» Fri Nov 07, 2014 7:20 am The term "vote with your wallet" means holding off on buying products if it would support toxic/insidious business practices, or donating/supporting a developer who is making a good product but currently at risk of going bankrupt.
Another thing to keep in mind is that while the free market is currently the most efficient means of getting as many people the products that they want to buy, whenever you make a purchase, you are not just getting a product, you also support the manufacturer.
This discussion is about insidious practices within the video game industry that damage consumers, and why most video gamers haven't been "voting down" insidious practices with boycotts.
Disclaimer/Note to the Moderators: I'm aware that the forum rules ( http://www.gamesas.com/topic/724862-forum-rules-and-general-information/ ) prohibit the creation of actual petitions or boycotts on these forums. I think this discussion should be okay because it isn't intended to create any specific petition or boycott, and it isn't intended for discussing any existing petition or boycott against any specific product or company.
This discussion is instead intended for discussing why video gamers haven't been voting with their wallets responsibly. As an additional precaution, my original post refrains from "naming and shaming" (referencing any specific companies or products in a negative context). If the moderators decide that this discussion is too close to a petition/boycott, I apologize in advance. No rule violation is intended.
Note to everyone else: Please refrain from turning this discussion into an organized boycott, as that will likely get it locked.
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#1: Asian MMO "Gambling Boxes".
Almost everyone who plays MMOs or microtransaction online games knows about these. In most Asian MMOs, there is no subscription fee, but instead you pay microtransactions for in-game advantages.
One particularly scummy practice is to put rare, exclusive, usually overpowered items in a premium box that costs real money. The box has The box has under 1% chance of dropping the incredibly good item and the rest of the time, it drops something unremarkable.
Examples:
-Exclusive costume offered for the next month only! Find it in this premium box while it's available.
-Rare powerful equipment - premium box exclusive.
I know one Korean MMO where people would go on the forums and complain that premium boxes were rigged after they spent $200+ chasing after a rare item and it never dropped.
This would happen on a monthly basis. Same people dropping half a week's pay on gambling boxes and complaining each time that they got nothing.
Have people like this ever asked themselves: WHY the crap are they paying $200+, getting no item, complaining, and making the exact same mistake every month with every new premium box exclusive cycle? No, instead they keep paying and supporting this awful practice. The company running that game knows this all to well and it gets more pay2win every season.
Alternately, the community could just end the gambling box exclusives with a prolonged and coordinated boycott. But there aren't enough people on that game with an IQ above their shoe size who can figure it out.
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#2: Companies/developers/publishers that remove content from the base game to force you to buy expansions/pre-orders/collectible editions/gimmicks (otherwise you get a relatively empty game with much missing)
Title of this section says it all, developers make a game, and then they are forced to remove content and reserve it for pre-orders, collectible editions, expansions, and other gimmicks. This means that anyone who bought the game can't even play it properly. Usually, the extra content is overpowered (this is double prevalent in competitive games) so you can't even have a decent chance of winning if you aren't buying expansions and perks when they are rolled out.
The question is:
WHY do people keep supporting this crap? The best way to stop abusive business practices is to boycott the companies caught being abusive.
Also: Pre-orders are insidious because they are usually nonrefundable. If many people pre-order a game, the developer/publisher can start chopping content out of it (which will go into an expansion later), and the customers likely can't back out of the pre-order.
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#3: "The developers need to eat too".
There's one (microtransaction only, no subscription) online game that I frequently log in to. Well, not as frequently as I used to since the quality started going consistently downhill. Every update is a rush to produce more content that will get stale in 1/10 the time it took to develop, and an ever increasing backlog of glitches that never gets resolved no matter how much people want it.
Here's the funny thing: That game's discussion boards are infested with people who say that the players should keep paying microtransactions despite all the longstanding quality issues (some of which have been unfixed for over a year) because "the devs need to eat".
Are. They. Joking? Would you do a lousy job at work and then argue that you should be paid anyway "because you need to eat"? Well, that's the same bogus point those people are tossing around. For people who "need to eat", there's welfare, charities, or perhaps they could live with a relative. But any suggestion that anyone who does a seriously lousy job for 1 year straight and "should be paid because people need to eat" borders on insanity.
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#4: People who hate excessive digital rights management (DRM) and support it anyway.
One thing I have seen for the last perhaps 10 years: many discussions on the damage that DRM causes to consumers and the video game industry:
- Some DRMs act like malware - in some cases they can reportedly lock down DVDs and legitimate programs. Some DRMs also use malware-like tactics to hide from the end-user, such as using degenerate file names incompatible with the operating system.
- Internet-based DRM means that one publisher can single-handedly deny you access to your entire games library at any time for any reason, or for no reason. Most games linked to online account-based DRM are non-refundable (with a few exceptions - there are some countries that enforce refundability). This means that if you buy a product and it turns out to be lousy, the developer gets your money anyway and there's no way to reverse it. Internet-based DRM also makes it difficult for soldiers deployed to undeveloped nations (where they can't always get an Internet connection) to access their games.
-DRMs cost developers and publishers money... costs that are inevitably handed on to the consumer. So you are paying more for a crippled product.
-Publishers can discontinue/shut down their DRM services at any time, in which case some games may be rendered inoperable and your $50/$60 disks are now little more than a coaster for your coffee.
Bottom line: Even after years of reading complaints about DRMs, there are way too many people who will just buy anything on release day no matter how much DRM/tyranny is bundled with it. As a result, DRM continues to proliferate. Where's the sense of community responsibility?
Disclaimer: For the most part I hate DRM and avoid games that force DRM on you, however I sometimes make exceptions for particularly good games. For example, I have an active Steam account with a few games linked to it (including Skyrim). If a game is particularly legendary and it's available on Steam, I'm willing to seriously consider it. But even then for the most part, I strive to balance buying products that I would like with consideration of the resulting impact on the industry and the consumers.
(EDIT/PSA: this forum software can't handle angle brackets in posts)
