• Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    You’re right. It is a matter of perspective though. For the actual players, absolutely. It’s always better to have self hosted matches and control the content yourself. But even in my example above, Overwatch could not sustain itself as a studio on the buy-once model, even with loot boxes. I still think they’re doing it wrong and it fucking sucks, but the buy-once model lead to a developmentally dead game for a few years.

    From game dev perspective, having a model that makes money over time allows the game to continue being updated without investment from outside sources.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      You can get money over time with the traditional model, just release content DLCs. I’ve spent hundreds on EU4 over the years, and I just treat their DLCs as buying a new game since it freshens up the experience for me. For MP, players get access to whatever DLC the host has, which works really well.

      Overwatch could totally do that as well. DLCs could have:

      • playable characters/classes
      • game modes
      • maps/settings
      • SP campaigns

      Nothing about the game requires an evergreen format. Some games do, such as CCGs like Hearthstone and Magic: Arena since they have frequent card releases and the games are designed around scarcity, but most of these don’t.

      • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        I don’t disagree with you. All I was really saying was that Overwatch specifically wasn’t making money with its model