Free vs Freemium vs Upfront games (Gaming)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Tuesday, March 06, 2018, 08:03 (2455 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I tried to point out you're not paying for certain weapons, levels, multiplayer maps, or anything that would cause you to miss the core experience. I think that's important, and not something negotiable (because it is integral to the experience that you want to give your audience). But optional features such as Photo Mode, color pallets, skins, etc. That's non-essential work that devs often leave on the cutting floor, or things that end up not being as fleshed out as they could be, because they don't consider it worth the time and resources to implement, since the experience is fine without them. And while they are right, don't people shell out more for Blu-Rays that have extra features?
Don't you enjoy watching Deleted Scenes, Director Commentary, extended cuts, etc?

A photo mode for example, is part of the game. Blu Ray extra features are not part of the movie.

That’s a dumb misunderstanding of what I said. Read it and try again.

I think he's more right than you are on this one. Would Halo 3 have been as impactful as it was without Theater, Saved Films, or Forge? That game would be far worse if each of those was a $5 or $10 add on feature. Those things were essential to what Halo 3 was as a complete product.

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. The game would still be hugely successful, because at the time, Theater Mode wasn’t a thing. Take, for example, Call of Duty: Black Ops. That game’s theater mode put Halo’s to shame. After the Infinity ward debacle, Black Ops cemented Treyarch as the premiere CoD developer. Then Modern Warfare 3 came out, with way fewer features (and it had no Theater Mode), and it did way better in sales. Because of this, only Treyarch continued to deliver a Theater Mode. The other studios making CoD know that they don’t have to, so they don’t.

As far as Photo Mode goes, I said that it wasn’t integral to the experience. It’s something that they decided to add, and that did not affect the game’s story, gameplay, or items available to the player. The Last of Us didn’t have a Photo Mode when it came out. Do you think that means that the developers delivered us an incomplete experience, even though the tech wasn’t around then? Was the game less impactful then, and more so when the remaster included it? What about Shadow of the Colossus? That saw two complete releases before a Photo Mode was added. If you had played it then, would the first two experiences make you feel like you didn’t get a complete game?

There’s a difference between a studio including something at launch, and deciding to add it in later. That’s what I’m discussing. Warframe did not have a Photo Mode at Launch. Through players supporting the game, they added one. With players continuing to request features for it, and giving DE money, it has become quite possibly the single greatest Photo Mode available anywhere, and it makes the whole game more “impactful” than it would be otherwise. And it’s still being supported and developed. Halo 4 has no Theater mode, and Halo 5’s is a joke. But I’m pretty sure that the “343 apologists” have no issue with that. 343 did not, and never will include it, because it’s not a priority, and it’s not part of the core that they want to deliver. But I would have paid for someone on the dev team to develop it in their spare time, and I’m certain that I’m not the only one.