People don't have a problem with this game being monetised

[Jet Uppercut]

I'm so tired of this logical fallacy being brought up every time someone mentions they hate how the seasons and microtransactions are handled in this game.
We get it, they devs need to make money.
That's perfectly fine. Everyone understands that.

The problem is, this game is monetised in a way that at best could be described as "annoying" and at worst "downright predatory", with the middle ground being just pure stress. And there's not even any reason for it to be like this. Why punish the people paying for your game?

There is nothing stopping them from making all the Season Passes permanently available.
There is nothing stopping them from removing the daily limit on candles.
There is nothing stopping them from reducing the price of their cosmetics.
Like who is actually out there spending $15 on the Cinamoroll head accessory that looks like you've got two socks glued to the side of your head anyway? You could have at least color matched it to the hair.

If your content is so low effort and so miserable even your paying players are complaining about it, you should probably just go ahead and do something about it.

[Drinzen]

Mostly whales and veterans who buy the overpriced cosmetics lmao, and then they flaunt it in front of new players to make them jealous

[Draconic NEO]

This style of monetization is extremely predatory. If they cared about making money in a way that wasn't exploitative they would simply charge for the game like any normal developers. This could be a nice game without the garbage micro-transactions and always online connection requirement and would be worth paying for, in a way they're still making you pay for it but not directly since the in-app purchases are required to have a decent experience.

[Draconic NEO]

Originally posted by Drinzen:

Mostly whales and veterans who buy the overpriced cosmetics lmao, and then they flaunt it in front of new players to make them jealous :papyrus:

Yep that is the basics of how predatory micro-transaction models work. Also don't forget about the fanboys who will defend the game and its developers from criticism, and give it much more praise than it deserves.

[^3JumpinJackFlashOG]

100% predatory. This company preys on the fans who loved their old games when it used to have heart and soul and didn't sell out. Now they are what they hated.

[Meowish]

Well, for the monetization part, most of the devs do have their choice in things.

But for the Anti-Grind part, it's required by law in some countries, and if the game wish to publish to those area it needs to abide to those laws. Daily Play Limit is part of that but being twisted to favor the free to play game to further the gap between their 1st and 2nd rated citizens in game, where they can now ensure their 2nd rated citizen may never catch up to their 1st rated citizen who paid them more money.

The lack for free-will colorization means they plan to sell alternate texture goods in the future, where though they can't bring back certain items due to "exclusive item promises", they never promised not to bring them back in another texture... This kind of tactic can be seen in a lot of games using such FOMO sale tactics in their later days, especially when they ran out of ideas, or storage space budget (download/install size on mobile), or even out right put the game in maintenance mode and fired the 3D artists team keeping only the bare minimum staffs... (There's also the cases where the whole/part of the art team left the company to start a new game company themselves... well, already happened to TGC once afaik, Abzu is the side-product of that... )

[SagaP]

Mmmm, in my opinion In app purchases are over priced, trying to farm candles is slow and inefficient... but it doesn't undermine the "real game", all of this pain points are related to cosmetics elements only, coming from journey and not really liking free to play games, in was annoyed and even abandoned the game, the "this is commercialized journey felling" but taking a second look, this games does a good job, all purchases are optional, progresses trought the game is not halted, real content (maps, quest, events) are always free.

Paid content is non-distracting, there is no banners, notification or reminders of offers, telling you to go to the cash shop

Other players skins are hidden by default (this is huge in free to play games were they show you paid cosmetics constantly in order to incentivice spending)

Candles are capped yes, but is daily, normally f2p would cap the maximum amount of free currency you can carry in order to make saving non viable so you are forced to spend. Also , and this may be unintentional, it limits the amount of time you spend doing meaningles farming, other games would try to maximize the amount of unhealthy time you in game, this discouragess that, but also let's you keep playing the real game?
That's kinda neat.

I don't know, from all f2p games around this seems the most fair and ethical arround, and in exchange it gives you real meaningful content for free.

I see players having a bad time due to an... Unhealthy obsession to optional cosmetics? and even then previously exclusive content comes a around, returning and traveling spirit sell premium content for free currency regulary, so even FOMO and exclusivity is diminished

I have seen other franchises sell, and disappoint, and is not like this is less bad than others, is that it seems it does it's monetization in a very toughfull and ethical way, i believe.