I Like FOMO Cosmetics, Why Don't Some People?

You call it selfish, I call it respecting other people enough and trusting them to be responsible for their own decisions and their own lives. You don't help people to grow by treating them like children and not allowing them to have their own agency. You let people make their own decisions in life, and having the freedom to make those decisions also comes with the responsibility for their own actions.

Even if someone is a drug addict, no amount of "protection" is going to stop them from buying drugs if that is what they want to do. You can try and wrap them in a safety blanket all you want, or take their agency from them, but you aren't going to always be there to police that person's life. The only way they overcome that problem is if they face and resolve that issue in themselves. Its undeniably extremely difficult, especially if they still have places they can acquire it from, but THEY are the only person who can solve that problem.

Now to a more relevant point. You cannot equate stealing to offering a legitimate product to someone for them to buy. That is not the same thing and you know it. Any transaction is mutually agreed by both parties at the point of sale.

If someone is genuinely so bent out of shape because they can't own a particular cosmetic is a video game, that is a significant problem that they need to deal with. You don't always get everything you want in life. Anything worth having requires sacrifice and hard work to attain, and even then, you may still fall short. People do this already with things like spending all the money earn collecting comic books, classic video games, memorabilia, or whatever their obsession is. Those things actually are finite in nature, and can end up with people spending ridiculous money, more than they can realistically afford to attain. That is not 'FOMO manipulating them', it is an understanding from that person that they are willing to make that sacrifice for their passion.

Naturally in that scenario it is entirely possible you never attain what you desire. That is life, you are not entitled to anything, and you shouldn't go through life expecting to get whatever you want just because you want it. It is called being mature.

Now if someone can't stop themself from buying cosmetics in a video game whether they want it or not, just because it's a limited time offer, and forgo meals in order to buy it, they have a significant issue that they have to deal with. The problem is not a result of the fact limited time offers exist, its that they cannot manage their own inhibitions. Again you can't rely on a friend to put a parental lock on it or something, because anyone motivated to do it will find ways around it.

No one can resolve this for them, and even if they can block their FOMO purchases, that problem will manifest itself in one aspect of their life or another. I advocate for and believe people can and should strive to grow and overcome issues such as that. To become mature and capable individuals who don't give into things like marketing manipulation tactics as a skill for life, rather than trying to keep them in a protective bubble, never growing and allowing themselves to be easily led by greed, envy and impulse.

However if you wanna label me as selfish, go ahead, I don’t care.

I understand what you are trying to say. And I understand that it seems like @Nebula is defending something many of us disagree with.

But the truth is that it is fully their right to defend the practice if that is how they feel.

However I understand where @Nebula is coming from. They are not making a judgement call (well they did, in your favor actually). They are instead explaining why it exists. They said they were not trying to defend scamming or scalping.

And I know that you know this. But in your eyes giving it any room to exist is a form of defense. And in some extreme cases the game can be played that far.

@Alice_pbg I see how it looks like they have a bias towards these practices. But again the idea is true and we have to truly face it if we want to change it. People want and put up with what they allow. Scalpers exist because demand exists. It’s an ugly truth but it is still true. It is also true that scalpers kill hobbies because they buy everything up so that only a few can actually afford to enjoy the hobby. The only way this can change is by an “unrealistic” coordination effort. I put “unrealistic” in quotes because it really feels that way since as consumers we have accepted this. Our acceptance has led to how micro transactions have been accepted over the years which have led to the “optimized for profit” system we have today.

Yes good faith has been abused. Yes trust has been broken. But we are not as consumers rewarding all businesses who do not do this. This is what us accepting it looks like. There’s also the people at bhvr trying to make an honest living, even if the company’s survival tactics feel unethical.

@nebula was just trying to point this truth out. Maybe they are a little bit jaded seeing consumers continue to let these things happen but the truth is the truth.

And I even personally agree with you on how negative this business practice is. It doesn’t feel good and many of us do not like it at all. But there’s a better way of doing this and it starts with us accepting the ugly truth. That ultimately we let it happen.

It's definitely predatory but it depends on the person. I have a friend who will give into any fomo nonsense if he semi likes a skin for a character he likes (not just dbd). I on the other hand haven't bought a skin in dbd since I Sheeva and before that ferryman blight, because the skin has to be better than any I have for me to purchase it and that's rare since most cometics in this game are mid at best.

In league I haven't spent money in literally 3+ years.

I spent 10 bucks on the first battlepass when ow2 dropped and haven't bought anything else because there hasn't been a good souj skin or a better doom skin than thunder.

Point is it's person by person, not some predatory thing that applies to each person. In my main group only 1 out of 5 it actually gets to.

Yup this is definitely something I need to improve. I can get a little lost in the moment sometimes, @Alice_pbg apologies if I came across as rude at all, it was not my intention.

Stuff like crowns, legacy prestige, and charms, I am fine with. They're free and hold no cosmetic value - they're purely there to say "I played during this time" or "I finished this tome". They're pretty much just tokens.

As soon as you add money, it becomes uncomfortable because people will feel compelled to buy things they don't really want, the feeling of missing stuff can be pretty awful. And that's how FOMO makes money.

I don't like it when they have high cosmetic value either, someone might look back and think "damn, I really like that cosmetic but I can never get it because I wasn't playing at the time".

I will say that I'm fine with stuff like the Attack on Titan collection - it's out of Behaviour's hands if a licence is revoked, and I'd rather it came and went than never came at all.

Simply put, people feel FOMO is dirty and cheap tactic. There are many reasons it is seen as that, and one of the most common reasons I see mentioned is taking advantage of people's need for instant gratification and lack of self-control. Similar to how some people see marketing online sports betting and online casino gambling as dirty and taking advantage of people's addiction.

Just another one of the many things that turns me off about modern gaming.

Luckily, you have the option to avoid it if you don't like it...

Unless of course you are a parent and then you know how much of a trap it is for your youngins, and what that means for your wallet.

What a heated topic.

There are games with far more aggressives FOMO tactics.

DBD is not the worst. You buy their battle pass but you get your money back if you get to a certain point of the rift, it's fair.

Yes the Rifts add limited cosmetics, but still, it's only cosmetic. You don't get any advantage from it, just flexing.

And BHVR releases some of the Rift cosmetics 1-2 years later.

I don't understand why some people complain about BHVR releasing the crowns for all survivors with a code, come on people there are far more dire things in the world

Because it's virtual stuff. There can't be a shortage of it, so why create an artificial shortage? Since they're slowly decreasing the amount of limited cosmetics I'm going to assume that they'll earn more if they make the cosmetics permanently available (which is good)