Seasons (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, October 23, 2017, 08:18 (2592 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I once again cannot stress how much the creation of investment systems and microtransactions is the exact opposite of making your game fun.

I wouldn't state it quite so black and white, but I do think there is some truth to what you say.

For investment systems: if your game is fun you don’t need it! People will be playing your game because they enjoy it. They don’t need to be enticed or manipulated into playing more!

I largely agree. I'm old school when it comes to this kind of thing, but I feel very strongly that memorable moments are the best and most pure way to keep people playing a game. The problem is, making a game that creates and allows those moments is a lot harder than slapping on a bunch of casino trappings and skinner boxes. Less profitable, too.

I do think it is possible to add a layer of "investment system" to a game in such a way that it doesn't interfere with the experience. Again, I point to Titanfall 2. You can enjoy that game on a pure moment-to-moment gameplay level, without worrying about ranks or unlocks or microtransactions at all. But those elements are there, for anyone who wants to interact with them. And the balance is brilliantly maintained.

For microtransactions: if your game is fun nobody would buy them. Remember, you are paying to not play the game. The reason you do this is because of ge frictions put in place to make playing for these items unpleasant.

Any time you add microtransactions you can obtain by playing, or when you add an investment system, you are by definition making your game less fun!

You are generalizing a bit here... not all microtransactions are of the "pay to play" variety. Some are purely cosmetic (hello again, Titanfall 2). But speaking to the sort of microtransaction you are talking about, I agree that they suck. That dynamic can also apply to games outside of microtransactions. The Battlefield series has been guilty of this for quite some time. They hide so much of the combat sandbox behind XP levels that you need to sink loads of hours into the game before you can even really play it the way it was meant to be played (ie with a full, diverse sandbox in effect). That's not fun, it is a forced time commitment. I've often voiced the same complaint with Destiny 1. In order to play the activities that I found fun, I had to spend hours and hours grinding through activities that I didn't enjoy. And every single time a new expansion came out, that process would begin all over again. Thankfully, Destiny 2 is far better in that regard.