[fattless]

The worst part of this trend to me is how many games sacrifice their identity to fit the mold that is now most profitable, it feels so soulless. This is all from my own experience/memory.

Every game needs live service, seasons, and a battle pass. While I appreciate that it can keep the game fresh and evolving over time, I think a lot of times its harmful. Sometimes a relatively simple game is blown out of proportion over time and id almost rather a stagnant game. Furthermore, gameplay can suffer too. In my opinion R6 siege started really strong, but has gone downhill recently, most obviously in operator design. Real power creep is sometimes an issue as well, somewhat recently I remember there were one or two operators added that felt like almost direct upgrades to base game ones. In its case, both the art style and operator design suffered from being stretched out for so long. Or RDR2, who sells most of the content through their premium currency and whose movement between the single player and online is so drastically different that fights online look like smash bros melee matches with frantic strafing and rolling. Compare this to titanfall 2’s design, which has remained stagnant (because it was killed a long time ago), but incredibly successful maintaining a large player base to this day.

Cod and pubg have sacrificed their art style and aesthetic, MW went from “realistic” tactical characters to jigsaw puppets and neon, out of place outfits. It’s like power creep, but for ridiculousness, skins have to get crazier and crazier because sometimes it keeps people buying them because its funny. It fit in fortnite because it was cartoonish and ridiculous from the beginning, but through MW and CW lifespan you can see the art style gradually decay. These game aren’t really meant to be taken seriously, but it always kinda put me off. Not necessarily making an argument about my taste, but rather how the games stray more and more from their original vision, driven by micro transactions.

Battlefield has thrown out their traditional classes for specialists following in r6 and other hero shooters footsteps, part of me always kinda felt like it was to sell skins for each specialist, but I might be wrong here.

This isnt the biggest deal, especially not within the games industry, but frustrating to see innovation slowly be stamped back into the mold. There are many games that hold true to their visions or fill these voids, but the state of AAA gaming and how it molds to the market is a little disappointing to me.

[ranger207]

I agree. At this point AAA games are a genera unto themselves, whether they're a shooter, adventure game, sports game, whatever. They all share the same elements you outlined: seasons, battlepass, in-game currency, microtransactions for the smallest items, and game design that puts the focus of the entire game on those elements. AAA games are made with massive budgets and are designed to be very attractive to play, to the point of addiction, but I simply can't get into them because of the genera elements.

[usrusr]

Time to establish a different term than triple A? What you describe reminds me of what is usually called a B movie: those always had the biggest, cheesiest monsters...

[ericd]

Yeah, the presence of a season pass means an automatic pass from me. I don’t need any heavily monetized skinner boxes in my life, thanks.

[fattless]

Fair. Personally I think if their done right it's fine. The master chief collection has one of the best, most consumer friendly ones that I've seen.

[robotnikman]

Same with the Deep Rock Galactic battle pass. You only spend in game currency, and if you don't collect all the battle pass items before the season ends, they will still be available in random loot chests that generate during missions afterwards

[falcolas]

Imagine being a player who wants to collect new skins or looks in a modern game. In almost any modern game that offers microtransactions. Even indie games are starting to sell cosmetics, so they aren't left out of the feast, err, leaving money on the table.

Your choice is usually limited to: 1) spend money, 2) be unable to get all cosmetics, and occasionally 3) spend hundreds to thousands of hours to obtain the skins.

The worst part is that the average player seems to be fine with this, since it's not selling power - as if power's the only thing that matters in a game.

[donmcronald]

When I played WoW I liked collecting pets and old mounts that were dropped from raid bosses that became solo-able or duo-able. I can't imagine anyone building a modern game where collecting cosmetics is nothing more than a fun side game rather than a revenue stream.

[fattless]

As for the last point, plenty of smaller devs, indies, and a number of bigger studios don't fall into the greed and keep that classic simplicity- microtransactions show up in limited ways if at all. I'd say is just slowly becoming more uncommon.

For a triple a game and decent comparison to WOW, Destiny. I would spend time hunting down exotics/cosmetics, with very minor flair items offered for real money. You can buy dlc or battlepass, but usually these end up being pretty big events adding a lot to the game

[3np]

Nintendo is very good, still. BoTW, Animal Crossing.

[falcolas]

Not really, in my opinion. Animal Crossing pocket. Mobile Mario Kart.

Even Animal Crossing on the switch gated its expansion behind the new, expensive subscription.

[bzzzt]

The mobile games are experiments for Nintendo to find out how their games fit in the mobile gaming world. I think they are full aware of how perverse incentives can kill all the fun in games, so for now I give them the benefit of doubt.

ps. the Animal Crossing expansion can also be bought for a fixed price.

[3np]

> I can't imagine anyone building a modern game where collecting cosmetics is nothing more than a fun side game rather than a revenue stream.

I’m replying to this specifically, not monetization schemes in general. WoW has/had subscription too.

[antifa]

I'm surprised no one has made an indie AC clone for Android. AC Pocket sucks.

[lmm]

Power is the only thing that directly affects other people you're playing with. I don't mind if my opponents want to pay for some particular look - them having a nice skin takes nothing away from me (Oh no, I'll "be unable to get all cosmetics", the horror!). I mind a lot if my opponents can pay to have better winning chances, since that part is zero-sum.

[falcolas]

This trend is in no way limited to competitive games. Tales of Arise, to list merely one example, is a full priced single player game that offers gobs of cosmetic microtransactions. Assassin's Creed <insert subtitle here> is another such example.

[bentcorner]

I play a lot of Overwatch and the really nice thing is that it's relatively straightforward to get every single cosmetic in the game.

I've only bought a single skin (Blizzard donated 100% of the proceeds to Breast Cancer Research Foundation), and every other cosmetic was "free". I have nearly all the cosmetics in the game and have spent about 1000 hours (spread over 5 years since launch).

Compared to current games it's a very generous model that I think will end up going away when the sequel launches in the next year or two.

Additionally everything you can pay for is purely cosmetic (there are no weapons or characters to unlock) so even if you got the game today you're not at a disadvantage.

[mbg721]

Some of the AAA publishers overextended themselves; I think they inadvertently got into the cathedral-building business and then realized they can't build a $70-per-serving cathedral every three years without abusing their employees or making some kind of quality compromise. It's been a decade since Skyrim was released, for example, and a little less since GTA V, and the microtransaction model seems to be their strategy for filling in the gaps.

[prox]

There are many great games coming out from smaller studios and still being maintained. Cases : Rimworld, Valheim, Police Simulator, Project Zomboid, Space Engineers, KSP 1, Factorio.

All off the games you mention seem to be FPS games, perhaps that segment and the sport games suffer segment the most from Pay to Keep Playing schemes.

[fattless]

Yeah I guess my comment was focusing on the biggest budget, AAA titles which usually end up going this way. I'd bet the focus on fps and sports comes down to the mainstream appeal/type of audience those games get.

But yeah the indie and smaller dev scene is going great, I play all those games mentioned and countless more that don't fall to the problems