How Free Games Trick You Into Spending Money
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- Опубликовано: 13 май 2024
- You already know that modern games want to empty your wallet more than they want you to have fun. But why are these monetization tactics becoming more and more popular? The answer is more complicated than you think…
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Gamecraft podcast on the rise of free-to-play
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GDC talk of F2P design
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What's a good free to play game that isn't pay to win?
Warframe
@@Rainbowhawk1993 Warframe is a job 🙄
Two text-based games, Doki Doki Literature Club and Everlasting Summer, as well as a sort of RPG game, Soda Dungeon. I would recommend all three of them :)
dwarf fortress, not the steam version.
Rocket league, fall guys, splitgate
It's hard to get tricked when you have no money.
It’s hard to drown when there’s no water.
@@The_whales you can drown in mud,blood and any liquid not water
@@user-ot8wl7oh9s no money = won't tricked
No water = won't drowned
Yeah i know english is not my first language but you should know the analogy already
@@Payday5the first statement has "money" as a resource.. the second statement has "water" as a threat
that is why those two doesn't relate
@Tenkk nothing strange, money is a threat, embrace anarcho primitivism
Honestly the best model is the win to pay design. The game is free, but once you beat it, a guy shows up at your door with a bat and forces you to pay him $60.
Genius
smart
@@Axalachiplease dont hit me with a bat made out of cake ill pay the 60%
@@Kahridk okay I won’t ╰(✿´⌣`✿)╯♡
You know most people don’t beat games right? Like deadass prolly no more than 25% actually beat the games they buy and most people only pay multiplayer games nowadays only
Dude, this video was mind blowing, watching Twitch streams of people spending money on games is just like standing behind the kid playing the arcade game back in the day, you like the game but maybe you don't have the money to get better at it. Loved the video btw.
Very true, also the hardware isn’t compatible, strong enough for the games
Paying for games regardless buying games or paying for microtransaction is pure stupidity. I rather play games that is free and 0 microtransactions and I can play the game for years
@@gladiatorgamer9502 Paying for games you know are good is supporting hard working people, paying for a broken game is being a blind fanboy.
@@demontamerbf18 why would I pay for games when I alr paying them with my time. When u like me who spend 8k hours on games, that literally translate to me spending $80k in the game industry assuming u can earn $10/hr. $80k is literally the amount I can earn if I had worked instead of gaming on paper. Now add money that u used to buy games? Why dont u tell me how much it costs in total?
@@gladiatorgamer9502 Yeah thats why pirate game still exist, its free and if it bad just delete it, and download more, all hail pirate game
The arcades weren't pay to win. They were pay to play. You didn't win. You didn't expect to win. Often you competed for high scores. How long you got to play on one payment was skill based. It was expensive, but the entry cost was low and you had many choices. It was a very transparent system and there was a ton of competition. The arcades were great!
That sounds even worse... Imagine if every time I wanted to play Elden Ring, I had to swipe my credit card and then if I died, I had to swipe my credit card to continue.
@@GoodwillWrightYou're comparing two, very different types of monetization. Of course paying a one time 60 dollar fee to play a game would be better than paying one 25 cent fee for every try, but you're not just paying 60 dollars to play a game. You also have to pay another one time large variable number dollar fee to get the hardware to play the game too. These styles are just too different for an equal comparison.
@@Goandoffurselfpaying 60 bucks to play games is dumb, let alone paying for arcade games
@@French_Fries9 No, but paying to continue playing a game after losing is certainly pay to win.
it actually does for some games, you die, insert coin, comeback to live, repeat after you complete the game
Mark my words, in the future indie devs and studios with small and loyal communities, will be making your favorite games down the road.
I mean, they do now. The cheese from the AAA factories is so rarely good that I've given up on them altogether.
@@thebahua same here, i dont even remember when was the last time i bought aaa title. Maybe dishonored 2, ori an the will of the wisp and im thinking of elden ring now. The rest are indie games
I know I will be teared apart cause I said this but I believe web3 will help to build this indie ecosystem
It just gives so much power to developers both in case of financials and communities but all the scams and speculations preventing people to see the real value
My favourite games rn are sekiro and ori I know they can not be considered indie but idk I feel that those games brake the rules of the big game makers.
@@C-scoFromSoftware is an exception, though.
The thing about the old coin based "pay to win" games is that you could finish the whole game with only one coin. In fact i had a lot more fun playing with one coin and seeing how far i can go. Even when later emulators were a thing and you can just get infinite lives it was much more fun to play with one coin and try to beat the game.
Exactly why the guy who gave the speech said "don't make the games too skill based" because someone with a high enough skill will complete the game without spending a dime
I did that with Dragon Lair. Yes that game. I had the PC version of it and practiced so much in the late 90's.. then found an old arcade where it still was up and played it on one single credit xD
Yes it's very fun getting that good and using just one credit to beat the game.
Oh by the way the original smash TV was made without a way to win. They kept saying you need keys to enter the vault and kept teasing you, but the programmers never actually programmed a final vault level. True story. Only later did n updated cabinet get made and released.
@@xenxander original PAC-Man has no ending either. It's a level that just crashes at 256.
It also mattered which games you played. People didn't generally play what were referred to as "Quarter Eaters".
Games like Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Combat hit big among Arcane players. The better you were. The less money you spent.
This is also why Arcade rats where simply better at gaming in general. They had to be to make good use of their money.
That's just nostalgia blinding you and getting too used to rushing the game in 1 go. They make games eating quarters or Nintendo Hard simply because Steam isn't a thing to make quick cheap games so they make it hard and hope that you have to rent it again from Blockbuster multiple times to beat it. The "hardcore gamers" is just a side effect of an old business model that is no longer lucrative
Crazy how things have shifted from “piracy is bad, and the game devs deserve to be compensated for their work” to “piracy is good, and the people need to fight back against the greedy publishers”
Imo piracy has always been a net good in the long term. Often, it's the only way games actually get preserved and shared for future people. All the arcade games you can play today? Piracy.
Idc about anything, I always pirated and will always be pirating. Yay free stuff
@@sazanja the only correct answer tbh.
@@sazanjalet’s go pal
The only downside I have to that is that playing online is problematic as hell
Sadly it can't save us from P2W garbage
Like it or not governments have to step in. We saw this happening in Netherlands and Belgium. They classed CSGO's containers as gambling (which it is) and forced Valve to remove 'em or face consequences. It's been a while since this happened but let's hope more countries will follow this example and step in.
It sadly affected Overwatch's loot system. That one was stingy with cosmetic credits, until they made it better and better. It was so good that you could get a lot of cosmetics by free or just maybe paying once for more loot boxes (and not even the expensive ones). Now that OW2 came out, all cosmetics are paid and overly expensive with almost no way to get them for free, even if you came from OW1. :(
wait they arent available in the netherlands and belgium?
@kirsten.8772 According to Google and steam community yes. This happened back in 2018. It can be bypassed with a VPN but they did the right thing. You want a skin just buy it. Those cases are a waste of $$$ and time.
@@KhriZippy Learning what Libertarians Leanrned. Government is not the Solution
@@silverhawkscape2677agree, the market will come out with a solution, sooner or later.
What's worse is that I constantly run into people (especially the younger generation) who go crazy over "skins" willing to spend enormous amount of real world money to play virtual dress up. And get annoyed by games that don't have battlepass/skin bundle systems.
I love skins that are obtained by PLAYING, paying for them ruins the fun, doing "daily challenges" (Battle passes) for them is just to get people to get hooked onto the game daily so they don't want to stop playing even if it takes money to continue
i don't mind battlepasses tbh, they're usually around 10$ and they take longer to complete than paying for another 60$ game. if it's a battlepass for a game that you already enjoy playing and the price is justified for the amount of hours you're getting out of it, i don't see the problem
Imagine paying real money for virtual clothes if you told me that 15 years ago I would tell you that is mental illness
@@Chiefrocka. it all started with that damn eso horse
”How can I play this, theres no battlepass grind!”
You hit the nail on the head, it’s about conditioning. When we start giving leeway to “just cosmetics” or micro-transactions being only a couple of dollars, it becomes a slippery slope that leads to the results we have today.
Too bad the majority of people are mindless and desperate to part with their money. Comment sections are infuriating when you see fanboy clowns defending these corporations.
Just cosmetic micro transactions would be fine and tolerable how unfortunate it is then that players start excusing the bs
Slippery slope fallacy,
You have no way to prove that assertion. It's been like 10 years that majority games have just been charging for cosmetics.
Leave the tin foil hat at home
@@waynewayne8419 its like conservatives talking about gay marriage lol
@@augustuslunasol10thapostle
This analogy is too good lol. But if I may correct you with some semantics, their argument with the slippery slope fallacy was consent. They thought that if we allow gay sex and other “immoral acts” the things we “can” consent to can be bad and gets worse regardless of whether or not the two people say yes. It sounds incoherent, but hey, it’s above my pay grade to translates conservative nonsense.
Deep Rock Galactic has a really enjoyable model for monetization. I don't know how well it works, but they put out the base game at a fair price and then offer free to pay expansions and advertise cosmetics you can get to "support the studio" these cosmetics are typically under $10 and I have gotten into the habit of getting them whenever they come out. The gameplay is great, the model is solid, I just hope that from a studio perspective it is sustainable.
Terraria:
- One if the most popular games ever
- $10 for access to all of the endless content
- great devs always involved with community and actually cares
- free mod loader, mods and resource packs
- No in-app purchases
- still makes quintillions of dollars
Be more like Terraria
😮
Dude terraria doesn't make that much money anymore 😂
@@Catalanskrrbait
Thats delusional, there need to still be tens of millions of people to buy Terraria every month for them to make millions with that system. Please keep it a serious discussion
Why are people so serious lmao. Am I not allowed to express my love for Terraria? You guys need to chill ffs.
This is why I and so many others love indie games. You pay and just get a good game!
this is true with tripple a games as well its just some of the more greedy ones put p2w in their paid titles.
I'm glad ea have stopped with the nfs franchise
they luckily only did it for one title
@@sharkyslegoandotherstuff i only buy AAA games if im sure they'll be high quality and something i will play and replay for long, stuff like elden ring, God of War, The Legend of Zelda BOTW blew my mind
Like which one?
@@caquita402 i'll give some of my favorites
Hollow Knight
Omori
Ori and the blind forest
Outer Wilds
Inscryption
The hex
Undertale
Lisa: The Painful
Lisa: The Joyful
Subnautica
Papers, please
Furi
Deltarune
Hades
Dead Cells
Terraria
Oneshot
There are many more that I like but I cant really remember all of them right now
@Bleh bruh you're trollin
I love how you used Valhiem as a great example of an indie game
To me, it's even better than most AAA games that I've played the in the last 10 years
Playing valheim with a group of friend was the most fun i’ve had since 2017 fortnite
@@magicoil1572 dont forget that their mods on workshop works perfect if you want more challenge or their vanilla game goes stale on your liking
...
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@@magicoil1572 What do you like the most about valheim?
Valheim is top tier, So much content already in Early Access and insane content after with 5 DEVELOPERS
I think the problem here is that they take things too far. I am fairly sure a lot of the games are profitable without the extreme levels of pay to win you see in like EA games. If your goal is to make a modest income, things wont deteriorate as much as if you want to 'make as much money as possible'.
They are, just for a reference point, before loot boxes skins costed 2$ on console games. Post loot boxes skins cost 20$ often times. Literally a 10x price increase. Similarly due to digital sales physical production costs go down.
Loot Boxes were so profitable to keep shareholders happy post loot-box they needed to vastly up the price.
This also has a hidden benefit for companies, when a person willingly buys 600$ worth of cosmetics this means 10 people can leave your game without consequences. People can no longer vote with their wallet as only 10% of their community needs to pay money to completely counter everything people can do to fight back.
As a gaming industry worker, no, popular games pleases the investers and you do not need pay 2 win. games that don't have enough userbase relys on pay2win even GM to make enough profit to sustain the team.
You forgot how arcades changed the pay to win model by giving you a time limit before you died, or a health meter (like in Gauntlet) that was ticking down slowly. Red Valkyrie had to hussle to take more damage from monsters simply to find food.
You pick up the food by playing the game, not by throwing more quarters in.
There's a whole strategy and balancing act to making sure you can get to the food items before taking too much damage, but also not grabbing them prematurely in case you needed them later.
It's literally an example of not pay-to-win.
Continue screens and dynamic health were nothing like the proto-microtransactions in Double Dragon 3.
Are you familiar with a female voice saying "insert the coin"?
I always thought people were like me where it was obvious that these tricks were there. I don’t think I have really spent on anything for pay to win expect for that one time with 10 bucks when I was young. But I am also not surprised. Good analysis.
What did you spend the $10 bucks on?
@@Acistra A War Robots starter pack.
F2P games are designed to keep you playing at a daily basis otherwisae you are the one gonna lose if you don’t play daily with their free stuff. Grinding shouldn’t be a thing.
@@therealjaystone2344 Unlike Payed one times Games their Live service usually, so without people playing them they can't continue.
Some can do this fine via enganging(keyword engage not addict)the player into playing more, until their sastified. Atleast that should be how it goes, instead some like Genshin Impact treat you like animal made out of money, not person.
So it tries manipulation tatics than just giving you an amazing experince and seeing if you're willing to pay for more.
They feel entiteled to your money so they try anything to obtain it, like somehow them creating something they worked hard on is deserving of people's money, thats not how that works people choose what they consider worthwhile and should be treated with Respect.
Genshin Impact had them go in and like it, but it didn't respect them.
LOL is somewhat similar it atleast somewhat respects its players, still though with it's terrible Challenge changes, events being only shop updates and a terrible focus on only competive.
It lead to the game falling off so much people are reccomending you not to play it.
@@therealjaystone2344 ya they are hell for completionsts
Can't beat the game if you miss a day
One cool thing about F2P is they’re banking on the player getting hooked in the game, which is something everybody wants. Whether it’ll become a self destructive habit later on is somewhat of a coin flip, but at its best, F2P can make the consumer and developer both happy if done ethically and moderately
Which is rarely happen. F2p games want people to keep coming back using limited shit, so they cant play anything else
@@shutup1037 “rarely happens” bruh League of legends has it happening, and its one of the most popular games
@@specificocean4176yeah that is what rarely happens means, most cases don't do the same as league
By "hooked" he means in a way that is compulsive and not necessarily enjoyable. How many times have you seen someone complain about the grind in a game and get the response "If there isn't a grind, what would be the point of playing?". The answer of course would be there is no point, and that Freudian slip reveals they aren't enjoying the shallow gameplay either.
@@Maximum432 Hooked can be good and bad. I can’t remember a time or game that had me hooked “long term” in a good way that I remember fondly lol (At least for F2P games)
The arcade pay-to-win model was not a purchase model but a rental one: The player rented the right to play the game until either the timer ran out or the player ran out of lives (shortened by the difficulty level of the machine).
it's funny how 50 dollars used to be considered overpriced but now it's considered a lower end standard price
Depending what u spend that $50 on
Now games are 70$
Patient gamer ftw, 2 yrs and all of them go for 10-15$
Inflation mostly (at least I would bet that's the case)
@@Chortle.
Games are also longer nowadays, either through multiplayer or sheer amount of content on single player (compare RDR2 to RDR1). The last COD game had such a short campaign that people were mad (rightfully so), but if you go back, games used to be even shorter on average. Complete walkthroughs (gameplay + cutscenes) barely break a few hours barrier.
With that being said, Game Pass services and good old piracy are our saviors. If consumers weren't addicted degenerates, they wouldn't buy 70 games (that will also "force" you to consider microtransactions later on).
I'm glad I got to experience the "golden age" of video games. When games had none of these BS, P2W features, and launched as fully fledged games, with minor issues (if any at all). Games like Halo 2 & 3, Gears Of War, MW2, Destroy All Humans, to name a few. More & more AAA studios are releasing half-baked games, and it's just sad. It's up to the indie developers who publish their own games to bring those "golden age" experiences to the table.
Frommsoft: hold my game of the year awards
and up to consumers to just not buy the bad shite
@@SodaPopBot still that way today
To be honest we live in an even better age. You just have to be a good consumer, and it’s the best time to be a gamer than ever. Stop buying shitty games by EA, Ubisoft, blizzard, etc. and realize that there are so many better options
@@polygondeath2361 this, thank you. There's such a vast selection of good indie games. I just think people's standards are inflated and expect aaa from indie.
Granted recent AAA have been flops, frommsoft has consistently put out game of the year and they've been some of the best experiences gaming has to offer in this era.
I have a hard time imagining some new system that is both lucrative and ethical.
If Warframe taught me anything. A game made with care that respects you and has a developer backed community are your key ingredients. That isn't isn't really ground breaking, it's just not doing bad things. It's a game I'm actually happy to support, it's like how you describe Doom's success of earning it.
Yeah, i saw people paying for the game not because the cosmetics but because they want to support the devs... Is crazy to me, but again, i donated to streamers, so not so different
How about just creating a good game and not microtransactions at all?
@@3vergiven warframe is that, you can get almost everything by grind, many ppl do grind, but many players just pay to support the devs. Yes It blew my mind when i heard it first too
I remember one time I just went fishing
Sadly warframe gets worse every year, they rarely care now about their players who are in mid to late games. The last like 3 updates only gave stuff to new players. I have like 800 hrs.
I'm too poor to be tricked into spending money in games.
Hello Games and NMS's second arc are a good example of what you talk about at the end of the video. They keep on adding games for a fixed price to their game. That's what happens when passion drives you.
i would never fall for their tricks.. because my motto is "Grind to Win"
But some of these games it is impossible for grind to win without a visa card.
@@RandySnarsh if that the case then its unplayable for me o7
That doesn't work when it comes to PvP free to play. You can grind for 3 weeks 8 hours a day just to have it all destroyed in 5 seconds by some whale who spent $8000 on it yesterday. I had one experience like that in 2013 and never used free to play again. It's all junk. I discovered that for that particular game (evony) you could buy for just $60 what it would take 100 hours to grind out. Waste of time.
Grinding is boring
I'd rather do the things I like in the game
@@Chronix-yup, mobile gaming has heavily implemented this pay to win system and for some reason mobile gamers are all brain dead idiots who keep paying for these.
I wish companies could learn from the awesome Deep Rock Galactic. You buy the game, then endlessly enjoy. It is so well made that it makes you want to spend money on cosmetics.
Was wondering if any dwarves were watching this. Rock and stone brother!
@@Dirtbaghippy Rock and stone to you too, fellow dwarf!
Lmao I wish people would stop saying stuff like this without thinking about how business works. Tattoo thinking emotional. Why would the makers of Call of Duty or Madden stop making a billion a year to follow some random game?
@@toptiertech7291 Im talking about making a game enjoyable, and fair for most players. Ofc I know how companies work. They want maximum profit. If they are doing well with their current strategies, why bothering taking players into account?. People like u are the ones that make their aggressive strategies viable, little brown-nose.
Rock and Stone
I honestly have never seen such a good video on youtube
You have just earned yourself a sub
Update indie studios are facing a dilemma. "Unity" a engine for coding games is now charging developers for every install in app purchases they make from their games. The executive in charge of that idea was formerly from EA "John Riccitiello". So now indie studio making free games or even one payment, forever, perfect games are now losing money for even making games using Unity.
1:52. You couldn't be more wrong. Shareware was huge back then. Apogee popularized the model used by Doom starting in 1987, 6 years before Doom. And the model was older than that. The one free out of three episodes model was extremely common.
they were doing what every indie was doing, they didn't revolutionized anything
True. Demo versions were a huge deal till 00's. But later on with Steam come to live it started to go down and rises back again now. As a wise man said - all new is well forgotten old.
winrar (
@@kirasmile580 Demo =! the shareware model. Shareware has more in common with Telltale Walking Dead/Batman than the modern day demos
I'm a hobbyist programmer and recently started working with a small team. I really dislike the fact that you actually earn a small percentage of your income from cosmetics and the progression is what really bumps it up. I want the game I'm developing to be free to play, but the team lead is just in a whole different mind. He's like "it's not p2w because it gives you a small negligible benefit". No shit man, that's what p2w is, giving you any progression benefit. I really want to slowly shift out of the p2w and introduce more cosmetic monetization in the game, but the final choice ain't mine... That's exactly why I've been developing alone until now and after this project I'll keep developing alone or being the head of the project.
will you try to sue minecraft bedrock and make that free to play if you win
Once you are done developing can you share it with us dude, good luck to your Journey, I'm studying IT rn but my school is not giving me enough knowledge, I want to make a program too.
@@xynthyxpls make a game that is free to download and dont have any microtransactions
And please make the game free, and in mobile, so us poor country can play the game instead paying 50$ game
@@petraryca fr make everything free for us poor players
This is an amazing video! I have been debating free to play for my game we made and this will help me make my decision. My game is a math game so it is a different genre. Thanks for the video.
I hope this gets recommended more!
This isn't just a problem in the gaming industry, every industry manipulate us into buying their substandard/planned obsolescence products.
Another system is possible, it's just a matter of enough people wanting to change it.
True
True
Well said, Martin! It feels like almost every company just wants to sell a subscription these days and almost no company wants to just sell a good product.
in this day and age, company want good income, good quality only ever being put on thought if it can increase the company's income
Well 😏😌 I wonder why is that🤭
I would honestly like to see a study on what long term effects free to play models have on kids.
Obviously gambling is extremely harmful but plenty of free to play games don't have that but still manage to be emotionally abusive and manipulative, that can't be healthy for a person who still has a developing brain.
good luck finding a control group.
Great point. Free to play games can be fine but the pay to win model will make it seem like spending money is the only way to progress if that's all they know. Skill will become only a small part of gaming. I'll be keeping my kids well clear!
I love your videos! So happy to have found it
To be fair about genshin and Honkai star rail-
They’re singleplayer, so the p2w system doesn’t affect other people’s fun as much as p2w in multiplayer games
Depends how to view it, they are the game socially dependent, not totally a single player game like other AAA game, when it is socially dependent, pay or without is having different level of gaming experience, maybe it's not p2w, but induce consumption for sure.
This is very interesting... especially when you consider a game like Warframe. Technically you could earn everything in the game with skill and grind, and pay for the convenience of crafting times, yet it is considered THE fair free-to-play game because it hit a sweet spot of how much you can earn through grind and skill, and only pay if you just want it immediately
Some call it pay-to-progress
@@darq7000Pay-to-skip-the-grinding
@@darq7000 Nah, pay-to-progress would be if they locked things behind a paywall, Warframe is more like pay-to-skip, you pay so you can skip grinding or waiting for time to pass.
@@vikhr pay-to-skip is pay-to-progress. What you describe is the classical pay-to-win.
@@darq7000 "X is Y. What you describe is Z" What? I highlighted the differences clearly. Pay-to-skip is when you have to pay to skip grind, pay-to-progress is when you have to pay to progress (clearly this is not true in Warframe), and finally, pay-to-win is when you have to pay to get gear that guarantees better chances at winning (also not true in Warframe because the only items truly locked behind a paywall are a few cosmetics that amount to only 1% of all cosmetics in the game).
Its really unfortunate how in every p2w video Battlefront 2 is a prime example.
I still play regularly and the game is actually not p2w anymore.
You get all the Heros/Villians for free. You cant even speed up the progression in any way with $$.
I wish they just did THIS first instead of what their first impression turned out to be.
It tainted everyone's perception of it and it doesn't matter whether they fixed it. The damage is done.
agree 300%. Sad that the game's reputation is tarnished for something not even in the game anymore
Huh I never knew that. I will still not buy it though.
Just like internet explorer
It doesn't matter what it looks like now people still won't use it
Actually, I still play the game and I always hear it being talked about in those "Bad games that got saved" videos
@@guaplei1 people use edge and is the second most popular browser, over 10 million people bought no man sky I at the end of 2022
I'm almost always tempted to dump some cash on free to play games, but with strong will and empty wallet I still manage 😂
I saw those fable clips and I was immediately brought back in time... Thank you for that, I now want to go back and play fable again, but I sadly can't as I don't own my original Xbox360 anymore, nor do I have the money to buy the game in steam... If I had a time machine... Well we all know the answer
This is a great video, didn't know any of this stuff about Doom's business model! it was honestly pretty crazy especially for the time
The crazy part is that these games can make monopolies on a genre, take 2k Basketball for example. Not only do you pay full price, but you have to pay to progress in single player, subscription service seasons pass, and paid gambling for cards in ultimate team. Every moniztation method and an annual reset. There are no alternatives if you want to play video game basketball. We can fight back as you can see for Battlefront, but people arent fighting back in games catered to causals like sports and mobile games.
So happy to hear daddy nexon being mentioned, I don’t play maplestory but I have played Mabinogi for over 12 years. I dread to calculate how much I’ve spent over that amount of time, but it’s my major hobby.
The fact that videos like this are made, shows that people just dont know or dont care that they are are fricked by game companies.
Great video keep up the good work.
Everyone has a breaking point
@@haruhisuzumiya6650it's one thing to break but a whole other issue when they start defending the company. "This billion dollar company that's swimming in profits needs my $200 donation for the ftp game" kinda energy
Not really
they care, there are just new children being born every day to addict to the new paradigm of a worthless hobby.
The 1st step (also highlighted in that presentation to the devs) is to make a REALLY good package/deal for only .99c or 1.99c. The purpose of this is to LURE you in, by making you psychologically accept that you are now a "payer" instead of a F2P -- that opens the can of worms up to more and more purchases.
Knowing this, I usually only spend 1-10$ on most games I play just to support the devs (if it's a really good & fair game) but not more, but many don't have self control and that's how they make their money.
As someone who considers F2P status something valuable (bragging rights), this is very true. That being said, I am also willing to toss a few coins to devs of actually good games where progression is fair and balanced for non-spending (or better yet, does not include P2W at all). Though there are some good F2P gems out there, these days I'd rather just pay $2-10 upfront for a mobile game and enjoy a full experience without any additional payments, arbitrary restrictions on playtime, nor unnecessarily long grinds.
@@cheesewizard0727 I've done that before with something that I paid upfront but is a live service because I enjoyed their stuff and wanted to support them. I don't think there is anything wrong with that in either scenario because with F2P games that don't have P2W stuff, you can just try out the game like a demo but as a whole.
Rarely is there any "good 1-2 dollar package". best use case ive seen is Genshin's tactic with their 5 dollar package. Which rarely is the reason why people spend more, fomo does a way better job. Its better used for retention value tbh
"To devs"
All that money goes to the publishers. Devs were already fired or is making another different game with fixed salaries.
The only free games I spend money on are small teams or single developers, as a means of supporting a passionate small team or single developer, who have created a genuinely great game.
I think these tactics are starting to/ will eventually start doing the opposite of their intended purpose when people get disillusioned by companies pushing the envelope to far
This is such a great video! I believe so many hours spent doing research and stuff for this. The part where you said piracy was going rampant (and still does) in Asian countries are true, at least in my country. And I love the fact that you bring the topic why that can be the case, like our monthly wage is only about $200-$300 normally, so gaming is sometimes seen as a luxury thing.
That's why free 2 play model like Valorant, Mobile Legends, Apex Legends, are massive here.
Loved the video! I wonder how you guys come with a topic like this. I like making videos about gaming but struggling to be as good as this haha
How to make money! Step one, make a game full of dogs. Step 2, make people pay to be able to pet the dogs.
Ba-Ding! Sarge wants his tummy rubbed.
If EA owns Nintendogs
Updater how to make money guide : 1. Make a game full of cats and dogs 2. Make it so the more luck you have the better dog/cat you will get like collection 3. MAKE STUFF TO PAY FOR BETTER LUCK AND MAKE THEM TEMPORAL
As much as I love Nintendogs, now I wonder what a EA version would look like…
hey, you deserve my like 👍 keep it up!
Well done on tell this story you did it so well 👏 👍 good job
Great video mate. Extremely well edited and chocked full of information free of fluff. Glad I stumbled across your channel. EZ sub
Highlighting indie gamed at the end of the video might be one of the best thing I've seen on this platform. Keep up with the good work
Yeah indie studios are awesome
In all my gaming life, from the 90s til now, i never payed a single cent for a "surprise mechanic"/micro dlc/ cosmetics or whatever you want to call them...and it feels good!
14:00 quite amazed to see Black Desert game item as I don't see much talk about this MMORPG 😅
That's crazy. I've been playing free to play games and mobile games for ages. Never thought about spending a dime. This just convinced me that there are people out their with real spending issues.
Issue is probably deeper than just "video game p2w habits".
besides if the game isnt fun without paying, i cant see how itll be fun when you pay. Pay to speed up progression, is the less dangerous offence to such a system
@@leonc4653 I guess I'm just thinking about it differently. I've been playing since I was a kid and always had that mentality of "pay once, enjoy forever" which was what orders games were. With the new free to play games I just don't Ike it even I have to pay extra to have fun. Currently have 600 hours on genshin and never paid anything. And most game I played was destiny 2 from pre college having 2000 hours in it.
In summary I'm just built different and didn't understand that spending was that big of a problem. Thought people were self aware about their decisions
I have no money so i was forced to play f2p lmao.
@@cy4n_knight_q8 "Never payed anything -" except your time. I wonder how many of you people will ever realize that time is more important than money.
@@darkestnutoftheabyss3641 I'm not sure what do you mean by that, logically playing games are a waste of time no matter what game is it, whether it's genshin or not doesn't matter
I like how other companies have been struggling meanwhile DE and Warframe have been thriving for nearly a decade because of it's team being full of open minded and innovative devs who care about the game more than filling their pockets
there's also DRG, and while it is a game you have to pay to play, 90% of the cosmetics and weapons you can get are earned directly in-game
the stuff you CAN buy are purely for looks, its battle pass is completely free and all the cosmetics you couldn't get in the previous ones get transferred to either in-game drops or the shop(which doesn't really have a premium currency, as phazyonite can also be mined in DRG)
not to mention the game is a blast and a half to play
What drg
@@jonathonbartlett5518 deep rock galactic: the game where you mine, shoot and rock n stone
one thing i find funny about warframe though is that to new players, weapons are marketed to them with platinum and not the blueprint for credits. not gonna lie i feel bad for smeone who bought a cool gun and then realised it wasnt that good because they still have to farm mods for it lmao, and that they also could have just got it for like 30,000 credits 😭
@@blackjovian9414rock and stone
This orchestral background music is hilarious. This video is revealing the secrets of the universe.
And then Buldur's Gate 3 was released right after this video. Perfect timing
Gaming industry is not about making good games anymore, its about making as much money as you can.
Seem fair
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven
There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today
Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell
Come to Jesus Christ today
Jesus Christ is only way to heaven
Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void
Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today
Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today
Holy Spirit Can give you peace guidance and purpose and the Lord will
John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jesus
Pay to play arcade style is back as cloud gaming.
... And we as consumers are falling right into it. We will now own nothing once again.
This is what MS is doing with things like game pass, and what Valve is fighting with the Steam Deck.
but the thing is with the high prices of gpu's I think 10$/month is pretty good deal to play games on high settings
in a sense, but the games are not tuned for difficulty instead its length of play. Which is not necessary a bad or good thing.
@@thebahua what “what valve is fighting against “, they are fine with people putting game pass on the steam deck, and steam games aren’t physical copies, you cannot sell them even if you want to.
I really enjoyed this video, thank you for this
In retrospect it's kind of wild that no arcade game ever tried giving you the option of selling you gun upgrades or anything by putting quarters in. I know the obvious response is maybe they'd be afraid of the backlash but seeing as how there was never even a single company to try it I don't think that's the reason.
Old School RuneScape uses the free to play aspect very well in my opinion. You get a set of skills/locations locked behind the subscription wall, but you can buy a thing called "bonds" in game if you're smart enough to generate cash flow. These bonds act as a subscription (but only for half the time than a regular months purchase), yet it allows players to test/play and enjoy the benefits without having to touch a payment plan. Also the bonds are tradable which means one can even be gifted with it in game if you have friends that are generous enough. With that said there are still a load to do within the free to play world of things, which can be done before even wanting to chase after the members stuff.
Nice video! I saw many videos about the topic, but no one have the background and the history behind these practices. I understood more thinks with your investigation and make me question if someone already invented a new system that work for both side, users and companies, but we haven't see it.
i remember the saying "if the product is free, you are the product."
Thanks for the video!
I'm sad for what gaming has become in the last decade. I miss the times where you'd just buy a game and have access to everything in it. No DLCs, no in app purchases, no ads. It was amazing.
Also one big caveat about multiplayer games with progression is you never know when it's gonna shutdown. The studio might decide the game is not good enough and just end it and everything you did in it is gone.
Those games never gone away they just are overshadowed by scumier titles because there the ones that make the news. You still can find games without micro-transaction and games with dlc aren't the worst if you do your research as some can have meaningful content.
"I miss the days when"
You mean yesterday? like, I bought a game yesterday. It had no DLC, no microtransactions, it's a very fun game. You should try looking outside of Activision, EA, Ubisoft and their ilk. Most games I buy don't have microtransactions, and if they do have DLC, it's large additions to the campaign/story/world that are more like expansions.
I don't understand the sentiment that you can't buy a game that has everything in it.
Like baldurs gate 3
@@jeanschyso Factorio, baldurs gate 3.
@@teseutressoldi3972 amongst so many others, yes!
I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding about why companies want to put predatory monetization in every possible game, it's not because other models aren't sustainable anymore for them (or that they are afraid/can't change) or that they don't know how to innovate. It's because it gets them a lot more money than if they just sold the game for 60$.
Also, I'm not exactly sure about the 60$ being a problem. While the 60$ price for games stuck for years, there is also the fact that the gaming market has grown by a lot, the demand is much larger than it was before and games are easier to distribute than before (There are also wages being stagnant).
About the solution, I don't think it'll ever fix itself. There needs to be some kind of regulations against predatory practices in games if not in the online space in general, from my understanding it seems that companies are using the lack of regulations to put extremely harmful practices in not just games but also social apps and possibly many other things that I might personally not be aware of. And not to mention the biggest problem in my eyes is the exploitation of the developers who create these games in the first place.
In my opinion, the best way to address this problem is by giving the people who passionately work in the gaming industry a voice against the corporations whose purpose is to turn a profit even at the expense of the people who work there and the game itself. So helping these workers organize to demand better treatment is the solution, basically, regulations to protect workers and unionizing.
Also, a quick note that I would like to say is that the predatory practices are much more nefarious than it might seem even for simple things like cosmetics or "optional stuff", I don't want to extend the comment too long though XD
Predatory monetization is really good in the short run but in the long run it is trash.
While i do agree that the gaming market has grown a lot, i do not think it still enough for games to still be $60, markets growing is nothing new and if anything videogames are the exception, not the rule. even with new technologies, faster way of distributing games, etc, there are still that grow in scope too, and the more things there are, the more time and effort it takes to do everything. So in some aspect i do agree on the external monetization practice but obviously, with any kind of company you try to give them a hand and they take your foot.
The moral of the story is that capitalism is not sustainable, why to make a good product anymore if you can just use cassino stuff
I have played so many Pay to win games while spending not a single dollar or penny.it’s so easy to get manipulated to spend and progress but still grind and stuff.I play Rocket league sideswipe and it’s a real good Free to play game with no way spending money and it’s actually fun when the matches are tough!
This was a great video!
I feel as though we are moving into a similar phase now with games are becoming digital only and disks willl be phased out. that would alienate a large chunk of folks who cant afford the game or internet access. But it would drive digital Dl and subscriptions up so far it becomes a normal need more so than a want. Like cable tv. I miss it😢. Now everything subscription based and lowkey owned by the same parent company. Sigh...
I find it interesting that there's still some outliers in the pay to win industry, marking a balance between revenue and player base. Fortnite is one of those games which is actually not pay to win, the skins don't improve your performance at all, yet they seem to have plenty of revenue coming in somehow
Children don't give a crap. You should check out RUclips videos made specifically for kids. The millions of views you can make* easily off of them.
The reason is that there are many players whose vanity outweighs their common sense.
Riot games in general don't adhere to the pay to win formula either and their probably the biggest name in the free to play market at this point. With league of legends, valorant, tft, legends of runeterra and the soon up coming fighting game.
@@zackrose6261 when is that expected?
@@zackrose6261but they pretty greedy like skin so expensive especially in Valorant just pixels for your account can't sold those stuff like cs:go and Steam , or Tft egg or Battle pass with $$ price 😑 (lol game mode from dota 2 "laboratory" 😂) and you can't even buy Bp just playing/grinding like Fortnite...
There was also a time when a free MMO developer said "The game won't be pay 2 win"(Often rants about this). The developer only keeps his word for months. When the game had an insane amount of good feedback and gained huge money (The Dev was a Solo-Developer). The Developer succumb to temptation and made the game pay 2 win.
Definately how it went in MapleStory. Just skins and stuff in the beginning until the gacha stuff came in actually influencing your strength in the game. They went completely overboard with it with new type of gacha after new type of gacha being added. It was pretty much impossible to keep up, raising costs to do so in the multiple thousands. Killed the interest of many… :(
@@Firestone160 Well your statement is true. I was referring to Legends of Idleon (It was inspired by MapleStory since the dev was also a player and huge fan of it). I won't tell much details but It went as MapleStory was, The developer got greedy. The game was no longer "free to play friendly".
@@mirael1248 sad to see money getting the better of people and killing the games’ vibe in the process.
When you see free to play, just run away.
In eastern Europe we had Pirated consoles like Dendy wich sold Nintendo games were the same ore with changed character models and really bad translation for low price i remember going to me friend and playing many low price games it was a magical for those times
15:35 "being released 19 years ago"
Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
I didn't hear that.
I am still young and fresh.
If all developers was doing the play to win with their free games then I think games won't be like what it is today and amazing video man :]
They wouldnt ye, they would take ages longer and release with less content
@@ZurilasZone ya
@@ZurilasZone games are still releasing with less/worse content even though tthe devs have more money anyways, look at battlefield
You can't make employees make more content or changes if they won't get any money out of it because it's a free game. People need their paychecks. The free game has to have either microtransactions or a ton of ads to make up for it.
@@morkmello5367 ture but l'm am not talking about that what l'm am talking about is abusive monetization not good ones :]
My favourite F2P game is "Eternal Daughter".
It's a metroidvania for PC made by Derek Yu, who also did both "Spelunky" titles.
Sadly, this game is quite old and doesn't run all that well on newer systems.
I wish he would remaster the game for Steam.
Thanks for the information now i see why all game needed money
Tbh, I preferred loot boxes to battle passes. Most people who played overwatch say that they preferred the loot boxes to the new battle pass system, and I feel the same about battle passes in Apex or Fortnite.
Only somebody with gambling tendencies would feel that way.
@@JiggyJones0 No, I just found that lootboxes were better for F2P players than battle passes.
@@JiggyJones0 only a poor person would say that
While it's true that the design of games in the arcade era was to encourage players to keep pumping quarters in the machines, it's not really comparable to present-day exploitative monetization. The social aspect of the current system does not have a comparable element in the arcade era. Kids bully each other at school for not spending money on cosmetics in Fortnite. "Default" is a pejorative now.
Another major distinction is that the pumping-quarters model was perfectly sustainable. Devs and publishers generated high-quality games that rose above the rest, and were rewarded for making them well. Modern monetization's degenerative tendency is turning the AAA industry into a conveyor belt of trash. The industry is dominated by publishers and studios churning out quick hits and asset rearrangements to generate a pile of money in the short term, and then the unremarkable game disappears in only a couple months with only lukewarm reviews and traumatized crunched devs to remember it.
It's really different for kids these days. Keep in mind there are literally twice as many humans on the planet now.
While us arcade era kids could stand out from the crowd (which was orders of magnitude smaller than the smallest online community) through developing skill at the popular cabinet, the only way kids these days can stand out from their online crowd is by customizing their digital avatars. Also, anyone who achieves noticeably superior results at a given online game is immediately suspected as being a cheater.
I like the way Bungie has been doing destiny 2 free to play free to try but pay to enjoy and pay to experience in full. On top of that they also have a newsletter with a section to highlight outfits of players and give them in game emblems to show off which does reward and promote looking at the cosmetic store and spending money when they have things you want for the way they look (current news and battlepass bs aside since that's a new thing and they may tweak it or comment on it later (personally I don't mind them being expensive my time is valuable and I grinded for them so don't give them to new or lazy players for cheap))
Games aren't even fun anymore. Games are meant to be a virtual escape from reality to have fun, but when this happens; it's just saddening.
Games used to be made with passion from its developers but ever since big corporations took over everything; games became just another deadline to the creatively drained game developers.
Our only hope is game development becoming easier and accessible to the masses which will hopefully revive games made from passion.
Important point: ID Software didn't invent the shareware business model, they just proved how lucrative it could be when DOOM became a shareware megahit. Shareware titles, which included non-game software releases, go back as far as the late 1980s (but games quickly became the top category of shareware; Epic -- "Epic Megagames" -- released plenty of titles using the shareware business model throughout the 1990s).
The difference between shareware back then & "Pay to Win" now was that the software devs used to go out of their way to spell out what shareware was & the exact terms of the business model (basically "you can use, copy & distribute this shareware version of our software for free as much as you want, but if you send us this amt of money we'll ship you the full retail version"). The modern game software industry, however, has repeatedly demonstrated just how insidious it can be re. concealing or outright lying about pay-to-win mechanics in its releases, which is the exact *opposite* of the shareware model.
Doom was NOT the first game by id Software to use the shareware model. That was popularized by Apogee (now 3D Realms), who was the publisher for id on multiple earlier titles, most notably the Commander Keen series and Wolfenstein 3D. With Doom, id software began to publish their titles themselves but continued to use shareware model of Apogee.
I think the next model is optimizing their games revenue model for cloud gaming and gaming subscriptions. Paying for Microsoft xCloud has been a lucrative value offer for many gamers, and provides a steady source of revenue for game developers. We'll likely in the future see games that only release on subscription models in the future. But not standalone subscriptions like with world of Warcraft, but rather as packaged subscriptions such as Microsoft xCloud or PlayStation Now.
Wizet created Maplestory, Nexon was the publisher but absorbed Wizet after the success of Maplestory in it's early years.
Got Beat Saber for free and it's the only game I've ever had where I didn't think twice about buying new songs. If you're going to play the thing, and get a proper workout from it, and a pleasant experience, you're going to want some songs you can actually groove to. Spent about $40 extra. Don't regret it, though. Great stress reliever.
You know you could mod the game (if you have it on PC, if you have it on quest then ignore this) and get any song you want
@@mentalish9417 Up until the Quest's latest update you could do this on the Quest as well.
@@mentalish9417 Yeah have it on Quest. I read something about having to erase the game and re-downloading a previous version of the game or something?
Man you made me remember those cyber cafe days 😂😂 call of duty 2 and wolfenstien days cricket 2003 days 😊😊
Instant respect for starting out with the original microtransactions: Arcades. I LOVED the arcade growing up but I'd drop $40 a month on Killer Instinct.
You forgot to mention that the shareware model back then only had the first part of the game as a try before you buy. It's like a demo, and it worked. People REALLY wanted doom.
11:11 Wow immediately calling out Matt Shea with battle cats. Weird how I was thinking the exact same thing.
Welp. My family be damned
I play Genshin Impact + Valorant
My mom plays Candy Crush
My dad plays Golf pro
My bro plays Mobile Legend + Valorant
And all of them do have microtransactions 😅😅😅
To the point that we made a montly collection for our family just for this purpose
It shows how damned we, as a society today. Who literally pay quite a sum just for "temporal pleasure"
wtf underrated video more people need to know how we got to this point
I think Minecraft may be one of the kings of monetization (before Microsoft at least). Altho an "old" game, it strives to this day, bringing in new and old audiences, and tbh, i'd male the purchase again if i had to, or even to buy it for a friend. It is incredible that Notch got it right, besides piracy being big for minecraft, ppl end up buying the game anyway, and i say that as an avid Minecraft demo player lol.
Buying a Minecraft copy is probably the best way to spend your money on videogames. You don't have to buy shit on multiplayer servers, I'd reather help support the server without getting anything in return (to remain equal to other casual players) than spend on items/benefits on a p2w server that's gonna reset in like a year. Instead of microtransactions, pay for the monthly membership at a sports club or something that will benefit you and help you get out of your room to touch grass and maintain gaming-life balance.
If I was going to play Java edition before microsoft, I'd have bought it. Now, though, I strongly believe that Bill Gates owns plenty of yachts already. It's also starting to get rather privacy invasive, and cracked gives me complete control of what the game is doing.
@@fordprefect859 You could use a different launcher for the official game and run older versions to avoid any possible tracking by the game, tho if you're playing on Windows i'd double down at least on minecraft, it's worth it (my op)
Edit: There are mods that disable tracking from the game, and for launchers i like Poly MC
The biggest thing here is exactly "don't let them know that most people don't pay to play, make them think it's the only way to progress"
Many of whom I know get surprised when they get to know that average mobile game gets the most revenue from less than 5% players. These are called Whales. So 9 out of 10 people play for free... but this exact one may pay hundreds or even thousands of $ a month and make a real profit for devs.
So just keep in mind - you don't really have to pay. It's NOT the only way to play these games. And most peole are like you - f2p gamers. Stay on the bright side.
But in the same time... if you think that you make an impact while not buying their shit - you're most likely wrong and devs don't care. They're fed by Whales exclusively.
I mean, i have zero issue with loot boxes, as long as they are strictly cosmetic and reliably obtainable. Ie I get a box at the end of every few matches and can open it immediately. Or say the bf4 route, you can buy boxes, but also earn them reliably, when you level a weapon enough then you get specific boxes for the weapon, allowing you to get the box exclusive version of attachments, but there are only three items that have no standard level up counterpart, the lesser used 20 times scope for snipers, and the infrared and night vision sights.
That's why I tend to stay older games, but there are still good games out there. Like Depp rock galactic for example. That game is worth every cent