I was reading a review of a certain tiny MMO the other day when a line jumped out at me. The player was complaining about $40 cosmetics and arguing that those prices are absolutely stupid and indefensible, yet people defend them anyway – essentially, because we’ve just gotten used to their existence over a long span of time.
The gamer mentions the context of Oblivion’s horse armor, suggesting that those types of “micro” transactions started as a bit of a joke and have now spiraled completely out of control over the years, to the point that we now expect every game to try this type of monetization. In fact, we’ve pretty much just grown to accept it.
I wanted to talk about this for today’s Daily Grind – not specifically about Palia, but about the concept of becoming inured to very bad things over a span of time. For example, a segment of people reading this have no idea what the Oblivion horse armor DLC debacle was about. They don’t remember it because they weren’t there. That means they literally don’t remember the Before Times, the time before companies shoved paid microtransaction into literally everything, from MMOs to single-player romps. And the rest of us? We’ve been habituated.
What problematic MMO trends have you become inured to?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
