"Pay to Play" Games are Egregious and Need To Go Away

[SolidSnakeUS]

Honestly, the only AAA publisher (out of Ubisoft, EA, 2K, and Activision/Blizzard) that I really care about in the near future is Far Cry 5 (I did not care about grabbing Primal). It's the only thing that actually looks good. Unless they ruin that with a massive amount of bullshit microtransactions...

 

[Emperoreddy]

I really hope Anthem will be the breaking point, but it is clear AAA developers don’t give a shit. They just tone it back for a few months and go back.

That slideshow’s idea of “good” ads is still so insanely intrusive.

This is why I almost exclusively play indie or old games with the occasional Nintendo game, maybe Rockstar too and Elder Scrolls.

AAA games are either broken, unfinished with the rest of the game locked behind a season pass, micro transactioned to death, or all of the above. It does amaze me Battlefront managed the triple Yahtzee of the above.

 

[dogbazinho]

I just don't buy these games any more. The problem is there will be a generation of gamers coming up where this is the norm. It should be regulated.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I really hope Anthem will be the breaking point, but it is clear AAA developers don’t give a ****. They just tone it back for a few months and go back.

That slideshow’s idea of “good” ads is still so insanely intrusive.

This is why I almost exclusively play indie or old games with the occasional Nintendo game, maybe Rockstar too and Elder Scrolls.

AAA games are either broken, unfinished with the rest of the game locked behind a season pass, micro transactioned to death, or all of the above. It does amaze me Battlefront managed the triple Yahtzee of the above.

EA are masters of their trade.

I'm pretty much in the same boat this year, playing less and less AAA titles and more indie stuff.

As much as I love to complain about just how bad this crap has gotten over the past year especially, there are still a ton of great games out there in the indie space and even a select few AAA (and Nintendo, which is sort of in the middle there).

I think that the more EA, WB, Activision, etc. do this, the more people they push away, and the more space indie developers get. Eventually, the AAA companies will compensate...I think....

On the other hand, this may happen instead:

The problem is there will be a generation of gamers coming up where this is the norm. It should be regulated.

 

[RandV]

Yeah while you can just not play the big publishers games, and indy devs have done great in picking up the slack, the fundamental problem remains that the big publishers still hold the balance of power in the industry. As long as they keep making the most money that isn't going to change, and that there is the scary part because even if they lose customers to this 'bull****' as long as they manage to make more money off the ones they retain then they still come out on top. And that leads to problem #2, they don't just stick to themselves. As long as they keep making the money then they're going to be buying up and spitting out smaller development studios.

Again while indies have been great that shouldn't be the only avenue to make certain types of games. Maybe the balance is okay right now, but what's important is to have a healthy ecosystem to have professionally made mid-tier games that are targetted to more niche audiences. Devs like Larian Studios (Divinity: Original Sin) or CD Projekt, though the latter is getting pretty big now. It's great to have indy devs making smaller games like Minecraft or Shovel Knight, but you really need that healthy eco-system of mid-tier devs... which is what the industry used to be primarily made of until publishers like EA and Activision started monopolizing.