Forum Discussion

Re: A Perspective On The FTP Economy From A Level 100

The common skins are just lazy recolors, which have had a place in other FTP marketplaces like League for a while. They just need to be priced accordingly and the one dude who wants a pink caustic will still see value in it.

I would also argue that fewer but higher quality skins is probably always better than loads of garbage skins. It's a two way street, if we imagine a perfect world where EA allowed Respawn to sell skins like a normal store front that implies that actual effort would be put into the skins. It's clear they had a quota of garbage to make just to fluff the number of skins and thereby reduce your chances of getting something good in your loot box and resulting in a "just one more hit" mentality. If we had a proper economy for cosmetics there would naturally be more cool legendary skins and far fewer recolors, with recolors probably being sold as packs to present a better value. Real transactions allow for supply and demand, whereas loot box nonsense actually encourage the opposite; very few things you want compared to mountains of trash to artificially increase the number of loot boxes you need to buy. Why do you think kill counters are individual "cosmetics"?

3 Replies

Mast3rMirror
7 years ago
90% of the skins are just a different color . good skins will come up maybe during seasons . legendary skins most of them are meh . if u buy 60$ or 99$ coins you simply supporting the game cont develpemnt and that it .
DEOVONTAY
7 years ago
I know "it's just cosmetic" is a common counter argument brought up whenever loot boxes come under scrutiny, but it's worth reminding that this is utter nonsense. Cosmetics effect your enjoyment of the game. Period. Maybe more so or less so for different people, but at the end of the day it's still part of the game that people enjoy. If it wasn't, they wouldn't be trying to sell them to you, loot boxes or otherwise.

The problem is that it's easy to get "pay to win" caught up in a serious discussion about predatory marketplace tactics because the two have been synonymous in other titles (looking at you Star Wars Battlefield, big surprise, another EA title). Something being purely cosmetic does not change the nature of the marketplace it's sold on. Selling skins in gambling boxes instead of in-game advantages does not change the fact that they are gambling boxes that actively screw over the customer. It only changes the person's motivation for purchasing.

Here's another way to look at it. If I walk into a store to buy a jersey for my favorite sports team I can just buy the jersey. I'm not forced to buy an unmarked box that has a 1 in 5 chance of having the jersey I wanted. Because that would be completely absurd. The "just cosmetic" argument is the same as saying that the jersey loot box is acceptable because it does not give the team an actual advantage. It's purely cosmetic. Obviously the store has to have a monopoly on said jerseys for the analogy to work, but you get the idea.
DEOVONTAY
7 years ago
"90% of the skins are just a different color . good skins will come up maybe during seasons . legendary skins most of them are meh . if u buy 60$ or 99$ coins you simply supporting the game cont develpemnt and that it ."
First, most of the character skins are terrible and not worth more than a dollar. The gun skins on the other hand are really cool. I would gladly pay $5 for a sick skin for my favorite gun, if I was allowed to.
Also, do not for a second fool yourself into thinking you are supporting the development of the game. EA is a multi-billion dollar company, not an indie developer slowly piecing together Dwarf Fortress in his garage. Imagine if Mc Donald's started charging money to wrap your burger in a different colored wrapper. You wouldn't say "It's okay that this is an objectively poor value because I'm supporting the development of future burgers". You would ask to actually get something worthwhile for your money, which is the exact point I'm trying to make.