Revenue Enhancing Devices: Difference between revisions

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[[File:~~SparklePony_7376~~.png|link=World of Warcraft|frame|It costs $25 USD. Its sole in-game function is fulfilled by hundreds of other things that ''don't'' cost $25 USD. Hundreds of thousands were sold in a few days. ''[[Rule of Cool|And you know you want one.]]'']]

[[File:SparklePony 7376.png|link=World of Warcraft|frame|It costs $25 USD. Its sole in-game function is fulfilled by hundreds of other things that ''don't'' cost $25 USD. Hundreds of thousands were sold in a few days. ''[[Rule of Cool|And you know you want one.]]'']]

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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.

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]]s. 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.

The term comes from the Reagan Administration, where [[Ronald Reagan]] had more-or-less promised smaller government, and found they had to raise taxes. Well, rather than say they were raising taxes, they mentioned a new way to obtain money: ''Revenue Enhancement'', which people immediately saw that 'Revenue' in this case meant 'tax' and enhancement meant 'increase'.

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== Collectible Card Games ==

* In [[Collectible Card Game~~|Collectible Card Games~~]], the cards you get in a pack will be randomized, with certain cards more common than ~~others -- for~~ instance, ''<nowiki>[[Magic: The Gathering]]</nowiki>'' packs have eleven commons, three uncommons, and a rare (with the possibility that the rare could be mythic, and one of the commons could be replaced by a foil card). Therefore, to get a specific card, you either have to keep buying packs until you chance upon it, trade with someone for it, or go buy it from the secondary market, while hoping the Standard tournament rules haven't rotated the cards out of play in the meantime. <br /><br />To make things worse, there tend to be as many or more different rare cards than commons or uncommons in each set. Add to the the fact that most games have a hard limit to the number of copies of any card that can be in a deck. In order to get a full playset of rares by booster packs, the player will likely have 10 or more FULL SETS of the commons, of which only one set can be used in a deck.

* In [[Collectible Card Game]]s, the cards you get in a pack will be randomized, with certain cards more common than others—for instance, ''<nowiki>[[Magic: The Gathering]]</nowiki>'' packs have eleven commons, three uncommons, and a rare (with the possibility that the rare could be mythic, and one of the commons could be replaced by a foil card). Therefore, to get a specific card, you either have to keep buying packs until you chance upon it, trade with someone for it, or go buy it from the secondary market, while hoping the Standard tournament rules haven't rotated the cards out of play in the meantime.

To make things worse, there tend to be as many or more different rare cards than commons or uncommons in each set. Add to the the fact that most games have a hard limit to the number of copies of any card that can be in a deck. In order to get a full playset of rares by booster packs, the player will likely have 10 or more FULL SETS of the commons, of which only one set can be used in a deck.

* The ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' spinoff trading card game has special "Loot Cards" which have codes on them that can get you vanity items for your ingame character. Anything from a rideable turtle to a pet gorilla, but nothing that will give your character an actual combat advantage. Pretty much the sole reason for these loot cards is to sell more booster packs.

* Some [[Collectible Card Game~~|Collectible Card Games~~]] ''are'' [[Revenue Enhancing Devices]]. The fourth ''[[Star Wars]]'' game didn't even ''try'' to hide the fact that you were going to lose if you weren't willing to shell out enough money to get cards like Anakin, Count Dooku and other ''Episode II'' stars.

* Some [[Collectible Card Game]]s ''are'' Revenue Enhancing Devices. The fourth ''[[Star Wars]]'' game didn't even ''try'' to hide the fact that you were going to lose if you weren't willing to shell out enough money to get cards like Anakin, Count Dooku and other ''Episode II'' stars.

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|D&D Miniatures]]'' has a similar deal with booster packs. Additionally, miniatures are divided into four "alignments", and all your creatures have to be from one alignment. This significantly increases the number of booster packs you have to buy to make a playable army. Note also that this randomization is considered annoying by those who buy the miniatures so that they can be used to represent combat in ''D&D''.

* [[Hero Clix]] uses the booster pack model. A booster will have two commons, two uncommons, and one rare. One in (about) every four packs will instead have two commons, one uncommon, one rare, and one super-rare. Given that they encourage you to buy new sets in packs of 12 (you get a free figure if you do), not bad. So, of course, that's not the end of the story. Some sets have chase figures, which have varities varying from 1 in every 50 boosters to 1 in every 100. If you want one, you've got two choices: get extremely lucky, or get over to eBay.

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* 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!

* 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!

* Capcom did the same thing with ''[[Resident Evil 5]]''. You have to pay 400 Microsoft Points (US $5.00) to play Versus Mode.

* The most blatant example of this is the [[Xbox 360]] version of ''[[The Godfather (video game)|The Godfather]]: The Game''... several already-present in-game merchants won't deal with you until you've 'unlocked' them with real-life moolah. This includes all of the most powerful weapon-upgrades and the strongest henchman. You could also just buy packets of in-game cash. There's certainly an irony to a game about the mafia demanding extra money for special favors.

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== MMORPG's ==

* Free MMO distributor Nexon is notorious for their use of this trope with their free-to-play games; with many offering potentially [[Game Breaker|game-breaking]] gear in their shop, and a few offering cosmetic items that really ratchet up the [[Fan Service]] levels. All shop items are purchased with "NX", an intermediary electronic currency, which itself can only be purchased with real ~~money -- either~~ via game cards (available from many real-life shops), mobile phone charges, credit card, or [[Pay Pal]]. NX currency is not available through any in-game mechanism. Examples below:

* Free MMO distributor Nexon is notorious for their use of this trope with their free-to-play games; with many offering potentially [[Game Breaker|game-breaking]] gear in their shop, and a few offering cosmetic items that really ratchet up the [[Fan Service]] levels. All shop items are purchased with "NX", an intermediary electronic currency, which itself can only be purchased with real money—either via game cards (available from many real-life shops), mobile phone charges, credit card, or [[Pay Pal]]. NX currency is not available through any in-game mechanism. Examples below:

** ''[[Mabinogi (video game)|Mabinogi]]'', has an item shop that offers numerious game-enhancing items including 'gachapons' (items that turn into random gear), items which temporarily enhance or reduce stats, items which increase experience gain, extra characters (beyond your one free one of each race), and [[Team Pet|in-game pets]].

** ''[[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.

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* [[Older Than They Think|The arcade version of]] ''[[Double Dragon]] 3'' had extra playable characters, weapons and moves that could only be accessed by the player by literally buying them (read: ''[[Bribing Your Way to Victory|inserting more tokens into the arcade cabinet]]'') through the various weapon shops located throughout the game.

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat]] 2'', there is an audit on a information screen called "Kano Transformations" as well as a random end game text message that says "Where is Kano/Sonya/Goro?" This is only there to con players into trying to find a secret that doesn't exist (selling [[Guide Dang It|guides]] to sucker kids was big business back when ''MK'' was huge and the Internet was not the infinite font of free information it is now; some of the sillier inclusions in ''Mortal Kombat 3'' such as animalities and brutalities were made for the same reason).

* ''[[Furcadia]]'' has [[Revenue Enhancing Devices]] called Digos, which let players walk around with winged characters or even play as dragons and whatnot. They make ALL their money this way.

* ''[[Furcadia]]'' has Revenue Enhancing Devices called Digos, which let players walk around with winged characters or even play as dragons and whatnot. They make ALL their money this way.

* ''[[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).

* ''[[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]]s 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.]