Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I feel the same way. It definitely feels more rewarding to support the game development and knowing you are getting something dedicated to those supporters. And that it won't be available a month after release at 50% off as well!
No, the study specifically talks about separating FOMO and regret and envy actually. And the study suggests that FOMO (cash shop) can be experienced even during highly enjoyable events (like playing the game hopefully) without those feelings of regret, BUT also that presence of FOMO, even if the event was enjoyable, reduces the likelihood of repeating it. So it's very, very relevant to the game.
I can only speak for myself. I don't like it because 1. it's hurting the game long-term, and 2. it's by its nature predatory (exploiting people's fears), whether intended or not. I understand Steven/Intrepid probably don't see it as predatory. I am sure that's not their intent. And yes it is widely used by tons of companies. That doesn't really change anything. As for the artificial scarcity, it's artificial because Steven explicitly made it so. That's the whole point of it, so it would drive sales. It's not like he's hiding anything there
It's not enough that Intrepid doesn't have a box cost, doesn't have pay to win microtransactions, and is attempting to release a finished product instead of a minimally viable one. It's not enough that Ashes will have a [probably] $15 a month subscription despite the fact that subs were $15 twenty years ago and inflation means those monthly fees do not go as far as they used to. NOW Intrepid needs to stop selling cosmetics in an effective way that is accepted globally as standard business practice.
It is unreasonable to keep laying down further strictures in the name of some arbitrary ethical standard where the goalpost is always moving.
Absolutely. Intrepid is an Individual actor, that is capable of changing it's mode of operation at any point depending of the decisions of the many people who have an opinion on their moral decisions.
Even if it is arguably exploitative or manipulative it is definitely a practice we can call aggressive. Aggressive practices have a pr and perception cost.
I see what you're trying to get at but the study shows people doing one activity experiencing FOMO when informed about a completely different activity they could be doing. Translating that into playing ashes and then then having FOMO from the cash shop making you enjoy the game less is quite the stretch as they are linked to the same activity. You could use that to say that if you're in the middle of a raid in ashes and there's a limited 1 hour time period to buy a cosmetic, then you would not get as much enjoyment from the raid as you know you could miss your window to get the item. These cosmetics are a month long though and have no reason to make you feel that type of FOMO while playing.
Again, there is nothing in that study saying people are regretting doing an activity that they only did because of FOMO. Only that they enjoy their current activity less when they know there are other possibly more fun alternatives. I don't see anything in that study implying that using FOMO will eventually hurt the business that is using it. Seems quite the opposite.
No goalposts are moved from my end
To bring it back to Ashes, Intrepid is of course only responsible for their own business practices. I like most of it, or I wouldn't be here, but the FOMO part is a mistake I think. They can sell cosmetics without that being a constant. The "constant" part is important too. Not many companies use it 100% of the time. Only during special holidays/sales etc., and they tend to have other products they sell year round that aren't FOMO based.
It's much harder to build trust when using FOMO to sell your stuff, because you are relying on negative emotions to get people to buy. And outside of the forums here, the current cash shop model is causing a lot of distrust among people. Unnecessary distrust considering Intrepid have said so many times they don't actually need the money.
Less be a little less melodramatic about 10 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. This is not Le Miserable. Your arguments in previous posts are sounder when you don't exaggerate. Although maybe you were just being silly to make us all laugh. The company doesn't need your money, however, look at it from the business standpoint. If Steven is putting 40 million dollars of his own money into the development and perhaps he has a few investors in the game. He will be able to hire X amount of staff to develop the game which will allow them to develop the game at a certain pace. So, for example let's say the game will be out March 2024. If he had 120 million dollars he would be able to hire more artists and programmer and let's say the game would come out January 2023. Assuming that the project is managed well [cough, cough, Star Citizen] there is still going to be a certain amount of development time to do proper QA for the game, to make sure it is balanced for the classes with the fewest amount of bugs. So no, they don't need your money, but having your money allows for more staff. Additionally, maybe the game was going to have 50 features, now with the additional influx of money the game can have 80 features.
We can probably go in circles on this one, so I'll end this part of the discussion for my part with this: To me it's clear they show what they say in the first paragraph.
From the context, they are not talking about completely unrelated things when it comes to the loyalty part. They mean people will be less loyal to whatever exposes them to FOMO. Maybe you are getting hung up on the parts where they talk about regret? Because that is not it. The important parts are under the Current Research section.
No the part I'm hung up on is you saying "They mean people will be less loyal to whatever exposes them to FOMO" because they are literally saying the exact opposite...
Quote from abstract: "Specifically, we show that FOMO poses a threat to loyalty by decreasing one’s intentions to repeat a current experience and may decrease the valuation of the current experience."
Read through study 1A, 1B, and 1C and you'll see that the people that are exposed to the FOMO never actually go do the activity that gave them the FOMO feeling. It made them enjoy their current activity less, the study does not go beyond that.
It was actually 15 years, not 10. But regardless of my understatement of the sentence, I do regret adding it to the conversation. Yeah what he did was wrong, even if a drop in the ocean of wrongs big corporations do without consequence. But it also distracts from the important parts of this discussion, so let's drop that part of it.
Sure, more money is good. But then they should say it if they need more money right now. I can only take them for their word when they say they don't need the money. I trust Intrepid atm. I tend to pick and choose some of the cosmetics every month, because I like them and have the money to support the company and the dream a little. I also really disagree with them about the cash shop tactics. But it's an honest disagreement. I don't see them as evil, lying scumbags or anything like that at all. I generally like them and their goals and visions and how transparent they are.
Equally predatory yes. Also more humanitarian. And it would raise the question why they need to be so predatory to support the charity. Is the charity not worthy on its own?
Ok fine, one more post
You write they say the complete opposite in the study, and then you quote something that backs up my statement. What are players most likely to be doing when they experience the FOMO of the cash shop? They are most likely playing Ashes. They are not doing the laundry or washing the dishes or eating dinner with the family. They are by far most likely to be ingame and actively playing when they experience the cash shop. Or at the very least sitting at the computer about to play the game or just finished a session. That's when the FOMO experience hits them, so that (Ashes) is their current activity.
Fine with me
As a consumer you have the power in the equation, it's called 'money.' If you want something, you exchange money for whatever good you want. If you don't want to exchange that money, you don't get what you want. One way the business attempts to earn your money is to convince you that your want for whatever good is greater than your want for the price of that good.
This includes artificially limiting the supply (by time bounding) to increase your want for that good (demand). Here's a taste 'Act now while supplies last!' or 'this limited offer expires Jan 1 and will never come again' or 'only a hundred have been made, so act now before they're gone for good.' This technique is used literally everyday by products so common you don't even think about them. A few examples: The Lexus holiday event, the McRib, the Disney vault (dating myself).
The fotm term for this technique is 'FOMO,' but whatever you want to label this technique, it's as old as selling wheels in Mesopotamia. There's no magic behind the curtain, it's basic human psychology, supply and demand.
If you don't want to buy wheels from Thog, then don't - it's YOUR money. If you don't want to buy into the plate of the month club, then don't - it's YOUR money. But expecting the business to give you access to every plate from the prior months because, well you just want them... that's not unethical: there's no bait and switch here. It's not immoral: no one is being harmed or deceived. It's not predatory: your information isn't being sold then held against you to coerce you into taking action.
You're just not getting everything you want when you want it - and that's ok.
So let's set down the tiny violin, and recognize that YOU have the money in the equation. Act accordingly.
I agree with a lot of your points, I just don't think they are relevant to Ashes.
Totally agree. But the accusations in this thread were far more dramatic than simply saying that Intrepid is being aggressive with cosmetics.
They put stuff in the store. State it will be here for a month and move to the next month.
Is more like a buffet. Take what you want and leave what don't speak to you.
Shifting responsibility of ones financial status from the individual to a company seems shady.
At what point does the individual person become responsible for their own life?
The aggressive part of Ashes cosmetics is how early they are being sold I think not the monthly rotation. It's sort of a continuation of the Kickstarter concept. However, Intrepid Studios mitigates this issue greatly by having an open development process. They give you enough information to understand the state of the studio and the development so you can make a decision for yourself about whether this project is something you want to support. If Intrepid didn't have this open dev process, then there is zero chance I would have purchased cosmetics.
With that said they had better deliver a competent game or their name will be mud!
I want exclusives
vs
I want everything
For the most part it is.
But then you have people like me, I don't care about exclusives, and I really don't care about getting everything. Yet, with that in mind, I can very easily see that of the two sides, the people that want everything are the unreasonable ones here.
Exclusives are fine. Wanting (or expecting) everything is not.