After playing World of Warcraft for 15 years, I started becoming increasingly bored and disgruntled with the game. The game being grindy and repetitive is no real surprise, I mean it’s an MMO. But the one thing that was really frustrating was paying monthly for a subscription and a huge chunk of cash for an expansion, but still having extra stuff flashed in my face all the time that was simply not possible to earn in-game. Mount skins, cosmetics, miscellaneous stuff that is only available in the Blizzard store. They also began adding loyalty items that require being subscribed every single month, and doing repetitive, extremely boring stuff on top of the other repetitive boring stuff, so basically double dipping on your grind, which really isn’t fun.
Aside from that, I also played other games that required a heavy amount of grinding too, and each one of them had similarly frustrating elements. Destiny 2, overwatch, Battlefield, Fortnite, Halo, and the list goes on. Each of them has the same issue: fear of missing out. FOMO basically makes it so that if you don’t seize the opportunity to spend real life money, you will never be able to obtain something really cool, because it’s only there for a short time, and then it’s gone, and you are made to feel guilty and bad about it. It’s just kind of depressing playing kind of games and realizing that you are now mentally dependent on financial transactions in order to get the full enjoyment of the game. That to me is a very very awful way to live life, and it really messes with your emotions
So I ditched every game that had any element of an in-game purchase. This is honestly helped my mental health a huge, huge amount. Now, I only play games that either have no microtransactions in them at all, or are completely free and 100% possible to play with no purchase required at all. So games like team fortress, deadlocked, Stardew Valley, and many other indie games that you can purchase and then never have to worry about getting suckered into the microtransaction cycle for
Whenever I feel FOMO, I just remind myself of all the other FOMO items I bought in past games and how much I don’t care about them anymore.
I’m glad I’ve had a few epiphanies over my gaming time that have resulted in no desire to spend any money on P2W or content skipping.
First one was in the first Turok game on N64. I was playing normally but at some point looked up the cheat codes for things like unlock all weapons, unlimited ammo, and unlocking all levels. There was one weapon that you needed to collect hidden pieces of from each level, and then you only got 3 shots with it that would pretty much AoE clear an area. There was another gun that you’d only find 2 shots of ammo for at a time that was similar. I had fun for a bit running around and shooting those guns at will, but after that it was hard to get motivated to play the game without the cheats because I knew the big weapons were basically just temporary consumables, which meant I’d probably never use them while trying to ration them for moments they’d be most useful. Using those cheat codes ruined the game for me.
The second epiphany was after raiding for a while in WoW and thinking about the loot motivation. It was a circular motivation: you get better loot so that you can raid more to get even better loot. If the loot was the main motivation, then it was pointless because the loot didn’t serve any purpose outside of the game. So it only made sense to do raiding because I enjoyed the process, not because of the rewards. And this applied to most reward mechanisms in games. Taking that logic just a bit further made me realize that P2W is actually paying money to avoid playing a game and short circuit right to getting the rewards, which was kinda pointless when the rewards were meant to improve the experience of playing the game. Either a) you don’t want to play the game at all, or b) you don’t get as much satisfaction from using the better loot or whatever because you skipped the part where you had to do it without those rewards.
And then the last one is finding PvP less satisfying when the game mechanics give significant advantages based on either time spent grinding or paying money to avoid grinding. Did I just win because of my skills or because I’ve acquired better gear? Did I just lose because the other player outplayed me or because they got better gear? And I didn’t even want to give any satisfaction to those who just paid money to win and don’t worry about what it does or doesn’t say about their skills. It’s similar to the line of thought when you know cheating is possible… Did I get beat by someone skilled enough to aim better or someone using an aim bot?
Comparing P2W to cheating is spot on, especially as these are much more heavily advertised and used in PvP games. What really annoys me is when these players, or similars that never go after equivalent players, feel all superior despite showing zero skill
On WoW, I remember playing a few times on instant 255 private servers, back in 2007-2010. It felt so damn pointless to me, especially as the raids still needed you to make a raid group. I enjoyed a portion of the grind, even as a mostly solo player.
This should be the new gaming copy pasta. I applaud your rational introspection, and solid writing.
It’s refreshing seeing your list since people often blame gachas nowadays, but MMOs were the issue originally, it’s just that other genres took a lesson from MMOs so now we have way more grinding options and it gets tiresome.
I really appreciate that because someone was over here trying to convince me to play a gacha game claiming that it’s not that bad. Some people just don’t get it
Gacha games are like magicians. You know they are total bullshit and there is no “magic”, yet some people still look at it and think there is something else going on.
Total waste of money, I don’t understand how people get sucked into those things.
You should try Old School Runescape if you want an MMORPG without any microtransactions or FOMO/daily grind mechanics.
The cool part with OSRS is that every new feature or update has to pass the player polls, meaning they are unable to add stuff no one asked for. This includes microtransactions, partnerships, battlepasses, etc.
I actually have played around 900 hours of it on Steam alone. I’m not going to support them anymore though because of their bullshit price increases. They are owned by an investment company now That is milking them for every cent. World of Warcraft has never once increased the prices of their game at all. I’m not going to support a game that is like that
You can’t really say Blizzard has not raised prices when they have added microtrans and mental health costs to the game.
I mean… They have grown. The studio is bigger, they don’t have other revenue sources like Blizzard does really (also Activision Blizzard is owned by Microsoft, if you’re worried about a games company being owned by someone else that just wants profit…), and shit costs more now than it did 10 or 20 years ago. I wish it didn’t but inflation is a thing, and that thing affects the food and housing bills of the employees at companies.
For what it’s worth, OSRS has made some absolutely amazing improvements in the last couple years. Almost every single update has hit perfectly with nothing but minor errors or complaints. New expansions and regions, new quests, new raid, weapon and damage rebalances, new bosses, new community events and special game modes, new updates to their clients both mobile and desktop, and most importantly a significantly better bot-busting system over the last few months.
This shit isn’t cheap. That’s a LOT of parallel systems and work, and OSRS continues to have 0 micro transactions outside of membership. True, RS3 and its cesspool of mtx helps fund OSRS, but I don’t know how far that goes since the player count there is stagnant.
Now your opinion and choice to not support a company is always valid, that is up to you. But I don’t think it really is a “bullshit” price increase. I’m OK with OSRS costing $2 more per month if it means that this current cadence of content of QOL updates marches on. Jagex has been absolutely nailing it and I’m very happy with them, and that’s worth money to me.
I’ve stopped playing f2p smartphone games entirely cos of this microtransactions nonsense too.
I left mmos due to my wife spending to much on “free” games for awhile. I miss them in some ways but also am sorta glad. They were easy to over indulge in and I have a lot of responsibilities. single player, buy once and done, games along with streaming shows or movies is so much easier to take or leave. No limited events or dailies or anything.
I finally kicked my Destiny 2 habit by installing Linux, and while I absolutely miss the gameplay and my team, I haven’t really looked back. I’m involved and interested in so many other things now. I still see the odd post that gives ma a pang of FOMO, but the thought of booting into my windows install makes me want to peel my skin off with tweezers.
Not an MMORPG by any means, but I’ve been really enjoying a “Minecraft like” called Vintage Story that is giving me the same feeling. The commodification of Minecraft has finally frustrated me enough and I’m jumping ship.
Thing that cured me of my destiny 2 fomo was to get the transmog system to make my character look like a year 1 day 1 player (the broken armor you get when Ghaul takes your light) and then that’s my “look” I’m the guy who looks like they’ve never change their armor. Then I picked one ship and one emblem I liked (Xûr’s rock ship, and Strange Coin emblem) and that’s it. no more MTX.
Yeah I agree with you here. A lot of Trackmania players are annoyed by Trackmania’s $20 a year subscription and have called to make it F2P with cosmetic microtransactions, but I’m pretty happy that hasn’t happened. There isn’t even any DLC. It is really nice to see not have to see ads to pay more money for stuff.
So that’s great, but halo IMO is the least FOMO inducing mp game on the market with battle passes. You can actually “equip” the season pass you want to level and work on it, the best thing is they never go away so there’s literally not a single bit of FOMO, only the illusion. Regardless, I see your point for the other games and I commend you for making the change.
Except for like 3 helm pieces which they released like 15 years ago and have since made available through others means, there’s literally nothing beyond a few mounts and pets. So your whole “mounts, cosmetics, miscellaneous” thing is very misleading. Other than that, I agree with you and I’m glad you’ve managed to get away. Kudos.
Edit: seems I missed a few of sets that they released in the last 4 years. 5 of them to be precise. And a pair of wings and a helm piece. Some of which were given for free to subscribers before being put on the store.
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I checked the site before posting just to make sure because I didn’t wanna post BS, but it seems I missed a couple of things. I apologize, they also released 6 cosmetic sets in the last 4 years, an extra helm and a pair of wings. Some of which they simply gave for free to subscribers before putting on the store.
That’s still less than you’re making it sound. Definitely not one every month. Again, not defending them or disagreeing with you, I just don’t like it when people make things sound worse than they are to get people to agree with them.
Also, that transmig restriction bit is also a lie. There’s quite a few cosmetics that are armor class agnostic. I know because I have them and I’ve never spent a dime in the store. Here is a list of most of them.
I’d you don’t have a job, and can play 12 hours a day to farm that gear. Great! Enjoy school life. But adults don’t have time to farm all that shit, purchasing is effectively the only way to get it. It is disingenuous to conflate "being obtainable ’ with “no need to ever purchase”.
There’s a list of 2000 pieces. And only 5 sets that you can buy. Also every month you get free trader’s tender for simply logging in. You use that to buy those pieces. If you do a few world quests you get even more. I literally cap out on the monthly 1k tender by playing a few hours. Why are you people being so negative for no reason.
There’s plenty of things to hate. There’s plenty of things even blizzard are guilty of. Look at overwatch for thousdands of reasons. But wow is one of the games that’s most respectful of your time. Nowadays and as far as MMOs go, that is. I literally have a 4 piece set without ever stepping foot in a normal raid. Only did LFR once, got 1 piece. The other 3 were given for free. You get so much shit in this game by simply logging in and playing a couple of hours it’s insane.
If you want the entire transmog collection the game has to offer, that’s been released over the course od 20 years, yes, you have to grind. But let’s not pretend you need to play a lot to have some nice sets. That hasn’t been true in a long time.
The length of your explanation should make you realize why paying is easier. Hell, I’d pay not to read your explanation.
Play the game for a few hours or pay. Yeah, complicated. You sound like you have too much disposable income if you’re so willing to pay for stuff… also, some of us enjoy playing games and don’t mind doing it.
I sound like I play free to plays bro lol If you’re paying to play it’s because you want to.
Maybe its the 'tism but I never gave a shit about most microtransactiony things unless they have a “pay-to-win” element. That’s why I gave up on GTA online.
But if its just like “exclusive skins”, I could give a shit. My default skinned character can still win against a guy in a bear-suit with a golden AK and that’s really all I need. I have no particular FOMO of not winning the fashion part of the game.
I do wish games I could turn off their constant begging for my money though.
My problem with “its just cosmetic” is that it turns the entire main screen into ad space, along with loading screens and wherever else they can jam it in. I don’t play game to be advertised to.
Of course I can choose not to buy in, but if it didn’t have a psychological effect they wouldn’t be doing it.
An argument I heard, and adopted is that it’s never “just” cosmetic. Your enjoyment of the game is impacted by how you perceive your avatar. This is why fortnite skins sell so well to new players. It’s not just cosmetic to drop $20 on Cuddle Team Leader. It makes a user feel silly and increases enjoyment running around as an obvious pink mascot costume. It prolongs how long you play both by increased enjoyment, and sunk cost fallacy. In any game with cosmetics, purchases drive playtime.
Yeah I had to realize that as well at some point.
Used to play games and I was so focused on gameplay, I always thought “why even have a lot of art in there”. But then you realize if the art sucks, you wouldn’t even be giving it a chance.
And this extends to skins and stuff. If it’s “just cosmetics”, that still means there is some art that is now hidden unless you throw money at your screen. And depending on how much it is, the game might be way too boring without it. So you’re still buying bits of a game after the fact. And voila, we’re back to the reasons why DLCs suck.
You used to unlock cool stuff by playing the game.
They removed that whole loop of discovering cool stuff by doing cool things and replaced it with cash grubbing.
Played Terraria recently and this concept you speak of shined in it. Almost forgot how fun discovering new things as you play the actual game was.
Wow still has a lot of achievement/reputation(grind) related cosmetics.
But yeh, it’s a shame that when you see a cool/unique looking mout etc that you now assume it’s paid by default.
But if its just like “exclusive skins”, I could give a shit.
I think you meant “couldn’t”.
I do wish games I could turn off their constant begging for my money though.
The “constant begging” is why I don’t even look twice at these games.
My default skinned character can still win against a guy in a bear-suit with a golden AK and that’s really all I need. I have no particular FOMO of not winning the fashion part of the game.
Sure, until Activision starts using its new patented pay to win technology
Twitter user strahfe recently shared a patent by Activision that suggests buying cosmetic items could increase your chances of being placed in games against less-experienced players. The patent reads: “The microtransaction engine may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player”
I’m not heavy into conspiracies, but I’m suspicious enough to not give Activision the benefit of the doubt and bet that they’ve done this in secret if they have a patent for it. But really… if we’re even thinking about these kinds of things, the game is a lost cause.
It is always such a satisfying feeling to loot the $999 weapon skin off your enemy dead body.
Thank you for spending on my behalf and letting me play this game as a f2p and for letting me use your rare skin.
I avoid any games that have p2w mtx but I can tolerate it somewhat if it is a PvE only or ‘single player’ like in Genshin-like games.
I dislike the practice of having mtx of any kind in pay to play games so I tend to avoid those too.
Even a bunch of competitive games it hasn’t bothered me that much unless it’s like a real big difference.
I actually enjoy taking the shitter on people that paid to be “good”, then get their asses handed to them to someone who clearly never spent a dime.
I cannot tell you how much better my mental health has been since I stopped playing Apex Legends, Overwatch, and Rocket League. I never had anything against the gameplay of these games but the microtransactions and battle passes were just straight up toxic. After a couple weeks you simply don’t give a shit anymore and it’s amazing. I see my roommate playing these games until 3 AM every day because he has to do his daily challenges for 4 different games. He’ll be so pissed off that he can barely speak as he powers through game after game to get them done so he can go to bed. And in hindsight, that’s probably what I used to look like back when I played those games.
He’ll be so pissed off that he can barely speak as he powers through game after game to get them done so he can go to bed.
If you want to help him get out of that, give him a burn or two every once in a while: “How are your second, third and fourth jobs coming along?” - “With all that work you do, you should ask for a raise!”
Hopefully he’ll realize he’s not playing, but working, and give up on that. Hopefully.
Apex Legends … the microtransactions and battle passes were just straight up toxic
My friend bought Battlepass for Apex once because it had a pretty decent skin in it. Then, he was straight up *PISSED * when next season they had the most ridiculous, incredible looking skin ever. He felt like he had to purchase it again that season, and was bitter he spent money the previous season for something so mediocre. That kind of thought process is just awful. These games lure you right into it.
Apex battle passes have always given you enough credit to buy the next season’s pass. I’ve been playing since launch, I’ve completed all battle passes save for maybe 4, and I’ve spent a total of $10 on the game.
Until they start charging only money for the battle passes. I never even used 80% of the skins I got on the battle passes anyway. I just wanted them so I didn’t not have them. As someone that has over 2,000 hours in Apex, I’m so glad I jumped ship. The grass was very green on the other side.
Funny you should mention that. They attempted to do precisely this (only buy the BP with real money) a few months ago. The player base revolted, and they walked it back to the way things were.
May I recommend taking it a step further and going for games that have no cycle in them at all? That is, finite games that you can play and actually finish, for good. That’s what I’ve been looking for a lot lately.
Some recommendations:
- The Talos Principle (puzzles with a story)
- Outer Wilds (best to go in blind, read absolutely nothing about it, not even the steam description)
- CrossCode (fast paced fun combat and a cool story and characters. Somewhat grindy but still finite)
- Beacon Pines (short and sweet visual novel)
- Chants of Sennaar (language translation game, surprisingly fun and satisfying)
Not every game needs a story or campaign you can finish to be enjoyable. Playing random skirmishes in Age of Empires 2 or Supreme Commander can be loads of fun. Civilization 5 has scenarios that I suspect most players don’t even know exist (also, you can play Unciv for free). You can pick up and put down much like you’d do to boardgames.
Then there’s “infinite” games like Cities Skyline, RimWorld, Dwarf Fortress, Satisfactory. It’s ok to want once and done games, but games that you want to replay when they lack any mtx or dark patterns speaks something about your enjoyment
Definitely, not disagreeing with that. I’ve played plenty of those games too. I just find that “enjoyment per hour” is actually better with shorter, finite games. But I also find myself spending a lot of time playing Civ or Stellaris haha
Chants of Sennaar is absolutely one of my favorite games. It’s one of the few games I’ve played where the mechanics of the game and the themes of the game were in perfect harmony.
What’s the SorteKanin description of Outer Wilds?
Well… Without spoiling anything I would say, you are a member of an alien species on another planet. You are also an aspiring astronaut about to take your first journey into space. Let’s just say your journey is quite remarkable.
I’m not them but…
Outer Wilds is a gem of a 3D first-person indie game. Other games might have you find required items so you can progress (like Pokemon or Zelda games), but in this game it’s all about the knowledge you learn while playing (like Tunic). You explore, learn, and puzzle solve. By looking up anything about the game, or by looking up a solution to a puzzle, you essentially lock yourself out of experiencing that piece of content. It’s all about the journey.
It’s a game you can only really play once, but it is so worth it. It’s my favorite video game and I wish I could forget everything about it so I can play it again for the first time.
If everyone was following your path, micro transactions wouldn’t be there anymore.
