I miss the days when cosmetics and unlocks were just locked behind in game achievements. So you could show off your accomplishments and feel like you earned it.
indeed, reminds of the days of classic WOW and Halo when you saw someone with rare armor or weapons, you know they earned it, not bought it. it pushed you to want to get better and get that gear too
yeah i just bought my niece 'immortal fenyx' gold edition thinking it has everything, but surprised they got a store in in the game to buy armour, swords shields, mounts etc with gems or something which uses real money, had to spend another 30-35 on top of the game to get it for her friggin ridiculous !!
We went from having basic features being put behind a paywall we must pay to MAYBE get something back, to having basic features put behind a paywall we must pay to get it back.. THIS AINT IT CHIEF!
There is some merit to the battle pass system though, like Lawrence said. We went from a system that used gambling (and therefore prayed on people with gambling addictions) to a system where the transaction is much more fair and transparent. I don't like to grind either, but at least people with addictive personalities aren't being swindled anymore.
Im sooo tired of this take. ANY multiplayer would gain for more players, more players just mean faster queues and more balanced matches since the matchmaking algorithm has a lot more to draw from. If they need to put COSMETICs behind a paywall so be it, battle passes allowing game to go f2p are one of the best things to happen to Competitive FPS games
@@yangxiaolong1862 More people, more cheaters, more p2w, more grind, more slogs of dead weight. Queues are faster, player quality is poorer. Like fast food.
One of the problems with loot boxes was the low sucess rates in getting what you wanted. It's sounds like the battle pass strategy is pretty much the same only obscured.
The biggest issue, at least for me, with Overwatch 2 is that those cosmetics never had a set price to them until now. Legendary skins you would get in a loot box by either leveling up or buying them is now worth 20 bucks. So now its either buying it out right or doing weekly quests for months to be able to afford it. You dont get a box for leveling up anymore, its just a battle pass that is useless if you dont buy it.
I was pretty bummed when me and friends played overwatch 2 and after our session we didn't have our ritual of opening up the 2-3 boxes we earned that evening
The part thats not mentioned regarding OW2 is that the "in game currency" you can "earn" is... 60 per week? And a legendary skin is... 1900 of said currency, or a little under 20 dollars worth. Loot boxes were so much more fair. You could get so much in game currency from just playing the game
I hate microtransactions and lootboxes in general but OW1 was the ONE decent implementation I've ever seen. You got 3 free loot boxes every day for certain game mode wins and one free box every level up forever. Duplicates gave currency you could use to buy the thing you wanted (except event specific legendaries I think?) and it was fun to open them and it meant you always had cosmetic for almost every character and might have certain cosmetics you never wouldve picked for yourself but since you have them you mightaswell use them. Battle Passes are just gimmicks to get people playing longer. Not fun.
@@00Herobrine I mean if you think BPs and stores are poop, sure. On the other hand, I actually like BPs and stores as long as the game is free. I don’t have to drop 40-70 bucks and I can just play the game. If I want extra shit I buy it. If I don’t, I don’t.
@@Seb_Falkor I agree here. It's fine this way. I just hope OW2's character unlock system isn't trash. That's the worst of it right now. I will say, Apex Legends has all of the above and it's pretty great. You get the casual excitement of a lootbox once in a while and sometimes you get a cool thing, but if you really want to just get the cool thing, you just buy it in the shop or get it in the Battle Pass. Also if you complete their BP every season, you can automatically afford it next season.
If we are talking about loot boxes, we also have to talk about genshin which is super popular, made a lot of money, and shows no sign of moving away from loot boxes like monetization.
The Battle Pass is a problem but I feel the actual real problem are the limited rotating stores, because that's what causes the hoarders to just buy everything once it pops in.
This. The timed storefronts add very unnecessary pressure to buy then and there. They need to be forced to have all released skins available for purchase. Have a storefront for sales or promotions or whatever but if a skin exists for sale, it needs to be for sale. Not like digital goods have any actual scarcity so no reason to limit availability other than pure unacceptable greed.
@@smithynoir9980 If Battle Passes were a problem they wouldn't give you back the amount of play money needed to renew it next season. The only reason it exists is to keep you playing the game long enough to want something from the store.
I ONLY like loot boxes if you can buy them with free in-game currency. It's fun like a surprise toy, but if you either get a duplicate or something you didn't want, you didn't waste real money on it.
For Take Two and NBA 2K, people who hard core play the MyTeam game type (The game type shown at 2:40 ) is a very niche part of NBA 2k players. The money they mainly get is from people buying VC™to upgrade their MyPlayer
overwatch will suffer from they way they are handling the battle pass, since there is no way to earn currency for the next bp within the current one, as well as locking heroes behind them
The problem with battle pass it is that if you are a player that don't want to expend any money, you are lockout the opportunity to get the seasonal skins, with loot boxes even if it was a little chance you have an opportunity better than 0
I enjoy opening loot boxes when they're free, but I've never spent real world money on them. I don't mind battle passes cause I can see what the rewards are, and decide not to get it if I don't like them. I do agree that Destiny is a very good example right now.
I agree, i liked getting a loot box for playing, the battle pass sucks all the fun out of games, every game presenting itself as this massive list of levels you'll have to grind through is super off putting to me, games aren't meant to be work
sports games are an enigma to me. all of my friends exclusively play them, hundreds of hours. but are always talking about how bad the games are, yet still end up spending $50 per new character they make. one of my buddies spent $500 on micro transactions in nba 2k21 alone
The biggest problem with Overwatch's battle pass is that it's made to gouge you of time to maximize it AND totally drain your wallet. Every single tier is 10,000XP regardless of whether it's for a shitty spray, voiceline, or legendary skin. It never tapers lower than that and having to grind through such a large chunk for something you may not even want blows. On top of that they've made their in game currency, which you buy both skins and future battle passes with, near impossible to get. At most you're looking to grind around 500 coins each battle pass season while a new battle pass costs 1,000 coins. Then you have skins that are only available for purchase that aren't included in the battle pass at all going for 1,000 - 2,200 coins, literally more than the battle pass. So you need to grind the living fuck out of the battlepass to get everything, dump additional money in for coins for limited shop only skins AND continue dumping in money for future battle passes. As someone who played Overwatch since Day 1 launch and never became someone who hated the game it's horribly frustrating. I never had to buy lootboxes because I just played the game on a regular basis and grinded arcade when I wanted extra. The only time I bought boxes was when I literally had to have surgery at Halloween and couldn't bring myself to miss certain skins. It was fun to be able to collect all the skins for heroes, even if you didn't play them. While cosmetics don't add anything to the game it was rewarding for long time players to be able to see those completed hero layouts as a little reward for just playing. Now it feels skeezy anytime I click the "shop" button.
i think for a casual gamer loot boxes are better because battle passes take way longer then and they expire after a season and i might completely miss some skins
Look boxes based on gambling is never better and always predatory. Battle Passes are bad too, players shouldn't have to pay to be able to earn progression rewards. It's just a move to make players pay AND keep playing instead of retaining player numbers due to the game being fun. Both need to be removed completely and replaced with an actual consumer friendly storefront that sells everything that's ever been available while also rewarding character progression with either legendary skins or storefront currency. As if that'd ever happen though so long as people keep sinking $ into shitty practices.
As someone who plays LoL and got used to their monetization system, (I spend nowhere near as much money in that game as I once did) when people first started to really complain about loot boxes, this is just about the future that I saw coming. Service games are here to stay, and those games will either die or figure out a way to get your money to stay in business. If it's not spending a lower dollar amount on a handful of lootboxes, then it'll be $20 for a premium tier battle pass that you have to grind. If not a battle pass, they'll just have everything a la carte for you to buy but NONE of the skins you want will be cheap because now the randomness is gone. So it's like "ok, you can no longer spend $5 on 6 loot boxes, each with a small chance of getting cool skin, instead you can just buy that one Legendary skin that you want and it'll cost $25-$30
I was just mentioned in an article on game rant after bringing the attention to a price difference on pc (23.99usd) and console (19.99usd) for league tokens in overwatch. After saying "they'll look into it" they raised the price for consoles... the greed knows no limits 😅👌
Overwatch 2's problem isn't that it moved over to a battle pass, the problem is how terribly everything is handled, and how poultry all the rewards are. Literally all they have to do is hand out currency at a better rate (like adding an extra zero to the weekly rewards), and it'll be more bearable for the average player.
Awesome timeless subjects commented on in this video, thank you inside games :-) I am totally Nurding out with Marvel snap right now, and I am reminded of my time playing hearthstone several years ago, I guess that was the mid 2010s… After the Blitzchung nonsense happened, and after all the news about Activision blizzard came out, I decided I was too disgusted with Activision blizzard to keep playing any of their games, so I had them delete all of my data, and I moved on to Elder scrolls legends and replays of Skyrim and cyber punk and zillions of other games that captured my interest at the time… And now I have marble snap, and I’m totally digging it, and I bought the little three dollar welcome pack to get a variant of the captain America card or whatever, basically I bought it for A card skin and some in game currency to boost to the cards or whatever… I’m OK with having made that purchase, and now I see that they’re showing a battle pass for October with a bunch of Spider-Man characters, and it looks kind of cool. I go back-and-forth with this stuff, and I liked everyone chiming in about the different types of monetization they feel sort of comfortable or uncomfortable with… I think along the way, if marvel snap releases a battle pass that has characters I like in it a little bit more, maybe some different avengers characters or cosmic beings or whatever, I might buy one… Especially if they release a battle pass related to Ant-man quantum mania, or some thing tied into season two of the Loki TV show, etc. I have bought some MTX over the years, some occasional random packs for Brawlhalla, some occasional discrete skins for weapons and characters and all that… And of course I grew up in the 70s and 80s playing arcade games all the time, so it’s not like micro transactions are a new thing to me in life… I just don’t like mega corporations playing shifty games with their audiences, being “predatory“
Case in point from the arcade era: while I sort of enjoyed the arcade game ghosts and goblins, I would argue that that game is so ridiculously hard but it was almost verging into the predatory area of sliding in quarters :-) that’s a meme across the Internet of course, the famous hardness difficulty of ghosts and goblins… I definitely enjoy playing console or occasionally emulated versions of it, in which I can just press the insert coin button and keep running through levels and dying hilariously and all that
I actually loved loot boxes, (when games gave them out as rewards for progression on your characters and not a 1/50 chance lottery for 2 pairs of socks or something...) The only title I know of that gives them out like Candy now is The Division 2 and it's great, no pay walls, no cheap gimmicks or shit tier loot, it's all scaled to your characters level and they're just earned by leveling up or completing objectives. The only pay wall is in the season pass stuff but even then you get alot of the items just playing the base game without shoveling out any money at all, and with the various seasonal events you get multiple ways to earn them participating in the events. Guns, Exotics, Armor, Cosmetics, and skins/paint for your weapons and armor. Apex was fun until they nerfed the chance to get anything good. It's been so long since I have seen a single shard.
I wish battlepasses persisted after sthe season. Like, maybe the battlepass is only available for a little while but if you fall off the game and come back in six months you can still keep progressing your battle pass
i found monetization has ruined most AAA games for me. the scummy nature of it sucks the fun right out. ... but on the other hand ive been playing a bunch of other games like the long dark and archvale.
I think they should just follow either the style of Fortnite, League of Legends or Dota 2 for what they do with cosmetics. Fortnite has a battlepass that you can levelup and a store that hasa shop where you can directly buy cosmetics with what it is selling reseting. Wih League you can just by skins. Dota 2 has besides a market has treasures which while it may act like loot boxes since it gives a random reward, is much better since you can actually see the reward and it will give you a set from those rewards. Not only cant you gain duplicates, but the more of that chest you open, the higher chances you can get the set you need. If you have a treasure containing 9 cosmetic sets and you open 9 of those same treasures, then you will get all those 9 sets.
I have yet to meet someone who likes the OW2 Battlepass system more then the Lootbox OW1 system. Now instead of having lootboxes that you get for free and being able to buy skins for in game currency, you have to buy a battle and some skins cost 20 USD. The price of a full indie game or an old AAA title. Fuck this new system, loot boxes for cosmetics are fine and always better than battle passes where you must pay to get something. The reason for the transition to battle pass system is money, it makes way more money as people can see what they will get when they buy the battle pass and play for long periods of time so it also increases player retention as once you have bought the battle pass you don't want your money to be wasted by not playing enough and not getting that one special thing you wanted that is locked behind level 85 of the 100 level battle pass.
Hate battle passes 100 times more than loot boxes. "Oh you don't like just paying for things? How about having to pay for the opportunity to work more for even less things?"
Tbh, when it comes to a game like ow I would prefer lootboxes over season passes just because I hate not having the chance of getting a skin I want if it's out of season.
COD points in warzone/MW2019 was alright with me since you will get your 1k cod points back. BUT, you need to grind the 100 tiers. you still have the option to buy it out for 2400 iirc. my issue is the progression though, if its horrendous like Cold War, then its not a good trade off.
I don't care enough about cosmetics to spend any real money on them. The only real complain I have about the OW2 cosmetic system is that there isn't an ingame currency that allows you to buy any cosmetic you want in the game, whenever you want. It's either grind to get specific rewards that you don't want, or spend money to get the rewards you really want. I think it's very anti-consumer, especially for Overwatch since it had such an open currency system in the first game.
Rocket League stopped it too, to a Fortnite-style battle (rocket) pass. The only problem is they removed the RNG in random repeated items after unlocking all the normal items, and every repeated, painted/special item is predetermined, which is lame. However, if you hit level 100, you get your money back in their credit system and can buy the next season pass, essentially for free. So I spent 10 dollars when the system came out a few years ago and haven't spent a dollar since on hundreds of free items.
Overwatch needs to borrow Destiny's system: essentially keep loot boxes (not buyable) that players earn but an open rotating marketplace for direct purchase
I noticed that with rocket league but this season you are missing 100 credits at lvl100 to buy the next pass, worrisome if there isn't any more after lvl100
It’s weird, Overwatch was one of the few games that did loot boxes correct, I got a ton of cool skins over the years for free. I kind of miss them 🤷♂️
Loot boxes and battle passes have both become a problem. Some battle passes have become worse than their loot box predecessor. Loot boxes are the literal worse and it’s sad that I miss them in Overwatch 2. I had a chance to get that skin I wanted in a free loot box. Now I don’t even want to play the game because I’m an adult with a life. I know I just don’t have the time with the super slow grind they’ve implemented to get anything. If the grind was reasonable I wouldn’t complain. Dead by Daylight has a similar system to OW2, but I never feel like it’s intrusive or forceful when it comes to the shop. The battle pass free items can be earned without spending my entire life playing DBD and leveling up gets you shards that can be used in the shop. Often they just throw you free gifts or shards. Time will tell if OW2 can balance a better system or if free to play means it will always be an impossible grind.
Is the financial success/user tolerance of loot-boxes in FIFA and other sports games possible because of the sports card trading that they emulate? Thoughts.?
simple solutions... Stop buying this shit. I havent bought a new game that I have fully enjoyed in over six years. 3 years ago I stopped buying when it became clear they will never stop if no one makes them. I play my outdated games and I am still able to enjoy them. I'll be damned if I let corporations dictate to me what I do and dont like because "they" know what "I" want. They dont know shit. I already know. Loot boxes and battle passes, isn't it. (which seems to be the only software they can write that actually does work consistently) Bad enough they cant seem to create a game that actually works on release, and I've never seen a more pathatic set up than their so called "live service" where THEY get to make all the rules and you just get to sit down and eat it.
What I don't get is why does EVERY game nowadays have to have the exact same progression system? Why aren't more games embracing a non-linear system like TF2's Contracker?
Apex does a similar thing to Destiny it sounds, there are Apex Packs (3 random items with a guaranteed rare) in their Battle Passes but there is a lot of getting almost useless things for characters you don't own which is annoying with the Freemium Pass; it's really only worth playing with the Premium Pass if you want skins. It's an okay system but I think it should go the route of Halo Infinite where once you've bought a pass there's no time limit to unlock everything and I guess making the chances of getting cosmetics for a character you own higher and then showing the odds like they do before you purchase an Apex Pack.
If your game/hobby variety is low, then battlepasses are awesome. The grind isn’t as bad and it’s transparent. But, if you’re someone with lots of game/hobby variety, then you either accept that you’ll never be able to get stuff or pay up. For me, OW1’s system was better
I think it make sense season pass is a worse system for most gamers, since the gambling addicts were contributing so much to the revenue in loot boxes, a equivalent battle pass model would need a lot more people to buy battle pass to make the same revenue. So yeah, your game got more expensive or more grindy, but at least you are no longer participating in a preditory game. This is like the sweatshops thing, sure the cloth made by sweatshop kids are cheaper, but is it worth it?
*BRUCE, I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY, BRUCE! I BUY THE STORE CONTENT IN HALO INFINITE! I'M SORRY I MADE YOU LIE! I'M SORRY!* Can't wait for the next patron meetup!
Loot boxes were and will always be trash, but the fact of the matter is, companies will find ways to do the same thing just under a different name. Monetization is not a bad thing per say, but the whole loot box thing was predatory in no uncertain terms. Battle passes, while accomplishing the same goal as the loot box, are at least not as predatory in that its not a random thing that forces or entices players to keep buying more and more in and effort to get that one special thing and never being guaranteed anything in particular. Battle passes are laid out clearly from the get go, so you know what youre going to get and there is no gambling aspect bottomless pit of fomo that takes advantage of people with poor impulse control. Granted, some battle passes do have a limited time nature but comparing that to the gambling nature of loot boxes or the fomo of those mechanics is not even the same. Neither of these things is great, but at least with a battle pass the gamer/player/user has some level of control and agency in the transaction and are just as guilty as the company selling them if they chose to engage in the transaction.
The entire AAA industry is a blight. The constant need to maximize profits led to all these gross and very arguably immoral methods of profit generation.
How long toll they ban the original "lootboxes", Random packs and starters for CCG's,& CMG's even though they don't count as gambling! They are played by a lot of kids!
Now is when these battle passes will have ridiculous challenges and tasks in order to get certain items and will sell you levels, can't compete with the greed. But hey at least I can calculate how much money I'll have to spend if I really want a cosmetic and it won't be a random chance, using probabilities are a spit on your face and the morality of their business strategy
I hate Battle Pass because it requires me to play the game regularly. And I don't need another job. Loot boxes I feel I can not trust the RNG, especially when you do not see what you roll and what your rolling against. I just want to play a game, have fun with friends and know the battlefield is even to everyone.
Honestly I prefer loot boxes over the battle pass system. Battle passes are always underwhelming in terms of reqards. And u only get 1 shitty reward every lvl. Previously every lvl got me 4 items and they could be multiple legendaries. Also battle pass makes it so everyone has the same cosmetics which is boring
you know, those articles are exactly why gambling is addicting and bad............. why do you think they miss loot boxes? it's the addiction lol.......
I actually thought the overwatch loot box system was pretty good, not perfect, but the battle pass craze is sucking all the joy out of video games. You immediately see everything you can, and will unlock, and its just a matter of giving up your time to do it. If you have to convince me to keep playing the game with all these rewards, then the game clearly isn't engaging
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I miss the days when cosmetics and unlocks were just locked behind in game achievements. So you could show off your accomplishments and feel like you earned it.
indeed, reminds of the days of classic WOW and Halo when you saw someone with rare armor or weapons, you know they earned it, not bought it. it pushed you to want to get better and get that gear too
yeah i just bought my niece 'immortal fenyx' gold edition thinking it has everything, but surprised they got a store in in the game to buy armour, swords shields, mounts etc with gems or something which uses real money, had to spend another 30-35 on top of the game to get it for her friggin ridiculous !!
We went from having basic features being put behind a paywall we must pay to MAYBE get something back, to having basic features put behind a paywall we must pay to get it back.. THIS AINT IT CHIEF!
There is some merit to the battle pass system though, like Lawrence said. We went from a system that used gambling (and therefore prayed on people with gambling addictions) to a system where the transaction is much more fair and transparent. I don't like to grind either, but at least people with addictive personalities aren't being swindled anymore.
That't the effect to going to f2p. if they did not ditch the lootbox, their lootbox looks like you pay 10$ for a 0.01% chance to get a character
Im sooo tired of this take. ANY multiplayer would gain for more players, more players just mean faster queues and more balanced matches since the matchmaking algorithm has a lot more to draw from. If they need to put COSMETICs behind a paywall so be it, battle passes allowing game to go f2p are one of the best things to happen to Competitive FPS games
@@yangxiaolong1862 More people, more cheaters, more p2w, more grind, more slogs of dead weight. Queues are faster, player quality is poorer. Like fast food.
The only Gaming news show brave enough to upload during my 20 minute GameStop lunch haha 🔥
the only commenter brave enough to still be working at GameStop😂😂😂
@@milesjones4254 FR 🤣
Twenty minutes seems too short, isn't thirty minutes the standard?
That's why I said what I said because that's oppression right there😂😂😂💯
20 minutes is cursed
One of the problems with loot boxes was the low sucess rates in getting what you wanted. It's sounds like the battle pass strategy is pretty much the same only obscured.
The biggest issue, at least for me, with Overwatch 2 is that those cosmetics never had a set price to them until now. Legendary skins you would get in a loot box by either leveling up or buying them is now worth 20 bucks. So now its either buying it out right or doing weekly quests for months to be able to afford it. You dont get a box for leveling up anymore, its just a battle pass that is useless if you dont buy it.
I was pretty bummed when me and friends played overwatch 2 and after our session we didn't have our ritual of opening up the 2-3 boxes we earned that evening
The part thats not mentioned regarding OW2 is that the "in game currency" you can "earn" is... 60 per week? And a legendary skin is... 1900 of said currency, or a little under 20 dollars worth.
Loot boxes were so much more fair. You could get so much in game currency from just playing the game
Props for not holding back on Hawley
I hate microtransactions and lootboxes in general but OW1 was the ONE decent implementation I've ever seen. You got 3 free loot boxes every day for certain game mode wins and one free box every level up forever. Duplicates gave currency you could use to buy the thing you wanted (except event specific legendaries I think?) and it was fun to open them and it meant you always had cosmetic for almost every character and might have certain cosmetics you never wouldve picked for yourself but since you have them you mightaswell use them. Battle Passes are just gimmicks to get people playing longer. Not fun.
Agreed. I never felt like I had to pay extra to unlock anything in overwatch.
With the new system, if you don't pay, you don't get shit.
We went from lootbox/surprise/gambling mechanics to a battle pass/subscription service with in game currency on the side. Don't think it's a win!
How is that not a win? Literally anything is better than lootboxes
@@Seb_Falkor just imagine if they're both piles of poop but one is human and the other is cat, they're both still poop.
@@00Herobrine I mean if you think BPs and stores are poop, sure. On the other hand, I actually like BPs and stores as long as the game is free. I don’t have to drop 40-70 bucks and I can just play the game. If I want extra shit I buy it. If I don’t, I don’t.
@@Seb_Falkor I agree here. It's fine this way. I just hope OW2's character unlock system isn't trash. That's the worst of it right now.
I will say, Apex Legends has all of the above and it's pretty great. You get the casual excitement of a lootbox once in a while and sometimes you get a cool thing, but if you really want to just get the cool thing, you just buy it in the shop or get it in the Battle Pass. Also if you complete their BP every season, you can automatically afford it next season.
@@Seb_Falkor Literally the same argument can be made for lootboxes.
If we are talking about loot boxes, we also have to talk about genshin which is super popular, made a lot of money, and shows no sign of moving away from loot boxes like monetization.
I don’t love its gacha system but Genshin is largely a free single-player game, unlike OW1, Diablo mobile, Fortnite, League of Legends, etc.
The Battle Pass is a problem but I feel the actual real problem are the limited rotating stores, because that's what causes the hoarders to just buy everything once it pops in.
This. The timed storefronts add very unnecessary pressure to buy then and there. They need to be forced to have all released skins available for purchase. Have a storefront for sales or promotions or whatever but if a skin exists for sale, it needs to be for sale. Not like digital goods have any actual scarcity so no reason to limit availability other than pure unacceptable greed.
@@smithynoir9980 If Battle Passes were a problem they wouldn't give you back the amount of play money needed to renew it next season. The only reason it exists is to keep you playing the game long enough to want something from the store.
I ONLY like loot boxes if you can buy them with free in-game currency. It's fun like a surprise toy, but if you either get a duplicate or something you didn't want, you didn't waste real money on it.
For Take Two and NBA 2K, people who hard core play the MyTeam game type (The game type shown at 2:40 ) is a very niche part of NBA 2k players. The money they mainly get is from people buying VC™to upgrade their MyPlayer
overwatch will suffer from they way they are handling the battle pass, since there is no way to earn currency for the next bp within the current one, as well as locking heroes behind them
The problem with battle pass it is that if you are a player that don't want to expend any money, you are lockout the opportunity to get the seasonal skins, with loot boxes even if it was a little chance you have an opportunity better than 0
I enjoy opening loot boxes when they're free, but I've never spent real world money on them. I don't mind battle passes cause I can see what the rewards are, and decide not to get it if I don't like them. I do agree that Destiny is a very good example right now.
you didn't touch the fact that on some battle passes you can actually buy lvls with money
Digital items are just way too expensive. Pay $20 for a skin that doesn’t actually exist no thanks
i just don't know how anyone enjoys those card based lootboxes within the sports game.
I never thought I'd see the day when that sentence would come true. It's been 84 years.
Somehow Actiblizzard made me wish for loot boxes to come back.
Yeah weirdly I hate this new system more 😭😂
I agree, i liked getting a loot box for playing, the battle pass sucks all the fun out of games, every game presenting itself as this massive list of levels you'll have to grind through is super off putting to me, games aren't meant to be work
Awesome to see ya'll together again! Great vid as always, thank you. Keep up the intelligent and funny analysis 👍
sports games are an enigma to me. all of my friends exclusively play them, hundreds of hours. but are always talking about how bad the games are, yet still end up spending $50 per new character they make. one of my buddies spent $500 on micro transactions in nba 2k21 alone
The biggest problem with Overwatch's battle pass is that it's made to gouge you of time to maximize it AND totally drain your wallet. Every single tier is 10,000XP regardless of whether it's for a shitty spray, voiceline, or legendary skin. It never tapers lower than that and having to grind through such a large chunk for something you may not even want blows.
On top of that they've made their in game currency, which you buy both skins and future battle passes with, near impossible to get. At most you're looking to grind around 500 coins each battle pass season while a new battle pass costs 1,000 coins. Then you have skins that are only available for purchase that aren't included in the battle pass at all going for 1,000 - 2,200 coins, literally more than the battle pass. So you need to grind the living fuck out of the battlepass to get everything, dump additional money in for coins for limited shop only skins AND continue dumping in money for future battle passes.
As someone who played Overwatch since Day 1 launch and never became someone who hated the game it's horribly frustrating. I never had to buy lootboxes because I just played the game on a regular basis and grinded arcade when I wanted extra. The only time I bought boxes was when I literally had to have surgery at Halloween and couldn't bring myself to miss certain skins. It was fun to be able to collect all the skins for heroes, even if you didn't play them. While cosmetics don't add anything to the game it was rewarding for long time players to be able to see those completed hero layouts as a little reward for just playing. Now it feels skeezy anytime I click the "shop" button.
i think for a casual gamer loot boxes are better because battle passes take way longer then and they expire after a season and i might completely miss some skins
Look boxes based on gambling is never better and always predatory. Battle Passes are bad too, players shouldn't have to pay to be able to earn progression rewards. It's just a move to make players pay AND keep playing instead of retaining player numbers due to the game being fun.
Both need to be removed completely and replaced with an actual consumer friendly storefront that sells everything that's ever been available while also rewarding character progression with either legendary skins or storefront currency.
As if that'd ever happen though so long as people keep sinking $ into shitty practices.
Back in the day we had an in game store in Halo Reach with zero microtransactions, yes, paid dlc, but still so so much better than what we have today.
You guys should check out indie games. 'Paying for a game and that's it' is still very much a thing with those.
The "I love Jane Austen" line got me.
I've missed this. It's good to y'all together again!
As someone who plays LoL and got used to their monetization system, (I spend nowhere near as much money in that game as I once did) when people first started to really complain about loot boxes, this is just about the future that I saw coming. Service games are here to stay, and those games will either die or figure out a way to get your money to stay in business. If it's not spending a lower dollar amount on a handful of lootboxes, then it'll be $20 for a premium tier battle pass that you have to grind. If not a battle pass, they'll just have everything a la carte for you to buy but NONE of the skins you want will be cheap because now the randomness is gone. So it's like "ok, you can no longer spend $5 on 6 loot boxes, each with a small chance of getting cool skin, instead you can just buy that one Legendary skin that you want and it'll cost $25-$30
I was just mentioned in an article on game rant after bringing the attention to a price difference on pc (23.99usd) and console (19.99usd) for league tokens in overwatch. After saying "they'll look into it" they raised the price for consoles... the greed knows no limits 😅👌
Omg I haven’t watched inside gaming since y’all left how have I not known about this channel
10:15 And don't forget the madden's 45% of all sales the last 9 years is in loot boxes! Rather than making a Madden better than Madden '06
When we getting Brian?
Overwatch 2's problem isn't that it moved over to a battle pass, the problem is how terribly everything is handled, and how poultry all the rewards are. Literally all they have to do is hand out currency at a better rate (like adding an extra zero to the weekly rewards), and it'll be more bearable for the average player.
Awesome timeless subjects commented on in this video, thank you inside games :-) I am totally Nurding out with Marvel snap right now, and I am reminded of my time playing hearthstone several years ago, I guess that was the mid 2010s… After the Blitzchung nonsense happened, and after all the news about Activision blizzard came out, I decided I was too disgusted with Activision blizzard to keep playing any of their games, so I had them delete all of my data, and I moved on to Elder scrolls legends and replays of Skyrim and cyber punk and zillions of other games that captured my interest at the time… And now I have marble snap, and I’m totally digging it, and I bought the little three dollar welcome pack to get a variant of the captain America card or whatever, basically I bought it for A card skin and some in game currency to boost to the cards or whatever… I’m OK with having made that purchase, and now I see that they’re showing a battle pass for October with a bunch of Spider-Man characters, and it looks kind of cool. I go back-and-forth with this stuff, and I liked everyone chiming in about the different types of monetization they feel sort of comfortable or uncomfortable with… I think along the way, if marvel snap releases a battle pass that has characters I like in it a little bit more, maybe some different avengers characters or cosmic beings or whatever, I might buy one… Especially if they release a battle pass related to Ant-man quantum mania, or some thing tied into season two of the Loki TV show, etc. I have bought some MTX over the years, some occasional random packs for Brawlhalla, some occasional discrete skins for weapons and characters and all that… And of course I grew up in the 70s and 80s playing arcade games all the time, so it’s not like micro transactions are a new thing to me in life… I just don’t like mega corporations playing shifty games with their audiences, being “predatory“
Case in point from the arcade era: while I sort of enjoyed the arcade game ghosts and goblins, I would argue that that game is so ridiculously hard but it was almost verging into the predatory area of sliding in quarters :-) that’s a meme across the Internet of course, the famous hardness difficulty of ghosts and goblins… I definitely enjoy playing console or occasionally emulated versions of it, in which I can just press the insert coin button and keep running through levels and dying hilariously and all that
6:18 kinda weird to bring up, but alright Lawrence...
I actually loved loot boxes, (when games gave them out as rewards for progression on your characters and not a 1/50 chance lottery for 2 pairs of socks or something...)
The only title I know of that gives them out like Candy now is The Division 2 and it's great, no pay walls, no cheap gimmicks or shit tier loot, it's all scaled to your characters level and they're just earned by leveling up or completing objectives.
The only pay wall is in the season pass stuff but even then you get alot of the items just playing the base game without shoveling out any money at all, and with the various seasonal events you get multiple ways to earn them participating in the events.
Guns, Exotics, Armor, Cosmetics, and skins/paint for your weapons and armor.
Apex was fun until they nerfed the chance to get anything good.
It's been so long since I have seen a single shard.
I wish battlepasses persisted after sthe season. Like, maybe the battlepass is only available for a little while but if you fall off the game and come back in six months you can still keep progressing your battle pass
Why sell individual loot boxes when you can sell subscriptions to in-game loot system instead.
They just didn’t wanna show them how bad the stats for getting legendary skin are compared to getting nothing but duplicates
*looks at title~ AAA corporate execs all died?
Honestly BPs and stores are way better than lootboxes, and I can’t believe there are people defending them. Especially for free games
The thing with OW2's BP, there's 80 levels and 60 you need to pretty much pay for. Also, bring back 6 player for the love of God.
i found monetization has ruined most AAA games for me. the scummy nature of it sucks the fun right out. ... but on the other hand ive been playing a bunch of other games like the long dark and archvale.
I think they should just follow either the style of Fortnite, League of Legends or Dota 2 for what they do with cosmetics.
Fortnite has a battlepass that you can levelup and a store that hasa shop where you can directly buy cosmetics with what it is selling reseting.
Wih League you can just by skins.
Dota 2 has besides a market has treasures which while it may act like loot boxes since it gives a random reward, is much better since you can actually see the reward and it will give you a set from those rewards. Not only cant you gain duplicates, but the more of that chest you open, the higher chances you can get the set you need. If you have a treasure containing 9 cosmetic sets and you open 9 of those same treasures, then you will get all those 9 sets.
I miss my overwatch loot boxes.
I have yet to meet someone who likes the OW2 Battlepass system more then the Lootbox OW1 system. Now instead of having lootboxes that you get for free and being able to buy skins for in game currency, you have to buy a battle and some skins cost 20 USD. The price of a full indie game or an old AAA title. Fuck this new system, loot boxes for cosmetics are fine and always better than battle passes where you must pay to get something. The reason for the transition to battle pass system is money, it makes way more money as people can see what they will get when they buy the battle pass and play for long periods of time so it also increases player retention as once you have bought the battle pass you don't want your money to be wasted by not playing enough and not getting that one special thing you wanted that is locked behind level 85 of the 100 level battle pass.
Hate battle passes 100 times more than loot boxes. "Oh you don't like just paying for things? How about having to pay for the opportunity to work more for even less things?"
Tbh, when it comes to a game like ow I would prefer lootboxes over season passes just because I hate not having the chance of getting a skin I want if it's out of season.
I hate battlepasses so fucking much
My buddy who played ow1 before bed every night never opened his and he had almost 1500 loot boxes opened for him haha.
COD points in warzone/MW2019 was alright with me since you will get your 1k cod points back. BUT, you need to grind the 100 tiers. you still have the option to buy it out for 2400 iirc. my issue is the progression though, if its horrendous like Cold War, then its not a good trade off.
I don't care enough about cosmetics to spend any real money on them. The only real complain I have about the OW2 cosmetic system is that there isn't an ingame currency that allows you to buy any cosmetic you want in the game, whenever you want. It's either grind to get specific rewards that you don't want, or spend money to get the rewards you really want. I think it's very anti-consumer, especially for Overwatch since it had such an open currency system in the first game.
Loot boxes are just getting replaced with battlepasses, which are just as greedy and time consuming of a grind than collecting and opening loot boxes.
The idea of a battle pass in such a badass looking game like Diablo IV is just so unsavory for me.
Rocket League stopped it too, to a Fortnite-style battle (rocket) pass. The only problem is they removed the RNG in random repeated items after unlocking all the normal items, and every repeated, painted/special item is predetermined, which is lame. However, if you hit level 100, you get your money back in their credit system and can buy the next season pass, essentially for free. So I spent 10 dollars when the system came out a few years ago and haven't spent a dollar since on hundreds of free items.
Overwatch needs to borrow Destiny's system: essentially keep loot boxes (not buyable) that players earn but an open rotating marketplace for direct purchase
I’ll only buy a battle pass if I can earn enough currency to buy the next battle pass
I noticed that with rocket league but this season you are missing 100 credits at lvl100 to buy the next pass, worrisome if there isn't any more after lvl100
In actually preffered lootboxes to the super grind...
But "Surprise Mechanics" are in!
3:25 every single time gamers are mad at something
It’s weird, Overwatch was one of the few games that did loot boxes correct, I got a ton of cool skins over the years for free. I kind of miss them 🤷♂️
Loot boxes and battle passes have both become a problem. Some battle passes have become worse than their loot box predecessor. Loot boxes are the literal worse and it’s sad that I miss them in Overwatch 2. I had a chance to get that skin I wanted in a free loot box. Now I don’t even want to play the game because I’m an adult with a life. I know I just don’t have the time with the super slow grind they’ve implemented to get anything. If the grind was reasonable I wouldn’t complain. Dead by Daylight has a similar system to OW2, but I never feel like it’s intrusive or forceful when it comes to the shop. The battle pass free items can be earned without spending my entire life playing DBD and leveling up gets you shards that can be used in the shop. Often they just throw you free gifts or shards. Time will tell if OW2 can balance a better system or if free to play means it will always be an impossible grind.
I’ll see it to believe it
Is the financial success/user tolerance of loot-boxes in FIFA and other sports games possible because of the sports card trading that they emulate? Thoughts.?
I liked with OW you had the option to pay for lootboxes or you just completed some challenges and got them for free.
This is the first time I've ever heard a gaming channel mention Calvin Harris
simple solutions... Stop buying this shit. I havent bought a new game that I have fully enjoyed in over six years. 3 years ago I stopped buying when it became clear they will never stop if no one makes them. I play my outdated games and I am still able to enjoy them. I'll be damned if I let corporations dictate to me what I do and dont like because "they" know what "I" want. They dont know shit. I already know. Loot boxes and battle passes, isn't it. (which seems to be the only software they can write that actually does work consistently) Bad enough they cant seem to create a game that actually works on release, and I've never seen a more pathatic set up than their so called "live service" where THEY get to make all the rules and you just get to sit down and eat it.
What I don't get is why does EVERY game nowadays have to have the exact same progression system?
Why aren't more games embracing a non-linear system like TF2's Contracker?
Apex does a similar thing to Destiny it sounds, there are Apex Packs (3 random items with a guaranteed rare) in their Battle Passes but there is a lot of getting almost useless things for characters you don't own which is annoying with the Freemium Pass; it's really only worth playing with the Premium Pass if you want skins. It's an okay system but I think it should go the route of Halo Infinite where once you've bought a pass there's no time limit to unlock everything and I guess making the chances of getting cosmetics for a character you own higher and then showing the odds like they do before you purchase an Apex Pack.
If your game/hobby variety is low, then battlepasses are awesome. The grind isn’t as bad and it’s transparent. But, if you’re someone with lots of game/hobby variety, then you either accept that you’ll never be able to get stuff or pay up.
For me, OW1’s system was better
I think it make sense season pass is a worse system for most gamers, since the gambling addicts were contributing so much to the revenue in loot boxes, a equivalent battle pass model would need a lot more people to buy battle pass to make the same revenue. So yeah, your game got more expensive or more grindy, but at least you are no longer participating in a preditory game. This is like the sweatshops thing, sure the cloth made by sweatshop kids are cheaper, but is it worth it?
i just learned that brian moved over here. i dont know why, but he was the only reason i was subscribed to the other channel still.
I would gladly take loot boxes where we can earn some weekly over the macrotransactions we get now in games like Overwatch and Halo Infinite.
*BRUCE, I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY, BRUCE! I BUY THE STORE CONTENT IN HALO INFINITE! I'M SORRY I MADE YOU LIE! I'M SORRY!*
Can't wait for the next patron meetup!
If battlepasses didn't go away after time wether you finish or not, i would be more on board with buying them
Battle passes feel less evil. They may be the same but ya know it just feels less ew
Loot boxes were and will always be trash, but the fact of the matter is, companies will find ways to do the same thing just under a different name. Monetization is not a bad thing per say, but the whole loot box thing was predatory in no uncertain terms. Battle passes, while accomplishing the same goal as the loot box, are at least not as predatory in that its not a random thing that forces or entices players to keep buying more and more in and effort to get that one special thing and never being guaranteed anything in particular. Battle passes are laid out clearly from the get go, so you know what youre going to get and there is no gambling aspect bottomless pit of fomo that takes advantage of people with poor impulse control. Granted, some battle passes do have a limited time nature but comparing that to the gambling nature of loot boxes or the fomo of those mechanics is not even the same. Neither of these things is great, but at least with a battle pass the gamer/player/user has some level of control and agency in the transaction and are just as guilty as the company selling them if they chose to engage in the transaction.
Crazy but yeah loot boxes worked with overwatch
Overwatch 2 probably made the battlepass intentionally bad so that people won't complain if they bring back loot boxes
The entire AAA industry is a blight. The constant need to maximize profits led to all these gross and very arguably immoral methods of profit generation.
Team old school before video games got so fucking convoluted.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally!!!!
The battle pass is worse. I have basically every skin I wanted from Overwatch 1 and never spent money on that shit.
I'm on team: single player campaign no multiplayer.
How long toll they ban the original "lootboxes", Random packs and starters for CCG's,& CMG's even though they don't count as gambling! They are played by a lot of kids!
I'm little sad loot boxes are gone from overwatch.. they stole a bunch from me that forgot too open, then gave me 600 credits 🤣 Now skins are like 19$
Now is when these battle passes will have ridiculous challenges and tasks in order to get certain items and will sell you levels, can't compete with the greed. But hey at least I can calculate how much money I'll have to spend if I really want a cosmetic and it won't be a random chance, using probabilities are a spit on your face and the morality of their business strategy
Wait, Sean McLaughlin? Jacksepticeye?
Overwatch is the only game that is better with loot boxes in, hands down
happy to see those faces again
I hate Battle Pass because it requires me to play the game regularly. And I don't need another job. Loot boxes I feel I can not trust the RNG, especially when you do not see what you roll and what your rolling against. I just want to play a game, have fun with friends and know the battlefield is even to everyone.
Micro-transactions in retail games always feel predatory to me, but it’s more tolerable if the games are free
Honestly I prefer loot boxes over the battle pass system. Battle passes are always underwhelming in terms of reqards. And u only get 1 shitty reward every lvl. Previously every lvl got me 4 items and they could be multiple legendaries. Also battle pass makes it so everyone has the same cosmetics which is boring
you know, those articles are exactly why gambling is addicting and bad............. why do you think they miss loot boxes? it's the addiction lol.......
I actually thought the overwatch loot box system was pretty good, not perfect, but the battle pass craze is sucking all the joy out of video games. You immediately see everything you can, and will unlock, and its just a matter of giving up your time to do it. If you have to convince me to keep playing the game with all these rewards, then the game clearly isn't engaging