He won't. He hates being constantly proven wrong.

But yeah, I haven't even played Overwatch on my own account much. Playing the game for fun is fun enough that I don't even bother signing out of Sammy's account to hop into a match or two. Wish I could play with Sammy, but we're still not going to pay for a game with such barebones content (it's even worse than Titanfall, now that I think about it).

I don't find the lack of content that bad, it's about on TF2 launch levels as far as content in my mind. But hopefully that will change for you eventually since all new maps and heroes will be free.

He won't. He hates being constantly proven wrong.

I love being proven wrong. Because that means I can change my mind and later be right!

It would be like complaining about how much you have to grind in Destiny to get sparkly eyes on your character (if it had such thing), so you want to be able to pay for it.

I could not understand it in Destiny with the level up package that people could buy for some huge price. Why buy the game in the first place.

I get it in a free to play game, other than World of Tanks, something I never play, but that's a different entity.

Bemusing lol

In my opinion Overwatch's microtransactions are bullshit, and I will never ever play this game.

Overwatch is fantastic and fun in general, and the microtransactions do not detract from the experience.

If you listened to the video, he explains exactly how they detracted from his experience. I will say it again since I laid it out in the original post:

He does not have the time to play to get packs for free. Therefore, he has to pay for packs. This detracts from the experience, because the game was designed with this 'friction' element, necessitating him to contemplate skipping playing the game by paying more money.

If the game were designed without these unlocks hidden behind an investment system, or one where you could progress in less time, then there would be no detraction from the experience.

The entire fucking point behind paying for unlocks is because the experience is better than the one where you don't pay. I'd call that detracting from the experience. As he actually admitted! He is just stupid and thinks it's a good thing he can pay more to not be inconvenienced, rather than playing a game that doesn't inconvenience him in the first place.

In my opinion Overwatch's microtransactions are bullshit, and I will never ever play this game.

I have to agree that they are bullshit, but unlike that guy's stuff in your vid there, microtransactions to unlock emblems and things (which I'm fully against) is not an example of paying not to play in Overwatch. Overwatch is fantastic and fun in general, and the microtransactions do not detract from the experience. I'll never spend a cent on a microtransaction in this thing, but holy shit have I put a ton of hours into this game already. Been playing with a bunch of people from here, too. It's a blast, and you're missing out if you're avoiding it just based on the poor microtransaction model. Just saying, you should try it with the gameplay and fun in mind.

He won't. He hates being constantly proven wrong.

But yeah, I haven't even played Overwatch on my own account much. Playing the game for fun is fun enough that I don't even bother signing out of Sammy's account to hop into a match or two. Wish I could play with Sammy, but we're still not going to pay for a game with such barebones content (it's even worse than Titanfall, now that I think about it).

In my opinion Overwatch's microtransactions are bullshit, and I will never ever play this game.

I have to agree that they are bullshit, but unlike that guy's stuff in your vid there, microtransactions to unlock emblems and things (which I'm fully against) is not an example of paying not to play in Overwatch. Overwatch is fantastic and fun in general, and the microtransactions do not detract from the experience. I'll never spend a cent on a microtransaction in this thing, but holy shit have I put a ton of hours into this game already. Been playing with a bunch of people from here, too. It's a blast, and you're missing out if you're avoiding it just based on the poor microtransaction model. Just saying, you should try it with the gameplay and fun in mind.

His argument:

1. Progression systems take time to get through
2. He has more money than time

Therefore, he would like to pay to skip.

All the while without realizing he is paying to not play a game. Instead of doing what a critic would do, namely finding a game to play instead where he wouldn't have to pay to not play parts of it, he decides to buy microtransactions. Right? If you have no time, why not only play the best games that completely respect it? Why not ask developers not to have meaningless progression systems in the first place? So now he wastes both his money, and his time.

Microtransactions to skip progression are not pro consumer! Simply making all the cosmetics available immediately to everyone is pro consumer!

When you look at it this way, you will see why these systems are really stupid. I never thought much of him as a critic, as he simply regurgitates talking points and goes by checklist instead of thoughtful analysis, but this one just takes the cake.

In my opinion Overwatch's microtransactions are bullshit, and I will never ever play this game.

I meant really skilled people are spinning-off on their own, forming up indie companies. If the company themselves will produce anything of value or not remains to be seen, but it's still uplifting to see.

If you look at music though, how many times has the band split up and the solo careers or spin off groups not measured up to the original group? Sure it works out sometimes. But I think everybody would benefit more if the talented people stayed together and didn't have to split. In Bungie's case, it's not a good sign given that the talented people feel they have to leave or were forced out to begin with.

I refuse to participate in microtransactions.

Microtransactions are entirely optional.

Depends on the game. Some pay to win games are microtrans or lose, every time. Supercell games are the only ones I can think of like that off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are more.

Large paid DLCs are not.

I disagree. If you don't like the content in a DLC, you can choose not to buy it. I haven't bought any of the fallout 4 DLCs yet (though I will be buying far harbor at some point) and I still love the game.

With DLCs you do get substance added to a game however, it's basically you pay to upgrade your game or your experience is limited.

Yeah, that's... that's the whole premise of DLCs. We can agree on that.

With microtransactions, you can choose to pay a small amount which benefits funding the game without feeling like you're missing out if you don't take part.

My whole point is that you shouldn't be paying the developer to develop their own game outside of kickstarting (and probably shouldn't do it there either because of just how horribly insecure it is). I don't go to a store and pay the guy money and say "I'd like to buy your mystery food box" not knowing at all what's in it. I buy some apples, and only after I've checked out the apples to make sure that they're good apples and not red apples. #greenapplesmasterrace

For all of these things, the players have no means of guaranteeing that what they are buying is in any way worthwhile. There are no legal protections to force the company to deliver on its promises of "your microtransaction fees pay for future development." There's no recourse if you feel like you've been ripped off. And there's no guarantee that there isn't some kind of super shady algorithm working behind the scenes to figure out who is willing to pay money when RNG screwed and then RNG screw them over and over, or - conversely - give favorable outcomes to people who paid money over F2P players.

I would say that there is SOME accountability needed on both sides here though. Buying microtransactions just to support "future development" is not why they expect people to buy them. I'm loving Overwatch, and they put in microtrasactions to help them pay for future maps and characters, which will be released for free. Does that mean that their obligated to give X amount of content in the future for my microtransaction today? Absolutely not, because they straight up tell me what I'm getting for my money: a loot box like every other loot box I earn when I level up. That's not worth it to me so I have no plans to ever buy any loot boxes from them, but it's about the merit to you personally for the purchase that matters. As far as pay to win, they are never successful in mainstream gaming (mobile is a strange space).

Blizzard is arguably the most open company about their microtransactions. I really like how they handle it all on the surface, but there's still no guarantee that there isn't a coder somewhere with his thumb on the scale. When there's no financial incentive to deny content to people who haven't paid, there's a lot more trust between dev and player. I'm not saying Blizzard is doing this - in fact reddit testing with hearthstone shows they are expressly *not* doing this, but there is literally no way for players to verify that fact. Also, blizzard doesn't hold their content hostage for microtransactions - it's coming whether they get sales or not, where bungie straight up said they were switching to microtransactions as a means to fund new content, implying that if no one buys, no one gets new content. Maybe SRL isn't coming back because not enough people bought racing books (which would be *so lame* if that was the case).

And you're right about the flip side: There's no guarantee whatsoever that players will buy your microtransaction items. You can put a ton of work into something and get literally nothing in return. But that's a risk with any product. I prefer to pay for what I want (buying something) rather than pay for a chance at what I want (gambling).

If you compare the overwatch microtransactions with destiny's there's also a notable difference: in overwatch, the in game currency you can earn will let you buy more packages. In destiny, until sterling treasures, there was no way at all to get the other items they sold. It was pay more money or get nothing. Which is fine in a free to play game, but sucks balls when you already shelled out more than $100 for the game and all of its expansions.

And I bought a new copy of Destiny legendary edition and a headset so it's all ready to be set up.

Doing Wednesday because it's day off work and I'll need the whole morning to DL all the patches and compatibility packs, not to mention the Xbone updates.

the massive amount of high-skill indie companies

LOL