Free vs Freemium vs Upfront games (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Tuesday, March 06, 2018, 10:58 (2251 days ago) @ Korny

That’s kind of a dumb question, man. Of course it wouldn’t have been as impactful, but if it had not been included, and the work and resources went elsewhere, nobody would have noticed that it was missing.

That’s sort of my point. Bungie felt those things were important enough to devote the time and resources to make them happen, so calling the extraneous or not part of the core experience just isn’t true. Those things are part of the core functionality of the product they delivered. Would Halo 3 have felt incomplete without them? Probably not, we wouldn’t have known any better. It would certainly be extremely different and a lesser experience in my mind. Hell, look at Destiny. It still feels incomplete to me without those features, because it’s a standard Bungie set for 3 games and then abandoned for Destiny. Destiny will always feel like a lesser experience because of it.

I think what happened with Warframe is great. I love seeing developers support the game. I’m not arguing that. I do think that seeing games turn into a-la-carte style things could be bad when devolopers and publishers start to take advantage of it. Look at Mass Effect 3’s on disc DLC. That game was incomplete without it, there was no reason for it to be locked away except for greed. Look at Metal Gear Survive charging money for an extra save slot. I can very easily see a future where that becomes the norm.

That said, I’d gladly pay for developers to put photo modes in games I liked. I’d pay $20 for a photo mode in Destiny in a heartbeat. I just worry about a world where photo mode is already in the game on the disc, but they just charge you $10 to unlock it.