Skate players were explicitly told map areas would not be “locked behind a paywall”



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Man, remember back in the day when you just went and bought a game and then played it?
I still just buy games and play them.
They’re just 99,99% not ‘triple A’ games but from developers or publishers who care about games.
I understand the sentiment here but let’s note that you do not go buy Skate. because it’s free to play.
Remember when free to play meant free to play?
I remember shareware.
But… shareware was literally designed to paywall the majority of an application or game until you paid for it. It was a free shareable demo.
Free to play games are similar to old shareware though… You get to play some of it for free then pay for the rest.
In American-style neo-liberalism, everything must have a price tag. If it doesn’t generate a profit, it can’t exist.
Then people should stop buying, otherwise nothing will change. People complained about Nintendo switch 2, yet they bought it.
This is actually good advice… in isolation. Encouraging people to spend their money more wisely can bring awareness to an issue but it ultimately does little to implement change. Sure, you and I (and the Fediverse as a whole) might be hyper-vigilant about these kind of things but the average consumer isn’t. Continuing with your Nintendo example, Nintendo has decades of brand recognition and a zealous fanbase to satisfy the demand. An eager gaming press will gladly take free hardware from Nintendo for positive coverage.
Real change won’t happen until the tap is turned off, so to speak. These companies are taking advantages of gaps in the law that permit them to get away with this. Antitrust law in the US dates back to a time when steam-powered trains were still common and the last breakup involved a telephone company. When AT&T was broken up, the home computer (desktop in modern parlance) was just starting to take off.
So, yes, we should spend our money elsewhere when we see this kinds of corporate abuses but until you starve the beast, keep expecting these kinds of behaviors.
People aren’t playing or paying for stuff in Skate. The player count drop off has been substantial.
EA invents a new way to assure I never purchase their products. Ever.
The fact anyone has bought any of their products in the last 15 years is why they can keep doing this stupid shit. Stupid things for stupid people.
My brain just shuts off when I read stuff like this.
Man, I dunno. Fuck AAA gaming, I’ll go play something else.
Indies are where its at. Or classic games, especially with mods
Games are a modern media and I think suffer from a lot of modern engagement mechanics.
We need to stop viewing them as a constant stream of “new content” and more as an established library.
Absolutely the problem. They’ve stopped trying to make fun and started trying to exploit psychological weaknesses and hijack our internal reward systems to rinse us of both time and money.
Fun is no longer the driving factor, and it makes me feel not quite angry or nauseous, but somewhere around those emotions.
Exactly, and the fact that Jeffrey Epstein was pro microtransactions really tells you the kind of scum we’re dealing with here
I shifted to that view a long time ago. I have a selection of “classics” I play on rotation and I add a few indies or modern ports every now and then.
The multiplay scene went in a direction I don’t intend to follow. Some old friends are thinking about hosting a retro lan party, but I’m going to make it clear that I’m walking if they try sneaking in any modern shit.
Thinking about it now, I haven’t bought any game with EA’s name on it since Dead Space 3.
This is a great example for the moral justifications of piracy. The bytes for the maps are on your hard drive, why the fuck should you not be allowed to play on them? When someone playing a pirated copy has a better experience than someone on a
boughtlicensed copy something’s not right.Yet people have zero self control and keep giving them money.
Exactly. EA do it because enough people allow them to do it.
I really don’t understand people like that, though. There are plenty of great games that don’t have predatory monetisation. Yet millions and millions opt to get fleeced. This shit won’t stop as long as people keep falling for it.
let them I’ll keep adding more hours to megabonk.
We’re now expected to rent imaginary spaces for our characters to play the game we already purchased in?
Is advocating people be burned at the stake against the ToS here? Because I’m advocating the fuck out of that.
Nobody purchased Skate, it is free to play.
They just promised not to lock locations behind a paywall, which the executives decided to change.
I see a clear correlation between the decline of tar-and-feathers and riding people out on a rail and the rise of terrible business practices.
Yes. Remember when we burned people at the stake? Whatever happened to that? Just live stream a few billionaires and child rapists being slowly burned as an object lesson to the rest and I imagine things would change fairly quickly.
Climate change and the rising cost of fuels is what happend.
Someone really needs to start an eco friendly, low carb, gluten free, vegan burning-at-the-stake materials company.
Yes, this is exactly it.
Negativity is censored because it’s bad for business.
An important detail is that this rental option is paid for in grind currency, not paid currency. Yes, “for now”.
Even just the idea of having to ‘grind’ for a virtual currency, it’s something that modern games do and it turns them into a job. Yes, I said it. Games that have long grind hours just to access basic resources. These are really a second job sometimes, thinking of always online games like rust too. I like my games to be on when I need them to be. To save an be able to go back to them whenever i feel like. Earthbound had a commentary from the lead programmer and creator of the game in the same tone, that his game would be easy to save, quit and restart in a very casual way by design (ness’s dad personally calls you, the player, if the game runs for long enough, to basically tell you to go touch some grass). I have found certain modern titles to be made for long hour daily marathons, else you’re not adavncing enough. I emulate old stuff now.
Yeah, that’s just to normalise rentable levels. Once it has been begrudgingly accepted, there’ll be one that requires premium currency. Never buy EA.
You’ll still be able to buy them with ingame currency, but itll be days worth of farming or BEST VALUE 4.99.
They’ll still be able to hide behind an ethical “no mtx required” label.
Why days worth of farming? To help give the player a sense of “pride and accomplishment” of course.
EA literally had one job:
And EA went and fucked it up being greedy. And they wonder why Steam is killing it.
I would settle for Skate 2 without the soundtrack so they can release it again. No improvements. There is a glitch where you push a few buttons(throw board, turn right, jump, force pull board and grab board before landing) and go flying while the game physics shits the bed. It was great for getting to places that were otherwise inaccessible or not yet unlocked and for getting real high Hall of Meat scores. Imperfections like that are what make a great game perfect.
Unrelated, but when did all Magazines start faking youtube thumbnails as the meta image…? I bet times are desperate, but I mean at what point do you understand that it’s all the deceit and desperation that drives literally everyone away to the media they imitate?
In this one case EA is to blame, but I do know what you mean. I think it’s just that YouTube videos have had a large impact on the form media takes, and that’s trickled out towards other forms.
After all these things, why are people still buying anything from EA? Just boycott them.
Skate is free to play, nothing was bought.
Apparently the cosmetic microtransactions didn’t make enough money. So now they are putting locations behind a paywall.
Majority of people are NPCs
Not only are they using microrranscations in a ‘new’ way, but they rely on fomo to call players in. “What if I miss on the period of free access? I better hurry” “Well what else can i do as a player?”
It might be that i am playing nes games and having fun with them, but i personally think that a game that pulls this shit once can do it forever to keep me engaged against my common sense. If the conditions for the players are not fair, the smart move is not to play the game.
Edit: if some of you want a modern looking game for the nes, try gravity armor metal storm by Irem. Arcade style, but it’s fairly advanced for being a classic 8-bit game. Maybe lesser known than the mabdatory contra rom / cartridge in the corner of your rom, but very good for modern players in particular.
Soooo, the metaverse paid plots? I swear, every company with even an inkling of a 3d environment now just wants to “build” and sell worthless plots as if it’s real land, and literally nobody who uses these actually fucking asked.
Uh…Jared Kushner owns EA now, so I don’t know why this would be relevant to anyone.
I don’t know why EA would be relevant to anyone for the past 20+ years, but here we are.
because they have exclusive rights to making an NFL video game
The fun part is…I tried the newest one on game pass recently. Aside from roster updates it’s the same game I bought on disc 20 years ago
lol if it was the same game from 20 years ago itd actually be pretty good. that would be madden 05 era which some say is the peak of madden
Well, I was looking forward to a new Mass Effect, but playing something like that made by Kushner and the Saudis would probably make tears in reality. Like, I’m pretty sure the paradox will make serious issues.
Along with his Saudi oil tycoon buddies.
Sense of pride and accomplishment
Usual reminder:
If you know a parent who is not an active gamer, remind them to never buy games for their kids that have microtransactions, passes, or any form of post-purchase payment. They often will have no idea what they are contributing to as it is not part of their ‘bubble’ to be aware of what these things do to their kids, their kids’ friends, and the industry and society as wholes.