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Reply 40 of 44, 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 44, 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.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 42 of 44, 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 44, 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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My retro rigs (old topic)
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Reply 44 of 44, 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....