Speaker 1: A comment on Reddit from game publisher e A broke
Speaker 1: all the records for most down votes with more than
Speaker 1: half a million responses. But how did gamers really fee
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and this is tex Stuff Daily. There's
Speaker 1: a lot going on with this story, so I'll take
Speaker 1: it piece by piece. Reddit, an online community where people
Speaker 1: share stories, tell jokes, ask questions, and linked to things
Speaker 1: they find interesting, has a simple system that allows users
Speaker 1: to up vote or down vote comments. It's a way
Speaker 1: for the community to express approval or disapproval. A recent
Speaker 1: post by games publisher e A smashed the record for
Speaker 1: most down votes. At the time of this recording, there
Speaker 1: are more than six hundred seventy seven thousand down votes.
Speaker 1: Previously the record was about twenty four thousand. Now a
Speaker 1: lot of those may come from bots and not real people,
Speaker 1: but still an astounding number. Gamers were angry about, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Gamers are always angry, but in particular,
Speaker 1: they were angry in the way e A had structured
Speaker 1: rewards in the new game Battlefront two, which is set
Speaker 1: in the Star Wars universe. A critical point was that
Speaker 1: when you first launched the game, you cannot just jump
Speaker 1: into any of the iconic characters from the series. You
Speaker 1: have to earn that ability, either by grinding away in
Speaker 1: the game for forty hours or more just to play
Speaker 1: as your favorite character, or by coughing up some cash
Speaker 1: to purchase the privilege of playing those characters. And this
Speaker 1: is on top of paying the full price for the
Speaker 1: game itself. Many players felt that this is unfair. It's
Speaker 1: as if e A had published a game, charged sixty
Speaker 1: dollars for it, and then locked away the most fun
Speaker 1: aspects of that game until you pay them more money
Speaker 1: to access it. And if you take a look at
Speaker 1: the economics behind the modern approach to video game publishing,
Speaker 1: you realize that's pretty much what's going on. There are
Speaker 1: different terms for it in the industry. The company Woulbisoft
Speaker 1: calls it player recurring investment or p r I. Publisher
Speaker 1: Take Two calls it recurrent consumer spending or r c S.
Speaker 1: But whatever you call it, it's all about creating an
Speaker 1: environment in which players will continue to spend money playing
Speaker 1: your game after the initial purchase. That might include micro transactions,
Speaker 1: supplemental downloadable content that adds more gameplay elements such as
Speaker 1: additional story or levels, cosmetic changes, to an existing game,
Speaker 1: or various types of player awards that may or may
Speaker 1: not affect gameplay, and it's a big business. Let's take Ubisoft,
Speaker 1: for example. During the company's midyear shareholder call, the company
Speaker 1: revealed that player recurring investment contributed fifty one of all
Speaker 1: digital revenue in the first half of That means the
Speaker 1: company made more from these ongoing purchases than from selling
Speaker 1: digital copies of the games themselves. With that sort of
Speaker 1: financial performance, you can expect to see a lot more
Speaker 1: games include some form of incentive to encourage players to
Speaker 1: continue pouring money into a title after it launches. Depending
Speaker 1: upon the implementation, players may not care so much with
Speaker 1: downloadable content or DLC. You might get new chapters of
Speaker 1: a game's story or new levels to play. If you
Speaker 1: really enjoyed playing a game, you may feel that another
Speaker 1: purchase is perfectly fine to get more of what you like.
Speaker 1: Many players are also fine with the concept of cosmetic purchases,
Speaker 1: either buying specific assets outright or through what are called lootboxes,
Speaker 1: which represent a random assortment of digital items. Many players
Speaker 1: aren't so crazy about games that allow you to purchase
Speaker 1: items that actually affect gameplay. The dismissive term among gamers
Speaker 1: for such practice is pay to win, meaning a player
Speaker 1: doesn't need to develop any skill or expertise with a game,
Speaker 1: but instead pay extra to get access to high powered
Speaker 1: items that give him or her an advantage within the
Speaker 1: game itself. Typically, these games allow you to earn rewards
Speaker 1: through actual gameplay, but at a very deliberate pace. There's
Speaker 1: a delicate science to this. A game developer wants to
Speaker 1: make a game that's compelling enough to convince people to play,
Speaker 1: but reserve just enough interesting content to convince a percentage
Speaker 1: of that game's audience to shell out some bucks to
Speaker 1: get that content early. However, if you reserve too much,
Speaker 1: players may feel like the base game isn't worth playing,
Speaker 1: or that you're extorting them for cash, or that you're
Speaker 1: sending the message that the game is only fun if
Speaker 1: you're willing to keep paying for it, and if the
Speaker 1: stuff you reserve has a big effect on how the
Speaker 1: game plays, players will resent either having to pay extra
Speaker 1: to avoid being left behind by less skilled players with
Speaker 1: more disposable income, or dealing with a game where they're
Speaker 1: constantly at a distinct disadvantage because they refuse to engage
Speaker 1: in this economy. Meanwhile, as this drama unfolds between game
Speaker 1: companies and their customers, other concerns are popping up. In Belgium,
Speaker 1: a gaming commission is investigating whether lootboxes are a form
Speaker 1: of gambling. If the commission decides that loot boxes count
Speaker 1: as gambling, then companies that incorporate that mechanic in their
Speaker 1: games would first have to pay a fine for any
Speaker 1: existing games being sold in Belgium that have that mechanic,
Speaker 1: and then secure a permit for any future implementations. The
Speaker 1: crux of the matter is this, in these games, players
Speaker 1: can earn or purchase a chance to get some supplemental
Speaker 1: materials for a video game. Typically it might be a
Speaker 1: new costume or prop that has little to no effect
Speaker 1: on gameplay, but some games will also include new items
Speaker 1: or weapons that have in game advantages. Game developers will
Speaker 1: frequently compare this feature to trading card games like Magic.
Speaker 1: The Gathering Magic players are used to buying booster packs
Speaker 1: of cards to supplement their decks. You aren't guaranteed to
Speaker 1: find anything particularly useful or rare in any given booster pack.
Speaker 1: You might look out, or you might draw a bunch
Speaker 1: of Dud's lootboxes, argue video game developers are pretty much
Speaker 1: the same thing, and if you don't designate trading card
Speaker 1: games as gambling, why would a video game version be
Speaker 1: any different. Whether the Belgian Gaming Commission feels the same
Speaker 1: way remains to be seen, but one thing really isn't
Speaker 1: a gamble unless gamers stopped buying supplemental content entirely, we
Speaker 1: can expect these practices to be the norm moving forward.
Speaker 1: To learn more about video games and all other things technological,
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Speaker 1: and do a deep dive on all things tech. I'll
Speaker 1: see you again soon.