I can finally stop saying it (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, February 28, 2023, 07:07 (633 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

One of the biggest issues with paid games is that you have to be willing to put down the money for something you've yet to actually play, and often times you don't know that you dislike it until you can no longer refund it. (in the case of physical sales, the moment you open it, you can no longer return it) Free to play has the advantage of letting a player determine they enjoy the product and then give money to the developer if they so desire. Even if the game's design was completely reasonable in its pricing and what it offered, this would still be more advantageous as it greatly increases reach and thus a greater potential for profit.

That doesn’t fully explain why developers don’t just use shareware then. Download a game for free, which contains the first couple levels. Like it? Pay one time to unlock the entire game.

Game Pass is a decent alternative to this and is what I have always liked about it. Developers of traditional, non-MTX (save for significant DLC) games get paid and players who have the subscription have zero barrier to entry for any of those titles. Instead of whales subsidizing the cost of a F2P game, a subscription subsidizes the cost of every game on the service.

I imagine we will find down the line the economics are similar to streaming, i.e. not great. Especially as more and more games are added I don’t see how it would pan out for developers. Either that or it would warp incentives. If developers are paid by say, playtime, then the incentive is to maximize playtime which is often at the expense of fun and artistry.