Nintendo does the same with BoTW and ToTK. Long dev cycles that releases a functional game without micro-transactions.
FromSoft does the same with most of their games. Where people actually beg them to release DLCs.
But no... it's Larion they seem to go after.
Nintendo is huge. FromSoft has their own cult. But Larion? What's can they blame there? Nothing. Most big studios that bitch about this is larger than Larion. Maybe because they are more scared that if Larion can do it. There's no excuse anymore.
Not to victim blame, but if you looked at everything Blizzard have done over the last 10 years, and thought "maybe this one will be different" then perhaps the problem is you.
Ironically I'm less concerned with battle passes as long as they don't sell power. The actual mtx itself doesn't bother me, I've easily spent hundreds in path of exile. But I prefer to enjoy the game first, and then at some point decide that I want to support the devs, and then maybe I buy something.
Yeah it blows my mind how much I've spent on league supporter kits as well. Not sure if it is because I enjoy the game or I respect the business model.
I'm not against battle passes, but there are plenty of examples of how they fall under the predatory monetization category. Not selling power is hardly a justification that they aren't unethical.
I'm as frustrated with D4 as the next guy, but I'd hardly call their in-game shop invasive. Their MTX has been minor and cosmetic thus far. There are far better examples including one within the Diablo universe.
The shop had an un-clearable red alert notification any time they released a new skin for your character chat.
The only way to clear it was to open the shop and scroll to find the new item and click on it, opening the store page. Then when you backed out it would go away.
You had to do this for every single item that was released.
Maybe I'm neurotic or autistic or OCD or all three but those stupid red alerts trigger me and I need to clear them all to keep playing the game.
I don't even want the fucking store in my game. Give me an option to turn it off for fuck's sake.
I think it's due to the little guy making a huge wave that other people don't feel they're "allowed" to make. These other devs work on "AAA" companies working on big name titles from studios everyone has heard of so. But now a small, indie studio comes along with a grand slam and they don't like it kind of makes them look bad by comparison. Showing you can release a big complex game without it being an absolute buggy mess, doesn't need microtransactions, doesn't need to sell millions of copies to be considered a success, and isn't just a copy paste of the previous game with a handful of modifications made to slap a new "FOR SALE" label on it...
Even then I feel like they were too underrated for their obvious potential. I'm glad the studio is fully in the spotlight now. With so many shitty companies out there it feels like they earned and deserve it. Now we just have to hope they don't fall to temptation and turn to crap like so many others
I think the "problem" for those people is that the game broke out of its bubble. nintendo, from soft and also larion up until now all had their own bubble of fans. Larion broke that mold and even people who have nothing to do with the genre celebrate it.
There was plenty of distaste for Elden Ring when it came out -- devs at Ubisoft I believe ridiculed how the UI wasn't informative and such.
I think AAA studios are terrified because they're seeing just how much consumers value quality over quantity and MTX bullshit. Games that should be in self contained bubbles are now hitting mainstream and becoming absurdly popular.
Lmao Ubisoft of all folks should shut the fuck up about UI, they are literally the source of the meme about cluttered and overly complicated UI. If Ubisoft is complaining about a UI I have to automatically assume it is a good UI.
Also, if AAA developers have been paying attention for the last decade, they would know that consumers have valued quality and shown disdain for MTX since MTX started becoming pervasive. MTX overall can generate a lot of revenue, but it isnt sustainable, hence why there is always some sort of FOMO characteristic included with the MTX system, making things limited time and constantly shovelling low effort "new content" to fill out the MTX system.
They've been working for almost a generation now on changing the mindset of gamers as to what they should expect from a game, and here comes a really good game from a little known studio doing exactly what games used to expect before the mind changing was attempted.
I personally think this is because gaming journalism isn't real journalism. They don't actually care, they just want clicks and perceived relevancy when people repost their tweets to reddit
but Iβll keep working for them because they pay me.
That's just it, you can move to a different company that has a better working situation in environment. You just have to be a brave enough to fight the inertia that keeps you where you're at.
And in fact, if you want your salary to steadily increase over your career, you're supposed to move from company to company every couple of years.
The lesson here is you can trust most big Japanese publishers/developers and it's the opposite for American/European ones. Christ, Death Stranding was almost ruined by all the "subtle" product placements they put