Help me understand/ make guesses about the upcoming cosmetic system?

[BigChungus1]

From the community crunch:  " The new "Custom Cosmetic" system allows players to dynamically apply player-generated costumes to players and dinos, end-user-created skins to armors and weapons, and end-user-created skins to all the game's structures. These can have endless client-side functionality, including network messaging and limited persistent replicated data storage. For structures, this effectively enables infinite visual variety and functional enhancement through player-created cosmetics"

 

 

So how exactly is this going to work? Can't people already make structures and skins with the UE5 toolkit? Will this just simplify the process greatly? It says "cosmetics" but also states that it enables functional enhancements. If there are functional enhancements doesn't that mean it's not cosmetic? I just don't really understand how this is going to change the game, and I'd like more information about it.

Edited January 29 by BigChungus1

[Pipinghot]

58 minutes ago, BigChungus1 said:

From the community crunch:  " The new "Custom Cosmetic" system allows players to dynamically apply player-generated costumes to players and dinos, end-user-created skins to armors and weapons, and end-user-created skins to all the game's structures. These can have endless client-side functionality, including network messaging and limited persistent replicated data storage. For structures, this effectively enables infinite visual variety and functional enhancement through player-created cosmetics"

 

 

So how exactly is this going to work? Can't people already make structures and skins with the UE5 toolkit? Will this just simplify the process greatly? It says "cosmetics" but also states that it enables functional enhancements. If there are functional enhancements doesn't that mean it's not cosmetic? I just don't really understand how this is going to change the game, and I'd like more information about it.

This is the next step in Snail Games goal to commoditize and monetize every aspect of ARK. Shi Hai (the CEO of Snail Games, which for all intents and purposes owns WildCard) doesn't think of ARK as a game, he thinks of it as a platform with multiple different ways to make money, most of which don't involve trying to make a better game.

1) Premium mods - instead of WildCard having a sponsored mods program that costs them money, which is what they used to do, mod makers have the chance to sell their mods to other players... and WIldCard/Snail get a cut.

2) Cosmetic packs from WIldCard/Snail - really just microtransactions, but they don't want to admit it's micro transactions. Starting with the very first pack that's coming out with Scorched Earth there's going to be a creature that players can only get by buying the pack. To anyone who's paying attention that's not really cosmetic anymore, it's a new creature that looks like it will give players an advantage for owning. They're starting to test how much people will complain if they sneak P2W features into their "cosmetic" packs... and WildCard/Snail gets all the money from it. If this pack sells well enough you can be certain there will be more important "content" in the future that can only be owned by buying future "cosmetic" packs.

3) Player created content - whether it's just a costume or some other form of "endless client-side functionality" this is WildCard getting players to do work that WildCard/Snail will make money from, disguised as supporting creators. People create stuff and sell it on the ARK platform... and WildCard/Snail gets a cut.

4) Eventually, somewhere down the road, Shi Hai (CEO of Snail Games) has said that he wants to introduce NFT's into ARK which would allow players, for example, allow players to breed and sell creatures to other players. And since every single creature will have a unique blockchain-based identifier... WildCard/Snail will get a cut. You know how WildCard pretends that they care about players selling creatures to each other for real money? They don't really care, they just want to get a piece of the action when it happens.

 

The changes that are coming to ARK are all about turning ARK into a platform that "allows" people to create and sell things to each other... and WIldCard/Snail will get a cut. Of everything.

[DeliaHaze20]

1 hour ago, BigChungus1 said:

From the community crunch:  " The new "Custom Cosmetic" system allows players to dynamically apply player-generated costumes to players and dinos, end-user-created skins to armors and weapons, and end-user-created skins to all the game's structures. These can have endless client-side functionality, including network messaging and limited persistent replicated data storage. For structures, this effectively enables infinite visual variety and functional enhancement through player-created cosmetics"

 

 

So how exactly is this going to work? Can't people already make structures and skins with the UE5 toolkit? Will this just simplify the process greatly? It says "cosmetics" but also states that it enables functional enhancements. If there are functional enhancements doesn't that mean it's not cosmetic? I just don't really understand how this is going to change the game, and I'd like more information about it.

My only guess is it's going to work the same way the game rust works a player makes his own skin on whatever it is he wants to make a skin on and use it on a single player and official and the skin will simply download in the background of when you're playing As someone who has played rust this is actually something I would mind having in ark Well you can make a skin In the dev kit normally you won't be able to use it on servers such as official or anything like that. This new cosmetic system will allow you to use those skins on official unofficial so on and so forth.

[Legion85]

And what means „making skins“ exactly? Is this something everyone can try or is this a More professionel thing?! 

[DeliaHaze20]

1 hour ago, Legion85 said:

And what means „making skins“ exactly? Is this something everyone can try or is this a More professionel thing?! 

You should be able to Make your own custom skin I'm guessing you will need to use the dev kit.

[MissAscended]

2 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

This is the next step in Snail Games goal to commoditize and monetize every aspect of ARK. Shi Hai (the CEO of Snail Games, which for all intents and purposes owns WildCard) doesn't think of ARK as a game, he thinks of it as a platform with multiple different ways to make money, most of which don't involve trying to make a better game.

1) Premium mods - instead of WildCard having a sponsored mods program that costs them money, which is what they used to do, mod makers have the chance to sell their mods to other players... and WIldCard/Snail get a cut.

2) Cosmetic packs from WIldCard/Snail - really just microtransactions, but they don't want to admit it's micro transactions. Starting with the very first pack that's coming out with Scorched Earth there's going to be a creature that players can only get by buying the pack. To anyone who's paying attention that's not really cosmetic anymore, it's a new creature that looks like it will give players an advantage for owning. They're starting to test how much people will complain if they sneak P2W features into their "cosmetic" packs... and WildCard/Snail gets all the money from it. If this pack sells well enough you can be certain there will be more important "content" in the future that can only be owned by buying future "cosmetic" packs.

3) Player created content - whether it's just a costume or some other form of "endless client-side functionality" this is WildCard getting players to do work that WildCard/Snail will make money from, disguised as supporting creators. People create stuff and sell it on the ARK platform... and WildCard/Snail gets a cut.

4) Eventually, somewhere down the road, Shi Hai (CEO of Snail Games) has said that he wants to introduce NFT's into ARK which would allow players, for example, allow players to breed and sell creatures to other players. And since every single creature will have a unique blockchain-based identifier... WildCard/Snail will get a cut. You know how WildCard pretends that they care about players selling creatures to each other for real money? They don't really care, they just want to get a piece of the action when it happens.

 

The changes that are coming to ARK are all about turning ARK into a platform that "allows" people to create and sell things to each other... and WIldCard/Snail will get a cut. Of everything.

Now only if his greed made him realize he could make a TON of money if he fixed performance issues/lag. More people would buy/return to the game if it worked properly.

[DeliaHaze20]

you should know there's no Confirmation that these skins would be paid or monetized in any way shape and form My guess there's two routes for this it could either be a free market of player driven skin economy Or to do what they did with rust and make them paid. If a player created a skin chances are is going to be the player that made the skin will get Money too which (depending on how cool the skin is) would be a nice income

[Pipinghot]

2 hours ago, DeliaHaze20 said:

you should know there's no Confirmation that these skins would be paid or monetized in any way shape and form My guess there's two routes for this it could either be a free market of player driven skin economy Or to do what they did with rust and make them paid. If a player created a skin chances are is going to be the player that made the skin will get Money too which (depending on how cool the skin is) would be a nice income

That's technically true, but also meaningless. They haven't officially announced it (yet), but anyone who thinks this isn't coming down the road is wearing blinders. This is the future of ARK that Shi Hai is working towards, just because there's no "Confirmation" as of this date doesn't mean anything. We already know what he wants for the future, the only questions are how how fast, and how much?

Shi envisions a future where everything is on the table, including players selling in-game assets to each other (like creatures breed for boss fights) using RMT's (real money transactions) and by embedding blockchain/NFT's into the ARK system it will become possible for Snail to get a cut of those RMT's. Shi doesn't see RMT's as a form of cheating, he doesn't want to prevent it, his long term goal is to encourage RMT's just as long as Snail can harvest extra profits from it when it happens.

 

For example, Shi Hai said:

“However, at Snail Games, we believe that we have now reached an era of WEB 3.0, and the ownership of digital assets is the most important issue for our fellow users.”

"Plus there’s the question of monetizing content, one of the benefits blockchain brings to the Web3 table."

"NFTs are part of that puzzle."

Anyone who wants to build blockchain and NFT's into a game is not doing it to benefit the players. He pretends that this is for the benefit of content creators, but if you read interviews or watch the videos at conferences when he speaks, it's painfully easy to read between the lines and see that what he really cares about is WC/Snail getting a cut from everything exchanged between players. His goal is to commoditize and monetize every possible player-to-player transaction you can imagine. This has been publicly available knowledge for quite some time now and lack of "Confirmation" doesn't change the underlying truth.

https://venturebeat.com/games/snail-games-chairman-talks-property-rights-in-the-metaverse-at-gamesbeat-summit/

 

[Elgar]

As far as I'm concerned, I'm very excited with this upcoming new possibility. I never use mods on my dedicated server, not even the official event ones, for several reasons. To be able to install skins, and other cosmetic stuff, only client side, without having to install mods on a server, is very interesting and a great change IMHO. I'm sad and tired that each time devs announce something, it's instantly trashed by some people.

[Pipinghot]

7 hours ago, Elgar said:

As far as I'm concerned, I'm very excited with this upcoming new possibility. I never use mods on my dedicated server, not even the official event ones, for several reasons. To be able to install skins, and other cosmetic stuff, only client side, without having to install mods on a server, is very interesting and a great change IMHO. I'm sad and tired that each time devs announce something, it's instantly trashed by some people.

You can do your little passive-aggressive facepalms all you want, the facts are the facts and Shi Hai has said what he's said. If you want to be "excited" about microtransactions that's certainly your choice, I guess you like it when game companies nickel & dime you to death.

[DeliaHaze20]

12 hours ago, Elgar said:

As far as I'm concerned, I'm very excited with this upcoming new possibility. I never use mods on my dedicated server, not even the official event ones, for several reasons. To be able to install skins, and other cosmetic stuff, only client side, without having to install mods on a server, is very interesting and a great change IMHO. I'm sad and tired that each time devs announce something, it's instantly trashed by some people.

I am too also very excited for this not only for the possibility of making some really cool skins but also the monetize it for myself making skins will also be a great way of making some extra dimes on the side if you know what I mean😁 I've already told my tribe and they all think it's a cool idea.

Edited January 31 by DeliaHaze20

[Anni128]

The crunch is saying, a clean glass wall is already being launched. where can I find this? And can everyone set something there like normal mods only so that they can be used on official servers? or can I only use cosmetics I created myself? Can other players make these cosmetics available to others? In the existing ModList i cant find anything.

[Legion85]

50 minutes ago, Anni128 said:

The crunch is saying, a clean glass wall is already being launched. where can I find this? And can everyone set something there like normal mods only so that they can be used on official servers? or can I only use cosmetics I created myself? Can other players make these cosmetics available to others? In the existing ModList i cant find anything.

Thats what I am asking myself too. I would like to use the clean Glass Wall…and surely other Great stuff from Users 

[Anni128]

Hope that someone knows something about and will tell us 😀

[Anni128]

On 1/31/2024 at 12:34 AM, Pipinghot said:

You can do your little passive-aggressive facepalms all you want, the facts are the facts and Shi Hai has said what he's said. If you want to be "excited" about microtransactions that's certainly your choice, I guess you like it when game companies nickel & dime you to death.

But no one is forced to buy content to play the game and a skin doesn't give a player any advantages in the game. So if someone wanted to pay for it, then no one else would be disadvantaged except their own wallet. It would be different if you needed these skins to progress in the game. it's not pay to win, only a skin 😀

[Pipinghot]

16 hours ago, Anni128 said:

But no one is forced to buy content to play the game and a skin doesn't give a player any advantages in the game. So if someone wanted to pay for it, then no one else would be disadvantaged except their own wallet. It would be different if you needed these skins to progress in the game. it's not pay to win, only a skin 😀

That argument would be true if it was only skins, but it's not. I'm 100% in favor of games selling cosmetics, I love it when people who pay for cosmetics help to support a game I like, that's a win for everyone.

But what you've overlooked is that the pack for SE will also include a creature. A creature that may (or possibly may not, if you believe WC) give players an in-game advantage. If it doesn't give an advantage, any advantage at all, then it won't be P2W and will be good for everyone just like skins are. If it turns out to be 100% true that the new creature doesn't give any advantage then I'll be as happy as anyone else to see it added to the game. But if there is even the slightest advantage to owning a creature that people have to pay a fee to own, then that's a P2W feature. And, if that turns out to be the case you can be certain that WC will introduce more P2W features in the future.

That's the thing about P2W features, they start small and then grow. In every game that introduces P2W features they only get worse over time. The game rapidly gets to the point where people who want to win have to pay extra money to stay competitive otherwise they're going to lose even if they're good. And even when playing PvE it turns into a game where the game is designed to prey on people's impatience and (many) players pay money to beat the game faster. This is the economic model for hundreds of mobile games, punishing people with painful time barriers and selling them "solutions" that allow them to progress more quickly.

Even if this one element from my post turns out to be a non-issue, the other elements of my previous post are all still true. Shi Hai wants to morph ARK from a game into a platform, complete with a player-to-player market in which people sell things to each other with real money transactions to buy assets that make a difference in the game, with WC/Snail taking a cut of all those transactions.

That's the 'nickel & diming' I was referring to, not harmless skins, but creating an environment that punishes people with time barriers and "encourages" them to spend money to get past those barriers.

Edited February 7 by Pipinghot

[TonyTempah]

On 2/7/2024 at 12:42 PM, Pipinghot said:

That's the 'nickel & diming' I was referring to, not harmless skins, but creating an environment that punishes people with time barriers and "encourages" them to spend money to get past those barriers.

There are examples of "Pay to Save Time" that do work, Warframe is one of them. Their in game currency can be used to expediate building of core components as well as "Frame Fashion". At the moment, the game rewards players that consume time in game but, not everyone has the time or flexibility to do the grind and this puts them at a disadvantage. From a business perspective, these customers are generating constant overheads while their initial payment is stretched further and further. I think that Snail would generate a lot of income with a "Pay to Tame/Breed/resource gather" mechanic but it would need Eve Online Economy scales of management or it would spoil the game.

[Pipinghot]

15 hours ago, TonyTempah said:

There are examples of "Pay to Save Time" that do work

Agreed, but ARK would not/will not be one of them. I think we're probably on the same page here, as I read your post it looks to me like we're in agreement, but I'm going to spell it out a bit more below in case there is a disagreement that I'm missing or overlooking.

15 hours ago, TonyTempah said:

Warframe is one of them.

I haven't played Warframe, but it's my understanding that the matchmaker for battles works a lot like LoL, Dota, World of Tanks and other ladder/tier based games. As I understand it, players in Warframe get matched up against other players who have reached the same level of progression (measured by some metric like "tier", "power rating" or somesuch). If one player has been playing for free and reached "power rating 30" in 6 months, and the other player has paid money to save time and manages to reach power rating 30 in 3 months, the player who paid money saved time on progression, but that doesn't have any advantages during each individual battle.

Both players enter the battle with a power rating of 30, both players have comparable gear, equipment, spells, whatever, and therefore both players are fighting on a leel playing field where the only thing that matters is which player does a better job in that individual battle.

 For all games that follow this general pattern, I agree that's pay to save time and not P2W.

ARK is a different animal, it does not have a tier/progression/ladder system, nor are the individual battles scaled by the game in such a way that they're always a fair fight. ARK is an open world in which anyone can PvP anyone at any time, it's explicitly designed to practically prevent fair fights. PvP in ARK is more like real warfare, in that the goal of all combatants is to have as much of an unfair advantage as they possibly can, because that's how wars are won. If you're sitting in the trees with a platoon of 4 tanks and you spot an enemy tank you don't send your tanks out one at a time to make sure that the war is always fair, instead you send your whole platoon to overwhelm and defeat the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible, with the goal of having zero losses.

PvP in ARK, again much like real wars, is heavily dependent on a establishing an efficient system of production, arming and equipping troops as rapidly and powerfully as possible, which is why tribe size, production chains and production skills are so important here. The ability to spend money in order to save time on production is effectively spending money to win.

In the context of ARK PvP, any advantage that a player gains by spending money, including saving time, is P2W.

 

15 hours ago, TonyTempah said:

At the moment, the game rewards players that consume time in game but, not everyone has the time or flexibility to do the grind and this puts them at a disadvantage. From a business perspective, these customers are generating constant overheads while their initial payment is stretched further and further. I think that Snail would generate a lot of income with a "Pay to Tame/Breed/resource gather" mechanic but it would need Eve Online Economy scales of management or it would spoil the game.

I'll skip any discussion of P2W in PvE for now, since it's much more nuanced and subject to individual preferences.

 

Instead I'll just ask, did I interpret your post correctly? Are we in agreement about ARK vis-a-vis P2W, or have I misunderstood something that you would like to talk about?

[TonyTempah]

8 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Instead I'll just ask, did I interpret your post correctly? Are we in agreement about ARK vis-a-vis P2W, or have I misunderstood something that you would like to talk about?

Dialogue! Sharing of opinions. Constructive argument. This is what a forum should be for and why I post. I also naively hope that WC are watching or that in some way we can influence them. Good research on WF but I would say that matchmaking doesn't always match up abilities or equipment (Frames, weapons, pets). Quite often one player can carry a team of four and everyone gets the XP and rewards so all are happy (most of the time). However, 99.9% of the game is PVE so no one cares how you got your kit, its how you play.

 

Ark is different and I think there are aspects that could be adopted but, PvP is always going to be the challenge. If there was a MT that you could buy to speed tame, breed or harvest this would be an advantage over players that don't buy it. In this instance, that MT could be only available to PvE. 

 

I don't think anyone will stop Snail from applying MTs to Ark (would love to be proved wrong) but, maybe player noise can derive a solution that keeps most players happy?

4 hours ago, allthenoodles said:

Fashion Frame...  the true endgame.

The meta-view of game design becomes, "how do we get more microtransactions?" or "what can we charge for?," not "how do we make this a better game?"

Ah, a cultured fellow Tenno enjoyer

It is inevitable. The IT industry has been adopting an "as a Service" model since Adobe moved to a subscription model. Xbox game pass is great value for money but Publishers make less money. BTW, I reckon Steam will eventually offer a game pass. I think player created content that can be bought via a common market place is a great idea. It's the execution that is crucial to success.

[BigChungus1]

I guess we'll see in March or whenever the center and scorched Earth releases what the future of paying for ark products is gonna look like.

I think the next few DLCs they release will either secure some stability for a while, or they'll drive everyone away fast.

Edited February 17 by BigChungus1

[DerGrinch]

Ihr tut alle so, als müsstet ihr das kaufen! Und ich freue mich, einen Modder zu unterstützen, der so viel für Ark und Asa getan hat. Neben Ragna die besten Karten!

https://translate.google.com/

Y'all act like you have to buy this! And I'm happy to support a modder who has done so much for Ark and Asa. Next to Ragna the best maps!

[TonyTempah]

On 2/16/2024 at 6:03 AM, allthenoodles said:

This is where I suppose we diverge on the opinion.  I don't see the benefit for anyone except Snail Games in adding these paid things, and that is my argument.  As an example, 2.8k downloads (as of right now) have went through of Svartalfheim Premium.  So, roughly $28,000 USD in sales.  I don't know the percentage Nekatus gets, but it is probably near 10%.  My justification for that is that well...  Before, Nekatus wouldn't have gotten anything, not one thin dime.  If they offer extremely low, even 5% of total sales, it is infinitely more than the "nothing" he was gonna get before the pay-for-mod store.  So I have to assume Nekatus probably gets ~10 cents on the dollar, and is likely under an NDA not to reveal the percentage.

So we feel we are supporting this map creator who is a dead-on genius of map design (his stuff is really good), seeing ~30,000 USD in sales, of which he is probably getting 3,000 (I honestly hope more) and Snail Games gets 27,000.  3,000 USD is a good chunk of money, but the lion's share of the benefit is going to the company to pay for this 70% completed map.  And what's more is there is no limit with this Pandora's box.  I would bet money that an ARK-specific premium currency is being kicked around in meetings, because seeing $10 instead of 1500 ARK-TOKENZ (or whatever likely-hexagon-inspired name the token ends up using) is off-putting.  Every system has theirs, this one will likely have one too.

Capitalism is an endless pit.  Companies get a taste of the microtransaction money and it boosts up their revenue.  Then, quality reduction in lieu of speed and token-sales steps in, sales decline, layoffs happen, games get worse, and then you are Blizzard Entertainment and everything out of your studio is wall-to-wall studded with custom tokens, cosmetics, battle-passes, level-skips, xp boosts, and more.

One of the things that made ARK unique was the unspoken absence of microtransactions in ASE (DLCs are categorically different than microtransactions for horse-armor).  This barely makes sense, but I'm tired.  It's not a culture I hoped would come to the game.

Thanks to Raasclark and contributors, there is some transparency on premium mod income.

https://support.curseforge.com/en/support/solutions/articles/9000235469-ark-premium-mods

 

PC (platform fee is part of the revshare)

• 50% of the revenue goes to the mod author

• 25% of the revenue goes to Studio Wildcard

• 20% of the revenue goes to CurseForge

• 5% of the revenue goes to Tebex

Example for $10 premium mod on PC

For transaction with 2.4% gateway fee

 

Wallet	Revshare	Gateway fee	Net revenue
Author	50%	0.12	4.88
Wildcard	25%	0.06	2.44
Overwolf	20%	0.06	1.94
Tebex	5%	0	0.5

So as an example for Svartalfheim Premium as per your revenue guesses...

Mod Rev	30000
	Revshare	Gross Rev	Gateway Fee	Net Rev
Author	50%	15000	360	14640
Wildcard	25%	7500	180	7320
OverWolf	20%	6000	144	5856
Tebex	5%	1500	36	1464

 

So looks like Rev share with Premium Modders is fair but, I don't know whether other games give a bigger share or not. 

 

 

[Pipinghot]

[ Edited to correct some numbers ]

When WC first published their intent to pursue this system the figure they gave was 50%, so it's a little bit encouraging to see that the creators are still getting 50%.

But... my issue is that it's less than the industry standard across content platforms. If you publish a game Steam takes 30%, Epic takes 30%, GoG takes 30%... and so on. For now I'll ignore that even 30% is arguably too much already, and focus on the fact that anyone who claims that they're doing it to benefit content creators would make sure that the content creators get their industry standard 70%. But instead WC/Snail are sharing 50%, which is decidedly not something that one does if their goal is to reward and appreciate content creators. Instead WC/Snail are lowballing them rather than an honest revenue sharing arrangement.

Throughout all of this WC/Snail have pretended that their primary goal is to help content providers, the fact that the revenue sharing for their content providers is a lowball number is just one more piece of evidence that this is a marketing lie designed to make people feel good about the new system. It doesn't matter whether it's it's new dino skin or clown costumes for the survivors or a map, if this program is primarily supposed to benefit the content creators then the content creators should get their 70% share of the revenue, which is the standard for content platforms in the industry.

If someone is willing to do something for free because they love the game, that's a fair system, but the moment you build a system designed to harvest a percentage of the sales made by content creators, especially if they claim that this is all being done to benefit content creators, then that system really ought give them the industry standard 70%.

Any other costs like paying OverWolf and Tebex should be coming out of WC/Snail's 70%. Content creators have not contracted with a publisher, or anyone else, they are a captive audience that has to go through WC/Snail's system, which means any fees beyond 30% are just rhetorical tricks for WC/Snail to make the content providers pay extra.

WC/Snail are taking advantage of the fact that the content providers are (typically) not business savvy people, WC/Snail are preying on the naïveté of people who are just happy to get paid at all. That is not a system designed to reward and appreciate content providers with fair compensation for their work, it's a system designed to harvest content creators time for as much profit as WC/Snail can skim off of them.

Edited March 4 by Pipinghot

[Joebl0w13]

35 minutes ago, allthenoodles said:

passive-taming people's bank accounts.

Living these days. 

Edited March 8 by Joebl0w13

[TonyTempah]

I guess the only people to decide whether the rev share is worth it are the mod devs. Also, market size needs to be taken in to account. I.e. 70%RS of 10k downloads is not as good as 50%RS of 50k downloads. Also factor in competition. Less devs mean more share of market with less effort to differentiate. However, less devs means less content. I think ASA needs to get its player numbers up before the moddev market is thriving from a player perspective… and this should be and should have been the primary focus of WC/Snail. “Get the base up” should be printed in the offices a la Ted Lasso. It’s the only metric that matters!