Concerns About Monetization and it's Long Term Effects on Dirty Bomb

(RowRowDango) #1

So, as someone who really likes Dirty Bomb, I’m worried about what the current pay model could mean for it’s life in the long term.

My worry is that, like many f2p titles on Steam, it just won’t last simply due to a bad reputation related to it’s somewhat grindy model. I’ve already had friends be turned off from the game after hearing the cost of mercs in comparison to the amount of credits you get per game and per daily mission.

I don’t dislike that the game is free to play, and I like that the cases are entirely free from real money transactions and want it to stay that way, but I feel the possibility that I’m going to be playing a somewhat dead game some months down the road is a little too real.

This isn’t necessarily a complaint from me, as I’m willing to stick with the game. I just think it’s good for the developers to know that there might be a need to change the way the free to play model works if they want a lasting community, even if it means getting a bit creative with the way they monetize the game.

Thanks for reading.

(avidCow) #2

At current prices it appears as though it would cost me $176NZ to buy all the mercs (I have 6 already) and basically have the ‘full game’. Funny how that works out with “free to play” games. Let’s say I buy half of the mercs with credits, that’s still $88NZ. Compare that to a AAA title like Dark Souls II for $64.99NZ. Bit steep! Will be interesting to see how this goes.

(RowRowDango) #3

EDIT (I couldn’t find an edit button for the original post): Part of the problem seems to be that the only monetized part of the game is the mercs, and because there’s nothing else to buy the game is entirely reliant on charging high amounts for the mercs to make money. And because at a certain point everyone will own all of the mercs and therefore not have anything else to buy, meaning the price of the mercs needs to be even higher.

I understand that to developers do not want to have players pay for cases in order to avoid being pay to win, but it would likely be better if players could have the option to both purchase crates with in game or real currency. The mercs could be sold for less since they wouldn’t be the only source of revenue and new players wouldn’t be the only ones buying in game items with real money. As someone who’s played many free to play games, I think it’s very plausible to believe that players would buy cases, even if they also dropped at a steady rate. I can say from experience that I’m more likely to buy optional items in a free to play game rather than content that I feel the developer is forcing me to buy to get a full game, which is how I somewhat feel about the current system. I’ve also played some free to play titles where I’ve been so frustrated by game’s monetary system that I’ve completely stopped playing. This all together seems like a more fair, less exploitative system for the player.

Again, I just think this is helpful feedback for the devloper, as it means they can develop a system to give Dirty Bomb longer legs.

And again, thanks for reading.

(smartIsland) #4

I played a lot of LoL and I remember it took like a week or two of playing to get a new champion, prob around 50 games. In this game it’s like 250 games per merc. Almost so much it is discouraging… If bushy and Nader were $5 I would have bought both immediately

(riptide) #5

I completely agree and it’s my biggest concern for the long term. They need to make the path to mercs much faster and just focus on monetizing skins. If they want to charge for mercs it should be super cheap, say 5.00 or 25,000 credits. The majority of money should come from merc and weapon skins, which even the community can help make.

I say this as somebody who has bought every merc for myself and 4 starter packs for friends (all of which don’t play because of various reason, loadout cards, maps, grinding mercs)

(Humbug) #6

According to their stream they are already working on this, seems like we will get custom melee weapons. And more missions for more credits.

I honestly don’t have a problem with the current model though. I don’t even need every merc, but those who fit my playstyle :smile:

(Ribero) #7

Agree with the OP, and am in the same boat; I have no real problem with the current model but have seen friends, and plenty of other people, be turned off from the game because of it.

Also the edit button is the little gear/cog icon in the top right of your posts little box thing.

(DadoPeja) #8

Yea many are alredy leaving, not much in game yet to do - i am w8ing for new missions and other ways to earn credits, also maybe lower the 10€ mercs to 7.50€ and 50k to 40k credits not much but still better, -10k credits would reduce around 2-3 good days of playing with missions (1800c from missions per day). Also some daily log in prizes would be nice.

(Litego) #9

10 euro or 50k credits for a single merc is absurd. If it was lower I’d easily buy mercs for real money, but at that price they ain’t getting anything.

(Viquel) #10

I’m surprised that there are no 20 USD/EUR mercs yet. You would do that to sell the 10 USD/EUR ones easier.

Steam takes a cut, the payment facility takes a cut, the publisher wants some pie - I wouldn’t bet on 5 USD arriving at the studio.

I don’t know why I’m still bothering with f2p games. At least I won’t spend a dime on this game until they tell me why I was banned without giving them a reason like cheating :smile:

(smartIsland) #11

What I liked about LoL was there was (1) a rune system that took about 2 months, purely grinding only, that everyone could access as a steady progress of unlocks that gave very slight minor enhancements but was very addicting both from a grindy competitive perspective and purely collecting. (2) then there was a pay system for xp(faster leveling aka runes)/credit boosts, champions and skins, all of which could be also grinded for credits

The runes got people into addicted playing a lot and regularly, the skins made the money

(Litego) #12

[quote=“Viquel;16233”]Steam takes a cut, the payment facility takes a cut, the publisher wants some pie - I wouldn’t bet on 5 USD arriving at the studio.

I don’t know why I’m still bothering with f2p games. At least I won’t spend a dime on this game until they tell me why I was banned without giving them a reason like cheating :smile: [/quote]
Sure everyone wants their piece of the pie, but that is true for any game. Let’s say the price was 5 euro per merc. I buy 10 mercs and they’ve earned 50 euro, the price of a full AAA game. That seems reasonable to me. But 5 mercs for 50 euro in a game with idk, 15-20 mercs at launch, with plans to regularly release new mercs? That is ridiculous!

(srswizard) #13

10€ for a single merc is indeed ridiculous, and I won’t be buying anything until the pricing becomes more reasonable, if it ever does.

I’d like to support the devs, but right now I wouldn’t be getting my money’s worth, if I were to pay to unlock mercs.

Frankly I think that there are better choices for monetization, anyway, such as character/weapon skins, credit/xp earning boosts, cases, and maybe renting servers, for example.

(Eox) #14

I also agree. If all new mercs will cost 50k, it’s definitely way too much. You have to farm for an insane time in order to hope getting a merc. While the last credit buff was a good start, we definitely need to have much less expensive mercs. Ten euros (and probably much for in dollars) for a single merc : this is just totally insane.

(son!) #15

Wish CSGO and DOTA 2 model of a F2P economy was the obvious standard (granted CSGO isn’t F2P, nonetheless it shares the model). It breaks from the idea that you sell a game but rather sell collectibles that do not impact the gameplay. The ceiling there is huge as what those collectibles look like and do is creativity-limited and how additional collectibles impact the economy is left for the economists to figure out–which must be less resources than what it takes to design+create the merc with the inevitable upset in the pacing and balance of the game that would require further tweaks and or reworks to compensate. Plus there’s the potential blowback from the community due to big gameplay changes. Additionally you get sub-cultures developing around the collectibles like trading and gambling which can bring in a lot of money.

Making gameplay the money maker as a F2P game is poor monetization and people see that. Buying gameplay is what we did before we had the concept of F2P and when we bought it we got more for cheaper than what we’re getting from many current F2P games (including DB).
Just seems like your game needs to have some amazing hook/hooks to succeed by monetizing gameplay, especially when you see monetization done like in valve’s titles.

(Zenity) #16

Valve makes most of their money from Steam, don’t forget that… Also TF2 and Dota2 have massive communities, which make this kind of F2P possible. This is also true for CSGO which isn’t even F2P as you pointed out.

It is very unfair to other developers to now expect everybody to follow their footsteps. If it would be that easy, I can assure you that everybody would already be doing it. Everybody loves the Valve model, so there is no reason not to use it if you can make it work for your project. But that’s a huge if.

Buying the total gameplay in a typical F2P game is usually more expensive than fixed game prices, that’s true (although right now the total price of DB is still very reasonable with the merc starter pack, and there are guaranteed to be more packs in the future). The point isn’t being cheaper, the point is to give you a choice. Support the game with more money if you can afford it, or play for free if you have a lot of time to play. Or a combination of both. It also allows you to play immediately and only pay what you really want when you want it, rather than having to buy everything at once (often without even being able to try the game beforehand).

It is also not just an alternative to the standard premium model, it is primarily an alternative to the traditional subscription model which guarantees continuous development of a game. When subscriptions were still common, the cost would also quickly add up to much more than a fixed price title.

(son!) #17

[quote=“Zenity;16257”]
It is very unfair to other developers to now expect everybody to follow their footsteps. If it would be that easy, I can assure you that everybody would already be doing it. Everybody loves the Valve model, so there is no reason not to use it if you can make it work for your project. But that’s a huge if.
/quote]

Not unfair at all. You throw your hate into the F2P ring your monetization is going to be compared to the gold standard. If you don’t have the resources to make something comparable then you ought to think about not being F2P. The F2P where you leak out gameplay at a premium looks poor by comparison and unreliable long term. It relies on having a great hook(s) that will make people want to spend money (rather than climb the required high grind wall) or as you point out a benevolent customer that wants to support the game for the quality of work done (category I happen to fall into but I expect target audience half my age won’t). A better model for the consumer lets people pay money and get something of value in return while keeping the core gameplay unchanged, this way you remove any aspect of pay to win while giving the customer something for their money.

The nature of competitive FPS doesn’t lend itself well to a subscription model because you simply don’t have as much content and a big hook (player progression) is hard to make work fairly. Best hook we get is a system based off ELO/MMR, which dunno maybe there’s something surprising in the works that makes the rankings in this game mean much more than we have seen in others, which could make this model work. Just that seems harder to me–having a good idea. The resources for an established company to implement and tweak on other’s ideas seem far easier.

(Zenity) #18

Of course you can have a discussion about whether F2P / subscription is the right approach for an FPS, but I for one want to see it tried at least. There has to be an alternative to the one-off modern shooter (that isn’t made by Valve).

I just can’t get excited about the latest installment of Battlefield or Call of Duty. Even if these would be more to my liking, I wouldn’t be happy knowing that the game will be deprecated in a couple of years. If you think about it, games like CoD have almost become a subscription model in itself, with a 60 bucks charge per year plus DLC.

What SD is trying with Dirty Bomb is interesting, and I want to see how it plays out. So far I think that the F2P model is far superior to any other F2P shooter I know about (other than TF2 of course). The pricing seems fair so far, and there is no pay to win vibe about it to me.

So far I’ve bought the starter pack (fair price), didn’t buy Bushwhacker yet because I’m not too interested, and unlocked Nader with credits I earned a good time after Bushwhacker was released (everything else I spent on crates and trade ups) without excessive amounts of playtime.

Personally I also don’t find the 10 bucks for newest mercs particularly tempting, but if I had more disposable income right now I would still pay it to support the game even though it doesn’t seem necessary to me at all. And the upside of the price is that it makes current and future deals like the starter pack look more enticing.

(avidCow) #19

It seems I would be paying less than others at current exchange rates. Surprising.

10 Euros equals 14.30 New Zealand Dollars

10 US Dollar equals 13.14 New Zealand Dollars

I want to see this game succeed, but I’m not yet convinced they can adequately manage a balanced and fun FPS gameplay style with some players having access to around 7 mercs and others having access to 15 or more. And how are you supposed to host a competitive league with those kinds of discrepancies?

(Zenity) #20

[quote=“McCrorie;16297”]
I want to see this game succeed, but I’m not yet convinced they can adequately manage a balanced and fun FPS gameplay style with some players having access to around 7 mercs and others having access to 15 or more. And how are you supposed to host a competitive league with those kinds of discrepancies? [/quote]

How does League of Legends, where choice of champion matters a lot more?

Right now it takes about $30 to unlock all the mercs, or perhaps a few months of playing. This is not a large amount of money for a competitive game, and even if somebody cannot pay (which would mean that they wouldn’t be able to compete anyway if it wasn’t F2P), you generally need a few months anyway before you can compete on a reasonably high competitive level.

Keep in mind that the current crop of competitive top players in Dirty Bomb mostly have been playing the beta for years already. If it wasn’t for the reset a month ago, they would be swimming in credits by now.