why do i need to buy points/gems/coins/ etc. shit for games?

Obfuscation.

You don't think anything of dropping 2100 platinum on that cool new bundle, but in real money that's $30 for one character, a cape, and a gun.

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>>377552434
I'm gonna drop some basic shit on you here

Let's say you want that super sweet skin pack

Sure they could charge the 12 bucks straight to your card

But why the fuck would they do that when they could put in 5 dollar increments.

You give them money, they give you 1's and 0's and whatever you don't spend is just icing on the cake

Because there are stupid people who buy them.

Because if you could just buy something for 6:50 you would. But if you have to buy either 5 or 10 bux worth, then they;ve made more money. They can also engineer the prices to make it very difficult to spend in those perfect increments, meaning that you have to buy another 5 bux on top of what you had left over if you want to get something else

>>377552696
is that really all it is? some cheap illusion on how much youre really spending?
I can understand the reasoning but is that really worth spending energy programming in to a game just for that?

It creates a degree of obfuscation for the cost of what you are actually purchasing with your money.

If 20 in-game loot boxes are priced at 3000 "gems", the customer is more likely to buy than if 20 boxes were priced at $49.99 because they have a much better idea of what $49.99 is worth.

>>377553003

It's not just that but even if it was the answer would probably still be yes

>>377553003

It's really that simple. Shit like Horse Armor wouldn't sell nearly as much for $2.50, but for 200 MS points it's a fucking bargain.

>>377553002
that feels like a real bastard tactic but maybe i shouldnt be surprised. I figured maybe there was some fundamental reason beyond money that I was missing but I guess not.

>>377553086
I guess that rules out ever having some single "gems" currency idea over multiple games then too because you'd essentially have companies competing against one another or give people some idea of what things "should" be worth

>>377552789
This

Also, changing money into 'funny munny' confuses the average consumer into buying more than they need & when you're left with a small amount after your purchase, you feel inclined buy more in order to spend it.

They get out of tax laws this way. You buy the currency from the publisher, only the publisher needs to worry about the tax forms.

>>377553509
>>377552789
it seems like this kind of shit should be illegal because its like saying if you want something you have to "pay" for it and then be ready to throw more money away than necessary

>>377553769

Technically you're not buying the in-game item, you're buying the in-game currency and so you're getting the "full value" of what you're paying for.

>>377553234
my next question then is why is no one pissed off about this?
I mean the whole Horse Armor (or ME3 entire fucking character withheld) thing people lost their minds over but i never hear anyone upset over this

>>377554090
Blame Valve. Everyone is copying them and it got more easy to abuse shown through mobile games. Right now this is the copout for studios to bring in extra cash.

>>377554283

I don't see how Valve are to blame when they've never used a point system to buy shit in their games. I would have said blame Microsoft as that was the first thing I remember when you could buy shit from their online store. Doing the math and seeing that I always had to buy more points than I needed to get a thing.

This could be extended to Asian MMOs though as they've been doing this shit for longer still I'm sure.

>>377554665
I say blame Valve more in the aspect of Western Games and the fact people where getting addicted from it and making money. We still have people uploading videos of them just unlocking stuff.

>>377554801

Again I'd still point to the Asian MMOs before Valve. Valve have hired (((economists))) in the past but at least never used shady point/gem/funbux systems. That's the crux of OP's questions.

>>377554801
bullshit, if anyone is to blame its riot, dota is the only moba that doesn't have a fake ass currency in it

>>377554283
>>377554665
>>377554801
So then why has no one tried to regulate this kind of stuff? If they want to use this crappy system why not make them all use the same one so some kind of consumer protection can be put in place because it seems like they all abuse the hell out of this system then

>>377555205
Hard to pass policy when it fucks with people's money.

>>377555205

Because you didn't read the terms and conditions.

>>377553769
why would it be illegal to charge people for something?

you are not required to buy anything

>>377555340
Ts and Cs should still follow legal guidelines.
lets say some skin pack is 8$ but you buy points or whatever in 5$ sets. So that means you buy 2 sets and have 2$ left over. that means for the next skin pack of 8$ youre forced to buy another 2 sets so youve essentially had 4$ taken off of you until some point where you can (if even possible) spend them.

>>377555325
this argument i at least understand, seems like theyd make it such an uphill battle to stop this crap

>>377552434
So then they can sell the currency in lots of 500 and items in 600s so you need to buy more lots of currency and have some left over.

>>377552434
Because then goyim like you can feed the superior free to play marketeers like myself who haven't spent a single cent on vidyabux

>>377555831

Because you've agreed to pay that much. That is what is spelt out in the T&Cs. That is why they're untouchable legally.

>>377552434
>Why not just direct cash purchases?
Because if everything is priced in real currency directly, you wouldn't be spending so much money. Every $ sign you see is a reminder you're paying real money for pixels. If it is gems or crystal or whatever, you are more likely to spend it without thinking much.

It's the same reason why everything is priced .99 - a bunch of marketing consultants told them people spend more money if you pull tricks like these.

>>377552434
I've been mining digibyte while I play games lately. Kinda like Bitcoin except you passively earn it while gaming and I've bought a couple steam gift cards already.

>>377555940
fair enough. so basically legalised theft because you agreed to T&Cs. Doesnt make it right that its done, just not technically illegal. Thats why i say if the law was changed, T&Cs would have to follow suit or be breaking the law themselves or am i wrong here?

>>377553509
>confuses the average consumer
I don't think it confuses so much as it restricts choice. In most cases the devs provide three or four different values you can choose from and that's it.

Let's say you want to buy something that costs $7.50, but the smallest amount point value you can get is $5, so you're forced to buy the $5 point amount twice. And then of course almost none of the prices in the store will be rounded.

>>377556906
wtf is digibyte? and how does something like bitcoin even help in this situation?

>>377556939
If someone agrees to do something and it is agreed to by signature, digital or otherwise, then it's legal. That is why waivers exist for dangerous activities like bungee jumping and skydiving etc.

You're trying to talk about morals as if the law is used to uphold moral values and not exploited by so many businesses and people in so many ways to avoid losing money or to simply make more. You're talking as if there is some inherent good you can appeal to in the CEOs of these companies to stop them from making money.

>>377557095
free ''money'' yo

>>377557095
It's pretty cool let's you earn tokens to spend in game just while u play.
>>377557567
its not free money but I've gotten gift cards on steam out of it so im pretty happy desu fampai

>>377557656
okay so someone is basically trying to implement some kind of cross-platform currency thing then?

And is it just another "fake money" thing that you trade out like gems or points shit that you usually use in game?

>>377558295
you can buy gift cards with it, by getting kills and winning rounds in csgo, for example

>>377557496
nah not any kind of good or morality within businesses that try their best to siphon off money any way they can. Just figured something like this would have the consumers more irritated and up in arms especially since youre essentially trading real money for some not-usable-anywhere-else-or-intrinsically-worth-anything point system bullshit that you then use to buy stuff

>>377558295
it's supposed to be using the same technology behind mining bitcoins but only mines them when you're playing a game. I really don't know how it works but a $10 steam gift card only took me a couple days to get enough tokens for. I just get a couple hundred tokens every few hours of gaming

>>377558512
so play a game, get some kind of "achievement" thing and then can buy steam cards? That might at least be a step in the right direction (especially if true) but that sounds like another "not worth anything" point system but at least it might mean not paying for it excessively

/biz/ ARE SHILLING IN THIS THREAD
>>>/biz/2126412
>>>/biz/2126631
/biz/ ARE SHILLING IN THIS THREAD
>>>/biz/2126412
>>>/biz/2126631
/biz/ ARE SHILLING IN THIS THREAD
>>>/biz/2126412
>>>/biz/2126631

>>377559037
no coiner spotted

>>377559037

SHUT IT DOWN GOYIM!!!!!!

>>377559037
well shit. so is this some scam thing then? If i can legit get steam cards for playing games then i dont care.

>>377559037
SELL SELL SELL

>>377559037
so this is actually legit your saying? why would they be trying to shill something you can get for free

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>2017
>being a nocoiner

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because pic related

>>377559228
here
https://digibytegaming.com/pages/how_to

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>>377559037
ASS

>>377559228
DGB isn't a scam but /biz/ are shilling it because they got in early and want to make money. DGB Gaming was broken last I saw though, but the Devs said they were working on it.

>>377559037

SHUT

IT

DOWN

Because fucking retards willing to pay for those massively overpriced ingame purchases are also retarded enough to fall for the simplest psychological tricks, which means they can extract even more money from your dumb ass.

We should thank them, it's like a tax on stupid.

sounds comfy getting payed to play. Why the fuck would I not?

>>377558819
My friend and I were just talking about this earlier.... We were farming a stage for gear and I was joking ha if only I was making some real money doing this ..... that sounds a bit like what I was saying.

I'm going to look into this a bit more it sounds promising to me.

>>377559469
>>377559350
I dont really care how much fake money those jews think they are making though. if it means I get to earn steam gift cards it sounds like theyre the ones getting screwed over in the end. i get free stuff, they get to play pretend money-maker or whatever

>>377559597
exactly.
and so what if some guys get a lambo or two for unrelated reasons

>>377559037
Well you just got me to do some actual research into this since I just assumed it was an obvious scam but this doesn't require any personal info or fee so why the fuck wouldn't I give it a shot?

>>377559839
>>377559839
I'm on the site right now reading it and going yeah I have a bitcoin account what's more money into this one.

This one might make me have more fun in the few games I do play these days.


Glad you guys posted about this I think I might get serious bout this for a bit

what's the best way to get some Bitcoin anyway?

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>>377559037
Wouldn't want to take advice from /biz/ now, would we?
Surely that would be financially catastrophic.

>>377560072
Coinbase
or you can convert Digibytes to btc on exchanges

>>377559790

I've heard rumors Richard Branson is considering DigiByte as the first onboard currency for his Virgin Galactic space flights. If I invested now I'd be over the moon (literally).

>>377560072
coinbase or localbitcoins.com

>>377552434
So that they can tempt you with 20% or 50% off coupons to make you think "I don't need to buy anything right now, but I'd might as well buy the currency while it's cheap so that I'll have it when I do need to buy something." This is exactly what Warframe does.

>>377560026
Oh god now there's just shilling everywhere... IF (and i mean IF) this is legit and i can get some free steam gift cards are they planning to expand to other games and stuff? Id want to be able to earn steam gift cards off of more than just 3 games at some point

>>377560612
they are adding minecraft soon, probably more games after that

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>>377560612
Just buy some DGB and soon you'll be able to afford any games you want plus a new rig

>>377560612
>are they planning to expand to other games and stuff?
Obviously. The whole point of it is that it's used as a universal currency across games.
Instead of having gold in one game and gems in another, you'd have a DGB wallet which you can use for anything.
Which would mean you can earn it in one game and then use it in another, or send to a friend.

man who gives a shit i dont have a job so even getting a few bucks a day would be meaningful.

>>377553002
>>377552696
These are the two biggest by far. Psychology and Jewery.

Let's not forget though in shitty phone games, a lot have premium currencies but also allow direct cash purchases.

>>377560807
so if this stuff is really relevant to gaming then why have other threads about it been banned?

>>377561989
because they do it for free

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>>377561989
You tell me.

i have 100k digibyte. i bought them for 300$ now its worth 2000$ kek

Two reasons:
1.) They can force you to spend more money than the item you want by making sure you can only buy currency in bundles that don't match up to item costs (i.e. a sword costs 1700 widgets but you have to buy 2000 widgets). They profit on the reminder.

2.) As others have said, obfuscation - people inherently know what a dollar is worth to them - a lot of people can't translate widgets to dollars on the fly.

3.) To tie your money up with them - maybe you buy some currency just in case you want to get something in the future. At that point it's basically free money to them until you spend it (especially since most don't allow refunds).

>tfw you discover /biz/ has created its own scam blockchain currency and so far the only people they've been able to scam is themselves