I've never been so completely dissatisfied in my 20 years of gaming as I am now. Every damn game is now free-to-play, except its never really "free" to play any of these games. You're free to grind for hour upon hours upon hours on end to unlock one item/gun/character. You're free to get bombarded with psychological warfare by the publishers reminding you every second of game play that you're not play at all efficiently and that if you spent money you'd get a mount or faster exp gain. Its more of a "free-to-try".
Free-to-play games seemed like a novel concept to me when they first came out. My first experience with them was in 2009 with League of Legends. I played for two years until Spring 2011 I realized that I had spent over $150 on that game. Originally Riot stated that champions would be priced according to their difficulty, or skill level involved in playing them effectively. I remember when Poppy was released at 1350, but Ezreal, since his abilities were 100% skill shot based, was 6300 IP.
League was the first FTP game I played, and was the first one to turn me off to the idea. I stopped playing shortly after Yorick was released. Upon launch Yorick was an underpowered 6300 IP / 975 RP champion. There were dozens of threads made daily on the LoL forums with the general consensus of "Yorick is bad. Don't by waste your money." Two weeks later on the very next patch Riot gave Yorick what was probably the biggest buff they had given any champion up to that point. Yorick went from trash to #1 pick on Elementz Teir List overnight. Yorick had a good two week run at being overpowered until he was nerfed to a WORSE state than what he originally was at launch.
It doesn't taken a genius to figure out that Riot was quick to give a massive buff to their shiny new champion because no one was buying him. It was this event that made me lose faith in LoL an FTP in general because the game company would rather sell you a new item than fix what they currently have.
Now my experience with LoL aside, I'm still absolutely disgusted with free-to-play games. Developers have realized that they don't need a bunch of people spending $60 for the game at launch (although if they think they can get away with charging for it they will) they just need a few people to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on their game. Every little thing in what seems every possible game is now monetized.
Change the color of your weapon in Gears of War 3? $5.00. Want one more character slot in Guild Wars 2? $10. Want to participate in the beta period for Galactic Civilizations 3 which GREATLY helps out developers fix bugs and iron out glitches in their own game so its smooth at launch? Oh that's, no longer free, that'll be $100.
Evidently, in the eyes of the game companies, the gamer is just a money cow waiting to be milked. The Planetside 2 developers are getting ready to celebrate its two year anniversary. What better way to reward its die hard playerbase that stuck it out through two server merges, crappy optimization, numerous bugs and glitches than to sell them a $40 anniversary bundle? "Oh, I don't want that" the player might say. "Perhaps just a thank you?" You don't even get that, the developers instead give you a sales pitch and end it with "Prepare your wallets accordingly." https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/october-anniversary-bundle.204432/
"Perhaps you just haven't found the right one" you might say. Well, I looked at Mechwarrior online, saw multiple golden mechs for $500 and went the other way. I watched some gameplay videos of Tribes Ascend, but saw its ridiculous pricing scheme. Free-to-play games only remind you that they are free until you download them, then they bombard you with things you could be spending real money on. Not only are they pressuring you from the get go to spend an infinite amount of money, but they keep trying to get you to commit to paying them forever through a subscription!
Subscriptions in games made send in the late 90's and early 2000's when server costs were so expensive. Now? There is no reason for them, other than to line the companies' pockets. Game companies still enjoy easy money so they carve out chunks of their game and rent it back to you! In The Old Republic, you can't even SPRINT until level 10 and Planetside 2 will lock out your existing loadouts until you resub! Its disgusting!
Sorry if I seemed to go off rambling, but I think there really needs to be another video game market crash. The greed of the developers and publishers seem to know no bounds.
Free-to-play games seemed like a novel concept to me when they first came out. My first experience with them was in 2009 with League of Legends. I played for two years until Spring 2011 I realized that I had spent over $150 on that game. Originally Riot stated that champions would be priced according to their difficulty, or skill level involved in playing them effectively. I remember when Poppy was released at 1350, but Ezreal, since his abilities were 100% skill shot based, was 6300 IP.
League was the first FTP game I played, and was the first one to turn me off to the idea. I stopped playing shortly after Yorick was released. Upon launch Yorick was an underpowered 6300 IP / 975 RP champion. There were dozens of threads made daily on the LoL forums with the general consensus of "Yorick is bad. Don't by waste your money." Two weeks later on the very next patch Riot gave Yorick what was probably the biggest buff they had given any champion up to that point. Yorick went from trash to #1 pick on Elementz Teir List overnight. Yorick had a good two week run at being overpowered until he was nerfed to a WORSE state than what he originally was at launch.
It doesn't taken a genius to figure out that Riot was quick to give a massive buff to their shiny new champion because no one was buying him. It was this event that made me lose faith in LoL an FTP in general because the game company would rather sell you a new item than fix what they currently have.
Now my experience with LoL aside, I'm still absolutely disgusted with free-to-play games. Developers have realized that they don't need a bunch of people spending $60 for the game at launch (although if they think they can get away with charging for it they will) they just need a few people to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on their game. Every little thing in what seems every possible game is now monetized.
Change the color of your weapon in Gears of War 3? $5.00. Want one more character slot in Guild Wars 2? $10. Want to participate in the beta period for Galactic Civilizations 3 which GREATLY helps out developers fix bugs and iron out glitches in their own game so its smooth at launch? Oh that's, no longer free, that'll be $100.
Evidently, in the eyes of the game companies, the gamer is just a money cow waiting to be milked. The Planetside 2 developers are getting ready to celebrate its two year anniversary. What better way to reward its die hard playerbase that stuck it out through two server merges, crappy optimization, numerous bugs and glitches than to sell them a $40 anniversary bundle? "Oh, I don't want that" the player might say. "Perhaps just a thank you?" You don't even get that, the developers instead give you a sales pitch and end it with "Prepare your wallets accordingly." https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/october-anniversary-bundle.204432/
"Perhaps you just haven't found the right one" you might say. Well, I looked at Mechwarrior online, saw multiple golden mechs for $500 and went the other way. I watched some gameplay videos of Tribes Ascend, but saw its ridiculous pricing scheme. Free-to-play games only remind you that they are free until you download them, then they bombard you with things you could be spending real money on. Not only are they pressuring you from the get go to spend an infinite amount of money, but they keep trying to get you to commit to paying them forever through a subscription!
Subscriptions in games made send in the late 90's and early 2000's when server costs were so expensive. Now? There is no reason for them, other than to line the companies' pockets. Game companies still enjoy easy money so they carve out chunks of their game and rent it back to you! In The Old Republic, you can't even SPRINT until level 10 and Planetside 2 will lock out your existing loadouts until you resub! Its disgusting!
Sorry if I seemed to go off rambling, but I think there really needs to be another video game market crash. The greed of the developers and publishers seem to know no bounds.
