It’s pretty scummy )=
I’d prefer they give us the option to change textures on cosmetics.
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First of all, if you, like Fatshark, claim that certain sets cost more (2900 as opposed to the usual 2400) because they require more effort to make, then sets that require less effort to make, such as recolors, should also cost less. But they don’t. I’d at least respect Fatshark if they took their own medicine on this point.
Aside from that, how you frame the question matters here. For me, it’s not so much that recolors are somehow unworthy of sale compared to the original, but rather that recoloring an already owned cosmetic is a fairly basic feature that in many other games is simply free. It’s not by comparison to the original cosmetic, but rather by comparison to the competition, that Fatshark ends up looking bad here.
That said, Fatshark can sell recolors if they want to. I’m not opposed to it in principle. I just won’t buy them.
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They only need you to buy one, I don’t agree with their short sightedness, but I can understand FS trying to jazz hands their cosmetics for the community.
Seems like no one from FS marketing has read anything from Geoffrey Stokes.
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It feels like they’ve read all these sales, marketing and revenue model articles and then decided they could do better themselves without any of that stuff they read.
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That’s fair. As I’ve said up above, The argument that one would prefer a system where they sell you a base skin which you can tweak as you like, rather the individual variants is reasonable.
Indeed it is. I’m not trying to tell you how you should think about it, I’m telling you how they think about it.
What they think is that high prices make a given cosmetic/set feel like an investment, which is more effective at locking someone into the monetisation flow than low prices. They think that selling multiple variants of the same skin, thereby targeting more players, is going to hook more of us into that monetisation flow, which ultimately results in a higher conversion rate, better player retention and higher ongoing MTX income than making more individual cosmetic sales at lower prices. They think that rotating them through the store and not advertising the fact that they’re doing this both makes it more likely that they’ll hook more people AND more likely that existing buyers will see a recolour they like and buy that, further embedding them into the flow.
That’s the model they’re going with. Prices have nothing to do with the cost of production, and the reason they’re not going with a “sell a base model and let people tweak it” approach is purely a result of their hamfisted use of the basic GaaS template.
As I’ve said in other, unrelated discussions, you shouldn’t take what I’m saying here as support for this model. I have purchased MTX in precisely one game ever (not this one), and once I researched/realised what was going on there I all but swore off it forever. I’m simply explaining what’s going on here and why things are as they are.
I do not claim that. I claim that the cost of production has no meaningful bearing on the price. I claim that the “value” of Variant A is the same to Player A as variant B is to Player B, therefore Player A’s claim that Variant B is less valuable than Variant A is invalid.
This would be true even if the sales model was “sell a base cosmetic model and let people tweak it” or “sell a set of recolours in a bundle”. Value of a given variant or colour/texture combo is relative to the buyer.
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FS lost me as a customer for good and Darktide is staying uninstalled unless they pull off a massive redemption arc. I pre ordered the Imperial Edition on the assumption that they would learn from VT2’s biggest problems and mistakes (didn’t know releasing unfinished games has been their MO for pretty much their entire dev history until after the DT launch fiasco) but Darktide has really only replicated and continued those problems, plus now we have disgusting predatory mobile game microtransactions designed exclusively around squeezing as much money out of whales as possible.
I can’t think of any other game company that has burned my goodwill so fast and I regret having the wool pulled over my eyes long enough to invalidate Steam’s refund policy.
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Oh man, this explains a lot of what I don’t like about how this game handles cosmetics. For me the appeal is playing grimdark dress up and creating outfits that reflect my skills and loadout. Don’t really care whether or not other people see it, I just like knowing my character looks cool and is dressed appropriate for the situation they’re in.
For this, I’m looking for a wide variety of options and the flexibility to mix and match them, and DT doesn’t let you do that unless you’re willing to spend a lot of money in the MTX shop, and even then the options are pretty limiting.
The entire Mourningstar design was and still to a degree is a mall where you’re running around being exposed to other people wearing cosmetics to try to get you to buy some.
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I’d just love if they’d sell a base model for X price. Sell a color set or channel color, or whatever it is you want to color gear as a separate item. Then let us combine the two as we wish. Any model, with any unlocked pattern, with any set of unlocked colors (preferably with a 3 or 4 channel system).
This would A) allow them to sell a wider variety of stuff, B) let us all buy stuff in the way we want, and C) let them focus on novelty with each new set they churn out, so that we can be sure that it’s not just constant variations on the same 3-4 armor sets.
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Yes, I have seen we don’t talk about the same topic…
I can understand their strategy…
That’s just I won’t buy it.
And if they want to make more money, at least from me, they can understand the how.
I won’t buy things overpriced that is not worth buying at such price.
As someone said, the question of the work behind a cosmetic, this is THEM that have put it on the table with the Krieg’s cosmetics.
They said they raised the prices cause they argued that these cosmetics had needed more work. When you recolor there is no work at all. So it should not be the same price, especially when you have already bought the model. Recoloring should be an option.
I don’t ask that they give me free cosmetics… I am not dumb, I perfectly know they need to make money, and there’s nothing wrong here. What I say to them is, “Make profits, but do it well and satisfy your customers instead of trying to practice the highest prices you can”.
Well, they can continue their “strategy”. I just won’t buy any recolor for sure. And, unless something really please me, no new model also. And this is not a question of money. I have bought close to every cosmetics proposed by the shop cause I wanted to support them.
If they sell models and allow us to recolor, then here, yes, I would again buy their cosmetics.
From Fatshark point of view, my decision mean nothing. Except if their sales are not good, by example if their sales on steam are decreasing. Now, they can understand what they can do to earn money and what is offending for their player base, at least it is for me.
And I believe, but I may be wrong, that the purpose of a corporation is earning money…
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Recolors are the easiest, most low-effort way to sell macrotransactions so of course Fatshark is all over that.
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I want them to reach their full potential, though. This game can be so much more, if they open up to the idea.
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With Tencent breathing down their necks, Fatshark will never bother taking risks.
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Feels like a “higher up problem”.
sounds stupid but it feels like darktide needs another backlash before they start fixing something like this.
And i mean a backlash specificly about this (recolors/microtransactions/premium store bullcrap)
If the money continues to roll in, what incentive exactly does a high rolling executive have to change? Their paycheck remains the same no matter how upset the community is.
I have no doubt that most of the individual employees are passionate about their game, the community, and gaming in general. But its pretty clear by now that FS management is 100% all about maximizing profits at the expense of all else.
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You’d think it would be in their own self interest to be better… But what do I know…
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