But the company wants to ensure they get their returns and profits.
Plus with how the game was delayed by Covid, the lawfully-backed loan sharks (corporate investors) now are owed more money because of the delays.
“You signed a contract that says I will get my investment back plus a 20% increase. I invested $20k in your game company and now that you missed your deadline by x amount of days, I am now owed an extra 60% of that original total or else this is going to court! Get me my money !”
Halo Infinite’s development was rocky on multiple fronts. Money investment issues that would come to bite them later on, the delays Covid did to slow and mitigate production, and the content that had to be scrapped (the North Eastern islands in the campaign are unexplorable, yet they were planned to be.)
Splitgate was developed by six guys.
So if the game failed, it would have far less of an impact, especially since it was more of a passion project and not a for-profits project.
Halo Infinite had a budget of $500 Million and was made by multiple companies headed by 343 to make it happen.
Splitgate is free-to-play because of those circumstances. A passion-project where supporting the creators was optional and wouldn’t have much of an impact on their lives other than a bonus check in the mail every so often.
Halo Infinite was a project of triple-A devs who were given a budget on the idea that the game would profit more that the budget it was allotted. But their choice to make it Free-To-Play is obscene because they have to make that $500 Million dollars back PLUS plenty of extra to ensure that the game actually profited and increased the company’s value.
Going Free-To-Play HURTS the effort to make that money that pays these workers and keeps the company afloat.
If Splitgate failed, then only 6 guys would take the fall and not that big of a one since the budget for that game was so small and insignificant.
If Halo Infinite fails, 600+ employees lose their job and the company files for bankruptcy, so Microsoft has a huge payout to make further since they already spent $500 Million on the game.
Free-to-play is okay for smaller games that have far less of a chance to fail.
It doesn’t work for Triple-A games with a massive budget.
Its actually a combination of the two as some banned cards are on the tcg and some are on the ocg but the game has neither full ban list implemented otherwise my exodia deck may not work properly
If you find a proxy friendly playgroup it is pretty “F2P” friendly. Cedh is almost proxy friendly. Guess people got tired of having to spend 5k+ on Time Twister.
343 Industries took a hard left with Micro-transactions, almost like they were trying to prove they can do micro-transactions worse than any other gaming studio.
Not everyone I dont but my fiance does lmfao. I have another friend who spends 300 on yugioh cards a month. While my fiance drops however much on each new magic core decks when they come out
Apex was developed in secret by Respawn Entertainment so that EA wouldn’t meddle with the developoment. Hence why there was no real marketing for the game since EA was surprised by Respawn saying “Hey we need servers, we have a game. Oh yeah it’s done and ready. We need servers. Yeah we already made our own announcements, yeah you’re not meddling with our development like you did with every other company you burned down… servers please.”
Plus, half of the budget in big games is usually attributed to Marketing.
Without EA needing to market the game since Apex could announce it through their social media and announcements in Titanfall 2, there was no need for cinematic trailers and billboards.
So cinematics (most stuff in the cinematics aren’t even in the game, mind you) and billboards warrant egregious shop behavior?
Just trying to figure out why we gotta not rag on the company for taking the F2P route, gutting the customization and selling it to you back at a premium! 500M Budget! They need less not more, they need to prove they even deserve more money after working 6 years, spending HALF A BILL, and leaving us with what we got, expecting people to go with the flow-
Most did but at least we’re wising up to their antics now.
Apex seems to be doing very well monetarily for a f2p game.