There were two major advances in slop microtransactions in video games. The second was Fortnite with the battle pass like you mentioned, but the first is TF2 adding crates. THAT is what kicked off the microtransaction train in gaming.
Seriously what is with the specific type of brainrot the majority of PC gamers have where they just willfully ignore the fact ""based Gaben's"" company invented almost every single scumbag anti consumer tactic in modern videogames and then try to blame it on some other company that does it years later?
You literally have mothfuckers "worried about what will happen to valve when Gabe dies". Gee, I don't know. Maybe after he dies they'll make a digital TCG that goes so far in how obvious it is trying to suck all the money out of your wallet via ~~literal online gambling except it can also able to be sold to children~~ artificial scarcity of "digital goods" that even the "based Gaben" legion will refuse to play it.
Valve is responsible for that too. Dota 2 compendium predates fortnite.
Also valve ofc with Tf2/CS crates as you mentioned.
aaaaand valve gave steam marketplace which gave real world money value to in game items which made people willing to spend a LOT on crates/BP because an item has a "value" of pile $300 or something
Yeah battfield had it way earlier. Fomo with maps and the such but also the quicker access to high level weapons which were hard to obtain without experience boost. But the gun thing had been done before and done to a more extreme degree. Truth is this stuff is all old. You could say it start with word of warcraft subscription model really. Maybe even before that.
I think GTA O with their shark cards is what sped it all up and make all devs see that you can skimp on single player dlc and just rake in money with little effort.
Yes I’m still pissed RDR2 didn’t get any singleplayer DLC, and GTA V. The Ballad of Gay Tony was the best DLC Rockstar made and I wish they kept at it.
I think Cod Advanced warfare had adolescenti in that as well. It came It was the first Cod to go heavy on loot boxes and ridiculous cosmetics, and while it's barely remembered nowadays it's still a cod, and as such it was argably the most popular shooter game at the time.
Between that and the jump packs that game had a strong influence on the genre as a whole
IIRC Battle Pass was popularized by Valve in Dota 2.
Fortnite wasn't the first to do the Loot Crates, CS:GO did it before too and even had a thriving gambling system because of it. Fortnite wasn't even the first to do the battle arena, it was PUBG. Fortnite barely did anything original, it just took the worst parts from a myriad of things.
If Fortnite did something more original than Dota 2, it's targeting kids. Oh boy, Fortnite really fucked up this generation's Kids.
They were really good at making really good games, unfortunately now they're really good at milking those games. Just look at csgo/cs2, key sells alone generate $50-100M per MONTH, for a game that barely gets any updates and new content (compared to other popular online games).
When did Fortnite get loot crates? The 'popular' br mode that most people play doesn't have anything like that, am I missing something? Are they in save the world?
I think it was a combination of several small steps that got us to the point we are, first dlcs and expansions, which are IMO fine and great if done correctly, then phone games realized they make a ton of money with microtransactions, etc.
I think the big bad steps where games as a service and the season format, it can be great if done correctly where the service part is more than skins, a temporary game mode and breadcrumbs of content, but most of the time is a big miss. Of course loot boxes which is just gambling with (very few) extra steps. And battle passes which is an entry level "value" buy that kinda fomo's you into opening your wallet, bonus points if there are several tiers of battle passes.
The “battle pass” wasn’t invented by Fortnite tbf. Just as an example StarCraft 2 had a system called the War Chest that functioned as a battle pass; a limited time, paid reward track that gave you cosmetics for playing the game. The first War Chest came out in the summer of 2017, while Fortnite only released their first battle pass in October (according to the Fortnite fan wiki at least). As for loot boxes, hell, idk about other MOBAs, but Smite had loot boxes all the way back in 2014.
What Fortnite definitely did do, which none of the competition had realised was profitable, was pair those ideas with a free-to-play format to pull an audience.
Loot boxes and battle passes were definitely on their way already, but the uber-slop combo of free-to-play, battle pass, loot boxes and microtransactions that the game industry ate up was definitely popularised by Fortnite.
Butwould they have gotten the idea for Fortnite beyond the zombie mode it started as, if they didn’t see that the battle pass monetization route was the golden ticket?
I dont think so. And what helped them, guided them even, to see that?
Fucking. Horse. Armor.
The butterfly effect is popular and exists because of this behavior. Interesting
A lot of the folk that’re okay with the shit form before seem to be of the age where it would’ve been their parent’s money being spent.
I rather let whales pay for battle passes to afford me a free experience than having waste part of my paycheck to access shit I already had on the disc
League of Legends can take equal blame. Some of the money I'm seeing people shell out for cosmetics is beyond belief. I have a friend who dropped 400 on a Path of Exile skin...
Yes, if it weren't for that horse, no marketing department in any share value-driven corporation would have ever thought about selling in-game items for real-world currencies.
The list goes
This horse
Hitler
The guy who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Mao
Stalin
This list may or may not change in the following years as an orange-skinned man is making a historic speedrun, chasing the big names that preceded him.
Except that they’re deporting all immigrants, even those without a violent criminal history, and even US citizens, and sending them to prison camps in El Salvador. Brainlet.
Don't blame the companies selling you crap blame the people who buy it and make the model profitable for them. Consumers lap this shit up for some reason.
I mean let's be real that's just DLC with extra steps. Like a decade ago they would have just been packs you buy on the Xbox marketplace/PlayStation store
If they hadn't done it, someone else would've. This is one of those things that was bound to happen no matter what and we would be blaming whoever lit the match originally. On this timeline it just happened to be Bethesda.
The funny thing is everyone said they were "testing the market" for paid DLC with this, but we definitely responded with as much hostility as possible. They got dragged all over god's green earth for this. So if this was a test, how could we have possibly sent a stronger "NO FUCKING THANK YOU" message?
I deleted my comment because I realized maybe I didn't know tf I was talking about since I have no idea what that horse in the pic is but you can Google that LoL was released as F2P 2 years earlier than TF2.
LoL was the game that cemented the success of the F2P business model.
Funny enough, though, they didn't expect anyone to actually buy this. They made it expensive on purpose, because it was basically just a test-run to learn how DLCs worked.
The first example of microtransactions was all the way back in 80s.
The 1982 arcade video game Lost Tomb periodically offers the player 25 "whips" (single-use strong attacks) for inserting a quarter. The arcade game Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1990) has shops where players can insert coins to purchase upgrades, power-ups, health, weapons, special moves, and player characters.
Microtransactions as we know them were first popularized in South Korea.
Bethesda may have gotten the microtransaction ball really rolling in the west, but that ball had already been rolling elsewhere. If it wasn't Bethesda, then someone else would've popularized it in the US.
Why do people cling onto that dead meme as if shithesda did something revolutionary that nobody else could have thought of? If shithesda didn’t do it someone else or another company would have
I was on the ground when this was released. I remember laughing about it with my school friends, "who would even buy a thing like this?" Turns out a significant portion of my friends must have. Imagine my surprise when the answer was +20% of the install base. It made millions.
Who among us could resist that siren call? Making a game? Why not spend an extra day modeling some additional player character cosmetics and make even more money?
I don't blame the devs, I blame myself. I should have fought harder against it guys, I would had I known the hellscape it would create.
F2p with cosmetic micro transactions and live balance > no micro transactions, but full price game with annual full price sequels and no live balance > full price game with micro transactions >>>>>>>>>> pay to win
snusboi@reddit
I blame fortnite. Payed dlcs were fine, but the fomo inducing battle pass and loot crates with terrible pull rates. Fuck those mechanics.
oh_mygawdd@reddit
There were two major advances in slop microtransactions in video games. The second was Fortnite with the battle pass like you mentioned, but the first is TF2 adding crates. THAT is what kicked off the microtransaction train in gaming.
Scientia_et_Fidem@reddit
Seriously what is with the specific type of brainrot the majority of PC gamers have where they just willfully ignore the fact ""based Gaben's"" company invented almost every single scumbag anti consumer tactic in modern videogames and then try to blame it on some other company that does it years later?
You literally have mothfuckers "worried about what will happen to valve when Gabe dies". Gee, I don't know. Maybe after he dies they'll make a digital TCG that goes so far in how obvious it is trying to suck all the money out of your wallet via ~~literal online gambling except it can also able to be sold to children~~ artificial scarcity of "digital goods" that even the "based Gaben" legion will refuse to play it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artifact_(video_game)
Yep, I sure am "worried" about what will happen with our "good friend" Gabe dies. I wonder if he'll be buried at sea on one of his 5 yachts.
ZachF8119@reddit
You all act like gacha isn’t gambling. Tf2 was it hitting western shores more locally
bagofdicks69@reddit
Fortnite didnt invent the battlepass lol.
Valve is responsible for that too. Dota 2 compendium predates fortnite.
Also valve ofc with Tf2/CS crates as you mentioned.
aaaaand valve gave steam marketplace which gave real world money value to in game items which made people willing to spend a LOT on crates/BP because an item has a "value" of pile $300 or something
Matamocan@reddit
Tf2 boxes were niche, id say they got mainstream due to call of duty advanced warfare.
demonsdencollective@reddit
Weren't Need for Speed World and Battlefield Play 4 Free earlier with that?
oprangerop@reddit
Yeah battfield had it way earlier. Fomo with maps and the such but also the quicker access to high level weapons which were hard to obtain without experience boost. But the gun thing had been done before and done to a more extreme degree. Truth is this stuff is all old. You could say it start with word of warcraft subscription model really. Maybe even before that.
BENJ4x@reddit
I dunno, FIFA or other EA games with packs in them basically turned the casual gamer into a gambling addict. That was back in 2012 I think?
big_guyforyou@reddit
the trick is to not play games with microtransactions. take me, for example. i don't play any video games because i don't have a tv
AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)
Why are you on every comment section
Is it actually true that you just chill on r/all and look at the rising posts and comment on whichever
big_guyforyou@reddit
just go here. EZ
AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)
All of these posts have wayyy too many comments tho lmao
big_guyforyou@reddit
every comment thread is a list of trees. reply to the rightmost childfree node of the rightmost tree. that's how you maximize visibility and updoots
0x695@reddit
Buy why?
big_guyforyou@reddit
once i get a million comment karma u/spez will send me a free sub
i'm getting roast beef
AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)
Interesting
Could ya give an example?
big_guyforyou@reddit
right now your comment right here is the one to reply to
Scottvrakis@reddit
That's insane, are you pulling my leg? I can't even tell any more.
big_guyforyou@reddit
you're basically looking for the highest comment in the thread that has no replies.
AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)
I see
AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)
Ohhh nevermind I got it
Tyy <3
EquivalentSnap@reddit
Battle passes are better than loot boxes 😡
Scrimmybinguscat@reddit
Battle passes were more Evolve's fault if memory serves.
Common_Vagrant@reddit
I think GTA O with their shark cards is what sped it all up and make all devs see that you can skimp on single player dlc and just rake in money with little effort.
Yes I’m still pissed RDR2 didn’t get any singleplayer DLC, and GTA V. The Ballad of Gay Tony was the best DLC Rockstar made and I wish they kept at it.
Billothekid@reddit
I think Cod Advanced warfare had adolescenti in that as well. It came It was the first Cod to go heavy on loot boxes and ridiculous cosmetics, and while it's barely remembered nowadays it's still a cod, and as such it was argably the most popular shooter game at the time.
Between that and the jump packs that game had a strong influence on the genre as a whole
Tweezot@reddit
Advanced warfare was pay-to-win though. The guns you could ONLY get from loot boxes were objectively better.
Billothekid@reddit
Yeah, that too. I think it's pretty telling that the only thing that is remembered about that game is the "Press F to pay respect" meme...
Taaargus@reddit
I blame Steam. Yea downvote me all you want but TF2 hats and CSGO skins were really what showed people were willing to spend obscene money on skins.
NighthawK1911@reddit
IIRC Battle Pass was popularized by Valve in Dota 2.
Fortnite wasn't the first to do the Loot Crates, CS:GO did it before too and even had a thriving gambling system because of it. Fortnite wasn't even the first to do the battle arena, it was PUBG. Fortnite barely did anything original, it just took the worst parts from a myriad of things.
If Fortnite did something more original than Dota 2, it's targeting kids. Oh boy, Fortnite really fucked up this generation's Kids.
Kiwi_Doodle@reddit
Why is it always Valve?..
Spuka@reddit
They were really good at making really good games, unfortunately now they're really good at milking those games. Just look at csgo/cs2, key sells alone generate $50-100M per MONTH, for a game that barely gets any updates and new content (compared to other popular online games).
Not_too_dumb@reddit
????
When did Fortnite get loot crates? The 'popular' br mode that most people play doesn't have anything like that, am I missing something? Are they in save the world?
FunnyP-aradox@reddit
Yup they are in Save the World
snusboi@reddit
To clarify I hate battle passes way more. The loot box thing was just and afterthought unrelated to fortnite.
NighthawK1911@reddit
I'm not sure. I don't play that garbage game. Ask OC.
I just pointed out that CS:GO while probably wasn't the first, is probably what popularized it.
kiochikaeke@reddit
I think it was a combination of several small steps that got us to the point we are, first dlcs and expansions, which are IMO fine and great if done correctly, then phone games realized they make a ton of money with microtransactions, etc.
I think the big bad steps where games as a service and the season format, it can be great if done correctly where the service part is more than skins, a temporary game mode and breadcrumbs of content, but most of the time is a big miss. Of course loot boxes which is just gambling with (very few) extra steps. And battle passes which is an entry level "value" buy that kinda fomo's you into opening your wallet, bonus points if there are several tiers of battle passes.
Pep-Sanchez@reddit
I think CS did the children gambling from loot boxes even earlier than that no? Battle pass for sure tho
bobicus-of-fred@reddit
The “battle pass” wasn’t invented by Fortnite tbf. Just as an example StarCraft 2 had a system called the War Chest that functioned as a battle pass; a limited time, paid reward track that gave you cosmetics for playing the game. The first War Chest came out in the summer of 2017, while Fortnite only released their first battle pass in October (according to the Fortnite fan wiki at least). As for loot boxes, hell, idk about other MOBAs, but Smite had loot boxes all the way back in 2014.
What Fortnite definitely did do, which none of the competition had realised was profitable, was pair those ideas with a free-to-play format to pull an audience.
Loot boxes and battle passes were definitely on their way already, but the uber-slop combo of free-to-play, battle pass, loot boxes and microtransactions that the game industry ate up was definitely popularised by Fortnite.
PantsClock@reddit
Fortnite doesn't even have loot crates, what are you talking about?
sirmeowmix@reddit
OW lootboxes too. Cant let that evil game get a pass evil.
jonasnee@reddit
Battle passes where invented by Valve - dota 2 specifically.
Sec_Chief_Blanchard@reddit
Has fortnite ever had loot crates?
Iamjesus147@reddit
Butwould they have gotten the idea for Fortnite beyond the zombie mode it started as, if they didn’t see that the battle pass monetization route was the golden ticket? I dont think so. And what helped them, guided them even, to see that? Fucking. Horse. Armor.
The butterfly effect is popular and exists because of this behavior. Interesting
Codacc69420@reddit
It’s all cosmetic who cares, Fortnite was the game to stop content being locked behind season passes
RedOtta019@reddit
For many other games thats not true.
AVeryFriendlyOldMan@reddit
A lot of the folk that’re okay with the shit form before seem to be of the age where it would’ve been their parent’s money being spent.
I rather let whales pay for battle passes to afford me a free experience than having waste part of my paycheck to access shit I already had on the disc
Omega_brownie@reddit
League of Legends can take equal blame. Some of the money I'm seeing people shell out for cosmetics is beyond belief. I have a friend who dropped 400 on a Path of Exile skin...
Dynablade_Savior@reddit
There are probably some poor souls reading this post that bought the horse armor. Fuck you in particular
JayceTheShockBlaster@reddit
Yes, if it weren't for that horse, no marketing department in any share value-driven corporation would have ever thought about selling in-game items for real-world currencies.
The list goes
This list may or may not change in the following years as an orange-skinned man is making a historic speedrun, chasing the big names that preceded him.
Res_Novae17@reddit
Yes, deporting violent migrants in the country illegally is just like rounding up Jews and gassing them in the showers.
MJisaFraud@reddit
Except that they’re deporting all immigrants, even those without a violent criminal history, and even US citizens, and sending them to prison camps in El Salvador. Brainlet.
Res_Novae17@reddit
They're literally deporting all immigrants? All 50 million of them? Wow. ICE must be comicbook speedsters to pull that off. Moron.
Marble05@reddit
We are one BBB away from Medicare lootboxes
dondocooled@reddit
Gonna turn citizenship for everybody into a gacha game that'll make Diablo Immortal's rates look like a fucking joke.
JayceTheShockBlaster@reddit
Don't You guys ~~have phones~~ want to live ?!
JayceTheShockBlaster@reddit
People won't pay for universal healthcare but I'm willing to bet that'd buy that
bleachinjection@reddit
CMP Blood Panel COMMON
Ozempic Rx UNCOMMON
12-Weeks of Physical Therapy RARE
Double Hip Replacement EPIC
Heart Transplant LEGENDARY
JayceTheShockBlaster@reddit
And they distribute exactly like Pokemon, leaving shelves empty and scalpers rich.
mdahms95@reddit
If it wasn’t them, it was going to be someone 🤷
Arowne97@reddit
Fun fact: loot boxes are maplestory's fault
Bossmantho@reddit
Nah mate, blame the moronic fucks who just cough up the cash for garbage like the mindless drones they are.
mrheosuper@reddit
Valve is also the first introducing "Battle Pass"
hardwood1979@reddit
Don't blame the companies selling you crap blame the people who buy it and make the model profitable for them. Consumers lap this shit up for some reason.
NighthawK1911@reddit
Bethesda really put gamers in the wrong timeline.
Fuck horse armor. Fuck Todd "It just works" Howard.
You maniacs. You blew it up. Damn you.
DinoMastah@reddit
Don't forget the paid mods.
sputnik67897@reddit
I mean let's be real that's just DLC with extra steps. Like a decade ago they would have just been packs you buy on the Xbox marketplace/PlayStation store
DinoMastah@reddit
No its paid mods that are considerably worse in every single way than the actual mods (free)
sputnik67897@reddit
I'm not gonna disagree that for every paid mod there's a better free version but it really isn't any different than a DLC pack to me.
dylannsmitth@reddit
"You maniacs" got me thinking about Sammy Sonic Fan again. Bless that child 🙏🥹
moderately_cool_dude@reddit
Haha, that crazy Planet of the Apes. Wait a minute... statue of liberty... that was OUR PLANET!?!
Sburban_Player@reddit
I hate every ape I see From chimpan-A to chimpanzee
Cleveworth@reddit
mfw everyone but me gets blame for the problem I caused
^((this is gaben btw))
DeathSabre7@reddit
Lore drop please
darko_mrtvak@reddit
Just look at Counter Strike, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2. Hell, you can just at counter strike
WintersbaneGDX@reddit
Needs at least another 325 lbs to be Gaben
darko_mrtvak@reddit
He's actually pretty decent looking nowadays. He lost a lot of weight (as unbelievable as it sounds)
sputnik67897@reddit
Nah paid DLC that's permanently available wasn't what did it. It was the FOMO bullshit that games like Fortnite and now even COD have
Mottis86@reddit
If they hadn't done it, someone else would've. This is one of those things that was bound to happen no matter what and we would be blaming whoever lit the match originally. On this timeline it just happened to be Bethesda.
orangutanDOTorg@reddit
It all started with IKEA. People accepted shit and pretended it tasted delicious and then it spread to all industries.
papipapi419@reddit
r/shitfromabutt
CasuallyBeerded@reddit
IKEA is great, you’ve lost the plot.
dirschau@reddit
Dunno, I just had the meatballs
SeingaltUNo@reddit
Shouldn't be eating those flatpacks pal.
DaDurdleDude@reddit
Something else would have done it. Honestly if it wasn't something as lame as horse armor, the outbreak of DLC probably would have been worse
Res_Novae17@reddit
The funny thing is everyone said they were "testing the market" for paid DLC with this, but we definitely responded with as much hostility as possible. They got dragged all over god's green earth for this. So if this was a test, how could we have possibly sent a stronger "NO FUCKING THANK YOU" message?
Berkuts_Lance_Plus@reddit
I know this isn't greentext.
jrh_101@reddit
Real talk. League of Legends was the game that popularized the "Free to Play" with microtransactions business model.
AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)
Team fortress 2 started it imo
jrh_101@reddit
I deleted my comment because I realized maybe I didn't know tf I was talking about since I have no idea what that horse in the pic is but you can Google that LoL was released as F2P 2 years earlier than TF2.
LoL was the game that cemented the success of the F2P business model.
SweetTooth275@reddit
It's ugly as fuck, who actually bought that shit?
TheDevilsAdvokaat@reddit
I remember. There were people at the time who said this was a terrible mistake..they were right.
Games became perverted around the idea of providing a constant income stream for their developers, rather than being whole and complete in themselves.
TheGluehbirne@reddit
Funny enough, though, they didn't expect anyone to actually buy this. They made it expensive on purpose, because it was basically just a test-run to learn how DLCs worked.
THEPIGWHODIDIT@reddit
Thankfully they introduced it in the easiest time to patch the game to make Todd cry
destroyerOfTards@reddit
Did you kick him in the nuts? One should
TJ_McWeaksauce@reddit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction#History
The first example of microtransactions was all the way back in 80s.
Microtransactions as we know them were first popularized in South Korea.
Oblivion's horse armor wasn't sold until 2006.
Bethesda may have gotten the microtransaction ball really rolling in the west, but that ball had already been rolling elsewhere. If it wasn't Bethesda, then someone else would've popularized it in the US.
MommyMilkersPIs@reddit
Why do people cling onto that dead meme as if shithesda did something revolutionary that nobody else could have thought of? If shithesda didn’t do it someone else or another company would have
AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)
Happy cake day :D
Wollers-eye@reddit
Having pointy metal flourishes right next to the stirrups seems like a bit of a design flaw
colouredcyan@reddit
I was on the ground when this was released. I remember laughing about it with my school friends, "who would even buy a thing like this?" Turns out a significant portion of my friends must have. Imagine my surprise when the answer was +20% of the install base. It made millions.
Who among us could resist that siren call? Making a game? Why not spend an extra day modeling some additional player character cosmetics and make even more money?
I don't blame the devs, I blame myself. I should have fought harder against it guys, I would had I known the hellscape it would create.
Asgathor@reddit
Someone had to takevtge first move and if they didn’t do it someone else would have eventually.
Its not like no one else would have gotten the idea, like ever, if they don’t do it.
HAYAYBABTU@reddit
All of this just works - tod howard
mustafa_i_am@reddit
If Bethesda didn't do it another company would. I can't give them all the blame
GoatRocketeer@reddit
F2p with cosmetic micro transactions and live balance > no micro transactions, but full price game with annual full price sequels and no live balance > full price game with micro transactions >>>>>>>>>> pay to win
critsalot@reddit
wouldnt that be the sparkle pony from blizzard like 17 years ago
butthole_network@reddit
The first cosmetic DLC sold by Bethesda in Oblivion.
https://screenrant.com/oblivion-horse-armor-dlc-controversy-explained/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/67mj8l/11_years_ago_bethesda_was_roundly_mocked_for/ https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/06/07/bethesdas-todd-howard-doesnt-regret-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivions-horse-armor-dlc-a-ign-unfiltered
TraumaPerformer@reddit
Did they include this dlc in the woke graphic overhaul they recently released?