For one of my Advanced Seminar classes my professor brought up an interesting discussion. Why to Season/Battle passes work so well?
I think the design of battle passes is popular more for psychological reasons than gameplay reasons. When I think of battle passes in a game, I think of new, better content. Even if it’s cosmetic only, I’d want to get all the loot and goodies asap so I can see and use them whenever I want. Apex Legends has a good example of this (https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/battle-pass). Their battle pass contains skins, banners, icons, and even special loading screens. Nothing gameplay related at all, but the way they offer their battle pass is really interesting. There are two options available, both being offered for in-game currency. This is another thing I see often. We learned in Applied Ludology that the more separation between irl money and in-game currency (for example: $1 -> 500 coins, 1000 coins -> 5 gems, 7 gems -> 1 power ticket) the more likely people will spend more money in larger amounts. This separation of the currency, marketed as a “alternative way to buy”, helps the player think less about the money they’re spending. Going back to Apex Legends specifically, the two options for the battle pass are the “Battle Pass” and the “Battle Pass Bundle”. The “Battle Pass” is a basic pass which allows you to unlock special cosmetics only available for the season, according to how many times you level up while the season is ongoing. The “Battle Pass Bundle” is really interesting. For a little less than 3x the price of the “Battle Pass”, it automatically bumps you up 25 levels, so you get the first 4 tiers of unlocks immediately, and places you on the threshold of the 5th tier. Now, I don’t play Apex Legends any more, but the first 4 tiers of the battle pass don’t look nearly as interesting as the rest. If I were still playing, I’d probably shell out money for bundle so I could get to the “cooler” rewards faster.
Conversely, for games like Smash Ultimate which have game play related battle passes, I think it comes down to competitive advantage/economics. In order to get/maintain a competitive edge, as well as stay up to date with the current player base, I need to get the fighters immediately as soon as they drop. There is always the option of getting the fighters later on, for example I’m pretty sure Smash for WiiU/3DS allowed you to purchase the fighters individually, it comes at a much higher cost. Why wait for the new fighter, and pay more later on, if I could just give a lot of money for the pass now and get all the rewards as soon as they drop.
Now, these systems have an inherent disadvantage. Your players need to care. I’ll use Overwatch as an example. I’ve been playing since it’s launch in 2016, and I’ve put…a decent chunk of money into the game. The way their system works is through loot boxes. While not exactly the point of this discussion post, I think there are enough similarities. Whenever a seasonal event comes out (Halloween, Lunar New Year, etc) there is a collection of limited time items available for unlock. To unlock these items, you need to get them in a loot box or buy them with the in-game currency (which, interestingly enough you can’t buy outright, the currency only comes from loot boxes). Two-ish years ago, I stopped getting as interested in the game, and as such stopped buying loot boxes and caring about the limited time items. In fact, I’ve saturated myself with the content so much that I don’t even open the loot boxes I have now. Overwatch has become a game that I play just for the gameplay, and I’m not interested in the cosmetics any more. In the Apex system, I’m a lost cause. I’ll probably never buy another cosmetic item. But in the Smash system, Overwatch could still get money out of me. Ignoring the massive shitshow that would happen if Overwatch announced all new heroes would have to be bought, I’d want to get the hero as soon as they dropped so I could stay current with the strategies.
Overall, I think that both systems are valid. The cosmetic only season passes seem to get the most praise, but it runs the risk of gameplay only players not caring about it. Gameplay only season passes are on the opposite side of the spectrum, the majority of players will hate having to pay more to maintain an advantage, but more people will be likely to do it consistently.
UPDATE
After posting that, I thought a bit more about my response, and I updated it to include my thoughts on how some passes are perceived as pay to win, especially the fighting game passes. However, I saw Smash Ultimate from being exempt from this due to what I saw as the “Nintendo Good” mindset. After updating, I got a response that made me think:
What might be a more nuanced reason why Smash bros’ pass isn’t perceived as pay 2 win? Do you think, say, a season pass for new fighters in Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter would be perceived as pay 2 win because they’re not Nintendo? Why or why not?
You make a distinction between gameplay and cosmetic. What if it’s a game where earning cosmetics can be a reward for gameplay, or for some players the reward they care the most about? If cosmetics are a reward for winning, could buying cool cosmetics be perceived as “pay to win”?
That made me think more about my post and my biases when it came to fighting games and season passes. This is my response:
I don’t play a lot of fighting games, so my original post was based on my own experiences talking with my fighting game friends (Smash Ultimate and Mortal Kombat 11). For my Smash friends, the main driver I saw was people wanting the new characters. Getting to fight it out with fan favorites like Banjo Kazooie and Joker was something that they really wanted to experience, and my friends who were more competitive were looking forward to the new competition and learning opportunities. There was no mention about the price of the pass, the amount of content included, or anything else. It was just about the characters.
Compare that to my Mortal Kombat friends, and while they did end up buying the pass, there was some grumbling. The pass was more expensive, but they were also getting more content. I looked online and saw the same thing across various forums. People bought the pass because they wanted the characters, but many of them felt like there were ‘forced’ to rather than buying it just to get the cool new content. Now, this has so many different edge cases and differences like the communities involved, the competitiveness of the games, price, platform, it’s really hard to compare the two. But I did find something that both games had in common.
While both communities had their own share of grumbling about the passes, there was an equal amount of people saying they were happy to buy the pass to support the developers. To them, even if their favorite character wasn’t in the game, buying the pass and showing support mean that another pass could be made, and maybe then their favorite character could get into the game too! It was really cool to see and something that I hadn’t expected at all when I started researching it. Had I played more fighting games and been more of an active community member I might have known this before researching, but it looks like my previous post was just a narrow view of the topic.
As for the distinction between gameplay and cosmetic, this is where I know I have a bias. Like I said before, I’ve played a lot of Overwatch and Apex and I was always one of the ‘cosmetic hunters’. I wanted to get the newest skins and emotes as soon as they dropped so I could use them. After a while I realized how much money I was spending to get the “new” content just a few months after I got the previous stuff, and I stopped. I tend to focus just on gameplay now, and the cosmetics are a nice touch if I get them, but I’m not going out of my way to think about it (I have 125 unopened Overwatch loot boxes).
But these are just two examples of a mostly similar cosmetic reward system. There are other games with different reward systems that work well, and there are a ton of players that, like you said, think of the cosmetics as the main reward. While I haven’t played in a while, I remember Rocket League having a progression based reward system. Winning games to unlock new tires, effects, and trinkets for my car was really fun and got me more engaged in the game than I would have normally. It helped me press that next game button thinking that maybe, this game, I’d get a win and get a new car part.
