HonestlyNotARobot
19565
535
19
source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d9VD-sAzVQI
Aug 24, 2026 2:31 AM
HonestlyNotARobot
19565
535
19
source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d9VD-sAzVQI
AnOceanOfStars
My decision to nevermore give money to big videogame companies came easy, since most AAA games of the last decade are trash, regardless of how much they try to impress the gullible with big graphics and "adult narratives".
RemtonDulyak
The Sims 4 LITERALLY removed content that was baseline in previous games, and put It on sale as DLC.
You need to spend 1.5 k USD, if you want all content.
calenti
Costuming is top-notch. Pay-to-play, especially for a game you paid for, sucks. Then newer EA games are back to hours-of-play in your subscription so just put a card swiper on your console or PC and re-live those quarter-eating arcade days except now the pocket is your bank account and credit rating.
HellNoCat
Righteousdew
Those staves are pretty dope.
abrubtopinion
I was fully expecting downgraded graphics and instant death once through the door.
Alvatore
Potentially hot take: Games like MMOs that have perpetually ongoing development are actually better off as subscription games than as buy-to-play or free-to-play games. Development resources are limited (manpower, time, etc) so they will always be prioritized around whatever the revenue stream is. Buy-to-play and free-to-play ALWAYS use a cash shop, so the focus will be on pumping out sexy bikini armors for the cash shop. Meanwhile, a subscription-based MMO 1/2
Alvatore
is relying on the actual content of the game to keep people interested and paying, and so the development resources will be on developing good content. New zones, new storylines, quality of life improvements, interesting classes and skills, etc. 2/2
KuldFyt
Believe it or not, the subscription model was an improvement on what came before. Online games used to bill hourly.
CallThisAUsername
That's why I'm amused so many people go "I'm 30 years old and I remember..." and I'm older and I remember what came before what they're discussing. And I remember when paying a flat rate for one month was a pretty sweet deal.
CPTBRUMBL3Z
Literally how the early days worked. Am I too millennial to get the joke? My first ever MMO was Nexus The Kingdom of the Winds and I had to convince my dad it wasn't a scam to use his card (I was still in jr high in 1998)
Alvatore
I think the joke revolves around the fact that Younger Millenials and GenZ are so used to free-to-play games crammed full of MTX that the idea of paying a subscription is offensive to them. Nobody tell them that subscription-based games have more consistent updates, focus their development on content rather than MTX, and don't hobble, hinder, or restrict the play experience to drive you toward the MTX shop while also advertising that MTX shop to you relentlessly.
WhiskyBravo
lol @ SkyCraft
Username62611
I'd happily pay a monthly subscription for a game if it could somehow consistently keep me entertained. But most subscription based games don't keep you playing because of how much fun you're having. You do the same thing over and over and they keep you playing using manipulative tactics. Skinner box addiction traps, fomo, fake scarcity, the list goes on.
stevelite
Transfer money from my savings 😭
PoofieThePotato
For everyone wanting this experience without the monthy subscription check out Guild Wars 2. This game respects your time and doesn't exploit FOMO to keep you playing.
Alvatore
Guild Wars 2 is literally the only free-to-play game I have any respect whatsoever for.
DOcelot1
I just restarted Skyrim again today after a 5 year hiatus. I forgot how amazing it is.
dashers
This is why I avoided WoW. No way I'm paying a monthly sub for a game. I go through phases and switch games, subs never worked for me. And now I'm an old man with little time, they make even less sense. But there are heaps of good games out there that won't break the bank, so it's really not necessary either.
Zalm
Depends. games like WoW and FF14 have a constant stream of content they add to the game on a monthly basis, and if you are enjoying the story, it can be fairly worth it. I payed for FF14 for over a year and went through the whole story. Never felt like it wasnt worth the sub to play with all the constant content additions.
FFBnuuyBoi
Alvatore
Honestly fuck Nintendo to hell, but it's pretty good that Square-Enix got FFXIV to run on the Switch 2.
WhiskyBravo
Star Citizen has entered the chat. Somehow this "game" still hasn't released yet but has made more than a billion dollars
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/111803/star-citizen-breaks-dollars1-billion-in-funding-from-less-than-7-million-players/index.html
Alvatore
It's because the guy in charge (Chris Roberts) is trying to develop two games at the same time - Star Citizen and Squadron 42, his on-rails interactive movie game - and through a combination of mismanagement, employee churn, and reworking stuff that should have been nailed down long ago, neither game is done and the bulk of the studio is still assigned to Squadron 42. It's not different from how Chris handled the development of Freelancer; he was just careful to not have a publisher this time.
PorneliusHubertII
I pay $15 to play old school runescape. I would happily pay $20 for a fully immersive VR fantasy mmorpg. Let's hope that when we have the tech for it, its so cheap.
IlluminaBlade
VR MMO wanters when confronted with the idea of latency.
WarlockWithNoPatron
adamlstf9
Bethesda just updated Skyrim. Again. Went to play last night, had to wait half an hour for an update to download, then it glitched and froze the game when I tried to open the map. Couldn’t open it again til I restarted the box.
Sat down to play at 11:15. At 12:15 after about 5 minutes of actual play I gave up and went to bed. Fuck this enshittification world.
Renza0
I will have to agree, fuck EA games. also I dont think I've played an ubisoft game in like 20 years, but they were all pretty much dumpster fires made out of spare parts
lonelyrangerofthedreams
This is basically World of Warcraft 25 years later
Etereo
If you buy a game that requires montly subscription you know what you want or you are an idiot
ReaperCDN
I'm going to get slaughtered for saying this, but I don't mind paying for MMO subs. $20 a month is still the cheapest form of entertainment compared to anything else. Go out to a movie? $20 for 2 hours. Play golf? $50 to hundreds of dollars for a day. Sub to WoW? $20 for hundreds of hours. It's never been hard for me to justify that over anything else.
RecurringNightmare
this...buy game, get three months for free, then pay subscription, that way the developers have steady income to keep the servers up and there is an entry hurdle for bots and shit...free to play games that try to make money through microtransactions are full of bots and cost you more in the end because of course you cant resist forever, everyone elses toon looks fancy, so you gotta make your toon look cool too...
Alvatore
Not only that, but when the revenue stream is a subscription fee the developer needs to make the game itself worth sticking around to play. A game that has a cash shop as its revenue stream only needs to make the cash shop items compelling, so the bulk of development resources go there instead and the game itself suffers.
Zyxs975
alot of people would gladly pay a subscription and be able to access the full content, instead of it being free and then once you are invested into the game you realize that the endgame revolves around p2w gatcha games and events inside your game.
but it turned out that the gacha approach is more profitable, in some cases 10% of the player base being responsible for 80% of the income and the whole game is built around that concept.
Renza0
yeah, the one and only potentially acceptable use I could see for gacha mechanics in a game, would be *tradable cosmetics, that have no function. literal gambling for pixels just to play a game should not be a thing.
Dinkleboop
I'm vaguely okay with the GTA Online model where you can spend real money to get in-game currency, as long as it's the same in-game currency that you earn in-game anyway and not spending real money doesn't lock you out of content. Not that I'd ever do it anyway, but I guess if people want to skip grinding and have the cash to do it I can't hold it against them. Me being okay with it would stop if playing to earn in-game money became prohibitively low or difficult.
Bojovnik84
The early days of WoW. Buy the base game, but pay monthly to keep playing it. Buy the expansion and keep paying monthly to play it. I miss it and yet, dont miss it.
GasBandit
Man, I was doin' that shit back in Everquest in 99. And now I'm doing it again in Everquest Legends today.
BeaverOnFire
And that's the reason I used to play on pirate servers.
iamahorriblemonsterwhodeservesdeath
I miss the sense of community the game had before they implemented cross-server and diluted the experience. It was a brief and golden time, before Blizzard shit the bed repeatedly.
LonelyHumanBoy
Blizzard consistently shit the bed since Burning Crusade to be honest, every new system they made was a broken, exploitable mess that took them years to address and fix after numerous years of complaints; only to half-ass the solution, making the problem worse. Whether it was PvP, GearScore, Splitting the raid system into a tiered difficulty that split the playerbase even more; cross realm grouping... Its a miracle i played for so long despite it in retrospect.
Cranbananarama
Played Elder Scrolls Online for a short time. Was alright and I had fun playing tourist, just wandering the map, but didn't *really* feel worth the monthly fee.
ReneDeGames
ESO doesn't require the monthly fee.
Cranbananarama
It doesn't? Well, now I'm curious what it was it had me paying for monthly...been too long to remember.
Zalm
in the beginning, it was a sub based game like WoW and FF14. But it dropped the sub requirement, and went with it being a premium.
The sub includes access to all current available expansions and DLCs, as well as a few perks, like infinite depth crafting bag.
KuldFyt
It did on launch. But it flopped hard and went F2P in a year.
Zalm
not F2P. Its still Buy to Play, with an option sub. But honestly, with how many ways it is to play for free, its almost Free to Play. But it is still technically $20 to play it.
MissIWasntItching
Back in the day, I understood it; You're paying for the maintenance of the massive servers, the quick in-game support, things like that. But it should never have been more than a couple of bucks a month.
These days, support is practically nonexistent, and the servers they run are usually no better than any other multiplayer title. The monthly fee is robbery.
Zalm
They keep adding new content monthly for some of these games. Thats now what you pay for most of the time. The drip feed content
Alvatore
"A couple of bucks a month" was never enough to pay for servers and pay staff and keep ongoing services functioning. $15/20 is an entirely fair price if the game is decent.
MissIWasntItching
$15 a month is $180 a year. Do you really think an individual player's impact on the servers and support costs a company even HALF that amount?
If I already paid for a base game, something like $3 or $5 should be more than adequate for a maintenance fee, especially if the game has other sources of revenue like cosmetics, etc.
Remember, many games are able to provide hosted multiplayer WITHOUT asking for a monthly fee to play.
Alvatore
Yes, and those games have MTX cash shops where they attempt to rinse the player for everything they can. The game is subsequently designed around getting the player to go into that cash shop, restricting or removing aspects of the game until you pay - often with a monthly subscription - to to undo those restrictions and removals.
QuantumInc
To be fair, it is not just subscription games or micro-transactions. Games that you pay for only once can still have a demo. That is a good thing, but the demo ends, and often the final page has a link leading directly to the store page. Hopefully you have realized by now that when a game calls itself "free to play" that actually free to play part was just a demo.
Marsupialmessiah
For example: doom.
Zalm
For some games, maybe. But most free to play games are still legit free to play to access all "content" in the game, and the only paid content is new characters, classes, account upgrades, etc.
Alvatore
And those kinds of games are designed in a way that will inevitably drive you towards swiping your card in the cash shop unless you are willing to accept a less-than-intended experience.
Zalm
I think that depends on the game. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here, as I never really played any of the gacha games, except one kinda no name ish(Once Human) and generally some game are likely full end gameplay available, with only cosmetics trapped behind paywalls. Others, like the ones that sell whole character/classes, yeah, not a full experience and all that.
RedCamaro
sardonislamir
What is this from?
esparadrapo
Streets of Rage 4
Renza0
that is someone who has played that elevator probably hundreds of times
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
cool fight!
esparadrapo
Streets of Rage 4 my love. I've put +400 hours on it and it's been 6€ several times recently.
Cranbananarama
A beat'em up where item pick-ups don't despawn within a few seconds? Sorcery!
netutoring
Is this a Streets of Rage sequel?
esparadrapo
Streets of Rage 4
netutoring
Wow. All the way out to 4, huh? Wild:) I'm glad they kept the same unique art aesthetic.
MoopsyLD
base game payment only being until level 10 which you get by completing the tutorial will get a game skewered regardless of how amazing the pay part is.
Zalm
WoW? Isnt the tutorial for that like to level 20 or some crap?
MoopsyLD
WoW isn't a problem cause you don't reach reach 20 just from the tutorial. there is also a lot of content that is free until then and private servers exist to bypass it. not saying WoW box + expansion+ sub isn't scummy though. but if WoW only had free till level 2 and you reached it 10 minutes in, then it would apply.
Treforce
Okay, but hear me out...
If you paid the base amount for a game, should be able to play it.
If you paid for the base game, and expansions, you should be able to play it.
If you paid for all of that, but you STILL cant play because you also have to pay for a subscription... then hold me bottle of rom matey, cause this pirate be sailing.
MoopsyLD
Base game cost = immediately pay all the people who worked on it and funding for next expansion. Expansion cost = pay to workers and server costs. Subscription pays mostly for server costs. This is completely fine and acceptable. what isn't acceptable is Base game cost = less than 2 hours of play time + pay for subscription like the video says. WoW has changed so it doesn't apply to it, but any game that has less than 2 hours of play + box cost + subscription will be roasted.
Frobizzle
The standard mmo format is a free month or 2 and then monthly subscription to keep playing. That's perfectly fine for a game with perpetual content you can play for thousands of hours and basically live in. It costs money to maintain and continue to develop for. Practically no other type of paid game requires a subscription. Not sure what your panties are in a twist over.
RemtonDulyak
Right now, WoW's base game is free, you don't need to pay to start playing.
Up to level 20, you can play any content you want, EXCEPT for the latest expansion, but you have a cap on gold (I think it's 1000), and social interaction limitations, to try to prevent free gold trading accounts.
If you subscribe, the level cap is up to the starting level for the current expansion, and no more limitations on gold and social.
The current expansion is paid, and goes free when the next is released.
Treforce
The original boxed retail version of World of Warcraft cost $49.99 USD at its launch.
certainlynotaserialkiller
Morkath
We tried to stop it. But we were told that we were over-reacting, and that if we didn't like we should just ignore it and shut up.
CyberHexx
Whoever came up with this subscription bullshit for everything needs to be crucified on a cross by his balls...
Sticklebrickk
EA
Teyken
But think of the investors!
Frobizzle
Do you think a 1 time $50 fee can fund over 20 years of maintenance and new content?
sadurdaynight
Gaming industry is where predatory business models were experimented with to see what people will put up with. Other industries are adopting.
ShadowSayain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
1stDrunkJoe
I can't find any names so I am going to go with my default, the grandpa of enshitification, Milton Friedman. Angry about Reagan's or Thatcher's dumb ass policies? Thank Milton Friedman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
OnFridaysWeWearBeskar
Well if it's a game you install on your PC and you run only on your PC with no servers needed.. yes, there's zero reasons to have a sub. But servers cost money. Developers for new content cost money. You gotta get it somehow, either micro transactions or subs.
Zalm
Depends on the game. Some major titles with subscriptions are good, like FF14 and WoW. They do pump out new content all the time, and its fairly worth the monthly fee if you are actively playing and enjoying said new content.
But "freemium" games are a fucking plague on the industry.
SirSmurfalot
Look at any shitty thing in the world and behind it is some mother fucker with a business degree. Or even worse... an MBA...
I swear those assholes are the bane of all humanity.
EmperorCartagia
It's literally an educational certification that you've learned to priotitize fucking people over for profit.
Shakespeare said to kill all the lawyers. He was mistaken, but if he was alive today I'm sure he'd say kill all the MBAs.
NorrinxRadd
Sadly I will come back to ffxi retail once a year, I do love the free server , but my og character is hard to give up
SirVG
I hear FFXI has been very popular as of late and next month they're expanding the free trial to Lv 75 w/ the base game and no restriction on play time.
Renza0
for MMOs it kinda makes sense, kinda, I think its more of a remnant from the end of the 1900s and early millennium where microtransactions and cash shops weren't really a thing as far as I remember, so since the games were intended to be a long running online service, they needed a way to keep making profits over operation costs. but cosmetic, convenience, and the unfortunate p2w shops all make enormous amounts more than subs do these days so yeah kind of a go fuck yourself at this point.
QuantumInc
Monthly subscription is a lot more honest than the majority of microtransaction models and a lot of DLC. If it is buy once and they give out free updates that requires that new people are buying into the game constantly, and developers with bills to pay cannot just assume that.
CyberHexx
Or they could simply charge for major updates. Autodesk Inventor 2011 is just fine, but if you want newer features you can buy newer versions. Or Fusion 360 which is the newer successor to the Inventor line...
Alvatore
Autodesk and [MMO] is not a valid comparison. Autodesk runs entirely on your own machine; MMOs run on servers that the developer has to pay for. The money for that has to come from somewhere, and you still have to pay your devs after that. MMOs have larger development teams. The two are so dissimilar that saying "just run an MMO like it's standalone utility software" is laughable.
ClutterMonkey
Probably Trip Hawkins. Founder of 3DO and EA. Meridian 59 was the first MMO to have a subscription service model and it was bought while in beta by 3DO for publishing.
UnaccomplishedWatcherImNotaBot
Might and magic 3DO?
ThisIsAllYouCouldComeUpWith
REOJackwagon
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1cHk5eG1qY2Z1NWI4czk5bHFkc2F1N2llbmlmY2F2emVkb2xvdmNpdCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/6HUAmGE7Iquq5AC5uZ/200w.webp
UnaccomplishedWatcherImNotaBot
WHY JEFF, OF ALL PEOPLE
REOJackwagon
I didn't see who they were beating up when I posted that
FortifiedWhine
I'll tell you hwhat, it wouldn't have been the people who designed and built the game...
CyberHexx
Didn't say it would be.
IlluminaBlade
Pay to Play is fine if the developers pander to the audience they have.
It's when they spend all the money they make changing the game into something else and you realize you're being thrown away that it sucks.
jalcantara88127001
Yeah the main problem is that people still pay for it. While adults will have an easier time refusing, kids will most of the time get their way. And since subscription models get much more money per person, they don't need as many people paying to make it a viable model. Which makes other companies see that it's less work for more money so they go that route. Eventually they are all using that model. And that wraps around gets some of those adults back because there are no other options
Alvatore
Wherever you got the idea that subscription models get much more money, your source was wrong. Market research has consistently found that the free-to-play, cash-shop-supported model brings in far more revenue.
CyberHexx
Just because people will willingly allow themselves to get fucked over is no excuse to have anything but extreme emnity for the one who created the scam in the first place.
jalcantara88127001
Sure. I never said otherwise. An opinion of explanation is neither a justification or a negation of the argument.
Renza0
I cant help but think microtransactions make ungodly more amounts of money in a year than subs do. last time I played wow, the annual cost is like 160$, the auction house mount legit was like 100$ and people went ham buying that one-off single item, plus the endless other cosmetics, mounts, aesthetic pets, etc. or are people talking about a different sub model than mmo's like playstation+ and xboxgiveusmoremoney?
Alvatore
Microtransactions absolutely make dramatically more money. They also make the customer feel less overtly harvested from, which is why MTX models have taken off so much. The problem of course is that development resources always get prioritized toward the revenue stream, so if your money comes from selling bikini armor and not from the game itself as it woudl be w/subscription, the bulk of your resources are gonna go to pumping out bikini armors rather than making a compelling, high-quality game.
TresusIbor
I will say at least gaming is one of the easiest hobbies to just go "Fuck this I'm out. Gonna go play my backlog for the next 10 years."
jalcantara88127001
If you are smart enough to like single player offline games yeah. Eventually you won't even be able to do that. No more physical media and digital media gatekeeping and what not
camster9898
GOG and sailing the seven seas works for me. Lots of older games you can't play without cracks. Spore for example won't run on modern PCs due to old DRM. It's not that I don't support buying the games but some just will not run and you can't even buy anymore.
Schrefu
Look in the mirror, look left and right of you, look at your steam and discord friend list. The unpleasant truth is: our apathy, complacency, and dopamine addiction made this. Not just possible, but actually made it. It's just so much easier to deflect that responsibility. It's being pushed, because we keep taking it. **The choice of acceptance was always ours.**
koitetaan
I just found out that a company rents you eyeglasses for a ”small” monthly fee. ”Very popular choise” they said.