Richard Loescher
On May 1st, 2019 Rocket League announced that Epic games had bought Psyonix studios. Now this was a good profit for the people working at Psyonix because they got some of the money as well, however on August 6th, 2019 Rocket league made an article about upcoming updates and which was about crates going away forever which everyone in the Rocket League community doesn’t like, because ever since the game came out there’s been crates for cosmetic items that can be worth the money, so ever since the game came out there’s been a lot of trading going on, and this was how Rocket league was making its money through crates which are their import to the players, and then the players would open them making an export to other players and then the players would sell those items to get other items or get keys.
But how this affects the community is it makes the Rocket League trading community not be able to make money off of the items in the game, and now those items are just sitting there with all this money inside of their inventory wasted. Which means that they can’t make money now which is bad for them, but there is a compromise because the items they have are probably items that were released in the beta and alpha stage of Rocket League which means the Epic Games won’t put those on the store they’re going to be adding to Rocket League, so that means that these items will be rare and still be worth money but it will be really hard to get profit or PayPal off of them, and by that it will be really hard to make money off of the items of Rocket League anymore, and because of that the Rocket League trading community will soon be gone.
Epic Games has destroyed the Rocket League trading community to a point where people can’t make money off of the game anymore. Because they want to make it more like Fortnite. Which is making the Rocket League community unsupportive. Which means that a lot of people will either quit the game or complain to the developers of the game to make crates come back, which is limiting Epic Games marginal benefit because now people will only spend money on like Coins or in-game currency instead of a key to open a crate to try and get a certain item.
Works Cited
McWhertor, Michael. “Epic Games to Acquire Rocket League Studio Psyonix.” Polygon, Polygon, 1 May 2019, www.polygon.com/2019/5/1/18525843/epic-games-buys-rocket-league-psyonix.
“How to Trade. (Rocket League).” MadCast Gaming, 16 Sept. 2019, www.madcastgaming.com/ips/forums/topic/26164-how-to-trade-rocket-league/.
Team, Psyonix. “Crates Leaving Rocket League Later This Year.” Rocket League® - Official Site, Rocket League, 6 Aug. 2019, www.rocketleague.com/news/crates-leaving-rocket-league-later-this-year/.
I agree with you that getting rid of crates was bad for rocket league as a whole, because that was one of the best parts of rocket league in my opinion. Not only did it allow for you to get awesome stuff that was rare to get and show it off in game, but at the same time you could trade up and get even better stuff when you interact with other people in the community.
ReplyDeleteI can't really relate to how people feel about rocket league because I don't play rocket league. But I do know what Epic Games is. They have made one of the biggest games in the world, making millions, just recently they released Fornite chapter 2, and the amount of money the have been making has significantly decreased. So for them to try and make another big game like Rocket League more like Fortnite isn't right. They should try focusing more on what the people want and not what they want, because it can benefit them and the people that play the game.
ReplyDeleteRocket League is a very big game in the esports community. With the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) having so much attention drawn to it I wonder how it will change now that a new company owns the game. Being a fan of the game for so long and seeing how the game and types of items and crates change and evolve has been really cool to see and it will be sad to see it go. Crates were the way that players who didn’t want to spend actual US currency on the game could still join in the trading community. For example, I have played the game but never spent a dollar on in-game currency or items. I now own an item that sells for $80 in real life. To be able to actually earn money off of a video game is crazy. I will be really sad to see the crates leave as I believe the crates were one of the best things in the game and it was always fun to mess around and watch people open them. It confuses me why Epic games would remove crates because of the revenue that they could earn off of them. I am interested to see what Epic games releases in Rocket League and what new spin they will put on it.
ReplyDeletewhenever a bigger company buys another big company the bigger one tends to try and convert that company’s bestseller into another branch of that company while yes the buyer company will make changes it doesn’t mean that all will accept the new changes essentially killing what the draw was for the game so in this case epic games is getting rid of rocket league’s biggest draw which is the crates and turning it into just another pile of trash because no one like fortnite
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ReplyDelete11/21/19- Richard, this is a great article to address the economic impacts of the item shop market system. Crates are going away but Epic games are introducing a new tradeable item called blueprints, a blueprint is going to be like a crate. The blueprint will show you what you would get as an item, then you would need credits to unlock the blueprint. (Keys are being transferred into credits, and crates are being transferred to blueprints.) The claim you make by saying that the trading community is going away is not true because blueprints will be tradeable. I think we will see a different type of way that people make a profit, profit won’t look like what it is now.
ReplyDeleteJC, Thank you for clarifying this paramount predicament among the vast rocket league community. As I consider myself part of this excellent community, I was shocked at the intial anouncment regarding Epic Games purchasing Pysonix Studios and how this would affect one of my favorite games. However I do agree with your observation that it will be interesting to watch how the Rocket League Market will shift and change throughought Epic Games riegn.
DeleteAlthough trading in rocket league sounds fun and the crates are O.G. I don't believe this is much of an upset. I'm sure epic games will come up with a better system than was put in place. They wouldn't take something like that away unless they thought they can do it better. Epic Games does a wonderful job always updating and keeping their games new and appealing so people will play longer. If anything rocket league will be around longer than it ever would have been with Psyonix. Think about the last time you played any of the black ops games for more then a year, or COD WW2. Those games stay the same and people get tired of them and eventually quit. As far as being able to make money off of the game, boo hoo get a job. Games are meant to be bought and played, if your playing rocket league for the money, your not a true gamer. If we look at this from an economic standpoint this is good for rocket league as epic games will implement a way to make more revenue even though the O.G. players of rockert league won't agree. Next time try to focus on more of the economic side and not about your personal feeling about where the game is going.
ReplyDeleteI agree with charlie, I not a rocket league player what so ever, but I do believe epic games will not but features into rocket league is it's own game they would not but things from fortnite or other games form epic games into rocket league.
DeleteAlthough I have never gotten into the Rocket League fanbase,I will say that it does sound drastic that people's currency is currently stuck in limbo due to the game no longer offering crates. However I disagree that they are trying to make Rocket League similar to Fortnite, because they never claimed that they were going to do that in the first place. Why would they cut off microtransactions in Rocket League when Fortnite's income rides on the success of microtransactions? My guess is that they are going to find a way to earn cosmetics rather than pay for them, which I think would be a better improvement since you already have to purchase the game and it eliminates the need to purchase more and more for cosmetics.
ReplyDeleteI'm part of the higher up Rocket League community and when this update happened a lot of items have been skyrocketing since the first update that crates were going away, so I think that some people who had a lot of stuff will be profiting from this however, I can see what your saying as to why this is would be a good thing for Rocket League to be longer lasting however I don't know what will come next after December 13th or so. because after that point the market will basically crash So I have no idea what will happen because I'm just staying on the ride.
DeleteI play rocket league often and I agree that this change is not necessary. There is something fun about opening a crate and not knowing what you get, but that fun is being taken away by an infamous company. I really dislike the move but overall with the money that Epic has hopefully Rocket League will be updated and improved substantially.
ReplyDeleteI think this is better for the fan base! Instead of RNG with what you get with cases they could easily implement stuff where you get the item directly or earning it though game. I think they are trying to stay away from the RNG of CS:GO and how their crate system is if not the same. I think this will benefit the consumer a lot more who wants to play the game for the game, rather than the money potential made from it.
ReplyDeleteI did not know how much of a game can impact a community. This was a really interesting article and was very stimulating to my thought process. As I just looked up that rocket league generated 70 million in revenue in 2016. I find it astonishing that a video game can create such big profits.
ReplyDeleteVideo game communities like the one in Rocket League have always been a giant part of how a game is perceived. With how Epic Games is trying to make Rocket League more like Fortnite with the removal of several key features, I can see how the community of Rocket League can disband easily, bringing the game to its knees due to a lack of a player base. If Rocket League goes under, this will harm Epic Games due to the fact that they've now wasted all this money on a popular game to have it go under due to changes that they themselves implemented, causing massive reputation damage and loss of profits. All in all, this article helps show how changing a game to the way you want it, by making it emulate a popular game that came after the one you just gained ownership of, can severely damage reputation and profits.
ReplyDeletepersonally I'm not involved with either rocket league or fortnite but it seems like crates were a big inward flow of revenue for rocket league that epic is now shutting down which is in my opinion a bad idea on their part both for the cash flow and player interest.
ReplyDeleteThis is especially interesting because epic games is a company that loves making money. We can see an example of this in Fortnite, the amount of time and effort they put into their cosmetic items, is pretty ridiculous. So when you tell me that they have completely taken this feature out of a game like rocket league is insane to me. Especially because of the large success the game has received over the last couple of games, plus the fact that their esports has blown up and become one of the biggest competitive games in the market. Personally I predict that the plan they have for rocket league is to completely re-brand all the cosmetics and make them better, this would increase the cost of each skin and therefore making more money.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting, it makes me think of the ways Rocket League can make their money. I have heard of many other games that use the same way to make money as Rocket League used to use. This is interesting because the games that use that way to make money and it always works. It reminds me of fortnite who actually makes a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain as well as I am a moderate Rocket League player myself. However, I don't feel as if all hope is lost for your entrepreneurial aspirations. Epic Games is introducing a new tradable item called Blueprints, similar to crates. I know JC described them well in his comment, so I won't restate the obvious. Although I don't believe that you are ill informed, I don't think that a company as large as Epic would blindly anger such a large and influential fan base.
ReplyDeleteI think it's cool to see the growth of the esport community. Times are changing and the way we make money is changing too. I like to think that not only are they making a profit off the transactions but they will be reinvesting it back into the game to make it better for the players. I can't wait to see how big this will grow and how much it will change the way think about sports.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your post. As a Rocket League player, I completely understand your pain as well. Epic Games didn't take into consideration the player trading community. They are trying to make Rocket League like the biggest game on the market, and it’s hard to blame them. However, this sucks when looking at it from the player’s perspective. They, us, we the players of Rocket League want to keep the game the same, the way we know how to play it and have our cosmetics stay the way they are. This is due to the large profit that can be made off of the cosmetics. Epic Games taking away crates and putting in absurd prices has really ticked off the community, and its only a matter of time before something big happens. Either Epic Games fixes the problem, or players quickly lose interest in the game and leave for something more promising.
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