They also point out that more than 50 percent of Helldivers’ revenue came from microtransactions now. Again, you’re all ruining it for the rest of us, please stop. They also confirm they will conitnue to milk that and “maximize revenue”.
The thing is, Helldivers is priced, delivered and supported in such a way that it’s worth spending that money on.
In Helldivers 2 it is possible to earn premium currency simply by playing the game, and at a fairly reasonable rate. You can basically grind out every bit of content in the game if you want. And even without any of that “premium” content, you get a huge library of weapons, cosmetics and strategems to play with, many of which are better than the premium stuff.
Plus the warbonds are very fair compared to how most games price extra content. In a world where you can easily spend twenty dollars or more on a skin, here’s what a typical warbond - priced at $10 - includes;
Two or three full cosmetic sets
An emote or victory animation
Three primary weapons
A secondary weapon
A grenade
A booster (special power for the squad, not an XP booster; Helldivers does not have any form of XP booster, everyone grinds at the same rate)
Enough premium currency to cover 30% of your next warbond
(Newer warbonds have gotten a little slimmer in terms of weapons and skins, but now tend to include new strategems as well; it’s a slight downgrade in terms of bang for your buck, but still very good compared to the industry averages)
On top of that, the game itself is very reasonably priced, incredibly fun, and constantly getting exciting new story content. Which means you buy this thing, enjoy the hell out of it, and end up thinking “Man, I’ve still got this money left over that I would have spent on a full price game, why not spend it on some cool shit? Look at all the cool stuff I could get for just ten dollars and I’m still coming in at way less than the price of a new Battlefield game.”
That’s how it should be. That kind of behaviour from a developer should be rewarded. Arrowhead are doing pretty much everything right when it comes to crafting a brilliant product and treating the fans of that product with respect. We can’t stop Sony learning the wrong lessons from that, but if good games don’t succeed they certainly won’t ever learn the right ones.
Helldivers is fun enough, and I agree with you that the base game content is solid enough to sustain the experience.
That doesn’t make it any more valuable or engaging to spend money on more cape textures through a battlepass grind.
I would much rather pay for actual content than hope that whales and subscriptions subsidize it. Granted, I also see next to no appeal on grinding Helldivers’ missions and volatile metagame progression, so the entire design is not for me.
But for as long as you can make increasingly cheaper content to keep extracting ten bucks a month from people you will get companies trying to extract a hundred. You’re… you know, ruining it for the rest of us, please stop.
I would much rather pay 90 bucks for Donkey Kong than 45 for Helldivers 2 on account on a subset of whales subsidizing the rest of the package.
My one exception is fighting games, where I find paying for more characters down the line is flexible enough and has enough connection between meaningful content and investment that it supports a very long additional content tail. But pure cosmetics in a battlepass? Yeah, no, I’d rather not.
The thing is, Helldivers is priced, delivered and supported in such a way that it’s worth spending that money on.
In Helldivers 2 it is possible to earn premium currency simply by playing the game, and at a fairly reasonable rate. You can basically grind out every bit of content in the game if you want. And even without any of that “premium” content, you get a huge library of weapons, cosmetics and strategems to play with, many of which are better than the premium stuff.
Plus the warbonds are very fair compared to how most games price extra content. In a world where you can easily spend twenty dollars or more on a skin, here’s what a typical warbond - priced at $10 - includes;
(Newer warbonds have gotten a little slimmer in terms of weapons and skins, but now tend to include new strategems as well; it’s a slight downgrade in terms of bang for your buck, but still very good compared to the industry averages)
On top of that, the game itself is very reasonably priced, incredibly fun, and constantly getting exciting new story content. Which means you buy this thing, enjoy the hell out of it, and end up thinking “Man, I’ve still got this money left over that I would have spent on a full price game, why not spend it on some cool shit? Look at all the cool stuff I could get for just ten dollars and I’m still coming in at way less than the price of a new Battlefield game.”
That’s how it should be. That kind of behaviour from a developer should be rewarded. Arrowhead are doing pretty much everything right when it comes to crafting a brilliant product and treating the fans of that product with respect. We can’t stop Sony learning the wrong lessons from that, but if good games don’t succeed they certainly won’t ever learn the right ones.
No, it is not!
Helldivers is fun enough, and I agree with you that the base game content is solid enough to sustain the experience.
That doesn’t make it any more valuable or engaging to spend money on more cape textures through a battlepass grind.
I would much rather pay for actual content than hope that whales and subscriptions subsidize it. Granted, I also see next to no appeal on grinding Helldivers’ missions and volatile metagame progression, so the entire design is not for me.
But for as long as you can make increasingly cheaper content to keep extracting ten bucks a month from people you will get companies trying to extract a hundred. You’re… you know, ruining it for the rest of us, please stop.
I would much rather pay 90 bucks for Donkey Kong than 45 for Helldivers 2 on account on a subset of whales subsidizing the rest of the package.
My one exception is fighting games, where I find paying for more characters down the line is flexible enough and has enough connection between meaningful content and investment that it supports a very long additional content tail. But pure cosmetics in a battlepass? Yeah, no, I’d rather not.