Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@DefHalan: It would be completely possible to add a health/death system to Kirby's Epic Yarn and fundamentally remain the same game. It's designed like any platformer, it just doesn't punish the player that much for messing up, but there is a kind of punishment/failure state. There is no form of failure state of any form in Gone Home, Dear Esther, of the Stanley Parable (although the Stanley Parable arguably contains perceived failure states and I can't speak with complete confidence about the other two games).

Non-Directed Remainder of Post:

For something to be a "video game" to me it has to fit this criteria:

1. It has to be digital, running on some form of computing device.
2. It must be interactive, in which either a single person or multiple people control either a single or multiple entities, physical or non-physical, through some kind of input device. The interaction must be able to produce some form of narrative.
3. It must include visual feedback on a visual display capable of showing changing images.
4. It must be created to entertain the user.

This is the most seamless I could get the criteria. It's not perfect, since a program in which could freely look around while stuck in a fixed position while a red square orbited you could technically fit my criteria. I'm trying to leave it open enough to include something like Proteus. The part about narrative and interactivity is meant to cover that, but it's not quite perfect.

Obviously walking simulators have minimalistic gameplay, but said gameplay is an important aspect of the experience (at least in the Stanley Parable and, to my knowledge, Gone Home). As long as that gameplay or interaction is a key element to the experience, it's a game to me. Obviously this discussion comes down to where someone draws their own line. I can't exactly convince anyone of anything in that regard, but I'll certainly try to hyper-qualify my stance.

@CanisWolfred
See, the thing is, though, interactivity is pertinent to the definition of what a video game is, whereas the other stuff you mentioned... isn't. I understand that the primary paradigm of video game design is one of competition, either between the computer and the player or between multiple players, but that doesn't mean that the entire medium is limited by it. The tent is big enough for games like Dark Souls and Flower, or Shin Megami Tensei and The Stanley Parable.

You can call Gone Home a walking simulator. I can call Doom a walking and trigger-pulling simulator. Neither answer is strictly wrong, but I think we both know that these conceptualizations are disingenuous because they ignore the context of the action.

Who cares what a video game is "supposed to be?" It doesn't even matter. Play what you wanna play, and enjoy it.

@TylerTheCreator:

Explain! XD

@Artwark: I've never played that game. I haven't liked the recent Sonic titles.

@TylerTheCreator: The point you said was who cares what a video game is suppose to be when I showed you that as an example that its not always the case.

People have expectations. While I'm looking forward to Federation Force, a lot aren't going to buy it simply because of their expectations not meeting.

@Artwark: I still don't get what you're trying to say. I don't think you get what I'm saying either. I think we're on two different wavelengths.

everyone who says that free to play games are bad because they aren't free, is acting incredibly entitled. These games cost millions of dollars to make, and demanding that they be given away for free is just insane. And they still are free. You just have to pay to get extra content or convenience.

It's not entitled to say that the F2P model is a terrible thing in the modern mobile game industry and that they're not really free. The whole design of F2P is based around hooking the player early and then making the game increasingly more frustrating and unfair to play in order to entice people to buy microtransactions. "Convenience" is using money to buy a BP potion in Bravely Default, for example, which I'm OK with, as it is something that is provided for the player if they feel like they need that extra little bit of help. It would have been different if BD became borderline unbeatable later in the game unless you bought the potions.

I have no problem with people charging for their games. I've purchased several excellent mobile games. Unfortunately, the more profitable and thus more common model is to not charge anything up-front and then hook a few suckers with deep pockets on your cheap game,

Yeah, I agree with the above.

If mobile devs want us to pay for the games they develop, just go ahead and do the honest thing and charge us a one time fee up front (which is what console devs have been doing for years, and it's seemed to work out fine for them). Show some integrity and respect your consumers with your pricing plans, and I garantee you'll see success, if you're efforts are worth it.

If they still think they have to offer the game for "free" in order to be competitive, there's still much better ways to go about it:

• Built in demo - Make the game "free", with the first X number of stages available for unlimited play, and charge a one time fee to unlock the rest. If your game is good enough, people will pay for the full version.
• Ads - As much as people complain about them (and I agree that they should be completely absent from paid games), in a free game I'd take well placed ads over forced microtransactions any day of the week. I'm fine with ads as long as they don't interrupt gameplay (have one upon startup, inbetween levels, and on the game over screen and I'm good).

There's a way to do free to play right, it's just that it's not reasonable nearly ever. Either it's a terrible idea that will cost you money (potentially a lot) or you will be awful human beings and take the money of vulnerable people. Even when it works like Path of Exile or something, I'm just assuming they had to sacrifice people to some ancient god to make it happen, because convincing people to spend money on only cosmetic DLC to replace a game not costing 60 dollars is a giant risk.

Free to start seems like a much better deal tbh. It's basically a way better version of game demos.

I really liked the approach Sub Wars and Rusty's Real Deal Baseball took.

Personally, I have very few problems with Free To Play. If there is a pay wall, I'll either stop playing or play a little every day to get past it. No harm done.

My only qualms are when it's applied to existing games (Tales of Phantasia) or it interferes with the game design (PvZ2*).

*I know someone is going to ask me about how PvZ2's game design is impacted by free to play so I'll answer it here. 1. The way the world map is constructed, you are forced to navigate through boring challenges like Save Our Seeds and Last Stand (they are fun at first but they get old quick) to get essential items without paying. The problem here isn't just a pay wall, but that the only way around the pay wall isn't fun. Then there is the way that plants are revealed before hand to interest paying players. This totally ruins the surprise of the first game. Finally, because the game contains paid plants, they had to unmarry the new Zombies from the plants. In the new game, far fewer plants are directly tied to defeating specific zombies. Instead, the game is focused heavily on combat plants, with paid plants offering different combat options.

I think everyone views F2P differently. I like Sub-Wars, Rusty's, Pokemon Shuffle, Rumble World. The fact that those games are free-to-play doesn't really effect my enjoyment. I have put money into all of them. When the free-to-play elements start interfering with my enjoyment is when I start hating it. Basically, it is less about what kind of F2P is used and more about the way it is used.

Exactly.

Everyone who complains about Call of Duty and Battlefield getting annual sequels should realize that in the last 4 years (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014,) that there have been:
6 Zeldas
7 Tom Clancy games
6 Just Dance games
20 Lego Games(I'm not kidding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lego_video_games )

Half of those Zeldas are new games while 1 of those new games is a spin-off that has different gameplay. I find it odd when people compare a list of new games to a list of remakes and ports. Maybe that is an unpopular opinion.

@MrMario02: most F2P games don't cost millions to make. They're cheaply made cash grabs that play to the lowest and greediest denominator, how long you are willing to 'play' before you grow infuriated and impatient at the way they are intentionally designed and decide to spend your way out of the trouble. That's also forgetting the fact that most F2P games offer nothing in the form of gameplay, just tap here and wait 20 hours for a house or whatever to be built there, or spend $2 to have it built in an hour and then repeat endlessly. I honestly struggle to comprehend how Nintendo will succeed in this market, at least without bad press because the market is by a distance the most repulsive in all of gaming, and that is saying a lot when you look at the mess the triple A side of things is in ATM.

I like the way Nintendo approaches the free to start model. Like In Rusty's Real Deal, you buy one set game for an incredibly cheap price to get short bursts of fun while at the same time, most of them are completely optional and don't force the player to get them all.