- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- pcgaming@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- pcgaming@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10828130
Always good to see someone in the industry push back on all of these shitty tactics the AAA publishers want to push.
Yeah, fuck the subscription model and all of this “as a service” bullshit.
Personally “as a service” is OK if it’s actually sold that way. If I pay a fee per month or in some other way per use and that gives me access to the whole game as long as I play then I’m a happy camper and it gives the developer a steady stream to use towards improvements and keeping the servers online.
When you start double dipping or even triple dipping is when I start getting peeved. You can’t do a monthly fee and also lock stuff behind microtransactions, it might be somewhat OK if what you lock away is purely cosmetic and if you can still get them via say an in-game auction house a la SWTOR.
But some games have all of these:
And then it just feel like a money milking machine.
Generally if you do one of those you’re most likely OK, two can potentially work if you’re really careful. But all three is a no-go.
The Division did two and felt OK to me, the microtransactions on top were only cosmetics but it felt kinda shitty when you had already bought the game and paid for a season pass/expansions.
Destiny also did two and felt OK as well but after I quit I heard they made some really unpopular changes to the cosmetic system and their microtransactions?
League of Legends did one, the last one, and still felt OK from a monetization stand point. Same with Valorant.
Diablo 3 did all three and was brutalized for it to the point of changing it, but that’s the only example from the top of my head of someone triple dipping.
Destiny was doing fine until clearly expansion/content gear was put into the mtx store. Then the whole content vaulting happened and everything went down hill.
The content vault was done to reduce storage space requirements by removing the main story and multiple planets. The story put in to replace the base story made little sense and was just badly designed. In effect this meant the base game (previously paid content) and paid expansion content was removed. No refunds or anything as the policy you sign to play says they can remove content at will.
I don’t actually play a lot of games, so it doesn’t make sense for me, but honestly for people who do play a wide variety of different games, Microsoft’s GamePass is a brilliant deal. A Netflix-like subscription where you pay one amount per month and get access to all the games in their library, including patches and DLC.
At $11/month, just 3 AAA games per year and it’s a better deal. Or 7 $20 games per year, which I know a lot of gamers will easily go through.
But a subscription to an individual game? It better be getting quality ongoing support, with content, bug patches, etc. It made sense back in the day for MMOs, but it’s a damn tight rope to walk. And it can only work for the types of games that people are gonna sink their lives into, with hours per week over years. It’s a very hard sell, and in not sure I’d pay it even for the two games (from the same franchise) that currently get 90% of my gaming time.
I almost never play MP games, but I think a subscription makes a ton of sense for those since it supports server costs.
But for SP games, I would really rather not be on the clock. I’ve been halfway through a Netflix series when it gets taken off way to often, and I don’t want that for games too. I just don’t have a ton of time for games, so sometimes a game will game a year, other times I’ll get through it in a week.
I also prefer indie games to AAA, and selection on a subscription service would probably be mediocre for the games I like to play.
So no subscriptions for me, thanks.