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I do not like the current trends in gaming. I remember a time when we paid for a game and that game was ours. We could do whatever we wanted with it, had access to all parts of it, and never had to worry about things being added, blocked off, or expanded upon.

I know this is making me sound a bit like an old fuddy-duddy, and I probably am, but as I sit here playing Tiny Village (one of the few examples of micro-transaction games that I feel does what it does in a more or less inoffensive way), it has struck me just how much games have changed. I'm not one of those people that demands nothing ever change, but I definitely am one of those people that is concerned that things are changing for the worse.

These days, it seems like every game is hiding half of its content behind a price tag. Between MMOs requiring a monthly fee (admittedly, this is a dying trend, which I can't say I'll miss), free-to-play games having micro-transactions, Facebook games requiring you to spend money on in-game currency, and the overabundance of DLC and expansion packs that have been coming out for every single game, I'm concerned that game developers are losing what it means to make a full, complete, stand-alone title that requires nothing out of the box...if it even /has/ a box.

Now, I'm not going to say there's no place for the Zyngas and Popcaps and MMOs of the world, but I am going to say this: there are far too many of them, and it's troubling. I know free to play games make serious, /serious/ bank, but--and maybe I'm starting to sound like a long-haired artsy hippy type--I feel like gaming needs to be something more. When Zynga hides 90% of its game behind micro-transactions, I feel like I'd almost rather pay $10 up front and have access to most of the game from there, and if developers hope, as I do, that gaming can really come into its own as an art form, eventually they are going to have to think about more than just making money. I mean, they can't continue to do what they do without making money, of course, but there has to be a line...

A good example of this is a game called Pixel Mall. This free Android app is a fun little clicky time-waster in which you drag your piggy mall owner from shop to shop, helping customers and checking them out (not like that, you pervert). The point is to get them in and out as quickly as possible in order to build up customer appreciation and level up your mall...and, of course, earn money. The money you earn in the game can be used to purchase more shops, level up your mall owner, and buy other upgrades that generally make your job a lot easier and allow you to keep up with the ever-increasing work load as customers stream in like mad. One thing that is available for purchase in this game is additional helpers, adorable little characters that apparently can perform the same tasks as your piggy mall owner. I say apparently because I cannot buy any of them...all but one are only available if you spend real money on it. The last one is available for in-game money, but he is quite expensive to purchase and getting enough money to purchase him is difficult without having additional help. And let me be clear: you need additional help in this game. You /will/ hit a wall that makes the game all but impossible without spending your real money on this virtual game and I find myself wishing I could just buy the game for $10-$15 and have everything unlocked from the start.

Now, I know that this is a good way for game designers, especially untested newcomers, to make money, but it seems like every new game that comes out is hiding most of itself behind these micro transactions to the point that I cannot even try and play any of these games because I simply do not have the money (I'm spending it on League of Legends, natch). And this, boys and girls, is where we're going to run into trouble...only the heavy hitters, the Zyngas, are going to make any money on this model...because people are going to keep sinking money into the games they already play. Eventually, no matter how good a micro-transaction game is, it's going to fall flat because people just don't have the money to spend on it.

Another example of this trend is the over-abundance of MMOs on the market today. I know I've hashed out this topic already in this blog, but I have to touch on it again because I just heard that the new Neverwinter Nights IS GOING TO BE A GODDAMNED MMO. This is /hugely/ disappointing to me because I'm starting to see 90% of the major RPG releases in any given year being MMOs...and then dying out slowly and painfully because they can't compete and they're just plain poorly designed. I know MMOs make tons of money, particularly the gammut of free to play ones that are being made or just converting over, but that's only if they actually become popular. Ask the makers of Warhammer Online, Aion, Rift, and Age of Conan how much they wish they'd just made a single-player RPG and sold it for $60 now...if you can find them in the wellfare line.

(as a note: yes, I know they probably turned a bit of a profit on half of these as they went free to play, but I can't imagine it's more than they would have made if they'd just made a simple single-player RPG). MMOs make a lot of money, but they're also HUGELY expensive to produce. Making a single-player RPG would likely be cheaper, so I have to believe the profit margin would be considerably higher if it was a good game.

And what of the fabled non-massively multiplayer RPGs (I really should come up with a phrase for this...minorly multiplayer RPGs maybe)? The games where you can connect with one or two friends and romp through a huge, Skyrimian world together completing quests and experiencing an epic plot? That's right, there aren't any. In fact, there are very few multiplayer games on the market these days that aren't massively multiplayer or some kind of deathmatch shooter. You can't tell me Skyrim wouldn't have even more appeal if you could join your friends, even if you were just following them around and enjoying their plot with them, even if your character was an utterly insignificant hanger-on.

I have a bit more of a love-hate relationship with DLC, downloadable content, and expansion packs. I love the concept, of course. I love the idea that game developers can continue to add more and more to a game. After all, eventually you have to call a game done and ship it off...and while, yes I like my stories to have endings, it's usually fun to add more to it, more stories to tell, more places to visit, more characters to interact with. However, I have begun to notice DLC acting more and more like a crutch than a tool. Take a look at Fable 2. This was a game that was billed to be a gigantic, immersive sandbox in which the sky was the limit and anything was possible. What we got was a bland, characterless experience that you could finish in a weekend of casual play. This was a clear example of a game that was not finished. A game that /needed/ DLC to be the full game it was intended to be. This is a problem. I don't want game developers to get into the mentality that DLC can allow them to ship out an incomplete game (with the caveat that this is fine if and when they start charging less for said incomplete games) because DLC costs money...yet another example of parts of games (that you have already spent money on) being hidden behind a price tag. This was even worse in Fable 2 when you realize that the DLC added /nothing/ to the game. It was all insipid and vapid foolishness that added /nothing/ to the plot except lame jokes and uninteresting (and, more importantly, unrelated) side stories. This was especially troubling when the game ended on such a massive cliffhanger that it made the whole thing feel like half of a story. This is the exact wrong way for DLC to be handled, but I get the feeling more and more than bad developers are relying on it to allow them to ship out incomplete games and bilk people out of more money...and when other developers see that this works, they're going to have a hard time not following suit.

I never thought I would be old enough to say this, but I miss the good old days. The days when games came in a box and not in the internet in overly expensive chunks. I want to go back to a day when it was considered the norm to just give us a complete game right from the start. Maybe money is the problem, maybe game developers are seeing how much money they can bilk from us and foaming at the mouth in anticipation. Maybe they're lazy, realizing just how much they can procrastinate on in the production of a game. Or maybe it's just the way the market's going. Whatever the case is, I see it as a troubling road to travel down.