Helldivers 2 is the least I've felt pressured to spend money on a game in years, so of course I'm buying everything in the store
It's not perfect, but Helldivers 2's modest monetization is a breath of fresh air.
It can be the least predatory mtx system ever, being in a paid game is still not acceptable and I'll die on that hill. Never bought anything with a shop or battle pass and won't start now.
I think there need to be a balance. If it’s a service game, they need money to keep servicing the game. There is a fine line between a reasonable voluntary option to support a game in exchange for some symbolic cosmetic and gross predatory practices.
There's merit to that, but keep in mind that sometimes the game is bound to a service for the sake of enabling microtransactions to begin with, and if not for that they would have let players to host their own servers. This has happened to most multiplayer games from larger publishers.
I don't think every topic deserves nuance. Every mtx shop is predatory, every successful service game lives off whales. You'd just draw an arbitrary line at how aggressivly they hunt whales, but they need them all the same. Even if you can get everything with ingame currency drops, if people wouldn't spend enough, the game wouldn't get new content.
The only fair solution is to scrap mtx entirely and make all service games subscription based. But people aren't ready for that, this conversation often comes down to "as long as they don't exploit me, I'll take my free games".
Unpopular opinion but I think it's acceptable as long as its optional especially as multiplayer game where they are hosting servers. Those aren't cheap and I don't have the game so I wouldn't know but if they do release more multiplayer content for free, I think it's further justification because that's better than paid content packs. As an example, CoD on PC had a recurring issue of DLC content being useless since too little people would buy them. Titanfall saw this issue as well and it was even worse due to the smaller player base. So with Titanfall 2 they just made it free and added cosmetics microtransactions that were actually reasonably priced.
Maybe this is not the solution for everything but as long as it has no bearing on gameplay what's the harm? If you're not one to spend on microtransactions then you only get the benefits. I don't think a more benign implementation should be criticised just because we fear the potential of it potentially becoming worse.
To each their own, but I think this is a bit extremist. Life isn't black and white. Free games with mtx can be good or bad, paid games without can be good or bad.
Just not buying solely because it has a shop/battle pass means you miss out on a lot of games where it has zero meaning and you're not allowing any nuanced discussion to happen on the issue.
There are so many games available without microtransactions that I can happily never play one and not feel I'm missing out. We're having the nuanced discussion now!
I agree if those things leverage fomo to get people to pay. In helldivers you can earn that currency just playing the game so if you have less time to play you have the option of purchasing the currency and their versions of battle passes are always available to buy and work on at your leisure.
It started with "It's just a silly horse armor DLC, just don't buy it!", continued with "It's just cosmetics bro, just don't get them!", then we got "The shop is fine though, you can get the currency ingame!" and got to "The timed battle pass is fine, you also get free stuff!". You can draw your own line for mtx, but slowly we're both approaching and crossing it if you accept anything before that.
The way I see things, "the least pressured to buy stuff" reads like "the least aggressive cancer". Sure, it could be worse, but like, you've still got cancer. There's still the ideal option of being healthy instead.
I still can't look past the rootkit anticheat for a goddamn co-op game.
Is it really that bad?
nProtect GameGuard (sometimes called GG) is an anti-cheating rootkit developed by INCA Internet.
I still can’t look past the rootkit anticheat for a goddamn co-op game.
This is probably pissing into the wind, but that isn't what "rootkit" means in this context.
Unfortunately you can't get through to these people. They refuse to accept that rootkit as a security concept isn't just an admin level process that can be hijacked, but a specifically malicious bundle of programs that embeds itself in your firmware and runs in secret.
The anticheat isn't running secretly, as the game informs you of its use and requirement. It also doesn't access your MoBo firmware or UEFI, merely the kernel of the OS.
No one with even the bare minimum Sec+ cert would call it a rootkit, and only those with no actual knowledge take that claim seriously.
Is this a sponsored post by a bought-and-paid-for shill, or is the writer just so worn down by microtransactions over the years that they're Stockholm-Syndromed into thinking this is somehow OK?
I mean Skull & Bones, the $70 always-online piratey piece of shit from Ubisoft, has an ad in the game for the Premium Edition - which, I shit you not, the first line of the description says "premium edition gives you access to the Full Game."
Like, fuck any form of modern gaming whatsoever after this point. I bought the Arkham games cause they're on a huge sale on steam (literally $10 for the whole trilogy, and Origins is currently $5) and have been having a fucking blast replaying those amazing games.
we are living in an age where paying more money to a game for full content after buying it is "refreshing"
I think this is just what happens when an art gets big and becomes an industry. Film buffs don't get (too) wound up at every new formulaic action movie, soulless remake, or low-brow comedy (and all the money-grabbing tie-ins that come with them); maybe we should all just chill out and stop worrying about the mass-market blockbusters when there's still a wealth of great stuff to play.
Diablo 4, a full priced game, has microtransactions that are as expensive as the game itself, and skins that cost as much as 30 USD, when a game doesn't fuck the people as hard it draws attention.
Might be both 😅
nope. game is good, but i'm not interested in the ingame store.
You can find supercredits on missions. I've unlocked the premium battlepass and bought some armor without spending a dime of real money.
Yeah I know, still not interested in any battlepasses, never was. I usually quit as soon as any game start their "Season of the..." crap and return to my evergreen Guild Wars 2.
I also got me a decent looking outfit already and the stats fit my playstyle, so I'm pretty much playing the game for fun now with no interest in any additional unlocks besides stratagems and ship upgrades.
Lol the downvotes...
Premium currency is freely available on missions and it's not hard to accrue enough to make frequent buys in the money store without spending a cent. The problem becomes the amount of time I spend in game, which doesn't feel like a problem.
No. This is not a "creative" way to nudge us towards the store. Definitely not. It's just the type of monetization every gamer has been secretly yearning for, right?
Why is there content in the game I paid for that I can't access without paying even more?
If you are genuinely asking, I can play Devil's advocate:
Because then they can set the price at 40 USD, making it more affordable, and possibly make back the difference with some (mostly) cosmetic premium content.
This is not so easy to argue for games that are sold at 70 USD, and premium content is much more tied to gameplay, and all the FOMO dark patterns are turned to max.
Helldivers barely have enough content to justify 40 bucks. It makes up for it in presentation though
Why I think people are praising the helldivers2 monetization is that isn't the case. The "premium currency" is earnable in game and at a reasonable. I haven't bought any but still have the battlepass and a few of the premium armors.
You get it as part of the battlepass, and the gameplay loop guides you to the currency. You'll be looking for ammo or in game currency, and there also happens to be premium currency sometimes. The battlepass not being timed and on a work at your own pace is great too.
It feels fair to me? Like the developer can still make a buck but not ruin the experience. I.e. the monetization lets people pay to instantly gratify if they want vs punish you for not spending.
That fact that you have the option is the problem
I feel this way too. You find premium currency laying around all over the place. You can buy everything in the store and the premium warbond for free if explore around as you play, just like any of the other in-game currencies.
Reads like they have an issue
When Helldivers 2 closes down you can't play it anymore, it's still part of the problem and not the solution, let people host servers or do it p2p.
If its the latest game you've played that doesnt you should look at Beyond All Reason. Its free and open source. No season passes or mtx of any kind.
I just looked and I may give it a try. Looks good. It's worth mentioning it's in Alpha, some people don't enjoy trying to play games that early on and it explains why it's free.
Beyond All Reason is a Spring Engine game which is an open source rts engine that has been in development for probably a decade and a half at this point.
I've already given up on online games. I don't enjoy them like i use too a few years back and endlessly grinding doesn't come close to the satisfaction of actually finishing a game. My friend streamed some of this to convince me to get it, the gameplay looked bland and he clipped through the map and had to start the mission again. I think ill stick to finishing my backlog of single player games.
I didnt know single player games are not made anymore.