So you implement a feature to view the cosmetics of people standing around in the Mourningstar…
Okay…? Who asked for this?
Well, the argument goes that this is to make people go “oh, I want that cosmetic now, it looks so good on that other player, I want to buy it for myself!”.
Ludicrous. Nobody thinks this way. But this is not what I’m getting at now.
What’s actually really dumb is that what’s the point of tempting players by other players’ cosmetics, if the player just goes to the Commodore’s Vestments and sees that the desired item is not currently on offer? This renders this new feature even more pointless.
FOMO is a powerful thing, having the full arrangement of usable cosmetics on display is probably less effective at making money and moreso at discouraging purchases, since it’d show players just how many overpriced items there are. Instead of the current system where it’s “just a purchase” that gets repeated every couple of weeks or month(s), at which point the customer will have mentally moved on or have forgotten.
But that’s just my guess, which I believe is somewhat accurate. We’d never be seeing these sort of FOMO mechanisms in shops if they weren’t effective.
If they want FOMO then okay but then why waste time and money on implementing a feature to inspect people’s cosmetics? It’s such a thoughtless buisness model. They are closing their eyes and swinging in the dark.
My guess is that doing so will make the player occasionally check the premium to see if the item is available or not. And who knows maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t, or maybe there’s another even nicer item available that the player wants to buy on impulse. Getting the player to interact with that system is the most important part in the goal of making money. Maybe it’s not the most convenient or effective method for either the player or the company, but they’ll keep doing it so long as it works.
I get your logic but it’s such a corrupted and rinky dink distortion of economics. The player wants an item. It is not there. The company could be making a sale. They are not selling the item. Instead, some inane wanna-be businesspeople performed some mental gymnastics that say “well you see, artificial scarcity will ultimately get more sales”.
How about just dropping the mental gymnastics and engaging in an honest business model?
tencent asked for this. they want to price-gouge (they always do, it’s something they’re well known for) but there’s not any room for their usual stuff so they’re trying to find incentives for making people feel pushed into buying nice cosmetics. fatshark by and large doesn’t care about it but tencent owns enough of their stock to make it not worth having the discussion with.
joke’s on them, i bought the game expecting to play some nobody they send off to die so i’m fine with the free stuff.
And how about this?
If they want players to look at people’s cosmetics, then why don’t we get longer or more interesting intro / outro cinematics during missions? I can’t see people’s characters in half the outros. Wouldn’t more cinematics be a good way to showcase cosmetics?
The end of mission result screen does at least spend some time showing off player cosmetics, but it gets cut short by the rewards notifications which ties in with the progression system. And if you have modded your game, it’ll show a scoreboard immediately, affording no time to look at the player characters.
It’s annoying because it’s not like other cosmetic shops don’t exist that are less aggravating and still help fund a game into the future. Planet side 2 for example.
Well, you could just see the cosmetics by simply looking at them without inspecting. Inspecting let’s you see everything, their equipped weapons, talents and curious. I think you’re reaching with this one
It also allows FS to sneakily increase cosmetic costs when they come back into rotation… and if you had no idea what they costed before, the only datapoint you’d have is the one presently available.
I agree with Harridas. I may not like it as it is morrally dubious but the shop just isn’t FOR ME (i wish it was. I would buy more stuff). Its for…lets call it “taxing” people with low impulse control. Upshot: it pays the sallaries of the gameplay development team who are making a great game despite everything.
