The Encroaching Problem

    I've noticed that my fellow hosts target triple A game developers for criticism rather often in their posts. Now I believe they're completely valid but there is a bigger problem that is beginning to encroach on gaming. While I would love to say that the most troubling thing being played by gamers is the Wii U or Wii. Comment on how I'm wrong, I know someone will, but it really isn't. Devs might be having a hard time programming for those I don't know. But that's another rant for another time. No the most troubling thing that I see in gaming is the use of microtransactions. The use of these insidious little turds is an irritating one. Yet game companies, especially on casual games, will use them to milk their customers for egregious amounts of money, this is made worse by kids that don't understand that they're actually paying real money to game companies for some of these things. Which I can't help but think is the goal after all a company wants to make money and if they're getting someone to pay for something without realizing it that's great. So I'm going to run down the major ways that devs are creating certain "Free" games.

    Rather obviously a free game still has people who developed it and would like to be paid but since their product is available for nothing they have limited options, one of these is to make the game full of advertisements, ala Angry Birds. Which doesn't bother me, hell some triple A games are guilty of this I'm looking at you Madden 13. Another way that a company can get money is through the use of a Freemium model. Ala Tibia, which was a MMORPG that me and the other hosts used to play, 200 LTOVG points to the first one who guesses why I stopped playing that game! This model, in brief, is a free game that also has a subscription pay plan that a person can pay for additional content. But the worst one is the one that works through massive amounts of microtransactions. Which I explained up top. So let's move into them in depth shall we?

    Well the use of advertising. This isn't really a big deal I mean in our society we see this all over the place. From movies where everyone drives a Toyota, or at least the main character does and they make sure you know it, to books where the main character drinks only coke. Sometimes they can get annoying as with my Madden example up above where the announcers are constantly mentioning the product placement things, which follows the theme. Watch any sports broadcast and that's what they do. The only realm of issue with this one is that many of the product placement is more prevalent with the Angry Birds example where they actually run an advertisement while you are playing the game. Most other examples in this area are Triple A games that, very likely, had to pay the owner to show something. Most games that sit in this area are driving games where they have to have a large number of real vehicles for their audience to pick from. And those companies make money from the game and the people who decide they want one from driving it in the game. Probably very few but I wouldn't discount it as a possibility.

    Next up is the Freemium model. Admittedly I haven't seen this used that often. The games that characterize this are mostly MMOs that went free to play. However even many of those fall under the third category. The best example is the game Tibia that I mentioned above. It was a top down MMO that even if you didn't pay for it you could play and access most of the content. However if you had a paid subscription you could get upgraded things like access to the premium spells and the island that sold them. While they were powerful abilities nothing said that you had to have them to enjoy the game. I have to admit I think this is the least obtrusive model. Because it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of anyone who just wants to play for free and it enhances the experience of the people who really want to get everything out of the game and are willing to pay for it. It has been a while since I played, again those 200 points are out there, but if I recall correctly the paid players didn't get obvious bonuses like xp boosts, perhaps one or two additional character models and again the island they could go to. I think they could also buy houses but I quit before I had enough gold to buy one anyway so I don't remember. One of the other two hosts might have the answer. Again I like this model because it doesn't browbeat me with ads for things I don't care about or come across as a blatant money grab.

    The last major one that I can think of is the microtransaction model and I cannot express my disgust with this model. As Tyler has mentioned on the podcast he doesn't mind if stuff is hidden if it isn't attached to the main game. Well that's my opinion for paid-content. Skins and the like are nice for the people who really like the game and are willing to pay for them but they don't affect game play. In some ways this is really the only thing that a lot of Triple A devs have gotten right. While Live was spammed with downloadable skins for guns and the like in COD Blops 2 none of them did anything to change the game other than show the people who really loved the game. The area where this is a real problem is in the casual games like those found on Facebook. Now I've played a couple of those games and I have found that I enjoy the building type of game. Unfortunately many of those also have content that you either need to put large numbers of hours into the game or else pay for advancement. I don't care if it exists in small doses so that a person can pay for it if they want to advance quicker but creating this sheer wall of a time sink to advance unless you pay up is obnoxious. It comes off as a blatant money grab and it is off-putting. The worst part here is that as I said up top, there are several articles of children not realizing that some of the resources that they can use in the game is real money and make outlandish purchases that their parents later find themselves on the hook for. This type of bait and switch must end. I've said on the podcast that I hate it when devs hide content, either perceived or true, this is taking that to the next level. Now not only do devs hide content they want you to fork over real money in order to get it.

Zach "Hambone"

I only wanted Rainbow Dash damn it!