Not too long ago there were casinos and gambling for whales, there were offline board/card games, there were video games.
Then Facebook with FarmVille (2011) came along, and introduced Free2Play aka Pay2Win to everyone. You had to spam friends (exponential scale) with requests to advance OR pay real money - this was for whales.
Since FarmVille (2011) we saw a whole sub-market of Free2Play (most are Pay2Win after a few hours) gambling games, that is based on gamification, gambling and other casino elements and relies on "addicted players" aka whales.
In 2017 this Free2Play crap swooped over to full prized boxed video games for PS4/XBox/Switch/PC. Bad greedy publisher like Warner Bros, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft risked bad PR and shy away decade long core gamers to earn more from 1% whales - Assassin's Creed Origins, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Need for Speed Payback - known for Free2Play/Pay2Win elements like microtransactions and loot boxes.
It saddens one, reading between the lines the PR news from Ubisoft yesterday, they are pushing back all three mayor releases a few months, because Assassin's Creed Origin was so successful - to add such Free2Play mechanics now also to Far Cry 5, The Crew 2 and other games?!
There are still several great publisher like Bethesda that release boxed games for 99% core gamers, with proper & great hours long single player gameplay, and NO greedy crap.
To be fair, this happened because games themselves couldn't raise their prices with the times. They've actually decreased in price from the SNES days; Final Fantasy 3 cost $80, for one. meanwhile the cost of everything has increased. Games can't work well at a base price of $100, so they try to pass the costs along piecemeal.
In reality games cost already $160 not $69!! Gold premium pre-order special edition version plus season pass or seperate DLCs means $160 or even more.
On top of $160 you really think it's fair that one should pay even more for microtransactions and lootboxes!? Only whales are happy with that. The big mass of gamers is getting angry and is looking for pitchforks.
There are publishers that release e.g. Witcher 3 with no DRM, and free DLCs for $60 and got very rich doing so. Or Grand Theft Auto V which is very successful already if you just count the singleplayer sales. It's all about the video game and its quality.
Then Facebook with FarmVille (2011) came along, and introduced Free2Play aka Pay2Win to everyone. You had to spam friends (exponential scale) with requests to advance OR pay real money - this was for whales.
Since FarmVille (2011) we saw a whole sub-market of Free2Play (most are Pay2Win after a few hours) gambling games, that is based on gamification, gambling and other casino elements and relies on "addicted players" aka whales.
In 2017 this Free2Play crap swooped over to full prized boxed video games for PS4/XBox/Switch/PC. Bad greedy publisher like Warner Bros, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft risked bad PR and shy away decade long core gamers to earn more from 1% whales - Assassin's Creed Origins, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Need for Speed Payback - known for Free2Play/Pay2Win elements like microtransactions and loot boxes.
It saddens one, reading between the lines the PR news from Ubisoft yesterday, they are pushing back all three mayor releases a few months, because Assassin's Creed Origin was so successful - to add such Free2Play mechanics now also to Far Cry 5, The Crew 2 and other games?!
There are still several great publisher like Bethesda that release boxed games for 99% core gamers, with proper & great hours long single player gameplay, and NO greedy crap.