[Coldsaturn]

So this happened.
Congrats to LADS! First otome game to be nominated and to win (against other titles like genshin)!

[ChicletPrime]

go us! i have no idea if this groundbreaking or whatever, but i'm in love with this game and i'm glad it won so i can snub Honkai Star Rail going forward like a really catty person.

[Coldsaturn]

I've read conflicting ideas on that.
Some say it's a big deal because female-oriented games don't get attention usually, let alone to win against other big titles like genshin, and this could drive more interest toward the genre allowing for some much-needed competition in the market.
Some say no one cares about a little award from Germany, let alone a big Chinese company earning big bucks in China. Yet Infold's CEO has been photographed at the con, which means they do care?
Some say his presence and the win is actually a bad thing because it confirms to infold that they can keep going with their predatory practices because players will still spend money and even vote to give them awards.

[ChicletPrime]

...there is no ethical consumption under capitalism?

something something i just want to get more stars in Senior Hunt Contest, is that so wrong? also, angst thrills my soul.

[Coldsaturn]

An apparent case of "fandom bubble" and "you're chronically online" because those who really took to heart the fact that Xav's KOD didn't have all the features shown in the trailer promo + the costly reruns + this latest round of "everything is behind a paywall" were so sure their boycott and the letter sent through a laywer to infold by some cn players meant that infold was in really bad waters. And then you get a con in Germany and the CEO is there just chilling and taking pictures with fans, the game wins on votes, etc. Some players were even trying to get the game disqualified from the award since infold loves doing false advertisement and false discounts (the latter in particular is illegal in europe), but nothing happened and they're finding out not that many players are angry about the current state of affairs. But it's easy to think a huge chunk of the playerbase agrees with you when you're on X/reddit and only interact with a couple hundred of very active users.

[ChicletPrime]

i so rarely get involved in fan bruhaha that i feel like I need opera glasses and a pamphlet that higlights the salient points that i can read during intermission.

i do think that gatcha games ought to be much more heavily regulated than they are - i would prefer, in fact, that they don't exist in the form they do now with the very shady monetization they all run under. yes, the company should make money because the people making it should make money. no game in existence should be pulling in 56 million dollars a month, that's ludicrous. and yet...it does and until the laws catch up (which will be never) it's either opt in and pony up your entertainment wallet each month, or just... don't.

LaDS is predatory, but they're all predatory and i would personally put this into the bad-but-not-the-worst category which i think i've mentioned elsewhere. i would not sign a petition about it because i think i am still getting value for my money, even if i wish they'd just require a subscription like an MMO and give me all the stuff each month. but that is how you DON'T get 56 million dollars a month and the CEO working on his 5th yacht, i suppose.

i will eventually bounce off the game, its inevitable. at some point the cost to keep going is going to rack up to the point where i will hit some internal tip-o-meter and the sunk cost fallacy will lose its grip and slide off into the pit. and since i am happily outsourcing the social media scouring to you, i can sit back and go, wow, that's sounds WILD and i don't have to put any of my skin into that game at all :D

do you have an opinion on this yourself? specific to whether winning an award of this type is a good thing or a bad thing or a general comment about how LaDS monetizes itself. like, if you see another paywall deal like we just got, would you quit over it?

[Coldsaturn]

"no game in existence should be pulling in 56 million dollars a month, that's ludicrous."
Yeah, but I would say the same about a lot of sports (which are a whole another can of worms in terms of the problems they can bring to someone's life and everyone around them when they become an obsession), and at that point it's a matter of double standard where we would be policing video games because they're believed to be somehow more damaging to a person than all the other items on the list titled "Things that can ruin a person financially and psychologically"

Where I still see a worrying discrepancy is that gacha games are not necessarily 18+ and IMO they absolutely should be. And this isn't LADS' fault, it IS 18+ in China. But on the western side of the world they've decided it isn't spicy enough to warrant that rating, even with the gacha in it. If it was finally locked at 18+ then I would have way fewer problems with it, or at least my issues with it would equal those that I have with every other gambling-exploiting activity. There are many, and at a certain point you have to be considered an adult that can make those informed decisions, no matter how questionable. If you want to lose 5k in a casino in a night go do that, if you want to spend 5k on LADS in a night go do that, too. At least from the latter you'll get some sweet words in return.

So my personal take on LADS is that the extensive monetization is to be expected, and so long as there IS a way to exist in the game without paying (I have an Aurum pass, but I wouldn't like it that much if they forced all players to pay for a more expensive subscription or you're locked out) then every other choice can be pinned on the player themselves. And so long as there will be players uploading content on youtube (and LADS allows this, because there's literally no one getting copyright strikes for it, they know it does insane work with promoting the game and raising FOMO in everyone else), then as a player I can always choose not to open my wallet.
I dislike how end-game parts of LADS are effectively locked for whoever is not a whale (later orbit stages for example), because that means that a f2p can't simply wait it out while grinding the free resources, they are forced to pay and have myth companions at rank3 to even attempt at clearing those stages), but it's definitely not something I would quit over because there IS technically an alternative. I can choose not to fight those orbits, and the main story is free, and all the cards are online.

What would have me leave the game in general is the writing. If (when) the writing stops making sense because all they're thinking about is finding a new event banner to make people pay, then at that point they'll lose me. It's been the same for all other fandoms I've been in, my involvement is first and foremost tied to the story. Fumble that and I'll hop to something else that is better written.