23 hours ago, Hodgman said:
Yeah, nah. Most people actually don't care about how their character is dressed up. It really doesn't affect their game experience anywhere near as much as other game items, and your viewpoint is actually extreme to them.
On the other hand, some people do really care about how their character looks, or feel compelled to collect things, and for these people, collecting the "useless" cosmetic items is the game. I guess you're in that category. Don't make the mistake of projecting your own feelings onto everyone else though.
When you put it this way, it does seem kind of immoral to exploit this small demographic's compulsions for monetary gain...
They're just cosmetic. You get the full game for free, and then you grind, watch ads, or pay money to get coins, which you can use to unlock cosmetics that change the character model and sometimes also the appearance of the world.
Woah there, I wasn't projecting any of my feelings at all. I was stating a fact. You just said: " Most people actually don't care about how their character is dressed up. It really doesn't affect their game experience anywhere near as much as other game items, and your viewpoint is actually extreme to them. "
Except my viewpoint has been proven by the huge profits established from games like League of Legends, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, Second Life, and a lot of other games with these kinds of models. If they're selling, then they must be affecting people's game experience more than just buying a new character or mechanic in the game. So I don't know where you get off suddenly saying "most people", when those very people are constantly buying skins, in-game avatars, and collector editions. Yes, collector editions is a certain kind of cosmetic.
21 hours ago, Novadude987 said:
Uuhhhh... I wouldn't call me playing a game and saying "hey these graphics are great" being hypnotized or brainwashed. Also, tell me how Minecraft's sole purpose is graphics and sounds. I'm lead to believe that many other games rely on things like story, character development, and gameplay.
Forgive me but I can't help feeling that you were grasping at straws with this post.
You're assuming a little too much about me from statements that were meant mostly for informing. The goal of video games is for immersing players and making them forget they're playing software that is calculating their every move with numbers in the background. They're entertainment products first and foremost. If they aren't captivating the person, they already failed their goal. Minecraft's graphics and sounds are just enough to keep it satisfactory. Being 3D also helped its appeal, along with its cube based world. And the sounds were crisp and appetizing enough to the ear whenever you swing your axe at a dirt mount and that appealing crush follows.
These are all cosmetic features of a video game, so it makes sense why in minecraft, using your example, people enjoy changing out the world textures or changing their avatar's skin, which is one of the bigger enjoyments from the game itself. And once again, as evidence shows, Microsoft knows the value of cosmetics as the bulk of their DLC are skins.
It's really hard to accept you guys saying "cosmetic microtransactions aren't important to the game," while developers are making bank off a so called "useless" feature.