I've discovered there are some things I'm not willing to put up with in games
I was looking for a plausible multiplayer co-op game yesterday, and decided to take a look at F2P MMOs, to see if any of them would be something Julie and I could play together.
I downloaded the beta of Warframe, thought that the tutorial was pretty fun, and so took a look at how they monetise themselves - it being worth knowing exactly how they were planning on making money from me.
The thing that made me hit the "uninstall" button was in the Quickstart Guide:Did you find yourself cornered with no shields? Large and Small Health Restores infuse your Warframe with precious health to keep you alive.
If ammunition was scarce, you can bring Ammo Boxes for you to consume in a tight spot.
If you found your shield weakened too quickly, you can use a Shield Restore to immediately charge your shield with 100 points.
It's a mechanic which sets things up so that it's in the interests of the game makers to make the game harder so that they can sell you the tools to make it possible. And that's not a situation I'm willing to put myself in.
I want a game that's tuned for fun, not one that's tuned for "We'll lull you into a false sense of security, and then once you're invested we'll ramp the difficulty up to the point where you have to pay to get anywhere."*
I don't object to paying for my games. I'm actually prepared to pay a subscription. Feel free to give me access to the first five levels of the game for free, and then charge me to open up further areas, or a monthly fee if I want to be able to play above level five.
But I want your emphasis to be this: "Me paying you money should result in you delivering more fun." Not "Me paying you more money allows the game to be playable at all."
*This is how Candy Crush makes its money. Amongst many other games - see this for more details.
Original post on Dreamwidth - there are
comments there.
I downloaded the beta of Warframe, thought that the tutorial was pretty fun, and so took a look at how they monetise themselves - it being worth knowing exactly how they were planning on making money from me.
The thing that made me hit the "uninstall" button was in the Quickstart Guide:Did you find yourself cornered with no shields? Large and Small Health Restores infuse your Warframe with precious health to keep you alive.
If ammunition was scarce, you can bring Ammo Boxes for you to consume in a tight spot.
If you found your shield weakened too quickly, you can use a Shield Restore to immediately charge your shield with 100 points.
It's a mechanic which sets things up so that it's in the interests of the game makers to make the game harder so that they can sell you the tools to make it possible. And that's not a situation I'm willing to put myself in.
I want a game that's tuned for fun, not one that's tuned for "We'll lull you into a false sense of security, and then once you're invested we'll ramp the difficulty up to the point where you have to pay to get anywhere."*
I don't object to paying for my games. I'm actually prepared to pay a subscription. Feel free to give me access to the first five levels of the game for free, and then charge me to open up further areas, or a monthly fee if I want to be able to play above level five.
But I want your emphasis to be this: "Me paying you money should result in you delivering more fun." Not "Me paying you more money allows the game to be playable at all."
*This is how Candy Crush makes its money. Amongst many other games - see this for more details.
Original post on Dreamwidth - there are
comments there.