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Is it FOMO or "we don't want to add prestige rewards because it makes no money"

I recently came across a video on twitter that showcased a tweet from the official DBD twitter that was responding to Twitch streamer/YouTube content creator 'The King's' tweet asking his followers "If you could ask the DBD Devs one serious question, what would it be?!"

A user responded to his tweet with a series of questions they would like the devs to answer. One question in particular that was asked was "Are there plans to add more prestige rewards?" The DBD twitter account responded with the following:

Obviously this tweet did not sit well with the community, for good reason, and the tweet was flooded with negativity and criticism. Below is just a small portion of how people responded.

Circling back to what prompted my forum post to be made in the first place, the video that I watched was a compilation video of all the things that people did actually miss out on and can no longer be obtained in-game (mainly cosmetics). Here is a link to watch that video on twitter:

My question for the devs would be "Is this really about FOMO, or does this relate to not making money?" Listen I get BHVR is a company and money has to be made to appease the higherups. But when it comes to keeping your existing playerbase around and to keep them spending money on DLC and cosmetics in the store, wouldn't it make sense to add ways for players to get free things for their time and effort of say reaching Prestige level 100? During that P100 grind, most likely a player would spend real money on cosmetics from the store after their main character got a collection drop. Not saying this is a guarantee for every player, but a large majority of the playerbase will spend money on cosmetics for the character they are currently trying to prestige to 100.

Conclusion: I honestly think the FOMO mindset that the devs have is not real and whoever wrote that tweet was obviously trying very hard to make it sound like the devs want to be fair with it's players when it comes to free items. The tweet would've actually worked, if it wasn't for the fact that the devs have already done FOMO things. Legacy cosmetics/portraits, premium rift outfits from previous rifts are still not in the store, content creator specific cosmetics are no longer available (ex: Nea hype, H20 Trapper Mask, etc.), all of these are no longer available for the average person to get (unless they hack them in). I am not fully against FOMO. I think it's cool to have things that you have but others don't, it makes the item more special to the player that has it. But to tweet saying that you're against FOMO, yet the game has had FOMO instances or currently still does these FOMO related things it makes no sense. You can't go back and forth like this, especially to a dedicated community like DBD. I highly encourage the devs to rethink their decision on adding prestige rewards for reaching higher prestiged ranks. And if this has to do with management not approving more prestige rewards because it won't make more money, I encourage them to also rethink their decision because it will ultimately help keep the playerbase active and the majority of people will keep spending money on cosmetics and battle-passes when they are trying to get those free things.

Comments

  • vol4r
    vol4r Member Posts: 280

    Well yeah I kinda agree to that.

    As a hardcore gamer (7.5k hours) i stopped prestiging specific characters and i don't care anymore. Instead i prestige multiple characters at once, nancy is p90, Zarina p67, quentin p50, few p20, p13 etc) there is just no point or fun in this anymore.

    Basically started to spend a lot less hours into game, stopped buying skins for my favourite characters (i also have 4x survivors p100 which i really wanted every skin on everyone - Nea, Meg, Cloud and Ace, which have a lot of them)

  • OFM
    OFM Member Posts: 10

    I really hope the backlash they got for this made them reconsider their stance on a P100 reward, hopefully they'll reveal something for anniversary? 😌 That's just wishful thinking on my part really…

    I'd argue that since as a company your goal would be to make money, incentivizing players to spend a lot of time on your game would only be a good thing anyway, as the more time people spend playing your game the more likely they are to spend money on it. Also probably one of the least scummy tactics you could employ in that regard 😛

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,842
    edited April 10

    If they hadn't added FOMO cosmetics, I would have argued that it's probably a bit of both.

    Now the FOMO aspect is not a strong argument anymore. At least, this would be something that you can get at any time. They also added the red backgrounds as a reward for prestiging characters before the grind rework. That was also FOMO but they didn't have an issue with that. So I find it hard to find any other reason than: "It makes no money."

  • HexHuntressThighs
    HexHuntressThighs Member Posts: 1,245
    edited April 10

    Would you pay tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands designing cosmetics for a game that wouldn’t pay itself back at all? Not would very many people even get them? I want P100 rewards as much as the next person but it’s just not financially viable. Not to mention if they had P100 skins people might not buy any other skin for that character. And no licensed characters would get P100 skins either because they would probably have to make a deal for those changes too. They are in the business of making money at the end of the day.

  • Wibwob
    Wibwob Member Posts: 88

    Tbh I can't speak for op but I'd be satisfied with anything small, like player card stuff or a red eyes cosmetic. Maybe alongside the legacy prestige backgrounds so that new characters can get them.

    Just anything small to show for the effort besides the number 100 itself.

  • Quizzy
    Quizzy Member Posts: 862

    Everyone already knows they wont do prestige rewards because they wont be able to compensate from it like you said. Its just business and it definitely made them look bad by trying to play it off and make a horrible excuse.

    And i dont know why we are trying to even persuade them either. They are gonna do what they wanna do with fomo and ppl are still gonna buy it regardless. It can be a limited time auric cell only with feng, mikaela, nea, meg, etc skins in the store. People will all of sudden forget their fomo tactics and still buy it.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,303

    I'm fine with no P100 rewards, to be honest. It isn't really needed.

  • supersonic853
    supersonic853 Member Posts: 5,542
    edited April 10

    Ditto i just feel their reasoning they coulda said anything else but what they did say. Saying you want to avoid fomo when its one of your most common tools is ironic. Theking did a good video on it.

  • DerpedByDave
    DerpedByDave Member Posts: 53

    Yea it sucks but behavior has consistently demonstrated they don't listen or care about there player base, again I'm just going by what I have personally witnessed in the past years playing this game but it seemes like it's being run with a "we know better then our players" mentality witch is silly because these players invest way more time and probably know more about the game then the dev team themself so these players definitely deserve a reward.

  • 100PercentBPMain
    100PercentBPMain Member Posts: 1,068

    I feel the whole point of prestige is that there is no reward for it, hence the prestige.

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400

    I don’t think people are asking for complete redesigns of skins like the AOT Oni skin. Literally just something like Legacy or the Deep Rift re-colors, just something. It doesn’t cost tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that. I could literally hop in photoshop right now and whip it out in 10 minutes.

    It’s common business knowledge that retention leads to more profit. Giving people something to work towards with an actual incentive for hitting that milestone might and would keep people playing the game. Which means that they have a way higher chance of purchasing future DLC and other cosmetics. Just because the prestige skins wouldn’t produce direct profit does not mean it’s a sunk cost.

  • Marc_go_solo
    Marc_go_solo Member Posts: 5,327

    In terms of BHVR's reasoning, it is muddled. The reasoning is in direct opposition to their time-limited skins, as well as it's a rather strange reasoning to suggest someone wanting to play their favourite character and get hours of enjoyment to reach P100 is seen more as too much work .. it's a very confused and unsatisfactory answer. It's as if the person who answered didn't know the answer, so made it up on the spot without thinking about what they were typing.

    However, neither am I feeling they do not want to make cosmetics because it would not make money. They already have bloody cosmetics you can get free through only a few levels of gameplay, and many skins can be "bought" with Iridescent Shards - basically, many skins can be bought through playtime. So, bearing all that in mind, the idea they don't want to make some reward (even a banner) for reaching P100 because of money makes little sense. My guess is someone maining a character to P100 would want to buy a few skins on the way anyway.

    Finally, do they need a reward? Well, it would be nice - many games give rewards for completion, such as new skins, weapons, etc.. so as P100 is effectively "completing" that level, it would be nice. Not necessary, but I can't see any real reason against it. My guess is that the resources towards skins are focused so much on an increasing number of characters and new collections - all of which potentially can bring money into the company - that there isn't currently time to devote to making these free additions. I believe they ultimately will do something, but workwise it's not optimal currently to do so.

  • sonata93
    sonata93 Member Posts: 418

    Yeah that’s such a generic and halfhearted response.

    Overpriced cosmetics, perks locked behind licensed chapters, etc, but a small cosmetic reward for prestiging is considered ‘FOMO’… that makes no sense, I’m sorry.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,303

    I agree, yes.

    Yeah, it was always meant as an extra step you could take to show dedication towards a particular character. Nowadays prestige is forced, but going all the way to 100 is something you choose to do.

  • FizzyWizze
    FizzyWizze Member Posts: 19

    I'm all for anything, and yes I'm okay with it being small. A player banner/icon, something akin to legacy outfits. Not really asking for something grandiose, but something should be added to congratulate players on reaching a prestige that does take a while to grind towards

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 9,226

    Its called, not putting rewards behind impossible goals.

    You get a P100 badge, clearly something small wasn't enough.

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,366
    edited April 24

    I feel like banners would be the solution to this problem.

    Getting different banners for that character at certain milestones, up to an iri rank banner at p100, would be a nice way to show your dedication to a character, but is only a banner.

    Course I see majority of things people complain about as FOMO as people being rather entitled. Rarely have I seen a claim I actually agreed was a fair criticism, so maybe I'm not qualified to speak on the matter.... however since some people will still complain about FOMO anyway and there is evdiently no right answer, give the banners the same design just with different boarders, and at least there would be the response "it's just a banner, deal with it".

  • Rudjohns
    Rudjohns Member Posts: 2,176

    What I wished it was:

    Prestige 1 to 9: just like it is right now

    Prestige 51 to 53: Survivor: A white shirt with the survivor perk printed on front. Killer: A piece of the default cosmetic with some red steam coming out of it

    Prestige 90: A banner (1 for all survivors and 1 for all killers)

    Prestige 100: A card with the character's face

    But, we all know this will never happen. The cards and banner maybe since they are "easy" to make, but the rest, yeah

  • Kaethela
    Kaethela Member Posts: 348

    It's about making money. It literally cannot be fomo because it would always be available. Sure it takes time to get to P100 but there's no permanently missing out on it.

    Saying it's fomo is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst.

  • slipttees
    slipttees Member Posts: 846

    p100 need new prestige. Similar prestige legacy!