Trion’s source of $ from Devilian is currently being funded by Paying Whales and Dungeon-Run Sellers who actually spends real $ to purchase Rare Talisman boxes and Enigma Keys to open Blue Enigma Boxes which drops G4/5/6/7 gems.
So what happens when these rich people reach Max +14 artifacts?
The answer is no more progress = no more paying $. Paying Whale #1 can’t stand having the same identical max stats as other paying whales because they are no longer uniquely OP.
So what’s next? Paying Whales will mass quit and switch to the next P2W game to compete.
As for Dungeon-Run Sellers, they will start to undercut each other in a bid to recoup their $ investment on gear/Talisman/gems for artifacts (They have been selling to Commercial Gold Sites for real $).
Soon, the price of their services will drop so low that it’s no longer profitable for them to continue function. In turn, they will quit.
What remains are the F2P players who do not contribute any significant $ to Trion’s finances. Then game will have indeed died financially.
It’s a cancerous mindset of how some video game players look at games nowadays. Rather than the old school mindset of actually playing a game for personal enjoyment, there is this breed of addicts who either look at any game as a race to get to the top with the best virtual gear possible, with the most virtual currency, and to have their character listed on some virtual leaderboard – all as quickly as possible. Or worse, trying to cash in and make money for their own self. And there are really no words to describe the latter except as folks who are hypocrites.
Like as if any of this means anything. To other like minded individuals, all of this does matter though. And that is why there is a sub-group of players who are consistently fixated of this entire “pay2win” aspect of any game when it is marketed as “free2play”. And these folks get all salty when they don’t get their way where they make a lot of noise about “how the game is dead”. And these folks wonder why they get labeled as being “entitled brats”. The worst part is many of these are adults.
Are video game developers and publishers also on the hook? Of course (they’ve been long part of the problem). Just like the casino industry, they are in the area of providing entertainment and they therefore use every trick in the book to appeal to that part of the human brain to entice customers to open up their wallets. The big difference though is that the casino industry is heavily regulated whereas that same aspect does not apply to the video game industry. Thus developers and publishers are part of a growing problem of fostering an environment for these addicts. But none of this is an excuse for personal choice; ones that we all have to make.
It’s why I play what games I do the way I do. I don’t see them as a race to the top. Nor am I enticed to constantly plunk down tons of money for digital virtual goods. With pay to play titles, that’s the only purchase. With free to play titles like Devilian or Path of Exile, I normally pickup one of their supporter packs and don’t go beyond that in terms of constantly feeding “coins into the machine”.
I made a post on the official Devilian forums about my issue with the “RNG” loot boxes in this game; Enigma Boxes and Supply Crates (Talisman boxes to a lesser extent since those can be crafted with materials you get from salvaging). I know they need to find ways to generate revenue BUT this is one of things in the game that I personally disagree with in terms of how to do it because those things right there are the definition of gambling and plays into the psychology of constantly feeding coins into a slot machine with the hopes of a payout. The biggest difference again is that it amounts to non-regulated gambling.
If a game cannot survive based on its selected business model, than so be it. If this is the ongoing state of the video game industry with trying to use a sub-group of money spending addicts as a core revenue source, then a title will not have any sort of longevity where that game can stand on its own merits.
