Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-38105396-20191126201852/@comment-38841156-20191214000926

Amrosa wrote: FM does things to benefit FM. And why shouldn't they, their jobs are on the line as we saw at the beginning of the year.

But they do try to bring a lot of value to the players and put a lot of time and effort to deliver great content. Also, FM chooses not to close the EE loop hole, for whatever reason, and that is their choice.

My opinion is that as a community we lose more than we gain from allowing these loop holes to remain. Clearly FM doesn't see the cost of closing EE versus the benefit as enough to justify it.

Maybe it is because there are very few people using the loop hole so it doesn't pay to address.

Maybe there are a lot of people doing it and they don't want to suffer the backlash from closing the loop hole.

Or maybe it is because they have grown so accustomed to pushing the costs forward to future content, with Full Upgrades being ever more expensive, that they don't really care. This is the scenario that most hurts the user community, assuming you want an affordable game that allows you to experience the most amount of content at a reasonable cost, be it in time or purchases.

And of course, the engagement model for M$, if it works, makes the RR3 brand more valuable, meaning that they have more leverage in licensing negotiations, which means that they are able to keep bringing their player base new and exciting content.

I am not sure why people don't think game developers should turn a profit, or even a large profit, and that it is wrong if they do. The problem was the free models of social media and early mobile app title set unrealistic expectations in consumers minds and got people accustomed to not having to pay for anything. What is worse is that we ended up with schemes like the freemium models where the true cost is hidden from the consumer. Sites like the wiki give you an idea, but no one knows the full extent of what the costs are for playing, outside of the developers.

All that being said, in my opinion, things that devalue the in game currencies, at the end of the day hurt players more than they help them and take away from the experience of playing the game without making it into work. Instead of a loop hole, wouldn't it be better if the devs gave us a free practice module where we could make our own super long races, etc? They won't because of the fear that it will cause players to lose engagement with new content, so you are stuck with gaming the system to get EEs. Instead of getting functionality that we should have, we are stuck with a bodge. I appreciate your arguments. They are very well placed and they are much closer to what I think is the intension/motivation (making profit - which is fine) and effect (an enjoyable game). While this might be the old chicken and egg story, the question is: would closing the loop holes and having a broader basis of payments increase FMs commitment to a more enjoyable game or would it result in filling FMs pokets. I know this is likely not one or the other  but I tend to believe it is not going to ease the pain in our efforts (time or money) to keep up with the ever increasing content.