Yes, yes it was. No debate necessary for that part, then.
Oh absolutely, but you’re ignoring the glaring issues with Halo Infinite’s approach.
Colors are locked to individual cores, meaning that you can’t use that 10-20 dollar color on anything you want. Visors are the same way. Armor is locked to individual cores, which makes some semblance of sense on paper but ultimately renders the whole “millions of combinations” promise a lie. Emblems aren’t universal, which isn’t that big of an issue, but again very limiting.
Monetization is normal, and I wholeheartedly agree that Halo Infinite will require MTXs to support itself. I mean come on, goodwill doesn’t pay itself back, something has to give. But the issue therein comes from how they’ve gone about doing it.
First of all, that 500 million dollar budget is a rumor. It was never confirmed by 343 Industries or Microsoft themselves, but isn’t unrealistic for a game of this caliber.
Second of all, of course it will. There’s never been a game in history that existed purely for players’ benefit and didn’t have to make money back, because nothing is free and neither is game development. Again, like I said before, the aggressive stance they’ve taken isn’t an ideal or player-friendly way to do it.
Okay. This may be the worst take you’ve presented so far. Let me break this down.
Being Free to Play (or F2P) is not a loss for developers in any way, shape or form.
The whole reason the model succeeds in the first place is because of how much attention and revenue it gathers, and it’s longevity depends on quality live service and frequent content.
The caveat to that model is that the game is therefore never in a “complete” state, and that condition is often used as an excuse to launch fundamentally incomplete games. It’s acceptable when it’s free because there’s no loss to the end user, which is true. I am not accusing 343 of launching a fundamentally incomplete game, however.
What I am implying is that F2P is the world’s worst excuse to use bad or abusive systems. “If it isn’t something you paid for, what’s the big deal?” and it’s many variations are some of the most common sentiments I’ve seen around, but they miss the point entirely of the criticism.
In Halo Infinite’s case, being “F2P” is a fantastic boon for its popularity, but the model then takes elements of the game- like the customization we enjoyed in past titles without paywalling outside of the initial entrance fee- and locks them up for ransom. Our problem with this model is how much stuff it locks up, how much the ‘ransom’ is, and how much we lose if we don’t pay.
“gamepass causes developers to lose money”
I won’t go ahead and sales pitch gamepass to you, and you can do your own research. But for all intents and purposes, this isn’t true. Feel free to disagree, but I don’t see news reports of companies filing complaints against Microsoft and the Xbox Corporation for stiffing them.
Halo 5: Guardians did not force all customization and progression into arbitrary paywalls.
Although it did make getting customization options a loot-box style experience, which nobody liked and 343 even admitted was a terrible system, REQ Packs were still obtainable purely by gameplay. These packs included every type of customization in the game and gave you weapons and vehicles for Warzone, which unless you liked Firefight a whole lot, was super pay to win.
As for Halo Infinite, credits (the current ‘premium’ currency) are unobtainable by gameplay or even by subscribing to its pass, and can only be bought directly. The items it buys cost thousands of these credits, and to buy all of the currently leaked cosmetics from the store, it would set you back by 1035 dollars. The only way to get customizations in Halo Infinite, as it stands, is to buy them from a storefront or to unlock them in a battlepass.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll take REQ Packs 50 times over.
I dont care about AAA studios… If devs are frustrated about this feedback they should go to Bonnie, Spencer, Staten or whoever thought this system was a good idea and approved it. Why should we feel bad or even except somebody’s bad decisions, greed and insecurity? I care about the franchise, about Halo… If any studio in charge of this franchise will do something right, I will praise it. If they will something wrong I will voice my opinion - I have done it calmly and constructively in different threads… Positive changes rarely ever happen from top down… mostly from bottom up.