Genuine Question: Why do mobile games need to be pay to win?

[Elim Garak]

As someone who makes mobile games, I will say it's because of greed. They know some people will pay. I'm personally not a fan of that. I made sure everything in my games is obtainable as a free-to-play player with enough time. If you enjoy a little bit of grind (nothing crazy of course), you will eventually reach your goals. Since they're solo games, there is no pay-to-win. Any in-app purchases can speed up progression, of course, but you're not competing against anyone, so you're just paying to end the game sooner. 2/3 of my revenue was from ads.

So a speed run is p2w? You greedy bastard.

[SimithDAEN]

Not only do I hate p2w games, but p2w also defeated the purpose of gaming.

Why do we enjoy such games as Halo and Doom? We enjoy the feeling of satisfaction when we finally beat that one level. What if you had paid to skip that level? You would feel no satisfaction.

Playing a game and paying to win is just like this;

you pay $, you press a big friendly red button titled “Win”. Then you win.

Congrats. You have just inserted money to have the game tell you “You are a winner!” Sure, you still had to press the button, but your money really did the work.

[zealo]

You've never heard of consumer reports before, have you? Oof... sadge.



Let me ask you this, do you actually think D:I is a "good game"? Because beyond the combat, the game is very bland and boring. It has a milquetoast story that doesn't do anything new or bold. The progression system is very very easy until it isn't. The PvP is imbalanced and designed for whale bait. Even without the cash shop, does this game truly deserve anything above a 5/10? Is it anywhere even remotely close to Path of Exile's level of polish? Absolutely not. It's a D3 copy paste with a cash shop. Perhaps the "game" deserves more than a 0.4, but people are rating the entire user experience, not just the gameplay.

"Professional" critics gave it 62/100 and honestly, "Professional critics" are some of the most worthless reviews in video games, as they've often given games extremely high scores when they didn't deserve them at all. Big AAA games that turn out to be shit get 93's while indie games that are beloved and played far more get 50's and 60's from "professionals". Even you should know that professional video game critics are a sham, as the big studios are often just in bed with the reviewers with some generous kickbacks because they KNOW games live and die by their review scores. Gaming companies also front end their gaming experiences with visceral, compelling gameplay that becomes bland after the 10 hour mark because they know reviewers won't get past that point.

Why do you think metacritic user scores have become so universally looked to in the past decade? Because gamers know that "professionals" are full of shit and paid off.

You know nothing, John Snow, and stop trying to pretend otherwise. You think you do because of your work, but gamers don't trust professional reviewers, and would rather hear from each other.

And again, even you admitted, you can pay a company money to either review bomb or rate up a game. Why do you think these rating bot companies exist in such large quantities? If user scores are so "useless" then why are they treated so importantly by gaming studios?

The way professional critics use the rating scale 62/100 isn't a good score either for that matter, generally outright mediocrity starts at around 70+, with things ending up significantly below that with an aggregated score being an indication of significant and substantial problems with the product.

[Zenfoldor]

Capitalism. You will spend a few bucks here and there on your phone to entertain you when you are bored? Most people will. They aren't invested into gaming or anything, they are just invested into not being bored for a few minutes at a time...for the adults. Mix those adults in with anyone's offspring who ever touched a phone wanting to buy all the things and having a short attention span(thus to need to continuously buy new things), and you have an environment designed to make money off ANYTHING on offer that can work on the device and make people less bored. It's more the cell phone is selling a service than any particular game or app. The people who buy that service don't care about slippery slope of mtx, it's ridiculous to even believe most of them are conscious of it. Now mix in the actual gamers and the whales and you have scrooge mcduck money vault.

[Fencers]

You've never heard of consumer reports before, have you? Oof... sadge.

This is wrong on various levels.

CR/CU is a consumer advocacy group concerned with product evaluation. They do not do qualitative and quantitative market research or data for media and products for the marketplace. These are two different areas of industry.

Commercial and industry reviews are also separate things.

You simply do not know what you are talking about it- you have opinions, and that is fine. No concern to me. Though as a point of fact, that can be measured, paid for, and practiced by the media; user reviews do not have value to the product. They are indicators of engagement.

What one may *comment below* means nothing, that they commented at all means everything in that regard.

And again, even you admitted, you can pay a company money to either review bomb or rate up a game. Why do you think these rating bot companies exist in such large quantities? If user scores are so "useless" then why are they treated so importantly by gaming studios?

"Review bombing" is made up. No one pays for that at all. Bot reviews are not about the score or rating, it's about visibility and engagement on the platform.

[Ghost of Cow]

Not only do I hate p2w games, but p2w also defeated the purpose of gaming.

Why do we enjoy such games as Halo and Doom? We enjoy the feeling of satisfaction when we finally beat that one level. What if you had paid to skip that level? You would feel no satisfaction.

Playing a game and paying to win is just like this;

you pay $, you press a big friendly red button titled “Win”. Then you win.

Congrats. You have just inserted money to have the game tell you “You are a winner!” Sure, you still had to press the button, but your money really did the work.

Well, often times the paying is just to skip grinding or to get something extra. You don't really "win" by paying, but you often get to skip tedious things or get something new and shiny.

To a lot of people, that's all that matters. They aren't interested in "working for it" in a video game that they play for shits and giggles sometimes. They want to do "the fun part" and if that means they spend $2.99 to bypass X hours worth of grinding to get there, they'll do it. Because who actually takes pride in grinding something anyway?

[BeepBoo]

Because who actually takes pride in grinding something anyway?

Not me, that's for sure. However, the value proposition of being able to "complete" a character in gachas is almost always absolute dog shit in comparison to regular games. $2000 to complete ONE character and still not even be guaranteed perfect substats on items in genshin impact? Are you fucking kidding me? Fuck you mihoyo.

This is more an attack on the shitty way gacha games are designed around inconvenience than it is refuting the point that you p2w'd. In a normal game, you don't have to grind for power. You can realistically easily hit your character's max potential with minimal effort outside of the main story/quest/whatever. Just because most gachas are faceroll to begin with from a gameplay/mechanical standpoint and the only thing separating you from success is buff stats doesn't make buying said buff stats not p2w. It just means the game never offered any real achievements or feats of power to begin with.

[Evolixe]

Simple answer to the title; They don't. And anyone argueing otherwise has been successfully indoctrinated by the industry.
People got used to it because the mobile "gaming" market isn't a pool of avid gamers like on PC or consoles.. but rather full of random people with no real affinity to gaming.
It was just easy to manipulate those people into thinking this is normal. Case in point; the current state of affairs.

[Ghost of Cow]

Not me, that's for sure. However, the value proposition of being able to "complete" a character in gachas is almost always absolute dog shit in comparison to regular games. $2000 to complete ONE character and still not even be guaranteed perfect substats on items in genshin impact? Are you fucking kidding me? Fuck you mihoyo.

In fairness, you don't need to pay a dime in Genshin to get items, and even if you do spend the returns aren't necessarily all that hot. You get the same tier of drops from domains that mega-whales get.

Yes, artifact RNG sucks, but eh. A 100% perfect artifact is supposed to be that pie-in-the-sky unicorn sort of thing, not something you just get for each slot on each character.

[Cthulhu 2020]

"Review bombing" is made up.

Correct, everyone who claims there's some mass conspiracy to make D:I look bad is idiotic at best.

But I will again reiterate, you said that consumer reviews were useless, and perhaps had you used different vocabulary, you may have been right. Unoderated, uncurated, sure, but not useless.

I see you at least didn't try to argue against my point that professional reviewers were worse than user scores. You and I both know this. Professional critics are absolute garbage in the gaming industry. There is no board or commission that monitors or regulates this stuff, so when game studios were caught buying off critics, they continued to do it without shame. And beyond even the issue of critics being bought off isn't the worst part.

Think about the user experience within D:I, you can play unhindered without needing to grind for many, many hours. And then you hit "the wall" where the entire experience becomes gated behind exp, which is most easily gained from the battle pass. That's also the point where it feels like you're wading through waist deep mud just to progress. ... BUT YOU CAN ALWAYS BUY YOUR WAY TO FASTER PROGRESSION *WINK WINK* HEY HERE'S THE CASH SHOP, 800% BONUS VALE!

D:I critic scores on day 1 started out in the high 80's, and perhaps even higher from what I recall. You know, from "Critics" that played for 2 hours and thought the game was awesome. AAA game studios know to frontload their games with the best gameplay because that is what they are rated on, the first few hours of the game. And it's just another reason why more and more gamers are turning to user reviews like metacritic scores. They feel lied to and taken advantage of by the professional critics, which we all know are just another manipulative marketing scheme, and have NOTHING to do with the game's quality.

User scores, unmoderated, uncurated, unregulated, sure. Useless? You know nothing if you think that. D:I's metacritic user score is plastered all over every media site covering the game, aside from the few shills remaining. That makes the score far from useless, as it's getting in a lot of leg work.

[Fencers]

Correct, everyone who claims there's some mass conspiracy to make D:I look bad is idiotic at best.

This is disingenoius reading of what I wrote.

But I will again reiterate, you said that consumer reviews were useless,

They are. They mean nothing to the consumer or product in media. Most audiences are not even aware of these ratings.

I see you at least didn't try to argue against my point that professional reviewers were worse than user scores.

No need to quote a big block of text. It's all your personal opinion at best, off-topic at worse. It is not appropriate to the discussion value you think something does or doesn't have in a subjective context. No subjective qualifier is appropriate to this discussion or my posts.

I didn't offer commentary on the value of Diablo Immortal or professional reviews of that game in this thread. I spoke to the notion that user reviews have a value to the product- they do not. The industries of film, television, theater, music and video games do not weigh these ratings with any regard to their product success.

The closest platform is Cinemascore, which is THE standard in the film industry for audience polling. It is specifically designed to get reactionary and post-viewing impressions. They will send you a long list of caveats if you hire them to poll a film. This is considered the "best" guess across entertainment regarding audience polling.

Sales, social media engagement, demographics, platform visibility, long-term engagement on social media platforms, etc- these are some of the elements media owners look to for indicators of success.

[Ghost of Cow]

I spoke to the notion that user reviews have a value to the product- they do not. The industries of film, television, theater, music and video games do not weigh these ratings with any regard to their product success.

Case in point: D3 had absurdly low Metacritic scores as well. Meanwhile it was out there breaking records on sales.

I'll let the reader decide which metric the business looked to when determining success.

[RobertoCarlos]

Hardly surprising the pro pillaging of walking wallets also known as gamers group lacks the mindset to think outside of themselves for two seconds.

Reviews certainty can help or hinder a business or product, word of mouth in particular. Thats why we have multi billion industries devoted too it called "Marketing"

Is it the be all end all? Of course not, something can be successful while still having bad word of mouth, how long is that success is the question as normally eventually the market will course correct.

[Advent]

Not only do I hate p2w games, but p2w also defeated the purpose of gaming.

Why do we enjoy such games as Halo and Doom? We enjoy the feeling of satisfaction when we finally beat that one level. What if you had paid to skip that level? You would feel no satisfaction.

Playing a game and paying to win is just like this;

you pay $, you press a big friendly red button titled “Win”. Then you win.

Congrats. You have just inserted money to have the game tell you “You are a winner!” Sure, you still had to press the button, but your money really did the work.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't give two lily f*&ks about "satisfaction" in beating a damn video game, this isn't real life. I care about whether or not I am having FUN. If I'm having a good time, I don't care about anything else. And these folks beating their chests over "beating" a video game and how everyone else is "doing it wrong" need a reality check.

They are. They mean nothing to the consumer or product in media. Most audiences are not even aware of these ratings.

I've started to realize that people on this forum don't seem to get that the games media that they consume, and the forums and message boards they frequent, represent a small fraction of players. The majority likely never even read reviews or watch other gamers. They just play games. I've even met some of those people, and the folks here would balk at how flagrantly they talk up games and experiences that "real gamers" think are absolute garbage.

[catalystical]

Simple answer:

It's a fast forward mechanic. It's the same logic as the level 60 boost. We would pay to do things to help us save time.

[Ghost of Cow]

I've started to realize that people on this forum don't seem to get that the games media that they consume, and the forums and message boards they frequent, represent a small fraction of players. The majority likely never even read reviews or watch other gamers. They just play games. I've even met some of those people, and the folks here would balk at how flagrantly they talk up games and experiences that "real gamers" think are absolute garbage.

Yep. Places like this are incredibly insular. Just engaging with a gaming community outside of a game itself already makes you orders of magnitude more engaged than the vast majority of people who play games.

People here seem to think they're somehow a majority, or reflect "gamers" as a group, but nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, it's people like these who are the ones out of touch.

[Fencers]

I've started to realize that people on this forum don't seem to get that the games media that they consume, and the forums and message boards they frequent, represent a small fraction of players. The majority likely never even read reviews or watch other gamers. They just play games. I've even met some of those people, and the folks here would balk at how flagrantly they talk up games and experiences that "real gamers" think are absolute garbage.

As I talked about in many threads here from topics on Diablo, Elon Musk, Pizza, and TV & Movies; this forum is a niche of a niche.

I do talk to regular folks every single day en masse. Literally hundreds in a week, one-on-one and in groups talking about how they use, experience and find out about products and what they think.

Advertisements are the #1 way people find out about anything. Very few consumers follow up watching an episode of Obi-Wan with a sub=forum discussion on the MMO-Champion about the rebel alliance supply of bacta tanks.

Get the fuck out of here. People have lives full of friends, family, and social activities that consume most of their free time. They just want to enjoy the media that looks fun to them easily and directly for the most part.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I didn't offer commentary on the value of Diablo Immortal or professional reviews of that game in this thread.

I mean, if you think D:I is doing well, idk what to tell you.

If you think professional reviewers are more useful than user scores, then that's your opinion, and it's clear nobody can change it. The rise of metacritic was entirely due to gamers finding out that sites like IGN are paid off by big game devs for 90+ scores. I realize outrage culture has the attention span of about 2-3 months, but have people truly forgotten all of the former video game critics from big studios admitting they were paid off? Which caused a rise in more trust in consumer reviews. Especially those rated highly by other users.



Problem 1: A lot of "professional" reviews are vapid and shallow, using adjectives that simultaneously sound enticing but are also empty in meaning.
Problem 2: All big "professional" reviewers are journalists first, who have gone to journalism school, and then get a job reviewing video games. They are not gamers. They are journalists coming video games. They don't reall yknow what makes games good, and just talk a lot about superficial stuff like graphics, frame rate, and seem to have very little clue what makes the game fun.
Problem 3: Most "professional" reviewers work for big studios, which are in turn owned by bigger media studios (like CBS) with profit motive, and these studios get kickbacks and straight up bribes to give games great reviews.
Problem 3.5: Video games are not the product to giant media studios. The product being sold is the consumer. The true customer of professional reviewers is the advertisers. Big media studios all too often adopt the views of advertisers who will give them the most money. With all that being said, "professional" reviewers have a job to sell consumers to advertisers who earn money by getting big games sold. Profit motive.

So many games sold on Steam no longer reference critic scores, and instead will brag about their metacritic user score, or even their positive review ratio on steam,. Yes, some still think IGN is a worthwhile review studio.



In regards to Problem 2, Critics are supposed to be people with better palates than the average person. Professional critics who work at large media studios are largely journalism students first who get hired into a position reviewing games and then become casual gamers.

But as the video above states, "professional critic" scores are largely just marketing, and have zero bearing on how good or bad a game is. Again, for gaming media critics, consumers are the product and advertisers are the customers. And once more, insiders put far too much weight into their own importance.



But one of the biggest issues: People who work in gaming journalism, or who are in positions tangential to gaming journalism think that professional reviews are more meaningful than they actually are. They think too highly of themselves and their colleagues, and artificially inflate their own importance in their minds.

But this entire point came from the OP discussion of why should we assume that mobile game automatically equals pay to win and huge cash shops? Nobody has answered why we as gamers should accept this. Only why this style of monetization works and why it is proliferating so much.

My ultimate point was that these monetization models are quick cash grabs designed for shitty games that frontload good content then backload a ton of dailies, grinding, and pay to win.

That's not my opinion, that's reality. If you don't think so, go back and watch those videos 2 or 3 times so it really sinks in why professional critic studios are full of shit and are far too self-important.

And D:I is a prime example of a quick cash grab that frontloads good content and backloads shitty grinds and is one of the most free to play unfriendly games I've ever played. Aside from the campaign story (which sucks) the only thing mildly entertaining is the combat.

Case in point: D3 had absurdly low Metacritic scores as well. Meanwhile it was out there breaking records on sales.

I'll let the reader decide which metric the business looked to when determining success.

Poor example on your part, but I'll bite, even though every single one of your posts is always just... hilariously wrong? Or tone deaf.

D3 was a shit game until two years later when Reaper of Souls fixed a lot of issues, but it was too late by then. Scores rate how good or bad a game is, not how many copies it will sell. Anyone who thinks D3's record sales were due to anything other than Blizzard being one of the most trusted names in video games (at the time) is delusional. It's unfortunate that D3 foretold the en-shittening of Blizzard.

The most hilarious part of this? It proves my points.

D3 got amazing scores from "professional critics". People whose job it is to sell the consumer to advertisers and thus game studios. The user scores carried far more realistic view of how the players felt about the game.

[Ghost of Cow]

Why is there this common thread among people on this topic of, "Get angry, post youtube videos as a proxy for their opinion, call everyone other opinion stupid, fail to really elaborate past what the videos said."

It's like some of you picked up the, "Be mad about video games." starter pack.

[craigw]

general answer: because they are free to play. who the fuck spends a shit load of money to create a game only to give it away for free. they either charge you 60 bucks for the game or leech 60 bucks off ya over two years thru microtransactions. the shittiest part about free games and microtransactions is the video game industry has followed suit so now you pay 60 bucks for a game only to have to pay more in MCT for the better lookin outfits. the coolest outfits are paid for not unlockable. console and pc gamers are getting fucked cause you cell phone fucks keep supporting their shitty MCT pay system. as long as you keep purchasing MCT they arent going away and are going to become more prevelant. my best friend plays raid shadow legends like its crack. he loves it because it is free to play. he has dumped over 500 dollars into a really shitty designed game with no end in sight (from a pay to win aspect this design is brilliant). while he has dumped $500 on his one cell phone game in the past year i have purchased over 25 games on steam that dont add up to 500. the worst part about it , is my best friend and i do not play games together anymore cause he is cracked out spending his money on his free to play game. his brother spent over 25k dollars in MCT on clash of clans. the 25k was his entire savings account. his dad had to bail him out. man the super computer i could build and the games i could purchase for 25k......