I don’t know about you chaps but I absolutely detest the modern approach companies have with their franchises and games.
I remember you’d get the game on disc and that was it. Or maybe a expansion to go with it which improved it 100%
An example would be say the mortal kombat games, you used to be able to have all the characters or Unlock them. But now you gotta pay up to 100% the game if you want everything.
What rustles your jimmies lads?
Thank you!
Calling it “up to” the full price of the game is being pretty generous. I’ve been really annoyed by Square Enix since they got into the DLC/microtransaction game, because their pricing is always way, way off. It started with Theatrhythm on the 3DS I think. The game had like maybe 50 songs you could play out of the box, but you could buy a ton more at 99ç a piece, which easily cost a lot more than the game itself if you wanted everything.
Some of the skins for Dissidia NT are crazy. First you gotta buy the game, then you gotta buy the character, then you gotta buy a skin and the skin is like $20 for no reason. Unbelievable.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Square Enix has ever done microtransactions with a shred of dignity.
FFXIV handles it “okay”, in that you get a large portion of glam in game and the cash shop stuff is largely excess. There are a few cases where it would have been better to have the reward in game, but for the most part I feel like I can play the game without needing to buy anything.
The impression the community gets is the cash shop is a begrudging feature that SE higher ups mandate to keep cash flow going (because XIV is funding most of SE’s other projects)
What really rubbed me the wrong way with ffxiv’s monetization past the regular subscription was the additional retainer service.
I know it’s not a large benefit to have, even if one’s main focus is on crafting/AH gameplay, but it still annoys me to no end that I could be more efficient by forking over an extra 2USD up to 6 times (iirc) PER MONTH. This means to max out one’s efficiency, one has to nearly double their monthly sub. Ultimately this was one of the many small frustrations with that game that lead to me dropping it, despite overall liking it.