Here’s the thing though, these games are highly reviewed and played but it may still in fact be more profitable to keep pumping out mid tier trash. For companies that have long forgotten the time when they had a soul and were a group of passionate gamers, that’s all that matters.
Im starting to believe the big triple A game industry is starting to collapse, not the gaming industry it self, but the big companies that make generic after generic blockbuster kind of games. They keep getting more and more desperate and predatory in order to appeal to the share holders and maximize profits because their type of games have become so expensive to produce.
Remember when games didnt have to put the same amount (or even more) of the development cost into marketing? Good games sells themselves, every gamer knows it, but the monkeys with suits who run the companies nowdays cant compute that. Instead they keep coming with more and more shitty ways to steal our money. They will try anything instead of listening to their developers ( who are the actual gamers that know what works and what dosnt).
And so here we are. Just in this year I have seen a single player game put a mechanic like the NG+ mode only availible for the deluxe edition (yakuza), an extra save game file or fast travels as microtransactions (dragon dogmas 2), extra missions and a 3 days early launch acces for single player game only allowed in the 110$ edition (star wars outlaws), and a company literally changing their former terms and conditions in order to sell a 250$ p2w pack and killing it self and the work of the last 5 years? in less than 24h (tarkov)
Exactly. Ubisoft is the perfect example of this. Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, R6. They used to take risks and try to push gaming forward with amazing ideas and design that made my kid brain explode.
Now those IPs are dead or extremely stale. And it’s because releasing an AC with microtransactions makes them more money than making an offline single player Splinter Cell. Or releasing a skin for 20 euros for R6 siege makes them a huge profit for the time invested in creating it.
God I wish we’d get a new single player Splinter Cell. Some of my best memories I have as a kid are playing the original Splinter Cell. Even if we do, it’ll be riddled with microtransactions and will fail to capture the magic of the original games.
Yup. The go-to example is that Blizzard made more money off of a single $5 mount in World of Warcraft, than it made on the release of Diablo 3. An entire fucking game launch made less money than a $5 microtransaction. Why would a publishing company bother with creating solid self-contained games, when a single micro transaction can make more money for far less dev time?
Players need to stop purchasing shitty games and shitty microtransactions, because it only encourages devs to keep making them.
At some point it’s really up to the consumers to stop buying shit games
This is it. The reviews only matter to the extent they affect sales. Many shit-scored titles make billions for the suits (eg. FIFA, COD), and do so year after year without significant risks involved
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Principal Skinner = no. The children yearn for the microtransactions
Helldivers’ business model is primarily microtransactions. The microtransactions affect gameplay, so it’s in the direction of “pay to win”. It’s not the paragon of non-predatory monetization that people make it out to be.
(Baldurs Gate 3 and Palworld both are good examples of a healthy pay once and actually own a copy games)
Also none of these games released without serious bugs.
Obviously you haven’t played Helldivers if you think it’s pay to win.
It’s not “pay to win” exactly, but it’s only a matter of time until an important “meta” weapon is locked behind a warbond.
For which you can get the premium currency by simply playing the game. I got enough for 4 of them, though I didn’t get one. You can farm it in level 2 missions, getting 40 - 70 each mission if you are short. You can do that with a squad of 4 friends to have the mission time be sub 10 minutes. It isn’t necessary to 1. get every warbond 2. pay real money for the currency. The grind isn’t massive and is skippable by simply playing the game normally.
Yeah that’s typically how microtransaction driven games work.
See also:
- League of Legends
- Genshin Impact and other “gacha” games
- Fortnite
- digital TCGs
(Also all of those are free to play, so minus points to helldivers for double dipping)
We are not talking about “microtransactions in a game”. We are talking about pay to win. There is a huge difference, and Helldivers isn’t pay to win.
The fuck are you talking about, you can unlock everything without ever once spending money. Even if you DID drop thousands that would only give you more bonds and some cosmetics you can’t buy medals. You have to play to unlock things
This is how microtransaction driven games typically work.
You technically never need to pay, but they keep adding more content locked behind 1000 credit warbonds, and some of that content is very useful, and getting to 1000 medals takes a while if you aren’t specifically trying for it.
If you actually want all of the gameplay affecting content (war bonds) you either need to grind specifically for medals for a long time or you need to pay.
Other games that use a similar business model:
- League of Legends
- “Gacha” games like Genshin Impact and a lot of mobile-only games
- Fortnite
- typical digital TCGs
(Also note all of these are free to play and only make money off microtransactions, which IMO makes Helldivers more predatory for double dipping)
I’m very aware of how micro transactions work. I’m trying to say that this game is nowhere near as egregious is literally any of the others on your list. I don’t play a lot, I get on once every maybe couple days and I do a full set of missions so three Maps.
I just about hit level 27 recently, I already have two of the premium more Bonds on locked and then most of the way through them and I am on page 7 of the overall main war bond. I have not spent any money on the game.
I didn’t grind, I didn’t specifically go for things, and I didn’t spend money. You will get absolutely nowhere for free with that type of casual play in any mobile game or League of Legends
Yeah, it’s not pay to win, so much as pay to unlock faster. Plus it’s co-op, so that’s not a huge deal
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And don’t over price it, I can buy a copy for myself and a friend for less than a shitty “AAA”/“AAAA” Title
Insane
that can’t be true, it’s way too simple, there must be a catch somewhere
Naw, the companies will miss the point and demand studios go as cheap and dirty as they want for Helldivers 3 and Baldur’s Gate 4
I suspect that may be part of the reason Larian isn’t making a Baldur’s Gate 4. At the very least, they probably realize that lightning is very unlikely to strike twice, so why tempt fate? Get out of the series while everyone still loves you. They probably also recognize that they would face a Knights of the Old Republic 2 situation where the IP owner will want more profit faster, and so they will set deadlines which don’t fit with Larian’s design model. At best, BG4 would be a rushed mess, with Larian struggling for years afterwards trying to deliver the game they wanted to deliver and burning down all of the goodwill they have built up with gamers. It’s just not worth it. If they walk away and stand up their own IP, they get complete control and can take the time to deliver what they want to deliver. Sure, they don’t have the built in fanbase that a D&D title would have; but, I suspect they are going to have a lot of that fanbase follow them anyway.
Sadly, Hasbro absolutely will be willing to burn down any and all goodwill BG3 has built up. I expect we’ll see some smaller developer handed BG4, put under unrealisting timelines and the result will be a disaster. It will not be the fault of the development team. I suspect any dev team is going to be salivating at the prospect of making a D&D title. It’s a dream project and they will bend over backwards to get it. They just won’t realize, or hope they can avoid, Hasbro breaking their back in the quest for short term profit.
If Larian released mod tools, hasbro will watch the community build an open source of the paid model they were trying to force on everyone
From the last patch notes:
This next patch will also begin introducing our official modding tools, letting you change up visuals, animations, sounds, stats, and more to overhaul Baldur’s Gate 3 into the weird nightmare realm of your dreams.
So, maybe.
Your comment just says that you don’t know anything about Larian, so don’t slander them for no reason at all
Hasn’t Larian already said they aren’t doing Baldur’s Gate 4?
- Corporations aren’t your friends, stop stanning
- Larian doesn’t own Baldur’s Gate and wouldn’t be the ones making decisions for BG4, that would be Wizards Of The Coast
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It’s using an ancient discontinued engine. Hopefully we see improvements with time
quite a few bugs
Those are a feature.
You need to touch grass I think.
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Somewhere along the way I lost the verve to argue about this kind of thing. It’s not that I can’t, I just don’t care anymore
Edit: The guy below me has a valid point. Ignore this comment.
Then why are you here, trying to start arguments?
There’s a much better game in that regard:
Factorio
Been on my wishlist for quite some time. Don’t really know much about it. Is it really that good?
It is the best, and the benchmark, for the survivalcraft factory RTS genre. They optimised the game to an absolutely ridiculous degree, that it will even run smooth on a Nintendo Switch.
Probably the best game i am playing, 6000h+ into it now. If you like that type of game, you will love factorio.
Has a free demo on steam, so you can try before you buy.A demo? Great. I have a feeling I’m going to regret this based on the comments here.
I expected Helldivers 2 to be good, but not “unforeseeable appeal that knocks out back-end servers and leaves players in a weeks-long login purgatory” good
It continues to boggle my mind that people will take this objectively bad thing built in to the game’s design and turn it into good press. Being unable to play the game you paid for is a bad thing. They could have let you host the game yourself. Yes, even the dungeon master part that Joel does. That they don’t let you not only leads to login problems with unexpectedly populous launches but also an expiration date that Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t even have when it comes to online multiplayer.
Agreed. This is one of the frustrating casualties of live service microtransaction games. Can’t let people run servers or mod it because otherwise how can you sell them stuff?
Having launch issues seems to be the norm nowadays.I do lot think anyone expects complex software to be bug free.
But the response and speed of fixing issues from arrow head are very good, and an example for others to follow.Dedicated servers are awesome tho. And all great games have that. Makes the game live forever if the community cares enough. Cnc renegade and enemy territory still have players.
Liberty will see you through
Okay yes, but helldivers is still filled to the brim with bugs. Not quite an equal comparison
Edit: wild that fanboys will down vote you for simply stating a fact
People talk like it’s game breaking, or completely unplayable. But I have an absolute blast playing this game every night with my friends. Bugs be damned.
I damned those bugs myself with a combo of napalm, flamethrower, and incendiary breaker.
But in all seriousness there are some huge bugs that can ruin a run you spent almost 40 minutes on… So I also bring a 500kg to deal with those.
Some days I have to restart helldivers after every mission because it crashes during the extraction cutscene.
It’s ok to admit games aren’t perfect while also enjoying them. Helldivers is fun but it’s no paragon of the industry.
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Same i have friends that have crashed perhaps once or twice a week on windows.But never been an issue for me on linux. Only had it for the last month tho. Could be an older fixed issue as well.
I have fun playing it too but it’s definitely one of the buggiest games I’ve played, and while most of them aren’t game breaking, I have experienced a few pretty bad ones. One of my favourites put giant holes in the terrain across the entire map, causing me to get stuck and die several times lol.
I would care about dying a lot if it actually mattered.
The bugs are quite literally a feature.
There’d be half a game if they took out the Terminids.
Not a word of a lie. Filled to the brim with bugs and automatons.
Yeah, it’s bonkers it’s been out for months and months and the Spear is still completely broken.
I just left a game where someone was using the Spear to great effect, although they were finding it a bit of a pain to lock. That’s pretty different to completely broken.
I’m shocked. Every time I use it, I can’t get a lock on anything. When I manage to, it works great, but it’s not worth it for me over the quasar.
I find the game in general pretty mid. I’d rather play DRG 100% of the time.
