I just thought I’d ask what the Amiga community thinks of dlc, loot crate and micro transactions in gaming as a whole. I personally don’t like it, most of the time I don’t care for it and hasn't really effected me playing the type of games I like to play, YET! I feel we’re on the verg of it happing more and more its slipping into the single player games and having it effect the gameplay more and more, (like to progress you can either grind for 10hr to unlock or pay £1 now to gain access) it’s a shame that this business model has proven so popular (mainly in mobile gaming) I don’t get it. Specially things like candy crush and Simpson tapped out I checked out both of these “so called” games to see why they made as much if not more than a triple aaa game with state of the art graphics, story and gameplay and they where kind of disgusting games a lot of flashing imagery making you think you are winning and a lot of pop up, pay to unlock more crap. Why would people poor money into it, and I think some times it’s the kids who don’t know much better when there just 5 years old just tapping everything on screen charging mum and dads bank account not knowing it’s real money this may account for about 20% of these games income but the rest is from adults, the same people who grow up on amiga, mega drives, ps1 and they are even falling for these crap games, I don’t get it.

I’m really pleased the Amiga platform was never apart of this.........or was it?

I just dusted though my old collection of games and in it was oh no more lemmings and it got me thinking of other games that had what I suppose was more regarded as expansion packs back then but it is what they would call dlc now and I’m sure there was a few public domain game that I like that had a timer in it or maybe only 1 life and if and you wanted that removed you had to pay. So basically just wondered what the amiga lot think of these type of game content.

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AmigaNG, YouTube, LeaveReality Studio

@amigang

By the way for people who may not know how bad Simpson tapped out is just a build your own Springfield game, barley any gameplay and there a wait timer in it that’s 90 DAYS or you could unlock it for £30! God smacked when I heard about it and it’s made over £100 million! I had to give it a go and simple did’nt know weather to laugh or cry about how bad it is. Watch this guy show off the fun gameplay https://youtu.be/ub9KoUM8yDg

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AmigaNG, YouTube, LeaveReality Studio

@amigang

I don't play on Amiga that much anymore, just to keep up to date with the ScummVM adventures.

I do play a lot on Consoles these days.
Microtransactions and loot boxes are the new rip off of the gaming industry, too bad too many people fund such development by using those.

DLC's on the other hand are fine by me, *if* they *add* to the gameplay and not introduce the final level to be able to finish the game, been there, done that.

@Raziel

Yep, I pretty much agree with your comment.

I dont play much games anymore, on any platform, but I did play a bit Path of Exiles, which is free to play.
It has a real money shop, BUT the things you can purchase is NOT advancing your game expirience.
You can purchase cosmetics, more inventory, pets, effects etc, which has no bearing on your game at all.

Thats the only currency shop I can accept tbh. DLC like expansions are fine too, since you original purchase gave you your fun.
Thats almost like a cinema ticket to Star Wars; if you purchased 1 ticket for Star Wars 1, you are not entitled to every future Star Wars movie.
I should add that Ive started to dislike the new Star Wars movies. The dialogue/scripts are mediocre.

@amigang

Frankly, the "triple A" part of the games industry can just go away, as far as I am concerned. Their main innovations these days are in finding new ways to screw over consumers. Loot crates and other features designed to trick children and addicts into paying obscene amounts of money, especially, can sod off.

DLC can be okay, if done fairly, although I feel that they are often overcharging compared to the value we used to get from full expansion packs. The worst offenses are consumables, like "premium ammo", or the ridiculous concept of paying for one button fatalities in Mortal Kombat.

@Topic

DLC etc. by themselves are not bad, what makes them bad is that everyone uses them, which is natural since they want to make maximum profit.

In todays mobile games it is a great idea that you can play games by watching ads in middle of game, as long as by paying some small sum like 2 euros, you can get rid of them. Then there are those games where there is no option to pay, just watch ads, or even worse, you pay, and they still dont remove all ads, now that is terrible.

DLC is a great way to extend games life and make more content to it for that group of people who want more, but once again, when they aim right at beginning to first sell you full priced game and on top of that some DLC, that once again ruins the whole thing.

Good idea that I would otherwise welcome even to Amiga, but unfortunately ruined by greedness.

To take couple of good examples about monetizing without ruining the fun. I forgot the games name, but there was this browser based online game (before mobile games took over), where they had very clever way for paying customers. For usually problem with browser games was, that if someone was willing to pay, he got in game benefit, making it impossbible for free players to win.

However, this one particular game had excellent idea, instead of giving actual benefits to player, it was just making paying customers life easier.

Like normally in that game you were able to see, maybe it was 4x4 area, but by being paying customer, you would see 8x8 area. This would change the balance of game in sense that free player could still scroll the screen and see all the same as 8x8 player, but it would just be easier for 8x8 player to see it all at once.

Similarly when you were building buildings, there was always this certain time before they were ready, which would be some hours. To maximize your efficiency, you would make sure you would log in exactly at that moment when that buidling gets finished, so you could start building another building right away. But, by being paying customer, you could have two buildings in a queue.
So once again, free player would still be exactly equal with the paying customer, as long as he is willing to log in at that point when that building is finished, but paying customer could log in whenever he wants and just put another building on a queue for same result.


Then another good thing is in "AdVenture". You can choose to watch an ad, but you dont have to. You are never forced to watch an ad, so if you want, you can play the game ad free, but by watching that ad, you could double the money you have made while you were away, or you could get double the income for next 4 hours. That was very good system, ads didnt bother you in middle of game, yet by quite easily watching couple of ads, you can boost your game.