Action-RPG colossus Elden Ring is reportedly getting a free-to-play mobile adaptation with in-app purchases, which take…
Action-RPG colossus Elden Ring is reportedly getting a free-to-play mobile adaptation with in-app purchases, which takes inspiration from miHoYo's Genshin Impact. It's being published by Tencent, who apparently acquired the licensing rights to Elden Ring back in 2022 and put a few dozen people to work on a prototype, even as the company acquired a 16% stake in Elden Ring developer From Software.
These sorts of decisions can impact future decisions. It is to early to say that this is a trend, so people shouldn't get all up in arms over things. But still, using other company histories as a basis, it is concerning about where this could end up.
I feel like it's just wrong to call these games 'free'. They are 'partially free' with the incentive to extract as much money from you as possible in order to get the 'good stuff' or simply to avoid endless hours of unfun grinding. It's just inferior in every way compared to games you pay for once and that's it, because they don't need to drip feed you 'fun'.
Exceptions apply to competitive games that need a changing meta and content updates. New content for non-competitve 'free' games mostly amounts to new stuff you can buy to surpass new arbitrary walls built in front of you.
IMTX can be fair if these don’t abuse the players time, and offer fun content.
IMTX and not wasting players time are nearly mutually-exclusive. These games are designed with the MTX in mind at every single step of the process, and are made with the soleintent of maximizing MTX sales. Them wasting your time is not a mistake, but an intentional (and meticulously-researched and -designed) feature.
There are exceptions, yes, of course, but they are few and far between.
You know there are people at tencent unironically thinking "People were happy with how unmonetized Elden Ring was. How can we monetize that satisfaction?"
Usually, the devs aren't thinking that, management is and that's what's shoveled downward. Still people at tencent, but I imagine it's not everyone ludicrously evil.
Still, this is a reminder not to get too attached to any particular developer. Doesn't matter how sincerely dedicated to producing fun and satisfying experiences From is: when Tencent talks, they have to listen.
FROM's and Elden Ring's good names will be forever tarnished with this bullshit. Even if, and it's a big if, this turns out to be a decent port it still feels really, really gross. This is really disappointing.
Yeah, I don't mind it for Elden Ring. Souls games have their way of getting me to do back to back playthroughs, something I rarely do with most games, so I know I'm going to get my money's worth.
I guess it's cool that some people may be able to play the game when they wouldn't otherwise, but yeah I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being shit.
"Action RPG"‽ Are you fucking kidding me? What a shit attempt at labeling a nonexistent genre. Would they describe War & Peace as "Literary fiction"? Get better, AI. Some people clearly don't want their current job.