Yeah I thought it might be...

by Leisandir , Virginia, USA, Tuesday, May 14, 2013, 15:38 (4001 days ago) @ Cold

Time spent playing a game only matters if it's a subscription or pay-to-unlock-based game. Otherwise, it only sells Xbox Live or sequels.

There are plenty of games that don't have these systems, but there are a couple of things which make it look otherwise. First of all, in the last two or three years, F2P has become viable and there have been dozens of games with that model showing up in the market. Second of all, Call of Duty and Battlefield, the two most widely played multiplayer first-person-shooters, and now Halo, all use essentially the same form of player investment.

Games like Dishonored use a version of it, but one which is refined and well built: you unlock things which directly and positively affect your experience, and you unlock them through the enjoyable activities of exploration and progression. We're not going to see "15k xp to unlock the M4's foregrip" become standard, but we may see well made systems of progression become more common.