Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

You're playing a very different of the game then, coz im level 50 in and i've not had this much money. And im going out of my way to get pawn quests that pay 10k a pop. The most I've had in money at one time is 96K and I spent 50K of that on a single weapon. and I've never had more than 5 ferrystones at once

80K with 15 Ferrystones in the bank only 10 hours into the game? No. I don't believe it. Heck if only because the fucking merchants don't restock them that fast.

10K is absolutely a colossal amount of money through the entire game.

Like, 10k is literally 1/5 the price of any gear item from the merchant at the end of the game's final area. It's a giant amount of money for one use of fast travel.

Edited by Ghilz on Mar 26th 2024 at 1:18:59 PM

1. Vendor inventory restocks happen every other day. You can force a reset just by going to sleep like two nights in a row. Or just by going out and exploring. It's really not that hard to make vendors refresh their inventory.

2. 15 ferrystones is partially due to me running a Thief with Plunder; I've gotten a good chunk of stones from that alone. But even without Plunder, I've still gotten quite a few just from quests or random chests in the world. Unless you use a ferrystone at every opportunity, you really shouldn't be running low on the things.

3. I checked my playtime; 21 hours total, though around 8 of that was because I left my PC and the game running after running out for an unexpected errand. So 13 hours.

4. Yes, the game absolutely throws money at you, just by exploring. Even with me throwing money around upgrading my stuff I've never run low on gold. Honestly, I don't see why some late-game weapons costing 50k would be such a drain; it's not like you buy a new weapon every five levels. Hell, the weapons I've found in the wild have been better than what's being sold in stores at the moment, never mind chests containing thousands of gold at a time, as well as selling excess materials (you really don't need more than a few of each).

The issue that a lot of people (like myself) have with the microtransaction is less what they give and more the fact they were released at launch, after pre-launch reviews, which assumed there were no microtransactions, were out.

It's still a shit look when a company knows that a part of the game is tedious, keeps it tedious, and then sells items to bypass the tediousness for real money while making the price in-game excessively expensive.

This is not actually true though. The review guide for the game every reviewer got mentions the microtransactions and even lists them out completely.

Reviewers chose to not mention them and go surprise pikachu face when they came out. Several review sites had to go back and ammend their review to excuse why they didnt mention them.

Which, again, is weird that they arent doing that. Selling Ferrystones would absolutely be a grift in this game. Only they chose not to? And instead the microtransactions are all weird worthless crap.

Edited by Ghilz on Mar 26th 2024 at 2:43:51 PM

I can't speak as if I've played the game myself but the theory I've seen is that the microtransactions basically exist to appease executives/shareholders/etc. by looking hilariously overbearing but the game itself being designed without them in mind.

I recall Devil May Cry 5 pulling something similar where you could buy continues, something that's worthless because even if you use them your level score gets penalized for you dying. The game as a whole has its progression and difficulty balanced like usual otherwise.

Steph explained as much that these "pointless" microtransactions are to normalize the behavior to the consumer so companies can slowly increase it's scope. They specifically called out that most games used to give cosmetics as quest rewards for free, but now it's an expected practice that you'll have to pay for costumes. They also made a point that some of these "pointless" microtransactions are accessibility functions for players with disabilities.

Because if these microtransaction shops give nothing of value, then why are they there?

Edited by Stage7-4 on Mar 27th 2024 at 7:24:24 AM

My big issue with this whole thing is that Steph is very, very clearly conflating a highly subjective aesthetic distaste for Dragon's Dogma's gameplay mechanics with an ethical argument about monetization, and retreats to the latter when challenged on the former.

Writing on Games has already made a response to this, which mostly coincides with my own opinion here:

A video on virtue signalling, the real kind where corporations try to brush away criticism by responding "We're diverse" to any complaints, using their employees as shields, and not the type that the usual crowd complains about when they see a story with diversity in it.

They are there for the ‘pay to skip’ crowd who does not have time to grind or unwilling to. Supposedly they are popular with the Japanese salaryman crowd.

That was meant as a rhetorical question, as the defense of microtransactions in Dragon's Dogma 2 and other similar cases centers on their perceived pointlessness.

In truth they aren't pointless or else they wouldn't be there.

Dragon Dogma's micro transactions literally do nothing to save you time or grind, so saying they are popular with time-starved salary men is very likely a lie.

Mike Ybarra, former president of a company who routinely fires its employees when having record profits and who follows RK Rowling on Twitter and is a TERF like her said people should be allowed to tip game developers on top of the full price coz some games are just that good.

Steph thinks he's either stupid or malicious or both

To be more precise, Stephanie argues that while the concept of tipping game devs is in of itself not a bad thing, there is no way in hell that the majority, if not totality, of tips will go to the company and not the workers. At worst, it might even lead to lower salaries for the workers so that the company can put the burden on consumers to pay tips much like the service industry in the US forces customers to pay tips so they don,t have to pay a living wage to their own workers.

Edited by Resileafs on Apr 15th 2024 at 10:17:43 AM

This is why when you tip at restaurants you leave the money for the wait staff.

It also helps that it's flat out illegal for a restaurant to seize the tips for themselves.

There's no law yet that would prevent a game publisher from taking the extra money that's intended for the actual developers.

In a prediction on their next video, Star Wars Outlaws locks it Jabba mission behind the $110 edition. Said mission was a pretty major feature of their trailers.

Oh Ubisoft.

Of all the big Developers that have fallen from grace for the past Decade or so (EA, Activision, Ubisoft) I honestly think Ubisoft has somehow managed to fall off the worst of all 3, and that's not a mean feat all things considering.

Has EA fallen from grace? I recall as far back as 2010 their reputation was terrible. They didn't have much grace to fall from.

EA's in the center of the earth.

Ubisoft and Activision fell so far they're in black holes.

EA's had a bad reputation for a while. But they somehow made themselves even less popular with their mishandling of the Star Wars ip. This also dragged down Disney by association since it was Disney who gave them the ip to mishandle.

Falling from Grace implies EA ever was in Grace, and EA's been the butt of jokes for decades. Back when the killed Bullfrog in the 90s.

I'd argue Activision has fallen the worst. Activision wasnt always liked but for most of their history they just kinda were there and nobody gave a shit. But the downfall with Blizzard which at one time was kind of one Gaming's sacred cow, and nowadays is practically a recurring punchline if employee abuse and mismanagement are the kind of joke you enjoy.

It's kinda weird to imagine that of the three EA nowadays is probably the one that's the least bad reputation wise? Simply by not having a reputation as a complete nightmare hellscape of employee abuse and sexual abuse. Like, congrats EA, you're just regular tech company corporate levels of terrible. That and EA can occasionally still put out a decent game which seems beyond Activision and Ubisoft's best efforts.

(And im saying as someone who worked for EA)

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 15th 2024 at 12:26:46 PM

They all have different kinds of evil. EA's particular brand is swallowing up smaller studios and dragging down their ip into the mud.

Ubisoft's is naked unrelenting greed coupled with how utterly formulaic their games have become. They want you to pay more and more for incredibly similar games.

Activision is mostly hated for butchering the Sacred Cow that was Blizzard.

How do we define big developers/publishers? Because at least those three are still making things that can be considered games. Konami hasn't made anything resembling a game since arguably MGS:V, nine years ago.

Yeah but even in that field EA's being outdone by Embracer.

And buying and absorbing talented studios to send them to the COD mines. RIP Raven Software.

Oh also the whole sexual abuse thing. And also, most of Blizzard's issues are self inflicted. Like, Activision poured fuel on the fire, but Blizzard started it themselves.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 15th 2024 at 12:44:31 PM