And still, you don’t need to buy the Campaign. You don’t need to actually download Halo Infinite in it’s entirety. You can just download the Multiplayer, and it is Free to Play. That does not, and never has, meant that it will be 100% absent of cosmetic purchases.
Nor does it mean that the default armor is proof of an exclusively F2P player. There’s been a lot of free acquisitions released since last November.
Not saying you said this, just adding to the argument
Explain Halo 5 then.
I mean if 343i had actually been putting in work since launch and we were getting good and relatively consistent content drops I don’t think it would be the same discussion. Live Service games typically have service, Infinite is arguably one of the worst live service games ever made.
they typically become content complete a few months after launch, rarely do you ever hear about a live service game not being able to add basic features year in year out.
yeah “resources” more like a dozen people at best.
To have a live service game come out after 6 years of development time and not have a backlog of content built up is just insane. I think you are looking at Infinite, trying to blame all its woes on it being F2P, unfortunately its clear that development issues are the main culprit. We could point to management, maybe complain about the engine, etc. but I don’t care if 343i had charged $100 on release with no MTX and no DLC whatsoever planned I am confident it would’ve had many of the same issues… They just failed dude. It wouldn’t matter what their model was, they would’ve failed at that too.
oh really? How’d that work out for Halo 4? Was that one of the best Halo games ever created? Again dude, 343i are incompetent. Its not that they are technically incapable of making a great Halo game (they have all the devs and backing a team could ask for) its that they have some serious issues at the top that brings hellfire down onto the dev team.
I’m old af bro. I think it is very important to mention why F2P and why MTX are so successful… Because people love it. Because people gladly spend hundreds of dollars on cosmetics, because people don’t wanna just put out 60 bucks for a new game anymore. We’re unlikely to see a real change until Congress gets involved again and the industry is forced to make semi-reliable products.
I’d say it’s because the majority of people just don’t care how MTX affects the overall experience or lack the integrity to abstain from purchasing stuff.
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Ok halo 5 released in the state it was because they didn’t care one bit about the fans and wanted to copy movement shooters at the time and released its content filled updates wayyy quicker than infinite’s
The big reason infinite is f2p is because they knew people would be livid in a even longer waiting game in a paid game
They can spout how its player first and how it means they can give tons of content to players in a quickly fashion but the current state of infinite shows how they took shortcuts and basically gave themselves spaghetti code on top of spaghetti code
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oh yeah its been a huge area of hypocrisy among the community.
Community: How dare you charge us for cosmetics!
Community come Tuesdays: Did you see them cat ears? 
exactly. The model doesn’t matter. Execution is what matters.
The real reason is because the game would have zero chance of being even remotely successful if it were paid. We’re talking like Halo 4 numbers bruh, so 10k players at this point would be realistic. Its almost impossible to convince the average FPS fan to spend $60 on your game when they can just go over to Fortnite or Apex for free. Gaming has changed a lot in terms of how they sell you stuff.
Wrong if it was a paid game and had all the content missing from it and the dysync issues fix it would be highly successful
everyone who has played infinite and left has said that the lack of content,modes ,dysync and excruciating waiting game is what killed the game for them
Fortnite and apex being free doesn’t change that
The reason why halo isn’t successful anymore is due to 343’s management
yeah and if 343i were not in charge and Bungie were still making Halo it would’ve been great also. Hypotheticals are just that bro, hypotheticals.
I could just as easily say that if it had a BR mode it would be highly succesful, just hypotheticals that don’t go anywhere. I’d rather worry about what is and what will happen not what could happen sort of thing.
yes obviously, but its important not to forget the elephant in the room. There is no FPS game on the market that can hope to make similar profits they once did, too much competition, tons of people that are glued to other franchises at this point. Market has matured to an extreme degree and its very difficult for any new game to really do well.
Not a hypothetical when the big reason infinite lost a majority of the playerbase is due to the reasons i listed above combined with the broken sbmm that’s too strict in social if it didn’t have those issues the game would be doing a lot better EVEN if it was a paid game
You’re acting like people aren’t willing to buy games anymore
Thank goodness I’m not the only one confused with the example given… if people ARE spending money on cosmetics, doesn’t that mean the F2P model IS working? 
Of course, it would depend on how much people are spending.
Personally speaking, the F2P hasn’t “worked” for me. Since I haven’t paid directly for the game, I’ve been far more easily inclined to abandon the game. If I’d paid for it directly, I’d at least stick it out for longer to get my money’s worth 
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it means it’s succeeding- but only if the player base is being maintained. People playing the game may be buying, but there’s fewer of those around daily.
Hey, 30 in 2 months and I’m just going to say, “My person, why is this your approach, half of us grew up playing Gameboy, the other half grew up playing DSs.”
come on.
Personally i do miss the $60 for a game then the paid DLC days. Games felt more complete then and DLCs felt worth it. During what i would argue is the golden era of gaming (2006-2011), most games used this model and so many banger games came out then it was incredible. Almost every major series that exists now had some of their best if not their best games during this time. Truly glad i was around to play them.
FTP almost always leads to sloppy development and lack of art direction cohesion as devs keep adding in crazier and crazier things to get people to buy them. Just leads to visually distracting things and items that don’t fit the original tonebof the game.
F2P isn’t the issue. F2P is a wise decision for most, if not all, multiplayer components of a game as it broadens the potential player base.
The real issues are with the developer’s incompetence with regards to various other foundational decisions and their inability to have a game properly ready for launch; especially, given the total developmental timeline they had with Halo Infinite.
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sounds to me like the f2p model was a success. player numbers wasn’t the goal. spending players is the goal. they don’t want the players who don’t spend money, they don’t care about them.
so only people left who keep spending is enough.
granted, there are not many people left, but seeing only people who are stupid enough to spend money on MTs means, that the model is working (even if not to the extend it was likely aimed for)
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As someone who only plays non-profit video games designed for artistic expression, I appreciate this take.
Video game companies should not be about money, it should be about showing the world what you can do for free. The game should be continually supported by our gratitude.
Long time Halo fan. Was going to buy Halo Inf without playing it at launch.
Once i realized the mp was free i tried it and quit a week later after how bad/incomplete it was. First reason was no push to talk for mic on controller on PC. Felt the campaign was expensive and didn’t recieve great reviews so havnt spent a dime. Thanks 343 a live service no one wanted!
We aren’t seeing more default armors because player population isn’t that high right now. And the people who stayed are the ones who spent a little money or a lot or grinded events. Real problem is people would rather play other games than infinite for a wide assortment of reasons.
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Not easily fixed, I feel like most multiplayer games suffer tremendously from this these days.
It certainly isn’t the most sound argument, but would you say it is wrong?
I think f2p was a poor choice for a game with only cosmetics to offer, and especially for a military science fiction game that, while it had limited goofy cosmetics in the past, thrives on a community of hardcore lore fans.
F2P is obviously a financial model, but it is more than that. It is a conscious decision to shift resources from launch content to post launch cosmetics. It is a conscious decision to generally shift resources from all other content to cosmetics, since they will have a greater return.
So long as we are discussing the popular success of f2p, the financial success is irrelevant. A F2P game can be more financially successful with less overall popularity.