Praise the almighty one or more of the following: 💵 💶 💴 (Formerly pictured, the pound, now found on milk cartons under "Have you seen me.")

See, a company that makes the mistake of involving itself in this horrible world known as "the public trade" becomes beholden to these horrific brain eating parasites known as "shareholders".

They have almost always hated us. It's just that they were forced to at least try to make some good games to sell on the market, before. Nowadays, they can just release some game-as-a-service or online shooter bullshit and call it a day.


I hope big publishers will fucking gaas themselves to oblivion sooner rather than later.

Does a farmer hate his cows? The cows that provide milk and meat for him and perhaps even to sell and make his livelihood?

They don't hate you. Quite the opposite; they absolutely love you for spending time and money on their live service product instead of someone else's.

I'm surprised that RL had ANY player-to-player trading system for as long as it did. Such systems are a complete anathema to games which sell microtransactions and have gambling mechanics (loot crates). Unlike in the physical space, in virtual space nothing is technically limited (no matter what the crypto bros will tell ya). Thus, if they just allowed player trading, their own wallet would get hit. I guarantee that execs would rather be branded with a hot iron than let something like that happen.

Being facetious..... anyone that has ever had to deal with an entitled, ignorant and especially exitable customer knows they are impossible to love.

Because they don't buy enough lootboxes.

That's literally why humans bother telling stories at all.

But I guess we're at a point where you have to be thankful when people at least acknowledge that they hate the artists for making their art relevant. You don't often see such a clear hatred towards the art of storytelling nowadays. Most haters say they're 'liberating' artists from DEI constraints. All of these ideologist and activist haters do proclaim that they're neither activists nor ideologists, however, and should be laughed at until they find a new hobby.

I mean, if you wanted to create an example of an anti-free-speech statement, that would be a very good example.

Most culture is built from ideologies. They may not be the best ideologies from your point of view. But they are ideologies.

Art is a very useful medium to explore alternative ideologies. If you think that is disrespect, maybe you are closed-minded.

Honestly, as far as loot systems go, Rocket League was probably the most forgiving that I know of. Players got rewarded for playing the game and could stack up valuable crates, trade them with other players, and get items that they wanted without having to ever spend a cent.

From a business stand-point, there are multiple areas of lost revenue in this model. But do you know what the developers had instead? A happy community. Some people just played the game, others grinded for crates, some bought the keys to open those crates, some bought DLC for additional cars. And the game wasn't even free! So all of these purchases were extra. It was pretty difficult to find something negative to say about the game.

Then they adopted the free-to-play live service model and slowly began to degrade. I checked up on some popular RL creators I used to watch, they've left the game due to how poorly it has been handled, as well as many e-sport orgs. What a waste of an IP.

It's not what they say that's the problem, it's how they say it. Everything is forced, subtlety is an alien concept. It's an abuse not a use.

There is nothing anti-free speech about this, the opposite is true for woke media, people can say whatever they want these days as long as the mob already agrees with it.... how is that freedom?

If someone is going to preach at me he had better be prepared for me turning away unless it's a damn good sermon... the problem is all the sermons are trash and half the time people are pretending they are not preaching.

If you are going to make a game then don't just do trash work at it and pretend that the idea matters more than the execution. It VERY much is never the idea that counts when it comes to anything approaching entertainment. It does not even count for edifying documentaries, either do it properly or face the annoyance of the audience at having to suffer through the farce no one wants.

Free speech is about the ability to say what you want without persecution.... its not about people validating your work regardless of how good or bad it is. If a woke activist wants to make evangelical games promoting progresivism fine.... but don't pretend it's not motivated to proselytize. The same standard applies to all religious media equally, respect the medium or don't bother.

Because the customers refuse to give them money without expecting something in return. That affects their bottom line and is super annoying...!

hi, can you tell me why rocket league changed their ingame trading policy

Sure! Rocket League removed player-to-player trading in December 2023 to align with Epic Games' overall approach to game cosmetics and item shop policies. Essentially, Epic Games wants to ensure that items in their games aren't tradable, transferrable, or sellable1. This change also opens up future plans for some Rocket League vehicles to come to other Epic games, supporting cross-game ownership.

Does that help clarify things?

yes it does, any info on why Epic games changed their approach?

Epic Games changed their approach to in-game trading primarily to align with their overall policies on game cosmetics and item shop policies. They want to ensure that items in their games aren't tradable, transferrable, or sellable1. This change is also aimed at preventing scams and maintaining control over the in-game economy. Additionally, it supports their plans for cross-game ownership, allowing items to work across different Epic Games titles.

It's a move to create a more controlled and secure environment for players, but it has also been met with some criticism from the community.

Does this help clarify things further?

It may be a shift towards a heavier monetization model, potentially requiring players to spend more on in game purchases. Profit over player engagement. Alternatively, it could signal that Rocket League is no longer a high priority game, leading to cost cutting. I can't say as I don't play it.

People still buy their stuff like mad, so even lack of respect is apparently lovely in some way.

Why? The modern wallet is not technically limited... the limitation is just kicking in for anyone "lacking in power"... it is a clear hierarchy. Sure, humans never had so many coins and other resources in their whole history... the unfortunate thing is just... the hierarchy and its effects is as well the highest ever seen in the entire history... so the stuff simply will not "arrive" anymore.

We do not even have more "millionaires"°° in a percentage, because a 3 times millionaire from today is equal to a 1 times millionaire from 20+ years ago. A million simply is not the same value anymore... this is the true issue.
°°This is a reflection of where someone stands, not a absolute number, i am afraid.
In my country... owning a million nowadays is not enough in order to "call your job a thing of the past"... it was possible 20+ years ago but this age is over... for many years already. The whole idea that was historically describing a millionaire was to specify the condition of "someone is out of any troubles related to coins for their entire life"... which is not the case anymore... at least not for those with a "healthy lifespan".

Not much different when it comes to many of the big companies... they constantly seek for "even more coins" because if they do not increase their capital even more they actually "go down in power". This is like a race where those with sufficient power are "sharing the increasing wealth" with each others... and all the others are getting its leftovers... which is slowly decreasing as it is slowly becoming lesser compared to the "total wealth". So, this system is not sustainable, i am afraid... the maths are pretty truthful.

If it is a small indie dev, you could ask them that question.

But bigger companies, especially those that are publicly traded? Hate? That's such a human emotion to ascribe to such an inhuman entity.

View any large company like a revenue optimizing piece of software (ie, an automaton) that has only that goal with the only variables being:
- Over what time period does it want to maximize revenue?
- How good is it at predicting what strategy will generate the most revenue?

Any gesture that may seem altruistic is in reality a pr move that is analyzed as nothing more than the monetary value that is attached to the goodwill it will generate. Similarly, many categories of despicable actions are analyzed in terms of cost and nothing else.

Laws and established social norms are the playing field that will help determine how well good behavior aligns with optimal revenue for the automaton.

When those are lax, as they are right now in the gaming industry, revenue optimizing automatons do what revenue optimizing automatons do and abuse their position to optimize revenue within the context that they operate in.

So really, don't get mad at big corps. That is an exercise in futility. Get mad at societies (which gamers are part of) for believing in the foolish idea that ceding all control to money generating automatons (thinking that they'll behave like people) is a good idea.

I mean, I'm a software developer and I love the stuff, but I'll be the first one to tell you that for anything with an appreciable degree of complexity (which managing various aspects of our society has, including the gaming industry), giving complete free reign to an automaton without any human in the loop, ever, is a terrible idea.