The MMO bloom and how they became the end points of some of the better franchises. Very good timing, because Bethesda had just announced Skyrim Anniversary Edition. 10 years passed, still no TESVI. Ty TES Online. Same could be said about several other franchises. Once a studio acquired a MMO cash cow they focused on it and cut expenses and effort elsewhere. Back then we’ve been thinking that having a cash cow is good because it’ll allow studios to expand and make a lot of other games, but in hindsight it was a stupidly idealistic thinking.
The bloom of mobile gaming, and it’s degenerate pay to progress concept. Initially they were more or less separate from “serious” PC&console gaming so I didn’t care what’s happening over there, not after “don’t you have phones” incident. Now it’s obvious that mobile gaming marked had sucked plenty of resources from “serious” gaming.
The shift from pay to play model to free to play model + cosmetic shop, then to pay to play + cosmetic shop, then pay to play + lootboxes. Yet again it was something I didn’t care about at first because cosmetics used to be completely optional, sometimes not even good. But then I tried one very popular game that obviously needed an update to it’s basic item design, and looking at it’s cosmetic shop I understood that it’s just not gonna happen.
The shift from large expansions to DLC to large expansions + DLC. You want a version with full content? Cool, it’ll cost you 150-200$+ with bundle discount once game’s life cycle is over. If you’re actually playing the game and following it’s every DLC release prepare to spend twice as much. Moreover, studios are incentivised to split what could had been a reasonable single expansion into many small pieces because they can then sell it as a standalone “optional” DLC, also incentivised to release half baked products because “they know it’ll become better with expansions so they’ll swallow that”.
The pattern should be obvious by now. So let’s not pretend that NFT for gaming business won’t affect us and we don’t have to rant about how we hate real-world economies in video games. I don’t question that studios and publishers who jump on that bandwagon first have chances of benefitting greatly from that, but for gaming it would be a negative trend beyond reasonable doubt.
If something can be done it will be done. Given your summary I expect NFT games to take their share of the gaming market.
With that said I do not see how video games benefit of NFTs. I’d rather expect these games being designed around the play-to-earn formula to the detriment of the gameplay.
I do not see the point in making such a game for our kind of community player then. You already see there’s severe player resistance here and this isn’t just about Grim Dawn as people say so much as it is about their/our view of gaming in general (e.g. “the future of gaming”).
If you want to try pitch something like this whether it uses Grim Dawn’s assets or not, you would be better off asking the Path of Exile community. There’s a gold mine of people that spend way too much money there.
1.) Yes, you’re right. But if we’re going to start pointing out idealistic thinking, it’s also idealistic to think that for-profit companies are going to knowingly design a game using a business model that makes them significantly less money. I’m as big a fan of offline RPGs as anyone here in this thread, as a gamer I’m also unhappy with where video games are headed. But I don’t think we can stop it, and I think this thread has been an echo chamber of some very passionate people who are too idealistic in thinking that things won’t or shouldn’t change. I stalwartly disagree that an economy wherein players own their equipment is worse than one where the publisher sells you items, bonuses, cosmetics, gacchas (gambling) and other things. You can argue you don’t like either, but I’m arguing they’re inevitably going to take over, and publishers that don’t convert are going to miss out financially and not have the means to keep up with their competitors over time.
2.) Yep
3.) Yep
4.) Yep
5.) Your final paragraph I agree with. It will inevitably affect you all, but you don’t have to play it. Though our options will continue to dwindle. You can choose to support the least shitty of the options available, which in my mind is a free to play game with a real world economy or games with excessive amounts of paid DLC content. I’d much prefer the F2P game with a real world economy and never ending developer support and content updates.
I disagree that they’ll receive more negative backlash than positivity. It’s more likely that they’ll inherit a massive new player base that is interested in this idea because the demand for gaming+NFTs is insanely high. The current community would likely be dwarfed by the old community, which obviously the folk in this forum don’t want. Let’s be honest, if you’re here in this forum talking about this stuff, you’re not the average person–you love this game and you love this community. But what is best for Crate Entertainment might not be what you want; or what the owner wants, even.
It’s interesting to me that your take away from all of the above reasons to pursue this model is “greed”. Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a great book, I encourage you to read it.
Considering that your entire premise was to entice them with all the immense wealth they were going to receive if they would only just adopt your idea, then yes, I’d say you are attempting to motivate via greed.
Yes, it will be done. And there is a world where Crate continues to make the games that it’s passionate about and also publishes different styles of games (play to earn) at the same time. This is not an ultimatum, it’s just an amazing opportunity to take existing content and turning it into something globally recognized. Crate could be the leader in this sector.
Then once again, I have to question: why are you here, discussing this with us, if virtually nobody on this forum is interested because many of us play games in the ARPG genre for fun rather than for monetary profit.
It isn’t “greedy” to be motivated by money, generate profit, or run a business efficiently, etc. Greed is immoral and negative. If someone says “this job will make you a lot of money”, you aren’t a greedy person for wanting to take the job.
You may have some unhealthy biases towards money. Money is just a tool to shape your reality. If you feel negative emotions when people talk about doing things for the sake of making a lot of money, and those things aren’t innately immoral, then I recommend reading the book.
I’ll pass. The whole idea and treatment you are envisioning for item handling is just bad. And yes, it’s entirely based on greed and getting rich… The entire “replacement community” you are imagining, I think it’s safe to say they would be filled with profit seekers and the “game” would degenerate into haves and have nots.
No thanks. But like I said, I am in no way worried about Crate going down your road. It’s not going to happen so this whole thread is pointless.
Emphasis on knowingly. GD made a good ROI by not taking on the big boys but instead carving it’s own niche, who knows where they would have ended up if they went F2P instead or took on D3.
No one knows what game will make how much money, otherwise no game would lose money.
Also, if you think there is no negative backlash to what you were proposing, then you weren’t paying attention to D3’s RMAH. As to how bad it is / would be, I have no idea, but I am definitely not at all convinced that it would break even, let alone have a better ROI than GD did.
you are hiding this very well As to whether it can be stopped, certainly not with your approach… you roll over dead before anything even is on the horizon.
I don’t think it can be stopped, but it will be one way of doing things among many, just like F2P is today
I own my equipment just as much (or little) in GD, D3, PoE,… you get the idea
It exists in the game and no one refunds me what I spent when the servers go down, so I actually own it less than I do in GD (but the same as in D3 or PoE)
Scummy crypto bullshit may or may not be “the future of gaming”, but it sure as hell isn’t for me, or I think anyone here. If every game made from now on is some kind of NFT nonsense, that doesn’t mean I’m dragged along with them, it means I no longer buy (new) games. Which honestly is not that big a deal - there are more than enough good games already made to keep me busy for the rest of my life.
But this also means there will always be a market for games for people like me, that are offline, single-player, have no scummy crypto bullshit, etc. So I’m pretty sure there will always be companies like Crate making games that cater to this market. Even if we do become a niche market of “legacy fans”.
(I’m sure I’m not the only one reminded of soccer’s ill-fated Super League attempt a few months back, also denigrating “legacy fans” (actual term they used on the record in interviews) because millions of new fans would take our place. Who of course never materialized. Hopefully the alleged “millions” who want this NFT nonsense are similarly nonexistent.)
I have no idea why this needs to be a public thread though, and why the OP has spent so much time arguing with users here. Nothing we say here has any consequence to the success of their offer.
If you’ve pitched the idea to Crate via email, they will respond if they deem it worthy, but making a thread explicitly to write “I sent you an email; please read it” seems like theatrics.
(And if you care for my worthless outsider opinion: from all I’ve seen of Crate and their stance on game development, I doubt you’ll find much success here.)
Sure, but that’s not my idealistic thinking. My idealistic thinking is while questionable business model may earn more money in the short it can result in a reputation damage, which may be very much ruinous in the long run.
Anyway, let’s end that discussion. I’m just an average Joe, in the end it is indeed a pointless rant.
As to whether it can be stopped, certainly not with your approach… you roll over dead before anything even is on the horizon.