Jimquisition: Free To Wait

C14N

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I played the Simpsons Tapped Out for few days and I wholeheartedly agree with this video. What I found particularly atrocious about that game was the currency conversion from real money to game money. The entire point of the game is to make a little Springfield by buying buildings. The average cost of a premium building is about $8-10 though which is insane. There are dozens of these things that you can buy and they have it all set up so that you can drop $100 in one go. For a freaking mobile game. You could buy 10 actual games on Steam for the same price as buying some decorations for this non-game. The majority of Tapped Out's content is behind this paywall too. Almost all of the in-game characters and buildings can ONLY be gotten by paying an absurd price, only the bear essentials are parts of the game.

I'm happy to spend money on games (I probably spend more than I should on them) but I've basically decided to stay away from anything that just looks like a bottomless pit for me to drop my cash into. Once I buy a game, I would rather just be able to live in a consequence-free environment and not have to worry about losing even more money.
 

NuclearKangaroo

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i think Metro GameCentral put it best

"Dungeon Keeper is not a video game, not any more. Instead it?s just a virtual beggar, constantly demanding your spare change and offering nothing in return."

i read their review, it was even more damming that Jim's and every single fucking word in it was true, i like this kind of thing, when publishers act like this, professional reviewers should tell it like it is


so yeah, fantastic work for both you Jima and David Jenkins from Metro GameCentral
 

MrHide-Patten

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Warframe as much as I love it, is guilty of this shit as well. When I've gone to all the effort of getting all the resources, why do I have to wait to use the thing I've constructed, but oooh I could spend 5 bucks and get it now!
I'm good Digital Extremes, thank you.

I suppose their only saving grace is that you can actually make all the weapons and so forth by doing the hard yards in game, and actually feels more satisfying to have "made" the content yourself.
 

CarbonJames

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canadamus_prime said:
I haven't played that one. Although I have played a couple of games on Kongregate that use that business model. Although calling them games is being more than a tad generous since there is absolutely no gameplay whatsoever. This one called Time World is the worst. While technically you don't have to pay anything, all you do is sit on your ass and do nothing while you wait for your buildings to upgrade or your ships to be built or some other damn thing. And even when you get into the story the battles consist of sitting there watching ships shoot at each other with 0 involvement on your part. And of course you have the option to pay real world money to recruit additional heroes and presumably speed up building/research times and whatever. Ugh!
For what it's worth I completely agree with you. What I am doing to try to help is use the model of free to try in a fair way, in the hopes that people no longer tolerate shitty games that do those things.

I think that pure rage at F2P hurts things because there's plenty of devs that feel the same way, and all it does is keep them from trying to help solve the problem. Instead they just keep making games for the big pubs for $60, refuse to put out demos, and now microtrans is infecting full price games--now THAT is something to rage at.

Devs are making evil F2P games because they can, and people are playing them. With enough quality alternatives (several have been mentioned in this thread) eventually (hopefully) people will reject that crap and demand fair games.

It's kind of a "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" situation. The model can be great for gamers when done right--for example if someone doesn't like AirMech after playing it, no problem! I didn't take your money, no hard feelings either way. As a gamer myself I hate purchase regret, and really like the fact that I know people who do spend money in our game are doing it because they want to support us.

For reference, here's AirMech. Early access, but as F2P you don't have to pay to play--remember back when beta tests were free? http://store.steampowered.com/app/206500/ Doing F2P right means you're operating a demo essentially. Players can grind if they really want, or put down the price of a normal indie game to get all the gameplay bits, plus all the perks from lifetime VIP. Sorry if that sounds like too much self-promotion, but I'm really proud of what we offer and honestly do welcome any criticism of how we can become the perfect example of how to do F2P "right".
 

Joshtopher_Biggins

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Feb 11, 2014
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So why don't you just not play the game? Instead of immediately realizing it's a pay-to-play pile of crap and uninstalling it you went and told everyone about it. Now a bunch of people are going to download it and if even one of those people spends money in it you just did EA a favour. You're supposed to ignore it and let it die.
 

Mooboo Magoo

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deathbydeath said:
Jim, shut up. You have nothing but scorn for every single free-to-play game with time delays (and their developers) while there are games out there that are absolutely sublime and happen to use that model correctly and in an inoffensive manner. Have the dignity to properly inform yourself before you start spewing bile over an entire idea.

(For the record, the good games I was thinking of were Fallen London and Eliminate Pro, and while I don't play many FTP/mobile games both of them handle the "free-to-wait" model in two different and equally good ways)

xEightBitPlayerx said:
I hope this game model dies a quick death; Who would support something like this?
Because some games do it well [fallenlondon.storynexus.com] and the developers producing that content deserve money.

EDIT: The mike drop at the end made me squee a bit. Glad that's back.
It is absolutely hilarious that the link you provided is a 404 error.
 

Blaze the Dragon

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Joshtopher_Biggins said:
So why don't you just not play the game? Instead of immediately realizing it's a pay-to-play pile of crap and uninstalling it you went and told everyone about it. Now a bunch of people are going to download it and if even one of those people spends money in it you just did EA a favour. You're supposed to ignore it and let it die.
Because if just one person who didn't realize this doesn't play the game because of what he's said, he's done the world a favor.

Free2Wait is a model that preys on people that don't know any better. There's no real gameplay, so no skill is ever involved with the game, meaning that literally anyone and their grandma can play it. They start out with very low paywalls that are about a dollar or less, so that they feel okay with spending some money on the game to wait less, plus the game was free to begin with, so where's the harm in that?

I caught my mom playing a free2wait game for awhile, and she spent over 2 hundred fucking dollars on it. if you just ignore this kind of thing, more people will keep playing the game and companies like EA win. since when has ignoring the problem ever been a good idea?

This is literally the same logic as slots. They nickle and dime you slowly, with occasional light rewards, sometimes maybe giving you a net gain, but almost always totally a loss overall. They just found a way to do it to minors and other people from the comfort of their own home, sometimes without them realizing. It's just vile.
 

Rabidkitten

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Give Path to Exile some love. Totally optional cosmetic micro-transactions which actually straight up calls micro-transactions.

I do agree that all this harping on about Dungeon Keeper is doing no one any favors. You are simply giving that game free press. The minute I saw Mobile F2P I was aware of what it was going to be and simply ignored it.
 

DementedSheep

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Is this really a scam? It not like you can't see what it is and it's sneakily taking money from your account. If people are buying it they are getting something out of it personally or they are just stupid. Either way how much money they spend on these things is on their heads and I don't see why we should care.
 

JCAll

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Darklupus said:
I dunno, Jim. Phoenix Wright is a game as Tapped Out is a game. Sure, the reason Tapped Out uses the FreeToWait model is because it's based on the Simpsons television show and because of that the "game" fits the show. The way the "game" works is by having each Springfield citizen animate differently for a designated amount of time. True it's not very much. Okay, it really does suck. However I like it: I like the animations, the dialogue, the pixels...etc. So, I think it can be salvaged. Just add a game to it and you're done.
Phoenix Wright is just a point and click adventure. No different from something like Monkey Island.
Tapped Out is a money pit and I see no comparison between them.
 

Joshtopher_Biggins

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Blaze the Dragon said:
Joshtopher_Biggins said:
Some words
Because if just one person who didn't realize this doesn't play the game because of what he's said, he's done the world a favor.

Free2Wait is a model that preys on people that don't know any better. There's no real gameplay, so no skill is ever involved with the game, meaning that literally anyone and their grandma can play it. They start out with very low paywalls that are about a dollar or less, so that they feel okay with spending some money on the game to wait less, plus the game was free to begin with, so where's the harm in that?

I caught my mom playing a free2wait game for awhile, and she spent over 2 hundred fucking dollars on it. if you just ignore this kind of thing, more people will keep playing the game and companies like EA win. since when has ignoring the problem ever been a good idea?

This is literally the same logic as slots. They nickle and dime you slowly, with occasional light rewards, sometimes maybe giving you a net gain, but almost always totally a loss overall. They just found a way to do it to minors and other people from the comfort of their own home, sometimes without them realizing. It's just vile.
Yeah good point. But I think maybe it's a better idea to educate these kinds of people about f2p scams instead of shouting to the world "Hey game x is terrible! Here's a bunch of footage. Definitely don't play it." If we go around finding every individual scammy f2p game and excessively publicly criticise it we'll never fix the problem. You asked me when has ignoring a problem ever been a good idea, I would argue that the problem is that these games aren't being ignored. Educate your mother and others who don't know any better to be wary of free games. Let them know about games (f2p or otherwise) that are actually good.
 

EndlessSporadic

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The fact that Jim is so upset as to not even give an outro is saying quite a lot.

If anything, I am more pissed at the people who support this garbage.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Jun 17, 2009
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CarbonJames said:
canadamus_prime said:
I haven't played that one. Although I have played a couple of games on Kongregate that use that business model. Although calling them games is being more than a tad generous since there is absolutely no gameplay whatsoever. This one called Time World is the worst. While technically you don't have to pay anything, all you do is sit on your ass and do nothing while you wait for your buildings to upgrade or your ships to be built or some other damn thing. And even when you get into the story the battles consist of sitting there watching ships shoot at each other with 0 involvement on your part. And of course you have the option to pay real world money to recruit additional heroes and presumably speed up building/research times and whatever. Ugh!
For what it's worth I completely agree with you. What I am doing to try to help is use the model of free to try in a fair way, in the hopes that people no longer tolerate shitty games that do those things.

I think that pure rage at F2P hurts things because there's plenty of devs that feel the same way, and all it does is keep them from trying to help solve the problem. Instead they just keep making games for the big pubs for $60, refuse to put out demos, and now microtrans is infecting full price games--now THAT is something to rage at.

Devs are making evil F2P games because they can, and people are playing them. With enough quality alternatives (several have been mentioned in this thread) eventually (hopefully) people will reject that crap and demand fair games.

It's kind of a "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" situation. The model can be great for gamers when done right--for example if someone doesn't like AirMech after playing it, no problem! I didn't take your money, no hard feelings either way. As a gamer myself I hate purchase regret, and really like the fact that I know people who do spend money in our game are doing it because they want to support us.

For reference, here's AirMech. Early access, but as F2P you don't have to pay to play--remember back when beta tests were free? http://store.steampowered.com/app/206500/ Doing F2P right means you're operating a demo essentially. Players can grind if they really want, or put down the price of a normal indie game to get all the gameplay bits, plus all the perks from lifetime VIP. Sorry if that sounds like too much self-promotion, but I'm really proud of what we offer and honestly do welcome any criticism of how we can become the perfect example of how to do F2P "right".
Oh I see. AirMech is a game you've personally worked on. Well to be clear I'm not against free to play as a concept. I like the idea of having games I can play for free and, if I want to, buy extra bits that enhance the game but aren't strictly necessary. Like I enjoyed playing Star Trek Online for a while till I got bored and I had no problem plunking down a bit of cash for some novelty items like a unique ship or uniforms. That's how I think F2P should be done. Provide a more or less complete gaming experience which can be enhanced with microtransactions, but make it so those who choose not to buy into the micrtransactions aren't missing out on anything substantial (IE no Pay to Win).
 

Remus

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Nov 24, 2012
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Agree on all points, and I especially loved the Homer lip sync at the end, making the point with a game that's one of the worst examples of this kind of pay-to-win gameplay.
 

Adam Locking

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Joshtopher_Biggins said:
So why don't you just not play the game? Instead of immediately realizing it's a pay-to-play pile of crap and uninstalling it you went and told everyone about it. Now a bunch of people are going to download it and if even one of those people spends money in it you just did EA a favour. You're supposed to ignore it and let it die.
It already has free advertising due to it being near the top of the app store (thanks to its borderline-fraudulent rating "system"). People who regularly look for new games are going to find it, Jim's giving them the heads up before they do.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Jun 17, 2009
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DementedSheep said:
Is this really a scam? It not like you can't see what it is and it's sneakily taking money from your account. If people are buying it they are getting something out of it personally or they are just stupid. Either way how much money they spend on these things is on their heads and I don't see why we should care.
You should care because as long as incredibly stupid people buy into this crap then more of this crap will continue to be made. And in the worst case scenario it'll come to a point where you'll have no choice but to buy into it yourself because it'll be the only thing available. That's why.
 

KR4U55

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At first I thought Jim lost it, then he did a reference to Sherlock then, OMG, a british dude did a reference to a british show popular over the pond! Frikkin' hilarious!

I hadn't really given my time to any of those games. I don't want to wait 24 hours for pseudo-gameplay and I don't want to pay to do anything!

Similarly Star Wars: The Old Republic is F2P, but it is insanely frustrating to play as a F2P user or even Preferred Status. The game's pretty solid, F2P locks titles, unifying colours and the number of arenas, flashpoints and stuff you can do in a day, but it becomes stupid when it also locks Crew Skills (crafting) and powerful loot from being worn! (purple loot is unavaliable for F2P users) You can't buy powerful pieces, buy you can't use them if you don't pay.
 

Arawn

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3:10 pretty much sums up any F2P (free to play) game, not just mobile or tablet games. I mean those PC F2P and console games too. You're given money that's almost useless by the truck full, and covet the token that one must pay to acquire. For the most part I'll play most F2P games up to the point where said bought currency is REQUIRED to progress. At that point the game is over. It's almost a game I play within in such games; how long will it let me pay before making me buy pretend money. For most the shadow looms over me fairly quickly in others it's the elephant in the room that blend in with the grey paint; I know it's there, but don't care since I can't see it. The games that do F2P (in this case free to pay) well make the game itself enjoyable even though some content it hidden behind that pay wall. These forced waiting games pretty much build the wall brick by brick as you play slowing trying to coax you towards their storefront.
 

viranimus

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Nov 20, 2009
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Thats what you get for playing a game with microtransactions. Would you go walking alone down dark alleyways around 225th street in NYC at 2 in the morning and expect to not be mugged/stabbed/raped? Then why hang around F2P games that you know will be funded by microtransactions? Everyone knows that is how the operate. Plus the more they are successful the more they will push that envelope. Even starting an account with a F2P, you are just asking for it, and as long as you do, they are going to be more than happy to oblige.