The good news is that all of the great games are still around and it's easier than ever to play them on a PC. For the most part awesome immersive games that only charge users once upfront are a relic of the past.
> For the most part awesome immersive games that only charge users once upfront are a relic of the past.
I completely disagree with you here. Yes there are games which have micro transactions, many of which did not have them in the past, but that doesn't mean that awesome immersice games that only charge users once are dead. They're even more available now. The Witcher is a usually touted as the prime example, although it's a few years old at this point. PS4 has a few exceptional titles like God of War, Horizon, Days Gone, Uncharted, Spiderman, Ni no Kuno, Shadow of the Colossus RDR 2, in the last year. The switch has games like Captain Toad, Mario Odyssey, breath of the Wild, Mario Kart, Case of Distrust, super smash Bros while PC had Frostpunk, Hitman 2, Battletech, Into the Breach.
All excellent games in their own right, all released in the last 12 months, as standalone experiences. If you want to you can jump into any number of paid for multiplayer (division 2, world of Warcraft, destiny, COD, PUBG) or f2p (Fortnite - disclaimer I work on it, Warframe, League of Legends, path of exile, PlanetSide, Apex Legends). Yes some of those games have micro transactions, but for the most part they don't actually interfere with the game. Yes you can cherry-pick some of my specific examples and tell me in wrong, but you can't even begin to claim that gaming is in a bad state right now.
> but you can't even begin to claim that gaming is in a bad state right now
AAA gaming is in an ATROCIOUS state right now. The rest of the landscape is pretty alright, with the Epic store burgeoning a second wave of indie developers getting off the ground and making waves thanks to the much lower cost to them to publish, and with first-party publishers putting out consistently amazing experiences.
However, behind that you have the larger, multiplatform, absolutely bank-breaking budget weilding AAA developers, putting out your CODs and your FIFAs, one of which happens to hold exclusive rights to Star Wars, all of them making cookie cutter, focus group tested, streamline developed S-H-I-T. The same damn games, over and over, ad nauseum, all of which are now pivoting to chase the Battle Royale fad because everybody wants to now be Fortnite despite the fact that Fortnite already exists and is being played, and the people who have that don't need or want another Fortnite.
I appreciate that you framed this comment as if you're inviting discussion and subsequently shut down all responses by saying that they are "cherry-picking some of my specific examples" and re-claiming your standpoint without any additional evidence. This doesn't promote or invite healthy discussion, as you've essentially closed yourself to feedback before it is even given.
I really didn't mean to - I more meant that I am aware that games such as call of duty having microtransactions doesn't take away from all of the rest of the games. In previous discussions I've had on the topic, people just focus on one small point and take it as a reason to dismiss my entire argument, which is that games are in a healthy state overall, and there are plenty of narrative rich, mtx free games available. (which is what I really hoped to avoid). Unfortunately I can't edit my above comment to clarify or rephrase!
Dude.. this comment is infuriating. You have a valid point, but you stuff your points justification with blatant lies AND you know they are lies. You ask us to call you out but the many of us who are not deeply knowledgeable about games would not know which examples are incorrect and how many are incorrect.
From skimming over your references roughly 40 percent of your examples have micro transactions and about 40 percent do not have rich narratives. Yes, I pulled these numbers out of my ass and you can nitpick them all you want, but I work in the gaming industry and know what I am talking about /s
I'm not sure what your point is - I was trying to say that there is a laundry list of narrative rich, mtx free titles, and that they exist beside more accessible options which _do_ have microtransactions, but he latter category existing doesn't detract from the former at all.
