BlahCade #153: A Bad Case of the Smurfberries

[jaredmorgs]

When you play a video game, you do it to have fun. What is fun to one person differs, but in general you usually want to either complete the game or unlock everything in it.


So what happens when your experience is interrupted by a game funding model that sucks the life out of your enjoyment of the game?


You get a bad case of the Smurfberries.


We explore a few recent examples of In-app Purchase (IAP) models that are at the expense of the game experience. We also talk about the effects of an unbalanced "buy it now" model in free-to-play games.


To balance it out we also give you some examples outside of digital pinball where IAP doesn't need to be gross and distracting.


See https://blahcadepinball.com/153-smurfberries for the full show notes, including links and other info.

 

[Citizen]

Four skins.

 

[bavelb]

Nothing wrong with freemium models where you buy in for a whole new character, level, hat or dance. ie: TPA/Zen. Heck I dont mind it in paid stuff like SF5 or Destiny either. The developer put in more time to expand, of course I’m willing to pay to get it.

Still not much of a problem for lootboxes with random cosmetic rewards (Dota2, Overwatch). Especially if you can occassionally grind those out by playing the actual fun game. Battlepasses like Fortnite are therefor still ok-ish, although tattering on manipulation due to peerpressure.

Once it touches gameplay I’m out. Rule of thumb: any game that lets you pay to skip, or speed up, parts of said game should be avoided. ESPECIALLY if it involves multiplayer.

After all, they would (un)balance the game so that I WANT to avoid significant parts of said game. Meaning they would knowingly put in boring/unfun/overly grindy bits. So why not cut out the middleman and skip it...all of it...for free!

e: I cant imagine how soulcrushing it is to have to develop those types of games. I assume most devs got into the business to invent cool games/systems or tell great stories. And then you get forced into developing yet another Skinnerbox with manipulative stimuli, so the guineapigs will keep pulling the lever for the pellets to fall out.

 

[Nomorestalker]

I have a problem with it when it's already on the disc. I forget what season pass it was the other day I picked up and it was like a 9mb download. If you want to gate off extra content fine. Don't sell me a game at full price then ask for a fee to unlock what I already paid for.