BioShock creator says "audiences reward" single-player games that don't have "other methods of monetization," like Baldur's Gate 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
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Absolutely!
Games as a service is a scam.
Neither don’t play them or ignore additional methods of monetization built into the game. It’s like they don’t exist.
If there is too much dlc, it makes me feel like the base game is an empty shell. Even if it’s not true, it turns me off from the game. Look at sims 4 and one of those city builder games.
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I don’t buy single player games with other monetization. You want another $30 you add another 30 hours of good content.
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Minecraft is the
most popularbest selling game of all time, and the single-player mode is still being updated. Granted, many people play on multiplayer servers, but still.And Minecraft has a huge pool of paid content, especially with Bedrock Edition
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Yup I do not buy single player games that have monitizacion, indiana jones game was so far game of the year for me
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I mean, MMOs were supposed to be continuously supported and developed during the enrollment period. Earlier iterations of the model had live DMs running encounters, active continuous releases to expand the game world and advance the storyline, and robust customer support to address the bugs and defects. Also, just maintaining the servers necessary to support that much data processing was hella-expensive on its face.
Games as a service don’t need to be a scam.
But eventually, the studios figured out they can do the MMO business model on any game. Justifying a fee for Everquest was a lot more reasonable than justifying it for a glorified Team Fortress knock off. Or a freaking platformer.
But they are a scam
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I would say its less that they’re “rewarded” and more like they’re turning every customer upside down and shaking them until the money falls out
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Gamers reward good games
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
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I don’t buy single player games with other monetization. You want another $30 you add another 30 hours of good content.
CDPR get this, at least. Phantom Liberty, Hearts of Stone, Blood and Wine. All well worth it.
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That info came as quite a bio shock
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$ for hours on VS is insane, even with all the DLC it’s pennies. I feel like I’m stealing from the dev.
No, that is what “made for fun”-monetization looks like
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Oh and they were what weekly spawn on top of that too that were also open world spawns to boot, so quite often you had competition just laying claim to it.
Our server had some quite… colorful guilds that didn’t play nice and would train attempts, or bum rush it in an attempt to do more damage to steal the claim, among other nastiness. Imagine you spent hours getting 80 people together, prepping, and then getting ganked at the last minute. lol pure chaos.
The GMs were constantly involved sorting out the aftermath. Which was funny in its own right I suppose. Which is probably why they leaned hard into instances in later expansions.
Fun times. Dont think there will be another experience like it was its hayday.
Sounds like my experiences with Ultima Online. Right before they added paladins and necromancers, the shard where I played was quite “raw”. You really got the human experience, with everything: misery, dignity, psycopaths, etc.
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And Multiplayer games like Helldivers 2
It is my favorite software as a service model.
They run a continuous story based experience that is extremely well done. They do offer the ability to buy in game credits, but if you play regularly there is no reason to as they show up frequently in game. Their cosmetic store only has a few items, but they cycle around so there will always be another chance to get them.
And when the devs did fuck up the gameplay, they admitted it and changed course. When Sony forced them to add in the PlayStation login the devs supported the players in pushing back and we now have an official review bomb cape.
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I don’t buy single player games with other monetization. You want another $30 you add another 30 hours of good content.
Wish granted, but it’s just 30 dlcs each around a full-game price and you gotta wait til they go on sale for $1 once every year at a random time.
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
The game industry was assaulted by the MBAs long ago. They have this financial concept of leaving money on the table. That if you aren’t skinning your customers alive for all they have then you are losing money.
Then there was that infamous power point slide that got leaked where, basically, the plan is to use games to bring in audiences then use gambling techniques to hook on whales then cash them for eternity. Thus “live services games” were born.
It feels like uncreative, predatory shit because it is. It’s a finance people idea, not a creative game developer idea.
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Wish granted, but it’s just 30 dlcs each around a full-game price and you gotta wait til they go on sale for $1 once every year at a random time.
I wish you were less evil.
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Sounds like my experiences with Ultima Online. Right before they added paladins and necromancers, the shard where I played was quite “raw”. You really got the human experience, with everything: misery, dignity, psycopaths, etc.
And honestly I think that’s what’s missing in “modern” mmos: the human element. Or rather the social one. Which is ironic.
They are now way too friendly towards solo play and systems like ff14s duty finder removed the social aspect by automating group comp with complete randos that you will probably never see again since it was cross server.
In evercrack and even ffxi you were required to shout for groups from a pool of players on your own server so you got to know people. Who was good and who was not so good. You built a reputation.
It was a lot harder for sure, but it felt more meaningful.
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The game industry was assaulted by the MBAs long ago. They have this financial concept of leaving money on the table. That if you aren’t skinning your customers alive for all they have then you are losing money.
Then there was that infamous power point slide that got leaked where, basically, the plan is to use games to bring in audiences then use gambling techniques to hook on whales then cash them for eternity. Thus “live services games” were born.
It feels like uncreative, predatory shit because it is. It’s a finance people idea, not a creative game developer idea.
I think the last few years has left them struggling with the reality that landlords and supermarkets also have that concept, and when it’s a choice between having a roof, food, or entertainment, then they’re way down the list.
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
Who buys them?
Play Nice by Jason Schreier mentions that the “Pay to Win” style of monetization is very popular in Chinese markets.
I’d wager that, since other markets strongly oppose that, public companies focused on profits over player sentiment needed to find a middle ground. (That dichotomy is the main focus of the last half of the book)
We revolted when Battlefront 2 had loot boxes at the center of game progression, so companies hoping to make the most money in both markets need to make the purchasable items either purely cosmetic or only helpful in early game progression (starter packs).
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
Who buys them?
- People who dont game buying a present who just go “oh deluxe version, not that much more expensive, lets treat them”
- wealthy people that just pick the priciest option
- people with completitionist tendencies
- streamers and wannabe streamers for whom the extra cost is a trivial operating expense
- children and others that dont understand the value of a dollar
- people whose primary draw to the game is the photomode
- “i like game, I want more game therefore I pay more” (yes this logic is terrible when applied to microtransactions)
