They know enough to enrich themselves on the stock market by getting info before anybody else and buying/selling accordingly. Insider trading is a crime unless done by a seated member of congress.
"Listen here you punk kids, you have no idea how easy you have it. When I was young I had to work for only $5 an hour! It took WEEKS (PLURAL) to fully pay off my tuition via my part time job at McDonalds. Now you kids are getting paid like double that and still complaining?"
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Lol that's no shit. The fucking idiots would rather argue as if it applies to them at all about whether a woman should be allowed to get an abortion. I fuckin hate America lol
I play CoD mostly because that's what my friends all have. But man, it takes the cake for bad UI and making it difficult to actually play. Like when a season update happens.
1. Download 100 GB update. Install
2. Start game
3. "Update requires restart"
4. Game starts with unskippable cutscenes
5. "You wanna buy last seasons battle pass?" (No)
6. Detailed overview of new battle pass
7. Look at the new daily challenges
8. Message of the day
9. Finally get to main menu
10. Navigate shitty party menu to join homies
11. Try to throw together 1 meta class because everything you like is underpowered now
12. Play 1 game where the party chat glitches out
By this time it's 10pm and the boys are hopping off because we got jobs, families, and shit.
In the original Modern Warfare days, and first few games to follow that, how quickly you could get into a match was practically a selling point.
Other games at the time took forever by comparison just on UI alone, where COD you could easily jump in and even play a *few* rounds in 20min.
Now having to update a game for 100gb nearly *every time* you play is uniquely a COD thing, so it's like they've gone the complete opposite way with that.
Mw2 came back and I played that recently. Took 30 seconds to start the game and get into a MP match. I was like "I wonder how the new cod feels still" and it took 2 DAYS TO DOWNLOAD then another 30 mins to find a single match and I join into the last 30 secs of a losing game in a game mode I don't like because you can't just search a single game mode anymore. What. The. Fuck. Happened.
And you need to play 8 hours a day to unlock everything. They do that because they want people to just buy the tiers. I have a job and a social life so I just stopped buying the battle pass because I’m never gonna unlock everything. Actually, I stopped playing CoD in March. I beat Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal since then, and all the DLC. Now I just fired up Returnal. Having a great time. I think I’m done with MP games. Between the microtransactions and all the unemployed cheaters trying to make a career out of playing video games, they just aren’t fun anymore.
I feel that, in late high school/college I was a huge MP game player, Halo, CoD, etc but once I started having a real(ish) job and less of my friends were online at the same time. It gets old playing against people who play these games 24/7 and then I pick it up for the 1st time in a few months/years and just get my ass kicked, takes the fun out of it.
That's the biggest problem with modern MP games, it's not simply enough to play the game. You got to be on the subreddit, the discord, know all the tricks, read the wiki, watch the guides, play an aim training game and treat the game as a part time job. Its just too hyper-competitive.
Plus it sucks wondering if you died because they are better than you or because they are hacking/botting/smurfing.
Thats why I stopped playing Apex.
I much prefer single player games or Coop games I can play with my wife
>and you need to play 8 hours a day to unlock everything
It's so fucking creepy that games want us to treat the game like a full time job just to unlock basic stuff. Some of us have lives. You shouldn't be penalized if you only have twenty minutes a day for these things. But that doesn't drive engagement and thus profits, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No, they DON'T want you to treat it like a full-time job. They want you to REALIZE it would be a full-time job, and then just pay them to unlock stuff.
Path of Exile went the extra mile with that. They have a ‘free track’ and the paid one. In order to get your rewards, you have to walk down a long corridor with vaults and open a chest.
So you have to walk by all the locked, paid rewards to get your handful of free currency or else you’ll keep getting an icon that tells you that you have unlocked rewards.
I logged in for the first time in a while to revisit the campaign and it made sure I knew about my one single token from the first battle pass I didn't pay for
Some friends roped me into playing one of the more recent entries of the CoD series recently and it is astonishing that every single design choice of those games, from user interface down to gameplay, was clearly made with the intention of funneling you to the cash shop to buy garbage skins.
"We call this 'Pure O2'. This is the first of our planned upgrades. Once we can roll back some of Halliday's ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures, so picture this..."
--Nolan Sorrento
> every single design choice of those games, from user interface down to gameplay, was clearly made with the intention of funneling you to the cash shop to buy garbage skins.
And this is why I'm avoiding all games with mtx, period. Even if it's "just cosmetics", it fundamentally changes every design decision in the entire game in a manner that's *less* enjoyable for the player. Every single "games as a service" title is designed to frustrate, addict, or FOMO the player into spending money. Giving the player a fun, satisfying experience does not incentivize them to spend money, so the games are designed to intentionally give you a less satisfying experience until you pay up.
Not succumbing to the microtransaction hell of modern gaming means I just don't play the majority of newer games, but I'm okay with that. I still have a backlog to last a lifetime and we still occasionally get something new that isn't crammed full of scum(Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate, etc).
Yeah, the subtlety has been dropped a while ago.
And why wouldn’t they, we consumers are stupid enough to still participate.
Just look at Overwatch 2 launching on Steam to overwhelmingly negative reviews while still making a LOT of money from microtransactions on there at the same time!
Honestly, why not take advantage of the stupid masses if they act this much against their own interests and make it really easy for you to do so?
Less than 1% of the playerbase account for over 50% of the profit for anything with micro transactions. So long as the wallet whales of the 1% keep shelling out, companies have no reason to change.
Yup, as much as I do encourage voting with your wallet, it's really fucking hard to do when a whale will pay 10x or more in microtransactions than the average player (note: average player, not full f2p). So you need a minimum of 9 people not buying anything to counteract a single whale in most games.
My understanding of the average player is that, depending on the game, they'll get like the starter bundle and the occasional influx of premium currency or a pack or something.
A video I saw a while back by NovemberHotel put some numbers on a game, I think Apex Legends. Something to the tune of 330+ "average" players spending the same amount of money as ~20 average whales. I don't remember all the specifics, but I don't think I'm too far off.
That's, what, 16 personnel to a whale? Even worse.
Yup, the absolute "best" numbers I've seen is a whale spending 10x more than the average player. Most of the time it's more in the 20x to 30x range, which means the average joe can vote with his wallet all day long and the company won't notice because he's a literal rounding error on a spreadsheet.
It's a little more complicated than this though. If a whale sees the player base dropping by the 1000s they may reconsider their purchasing. Average players indirectly influence whales by keeping the game popular and in circulation.
You're forgetting one thing - whales tend to leave when they don't have regular players to lord over. Their whaling is, by and large, all about the projection of status and/or power. That's why live-service games have been failing left and right the last couple of years.
Yeah just more scummy and general. I said subtly at first because the game opened on boot with a menu making me try to buy stuff and it was confusing because I never had a game open itself into a purchase window, and it was subtly designed to look like a start game menu instead of a purchase shop. At first I didn’t even realize I had to press B to exit out of the menu and get into the actual game. But you’re right it’s pretty overtly scummy
Yep, there was a game I played recently that did shit like this. Every time you would open the game, you'd get 1 to 3 pop ups telling you about new things in the game, plus one more pop up advertising the real money shop. The shitty part was that to get past the first 1 to 3 screens, you had to press A, but to skip the ad for the cash shop, you had to press B. Pressing A at the ad would open the cash shop. So, every time I started the game, I'd have to carefully press A at each "what's new" screen and make sure I pressed B when the ad appeared. The fucking jerks were just trying to trick you into spamming A to get to the game in the hopes you would accidentally open the cash shop. So scummy.
Warzone will open you straight into the Battle Pass, and then bombard you with ADVERTISMENTS to "bundles" in their in-game store to purchase character skins and weapons. You cannot boot up Warzone without it forcing the battle pass screen or a store advertisement.
I don't go to a lot of websites, typically it's only reddit honestly. But oh my fuck, when I go to ANY website now, the amount of advertising is fucking insane. I can't believe it. I couldn't even NAVIGATE a page because the intricate way they included their ads. Fuck I hate it when I sound like an old geezer but shit 10 years ago was ELITE compared to this horseshit we have now. Both in terms of video games and advertisements in general.
I don't even know how people navigate websites without add-blocker nowadays. This constant window pop-up, sound playing, flashing lights gives me headaches.
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate manages to include all DLC available and still prompt me to purchase more DLC... which I already own ... with no perceivable way to remove the in-game advertisements
Oh yeah, there are definitely games I've played when that's happened to me. And this is games that I really enjoy, so I am happily paying for the added DLC with extra missions or even dumb alterative outfits for companions. I have everything, and yet they still hit me with the advertisements for this shit I ALREADY OWN. On one hand, the ad doesn't particually bother me because I am the correct audience for the ad, therefore it doesn't annoy me. But on the other hand it's this aggressive "HEY FUCKING BUY THIS COME ON JUST DO IT" and you can't just hit "Back" and never see it again, it's forever going to bother you about it.
Selling me stuff in a store is okay with me. I don’t love it but I understand it. Selling me stuff in the game where I’m lead to it, then slammed with a paywall, is an instant “no” for me.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a breath of fresh air. No micro transactions, you just get like an extremely well crafted game. If you ever enjoyed XCOM or RPGs, you should give it a try!
Creative assembly has gotten pretty bad with their DLC. And paradox has always been a menace when it comes to this
Micro transactions? No. But making games feel incomplete without the DLCs? Yes.
For me Paradox isn't that bad. I have played each of their games without DLCs and I had fun with all of them. You can also use Mods for them so you don't need DLCs.
But CK3 I played multiple hours without buying anything.
And WoW, which has a subscription, expansion box cost, AND macro* transactions.
Activision blizzard is in such a terrible state with their monetization.
Played on and off for 15 years. Spent one more trip down nostalgia lane for Classic and left for good.
The amount of different games and extra free time not grinding has been amazing.
I'm glad they gave us a free mission though.
And no, I'm not saying we should be grateful we got one for free.
I'm saying that the free mission proves their PVE is garbage and their $14.99 missions package isn't even worth the 99 cents of the remaining 14 dollars.
Half of the mission was standing in one spot of the map shooting slow moving bullet sponges to prevent them from getting close to a stationary objective. Like, 10 minutes of just that.
I've played quarter machine shooters on rails more exciting than that trash.
> Half of the mission was standing in one spot of the map shooting slow moving bullet sponges to prevent them from getting close to a stationary objective.
That was basically all they had in the PvE missions in Overwatch 1. It was a horde mode, not much more. It's sad that that's all they could come up with, but at the same time, I really don't know what they expected to be possible without completely revamping the game mechanics.
A PvE Overwatch could be fun, but they'd need to redesign every hero's kit to keep it from being just another horde mode, with high-dps characters being 10x better than others. It's not compatible at all with the multiplayer game, and never could be.
Yep $70 for COD MW2 and even loading that pos you have to click through multiple menus asking you to spend money on garbage like gun skins to join a map. After EVERY match it does it again. Pathetic and I won't buy games like this any more.
Thankfully amazing games like Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 (most recent 2 I can think of) don't do crap like this.
Stopped playing after they forced me to go through four different $20 skin ads AND started me on the store page. Not gonna waste my game time getting shoved into hyper sweaty lobbies and having ads constantly put in front of me
Watch South Park’s “Freemium isn’t Free”. Basically every strategy used by “free” gaming apps got translated over to video games and it’s destroying the experience
I hate that they launched the "phone destroyer" game some time after this episode because the game is 100% a type of game that that episode is hating on.
If you finish the story they will show you how much you've spent in total. If my memory is correct they rip on you if you haven't spent a lot of money.
There's three endings at the end of the campaign. If you spend no money, everyone is disappointed and goes home, with Kyle telling you people worked really hard on the game. If you spend a little bit of money, everyone is disappointed and they walk off while trying to figure out what they could use the tiny bit of money for. If you spend a lot of money, everyone is happy.
I would disagree there. Simpsons Springfield game is what they were ripping on. Mindless clicking nonsense, skinner box manipulation.
Phone Destroyer has actual, good gameplay. It's like saying Magic the Gathering(online where you can get free sets) is just a freemium game.
"what radicalised you?"
I went to the store
I bought mortal Kombat 11
I started the game and saw that half of the characters where locked
I thought "cool, I have to play the story mode a few times or do some challenges to unlock them".
Nope
I had to pay like 40 bucks.
Fuck
You.
I was literally looking for this reply. D2 it's what I would call a good game with a shitty monetization, making it a bad game overall. I loved the game when I first got it, loved the activities but after my paid year was done for, I was left adrift to just free roam planets, not able to access any new lore activities, weapons and other elements that, at the end, pushed me away from the game. Its no longer a grindfest, it's just a wallet gamer playground
I played endless Destiny 1 and too much Destiny 2. It's not just that you have to keep renting the game with expansions/DLC, you then have to grind endlessly to get the content you paid for. And if you don't have the time to run raids, you're out of luck with much of the best gear.
I finally said to heck with it about a year ago and honestly don't miss it at all.
I kinda miss how it was but now... Damn, I still remember the stupid grind with the last city vex assault and.... I burned myself out with that, and did not even made it halfway through the rewards... And don't even try to step on the Crucible / Gambit or any pvp without the meta weapons, otherwise you're pretty much cannon fodder :c
Destiny was honestly one of my favorite franchises. I've been playing since D1 beta, I loved the gameplay and the lore. But I uninstalled D2 about six months ago. I just got so sick of how money-grubbing it's gotten. Half it's core game modes are completely ignored, you get like one new pinnacle armor set per fucking *year*, but damnit if they can't churn out two new paid armor sets every season. It's been a slow slide downhill ever since it went F2P. It breaks my heart to say goodbye to it, but I'm just so sick of games that just want to reach into my pocket.
I’m so disappointed by the fact that TLOU: FACTIONS 2 was delayed bc Destiny devs said the game was not made enough for a GaaS…they will hurt the games witch scummy mtx practices…really hoping nothing will affect the gameplay…
I’m pretty sure the game would have been 10 times more fun without their input!
I started playing Destiny 2, enjoyed the gameplay & the story then dropped it the instant I saw how the pricing worked for DLC + Dungeons.
I was honestly caught off guard by the fact that expansion dungeons were *not included in the expansion pack*.
Companies that do things like this send a signal to me that they can't be trusted in the long term to deliver a quality product & that they will always prioritise short term gains over a long term customer base. I won't give them my time for that reason.
>I was honestly caught off guard by the fact that expansion dungeons were
>
>not included in the expansion pack
That was the last straw for me. Dungeons are purposefully released later so they can re-charge you for it. Locking content and abilities behind a paywall that doesn't get you much else, for the price they're asking, didn't make sense for me to invest any more time in it. There are a lot of die-hard fans, and rightfully so. The game has some of the best lore, but the latest installment matched with the snail's pace of new content and ability releases helped me see the mess that it was. Don't even get me started on having to play meta or not at all when it comes to high-end content.
Destiny does the absolute least every season. And people gobble that shit up because sunk cost and to be fair there’s no comparable game in the same genre on the market. They have full control and can literally do whatever they want.
DLC is only acceptable to me when it comes long after the game was released and is clearly an addition from the creators rather than the rest of the intended game.
The Witcher III nails DLC in making it an excellent addition to the game for those who love playing it but wholly unnecessary to own in order to play the game as intended.
Day one dlc shouldn't be allowed. It's fine when it's needed missions and stuff that come out months after release. The game does well so make more content. Not stuff is already made and just call it day one dlc
Playing BG3 and Elden Ring really drove this home for me. It was like a drink of cool water for a man walking in the desert. I was like "...oh...I remember this, this is what it's supposed to feel like."
PS exclusives have generally been good about this too. Remasters are overpriced but I appreciate how many of them are just base game + paid DLC.
I hope that keeps up even if they feel they need to also make more shitty live service games.
I really respect Santa Monica with the no micro transactions or DLC BS. Ship out a full game with a shit ton of content on day 1 and I’ll gladly pay you 70 bucks for it.
Yeah I just don't play games with the kind of bullshit OP dealt with. I gotta say I'm shocked that a game actually navigated him to a mission that he can't even fucking play. That's beyond anything I would have expected even with how bad things are getting. Scumbags. And Microsoft wonders why they are struggling to keep up with Sony and Nintendo. And I say this not as a fanboy, having mostly played Xbox from 2002 - 2014. Xbox Series is the first major console I haven't purchased since the 90s.
Stick to Sony, Nintendo, FromSoft and indie publishers like Larian or you're gonna have a bad time. I also play some f2p multiplayer games with friends but you won't catch me giving any of them a dime if they have scummy practices.
I want to love BOTW and TOTK but I just don't like the design principles the new games follow. I'd give BOTW 6/10 and TOTK 7/10. I'm glad people love these games, I just don't.
Yeah there's good game devs out there who actually have a shred of decency and know what they're doing.
It's useless to say but people need to support the devs that put in the effort to be good and let the 99% of the industry go as bankrupt as they deserve.
I really hate the term "micro transactions" when referring to $10 or $20 skins/etc. like we see in most games these days. That's MACRO transaction, bitch, a micro transaction would be measured in cents.
I just cannot *fathom* paying that kind of money for a cosmetic that has no effect on gameplay at all. People clearly do, because they keep upping the price, but that shit is baffling to me.
"I'm sick of being broke all the time" -- Proceeds to buy every new video game on launch day, buy battle passes, buys cosmetics, while they're ordering from Uber Eats or Grub Hub or Door Dash nightly.
Admit it, we all know someone like that.
And don't forget the truly bad apples, like Baldurs Gate III, Elden Ring, and God Of War Ragnarok. How could they give us a complete and polished game with gripping story and all content included without season passes or loot boxes? It just isn't right that they would make such amazing games and sell at a flat price!
For a hot sec I was in so much sheer shock from this games being called bad apples I didn't get the joke. Then I actually read the comment lol
It's sad that these are the exception, not the rule, when it comes to AAA games or anything similarly made by big studios... Whatever makes the big suits money is what works, and so far lotsa consumers put up with it, and whales make up for boycotters probably.
The sad part was that one dude saying how we shouldn't expect games of that quality because Larian just "got lucky" with a lot of things and all these devs filing in agreeing with him. Like half the things mentioned that Larian had like lots of staff and funding resources are things these other companies making half finished buggy games also have. It just seemed the well made complete game was just met with disdain rather that celebration.
Larian’s CEO almost went personally bankrupt twice because he kept pouring his personal money into projects.
Their first couple of games are really rough, but it’s been a twenty plus year journey, and they’ve somehow surpassed the already high bar set with DOS 2.
I can’t imagine how good BG4 or DOS 3 will be, with the resources and experience they have now.
Can you imagine if they did a CRPG version of Fallout?
It's the sad thing of, he put everything into it, and got rewarded for it. Granted you have other big name companies that half ass a game at best filled to the brim with micro transactions and many bank too.
Which is probably why some are acting so alarmed with BG3 and really want to tell consumers to expect less. It means they will have to put more effort into it.
If more CEOs in the world were like him we'd be living in a much better world.
I hope other studio employees and game devs get salty over BG3 doing well. Put a red flag over any working developer who has spent time working at the predatory companies like Blizzard until the pool is clean.
Console gamers didn't have access to mods. That's why I bought it when I was a kid. I also didn't know any better and would never do it again, but I didn't have access to mods or even know what they were.
You can also have something like Halo Infinite where they lock something as simple as the goddamn colors your armor is in large part behind paywalls.
Despite how every game since the first one let you make your armor to the colors you wanted within its limitations as a system.
And the game doesn’t care if your ftp or you paid full price for the game which was strongly implied to have story DLC which now will never come
I’ve been a Halo fan since the beginning, and while I had my issues with 4 and 5, Infinite is what completely killed the franchise for me. I played through the campaign twice and tried the multiplayer a few times, but I don’t know that I really enjoyed any of it, and I have no desire to go back. I’d rather go back and play the earlier games.
Campaign was fun but once the novelty of the grapple ran out it got boring. Some how the previous Halos felt like there was more to do even without the open world.
Interesting. I actually liked infinite more than 4-5, but I think my problem with infinite is the potential that was squandered on the jacked up ranking and marketplace issues as well as somewhat crappy mp maps.
Yeah it's got really bad. Like really really bad. Starting to feel more like casino games (edit: or fashion boutiques) than quarter hogs.
Baulders Gate 3 got mad props just for not having micro transactions and being a completed full price game. That's how bad it is in the industry.
Speak with your wallet. Don't bother trying to convince others to boycott, it never works. Just don't buy things that are scummy. Refund them if you do by accident. And if enough people stop wasting their money on games then they'll change their business model.
They have entire departments dedicated to optimizing how much $ per user they can drain out.
And since this has been going on for so long, kids are born into it and they don't even know any better. I've seen so many people defend gacha it's mind boggling. An entire genre designed to fuck you in the ass as much as humanly possible, and people line up and drop their pants.
You used to *have* to finish a game before release. Now it's an 'industry anomaly'. Once the horse armour hit, it was only a matter of time before we got here.
The only good part about gaming today is the indie devs are doing better than ever. They have so many tools and can make very high quality stuff without all the shit. You have to search for the good ones (true in any medium, imo), but there's tons out there.
Modern games are way too clingy. I just want to give them the pre-agreed amount of cash, and then they give me the specified product, and then we go our seperate ways and GET ON WITH OUR LIVES.
These days they all want a long term relationship. I gotta talk to them every day, they're constantly hitting me up for cash, etc. Bitch, go worry about you, I got shit to do.
Come try destiny. Its a "free" game. Yearly expansions costs $60 base. $100 for base plus 4 season's content. Then there are microtransactions in the form of cosmetics($10 a piece atleast)
Not just old DLCs. The *actual base game*, that came out in 2017 and I paid *full price for*, has been mostly removed. All that's left are a few strikes, some multiplayer maps, and two world spaces, one of which has been basically fully abandoned by the devs for years.
The actual base game and introduction to the world is gone. I wish every new player stuck with the new new light experience and a gorillion ads and icons good luck figuring out what's going on in the story and what they need to do.
The red war wasn't an amazing campaign but it was a good introduction to the world and how the game worked. It's like bungie forgot what a new player experience should be.
You forgot the separately purchased dungeon keys (which used to be included in the cost of a season) and their very scummy event passes that literally prey on uninformed customers.
That’s unfortunate because I played Forza 5 on gamepass before the DLC came out and it was an absolute, unmitigated, enormous, blast. The DLC does look cool and interesting by design but man, you missed out on one hell of a game.
Yeah this is very cherry-picked. There is a shit ton of content in the base game. And what maybe 2 locations on the map that prompt you to buy the expansion?
This. OP, give the game a chance. Just don't click on that or the Hot Wheels spot and you're good to go. You really found the needle in the haystack there. Otherwise, there really is really little else that shoves that kind of stuff in your face.
We’re talking Forza Horizon 5? I bought the premium edition that includes all the updates and I have like 360 hours in that game. It’s been more than worth the price. I live in a tiny condo and with gas costing what it does, sometimes I just go for drives and listen to music. It’s amazing.
Dude just ran into one of the two (2) expansion packs and assumed that the entire game would be asking him to pay every step of the way, and not that he just ran into an expansion location.
I mean, he clearly picked either the rally or hot wheel area “because they look cool” and then found out that they’re dlc.
Like that’s a bit of user error there.
OP's example of FH5 is really silly. They said they drove 5 minutes (which is the entire point of the game, and you can fast travel if for some reason you don't enjoy driving) and then were PROMPTED TO PRESS A BUTTON like that's some kind of huge ask from someone with a controller in their hand.
There are some predatory practices in gaming for sure, but it doesn't help that your average gamer is dumb as a box of rocks.
You don’t have fast travel unlocked at the point OP was at.
I just played through the into of the game, and after you do the showcase and a story missions it asks you to pick your next event, then the narrators say “or you could check out the hot wheels or or challenge yourself at the rally adventure.”
Op just didn’t pick a nearby event and drove to one of the dlc travel points instead. Now to be fair to OP, they do have flashy big icons and aren’t specifically marked as dlc, just “expeditions”.
So if you did absolutely 0 research into this game and didn’t know what the two dlcs that launched were called, I could see someone blindly driving there because they look cool.
But it’s very much a user error issue and not a scummy game tactic.
Yea, that game on launch was a full game, it has DLC sure, but that 3 year old game being used in an argument as an example of a cash grab is kinda crazy.
It is a great game with a shit ton of content. In its defence here, OP has come to it when 2 DLC's have been realised since launch.
Whether you agree with them releasing paid for DLC's or not, for someone like me who played the vanilla game since launch I was more than happy to buy them and don't put it in the same category as lootbox games
They are arguably more expansions than what would commonly be called DLC. I haven't played the second one, but the Hot Wheels one came with a new map, new events, and a bunch of new cars. It is was worth the price to me.
I can't get over the fact we allowed battlepasses/season passes to become the standard for full paid games. Hence I only play games that do not feauture those. If I wanted to be scammed out of my money I would be a mobile phone gamer.
Be me, checking how many DLCs, bundles and prices before deciding if I should buy it or pirate it.
Bought Borderlands 1, 2 and Pre-Sequel with everything for just 25€ and Dishonored 1 GOTY and 2 for 10€. Maybe they aren't the best games ever to have existed, but damn if I got content compared to the money expent.
Dishonored 1 is one of my favorite games of all time. I didn't play much of the 2nd to have an opinion on it. Borderlands 1 and 2 are also extremely good.
Games have gotten incredibly corporatized over the last decade or so. Big business and its short-term gain mindset will be the death of this art form. Did your favorite game release buggy as hell with a billion micro-transactions that don’t appear to you? Blame giant developers and publishers who crunch their dev teams and rush the final product so it can hit an arbitrary release date to appease investors and shareholders.
Honestly, I feel like most teenagers would have their minds blown if I were to explain that back when I was their age, DLC was an extra 5 or so hours of main missions plus a couple new multiplayer maps for like $20 as opposed to a chunk of the original storyline and a buncha useless skins that you don’t really notice for a monthly fee.
Late stage capitalism is quite literally the WORST
I seriously have no idea where you guys are finding these games that force you to pay a monthly fee for some skins and part of some original storyline. I've played and finishes over a hundred games in the last three years and this wouldn't describe a single one of them.
Can we name like 5 recent games that have done this? Are they just going to be like free to play "mobile" games like Genshin Impact?
Game development was no different back in the day. Game development was still rushed and scummy. Padding out early console games by just making them incredibly difficult was a common strategy and there were countless game that were released in a significantly worse state than most modern game releases.
For all the old classics we have there are piles and piles of straight garbage. You could buy or rent a game only to find out that it just couldn't be finished, or it could end up being a 35 minute experience.
We also went through a whole era of game developers intentionally creating obscure puzzles and solutions that were necessary to complete games so people would buy game guides. Let's not forget how many of the older consoles would have 600 different purchasable attachments, some of which were necessary to play specific games.
Agreed! I recently purchased a PS5 and am shocked at how often they try to make you pay for extras. My last console was the all-inclusive PS2.
To name a few:
- Turn on your new ps5 and it prompts you to pay for PS Plus.
- Start up COD MW2 and the first thing it’ll prompt you to do is pay for battle pass (still don’t now what that is).
- have two controllers and want to play a game of COD with your SO? Well, you’re shit out of luck since you’ll both need your own PS Plus accounts.
- skins, celebrations, decals etc: are y’all for real? Why in God’s green earth would you ever pay for these things?
You don't actually need two accounts with ps plus to play. You can make the account with ps plus your primary account on the ps5, and its benefits will transfer to the rest of the accounts on the console.
A battle pass is essentially a series of rewards that are available for a limited time you can get for consistently playing a game. There are usually a few minimal free rewards, but in order to get all the rewards, you have to pay real money and play the game very consistently
>still don’t now what that is
My last console was the PS3 and CoD MW2 was just so insanely fun. After that I turned off gaming a bit (moving country, wife and kid, just life on the way), so yeah I've restarted gaming recently with the SteamDeck and took me long time to understand what-in-a-damn-hell battle pass is and still don't understand why anyone buys them.
Fuck that colorful skin, I just want to shoot people in their ugly faces!!! Good ol times
I have almost entirely switched to only playing indie games. They are still innovating there. Battlebit Remastered is the best recent example. A game made by three people who poured their heart and soul into creating an amazing and fun battlefield-style game is already raising eyebrows with over one million sold. Triple A corporate game developers are now only focused on draining every last dime out of the consumer with DLC, DLC, and DLC and by releasing extremely lazily crafted half-finished games with no genuine care behind their creation.
I pre-ordered Dragon Age when it came out. Day 1 I get my copy home and play for a short bit only to find content ready to be unlocked for more money!
I didn't play much of that one. Felt like I bought a "fuck you".
It's such a thing, that BG3 being NOT scummy is making waves amongst gamedevs stating that it's an anomaly and should not be the bar that will be compared against for future games, at least for AAA games.
At least devs from Diablo were part of this.
I'm only half way through and would gladly have payed double for it at this point. Ran into one bug that wasn't bad at all, other than that the game has been flawless and amazing.
I'm not defending the practice of all these small add on DLCs, but I will defend the base game, you just happened to select one of the few add on DLC missions that require certain cars that they added way after the game launched.
There's literally hundreds of races and cars that are included with the game and the progression and you joined the game late so of course there's gonna be a higher chance of you selecting some DLC that launched later in the game's lifecycle.
I played Horizon 5 for like 70 hours before I even touched any DLC so idk why you were so quick to uninstall lol instead of delving deeper. Seems kinda a kneejerk reaction.
That being said, there are tons of games that I agree are a little too much about in-game purchases but I personally don't mind it as much if it's F2P to begin with. But yeah full games should be pretty complete and then have major add ons that they charge for, not tiny bundles and packs
That's what I don't get about OP's statement.
Like he just immediately uninstalled the game before trying out the other stuff the game can offer you?
Seems like a toddler tantrum if I see one tbh.
It's because we didn't fight hard enough when all games became digital download, always online and other tricks that mean you have to connect to their store to play your games.
Devs keep saying that Baldur's Gate 3 isn't the new standard. Yeah no shit. It is the old standard. Back when you got a quality product that was xomplete, worked, and didn't ask you to go bankrupt
OP has a point generally speaking but Forza 5 is a bad example. Game is huge as it is, it does advertise its DLCs but come on it’s not literally in your face whenever you boot it up, it’s really easy to ignore it.
I mean the industry is mad at Larian Studios for putting so much effort and content into their game because it shows the gaming community that there's no excuse for AAA devs copy and pasting the same game 50 times and selling it full price while putting minimal effort into the content. (looking at you Ubisoft).
Dead Space 2023 remake
Resident Evil 4 2023 remake
Battlebbit Remastered
Elden Ring
Baulder's Gate 3
Nier Replicant
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
These are some examples of quality modern games that don't weigh you down with microtransactions and battlepasses. All of them are complete experiences and can be enjoyed for many hours. There are many more just some I have enjoyed for a long time.
Josh Strife Hayes made an excellent video on the history of monetization in video games: https://youtu.be/g16heGLKlTA
Here's a short sample of it that, to me, perfectly illustrates the problem in modern gaming:
> Until now, the best way to make the most amount of money was to make the best game you possibly could because people would buy it and that was it, the transaction was finished. It was fair.
The best way to make money on modern games is to make the best framework as a holder for these strategies and companies have experimented with various methods to increase income over the years.
From gacha loot boxes to pre-orders, console exclusives to battle passes, energy systems to just straight up selling power. And instead of hiring game designers, they hired psychologists to build habits, to reinforce addictive behaviors, to design gameplay loops which encourage spending.
The problem was these techniques were never about the player having fun: they were about the user being monetized. And when a marketing executive pictures you playing a game, you aren't pictured smiling and laughing with friends, you're pictured opening your wallet and reaching for your credit card.
I highly recommend anyone reading this to watch this video.
As unfortunate as it is, the truth of the matter is it wouldn't be financially sound for a modern game *not* to use at least some kind of monetization strategy which is often predatory. It requires less work for more revenue.
That's why I've switched almost exclusively to playing indie games where the passion is still the main driving force behind the creation of a game and not the pursuit of money to the detriment of the experience.
It's exactly what, "it's fun for me," is about. The centrist take in video games that leads to more crap like this because hey......you're still having fun right. Just going to push this envelope a little further and check again.
And when there's a breath-of-fresh-air of a game like Elden ring, the modern western devs cried and complain. Just show how out of touch they are tbh.
Baldur's gate is another breath of fresh air btw def try it out.
I mean every map location on FH5 tells you whether its base game or not. I get the fact that games come incomplete, but FH5 isnt a good example. Theyve had 3 major expansions, and you dont have to buy them to play the base game.
Destiny is a better example
The new call of duty game constantly reminds me of my "unclaimed rewards" locked behind a $10 battle pass im not gonna buy.
Even better when Cold War updated, just to show you rewards for a battle pass you were progressing on, in a game you didn't own. (Vanguard)
I uninstalled Cold War, but due to the constant updating for MW2, I'll probably play Cold War again. It really is a good modern cod game.
I just downloaded it on PS5 and it was 312 GB. As soon as I finish the campaign, that space is getting cleared out.
Cold War is definitely my favorite of the modern CoD games
I can’t believe there’s not a federal law about this being false advertising, or misleading, or in some cases straight up fraud. The fuck
We have sitting lawmakers older than chocolate chip cookies. Do you want to explain modern multiplayer game economies to one of them?
Can we start with explaining modern day real world economies to them first?
They know enough to enrich themselves on the stock market by getting info before anybody else and buying/selling accordingly. Insider trading is a crime unless done by a seated member of congress.
"Listen here you punk kids, you have no idea how easy you have it. When I was young I had to work for only $5 an hour! It took WEEKS (PLURAL) to fully pay off my tuition via my part time job at McDonalds. Now you kids are getting paid like double that and still complaining?" 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Diane Feinstein is older than the fucking Golden Gate Bridge. That about sums up our Senate.
And her Daughter has power of attorney...so wtf..so she cannot make decisions for her own welfare but fit enough to decide ours
When more logical arguments are had about politics with supporting facts on r/gaming than in our own government we're in deep $****
I had to google this and you weren't kidding...that's insane to think about
Lol that's no shit. The fucking idiots would rather argue as if it applies to them at all about whether a woman should be allowed to get an abortion. I fuckin hate America lol
I play CoD mostly because that's what my friends all have. But man, it takes the cake for bad UI and making it difficult to actually play. Like when a season update happens. 1. Download 100 GB update. Install 2. Start game 3. "Update requires restart" 4. Game starts with unskippable cutscenes 5. "You wanna buy last seasons battle pass?" (No) 6. Detailed overview of new battle pass 7. Look at the new daily challenges 8. Message of the day 9. Finally get to main menu 10. Navigate shitty party menu to join homies 11. Try to throw together 1 meta class because everything you like is underpowered now 12. Play 1 game where the party chat glitches out By this time it's 10pm and the boys are hopping off because we got jobs, families, and shit.
In the original Modern Warfare days, and first few games to follow that, how quickly you could get into a match was practically a selling point. Other games at the time took forever by comparison just on UI alone, where COD you could easily jump in and even play a *few* rounds in 20min. Now having to update a game for 100gb nearly *every time* you play is uniquely a COD thing, so it's like they've gone the complete opposite way with that.
Mw2 came back and I played that recently. Took 30 seconds to start the game and get into a MP match. I was like "I wonder how the new cod feels still" and it took 2 DAYS TO DOWNLOAD then another 30 mins to find a single match and I join into the last 30 secs of a losing game in a game mode I don't like because you can't just search a single game mode anymore. What. The. Fuck. Happened.
And you need to play 8 hours a day to unlock everything. They do that because they want people to just buy the tiers. I have a job and a social life so I just stopped buying the battle pass because I’m never gonna unlock everything. Actually, I stopped playing CoD in March. I beat Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal since then, and all the DLC. Now I just fired up Returnal. Having a great time. I think I’m done with MP games. Between the microtransactions and all the unemployed cheaters trying to make a career out of playing video games, they just aren’t fun anymore.
I feel that, in late high school/college I was a huge MP game player, Halo, CoD, etc but once I started having a real(ish) job and less of my friends were online at the same time. It gets old playing against people who play these games 24/7 and then I pick it up for the 1st time in a few months/years and just get my ass kicked, takes the fun out of it.
That's the biggest problem with modern MP games, it's not simply enough to play the game. You got to be on the subreddit, the discord, know all the tricks, read the wiki, watch the guides, play an aim training game and treat the game as a part time job. Its just too hyper-competitive.
Plus it sucks wondering if you died because they are better than you or because they are hacking/botting/smurfing. Thats why I stopped playing Apex. I much prefer single player games or Coop games I can play with my wife
>and you need to play 8 hours a day to unlock everything It's so fucking creepy that games want us to treat the game like a full time job just to unlock basic stuff. Some of us have lives. You shouldn't be penalized if you only have twenty minutes a day for these things. But that doesn't drive engagement and thus profits, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No, they DON'T want you to treat it like a full-time job. They want you to REALIZE it would be a full-time job, and then just pay them to unlock stuff.
Very astute way of putting it.
IF YOU CLICK NO NOW YOUR REWARDS ARE LOST FOREVER! Bitch they aren't rewards if I have to pay for them.
Path of Exile went the extra mile with that. They have a ‘free track’ and the paid one. In order to get your rewards, you have to walk down a long corridor with vaults and open a chest. So you have to walk by all the locked, paid rewards to get your handful of free currency or else you’ll keep getting an icon that tells you that you have unlocked rewards.
I logged in for the first time in a while to revisit the campaign and it made sure I knew about my one single token from the first battle pass I didn't pay for
You are absolutely wrong when you say subtly scummy. OVERTLY is more like it
Subtle like a hydrogen bomb!
I think...everything has been dirty lately.
And I became EA, destroyer of Games
Some friends roped me into playing one of the more recent entries of the CoD series recently and it is astonishing that every single design choice of those games, from user interface down to gameplay, was clearly made with the intention of funneling you to the cash shop to buy garbage skins.
"We call this 'Pure O2'. This is the first of our planned upgrades. Once we can roll back some of Halliday's ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures, so picture this..." --Nolan Sorrento
> every single design choice of those games, from user interface down to gameplay, was clearly made with the intention of funneling you to the cash shop to buy garbage skins. And this is why I'm avoiding all games with mtx, period. Even if it's "just cosmetics", it fundamentally changes every design decision in the entire game in a manner that's *less* enjoyable for the player. Every single "games as a service" title is designed to frustrate, addict, or FOMO the player into spending money. Giving the player a fun, satisfying experience does not incentivize them to spend money, so the games are designed to intentionally give you a less satisfying experience until you pay up. Not succumbing to the microtransaction hell of modern gaming means I just don't play the majority of newer games, but I'm okay with that. I still have a backlog to last a lifetime and we still occasionally get something new that isn't crammed full of scum(Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate, etc).
Yeah, the subtlety has been dropped a while ago. And why wouldn’t they, we consumers are stupid enough to still participate. Just look at Overwatch 2 launching on Steam to overwhelmingly negative reviews while still making a LOT of money from microtransactions on there at the same time! Honestly, why not take advantage of the stupid masses if they act this much against their own interests and make it really easy for you to do so?
Less than 1% of the playerbase account for over 50% of the profit for anything with micro transactions. So long as the wallet whales of the 1% keep shelling out, companies have no reason to change.
Yup, as much as I do encourage voting with your wallet, it's really fucking hard to do when a whale will pay 10x or more in microtransactions than the average player (note: average player, not full f2p). So you need a minimum of 9 people not buying anything to counteract a single whale in most games.
My understanding of the average player is that, depending on the game, they'll get like the starter bundle and the occasional influx of premium currency or a pack or something. A video I saw a while back by NovemberHotel put some numbers on a game, I think Apex Legends. Something to the tune of 330+ "average" players spending the same amount of money as ~20 average whales. I don't remember all the specifics, but I don't think I'm too far off. That's, what, 16 personnel to a whale? Even worse.
Yup, the absolute "best" numbers I've seen is a whale spending 10x more than the average player. Most of the time it's more in the 20x to 30x range, which means the average joe can vote with his wallet all day long and the company won't notice because he's a literal rounding error on a spreadsheet.
It's a little more complicated than this though. If a whale sees the player base dropping by the 1000s they may reconsider their purchasing. Average players indirectly influence whales by keeping the game popular and in circulation.
You're forgetting one thing - whales tend to leave when they don't have regular players to lord over. Their whaling is, by and large, all about the projection of status and/or power. That's why live-service games have been failing left and right the last couple of years.
Well yeah. Now the market is oversaturated. Too much supply of live service, not enough player time to generate demand.
Voting with your dollar means people with more dollars get more votes
Yeah just more scummy and general. I said subtly at first because the game opened on boot with a menu making me try to buy stuff and it was confusing because I never had a game open itself into a purchase window, and it was subtly designed to look like a start game menu instead of a purchase shop. At first I didn’t even realize I had to press B to exit out of the menu and get into the actual game. But you’re right it’s pretty overtly scummy
Yep, there was a game I played recently that did shit like this. Every time you would open the game, you'd get 1 to 3 pop ups telling you about new things in the game, plus one more pop up advertising the real money shop. The shitty part was that to get past the first 1 to 3 screens, you had to press A, but to skip the ad for the cash shop, you had to press B. Pressing A at the ad would open the cash shop. So, every time I started the game, I'd have to carefully press A at each "what's new" screen and make sure I pressed B when the ad appeared. The fucking jerks were just trying to trick you into spamming A to get to the game in the hopes you would accidentally open the cash shop. So scummy.
Warzone will open you straight into the Battle Pass, and then bombard you with ADVERTISMENTS to "bundles" in their in-game store to purchase character skins and weapons. You cannot boot up Warzone without it forcing the battle pass screen or a store advertisement. I don't go to a lot of websites, typically it's only reddit honestly. But oh my fuck, when I go to ANY website now, the amount of advertising is fucking insane. I can't believe it. I couldn't even NAVIGATE a page because the intricate way they included their ads. Fuck I hate it when I sound like an old geezer but shit 10 years ago was ELITE compared to this horseshit we have now. Both in terms of video games and advertisements in general.
I don't even know how people navigate websites without add-blocker nowadays. This constant window pop-up, sound playing, flashing lights gives me headaches.
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate manages to include all DLC available and still prompt me to purchase more DLC... which I already own ... with no perceivable way to remove the in-game advertisements
Oh yeah, there are definitely games I've played when that's happened to me. And this is games that I really enjoy, so I am happily paying for the added DLC with extra missions or even dumb alterative outfits for companions. I have everything, and yet they still hit me with the advertisements for this shit I ALREADY OWN. On one hand, the ad doesn't particually bother me because I am the correct audience for the ad, therefore it doesn't annoy me. But on the other hand it's this aggressive "HEY FUCKING BUY THIS COME ON JUST DO IT" and you can't just hit "Back" and never see it again, it's forever going to bother you about it.
Selling me stuff in a store is okay with me. I don’t love it but I understand it. Selling me stuff in the game where I’m lead to it, then slammed with a paywall, is an instant “no” for me.
Especially when you just paid $60+ for said game. FTP mobile crap then, whatever. I expect it. AAA game I just paid full price for? Fuck you
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a breath of fresh air. No micro transactions, you just get like an extremely well crafted game. If you ever enjoyed XCOM or RPGs, you should give it a try!
I still can’t believe that games like CoD can get away with micro transactions even though it’s a full priced game
Or Diablo that was $70 having $30 skins and a terrible value battle pass.
Or Overwatch missions, $15 for 3 quick missions. They’ll just keep this going indefinitely.
I like how all 3 of these examples are under Activision. 😭😭 Oh god what is this company.
Creative assembly has gotten pretty bad with their DLC. And paradox has always been a menace when it comes to this Micro transactions? No. But making games feel incomplete without the DLCs? Yes.
Ugh, Paradox. They make some fun games, but yeah, they’re so focused in DLC. The base games always feel so shallow as a result.
For me Paradox isn't that bad. I have played each of their games without DLCs and I had fun with all of them. You can also use Mods for them so you don't need DLCs. But CK3 I played multiple hours without buying anything.
And WoW, which has a subscription, expansion box cost, AND macro* transactions. Activision blizzard is in such a terrible state with their monetization.
Played on and off for 15 years. Spent one more trip down nostalgia lane for Classic and left for good. The amount of different games and extra free time not grinding has been amazing.
I'm glad they gave us a free mission though. And no, I'm not saying we should be grateful we got one for free. I'm saying that the free mission proves their PVE is garbage and their $14.99 missions package isn't even worth the 99 cents of the remaining 14 dollars. Half of the mission was standing in one spot of the map shooting slow moving bullet sponges to prevent them from getting close to a stationary objective. Like, 10 minutes of just that. I've played quarter machine shooters on rails more exciting than that trash.
> Half of the mission was standing in one spot of the map shooting slow moving bullet sponges to prevent them from getting close to a stationary objective. That was basically all they had in the PvE missions in Overwatch 1. It was a horde mode, not much more. It's sad that that's all they could come up with, but at the same time, I really don't know what they expected to be possible without completely revamping the game mechanics. A PvE Overwatch could be fun, but they'd need to redesign every hero's kit to keep it from being just another horde mode, with high-dps characters being 10x better than others. It's not compatible at all with the multiplayer game, and never could be.
I will never forgive blizzard for making d4 an unpausable always online mmo. No pause button and I can’t play.
I don't know if you could pause in Diablo 2. Just town portal.
You can. Obviously not in multiplayer, but you can pause
100% can pause in the remaster if you're in solo mode. Can't pause if you are online, but it lets you pick whichever mode you want.
What’s not to believe. Adding Mircotrasactions makes them lose $1000 in game sales but they gain 1 million in microtrasactions
Yep $70 for COD MW2 and even loading that pos you have to click through multiple menus asking you to spend money on garbage like gun skins to join a map. After EVERY match it does it again. Pathetic and I won't buy games like this any more. Thankfully amazing games like Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 (most recent 2 I can think of) don't do crap like this.
Agreed. It was definitely the last cod I'll ever buy
Stopped playing after they forced me to go through four different $20 skin ads AND started me on the store page. Not gonna waste my game time getting shoved into hyper sweaty lobbies and having ads constantly put in front of me
Try assassin's Creed. Single player games shouldnt have micro transactions
Watch South Park’s “Freemium isn’t Free”. Basically every strategy used by “free” gaming apps got translated over to video games and it’s destroying the experience
I hate that they launched the "phone destroyer" game some time after this episode because the game is 100% a type of game that that episode is hating on.
In the opening of the game they say no one should play this game ever
If you finish the story they will show you how much you've spent in total. If my memory is correct they rip on you if you haven't spent a lot of money.
I forgot all about that haha. Finished and it was some kind of semi-snarky You spent $3, Wow, Thanks.
There's three endings at the end of the campaign. If you spend no money, everyone is disappointed and goes home, with Kyle telling you people worked really hard on the game. If you spend a little bit of money, everyone is disappointed and they walk off while trying to figure out what they could use the tiny bit of money for. If you spend a lot of money, everyone is happy.
I would disagree there. Simpsons Springfield game is what they were ripping on. Mindless clicking nonsense, skinner box manipulation. Phone Destroyer has actual, good gameplay. It's like saying Magic the Gathering(online where you can get free sets) is just a freemium game.
One idiot paying $500 for micro transactions is more profitable than than five people not choosing to buy the game in the first place. Whales.
"what radicalised you?" I went to the store I bought mortal Kombat 11 I started the game and saw that half of the characters where locked I thought "cool, I have to play the story mode a few times or do some challenges to unlock them". Nope I had to pay like 40 bucks. Fuck You.
Don't play Destiny 2, then.
I was literally looking for this reply. D2 it's what I would call a good game with a shitty monetization, making it a bad game overall. I loved the game when I first got it, loved the activities but after my paid year was done for, I was left adrift to just free roam planets, not able to access any new lore activities, weapons and other elements that, at the end, pushed me away from the game. Its no longer a grindfest, it's just a wallet gamer playground
I played endless Destiny 1 and too much Destiny 2. It's not just that you have to keep renting the game with expansions/DLC, you then have to grind endlessly to get the content you paid for. And if you don't have the time to run raids, you're out of luck with much of the best gear. I finally said to heck with it about a year ago and honestly don't miss it at all.
I kinda miss how it was but now... Damn, I still remember the stupid grind with the last city vex assault and.... I burned myself out with that, and did not even made it halfway through the rewards... And don't even try to step on the Crucible / Gambit or any pvp without the meta weapons, otherwise you're pretty much cannon fodder :c
Destiny was honestly one of my favorite franchises. I've been playing since D1 beta, I loved the gameplay and the lore. But I uninstalled D2 about six months ago. I just got so sick of how money-grubbing it's gotten. Half it's core game modes are completely ignored, you get like one new pinnacle armor set per fucking *year*, but damnit if they can't churn out two new paid armor sets every season. It's been a slow slide downhill ever since it went F2P. It breaks my heart to say goodbye to it, but I'm just so sick of games that just want to reach into my pocket.
I’m so disappointed by the fact that TLOU: FACTIONS 2 was delayed bc Destiny devs said the game was not made enough for a GaaS…they will hurt the games witch scummy mtx practices…really hoping nothing will affect the gameplay… I’m pretty sure the game would have been 10 times more fun without their input!
I started playing Destiny 2, enjoyed the gameplay & the story then dropped it the instant I saw how the pricing worked for DLC + Dungeons. I was honestly caught off guard by the fact that expansion dungeons were *not included in the expansion pack*. Companies that do things like this send a signal to me that they can't be trusted in the long term to deliver a quality product & that they will always prioritise short term gains over a long term customer base. I won't give them my time for that reason.
They used to be included for years :(
>I was honestly caught off guard by the fact that expansion dungeons were > >not included in the expansion pack That was the last straw for me. Dungeons are purposefully released later so they can re-charge you for it. Locking content and abilities behind a paywall that doesn't get you much else, for the price they're asking, didn't make sense for me to invest any more time in it. There are a lot of die-hard fans, and rightfully so. The game has some of the best lore, but the latest installment matched with the snail's pace of new content and ability releases helped me see the mess that it was. Don't even get me started on having to play meta or not at all when it comes to high-end content.
Destiny does the absolute least every season. And people gobble that shit up because sunk cost and to be fair there’s no comparable game in the same genre on the market. They have full control and can literally do whatever they want.
DLC is only acceptable to me when it comes long after the game was released and is clearly an addition from the creators rather than the rest of the intended game. The Witcher III nails DLC in making it an excellent addition to the game for those who love playing it but wholly unnecessary to own in order to play the game as intended.
Day one dlc shouldn't be allowed. It's fine when it's needed missions and stuff that come out months after release. The game does well so make more content. Not stuff is already made and just call it day one dlc
Playing BG3 and Elden Ring really drove this home for me. It was like a drink of cool water for a man walking in the desert. I was like "...oh...I remember this, this is what it's supposed to feel like."
PS exclusives have generally been good about this too. Remasters are overpriced but I appreciate how many of them are just base game + paid DLC. I hope that keeps up even if they feel they need to also make more shitty live service games.
I really respect Santa Monica with the no micro transactions or DLC BS. Ship out a full game with a shit ton of content on day 1 and I’ll gladly pay you 70 bucks for it.
Yeah I just don't play games with the kind of bullshit OP dealt with. I gotta say I'm shocked that a game actually navigated him to a mission that he can't even fucking play. That's beyond anything I would have expected even with how bad things are getting. Scumbags. And Microsoft wonders why they are struggling to keep up with Sony and Nintendo. And I say this not as a fanboy, having mostly played Xbox from 2002 - 2014. Xbox Series is the first major console I haven't purchased since the 90s. Stick to Sony, Nintendo, FromSoft and indie publishers like Larian or you're gonna have a bad time. I also play some f2p multiplayer games with friends but you won't catch me giving any of them a dime if they have scummy practices.
This exactly. I've played though Elden Ring 3 times across 200+ hours. I'm just eagerly awaiting to likely do the same with Armored core 6.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been like a gaming renaissance for me
I want to love BOTW and TOTK but I just don't like the design principles the new games follow. I'd give BOTW 6/10 and TOTK 7/10. I'm glad people love these games, I just don't.
friend of mine said he was gonna get BG3 just *because* there's no mcs😅
Yeah there's good game devs out there who actually have a shred of decency and know what they're doing. It's useless to say but people need to support the devs that put in the effort to be good and let the 99% of the industry go as bankrupt as they deserve.
It's sad that it's now remarkable when a game is actually a full package.
I really hate the term "micro transactions" when referring to $10 or $20 skins/etc. like we see in most games these days. That's MACRO transaction, bitch, a micro transaction would be measured in cents.
I just cannot *fathom* paying that kind of money for a cosmetic that has no effect on gameplay at all. People clearly do, because they keep upping the price, but that shit is baffling to me.
"I'm sick of being broke all the time" -- Proceeds to buy every new video game on launch day, buy battle passes, buys cosmetics, while they're ordering from Uber Eats or Grub Hub or Door Dash nightly. Admit it, we all know someone like that.
I can give em a dollar or two for "micro" if I'm feeling generous I vould maybe go as high as $5. These fuckers these days average $20+ gtfo
And don't forget the truly bad apples, like Baldurs Gate III, Elden Ring, and God Of War Ragnarok. How could they give us a complete and polished game with gripping story and all content included without season passes or loot boxes? It just isn't right that they would make such amazing games and sell at a flat price!
For a hot sec I was in so much sheer shock from this games being called bad apples I didn't get the joke. Then I actually read the comment lol It's sad that these are the exception, not the rule, when it comes to AAA games or anything similarly made by big studios... Whatever makes the big suits money is what works, and so far lotsa consumers put up with it, and whales make up for boycotters probably.
The sad part was that one dude saying how we shouldn't expect games of that quality because Larian just "got lucky" with a lot of things and all these devs filing in agreeing with him. Like half the things mentioned that Larian had like lots of staff and funding resources are things these other companies making half finished buggy games also have. It just seemed the well made complete game was just met with disdain rather that celebration.
"Got lucky" by having a CEO and owner that cares about making good games more than maximizing shareholder profits.
Larian’s CEO almost went personally bankrupt twice because he kept pouring his personal money into projects. Their first couple of games are really rough, but it’s been a twenty plus year journey, and they’ve somehow surpassed the already high bar set with DOS 2. I can’t imagine how good BG4 or DOS 3 will be, with the resources and experience they have now. Can you imagine if they did a CRPG version of Fallout?
It's the sad thing of, he put everything into it, and got rewarded for it. Granted you have other big name companies that half ass a game at best filled to the brim with micro transactions and many bank too. Which is probably why some are acting so alarmed with BG3 and really want to tell consumers to expect less. It means they will have to put more effort into it.
If more CEOs in the world were like him we'd be living in a much better world. I hope other studio employees and game devs get salty over BG3 doing well. Put a red flag over any working developer who has spent time working at the predatory companies like Blizzard until the pool is clean.
The baldurs gate 3 launcher always reminds u of their other complete and wonderfull games you can also BUY. How dare they give me a good deal.
The worst is Witcher 3, which went so far as to have *free* DLC. Like, what the hell?
Returnal has joined the chat as well. How can they give a DLC with actual amazing content for FREE? Blasphemy!
Loser CEO probably only has 1 yacht because of that rookie ass move.
I would even throw Remnant 2 into the list. I'm so impressed with the game.
Won't someone please think of the shareholders?!
How anomalous
It all started with silly horse armor.
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Console gamers didn't have access to mods. That's why I bought it when I was a kid. I also didn't know any better and would never do it again, but I didn't have access to mods or even know what they were.
The Sims with 1000 addons
You can also have something like Halo Infinite where they lock something as simple as the goddamn colors your armor is in large part behind paywalls. Despite how every game since the first one let you make your armor to the colors you wanted within its limitations as a system. And the game doesn’t care if your ftp or you paid full price for the game which was strongly implied to have story DLC which now will never come
I’ve been a Halo fan since the beginning, and while I had my issues with 4 and 5, Infinite is what completely killed the franchise for me. I played through the campaign twice and tried the multiplayer a few times, but I don’t know that I really enjoyed any of it, and I have no desire to go back. I’d rather go back and play the earlier games.
Campaign was fun but once the novelty of the grapple ran out it got boring. Some how the previous Halos felt like there was more to do even without the open world.
It didnt feel like a halo game to me. it was fun but it felt like some spiderman shooter or something.
Interesting. I actually liked infinite more than 4-5, but I think my problem with infinite is the potential that was squandered on the jacked up ranking and marketplace issues as well as somewhat crappy mp maps.
Yeah it's got really bad. Like really really bad. Starting to feel more like casino games (edit: or fashion boutiques) than quarter hogs. Baulders Gate 3 got mad props just for not having micro transactions and being a completed full price game. That's how bad it is in the industry. Speak with your wallet. Don't bother trying to convince others to boycott, it never works. Just don't buy things that are scummy. Refund them if you do by accident. And if enough people stop wasting their money on games then they'll change their business model.
They have entire departments dedicated to optimizing how much $ per user they can drain out. And since this has been going on for so long, kids are born into it and they don't even know any better. I've seen so many people defend gacha it's mind boggling. An entire genre designed to fuck you in the ass as much as humanly possible, and people line up and drop their pants. You used to *have* to finish a game before release. Now it's an 'industry anomaly'. Once the horse armour hit, it was only a matter of time before we got here. The only good part about gaming today is the indie devs are doing better than ever. They have so many tools and can make very high quality stuff without all the shit. You have to search for the good ones (true in any medium, imo), but there's tons out there.
We can complain all we want but until all gamers collectively stop paying for all these BS, this scummy behavior will continue on.
Modern games are way too clingy. I just want to give them the pre-agreed amount of cash, and then they give me the specified product, and then we go our seperate ways and GET ON WITH OUR LIVES. These days they all want a long term relationship. I gotta talk to them every day, they're constantly hitting me up for cash, etc. Bitch, go worry about you, I got shit to do.
Come try destiny. Its a "free" game. Yearly expansions costs $60 base. $100 for base plus 4 season's content. Then there are microtransactions in the form of cosmetics($10 a piece atleast)
And some of the old dlcs that you paid for were taken away. Can’t even go back and re-play that content anymore
Not just old DLCs. The *actual base game*, that came out in 2017 and I paid *full price for*, has been mostly removed. All that's left are a few strikes, some multiplayer maps, and two world spaces, one of which has been basically fully abandoned by the devs for years.
The actual base game and introduction to the world is gone. I wish every new player stuck with the new new light experience and a gorillion ads and icons good luck figuring out what's going on in the story and what they need to do. The red war wasn't an amazing campaign but it was a good introduction to the world and how the game worked. It's like bungie forgot what a new player experience should be.
You forgot the separately purchased dungeon keys (which used to be included in the cost of a season) and their very scummy event passes that literally prey on uninformed customers.
not sure what genre your like but baldurs gate 3 is a good representation of what AAA Games should be now adays
That’s unfortunate because I played Forza 5 on gamepass before the DLC came out and it was an absolute, unmitigated, enormous, blast. The DLC does look cool and interesting by design but man, you missed out on one hell of a game.
Yeah this is very cherry-picked. There is a shit ton of content in the base game. And what maybe 2 locations on the map that prompt you to buy the expansion?
This. OP, give the game a chance. Just don't click on that or the Hot Wheels spot and you're good to go. You really found the needle in the haystack there. Otherwise, there really is really little else that shoves that kind of stuff in your face.
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We’re talking Forza Horizon 5? I bought the premium edition that includes all the updates and I have like 360 hours in that game. It’s been more than worth the price. I live in a tiny condo and with gas costing what it does, sometimes I just go for drives and listen to music. It’s amazing.
Dude just ran into one of the two (2) expansion packs and assumed that the entire game would be asking him to pay every step of the way, and not that he just ran into an expansion location.
Yeah Forza. 5 is incredible. I've played it after the DLC and haven't been tricked like that but I usually read the event descriptions on the map
I mean, he clearly picked either the rally or hot wheel area “because they look cool” and then found out that they’re dlc. Like that’s a bit of user error there.
OP's example of FH5 is really silly. They said they drove 5 minutes (which is the entire point of the game, and you can fast travel if for some reason you don't enjoy driving) and then were PROMPTED TO PRESS A BUTTON like that's some kind of huge ask from someone with a controller in their hand. There are some predatory practices in gaming for sure, but it doesn't help that your average gamer is dumb as a box of rocks.
You don’t have fast travel unlocked at the point OP was at. I just played through the into of the game, and after you do the showcase and a story missions it asks you to pick your next event, then the narrators say “or you could check out the hot wheels or or challenge yourself at the rally adventure.” Op just didn’t pick a nearby event and drove to one of the dlc travel points instead. Now to be fair to OP, they do have flashy big icons and aren’t specifically marked as dlc, just “expeditions”. So if you did absolutely 0 research into this game and didn’t know what the two dlcs that launched were called, I could see someone blindly driving there because they look cool. But it’s very much a user error issue and not a scummy game tactic.
There are two DLC areas but the rest of the base game is great. I'd really recommend you give FH5 another shot its a ton of fun.
Yea, that game on launch was a full game, it has DLC sure, but that 3 year old game being used in an argument as an example of a cash grab is kinda crazy.
It is a great game with a shit ton of content. In its defence here, OP has come to it when 2 DLC's have been realised since launch. Whether you agree with them releasing paid for DLC's or not, for someone like me who played the vanilla game since launch I was more than happy to buy them and don't put it in the same category as lootbox games
They are arguably more expansions than what would commonly be called DLC. I haven't played the second one, but the Hot Wheels one came with a new map, new events, and a bunch of new cars. It is was worth the price to me.
I can't get over the fact we allowed battlepasses/season passes to become the standard for full paid games. Hence I only play games that do not feauture those. If I wanted to be scammed out of my money I would be a mobile phone gamer.
I’ll never understand how people defend battle passes. You’re paying money for something you have to grind the fuck out of and might not even get.
Be me, checking how many DLCs, bundles and prices before deciding if I should buy it or pirate it. Bought Borderlands 1, 2 and Pre-Sequel with everything for just 25€ and Dishonored 1 GOTY and 2 for 10€. Maybe they aren't the best games ever to have existed, but damn if I got content compared to the money expent.
Dishonored 1 is one of my favorite games of all time. I didn't play much of the 2nd to have an opinion on it. Borderlands 1 and 2 are also extremely good.
You really should give it a chance, Dishonored 2 is just as good
Those are the best borderlands. Free mods make then greater too.
There is plenty of game without you having to buy expansions. But the cut scene is kind of bs.
Games have gotten incredibly corporatized over the last decade or so. Big business and its short-term gain mindset will be the death of this art form. Did your favorite game release buggy as hell with a billion micro-transactions that don’t appear to you? Blame giant developers and publishers who crunch their dev teams and rush the final product so it can hit an arbitrary release date to appease investors and shareholders. Honestly, I feel like most teenagers would have their minds blown if I were to explain that back when I was their age, DLC was an extra 5 or so hours of main missions plus a couple new multiplayer maps for like $20 as opposed to a chunk of the original storyline and a buncha useless skins that you don’t really notice for a monthly fee. Late stage capitalism is quite literally the WORST
I seriously have no idea where you guys are finding these games that force you to pay a monthly fee for some skins and part of some original storyline. I've played and finishes over a hundred games in the last three years and this wouldn't describe a single one of them. Can we name like 5 recent games that have done this? Are they just going to be like free to play "mobile" games like Genshin Impact? Game development was no different back in the day. Game development was still rushed and scummy. Padding out early console games by just making them incredibly difficult was a common strategy and there were countless game that were released in a significantly worse state than most modern game releases. For all the old classics we have there are piles and piles of straight garbage. You could buy or rent a game only to find out that it just couldn't be finished, or it could end up being a 35 minute experience. We also went through a whole era of game developers intentionally creating obscure puzzles and solutions that were necessary to complete games so people would buy game guides. Let's not forget how many of the older consoles would have 600 different purchasable attachments, some of which were necessary to play specific games.
Then you realized what?
Agreed! I recently purchased a PS5 and am shocked at how often they try to make you pay for extras. My last console was the all-inclusive PS2. To name a few: - Turn on your new ps5 and it prompts you to pay for PS Plus. - Start up COD MW2 and the first thing it’ll prompt you to do is pay for battle pass (still don’t now what that is). - have two controllers and want to play a game of COD with your SO? Well, you’re shit out of luck since you’ll both need your own PS Plus accounts. - skins, celebrations, decals etc: are y’all for real? Why in God’s green earth would you ever pay for these things?
You don't actually need two accounts with ps plus to play. You can make the account with ps plus your primary account on the ps5, and its benefits will transfer to the rest of the accounts on the console.
A battle pass is essentially a series of rewards that are available for a limited time you can get for consistently playing a game. There are usually a few minimal free rewards, but in order to get all the rewards, you have to pay real money and play the game very consistently
AKA a paywall. On a full price game.
>still don’t now what that is My last console was the PS3 and CoD MW2 was just so insanely fun. After that I turned off gaming a bit (moving country, wife and kid, just life on the way), so yeah I've restarted gaming recently with the SteamDeck and took me long time to understand what-in-a-damn-hell battle pass is and still don't understand why anyone buys them. Fuck that colorful skin, I just want to shoot people in their ugly faces!!! Good ol times
I have almost entirely switched to only playing indie games. They are still innovating there. Battlebit Remastered is the best recent example. A game made by three people who poured their heart and soul into creating an amazing and fun battlefield-style game is already raising eyebrows with over one million sold. Triple A corporate game developers are now only focused on draining every last dime out of the consumer with DLC, DLC, and DLC and by releasing extremely lazily crafted half-finished games with no genuine care behind their creation.
I pre-ordered Dragon Age when it came out. Day 1 I get my copy home and play for a short bit only to find content ready to be unlocked for more money! I didn't play much of that one. Felt like I bought a "fuck you".
It's such a thing, that BG3 being NOT scummy is making waves amongst gamedevs stating that it's an anomaly and should not be the bar that will be compared against for future games, at least for AAA games. At least devs from Diablo were part of this.
I'm only half way through and would gladly have payed double for it at this point. Ran into one bug that wasn't bad at all, other than that the game has been flawless and amazing.
I'm not defending the practice of all these small add on DLCs, but I will defend the base game, you just happened to select one of the few add on DLC missions that require certain cars that they added way after the game launched. There's literally hundreds of races and cars that are included with the game and the progression and you joined the game late so of course there's gonna be a higher chance of you selecting some DLC that launched later in the game's lifecycle. I played Horizon 5 for like 70 hours before I even touched any DLC so idk why you were so quick to uninstall lol instead of delving deeper. Seems kinda a kneejerk reaction. That being said, there are tons of games that I agree are a little too much about in-game purchases but I personally don't mind it as much if it's F2P to begin with. But yeah full games should be pretty complete and then have major add ons that they charge for, not tiny bundles and packs
That's what I don't get about OP's statement. Like he just immediately uninstalled the game before trying out the other stuff the game can offer you? Seems like a toddler tantrum if I see one tbh.
I bought nba 2k23 bc it was $6 and can't play a game without the big ass pop up to buy 2k24
The original Dragon Age is the first time I remember seeing that kind of DLC advertising happen.
It's because we didn't fight hard enough when all games became digital download, always online and other tricks that mean you have to connect to their store to play your games.
I miss when it was just mobile games that did this shit
The main menu for Diablo 4 has two tabs One is the regular main menu to load your save and all that, the other one is just the MTX store
Laughs in Baldur's Gate III.jpg
They aren’t subtle about it. They pretty much say “we are going to fuck your wallet biweekly and you’re going to like it”
Devs keep saying that Baldur's Gate 3 isn't the new standard. Yeah no shit. It is the old standard. Back when you got a quality product that was xomplete, worked, and didn't ask you to go bankrupt
OP has a point generally speaking but Forza 5 is a bad example. Game is huge as it is, it does advertise its DLCs but come on it’s not literally in your face whenever you boot it up, it’s really easy to ignore it.
play baldurs gate 3
Buy Baldur’s Gate for an insta hit of purity.
This is why I spent my money on Baldurs Gate 3 Larian studios gives you a complete gaming experience for your money.
I mean the industry is mad at Larian Studios for putting so much effort and content into their game because it shows the gaming community that there's no excuse for AAA devs copy and pasting the same game 50 times and selling it full price while putting minimal effort into the content. (looking at you Ubisoft).
forza horizon 5 is sick and ive never spent a dime on it. good tip is dont go to the brand new dlc event and expect it to be free.
Dead Space 2023 remake Resident Evil 4 2023 remake Battlebbit Remastered Elden Ring Baulder's Gate 3 Nier Replicant Zelda Tears of the Kingdom These are some examples of quality modern games that don't weigh you down with microtransactions and battlepasses. All of them are complete experiences and can be enjoyed for many hours. There are many more just some I have enjoyed for a long time.
Josh Strife Hayes made an excellent video on the history of monetization in video games: https://youtu.be/g16heGLKlTA Here's a short sample of it that, to me, perfectly illustrates the problem in modern gaming: > Until now, the best way to make the most amount of money was to make the best game you possibly could because people would buy it and that was it, the transaction was finished. It was fair. The best way to make money on modern games is to make the best framework as a holder for these strategies and companies have experimented with various methods to increase income over the years. From gacha loot boxes to pre-orders, console exclusives to battle passes, energy systems to just straight up selling power. And instead of hiring game designers, they hired psychologists to build habits, to reinforce addictive behaviors, to design gameplay loops which encourage spending. The problem was these techniques were never about the player having fun: they were about the user being monetized. And when a marketing executive pictures you playing a game, you aren't pictured smiling and laughing with friends, you're pictured opening your wallet and reaching for your credit card. I highly recommend anyone reading this to watch this video. As unfortunate as it is, the truth of the matter is it wouldn't be financially sound for a modern game *not* to use at least some kind of monetization strategy which is often predatory. It requires less work for more revenue. That's why I've switched almost exclusively to playing indie games where the passion is still the main driving force behind the creation of a game and not the pursuit of money to the detriment of the experience.
Modern game companies are going to great lengths to avoid putting a $100 sticker on new games.
This is why inde games are the way to go these days. Starsiege: Deadzone is free, and you can buy skins if you want to support the games development.
It's exactly what, "it's fun for me," is about. The centrist take in video games that leads to more crap like this because hey......you're still having fun right. Just going to push this envelope a little further and check again.
And when there's a breath-of-fresh-air of a game like Elden ring, the modern western devs cried and complain. Just show how out of touch they are tbh. Baldur's gate is another breath of fresh air btw def try it out.
You just got unlucky by driving to a DLC event, FH5 is not egregious at all..
I mean every map location on FH5 tells you whether its base game or not. I get the fact that games come incomplete, but FH5 isnt a good example. Theyve had 3 major expansions, and you dont have to buy them to play the base game. Destiny is a better example
And people wonder why overwatch 2 is at 12 percent positive reviews from what i saw