What is Pay To Win? 

OK I gotta say this here. DD2 DOESN'T have fast travel behind a paywall... all that portcrystal does is give you one extra waypoint you could theoretically get to. But there are TEN of them in game, and you CANT buy the fast travel consumables. And it isn't like its an early game advantage either, because Ferrystones (the consumables) are rare and expensive. As a brand new player, having an extra place you *can't actually port to* because its too expensive, is... meaningless. Everything but the music pack can be found in the first few hours of gameplay (or is just... irrelevant) Yes Capcom is doing their usual bullshit, but none of what you can find in those MTX is actually a power increase of any kind, or different from what can be found in-game. (I suppose the tent cosmetics... so yeah that counts from the second tier I guess)

Josh please redo your part on dd2 having paid fast travel. You get the items to fast travel very quickly. It falls in your level 3. At no point is any of it free. The item ferry crystal is the item to actually travel and can only be obtained in-game. A port crystal is located at cities and can only get 10. Please love your stuff just do a bit more research.

Yeah kinda disappointed with the dd2 section, i was hoping he would go more in depth and go over the nuance but it seems he just bought into the hate mob

@@artemis6658This!

when it comes to pay to win people never consider whether or not they actually need to pay to win for example when yugioh master duel launched players ranted that it was pay to win because they chased the meta what those players failed to notice is that yugioh is a game of synergy meaning that any F2P deck built the right way can crush any paid deck

Josh got popular from Asmon, so Josh actually went Lose to Win somehow.

​@@ThisisCitrus Really?

@@ThisisCitrus Can't confirm. I learned about Asmon from Josh.

@@ThisisCitrusThis isn't even true

While it may have aided in his success, Josh has always been made of win. He has already been a driven quality youtuber for a while. I watched some of Josh his vids way before Asmongold ever touched them.

I respect this sentiment 😂

Horse armor was just a Western company doing what was pretty common in the East for some time. You want a patient zero, look to Korean MMOs.

@@mrbigglezworth42 This. Some people (like Josh too) never do any proper deep dive analytical research...

Exactly, western companies would've got there either way, because Nexon was already selling all kinds of predatory crap in Maple Story and making absolute bank.

@@mrbigglezworth42 While this is true in a technical sense, the horse armor DLC has a couple factors that make it one of the prime examples that people tend to use: 1. It was paid DLC for an offline, single-player game, which also had a box price. 2. It was one of the first paid DLCs for a primarily-Western-audience game. 3. Many online games that had DLC being sold were F2P - not all of them, but potentially a large majority. 4. Many of the MMOs based in the East Asian regions weren't available to be played outside of those areas, or had such low player counts outside of those area (due to things like terrible ping, overall poor connections, lack of translations, etc.) that they didn't really affect Western audiences whatsoever. So while it might not have been the *first* example of paid DLC, it was one of the first examples of paid DLC that Western gamers - and more importantly, game companies - experienced.

i've been playing a crappy game called mighty party for 5 years. i hope i didn't make anyone spend (any more)money on it just because they can't beat me after their 1-3 years of playing or hundreds spent

Its live service its pretty much the same thing people will pay as long at it release new characters (the only reason play gacha btw) Same tactics same scam same crap

@@Hajimeme7 Genshin is free and most of the characters are easy to get with mindful wishing. Fifa demands you pay for the game yearly for copy paste assets. At least genshin has some level quality. They might fall both under live service but one is much worse than the other.

Not sure how I feel about that lol

Don't forget: he's European. He meant to say 9 centimeters 😂😂😂

​@@coreywilson3493 9cm flubby Wiener could be pretty impressive though 😂

@@zerobahamut03I know how, and there is no shame in that ;)

Either way, he's on sale right now.

Just get sponsorblock and adblock

Sponsor block is a thing? ​@@WwZa7

​@@WwZa7Yeah Fuck content creators, they don't deserve anything

@@WwZa7sponsorblock, ublock origin + firefox

Clash of ship craft

"well researched" there is blatant misinformation 19 mins into the video. the rest of it may be good but that was not well researched at all.

@@CodedGamingCan you please point to the specific example you are talking about? You just made a bold allegation without even saying what the allegation is.

@@Brixster the allegation is in regards to DD2's MTX situation. Fast Travel has been noted by Josh in this video to be a MTX but the item in question is not in that list shown and is only obtainable in game. the item that seems like a fast travel item (due to Port being the name) is not a Fast travel item Edit: fixing the end of my comment to be more coherent

@@Keifeto crickets. these people wont even acknowledge that they have been corrected

@@alexw5042 I'd like to propose that there is a non-zero probability that "these people" do not check their RU-vid notifications every day. I'd also like to suggest that they didn't even get a notification because RU-vid sometimes doesn't do that (for replies to one's reply) and there would be very little reason to revisit this video and scroll down to the comments and see the list of replies to this comment, 1 day later.

I think the truth is harsher: It encourages inconvenience. If an MMO has a level skip, why would they ever put resources into making the leveling experience better instead of worse, when they are getting paid based on how bad it is? If a game has cosmetics, why would they put good-looking items into the game when people buy more cosmetics if the in-game items look worse? Any kind of MTX disincentivises making the best game you can, because you are getting paid for doing the opposite. If your game is F2P then that's just the transaction the customer makes, but for anything else...

​@@Wyzai pretty sure you are correct there. Sad, but obviously accurate

@@drewt1717I think it's been like that for quite some time. Then again, I just avoid AAA titles and play indie games. Those people actually need to produce good games to become succesful. You can buy their games easily, until they CD-Project-Red themselves.

@@Wyzai This guy is right one the money. This is why "just don't buy them" doesn't work. If the MTXs weren't there, they would've designed or balanced the game differently. They would've done it better. That's the real reason microtransactions (and all F2P games) suck.

@@poika22 then CS:GO (or CS2) wouldn't exist (or top 1 games on steam in playercount) without Arm Deals update which introduce loot boxes (and agents that although purely cosmetics, can team ruin recognition). Counter Strikes need that system to live or be at the same state when it launched which is poorly received and seen as only to divide the Counter Strikes player base instead unite. So it's more like a person (player that is millionaire and oblivious or doesn't care to the P2W issues) give money in the wrong person (CEO of that game and that games's gambling sites owners) instead right person (developers that actually create games that doesn't suck) and the right person sometimes doesn't even have funds to do start creating games.

And that's all the MapleStory Josh will ever give us lol

See this is silly bc there is no win in maplestory.

There is a saying that playing in Metin 2's public servers is pure stupidity

@@indrickboreale7381why’s that?

maplestory is pay 2 lose. people lost 500M not knowing their rate stat was 0%

How about pay because you'll look cooler

@@kapeecoffee I don't really consider that as any form of pay to win 🤷🏼

Nothin' like a steaming hot cup of mic!

I didn't even notice until you said something. That is freaking hilarious

but in real life, every money is basically in game currency tho.

Well people have opted out. It's just tragic to do so

Some times life feels like a Call of Duty lobby where I’m killing everyone and grabbing all the tags and my teammates are just fucking around camo grinding.

@@nepunepu5894 true...

@@lolly9804 not really. Being dead is a completely different state from being alive...

I remember those arguments. I was on the side of "cosmetics only" because nothing was going to stop them with a shop but I at least wanted it to not affect the gameplay. And to me the best looking armors and mounts were already in the game. Personal opinion there. I hoped that was where it would stop but alas I knew it wasn't. And I was right.

it's been a while since I've played. what's it like now?

@@20x20 you can straight up just buy the in game currency and they started selling starter sets of gear

You could already pay for in-game money and use in-game money to buy virtually every cosmetic in the game, as well as a lot of stat increasing gear. Even if it isn't through the company, it was still available, for those with more money than sense.

You know all the time I'll see companies do something scummy but it's minor, minute, or just something that is just barely offensive to the customer, and it always has a bandwagon of those willing to defend it. A great example is something like how a few months back XBox decided to put a CoD ad when you booted your console. There were so many people saying, "This isn't that big of a deal...", "It's just one ad...", "Just push one button to get rid of it dumbass...", "You're blowing this out of proportion...", and while all of those were still fair points they missed the bigger picture. I remember when RU-vid had 'one ad' before every few videos. Josh said it really well early in the video, I don't want to scrub through the whole thing so I'll quote, but it was something like, "Older games have more pay to win mechanics because they have been around long enough to keep adding more and more of them.", and that right there is the point. They always begin with one small step, something that won't truly shake the foundations of their game. They do so to numb the players toward where the game is headed, that way they can do another, and another. It's always just the first of many stones used to pave a road to Hell... It is a tried and true method to have a business lose money at first, and video games are no exception. You have to spend a lot of money to create a restaurant, right? You have to buy plates, utensils, licenses, a building, etc., but more importantly you need enough time to get a good reputation. You'll typically lose money before you gain it. For video games they love giving out a great product at first, getting players hooked and milking those players until they run dry just to do it again and again with new games.

Unfortunately many many people did buy it.

I was there too. I was absolutely disgusted and refused to buy it. I did, however like the idea of Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles. It seemed fair to pay for extra stories, quests, characters and equipment. But oh how it’s gone from there.

@@mikoto7693 Yeah, I bought Nights of the Nine and Shivering Isles. Expansion packs were usually good value back in the day. A shame DLC doesn't follow that model very often these days...

@@michaelcalvin42 Maybe I’m showing my age here, but it’s just about the only kind of additional purchase beyond the game itself that I’m okay with. At least so long as it’s adding *additional and optional content* such as more quests, npcs, items ect. I’m not cool with DLC that means basically that the true ending or something is locked behind paid DLC. Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles being good examples. You can defeat Mehrunes Dagon and end the Oblivion crisis without them. They just add more stuff for you to do. As for the Wizard’s Tower, Fighter’s Keep ect, I was fine with that too so long as the pricing was fair. Oh what a sweet summer child I was. I had no idea what was about to be unleashed.

the portal was opened and now we are flooded with demons and hellspawn

what confusion about what debate did you learn of? I want to know too lol

The point was Bethesda opened the door for western gaming companies to start parsing out content that used to be in base game, dlc, or community creations. It was the first roach into the kitchen. It got crushed pretty quickly but we are overrun now and way too many people are engaging in sunk cost coping.

Yeah, from a pedantic pov, you are right, but the point Josh was making still stands, and it doesn't change the turning point the fucking horse armour was.

I don't know what you're talking about, every horse I put that armor on was killed by a random encounter on the road out of town, Umbra a couple times, but usually a troll or bandits. I never noticed any increase in health or defense for my horses.

@@UlshaRS *Loud incorrect buzzer sound* Oooh so sorry that credit actually belongs to Korean MMOs but for the west I'd place the blame on Second Life as that was getting huge media attention and was making millions off of microtransactions every year BEFORE Oblivion was even announced.

@@xsanguine8it replaces the original horse with a armored variant that has doubled the hp, up to 750 being the maximum. So likely a lot of your horses didn't have a lot of hp to begin with? Or it might have to do with difficulty and/or character level.

Did you played lor? I heard that its very generous in a level that its losing money instead of gaining

@@yuurifanclub Problem with LoR for me personally is that they are moving away from PvP to PvE. Since, PvP is what I love about TCG/CCGs, it's hard to recommend to other people like me, despite LoR's economy being one of the best out of all Digital CCGs.

Have you tried Living Card Games?

Which is an idea they stole from trading cards. If getting all the cards is the win condition, then baseball cards have been "Pay-to-win" for over 100 years.

Play draft nights only. You'll come ahead on cards you want over time. Or just straight buy the cards you want. Never buy boosters.

HOLY SIGMAR, BLESS THIS RAVAGED QUOTE!

That sounds like politics to me, maybe its because I live in the US but I was also convinced that politicians are usually the best of the worst people in society. Not everyone who is best for the job applies because not everyone wants to hang their entire life story out like laundry for everyone to see.

@@hsanrb Oh, honey, considering how wrong you are about politicians, since they're the worst of the worst, you can't fault us for outright ignoring what you said about the quote. Also, the quote is about principles and sticking to them. We'd be hard pressed to find someone like that in the USA. You are, after all, just british living in a different place, and they're known for being some of the worst people in the universe.

Nah, sometimes you need to be able to recognise a lesser evil due to a lack of options.

@@Eira_99 Gaming certainly isn't such a case, if we permit that they exist in the first place.

Not a gene btw. But your environment seems to encourage addictive behaviour. But good on you for being mindful about it!

@@Gloriankithsanustechnically yes there is no exact gene that causes addiction. However there are genes that can factor to addiction. Yes the bigger factors are usually environmental and cultural but there are genes that can influence one’s proneness to having addictions such as stuff with the frontal lobe, levels of serotonin and dopamine and etc.

@@rosalindcormier4384For example, both ADHD and Autism have an above-average correlation with addiction and both conditions do have genetic components. Correlation may not mean causation, but that does not mean you can ignore it.

yes good idea so you still can game without putting yourself at risk by making sure its not a game that has alot of micro transactions with something like gambling in the form of loot boxes and gacha or cosmetic collecting or whatever else and youll be alright and still able to enjoy certain games so thats whats up. Only thing that sux with that is the large majority of online game or games with an online component have some form of mtx so i guess you gotta stick to single player or some games that arent as extreme with the mtx like that

Unresolved trauma is a big part of addiction. I've been addicted all my life. From food, gaming to cannabis etc. Always thought, "oh, I have an addictive personality". Now I know it was a way to not have to feel emotions and pain from the CPTSD and abuse. Trauma can jump in generations when not resolved. Do you think maybe this could be the case? For anyone unfamiliar with Trauma and trauma work. "Trauma is anything our body doesn't have the capacity to deal with. It then shuts down and internalizes what happened". To heal it, we need to safely feel and connect in community with others. Be seen while we experience our emotions. Which is scary when we've hidden our entire lives. Talk therapy can help, but it won't heal it. Somatic and parts work is way more effective. Or other modalities which are bottom up. Reliving it just retriggers and makes it worse for most people. I like somatic and parts best, but CRM and the likes work great too. Journaling and exploring our emotions can also be useful, though I didn't know about my blocked traumatic memories until I made my body feel safe. Which I never had felt prior to somatic work. Always anxious.

Oh I remember this like it’s yesterday. When the first pay to win mechanic appeared, I stopped playing and cried over videos of people crashing their entire fleets they worked months and years on into each other. (Granted I was like 14)

Are you serious? Dark Matter was insidious! Instant materials of ether metal, crystal, or deuterium. Paying for time in construction or research. Paying for moon creation! Paying for the command staff that buffs production in every aspect and enhanced combat odds!

OGame was really fun for what it was tbh.

I've fallen into this trap too mate, these games are designed to prey upon our mental.. It's crazy how effective this shit is.. stay strong

Waiting for a bit before buying avoids a lot of bad purchasing decisions in general. Which is of course why companies like Google find it so important to get you to the "get the money out of your payment card" as soon as possible, with as little hassle as possible. And why you get those "incredible" first-timer discounts, to get you to "unlock" that card for further payments and make the next one even easier to do. It's nothing new, really... but it's scary how _efficient_ those companies became at extracting that "revenue". And that's before you realize how much of that money flows from "the whales", who are brutally exploited to make the whole system "work". Morally abhorrent.

nail on the head. i've bought stuff before, and immediately afterwards i was like, "shit, that was actually a really stupid purchase."

I am this way with Path of Exile, for some reason I can't stop buying their MTX. However I realized how insanely good P2W is on this game. For reference if a player is lucky they MIGHT find 1-5 divines in a 10 hour period. The divines however are .08-17 cents a pop. This means, I can get about 10 divine for ONE dollar. 10$? with a coupon I can get over 100 divines EASILY. Now the odd part is, no matter how many times I report their accounts for RMT (which is ironic bc im the one buying lmao) Nothing ever happens. Furthmore the games creators were found to run RMT shops as well. Imo some games are designed in every way to funnel a player in to MTX/RMT. Whether it's power or efficiency. A buddy of mine had over 56 Hours of /played (10 of it on campaign). And a total of 7 divines to show for it. Now tell me, would you farm for 40+hours to see maybe a dozen divine? Or upload your CC and have more divines for 10$ then most players see in an entire league? And then have 39 hours to actually play your build?

Lmao 😂 just say you have no self control and your irresponsible with your money

Lot's of games selling $20 for a single helmet and you don't realise it because it says "2000 silver" as the cost. That abstraction from real money to ingame helps justify the ridicious prices

Helps to me mentally convert. In Path of Exile, you get about 10 points for 1€. So those measly 50 points cosmetics actually cost 5 bucks. Which is the price of a beer or a sandwich. It's not nothing, but it's not very far either. Now when I see the fabled 100 points helmet, or some 400 points armor, I seriously ponder my desire for them. They are priced as high as a full game, so they better transform my whole playing experience.

@@alexgac1801Yeah the supporter packs are pretty aight though if you wanted the points you get the points + a set of armor and some cool things like a turtle hideout this coming league.

@@MyNameIsSalo yes the price is high for some cosemtics in games but its not someting that needs to be bought to comptete with other players and i think thats where josh is missing the point , now if you were buy cosemtic and it makes your character stronger then that would be differnt story and defently be pay to win , you could even compare LoL skin shop some skins that are 30$ or even more with loot boxes for there value , but do you need the skins to comptete and play vs people no because all the stats are the same even with skins it just looks cooler, you could even talk about PoE montization system which i think is really well done but even so you can defentily spend alot on the loot boxes just trying to get a cosmetic you want which i think is fine because its optional and dosent require you to purchase to comptete and play with other players.

i hate it when games only give you access to really boring, shitty reskins/recolours for cosmetics, and all the actually cool-looking stuff you gotta pay for. a game that comes to mind is probably darktide.

So for the Game I wanted to evalute is Elsword, as I have almost 10 years running on it here's what I think it falls into Level(s) 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9. It doesnt make it to Level 10 for me because what I want from it is the gameplay and im absolutely getting it for free, only reason why I still play it.

Timestamps for each, Level 1: 13:41 Level 2: 14:21 Level 3: 15:50 Level 4: 17:45 Level 5: 19:59 Level 6: 21:45 Level 7: 24:31 Level 8: 27:06 Level 9: 29:42 Level 10: 31:37

For FFXIV, 2 (Self explanatory), 3 (Friendship circlet gives 30% xp boost under lvl 30 if you put in someones friend code after buying the game, pre order earrings give 30% xp boost up to previous expansion's level cap), 4 (Buy more retainers, the game's version of both bank space and slots for selling things on the market board) 5 (Level skips, story skips) Doesn't hit 10 for me because I enjoy the process of leveling and playing the story in it (That and you only need to story quest once, because you can play all classes on one character), have no troubles with bank space, and use the game's thousands of other non-cash-shop cosmetics

To compare with Warframe: 2) Only Tennogen on PC requires a direct monetary purchase as they're community-made skins, which receive a portion of the funds for every purchase. Everything else DE makes is purchased using the premium currency (Platinum). 3) They recently added a couple packs for relatively little money. Still, none of the items would've taken, at most, a few hours. 4) To keep as much equipment as you want at one time, you have to purchase inventory slots. Also, quite a few upgrades can be bought with platinum; however, upgrades are obtainable in the game at varying rates. 6) To skip the grind, purchase different equipment from the market for premium currency. However, only the base version of equipment is sold; if you want to get a prime version, you get it via other means (which point 10 will be touched on). The only exception is the 'Prime Access', where you can instantly get the new Prime warframe, weapons and cosmetic accessories. 7) Yes, you can get some common resources for platinum, but the exchange rates are so bad that it would be faster to get the resource in mission than to whip out your credit card. They've also had a history of **removing** these kinds of systems. 10) The game doesn't FEEL p2w because of trading; every new account starts with 50p (platinum) and excludes pop-ups. Now, what are the trading requirements? You have 2FA on your account, and the account is named Mastery Rank (MR) 2. Players can trade (almost) anything in their inventory, including prime parts, mods and platinum. If you want to trade platinum, the only condition is that the platinum traded has to be bought by SOMEONE at SOME POINT. Notice the wording; the person giving or receiving platinum didn't have to buy it themselves to make a deal; the person giving platinum had to have received it from someone who had initially purchased it. Any individual piece of platinum can also be traded infinitely. This means you can have everything in the game completely maxed out and equipable anytime for free! Also, due to the very few exceptions, if there is a grind you don't like but want the reward, you can do something else you like in the game and get the reward you initially wanted from trading. The only thing you can not get for free (as long as you're playing on PC) is the Tennogen skins I mentioned in the first point, as they are made by the community, not DE. As someone who tried to get into the game in January 2015 (PS4) and successfully got into it in November 2016 (PC), I have only purchased platinum once because I got it on a 70% discount (received from the daily log-ins) and well after 1000 hrs because I WANTED to support the game. I had already gotten almost every warframe and most weapons in my inventory simultaneously (I'm a hoarder and worked for it, ok!). The game is about the grind and feeling that you have earned the power fantasy. As great as the story has gotten, you play it because the gameplay is so fluid and fun. Getting to that point takes an initial time investment, but it's worth it from my point of view. Only playing the game can give you the best gear. The gear from exclusively in the market may allow you to enter Steel Path and high-level content, but not comfortably. Side notes: - Noclip has a documentary series on warframe that goes through not only the game's production up to that point but also their attitude towards monetisation. Even though it's about 6 years old, it's still very relevant today. - DE was apprehensive about adding a story skip, so they asked the community in a dev stream if they would be interested in the latest patch (Whispers in the Wall), as it would take well over 100 hours for a brand-new player to catch up to the main story content. Most players didn't support the idea, so it wasn't included. If you have any questions about the game, don't be afraid to ask!

Level 2.5 Cosmetic purchases that in theory are only cosmetic but provide a real advantage to the player by hiding what the player is about to do or making it harder to see what they are doing (some League of Legends skins for example) or making them harder to see than anything a free to play player can get in a game where that is relevant.

Why? This topic is so overloaded i think everyone and their mothers shared everything possible about pay 2 win and still nobody cares lmao

Truth is you can't realistically sell items without stash tabs anymore. Might be some software out there but they require you to put in information which puts your account at risk, and they aren't being worked on/developed. So not being able to sell items in a game with an active economy, massive P2W. Imagine if the G.E in runescape had a $5 paywall behind it, that's what PoE has. They need to add a single premiums stash tab upgrade behind some ingame achievement like act 10 kitava.

The defense to that is: PoE isn't so much P2W as it is "pay to try". If you consider the entire campaign and maybe some of the first tiers of maps a "demo", the 4 stash tabs can carry you through that part. But once you start really getting into the swing of things, then buying a currency, map, fragment, and one premium tab on a stash tab sale is most likely a reasonable price for a game as high quality as PoE.

@@MyNameIsSalo I would probably say well before then, because of how powerful leveling uniques or tabula rasa can be for some builds. A player with a premium tab can buy goldrim, tabby, and a pair of movespeed boots that will last them to white maps all before hitting level 20 if they drop something worth selling. That can put them hours or days ahead if both are casual players. It's part of the FOMO and actually a huge reason why they'll never offer premium tabs for free. If you want to keep up with your friends you made playing path of exile, you have to pay for stash tabs or premium tabs.

I count PoE as a buy to play game, with a say $50ish AUD price tag. It does however have the most complete free trial of any game on the market. You -can- play the entirety of the game without spending money. Will it be a pain in the ass? Sure. The "buy to play" price tag gets you pretty much all the stash tabs you'll ever need, including for trade and the fancy ones like currency/map tabs etc. I've been playing for 12ish years now, bit over that I think, and I've never used free to play with anyone because realistically it isn't. It has about the same price tag as Last Epoch, or half the price tag of Diablo IV, if we're comparing current equivalent ARPGs. Just the price tag is after you play the game for a while. One of my mates is newer, and only bought stash tabs when he was farming t16's, he did have to spend a bit longer doing some inventory tetris and that was the "f2p" cost.

@@taronzgaming7739 This sounds more accurate. "Pay to win" to me sounds like it's scalable, and you can keep paying to keep winning. In actuality, you can realistically buy just the currency tab, the map tab and 2 large premium tabs and be perfectly fine with that ~15$ investment.

SkyrimSE updates don't break Creation Club mods, or do they?

:P I won't worry to much about Bethesda or CD project RED, but greedy stupid companies like EA, and the fossilised FAT CAT in japanese companies like KOEI, CAPCOM, SEGA etc.

​@@fus132all the time yes

@@fus132 Lol of course not. Not only because that would literally directly hurt Bethesda's profits. But also because Creation Club mods are literally forbidden from depending on anything than the base game with dlcs (so no SKSE stuff) and can't contain DLLs.

Bethesda has been trying to do that for a decade already

It wouldn't be a problem if matchmaking wouldn't be rigged to purposefully match nonpaying weaker players with paying slightly stronger players. It isn't just you. You actually are matched with stronger players who win. It's on purpose to grind you down until you try the cash shop.

I had this conversation about #1 with someone on reddit, who used to pay for cheats, get banned, and then repeat the process in a bunch of online games. When you are convinced that everyone who reached X rank has cheated to get there, you are almost willing to cheat because you believe that to be the ONLY way to get there. The entire rank that's supposed to be prestigious, is now falsely labeled for being full of cheaters. When the entire community starts to believe that, just inspires third party ladders to replace the official one and the cheating problem never actually goes away... just you have a second company to filter out the real cheats.

I mean, if sometime I'll wish to become pro at one game, I shouldn't be preoccupied that the top 10/100/1000 or more are hold by whales. If I have natural talent in a game with a leaderboard, then I should climb without being put behind by the system who wants me to use irl money

@@Oktokolo This has made me quit so many multiplayer games I initially liked. Josh alluded to this with paying players getting handed a win after payment. Sometimes I would end a brutal loss and think "The outcome would have been the same if I played the best I have ever played or if I set my controller down for the entire match."

@@Oktokolo ... Did not a game dev publisher just do that... was it activation (COD I think or a COD competitive) filled out a pattern for just this thing. (note when I say none payer here I mean someone that just bought the game and maybe expansions but no cash shop item). a pattern that was littarly a system that would make it so that the game would match a none paying player against some one that had paid for a new powerful gun. the none payer would then naturally lose and then after they lost be offered a special deal in the cash shop for a powerful gun. if they bought it there the game would then force match the player against a much weaker (rated) player that had not paid so that they would then win the next round. so yes if you bought a pay to win item the game would match you against weaker players. if you did not pay you would be matched against pay to win player to make sure you lost.

Lol if he didn't sound so weird, he would of got less hate.

@@CristanioPeweyyy "didn't sound so weird." What? British? Brother look at a world map some time.

@@RoraxPlays lol im brit. He sounds like Ai bro.

@@CristanioPeweyyy you sound like AI bro

Thanks I corrected the time.. Maybe that was the time I paused the video lol. Well Josh 9 inches thing will become a meme.

Huh. I always thought he was taller.

I think the way FFXIV does in game vs paid cosmetics is the best personally. In game cosmetics sometimes just look WAY COOLER than purchased cosmetics. Purchased cosmetics are more likely than not gimmicks or previous event items so that people who weren’t around when those events were around can still obtain the item. Most things are attainable in game with minimal grind, and the things that need the maximum grind are purely cosmetic with no benefit to the game (and also aren’t nearly quite as grindy as other MMOs in general, given the genre)

@@yurukiiOWO same with WoW, atleast when I last really played. They had mounts you could buy but honestly they didn't look great. Also there are so many good looking mounts in game so it was almost like they were looked down on for using a cash shop mount instead of doing what it takes to get a nice mount you have to earn. I know wows since gotten worse about mtx with stuff like blizzard tokens but thats after my time.

Map packs existed before Activision tough. A lot of Boom-shoots had Map packs which you could buy to get more game-hours of content from your game.

​​@@diamondhamster4320kinda, but not really - it was much easier to mod around them and there wasn't matchmaking that segregated players' abilities to play with each other based on DLC ownership. most map packs were also just compilations of community maps with no DRM or copy protection, although there were some expansion packs with multiplayer content. the CoD-style map packs that broke the community up were a newer idea.

@@g3intel which as you yourself mentioned was build up on the foundation of that old idea

I remember people upset that Activision had their grubby fingers all over Destiny 2, then Bungie took the IP with them and effectively changed nothing and doubled down on pushing in game FOMO ads. The fact it shows up on digital storefronts as 'free to play' ought to be investigated by trade standards. It's no more free to play than any MMO that gives you the first few character levels for free then expects you to subscribe.

​@diamondhamster4320 Map packs aren't the problem in this scenario. It's matchmaking sorting you into a match being played on a map the game knows you don't have and asking you for money to continue. I remember a similar problem made me stop playing Gears of War 2 back in the day.

cosmetics are a form of progression, at leats in certain games/genres, and to certain people. the argument that visual-only MTX has no bearing on a game is misguided at best. Especially if a game has any sort of social mechanic, where players can see each other, cosmetic MTX _are_ degrading the quality and quantity of content that you get in the base game.

Pay for progression/ease should be pay for efficiency. Skill makes you more efficient at a game. If someone with the same amount of skill progress farther than you because they paid, they paid to be more efficient than you.

Yeah.. but that's smart and a lotta people make things complicated and find ways to disagree with this.

Pay for progression/ease creates a perverse incentive for developers to make the grind as tedious as possible in order to ensure purchases (ala assassins creed)

@@no-bark4112 please don't get me wrong, I think all these levels are terrible (especially as a person who does see visuals as an endgame). But I understand that, kind of as Josh points out in lvl 10, that's a more unique idea of winning to certain individuals. The only true p2w to me is one the majority of players would recognize as winning, which is power in game.

what you live on youtube or something?

@@gangsterHOTLINEIt's a joke about lazy "reaction" videos. Many well-known UTubers, Asmon being one, won't actually watch a popular video to see whether they have anything to say about it. Instead they'll watch it once while "reacting". But since they didn't prepare all they do is say "uh, huh", "oh, that's true", "great point". I think even JSH has talked about this -- how it takes two full days to make a well-thought-out-and-researched 30-minute video. But then a bugger UTuber can takes just an hour, a fraction of the time, to watch it with 20 minutes of off-the-cuff "reacting", and they often get more views, basically stealing content.

@@owenreynolds8718 to be fair to asmingold he can be an annoying reactionary twat but not having an opinion on the stuff he watches is not one of his failings for better or worse

correct@@CrispAndBurned

@@CrispAndBurned it is though, you're just lying.

The original release of DD1 was this bad until the Dark Arisen expansion came out and put all the DLC stuff in the Black Cat shop for in game money. And to be honest, Bitterblack Isle was the best part of the original release. But yeah, you can totally tell this is the same company that had on disc DLC for Street Fighter X Tekken.

Did you skip the section at 5:03 where he counters this argument?

"Why are you mad that they're screwing you NOW?" is not a good stance.

@@chrislee5268 My guy, did you even read it? They're not screwing you, it's all ingame shit you can obtain within 2-3 hours of play, in an indefinite amount, with the exception of the portcrystal which probably takes a few more hours to get.

​@@chrislee5268they're going to screw us regardless so you may as well get used to it

Battle passes are a whole extra line added to this scale. It is a very easy way for new games to open up essentially mtx though because everyone has a battle pass so why shouldn't they? The only passes I can tolerate are those that cost in game currency and spit out at least enough currency that you can essentially continuously buy the next pass without spending real money. Smite is a good example of this, I've never spent money on a battle pass in that game but I've been able to afford every one of them with a normal level of playtime

@johnathonabbott1774 They do operate off FOMO very heavily, though, and a lot of the rewards are on the "paid track" if I recall correctly. (I quit Smite around season 8 and only came back for a bit each season). I remember when you could just buy skins you wanted, then they went to loot box chests and those stupid odyssey events.

@BasedChadman Yes skin chests are pretty bad, personally never bought one and you do slowly get some over time(not any premium ones). In terms of battle passes though I think they're actually on the better end. The paid track is what I was referring to. It's 800 gems or $15 if you wanted to buy the gems. You can earn gems just from playing though which is what I did and it's not a ridiculous feat. The passes give gems back at certain levels, and combined with the daily logins/grind to finish the pass you pretty easily come out even on gems.

@@ALittleMessi That's good, at least. Big step up from how things used to be.

@@ALittleMessi I have a burning hatred for Hirez after the realm royale and now Smite 2 fiascos, especially after what they did to Tribes. Same with Stunlock and their abandonment of Battlerite

No game is single player. You talk to your friend about it, talk about boss fights, how strong you are, what secrets/content youve unlocked etc. There are entire communities for single player games. If your friend spends an extra $20 on a deluxe edition and brags about how nice some features are and how smooth the gameplay is, and you've got your base edition then you start feeling bad. You feel like you are missing out on something important. That feeling is by design, the developer intentionally made that base edition worse so that you feel the need to spend money. By extension, this applies to content DLCs too. The DLC could have dropped as a free content update to get more people to buy the game. But they charge for it. They are demanding more money so you don't feel like you are missing out. A game designed to pull more money out of you, that is pay to win. Every single game nowadays is P2W to some degree. The "win" is enjoying the game, the more you enjoy it the more you win. Games designed to be boring or tedious unless you spend money, is P2W. It has nothing to do with being competitive vs other players, but it has to do with how much fun you think you should be getting.

​​​​​@@MyNameIsSaloI get where you're getting from, but about your point regarding FOMO for gaming just by interacting with people normally, I feel like you've to be pretty much plugged into the community to be affected by that. Like, kids spent a lot of money on Fortnite skin because all of their classmates do, and the skins themselves have become status symbols on the playground. It's different if you just play Fortnite and don't talk to anyone about that. Final Fantasy, Mario, Sonic, and Pokemon are the closest single-player games to reach the monoculture status, and yet you can still just play them and go on with your lives without being assaulted by FOMO from the markerters and other fans alike. Ironically, the best advice you can give someone is just enjoy their own thing and keep the engagement to the community to a minimum. And if you in the first place intentionally seek out the community of any particular game, that means you've already been deeply hooked by the game regardless of all the things the devs implement to extract more money from you. As for your point about releasing DLC for free to entice more people to buy the game, yeah, it just won't work. Paid games make most of their profit during the first few weeks of its release. Gaming marketing also works best in the few months leading to the game's debut. When the DLC hits, people have already made up their minds about whether they would buy the game. Those who want it have already got it. What you said only applied to a very small percentage of people who insist on only buying and playing the GOTY or "definitive version" of the game. More content, even if comes freely, does not make a game that much more appealing in the eyes of the undecided buyer. That is why developers have to bill the DLC and expansion packs separately, else they just won't make it back enough for all the effort they have spent on making the extra content.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe:"Does that mean I am not pay to win?"

Yeah, this is what I had been thinking about DD2. Anyone who actually buys those mtx are either inexperienced with Dragons Dogma, and don't understand how easy the stuff is to get, or they're not actually interested in playing DD2 and are just rushing through the game on easy mode for some reason. There's basically no reason for them to be bought, unless you have something against playing the game as designed.

I think people are getting way too angry about WHAT these items do when, from reading all kinds of comments, they generally do nothing you can't get ingame anyway. The real problem with these is more the fact that a Singleplayer game just shouldn't have this kind of stuff in general as it sets another bad example and the fact these got introduced after the review copies were out. It's really not what the do as they can be completely ignored without losing anything it's really about HOW they were done here. Haven't played the game myself because i'm waiting for some performance patches first but the way they were done just really put a bad taste in peoples mouths. Not to mention, just seeing those on the store page before you even buy the game just really hurts the desire to buy it.

If it’s a waste of money then why is it for sale? Just makes the game worse for no reason.

@@shinrailp1416 its not even a fact. its a consistency- the items included in the deluxe version were made available for purchase after the deluxe preorder expired- upon release. a better example would be like Tekken 8 introducing a cash shop after release. DD2 didnt have these items available before release because listing additional items available in the preorder bonus separately, before release would be stupid

Its also funny to me, because for being the biggest controversy in a while, DD2's mtx are actually legitimately MICROtransactions. Most games have Mtx that's referred to as such because that's just what we called them, even though the purchases could reach the hundreds of dollars at times. The Mtx in DD2 are also less in your face and predatory than even Helldivers 2, yet I know im pissing off people by saying that.

I think its silly that DD2 is the focal point of the anger, but personally, my opinion is something synonymous with like: 'It's about damn time we got this angry over mtx, sucks it had to be this otherwise pretty decent game, but the outrage is HIGHLY justified, mtx should probably just be illegal flat out. Companies have proven they cannot implement them responsibly. Capcom getting singled out should just be the start, after they rip their mtx out we should be going to the next battlefield.' Of course, Capcom isn't going to remove their mtx, and neither is any other company. This news cycle is going to blow over because gamers have no resolve as a cohort, and the slippery slope is just going to keep on sloping.

Paid gear with advantages over any in game gear would go in the same category as premium bag slots (3, 4) unless the power gap or toxic community was so bad that you are barred from participating without whaling. (in which case paid for high end gear is level 7+) If you’re wondering why I say whale weapons/armors can be similar to paid inventory, it’s because of my experience in Phantasy Star Online 2. It had 30 minute events and an intentionally bad inventory UI. In chapter 6 of the game (right before it went to maintenance mode), they made the content barf out 100+ drops per run. Players with at least 2 premium inventory bags/bank could achieve three back to back runs in an event but people with the free or first level of subscription inventory had to mess with the UI for 10 minutes after the first run, so either they ignore / trash the drops or could only do 1 or 2 runs in the 30 minute timeframe. With that game mode, inventory saved more time than increased gear DPS 😂

@@studiesinflux1304 whit bank space im going to add in this caviar. how much space does a player need and how much bank space does the player get for free (minus in game gold). Like I remember in wow when I played Classic untill Wrath. as a Roleplayer (meaning my bank was full of useless Clothing item the the Grayson's Torch a quest reward from the The Coastal Menace a level 18ish westfall quest (because it was a easy to get Lit Torch item) level 80 max level in Wrath still had it in my bank. and even whit that I did not really have Bank space problem. Now if there was a "pay to win" option for an additional row of Bank slot spaces would it matter... no... I did not have a problem before what probably happen is that my bank space would be easier to manadge (not me spending 15 min looking for that pair of boots I know I have somewhere but darn if I can find it amongst my Box of Saronite Bomb, the Firework or my weeding dress (was some lev 30ish tailor pattern item that was not the easiest item to get the drop of the pattern and the fact not many tailors had it or made it did not help).... that said Bank alts was a thing so maybe there would been a limited market for that but... naa.

Level 9 (29:42) is power that non-paying players have no way of achieving, so unless the item shop can be purchased from without $$, yea.

@@studiesinflux1304 You would put Path of Exile at the same tier as a game like Path of Exile where you can buy end game gear instantaneously that's best in slot? Nah mate, that isn't the same.

​@@iPuls3path of exile being on the same tier as path of exile sounds about right

Touch grass

I don't understand it. Without the carefully shaped beard he'd look like a young Peter Gabriel at best.

Lost a great deal of interest in Josh there, with him not doing basic research and instead opting to parrot misinformation.

@@billyfig1Josh made a mistake, wow, what a sin! He's not perfect. He's made mistakes before and acknowledged them.

@@androsh9039Nobody said he was perfect. He's made mistakes before just like everyone else, but the point of mistakes is that you learn from them. Honestly not doing basic research isn't a "mistake", it's literally the most basic thing you do when you report on something or make an essay on something, hence the name. What is a "sin" is dismissing actual good criticism of Josh and defending him when people rightfully call it out just because "He's made mistakes before and acknowledged them." You can still like a content creator and rightfully call them out when they mess up.

"You don't pay for fast travel, you pay to fast travel more." Oh I see, well that makes it okay then. Let's keep supporting it! (sarcasm, in case anyone is wondering)

@@TiwillNot even "you pay to fast travel more". Again, Ferrystones, the item that lets you fast travel, isn't even sold as an mtx. You can buy one portcrystal, a waypoint item, that you already can enough of in the game to reach the cap on them without paying for the mtx. It's a step 3 thing here. It's a headstart. By buying the portcrystal you can start the game with one. (Which is honestly not very useful because there's not really many applications for it until you can already find them in game.) Which is dumb. But frankly I don't care what other players do with their money. I'm playing the game as is which is a well designed game that doesn't need the MTX.

It only "gets away with it" because there are enough people on Earth without self-respect willing to put up with rotten game design for the sake of anime tiddies.

​@@TiwillMany people are casuals who don't know the first thing about any of this.

@@Lenariet Hmm. I think it's a bit like people going to the casino. Or smoking. They know it's bad, they're just too distracted and too addicted to care.

​@@TiwillNah, I think they just genuinely don't know or don't think much of it. I have a work colleague who told me about this mobile game she had installed and that she liked. She is a bit older and seems to be otherwise just reading books and watching TV and such. When she told me about how that mobile game was entirely free and that she had coins and energy and cooldows and sh*t and that she would set an alarm clock to go off on her phone in the middle of the night at a point when said cooldowns had run out I couldn't help myself but warn her about the manipulative psychology behind this and that these F2P games come with serious tradeoffs that can easily lead weaker-minded individuals into dark holes. She isn't stupid, I think she understood what I was trying to say. But some people are so absolutely not into gaming and so very casual and "innocent" in a sense that they really simply don't "see" even a fraction of what we more passionate hobby gamers are talking about.

@@Tiwill The conversation acknowledges this, games have gone bad and the inclusion of p2w of any level is counterproductive to designing the best game possible. Addiction and ignorance being exploited are issues. But just like there are ways to responsibly enjoy a casino (entering with a strict budget, expecting to lose that entire budget, and "winning" by enjoying the experience), games are still enjoyable even in the face of encroaching corporate greed. Learning to discuss p2w properly doesn't endorse devs doing it, it arms the community to handle it.

yeah but how dare you get an otherwise inconspicuous part of your psyche taken advantage of by a carefully constructed sequence of hooks (/j, blame the company/manipulator, not the victims. it's not hard)

People often focus mostly on the gambling aspect while overlooking that FOMO is absolutely a thing. It can be easily brushed off with a "do you ACTUALLY need that " but it's all specifically designed to make you feel like you do (insert SpongeBob "I need it!" meme). There are many layers of manipulation in gacha.

@@abadenoughdude300While thats true werent there games before gachas already that played for the same logic? Team fortress 2 has limited lootboxes with limited keys which is working with the same FOMO logic gacha games use, infact i know for sure that even Warframe utilises the gacha like FOMO by carefully curating what rare mods enter the system. I still remember the day when the original snipetron weapon in warframe returned for a week and the "elites" were fuming on the forums that the unsellable weapon now loses value!

You are not to blame. Companies hire psychologists to device mechanics that have those effects. They actively prey on you. See dark patterns etc.

It only hard the first time you try to ignore fomo, it only get easier after that right now for me i don't even care about battlepass or any crap like that if i check battlepass and it only cosmetic, that instant pass for me i don't even bother even if 10$ are just meager amount.

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