Or, hear me out, maybe games should just sell you a good product at a fair price rather than trying to manipulate you into playing it longer than you enjoy it for.
Only timed battle passes manipulate you into playing it more than you enjoy it for. The ones in Helldivers 2 never expire so if you were to get bored of the game you can just stop playing. Then come back to the game a year later and continue on where you left off.
They have rewards tied to grinding out the game’s content as opposed to just buying the rewards directly to play with in the game’s content, right? I’d say that’s the difference. In Magicka, I bought costumes that had different gameplay mechanics tied to them, and I could use them right away. But for business reasons, live service games create incentives to keep you playing longer than you would otherwise.
They have rewards tied to… playing the game. Just like every other video game ever made. That’s how video games work. The only way for there to be “an incentive to keep playing beyond when you want to” is by making the additional content limited in time to generate FOMO or worry that you’ll have wasted your money… which in this case is not happening at all. There is no FOMO because you can buy any of the war bonds whenever you want, and complete them whenever you want. You paid money for something you will keep forever. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That is literally the best possible approach to new content. By your reasoning, every video game ever made is manipulative because they made the game and put… content in it to get you to play the game more than before you bought the game.
“Buying the rewards directly to play in the game” on the other hand is the wrong approach. Why would you prefer to play the game less? If you don’t want to be playing the game why are you spending more money on it?
Just because they removed the FOMO part doesn’t mean it isn’t manipulative, and this game is also online only, so by design, you will not keep it forever, once again, because that’s the business model of a live service game.
The game I’ve put the most time into, on Steam at least, is Skullgirls. It has no progression whatsoever. I play the same content over and over because I enjoy it. If you enjoy playing the same Helldivers II content over and over, awesome. These systems are designed to get people to play less content for more time though. Perhaps not you, if that content hasn’t worn out its welcome for you yet, but the person who would have otherwise put the game down earlier.
The person who put the game down earlier because they are bored of the game is not going to spend money on additional content that they aren’t interested in playing. And if they do, and have fun, then they aren’t being manipulated. They’re having fun with a product they purchased (just like all video games). Removing the FOMO part absolutely means it isn’t manipulative because that is quite literally the only thing that makes battle passes manipulative in the first place. For you to argue against this is to argue that all video games are manipulative because they were all created to get you to play them more than before you were before you bought them.
The game I’ve put the most time into, on Steam at least, is Skullgirls. It has no progression whatsoever.
Not true, there are a couple of characters you unlock story modes for after beating it with other characters. Guess you’re being manipulated into playing the game more, huh?
This argument of yours is completely devoid of any rational thought.
No characters’ story modes are locked in Skullgirls. What are you talking about? You’re choosing not to see the game you like as having a manipulative business model. Why do you think the costumes in Magicka didn’t have a battle pass tied to them but Helldivers II does?
I’m forced to see the game’s lack of a manipulative business model due to the objective absence of any and all manipulation in the business model. I cannot choose to see something that isn’t there, in much the same way that I can’t choose to see the earth as being flat.
No characters’ story modes are locked in Skullgirls.
Both Double and Valentines story modes are locked until you complete the story mode of every single other non-dlc character.
Why do you think the costumes in Magicka didn’t have a battle pass tied to them but Helldivers II does?
Because progression and rewards are an integral part of video games and their appeal and have been since the early days of gaming. You unlock weapons, upgrades, and cosmetics in the base game of Helldivers 2 because it’s fun. Why on earth would they remove the progression systems for new content? Paid instant-unlock content for games is cheap and devalues the content itself. The gratification of using a cool skin you worked to unlock is intrinsically tied to the appeal of video games.
What you’re telling me here is that you would actually balk at one of the Skyrim DLCs like Dragonborn because in order to access the content inside of it you have to actually play the game that you like enough to pay for more content for, but when they released the “horse armor” DLC you looked at that and just said “Hell yeah”? If that is truly your opinion then so be it. But you need to understand that you are one of very few people who would hold it.
That’s the whole point of gamification mechanics, there’s a fine line between grind and good gameplay which needs to be masterfully balanced
lol. I hate when companies try to gamify a game.
They don’t need to gamify something that’s already a fun game.
For me grind is when the gameplay loop is motivated by reward not exploration and plays out the same every time.
Good gameplay can come from a feeling of freshness because there are lots of possibilities, because rng or because player options (say, slay the spire), or from lots of genuinely novel content (say, elden ring).
It doesn’t feel like a balancing act at all. I just want more of the latter and less of the former, but maybe some people really do play for repetition?
Some people really do just like the repetition. I have a couple friends that regularly log into multiple games to do their dailies. Like it’s a chore that just has to be done. But like completing chores in real life, it may not feel satisfying in the moment, but there’s a certain kind of satisfaction you get from completing a task, marking it off the to-do list. If that sense of satisfaction can be granted and wrapped in a pretty package with maybe even a reward that will finally net you that thing you’ve been eyeing in the cosmetic shop and saving up your gold to buy.
I don’t get that sort of thing. But I’m also shit at IRL chores.
Interesting how bad online gaming got, that articles like this one exist. Content of a game you bought not vanishing after a few months is revolutionary, just wow.
Deep Rock Galactic has, in my personal experience, the best battle pass system of them all. Every season’s pass is free, because the game costs €40 upfront, they never expire and you can switch to any other season that has ever been while maintaining progress on your current one. All of the paid cosmetics are also Steam DLC that you can buy whenever, forever. Firstly, this is great because the game never tries to pressure you to play the game by slapping a timer on any and all rewards. Secondly, by allowing players to play every single battle pass, the game now contains multiple times the content that it could ever have in one season. This way, the players can enjoy ever more content while the developers don’t need to create more of it at a fast pace. I just finished season 5: Drilling Deeper and instead of having to wait however long it takes for the developers to add more progression to the game, I just turn the knob to season 2!
I don’t think I’ve ever purchased a battle pass and I don’t plan to. I think if a game I was interested in offered one, I’d consider just skipping it.
If no one bought the things they’d stop making them, but that is an impossible idea.
Same. As soon as I saw what a battle pass was I decided they were stupid. I’m not paying for temporary things
The only one I’ve bought is the one in Marvel Rivals but that’s cause it was only $5 for a game I’ve already put like 50-60 hours in. Plus with the way it’s setup if I want to get another one in the future if it’s the same price it’ll only be like $2 with the included currency you get from buying it. I generally agree I would rather just not have battle passes at all but I think Concord showed that paid games in this kind of genre don’t really work anymore. Sure Concord had other problems but I’m sure it would have been better off if it was free to play with micro transactions as a lot more people would have given it a shot if there was no barrier to entry.
Halo Infinite: Post-season 5, battle passes are now free during their introductory season, but cost $5 to unlock afterward
Marvel Rivals: Battle passes will not expire if you bought the $10 Luxury pass during the season
These are not FOMO-less. Marvel Rivals sounds like the worst of the three in that regard. The ‘old’ method incentivized you to skip buying a battle pass if you weren’t going to finish it (because you’d lose rewards); MR’s system gives you a FOMO CTA to make that purchase to stop you from losing rewards.
Compare this to, say, Dead By Daylight, where there’s “seasons” with unlockable rewards, you can get them for free, and you can keep unlocking them after the season ends.
Compare this to, say, Dead By Daylight, where there’s “seasons” with unlockable rewards, you can get them for free, and you can keep unlocking them after the season ends.
Similarly Helldivers 2 battle passes cost in-game earnable currency to unlock and never expire, but if people want to pay cash to unlock them the option is there.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
No digital product should ever disappear forever.
Halo Infinite did it before either tbf
