Fortnite Things. (100% Serious Post)

It isn't 1997 anymore. Video games on average no longer cost 60$ usd and what even is a "Blockbuster" anyway. Video games look Very different, Their Prices are just completely abstract and there is no gold standard in terms of a pay model. Right now Devs kinda just do what works, and honestly I think that's pretty cool actually.

Path of Exile is after all a free to play title, your shoes will never match your shirt and all the hat in the game will make you look really stupid, but you'll have paid nothing to look that lame and technically you may actually still be having even more fun than someone like me rocking literally 700$+ on a shingle character because I don't have kids or hopes of ever retiring comfortably.

What I mean is I actually really respect the Pay model GGG has worked out for PoE and for it to legitimately be working quite well for them is awesome... but I noticed something another developer is doing that GGG isn't and that particular practice cultivated quite a lot of good rapport for that developer, its something they only rolled out this year and their community seems to be very happy with the developer for their decision to restructure their pay model.

Yeah, I actually am talking unironically about Fortnite...

This last year during the pandemic Epic Games witnessed Via their social media interactions that their audience was pretty pissed off that although there was literally uninterrupted news correspondence documenting every single second of the trajectory of the pandemic, infection rates, deaths, policy making, social and societal ramifications, and the potential of the even serving as the sole catalyst that would potential send America into the deepest economic depression the country has ever known, they were still pumping out 20$ recolors on the daily for their audience even after their battle passes sold at record numbers.

I remember reading through thousands of comments of very upset 9 year olds begging, "Why epic, my mom lost her job and can't buy my weapon wraps anymore. Epic Games very easily could have said tough luck kiddo, Dab into Floss into Take the L into the donkey laugh... but instead they surprised me in particular but I think also most of the industry. they instead said, yeah actually you right though and we love your mom buying you skins all the time SO! we are gonna restructure the value of our in game currency, every skin from this point forward is 30% cheaper forever. and they coulda left it there, but then they also said hey you know what... we are actually also going to refund the difference on your account so lets say you own 300$ worth of skins... yeah you have 100$ worth of points now because that's the difference so boom there's like 17000 v-bucks or whatever go buy some tictoks or something enjoy... and they could have stopped there but then they also and continue to... Give away entirely for free, Recolors, Texture Buffed skins (very old skins get a free cosmetic modernization and this is very often accompanied by a new free alternative style for a skin as well).

I must say I don't really play very much fortnite, but I am an objective gamer and I love diversity in my gameplay, Objectively fortnite is a good game. I never really gave much consideration to Epic Games, Frankly I always saw them as kinda scuzzy, brainwashing kids into thinking they need to spend to be cool, kinda problematic marketing and other issues. Their Price restructure really deeply changed my outlook on them as a company though and I think even in taking in 30% less on the skin store, I think they might have actually made more money this year than others anyway.

Path of Exile is a pretty old game at this point, A lot of what is going on developmentally from a consumer perspective can basically be distilled down to cosmetic overhauls for most of the game, the masters all have new models, there is a new renderer, new map textures, etc. There is at this moment in time a perfect opportunity for GGG to make a very similar move. While they are already locked into the task of making the game look as beautiful and as modern as possible, they could also be taking the opportunity to be saying to their core supporters, "Hey, You've been here since the start. We might not have ever made it here without you. We are so grateful for your continued support. As a token of our gratitude we have cosmetically overhauled ever single cosmetic micro transaction (yep) while paying special attention to the Core Supporter packs of yesterday to bring them up to the current aesthetic standards of the modern MTX quality. Take a look at something like the "Dominator" supporter pack Side by Side the Orion, or the Atlas Core... incomparable in every way but price. not to say its a bad skins, it is objectively bad ass... but it also is objectively far lower quality than the skins that got released this year.

...
and I throw another wish into the well
...

oh dang... based on the arctic GC released today I guess you guys planned to sell modern aesthetics to us... my bad.

GGG doesnt care...you either pay or you dont get fancy.

Sometimes it feels like game updates are just an excuse to keep this running