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'Elder Scrolls Blades' Is A Glimpse Into The Potential Dystopian Future Of AAA Games
- Thread starter SleepSmasher
- Start date
And I guarantee you it have a cost a few millions already
I don't think a mobile game, even from a big AAA game studio, is indicative of anything outside the mobile games space. Look at Mobius Final Fantasy. :P I will say this is somewhere below the par for mobile games, most good ones don't make their payment options this blatant.
Kind of the same for me, though I didn't like AC Pocket Camp for how empty it felt. The combat has enough room for skill that it keeps me engaged.
AAA is definitely heading towards a dystopia. If the new Star Wars game at EA Motive doesn't sell well assuming it isn't monetized through microtransactions and online features, then I'll give up my lingering hope that we can both have lower-effort titles with money-making written all over them alongside big games that sell by value of the package and not nickle and diming the player.
People complaining about the monetization in the free to play game but what about the combat? Holding down your finger to make an attack instead of tapping? So awful. They managed to emulate the clunkiness of Elder Scrolls combat on phones.
They literally don't, "forbes contributors" are confusingly named blogs that individuals can pay to have posted on the forbes site.
I've seen worse monetization methods (take TES Blades + your worst nightmares) being currently in development for a few unannounced console titles. These are also studios like Bethesda who traditionally tackled AAA single player or RPG games and want a steady source of income. Some of the stuff I've seen makes Blades look pretty tame in comparison. Fun things might await us soon.
I don't understand what the writer was expecting. It's a mobile game, using mobile trappings, which have been a thing for the longest time. Some things have even already been present in AAA games, such like the timers in the Assassin's Creed: Black Flag game, where you'd sent ships out into adventures and you'd have to wait, sometimes, several hours to get a reward. But I don't see those tactics becoming as prevalent as they are in mobile games, simply because they have different objectives in mind (mobile games are usually played in very short bursts, when you have a few minutes free, only to played again several hours later).
As far as I can remember, Farmville was what really introduced that model to the world. And then Mafia Wars and all the clones those brought in.
"It's a mobile game" and "it's F2P" aren't some kind of airtight defenses of scummy monetization practices.
Have you played AAA games recently? People were saying what you're saying a few years ago about loot boxes and micro transactions.
I haven't played Fallout 76 but everyone I know who plays it tells me its quality was exaggerated and the new content is solid.
Sean Murray recently gave a GDC talk about No Man's Sky where he mentioned that all the complaints and whining online came from people who never played the game or played it for less than two hours, when it had hundreds of thousands of regular players who were just silently enjoying it.
I feel like F76 is in the same boat. My ex loves it and streams it weekly.
The sense of entitlement is insane. You got the game for free, what did you expect? They have to make money to keep expanding the game, pay for the development that's already been done, and operate the servers. Of course they will create monetization paths that further the monetary goals, that's what a company does.
If you don't like it, don't play it. But what's the difference in spending $60 on a console game and spending ~$60 (usually less honestly) during your playtime of a F2P game? Nothing. Both support the developers equally, and usually the mtx supports them more on the monetary side.
The fact is, no one would have bought Elder Scrolls Blades if it was a $5-$10 game with all the monetization crap taken out. No one. It would be another App Store failure and this stuff would be added in anyway within 6-12mo. This is the market now and it's a perfectly acceptable route to support developers.
Never underestimate the whales, and this is way F2P mobile gaming won't improve anytime soon.
Elder Scrolls is one of the most successful RPG franchises of all time. Make a good game with a fair monetization model and it would make a ton of money. F2P games don't NEED to be this scummy with their monetization models to make money. They just want to make ALL the money and don't care what kind of shitty things they do to get it or essentially ruin the base gameplay just because they want to squeeze as much money of players at every turn of the way as possible.
And come the fuck on. No one is saying F2P games can't monetize anything. Stop with the dumb defense of scummy, predatory monetization practices by huge companies. They could do stuff like additional character slots, extra customization options, a monthly payment that gives stuff etc. to fund all of this stuff that would be fairer for a F2P game (if priced accordingly).
Agreed, sounds like the average mobile game to me, but I guess it's only bad if touchs a franchise that console players care about.
It's Forbes. They're basically Livejournal for amateur journalists.
You don't think this is a problem just because it infests half of mobile games? That should be alarming or something to object to, not a *shrug* worthy state of things.
I've enjoyed my time with it (level 21), but the most recent update really fucked the game.
Reduced the time on the silver chests from 3h to 1h, but also apparently reduced the rewards from them. Also super nerfed the Abyss (the end-game infinite dungeon) such that you will no longer get the highest level drops at deep levels. This effectively means you will NEED to pay money to obtain the endgame gear. And since repair costs are completely unsustainable, you'll be required to pay real money to be able to afford the astronomical repair costs of higher level gear.
There's a lot more bullshit, but this recent update was incredibly scummy. They know people will put a few hours and a few bucks into it early on...Once the hooks are set, you realize endgame is impossible and can either cut ties with the game (and lose all those hours and $$$ spent up to this point) or continue to dig deeper into the hole.
E: Also, posting from a PC now, most of this info was determined from data mining and from whales who were already able to farm the end-game. They're the ones saying the drops are completely nerfed. But you know how Bethesda is...It's a feature until it's a bug.
Just like how the update removed legendary and artifact gear from high level (gold+) chests. And when people started posting about it, they came out and said, "No that's just a bug!". So that's a thing.
Reduced the time on the silver chests from 3h to 1h, but also apparently reduced the rewards from them. Also super nerfed the Abyss (the end-game infinite dungeon) such that you will no longer get the highest level drops at deep levels. This effectively means you will NEED to pay money to obtain the endgame gear. And since repair costs are completely unsustainable, you'll be required to pay real money to be able to afford the astronomical repair costs of higher level gear.
There's a lot more bullshit, but this recent update was incredibly scummy. They know people will put a few hours and a few bucks into it early on...Once the hooks are set, you realize endgame is impossible and can either cut ties with the game (and lose all those hours and $$$ spent up to this point) or continue to dig deeper into the hole.
E: Also, posting from a PC now, most of this info was determined from data mining and from whales who were already able to farm the end-game. They're the ones saying the drops are completely nerfed. But you know how Bethesda is...It's a feature until it's a bug.
Just like how the update removed legendary and artifact gear from high level (gold+) chests. And when people started posting about it, they came out and said, "No that's just a bug!". So that's a thing.
It's the reality of the mobile medium, and has been for almost a decade, at the least. I'm not defending it, but that's how things have been for a while, and people in here, and 'G'amers, only care about it when the prospect of them coming to AAA games seem remotely real. It was the same with lootboxes, with people bringing out "but what about the children," to defend the banning of lootboxes, when companies such as Nintendo are making an insane amount of money with those same tactics, but on the mobile space, where 'G'amers can just ignore their existence.
I play AAA games all the time and actually work on them myself. No need to be patronising.
Loot boxes and monetisation were inevitable. This specific implementation of microtransactions is not, especially as something so standard that it could even be considered the "dystopian future of AAA games".
Always has been for defenders. The goal post moves to "it's just cosmetic" to then "it's a time saver" to then "it effects gameplay but just in one mode". And so on and so on.
The punchline is this: If it is a franchise they fanboy for, anything is acceptable.
They could have used swiping to dictate the direction/angle of the swing, like Daggerfall.
Or maybe they are, I honestly haven't played the game yet.
Extra monetization like DLC and some extra skins, sure. Loot boxes that prey on people's completionist/addiction tendencies instead of giving the option to pay for exactly what they want? No, loot boxes very much are not a necessity or inevitable.
No one is defending it...
The point is that this implementation of microtransactions is in a mobile game that's F2P, two things that when added together make for usually far more egregious forms of monetisation.
That's an objective fact. Not a defence.
I didn't say it was necessary, but to me that given the fuckery that was starting to happen at some of the bigger game publishers, it was clear lootboxes were coming. Don't think it was good or necessary, just inevitable.
But everyone just *shrug* for years now. Like I said, it's just because it elder scrolls, not the practice itself.
People were perfectly capable of ignoring shitty mobile games with these practices, can't they ignore this one too?
The gameplay is so horrible I think this is nothing to be afraid of. It is baffling that the game is such a wait-fest considering how well I thought they did with Fallout Shelter but it's nothing new from all the shit I've heard about other F2P mobile games.
$500k doesnt seem like that great to me? I mean it's a lot of money and I've got no doubts that it's on track to bring in some nice profits but to me if it cant even top $1mil in revenue in "the first few days" it doesnt sound like it's really doing all that hot. I mean hell, I bet there are AAA console/PC games which break $500k in MTX in "the first few days". That just doesnt strike me as some amazing number given how MTX-heavy everything is now. Maybe I just dont have context for that number. But it seems ok, not really like it's doing great.
This is the endgame if everyone doesn't stop supporting games and publishers that employ microtransactions.
Never learn what? According to the article the game is topping the revenue chart with 500.000 in ten days. The only lesson they coud learn here is "make more games like this".
This is what makes it dystopian: not just that it's greedy, but that it works. :(
The doom and gloom is silly to me; it's different people spending money on these ridiculous mobile games, and there's still massive amounts of money to be made in core gaming. Also $500k near the launch of a game is nothing.. a big ES title on consoles will generate hundreds of millions in revenue over that same period of time for ES and partnering companies.
You'd have to see how sustainable that game is before even declaring it much of a success. A top selling ES game even if we low-ball and say Bethesda gets $20 a copy will make them about $400,000,000 in 3 years (about how long it took them to pass 20 million sold.)
That's over $300k per day on average... for 3 years...
Generating $50k a day in some mobile game with relatively low dev costs is probably great for the, but it's a side business not a "potential future of AAA gaming."
You'd have to see how sustainable that game is before even declaring it much of a success. A top selling ES game even if we low-ball and say Bethesda gets $20 a copy will make them about $400,000,000 in 3 years (about how long it took them to pass 20 million sold.)
That's over $300k per day on average... for 3 years...
Generating $50k a day in some mobile game with relatively low dev costs is probably great for the, but it's a side business not a "potential future of AAA gaming."
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Stuff like this is why I will never get into mobile games.
That said this reads like a person who plays primarily console games dipping into this mad world and coming to some weird conclusions.
And hey, if this some look at AAA future, I'll just stop buying them. There are plenty of other games out there.
That said this reads like a person who plays primarily console games dipping into this mad world and coming to some weird conclusions.
And hey, if this some look at AAA future, I'll just stop buying them. There are plenty of other games out there.
Pretty gross. Bethesda has taken a fucking nose dive the past few years so not very surprising I guess.
Frankly the gameplay is trash anyway, so I don't know why people would play it. Generic dungeon crawling and possibly the worst implementation of mobile melee combat yet in a high-profile mobile game (I mean for pete's sake Infinity Blade was around for nearly a decade and still has better combat than this trash, I'd tell people to buy the trilogy but Epic removed it from the app store). Fucking yawn.
The timers, though, are outright insulting. Bethesda are a terrible studio who make lackluster games, Blades is no exception.
My current go-to mobile game at the moment for killing time is Honkai Impact 3rd, which while a bit shallow (and also has gatcha mechanics, bleh) at least tries to do it best to be a spectacle fighter ala DMC or Bayonetta and tries to make its combat satisfying to play.
The timers, though, are outright insulting. Bethesda are a terrible studio who make lackluster games, Blades is no exception.
My current go-to mobile game at the moment for killing time is Honkai Impact 3rd, which while a bit shallow (and also has gatcha mechanics, bleh) at least tries to do it best to be a spectacle fighter ala DMC or Bayonetta and tries to make its combat satisfying to play.
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