Maybe I'm old but I'll never buy a live service game, I mean I don't like to play with people anyway, but there are multiple solo games with a bunch of MTX in the top of AAA price and they can shut down servers any time, and that's stupid
I spent many years on World of Warcraft. I am a solo gamer too so it didn’t make much sense, but every now and then I’d bump into someone and we’d form a lasting memory.
I met a college professor 30 years older than me and we became very close friends entirely by accident. Hell, as silly as it is I had a very deep love for her.
She seen me jumping into a wall one evening (glitch in Stormwind) and she asked me what I was doing. I took her under the city and showed her my spot. I thought that was that, but a few nights later I was down there and she popped in and said, “I thought I might find you here.”
For months I did nothing but sit under Stormwind and talk to her. She was one of the most incredible people I had ever met. We came from completely different worlds. I was an uneducated, white, hillbilly junkie. She was a very educated black college professor and activist who was in a totally different place in her life.
In no other reality would we have connected like we did. She was legit my best friend in the whole world for a time. We went from text to ventrilo and in my mind, I don’t remember it as staring at a screen and talking through a microphone. I remember it like I was there. (Edit: I remember her actual face in my memories too, because we connected on social media and talked there as well. Crazy how memory works.)
It's amazing that a game with 2 unknown D tier characters on a 4 man roster is charging AAA prices for a live service game. No way that soulless cash grab is ever going to see 3 years old.
If they're getting money through micro transactions they can charge absolutely precisely £0. I can't be bothered paying for a game that isn't complete.
Nowadays it's $70 pricetag + paid battlepass + micro transactions + paid expansions. All this money yet every triple A game is getting shittier and shitter.
My rule of thumb is to avoid all F2Ps like the plague. If it's free, you are the product. I learned that lesson the hard way when I was younger, and the F2P market was still in its infancy.
I spent a few days with the free saints row and it was... Fine, but I didn't finish it. There's not much challenge or depth to the game, and the writing is just okay at best.
Here's what's great about "Live service". In the old days, they had to make the original game great to get your money. Then, if they wanted more of your money, they had to release "expansion packs" and make them similarly great to convince you to give them more money. With "Live Service", you're giving them your money ahead of time, for nothing, and they can decide what scraps of shit they give you in return - such as a single new character being added after months of payments. /s
Lethal company, Pacific Drive, Helldivers 2, balatro... so many good indie* games for $10 to $40 while these $70 games are burning in. All of them overwhelmingly positive too. Really makes you think about the games market and the ones who are actually taking risks and innovating.
*Helldivers isn't indie, but I also wouldn't describe them as AAA either.
No, this is a sign they made a shit game, and are trying as hard as they can to break even.
I suppose that one could make the argument about it being market difficulties, if one meant the difficulty that "AAA" devs have understanding that a shit game cannot just be pushed out the door and make literally all the money, when it is in fact absolute shit.
I didn't mean to be that vague. And you're right. I think part of the problem is that some studios have lost touch with what their customers want in even the broadest sense.