I'm fabulous baby! a.k.a How much does aesthetics matter to you?

hmmmm, what games leave you with terrible costumes? Playsation Home?

I very much care about my character's appearance. It made Xenoblade very hard to play for me. (I still loved it though)

I don't usually buy costume DLC, though. Well, except for the Ezio and Metal whatever costumes in FF XIII-2.

I have bought costume/cosmetic DLC. Enough that I could call myself shameless. I really have no problem with that.

Absolutely not, I think it's dumb. I rarely notice it on other players so it'd seem silly to spend it on myself.

I customized my characters in the recent Tekkens, but I've never paid for anything cosmetic. If it's in the game I'll spend two minutes on it, then I'm set forever.

Well I got the Season Pass for the Last of Us for like 10 bucks so as a result I have a ridiculous amount of stupid helmets to wear into the murder. I'll buy customization types of things if they add a new layer to the experience, so in the case of Assassin's Creed Multiplayer playing a different character legitimately feels different because it dynamically impacts how other personas look, what players they can select, and the color and distinctiveness of your character also directly impacts how the game is played. Perception is extremely important in that game thus I'm open to buying new personas; though I haven't directly since ACR (AC4 has issues but I probably would have bought the Blackbeard DLC if it didn't).

If the price is very low then I'm open to buying anything; if it's a "normal" price then I won't touch it. $5-10 for a costume? Go fuck yourself, evil game making organization. 50 cents? Eh I have leftover change in my account, why not? Uncharted 3 is the only game I've seen actually be smart about pricing though. Whenever I happen to buy/PS+ Lightning Returns then I might buy some costume if its overpowered or does something amusing.

If a costume was tied directly to the funding of Vagrant Story 2 I would buy it.

Also I am totally pre-ordering XIII-3 just for that Cloud outfit. No shame.

I bought glasses for Persona 4 Arena.......GLASSES

Honestly I buy DLC for EVERY fighting game. I feel obligated to, it may sound silly, but I play Purple/Black Akihiko better than any other Akihiko in P4A and I play Red Wedding Dress Rose better than any other Rose in SF4.

Colors and costumes affects your performance, believe it or not, and if someone comes over and I don't have their color/costume, I feel like I'm handicapping them.

It makes sense, I promise.

This is how you get me to buy your costume DLC.

@hailinel: You want to talk to a man that has a even bigger problem with DOA DLC than me talk to @ajayraz

I refuse to support it in most cases because I feel like the developers are leaving stuff out of the game that should be part of the package when they sold it to you. I have spent a little money on DOTA 2, but I don't feel bad about that since the game is free

I refuse to purchase costume/skin DLC for any game! ...Unless i've only got like $1 in my psn wallet and I can't stand to look at it...

Otherwise I usually try and find an outfit within the game for a character that has my favorite colors: Red, black, purple and just go with that.

I enjoy making my characters look cool in games that allow it, but I'm not going to buy costume DLC.

Also I thought you meant overall aesthetics, not your character's duds.

I'm sure some games let you access other things that modify character appearance beyond just costumes. So really I'm talking about any sort of cosmetic DLC that doesn't affect game play.

I played Pangya, so I care a lot.

I don't think there is even an actual game in there, its all clothes and golf clubs, I think.

I bought a hat in Uncharted 3 once.

I care, but not enough where if I don't like something I'll drop money just to change it. I really hate some of the character designs in League of Legends, but I have never gotten a costume to avoid using the default one.

Wait, what? Aesthetics matter mightily to me in how much I like a game, but I don't think that's necessarily tied into my willingness to shell out for overpriced costume DLC. Instead, if the base design is so lacking that DLC -which often, while being fine on it's own, clashes with the art design of the rest of the game- is truly a needed improvement, then I probably didn't buy that game in the first place.

But then again, I overwhelmingly play single-player games, so perhaps I'd feel different if I was playing the same game with the same aesthetic over and over in multiplayer modes?

I've gotten a few outfits from the Gem Store in Guild Wars 2, but that's all.

I've never bought costumes, but whenever I see a cool one I always consider it.

Sometimes... Like the glasses pack for P4:A. I mean, come on, it's called Persona 4: Arena, you can't go on without the damn glasses now can you? Also bought the colors pack... Same thing for blazblue chronophantasma. You can have Valkenhayn with Koromarus colors.

I prefer when you can customize as you want though, spent a long time in virtua fighter 5 giving all the characters some costumes to use in battle ranging from cool to silly to sillier. I have managed to stay away from the costume packs of street fighter 4 because, my god, they are expensive...

Dota has a fair amount of items that affect or change that specific hero's animations for example.

If I buy cosmetic DLC I only do so because I played a F2P game for a while and think the developers deserve some of my money. I did that with Super Monday Night Combat (which is sadly dead now :( )

I really like playing dress-up in games, but wouldn't buy cosmetic DLC solely for that. I paid money for hats a couple of times, but mostly to show support for games I like (specifically Spiral Knights and Guild Wars 2).

back in the day of runescape i just wanted my character to look mega cool and that carried over to WoW a little but apart from that I kinda dont care

Its the whole thing

I have bough a fair share of cosmetics. Only in games I know I'm going to stick to though. Which just means heavy investment in DotA and League for now. Buying cosmetics in short lived experiences is generally not something I care enough to do. And more often than not, single-player games have good character design by default, so I don't feel much need to change anything.

@demoskinos said:

i will buy all of the DLC even if it puts me out on the street

It varies from game to game. There's been a few fighting games I've bought costumes for, and I bought quite a few costumes in Tales of Graces f, but that at least had some gameplay advantages as well, where you can get some stat/move upgrades by leveling up the titles tied to said costumes.

I'm always appreciative of when games feature unlockable costumes or allow you to customise your character's appearance. I'm the sorta guy that, when given a lot of choice, is seemingly never happy with my character's appearance, either... In series like Saints Row I'm often always making some small tweaks and edits, and changing my outfits, to suit what I'm in the mood for...

Anywhoo, even as something as minor as playing through in a new pre-determined getup may sometimes be incentive enough for me to give a game another go. I don't often buy any costumes, though, but I'd be lying if I said I never have... Which is something I'm not proud to admit, as I hate how costumes these days are often sold as DLC rather than being packaged in the game itself.

The worst examples are series like GoW, where they originally featured unlockable costumes, until GoW3 and the nickel & dime effect sweeped the industry. Now instead they were all preorder bonuses and then eventually released as DLC. The Tales series, which used to feature a small array of in-game unlockable costumes, now also often sell their costumes instead for an outright disgusting price -- sometimes up to £8 ($13) for a single costume.

@yummylee: Oh man I remember the God of War stuff and the thing was none of them were even all that great of costumes!

It does matter to a certain extent. I mean, if I'm playing a game, I don't want my character to look like a complete idiot. Well, sometimes I do, but you know what I mean.

On the other hand, I've never paid for...Okay, that's a lie. I may have bought the Old Snake costume DLC for LittleBigPlanet. But I bought it at the same time as the MGS4 level pack, so I felt a little less dirty. And I did then play through the rest of LBP, and all of LBP 2 with that costume, so I at least got my money's worth out of it.

@euandewar: WoW you don't have to spend real money just a lot of time (I mean you could but you'd have to be an imbecile to, sorry thread); the vast majority of "bling" is in-game. My orc warrior had full visual T3 and Dark Edge of Insanity like 7 years ago so I was always the best looking if I so desired. I still have Fortitude of the Scourge and the ZG head enchants in my bank (haven't played WoW in several years).

Cosmetic things do make a game feel more personalised to me. I remember as a kid whenever I played an RPG type game I would be disappointed if the weapon models were exactly the same no matter what. :p

This doesn't mean I'm more interested in visual appearance than anything else... it's just a bonus I enjoy.

@fredchuckdave: oh i didn't realise this thread was about like cosmetic stuff that you buy, just thought it was about whether you prefer your character to look cool or be more practical. i dont think I've ever bought anything cosmetic for a game. defo not in WoW at least

The only time I've ever bought costumes for a game was Mass Effect 2 and that was only because I had a few MS points left over from buying Torchlight 1. Character appearance matters to me a lot and I usually go out of my way to make my character look cool if the game allows me but I don't buy costume DLC unless I have a few dollars left over from a previous purchase.

Tho I dont do it as often ... I have fallen into the pit a few occacions. That Cammy jacket looks really awesome in SFIV , and armour for Sheperd in ME 2 .... I guess it is all for now :/

OH shit I did totally bought those costume packs for Alice Madness returns , even worse I only rented the game D:

Need help!!!

Yup, basically in WoW originally having good looking gear meant "Hey that dude's done some awesome shit." But with Wrath basically everyone's gear looked the same so that died and the ability to distinguish yourself became less and less apparent. In most games it's just "hey that guy looks cool, he must have spent money on non existent things." Of course eventually in Warhammer everyone looked pretty similar but you were still able to distinguish yourself via creativity/being a 1000-kills-a-day monster; but there wasn't really any free to play trappings for most of that time. This is another thing that AC does reasonably well even if its only an indication of time investment, but I'll take time investment based respect any day over nonsensical money investment.

As much as I'd like to think I don't care about them I always end up buying some if I like the game enough. I have spent too much money on TF2 hats and bought a few LBP costumes too. This all started with Habbo Hotel where I wasted a decent amount of money on furniture.

Me and my wife has spent hundreds of USD on TERA cosmetics, mounts and accessories. Part of me shuns it but another part loves it, so whatever floats your nuts.

Yea, that's what I thought, too.

Don't care. Although I have bought many skins in LoL.

Urgot is a pretty lady.

I know, but by aesthetics, I thought you meant a game's overall visual design and atmosphere, not the character I've created's specific look. Aesthetics is a far deeper term than a lot of people realize (like... me and @video_game_king are the only ones that thought about more than characters!?).

My answer is still the same - I don't buy cosmetic DLC. I rarely buy DLC at all. It has to be something substantial for me to care (think a few multiplayer maps or an add-on campaign), I've got better things to blow money on than virtual costumes, animations, tattoos, hairdos, anything that doesn't affect gameplay.

@believer258: You're the only two people in the whole world! Follow the money.

I really love having alternate costumes in games. It makes it more fun for me having different outfits to choose from for, say, a jrpg or something. But sadly, costumes are one of the first things that developers want to throw up behind a pay wall. It makes me sick to my stomach to see a great looking game with cool looking costumes that you have to pay for separately. Because that makes sense for most people buying the game but me. I'm basically the one weird guy who gets fucked on that deal. And it doesn't really work very well for me with free to play games most of the time either, since I just don't get into multiplayer games much these days. But man, 3d fighting games can seriously fuck off with their four to ten dollar a piece costumes.

Except we're in separate worlds. YOUR LOGIC IS FLAWED!

@believer258: I thought about Aesthetics as a whole sure. Then I read his actual post.

I'm all about aesthetic customization, but I never pay for aesthetic DLC. I did buy a Scott Pilgrim shirt for my XBL avatar once, but only because I had too few points to spend on anything else, and it was bugging me just sitting there in my balance.

I could see myself doing it if it meant throwing a few extra bucks at a favorite developer who's struggling or something. At that point it's more of a donation with the side effect of getting a jaunty hat or mustache or whatever, though.

I've never bought costume DLC but I changed my Saints Row 3 character every 5 missions.

I did stick with the karate gi for my Saints Row 4 playthrough though, it just felt right

....

now that I think about it, I have bought portrait DLC for Crusader Kings 2. Does that count? (talking about this: http://store.steampowered.com/app/226663/)

100% The easiest sell of any DLC for me is visual customization items.

Actual aesthetics though are personally the most important thing in any video game. I don't play anything I don't enjoy looking at. Fortunately I have broad (poor?) taste. I can't think of a better example for right now but it's why I'll never play Gish and one of the reasons I see Demon's Souls as far superior to Dark Souls.

Absolutely. Art style, character design, character creation and all of that stuff matter to me to such a point I won't play a game if I think it looks like garbage. I've never minded spending a few dollars in an MMO to get a cute costume for my character to wear as long as it lets me preview what it's going to look like first.

The gacha stuff in something like Pangya is a totally different story though, I tried it once and gacha mechanics in games can go get fucked. Just let me buy the fucking item I want. I don't mind putting a few bucks into your game, but I don't want to play a lottery to receive an item you could just as easily put in your game shop.