A cosmetic shop is bad

Hello, this is a post where i will try to say that a cosmetics shop is Pay to win in an mmorpg. There might be some bad english we'll see.
Tl;dr at the end.

We need to first think about what constitutes winning in an mmorpg. What is the easiest way of telling if someone is winning in an mmorpg?
Well that is easy, they look awesome.
If that is true then a cosmetic shop in an mmorpg would be PTW especially if those cosmetics look as cool as the best gear you can get in the game.
Actually a cosmetic shop is in some ways worse than PTW, because it gives you an hollow illution of winning.
A cosmetic shop also underminds the most important thing in an mmorpg, prestige.
Showing you are better than others is THE most important thing in a community based mmo. Why do you think people in vanilla wow and classic wow with the best and coolest gear just hang out in the most populated areas?
A cosmetic shop is the antithesis of prestige, there is NOTHING speciall about someone paying to get something instantly to "skip the grind".
The items would be known and you would be looked down upon by those who actually EARNED their cool rweards.
If a cosmetic shop is added then the people making the game have an financial INCENTIVE to make everything else look worse.
Why do you think the cosmetic shop is there for? To sell cosmetics (obviously).
Do you think there is no way that anyone will buy it? Well that is sadly not true because there WILL be casuals and stupid people that will buy them. If nobody buys the copsmetics then the game will suffer to make sure people use the cosmetics shop.
There is barely anything to be gained by having a cosmetics shop in an mmorpg, those who buy the cosmetics get an hollow victory for about a minute, those who do not buy them look down upon those who do. Those who do not buy them may risk looking like shit.

If you are going to argue that "it's just cosmetics" then why don't we all just wear potato sacks and wield sticks? If you want a great explanation to why it's not "just cosmetics" then Jim Sterling has a great video on it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce5CDrq4dGg

The only real positive with the cosmetic shop would be intrepid earn some more money. That COULD translate to a better game, but what is the probability of that? Microtransactions don't have a place in mmorpgs, they can only make the game worse. There are some mircotransactions that are close to ok like: Namechange, server change and maybe race and gender change.
Please consider to rather add a box cost instread. A box cost that would include 1 month of subscription, maybe 20$ - 30$.
Or the BEST alternative for the players, just don't add a cosmetics shop.

TL;DR - A cosmetics shop in mmorpgs is PAY TO WIN and the players get a worse experience.

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Comments

Dreoh

In my opinion Cosmetic shops are perfectly fine, up until the point that the cosmetics outshine the cosmetic look of the most sought-after in-game rewarded gear. The second someone can buy something that outshines a piece of gear that only the most hardcore players can gain is the second that the cosmetic shop becomes overbearing. Unfortunately, Steven has already confirmed that cash shop cosmetics will be on par with end-game items (which iirc was in the live AMA).

It highly diminishes the efforts of dedicated players when someone shows up next to them glowing like an angel with huge angel wings, clearly outshining their hard-earned end-game pauldrons and weapons.

The fact that animal husbandry exists in this game as a way to breed mounts and stuff (as far as the wiki and interviews have said) alongside cash shop mount cosmetics is very disturbing to me, because why tame and breed cool looking mounts when you can just buy a cool looking skin for a mount. Granted we don't know exactly how animal husbandry is going to work so take my complaint with a grain of salt.

I absolutely love GW2 as a game, but I'll be damned if I don't say the cosmetics and visual progression of the game has gotten out of hand. Absolutely none of the in-game armor even compares to cash shop outfits and items. You can't go anywhere without rainbows and bright shimmering bodies and animations bombarding your screen. On top of that ArenaNet has long given up on keeping cosmetics tied to the lore of GW2. People running around with angel wings and all kinds of crazy things that break immersion and would give RP players aneurysms.

We already see the angel/demon and fire/ice skins (https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_skins) that kickstarter backers are getting, which is incredibly immersion-breaking, since (as far as we know) there are no angels or demons in any of the playable race's societies. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that the kickstarter backers are getting rewards, I'm just using it as an already known example.

To sum up my worries on this is that I think Intrepid will go into this cosmetic shop with honest intentions but eventually slowly drift into visual seizure territory. I'd like to trust that they won't fall to the slippery slope that is visual creep, but I've seen it happen many times, and they're only human.

Edit: To clarify, I will still play regardless of the cash shop cosmetics or not, as I still play GW2 consistently too. I'm just aware I would enjoy the immersion far, far more in GW2 if everything was in-game-world-accurate.

Samson1

Jyunkix wrote: »

the better cosmetics will come from achivements and wont be in the cash sho, dont worry you will be able to look awesome even with spending money on cosmetics

"Better" is subjective. We don't know that for sure.

Marcet

Beekeeper wrote: »

If you think qbout BDO and Overwatch, cosmetics are a HUGE money sink. "Cosmetics don't matter" isn't a constructive attitude when discussing those payment models.

I don't quite understand you coment, sorry, but If Intrepid studios needs the money and is a good way for them to make extra cash I totally agree with it. I think it doesn't hurt anyone.

Songcaller

BDO Cosmetics in the shop had functions and stats - Literally Pay 2 Win. Ashes has no pay to win. The cosmetics are just skins with no functions and no stats...

Damokles

Liniker wrote: »

I don't think they will be able to support the game for years to come with only 15$ a month from each player - If they choose to listen to you, in 2y after release the game will either turn p2w or shut down

It could be possible.
With only around 30.000 subscribers, they would make around 450.000$ a month. That would let them pay for 90 developers with a salary of 5000$ a month (i dont know how much that is for americans, but that would be more then enough for germans).
Lets say that they will have around 70 developers at all times. That would let them have around 100.000$ for equipment and rent per month.

Caeryl

Samson wrote: »

Jyunkix wrote: »

the better cosmetics will come from achivements and wont be in the cash sho, dont worry you will be able to look awesome even with spending money on cosmetics

"Better" is subjective. We don't know that for sure.

You’re right. “Better” is subjective, which is why this concept of “cosmetics are P2W” is so annoying. Some people really, really like their shining armor + sparkles out the ass, some people like their characters leaving bloodied footsteps and shadowy wisps in their wake, others like formal wear in the midst of a siege, and yet others are happiest with simple leather armor and a cloak.

Tastes are so absurdly subjective, trying to put a win condition on some particular cosmetic item that appeals to you, and may inspire cringing from other players, is pointless.

Personally I think that ape-lion-butterfly mount is ugly as hell, but Steven seems to like it. Is that Pay 2 Win for him?

I picked up those edgy purple shadow costumes from last fall, and I know some people might attack an edge lord on sight. Is that Pay 2 Lose?

Usually I keep outfits simple, and someone else might say that makes my characters boring, meanwhile I might be wishing I could turn off all their outfit’s vfx. Are we both losing? Are we both winning?

mrwaffles

@gobbals Your heart is in the right place and i agree with you that winning is defined more then just highest DPS, Level, and Other stat metrics. There is a sense of drive towards gaining nice looking gear and if that is diminished by paying for it. I do miss the days of teired gear sets being the hottness. I hope that what im about to say might make you a bit happier.

With this games crafting system i can see the majority of the population being very miss matched. The "skins" are a way for you to make your toon look a bit more matched/cohesive. I hope their are gear options, late game / hard craftable, that are so awesome they are a status symbol and you would never want to skin them. In Lineage i think of Draconic Gear.

TheLegend27

Samson wrote: »

Although I do agree with the OP that cosmetics should be earned and not paid for, the other benefits/pros of Ashes of Creation outweigh the fact that IS decided to go with a cosmetic shop.

But yes, I do agree that part of an MMORPG is working hard to make your character look good by putting time into the game... not just dropping 20 bucks into the cosmetic shop every time you log in to the game.

Well put. But, I feel with this argument quite frankly EVERYTHING can be justified as "Pay to Win". E.g. we could argue we should be able to "earn" subscription time, otherwise paying for a sub is P2W (I felt ridiculous even typing this, but hopefully you can see my point here). We must draw the line somewhere.

Steven gave his definition of P2W and I for one agree with it. Anything which you can buy with Real Money that impacts your objective/systematic performance in the game (i.e. tankier tank, deeper dps, healord healer) is P2W.

Although I agree, we should be able to earn cosmetics and it would be nice if we could, I can't regard a cosmetic cash shop as P2W.

P.S. surely this is countered by the game's crafting system? Perhaps we'll be able to craft cosmetic items, which would then solve this issue for the most part.

Linstead

mrwaffles wrote: »

First off they were very up front about this since before day one, pre KS days, and they maintain this to this day. Second this is their main pay model and primary source of revenue. ANY business needs to maintain cash flow. Most other companies who didn't do that back in the day had a game studios backing them. these studios like NC soft or Blizard didnt' have them in their games because they had other games supporting them till their user could could support them without going into the read quarterly. This is not possible with IS. So people dont want them to sell out to another game studio, they want them to not have pay to win (more then cosmetics meaning performance boosting), and they want the game NOW. so where is this money coming from if not from in game content? I dont want a hat wars game either but i want the game to be profitable.

First, Steven said the entire project is self funded, so no cosmetic shop is needed. Second, Steven said that the game and new content are entirely possible to be sustained with just a subscription fee model, so no cosmetic shop is needed. Third, IS is already working with a Russian video game publisher/studio so you're wrong there. Fourth, Steven said the cosmetic shop cash flow is only going to support extra features to the game, not the content which will be entirely funded by subscription fee model and his own money, so no cosmetic shop is needed.

"Needed" is the keyword here. The cosmetic shop isn't needed whatsoever. But with the inclusion of the cosmetic shop, the game can and most likely will be destroyed from it. Look at other games with cosmetic shops, they intentionally make the items in the game so much worse than the cosmetics which have hundreds of hours of effort poured into them so people will spend money on them. A new cosmetic mount in WoW for instance has an entirely unique skeleton, a unique model, has the best polygon count, has amazing resolution on the textures, etc. Then you get a mount from the new raid? It's a reskin of a reskin of a reskin from a mount 8 years ago and it's textures look like they belong back in 2004. That is what people fear will happen to IS if they leave this shop in. It might not be like that on Launch, but in 1 year? In 2 years? When half the subs have quit because the game wasn't their cup of tea? When the cosmetic shop is now IS' main source of cash flow? It's going to ruin the game. More effort will be put in cosmetics than in the game content, because the game content doesn't make money.

PlagueMonk

By definition, PTW is all about giving you an advantage over others. Even if it's as trivial as 5% faster gathering, it's still PTW. Cosmetics however do not give you any sort of advantage (other that looking possibly better or making someone jealous you have the cool new vanity pet) Looking stylish while out gathering lumber is your choice but not needed. And if I could beat you in my potato sack with stick, then all the more foolish you will look in that fancy outfit laying face down in the mud.

Malc

The cosmetic shop adheres to the audiences who wish for that kind of thing. As Steven has said on several occasions there will be tonnes of rewarding armour to unlock from playing the game and putting in the time, however, there are those with less time that also too wish to look awesome and it's for those players that these things exist.

Also, a cosmetic shop generates more revenue for the game, which means that we can have high quality servers maintained alongside more content releases in the future. Seems a no brainer to me!

BaSkA_9x2

I believe most people will agree that a Cash Shop in an MMORPG is not good, even if it's cosmetic only.

It might be necessary for the game to survive, it might not, but the fact is that this game will have a Cash Shop regardless of what anything anyone says.

Maybe in the future there will be subscription based games without a Cash Shop again like we did in the past, but unfortunately I highly doubt that.

Khronus

Typhon wrote: »

Can we not do another mega-thread about this immediately after the last one just died.

For real. That other guys thread on this was literally him trying to sound smart. This simply just doesn't make any sense. I think these people just want to buy the game and the alpha/beta access without having to "buy" the extra in cosmetics.

mrwaffles

Linstead wrote: »

First, Steven said the entire project is self funded, so no cosmetic shop is needed. Second, Steven said that the game and new content are entirely possible to be sustained with just a subscription fee model, so no cosmetic shop is needed. Third, IS is already working with a Russian video game publisher/studio so you're wrong there. Fourth, Steven said the cosmetic shop cash flow is only going to support extra features to the game, not the content which will be entirely funded by subscription fee model and his own money, so no cosmetic shop is needed.

So many layers here of "little bit of information can be dangerous" so lets go with it layer by layer.

1) "Self Funded" is an initial investment. This was clearly not enough made evident by the kick starter which was classified as further initial investment.

2) Sustainability is not equivalent to initial funding. Growth of a company will always take more capital and can be achieved in various ways. They disclosed this in the kick starter and was even discussed in PAX (58:31-1:02)

3)You are talking about My.com and Mail.ru and they are publishers and IS maintains 100% creative control. There was huge blowout and was addressed many times by Steven. I spoke about having sustain revenue supporting a new game from an already essablished game studio like NC Soft and Blizzard. A Publisher works for the studio and selling out to a game company like activision did works with/merges are completely different so check your self.

In the same link i posted above they (Steven specifically) comments on the exact cosmetic issue you are speaking about and plans on avoiding it all together.

"Needed" is the keyword here. The cosmetic shop isn't needed whatsoever.

Thats a very easy statement to say and just pushes everything off to the gaming company to figure out. Users like the small shop anti-big business mentality and these same people don't want micro transaction in any form. In the recent anti multi boxing mentality that users are very passionate about (not trying to trigger anyone) practically shuts off repeat revenue from same customers (outside single subs). So please tell me how you think they can expand with subs only? If you say they mention it was possible I'd like to AGAIN mention that they are using the cosmetics to fun expansions and growth in the company.

People keep mentioning WoW and I'm tired of always having to point out that all of that is the Blizzard business model. Your entire final WoW rant sounds like planned obsolescence and I agree that sucks, but what good is doing by pretty much saying "Well look at WoW...it failed for them and Blizzard is the biggest gaming studios so clearly you're going to fail and this game is doomed from the start."?

Atiqa

Here we go again... As with all discussions regarding monetization for MMORPGs, there are always going to be people who aren't happy, because ultimately everything has a cost, you can't get it for free.

The default $15 subscription has been kept for a long time now when it comes to MMORGPs, and guess what, inflation is a thing, and games are also getting more and more expensive to run with todays standards.

That's the reason cash shops became a thing.

Now, I think people are underestimating how much money companies gain from cash shops, even if it's just cosmetics. If you instead where to make up for that money by removing the cash shop and increasing the monthly fee, it would be a bigger increase than what most people think.

If you increase monthly fee a lot, then you will have people complain about that. With cash shop you at least can decide not to spend more, and for 99% of players, it's not pay to win.

If you are to complain about this, please come up with a better solution then.

mrwaffles

Atiqa wrote: »

The default $15 subscription has been kept for a long time now when it comes to MMORGPs, and guess what, inflation is a thing, and games are also getting more and more expensive to run with todays standards.

That's the reason cash shops became a thing.

Omg I flippin' love this. A simple inflation calculation I did. I played Lineage 2 in 2005 and cost $15 usd. With a 32.7 inflation rate from 2005 - 2020 the equivalent is $19.90! Thats loads of revenue lost but I'd wager they are doing because if a small, zero title, game studios said their subs would be $20 people would lose their mind

Exzear

Well i hope there will be epic sets and items ingame that are way cooler then the cash shop stuff. Anyway i hope there are weapons legendarys like in classic WoWs thunderfury and sulfuron hammer or in GW2 the Twilight 2h sword.. stuff like that really is awesome to see players have. But we have to wait and see but from what ive heard we will have both super cool stuff from ingame aswell as legendary weapons

Grimfaldra

I can see all "against" - arguments having their merits. Although I do not see them as the "bane" of a game in general, but that is something you cannot properly discuss, since AOC is not yet released.

But let's think a little outside the box. We can speculate that the raw cost of running a server in the future will be cheaper than it is today. If I think back 10, 15 years what it cost to run a mediocre pizza-box server with a mediocre network uplink compared to what we have today, it boggles the mind.

Once the game is developed and being played for a few years, the work will shift to new content (hopefully) and the amount of cash needed is less volatile (since there will be no more "surprises") so one can make solid business plans around the number of subscriptions. And with that plan , you can keep the game running for as long as you see it fit. A way to keep subscriptions is by adding things to collect. Gear-skins, wardrobe, mounts.. whatever.

I agree if the the shop is the only place where you can get decent-looking stuff, it would be a mistake. But even in WoW, there are mounts and gear you can get without resorting to the shop that looks nice. If the publishers stick to the plan that AOC will have equally viable gear in game, I say the shop will be for the fashion victims that collect stuff like that. And i cannot see a way how that hurts the game. Just cut the buy-in skins/gear from all visible achievement badges and you are good to go.

Now, the things that are sold in the shop must be designed by someone. If we say that the person was hired, part of their design power will surely be used for in game design as well. And we can safely assume, such a designer will partially be paid by the cash that flows in from the shop. If that happens, a large shop to buy things in benefits the game as a whole.

What would surely spell doom for the game would be if you added exclusive stuff for a lot of money (like a flying mount). Especially if that item is a sign of great dedication to the game. Such things should never be sold or the cornerstones of a game like AOC (dedicated guilds and their leaders) will vanish.

Elder Soul

PlagueMonk wrote: »

By definition, PTW is all about giving you an advantage over others. Even if it's as trivial as 5% faster gathering, it's still PTW. Cosmetics however do not give you any sort of advantage (other that looking possibly better or making someone jealous you have the cool new vanity pet) Looking stylish while out gathering lumber is your choice but not needed. And if I could beat you in my potato sack with stick, then all the more foolish you will look in that fancy outfit laying face down in the mud.

¨By definition, PTW is all about giving you an advantage over others¨

If another player can access something that I cannot acquire but that interests me, or I can get a similar version but with time and effort within the game, this player has a clear advantage over me.

The advantage of having something that you don't or the advantage of acquiring something by simply swiping their card while to get something similar I have to invest time in the game.

Advantage over others.

For money.

P2W.

Marcet

Elder Soul wrote: »

If another player can access something that I cannot acquire but that interests me, or I can get a similar version but with time and effort within the game, this player has a clear advantage over me.

The advantage of having something that you don't or the advantage of acquiring something by simply swiping their card while to get something similar I have to invest time in the game.

Advantage over others.

For money.

P2W.

You don't WIN, by looking better.

You don't have and advantadge by looking better.

It's not P2W.

I would like to not have cosmetic shop aswell. But it's not P2W.

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