Game developers hire economists and psychologists to run experiments on the precise ways they need to design their games to make people feel like they need skins and other cosmetics and spend money on them. The games are designed to nudge people into associating having good skins with being good at the game and having the default skins with being bad at the game, and to make people want the new skins and feel bad for not having them. Furthermore, they don’t really make money on the average person who either doesn’t spend money on loot crates or maybe spends a bit of money every now and then- the real money makers are a tiny percentage of players who have some bizarre compulsion to spend absurd amounts of money on this stuff. These are known as “whales” and a lot of them have legitimate psychological issues that cause them to be like this or they’re like Saudi nobility who just have absurd amounts of money and don’t give a shit about blowing it on fake video game stuff.

I can smell Gabe’s smegma on their breath from all the way over here.

when you play competitive games you’re expressing your skill as a player in front of an audience of people.

The first part of your post makes sense, even if I don’t agree with it. But this part stands out- buying a skin isn’t a skill question. It’s just a wallet question.

Some games have stuff you can only earn via achievements or whatever. I could see being proud of, like, a skin you only get if you get 100 perfect whatevers in a row. But, like, just buying it? But I guess the audience has enough people who are impressed by that sort of thing.

spending some money on a skin isnt a big deal you’re just paying devs for the game you love.

Also not to be a negative nerd, but unless the company is very tiny the developers aren’t getting much, maybe zero, of that money. Developers get a salary. Stock options, maybe. It’s not like a tip jar. Profits typically go to the owners under capitalism, not the labor. “Buy skins to support the developers” might be indirectly true, in a limited sense, but it mostly feels like capitalist propaganda.

To put it into perspective the player model shown when high level players play while have flashier animations which not only look cool but make the player look extremely nimble, it’s hard to explain but you just look way better with skins on to a point where players do make weird associations like “karambit is an awp skin”

the reason why in the aforementioned association is because after firing the awp (bolt action sniper) players will draw their knife instead of waiting for the bolt to be reset.

the draw is animated and on the karambit, the draw is exceptionally flashy, since this is frequently done as a legitimate technique (you move faster with knife drawn in cs) then people see the flashy karambit animation very frequently

Yeah, I bought a few season passes when I was into DOTA. The main gain from those is cosmetics and some ladder ranking, but realistically it was that I’d played the game a ton for free and felt that paying a bit to engage wasn’t a big deal.

Everyday the thrill of the game wore off for me, but honestly given hours played versus money spent it was probably one of the cheapest investments in entertainment I made.

Nintendo has a ton of things we can criticize but at the very least the process with them has usually been simple purchases. You pay for what you want to buy and that’s what you get.

If I understood it correctly, you open a new box when you buy an item, but if you don’t buy it then you need to wait until the following week to open another box again.

I think it’s an improvement though. You never part with your money unless you know exactly what you’ll get.

It’s basically individualised offers in the form of boxes.

For FTP games that I am really enjoying, I will buy stuff sometimes to support the game.

Im not saying buying a skin is skill expression. When a player is playing they are preforming in front of an audience, everything is part of how they express themselves. From how they move to how they shoot to the skins on their gun its all player expression. Not everything has to be an achievement to be proud of some stuff you just like because it makes YOUR character look the way you like. I dont know how to convey this idea properly.

If its a f2p game where cosmetics cost nothing people still choose cosmetics over the default character. This is because your ingame character kind of represents you when you play online.

For your second part about spending money on games I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse. I dont only care about money going to devs. The game isnt made by just devs. I want it to go to the entire company that produced the game I’m playing. If investors get paid thats good I’m glad they are getting a return on investing in the creation of a game I like. If the game made no money there wouldnt be people getting hired to work on it. A f2p game is exactly like a tip jar no one has to buy anything and if no one buys anything the game shutsdown.

It’s completely optional. They are about as predatory as gucci bags or other designer shit some people pay way too much for (IMO). You don’t need any of it to be competitive or to continue enjoying the game.

I just personally don’t have a problem with things that exploit people’s vanity.

I just personally don’t have a problem with things that exploit people’s vanity.

Based, but these are predatory.

For one, we shouldn’t be lowering our standards so that a business can make more money. Whether you accept it or not, these vanity items do make the game more enjoyable for most players. If more of us had higher standards, we’d get the cosmetics without having to pay for a corporation’s nicer campus or an executive’s 9th property.

For two, whenever chance is involved it will always intrinsically prey upon those with gambling problems.

People with more money than sense.

Valve literally popularized the “games as a service” business model.

You’re probably too young to understand when games weren’t just platforms to sell you more shite.

sniffs

Yep, that’s Gabe.