It's not because of the lack of content, but because of how one's success is determined based on how much money they spend on the MTXs. Let's use two examples here; me and a friend I play with. Because I refuse to pay for two subs, or $25 a month to play this game, I am cut off from what many would assume to be basic features of any MMO which include selling things and trading with other players (thanks microsoft for making me pay a useless sub TO PLAY A FREE GAME!). These basic features disable me from playing half the game because let's face it, this game's endgame revolves around two things and only two things at the end of the day; grinding for 13-stars or whatever is selling hot and selling said things on the market. I'm at over 280 hours and have yet to get anything worth of value after grinding SHAQs +50 with my 50% triboosts and 250% rare drop boosts all day. I may be superstitious here but I think non-premium players get screwed on rare drops that are actually rare. Meanwhile another one of my friends who has premium found three 13-stars and three saiki back units (which sell for over 8 mil on my ship) in the past week.

The second example is this guy I play with. He is premium and spends a lot of money on this game. He regularly buys the 400% rare drop boosts (which are $9 a pop) and buys the ragol and sonic packs. He told me about a couple hours ago that he finds those saiki set units and 13-stars pretty easily and he also has over 100 mil already. He only has a little more play time than me. Do you know how demoralizing it is every time I get into a party chat and constantly hear these guys talk about how many millions they've made and how much rare gear they've found that day? It sucks. It f***ing sucks. And I know I'm not the only one here.

And to rub salt on the wound, they have a day dedicated to premium players that give them yet another boost to rare drops and other benefits. Every day I play this game it becomes more clear to which demographic this game was designed for. You can counter-argue that they make all this content free to play all day but you know what? What's the point of enjoying it if I don't have access to the basic features that make this game enjoyable in the first place?

Microsoft isn't the publisher of this game. The premium set is wholly on SEGA. Since it's also like that in the JP version.

@coldreactive I know it's sega's decision for those MTXs. They need to add trading and player shops for the free players if they want this game to be successful.

@BFGesus said in I think this game is going to fail by the end of the year.:

@coldreactive I know it's sega's decision for those MTXs. They need to add trading and player shops for the free players if they want this game to be successful.

Meseta will be much easier to get once we get more content. Crafting will also cause free players to become more occupied with not trading.

Easier meseta doesn't solve anything other than grinding and augmenting costs. The more money that is introduced, the more the economy's inflation goes up. Also, what if I find something that's worth a lot of money? I can't sell it or trade it to another player for an item I want.

Trading and player shops are pretty much worthless for anything other than cosmetics, so that means nothing for this game. Anything else you can get through those you can easily get yourself and it is best to get it yourself.

If you really wanted to sell stuff, you should make an effort to get some FUN Points and do the FUN Scratch. Last I knew, one of the items you could get from that was a 3-day shop pass The longer you play and collect FUN Points, the more you can eventually get and stockpile. You can only put new things up during those 3 days, but when it expires, your items on sale will stay on sale until sold and you will still get the money.

@BFGesus said in I think this game is going to fail by the end of the year.:

Easier meseta doesn't solve anything other than grinding and augmenting costs. The more money that is introduced, the more the economy's inflation goes up. Also, what if I find something that's worth a lot of money? I can't sell it or trade it to another player for an item I want.

Most end-game equipment is untradeable / unmarketable anyway. Such as the Weapons Badge 2020 units/weapons. These instead require you to farm missions/etc. for badges, much like pay to play MMORPGs and end-game currencies. (Guild Wars 2 has end-game currencies to purchase untradable equipment.) Player sold weapons are just a stepping stone other than wanting it for looks.

@Ragnawind I know you can get shop passes through FUN, but it's rare from what I've heard and I've already spend thousands of FUN and had no luck. Plus, the game's economy always shifts. If I put an item up for sale and those days are up, I can't adjust the price so that item is going to sit there forever and get buried underneath all the under-cutters.

@coldreactive Isn't there an item you can use that removes ownership of 13-stars that enables you to sell them? Either way, the 13-stars that drop out in the wild have stats that are on-par with those you can get from the badge shop and some of them are even better.

@BFGesus said in I think this game is going to fail by the end of the year.:

@coldreactive Isn't there an item you can use that removes ownership of 13-stars that enables you to sell them?

Weapon Badge equipment doesn't have a mark that says you can't trade/market it. So there's nothing to remove. it cannot be traded/marketed by default.

It does suck, there is an option but it’s still a gamble and that’s doing fun scratch to get a 3 day shop ticket even after the 3 days are over you can still collect your $$ and take items off the shop, now I for one have premium and have friends that don’t but I can help them out by gifting them items in their rooms or putting items in the photogatcha for cheap but that just me I guess

A friend of mine who doesn't have premium, and doesn't have a way to get it due to living in the UK, has been stashing things away to sell for a while, and then about 4 days ago got a Shop Pass from a Fun ticket. He listed everything he'd been stashing, and made about 15 million Meseta to spend on augments, upgrading, and whatever cosmetics he wants.

And as far as thinking the game will die within a year, I doubt that, simply because the Japanese version of the game has been going strong for 8 years now with the same monetization scheme. There are more than enough opportunities, through Star Gems and through Fun tickets, to get everything that premium users can get, aside from some storage space.

The PC version doesn't require the sub, the sub is for Xbox and the early access.

The premium RDBs are garbage, hot, steaming pile of garbage. If you want saiki units, use a 250% and don't waste time clearing mobs unless you know the boss is a rare. This is easy to do with one other player in your party.

You can make meseta from farming saiki (not for much longer though) or by flipping cosmetics in the market place. Take notice of trends, buy what you can, resell later when no longer available and when you have a ticket.

Your personal insight does not give clairvoyance to the market potential of the game. Look for alternatives rather than dooming something to failure.

Allow me to reiterate: the $9 booster is not only a placebo, it is a waste of money. It isn't worth it until we have super grindy collection files.

@John-Paul-RAGE said in I think this game is going to fail by the end of the year.:

buy what you can, resell later

High rarity items are marked as bound when you buy them from player shops to deter this. Obviously you can buy a consumable to remove it.

I think OP could be right, and not because of ludicrously greedy monetization that would would look right at home on a mobile gacha game but has not been adapted to something more sensible for online game released in NA, but because of a botched release strategy.

There is no advertising, no hype. I don't see the game discussed anywhere online general gaming is discussed. PC is delayed 2.5 months after Xbox open beta, seriously dampening the hype on the platform where the majority of players is. In fact, there's still 0 communication about the PC version.

And then SEGA locks PC version to Windows 10 and Microsoft Store. Last I checked Win10 had only 57% market share. So almost 30% Win7+Win8.1 userbase goes straight into garbage bin we don't need those players. It's a 12 year old game, it's not going to have DirectX 12 Ultimate raytracing that it would needs Win10. And not getting advertising on Steam, lets throw a Steam release out a year later by the time 100 people are playing and nobody cares.

And for the next magic trick, EU/UK players also get flipped off. First you have to fiddle with changing regions, and then instead of buying things directly you have to fiddle with gift card codes. Seriously, if the game survives, I will be pleasantly surprised.

@coldreactive was referring to the AC consumables such as emotes or hairstyles.

I think for equipment the only way to really "flip it" would be upslotting certain affixes.