Skins sale for some not others

[techno 3,476]

 

 

Seems depending on how many cod points you have the skins cost different amounts 

[IRaMPaGe 3,118]

Definitely a new one, is ridiculous charging people different amounts based on wealth (Cod points). 

 

Nothing surprises me anymore with Activision and their "strategies". 

 

Would love to hear what @J4MES OX4D has to say about this one. 😂

[Tove 488]

instead of to how many cod points you have maybe the discount is related purchases you've made and accounts with more purchases get a better discount? a bit like a loyalty card. 

[techno 3,476]

59 minutes ago, Tove said:

instead of to how many cod points you have maybe the discount is related purchases you've made and accounts with more purchases get a better discount? a bit like a loyalty card. 

Apart from I haven't been daft enough to buy any but have a heavily discounted "sale"

 

Now a loyalty scheme would be at least a better idea for those that do but the odd skin, a bit like getting enough points in the pass to buy the next one.

[IRaMPaGe 3,118]

5 hours ago, Tove said:

instead of to how many cod points you have maybe the discount is related purchases you've made and accounts with more purchases get a better discount? a bit like a loyalty card. 

 

I haven't bought any bundles and I have 20-40% on some of them. 

I did notice last time I was on there was a "sale". 

 

I think it is to do with how much points you own. Just off the video alone. 

 

Main account-12k points and probably bought multiple bundles because he is a youtuber. No discount. 

 

His 2nd account-400 Cod points and probably bought no bundles from that account. Huge discounts. 

 

That speaks volumes and indicates everything to me of what's happening. 

The fact his main account is stacked on points and he will buy again, why would there be a discount? 

That 2nd account with no purchases and low points. 

Let's put a huge discount on to encourage them to buy points with a tempting bundle. 

[J4MES OX4D 9,798]

13 hours ago, IRaMPaGe said:

Would love to hear what @J4MES OX4D has to say about this one. 😂

I think it's brilliant business from Activision. I said back in December that come the halfway point in the games cycle, they will start implementing light pay2win elements in DMZ even with the mode being in beta and that by Spring, there will be aggressive and predatory pay2win bait bundles in play to milk the remaining audience with carefully curated pricing to maximise their income. A couple of people told me I was full of absolute shit and that Activision wouldn't ever dream of doing things like this but here you go. In March they even charged £25 for a bundle which could not be purchased with COD points that was recycled free content from MW2019. 

 

Their aim is to convert as much real world money into store credit aka COD points and to do this, they offer 'perks' aka discounts to people with a low ATV spend or a lesser established purchase history. Loyal customers don't receive such perks because Activision does not reward such things - discounts mean less money from willing paying customers which could also psychologically reduce their impulse purchase potential with future day one bundles if they believe they may get pampered reductions. 

 

None of this is new and that's why I was a bit taken aback in that other thread of users denying Activision's antics when there was literally 5+ years of this industry behaviour with irrefutable evidence of methods and implementation. Activision are in business to make as much money as possible and if they have to shit on the few remaining customers they have to extrapolate as much money as possible, they will at any non-monetary cost. It will be all gone and forgotten come the next game and that's why they don't care.  

[Tove 488]

14 hours ago, IRaMPaGe said:

Main account-12k points and probably bought multiple bundles because he is a youtuber. No discount. 

 

His 2nd account-400 Cod points and probably bought no bundles from that account. Huge discounts. 

Except you have them the wrong way around the 400 cp account with massive discounts is his main and the 12k cp is the secondary. 
 

im not trying to say that this isn’t the case as it makes business sense to offer discount to players which don’t buy, I’m just saying that only having 2 reference points isn’t enough to know for sure that’s the case. 

[MrBiron 1,406]

On 5/18/2023 at 9:55 AM, J4MES OX4D said:

I think it's brilliant business from Activision. I said back in December that come the halfway point in the games cycle, they will start implementing light pay2win elements in DMZ even with the mode being in beta and that by Spring, there will be aggressive and predatory pay2win bait bundles in play to milk the remaining audience with carefully curated pricing to maximise their income. A couple of people told me I was full of absolute shit and that Activision wouldn't ever dream of doing things like this but here you go. In March they even charged £25 for a bundle which could not be purchased with COD points that was recycled free content from MW2019. 

 

Their aim is to convert as much real world money into store credit aka COD points and to do this, they offer 'perks' aka discounts to people with a low ATV spend or a lesser established purchase history. Loyal customers don't receive such perks because Activision does not reward such things - discounts mean less money from willing paying customers which could also psychologically reduce their impulse purchase potential with future day one bundles if they believe they may get pampered reductions. 

 

None of this is new and that's why I was a bit taken aback in that other thread of users denying Activision's antics when there was literally 5+ years of this industry behaviour with irrefutable evidence of methods and implementation. Activision are in business to make as much money as possible and if they have to shit on the few remaining customers they have to extrapolate as much money as possible, they will at any non-monetary cost. It will be all gone and forgotten come the next game and that's why they don't care.  

 

Spot on. Activision do not give a single shit if you've been playing COD for 15 years. Well, they care in so much as you've been giving them money every year for the past 15 years. But they don't care if you're a "loyal COD player". That means fuck all to them. All they want is money. If they piss of their player base so people stop playing but STILL make shit loads of money then they've achieved their goal.

[Luseth 1,757]

2 hours ago, MrBiron said:

 

Spot on. Activision do not give a single shit if you've been playing COD for 15 years. Well, they care in so much as you've been giving them money every year for the past 15 years. But they don't care if you're a "loyal COD player". That means fuck all to them. All they want is money. If they piss of their player base so people stop playing but STILL make shit loads of money then they've achieved their goal.

 

If anything a smaller player based, spending more money is better for them as they can warrant smaller servers and running costs ^_^

[GazzaGarratt 10,887]

3 hours ago, MrBiron said:

But they don't care if you're a "loyal COD player"

 

Understandably it doesn't sound very warm and friendly but the counter argument back would be if you were in charge of a F2P section, why on earth should I feel like i have to do that? Skins are chargeable as they are cosmetic add-ons, just like us buying specific clothes to wear IRL. If you choose to buy a skin making you look like Ronald McDonald in fluorescent purple, thats on you, not on them. I don't do skins, and most just look like crap, but if we were being totally honest, i'm sure if a cool ass skin came along that hit your sweet spot on what you want to look like you can't deny you wouldn't be tempted.

 

Sometimes I think where game companies could help us be more transparent is how much of those skin profits go towards new content or new development for things in game. Bungie tried to share that some years ago and explained why a skin on a gun was quite expensive because they could then put that money into 1 new gun. If there was more kind of raising funds for specific content, I would actually think you'd see even more skins sold.

 

It helps sometimes to appreciate both sides of the coin. I don't disagree with the snetiments people are sharing here actually, but I would say the gaming world are sometimes too quick to respond before rationally understanding why stuff happens in the world of games.

[J4MES OX4D 9,798]

1 hour ago, GazzaGarratt said:

 

Understandably it doesn't sound very warm and friendly but the counter argument back would be if you were in charge of a F2P section, why on earth should I feel like i have to do that? Skins are chargeable as they are cosmetic add-ons, just like us buying specific clothes to wear IRL. If you choose to buy a skin making you look like Ronald McDonald in fluorescent purple, thats on you, not on them. I don't do skins, and most just look like crap, but if we were being totally honest, i'm sure if a cool ass skin came along that hit your sweet spot on what you want to look like you can't deny you wouldn't be tempted.

 

Sometimes I think where game companies could help us be more transparent is how much of those skin profits go towards new content or new development for things in game. Bungie tried to share that some years ago and explained why a skin on a gun was quite expensive because they could then put that money into 1 new gun. If there was more kind of raising funds for specific content, I would actually think you'd see even more skins sold.

 

It helps sometimes to appreciate both sides of the coin. I don't disagree with the snetiments people are sharing here actually, but I would say the gaming world are sometimes too quick to respond before rationally understanding why stuff happens in the world of games.

If it was cosmetic only then it wouldn't matter. The problem is these skins have underlying performance enhancements and that is the information that should be disclosed for fair transparency. Sadly Activision have literally DMCA'd every bit of datamined data regarding this previous and have literally shut off huge swathes of their API to cover up anything attributed to true stats, server performance and player metrics. Loyal players with high spend have to pay higher prices and players with low ATV are baited into jumping on the microtransaction circuit with personalised deals and carefully curated dynamic prices. Many players don't buy skins for their appearance - it's all about the performance benefits that those bring. 

 

The only time they are transparent about microtransactions is anything related to their Endowment charity. These are basic cosmetics only and sales are tracked and published. Activision typically make $3-5bn a year clear profit on Microtransactions across their small portfolio and that is after development costs have been paid along with projected upkeep. So no matter how much they spend on their games, they always have at least $3bn at hand for a rainy day. 

[phil bottle 9,589]

I remember when it was all about playing great video games. It's not that long ago. Such a shame where it's ended. Kind of hoped gaming going mainstream would be a good thing but this ain't it 👍

[GazzaGarratt 10,887]

16 minutes ago, J4MES OX4D said:

The problem is these skins have underlying performance enhancements and that is the information that should be disclosed for fair transparency

 

I agree with your point James, I just didn't see any that did give performance related enhancements. Ironically, the purple Ronald McDonalad outfit we've played against of late just makes you find them quicker and want to shoot that guy more than anyone else! 🤣🤣

[J4MES OX4D 9,798]

26 minutes ago, GazzaGarratt said:

 

I agree with your point James, I just didn't see any that did give performance related enhancements. Ironically, the purple Ronald McDonalad outfit we've played against of late just makes you find them quicker and want to shoot that guy more than anyone else! 🤣🤣

Pretty much every major skin releases overpowered to bait purchases and the come week 3, once sales have peaked and complaints are rife from non-owners, they then nerf the gun as some positive PR. Whilst the owners are then busy crying that their gun is weaker now, Activision releases a new bundle a week later so people move on to that knowing their latest bundle is worthless. I think dataminers found about 11 straight instances of this occurring between MW2019 and Warzone prior to them getting DMCA'd and after a slight downturn in this concept with Vanguard due to a lack of interest, it's now happening because MW2 offers huge potential for this. Content creators were even able to predict the exact week a bundle would launch and then the exact day it would be nerfed it got so predictable. 

 

It follows this basic formula - expensive P2W bundle released > player buys bundle > players dominate with said bundle > bundle gets nerfed > new P2W bundle gets announced > players (forced to) buy new P2W bundle > rinse and repeat. If it was just cosmetics, then Activision would barely scrape 20% of the business they are doing right now.  There's the odd-quirky bundle here and there with some new animations, effects and finishers but the premium £24.99 bundles are a completely different story. 

[Tove 488]

This is the way in most games unfortunately especially with f2p however I don’t feel like mw2 has been too bad in regards to overpowered weapons being released. Maybe it’s just that at my sbmm level it just doesn’t make that much of a difference.

[J4MES OX4D 9,798]

4 hours ago, phil bottle said:

I remember when it was all about playing great video games. It's not that long ago. Such a shame where it's ended. Kind of hoped gaming going mainstream would be a good thing but this ain't it 👍

Yep, it's absolutely disgusting the amount of predatory patents EA and Activision have in play to extract as much money as possible from the gamer. Beyond aggressive free to play business models in full priced games and instances where gameplay and/or matchmaking is engineered to dictate in-game success and increase spend. I am absolutely astonished at how scripted FIFA UT has become and the amount of money people are willing to spend to be screwed over by EA. You just can't trust AAA competitive multiplayer gaming anymore. There was so much extended potential but companies have just exploited everything to extract as much money as possible at the expense of enjoyment and fairness. 

 

Counter Strike 2 is a prime example of things being done right - comprehensive matchmaking, sub-ticket system providing the highest quality servers, match protection anti-cheat and weapons that are just skins with a market dictated by the gamer. There's a reason why this brand gets up to 1.5m players online at a time and has an audience of 30m when it comes to majors. I'm not a huge CS player now but it's by far the most consistent series in existence that will never cease to grow. 

[phil bottle 9,589]

15 hours ago, J4MES OX4D said:

Yep, it's absolutely disgusting the amount of predatory patents EA and Activision have in play to extract as much money as possible from the gamer. Beyond aggressive free to play business models in full priced games and instances where gameplay and/or matchmaking is engineered to dictate in-game success and increase spend. I am absolutely astonished at how scripted FIFA UT has become and the amount of money people are willing to spend to be screwed over by EA. You just can't trust AAA competitive multiplayer gaming anymore. There was so much extended potential but companies have just exploited everything to extract as much money as possible at the expense of enjoyment and fairness. 

 

Counter Strike 2 is a prime example of things being done right - comprehensive matchmaking, sub-ticket system providing the highest quality servers, match protection anti-cheat and weapons that are just skins with a market dictated by the gamer. There's a reason why this brand gets up to 1.5m players online at a time and has an audience of 30m when it comes to majors. I'm not a huge CS player now but it's by far the most consistent series in existence that will never cease to grow. 

 

Totally agree. The AAA side of the industry has lost its way in terms of the basics i.e. making fun games.

 

I'm working my way through my games catalogue and rediscovering games I never got around to playing. Loving it. 

 

As for the rest of this year,  I see me buying Starfield and Stalker 2...if they both release that it is. And first contact will be via gamepass for both of those. I won't be paying for games  guranteed to be broken at launch. If they both turn out decent I'll then buy them on Steam.

 

Other than that, the non AAA side of gaming is going from strength to strength. Arma Reforger has already been modded into DayZ for example, by the community, for free. Whereas Activision just shut down a modded version of COD. Says it all really.