The price of pets - why I think kids now are babies

[MadMagus]

Keep in mind, I live in Canada, so my prices will be in Canadian funds.
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I hear players whine all the time about pet prices, and having to replace pets etc.
Let me hit you with some facts.

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I grew up in the 80s.
We used to have things called "Video Game Arcades".
This was where you went for the longest time to play video games.
It was typical at that time, you'd insert a quarter ($0.25), and get to play for several minutes.
The duration of the play time usually depended mostly on your skill level.
Typically, if you played a game you never played before, it would be very few minutes.
With practice and skill, you could play longer.
However, at the most, 95% of games were engineered to make you lose within a set period of time, so you'd have to spend more money.

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Where I live, a pet costs $3.49.
That works out to about 14 quarters.
Back then, you would need skill to make that last more than an hour.
Your average skilled player could make them last a couple hours.
If you were very selective in your games, you could make them last a lot longer; some games were quite long and if you practiced enough, you could potentially play an hour or more on one quarter. However, to get to that point, most would have already invested quite a bit of time and money to be so good at one game.
Also, you'd have a real small selection (most arcades only had 1 or 2 of this type, if any), and you could only play if no one else was using the machine.

An important note: due to inflation, money is worth much less now.
In the 90s, the average "good and new" video game took $1 coins.
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So, if you buy a pet, and you get more than 3 or 4 hours out of it, to me, I think you got your money's worth.
Not to mention, this game is far easier than any arcade game in the 80s or 90s (which were designed to suck money out of you), and easier than most NES games too. It wasn't until later generations of consoles that tutorials became standard (before that, using manuals was basically REQUIRED). Today's games are typically designed for those with short attention spans and people who don't want to read.
Part of why I like FT, is that you can really be great at it if you have some skill, and even greater if you read the information available.

All of those who don't do that, and whine about it, are lazy crybabies

[blitzcraig]

Dragon's Lair and Guantlet - both super fun; and very, very good at taking your quarters

[Ryaca]

I agree with you Mad. Players act like just because they spend a few dollars that they have invested in a 30 year home loan lol.

Mortal kombat 1, the first 2 street fighters, WWF superstars, Golden Axe, Galaga, and Pole position were the games That I played in the early 90's at my local arcade. Gives me such a feeling of intense nostalgia remembering those times when I didn't have to think about house payments and bills and when I have to be at work in the morning.

Off topic: there was this young boy who's father owned the arcade that would only play Mortal Kombat. He couldn't have been more than 8 years old. Back then everyone didn't have access to cheat codes and information on the internet and one had to actually play the game to figure out the combo attacks and finishing moves. This kid was unbeatable. I remember hearing whispers of rumors that a high school kid that spent much money training on that game finally beat the kid one Friday night when I couldn't be at my favorite weekend hang out. I never actually saw this but growing up in a town of about 20,000 people, this was the stuff of legends. Many kids talked about this in the hallways of my school. Great time to be alive.

Those were the days.

Those were the days.

[blitzcraig]

wow, now that I think about it... even getting info about a game cost money back then. You could buy the Nintendo Power magazines for tips and tricks. If you couldn't find what you wanted there, you could call the toll help number - for like a dollar per minute or whatever you could talk with a very slow-talking operator who would help you with whatever you needed in game...

Maybe access to the forum and conversations with GMs should cost money

[Ryaca]

I was a subscriber to Nintendo power and even called the hotline a couple of times. Couldn't call more than that as I didn't pay the phone bill. Would have got me grounded for sure.

[Cashew]

I completely agree, in the sense that pets lost by normal means shouldn't be complained about.

However I will say that pets lost through griefing don't fall under this category, as that'd be like somebody pushing you outta the way at the arcade whilst you're playing to make you lose, whilst stealing the rest. You can't retaliate in the same way in this game as you would in that scenario. (How do these quarters taste? meow <3)

Pets really ain't expensive though, not for the amount of time they can last. As for people complaining about their "gold cost" being too high, blame it on the current value of gold. I'm sure if the max gold trade limit were increased, pets would be even more expensive. You're getting someone that can only be obtained with real money for basically nothing. Imma make sure I get a whole lot of nothing for my something.

The fact that if taken care of they can (technically) last forever justifies their cost. Both in real and virtual currencies.


Agree 100% with this thread.