That market is too crowded. (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Thursday, August 25, 2016, 14:11 (3012 days ago) @ Kermit

That's a good problem to have for us (the consumers), but bad for anyone trying to make games. You either have to spend absurd amounts of money to make one of the few hit AAA games, or get incredibly lucky and be one of the very few cheap indie games that blows up. It doesn't seem like there's much of a middle road anymore. Steam is incredible over-crowded with absolutely no curation--it's hard to find anything and even harder to tell if it's good or garbage, and both the Xbox and PS4 stores are moving in that direction.

It's maybe cliche to hold it up as an example, but The Witcher 3 shows that just being a good game and respecting and appreciating your customers is more than enough to sell boatloads of copies. On the other hand, there's absolutely no way in hell that wasn't a hugely expensive game to make.

Personally, I'm with you, Kermit. I think microtransactions suck, but as long as the game doesn't shove them down my throat and isn't designed in such a way to try and force me to use them, I can easily ignore them and enjoy the game without them. And, at the end of the day, if other people use them (especially in a case like Mankind Divided), it doesn't affect my experience. If it truly helps the developers put food on their tables without actively making the game shitty, I don't really feel like I can hold that against them.

I obviously don't really know, but 99% of the time microtransactions feel like the publisher just making the developers add them as a way of essentially getting "free" money on top.