Free-To-Play Games Don't Have To Suck (Overwatch, Warframe)
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- It's hard to imagine a time when free-to-play video games didn't dominate the industry. It seems like an easy way to get new players involved in the gaming space. But slowly but surely these "free" games turned out to be quite expensive. Is there a world where free-to-play games can actually work? Or are they doomed to micro-transactions and hidden pay to play adventures?
#videogames #freetoplay #nerdstalgic
Written by Ash Mitrano
Edited by David Sadvari
Back in the glory days of XBLA, there were tons of free games.
Mostly little party games you could play multiplayer with friends, and they we're great.
Free to play doesn't mean microtransactions, it's just been abused.
Would loooove to see some kind of pass for arcade games. Give people some free samples and demos, and have a full pass with arcade/party/short good games.
Promote them a little and they would sell itself.
Tho we do have the indie scene for those games, there's lots of digging needed to find something truly polished.
yeah man, I remember some of the stuff like Happy Wars, Doritos Crash Course and Harm's Way were all some pretty fun games
I’m happy to know warframe is still killing it. Haven’t played it in like 7 years but it looks like is packed with so much content now. Niceeee
Best free-to-play game ever is arguably Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. I used to play that day and night and there wasn't even an in-game store to spend money in.
Warframe is the only free to play game that I got zero problem buying stuff in. Used to say the same about rocket league when it was on steam but then epic came in and I went out and yes you had to buy rocket league back then
I still play Rocket League sometimes. Decided I'd gotten enough time out of it that I should buy the lastest season pass. On one hand, I'm really happy with the model that you can earn enough premium currency that it negates all but one dollar of the cost of the season pass. On the other hand, there is so much junk in the rewards that it actually becomes a detriment, since Rocket League's inventory management is bottom-tier barely usable. That, and not enough of the rewards are player-tradeable, so you can't offload most of that junk to players who might actually appreciate it.
Warframe is the GOAT of free-to-play. I’ll admit the new player experience is very rough tho
I'm surprised you didn't mention it but when EQ was in development, they were still unsure how the game was going to monetized. As the internet was still a new thing and wasn't billed like it is now, it looked as though the game was going to be charged for on an *hourly* basis. So, with this in mind, the developers added in various time sinks like the corpse retrieval. Thankfully though the decision was made to go with a monthly sub model.
However, with EQs success, successive developers copied the formula and gameplay elements like all those time sinks even though the reason they were added in the first place were no longer valid. If you're wondering why no one can create a truly new and innovative MMO, there's your reason. The entire genre has been built on faulty, irrelevant design choices that were intitally put in to the games for entirely predatory reasons. And now, we've all come to expect a certain game play loop that's based on those faulty designs and anything that doesn't use them doesn't 'feel' like an MMO to us.
Don't kid yourselves, online gaming has *ALWAYS* been horribly predatory and based on dubious design decisions. Until someone steps up and throws ALL monitary considerations out the window, nothing is ever going to change. And since you can't run a business that way, the best we can hope for is 'the best of the worst'. And to a certain degree, we as gamers have no one to blame but ourselves.
Warframe is the pinnacle of quality free to play games. I've played it since it was released on PS4 and it's immense what it's become.
Happy birthday Nick Gurr
BWHAHAHAHAHAH 😂😂😂😂
Just discovered this channel, I didn't know nerdstalgic's powers were this vast
Still, I remember being a kid 20 years ago. I only got about one game per year. Sometimes I just get baffled by how many free games there are today!
Awesome video! My to F2P game has to be Rocket League. The store can get a bit much at times but it is so easy to earn things while playing and the rocket pass only has to be purchased once and you can keep re purchasing it each season without spending more.
I think DOTA 2 and TF2 deserve so much more praise. I've actually earned profit from casually playing those games for years. Thanks to the steam marketplace, and the ability to earn in game items for free just by playing, you can sell cosmetics on the marketplace without ever spending a dime in game.
The only catch with Warframe's system with a player-controlled MTX economy is that its still susceptible to the developers affecting the price of items through other means. For example, DE deciding to put a Prime frame into the Vault or take one out, or when a warframe is nerfed or buffed, these are all factors that can change the value of these items and can even entice feelings of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to drive up or tank the value of items. Regardless, Warframe is a great game, and I don't think DE has a history of intentionally messing with item stats to manipulate prices at a significant level.
I've played Warframe on and off since 2013. Every time I come back, within DAYS I'm tempted to drop them another $50 for some platinum just to support the team. The game continues to scratch an itch with me and despite it essentially boiling down to "grind or pay" they realized the key difference is to make the grind FUN. Sure it takes time to get X material but hey I can get it on this mission path that I was working on anyways. Or I find out from another player about a new dog mod that just so happens to drop from X enemy on X planet I'm farming for resources anyways so now I have a side goal while I'm also waiting patiently for my next prime warframe to finish being built. It's the satisfying loop that holds it together and keeps me playing and paying. I drop any game that tries to frustrate me into paying. Full stop.
Warframe's microtransactions have gotten much worse in my opinion ever since Tencent got their grubby hands on DE.
Why you taking a shot at Smash Bros in a video focused on free-to-play games?
I think games were more less likely to have this problem with there just just a ounce a month only game subscription like back in the early 2000
I have been playing Rocket League since day 1 and I love it but it's soul died when Epic bought Psyonix
1:58 this does not matter but this video is about free to play games right? SO WHY SHOW PAYED CONTENT FOR A PAY TO PLAY GAME?!?!? WHY DOES THIS BOTHER ME SO MUCH
3:15 I hate that overwatch forces players to play the "sequel", I never played overwatch 1 and dps doomfist looks awesome unfortunately I will never get to try him, honestly this is just a glorified update no where near a sequel, I bet they were scared of a scenario like smash melee lol
great video overall warframe is awesome
Using Lost Ark as a good example of free to play is comical to me.
The rest were alright though.
League is incredible despite anyone says. I spent thousands of hours having fun in there
🤨how is it under D2? I'm a constant destiny player (except for these past two weeks because GBO2, & HL) and I'm actually shock because in warframe you're an actual space ninja "god" while on D2 you can be scout/ninja/marksman/stripper(Hunter), a mage(Warlock), or could be Captain America/Iceman/ Flame Thor/ Thor from Thor: Ragnorok.
What do you think are some of the best free games on steam?
Free to play games can be good, but bad ones will exist as long as you, the player, forgive them.
Warframe's "battlepass" is not even a battle pass. You can't even buy your way to the max rank you have to grind that shit yourself. The amount of dopimine that gives you when completing is feels like your on the top of the world
Neiter do mobile games but here we are.
When we fix the world and everything is given freely that is needed. Greed will go away and we will be able to earn everything a game has by just you know playing the game.
So... never?
They really are trying to turn gaming into a FOMO part time JOB 😢
warframe used to be good these days ...its just ...boring and frankly greedy but thats what you get when Tencent is in charge
even compared too other looter shooters like destiny warframe is better monetization wise
i havent seen a game as greedy as destiny 2 warframe is the complete opposite
🚫😞 So my Ex was a free-to-play
Ok warframe reads ingame logs and the devs can’t take a criticism. The game is buggy and needs to have the code rewritten to support servers instead of peer to peer.
When I said this ingame to another player discussing exploits to so called fixes I got banned.
When I pmed them about it this was there exact quote
“We did a manual check and saw that you did nothing wrong but you were cheating. Next time you will be banned.”
Here is a thought, i don’t care about the game anymore. I logged in over 3000h into warframe. I don’t recommend the game to anyone. They charge $100 for prime bundles….. and they do things like that.
So warframe isn’t a good example.
You lost me when you spoke positively of league
I know right? How can anyone describe League of Legends as a game with "justifiable microtransactions" when 99% of the game's content is locked behind a paywall which would take months to unlock through gameplay 🤣
Thought about playing Warframe but it’s owned by Tencent which is owned by the CCP. So that’s a no go. It’s also why I haven’t played any Blizzard games since the Hearthstone debacle.
It was previously owned by Leiyou which was bought out by Tencent but regardless, DE has maintained creative control over the game the entire time. Refusing to play a game because its parent company has CCP members (it's not OWNED by the CCP, just has CCP membership) feels a little weird but ok bud.
@@Hagosha It’s just my principles on the subject. I try to limit the amount of games that are linked to Tencent which is hard as hell to do. I also haven’t played any Blizzard games since the Hong Kong protest debacle with Hearthstone. Again my principles on the matter.
Plus, it’s not like I haven’t tried to play it in the past, like 3 times, once in the past year. The gameplay mechanics just aren’t my cup of tea. It seems fun but I just couldn’t get into it.
@@Wolfspane that feels like an entirely different comment than your original one, haha
not being your cup of tea is totally fair and makes sense. Warframe isn't for everyone after all.
Deep Rock Galactic has a really really good battle pass. It's free, no FOMO, all unlocks are added to existing reward pools post season and a single paid cosmetic DLC per 4 month season. I've almost never spent real money on battle passes. I own every DRG cosmetic DLC. I voted with my wallet.
Well, yes, DRG is fantastic and well-worth the investment but in the context of this video, DRG doesn't work because it isn't free-to-play. It's a $30 buy-in.
@@Hagosha I was talking about the battle pass and additional monetisation specifically rather than the base game itself, although I see how my comment could be interpreted that way and apologise for the confusion.
The most important thing in my opinion is for players to keep bugging publishers about monitization. If we let them sneak one horrible, unfair or pay to win practice past us, they'll keep pushing until we push back and believe me we don't want that. As unlikely as it seems we do actually have some influnece over game monitization, difficult part is using it.
There’s just so many people with different lives at this point the people you’d have to convince are parents with disposable income and young adults with the same thing. They found a way to make everything addicting enough, and the fear of missing out on having the thing that looks super cool to you that your one friend already has. It’s psychological warfare at this point
@@Bittamin Yea legit gambling tactics, even worse than that at times. Honestly at this point F2P games should come with a "this product caues mental degeneration" disclaimer.
I see warframe, I click, it's that easy.
Top 3 ftp games
Warframe
Alex legend's
Warzone 2.0
🔥🔥🔥
Warframe is for a whole different GENERATION. And unfortunately, though is massively loved, it isn’t popular enough to have as much influence as it could in the industry. If more people knew about Warframe then I think that would put much more pressure on other developers. I mean I only just found this game in 2023
damn I'm really early
Free-To-Play games don't have to suck. Unfortunately, the companies who make them suck. Warframe is the only FTP game I know of that even today is still high quality and if it was charged as a $70 game today, it would be well worth it.
there is a game you can play online for free called "chess". pretty popular considering the updates are even less frequent than TF2's (what a feat!).
Overwatch does suck.
What about free games that don't have the option to buy anything? Free all the way.
They don't exist. Well, they do but 99.99% of them are going to be a complete waste of your time to bother playing because there are probably 0 people on the planet who are generous enough to do such a thing with enough money to actually do it. Game development is not cheap, at least not if you want to make something more than 10 people will play.
@@Kodlaken There were quite a few good ones before Flash was killed.
@@AidanRatnage I thought we were talking about games that exist right now. I wouldn't know about that to be honest, but I doubt any of those games were really any good, although they were probably still fun.
@@Kodlaken I'd consider a fun game to be good.
Overwatch’s newest map Antarctica is trash the worst in the game
I hate to be that guy, but Capitalism (micro transactions best friend)
warframe literally does suck
I like how you mentioned how DE are always popping out new content for players(10:00). Developers need to give players a game that is worth spending your money on.
But they DO.
In my opinion either a game targeted as a free to play, either not, the fair philosophy of deciding is if it's not a free to play:
The way of the production that effects the total production 's cost: development in a 2 d style, in a anime style, in a cgi style. Hiring only big names for character 's modeling and voice actors and actresses for the characters 's dialogues. This was the one factor. The game 's whole experience ( immersion, visual quality, npc with main characters' or character's interactions. ) along with the factor of repeatability. If for example you can play a campaign you complete it multiple times this can justify the price tag. If it's a free to play game: the items ( either are cosmetics either are additional characters either it is a premium membership) who placed in the shop to make you feel rewarded by the different between the non membership state and the membership state. This is for pve campaign.
the Battle pass is a decent value for new players in over watch but nothing else is. 8 skins and other goods for 10 bucks.
Is this cleanprincegaming's channel? Where is he these days?
You can't just say a game is a good and then talk about it's predatory monetization system like it isn't a part of the game. Overwatch 2 is a terrible game, anyone who says otherwise is a shill.
Free to play gaming is the worst thing to happen to gaming!!! DISLIKED!!!!!!!!