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House of Games #67 — Monetization

Otto Wretling
42 min readApr 2, 2024

In this episode, we venture into the jungle of monetization that is the gaming industry. Starting with the traditional games-as-products model reminiscent of the ’90s, we trace the evolution to expansions, downloadable content (DLC), and the controversial realm of microtransactions and loot boxes.

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/house-of-games/message

Chapters

00:00 Episode Intro
00:30 Episode Starts
01:00 Introducing the Theme for the Episode; Monetization
04:41 Issues With Modern-Day Monetization
17:15 The Legitimate Side of Game Monetization and Its Future
34:28 Loot Boxes
38:37 Parallels to RuneScape — The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
46:34 The Ethical Dilemma of Microtransactions
01:01:23 Episode Outro

Your Hosts and Their Games

Games, Game Engines and Game Companies

Otto’s Screen Share

Other Links

Transcript

[00:00:00] Episode Intro

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Rune: Halli, hello everyone and welcome to the most monetized podcast in the world, House of Games. Today I’m joined by my brother from another mother, at least if you want to believe in the conspiracy theorists, Otto!

[00:00:11] Rune: But before we head down that rabbit hole, let’s dive into today’s episode of House of Games.

[00:00:30] Episode Starts

[00:00:30] Otto: Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of House of Games and this week we are going to talk about monetization of all kinds. So I’m thinking we could go into, we’ll see, as it usually is, we have a plan from the beginning and then we derail somewhere and jump off a cliff, but I’m…

[00:00:51] Rune: We usually end up in AI land. Something, something tells me we’re going to end up there today as well.

[00:00:58] Otto: Yeah, might be, might be.

[00:01:00] Introducing the Theme for the Episode; Monetization

[00:01:00] [00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Otto: but the way I’m thinking, at least at this stage, is that we, we sort of go through the whole journey of monetization for games, starting perhaps with, games as a product, as it usually is, and then end somewhere with, you know, microtransactions and DLC and, and stuff like that. crypto perhaps, we’ll, we’ll see.

[00:01:23] Otto: yeah. So, I guess, definitions first of all. So, games as a product, I think it’s the, the model that everyone knows and loves, at least in the 90’s kids generation. And, basically you make a game, you sell it and charge an amount per copy and then you hopefully earn enough to make the next game and then do it again.

[00:01:52] Otto: good rating, 10 out of 10, like it a lot.

[00:01:56] Rune: I, yeah, I think that’s the best way of doing [00:02:00] things. And it also keeps, somehow I feel like it’s the most honest way and keeps the developer and everyone sort of real to their product or more honest towards what they’re doing. Not this sort of, you know, release a half-ass product and hope to make money later on or whatever.

[00:02:18] Rune: But yeah, keep, keep, keep going with the definitions.

[00:02:21] Otto: Yes, and I think also the incentives for different payment models also in some way affects how the game is made and planned and all of that so I’m thinking as well that doing it as a product, that incentivizes that you have to make the product as good as possible and then you know make it like quality should be the major factor in deciding whether to buy it or not.

[00:02:50] Otto: We’ll get to the other ones, but then we have, I guess, what started coming out, I guess, [00:03:00] in the, I don’t know, probably someone could fact check me, but I remember at least that it became more and more expansions, as it was called back in the day. So you would make a game for, for example, Age of Empires. And then you would make, maybe a year or two years later, you would make an expansion for that game.

[00:03:21] Otto: So it was basically you, it required you to have the original game, and then you bought a pack that usually gave you more maps, or more main characters, or more missions, or more gameplay basically. And was usually somewhere along like half of the game in size, something like that. that you would buy for something like half the price.

[00:03:45] Otto: Yeah. And, after that, I guess, I think many people, I don’t know if it’s true, but they attribute Bethesda as the sort of, one of the [00:04:00] first people to do DLCs, which is downloadable content. But I think the, what people are thinking about specifically is not just that it’s, yeah, that it’s not just, downloadable, but rather that you have something like a, an expansion, but it’s usually a lot smaller, and then you pay per thing.

[00:04:24] Otto: So in the case of Bethesda and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, it was the horse armor, which is basically you can buy, for say, let’s, let’s say five dollars or something, you could buy armor for your horse. yeah.

[00:04:41] Issues With Modern-Day Monetization

[00:04:41] Rune: I have a, back when that happened, I actually wrote like, like an article about it on a website, called Epic Battlecry, and then they changed name to The Outlaws. So that was, one of my favorite podcasts back in the days, Loren Brandt. [00:05:00] Daniel Kaiser and Tony Stoney, yeah, what are the name of these people? It’s a fantastic podcast. It was on GameTrailers, so it’s that old. But anyway, I wrote this little thing about the horse armor because back then that was like a thing about these, items you can buy and so on and I remember writing this article or article, whatever you want to call it, a blog thingy, that It’s gonna get worse and, and this was this had already happened that that horse as I said before the Trojan horse that’s sort of the one that snuck in and just fucked everything up. That was that’s literally how it started and then it was it’s, it’s fun to see that I was somewhat right back then that it’s just gonna get worse and more worse and more more greedy-ious and so on but I remember that one, it was insane It was like five bucks for that horse armor, and that’s the saddest part that or [00:06:00] like, we were fine with that back then. Now, for five bucks, you need to, like, offer a twenty hour experience or something, or people just refuse to buy it if it’s five… “But it’s too expensive, man.” It’s just insane what’s happened in such short time.

[00:06:16] Rune: Like, the bar has risen or lowered itself. I’m not quite sure how to use that bar metaphor, but it’s just like, what you have to do to get a DLC out there, and people are gonna be feel happy about it, and happy to buy it is insane. And you just remember we paid five bucks for a horse armor.

[00:06:37] Otto: Well I didn’t, I just, got it through illicit means.

[00:06:42] Rune: Oh, yeah.

[00:06:45] Otto: You also have to remember that for the Elder Scrolls at least, they did have DLCs which were, or, I don’t know if you would classify them as expansions, but for example The Shivering Isles, which was [00:07:00] like, something like 20 hours at least, that they added so they had like both that and the horse armor, so I guess it wasn’t only bad and then I guess as you say the, the journey continued and the transactions became smaller and smaller for smaller and smaller things so eventually you could buy skins and stuff for for just one dollar and then yeah.

[00:07:24] Rune: I wonder if that was, like they saw that in the numbers, they made The Shiver Islands or whatever it was called and I think they charged 20 bucks, let’s say. And then they did the horse horse armor. And that was five bucks. I wonder if they sort of compare these two, like where do we benefit the most from, a horse armor that took a programmer one day to make or the shiver island that we took like 20 people to make in four months and we had to hire voice actors and music and all that stuff and then they sort of compare these two and like I wonder if that’s how it sort of started this microtransaction stuff, too [00:08:00] that maybe those numbers leaked out to others or the developers that said a bit that said I told others “Oh, we made shitloads of this horse armor. You should look into that”

[00:08:09] Otto: Yeah.

[00:08:10] Rune: Conspiracy theory.

[00:08:11] Otto: Yeah, probably, or, I would say that something that you can’t forget in this, whole debate, I guess, that people do often forget, it seems to me, that sure, it would be amazing if everything was just games as a product and everything was made like in the 90’s, but I think that you can’t forget that the people who make games have to feed their families and, money can’t come from nowhere.

[00:08:41] Otto: So, eventually, people are just gonna do it to, to make money, I guess.

[00:08:45] Rune: Mm. But I think still that we gamers are just too much to blame, because, like, from a spoiled perspective, because you say people have to feed their families and so on, but they did that back in the day too, and they sold [00:09:00] way less games back then. But I have heard that the gaming, console gaming especially, have sort of stagnated to a certain degree. So, it’s not growing in terms of people playing games in the console space, but their prices and so on goes up. But maybe we play more than we used to. However, the reason why I would assume that they have to make all the, find all these loopholes to make more money is not just because they are greedy. maybe they’re not. Maybe it’s just a necessary means to, to be able to pay all the salaries and so on. And those salaries are going up. Because, I mean the teams are getting bigger and so on. So it’s not just like they want to make money. I’m sure there is way more to it. And like, you have to, yeah, like I said, we are also to be blamed because we just want better, bigger, better in every single way.

[00:09:55] Rune: But imagine if we were just sort of satisfied with the graphics from [00:10:00] PlayStation 4, or PlayStation 3, and then that’s it, like a team didn’t have to be 500 people, it could just be, you know, 60 people or something like that. so I, I think it’s, that we, us gamers are not innocent in, in this, greediness, and also that we keep buying this shit, so…

[00:10:18] Otto: Yeah, exactly. It goes back to that saying, “You get what you pay for”, and people do pay for it, so I 100 percent agree that, you know, none of this would happen if it weren’t for that people would actually buy it, but I think the the difference that people don’t think about when it comes to the 90’s and now that that is that in the 90’s as I understand it at least the threshold for making games was quite a lot higher. You know, you could you didn’t have a Unity or Unreal or something where you could learn to make games on your own, or you could, there’s tons of tutorials and [00:11:00] stuff and you can make so much for free.

[00:11:02] Otto: Back then I guess you would have to pay millions of dollars to use an engine or you would have to make it from scratch. And even now, there’s not a lot of people who can make a good game engine. So I think that now you have a guy in his underwear made Stardew Valley and made millions of dollars, and, you know, a guy, I don’t know if he was the same in the story, but at least Minecraft got started as an indie and made billions, and so on.

[00:11:37] Otto: So I think, with just the technical development making it so much easier, then you have a lot of more people making games, which means, and the population and the market for games doesn’t increase in the same speed, I think. So there’s gonna be fewer consumers per game company, and therefore, they just have [00:12:00] to compete not only on making monetize them.

[00:12:05] Otto: So I think that more game companies means more ways of monetizing, so then there’s a lot of more companies that have to get by by, you know, doing microtransactions or selling skins or whatever it is, and then maybe if you are like this giant company like Blizzard, for example, then you can make a remake of Warcraft III or something and sell it as a product because you can afford the risk and your name is big enough that you can almost guarantee that you will sell millions and millions of copies.

[00:12:37] Rune: Mm. Yeah, it’s, yeah, this kind of stuff makes me so, “Matt”, what’s that in the in English? I remember when we talked to the girl from Smartson about monetization and so on and I remember asking her sort of like, exhausted is the [00:13:00] word I’m looking for. I remember asking her like, sort of like what’s the next plans you have in ways of monetizing and making more money and she was sort of like laughing at like, well, I’m not going to tell you our secrets and so on, but I sort of wanted to ask or I asked her or I tried to ask her like, is there like a limit we can reach in terms of how to monetize shit and like at and now I’m thinking at what point is it just so much that we can’t comprehend it anymore like, like it’s just gonna make the consumer exhausted. I, I told you many times just like opening discord drives me batshit crazy when it’s 15 updates and then it’s like have these pop up screens everywhere that you do this and now you do this and it’s just like no, I’m out I’m out. I’m out.

[00:13:45] Rune: I tried to start if I start my PlayStation now, like he asked me to log in he asked me to credit card numbers, all this crap and it’s just like I just want to sit down and play a fucking game and it’s just like actually [00:14:00] a great example I bought, Hot Wheels, the toys, there’s a game on Steam, super fun, but man, just, it’s just so much in your face to buy all this crap all the time, and just the menus themselves just feels, I, I get exhausted just messing around in the menus just to get into the game. But now I sort of got into the game and I know how to play the game. And I’m just trying to ignore all the other crap that is around you. And these loot boxes that you get by from points and so on. And it’s so sneaky how they sneak in these cars among your own cars, but they have a small sort of a trolley symbol on them. And then when you click on them, it takes you to the Steam page to buy them. So it’s super sneaky ways of, or sneaky ways, it’s obviously so aimed towards kids and I think that’s the most egregious and terrible thing about it because my son saw me play this game and then of course he saw this little [00:15:00] dinosaur truck in the in my garage of all these toy cars this game is not for I mean, it’s for kids, but not that young as my son.

[00:15:09] Rune: He can barely play Mario Kart and that plays itself. So, but he likes to just watch me play it. So, but that was enough for him to be “Eh buy that, use the dino car, dino car”, I’m like, no, I’m not gonna do, I have to buy it. I’m not gonna do it, so…

[00:15:23] Rune: But it’s just so obvious and and this sort of how it’s aimed towards kids.

[00:15:27] Rune: I think it’s really it’s it’s kind of evil, but also In this world where parents can’t say no anymore, it just makes it even worse, because parents just fucking suck at saying no. I’m not one of them, but most parents do. They’re like, oh, okay, I’ll buy it, I’ll buy it. I’ll buy it. It’s just, oh, it drives me nuts.

[00:15:50] Otto: Yeah, totally, I, I agree, I mean it’s one thing to, to have a game where it’s DLCs and skins and stuff and say, [00:16:00] Sea of Thieves for example where they, it’s a free, is it a free game? Don’t remember, maybe there’s a cost for it, but anyhow, they have, like skins and all of that stuff, but that’s for, as they say, consenting adults, but, with kids, there’s just something else, that either there’s, like these stories that you hear about, that there’s this, four year old that bought a hundred thousand dollars of skins from his dad’s credit card or something, or as you say, parents who can’t say no, and it’s basically you pay five bucks for a JPEG or a texture on, The same model, for example.

[00:16:40] Rune: Mm.

[00:16:41] Otto: Which is, just, feels icky.

[00:16:45] Rune: Mm. Yeah.

[00:16:48] Otto: But, yeah.

[00:16:49] Rune: But it all, yeah, and that kids with parents and so on, it all goes back to their parents. I refuse to blame companies for this. It’s just fucking parents need to man up and tell their kids to [00:17:00] shut up and just play the free stuff. It’s that simple. Mm.

[00:17:05] Otto: But let’s do something else than, than other people do. Let’s do the devil’s advocate, version of this argument.

[00:17:15] The Legitimate Side of Game Monetization and Its Future

[00:17:15] Otto: So, would you say that there is some legitimate use for these things, and why?

[00:17:22] Rune: Well, the one I think about is, yeah, I can’t give many examples where they do this, but What I do think, I’m thinking like EA for example, they make these, football games every year. You’re basically just paying for a new roster every year. And they make millions upon millions upon millions upon millions. But with all that cash they can make proper games in my opinion. I mean, I don’t play sports games at all. So, I would like to believe and I hope that like my time I spent in Dead Space 1 and 2 in particular [00:18:00] is like a byproduct from all of those FIFA product they’ve sold over and over and over again and all those, if memory serves, I believe that, In this FIFA games, you can buy card packs or something like that within the game. And that’s a huge business for them to sell these football players within the game. I’m not quite sure how it works, but it’s some sort of loot box system. I believe they’re trying to make this illegal in Europe.

[00:18:23] Rune: However, I would like to believe that all of this money you make from this very simple, I’m sure making the system takes a lot of time, but in terms of the profits they make from these systems. For example, selling these football players within the game, I would like to believe that all of that money leads to these products that I like to play that Dead Space or I mean Josef Fares with, It Takes Two and Brothers.

[00:18:53] Rune: I believe that’s a part of this EA original program. And I also like to believe that all this [00:19:00] money they make hand over fist from the FIFA games is money that goes into this program that can finance and make these less profitable games, but these games that are nonetheless probably more important for the medium as a whole, from an artistic and storytelling perspective. So that’s definitely the, the, the. I can come up with, and I think that’s a legit and good way of looking at it. but in terms of like just making money for the sake of making money or satisfying the shareholders that I can live without, obviously the company need to satisfy them but honestly, I would rather see a company go bankrupt than just making shit for the sake of satisfying the shareholders in a weird way, I just think that yeah, like I said before this this whole idea that truth finds a way but in this case, it’s just like real products finds a way.

[00:19:58] Rune: I remember when the economy crashed [00:20:00] some years ago Elon Musk from Space, Tesla said something like after this we will see what companies survives and these are the companies that actually have some sort of value. He said something along those lines.

[00:20:15] Rune: So basically it’s just to to get rid of all the shit and as a crypto guy I, I know that when the crypto market crashed last time you see all these shit coins they’re called that just goes to zero because they had no value.

[00:20:28] Rune: There was no value there. It was just like to make quick cash on them, which is great if you get in early and you make a lot of profits, but in the end of the day, it’s just a crap product that no one needs and no one wants, but the products that survived from that crypto crash, Ethereum and Bitcoin, Solana and so on. These are, have something, there is still something there, but it doesn’t mean that they are actual products that are good for whatever, but let’s say they survive forever, Bitcoin for example, well that means, because it has some sort of value and people actually value this stuff, [00:21:00] so, you know, same way with gaming, the gaming industry, like if, if, big companies go bankrupt because they just make crap products and try to satisfy the shareholders. I, I wouldn’t care too much because in a weird way even if there are companies that makes the games I like the most if you sort of like not put yourself in the center and zoom out a little bit and look at this as a whole I would imagine that it’s a good thing that some companies don’t survive because obviously they’re not creating stuff that we need or want.

[00:21:32] Otto: Yeah.

[00:21:33] Rune: So, yeah, what, do you have anything on that, to play the devil’s advocate on,

[00:21:38] Otto: Exactly, I dare to go one step beyond.

[00:21:42] Rune: Ooh.

[00:21:43] Otto: Yeah, so I would say, have you played Sea of Thieves?

[00:21:47] Rune: I haven’t. I heard it’s coming to PlayStation and it looks gorgeous. So I am quite excited to get it back in Sweden because we’re going to get a new TV and I think it’s going to look legit on a OLED. Anyway…

[00:21:59] Otto: Cool. [00:22:00] Very nice. well, I would say, again, I don’t remember if I paid money for it or if it’s a freemium game. But, so, yeah. Anyhow, after you possibly buy the game, the rest of the game is multiplayer and it’s free to play forever, basically. You can do all of the quests, you can do all of the things, it’s completely free.

[00:22:26] Otto: And the thing where they have monetization is in skins, mostly, I think. I don’t remember seeing anything that, you know, get this gun that’s better than all of the other ones cost $5. I don’t remember seeing anything of that. I only remember seeing skins. So, I think that’s, and as I’ve heard it at least from somewhere, so this is no science, I take it with a grain of salt, but what they say is that these kind of games, they [00:23:00] have like 1 percent of people buy a shit ton of stuff, and that sort of funds the whole experience for everyone else.

[00:23:08] Otto: And, so I guess that’s how Sea of Thieves works as well, so you have a multiplayer private game. You, you can play it, and if you just don’t care about the buying things, then you won’t suffer from it. But at least you get updates and support for the game continuously. Even though you don’t pay for it because somebody else pays.

[00:23:34] Rune: according to that scientist you talked to who said that to you, I heard a similar thing about first class in airplanes. If you can book the, if airline has a fully booked first class, it pays for the whole flight and the rest of the passengers are just sort of gravy on top that can maybe work towards their, you know saving for the company for an airplane crash or whatever, all the [00:24:00] other things that comes around running an airline company but anyway, I think what I like about this, what I hear now from Sea of Thieves is that to me that’s also speaks of, when you describe it, all I was thinking is like that speaks of a company or a, a studio who believes in their product.

[00:24:20] Rune: They believe in it because they give it for free. And ’cause you wouldn’t wanna buy those skins at all if you have no interest in the game or the world. So they, and even if I, I mean, you said 1% pays a lot of money. I would still imagine that there are some, let’s say another 20 percent who maybe buys one or two skins and so on but I to me that speaks of a confidence in your product you give it out for free and you know people are gonna like it and you know people want to be in that world and at that point that’s when they probably want to buy skins for their characters because they get so invested in the world and [00:25:00] yeah, so that that’s a that’s a cool way of doing it. I’m way too cheap for that kind of stuff I would never buy, I am…

[00:25:07] Otto: Same.

[00:25:07] Rune: I should never say never, but I, I don’t think I would buy anything. maybe I would do it if I, to, in order to support the studio, because I’m very much like that, like the Godot thing I donated to them just because I want them to survive. So I very much like that, so I would probably, maybe, probably buy a, a skin or two to support the studio, if I enjoy the game, of course.

[00:25:28] Otto: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think it’s a, a great, thing, you know, occasionally when you go to the, to the store to buy, I don’t know, am or whatever it is, don’t remember, but I think you see. You know, these, premium things that you can buy. So I think that’s, Sea of Thieves is a good model for how you can do it.

[00:25:54] Otto: Another that we didn’t discuss before in this episode, I think, is [00:26:00] monthly subscriptions. I think that’s also a very good way of doing at least multiplayer games. that, yeah, that doesn’t sort of harm the game, but, rather keeps it alive and also incentivizes to, to keep it going and keep it, fresh, so to speak.

[00:26:24] Rune: The, the only problem I have with subscription services is that, for example, on Patreon, I subscribe to a lot of creators before, just a small, you know, a little bit per month to maybe 10, 15 people or something at maximum. but, and again, it’s just as a gesture to show support, but, I remember. I think it was when I had, when we, around the time my son was born, I decided to sort of stop subscribing to so many things. And that, I [00:27:00] started to monitor, like, look at my bank account and see where money was going, because this is the problem when you subscribe to a bunch of stuff that you, you forget where the money is going, or you forget about your subscription service. And my wife and I, we have this sort of rule. We only have Netflix.

[00:27:14] Rune: So even though we want to watch The Last of Us on HBO, we’re like, no, we’re not going to subscribe to anything. We only have one thing and that’s it. And we say, we either wait for it to come here or we buy the, the…

[00:27:26] Otto: Yeah.

[00:27:26] Rune: …DVD or whatever, when it comes out or Blu-Ray. But, that’s our sort of rule because we both thought it would have some friends.

[00:27:33] Rune: They subscribe to like 55 different streaming service. It’s crazy. Like how much, it’s crazy. So that that would be the only thing I would worry about, in this sort of subscription service method, because then it’s, I mean, for the consumer, it kind of sucks when you forget about these things. But I would also imagine, but from a company point of view, that’s great. But I would also imagine though, that if you subscribe [00:28:00] to one game. it must be something tells me that you, you’re gonna, you’re gonna spend a lot of time in that game, which I suppose is great for you. but for the industry as a whole, if we really take that to the extreme, imagine if there’s only five big companies and now you have five games to subscribe to because people don’t have time to play in any other, any other games because these are the ones you subscribe to, which is also my, conspiracy theory. I have, it’s weird, this, I, I can squeeze in some conspiracy theory in, in this episode, even though, that intro had not, I had nothing to do with anything. But my suspicion is that you want these big game companies want to be the one, and then when we enter Matrix, you will basically, you would either enter the PlayStation Matrix, the Nintendo Matrix, the Xbox Matrix, which seems to, they didn’t survive, I think, I think they’re going to go third platform, third party or whatever, right? So [00:29:00] that’s the, the end goal of all of this madness is that you subscribe to one company and then they will open the Matrix gates and then you’re in that Matrix in that parallel universe, if you will. Ah, that’s an even cooler thing. That could be a parallel universe situation. You go into the Nintendo Matrix, I go into the PlayStation Matrix and so on. But anyway, that’s I think that’s where it’s heading long term.

[00:29:24] Otto: Yeah. Well, I would say, haha, there’s a lot of stuff to take in. But, I would say, so, my favorite, favorite example of monthly subscriptions is Runescape. I don’t know if you play that, but, so they have a really great model I think that would be fun to to do one day if you would have the resources, but they basically have this open world, which is an MMORPG, basically there’s a big map, you can go wherever you want, do whatever you want, [00:30:00] or, you know, whatever you want.

[00:30:01] Otto: It’s like, go here, press X, go there, press X, you know, but, that sort of thing. Anyhow, so they have the, what they call the free world, and the, the, so, when you first start the game, you don’t have to pay a cent. And then you have, like, this area, which is sort of the starter area, but quite, I mean, you could probably spend, as a kid I spent hundreds of hours in that free section.

[00:30:32] Otto: And then if you want to, you can pay, I don’t know if it’s five or ten dollars, and then you get access to, like, maybe say you get 20% of the game, In the free version and then 80% of the game in the member section. And then you can just, you know, do all of it and then you can play for as long as you want.

[00:30:55] Otto: And then you can go back to doing just the free stuff and then go back to being a member and switch [00:31:00] back and forth as you want.

[00:31:01] Rune: Man, have you, I don’t think you mentioned this before but this is exactly what i’m gonna do with Sunset Moon, release the free demo and I told you a million times on this podcast. You have this small area and now I talked to my pre-, my former publisher last week or so, and he gave me some ideas and so on.

[00:31:18] Rune: And he suggested that I should do that first and then maybe later on make this, early access. So basically I start selling the game for maybe a bit cheaper than what the final product will be later on. But in this early access, you get access to more parts of the world and then the early access community. Hopefully it will help sort of balance the game or whatever, and then you release the full game later on, so the early access will help the full game for free, of course, and they bought it early so they get it cheaper than people who buy it when the game is out. So anyway, it sounds like that and that’s cool. I think that’s a good idea too. you give a free, it’s [00:32:00] kind of like a demo in terms of you know, Square Enix is really good at this nowadays to release demos so you get into the world and then if you like it you buy the whole game. Nintendo is also great at doing that. I played the Pikmin 4 demo with my son and we were like, ah, this is really fun. And then I went out and bought the full game and then I kept going on my save file.

[00:32:21] Rune: Of course when you play a story driven game or let’s say an A to B kind of game where it’s a, Where it’s a finish line or whatever, you would have to do that sort of demo version of it, but in RuneScape, I suspect it’s an open world type of game, so that makes sense to have this more, like an era you can mess around in.

[00:32:46] Otto: Yeah, absolutely. So, I would say that it’s, really, really cool how they’ve done it, and since it’s an open world game, it’s sort of fun to see that playing through the years, [00:33:00] when I started, say that the map was this big, and then now it’s, you know, four times the size or something, because the, at the, the edges of the map, it’s just, there’s no, like, they haven’t built, like, mountains or anything to, you know, you know, give the illusion that there is more, but you just can’t go there.

[00:33:19] Otto: No, there is just a black line on the map there. This is where it’s black, where it’s nothing, and then if you go there in, in game, there is also, like, because they have, the whole game is sort of like a grid system. So, on that line, there’s just black, and you can’t go there. You can just look into the void.

[00:33:37] Otto: But then, eventually, as they update the game, they add more area to the map, so where before there was just nothing there, then you see the map grow as you play the game, and you see there’s more and more stuff added, and the world gets bigger, literally.

[00:33:55] Rune: Hmm. Cool.

[00:33:56] Rune: Yeah, in my, in Sunset Moon I have fences. I have a fence, like a [00:34:00] literal fence, and then there’s, the NPCs who lives beyond the fence, they can walk through that and will open up for them, but the player cannot go through there.

[00:34:11] Rune: yeah, and that’s also a little bit teasing the gamer a little bit, and then of, and then later on the idea is to update the demo and the early access to push the fence back a little bit so you can access new places.

[00:34:25] Otto: Yeah, cool.

[00:34:28] Loot Boxes

[00:34:28] Otto: Uh, I think one thing that I probably couldn’t do a Devil’s Advocate take on that I see anything positive with is loot boxes. Which is, feels like just gambling disguised as gaming.

[00:34:44] Rune: Hm.

[00:34:45] Otto: Because it’s, you know, it’s just, for those who don’t know, basically it’s like this. You get depending on the game, but usually you get something like [00:35:00] every time you play a match, or every time you complete a level or something, you get maybe three boxes or something.

[00:35:08] Otto: And then you have to pay to open them. So then you get to choose between which of these three do you want to, just like a slot machine, which one do you want to open, and then you open them, and then there’s a chance that you get something really valuable that you can sell to other players, or it’s really useful in the game or something.

[00:35:30] Otto: So then, it works exactly like a slot machine. So then, some people have like, streaming channels of them just opening loot boxes. So it’s just, you pay, you can also, beyond doing it in the game, like completing a level, get you a couple of loot boxes, because that’s how they wanna get you hooked. But they also allow you to buy packs of these, so you can buy like 1000, for $100 or something. [00:36:00] And then you can just sit there and go, and keep choosing around the box, and then eventually you might get something valuable. Maybe, most of the time, you probably don’t. So it’s just exactly like a slot machine, you pop quarters in there, and then you hope for a big win, but most of the time the house is gonna win and you know, this is also sort of connected to this whole using your dad’s credit card and stuff.

[00:36:29] Rune: Hmm.

[00:36:31] Otto: It feels like just, I’m sort of, usually I’m very lenient towards most monetization practices, but I totally understand, like, why you wanna legislate this as if it were just gambling, because it feels like it is especially aimed towards kids.

[00:36:54] Rune: Hmm. Hmm.

[00:36:56] Otto: Feels so, and, and gambling also is, you know, [00:37:00] there’s a lot of people have actual, like, issues with it. They have an addiction, they can’t help themselves, and all of a sudden they’ve, you know, they’ve sold their house, or they’ve sold their car, or whatever it is, and then they ruined their life, and why would you want to enable that as a game developer?

[00:37:21] Otto: I don’t see it as a positive thing in any shape or form.

[00:37:26] Rune: No, I, yeah, the only good thing I’m sort of alluded to earlier would be that they used them on it to make better games for without those loot boxes. But, but even that I, nah, that’s just, no, we don’t need that. Like I know the whole idea to run a company is to make money-ish. But I think that even there you need to draw a line somewhere.

[00:37:54] Rune: Like, it’s just like, well at some point enough is fucking enough, man. Like at some [00:38:00] point that’s, yeah, it’s awful, those loop boxes system, but I feel like they are going away, or is it just that the industry is not talking about it as much? Because a couple of years ago, I felt like every podcast I listened to back then talked about these things.

[00:38:18] Otto: My guess is that there’s just nobody talking about it. As I understand it, like, Counter-Strike and a lot of these games still have it.

[00:38:29] Otto: So I, I don’t think it’s going away, but I think it’s not a shock to people to find out that there is so, such things.

[00:38:37] Parallels to RuneScape — The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[00:38:37] Otto: That’s sort of funny because I think in so many ways, RuneScape, sort of characterizes a lot of these, issues because they had, so they had the main game, which kept updating and, you know, kept growing for many, many years and, you know, grow, for me growing up, I started at some point, and then [00:39:00] played it all until adulthood, still play it now and then. And then, eventually, they, people sort of got enough of it, because they started enabling this lootboxes shit. And, you know, everything became more and more like all of the practices that, I think you and me, don’t like with games.

[00:39:23] Otto: That there’s just money, the money incentive is the first thing, not making a good game and then making, as a byproduct, making money from that. And then eventually, then, people started talking about, couldn’t we just, I wish we could go back to the good old days of this game. Because it was so, so much better than whatever we have now.

[00:39:45] Otto: And then eventually, after voting, I think, because they did a vote, whether they should do this or not, and then I think it was something like, maybe I’ll, I’ll post it on screen, but something like [00:40:00] 90 something percent wanted to have the old version. So what they did is that they found a, an old backup of a game, of the game from 2007.

[00:40:12] Otto: So they worked a lot to make that playable, and then everyone could just start from scratch from that. And then, that of course got going, and you, that started it’s separate track. so it’s sort of funny, you have the main game, which is, like, beautiful, graphics, and it’s, you know, ray tracing, and it’s, voice acting, and it’s so many things.

[00:40:37] Otto: And then you have the 2007 version, which people like for it’s old style, so it’s, You know, I love the graphics, but they do look like shit.

[00:40:48] Rune: Mm.

[00:40:49] Otto: And, you know, there’s so many things that’s very old and archaic about it, but that’s what people like about it. And as I understand it, more people are playing that than the newer game. [00:41:00] So, where was I going with this?

[00:41:04] Otto: Yes, so lootboxes, I guess. So, RuneScape also had like a version where they did, you know, almost cave because of, you know, the only traffic they got is these people who want lootboxes and want this, no, not the quality of the game, but rather just the, I don’t know, fast and cheap stuff, I guess, that makes money.

[00:41:29] Rune: Is there any statistics on how many people played the new version versus the old one, the 2007?

[00:41:37] Rune: did the most, most audience …go?

[00:41:40] Otto: Yeah, let me see here if I can find, something. Let’s see, I’ll share my screen so I can perhaps put this in the episode. Let’s see if this works. So I think you should see, [00:42:00] see now. So this is somebody asking, according to this at So this is, the Runescape forums, and he says, the first poser says the Runescape 3, so Runescape 3 is the, the new, Runescape basically, and OSRS is, It’s short for Old School Runescape, which is the 2007 version.

[00:42:27] Otto: So, he says, “The Runescape 3 online numbers on the main page combined with the Old School Runescape are or is it blah blah?” anyhow, he asks, Is it really the real numbers that you’re seeing? Because they usually have a player count on the respective, homepage for each game. So, and according to this then, at the 7th of July in 2023, says that the numbers for the, the new game, the one with micro transactions and [00:43:00] stuff, is 855,000 roughly and then the new game has 2.2 million if I’m seeing right.

[00:43:09] Rune: But that’s 3 million in total.

[00:43:11] Otto: Yeah, exactly, it’s a huge game. so, let’s see here if I can, can find some from this page that it’s mentioning. let’s see, list.

[00:43:31] Rune: I’ve only heard you talk about this game, but I suppose this is a PC Master Race type of game. not on console, is it?

[00:43:39] Otto: Okay, let’s see here. it’s, it is on mobile actually. So they had a big thing where they actually released it on mobile. So, you can actually play it on iPhone and Android, so, and iPad, I guess, too. it hasn’t come to mobile because it’s a very click-heavy game, so I don’t think [00:44:00] it would work well with a controller, because you have to click everything, basically, and that works with a finger, but, yeah.

[00:44:07] Otto: So, let’s just quickly look at the player count for, this is the new game, like the RuneScape, just RuneScape. So, Let’s see here, here it says, last month it had a peak about around 350,000 people is what it looks like, and peak on yearly is about 900,000, I guess, per month, a million, almost a million in a single month is in the top, so let’s look at the Old School one and let’s see how it compares, so, let’s see, okay, so, last month it’s a million per month, it’s roughly what they do every month, so and on yearly it’s two million, a peak.

[00:44:58] Otto: So you can see, [00:45:00] probably, if you compare the two that it’s quite a difference. So here it’s total players, 47 millions, daily players, 1.35. And here it’s total player, it’s, I don’t know, is it half perhaps? And then daily players is, it’s a tenth. So, yeah, that goes to show that, the, the good old days, they’re not so, bad after all.

[00:45:31] Rune: No, but how do they make money off the old version?

[00:45:36] Otto: So, as I understand it, they have, you have just one subscription, and then you get access to both games. so you get to choose which one you play. So basically, vote with your feet, so to speak. So, yeah, so that’s, how they do it.

[00:45:56] Rune: Cool.

[00:45:57] Otto: yeah, so, it [00:46:00] goes to show, like, if you just, ruin the game with microtransactions and all of that stuff, It’s, it’s, it can be really toxic to yourself in the long run, I would say.

[00:46:14] Rune: Yeah. I think, yeah, man, just, it all goes back to things were better before or, the more natural things are the better in, in some weird way. And I think the same goes with games and everything.

[00:46:33] Otto: Exactly.

[00:46:34] The Ethical Dilemma of Microtransactions

[00:46:34] Otto: But I’m thinking still though that we’re in total agreement about games as a product is the superior way to do it. But, imagine that you’re a, say, mid-sized company, you’re twenty people or something, or ten people. And you make a game, it doesn’t sell as much, and then you have, you know, it’s your dream to have a game company, basically.

[00:46:57] Otto: And you also believe in this, you want to [00:47:00] make the, the sort of stuff you, I don’t know if it’s a real quote or not, but people say that Gandhi said something like, be the change you want to see in the world, and you live by that, but the numbers just aren’t there and you can either, you have the choices of like, either just start firing people, like maybe your friends that you started this company with, and then you can either, or if you don’t do that you will go bankrupt so then you will just have nothing and then have to start over all again, if you even can.

[00:47:36] Otto: And then you have the choice of just add skins to the game and then there’s some addicts that buy the game, buy the skins or whatever it is and then you get to flourish as a company or at least survive to make another game. And it’s not good choices, but I wouldn’t say that it’s completely easy to make, what is the right choice.

[00:47:58] Otto: Yeah.

[00:47:59] Rune: But well, [00:48:00] I had something we’re thinking about recently. Well, I, I, I, talk to someone and I said I don’t like let my son watch any YouTube at all, there’s zero YouTube, zero screen time. Only on Fridays, we watch a movie together or sometimes in a weekday when we do this podcast, for example But and then this person said well, why just YouTube?

[00:48:22] Rune: Well, why do you don’t mind Netflix, but you do mind YouTube? well, there’s no end to YouTube. It’s just a continuous stream of shit. And it never ends. And it’s just, addicting in terms of how the statistics looks like. And the YouTube creators, they, they make stuff based on that. And it’s just never ends.

[00:48:42] Rune: It’s just like a constant dopamine kick that never ends. And that’s just not healthy. while it’s a movie, we have movie night on Fridays. It has an end. One and a half hour and then it ends. And my counter argument, well, what I don’t like about this, [00:49:00] microtransaction, so you sort of mentioned twice that you have these addicted people.

[00:49:05] Rune: Well, is that a good thing though? Is that a good thing that we have these addicted people? They just keep buying shit and like, and then if we zoom out again and not think about if you don’t, myself in the, in the center, like this is my company. I need to survive. If I just step back a little bit, do I want to live in a world full of addicted people who just buy my shit?

[00:49:24] Rune: And then it sort of goes into this whole idea. What happens when 1 percent of the world have everything, the rest will just fucking come and get ya. So, I don’t know, it’s some, some, maybe, like you, you mentioned this Buddhist guy, but even that, I do think that, at some point, especially in the West, I noticed a lot, this individuality and shit, it’s like everyone is just a selfish prick, I think we just need to step back a little bit and think about all of us. What is good for all of us? So I would say as boring as it sounds [00:50:00] that it would probably be better for all of us if games were just products. Like that’s it. You play it you finish it you move on or something like that instead of like this, instead of trying to get people hooked because I just don’t think that’s good for for humanity long term but it’s fucking great for a company short term, but I, I wonder sometimes if what’s best, I think it’s best games as a product just for in every way, shape and form.

[00:50:31] Otto: yeah

[00:50:31] Rune: that being said, like I started off with this episode, I do see the point with, if you can make these micro transactions and so on that you could, that can fund your other games. But even with my recent argument, that wouldn’t matter anyway, if If that’s bad for society or humanity as a whole, then you wouldn’t want that anyway.

[00:50:53] Rune: However, I would say a good compromise. I like to always try to think about some sort of compromise in some way that a [00:51:00] good compromise would be that you have some regulation that says, in terms of microtransactions, you can only spend 20 bucks a month or something like that, and this goes from, I don’t know, the country you live in or something, and then the companies have to apply for that, and that sounds super anti freedom and super anti, what would you call it, free market and so on, but at the same time, again, if we just step back one step and look at the whole, maybe that’s better for all of us. And also, I always bitch and whine about this. It will also teach people patience. Imagine if you can only spend 20 bucks on microtransaction. Let’s say this is linked to your PlayStation account. And there’s a ticker there. And when you’re at 20 bucks, you have to wait until next month. You bloody need that, man.

[00:51:45] Rune: Because we’re so addicted and so bad at having patience and waiting for shit. We just want, want, want, want, want. As a whole, that, that could be a solution. Sounds super, I don’t know, borderline communist here, but I think that’s a good [00:52:00] solution.

[00:52:01] Otto: Well first of all Gandhi was not buddhist, so there’s that. Anyhow Yeah, I would say we’re getting into a different kind of argument here but I think that if you would limit it to 20 bucks, then you would just create a black market for it you know, how easy wouldn’t it be to just buy login credentials from another person who somehow, you know, got his hands on, you know, this many skins, or he’s, you know, purchased over, maybe this one guy, you know, creates 10 accounts, and then buys 20 bucks of those each for a month for, like, a year, and then he has 10 accounts he can sell for a bunch of money, or he can sell the skins or something.

[00:52:54] Rune: Why would I want to buy your black, market account? Because I can’t get [00:53:00] those skins over to my Sea of Thieves account.

[00:53:02] Otto: Well, I imagine that games wouldn’t have like, one skin per month that you could buy. Probably you could have more than, you know, say that you have a hundred skins per month. That feels, you know, possible. And then, if you have, like, ten accounts, then you have maybe twenty of the rare ones or something. and then the chance of getting that is not a hundred percent each month.

[00:53:30] Rune: Mm.

[00:53:31] Otto: So, yeah, I think it’s just, it’s gonna create a bigger problem, and, I think somewhere, I heard somebody say this, but, that you have to deal with the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. And I think, for me, that means that, unfortunately, there’s always gonna be addicts, doesn’t matter what it is.

[00:53:58] Otto: All kinds of [00:54:00] substances, and all kinds of gambling, and other things. So, I think you’re never gonna solve that problem, altogether.

[00:54:07] Rune: Is there a, would that mean like, let’s say in my communist, regime, world, where I rule, I say companies can only allow users to spend, well, I put it to 100 bucks a month on microtransactions. That means that, I still think that could help, especially for kids, because I’m not sure if they would try to get into some black market just to get some fucking skins, but whatever. I, I hear your point, and I guess in my, my rule, my world, but addicts are still addicts, so maybe they will just go and be addict to something else. If I stopped them from being addicts in video games, they would just go to a real life casino and waste their cash there, maybe. Who knows?

[00:54:53] Otto: Yeah, I think there’s a saying in Sweden which is something like “The load of [00:55:00] the vices are constant”, meaning that if you quit, as you say, if you quit smoking, then you’ll just start, I don’t know, chewing tobacco, for example. That you will always have this one thing, and that feels plausible that, you know, as I say, maybe you’re, you’re pushing them out of buying skins online, and then into, like, real addiction for something else, something more dangerous, perhaps.

[00:55:29] Otto: I don’t know if that’s the case or not, but I think that there’s, it would be fun if more developers of course did what they, what they, what you want the market to be, which is games as a product, but I think at the same time there’s, as with any market, there’s not ever gonna be room for everyone.

[00:55:55] Otto: There’s always gonna be this thing which you talked about [00:56:00] earlier but has an actual name, creative destruction, which means, for example, in a financial crash that the companies that can’t adapt to market changes, they die. So that’s creative destruction. So then the, the ones that can adapt are rewarded with less competition for the foreseeable future.

[00:56:23] Otto: And I think that’s also, yeah…

[00:56:25] Rune: Yeah, I was just gonna say, I guess that’s, that’s probably the best way moving forward not to do anything and just let, again, the truth, whatever that is, win. And that would be long term what’s gonna happen even though I, I like to think that we can help people short term. I suppose that’s, so I’m counter arguing myself before one.

[00:56:48] Rune: whatever but short term it could maybe help people but, long term it’s not. And the best way forward would be just to allow these whales or these these addicted people to, you know, keep [00:57:00] fucking themselves over but maybe long term the winning companies will be the ones that actually make good shit and then those will be rewarded and that good stuff has no microtransactions and all these things in it. yeah.

[00:57:17] Otto: And I think it’s, not speaking as somebody who has released a paid game, so I can’t speak to that. But what it feels to me is that you sort of have to stick to your guts and just do what you think is right. And I think If you really want more games as a product then I guess just make it as a product if you can and then don’t, put it on sale at all, is what I would recommend.

[00:57:54] Otto: Factorio is a great example of that. You just have a no sale policy and, people buy it [00:58:00] anyhow because it feels like if you do put it on sale, you’re competing with, like, Ubisoft, which has, like, a back catalogue of a thousand games, so then they could just, oh, Ubisoft Weekend, and then we have, 140 titles, which are 75% off.

[00:58:18] Otto: And you know, here, here are you with this indie game and it’s 50% off, and you know, why, why are they even gonna buy it? And then if they are gonna buy it, they’ll just look up statistics of what your game has costed in the past. And then if you, have it on sale too early, then they know that, okay, it’s been on sale for 75%.

[00:58:39] Otto: I’m just gonna put it in the wishlist and buy it when it’s on sale. So if it’s always 10 bucks or whatever it is, then people expect that, okay, it’s no point waiting. If I want it, it’s just buy it or don’t buy it. This is what it costs. It’s no timing thing. And I think that’s also something that you [00:59:00] should do.

[00:59:00] Otto: And also, I think, as a consumer, I mean, this is always so people talk about, like, consumer have to do this to make bla, bla, bla. It’s never going to happen, because people are what they are, and they’re not going to have, like, some, abstract philosophy as their first incentive, but if you wanna do something, I would guess buy games as a product and not as a service, and don’t pay for, for DLC or microtransactions or stuff like that.

[00:59:31] Rune: I don’t, I always wait for the, especially nowadays, I only wait for the Game of the Year editions or whatever so I get all in one. I refuse to buy DLCs and stuff like that and I also think it’s just, I, yeah, I don’t understand how you can start playing a game, you finish it, and two months later a DLC comes and you go back.

[00:59:49] Rune: It’s just weird, in my opinion. Especially when it’s a game as a product like, Horizon, for example, or The Last of Us. I I want the whole deal in one go. [01:00:00] but yeah, it’s interesting that thing with don’t put your game on sale and so on. That was my philosophy, but of course I, I have a publisher, so the deal is usually that we put the games on sales, but moving forward, I hope to be, I’m going to publish my own games and that’s going to be, well, Sunset Moon, I hope it’s going to be that game that will never go on sale, it’s a one time purchase and it’s never going to go on sale and so on, because I think that sends the right signals to the gamer and also you don’t, they don’t have to feel like they missed out or, you know, you buy a game and the next day it goes on 50 percent sale. That sucks. That kind of stuff.

[01:00:36] Rune: So it’s just a, it feels more honest towards the gamers and it feels more honest to yourself and it feels more, you’re being more honest and real to your competition. It’s kind of friendly competition if you don’t put your games on sales, on sale you help other developers to,

[01:00:55] Otto: Yeah.

[01:00:55] Rune: A lot of Developers put their games on [01:01:00] 99 sales so it gets to the front page and you cheat the system and so on. It’s a sad but it is what it is.

[01:01:07] Otto: Yeah. It’s like that, that saying or, I don’t know what it is, but It’s like, if you sell your game at 99 percent Sure, you’ve won, but at what cost?

[01:01:21] Rune: Hmm.

[01:01:23] Episode Outro

[01:01:23] Otto: And with that, I think it’s time to wrap up the episode.

[01:01:27] Rune: Mm, ooh.

[01:01:29] Otto: did you have anything else, or what do you think?

[01:01:33] Rune: nah, it was good fun. yeah.

[01:01:37] Rune: I got some conspiracy theories in there. We got some pointless arguments from my behalf, which I had to backtrack. Uh uh,

[01:01:48] Otto: Yeah.

[01:01:50] Rune: What is it called? Dictatorship is in this episode. Good stuff. Good stuff.

[01:01:54] Otto: Very good. Yeah, I think that’s it for the episode. Leave a [01:02:00] voicemail if you have anything to say about microtransactions and lootboxes.

[01:02:04] Rune: Ah, I had a dream that we got a voice message, yeah.

[01:02:11] Otto: What did it say?

[01:02:12] Rune: I don’t remember. I just remembered when we started recording today, I remember that I dreamt that we had a voice message in a previous episode.

[01:02:20] Otto: It’s an omen. It’s gonna happen.

[01:02:22] Rune: …days ago. Yeah, it will happen.

[01:02:24] Otto: Cool. Yeah, exactly, leave a comment, a voice message, a letter in my mailbox, whatever it is. Just let us know what you think about this episode, don’t dox me, and yeah, I think that’s it for the episode. Have a good one!

Podcast
Game Development
Indie Game
Indie Developer
Gamedev

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Otto Wretling

Written by Otto Wretling

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Writing about my podcast, game development, technology, language learning, and whatever else comes to my mind!

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