People can say what they want about, beta, early release, live service whatever but don’t doubt that the player base 343 wishes to gain from a free to play model will vanish in Infinite’s current state and by the time they make significant enough changes/ improvements they will have lost their chance and struggle to engage new players.
At this rate the only people playing Infinite multiplayer will be the Halo fans hoping it gets better, the same Halo fans that would have paid for a full price game with multiplayer. In a nutshell they have devalued one product to create a live service that is a shadow of what it could of been.
Now I don’t know if I’m in the minority here but I am one Halo fan who has played every Halo on xbox (except 5 because i switched to pc) then played every Halo AGAIN on PC with MCC but 343’s multiplayer service right now has made me decide not to buy campaign. I have lost faith in the idea that I will in anyway get my moneys worth from the campaign experience especially because multiplayer is no longer included I can’t even use that as an excuse.
Sincerely,
A number on a spreadsheet with an opinion
Considering we don’t even have co-op at launch, and multiplayer isn’t a part of the campaign, yeah, it really better blow us away. I mean, even Halo Combat Evolved came with co-op and multiplayer with our purchase.
Honestly, I would have paid $60 for multiplayer halo separately from the game if it meant 90% of this would be fixed. I wouldn’t have even minded micro-transactions (more reasonably priced) after paying $60 for multiplayer.
Like you, I’ve played since Halo: Combat Evolved. I’ve bought every Halo game there is. I’ve bought merchandise for Halo. I even have a limited edition Halo T-shirt available only to Gamestop employees when Halo 3 (or maybe Halo 4) came out. I have a couple of very large box models of Halo Reach and Halo ODST. I would have paid for this game. I think they don’t realize how fervently their player base would have supported them. Instead, they went with a “we’ll make it free to lure more people in, then we will charge an s-ton of money for cosmetics in the shop, limit those to certain core models, and hope we get more new people in than hardcore fans leaving”.
There’s tons of ways they could have made more money off micro-transactions without alienating all of their core players.