When a game is "Free" then "YOU" are the product

I mean, let's be fair now Forever. Grinding Gear's still doing way better than literally anything MiHoYo puts out. Murica-born Freemium games ain't got smack on the sheer life-ruining predation of Gacha.

Agreed. Doesn't contradict what I said. :P

Although Genshin itself was and is a LOT more generous in the free department than most gacha games -- I cleared both of the areas on release without spending a cent. It was only after I got bored that I started to roll for certain characters.

No idea where it is now, but given how much bank it made, I'm guessing it's doing just fine.

I've still spent roughly 5 times more on PoE than any gacha game. And the gacha game I've spent most on, I've maxed everything I want. And then some.

"

1453R wrote:

I mean, let's be fair now Forever. Grinding Gear's still doing way better than literally anything MiHoYo puts out. Murica-born Freemium games ain't got smack on the sheer life-ruining predation of Gacha.

GGG isn't American, and it's owned by Tencent.

All of the popular MH games are killing it right now. Genshin still plugging along, HSR is a monster, and ZZZ just had 50+ Million register.

*I actually really like HSR on PS5. Play it often.

Sure, but the freemium model was, I believe, born in America and has been enthusiastically adopted by American (or at least Global Western) companies. Gacha is much more of a thing in Eastern markets, though obviously Genshin, Honkai, and the rest have made significant footholds in the West as well. I have no personal experience with the genre as I very much refuse to engage with it, heh. Freemium's hit me hard enough as it is - (imagine a woman staring hard at her Wall of Shame on the right over there for a moment) - I refuse to dignify gacha with a single dented penny.

'Course I'm hardly an economist so what do I know, hueh. Like, clearly it's working for them like crazy, yeah, but the endless "just one more pull" memes are there for a reason.

100%. It's gambling for weebs. And I have never gone beyond my means with any sort of gambling. Hell I feel weird putting 20 bucks into a poker machine, which are *really* common in Australia. We have a huge gambling problem here, and it's baked into almost every layer of our society.

But in this thread, we're kind of just comparing different apples, and in this example, all apples are at least a little rotten.

"

ABagOfChitlins wrote:

Folks,

The main reason, however, this post exists is because I've witnessed multiple responses, threads and replies about a new league that is ALREADY negative without having any direct knowledge or evidence (for example, "omg, they nerfed "x" and "y"). I get it. You and I can have our built-in opinions (prejudice) about certain things about the game based on past and recent history, but that doesn't mean you and I will be correct.

Typical standard these days with some snowflake players being just always unhappy regardless of what devs have to offer along with people who complain while not even playing at all anymore.
Always quiet entertaining to see some weird takes about some league specific stuff while the player didn't even touched the game or the leagues at all in a long time. Lol

"

I see speculation and conjecture about "omg POE2 is taking all resources from POE1" without direct knowledge or evidence to support it. Come'on folks.. stop it.

To be fair even GGG admitted that PoE2 takes more workforce causing PoE to be slightly slower in development due to less people working on it.

Yuh, fair enough. Heh, 'Wall of Shame' or no, it's a personal rule of mine to never spent money on a game like this unless it's money I won't miss. it's why I don't really regret any of my purchases even if other people are continually disgusted at my whale-ness. Hecc, I try and make a point of buying Supporter packs for the leagues where Grinding Gear does something right, like the Great Big Nerfening of everything a few-odd leagues back. 'The Community' was shrieking, and meanwhile I was applauding the decision. I think it was Archnem? I can never remember which version of the game introduced which changes, but eh. Y'all know what I mean.

The one thing I did regret was sinking a bunch of GGGold into the latest mystery box. Super wanted the fancy tree map device, decided to pop all my supporter GGGold on boxes in the thought that generally I get fairly lucky with the handful I grab here and there when the mix of offerings is mostly "yeah that looks like stuff I'd use". Burned a dismaying amount of points on what amounts to jack monkey squat, since it turned out almost all the boxes gave me variations on the handful of stuff in the box I didn't care about and will never use. Learned my lesson but good there - fuck loot boxes, even GGG's "Ethical(c)" loot boxes. Ain't worth it; even if I have to pay an unpleasant premium for the thing I actually want later on, at least then I get the thing I'm actually paying for.

Oh well. My own damn fault for counting on uncommon luck with previous free boxes and such. Sometimes a girl's gotta burn her fingers before she remembers that fire is hot.

What I can say as a customer who spent here, on average 15 bucks a year since 2013 (2 supporter packs and some random points purcheases to buy more tabs Im missing and some extra space for confort);

PoE monetization is the less persvasive out there. And the money spent grants you permanent improvement of your account (tabs, skins, effects), and at same time is fair play trade (you cannot buy "content", keys etc)

And, once there is no PvP were non-paying customers could be abused by paying customers (aka, they are content) your are not any product.

Also, there are no jackpots of any kind (I apreciate this very much, and anyone who has kids should), no forceful "season pases", no "legal" real money trades of any kind -direct or difered-

Just go ahead and compare with the obnoxious monetisation and casino of mobile games, DLC's with 10 hours of content by 40 bucks (say "vessel of d4bad"), console "game pass" and so on.

"

1453R wrote:

Hecc, I try and make a point of buying Supporter packs for the leagues where Grinding Gear does something right

I did the same.

Bought one of my supp packs (the malice one) in a year I cannot actively engage here. Just following the dev posts and supporting the decisions I like to be made if GGG was mine.

And yes, fuck loot boxes. Hardcore religion forbides gambling, also diguised gambling. ;)

"

Halugar wrote:

What I can say as a customer who spent here, on average 15 bucks a year since 2013 (2 supporter packs and some random points purcheases to buy more tabs Im missing and some extra space for confort);

No comment.

Pretty sure someone made the same thread some time ago.