Well said.
(There is also FOMO pressure in the “weekly challenges” which is part of what makes the game feel like a chore, and I would argue that exploitative = predatory, but otherwise this is correct)
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Well do people want lowered prices or do they want the store completely gone? I get the “content to price” complaint but I feel like some people always complain when it comes to buying in-game content with real money .
I’d also personally lean towards “exploitative” and “predatory” being exchangeable terms, but by definition I’d say they aren’t necessarily (all predatory things are exploitative but not all exploitative things are predatory - just something like 95% of them IMO 
). But that all comes down to semantics and personal interpretation.
I also agree with you completely that the challenge system’s weekly rotational reward is super exploitative of addictive/completionist personalities in particular.
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All of this. And it’s not even getting into how this affects XP and challenges. My personal problem with the store isn’t that you have to buy armor, it’s that what the store offers is extremely low quality yet they charge it at super high rates.
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Most of us want the prices reduced at least cut in half
The ones that want it gone want the multiplayer to be packaged in with the campaign for $60 which ngl sounds like a better deal but its too late for that now
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That’s pay to win, which is a predatory practice. Predatory can be stuff that isn’t worth the money!
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The honest answer is that it’s not… in any way, shape, or form.
Some people don’t like it and are prone to hyperbole to express their frustration.
It’s not predatory. It’s not exploitive. And most importantly it’s not pay to win.
The real discussion should be over the prices and the way the store is set up. But even then any real discourse is shouted down with arguments for absurdly low prices… or making it free (we already had it in other games 20 years ago)… or being able to grind free credits to pay for things.
The market will set the value.
For the moment just buy what you think is value for money. I’ve bought two bundles so far. No regrets. Passed on a couple that have been tempting… but didn’t seem like value at the time. Could be different if they come around again at a different price or in a different bundle.
From a Halo fan point of view I hope that 343 are killing it and raking in the cash. That means more Halo for me.
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How about a sensible multiplayer experience?
Of course people don’t want to pay for anything. Why should they when there’s all these issues?
I don’t think it is predatory, but I’m not a self proclaimed expert.
I think everything is grossly overpriced. I was looking forward to spending $5-$10 every couple months, but for what that gives me, I’ll stay with the free stuff.
There is some scummy stuff, like limiting coatings to a single core, but those things just reinforce my current stance of not spending, they don’t exploit me.
It’s actually designed to play off a lot of the players in infinite weaknesses. This doesn’t work on me but it sure as hell will make 343/Microsoft millions.
- “FOMO”.
- Using items as they did from Halo Reach as bait.
- Overpricing.
- Manipulation, making players believe one thing but their actions show another as they did with “customization” before the Beta launched.
- The SR152, that there is a nice post about it up right now.
I could go on, but the truth here is, 343 is mainly looking to get players to open their wallets more so than creating a quality type of game that players would be more than willing to support. But what do I know, right?
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Politely as possible…you are brain tainted or incredibly greedy yourself and simply would do the same thing if you had the power…hence, you not understanding that these companies are dirty.
These are friggin cosmetic items.
Virtually nothing to unlock without paying.
The grind is so slow.
The devs are purposely putting garbage things to do in the game or force you into certain playlists. It makes the game a chore and is design to psychologically mess with players.
Do you realize they pay literal experts to test these games and see if they will mess with our minds for profit?
Do you get that?
Think harder or more expansive or perhaps you just dont understand life and what is happening.
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That’s not predatory, it’s just bad value. And in that case, the pressure is on them to adjust the value, or they won’t see as many sales.
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What creates the sense that it is predatory is larger than just the store and item prices. It is a combination of a poorly designed store and battle pass system, poorly designed customization options, poorly designed progression system and a deviation from the norm in terms of how other games have handled the exact same situation.
Is it predatory, no, but when taking all of the flaws and compounding them, it gives the perception that it is.
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Read these two post, they will explain perfectly the pro’s and con’s to the In game shop / store system and why it is predatory.
- _https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/halo-infinite-if-you-got-20-to-spend-then-you-must-have-30-to-spend-343-industries/473369
- _https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/halo-infinite-customization-built-on-a-lie/481435
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I wouldn’t consider the store itself to be predatory mainly due to the system being fully deterministic due to the player having full in advance knowledge about what he or she will receive for purchasing a given item in the store. In addition to this, none of the items in the store with the exception of challenge swaps doesn’t involve the use of a random number generator in the purchase or the use of the item and none of the items offer a direct in game advantage to the player.
Despite this, it should be noted that the system used in Halo Infinite is far from perfect and some issues do still remain. One of the biggest issue is that the spartan customization is split between 3 different armor cores where the player is unable to combine items between different cores, limited coloring options for the spartan due the use of pre defined armor patterns instead of combining 1-3 independent colors on a pre defined color pallet. In addition to this, it’s also indirectly possible to purchase in game progress which devalues that time that other users may have spend completing a given task. This includes being able to purchase challenge swaps to remove undesired weekly challenges, xp boost to ease the process to complete battle passes and an additional challenge slot in order to ease the process to completing challenges in general due to the ability to progress 1 additional weekly challenge simultaneously.
Four words Fear Of Missing Out or FOMO
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My guy i Can go to call of duty MW2019 right now pay $16 and get, a skin a weapon variant (with its own custom skin) a weapon sticker a spray a calling card and an emblem, and that from overpriced activision who is the most, well was most predatory gaming company.
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More like FATMASP.
Fools and their money are soon parted.
I think it is. They are selling us armors we used to unlock in previous games easily. Coatings are not cross-core. And basic colors are also locked behind a paywall.
Yes, it might be easy for us to not buy them, but there are other people out there who just can’t help themselves and throw money at everything they see. For every 100 people that do not buy anything, there will always be one that will make up for it. And I think they are going after them.
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Whatever 343 do to generate a revenue stream - someone will go overboard.
At some stage it becomes the individual’s problem… and not the companies? And it certainly shouldn’t start to impact on my own, personal, enjoyment of the game.
Someone mentioned on a different thread about spending $1000’s of dollars on XP boosts in Halo 5 just to get to SR152 (playing a game mode they hated for days!). I hope they were exaggerating - but all that for a ‘reward’ that 343 specifically said would be small and not worth grinding for.
What chance do 343 really have?