5 ms·

I could not name a single microtransactions game that offers a similarly deep or atmospheric or satisfying experience as, say, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher 3

I could not name a single microtransactions game that offers a similarly deep or atmospheric or satisfying experience as, say, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy X or a round of multiplayer Mario Kart. Can you..? Virtually all free to play and free online games I know are exploiting human psychological vulnerabilities in some way or another to keep you playing. Those games leave me completely unsatisfied.

watwut 7y ago
Wither 3 would require me to take holidays or ignore familly duties for weeks. Aaand it is not the kind of game I ever liked anyway (even if I had that time). I understand that other people like it, but these games are not for me. It is very similar with other games you mentioned. Not for me at all (maybe Mario kart would be exception for occasional play).
- thirdsun 7y ago
  > Wither 3 would require me to take holidays or ignore familly duties for weeks. This argument comes up often, but I as soemone who also has limited time I can't understand it. Nobody forces you to finish huge games like The Witcher 3 in weeks, months or even years. It just means that the price of such a game buys you a lot and long-lasting entertainment (assuming you like the content). Just take your time, use the free evening that may come up every few weeks and enjoy the game much longer than most people. Admittedly, 10 minute play sessions won't work in this case, but if you never have more time than that available, I'd say there are other things to consider, but it's not my place to judge.
  - watwut 7y ago
    It is not fun in one evening per few weeks. You won't remember beginning by the time you proceed into like 10% of the game. I really doubt there is anyone who could enjoy the game like that. Three years later when you reached ending, you likely don't care about story anymore. Sounds like chore when played that way - something you do out of duty not out of enjoyment. Plus as I said, I would not liked that game even if I had time. Second, it is time where you can't be interrupted, so you can't do it while kids don't sleep yet (or you basically expect partner to handle it for you). It is huge chunk of regular time when you also ignore partner and are not learning something for the job are not exercising etc. That is not available three times per week in two hours long minimum chunks. There are more then one reason why this is not for me and hated mobile games with microtransactions are something I actually enjoy. There is nothing wrong with that. There is no reason to force myself into playing games that are just annoying to me.
crypticlizard 7y ago
shattered pixel dungeon is one such example imo.
- DanielleMolloy 7y ago
  But Shattered Pixel Dungeons has no microtransactions, it is a roguelike. Btw, this genre makes use of the same psychological vulnerabilities to random rewards, they just use them to make a real (admittedly often well-designed) game and not for exploiting my bank account.
dragontamer 7y ago
> I could not name a single microtransactions game Ms. Pacman, Arcade Tetris, Street Fighter II Turbo. The "microtransactions" games of the 80s and 90s were the ORIGINAL video games, the arcade scene. I miss the atmosphere and the ability to physically meet friends, but ultimately, they were microtransaction games nonetheless. I've sunk more time into honing my skills in Ms. Pacman than most modern RPGs. Multiplayer Competitive Tetris is probably my #2 game (through the game Puyo Puyo Tetris). Arcade-style 3-minute games are far easier to get into, AND easy to stop playing (!!). They are games that respect my time, yet provide a deep, and rewarding skill curve. ----- TMNT Arcade, X-men arcade, Final Fight, Simpsons, Time Crisis, Missle Command, Millipede, etc. etc. There were a bunch of other arcade games that took up a lot of my time and are also excellent. I'll give Ms. Pacman the title for probably most influential arcade game though. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with the microtransactions model per se. There's a LOT of bad microtransaction games out there, but that's because they're skinner-boxes optimized for addictive gameplay. The older arcade games were tests of skill, and more than just a skinner box / slot machine loot box crate. You're not spending money at the arcade for the chance of a rare card or rare drop. If someone made an arcade-game skinner box, it'd be quickly forgotten (Ms. Pacman arcades would have been sitting next to it, and no one would seriously play a skinner-box game if Ms. Pacman were so close).
- DanielleMolloy 7y ago
  All of these may have classics status but are actually very shallow experiences too. As you say they were rewarding skilled players and were not simply offering lottery tickets with dopamine-engineered random patterns to children, but they are still not comparable at all to the ones mentioned. Arcade games were also often notoriously hard and required a lot of invested money to reach the leaderboard. The fact that less dark and more social, but similar money making schemes existed in the 80s in the form of arcades doesn't make them better. Of course these shallow experiences are reproduced on mobile nowadays. Match-3 games were a staple of all gaming generations and even reached some depth (Puzzle Quest) before they completely moved to mobile in the form of exploitative skinnerware.
  - watwut 7y ago
rifung 7y ago
> I could not name a single microtransactions game that offers a similarly deep or atmospheric or satisfying experience as, say, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy X or a round of multiplayer Mario Kart. Can you..? I'm not sure what you consider a "microtransaction game" but LoL and dota 2 are both completely free and have huge hardcore followings. I believe CS: GO is also free to play now. They're significantly more involved than Mario Kart at the very least.
- DanielleMolloy 7y ago
  LoL has the esports aspect and Riot is careful about pay-to-win therefore, and keeps it interesting for competitions. It is indeed probably one of the least exploitative companies in that field. Its competition aspect is extremely addictive and easy to fall for though, and may ultimately leave you unsatisfied from thousands of repetitive gaming hours if you don't become engaged in real life esports / hobbyist communities in parallel. Not sure whether it is engineered to hook players so much though (Fortnite probably is). With "Mario Kart multiplayer" I mean the experience of 4-player couch multiplayer, not online multiplayer.
baud147258 7y ago
I'd say Warframe made a good attempt on the satisfying experience at least.

watwut 7y ago

Wither 3 would require me to take holidays or ignore familly duties for weeks. Aaand it is not the kind of game I ever liked anyway (even if I had that time). I understand that other people like it, but these games are not for me. It is very similar with other games you mentioned. Not for me at all (maybe Mario kart would be exception for occasional play).

thirdsun 7y ago
> Wither 3 would require me to take holidays or ignore familly duties for weeks. This argument comes up often, but I as soemone who also has limited time I can't understand it. Nobody forces you to finish huge games like The Witcher 3 in weeks, months or even years. It just means that the price of such a game buys you a lot and long-lasting entertainment (assuming you like the content). Just take your time, use the free evening that may come up every few weeks and enjoy the game much longer than most people. Admittedly, 10 minute play sessions won't work in this case, but if you never have more time than that available, I'd say there are other things to consider, but it's not my place to judge.
- watwut 7y ago
  It is not fun in one evening per few weeks. You won't remember beginning by the time you proceed into like 10% of the game. I really doubt there is anyone who could enjoy the game like that. Three years later when you reached ending, you likely don't care about story anymore. Sounds like chore when played that way - something you do out of duty not out of enjoyment. Plus as I said, I would not liked that game even if I had time. Second, it is time where you can't be interrupted, so you can't do it while kids don't sleep yet (or you basically expect partner to handle it for you). It is huge chunk of regular time when you also ignore partner and are not learning something for the job are not exercising etc. That is not available three times per week in two hours long minimum chunks. There are more then one reason why this is not for me and hated mobile games with microtransactions are something I actually enjoy. There is nothing wrong with that. There is no reason to force myself into playing games that are just annoying to me.

crypticlizard 7y ago

shattered pixel dungeon is one such example imo.

DanielleMolloy 7y ago
But Shattered Pixel Dungeons has no microtransactions, it is a roguelike. Btw, this genre makes use of the same psychological vulnerabilities to random rewards, they just use them to make a real (admittedly often well-designed) game and not for exploiting my bank account.

dragontamer 7y ago

> I could not name a single microtransactions game Ms. Pacman, Arcade Tetris, Street Fighter II Turbo. The "microtransactions" games of the 80s and 90s were the ORIGINAL video games, the arcade scene. I miss the atmosphere and the ability to physically meet friends, but ultimately, they were microtransaction games nonetheless. I've sunk more time into honing my skills in Ms. Pacman than most modern RPGs. Multiplayer Competitive Tetris is probably my #2 game (through the game Puyo Puyo Tetris). Arcade-style 3-minute games are far easier to get into, AND easy to stop playing (!!). They are games that respect my time, yet provide a deep, and rewarding skill curve. ----- TMNT Arcade, X-men arcade, Final Fight, Simpsons, Time Crisis, Missle Command, Millipede, etc. etc. There were a bunch of other arcade games that took up a lot of my time and are also excellent. I'll give Ms. Pacman the title for probably most influential arcade game though. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with the microtransactions model per se. There's a LOT of bad microtransaction games out there, but that's because they're skinner-boxes optimized for addictive gameplay. The older arcade games were tests of skill, and more than just a skinner box / slot machine loot box crate. You're not spending money at the arcade for the chance of a rare card or rare drop. If someone made an arcade-game skinner box, it'd be quickly forgotten (Ms. Pacman arcades would have been sitting next to it, and no one would seriously play a skinner-box game if Ms. Pacman were so close).

DanielleMolloy 7y ago
All of these may have classics status but are actually very shallow experiences too. As you say they were rewarding skilled players and were not simply offering lottery tickets with dopamine-engineered random patterns to children, but they are still not comparable at all to the ones mentioned. Arcade games were also often notoriously hard and required a lot of invested money to reach the leaderboard. The fact that less dark and more social, but similar money making schemes existed in the 80s in the form of arcades doesn't make them better. Of course these shallow experiences are reproduced on mobile nowadays. Match-3 games were a staple of all gaming generations and even reached some depth (Puzzle Quest) before they completely moved to mobile in the form of exploitative skinnerware.
- watwut 7y ago

rifung 7y ago

> I could not name a single microtransactions game that offers a similarly deep or atmospheric or satisfying experience as, say, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy X or a round of multiplayer Mario Kart. Can you..? I'm not sure what you consider a "microtransaction game" but LoL and dota 2 are both completely free and have huge hardcore followings. I believe CS: GO is also free to play now. They're significantly more involved than Mario Kart at the very least.

DanielleMolloy 7y ago
LoL has the esports aspect and Riot is careful about pay-to-win therefore, and keeps it interesting for competitions. It is indeed probably one of the least exploitative companies in that field. Its competition aspect is extremely addictive and easy to fall for though, and may ultimately leave you unsatisfied from thousands of repetitive gaming hours if you don't become engaged in real life esports / hobbyist communities in parallel. Not sure whether it is engineered to hook players so much though (Fortnite probably is). With "Mario Kart multiplayer" I mean the experience of 4-player couch multiplayer, not online multiplayer.

baud147258 7y ago

I'd say Warframe made a good attempt on the satisfying experience at least.