On Sat, 21 May 2022 08:31:55 +0100, JAB <
noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 21/05/2022 01:48, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Fri, 20 May 2022 11:40:34 -0600, PW
<iamnotusingonewithAgent@notinuse.com> wrote:
What is Free To Play, again? Do I have to buy stuff? Is it on-line
only?
There is no hard-and-fast definition of "free-to-play".
I tend to only use free-to-play for those that include some sort of >micro-transactions* in them. So even something like Crusader Kings II
where the base game is free but the are a lot of expansions to me it's
still just free.
With me, it sort of on the number and type of expansions, and how
complete the base game is without them. "Star Wars: The Old Republic"
(at least at the time I played it, several years ago) straddled the
line; you got /a lot/ of core gameplay, and most of it was really well
done... but if you wanted an extra character, or more room to store
your loot (things I, as a grumpy old gamer, remember being something
games used to include gratis), you had to pay extra. There were also a
lot of extraneous cosmetics and pay-to-win (or at least,
'pay-to-avoid-grind') microtransactions.
Or take "Fortnite" (please). Its free-to-play mode is a complete and -
judging by the number of players - solid experience, but it pushes
hard on microtransactions for cosmetics, and there's an entire
secondary gamemode that you need to buy.
Are these free games? Free-to-play? Free-to-try? Everyone's idea of
what makes a game 'complete' will differ, of course. So where a game
falls in each category will be very subjective. And, lacking any
officially or legally defined term, publishers will take advantage of
this in their marketing.
Personally I think the whole idea has been bad for the industry as a
whole not only because it encourages some dubious tactics from companies
but also that it's lead to the idea of you play one game and one game
only or player engagement to give it its nice title.
*Micro seems to have got very large over the years.
From what I recall, revenue from so-called microtransactions makes up
more than half of what big-name publishers collect every year.
Is it bad for the industry? From the perspective of the gamer, sure.
Features that used to be core to a game - or even secondary, but fun
stuff, like 'big head mode' - are being stripped away so they can be
purchased separately. The mechanics of the game are tweaked to make anti-grinding microtransactions more popular. Story and atmosphere are sacrificed as whole chunks of the game are resold as DLC ("Mass Effect
3" being the prime example). And there's a constant, unwelcome
pressure to buy-buy-buy being embedded into the games that fits poorly
with the experience (not to mention, its also an unhealthy level of commercialism).
But games are an expensive and risky investment for publishers; you
can pour hundreds of millions of dollars into one and then - for no
clear reason - the game will flop (see "Anthem", for example). Microtransactions help alleviate some of that risk; instead of the
boom-or-bust cycle, they provide a constant trickle of income that
can, in the long term, more than offset any losses from an
unpredictibly unpopular game. It also has the added benefit of
allowing data collection, and 'locking down' fickle customers who
might otherwise flit away to some other game. So from the perspective
of the industry, microtransactions are great. Which is, of course, why
they've come to dominate the market.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)