
I don't like companies telling me what values are good for humanity. And I would go as far as to say that to not realise that's exactly what they do without anybody noticing is dangerous. We change our behaviour according to the wishes of companies that only have their own interests in mind - again: without realising it. We even say things like: "If they manipulate me into buying things I want anyway, that's cool with me"
"I want anyway".... yeah right
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On May 25 2017 21:52 FFGenerations wrote:@Spicy_Curry Without realising it, we are kept very safe from being overly manipulated by the people who have power over us. There is regulation in pharmaceuticals, regulation in foodstuffs, alcohol, tenancy agreements, all the way through to the regulation of household goods such as the materials we get in our clothing, pollution control on production, labeling standards and, of course, a myriad of advertising standards. Alcohol, for instance: + Show Spoiler +In television advertising, you cannot link the consumption of alcohol to enhanced physical performance, create the impression that consumption contributes towards sexual success or is a means of resolving personal conflicts, and you cannot place emphasis on high alcoholic content as being a positive quality of the product. Digital products allow for an endless variety of little marketing tricks that aren't as easy to pull off in the non-digital world. Valve doesn't have to physically re-stock its stores, or manufacture materials, or change shop signage or labeling across an entire country, like, say, a clothing store needs to. If Valve wants to manipulate you, it can do so with the click of a few buttons. And this doesn't relate to 'just' cosmetics. I'm talking maps, minigames, sounds, taunts, emoticons - whatever digital products there are: a whole world of new ways to exploit the consumer has now opened up to Valve, and, unlike other markets, it is completely unregulated. Or, rather, it is something that Valve regulates, and you should be very, very aware of that. Here is a copy of a larger response that I made: This is following on from the discussion surrounding the manipulative techniques Valve use on us. For example the 'fake release' of a single-style Juggernaut arcana, and the introduction of the untradeable and prohibitively-priced Io arcana. A user responded to the debate, saying, 'Everything you see is using manipulation to try to exploit you. Every product, every advertisement on TV.' Another user said, 'If Valve is trying to manipulate me into wanting something I already want, that's fine by me!' This is my response. Without realising it, we are kept very safe from being overly-manipulated by the people who have power over us. There is regulation in pharmaceuticals, regulation in foodstuffs, alcohol, tenancy agreements, phone tariffs, all the way through to the regulation of household goods such as the materials we get in our clothing, pollution control on production, labeling standards and, of course, a myriad of advertising standards. However, unlike with foodstuffs or clothing, *digital products* allow for a range of marketing tricks that aren't possible in the non-digital world. Valve doesn't have to physically re-stock its stores, or manufacture materials, or change shop signage or labeling across an entire country, like a clothing store needs to. If Valve wants to manipulate you, it can do so with the click of a few buttons. And this doesn't relate only to digital cosmetics, such as the Juggernaut arcana. I'm talking maps, minigames, sounds, taunts, emoticons - whatever digital products there are: a whole world of new ways to exploit the consumer has been opened up to Valve, and, unlike other markets, it is completely unregulated. It has its own set of rules, and, right now, Valve is the one making them. Let me talk you through this in a bullet-point fashion... 1. Regulation exists in almost all fields, whether we notice it or not, to protect us from unreasonable exploitation. 1. There are guidelines designed to protect the consumer from a) unreasonable inflation of prices for a product that a consumer is socially invested in (this happened with phone tariffs during the early years of mobile phones, until our governments stepped in). This relates to the Io arcana. 2. There are regulatory standards that prohibit a company from unfairly exploiting consumers with misleading marketing, such as staging the release of a substandard product in order to re-release the product two days later to garner undue customer appreciation and support. This relates to the Juggernaut arcana. 3. Marketing standards and regulation in digital products is a very new and unexplored field compared to marketing standards and regulation in non-digital products, due to the fact that digital products can be very rapidly altered, re-stocked and re-labelled. 4. Because of this, we need to be aware that, when it comes to digital products and Valve, no one is looking out for us like they usually are. You are vulnerable, and you are open to being exploited in ways that are new, effective and yet to be regulated.
You know you just compared everyday necessities to a digital picture right? Regulations for pharmaceuticals/food/alcohol/pollution/housing etc all affects our very being of living. Obviously you would need regulations for these.
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On May 24 2017 21:37 FreakyDroid wrote:
I dont share your opinion. As far as Im concerned, they can sell the arcana at any price they want, same goes for everything in the game as long as it doesnt give an advantage aka P2W.
The Io arcana is (if you didn't realise) just a small part of the broader picture in terms of how our approach should be, in my opinion, towards Valve's business practices...
Valve has a monopoly, and there is no external regulation on how they behave. They will continue to find ways to exploit their market whilst being praised and thought of as a friend. All we can do is continue to try to educate people about false advertising of nonfunctional features in arcanas, deliberate fixing of currency exchange rates, purposeful misleading of consumers with false-start product releases (the red style of jug arcana), the complaints of artists regarding exploitation https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/62991t/the_dota_2_workshop_and_its_ecosystem_are_dying/ and so on.
All we can do is educate one another and try to minimise the extent that we allow ourselves to be exploited.... not because we are greedy or crybabies or feel like we are owed something, but simply because we care about one another's wellbeing. It's a free game, and it's a free world, but that doesn't mean other people don't have power over you, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to protect one another from unreasonable misuse of that power.
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Aren't arcana in their very concept supposed to be top-tier, super expensive cosmetic items meant to be bought only by a limited amount of players? After all, their exclusiveness is what makes them the Arcana; if they were common they would be just like other common items everyone can get for a buck or two. Why are we talking about them like they are an item that's supposed to be in everyone's inventory?
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We're talking more in the broader sense of different incentives being put in the game to earn money.
While it used to be, that you owned a game you bought, today you only buy a license to play the game.
You knew what you got, when you paid your money - basically. Advertising was of course a thing back then too. But it takes on forms that are really scary if you look at it closely.
As a consumer we don't realise any more if we want something, because we saw it in an add and then want it...
or because we played a game with hidden incentives to buy lots of stuff we didn't want, but now want.
Of course Valve needs to earn money. That's not the question at stake here. It's the way they bring people to pay more, than they actually wanted to pay in the beginning.
You know, if Valve uses patterns we know from gambling or drugs to make people 'addicted' to their selling point, I don't feel good about it.
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I don't buy the manipulation part for a sheltered society. I pay for what I deem that I need (housing, electricity, water, heat, trash pick-up etc) and then I buy whatever I want with whatever funds I have left. Honestly, if you didn't want to pay the USD 30 for the Juggernaut Arcana, don't buy it. I don't want to pay USD 2000 for a suit, so I just don't buy it.
There are several points here that get intertwined, such as; are the current market rules valid in the growing micro-transaction economy? How well are the creators getting reimbursed? And, why did Valve release an Arcana for USD 110 rather than USD 30 as per usual?
The only valid one for discussion should be the first two. I don't want to pay for anything if I don't have to, and if this is regarding the unfairness of the pricing of a few pixels which has very little impact on anyone's life then the discussion is irrelevant.
A company making a game that is free with the only financial alteration of gameplay being cosmetic, how is that bad? It's a free game if you want it to be.
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How old are you, if I might ask?
I believe you when you say you make the decision. I want to believe it about myself as well. Though reading about the topic made me question my certainty.
Either way, we seem old enough to deal with that.
But what if you grow up in a world where the structure of the virtual reality (Steam, Dota 2, Hearthstone, ...) is out for your money? You can only hope those children will have good parents showing them other parts of the Internet and the real world!
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I'm 25, but I don't see how that is of any concern. Don't spend more money than you have should be something that everyone has imprinted in their heads. I never needed a parent to tell me that what I have is all that I can spend.
How is DotA out for your money more than any other business? I can walk into a store and not buy anything. The best thing about growing up in the digital world is the advertising immunity that builds up from being online.
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On May 29 2017 23:40 Jelissei wrote:
How old are you, if I might ask?
I believe you when you say you make the decision. I want to believe it about myself as well. Though reading about the topic made me question my certainty.
Either way, we seem old enough to deal with that.
But what if you grow up in a world where the structure of the virtual reality (Steam, Dota 2, Hearthstone, ...) is out for your money? You can only hope those children will have good parents showing them other parts of the Internet and the real world!
How do you compare Dota 2, a free to play game that does not have a pay-to-win structure, to a game like Hearthstone, which is p2w as you would need the necessary cards?
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First of all, if you do all the quest you actually get a good amount of cards.
But more importantly in both games (and more) the developer gives you incentives to spend money. How that is done in particular is not important for the argument we make.
There are different methods of how to retrieve money from people who don't necessarily went into the game with the mindset to spend money.
@Jisira:
I mean that you are old enough. And maybe you were old enough when you were younger.
I work in a school and I see a lot of kids who don't give a damn.
You fail to see, that everybody else is not you.
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A good amount of cards does not give you a fair chance of being top tier. You would have to buy packs regardless if you want to win and get to the top brackets. This is why I said p2w. How is that not important for the argument of spending money on a game? If I want to be the best at Hearthstone, I'll need the best cards for the meta therefore I will need to buy packs. If I want to be the best at Dota 2, do I need to spend money to buy an IO skin? No, I just need to avoid being a scrub and develop gaming sense and skills.
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For the company it doesn't matter where the customer spends his or her money.
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On May 30 2017 01:55 Jelissei wrote:
@Jisira:
I mean that you are old enough. And maybe you were old enough when you were younger.
I work in a school and I see a lot of kids who don't give a damn.
You fail to see, that everybody else is not you.
I see a lot of people making poor decisions because they themselves can't comprehend the concept of moderation, or ramifications following poor decision-making. How they fail to realise that food is more important than an Arcana shouldn't be something that a company has to take into consideration when pricing a product.
We can argue unfairness in the world, but in the case of pixels on a monitor that only alter cosmetic output and not player performance (as in, level playing field regardless of financial input) this should be regarded as personal problems that lie outside the business model of any company.
Edit: If every company has to take addiction and poor decision-making into account, target the alcohol and tobacco companies first.
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They are being targeted. As well as gambling.
Alcohol is sadly very ingrained in our culture.
But that's not even the point. I'm not even against drugs and I understand that companies won't themselves be considerate to their customers. They need an incentive.
That may or may not be us - the customer.
I would be happy if the personal problems would lie outside of the business model of any company.
We argue, that companies take deliberate advantage of personal problems. They shape or structure (part of) their business model around the personal problems of their consumers.
They even try create those personal problems.
As a customer I want Valve to treat its customers better. If you don't care about that, because you know how to handle Valve, that's good for you.
But I don't think most people are even aware how Valve is manipulating them. And of course that goes for a lot of commercials.
The least we can do is educate.
The best would be influencing Valves business decisions.
Just saying: "I don't care, so you shouldn't." is a bit cheap don't you think?
I really feel you should read a book about it, but I guess everybody got their own priorities. Sadly those are seldom the community one lives in.
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I imagine that most people are at least to some extent aware that Valve didn't make Dota out of charity or goodness of heart, but rather to make obscene amounts of money. And also the "manipulation" is everywhere, nowadays even the layout of a supermarket is optimised so that people spend more money than they initially intended. Everyone is targeted by some business as their main customer. It's not like Valve is an exception, and they won't change their practices because it's not optimal for their business model. If a company tried to be completely ethical and honest, it couldn't realistically compete with other companies that were even a bit more "manipulative". Maybe it's a cynical view, but that's how the world works and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
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It's a shit arcana that makes my game less enjoyable by virtue of other players playing with it. Should cost £200 so no one would actually get it.
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On May 30 2017 21:45 PoulsenB wrote:
I imagine that most people are at least to some extent aware that Valve didn't make Dota out of charity or goodness of heart, but rather to make obscene amounts of money. And also the "manipulation" is everywhere, nowadays even the layout of a supermarket is optimised so that people spend more money than they initially intended. Everyone is targeted by some business as their main customer. It's not like Valve is an exception, and they won't change their practices because it's not optimal for their business model. If a company tried to be completely ethical and honest, it couldn't realistically compete with other companies that were even a bit more "manipulative". Maybe it's a cynical view, but that's how the world works and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
All advertising is manipulation. It isn't cynical to think it, because marketing is all about convincing people they should buy things. Some dumb $50 is not the end of the world or the doom of Dota. If anything, it is them being honest about their intent with Dota.
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The ideologies of humans have changed a lot over the centuries. The idea of 'endless growth' as the core goal of a company is a fantasy that we agree upon. I think it is overdue to start disagreeing a bit.
This Blog is nothing world shattering. But maybe people start to think, that maybe, just maybe, it's not ok for supermarkets to put their colourful sweets at the cash register for children to annoy their parents or for week willed adults to quickly grab another bottle of alc or whatnot.
We're very much looking at the responsibility of the individual towards their own life.
We miss how much our community (and companies are part of our community - they even create community) is also responsible for our well-being.
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If that's what this is about, Jelissei, you're not going to make it too far. People -are- stupid, and -are- going to make shitty decisions. The fact that the bratty kid can cry for a candy bar at the register does not change the poor parenting that led to, or is being engaged, in that moment. You're targeting a symptom, and not the problem... probably because the "problem" is that there's a sucker born every minute, and that's not really a problem you can approach.
This discussion is stupid. Arcanas aren't something everyone should have access to, and if valve wants to limit the offer, then power to them. People who want it will get it and legitimately enjoy the purchase. Does that make it a good decision? No, probably not... then again, playing Dota at all is arguably not a good decision. So whatever.
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Nah, the thing we argue is that you can indeed change peoples behaviour - and it doesn't matter how stupid or smart they are. You can change the bratty kid's behaviour. And profit oriented companies are doing it all the freaking time. That's the whole point!
We're letting our children and ourselves be manipulated by greedy companies and tell ourselves "that's just how life is and I mean it is the best life there is."
We're basically giving us over to the whim of profit earning companies.
![[image loading]](http://i57.tinypic.com/2jahq37.jpg)
That's not healthy at all!
We should try to support companies who's goal is to (at least: also) support the communities and not only themselves.
We should try to talk to companies we like and convince them it's good practice to support communities.
And you can't even say it's futile because it is happening - even if the reason is again an egoistic one:
Diablo 3 is a good example. Blizzard saw that people where playing too much and risking their livelihood.
But a customer without money is not a customer any more. It was in Blizzards self-interest to help people to not get too addicted to their games.
So now there are incentives to stop playing. The clock in Diablo 3 or bonuses when you haven't played for a while are examples for that.
One big problem you guys have arguing against this concept is, that you really haven't read up on the topic.
FFGeneration and I didn't pull that stuff out of our asses. I don't know him but seeing what he wrote makes it clear that he read up on it in some way.
This is no fantasy. This is being discussed at game-developer conferences.
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EPT
