Hot on the heels of a backlash against Diablo 4 portal reskins that cost the same as Palworld comes a new microtransaction horror: a horse bundle that costs more than Diablo 4 itself.
I would like to see a law that simply states anything purchasable in a game, must be able to be earned in the game with a reasonable level of effort compared to the sale value of the item. Whales would still whale, but fish could hunt down the stuff they want.
The simplest formula would be the dollar value divided by the fed min wage. So a $35 item would be about 5 hours. So it must take the average player 5 hours to obtain it, or less.
It would never happen. Because then they’ll lawyer up to fight “what does reasonable mean”.
And I predict that they’d say well if a whale is going to pay for it, they would imply that the assumption is that that person works 40 hours a week thus does not have time to play. Does a reasonable amount of time to play the game to earn something is then a full-time job.
Which is absolutely absurd. But the name of shareholder profits that’s exactly where they’ll go.
I would like to see a law that simply states anything purchasable in a game, must be able to be earned in the game with a reasonable level of effort compared to the sale value of the item. Whales would still whale, but fish could hunt down the stuff they want.
The simplest formula would be the dollar value divided by the fed min wage. So a $35 item would be about 5 hours. So it must take the average player 5 hours to obtain it, or less.
It would never happen. Because then they’ll lawyer up to fight “what does reasonable mean”.
And I predict that they’d say well if a whale is going to pay for it, they would imply that the assumption is that that person works 40 hours a week thus does not have time to play. Does a reasonable amount of time to play the game to earn something is then a full-time job.
Which is absolutely absurd. But the name of shareholder profits that’s exactly where they’ll go.