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Revenue Enhancing Devices: Difference between revisions
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It is for this reason that there so often seems to be design features in games, both computer games and board games, that seem solely designed to ensure increased profit for the manufacturer without necessarily adding any gameplay value for the consumer.
Of course, most examples of this are controversial. For example, while many players may regret having to buy large quantities of booster packs in order to get the one card they want, others may consider the uncertainty of opening a booster pack just part of the excitement of the game.
This is particularly common in "Free" MMOs, which can be either truly free, with all content available to all players; or only partially free, with limited free content available, making them [[Allegedly Free Game|Allegedly Free Games]]. For the former, there are usually [[Bribing Your Way to Victory|game-enhancing]] (possibly even [[Game Breaker|game-breaking]]) equips and boosts, as well as a variety of cosmetic-only (usually [[Fan Service|fanservice-enhancing]]) items, available for real money in some form of in-game cash shop. Several studies have discovered that the presence of [[Revenue Enhancing Devices]] in "free" online games, even those that are strictly cosmetic, typically increase the amount revenue generated per player by up to double that of subscription-only games.
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== Downloadable Content ==
* Alert gamers have noticed that some purchasable Xbox Live DLC is nothing more than a code which unlocks content ''that is already on the disc you paid for''; Namco and EA are particularly known for this, as is the PSN DLC (any DLC with a stated size of 100kb is just an unlock key), and Square-Enix's [[Wii Ware]] releases have begun to follow suit
* The "[[Trope Codifier]]" probably would be the "Horse Armor" dlc from ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]''. This was an armor that you could equip on your horse. It was also completely unnecessary and pretty much just for looks. If anyone refers to excessive dlc, especially if it's just skins that don't have any effects, as horse armor, they are referring to this.
* A special mention should go out to how [[Square Enix]] has been releasing DLC for their [[Wii Ware]] releases. Oftentimes, they will release the base game at a nominal fee (around $10, give or take), and then additional content will be $2-$3 each. ''[[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]]'' is $37 in its complete form, while ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles]]: [[My Life As a Darklord]]'' takes the proverbial cake at $67 if you purchase all of its DLC!
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** ''[[Maple Story]]'', another Nexon game, is even more notorious for this; with many cash shop items being well into the [[Game Breaker]] side of the trope. To the point where many players consider the game effectively unplayable without spending considerable amounts of real money, due to the exhorbitant amount of grinding needed otherwise.
** ''[[Vindictus]]'' started out with very few game-enhancing items available in their cash shop; but lots of high-priced cosmetic offerings, most of which existed to up the [[Fan Service]] levels. Many more of both have been added with subsequent expansions (with the cost of cosmetic items considerably reduced). While none of them make it to [[Game Breaker]] status; many [[Up to Eleven|really ratchet up]] the fanservice levels.
** ''[[Dragon Nest]]'' offers a wide variety of items in the Dragon Vault which make different aspects of the game easier (or practically doable) and more convenient. There's an additional convenience: Almost all of these special goods can be sold in the Trading House for gold, so paying players can effectively buy large amounts of gold with real money. Fortunately for non-paying players there's a steady enough supply of the common cash items that they are affordable at higher levels.
* ''Earth Eternal'' does something similar, except that it also has a Credit Swap wherein players can buy the "credits" from each other with in-game gold. EE shop items include temporary and permanent versions of items which [[Sprint Shoes|increase movement speed]], increase [[Experience Points|experience gain]], expand [[Grid Inventory|inventory capacity]] and supply bottomless [[Eye of Newt|spell reagents]].
* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' released $10 'Super Booster' packs which contain extra costume pieces (with no effect on gameplay), special emotes (with no effect on gameplay), and a bonus power of some sort (which range from [[Awesome but Impractical]] to rather handy but little effect on actual combat). According to the developers, one of the first packs was so popular that the profits got the next free update out the door much faster.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has a ton of these, from the aforementioned [[Collectible Card Game]] to standard WoW-themed [[The Merch|merchandise]] to a Pet Store where you can spend cash for in-game vanity pets and mounts. The upshot is that this is all purely cosmetic stuff and is in no way necessary to access or complete content...[[Tempting Fate|so]] [[Activision|far]]. The most [[Egregious]] example thus far in [[World of Warcraft]]: the Celestial Steed, a mount which provides no concrete in-game benefit, aside from looking cool. The sheer number of orders resulted in a queue on the online store for ''days''. Players realized too late that a mount like that is no longer cool if EVERYBODY gets it. [[The Cynical Brit|TotalBiscuit]] parodied that by calling the item "That Retarded Horse," or TRH for short.
** Actually, there was a very minor mechanical benefit to the Celestial Steed. When it was released it was one of the very few mounts that scaled with your riding speed; it could be used from the moment you first got a mount and kept functioning at the fastest flying speeds. Someone who had purchased the Steed would never need to buy another mount with gold, saving them a few hundred gold over the character's life. (A later patch made all elite mounts scale this way.) It was also a 'free' mount for all your characters, current and future. All you needed to buy was the training, and the mount would adjust to it.
* ''[[
* ''[[Runescape]]'' has a special flag that you get for buying a £75 ticket to the Runefest convention in real life. A lot of people bought a ticket just for the flag without actually going to the event.
* ''[[Rift]]:'' One advantage to the digital collectors edition (a $10 extra) is a free mount obtainable by all characters in your account at any level. It doesn't help that walking there is pretty damn slow.
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== Tabletop RPG's ==
* In many wargames, after having bought the books, you have to buy large quantities of miniatures in order to play (and paint them if you want to play in a sanctioned tournament). For many people collecting and painting miniatures is the main appeal, not an added cost.
** [[Games Workshop]] is getting most of the flak nowadays, partly because their franchises are among the most popular but mostly because they've severely tightened their grip on independent vendors to control pricing.
* The 4E books for ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' repeatedly encourage the reader to sign up for the online D&D Insider service. In fairness, there's general agreement that it's at least worth it for a DM for all the tools to simplify running a game.
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* ''[[Soul Calibur]] 4'' and ''[[Ace Combat]] 6'' are clearly making money via DLCs. The former lets you buy additional tracks, characters and character equipment (including weapons ''which can be unlocked in-game without the DLC'', but it's specified in its description before you buy it, both on [[Xbox]] Live or [[PlayStation]] Network) while the latter offers special planes and custom paintjobs for them (including several [[The Idolmaster (video game)|Idolmaster]]-themed and [[Call Back|Call Backs]] to earlier games).
* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' is an odd example. The DLC actually adds a fair bit of content into the game, but the only way to carry on playing after the storyline finishes is to buy the ''Broken Steel'' DLC. In most games, "playing after the story finishes" would be seen as a bonus, but Fallout 3 is ostensibly an open-world sandbox game (like ''[[The Elder Scrolls Four|Oblivion]]'') and the original ending is ''incredibly'' contrived; at least one of your companions in ''Broken Steel'' actively lampshades how stupid the original ending was. ''Fallout 3'' and ''Oblivion'' are also particularly odd as they were made with the expectation that they would gather a large mod community, meaning that any DLC released has to include a relatively significant amount of content in order to be worthwhile. After all, why buy horse armour DLC when the mod community can do an even better job for free?
* The Mann Co. store in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' allows players to buy in-game items with real money. Many of these are hats which doesn't really do anything. They can, in theory, be found for free [[Randomly Drops|if you play long enough]]. [http://www.halolz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/halolz-dot-com-teamfortress2-combearison.jpg This is starting to get a TAD ridiculous.]
** The "tad ridiculous"ness is why the game became free to play --- Valve is entirely confident that they can print money off that game ''just'' from its store!
** It's even lampshaded with the hat called Ze Goggles, where the "description" is simply "Nothing". It's supposed to be a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[The Simpsons]]'', but it's [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] as well.
** And lest we forget the god-damned crates! As mentioned above you can get items by random drops, or by crafting them from other items. However, with the arrival of the Store, you would start getting crates as random drops. A crate is of no use at all on its own, and needs a key to open. Whilst crates are come across on a fairly regular basis, there's only one source of keys. Yes, you guessed it, the Mann Co. Store. When you open a crate with a key, you get... a random item. You're basically being asked to pay for extra random drops. Whilst some of the items you get from crates are unique and can't be gotten by any other means, most of the time all you'll get is a bog-standard item that you probably already have three of in your inventory as it is. [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=300 Did I mention that keys are one use items and you need to buy one for every crate you find]? You can't even recycle crates into scrap metal if you don't want to use them, your only option other than opening them is to junk them. (Thankfully, crates drop in addition to rather than instead of normal drops.)
*** However, weapons obtained from later crates have been given the "strange" quality prefix, making it less of a loss if you uncrate something you have already.
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