..but it's not exploitative? At no point do you have to buy any cosmetics. If you don't want to shell out extra on the game, simply don't, problem solved. Fd even have the good grace to avoid rubbing optional extras in our faces. We only saw these new skins because uni made a topic.
Is that the 'It's optional! It doesn't matter!' argument/defence I see before my eyes? I think so...
True, no one has guns being held to their head 'forcing' them to buy this content. But cosmetic and character customisation is a major element in countless games these days;
it is gameplay, and must be seen as part of the essential whole. Elite is partly an RPG, after all, and customisation is a fundamental part of that. The only choice a player in Elite has is between absolutely eff all customisation options - and having customisation at all. If you want to customise, you do
not have a choice.
If that's not taking advantage of people, then I don't know what is. If they were cheaper, I wouldn't have as big of a beef, because a tiny price tag would usually just about match up the effort put into them. People could say 'Well, what do you expect?' when they point out shoddily implemented idents or
palette swaps of palette swaps (Contender/Challenger packs). That everyone has to pay for the same colours on each ship adds insult to injury. If you're going to create lazy content, at least apply it across all ships in a single purchase.
Btw, I
still can't reliably get the correct amount of total characters on the ident entry, so not only did I pay for lazy work I paid for work that doesn't actually function properly.
It's pay-to-win microtransactions that are genuinely exploitative, thankfully these don't exist in ed. If they did, many players would have abandoned the game in a heartbeat - on the other hand look at how WoT has thrived, so let's be grateful for small mercies I guess..
I think I might have less issue if they did sell a few ships here and there. It would at least ensure they put some effort into what they're hawking... Or maybe we'd just get palette swapped identikit ships instead (no asset changes, but hey! this black part of the ship is now white! yay for colour channel sliders leading to new content and profits!).
