#dweet rambles

the problem

over the years i’ve been playing dbd, it’s always had a lot of jank and bugs—some of which were even said to add to dbd’s charm. funny flying survivors and falling through the map glitches aside, the last 6 months have made it abundantly clear that the bugs and myriad of performance issues have only gotten worse.

bhvr is no longer a small indie studio and you’d think that the more experience the devs got, the less issues would make it through to the live version of the game, right? wrong.

bhvr struck gold with dbd and they’re taking full advantage of the cash coming in while putting in minimal effort. from the way they handle things, i’m pretty sure their business model is as follows:

attract new customers with dlc every 3 months (doubly so with licenses)

sell as many dlc:s, skins and rift passes to those customers as possible

ignore all complaints when those players get tired of the game and focus on getting new customers in their stead.

new players are more valuable because they spend more money. they’ll buy not only the base game and newest dlc that attracted them in the first place, but they’re also the sole demand for old dlcs. who else buys the halloween dlc in 2021, if not new players wanting to play as horror icon michael myers or get access to the only perk that prevents them being tunneled as survivor?

think of all the times bhvr has ignored the community’s complaints: hud, spirit, keys, legendary skins and so on. not to mention the issues they take months or even years to fix: iri head, haddonfield, blight pov, old ds, infinites and moris to name a few. it screams loud and clear that they don’t care; and why would they? the opinions of existing players don’t matter, when new ones will flock in to replace them anyway.

i’m almost convinced the devs have the competence—they’re just lazy. when the almo controversy happened, it took less than 24 hours for the colorblind mode to be announced. either they were able to code it in from scratch that quick and just didn’t want to, or they’d been working on it as an (inexcusably) low priority feature before, having it nearly ready but just couldn’t be bothered to push it out before it directly affected them—to be honest, i don’t know which option is worse.

sometimes, their business practices are outright predatory, like the recent resident evil locked sets and the original mettle of man. this time, the outrage was enough to get the affected players a refund, but we’ve forgotten every other instance where that was not the case. and the refund still doesn’t solve the problem; if anyone wants those leon and jill outfits, they’re still paying nearly $4 for an identical haircut—which brings me to the next issue.

skins

i could write an essay on dbd skins alone. in a nutshell, they’re overpriced af and the issue gets completely ignored because they’re an optional purchase.

remember skin rarity? where the quality of the skin was supposed to reflect the rarity, and therefore the price? then let me ask you; when was the last time we got anything less than a very rare (=full price) outfit after a character’s initial release? well, let me answer that for you: july 31st 2018, with ace’s lovable rogue, meg’s athletic active, and dwight’s wine n’ dine collections.

and, sure, you could argue that the cosmetic team has only gotten more skilled since then, with a few skins standing out as having an incredible amount of detail and completely changing the character’s appearance. but that’s not the case with the majority of the skins. how does ace vegas or cowboy jake have the same price tag as apocalypse jeff or harajuku nea?

and don’t even get me started on auric cell only skins. even when skins were cheaper and came in several color variants, bhvr has had a nasty habit of locking the best skins in a collection behind a paywall. never mind the fact that it takes nearly 100 hours of time spent in actual matches to even get 21 600 shards to buy one skin, very rare skins are priced at over two times the price of one entire character and their perks.

one very rare skin costs:

50 % of the base game

216 % of one character through the in-game store (auric cells)

240 % of one character through the in-game store (iridescent shards)

250 % of one character when buying a chapter (2-3 characters)

476 % of one character when buying a chapter on sale.

it’s no secret that the majority of the sales from existing players come from skins. let’s assume that over a period of three months, a player with moderate spending habits buys the new dlc chapter, the rift pass and one skin for their favorite character. in that scenario, actual new content (the new chapter) only accounts for 28 % of the money spent. is it any wonder, then, that new chapters are riddled with bugs and issues, if the majority of the $$$ comes purely from cosmetics?

there’s also the issue that fog whisperers only exist to sell skins and promo dlc:s, but i don’t want to open that can of worms. the fact that they get free codes for the newest skins speaks for itself.

the rift pass and fomo

you didn’t think i’d skip this one, did you? no matter how much “value” you get from the pass compared to buying skins from the store, it’s still a blatant cash grab that’s essentially making us pay for playing the game.

“but you get your money back!” hey, if you see paying $10 to grind for bad recolors and filler charms as a worthwhile investment, good for you. no matter if you religiously play dbd enough to complete every rift, you still have to fork over that $10 the first time. bhvr has advertised a 25 million playerbase across all platforms, and even if only 5 % of those players have bought the pass once, that’s still a hefty income just for the rift—not to mention the fact that most people don’t get anywhere near tier 70 and end up with a net loss.

it’s a genius marketing move that preys on people’s fomo. by including exclusive charms and recolors that you can’t get anywhere else (cries in ace’s card shirt) and placing the best items at the very end, even light spenders are tempted to buy the pass or at the very least grind the free track. and once you’ve bought the pass, you feel obligated to play as much as possible to get your money’s worth—and the more you play, the more likely you are to buy new characters or skins from the store.

what can you do?

after all this negativity and complaining, it sounds like i think we should just stop playing the game and never pay for anything, huh? not at all.

i think what everyone can and should do, is reflect on their own spending habits when it comes to dbd.

do you buy the newest chapters as soon as they release, even if you know bhvr’s track record of recent dlc:s?

do you hate the way cosmetics are handled and the multiple fiascos regarding legendary sets, but still buy several different skins for your favorite characters?

do you buy the rift pass because oh god it has ace charms that i won’t be able to get anywhere else and i need them for all my characters—you get the point.

we can whine and bitch all we want, but as long as bhvr continues to make money even off of disappointed and angry customers, nothing will change. i’ve heard friends proclaim they hate the game and that bhvr’s actions are inexcusable, yet they, like me, continue to buy into the hype of new content or cosmetics masked as content.

what i’ll do from now on and i hope you’ll also consider:

hold off on buying new chapters until at least the worst of the bugs are fixed. if initial sales drop even after all the hype bhvr always tries to create, they might finally be forced to take action.

alternatively, buy new characters with shards. if you mostly play one side like me, 9000 shards is well worth an original character. it also lowers the sales of a chapter release, which hurts bhvr.

think long and hard about buying the rift pass. is there only one skin you really, really want? then the grind and price isn’t worth it, as rift exclusives get priced as rares when eventually released the store: aka 675 cells instead of the 1000 of the pass.

save up shards to buy skins. yes, i just said they’re overpriced, but if you buy the sets piece by piece the grind isn’t unbearable. and usually by the point you’d have enough, you might realize there’s only one part of the outfit that you actually want, or a better skin has been announced. saving your money and hurting bhvr; win-win.

ok whew, i think i’m done! thank you for reading my little rant. if you have any thoughts feel free to yell in the tags or replies, and remember that it’s completely ok if you enjoy the game as it is and want to keep doing so! you’re not forced to boycott anything or feel guilty about spending money. the game brings or has brought all of us a lot of joy and we’re free to enjoy it however we want <3

in a nutshell, i love the game despite its flaws, i only wish bhvr treated it (and the community) with the care it deserves.