VOGONS


Video games are too heavily monetized these days

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Reply 40 of 68, by zyzzle

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Yes, I'll admit there have been some great free games of the past 5 years, I'm not so jaded that I can't admit that. Most of these have been released on sites like www.doshaven.eu or as part of compos and on itch.io

These are definitely NOT AAA games. To most, they'd be consider blips on the radar, but many of them have been great AND free for me and people who like retro gaming. The only "storefront" on some of them is a possible donation request when downloading the games. The free games themselves aren't paywalls.

However, those are some retro-gaming diamonds in the rough done by people who still admire DOS, classic adventure gaming, and / or creating a fun little game and releasing it to the world not in a profit-motive interest, but merely to share something with they world that they've generously -- often ingeniously created.

Reply 41 of 68, by Jo22

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badmojo wrote on 2023-01-06, 07:06:
zyzzle wrote on 2023-01-06, 05:59:

The money's all that matters now with games, the heart, soul and the spirt are long gone.

I'm having the time of my life at the moment with a game released in 2021, and it's free. And no it's not freemium.

I think some of you guys just like making dramatic statements on the internet.

I miss the shareware scene, too.
Back in the 90s, you could order your favorite shareware game directly from the developer via mail.
Or register your existing shareware copy.
This was a fun time, not nearly as commercialized as its now.

Unfortunately, the indie scene has somewhat slowed down, imho.
Or perhaps it's just me and my focus on Win32 games. I don't play Android games so often.

Back in the 2000s, I was checking caiman.us now and then (rip), finding interesting new games from all over the world.
It kind of reminded me of the 90s at the time.

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Reply 42 of 68, by Ensign Nemo

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Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-07, 16:25:
I miss the shareware scene, too. Back in the 90s, you could order your favorite shareware game directly from the developer via […]
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badmojo wrote on 2023-01-06, 07:06:
zyzzle wrote on 2023-01-06, 05:59:

The money's all that matters now with games, the heart, soul and the spirt are long gone.

I'm having the time of my life at the moment with a game released in 2021, and it's free. And no it's not freemium.

I think some of you guys just like making dramatic statements on the internet.

I miss the shareware scene, too.
Back in the 90s, you could order your favorite shareware game directly from the developer via mail.
Or register your existing shareware copy.
This was a fun time, not nearly as commercialized as its now.

Unfortunately, the indie scene has somewhat slowed down, imho.
Or perhaps it's just me and my focus on Win32 games. I don't play Android games so often.

Back in the 2000s, I was checking caiman.us now and then (rip), finding interesting new games from all over the world.
It kind of reminded me of the 90s at the time.

I think indies are slowing down as well. Of course they will always continue to be made and some really good ones will come out, but I think the economics make it harder to be a successful indie dev today. There are so many indie games out, which make it hard to find good stuff and water down the market. Indie devs are now small fish in a big sea.

For me, the mobile market is even more disappointing. Before I got my first tablet, I was really jealous of the games available on mobile. Then I got an Android tablet, but was also envious of some of the iOS exclusives. Now, I'll open the Google Play store every few months to see if there is anything interesting, but I never find anything that looks like I'd enjoy it. The recommended games are usually the ones that look like they are going to nickel and dime you. Even the game pages look the same. The majority of games are promoted with the same style of pictures that just highlight their selling points. I still play mobile games, but almost every one is a board game that came out years ago.

Reply 43 of 68, by Tetrium

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newtmonkey wrote on 2023-01-04, 09:03:
There's a great video on Youtube summarizing what is so awful about the monetization practices being put into use today: […]
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There's a great video on Youtube summarizing what is so awful about the monetization practices being put into use today:

https://youtu.be/g16heGLKlTA

What is being done today is on a whole different level from a straightforward commercial transaction like buying an expansion pack (or even a speech pack), and is even very different from the arcade game model in the 70s through 90s. The major difference is that, previously, you generally knew what you were getting. In arcades, you were spending a quarter to play until you got a game over; if you could get skilled enough, you could play for a long time on that quarter. At home, you were spending XX dollars to get an expansion to a game you enjoyed or additional content... I'd actually put most DLC in this same category; it's clear what you are getting, and whether that's worth it to you depends on what you want.

The stuff being done today is predatory. Things like using multiple types of in-game currency as a "layer" between real currency and content, and then selling in-game currency in "packs" that are just slightly off from the costs of things (for example, all content is sold in multiples of 100 units of currency, but you can only buy packs of 95 units of currency), or tying paid content to a "loyalty" score that requires you to play X days in a row in order to retain the content you paid for.

It's easy to say, well, just don't play these heavily monetized free-to-play games... but this kind of predatory monetization works extremely well and is basically "free money" for publishers, and if people don't take a stand now, it's going to find its way into games of all types.

I've watched this video a couple weeks ago and even shared it with my friends (the ones that are also into gaming). It does a good job at explaining this.

The predatory monetization imo is a terrible development. Some games (especially certain f2p games) just try to make you addicted. It can get very scummy and outright hostile towards their (loyal) customers. Grind like a slave during xmas for the carrot we dangle in front of you or pay up (and we won't tell you in advance how much it's gonna cost you in total) or FOMO.

I avoid free2play games like the plague these days. It's just not worth the time. They tend to just want to lure you in, get you addicted to their 'game' and make you pay for their bs.
Yes, it's very predatory. Imo these are like the gamingpsychology version of your local drug dealer giving you a free sample of their awesome product, get you addicted and turn you into grumpy whaling keyboardclickermonkeys.

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Reply 44 of 68, by ratfink

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Yeah. One of the many things that made me stop subsidising blizzard was monetisation - especially where you already pay monthly. Though in amongst the crap I did buy the mount post thing in WoW (ah... warforged nightmare i think was it)... Guess it was going that way.

Years later I liked Sunless Sea for a while, then I think they started some monetisation or DLC crap. End of. I kinda liked Fallen London too (same peeps) but they wanted paying to make more than slow (free) progress each week. Nope.

It's kinda weird seeing (or recalling...) those capitalist, punter-fleecing npcs in-game (goblins in WoW for example) and then realising their philosophy has taken over much of the games industry (and their own company). Lol. Interactive fiction indeed. I wonder whether they ever give the npcs names based on the microtransaction designers. Putting dev names routinely throughout games is another irritation. All things in moderation....

Reply 45 of 68, by gerry

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superconfused wrote on 2024-06-14, 11:46:

To be honest, I can't find any good games nowadays to play. That's so sad.

now and then I'll watch video essays or deep reviews on youtube channels like curious archive, cursed judge or jacob geller. maybe its the way the games are described but some sound so much more indepth and original than anything from previous years, at least some of the more indepedent ones anyway. i don't have the systems for them, but maybe there is something there for you

Reply 46 of 68, by appiah4

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superconfused wrote on 2024-06-14, 11:46:

To be honest, I can't find any good games nowadays to play. That's so sad.

Baldur's Gate 3 is legit good.

Reply 47 of 68, by newtmonkey

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superconfused wrote on 2024-06-14, 11:46:

To be honest, I can't find any good games nowadays to play. That's so sad.

There are plenty of great games being released, but you have to look outside of the mainstream. It's like with movies and music... at some point you aren't part of the target audience anymore, and the games aren't being made "for you." There's been a lot of good-to-great RPGs and shooters, for example, released over the last few years, all by small teams outside of the industry. I, too, miss the days where I was in that target group for games and it seemed like 5 or 6 awesome AAA games were being released every single month, but it can't last forever.
You also have 40+ years of history you can always go back through to find hidden gems. Even if you hate literally every single game released from today, you will never run out of games as long as you're willing to go back a few years.

Reply 48 of 68, by Ensign Nemo

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newtmonkey wrote on 2024-06-14, 13:26:
superconfused wrote on 2024-06-14, 11:46:

To be honest, I can't find any good games nowadays to play. That's so sad.

There are plenty of great games being released, but you have to look outside of the mainstream. It's like with movies and music... at some point you aren't part of the target audience anymore, and the games aren't being made "for you." There's been a lot of good-to-great RPGs and shooters, for example, released over the last few years, all by small teams outside of the industry. I, too, miss the days where I was in that target group for games and it seemed like 5 or 6 awesome AAA games were being released every single month, but it can't last forever.
You also have 40+ years of history you can always go back through to find hidden gems. Even if you hate literally every single game released from today, you will never run out of games as long as you're willing to go back a few years.

I agree with this 100%. The only downside for me is that there is the occasional newer game that I want to play. My last upgrade almost seemed like a waste given that I play retro games 90% of the time.

Reply 49 of 68, by Ensign Nemo

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superconfused wrote on 2024-06-14, 11:46:

To be honest, I can't find any good games nowadays to play. That's so sad.

I'm sure that we could recommend a bunch of good indies or AA games if you let us know what you're interested in.

Reply 50 of 68, by Shagittarius

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Nearly every company has a monetized game on their schedule after the PC game show this year. Its a bad bad situation. Good thing I've got plenty of old games.

Reply 51 of 68, by ncmark

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I think one of the reasons is that it takes so long to develop a game now - even with a group of people, it takes years. I think the days of anyone doing it alone are long gone.

Reply 52 of 68, by ncmark

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Regarding an earlier post about Doom and Quake being low-res and not looking good
Those games absolutely pushed the hardware level at the time to be the absolute limit
Doom had low resolution because it was based on a fairly easily programmed 320x200 video mode on the VGA card. This was back before the days of SVGA or the VESA standard
Quake could run in higher resolution but in 1996 what processor really had the horsepower to do that

Reply 53 of 68, by Ensign Nemo

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ncmark wrote on 2024-06-18, 22:37:

I think one of the reasons is that it takes so long to develop a game now - even with a group of people, it takes years. I think the days of anyone doing it alone are long gone.

I'm mainly interested in indies when it comes to modern games. Many of these are made by solo developers or small teams. Of course, what you said holds true for the AAAs.

I think that players would be more accepting of modern monetization practices if they weren't abused so much. I'm into flight sims, which usually have a ton of DLC these days. However, a lot of the audience accepts this because it's a niche genre. On the other hand, we gave the AAA studios an inch and they took a mile. They abused this with day one DLC, pay2win, season packs, etc. It's hard to tell how much of these practices are necessary, but I think they are being abused by some companies.

Reply 54 of 68, by newtmonkey

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Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-06-19, 07:44:

I'm mainly interested in indies when it comes to modern games. Many of these are made by solo developers or small teams. Of course, what you said holds true for the AAAs.

Agreed 100%.

A quiet revolution happened without many realizing it, including the gaming news sites. If you want to play games that are just as interesting and cool as the games we all loved playing in the 90s, you have no choice but to abandon AAA and look elsewhere. For instance, some of the greatest and/or most interesting RPGs I've played over the last few years were developed either by a single person with help from contractors for art, etc., or small teams.

AAA is just not sustainable, without extreme monetization or jacking prices way up, and the sooner we all realize it the better. I went through a phase where I was trying all the latest AAA games, but after the initial wow factor of the graphics wore off, I realized how formulaic and dull they all are. I mean, how many $80 open world collect-a-thons where you simply run to a marker on the map to continue the story while collecting trash along the way do you need every year?

Reply 55 of 68, by Shagittarius

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newtmonkey wrote on 2024-06-19, 08:08:
Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-06-19, 07:44:

I'm mainly interested in indies when it comes to modern games. Many of these are made by solo developers or small teams. Of course, what you said holds true for the AAAs.

AAA is just not sustainable, without extreme monetization or jacking prices way up, and the sooner we all realize it the better. I went through a phase where I was trying all the latest AAA games, but after the initial wow factor of the graphics wore off, I realized how formulaic and dull they all are. I mean, how many $80 open world collect-a-thons where you simply run to a marker on the map to continue the story while collecting trash along the way do you need every year?

The fact that AAA game design has devolved into collect-a-thons is a symptom of all that is wrong with the game industry. We need another game crash. AAA could be focused and reward singular vision of product instead of design by committee.

Reply 56 of 68, by Shponglefan

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ncmark wrote on 2024-06-18, 22:37:

I think one of the reasons is that it takes so long to develop a game now - even with a group of people, it takes years. I think the days of anyone doing it alone are long gone.

Not just the time, but the diversity of skillsets required. Between programming, art, music, sound design, writing... It's rare that one person can develop all the necessary skills to produce something of reasonable quality.

There are a few exceptions like Eric Barone (Stardew Valley) and Thomas Happ (Axiom Verge), but those are few and far between.

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Reply 57 of 68, by ncmark

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Well think about it - let's look at an example, ID games and DOOM. They didn't start out with that, they worked up to it. Before that was Wolfenstein (and probably some others before that)

Reply 58 of 68, by the3dfxdude

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What are AAA games really? It sounds like a few people with deep pockets buy up all the game companies and the marketing, and control the market to the point that they are only maximizing revenue. "AAA" is just a term to convince people that in order to be a good game, you have to do it the way of the mega corporations. Let's just stop using the quality rating of "AAA", and just start calling them DRM'd to the point that you have to pay subscription to do anything and locked with monetization to make a click on the momentary semblance of fun button.