Extra Credits

Getting the info in a more scripted format in the actual show can be nice, I think.

I believe this set was all about repeats purely because of the humble bundle thing.

In other news, the team is bringing Extra History back, and they have a Patreon for it..

...and done. They're the third You Tube channel I'm donating to now.

They just sent me an e-mail saying they'd reached their 5,000 goal.

There's a surprisingly civil discussion in the comments about other positive aspects of the BS that aren't mentioned in this video.

Also, a new Extra History. This time about the general environment in Europe during the lead-up to World War One.

BS is a hilarious, if inaccurate, acronym for the blue shell. Cool episode, anyway.

And so Extra History starts (with new member in the team). Pity it is a subject I am already reasonably familiar to, but it is still a very interesting and often overlooked one.

I didn't remember much of the lead-up to WWI only the death-of-prince part. Probably because we dirty Americans and our isolationist ways.

I gotta say, these guys really have a way with words when it comes to these episodes.

"This war broke empires."

He sounds pretty mad.

...who spends over a thousand dollars...? I guess that's a whale for ya. Yeesh, if I had a job, I'd limit it to within a budget.

Well, they're the whales. That thousand or so dollars is their budget.

Heh. I know what he meant when he talked about a sandwich that changed history.

The video says Hearthstone does it right. Basically, he only blames P 2 W facebook games.

Hey, paying 2$ for one attempt at a gametype in a game isn't wrong, but facebook games are.

The whole problem -is- the fact that thats the only problem we think there is in F 2 P games. Apparently its only wrong when it costs 5000$, not 500$. And its only wrong when its blatantly P 2 W (which hearthstone kind of is, but I don't even care about that).

In summary, I don't think he got the real issue.

"Pay to win" only becomes a problem when only those willing to drop inordinate amounts of cash on a game can expect to do well (or when they prey on the player's psyche like he alluded to, but that's a different issue). If the game gives the free or nearly-free player a fighting chance, then the money advantage diminishes. This might cause the "whales" to refrain from spending as much as they would otherwise, but it also makes everyone else more likely to make at least some small purchases.

Besides, as stated in the video, gamers as a whole need to stop expecting free-to-play games to be 100% free. While $500 is IMO still in "whale" territory, $50 is not, and if I like the free parts of the game and am intrigued enough by the paid content, then so long as it's priced reasonably I'm perfectly happy tossing some money the developer's way.

^^I think you misunderstood what they said, they said that tactic that aims for people willing to give ridiculous amount of money to game is unsustainable and just plain wrong <_<

I think I would be more cool with the F 2 P model if more games had some kind of threshold where after you spend a reasonable amount of money on microtransactions, like sixty dollars, you'll have access to everything gameplay related (excluding cosmetic stuff).

edited 4th Sep '14 9:02:29 PM by DrStarky

In other news, grass is green.

How to do F2P effectively: The game is totally free and you can buy cosmetic stuff for your character. At the end of the day, the guy that has spent $100 and the guy that has spent nothing have more or less the same experience. The guy that spent money doesn't get perks that put him above everyone else.

That's it. Pretty much nothing else can really be said.

You make that assertion as if it were self-evident. How exactly is it more effective? (Also, effective at doing what?)

The only F 2 P game I know that only sells cosmetics is Dota 2, and I think it can only do that because it's an established propertey and run by a huge company that can afford to run it at a loss. I'm 100% all for even playfeilds just don't think most games will be able to make a profit off a cosmetic-only model.

I'm okay with paying for gameplay stuff, but only if I can purchase all of the "peices" at a reasonable and transperent price tag.

Team Fortress 2 manages to make a lot of money off of cosmetics, though it's an unusual case because it didn't go free-to-play until after it was already quite popular.

For the record, I only have a real problem with microtransactions when it's in a versus multiplayer type game. Single-player games and co-op multiplyer I'm cool with.

Loadout did pretty well with a cosmetic only FTP model. Well, before it Jumped the Shark that is

They sent me the Patreon voting link, to pick for a next Extra History topic. They're giving 4 topics to choose from.

I think I'm allowed to say my choice: I've always been a fan of Alexander the Great.