90 ms·

I hate what video games have become

• walrus01 5y ago
  ... so don't play those games? There's still tons of world class story driven games that don't have loot boxes or similar mechanics. I think I paid $19 for a used copy of horizon zero dawn and enjoyed it immensely.
• wallfacer120 5y ago
  This kind of "anti-materialist" manic word salad can seem really deep, but there is absolutely nothing there. I never laughed at anyone who bought a Barbie accessory, because I understand that mocking people and calling them brainwashed for having different tastes than you is poisonous behavior that blinds you to your fellow humans. Yeah yeah, you're smarter and more iconoclastic than everyone who bought a Barbie when they were younger, you were probably too busy listening to some band was popular but not too popular and whining about society, you and every other intellectual.
• marssaxman 5y ago
  I hate the exhausting run-on sentence this article has become.
• ddaalluu2 5y ago
  Man if a blog post like this makes the 2nd page I wonder what a proper rant would do. Like I used to write them and always get banned on Steam forums, because criticism = lost revenue and we can't have that. My Steam account was banned so often that the next ban will last 2 years. And I wasn't even offensive or insulting. Meanwhile Valve did get a slight grip or maybe I have changed? Whatever the case it has lead me to not spend money on their platform and in general. If it's a b2p game I pirate like I always have. Because if you want my money you will not silence my opinion and feedback of your game. And you will not restrict resale of the games I bought. Despite court ruling that Steam has to open up and enable resale of licenses, shit all has happened. And they're not the only platform where it's not possible to do so. So good job game industry - you have lost a paying customer for good. Valve's Steam is extra predatory and anti consumer. A little story. Back in the day I was very active at the game Meridian 59, the 1st MMORPG. But not on the official side, on the reverse engineering side. Later when it got abandoned by 3do a compiled server exe leaked along with resources and configuration. We learned a lot from that, wrote tools, created new art, etc. My point is I knew a lot about the software, so I posted on Valve Steam's Meridian 59 forum with detailed knowledge about something only someone familiar with the software could know, which lead to a ban, because someone was apparently harassing the moderator there and he thought I was him. So I was unjustly banned because the moderator saw ghosts where none were and I appealed to Valve. The response was "be that as it may there's nothing we will do about it". So the case was clearly in my favor but Valve hands all power to the forum moderators. And the rule like dictators. One especially terrible Dictator is SamBC terror moderating 2k affiliated forums. If you write anything negative about a game of theirs and see all the paid white knights jumping in to defend the company sales and you call them out for what they are you will get banned. Accumulate a few bans and you will get an account ban. But to finish the story, I then contacted the moderator outside the game and the ban was lifted, not by Valve but by him. That didn't change the fact though that it counted as 1 ban point towards an account ban, which eventually lead to a 1 year ban on Steam. I'm 47 years old now and I will not be silenced or told what to write especially if what I write is not offensive. I once got a ban for disagreeing with the choice of a female protagonist in the "For Honor" game, because it's so far from historical facts that I cringed every time I tried to play the game. When something is so wrong that it upsets me I have to write about it. And the moderators there didn't like that I returned to the thread and continued to write about how historically inaccurate it was and how unrealistic this was. Nope can't have someone voicing their opinion and literally telling them what a shitshow their produced. That's bad for business and must be banned. I for one am done with buying games and you can thank your overzealous moderators for that, game industry.
• zecg 5y ago
  Around the time they changed monetization I started using the default Octane with the default everything. RL is actually an example of a great game where everything you can buy or unlock is cosmetic and you don't need any of it.
• Flankk 5y ago
  Talk about entitled. Freemium exists because of piracy. Why blame the video game industry for something caused by criminals. Developers need to eat too.
  • mattigames 5y ago
    Citation needed, a lot of the games sell pretty well without using freemium, things like Doom Eternal, Resident Evil 8, et al, plus a lot of games have fremium over already asking for full price, things like Call Of Duty Cold War.
  • serf 5y ago
    > Freemium exists because of piracy. what horse-shit, let's see the numbers. my personal take : freemium exists because the video game industry figured out to exploit the gambling bugs in the human psyche to leverage them to gain even further profit. If piracy killed gaming so badly, how are the market numbers represented from now (when piracy is rampant and distribution is easy) from then (let's say the 80s or early 90s when distribution was near impossible and DRM wasn't needed as physical copying was prohibitive enough?) Gee, a quick search shows me that the video game industry is bigger than it ever has been, and the growth hasn't ever plateau'd. In fact, if the industry was in danger from piracy destroying all revenue it'd be easy to show me the dip where freemium tactics began to help the recovery -- can you point that dip out to me? I haven't been able to find that dip. Hypothesis : the adoption of freemium tactics had nothing to do with loss-of-sales revenue and everything to do with increasing profits.
    • dud6ehrcuu 5y ago
    • Ekaros 5y ago
      Wasn't piracy pretty rampant in 80s and 90s? At least on PC and other home computers? Ofc, it was not online, but friend to friend and via some BBS...
  • peepop6 5y ago
    Completely wrong. It would exist either way because recurring revenue is better for business.
• trinovantes 5y ago
  Not a big surprise that freemium games are a lot more profitable. A single whale provides more revenue than thousands of casual paying members and a smaller target audience is a lot easier to optimize for
• nanochad 5y ago
• dado3212 5y ago
  I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often hold up Rocket League as an example of a great free-to-play game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of cosmetic items through free play. 2) The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals. For the same reason that people wear nice clothes in real life, why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a video game? Are you surprised that people don’t just wear monochrome black shirts in real life? Likewise, you can resell RL items, there’s a market for that. Are you surprised when you can’t resell a shirt you wore for a year at the same price as when you bought it? That’s not to say that games where progression is locked behind time gates where you need to buy 1000 Realm Warp Crystals or whatever just to actually play the game aren’t a toxic hell. But that doesn’t seem to be what the article is pushing against.
  • Sebguer 5y ago
    Is 1) actually still true? I haven't played recently, but I recall quite a few chests that you have to buy keys for in order to get items out of?
    • birdyrooster 5y ago
      They got rid of keys a couple years ago. Now they have blueprints instead.
    • meonmyphone 5y ago
      Instead of crates, there are now blueprints. And instead of keys, there's credit to unlock the item of the blueprint. And instead of item drops, there are blueprints. There are still lootboxes, but these can be obtained only in events or challenges.
  • meonmyphone 5y ago
    While I agree Rocket League is a good example of a free to play with cosmetics, I think it got worse with the blueprint system. Now you're limited to one item per week (from the blue lootbox). And if you get the blueprint of item you want, you can't pay only for that item, you need to buy a package of credits, that may be more than you actually need.
• spaceisballer 5y ago
  I get the sentiment that is being expressed but there are just so many games out there I don’t get the complaint. I play zero games that have loot boxes or pay 2 win functionality. I guess the AAA titles get a lot of press but I’m overwhelmed by how many good games that are out there. I think the complaint may be mostly relegated to online multiplayer games, something that in my age I care very little about. Online Co-op games on the other hand or single player games are my jam.
• onedognight 5y ago
  I hate that this site breaks the back button to keep on people on their site. That’s worse than loot boxes in my mind.
  • devoutsalsa 5y ago
    You have a chance to win a functioning back button in a loot box.
    • JKCalhoun 5y ago
      I'd buy that for a dollar.
  • notreallyserio 5y ago
    Complaining that games use dark patterns while posting on a site that uses even worse patterns. That's a paddlin'.
  • Gigachad 5y ago
    I can't imagine this ever being intentional. No one tries to leave a site and goes "Well the button didn't work, guess I'll keep browsing". It's pretty much always the result of a broken redirect / history api usage. You go back to the page which redirected causing it to redirect again.
• pmarreck 5y ago
  Yeah, I just avoid sucky games that do shit like that. You should too. Those "video games have become" apparently the ones you chose to play and not the ones you didn't choose to play...
  • Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Right, I've been playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land for the past hour. No microtransactions to speak of.
    • pmarreck 5y ago
      I have 424 Steam games and not a single one is a freemium game, funny how that works
      • Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        ^ I can’t speak for which 424 games you have in your library, but careful with the terminology—there are (sadly) lots of paid games with microtransactions and dark patterns.
        • pmarreck 5y ago
          I get that. I detect it and I consciously don't participate in it. If you understand and recognize the dark pattern, you can opt-out.
  • fifticon 5y ago
    Not always true. Minecraft started out as a great game, and parts of it still is, but Microsoft bought it up and is busy stuffing it full of crap.
    • pmarreck 5y ago
      Why do people blame Minecraft for this and not Microsoft? Microsoft has been pulling these sorts of quasi-ethical moves for decades now
• pengaru 5y ago
  There's a lot to dislike, but my gripes as a developer who occasionally dabbles in games are more along the lines of "this puzzle game prototype is interesting and may be worth polishing up and tossing on steam, but oh right, it won't even pay for itself unless I turn it into yet another gambling machine." Then I go back to writing system software.
  • JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Yeah, people blame the developers, blame the publishers, but I think the sad truth is, gamers themselves shoulder much of the blame. Somehow the public came to believe that everything should be free. Maybe it was the internet? Maybe it was sites/apps like Facebook? Regardless, when a great piece of software that happens to have a price tag fails to sell, whose fault is that? Don't blame developers/publishers for going instead to the only model that pays the bills these days.
    • greggsy 5y ago
      IMO, it’s the platforms that turn down novel ideas in preference for money making products, resulting in less visibility for the underdog. Apple’s App Store routinely promotes paid for apps over free ones. Steam does the same. Google search is obviously the worst offender.
    • Gigachad 5y ago
      Why blame anyone? Gamers get the content they want in the way they prefer to pay for it, developers and publishers get paid. The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that people prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play games. Just because it doesn’t match the Hacker News gaming utopia template doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong. This is especially true for multiplayer games where a lot of children don’t have money to buy the game but their presence on the platform adds value to the people who do have money to spend on it.
      • ddaalluu2 5y ago
        Wrong. The market has not spoken. The producers leave no alternative so it's do or die for consumers
• silisili 5y ago
  There are still a ton of solid games that aren't constantly asking for money. TLOU, Elden Ring, RDR2 to name three huge ones. I'm 50/50 on Ubisoft because their games are still great standalone, but do offer IAP that I just ignore. I'm OK with those offering freemium and such so long as it doesn't kill off the old model. I don't think it will.
  • brootstrap 5y ago
    There are countless indie games out there too worth all your time and more. If you like elden ring you need to experience the whole soulsborne series. AAA games are as trash as they've ever been.
    • jimmaswell 5y ago
      Is Elden Ring not a AAA game?
    • s-lambert 5y ago
      Elden Ring is published by Bandai Namco, which makes it an AAA game; Bandai Namco is larger than Ubisoft which is where most of the "AAA = bad" games are from.
  • supramouse 5y ago
    I'm not 50/50 on ubisoft, they sell level boosts and stat upgrades in a singleplayer games (assassins creed) it's hilarious
    • silisili 5y ago
      I've played every Far Cry and AC game. Never did I buy an upgrade or boost, or feel that one was needed to be honest.
  • trinovantes 5y ago
    The problem with Ubisoft's model is that it affects game balance. Before when there's a problem with a game, the developers will patch it for free. Now, solutions are sold as IAP. It's even worse when the problems are now intentional.
• pevey 5y ago
  I’m not a fan of loot boxes or “free to play,” but it’s hard to take this complaint about dark patterns seriously on a site with a blocking popup and back-button jankiness.
  • josephg 5y ago
    Yeah I always wonder about the click-through rates of popovers asking users to install a native app. They have to be tiny. “Like our content? Install our app so we can send you notifications and monetise you better!” - no, I’m not enjoying your content. I haven’t even read any of it yet. Your obnoxious pop up is the only content I’ve seen so far and it makes me want to pour water in your server rack. I’m not going to install your app.
• andrewclunn 5y ago
  The old ways persist. Good games are easier than ever to find and in great quantity. So what, now you want lawsuits and legislation to destroy the fremium model? I'll just be over hear playing games I want to play, unaffected by the network effect because I don't care what strangers play. I play with my friends and we play games that are old, indie, fun, run on anyone's machine, and can be played in person on a couch if we want. There's free bots for discord poker with friends. There's countless pick up and play fremium online titles to chose from. There's decades' worth of system's libraries available on emulators. What are you complaining about again?
• lofatdairy 5y ago
  Honest question: I understand the gripes about lootboxes being toxic because gambling systems are generally manipulative, but I don't know how to respond to "Just don't buy them". They don't affect gameplay, they're really just there as whale bait, but if you're invested in the game you don't necessarily have to get invested in cosmetics. The only two games I play these days both happen to be gacha games, and actually I see a lot less complaints about the toxicity of these luck-based systems in those communities. Maybe it's because they're more used to them, maybe it's because most other gacha games include pity systems, but it seems weird to me that the most vocal complaints are over systems with no bearing on gameplay when gacha games limit free access to new characters and, by extension, progress.
  • josephg 5y ago
    > They don't affect gameplay This opinion might vary by the person and the game. I was playing some free-to-play game the other day which was like you described - it had a store and some tokens, and a way to slowly gain the premium token as you played. But I found there to be something deeply gross about it which did impact my gameplay experience. I’m playing a game (rather than doing something else) because I want a curated experience of fun. Tokens like this make the relationship adversarial. In this case, the game has some mechanics which it keeps waving in your face - “quick! Click now to spend 2 whatevers to have a 4 hour boost!” And I have to actively avoid the shiny fun part because it costs real money to do. It makes the experience tiring in the same way shopping is tiring. Is the game trying to be fun or not? Pick a lane. That said, I enjoyed Dota2 for many years even though it had hat stores and loot boxes full of art. I’m not sure what the difference is - I think I just never really had to resist the pull to pull out my credit card in dota. And I payed way more as a result! I chipped in a few dollars each year for the international prize pool, and that was a blast.
    • claaams 5y ago
      The difference is that the game was competitive and the cosmetics had 0 impact on the game mechanics itself. Other games like you describe constantly remind you that you don't have enough credits to buy the thing, you're earning them just at a rate too slow to matter. You're always being nudged to think about the mtx system and it's a core aspect of the gameplay and it's exhausting. For me it makes a game feel like a second job. I'm not wealthy so I'm trying to save and make something for myself but playing these games just feels like experience the same dread and fear i have in reality.
• sidlls 5y ago
  Video games are like this because people pay for it. It didn’t start like this. Back when packaged games (i.e. shrink-wrapped cd/dvd cases) were the way games were delivered we had “online” modes that generally cost a fixed amount (including $0) to access. Then someone would experiment with something like a power up or level up for some tiny cost, or a “bundle” of them, etc. and guess what: the market overwhelmingly went for it. It made more money because it both had higher per-transaction revenue and more people converting to pay it. Then came the whales (things like Saudi princes blowing $10s or $100s of thousands on FIFA cards or whatever) and the industry never looked back. Video games are what they are for the same reason Marvel Character CGI-fest Sequel/Spinoff X blows away the box office every summer.
  • bccdee 5y ago
    Actually there's a strong power law going on with microtransactions. Most players don't spend any money at all on them; some spend a couple bucks on an item or two. The model becomes profitable because of the top 1% of spenders — "whales," in industry parlance — some of whom have deeply unhealthy relationships to the gambling mechanics and social pressures underlying microtransaction economies. So it's not exactly true that the public are voting with their wallets here. It's a profitable business model, but the majority of people do not engage with it, and consumers as a whole would be better-off if it died out.
    • cercatrova 5y ago
      They are voting with their wallets. It's just that not every vote has a value of 1; their vote is the number of dollars they spend.
      • bccdee 5y ago
        Right, so the market is being disproportionately swayed by gambling addicts and the experiences which appeal to them. This is not a healthy state of affairs.
        • 5y ago
• soared 5y ago
  1. Most art is like the example given, not just video games. For the avengers, you can watch the movies at the theatre but you need to pay another $10/mo for Disney+ to watch their tv series. Art, NFTs. Etc. 2. There are many games that aren’t loot box-esque. To say “video games have become this” is very unfair.
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• antisthenes 5y ago
  I'll be the first person to jump on the hatewagon towards pay2win and lootbox gacha games, but...hear me out. You can just NOT play those games. The amount of games available on Steam is such that you can play indie games, old classics and anything to your liking for decades, while completely avoiding the types of game the author laments about. There were plenty of just horrible, bad games back in the day too. Games that would crash all the time, had terrible gameplay, graphics, story, you name it. You just avoided the bad ones.
• arealaccount 5y ago
  Just started playing fortnite after resisting cause free to play rules. Its a really fun game, and theres no buying competitive advantage. I bought a skin to support the devs, just like I did on Among Us. As a generally “always by the cart” type of person, I think I'm starting to come around to the “pay what you want” model.
  • nstart 5y ago
    There's definitely a tasteful way to do this model. Dota 2, Fortnite, and Brawlhalla are examples of good ways to do this. To me, it comes down to two things: 1. Should not be able to purchase a competitive advantage 2. Should be able to purchase the item you want. Re the second point, if you want the rare items and that involves gambling random item opaque loot boxes, that's an abusive relationship. If it involves purchasing the item directly, or buying a box where you can see all the items inside of it, that's a respectful relationship. Purchasing the item directly is the most preferred. Games that do this entire model badly involve Hearthstone and any number of mobile games made by Supercell. Some people might balk at the idea of purchasing any further items, but personally, I don't see anything particularly wrong with allowing cosmetics to be purchased and applied as a model that enables people to have a great free experience.
    • bccdee 5y ago
      Fortnite's a good example about how your two rules aren't enough, actually. Because of the way the game's designed, it pressures its audience (of primarily children) into purchasing microtransactions, to the point where there's been widespread bulling of kids who don't pay for premium Fortnite skins [1]. For a more detailed exploration of the dark side of Fortnite's monetization model, check out "Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite" [2]. [1]: https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-default-skins-bullying-harassment https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-defa... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0
      • Falkon1313 5y ago
        Children are going through the entire evolution of a society in the course of a few short years, when they're young and don't have a lot of perspective yet. They've always been jerks to each other. Fortnite didn't start that, and it's extremely unlikely that it has had any effect on it at all. If not that, they'd bully each other about something else. When I was growing up, us kids who played Battletech and had a Nintendo were cool, and the Robotech kids with their Segas were the jerks (of course they'd say the opposite). Kids who weren't into games would pick on each other over other stuff, like having a generic notebook instead of a Trapper Keeper with a cool design. The idea that Fortnite is pressuring kids to be mean to each other is just as overblown as all the other "think of the children!" claims. From "Rock n Roll is the devil's music!" to the Satanic Panic over Dungeons and Dragons and beyond. People will always claim that something is making the kids bad, but no, that's just how kids are. Old people have just forgotten what kids are like. You can also find plenty of anecdotes of kids helping each other out in team mode, or building creative mode areas in games where they can cooperate and have fun, giving an escape and some camaraderie to other kids who don't normally have that in their lives.
• stodor89 5y ago
  Games are many things to many people. Don't play the ones that go against your personal values.
• JetAlone 5y ago
  One interesting thing I've heard when working for a company that had microtransaction mechanics is, "Non paying players create content". By engaging in the community, even if in isolation they cost the devs money to host, they create the content and also the audience for the whale's behaviour. I think a lot of us have a vision of a childlike, halcyon "purity" of experience, in the joy of gameplay itself, that we would seek and enjoy with or without other people's presence, with or without money. We want to experience that, we also as programmers (who may have learned to code because we like games) often have a deep desire to create that, to give it to others. It's like the "Beatific Vision" in the life of one who likes games. We all know there always was a need for money, and passionate creativity exists in its margin. I think the complaint here really is that this margin seems to have less room in the eyes of the complainers, because the pull for money is present in virtually every game loop now, as opposed to being outside of the box... A question I want to ask is, for newest generation of whales, is there a memory of some great, memorable exploratory rush in the big spend for them, part of a broader set of social interactions that gave them great joy and built them up in their community? Would their experience with the game due to this purchased power inspire them in any way, maybe to make some potentially positive, impactful life decisions? Or is it literally just a borderline scam at every single possible level? I dislike microtransactions of any kind strongly, but I am at least trying here to be open to the possibility that someone who did them was able to feel something similar in relationship to them somehow.
  • wincy 5y ago
    I guess I’m not quite a whale but for a brief period of time I was spending several hundred dollars a week to run contests and pay for ships and game time for an Eve: Echoes (the mobile version, although I did play the original) corporation. We had 100+ people playing, I was their fearless leader, we had a war at one point, lots of fun. I knew once I stopped all the spending a lot of people would just leave and I wanted the party to keep going for a little while longer. I bought an iPad Pro so it’d be easier for me to administer my corporation. It was during COVID and it made me feel important and felt like I had friends. I couldn’t keep it up though, and maybe 75 people evaporated to wherever they came from. We ended up with about 25 people sticking around, people idolized me and it was fun for awhile. Eventually (after a few months) I got bored and gave the reins over to a much less “fearless leader founder” person and much more “I am an accountant irl and Eve sounds neat” type person, which worked out pretty well, and the corporation thrived. I think back fondly to that and felt like it was worth it. Alternatively, maybe ten years ago I spent a similar amount of money on this mobile game that was like sim city and Pokémon and time lapse command and conquer all rolled into one. I hate that I played that and hate how they managed to get my addiction loop just right and I was spending most of my paycheck on this stupid game. I had a guild and “friends” there too but it just felt like we were a bunch of addicts justifying each other’s spending habits. We knew what the in app purchase limits were for apple and how to get around them and stuff that just seems insane to me now.
• lilgreenland 5y ago
  The indie game scene is still pretty great. Tunic just came out last week. It's super fun and basically a single dev. I wrote my own free open source browser game. https://landgreen.github.io/sidescroller/ https://landgreen.github.io/sidescroller/ "N-gon is a physics-based single player 2-d platformer shooter with hundreds of different power ups. You move with the keyboard and aim with the mouse. The core game is done, but I'm still adding new content. You can play here for free. It's open source, no ads, no tracking, no data harvesting, no crypto-mining, no DLCs, no freemium, no microtransactions, no gacha."
• exodust 5y ago
  They raise an interesting point I've wondered about, in regards to movies: > "Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?" While that example is unlikely, we may in the future see paid narrative arcs. The base movie might be free, taking you to a certain point in story where you're presented a fork in road. One path is free with low budget action, the other paid and contains more action, more sex and big budget scenes!
• augstein 5y ago
  Maybe some use case for NFTs after all. Link the stuff you can get through playing a game or buy ingame for cash to a NFT and boom, players really own that stuff and are free to sell it on the secondary market.
  • bccdee 5y ago
    You're describing Diablo 3's famously unpopular and disastrous auction house. Adding resale would just make everything worse — especially if you rope NFTs into it for no reason.
    • Ekaros 5y ago
      On other hand Valve's model doesn't seem too hated. And I got my Steam Deck out of it. I much prefer some chance to get money I invested back, even as only store credit.
• exdsq 5y ago
  Thankfully there are games like the Soulsbourne series! I found Japanese studios are the better ones nowadays for 'genuine' games based on a one-time sale. GTA V is releasing a $5.99 subscription service that basically lets you buy micro transactions at a discount.
• tyrfing 5y ago
  It's a great business model for multiplayer games. They live and die on the basis of network effects, and gating access behind a $25-60 upfront payment means most games die from gradual attrition - which is just sad to watch happen when it's an enjoyable but niche game. Subscriptions are dead, with even Blizzard struggling to make it work, and most DLC models just don't work for multiplayer. Looking at my Steam library, I only regret the $60 AAA titles I've bought and never found interesting enough to play beyond a few hours. $60 for 15 hours of gameplay, or an optional $100 after 150 (or 1500) hours? I know which I prefer.
  • ThatPlayer 5y ago
    >most DLC models just don't work for multiplayer. I vastly prefer the freemium model because of this. It's great compared to before when we had sequels, expansion packs or even map packs that was the only way to get new content. But that new content wasn't available to people who didn't buy it, so now the playerbase will be split each time new content is released.
    • midasuni 5y ago
      Back when I played games we used to make our own maps, and share them for free on various sites
  • the_jeremy 5y ago
    To expand, DLC models for multiplayer either split the community (only people who purchased the DLC can join this lobby) or they inevitably make the game pay-to-win. If I'm going to get shot by a $20 sniper rifle, I'd rather it have the same stats as the one I have access to. I will say it sucks when the cosmetic item you want is only available via lootbox, but at least for Counter-Strike Global Offensive (another Valve title) you can buy either boxes or the exact item you want. I think Valve is pretty far from the worst offender here.
    • 8note 5y ago
      The most famous one, fortnite, splits users by being able to express themselves or not. If you pay, you're a member of the community, if not, you're not
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• keithnz 5y ago
  I mostly don't really mind, there is just so many games out there these days, and so many ways to play lots and lots of games for very little money. Mostly the extras are not pay to win, but there are a number that are pay to fast forward. Some are pay to fast forward and no reasonable way to earn the thing in a game in a reasonable time, those ones are a bit evil (GT7 being the latest version of that ). Overall though, for far less $s than in the past, you can play a heck of a lot games if you don't get sucked into paying for loot boxes / upgrades / cosmetics.
• falcolas 5y ago
  I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of the “it’s fine because it’s just cosmetics, and it doesn’t affect the game” line of reasoning. Because that’s patently not true. If cosmetics didn’t affect the gaming experience, they wouldn’t be worth anything. Certainly not worth paying above and beyond the purchase price for. Cosmetics are just the easiest to monetize and normalize, to the point where players will now defend full priced games for offering cosmetic microtransactions. It’s a shame. Likely a windmill-tilting cause, but a shame nonetheless.
  • telchior 5y ago
    As someone who has worked in F2P games: you're quite wrong that cosmetics are "easy to monetize". Good god, it's HARD. Because the only way it works, at a scale that can support a studio, is if people really, really love the game. Even something that can capture attention for dozens of hours may not be good enough. As a gamer, you're looking at something like Rocket League and going "oh yeah, it's so easy! They just make a skin and it sells!" But, uh, no. It's the 0.001% elite of all games. And they only have an "easy" time selling cosmetics in the sense that they already did the much harder work of making something amazing. Kinda like it's easy for Google to make money from ads; you need the killer product first.
    • tsimionescu 5y ago
      They said "easiest to monetize and normalize", not "easy to monetize". Also, your argument seems irrelevant. Making a successful anything is hard. The fact that you may make money off of a mediocre shrink wrapped clone of a clone of a clone when you hook a few suckers selling time crystals for hundreds of dollars is not an achievement, and not something that anyone should feel entitled to. And yet, it's 99.99% of the mobile "gaming" market...
• andrewstuart 5y ago
  Another way of looking at it is that there is a vast, almost infinite quantity of quality games being created by independent studios. If you don't like one game, there's vast, vast choice. Go support the little guy by exploring the games on Steam and become happy again with what games have become. I don't think many of the independent games have microtransactions. They might have ads.
  • tsimionescu 5y ago
    Choice that's full of crap is worse than no choice at all - it completely buries any decent game in a mountain of unplayable garbage that's not even worth the free wifi to download. PC and Console are not at that level yet, but mobile gaming is impossible to access, as for any 1 decent or good game that might exist, there are literally thousands of crap ones that try to waste your time, get you addicted, and make you pay hundreds of dollars (!!!) to survive.
• peepop6 5y ago
  There are games like Elden Ring that are purely addictive and immersive through great game design. And then there are MMOs and mobile games that are purely addictive through dirty psychological and immoral tricks. Just don't play the latter. Those games (like modern WoW, HS, gacha games, etc) are garbage that will be looked at in disgust in the future.
  • auriplane 5y ago
    Rocket League is both at the same time, an absolutely brilliant core game (albeit with extreme QA problems), with manipulative and unethical business practices layered on top, both to keep people playing and to monetize those people.
    • bhedgeoser 5y ago
      I use a stocktane and still buy stuff from time to time cos I know that money for the servers has to come from somewhere.
• arrakis2021 5y ago
  Elden Ring has given us a new hope.
• tomc1985 5y ago
  > Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? Jesus Christ don't give those fucks any ideas
• meibo 5y ago
  Support real independent studios and self-publishing developers, they're the ones with the creativity and freedom to advance the medium.
  • Aissen 5y ago
    Before they were bought-out, Psyonix (Rocket League Studio) was a real independent, self-publishing studio. They created something unique that still has no equivalent.
• quxbar 5y ago
  Modern AAA games are like Opera - marvelous and the pinnacle of human creativity and talent at some moments, and at other times a freakin' slog through boring ceremony gated by overt classism.
• toastar 5y ago
  I don't engage with purchasable wearables (or super hero movies) but I do like the Captain America example buried in this post. A more practical offering like the choice to pay a tiny fee to unlock a few supplementary scenes about a character's back story while streaming something seems like an inevitability - unless I'm missing something and it's already been done?
  • dehrmann 5y ago
    What you do is show a QR code in the theater, make people scan it, and if enough people in that showing do, you get the bonus scene.
• homerhomer 5y ago
  Steam is the best thing to happen to gaming. My library is always updated. I'm able to play most of my catalog of games on Windows, Linux and here soon on Chromebooks. Since I started to use Steam I have amassed a HUGE library that I periodically have dig into and find stuff. It's really is amazing. Yep, I can't sell old games and yes there's a bunch of freemium games that are focused on addicts but who cares. Yep Rocket League you changed. I still play it but if I decide not to there's a ton of other games for my attention.
  • ddaalluu2 5y ago
    Yet you can't sell off old games and you can't speak freely about their shortcomings
  • vpilcx 5y ago
    I think the number one thing, at least for me, that keeps Steam so competitive is its refund policy. Devs, especially indie devs who make short games, hate it, but I don't know any other platform that has something like it. For those unfamiliar, you can return and refund any game that you've played less than 2 hours. Now this obviously sucks for any games that are less than 2 hours in their entireity. (Maybe they need to adjust it to less than an hour?) But for someone like who can't afford to waste money on games that they aren't going to play, this is great. I just bought a game (Phantom Doctrine) on Playstation. It was $6 which is a really good price. I'd been wanting to play it for a very long time. I was very disappointed. It's like X-Com with a spycraft theme but much worse gameplay. Played an hour and knew I'd probably never play again. I've bought four games on Steam and returned all of them. Most because they just didn't run on my computer. The fourth one, I just didn't like very much after about ten minutes. One thing that does suck, if you're not aware of it, is Early Access games that just get dropped. I can name half a dozen games off the top of my head that I spent good money for and the dev just dropped development halfway through or released a shitty buggy product. But I think as long as you wait at least a year to buy an Early Access game, you should be fine.
• iswu 5y ago
  I am a game developer. I have been part of the industry for a few years now. I am working on a product with a new company I formed. The economics are interesting. I pay, upfront, all capital required to get the product ready for viewing. Hackers and exploiters can probably destroy the experience for players because an indie studio is going to struggle to have any proactive anticheat. Lag, poor networking, and poor performance can also kill the experience fir players and result in a negative review. Delivering a game that covers the bases here well enough to not be turned into a meme or review bombed is a scarey endeavor. Who knows, maybe the market looks and decides the game just isn't cool enough? I hope for success on my project. I wont be doing any microtransactions initially because I am too focused on the other considerations.
• Semaphor 5y ago
  I’m glad there is this whole parallel universe of amazing single player (or MP-optional) games with absolutely no dark patterns, loot boxes or any of the shit people who play MP games have to put up with. I buy a game, and unless I get the DLC(s)/Expanions pack(s), that’s all I’ll ever have to pay. Civilization V: Over 2000 hours. Pathfinder: Kingmaker/Wrath of the righteous: Over 1000 hours each. Stellaris [0]: Almost 1000 hours. [0]: Some people hate the Paradox DLC style, personally I think it’s amazing. Content DLCs are accompanied by free feature patches, cosmetic/minor DLCs are well, minor. No one forces you to get all of them. And thanks to this DLC policy, Stellaris will soon turn 6 years old while still getting regular updates.
  • BigJono 5y ago
    Civ V is an interesting case, since there's another thread in here somewhere about companies charging to fix design mistakes, and Civilization was really one of the OGs when it comes to that. I wouldn't say Vanilla Civ V was bad, but it wasn't great. I probably wouldn't recommend it without the two expansions. I guess it's a moot point these days though since it's all sold together.
    • Semaphor 5y ago
      A mod from the early days of Civ V was Communitas [0], it became the Community Balance Patch and is nowadays called Vox Populi [1]. It vastly improves AI, balance and adds a ton of features. There is still regular development, with stable versions being released every 1-2 months. Without this mod I’d have long stopped playing Civ V, and the lack of such a fix/balance mod (Civ V had an official source release and SDK which is what made the mod possible) is why I can’t get into Civ VI [0]: https://civmodding.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/balance-units/ https://civmodding.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/balance-units/ [1]: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-how-to-install.528034/ https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-how-t...
      • BigJono 5y ago
        Yeah I've been playing the same mod for years now too. It's basically the 3rd expansion as far as I'm concerned haha. I just remember picking up Civ V when it came out and going back to Civ IV because it got boring after a while. I loved the main changes (more vibrant and realistic graphics style, one unit per tile combat), but the systems didn't seem that fleshed out yet and the games were a bit repetitive. I don't think the game really hit it's stride until the first expansion, so it felt a bit like having to buy the game twice just to get a good product.
• farzher 5y ago
  cosmetic cash shops is actually the best thing to happen to video games. i remember back when most multiplayer games were pay2win! now that's not a common thing anymore thanks to people paying for cosmetics
• cletus 5y ago
  In the early smartphone era I was extremely bullish on mobile gaming. I expected a creative explosion and a golden age of gaming due to the power, convenience and (inevitable) ubiqutity. But then in-app purchases happened and we got to see first hand what happens with developers have seamless integration into a payments infrastructure combined with the ability to push updates constantly and easily. This really should've been no surprise because the addiction-loop of Farmville and the like were already established. Even so, I was surprised. "Gaming" is now about "micro" (they're not that micro) transactions and a highly-A/B-tested loop optimized to get users to log on every day, do some menial task, get th eillusion of a reward and to want tomsething that is in the distance and only a few dollars away. I can't necessarily blame game developers for this. We as users are really to blame ultimately. But it means that games that are actually games where you just buy the game and play the game without spending additional money are a rarity. And that is sad.
  • chii 5y ago
    > games where you just buy the game and play the game without spending additional money are a rarity. it might look like a rarity, but it's not imho. The absolute amount of indie games that come out, even if you don't include the free ones (which would only push the numbers higher) is absurd. have a look on itch.io, let a lone steam. The quality varies, but it's acceptable. The "golden age" of gaming, back in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, don't compare to today in terms of quality and amount. It's only a rarity if you count monetary successes and the ratio of commercial successes vs the number of games. Success is always a rarity, and it's sad that exploitative games tend to be more successful - but they aren't the only ones with success. And these mobile exploitative games aren't all that different from the arcades of yester-decades. I do agree that the arcades require honed skills, where as today's mobile pay to win games cannot be won via pure skill - the key differentiating factor.
  • teddyh 5y ago
    Benjamin Richard “Yahtzee” Croshaw (of Zero Punctuation) agree with you: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/what-the-hell-happened-to-mobile-gaming-extra-punctuation/ https://www.escapistmagazine.com/what-the-hell-happened-to-m...
• temptemptemp111 5y ago
• d--b 5y ago
  Is Apple partially to blame? Did they purposefully push the loot box model by promoting games that were doing it because they took a cut on every transaction?
  • sircastor 5y ago
    I can’t speak to the historical component of this, but I suspect that this came about as a natural evolution of in-app purchases. As soon as players could spend money in game, game companies had an additional revenue stream. I doubt we can blame Apple any more than Microsoft or Sony.
  • yuzugit 5y ago
    Apple is now pushing against it. For legal and marketing reasons. The apple arcade model is the opposite of that: no online required, no IAP. I think the loot boxes model is slowly dying in flavor of subscriptions, battle pass and other mecanisms like that.
• EugeneOZ 5y ago
  The author expects too much for $20 per few years.
  • fifticon 5y ago
    No, we just prefer games not structured to suck :-)
• SuperSandro2000 5y ago
  I still don't regret buying Factorio for a whopping 1 Cent per hour.
• vparikh 5y ago
  In the end - I don't blame the developers. They are a business and in it for the profits. The game is just a byproduct. The public votes with their dollars - and judging by the popularity of these "features" - people are more than okay with it.
• otikik 5y ago
  Agree 100% with OP. I feel a visceral repulsion against any game with a buyable virtual currency. It’s such a blatant manipulation tactic. And then there’s loot boxes, which is gambling. Usually targeting teenagers or children. It’s disgusting.
• rafadc 5y ago
  IMHO the video game scene is better than ever. Maybe you don't like what 90% games have become and that is fair. But go to itch.io and you will find a wide array of different games that will for sure suit your tastes. Maybe they are not that popular.
• amatecha 5y ago
  This seems like a good time to mention this site DarkPattern.games[0] which lists mobile games that utilize such things as loot boxes, etc. and actually has quite some granularity over the different types of mechanics and how that game rates for those. For example, games which force you to wait some duration of time before being able to proceed, or force you to watch an ad, or other things like that. "A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player with a positive outcome for the game developer." The site also lists games which rank very well in this regard, and _don't_ contain such dark patterns. IMO a great place to find some games which actually show some respect for the person playing the game. :) [0] https://www.darkpattern.games/ https://www.darkpattern.games/
  • Kiro 5y ago
    I don't like how some of my favorite mechanics (grinding, guilds) are listed as dark patterns.
    • j_4 5y ago
      In another comment you've admitted to spending $10k on some games, so clearly the patterns are doing their job. These things are specifically made to create a strong addiction and wring the max possible amount of money out of people whether they can afford it or not. If you are in the former camp then you do you, but it doesn't make them not dark.
      • Kiro 5y ago
        The games I like grinding in (Factorio/Satisfactory, survival games) and with guilds (World of Warcraft) are not the same I spend money in. I feel it's unfair to use another unrelated comment of mine and make assumptions on that. The rest of the mechanics (especially the ones making me spend money) I have no problem calling dark patterns.
        • j_4 5y ago
          Then the site mostly agrees with you on that, and I do as well. These things are only dark patterns because they usually interlock with the money sinks. I'd say they still mostly cater to an addictive personality, but it's a very mild vice when the game's design doesn't follow the incentive to cash in on that.
• OtomotO 5y ago
  As a (non game) developer, I can say, thay free to play is instantly dead on arrival for me. The moment something is known to become or becomes free to play is the moment I lose all interest. The dishonesty in the system itself is what makes this unbearable for me. Developers need to eat, Managers need to eat, Marketeers need to eat... And sometimes psychologists doing evil mindtricks and supporting gambling addictions need to eat too... Or buy a lambo, or two. I don't care whether it's only cosmetic or not, I have and will never support that business model
  • chrismcb 5y ago
    I don't follow. Tapped out is free to play, and for years was one of the top money earners. I'm pretty sure the developers were eating quite well. If someone releases their game for free, it is their prerogative. Either they want to give it away for free, it they've figured out another way to monetize it.
  • Kiro 5y ago
    Good thing they have whales like me who will spend 100x of what you would have paid. They don't need you when they can milk me.
    • soultrees 5y ago
      Genuine question out of curiosity - what do you get out spending that much on a game? I’ve heard some whales spending 10-20k a week and that’s probably not even the highest. Do you get genuine enjoyment out of it or do you ever feel fleeced at all?
      • Kiro 5y ago
        It depends on what kind of loot box. For cosmetics it's pretty random. When the game itself feels stale I want a new outfit to make it feel fresh. For P2W it's a treat after I've been grinding freemium for a while. It's like opening a beer on Friday after work. I don't spend 10-20k a week but I do occasionally spend that amount on one game during its whole lifetime. However, that also means I've gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment out of it. But yes, while I'm only a 1000x (1000x compared to someone who just pays $20 upfront) there are certainly people who are 1000000x and much bigger whales than me. I can't speak for them.
• tsujp 5y ago
  I hate lootboxes that paywall actual gameplay content; however the ones the author is complaining about are PURELY COSMETIC. There isn't a faster, more powerful car that is earnable via lootbox exclusively. The only things Rocket League gives you via lootboxes (as the author also knows and states) are the livery, hats etc. None of these make your car faster, make it more nimble, or give you any advantage over another player. Also, $20 for 2,000 hours of entertainment is a pretty good deal right? Go to see a movie and that's about $20 for 1.5 - 2.5 hours entertainment. I suppose after your purchase the company running and developing Rocket League who hire real people to work on the game, who host servers to facilitate the multiplayer experience are expected to run until bankruptcy? The part about targeting lootboxes towards children (cosmetic only or not) is valid though because (cosmetic or not) that, to a child, helps develop gambling addiction or tendencies. However, for adults cosmetic-only lootboxes are fine and a perfectly reasonable strategy to ensure you can support a game in the long term for people who are entitled enough to think a one-time $20 purchase means someone has to host them a server, and employ a development team for at least 2,000 hours of gameplay.
• bambax 5y ago
  > once you stop playing a game 100% of the money you spend on it disappears, you can’t recover any of it, not 50%, not 20%, just nothing (...) Can you imagine if other art mediums were this ridiculous? Well, we're getting there. Streaming services, and all subscription offerings, are systems where you don't own anything, and you lose everything the moment you stop paying.
  • CaptArmchair 5y ago
    The difference here is that the value proposition of a streaming service is pretty clear up front. Whereas in a context of f2p games, you're given the impression that you're actually acquiring ownership over the digital assets you're buying. Clearly, that's not the case. You're not buying IP rights of those assets. You only buy a license to consume those assets.
  • kgwxd 5y ago
    When I go to the movies, 100% of the money I spend disappears. It's ridiculous.
    • ddaalluu2 5y ago
      Obviously the paying to watch a movie concept is outdated. I always wondered who pays for a streaming service when you can't watch the movies or series once your subscription expires.
    • Loughla 5y ago
      It's the same with concerts and theaters and other live venues as well. I think you might be on to something with this. "Big Art" is out to make sure I can't own anything. At all. That's why netflix made sure that you can't go to the store and buy movies anymore.
• cheerioty 5y ago
  I feel like Rocket League is like the smallest offender. What really shocked me when I discovered that like 99% of FIFA streams were about loot pack openings these days, not actually anyone playing/enjoying the game. And when they dare to do so anyway, their live viewer count drops right away. Also in this case it’s pure gambling, as you don’t know what you’ll get with any buy. Edit: People tried to fight this in court, with basically zero results: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-03-09-eas-10m-dutch-fifa-loot-box-fine-has-been-overturned https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-03-09-eas-10m-dutch-...
  • LargeWu 5y ago
    FIFA is one of the worst offenders, because it's not just cosmetic. There's a constant flood of player cards of escalating ability, and you have to either keep grinding for objectives, or drop tons of cash, just to stay competitive. I've quit playing because of it because it just stopped being fun, even as a casual player.
    • oneoff786 5y ago
      How bad can this really be without ceasing to be a realistic feeling game? Like I would imagine you’ve got just a few stats like speed, endurance, ball handling and kicking accuracy. What does the game look like with base F2P characters vs top tier characters? Are they just laughably faster on the field?
      • LargeWu 5y ago
        Yeah, speed is one of the key meta aspects, and having a boost in that area is a major advantage if the player is good at other aspects as well. At some point your players just can't keep up. A new version of the game is released end of September every year, and by Christmas it's borderline unplayable unless you keep escalating. Additionally, there are daily/weekly/monthly challenges that require you to do certain things, like score a goal with a player from the Belgian league in 10 different games. So players will score to achieve their goal and then disconnect, and just waste everybody's time. Or the objective will be "Win 10 games", and the community has decided that if you give up the first goal during one of these challenges, you're expected to just concede immediately. Otherwise the opposing player will take long pauses, perform every goal celebration and replay, anything to annoy you into quitting. It's become really toxic, all because of the rewards that are at stake.
• yourdeadneopet 5y ago
  A few years ago, Nintendo made a wonderful game called Super Mario Run. It was simple - Mario automatically runs and you tap to jump - but surprisingly deep. The timing of the jumps and the height of jump was paramount, and there was a ton of replayability in trying to get out-of-reach coins and finding shortcuts. It also captured the aesthetic of the Mario World games with modern graphics. I was VERY skeptical of a mobile Mario game, but was won over by the quality of game design and the clear level of polish. Nintendo charged $9.99 for this game. The response was absolute evisceration in the ratings. Mobile game players EXPECTED a F2P experience that would waste their time with energy charge ups, loot boxes, etc. and were upset when Nintendo didn't do that. In response, Nintendo switched to this type of experience for their next release, Fire Emblem, which performed much better. The Wikipedia article for Super Mario Run explains in detail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Run#Commercial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Run#Commercial A select quote - '[Nintendo President] Kimishima said that "we honestly prefer the Super Mario Run model", though in a June 2017 investor question-and-answer session, he said "in the future we will consider not only a single set price, but other methods that incorporate a wider variety of elements that allow as many consumers as possible to play"'
  • MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
    To quantify "performed much better": Super Mario Run: $60 million total by July 2018 Fire Emblem Heroes: $656 million by January 2020 An order of magnitude. Incentives are everything.
  • parkingrift 5y ago
    This is false and proven false by your link. Super Mario Run was freemium from the start. The app was free in the stores from day one. You could download and play the first few levels and then you were (surprisingly) asked to pay $9.99 to unlock the rest of the game. Users were annoyed by the bait and switch. Nintendo should have charged $9.99 in the store and been done with it. Instead they tried to straddle some line between freemium, paid, and demo. In addition, Nintendo added always-on DRM so that even those who fully paid for the game were dealing with silly issues that you would only expect in a freemium game. “While still using the freemium model, Nintendo eschewed requiring players to keep paying to access more levels, instead offering the game as a free demo with the first three levels unlocked and requiring a one-time payment to unlock the rest of the game.[12] Part of the reason for this pricing scheme was to make it transparent to parents who may be purchasing the game for their children so that they would not incur further costs.[42] Fearing piracy of the game, Nintendo added always-on DRM, which requires that players have a persistent Internet connection to play.”
• emsixteen 5y ago
  I'm not sure the author is aware that a paragraph can in fact contain _more_ than one sentence. First paragraph is a 135 word sentence. Two of the other paragraphs are a single meandering sentence. Questions are the only break in the exception. Come on.
• prohobo 5y ago
  This economic model for games is kind of required at this point, but the author is hitting on something true about the industry: it's not as good as it used to be. The golden age of gaming ended somewhere in 2005-ish, and now the vast majority of games are derivative and often worse than the originals in terms of gameplay. They sell because people like new content. They are also less about the art, and more about the money. That may have always been the case in some sense, but I know that studios used to be very proud of their achievements and had ambitious visions for their IP. As far as I'm concerned, the gaming "industry" is basically dead. The few exceptions are games like Dank Souls and Path of Exile, which bring something new to their respective genres. I know Dark Souls is technically a sequel, but that's the version of the game that first went mainstream, and is considered the corner-stone of the franchise. The point is, those are the kinds of games that actually matter to me, everything else is content. Rocket League is one of the "real" games, and yeah the micro-transactions are annoying but it works well for that specific game. I'm not sure how to improve the monetization to make it feel more fair to consumers, and the developers need money, so what's the alternative? Keep cranking out crappy sequels?
  • royjacobs 5y ago
    >The golden age of gaming ended somewhere in 2005-ish. This kind of statement definitely requires a source. >They are also less about the art, and more about the money. There have never been more experimental and indie games released than now.
    • xeornet 5y ago
      Not sure a source is required when he's simply providing an opinion, albeit assertively.
  • EugeneOZ 5y ago
    RDR2 was released in 2018, it's the best video game in the history of humanity, so your date of the golden age is not correct.
    • deltaonefour 5y ago
• q-big 5y ago
  > Can you imagine if other art mediums where this ridiculous? Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? Or you are reading a cooking e-book that asks you for one dollar for each desert decoration recipe you want to unlock? Don't give managers bad ideas.
  • darkwater 5y ago
    I think the idea is already there, they just miss the technical capacity for now to implement it.
• flohofwoe 5y ago
  This is just a self-inflicted bubble problem. There are now so many interesting games without any dark patterns on Steam alone that one can spend an entire lifetime playing awesome games without ever encountering a single loot box, just step a bit outside the AAA and mobile bubbles.
  • Lazare 5y ago
    Quite right. If there's a golden age of video gaming, we're living in it now. The sheer quantity of quality, innovative games out there is almost absurd.
    • chronolitus 5y ago
      I was reminded of this when I ended up on reddit's Unity development subreddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/top/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/top/) The daily amount of creativity, talent and technical ability blows my mind!
    • AlexandrB 5y ago
      I disagree. There are previously popular genres that are either in sharp decline or basically dead (RTS comes to mind). Other genres (MMOs) have been almost completely taken over by games with freemium models and there are few options available if you're not into that. Finally, games on the world's most popular computing/gaming platform in the world (cell phones) are almost all freemium/gacha. This is extremely disappointing. The indie scene is, indeed, vibrant - but there's a limit to the kinds of games that can come from a small team with a small budget. Meanwhile, extensive monetization is creeping into more and more big franchises and studios. See: the recent Gran Turismo 7 controversy.
      • Apocryphon 5y ago
        But there have been so many games created that it's possible to spend ages just going through one's Steam backlog without having to bother with modern games. I'm currently playing Fallout: New Vegas and the original F.E.A.R. Who needs modernity?
• libraryatnight 5y ago
  "here is this fun simple game called Rocket League, its about playing something like soccer but with cars, a few years ago I paid around 20 dollars for it, back then you were able to earn all the garments (hats, wheels, et al) for your cars just by playing the game, 30 minutes per day were more than enough to get all the wardrobe" Not true. It had crates that dropped and you had to buy keys to unlock them for randomized drops. At least now you know what you're buying if you choose to unlock an item. "a game I spend more than 2000 hours is now a game I hate -and don’t play, of course-." This seems ridiculous to me. The game is the same, if you love the game, why would you stop playing because of cosmetics? Just don't buy them, use the free ones they give out. Or, rid yourself of the notion you must have every cosmetic, and kick a game you love that is also a live service a few bucks now and again for something you particularly like. There's so many terrible free to play games out there with dark patterns and predatory tactics, Rocket League is hardly the enemy here.
• mrwww 5y ago
  I played apex legends for free for nearly a year before buying any silly cosmetics. Granted, now that i do i am hooked and have overall paid more than if i had paid 60 for apex to begin with, but i think its a good volontary subscription model. And since there isn't any pay to win aspect, i'm totally fine with this business model.
• vmception 5y ago
  purchase price of non-indie games have to go up like 3x then (at least), and people have to accept that…. But since gamers are uniquely price sensitive for prices that haven’t changed in 30 years, for an entertainment form that last longer than pretty much all other forms Then you have micropayments to nickel and dime gamers to reach the same result
• Lazare 5y ago
  I dunno. First, there's more non free-to-play games out there than ever before, and some are truly amazing and innovative, so I'm not sure about what "games have become". In the last couple of years my top games by hours spent have probably been... 1) Valheim, a truly lovely indie game with a traditional "buy it upfront" model. Don't regret that purchase at all, great game. 2) Final Fantasy XIV, a traditional MMO model with a mind blowing storyline, often considered to be the best story of all the FF games. Don't regret the monthly fee at all; also a great game. 3) Apex Legends, a F2P game that I've spent uh...exactly $0 dollars on in the last year. (Sometimes the F in F2P really does mean "free"!) It's worth significantly more than I've paid for it. (And the only reason I play Apex is to play with a couple of friends, one of whom is a struggling student who couldn't easily afford to buy the latest COD or whatever. The low barriers to entry to F2P games can have real benefits.) 4) Europa Universalis IV, which has a fairly traditional "buy it upfront" model along with various expansions and DLC, except like most Paradox games, it has a simply absurd number, and they're pretty pricy, which means I've spent a uh.....let's just say a lot money on EUIV. Significantly more than the other three games combined. And I have spent a somewhat ridiculous number of hours on it, and I did enjoy them, but was it worth it? Hard question. So while it's a great rant about how video games have become nothing but loot boxes, but my personal experience is that the overwhelming majority of games I play are not F2P, the only F2P game I play I've spent $0 on in the last year (and lifetime something like $20?), and the only game I feel a little exploited by has a traditional "pay upfront" business model. OP asks how you'd feel if you were asked for extra money while watching a movie, but actually, if you go to a movie theatre and the popcorn and sodas are stupidly expensive. But...you don't have to buy them?
  • ddaalluu2 5y ago
    God you're so naive. I wonder if that's intentional or genuine
  • automatic6131 5y ago
    Apex Legends is a game that I've currently got over 1000 hours in, which has been a consistent 1 to 2 hours most days since launch three years ago. I've also spent roughly $1000 dollars in it too to get the "cool" skins. But I don't mind this since I've also subsidized many free players to pay $0 and enjoy it with me and there's no gameplay advantage so I don't feel like it's cheating (and it means there aren't any gross practices) Now, World of Tanks, there's a game full of dark patterns and gross monetization.
• MaurizioPz 5y ago
  For those that want the free games, but don't like the dark patterns, I feel like I need to mention https://f-droid.org/en/categories/games/index.html https://f-droid.org/en/categories/games/index.html where you can find a lot of good games. Most are simple and with basic graphic, but for a quick time waster they are great. I've sunk a lot of time on these: - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shattered... - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.lonami.klooni/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.lonami.klooni/
  • unhammer 5y ago
    and https://nobsgames.stavros.io/ https://nobsgames.stavros.io/
• cudgy 5y ago
  > … a game I spend more than 2000 hours is now a game I hate … Ouch. Who cares about loot boxes when the opportunity cost of playing a silly game like that is equal to a years worth of their wages.
• vpilcx 5y ago
• wink 5y ago
  I think that's an overly general view and in my experience you have to decide case by case, but of course you're free to ignore anything you don't like. Take Guild Wars 2 for example, it used to be Buy To Play with an excessive ingame shop that sells not only cosmetics but also quality of life improvements, but no 'power items'. I love this model, I bought it years ago on a sale and was happy to give them money for expansions and cash shop items because it's a nice game with an MMO scope, I want it to survive. Star Wars: The Old Republic launched as a subscription game and went F2P but with certain benefits once you had subbed for a month once. Many people were upset about some of the things they locked and you only get the full experience (or the newest expansion) if you subscribe, but over the years I did spend some time in f2p and I think it's fine. I guess in general I don't have a problem with free games with a big cash shop (unless it's pay to win), but maybe that's because I either play a game for 10h and then not touch it again (so free would be... I don't see the limitations before I stop) or I'm playing it for years (then I pay hundreds in subscription fees or if it was a one-time purchase and I feel bad not giving them money after a while).
• _jerryxiao 5y ago
  You could have played supertuxkart.
• chemmail 5y ago
  Have you tried reselling clothes? Unless its some hypebeast crap, which isn't even made for wearing, goodwill might not even want it.
• jerryxiao 5y ago
  You could have played supertuxkart.
• taylorius 5y ago
  I think the idea of Marvel films asking for extra cash in realtime to watch a "secret" extra scene is something that they just haven't thought of doing yet.
• jsnell 5y ago
  > Can you imagine if other art mediums where this ridiculous? Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? Or you are reading a cooking e-book that asks you for one dollar for each desert decoration recipe you want to unlock? We don't need to imagine it, this is happening all over the place. Board game kickstarters will have tiers with upgrade components that don't change the gameplay but just upgrade the cosmetics. Movie releases on optical disks have "collector's editions", where the DVD/blueray is bundled with all kinds of useless junk. Limited edition sneakers; foil MTG cards; trade-paperback books; concert tickets with a "band T-shirt" tier. Yes, those are mostly physical goods that could in theory hold their value and eventually be resold. But in practice they aren't. They're things whose value is entirely bound in you liking that thing, and wanting a fancier version.
• low_tech_love 5y ago
  For me the problem is not so much the direct consequences of paying, but the subtle hidden differences between a game that offers things to buy and one that doesn’t. The amount of money you will pay for something will never be worth the time you’d spend to unlock it for free. Maybe you can pay $1 dollar for something that would take a couple of hours of play time to unlock. Who has a shitty job that pays $0.50 an hour? So, the whole thing loses meaning completely. Why bother? I don’t know. Free to play games are to me simply another type of infinite scroll.
• 5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
  Games, like many things lost their soul around 2007 with the release of the iPhone. The world has gone in a different direction, the worser timeline perhaps.
• onikolas7 5y ago
  There are more games than ever before, including DRM-free, host-your-own-server games. Don't like in-app purchases? Play something else.
• kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  I play Fortnite which is from the same company as Rocket League (afaik). I think their model is extremely fair. You can play for free, and you can buy outfits that don't give you any advantage in the game. At first coming with "old gamer mindset" I also thought "who would ever pay for that nonsense". But now I simply see it as supporting a creation I enjoy. I buy the "battle pass" every season (maybe 8$), and every couple of months perhaps a funny skin. Back in the day, I think a World of Warcraft subscription was 15$ per month, so I still pay far, far less than I would have paid for WoW. There are other games that annoy me, as they basically push gambling onto my kids. They will literally have a push notification telling them to try a spin on the lucky wheel.
• DaveSapien 5y ago
  At great expense to my carrier I have out and out refused to take part in creating these predatory practices. If you could hear the contempt that "some" game devs have for their customers, you might never buy a game ever again. It really is quite shocking...and the contempt exists from top to bottom, its everywhere. That isn't to say there's not a vast number of of honourable people in the industry, not at all. It's only to say that we as a whole are allowing the demons run amok. I have seen the damage that compulsive behaviour can do to our most vulnerable in society. Lives ruined, homelessness, suicide, familial dissolution, the list goes on. Children, people with mental dysfunctions, suffers of brain injuries, even people with Parkinson's disease (on l-dopa). All the people in our society that can control themselves the least are the target. And these people are precisely the target, specifically these people, the 0.001% of players that make up the majority of their revenue. Some companies find out who they are and continually and specifically court them with free t-shirts, beta access, 'free' in-game gifts, etc. In some companies its a whole department that do this kind of customer management. Developing personal relationships all to keep them hooked. Now most companies don't do this, its much more automated and in-game that this Catfishing, if I can use a term like that. At the fundamental level predatory games are not actually games they are variable ratio reinforcement schedule machines. Think Guinea pigs in a lab being rewarded for pushing a button. An ultra advanced slot machine that continually changes it's odd's depending on what the app thinks you will be vulnerable too. And it attacks. Now, if you aren't a vulnerable person you will see the obvious things like the pop-ups asking you to spend money or a timer mechanism. And you might think how stupid people must be to fall for that, but you wont see the game's dynamic balancing, because you are not the target. If you're not the target you will never progress further up the attack protocol. So it will always just look like an innocent game to most people. Its insidious and immoral. (I'm mostly talking about mobile games...mostly)
  • MMS21 5y ago
    Basically, if you see the trap you aren't the target. Wow I never thought of it that way.
  • stuu99 5y ago
• mbg721 5y ago
  Video games and board games have kind of the same dilemma--the medium has matured to the point that further sophistication isn't necessarily an improvement. A good computer game might be an indie game that looks like it could have been made 20 years ago, because the assumption that more tech equals better games doesn't hold anymore. The board-game world is lagging a little behind that; right now the big trend is "legacy games", where you play through a campaign one time and you're done. I think it's a similar idea, though--the art for the sake of art designers in both cases can do their thing, and the big money is in "Sequel II: Let's Do It All Again, Again".
• aftergibson 5y ago
  I believe the term is called “whales” for those vulnerable to predatory monetisation. The sad part being many are escaping other addictions through video games, and that escape now attempts to profit through similar tactics. It’s really disappointing.
• aftergibson 5y ago
  I’m in the same boat, I have the self control not to be affected by these tactics, I also don’t want to ban these types of monetisation but I do feel the industry needs a regulatory reality check. Gambling mechanics (loot boxes) are having a similar psychological effect to regular gambling and “self regulation” means those at risk are unprotected. Is there a way to setup gambling limits on FIFA loot boxes right now? What about children who haven’t the cognitive ability to reason about these things, are they barred like a casino? Again don’t want to block innovation and alternative monetisation opportunities, but we should do better at protecting the vulnerable.
• incomingpain 5y ago
  Video game industry was slow at this approach and there was significant push back on all these things. Pay to win vs drm vs gamergate stuff. The industry didn't care at all about any of the push back. It's actually interesting to see how much the gaming industry doesn't give 2 squats about what online chat says. The gaming industry has dealt with online chat since basically forever. I remember counterstrike 1.5 pre-steam in the early 2000s and learning all kinds of new pejoratives. Gaming industry understood that the 12 year old edgy angsty teens are going to say all kinds of idiotic stuff. I am guilty of this indictment for when I was 12. This is something a ton of other industries have not learnt yet. These other industries are looking at what is being said online and are responding like they need to take those opinions as truth. Then again that's also why Elon Musk is mocking Netflix: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503287788652871680 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503287788652871680 1 million likes and 150,000 retweets because he's not wrong.
• saturdaysaint 5y ago
  I play Fall Guys and Warzone, both of which offer cosmetic modifications that are unlockable both through gameplay and by purchasing them. IMO, the cosmetics are little more than flair that add a little bit of fun and personal expression to the experience. Along with the "Battle Pass" model, where users are rewarded for regular play during content "Seasons", these mini-economies incentivize people to play regularly (which improves multiplayer games on a lot of levels) and incentivize the developers to continually add content. People that get these cosmetics enjoy having a distinctive profile in a social experience they spend a lot of time in and subsidize gamers that enjoy robust free experiences (e.g. kids/teens who provide a lot of excellent competition). It's all a win-win-win-win in my book. I'm 41 years old and have fond memories of the old days of packaged buy-once games, but the modern battle pass/cosmetic standard seems like a much more realistic way of having a consistently updated experience with strong engagement year-round.
  • jimmyjazz14 5y ago
    yeah I kinda hated the idea of the free to play model at first but since getting more into multiplayer games I think free to play model help keep them healthy and populated so it seems like a win-win to me. I'm glad not every game uses that model though.
  • wellthisisgreat 5y ago
    Yeah the Rambo skin was worth $10 and it added to the experience. I don’t mind paying extra for it. However Warzone is a prime example of cosmetics affecting the game - remember any of the scandals (DMR-gate of Dec 2020), when the desire to sell weapon blueprints / Battle Pass pushes the designers overpower the new weapons. It’s subtle but very toxic. Or the Roze skin. Even if that one wasn’t intentional they can’t change/remove it now because people paid for it.
    • saturdaysaint 5y ago
      Yeah, there's room to quibble when it comes to Warzone, but it really doesn't add up to much in my view. The most gamebreaking advantages - The Roze skin and the broken Mac-10 blueprint - were basically accidents when it was a fairly young game (< a year old), and almost all of them were freebies included in the basic battle pass (so essentially free for anyone that plays regularly). Statistical anomolies still come around and "break" the game every once in a while, but it's really reached a point where most of the main weapons are well balanced to the point that I often think I would have been best off sticking with some of the first guns I levelled up. Most blueprints effectively just make levelling up new weapons a more pleasant experience, maybe saving you 1 - 2 hours for $20.
• omgmajk 5y ago
  I mostly hate what mobile games have become. It feels like there are pretty much zero games that you can play that doesn't have microtransactions or a wait time between stuff. Unless you go into the premium store and then most games require a controller - which I don't want to use.
  • anon23anon 5y ago
    I personally don't see the big deal in paying $5-$10 for a video game. Yes I realize for people in the third worlds that's a lot of money but if you're struggling w/ food and water spending money on games for your phone is probably just a bad idea overall.
    • omgmajk 5y ago
      The problem is that most interesting games require a controller. I would gladly pay that amount for good games.
• tejohnso 5y ago
  > Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? I don't think that's a fair comparison. It's more like offering to have him use a special limited edition outfit rather than his well known outfit. And I don't see what the big deal is. You can get the standard cost experience, or the higher fee, upsell experience. It's not uncommon, and it's not a major problem. Just pay for what you want. (And learn to want less).
• boredumb 5y ago
  Just imagine in game purchasable cosmetic items as a buy-only NFT.
• jdlyga 5y ago
  The real problem with modern games is they're too focused on making the biggest most important game possible instead of making the game fun. I think development teams and budgets have gotten too large. It's the constraints that really bring out people's creativity.
• deltaonefour 5y ago
  If you think the industry is shit right now, you haven't been gaming. Literally OP article didn't even mention Elden Ring the greatest Triple A game that's trending right now. Elden Ring is the opposite of everything OP mentioned and you can't criticize the industry without bringing up the IT game that is literally the opposite of the entire article. The golden age of the gaming industry is right now. That goes for triple A games AND indie games. The whole DLC BS is this annoying side thing among triple A studios but it has nothing to do with overall trend of the industry.
• alex_sf 5y ago
  There are definitely dark patterns, dishonestly, manipulation to drive sales in F2P games. That's not a good thing. However, most of the people criticizing this did not grow up poor. When I was a kid, there were a ton of video games I would have loved to play, but my family couldn't afford it. Nowadays, everyone can play. The difference between the haves and have-nots are cosmetics. Better than that: in most games, the best cosmetics can often be unlocked purely (and only) by skill. A poor kid may not have as many skins or whatever, but they can still unlock things.
• kgwxd 5y ago
  I've played a ridiculous amount of Rocket League. "30 minutes per day were more than enough to get all the wardrobe" is just not true. Keys and locked loot boxes were in the game years ago, it was terrible, it was taken out well before it went FTP. Now, every seasons has free stuff, a few of them are random, and random blueprint drops after matches that can be unlocked with credits, but you know exactly what you're buying. There's a "Rocket Pass" which gets you a lot more stuff including exactly enough credits to buy the next season pass with, but nothing in the Rocket Pass is random and it doesn't get you any more chances at random stuff. You can't buy the random stuff anymore, on purpose. I buy the pass every season, even though I've been wearing the same things for years, because I can afford it, and would like to see the game (more specifically, the servers) live forever.
• jimmyjazz14 5y ago
  Over the last few years I have gotten hundred of hours of enjoyment from games like League of Legends, Valorant and Halo Infinite and couldn't even tell you how to spend money on those games if I wanted to. I honestly doubt I would have ever picked up any of those games if they were not free and I'm guessing since many other would say the same thing the lobbies would be empty and the games would die. In those case the free model is great and I don't feel like there is any loss for someone not wanting to spend money on them. I think those cases are different than the mobile app style which makes no sense to me since many of the games are single player so nobody will see the skins or whatever anyway.
  • Karawebnetwork 5y ago
    "Laurey LoL statistics indicate players spend an average of $92 a year on the game."
    • XCSme 5y ago
      The thing about IAPs in games is that most money comes from whales, people spending thousands of dollars for customizations or pay-to-win items, this rises the average by a lot. It would be nice to see the distribution of payments.
      • dematz 5y ago
        This is the only thing that makes me pause before dismissing the article as ridiculous in cases where it's people choosing to spend money on cosmetics. There might be whales who are addicted to the spending or gambling somehow. Otherwise as someone noted it's just price discrimination, and in a way that lets people try and play games for free. Really I love what video games have become.
    • hfourm 5y ago
      I may spend 100-200 a year on Valorant. However, I am getting way more per hour value out of it than say, a 50 - 60$ single player game that I quit after a single play through. Or worse, the 50-60$ AAA titles that popup every few years, get a swarm of players in the first few months, then die off as the ADHD Twitch community moves to something else.
• wly_cdgr 5y ago
  Lol whatever, play other games then
• wly_cdgr 5y ago
  Cosmetics are a fine business model. I am more worried about the assholes who think it's fine to play a game for dozens or hundreds of hours without buying any. These are the entitled freeloader scumbags who ruin it for everyone else (by forcing gamedevs to use P2W instead of cosmetics to stay in business), not gamedevs
• Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
  You can play those beautiful single player games that have none of these problems, or play rocketleague for the gameplay instead of trying to play "pimp my car" while playing rocketleague. I think it's good training for life: practice with temptetion with something as cheap as a videogame and stretch your "resistence" now, so that later when your income increases even further, you will avoid spending on way more expensive things. I'm talking by experience, wasted quite some money in league of legends, but I don't play it anymore I played yesterday night couch coop rocketleague with my friends (my daughter, me, my wife and 2 friends), we have the basic cars and had a great time with that game. And yes, bought the game for super cheap long time ago
  • SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    > You can play those beautiful single player games that have none of these problems I was never a small studio lover, until all the large studios started really sucking. Tunic, Subnautica, Hollowknight, Outer Wilds are absolutely must plays. Tunic being the latest which has been the closest I’ll ever get to playing A Link To The Past for the first time again.
    • Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
      Exactly. Well, some indie games are now extremely good, way better than big studios. FTL: Faster Than Light Ori and the Blind Forest (doesn't count as indie) Ori and the Will of the Wisps Invisible Inc. Hollow Knight XCOM Dyson Sphere Program Kerbal Space Program (to be fair, this is not really for everyone) XCOM 2 Assault Android Cactus (great for coop!) Factorio Dark Souls 1 and 3 (big studio) Frostpunk Hellpoint Sundered Starsector EXAPUNKS Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (yeah, this is from a big studio) My list is really long, so I'll stop there, this is already years of gaming
    • gigaflop 5y ago
      The big studios sucking has, for better or worse, reduced the amount of time I spend on games. They don't survive if they don't do something right. Compare that to the big studios who churn out their yearly releases, and get by because they're still milking a cash cow that dominates the 'gaming' headspace for people who prefer to turn on a console and stay busy.
• XCSme 5y ago
  I think the given example is really bad, Rocket League does free-to-play in one of the best ways possibles. I never spend any money on their IAPs nor do I care about them, I still feel like I have access to more customization/items than I have the time to use. A "better" example are games that have the goal of progression (e.g. city builders, like Clash of Clans) and then simply lock that progression behind a paywall, giving you the option to either wait for hours or pay a "small" amount to skip waiting.
• mmacvicarprett 5y ago
  You are missing one big and relevant point, the goal is not to get money for every small change but that now nobody needs to pay $20 to play the game. It is done to grow the game but by drastically increasing its reach. For a competitive multiplayer game that is a very good thing.
• conjectures 5y ago
  Meanwhile (probably elsewhere on HN), someone is hating on web3. Which might enable reselling all this junk.
• jokoon 5y ago
  I think overwatch is the best fps in the world. I love the game mechanics. Meanwhile, Im realizing blizzard encourage smurfing, meaning have several accounts, to constantly win against lower skilled players in competitive, instead of playing against players of their own skills. You now see entire teams "deranking" meaning losing on purpose, to lose skill rating, so they can climb all over again. It ruins the game. Other games add barriers, like sms, or scanning for ip. Blizzard does make a lot of money that way.
  • bob1029 5y ago
    Blizzard is fully aware of this. Their matchmaker is perfectly designed to provoke this behavior with their use of hidden ratings and other rubber-banding mechanics. Why fix it if its not broken? Buying another copy of overwatch is a drop in the bucket for players who have already invested thousands of hours.
  • gigaflop 5y ago
    > best fps in the world Have you played for very long? I originally got into it several years ago, a little before Moira was announced. After a while, it felt like everything devolved into samey-ness, especially when the maps stagnated. Not long after the hamster showed up, my whole group of friends had also gotten bored of it.
    • DynamicStatic 5y ago
      I would say it is definitely a contender for the best fps. Especially if you play it in a eSports manner with a dedicated team. Not many games that can compete with what ow is doing. Very excited to see what ow2 brings.
• ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
  The fact that all consoles charge money for "online play" irks me. I mean the internet is there for a reason.
  • oneoff786 5y ago
    Online play typically involves servers to authoritatively host the game. It’s not just “the Internet”.
    • stuu99 5y ago
    • ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
      Which the games themselves provide.
      • oneoff786 5y ago
        Often no. They’ll be hosted through the online services provided by the console.
  • zzo38computer 5y ago
    You should not be required to use the official servers; you might set up your own, which could use LAN if you wanted to do, I should think. However, not all games (and other computer programs) are designed in this way.
• Mikeb85 5y ago
  Meh, if you don't like FTP and loot boxes avoid those games. There's lots of good more traditional titles out there, indie games, MMOs, and yes FTP games. Choice is better than ever.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• ED_Radish 5y ago
  > at least you can resell your barbie and resell the hat but we don’t have that privilege because Valve determined we are not worthy of it Isn't valve the only company that lets you resell cosmetics?
• fattless 5y ago
  Going to repost something I wrote up earlier on a similar topic, regarding how games are changing their designs to push players to buy things. “The worst part of this trend to me is how many games sacrifice their identity to fit the mold that is now most profitable, it feels so soulless. This is all from my own experience/memory. Every game needs live service, seasons, and a battle pass. While I appreciate that it can keep the game fresh and evolving over time, I think a lot of times its harmful. Sometimes a relatively simple game is blown out of proportion over time and id almost rather a stagnant game. Furthermore, gameplay can suffer too. In my opinion R6 siege started really strong, but has gone downhill recently, most obviously in operator design. Real power creep is sometimes an issue as well, somewhat recently I remember there were one or two operators added that felt like almost direct upgrades to base game ones. In its case, both the art style and operator design suffered from being stretched out for so long. Or RDR2, who sells most of the content through their premium currency and whose movement between the single player and online is so drastically different that fights online look like smash bros melee matches with frantic strafing and rolling. Compare this to titanfall 2’s design, which has remained stagnant (because it was killed a long time ago), but incredibly successful maintaining a large player base to this day. Cod and pubg have sacrificed their art style and aesthetic, MW went from “realistic” tactical characters to jigsaw puppets and neon, out of place outfits. It’s like power creep, but for ridiculousness, skins have to get crazier and crazier because sometimes it keeps people buying them because its funny. It fit in fortnite because it was cartoonish and ridiculous from the beginning, but through MW and CW lifespan you can see the art style gradually decay. These game aren’t really meant to be taken seriously, but it always kinda put me off. Not necessarily making an argument about my taste, but rather how the games stray more and more from their original vision, driven by micro transactions. Battlefield has thrown out their traditional classes for specialists following in r6 and other hero shooters footsteps, part of me always kinda felt like it was to sell skins for each specialist, but I might be wrong here. This isnt the biggest deal, especially not within the games industry, but frustrating to see innovation slowly be stamped back into the mold. There are many games that hold true to their visions or fill these voids especially in the indie scene but the state of AAA gaming and how it molds to the market is a little disappointing to me.”
• japhyr 5y ago
  My son is eleven, and he has been so frustrated so many times when he's found what he thought was a good game, only to discover that it's a pay-to-win game. I've learned in this thread that there are games where most or all of the IAPs are cosmetic, and don't give players significant advantages. My son already plays Rocket League. Can anyone recommend other good games where you don't have to buy your way to competitiveness?
  • nerdponx 5y ago
    > Can anyone recommend other good games where you don't have to buy your way to competitiveness? Single-player games, and a handful of MMORPGs. Minecraft and Terraria would both probably be good for an 11-year-old. CS:Go of course if you want an actual competitive game. And Dota 2, if you're OK with your son becoming an addicted degenerate.
  • Ygg2 5y ago
    Single player games. Stuff made by Larian for Coop DnD. Deep Rock Galactic for Coop mining fun.
  • scrapcode 5y ago
    MOBAs League of Legends and DOTA2 are FTP but the acquisition of a wider variety of characters in LoL is excruciatingly slow without paying. The communities also seem extremely toxic in my limited experience.
• spicybright 5y ago
  There's more great games at our finger tips than ever before imo I agree AAA big budget games suck, but there's soo many good indie titles that can be much more fun than them. You don't gotta only eat at mc donalds.
• failrate 5y ago
  There are so many new and dufferent games being created at all times, I defy you to even point in a general direction and say "this is what video games are". Coupled with that is the horrible viewpoint that the money for your game is now "wasted", which assumes that most everything we buy is kept, when in reality, most of what we buy is transient: food, energy, garments.
  • akira2501 5y ago
    I think people play games looking for an escape. So a game that attempts to bring the "transient reality" of everyday life as part of it's core mechanic is severely missing the point. Then again, Roblox has kids literally "working" for each other. So, what do I know?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • ajmurmann 5y ago
      Roblox and kids might not be the best example, given that that doesn't reflect the reality for kids they'd want to escape.
  • jerf 5y ago
    Most people who say this mean "this is what AAA video games are". Rocket League is arguably not AAA but is clearly taking its more recent changes from it. As you say, many new things are being created, and the solution for the most part is simple: Don't buy AAA. It has almost no appeal to me anymore, and even when I hear about some franchise I like or used to like, I just assume the worst if it's making the leap to AAA, and to be honest, that metric hasn't failed me in a while. I'm late to the bandwagon and just bought Slay the Spire for $10. No microtransactions, no unlocks, no AAA garbage at all. Just money for fun. That's the solution. Don't play games that are just platforms to deliver psychological manipulation to extract money from you when there are games that will deliver the same basic dopamine hits for defined amounts of money, and for goodness' sake, don't pay money for things that are just platforms to psychologically manipulate you into giving them money. And often, frankly, aren't as good at the dopamine hits anyhow since they have to wrap them around manipulation.
• allo37 5y ago
  I wonder how much of this is driven simply by the fact that games are often bought by young people. I remember when I was a kid/teenager I just didn't have much money, so if I wanted a game I either had to save for it or ask my parents. But if a game was free, then no problem, right? Just download and enjoy! And the microtransaction-based content addition is much more allowance-friendly than a monthly subscription or a large (for a kid) upfront cost.
• PaulHoule 5y ago
  My son is a fan of https://krunker.io/ https://krunker.io/ where the "trading items" aspect adds a lot of fun to the game. I am generally skeptical of "the metaverse" but Krunker shows that item trading can be fun, you just don't need a blockchain to do it.
• chaostheory 5y ago
  Millions of children in the world do not have the money to spend $20 (quoted price for a game in the blog) for one game. Loot boxes subsidize games for these children.
• oneoff786 5y ago
  > Can you imagine if other art mediums where this ridiculous? Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? I would happily have this be an option if it meant that Netflix was free. I wouldn’t spend a dime.
• ianbutler 5y ago
  Counter points: literally every indie game, Elden Ring, Tiny Tina's Wonderland, God of War, all of Nintendo (they have other issues though) and the literally hundreds of triple A games that aren't live service. I'm quite sure I'm missing a lot, but these are just top of mind. They've chosen a very narrow definition of video games to be disappointed over.
  • s_trumpet 5y ago
    Sadly, this curse is nearly inescapable if you want to play modern online multiplayer or PVP games. MOBAs, MMOs, shooters, racing games, etc. are almost all like this now.
    • ianbutler 5y ago
      I play all of those, I buy cosmetics because I have the cash and realize it’s an optional part of the game. But it’s amazing the quality of game people can play for absolutely free and never spend a dime. My friend for instance has probably gotten at least a couple hundred hours in Apex Legends now without ever spending a cent. On one hand I’m absolutely against micro transactions that give tangible gameplay impact but Im hard pressed to find issues with pure cosmetic purchases other than maybe how sometimes the marketing around them is manipulative and the Skinner box that is the loot box. I think Chivalry II has probably the ideal implementation of this. No loot boxes, just pay cash for the visual you want but it doesn’t effect game play.
• deathcalibur 5y ago
  I’m confused about the hate towards Valve since they have created the steam marketplace where you can sell and buy in-game items, to literally address one of the main points of this article. The problem is that Rocket League isn’t using this system (I guess, I don’t play it).
• henriquecm8 5y ago
  You talk about not being able to resell the cosmetics because valve doesn't allow, but many games on steam allow that, and it's up to the developer to implement the integration with steam market. It probably also gets harder to implement if the game is available in more than one storefront/platform. You can't withdraw the money from steam, you can only spend it on other games or the market, but there are some 3rd party sites that you to sell these cosmetics and withdraw the money, but thrusting them is up to you.
• theknocker 5y ago
• dfxm12 5y ago
  It's good that there's plenty of games the author probably hasn't played yet. I get pressing back against what seems like to be a growing trend of exploiting whales (although that doesn't seem to be the exact point they're trying to make), but on the other hand there are a few Castlevania games I can play on my 3DS that I missed when they first came out. I'd just as soon play one of those than worry about what's on Steam. And on the other finger, even if you only care for contemporary games, Elden Ring just came out and has a TON of content before having to buy any DLC/whatever.
• rolph 5y ago
  chiming in late here, but it looks like a substantial portion of the thread is about monetization of skins, and items. that seems to be what video games have become. I remember the days of tombraider and all the skins, and modding kits available. this was grassroots stuff to begin with. eventually the industry realized that server subscriptions were not enough, and commercialized the elements of the gameplay. ive never purchased a console, and i think Torchlight [0] is the most recent game i have in the MAME machine. the last 20 years of gaming is mostly gone in this direction and has little appeal, other than hacking around in a graciously received console from the closet, that was designated as {bookend} . i think GOG is about as good as it gets now. [0] https://gog-games.com/search/torchlight https://gog-games.com/search/torchlight
• k12sosse 5y ago
  Escape From Tarkov is a most impressive video game. It's challenging, provides a path to success, and there is no pay2win. There are varying tiers of support of the developer which only provide you with quality of life improvements, such as a larger backpack (stash) for storing items between sessions ('raids'). All of those gains are achievable in-game with no requirement to purchase anything but the base video game. It's quite an achievement, and very fun. I can say that as someone who's played video games since monitors had two colours. It's not your average video game, but it's base recipe are already being copied out to new games (The Cycle). The idea of persistence of character is quite refreshing in a die-and-respawn-without-consequence state of the FPS world. Also I just wanted to point out from the article: > We used to laugh of people buying hats for barbie and now we are bigger fools than them, at least you can resell your barbie and resell the hat but we don’t have that privilege because Valve determined we are not worthy of it, once you stop playing a game 100% of the money you spend on it disappears, you can’t recover any of it, not 50%, not 20%, just nothing, doesn’t matter if you already spend $20 bucks on it or $3000. That is more or less incorrect to state. Valve may not offer a way to redeem in-game loot back to real dollars, but you can sell in-game loot on the steam marketplace for valvebucks. It's up to the developer to implement. But for example, you can sell your PUBG skins on the marketplace. So while the money is still "gone" from your "real world wallet", it's not locked out of having "value" which restores the value back into the "steam wallet", which can be used in lieu of "real world" money in the future. I once sold an in-game item for $40 in valvebucks. Not exactly the $1,000 CS:GO knife skins, but hey, it's not nothing.
• gxqoz 5y ago
  I don't play too many games anymore, but as a player I've been able to have more than enough content in the last 15 years of gaming without literally ever encountering a lootbox. This is mainly due to my preference for Nintendo and indie games. But there's enough games out there that you can basically choose your own adventure.
• Beltiras 5y ago
  I don't play the F2P games on PC. Got one of those on my phone which is a good turd-passing helper (come to think of it, aren't all phone games F2P P2W games?). I only buy quality games that are worth the money spent. Bought Factorio in Early Access, paid money for Rogue Tower the other day. Come to think of it, maybe games have taken a turn for the worse. I'm spending less on games over time at least.
• sabujp 5y ago
  This is all due to having a device in your pocket constantly connected to the sum of all human knowledge. This device created an attention economy that forces producers/developers to create ever increasing ways of engaging your attention for as long as possible. Mobile game spend was $80 billion in 2020, PC $37 billion, and consoles $45 billion [1]. There are still games out there that don't go the loot box route, but perhaps they aren't as popular (addictive) as the free loot box ones, specifically due to the reason mentioned in the parentheses. [1] : https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/05/27/mobile-games-spending/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/05/27/mobile...
• sabujp 5y ago
  I recently got my kids playing Trackmania to help their eye hand coordination. It operates on the freemium model but the free version is adequate enough since there are enough tracks every season and enough previous seasons available to keep them engaged during daily video game time. You can also download user created tracks (or create your own!) and addons that keep things interesting. Hopefully ubisoft doesn't switch this to the loot box model, once you start adding incentives and milestones, that's when things start getting addictive.
• tehredplague 5y ago
  If it's purely cosmetic and gives no advantage (outside them style points) then I don't care. As for whether or not you "own" what you're paying for. These things that merely represent physical objects, but are in fact just pixels. Well you've gotta let that one go. Would you complain about how every time you buy a cheeseburger after you eat it your money was wasted because you no longer own a cheeseburger? I doubt it. Perhaps there's a valuable lesson to be learned here. If you think by spending money you will enhance you're experience, then you paid for the experience not the material possession. kaboom.
• danielvaughn 5y ago
  I hope this post doesn't give Netflix ideas. I could easily see an exec reading that and thinking "hey what if we charged extra for the directors cut and other scenes that weren't in the theatrical release". Would be a genius move tbh, and I would hate it.
• epgui 5y ago
  This is how I feel about "growth" as a business function. Obviously growth is desirable, but "growth engineers" and "growth" teams, in my experience, tend to create and/or operate within perverse incentive structures, and tend to focus more on gimmicks and trivialities than on core product/user value.
• decebalus1 5y ago
  Not sure I agree with such a sweeping opinion about 'what video games have become'. I've been playing video games since the early 90s and quite frankly I've never been happier with my gaming career like I've been in the past 4-5 years. And haven't been paying anything for it (aside from the price of the game). Maybe I'm playing the 'wrong' games? I also don't play any EA games out of principle.. I do agree with the underlying sentiment. But these pay for play schemes are so easy to ignore. I play CS:GO and get a lot of enjoyment out of it without paying for skins or special weapons or whatever.
• babyshake 5y ago
  > Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? I don't think it would be this exactly, but I can absolutely see this type of thing happening.
• balls187 5y ago
  Two Words: Elden Ring. 90+ hours into the game. 100% pure joy. > a game I spend more than 2000 hours is now a game I hate -and don’t play, of course-. 2000 hours is quite a lot of time to invest in a game. I imagine the longevity for the game is because the developers were updating the game, which was funded by the very things the author is complaining about.
• astrobe_ 5y ago
  FWIW, that's one reason why I turned away from commercial games and play almost only FOSS games. Yes, they don't have an income so they are at least 10 years behind on tech and generally have less good assets (textures, shaders, sound) (there are exceptions), yes, the player base is more on the 10,000s at best than on the million (an obvious problem for multiplayer games), but on the bright side their decisions are not tainted by profitability or business model considerations. For instance, to replace Rocket League, OP could try the soccer mode of SuperTuxKart.
• honkycat 5y ago
  While it is true that there are a ton of great games out there, the reality is that if you enjoy multiplayer, community matters A LOT. There was an excellent game released recently called Chivalry 2. It was an extremely fun "realistic-ish" sword fighting game with huge servers and excellent implementation. Last time I checked, nobody was playing. This is true for SO MANY interesting multiplayer games. So I feel what this person is saying. Popular multiplayer games are not to my taste these days ( I miss Quake III ). And there isn't a huge community for a lot of the games I am interested in. So it goes. Another thing is: A lot of these games are made for young people. So yes they do dumb dances and are cringe-y but you have to just get over that. I very normal and was really into zombies when I was 11, I'm sure I would be doing the Fortnite dances as well. Though I may have been contrarian and into PUBG...
• tills13 5y ago
  Video games, movies, TV, books, etc have never been better yet all people focus on are the bad examples. There have always been bad examples. Get out of the past.
• zzo38computer 5y ago
  I agree with this; there are these and other problems. However, not all computer games are designed like this. My opinion is, the game should be made to be standalone. No internet connection should be required for the game to work (unless you wish to join an official tournament that runs using the internet, perhaps). It should be independent of the time, date, etc. It should be independent of other instances of the same game on the computer. There are other problems too with some games, such as some are too easy. Some have too many cutscenes. Some take up too much disk space and/or RAM. etc. Fortunately, there are still some good ones. One case of this is some people will write a computer game for older systems (e.g. NES/Famicom) and then you can run in an emulator of your choice (or on the real hardware if you have it); the emulator may include capabilities such as controls remapping, save states, etc. But there are also games written for native code too, that can also be good. See comment 30827853 (and its replies) for some comments about dark patterns; I will write a comment there, too (later today, probably).
• Melatonic 5y ago
  The thing I found funny about cosmetics is that often the players that are REALLY good (as in very top of the game) end up stripping off all cosmetics and going as bare as possible (or just using one single basic cosmetic). When you get to the point where you already own all the good stuff and have used it for so long theres a novelty in looking vanilla. And of course you could argue a competitive advantage in that people may think you are a much, much worse player than you really are.
  • 0des 5y ago
    This is also why some models dress and look the way they do. Looking at you, balenciaga.
• powerapple 5y ago
  when you grow old, you start to hate every new change :)
• pmontra 5y ago
  On the other side, I'd pay an extra to buy a fully unlocked Gran Turismo because I don't want to spend time to get driving license again for the nth time, money for the nth time, tracks, cars, etc. It's a total waste of time. Let me drive and that's it. So I didn't buy any of the most recent versions of the franchise. A loss for sellers, I can play with what I already have.
• screye 5y ago
  I don't agree. The industry has begun splintering in the same manner as Hollywood. Disney releases popcorn-entertainment and makes money off merchandise. Indie studios are creating quality movies of a tier that we never used to see before. Lastly, have some quirky bigwigs (wes anderson, Edgar Wright) who reliably create highly-stylized memorable if familiar works. Epic, EA and Ubisoft are the Disney equivalents. Nintendo, CDPR, Naughty Dog, Kojima, From Software are your quirky stylized studios. Then you have indie studios making games like Hades, CupHead and Hollow Knight that provide excellent & complete experiences at the fraction of the investment. You get to pick which one you want. Microtransactions are mostly restricted to the big studios. Restricting core gameplay aspects via microtransactions or Pay-2-win setups are pretty scummy. But, MMORPGS had those problems in the late 90s. So, it isn't new by any means. In cases where smaller games have microtransactions, they tend to be limited and exclusively cosmetic. The fact that I have played hundreds of hours of Rocket league and Dota without spending a single dollar, is a testament to how secondary the cosmetics are to the core gameplay loop. I actually wonder if systems built to exploit whales are unethical. In some sense, the poor get to enjoy polished games because the rich are willing to pay an exponentially greater sum to look pretty in game. I don't think that's entirely bad. Now, I do dislike 'loot boxes' with a passion. They play with our 'monkey brain', forcing us to buy more before our consciousness is able to intervene. Younger kids are even more susceptible and it serves as a gateway into gambling addictions. This part of dota and rocket league is reprehensible.
  • smordistan 5y ago
    Nintendo is most certainly Disney, not quirky. The Zelda series might be an exception but the rest of Nintendo's IP is very Disney-eqsue.
  • blaser-waffle 5y ago
    Nintendo is definitely Disney or Warner Bros. They've been around forever, have lots of family friendly IP, and occasionally break out the lawyers and smack the hell out of groups that aren't even vaguely infringing on their IP. They say "be afraid of the mouse" but also be afraid of Mario. Penguinz0 has a whole series on youtube as to why they're a terrible company. You also left out Activision/Blizzard, which is not yet M$ property, and is arguably a Disney, far more than Epic.
• cwkoss 5y ago
  This is happening to all IP industries and leaking into other ones. You no longer buy a song, movie, ebook, or game and truly own it. You get a non-transferrable license that only last as long as you don't do anything to anger the fickle platform overlords. You can't lend IP you've purchased to a friend. You can't resell your content to others. Even consumer electronics are becoming increasingly worthless, as they require perpetual internet connection so they can rent seek via subscriptions and ads for a device you already paid for. The idea of ownership is being destroyed, and consumers' ambivalence to this is extremely disappointing to me. It should be illegal to have "buy" button when the purchaser doesn't really own anything.
  • ghostDancer 5y ago
    The new generations are being taught to not have anything but to have access to it, songs, games, movies, ... . They don't know anything else and the ubiquity of access to everything makes them think it will always be there. I see it with my son and friends. And when I try to explain them they look at me like an old man shouting at the clouds (it's almost literal). When I try to explain my son that is better to buy buy, even if it's more expensive, the physical copy of a game instead of the digital copy he understands it but can't see the problem, I guess till he lose something won't realize.
    • rchaud 5y ago
      I think most people snap out of it though. The turning point is when they go on Netflix/Prime and type in a TV show, and see the autocomplete, only to be shown a screen saying they don't actually have that show.
• graynk 5y ago
  Multiplayer games are a very small subset of video games "video games" have not "become" anything, they're basically the same, unless you choose to play exclusively AAA blockbusters and online free2play.
• einpoklum 5y ago
  IMHO, purely-online or mostly-online games which are not community-run FOSS are fundamentally suspect :-( I'm not saying they are all problematic, but my basic tendency would be to steer away from those. Also - old-school games, people... by now, there are over 40 years of games if you count old-time stand-alone consoles (Galaxian anyone?) that's probably more than you could play in a lifetime of gaming. Ok, maybe not, but more than you could play in a lifetime of gaming in your spare time if you are actually holding down a job :-P And the best thing is that those games either don't have a way to scam you, and the ones which do (say online games with vanity item monetization) from 10 years ago probably don't work anyway these days.
• phatbyte 5y ago
  "...you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes?..." For the love of whatever-god-or-not-you-believe, don't give them ideas
• remmargorp64 5y ago
  The cosmetics in Rocket League are entirely optional. The game is great and amazing to play even if you completely ignore all of the cosmetics. The fact that the author is citing the freemium model of Rocket League as their reason for not playing it anymore make me lose all respect for their article.
• neoyagami 5y ago
  Any kind of phone/freemium monetization tactic (out of cosmetics ofc) must be barred imho. this just give tools to corporations to pry on their consummers. And the whole lootbox thingy is... to be honest embarassing, look what they did to Gran Turismo :\
• peter-m80 5y ago
  I play a lot of videogames and never opened loot boxes or bought skins.
• andreisbc 5y ago
  Bought myself a Nintendo Switch Oled just to play Hades. Probably the best game i've played in years
• m1gu3l 5y ago
  Drivel. Don’t like it don’t play it. If i have to read one more person complaining about micro-transactions I will puke. Ffs go outside.