Battle Passes Are TERRIBLE But Effective
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- Опубліковано 31 січ 2023
- Nowadays it feels like almost every AAA multiplayer title comes with a battle pass. Whether it's a competitive FPS like VALORANT or a battle royale like Apex Legends, the battle pass is a major monetization tool for developers to the point where it has started to become problematic.
In today's video, we take a look into the history of the battle pass system, why they're so effective and how developers may have gone too far.
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The Deep Rock Galactic Battle Pass is completely free and at the end of the season, any loot that wasnt obtained gets thrown into the general loot pool, so it can still be earned even after the season ends.
Fucking based.
Agreed. DRG's BP is boss level.
Rock n Stone, this game is so good !
ROCK AND STONE!
It’s also a gamepass game. They are getting all the money they need. I’m not clapping for making it free.
The prevalence of battlepasses in multiplayer games has actually driven me more toward single player games. I don't want playing a video game to become a job and I miss games actually having lifecycles instead of having an unending steam of things to grind for.
i just started persona 5 after a while of playing overwatch and warframe, it's really refreshing
I completely agree. Especially in Overwatch it was super frustrating for me to play for a while but just never get the right circumstances for the goals sometimes, so I solved the frustration by just not playing Overwatch anymore.
Battle passes are optional though
@@DatroVoided I don't know about you, but in my case knowing I missed a reward and will never be able to get it can easily make me stop playing if I was playing the game, or make me skip the game altogether if I was considering a purchase.
This goes for other things too, mind; for example, a game that had pre-order exclusives and actually kept them exclusive is a game I will never purchase. But Battlepasses are the most egregious example of using FOMO to push the players into playing - and paying - nowadays.
@@FabioCapela This. If it wasn't for the limited time, I think battle passes could be a healthy way to monetize games.
When I bought the fortnite battle pass in 2018 it felt like a great deal cuz if I completed every battle pass I basically get the next one for free. Since then I came back every season to grind the battle pass even out of spite sometimes. That one purchase made me come back to the game every few months and since I end up playing the game anyways I end up buying skins I want. It’s crazy how that one battle pass made me not leave the game for years and even make me spend more, they done got me 😭😭
pro tip just afk in stw endurance and get 4 levels a day without playing
npc
Thanks to one of those battle passes being free, I managed to complete all of the chapter 2 passes without spending a dime.
I doubt you're ONLY playing the game to complete the battle pass. Just admit it, you like the game, at least a little.
just goes to show that fortnite is one of the few games that did the battle pass system right
The worst part in my opinion isn't the value or time commitment, but the fact that it's almost always time-limited (thank you DRG and Halo). They use fear of missing out to get people to pay and play NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE AND THOSE ITEMS ARE GONE FOREVER!!!
Don't Play then sucker
I still hate that last part of battlepasses, “see this sweet cosmetic? You can only get it grinding for 2 months, and you better start grinding cuz we are not making available AGAIN, NEVER” why ? I mean i know why but, its just seems like a horrible business practice
@@sheshin shut up weeb
@@sheshin fear of missing out, even if they are planning on bringing it back later they'll make it seem like they aren't going to so people buy it while they still can
@@strawberrana They never return though
I think one of the biggest issues with the Overwatch 2 battle pass was that they locked new gameplay (heroes) behind battle pass progression. While other hero shooters/mobas require players to grind out and unlock heroes, those games typically have players using a single character throughout the course of the match. On the flip side, Overwatch is a game designed with counter-swapping heroes mid game in mind.
That is the whole reason overwatch one wasn't free to play they didn't want a meta to be locked behind a paywall.
I’ve paid 20 euros during the paladins early beta to get all characters, even the future ones, and I’m perfectly ok with that
This! Locking cosmetics behind a battle pass is one thing, but forcing you to grind 45 levels (!) of the battle pass, which in my case took more than a month, only to play a hero is hilarious. Good thing that the new heros have not yet been OP at release, otherwise the game would be pay to win.
@@lavithan4286 Blizzard making shady p2w design? What a surprise /s
@@lavithan4286 "good thing that the new heros have not yet been OP at release, otherwise the game would be pay to win" kiriko has been meta since the launch of overwatch 2
Crazy how so many devs saw the success Fortnite was having with the Battle Pass and good live-service model, and focused only on the part that makes money.
That's usually how it goes.
Cut corners and disregard quality to make quick, fast cash, and milk it as long as possible.
If you get good cosmetics and have enought time then it's worth it
@@Logan_TheLegend What about the actual live service?
@@fiammaorsmth9840 you mean gameplay?
Or... not so crazy, if you think about what you just said.
I remember the good old days of just buying modern warfare 2 and unlocking new camouflages, emblems, etc... Just by playing normally and it didn't take much time to do so. I could just play my favourite weapon and get the gold camouflage not that long after.
Now look at what COD has become
I miss the days where the only DlC was new multiplayer or zombies maps
I guess the competition among games is huge now
I miss tge days of just unlocking stuff.
Blame those who keep on buying Battle Passes.
Except you can still do that just by playing the game in the new MW2 lol. Gold camos don't take THAT long to grind out either
Battle Passes are designed to abuse your psychology. It's Fear of Missing Out, along with Sunk Cost Fallacy, to get you to stick to one game and one game only.
It's predatory by all accounts. Very few games (Halo MCC and Deeprock Galactic are the only two off the top of my head) do it in a way that can be considered ethical.
Minecraft Dungeons too. In it you can buy and progress past passes at any time, with no time limit at all.
@@FabioCapela They did this to Halo Infinite as well, but it's still not ethical unlike literally any other battle pass that doesn't use fear of missing out.
Fortnite Battlepasses for example abused my mind even today since I missed out of anything from chapter 2 before for example.
That is why I tend to try and avoid games that have them
I’d say BF2042 Battlepass is slightly more generous and simplistic than other games besides halo’s BP that is around forever, the weekly challenges make it less of a daily grind of the linear style of BP, it’s not conveluded like MWII’s BP or R6 siege’s map like passes that often won’t give your investment back for 100% completion of the battle pass
Super Animal Royale lets you keep any battle passes you don't finish and make progress on them at the same time you complete the current one. You can also go back and buy older passes you didn't get (at an additional fee though). This is easily the best approach I've seen to a battle pass. They're also only $5.
This is actually a pretty cool approach
It makes the game easier to take a break when life happens but if you still wanted it you can still get it and they still make $$.
Do you progress multiple at the same time or you pick one to work on?
@@taimaishu99 You progress both at the same time! Any exp you get goes into both, and it isn't even divided between them. The full amount goes in each.
cosmetics being tied to battle passes & never being released again is one of my biggest peeves with battle passes, i really like this approach. reminds me of among us' battle passes (whatever they called it) where you could buy any you wanted & progress it whenever.
@@Kmn483 I wish they took this approach with more games.
Cool…
Also WTF is “Super Animal Royale”?
I completely agree with Ashkon’s summary of the overwatch monetization system. It’s a very sad outcome that was not implemented well and is close to actually scamming
There definitely was a big outcry with (OW) loot boxes to begin with, but once they made them more generous with more gold and less dups, there was also a weird "feedback" delay, "oh you guys don't want loot boxes anymore? okay we're chucking it out the window" and now here we are.
I haven't even touched this season's pass, barely completing the last one and trying to play other games (passes) and yet it's already about to end in about a week?
Crazy other thought I just had about all of these battle passes and "affording" them: sure they're cheap, no more than our spotify or amazon subscriptions...wait...subscriptions? They're literally getting money out of us just like our (predatory) general life subscriptions, along with our time and energy.
if you didnt know they actually changing the monetization a bit still many steps to go but now bp will be more worth it beacuase they adding some coins in it
@@savy1690 They're not adding coins. They're adding credits. That's the old OW1 currency.
@@ThatScythe
In many ways... FF14 is better for your wallet since it's an up front payment of about $130 for the complete collectors editions (or get the Free Trial, its extremely good until you hit the locked expansions). Then subscriptions are cheap with the highest one being 180 days for $77 (discounted from $88) up front + $12 per month. (Free Trial has no subscription and it lasts forever until you buy FF14.)
If you buy FF14. You get the whole game with zero monetization outside of Mog Station (but that exists outside of the in-game state).
And over all... You're looking at $12 a month with a $88 + discount up front payment for the highest subscription level. Which doesn't even require a PS Plus Subscription.
Not to mention that you can always cancel your subscription and let it finish up its days. Then re subscribe again if you want to.
The worst part is that Overwatch’s original loot boxes was one of the best loot box systems
Fr. Idk who was complaining about it. They even made duplicates less common, but I didn't even mind dupes because they all gave credits which add up pretty fast when you get 3 dupes in a box of 4
@@MudkipPog its basically gambling, you don’t get what you want so you pay more to try and get it. That’s like conditioning players into gamblers
@@parkingmeters2646 you sound like an Overwatch loot box hater
@@parkingmeters2646 I don’t think anyone is saying loot boxes in general are great. Just that Overwatch had the best implementation of them in the industry. They were cosmetic only so zero impact to gameplay, when getting duplicated items you would get credits you could use to purchase skins you wanted. If you played a lot of Overwatch you could literally unlock everything because you could buy the skins with credits earned in loot boxes even if the item you wanted didn’t drop in the loot box. It honestly wasn’t that bad of a system in Overwatch. Sure you could buy loot boxes, and I did buy a pack once a year to keep supporting the game because I liked it and played it a lot (I didn’t need to as I had unlocked most everything I wanted). I haven’t given them any money now for the last 3 years though.
@@parkingmeters2646ou fail to realise that overwatch lootboxes was so common that there was no point in buying the lootboxes, I take overwatch lootboxes over battlepass any day.
The amount of filler content in BPs really depresses me. I think these game companies expect you to simply ignore filler content but for me at least it is negative value and detracts from my enjoyment of progressing through the BP. I'd much rather shorter BPs, or BPs which can be completed at my leisure, with _only_ high quality content and zero filler.
Skins, and items that just change a few numbers or an animation are filler imo
I love games like Splatoon and Deep Rock Galactic where the "battlepass" is entirely for free and just to add fun updated additional progression systems to the game. Paid battlepasses are so scummy they turn my off in other games
Still, I ain't a fan of the battle pass progression system in general. Prestige systems of old felt more earned. 100 prestige and teh ability to roll it back and then do it over again about 20 more times, or something, with increasingly intricate stuff you can unlock only through gameplay, is much more rewarding than temporary progression that, once you clear your 100 tiers, you say, "well, nothing else to unlock. Ight, imma head out", then forget the game fucking exists.
Battle passes are a lazy form of progression and deserve to be replaced with the rank and prestige system of old. And if I see someone do that, and simultaneously disregard the whole, "seasonal model and battle pass + shop system", and just says, "you wnat more content? Well, play the game a ton, and we'll maybe drop some crazy cosmetic stuff for your weapons from time to time. Huge packs at like 15$ for about 100 new skins at the end of the year, plus some healthy map packs interlaced between 3 and 9 month positioned small free drops.".
Basically unify it through drg's big cosmetic bundles (I.E supporter packs only), the golden challenge system and easter egg systems for unlocking in game cosmetics through gameplay, a progression system that gives the battle pass and cosmetic shop a fuck off, a key visual vision that has consistency and even when wacky, maintains its core focus, and the era of fantastic map packs that "could" split the playerbase, but can be averted by instead marketing these dlc map packs as early access packages by a year. Pay, you get the content way ahead of everyone else. And in a year, it becomes free for everyone. That's a genius model that doesnt so much split the playerbase, as eventually everyone will have that dlc. And when the game ends its update support, servers are set to be open for all, so everyone can still play it into the future.
Those have a large, upfront cost of $60 and in Splatoon's case requires a yearly network subscription to even play online so yes, they can get away with free battle passes.
F2P games cannot.
In every situation, i'd rather pay 60 dollars to be able to get all the stuff in the game at my own pace than pay 10 or 20 and get some over a month period. But... this would involve developers making one-time purchase games, and companies love their regular revenue streams.
Just buy those games instead of "it's free i might as well get it" people getting baited so easy by that
@@ken7007 or just do what I do and not care, Who cares how my character looks if he has access to all the same gameplay features, I don’t need to fill out a battle pass just for that skin to eventually become old
Not developers, the companies.
No sane dev wants to milk you for money they don't get, it is the higher ups at Activision who get the money and are the ones who pay devs the same regardless. The devs are forced to do it by the company.
@@empireyouth5791 Because skins can enhance your game? Why not play with wireframes on a plane white map without any textures, if you don't care about how a game looks?
@@Buglin_Burger7878 Tell that to Bungie after they split up from Activision.
What I absolutely hate about battle passes is that they're almost no different to gacha.
If you miss a season you'll never get those rewards again. It's just like mythical pokemon.
I just want modern games to completely ditch these fomo tactics.
It's somewhat crazy/funny I got this idea from a game like DBD, but it would be a win/win if they would just allow people to buy "backlog" passes. People still get the rewards they want, putting in the time/xp and they would still get the money and/or active player base. The obvious caveat would be that ranked or special event rewards should remain exclusive but it's petty on something from a regular battle pass. I love Valorant as a game but hate their passes and even how they do their feature weapon packs and you can NEVER (at least at this time) get the themed gun buddy, spray, or card again if you don't get it within the weeks in the shop, when some are pretty generic. Sorry I have a job and a life I guess?
That stupid idea came from Fortnite, sonething that I fucking hate so much.
Even Halo respects this thibg, if you don’t complete it once the season is over, you can go back to that BP and complete it.
i really liked the segment at the end - once you buy a battle pass and realize how predatory it has been, you stop buying it in the first place. when I got the league event pass for the first (and last) time, I was initially very excited to play the game a bunch. but once I realized how it was literally impossible to get everything in the event shop, it demotivated me to even play the game to begin with.
once again, amazing content like always!
okay wanting to get "Everything" is pretty fucking entilted for 10 dollars.
idk why you tought you could buy everything there, it's literally so huge so you can have what to choose from
Its a big waste of money
@@communistwookie1243 Weird how we used to geth everything for 10 Dollars in earlier games though.
That quote by Daniel Joseph sums it up so damn well. I feel like for many it's so hard to "justify" playing a regular single player game sometimes, when you have a battle pass in another game that you feel the "need" to complete.
In cases where the rewards are purely cosmetic I feel like there is less pressure towards this mindset, especially for people with school/work/family taking up a major part of their lives, but it is still there regardless. In cases such as Overwatch 2 though, where you are literally FOMO'd (fear of missing out) into grinding an absurd amount of hours to unlock a character that has major effects in the gameplay itself, is disgusting. I get the game is free to play, but having a time-gated free unlock of a character is awful in a game built around counterpicking and therefore constant character swapping.
Battle Passes are indeed incredibly good for business, but them becoming increasingly more predatory both in terms of money (not refunding the currency used to unlock the BP, at least by some emount) as well as time is really a bad look for the future, and I only hope as Rob Fahey said, that companies will seek other ways to profit, that don't necessarily require as much time and effort from the consumer. Only time will tell though.
Great video!
My problem with battle passes is that when I buy one I feel like I NEED to play the game to get the value which immediately kills the fun I'm having.
One of the reasons why I love the fighting game genre is because it is one of the few online genres that isn't overrun with battle passes. I'm not playing Guilty Gear Strive because I need to get my $10s worth of cosmetics that I will only use once I'm playing purely because I want to sit down and play the game, and maybe play Street Fighter or Melty Blood the next day because there is nothing holding me to one game besides personal investment.
I wouldn't be surprised if the lol fighting game has a battle pass.
Wait until Capcom makes one and they all follow.
I remember Tekken 7 and Soul Calibur 6 being milked with seasons though.
@@projectz358 SF6 apparently has a battle pass lol 💀
@@anonanonymous9670 sweet Jesus help us all
2 ways they can be done in a good way.
1. When the season ends, make the content available by other means.
2. Make the seasons never end but selectable.
Very few games actually do these but it breaks FOMO and makes them still enjoyable.
I 100% agree
I don't want to feel like i am subscribing to Overwatch
Though so far ive grabbed the Mythic by only playing once or twice a week. I'm still pissed off that i feel a pressure to go Overwatch instead of being excited for it.
Battle Passes tap into the collectors mindset with the biggest downfall being unable to resell those collectables later. That to me, is what makes them dangerous.
GameStop has an idea
@@SanDiegoDaD even if GameStop adopted this idea of selling digital assets, it's still baked into an always online service. Once the servers are gone, there will be nothing to recoup.
Account selling is a ongoing thing just look up epicnpc for example buddy
@@EmrlsCommunity So basically a play-to-earn (blockchain) game
imo i think its a good thing to not be able to re-sell collectables later. having millions of ppl trading/selling for irl money a digital item is dangerous, just look at NFTs
The tendency of games as a service to demand your attention and of you to essentially become their good little worker bee has effectively made me doubly appreciate singleplayer games that live on my time and stop moving forward without me when I don't play them.
I bought first battlepass in Valorant and i was looking forward to play it regularly, but the battlepass was so time consuming that last week i rly need grind all night and still must buy last two items with in-game currency. I hadn't time to play other games with friends and bcs of work i don't have more time for Valorant. In the end, after first season i was so burn out from grinding that i never play Valorant ever again even when i quite enjoyed playing it. I like concept of battlepass, if is good make and not so much time consuming, but i think bad BP can rly ruin whole game for some.
A few months ago i got what i call, "battle pass fatigue", where I got tired of buying and grinding specific battle passes, now i only buy them if i naturally completed them beforehand, and the rewrads themselves are worth it
I experienced that only with Modern Warfare(2019). Nowadays, I only spend my time and money on Destiny 2's season passes.
Same, I do that in Fortnite. I only buy it when I reach a point where I'll get enough vbucks to buy the next one
I got that a couple years ago and then I just never played a game with a battle pass again
as always good video, for the longest time ive also held the sentiment that a lot of battlepasses have been scams especially the league event passes. Fortnite on the other hand ive always found their battlepass to be great, less demanding than others imo, Great rewards which is not common for many other games for sure and the part of being able to afford future battle passes cuz it gives currency is amazing. Overwatch despite having lootboxes previously their system was much more consumer friendly than what we have now. I feel what a lot of people overlooked is that in Overwatch 1 a few seasons down the line they had removed duplicates(amongst rarities) meaning that people who played that game as their main game just started to stack their account with EVERY skin, even when new skins came out i would have credits to just instabuy what i wanted cuz there was no need to really spend credits like that cuz u got basically the whole collection so easy. Anywho been loving this channel for a long while but some reason only subscribed recently
It's crazy to compare what $60 Overwatch 1 vs "free to play" OW2 and battle passes gets us. With enough play/time in OW1, you could get loot boxes for the rewards you wanted or the gold. Yeah it sucked sometimes having the wait year round for a seasonal event reward you wanted (or the anniversary event, which I don't think would be a bad idea for other games to take a similar note) but you could still get that Dva skin you wanted for so long. Now with battle passes, if you didn't grind to level 72 in 40 days, the skin is gone. It wasn't an All-Star skin, it wasn't a BlizzCon skin or something to thank you for playing the beta, it was a season 2 theme skin.
also there are secrets in the map that gives you 1 level so finding secrets is more fun
Akshon back at it again highlighting an important topic nobody else speaks up about.
Keep up the good work we need this content in the gaming landscape!
I would add the limited time/FOMO factor as not only do you need to play a lot but all of that in a set usually strict timelimit. This was implied but directly saying it makes it clear to those who've never thought about it in that way.
nonetheless great vid!
A thought I've had for a while is if they were to allow players to "backlog" previous passes. Letting us still buy them (and actively play) would be a win/win for both parties. I would understand not doing this very exclusive events (ranked, prestige, special promo or collab)
@@ThatScythe Devs need you make you feel the FOMO so that won't happen
Surprised RuneScape's battle pass 'Yak Track' wasn't shown, it's not a f2p game (monthly membership) and you have to buy an ultra-premimum version of their membership to get the full rewards of their battle pass. Also they have like 8 other MTX systems in their game. Crazy.
tbh premier membership is cheaper than a years subscription so imo it’s not that bad, i do agree that the other mtx in the game is horrible, but all things considered it’s not the worst battle pass out there
Man i really needed this video thx for the info 👌
Only Deep Rock Galactic is worth it. Free and speeds up the rewards, and it's not limited time: If you miss anything, you can get it later.
I bought Fortnite Season 3 Battle Pass because the money would go for Ukraine but it was fun to play with friends on No Build, managed to get Dr. Strange so I was happy. Haven't played it anymore though, could return but don't think I'd be buying another pass.
DRG is how Battle Passes should be. A fun, optional extra with stuff you can pick up or focus towards specifically if you want it, not something that dominates the gameplay loop.
You mean Chapter 3 Season 3?
overwatch 2 has announced some decent improvements a day before this video was uploaded, the free tier of the pass will offer enough legacy credits (not the new overwatch 2 coins) to buy a legendary skin from overwatch 1 which imo is a decent way to earn skins like in OW1 while still letting players pick the skin they want and avoid the criticisms of having lootboxes in the game
I hope they can build off of that with maybe small amounts of credits for just playing flex like in OW1. I own all the OW1 skins myself but it's something to at least let you choose from the older skins if you are a new player or just missed one before the F2P transition because you couldn't get it through boxes during an event. Also the thing about the event rewards was something to say because it was annoying when the skin reward was something I already had. I grinded the titles during that Batlle for Olympus game mode because it was some to do and I did like the mode for what they were trying to do.
@@kosmosfan01 yeah the events were kinda meh so far but luckily they said that they'll be improving those as well and the skins you get will be new, though personally i think they should put more effort into the gamemodes and challenges because to me they lost their appeal incredibly quickly (especially olympus with the lucio stuns and roadhog being a thing)
@@amemoia Yeah, things like the Bride stuff and this were at least actually new whereas Winter and Lunar had the same events but the Winter Brig skin was at least new. I'm honestly interested in the PvE the most myself so I'm hoping there will be updates on that soon.
Man 👏👏👏👏👏👏
You've said it all...
I bought Overwatch pass and everything you've said happened.
I didn't completed because of lack of time. I reached the same conclusions as you, and I'm so happy to see that somebody else had it too, and it happens to make a great video on YT.
🙏 Thankssss
I hope this bubble pops someday, and to something different, a better monetisation model.
I still see future in battle passes, if seasons get lengthier and the grind is small, man I'll be so thankful
9:12 ya ignore that OW1 also had Ingame Currency that you could grind to buy the cosmetics that you want, OW2 gutted that ability by locking coins behind weekly challenges and you only can grind 60 coins per week!.. in OW1 I got 25 coins per played match
Fortnite giving you premium currency in the FREE battle pass as well as the paid one was insane
If you paid for it once and actually played the game
You got to buy it again with out having to pay another 10
Alot of the newer battle passes don't do this at all
when battle passes end they should give you all the content you couldn't get (if you bought them)
people who complete challenges get to enjoy the content early
Nahh. Then there would be no reason to play the game. What they should do is have it so that you'd have to pay for next season but you'd get access to older seasons context if you finish the new battle pass or something? Idk
@@Rayutomoto if the only reason to play the game is the battle pass, then that is nkt a good game
That defeats the whole purpose of battlepasses, which is giving players a reason to come back and play the game. A system similar to Halo where you can grind the old seasons' passes should be better.
@@incomplet1396 You're absolutely right, but these companies don't want to be fair with the player. They want engagement metrics and sales profits.
The content drip is real. The one and only battlepass system I got into was a few years ago with Brawlhalla. It got to a point where the only reason I played anymore was specifically to grind BP challenges. Since then I’ve pretty much swore off of cosmetics because the only purpose they serve is to suck away your time earning them
Honestly, I waited for a video like this since long time!
I've stopped getting many battle passes because they suck out the fun of the game. I'm not talking about the grinding nature, but that it feels like I'm wasting money if I don't play it. I hate that to care about time and money when I play a game, because the game is my place for not caring about such stuff. It's supposed to be my escapism.
My first ever season pass is from Tower of Fantasy, which is has 30 gacha currency a costume and more materials... decent rewards with decent price of 20$, the merit system is weekly so i have to be active for a month to reached the highest level.
From a gacha enthusiast stand point, it really depends i'll buy battle passes but gotta buy it with budget, i might miss some passes at least a monthly pass will suffice
Thanks for the vid
That was a good vid, you’ve earned yourself a sub
One battle pass system I don’t hate is Super Animal Royal where they let you go back and buy old battle passes and let you progress on two at once. It’s good for new players so they don’t miss out on much, and it’s good for people who just wanna take a break because they can always come back later.
I have the same problem with Destiny 2. I used to buy the seaonal updates because they were like mini dlcs without a season pass, and i just enjoyed the game and anything i wanted. Ever since they introduced the season pass its just been a grind: i cant complete previous activities because of lack of time from work. im at a constant rush to finish the season pass challenges instead of actually you know, having fun. I can't even finish the main dlc that came before the seasons. The same problem occurs in genshin impact as well and halo. Its just very annoying.
sounds like you just play too many games and own too many battlepasses at once
I never had that problem with Destiny 2. Coming from Apex legends and fortnite, Destiny 2 is the easiest battle pass I've ever completed. The challenges are like, "Kill enemies with this weapon type" or "Complete this season Mission" Im already 150+ lvls just by playing the game on weekends. Also Destiny 2 is the only game I have a BP, so if you have more than one from different games, then you're gonna struggle finishing them all.
@@Benjiizus thats the thing. It makes it very hard to play anything else.
@Kassaken but this is what im complaining about, though. Back in the season of the forge and season of opulence, i just casually enjoyed the game and did my thing and not feel like i have homework to do. Also, that's the thing the video is complaining about. I should be allowed to enjoy other games. but with this system, unlike before, it just forces you. I dont hate the game, i love it. I just miss the forsaken days.
You can finish the battle pass at any time in halo infinite, you dont need to stress about getting it done because it never expires
Really good and interesting vid!
Honestly this video makes me happy cuz admittedly while I didn't really look that much I always didn't know if others hated battle passes as much as I did I legit would rather rather go back to loot boxes cuz I've never had a battle pass I truly liked but I have enjoyed some niche examples of loot boxes like OverWatch more then anything I just want these to go away so things don't have to be so stressful making certain games not fun to even bother with anymore
i find it helpful to view battle passes as an abstraction of a subscription model. it /is/ still bad if it time gates unique content, but otherwise it makes the game almost entirely accessible for free if u just wanna try it out or play w ur friends occasionally, while giving the avid playerbase a relatively un-exploitative means of supporting the game. the real issue is that the industry is trying to find ways to force /everyone/ who plays the game to buy it, when only a smaller subset was ever a prospective customer in the first place.
I think a battle pass is fine if done right
I think Fortnite’s battle is the best example as it has some pretty good skins, cosmetics, and in game currency to buy new skins or save up for the next battle pass
The fact that any items not unlocked at the end of the season become lost to the player is bullshit - it plays into the mentality that players don't own the product they purchased, they just pay for the priviledge to use the content that is actually still owned by the company.
You PAID for the content - EVERYTHING available in that purchase should be YOURS to keep. If you pay for a Battlepass that expires, you're paying for the priviledge of working for the company's bottom line by increasing their playtime averages and active player numbers; not for cosmetic items.
Thank you for doing the actual research on OW1's loot boxes not actually being predatory but rather fair compared to others
Rather fair is such a meaningless statement.
Is it anti consumer? If so who cares? The best garbage is still garbage.
@@youare5907 loot boxes weren't anti consumer at all
@@Bluemansonic Can you give me your thought process on having to gamble to get what I want over just... getting what I want isn't anti consumer?
While I hate most battle passes, I think brawl stars does it pretty well. It's one of the few battle passes you can get pretty easily without spending money (If you save your gems then you can get every other pass for free) and it doesn't take very long to complete.
There also aren't very many filler rewards, as almost every reward in the pass gives you account progression.
I think Clash Royale's OLD Battle pass was pretty good.
The paid version had ridiculous rewards, but the Free version also had very good rewards, with pretty much every rank being a decent chest, and getting a Free champion+ Book of cards.
What made it really good, is that you could Rank up INSANELY fast.
It's so crazy to me that the first widely adopted battle pass was also the peak
Fortnite gave actually good rewards (at first), let you get the next season for free, was a fair price, and had FUN challenges that I actually looked forward to every week. They didn't feel like terrible side quests in some bloated rpg, they felt like extra little mission objectives you'd complete within your normal play session that made you go just a little bit out of your way, but by doing so it would shake up your normal routes and landing spots, make you play with different weapons than you normally do, maybe even make alliances with other players to let each other complete some of the harder ones. They also brought the community together with challenges like open 8 chests at risky reels, where for a week or so there everyone was making memes about how this tiny little zone was now the hottest drop in the game. Modern battle passes just don't do that. Overwatch's weekly challenges are random garbage that is almost never fun to complete, not unique whatsoever and generally just feel like a chore. It's missing what made the Fortnite Battle pass so great. It wasn't just the rewards, though those were great, it actively improved your experience playing the game.
You’re so right! That’s why I only buy Fortnite’s battle pass : it’s not too grindy, the rewards are good and if I complete it I have 1500 vbuck while I spent 950 for it.
I don’t know how people do to play mutiple games with this mecanism
You are so on point. I just got into Fortnite because of the No Build. I just spent on the Battle Pass once and I love it. The way it is right now is perfect. I know some were bummed by the non stacking weekly quests at the beginning, but the XP gain was just right this season. I am by no means playing daily or a grinder, but I am now currently on the bonus pages whilst playing the game twice or thrice a week and you're right, it doesn't feel like a chore. The quests spice up my gameplay subconsciously and it's fun. The midseason drops, bonus skin quests and the oathbound quests being spaced out is what makes it for a casual player like me. It really makes you look forward to the new quests and events here and there. Even now, with the Most Wanted update, which is so good I might add. Things like that are what makes a great battle pass stand out.
To your point of getting it free the next season, that's a huge thing as well. The fact that it's not a seasonal expense, you get more that the v-bucks you spend and that if you wanted you can eventually get the battle pass by going the full F2P route for a couple of seasons? That's just so awesome imo. It just rewards people who love to play the game. It's so good.
as a person with a job, a streaming hobby, and a family. i buy multiple battlepasses at one time and only end up completing the ones on games that i play the most. it makes me regret not finishing certain battlepasses.
The problem for me is the idea, not only in game industry, to make border between buying stuff and gift it more blurry. When customer get used to receive gifts, then they will come back over and over to spend money without real perception of value of things they gonna buying.
That's the problem!
Stop gift things. If ur job is sell, just sell what customer asks. For me it's right buying for what I want and I consider is worth of my money. Without any incentives, couse If I really know how value ur product I ll buy it.
I think the core idea of a battle pass could be executed correctly and be a way for both paying and non paying players to earn cosmetics they like. But what I dislike is how they make it extremely grindy to complete the battle pass or put WAY too much development focus on it.
Societal acceptance of video games designed to be unpaid part-time jobs is so demonic.
Free time is such an issue. I have so many thing on my plate right now that if I get an hour or two a day thats a win so I normally go for smaller single player experiences. The recent Dead Space was such a God send, for a moment it felt like I was in highschool again, talk about a blast from the past.
Love to see some games showing the complete opposite from the statement at 8:24. The ones that came first in mind were Elden Ring and GOW: Ragnarok
What if the battle passes had no time limit? If they worked like the valorant agent unlocks and you could purchase all of them at any point but only have one actively being unlocked and progressed. This way, people with a lot of time would get to enjoy the constante new stream of content, but people with less time would still be able to slowly enjoy the battlepass progression
This does depend heavily on how diverse your gaming ecosystem is too. I only really play WoW and Overwatch regularly, so for me, I already spend monthly for WoW and the OW BP is so easy to grind as a casual (cmon, play 3 matches daily and you'll get to 80 before it ends) that I hardly see it as a huge time/money sink. $10 every 3 months for that BP is more of a value. I stopped buying Apex's BP because it was FAR too much grind and I'm too casual (and bad) at the game to continue investing in it. I play Halo Infinite but don't care one whit about the cosmetics, so I largely ignore their BP. Not saying the OW BP is perfect, but it's hardly in the top 5 of worst offenders out there either. Also, loot boxes were trash, always have been, always will be. RNG is not ANYONE'S friend, and I will maintain that people miss them because they miss the dopamine hit from the box opening (i.e. early onset gambling addiction).
Lmao
People would just go "but it was free"
Amazing, I repeat, AMAZING VIDEO! this is the best video I have watched in awhile.
in codm, in SEA region, idk about other region, now can choose battlepass between s1 and s4. its better imo, BUT in order to lock it you have to get like some sort of key, to unlock every item in the past season battlepass. To get them you have to grind the new battlepass.
maybe you should look up for Dark pattern design in video games, and how they manipulate your FOMO in order to buy things
Halo Infinite's Battle Passes are actually really cool because there's no time limit. Getting through it was a slog in the beginning, though.
I agree, the progression was just horrible
Yeah definitely
big surprice . designing games arround the fear of missing out aka fomo doesnt result in the same quality as games that are designed to be good.
do yourself a favor and play games that are so good that the game itself is the only motivation to play. what value is there in a game that you play to get digital dog treats and stop playing once the treats run out ?
Exactly. Leave the slave mindset and you’ll be way happier
That same logic applies to all other games.
The good experience is the dog treats and once it runs out of fun little experiences to give you then you stop playing.
It is the fun little bits that matter to people be it passes or narratives or whatever.
One point that isn't specifically mentioned is just the predatory notion of bp's never returning. Along with the pressured time commitment there's also the fact that you'll feel even greater pressure since your favorite cosmetic will NEVER be available again, creating an even higher chance of a rash purchase (maybe even bought levels). There are some games that have a battlepass end at a specific time but the items will return a year later. You still feel the time commitment pressure BUT you'll realize if you really cannot afford to finish it you can always wait (albeit a long time).
2:47 actually there were no lootbox in the free to play battle royale, it was a thing in STW (tower defense paid version)
I do think Halo Infinite could get some credit with allowing players to go back to previous season's pass (and DBD if anyone still plays/remembers that lol) and I think that's a feature that would greatly help Valorant, OW, and many others. There's a Pumpkin buddy/charm in Valorant I really wanted (and didn't even come out I believe during Halloween/Fall) that I didn't get and replied to Val on twitter about bringing it back or letting us "backlog" or play "legacy passes" and it was a bit funny getting some backlash to some people saying it should stay "exclusive". Exclusive because what? You had no time commitments and were able to grind the whole pass at that time and it wasn't really related to any special event besides being the first/second pass?
Even if they would want to (still) charge us for the older passes, I would still play/grind the pass to the rewards I wanted and still be able to go back when convenient (me, the player/consumer) and they would still get paid (more). I would understand not making special events (VCT, competitive/ranked rewards, collabs/etc) able to purchase again or anything divisive like pay to win or xp boost (but even still though are arguable if people feel they need them bc they don't have a lot of time in general and just want the (general) rewards and to joy the game), but I don't see how this wouldn't be a win/win. Just my thoughts.
People who suck off a company so they can retain their "exclusive" cosmetics fascinate me. Its literally pixels on a screen everyone should be able to enjoy. Just because someone had other commitments doesn't mean they shouldn't be gated from limited time content.
Genshin is the only battlepass I ever paid for, it is considered a good BP because it is extremely easy to do, gives a good amount of character growth materials and currency and mainly doesn't do limited time items so there is no pressure put on players.
The reason someone would pay for the BP is because it unlocks a BP weapon of your choice which is very strong for its price especially when compared to the 5* weapons that you have to pull. These weapons are not limited time or absurdly powerful and meta so there's also no pressure for anyone to try and get them.
they don't even put at least one 5 star character in it
rn that i am not having a job i have the time to grind multiple battlepasses 6 in Number but if i have a job again (hopfully soon) i will really think if some of them are even wort it
I normally stick to one main multiplayer game which recently became overwatch 2 so finishing the battle pass takes me about a month. Other than that ill play mostly single player games or local games with friends on the weekend.
Crazy you didn't mention the small tweak that makes Halo Infinite better than 90% of other systems: The battlepasses don't expire. So there's no FOMO and no time pressure. The only way those factor in are the store rotation and the limited-time free events.
For me, what I hate most is that it changes how you play the game
I currently have all the Time I could need to complete any battle passes but I hate this feeling that I HAVE to play a Game just to not miss something. In Overwatch 1 I could play a couple of Games per week after school and maybe even get a Legendary skin, from which I have a few, but now seeing that I, as a F2P Player, get mostly nothing for playing my 3 Games per day frustrates me so much, that I don't wanna play at all .. in OW 1, I could play and lool forward to my Level up Rewards, since everything I could do ingame, would give me xp, I could even play the fun Arcade Mode, which would grant me an extra lootbox after 5 matches, if I wanted to play something else. Now it feels like a checklist I work on to get all Rewards. Its not a Game I play when I (!) Want, it's a Game that tells me when I should play it.
Apex Legend's battle pass is actually pretty quick to complete. In season 15, it only took me a few days to complete the pass at the end of the season, but the pass unlocks are given out weekly and not all at once so it feels longer than it actually is.
Battlepasses are not a good concept period. Neither are Fortnites battlepass nor CODs or any other. The alternative to battlepasses is not lootboxes. Its a well made progression system that comes included in the game FOR 0$. I am sorry but calling Fortnites predatory monetization good is bordeline anti consumer.
deep rock galactic battle pass rules
God help us all
@@AttitudeIndicator Nah man it's genuinely good. It's basically accelerated progression for cosmetics and gives bonus credits and crafting minerals. Then when the season end all of the cosmetics go to the regular in game currency cosmetics shop and other regular drop sources. So the pass lets you get more stuff faster and nothing that you miss will be gone.
Rock and Stone, brother.
@@furgel7717 i would still prefer just being able to buy the cosmetics i want instead of going thru a giant map
@@flarfo348 Then you can just wait until the season is over and then you can buy them.
I think Splatoon 3 does the battle pass very well. It’s completely free, you earn almost enough to get an entire level once a day, and the amount of exp needed never changes. Plus, you can still get rewards after completing the battle pass, though they are more infrequent
It's crazy on how a game called Super Animal Royale made by one singular developer has a beyond better Battle Pass system than any other game to ever exist. Same thing with its item shop. It's pathetic on how 2D Indie games do a superbly way better job than triple AAA 3D FPS Shooter games.
If you’re having a bad day, it turns good when Akshon uploads
Also I'm not sure if it was "perfect" on release, but Halo 5's REQ packs I felt were pretty generous with rewards and being able to sell dups. Later OW1 being more generous making less dups appear with giving loot boxes maybe giving 1 item you didn't have previously and/or a decent amount of gold to make you closer to just buying out right what you wanted.
Fortnite is the one game which seems to have gotten the BP right. In chapter one, the bp took about 6-8 weeks to level up, but because of the way challenges worked, you could get about 70 tiers in a couple hours if you wanted to wait until the last day to do them. Challenges no longer work that way, but leveling up the bp is even faster now as a result. The bp also rewards 1500 vbucks total, which covers the cost of the pass and leaves you 550 to spend elsewhere.
A BP system I feel doesn't get enough recognition is Among Us'
You get to choose which set you want, and you can work towards a cosmetic like a skill tree
My brother and I don't buy Battle passes anymore if we have not fully finished it. We learned the hard way. We played paladins when Bttle passes where the new trendy thing. We got to level 98. But because of Christmas we were not able to finish it. And level 100 skin was the one for the character I played.
We have two rules now:
Don't buy battle pass until they are done
Put 10€ only for every 100 hours passed on a free game
I do try to wait and to see where my progress goes on a pass, but for some games like Valorant, they have a tactic of giving you a "battle pass xp boost" when you buy the pass so you complete it faster than regular xp progress. Also if I'm playing a decent amount of different games, I can sometimes figure to buy the pass at all and lose all that progress for nothing so I've brought in advance before.
I don't think battlepasses are inherently bad, it does provide a sense of progression that is needed for open ended multiplayer games. But yeah, some of the battlepasses are designed horribly and detracts from the gameplay experience.
Cough cough multiversus
some are good that you no longer need grinding you to death(as indicate, genshin impact BP is good and fortnite as well). some are so bad that it turns it into a second job. as a gamer have a job and family, I don't have time grinding those kinds of battlepasses. that's why I focus more on single player games for enjoyment and relaxation(last of us, GOW, and so on)
im still baffled that people buy the battle passes, especially without looking through if its worth it
i've bought 1 battlepass so far and it was for rainbow 6 siege, while usually i would skim through it and say "eh, nothing interesting, i can get some random cosmetics anyway and i wont even see my character when playing" but this one caught my eye, featuring many good looking unique models for many characters both important in meta and ones i liked, it wasnt too expensive and i dont regret it, it was also a time i enjoyed playing the game and had a lot of time, so finishing it wasnt a chore either
but since then there hasnt been one of that quality ever again, and i wont just pour my money down the drain
the players should get their own baseline for what their money is worth, they are too easy to click pay on something that is purely cosmetic (and usually ass-effort from devs) and wont change much
Oh damn I was asking myself if I had time for OW2 new battlepass. As someone who’s at the end of uni it’s hard to justify the time commitment
I bought the valorant BP, the cosmetics are not good. I hope the BP would be more accurate to the new map and climate trailer. then just cats
Definitely some are hit or miss and I hate we can't buy or go back to progress the older passes. They would still get our money (and time) and the players/consumer the rewards.
yea i hate battlepasses, i think the only battlepass i can tolerate really is the one in Destiny 2, though that has its issues too but it feels a bit more meaningful and fair to level than the stuff ive seen in other games. i'd almost rather loot boxes honestly as scummy as those were.
If I ever make a game with a Battle Pass, I'll make it so even when the Pass ends, you still get to keep a "legacy version" of it, which you can keep grinding for alongside the latest Battle Pass.
Players will still be incentivized to complete the current Battle Pass before the season ends, because Legacy Battle Passes will take longer to level up, and all non-cosmetic rewards like currencies and XP boosters will disappear. But skins and emotes will still be obtainable.
I could even make it so Legacy Battle Passes can still be purchased after they expire, but at a slightly higher cost. Just to squeeze out an extra bit of money from players who weren't around when the Pass was current.
That sounds like a good idea. It still encourages players to stay engaged, but doesn't punish them by wasting their money if they don't have enough time to fully grind the Battle Pass to its maximum level.
I do believe that punishes them then because how will they ever catch up? There's already the time in finishing a legacy pass but taxing that xp would just be an annoyance and keep those players in a "time debt", never finishing a pass, old or new. I see your point about the old currencies and XP boosts rewards, but still, if people took out their time to play and earn, if they're going to eventually use them, I'm not sure I'd mind too much, as long as they're (continuing) playing and enjoying the game.
The end goal would be for everyone to enjoy and rave about the game right?
I know a game’s battle pass model isn’t good if I get stressed about finishing it.
I’ve played Apex the longest, and I would say the game does a pretty good job of making sure there’s a balance between being fairly easy to grind several levels in one sitting while still being a little bit challenging. Besides that one time the battle pass progression changed and got incredibly grindy, generally speaking, Apex are quite generous with the progression leveling and how much credits they give back to you.
As an example, today I realized I was about 35 levels away from the end of the Apex battle pass, but still didn’t feel I needed to panic. In merely one 6-hour sitting (after weeks, almost a month of barely touching the game, too) I managed to go up 20 levels just from keeping track of what challenges to do and accomplishing several challenges altogether.
Valorant’s battle pass system, on the other hand, stresses me out every single time I buy it (for the radianite and radianite only). The increasing amount of XP needed to level up every pass the more of the game you play is so disproportionate to what you earn and it’s nuts. There’s also simply not enough challenges to go for despite the game asking you for an inordinate amount of time spent playing.
A little input from someone who plays Genshin Impact every day (almost two years of it, barely any days missed), and diligently completes the Battle Pass monthly:
It's a fairly easy and quite rewarding experience. BP challenges are divided into daily, weekly, and full (the 3- or 4-week duration of the battle pass), and they're all very F2P-friendly save for the one that makes you summon on the banners. The free BP is relatively good with giving players resources for leveling-up characters and weapons, as I can fully-build one new character from scratch with just the stuff I get from the BP that month. As for the premium BP, you get: one strong weapon of your choice, a cool namecard, ten extra levels to the BP, and more than double the resources from the base amount.
It's a real bang for your buck, and my only concern is that they need to give us more free weapons since anybody who's bought the BP from the start might have already fully refined all five weapons currently offered. The math for that would be: 5 weapons x 5 refinement levels = 25 times buying the BP. Since the BP refreshes about once a month, that's a bit more than two years ago. I'd basically just want more weapons to collect and upgrade, or generally more varied content.
TLDR; Genshin Impact has a great BP that's very F2P-friendly.
does it gives you currency where you can buy the next bp?
Absolutely sick of battle passes. Most of my friends grind & focus on challenges more than just having fun or winning a game. Usually I'll find myself focusing on the gameplay rather than all the other bs. Thanks for shining some light on this topic. Especially the terrible pass in overwatch.
I never had time for early valorant battle passes or the game as a whole for school and other games I played. There's so many good skins I missed out on.
In Minion Masters, 3 days after the start of the season I'm already nearing half completion. Leaving me to enjoy the game at my own pace.
In Crew 2 I just have to play for half an hour every week and I'll be completing it halfway into season. And it's buyable with in-game credits too.
I'm just saying that because best examples need to be praised and cherished.
As someone who plays Overwatch competitively, its hard to not buy the battle pass because they include the new hero in it, and I need time to learn the ins and outs of said hero
Thing with Battlepasses is that companies always win the standoff, because people would rather consume bad content that boycott and get no content at all. The only way battlepasses go away is when people stop paying for them
Not even that, the whales stop boycotts from working.
If 90% of the community left... that remaining 10% could easily pay for the community who refused to buy that stuff leaving. Since that entry fee is chip money compared to their other sales the community made a mild dent at best.
Since the company doesn't need to make a quality game only one that works for the whales they can reduce production costs easily making more money then that 90% who left.
Knowing this how do you boycott?
The 90% of players need to talk about the game looking bad and leaving so shareholders leave.
...till Shareholders see the game still made a good profit despite us all leaving. Then they ignore public outcry. Companies no longer need to pay attention to the majority of the players.
That's why i have never spend any real money in multiplayer games. I rather grind free currency once to "buy" it for free and then buy next one from premium currency included with BP. I did that with Fortnite and have not spend any money on it. And now i have more than i need to buy BP for next season.
My personall issues with the battle passes I've interacted with is the time investment, which could easily be resolved if the passes progressed at 2-4x the rates they currently do, but whatever analysts worked out the current progression rates have probably determined it'd be way less profitable, since it needs to be optimized to stretch out to maximize player retention without killing reward anticipation by making it too slow. After all, if you ring the bell but take too long to feed the dog, that "pavlovian association" is much weaker. However, if the bell is constantly ringing, they become desensitized to the anticipation of getting the food. Seeing the progression bar move as it approaches the next reward is the video game equivalent of a bell ringing.
Here’s a hot take. battle passes aren’t terrible themselves , they have been implemented/handled terribly.
I agree with this.
Agree. If they were all handled like Halo MCC or Deep Rock Galactic, I'd like them a hell of a lot more.
Battle passes are functionally just a worse leveling system then what we have had in the past for unlocking stuff.
They are terrible because they make what was simple complex and give reasons to pad things out as the goal of them is to make more money not reward the player who already spent money.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 Have you not played Deep Rock Galactic? It's physically impossible to pay for it's season pass. And when the season is over, the items you didn't get are added to the game as rewards that show up randomly in missions.
i think a big thing is if the free pass has good loot or the "pay part" is the only way of getting cool stuff
I was a big fan of Modern Warfare 2019. I played it to death, devoting my entire self to the game. However, I slowly began to feel fatigue as I went through the motions, doing dailies, completing seasonal challenges, completing each battle pass, and realized I was missing out on spending time with people I cared about. It became an obsession, and when I stopped playing cold turkey? It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.
I now avoid any game that has that sort of system because I want my time respected.
My favorite thing is about how Elden ring is still waiting for me when I go back to it to experience everything it has to offer at my own pace. My least favorite thing is about how call of duty gives me the feeling of the pressure to engage with not enough content to get something I should already have for fear that I'll miss out on the full experience..