UNDECEMBER is 100% PAY TO WIN and 600% dead to me
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses the disappointment with a new game that was previously highlighted for its promising gameplay. Despite initial excitement, the game's heavy monetization has sparked outrage. The creator explains how various in-game items and features are locked behind expensive paywalls, leading to a pay-to-win scenario. This has resulted in negative reviews on Steam. The video emphasizes the frustration with game studios continuing such practices despite past backlash from the gaming community. The creator vows to explore the game further without spending money and shares their intention to retract their previous recommendation.
Takeaways
- 😡 The game, previously featured in a Steam Nexfest demo, has disappointed the reviewer due to aggressive monetization tactics.
- 💰 The game uses two currencies: diamonds (the primary paid currency) and rubies (earnable or buyable). Items are overpriced and primarily require diamonds.
- 🛍️ There's a 1:1 conversion between diamonds and rubies, but many important items, especially convenience-related ones, require diamonds.
- 💎 Major monetized features include inventory expansion, stash upgrades, and specialized storage, all of which are extremely expensive.
- 🛑 Key items like the Stardust of Oblivion, which allows players to reset their character’s stats, cost $3 per use, with a limited grace period for free resets.
- 📦 Players must pay to expand their inventory and stash space, with full expansion costing up to $180, which is viewed as highly excessive.
- 🐾 Convenience features like auto-looting pets and Zodiac Walker abilities are locked behind paid tiers, with subscription-like structures.
- 👎 The game's pay-to-win elements are seen as unfair, as purchasing items gives players significant advantages over non-paying players.
- 💸 Auction house listings are also limited unless players spend real money to expand their listing capabilities, adding another monetized barrier.
- 😔 Despite the game's fun mechanics and potential, the reviewer can no longer recommend it due to the egregious monetization practices.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the video?
-The video focuses on the heavy monetization of a game that was previously highlighted by the creator as promising, similar to Diablo or Path of Exile. The game has implemented aggressive pay-to-win mechanics, which has disappointed the creator.
What was the creator's initial impression of the game?
-The creator was initially impressed with the game's combat and thought it held a lot of promise, hoping it would be as successful as other indie games like Grim Dawn and Wolcen.
What is the main issue the creator has with the game?
-The main issue is the extreme monetization of the game, where players are required to spend real money for various in-game advantages, including inventory expansions, currency exchanges, and stat changes.
What are the two in-game currencies mentioned in the video?
-The two in-game currencies mentioned are diamonds and rubies. Diamonds are the base currency, while rubies can be used for certain purchases and may be earned through in-game activities.
What is 'Stardust of Oblivion' and why is it problematic?
-Stardust of Oblivion is an in-game item that allows players to change their stats (such as strength, dexterity, intellect). The problem is that it costs $3 every time you want to change your stats, unless you do it within a six-hour grace period after purchasing the item.
How does the game limit inventory space, and what are the costs of expanding it?
-The game starts players with 100 backpack slots, and additional storage must be purchased using real money. Expanding inventory costs $2.50 for every 5 additional slots, and fully expanding the bag would cost $75 in total.
What is the cost of expanding general storage and specific storage areas in the game?
-Expanding general storage costs 500 diamonds, which is around $11. Expanding specific storage areas, such as Essence storage and Material storage, costs about $15 per area, with five areas available, totaling $75 for all expansions.
What is the 'pet ability' and 'Zodiac Walker' in the game?
-The 'pet ability' allows a pet to auto-loot items for the player, and the 'Zodiac Walker' is essentially a membership that offers various boosts. Together, they cost around $12 USD for 28 days.
How much does it cost to change your character's name in the game?
-Changing your character's name costs $22, which the creator finds extremely expensive and discourages making any mistakes when naming your character.
Why is the creator upset about the monetization of this game, especially in 2022?
-The creator is frustrated that despite constant criticism from players about excessive monetization in games, studios still continue to implement such pay-to-win systems. The creator is particularly disappointed because the game is enjoyable, but the aggressive monetization ruins the experience.
Outlines
😔 Disappointment with a Promising Game
The narrator starts by sharing disappointment with a game that had shown great potential during Steam Next Fest. Described as a mix between Diablo and Path of Exile, the game initially impressed with its combat mechanics. However, after its release, the monetization strategy turned out to be aggressive, with heavy reliance on in-game purchases. This revelation contrasts sharply with the expectations set during the demo period, leading to frustration among fans of the genre.
💰 The Unfair Currency System
The second section discusses the game's dual-currency system: diamonds and rubies. The narrator explains how these currencies are used for various in-game purchases, with a 1:1 exchange rate between the two. Diamonds, the primary currency, can only be bought with real money, and the prices range from small amounts to larger sums aimed at 'whales'—players willing to spend significant money. Items such as bundles and convenience items also point towards a pay-to-win structure, giving paying players an unfair advantage.
💵 Hidden Costs of Changing Your Character
Here, the focus shifts to an in-game item called 'Stardust of Oblivion,' which costs $3 each time a player wants to reset their character’s stats. While there’s a six-hour grace period allowing free respecs, every change afterward requires another purchase. The narrator criticizes this mechanic, especially since basic actions like changing character builds, which are often free in other games, require continual payments.
🎒 Expensive Inventory and Storage Expansion
This section dives into the costs associated with expanding inventory and storage space. Players start with limited backpack space (100 slots), and expanding this space costs real money—$2.50 per row. Similarly, general storage can be expanded for about $11, and specialized storages (like Essence and Material Storage) cost $15 each. The total cost to unlock all storage options is around $180, which the narrator finds absurd.
🚨 Paid Membership and Subscription Costs
The narrator discusses paid memberships akin to Lost Ark's 'Crystalline Aura,' which offer conveniences like auto-loot pets and fast travel. In this game, these benefits are bundled under the 'Zodiac Walker' membership, costing $12 per month. The narrator compares this to Lost Ark’s $10 monthly fee, pointing out how Lost Ark offers more content for a lower price, making the $12 fee seem unjustified.
😡 Ridiculously Priced Name Changes
This part emphasizes the outlandish cost of changing a character’s name, which is priced at $22. The narrator finds this particularly frustrating and absurd, given that name changes in most other games are either free or much cheaper. The excessive cost of what should be a simple feature reflects poorly on the game’s overall pricing strategy.
🎮 Disappointment with Pay-to-Win Mechanics
The narrator expresses dismay at how the game, which initially seemed fun and promising, has become heavily reliant on pay-to-win mechanics. Features available for free during the demo are now locked behind paywalls, creating a frustrating experience. The community has voiced their displeasure, with the game receiving overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam due to its aggressive monetization.
🛑 Final Thoughts and Community Reactions
In the concluding segment, the narrator acknowledges that some players may argue that the game can still be played without spending money, but criticizes the studio for maintaining such exploitative practices in 2022. The video ends with a reflection on how disappointing it is that studios continue to prioritize pay-to-win mechanics, even as players vocally oppose them. Despite the game being fun, the excessive monetization leaves a bad impression.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Monetization
💡Pay-to-win
💡Currency system
💡Stardust of Oblivion
💡Inventory expansion
💡Auction house
💡Subscription model
💡Free-to-play
💡Diablo/Path of Exile clone
💡Reviews
Highlights
The game is described as a Diablo or Path of Exile clone with promising combat mechanics, compared to titles like Grim Dawn and Wolcen.
The excitement for the game turned into disappointment due to its aggressive monetization system after release, which was not evident in the demo.
The game features two in-game currencies, diamonds and rubies, with a 1-to-1 exchange rate, but both are tied heavily to real-money purchases.
The most significant pay-to-win elements are tied to purchasing diamonds and rubies, which can be used to buy items that give players an advantage.
Switching character stats requires a consumable item called Stardust of Oblivion, which costs $3 each time after a six-hour grace period for free rerolls.
Inventory expansion is highly monetized, with each line of bag space costing $2.50, and expanding the stash costing 500 diamonds, or roughly $11.
Full inventory expansion, including bag space and stash, costs a staggering $180 in real money.
The game offers a premium subscription option called 'Zodiac Walker' and 'Pet Ability,' which provides auto-loot and other bonuses for $12 per month.
Character name changes cost $22, which is highlighted as being excessively expensive for such a basic feature.
The game includes an auction house system, where listing items for sale requires spending real money.
Items that upgrade player skills can be bought in the shop, adding another pay-to-win aspect to the game, as they are random drops otherwise.
The game is getting negative reviews on Steam due to the extent of its pay-to-win mechanics and monetization, which were hidden during the demo.
The video creator regrets recommending the game earlier due to the pay-to-win systems and high costs for features previously included in the demo.
Despite the predatory monetization, the game itself is fun to play, which adds to the frustration.
The creator emphasizes that although you can finish the game without spending money, the monetization still creates an unpleasant experience for players.
Transcripts
what's up everybody and welcome back to
the channel
unfortunately a bad news video today but
recently on December came out those of
you that have been following my series
of videos on the Steam nexfest and all
of the demos that I played during
nextfest will know that this is one of
the games that I highlighted essentially
it's a Diablo Path of Exile clone hybrid
whatever you want to call it and I was
really impressed with the combat in the
game and it held a lot of promise and
generally speaking we don't have enough
of these games and every once in a while
one of the Indie titles that comes out
like this like Grim dawn like Volson
really really surprise and so I was
hopeful that this was going to be
another case like that and I just need
to make sure that like 30 seconds have
passed but oh my god did they
monetize the ever-loving out of
this game let me explain
so specifically when we go over to the
into the game itself now this is
obviously you know something that wasn't
available to us as information when the
demo was there although this studio is
somehow famous for this and when I was
compiling the information for this a lot
of people had mentioned this to me and
said hey you know these guys kind of
like this was to be expected this was
going to happen but just how
vampiric this is uh I I'm gonna need to
go ahead and explain that so let me just
go over to the actual store itself which
Jesus this has shocked me so much that
I've basically you know blocked it out
of my memory but um no that's
the game guide but um if we go over to
the shop itself so first of all we need
to just discuss essentially how this
works so you have a couple of items in
this shop that you can just flat out by
with a you know currency now my currency
at the moment is South African rand but
let that not you know bother you
nonetheless these items are terribly
overpriced and it's ridiculous
but this isn't this isn't where I want
your focus to be because what I'll do is
we'll we'll look at the currency shop
all right uh which is how you purchase
the two different currencies in the game
with which you actually buy the majority
of the stuff that you potentially want
now the first and the base currency in
the game is diamonds and then you have
rubies which some of the other items in
the game can also be bought with and
having not played far enough I Pro it's
it kind of seems like rubies is also
something that you can get from certain
activities in the game because there
seems to be some things that you can buy
with the rubies as well and there's of
course this exchange system between
diamonds and rubies which is a one to
one by the way but I digress so in any
case we have several different
environment options here you know
starting at like 44 diamonds for
essentially what works out to be one USD
and then going all the way up so we have
we have like a 10 USD option here which
I believe is this one so this is the 455
Diamond so that's 10 USD and then it
goes all the way up to some whale
of like 4260 diamonds which basically
roughly works out to about 90 USD 90
dollars okay so you might be
thinking well that's not that bad uh
maybe you can get a whole bunch of
with 90 so let's let's uh let's go
look shall we so now again the
thing is there's a whole bunch of stuff
here like bundles and this is things to
do with like you know Battleground
support items and changing your ruins
and stuff like that and right off the
bat when you look through some of these
items something that is very very clear
is that this already shows a lot of pay
to win because there's a lot of things
here that you can buy which obviously
give you a massive advantage over
someone else who isn't buying anything
and uh I know that there's a there's an
argument to be made here to you know
whether if if it's just you playing by
yourself who gives a if somebody
wants to blow their money and all that
stuff I will discuss that that whole
argument that whole point at the end of
the video so hold your tongue but
specifically again just saying as we go
through here there's a lot of stuff here
that essentially looks like ways for you
to give you know yourself like a
boost basically and it involves spending
real money on it there is however one
thing which you can buy with an in-game
currency which is you know gold
but I'm 100 sure that this is gonna also
like 50 000 gold is probably like a
ridiculous amount of gold but
specifically let's go ahead and look at
consumables and convenience because this
is generally speaking where people swipe
where people spend money and this is
already where you start seeing something
that's problematic so first of all this
Stardust of Oblivion so how this game
works is
you have your basic stats which you
level up and you put points into them
and that's like strength dexterity and
intellect but then you also have like
another leveling system which is
essentially this Rune chart where you go
through different star signs and you
give yourself different bonuses and all
that stuff you cannot change this
on the Fly once you pick something and
lock it in it's done and dusted
and if you want to change that you need
this item you need Stardust of Oblivion
and this costs three
us a pop so every time you want to
change your stats you want to switch
from an intellect based character to a
strength based character or you realize
oh my I shouldn't have put all my
points into intellect Jesus Christ I
definitely should have put some stuff
into dexterity so that I can at least
Dodge some things before they kill me
guess what you're spending three us and
you have to do that every time now there
is however they mention it here how
graceful they mention it here
that there's a grace period of six hours
after you've bought a stardust of
Oblivion and used it that you could keep
on doing that so the first six hours
after using a stardust of Oblivion you
can reroll your stats as much as
you want
but in any case after those six hours
guess what uh Johnny spending three us
again of Mommy's Mommy and money Mommy
Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy uh to
reroll this okay but it's not that
bad yet three bucks fine it's you know
it's not the end of the world you know
whatever let's go to convenience now
specifically when we look at convenience
here we have we have two let's say three
different areas to look at first of all
you have basic inventory in the game and
let me show you what I mean by that you
have a backpack this backpack has a
hundred slots okay that's it so you have
space for a hundred items now you can
not get additional bags in this game or
anything like that what you have to do
is you have to spend real
money and you have to buy yourself
expanded bag storage now you can do this
purchase 30 times and it works out to
two and a half bucks two and a half USD
per line per five boxes of inventory so
per line like this like a line like that
that a line like this is
2.50 that's half a buck a box
okay great so uh good times then then
you have General storage so General
storage is like your stash your stash
you can also expand but boho this is
really really expensive it's
it's 500 diamonds 500 diamonds is like
11 bucks now just just to put this into
perspective if you want to buy all 30
Slots of the expand bag that's
75 USD if you want to expand your stash
all the way so that it's also can fully
expanded that's another 33 USD and then
what we have is we have specifically we
have five specific storage areas Essence
storage chaos card storage material
storage charm storage and con
what
what is is this
activate content content material store
what the ever you have five of
these These are also ridiculously
expensive right these are clocking in at
15 bucks each and there's five of them
so again that's another 75. so if you
want to unlock all of the storage
available in the game that is a hundred
and 80 bucks to get all of
this unlocked and it's diamonds as
a currency so there is no way for you to
earn this in-game you have to spend this
money if you want to get that
hold on it gets better then as we've
seen from games like lost dog for
instance which has crystalline Aura uh
you have some like like almost like
since this is a free game remember that
on December launched free right but all
this is in the shop there is a paid
track There is almost like a monthly
subscriptions for you in the in in the
place of something like Lost Ark the
crystalline Aura gives you access to a
pet that order Auto picks things up
around you gives you free travel
and a whole bunch of other boosts it's
like a long list of right and that
usually costs you I believe 10 us a
month right for every 28 days or
something like that this is the
same but it's actually sprayer cost two
different things so you have petability
which is just a pet that auto loots
around you which you can buy for 400
diamonds and then you have zodiac Walker
which is the basically the membership
thing and I'm not sure everything that
this offers because it doesn't
say but this is essentially says it
extends the duration blah blah blah but
it's also 28 days the point is they
know that these two things
should be together so they offer them
together pet ability and zodiac Walker
ability together for for 28 days that
is 540 diamonds which is 12
USD so there's a premium game out there
Lost Ark you might not like lost dog but
the bottom line is it's good at what it
does that should cost 10 have probably
has infinitely more content than this
right and has an established and you
know road map with new
being added to the game the entire time
they're looking for 10 bucks and I think
probably they offer more than what these
guys are looking for for 12 USD and then
honestly the cherry on the cake
here for me
is the character name change
in this game costs you 22 bucks
it's
I mean you better not make a spelling
mistake on that name when you
name it because that's going to come
back to haunt you 100 but this is this
is insane
like
I I don't understand it this is this is
ridiculous it's super interesting to me
that in today's world with this sort of
thing gets called out by players all the
time studios are still trying to
do this they're still trying to
monetize and make their game essentially
a hundred percent pay to win this game
is getting slaughtered in the reviews in
Steam right now and I would say
rightfully so because there's a lot of
things that were present in the demo
which you just automatically got by
itself which is now sitting behind this
paywall and that is scummy as
hell the bottom line is I agree and I
know there's a bunch of you that are
probably saying that dude you don't
actually have to spend the Cent you can
just play the game as it is and it
doesn't matter and finish the story and
move the on you can absolutely
do that a hundred percent but
the bottom line is studios are still
doing this they're still monetizing it
this way and most likely behind this and
believe me I plan to try and play the us
all the way through to the end through
all of the acts without spinning ascent
and I plan to try and see how that
affects the things like you know
legendary drops and better item drops
and all that because the bottom line is
this game has this underlying system
where your skills level up to a point
and then you have to upgrade them from a
normal skill into a magical skill and
then from a magical skill into uh you
know an advanced skill and so on and so
forth those items are random drops out
in the wild in the game or they are just
simply available in the shop for cash
money what I also haven't touched on is
the fact that this game has an auction
house which actually only allows you to
auction off a limited amount of items
unless you spend real money from your
wallet to list those items on the
auction house then you're able to spend
as much money as you want as list as
many money you know items as you want
likewise if you want to buy items off
the auction house you have to spend real
money to buy it this is and
obviously the studio is most likely
taking a cut off that I'll be digging
through this a lot more honestly I've
only spent a couple of hours with this
this is already disgusting enough to me
as it is but the main reason why I made
this video it's let's say two reasons
why I made it the first one being that I
wanted to share this with you know why
the audience people have literally been
asking me you know am I going to be
playing this and so on and secondly
because I had made a video recommending
this game which I now absolutely
do not do yes you can play the game
single player all the way through and
yes you can do it without spending a
cent but should you do
that it's a sad thing because this is
actually a fun game to play and it's
always the way how it works isn't it
it's the fun games the ones that you
would actually play and that wouldn't
leave such a bad taste in your
mouth if it wasn't monetized to death
like this but nonetheless let me know in
the comments down below if you've tried
this out if it's not that big a issue
for you uh I know again this is
Different Strokes for different Oaks
this doesn't bother as many people as it
bothers other people I think the issue
here is that because this isn't being
you know taken a stance against hard
enough or enough Studios still try to do
this because again this is the part that
amazes me that in 20 22 at this
point in the game where games have
literally been voted down into
the ground because of this kind of stuff
they still do this they still do this
and they will probably make money on
this because you will get people
that spend money on this horse but
that's it thank you so much so much for
watching especially if you made it this
far I'm sorry for the extreme rantiness
of this video but this kind of came out
of left field I was holding thumbs
hoping that this wasn't going to be the
case of this game but like a
dozen people told me that it was gonna
be and I was wrong and it pisses
me off it is what it is but thank you
it's just super important to me that you
have a fantastic morning afternoon and
evening wherever you are in the world
and until next video cheers
thank you
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