Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

forced scarcity makes collectors brain chemicals go all tingly. "i have got to catch the complete set" is the tag line right?

That's the predation part. Preying upon known chemistry.

my brain chemistry wants to murder people in traffic. it's on me to regulate my actions. the minority that can't shouldn't be a reason for the rest of us to miss out on our pocket monsters.

I'm not "blindly" being "judgmental" for pointing out a potentially legitimate mental disorder. I never said they were less of a person for it, nor did I ever say I don't have disorders of my own (I had my own versions of OCD as a teenager that still linger to a lesser extent today). Stamp collectors can have mental disorders driving their behavior too. It's not always harmful, but sometimes it is.

Also, you should look at the actual evidence before trying to fight me about it. The picture shows their spending habits from the start of 2015 until the end of 2017, not 11 years of data. You can clearly see him buying dozens of fantasias in a single month.

Context matters!

she likes to just plop down and sleep on the keyboard. thankfully she does it on my personal computer and i can still use my work computer, but she has definitely made some appearances on conference calls by screaming or jumping in front of the web cam.

FFXI has no cash shop and does fine, there is no reason FFXIV could not do the same with more players.

The cash shop is greed, nothing else. The money from the cash shop doesn't even go back into the game. It's just into profits.

Cash shops also impact the core game for everyone.

yeah, xi never had a thing where you paid and got an in game item. what's wrong with a company wanting to make money? people buy it voluntarily and it supports the company that runs the game they like. it's a fun addition to existing content.

i wanna make some adjustments to my car and put new wheels on it. i also have my windows tinted. those are all after market things i did/want to do. the car does fine without these things, and plenty of people will never make modifications to their car. there are companies that make money off selling the products and service to do the modifciations. however, it's not greed for the marketplace to exist. it's providing for a demand. if people didn't want it then they wouldn't make it. just cause it upsets you doesn't mean that the overwhelming majority wish you'd get off your soap box and let them have fun.

Yeah, I'm much less bothered with the notion of a purely cosmetic cash shop (usually). Do I wish everything was obtainable in-game or at least available on a seasonal rotation like how XI handles events? Sure. But compared to the pay-to-win model it's infinitely preferable.

If it was any other game you probably would not be defending it, the issue is the subscription and free to play tactics in one big quadruple dipping masterpiece of monetization. Buy the game, buy expansions, pay the sub and buy stuff on the cash shop.

Cosmetics do matter in multiplayer games, a lot and they know it. Which is why people spend so much on them and why they update them as often as they do. If they were not selling really well they would not add new stuff as often as they do. It's addictive, people lose comment sense when it's a game they like, they spend way too much money and it's exploiting the love the fanbase have for the game! Like a GF letting her new BF spend way too much on her, if she cared about him she wouldn't let him go crazy.

Also the way a cosmetic cash shop impacts everyone is, that they lower the quality of the in-game items to recolors to promote sales of the cash shop stuff. Same with mounts. The staff that make those cash shop things, your sub pays their wages and they are the ones that make normal models too. As such, if it's make a "new cash shop item" this month or a "really fancy in-game item"...guess which one happens? You get the fancy cash item and everyone gets the recolor from the new raid.

What they are doing is like you renting a car, then allowing you to pay for all optional extras to the car and put anything you want in the car and then when you stop paying the rent of the car they take everything you put into the car away from you with the car itself. Once you stop paying the sub, all those items you bought are gone. At least in a free game you can login anytime you want and look at them if you want to lol

Is it optional? Sure so are mobile games, doesn't mean it's good. Cash shops were always for games without a sub to make money. Not a way to get all the money they can out of you.

Oh and it's not a soap box, I'm not on a crusade. It's just something to talk about that was sparked from the mobile game stuff. I don't really care that much anymore than I do about raid shadow legends cause I don't play either. It's just something to talk about till someone posts a cat video tbh.

Some of the way 14 handles it is decent.

“Here is X event and y item, grind your *** off and you might get it before the event ends!

Or you can be lazy, wait a year, and it might be in the shop”

So elites still get their snowflake time and casual players still get to enjoy the items too.

Watched a film called Bone Tomahawk a few days ago, if you're a fan of Kurt Russell you might wanna give it a look.

You think it's going to be boring cowboys vs indians, but it turns out to be cowboys vs neanderthals. It's incredibly brutal and shocking near the end, so that might put some off though.

i typed up a longer thing to debate the different points, but it boils down to this. consumers have a choice. companies have a responsibility to respond to consumer demand. you choosing to define that as "the evil company trying to take all your money" is what makes this your soap box. it's not a companies responsibility to address someone with an addictive personality buying "too much". that's on that person and their support system. more people want the cosmetic shop than don't. that's why it keeps getting new items.

*** disgusting

i hope you never catch them all.

that's just the start.

bought the new lion king movie for akali. i saw a thing where cats were reacting to the movie and akali loved the youtube clips from the movie. so had to buy. she's sitting on the couch just watching the screen.

This game I play (Captain Tsubasa Dream Team) has probably one of the worst gacha practices and currency prices ever. Horrible rates, no pity pulls, etc etc, but you can look up its financial data and you'll find that they're doing damn too well thanks to people with too much money on their hands.
9 months ago they introduced a new step-up banner type where your chances to get the featured character increases with every step, and you're guaranteed it at the final (10th) step (zomg), but you can only pull with paid currency lol. Get the hell out of here f2p! Some units are exclusive too and don't join the general gacha pool later. And how much does it cost to guarantee a character from these banners? More than a $100.
It's dumb by all measures, but given how shitty the gacha practices are as I stated earlier, some players legit think the paid banners happening is KLab being generous LOL.

There's nothing inherently wrong with businesses trying to make money, but, as always, the methods and audience do, or rather, should, matter. It's why cigarette companies aren't allowed to sell to children. Physical ailments are easier to see than mental ones, so the territory of cultivating addiction in young people hasn't been dealt with as much as it should. If it means having a soapbox, then so be it. Preferable to ignorance and apathy in my eyes.

Talking about cigarette and children, that reminds me my middle school, that also worked as a prep school.

While prohibiting underage student to smoke, they allowed the prep school guys to go out and do that.

Then later, both students get mixed in common areas, coexisting in the school grounds.

Girls always interested in older boys. The newer boys envying them because they were taking the girls. And every underage having contact with cigarettes (and eventually drinks and drugs) from those prep school boys.

In a sense, the school was an entry point to minors to the vicious world.

Named main character in Bravely Default II as dudebro. I regret nothing.

Happy Pi day!!!