• warm@kbin.earth
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    17 hours ago

    Live service games exist to extract as much as they can from people through the form of MTX. They should use that money to plan for the eventual shutdown of their game, not then ask people to pay for it. Just make it paid to begin with and scrap the in game purchases.

    • OneOfNaturesMysteries@piefed.zip
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      17 hours ago

      I tried to look at what they were selling and it doesn’t seem like anything you’re buying is actual content, but rather a shortcut to success. Microtransactions suck, but if ownership wasn’t promised or implied anywhere, what are the players exactly entitled to? I just don’t see any lies, broken promises, or failed expectations.

      • warm@kbin.earth
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        15 hours ago

        Unless you are buying DRM-free, ownership isn’t implied for any game. They don’t need the money to make the game playable offline, that work has already been done, charging for it is just trying to get one last cashout.

        Hey that game you’ve been playing all this time, them purchases you’ve made, well if you want to keep playing, you have to pay us!

        • OneOfNaturesMysteries@piefed.zip
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          14 hours ago

          It is implied: most people do expect to keep a game if they buy it. There’s no expectation to keep an arcade machine after inserting coins. Everyone who paid for extra lives or whatever powerups should have done so with a clear expectation that the online game that they haven’t purchased will die eventually. Nobody is being duped or betrayed.

          Giving it out for free would be nice and probably wouldn’t cost them too much, but it’s also unreasonable to demand something that was never promised. Damn, I can’t believe I’m defending some free-to-play pay-to-win microtransaction online service hell game, but I guess even they can do something right not wrong every now and then.

        • village604@adultswim.fan
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          14 hours ago

          So you’re required to spend money on in game purchases to play?

          I play a “freemium” game and haven’t spent a penny on it.

          I’m not arguing in favor of the exploitative tactics those companies use to dupe people out of money, but you can still play most of them without paying.

          It’s absolutely within the realm of possibility that a chunk of the people that would buy a lifetime license are people who haven’t spent any money on it so far.

          And this is still a very rare move for a game company, and it’s a trend that needs to start. Don’t let perfect stand in the way of good.

          • warm@kbin.earth
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            10 hours ago

            It’s not free to play because they are being generous. It’s because it enables the most exposure to the most predatory model.

            Would they have made the same amount of money with a paid game? Probably not, most free to play games know they arent interesting enough to sell like that.

            Selling the game after the fact is just gross, not them being nice. The trend that needs to start is any online games just being playable offline from the start, or for free in the end.

            Or we wait for legislation to hopefully force this, without any extra purchases needed.