Torchlight Infinite pulls a fast one on everyone (goes P2W after F2P promisses)

[Fencers]

It certainly ain't going back if you don't complain about it. Sitting and accepting bad anti-consumer practices is a surefire way to make things worse than they are.

You don't represent a large enough customer base or market force for any company to consider doing otherwise. There is too much money to be had by aggressively monetizing games and they do it successfully for the most part. This will never be reversed. Games only need a few thousand or so people buying items in-game to stay in the marketplace for decades. With a global audience that is trival.

A developer/publisher/whoever stating outright multiple times over that the game would not be pay to win, then making it absolutely pay to win, is wrong and inexcuseable, and should be called out loudly and repeatedly until it incurs a cost. It is flatly wrong.

I agree, don't support the products or developers that offend your sensibilities. Though one is only doing so on their personal grounds- that is fine. I just recommended players to do so in the post you're quote replying.

It should be illegal.

A lot of this stuff developers & publishers say is subjective, marketing, and/or speculative because the product is in development. They have the artistic and legal right to change their minds too.

There is unlikely to be any government or legal force willing to define "buying power" or "pay-2-win" for AA games. Especially in the US; if it doesn't happen in the US it doesn't matter in the entertainment sphere at all.

If game developers can say literally whatever they want, lie overtly, and incur no cost at all, the industry is simply fucked. Expecting them to stick to their word is a very small bar to set. If you are actually ok with this practice you can fuck right off.

I am okay with reality. Marketing is marketing. No developer or publisher is going to tell you what you don't want to hear in building up their product presence.

If you took developers at their word and those developers failed to live up to those promises simply don't support the product. Games are recreational hobbies and entertainment- you don't have an inherent right to these things. You are choosing or can choose to engage with them as your means allow.

If all games are not to your liking and the "industry is fucked"- go outside. Take up another hobby or pasttime. The world is wide.

[Khaza-R]

Eh. TL3 was such a disappointment compared to the first 2 games. I didn't have high hopes for this title either.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Yeah I uninstalled it after I heard the P2w part. Not surprising considering who the company is but...still not good. I don't like it but I am not going to rage about it. You can complain without acting like rageaholics.

[Kithelle]

The first two Torchlight games (that established the franchise) were developed by Runic Games. The original developer.


Torchlight 3 was developed by Echtra Games and was less-than-decent. This abomination known as Torchlight Infinite was developed by a Chinese developer known as Xindong Network and are known for most of, if not all of, their games being this design.


Shame on Perfect World for ruining this franchise.



P.S. -- a lot of fans of Torchlight were half-expecting tomfoolery with Torchlight Infinite already. Once it was announced to be a mobile title, that is. Many fans were not completely blitzed by these turn of events... but it just so happens these specific turn of events are particularly blitzy.

Mobile game and Chinese developer? And people are surprised? 2022 and people don't seem to know how mobile games work I guess lol, how anyone could be blind sided I don't know...

[Santti]

Mobile game and Chinese developer? And people are surprised? 2022 and people don't seem to know how mobile games work I guess lol, how anyone could be blind sided I don't know...

Oof. Yeah, if it's really a Chinese mobile game, then this really shouldn't have been a surprise, to anyone. Promises or no promises.

Relatedly, this is why people say not to pre-order games anymore, as well. Because you can't trust shit, and that very much applies to western pc/console games, too.

[Greevir]

I loved the first 2 Torchlight games. Sad to see this is how the franchise went. But I guess it's the norm now.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

This seems to be a guarantee for any mobile game that gets outsourced to a Chinese developer. The owner of the IP doesn't care about the IP enough to bother actually working on it, so they just outsource it to where they can find the lowest bidder. My impression of the Chinese mobile game market is that it is massively oversaturated with developers, so finding a company desperate enough to make a game cheaply is easiest if you just pitch it there.

[gondrin]

People like you not only want games to be free, they want games to be free of any monetization scheme, which is an absurd stance.

When a F2P game is released, it is released with the expectation that it's going to turn a profit. If that profit doesn't come from an upfront cost or subscription model, it has to come from micro-transactions. So the end result of no micro-transaction... is no game at all, at least in the mobile world.


They had a certain philosophy heading in, then they realized that philosophy wouldn't work, so they changed it. If you want to make drama about being lied to AT THE LAST SECOND OMG that's fine, but that's all this is: drama.

Oh, no micro-transactions for a F2P game doesn't mean a game isn't released, it just isn't updated ever or so ad filled that it becomes worse than cable TV. Say it with me again:

GAMES ARE A BUSINESS

Granted, some things like lootboxes are inherently predatory and should be outright banned or highly regulated. But when it comes to P2W, unless it is a competitive game, either don't buy into it, don't even play the game or better yet, get the people who are whales to NOT buy into it as their money is ALWAYS going to be more worthwhile to the devs then a person who never puts a cent into the game.

[willtron]

This abomination known as Torchlight Infinite was developed by a Chinese developer known as Xindong Network and are known for most of, if not all of, their games being this design.

Alarm bells straight away.

[gondrin]

Absolutely not. From the inception of games until about 5 years ago, games were produced, marketed, and profitable, without a freemium model existing. Even now, games exist that are free to play with monetized microtransactions, or extremely limited scope of microtransactions, that are extremely profitable. The only reason for freemium to exist is because it's never enough; everyone wants ALL the profit, product quality be damned. But again, this has all been discussed ad-infinitum in the DI thread. It's really not the point of this thread.

Here is a complete list of all the people who have said that this game would not have microtransactions, or should run at a loss, or even not at a massive profit, which it would have been with no power microtransactions:

List complete.

It would work, and it does work. It just doesn't sacrifice as much game quality for the most possible profit.


That's your incorrect opinion. It's not just "drama" that companies profit from practices that are anti-consumer. The fact that you think it's no big deal is why they can do it. Grow some testicles.

If you think the freemium model is something that only came around 5 years ago, I've got ocean front property to sell you in Kansas. Freemium has been around since Apple/Google put up their app stores and had games be developed for it. The only reason why we are seeing it more often is because:

PEOPLE ARE CHEAP AND THEY DO NOT WANT TO PAY ANY PRICE TO PLAY SOMETHING.

If anyone say anything different, they tried to go the route of having people pay something up front initially. Developers found out very quickly that people didn't even want to spend $5 for a mobile title of ANY kind. Hell, look at the amount of MMOs that went the F2P route(and still do) and completely collapsed or have small player bases anymore.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

If you think the freemium model is something that only came around 5 years ago, I've got ocean front property to sell you in Kansas. Freemium has been around since Apple/Google put up their app stores and had games be developed for it. The only reason why we are seeing it more often is because:

PEOPLE ARE CHEAP AND THEY DO NOT WANT TO PAY ANY PRICE TO PLAY SOMETHING.

If anyone say anything different, they tried to go the route of having people pay something up front initially. Developers found out very quickly that people didn't even want to spend $5 for a mobile title of ANY kind. Hell, look at the amount of MMOs that went the F2P route(and still do) and completely collapsed or have small player bases anymore.

Said MMOs probably weren't liked as much not that the F2P model is just uber or anything like that. I don't think going up to bat for games that have P2W mentality in them is really smart.

[gondrin]

Said MMOs probably weren't liked as much not that the F2P model is just uber or anything like that. I don't think going up to bat for games that have P2W mentality in them is really smart.

This is why I don't try to play games with a pricing model that is like that. One of the worst offenders of it is one of the biggest mobile games, Clash of Clans. Played it for a small while, gave up because I saw what was going on and any game that has that model I stay away from.

[Unlimited Power]

Even major western publishers like Activision Blizzard has been pulling this nonsense more often as of late.

I remember one of the earlier examples being Crash Team Racing releasing without any microtransactions, then having microtransactions patched in unannounced after less then a month.

Just in time to avoid it having any effect on the ESRB rating on the boxes and reviews of the game

I agree that saying one thing and doing another shouldn't be tolerated. If anything, it should be grounds for false advertisement lawsuits.

As far as P2W is concerned, it's unfortunately an inevitable trend. Especially as the mobile market continues to grow.

I'll frankly never understand the appeal. If you're paying to be better than others/get the best stuff, what's the appeal in continuing to play after you've already paid your way to the top?

[Daedius]

What do you expect from F2P games, especially if it's by a Chinese company?

I'd just avoid F2P games like the damn plague they are, ESPECIALLY in the Mobile games market...

[Alcsaar]

There's no pleasing anyone with mobile games. They're insanely lucrative, but a loud subsection of gamers cannot help themselves when they hear the term "P2W". Something in their lizard brain triggers them to grab the nearest pitchfork and create the biggest shitstorm they can, under the pretense of defending the consumer--a consumer that didn't have to pay a single dime to play the game.

So this Liu Heng guy lied. Or maybe he didn't. The publisher probably stepped in at the last minute and went "hey guys, wake up, we're sitting on a goldmine. start putting gacha in the game".

Personally, I couldn't care less, because I have this thing called self-control.

Because even if you don't pay for anything in these games, enough people do that it is becoming the expected norm - and it won't be long before every single game ever has some kind of P2W cash shop, competitive or not. That affects everyone, not just people who like P2W games.

Its ignorant to ignore a problem just because it doesn't effect you *right now*. When it has the potential to affect you in the future, then now is the time to be concerned about it, not in 5-10 years when its already a well established norm and now suddenly its affecting you and there is nothing you can do about it.

[Hotmail]

In what world are DI and Hearthstone case in point? Are you kidding? DI is a cluster fuck, and droves of people stopped playing Hearthstone standard modes and started playing only Battlegrounds, to the point where they removed the ability to even pay for the extra hero choices with gold because nobody was paying for it. Even now, Battlegrounds "pay to win" is extraordinarily minor, and it's more than possible to free play normal hearthstone if you limit the scope of your collection.

Regardless of your (fantasy) take on D:I, it is immensely successful and a high quality mobile title. I'm not going to argue whether Hearthstone is a freemium game or not, as that would lead us back to my original point. It's possible to play any freemium game for free if you limit whatever, throwing the whole "predatory monetization" shtick out the window.

There are a shitload of great pay once mobile games, a shitload of literal free games, a shitload of games with a much more limited scope of pay to win.

Provide some examples, Ô unfacetious one. They frankly all look like shit, play like shit or don't surpass the depth of tic-tac-toe. Not to mention that many flat out don't turn a significant profit, or run at a loss.

The consumer absolutely does not benefit, compared with the old model. It is successful only insofar as how much profit the companies make, and it is absolutely because companies are, at that level, evil and greedy.

The mobile consumer doesn't want to pay an upfront cost. If it wasn't for freemium, there wouldn't be great mobile games period, except for the occasional PC port that was made with the PC crowd in mind, like Stardew Valley.

If you are pro pay-to-win because you enjoy paying to win

I'm not pro-anything. I'm anti-stupid drama. Xindong probably went full gacha because they realized that a cosmetic-only shop in a F2P mobile ARPG wasn't going to turn the profit they need.

Because even if you don't pay for anything in these games, enough people do that it is becoming the expected norm - and it won't be long before every single game ever has some kind of P2W cash shop, competitive or not. That affects everyone, not just people who like P2W games.

This is a slippery slope argument that isn't grounded in reality. PC and Console will continue to be mostly free of freemium, because pay-to-play and DLC is the model that works in that field.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'm not pro-anything. I'm anti-stupid drama. Xindong probably went full gacha because they realized that a cosmetic-only shop in a F2P mobile ARPG wasn't going to turn the profit they need.

I have my serious doubts on that. It was probably easier to do that the gacha thing.

[Fencers]

They could have gotten by with cosmetics only. But it likely was not a good ROI compared to offering vertical power increases.

Designing art assets costs money. Designing a stat stick is relatively cheap by comparison.

[Majestic12]

I tried the game on PC, hated it. People were already mad about the pet gacha, paywalled class perk and battle pass with auto loot and such. I agreed and never touched the game again.

It's worth mentioning that the Asian market is significantly more P2W and Asian developers are much more likely to go that route.

Lastly, I do want to say that gaming is in a sticky situation now with the monetization. Yes, it's true that gacha games make a lot of $, but when you look at the demographics the pattern is extremely similar to gambling I.e a few people stand for 80% of the profits.

Gaming used to be something that people could enjoy equally and get a little bit of an escape from real life. Now, these games painfully reminds you of it by mirroring real life classes in the game. If you're well off IRL you are much, much more powerful in the game.

The sanctity of gaming has been defiled. The companies want money and get it from a minority of whales. Large base goes unhappy. I think that this is a future recipe for disaster, but we're still very early on in this phase.

The tldr is TL Infinite is dime a dozen, it's just another P2W gacha following the new trend of money making. And it will soon die out. The average life span for these kind of games is not high.

[Daedius]

I tried the game on PC, hated it. People were already mad about the pet gacha, paywalled class perk and battle pass with auto loot and such. I agreed and never touched the game again.

It's worth mentioning that the Asian market is significantly more P2W and Asian developers are much more likely to go that route.

Lastly, I do want to say that gaming is in a sticky situation now with the monetization. Yes, it's true that gacha games make a lot of $, but when you look at the demographics the pattern is extremely similar to gambling I.e a few people stand for 80% of the profits.

Gaming used to be something that people could enjoy equally and get a little bit of an escape from real life. Now, these games painfully reminds you of it by mirroring real life classes in the game. If you're well off IRL you are much, much more powerful in the game.

The sanctity of gaming has been defiled. The companies want money and get it from a minority of whales. Large base goes unhappy. I think that this is a future recipe for disaster, but we're still very early on in this phase.

The tldr is TL Infinite is dime a dozen, it's just another P2W gacha following the new trend of money making. And it will soon die out. The average life span for these kind of games is not high.

That's why I've primarily stuck to Single Player games, typically RPGs, now... none of this gatcha crap to compete with other online players. Single player RPGs tend to have the most bang for buck.