Age of the Geek

The Cost Of Free Games
  
     I'm typically pretty thrifty when it comes to my game purchases. With rare exceptions, I don't buy games on release, opting instead to wait for the inevitable 75-90 percent discount on Steam. If you ignore the fact that it's likely I'll never actually play most of the heavily discounted games I've purchased over the years, my spending habits are pretty light.
     Ironically, the games I've spent the most money on lately are the ones that are supposed to be free.
     The free-to-play model was largely established on mobile platforms, where it developed into a predatory practice of luring customers in only to virtually break the game unless the player agreed to drop some dollars.
     These games aren't actually designed to be played for free. They're designed to get the player invested in the game, only to ramp up the difficulty until paying real money becomes the only reasonable way to advance.
     It's a fundamentally dishonest way to develop a game.
     Not that this is an entirely new concept. Every classic arcade game ever made was designed to be a "quarter muncher," but back then the barrier was skill. You could play "Pac-Man" almost indefinitely on a single quarter if you were good enough.
     For the current crop of games, the barrier isn't skill, but time. They don't ask you to pay for another chance to progress, but for the ability to skip hours worth of artificially inflated grinding to reach the next milestone.
     In other words, they want you to pay them to not play their game.
     Since getting my new tablet I've found a few of these games. I haven't hit that artificial pay wall yet, but I'm waiting for the penny to drop, at which point I'll probably just stop playing.
     Which is not to say I don't spend money on other "free" games. Just last week I paid for a three month subscription to "Star Wars: The Old Republic" in spite of the fact that the game has had a free-to-play model for quite some time.
     So why did I just spend $40 for a subscription? Well, this time specifically, it's because subscribers currently get a massive experience boost while leveling in anticipation for the upcoming expansion. If you're interested in a good Star Wars story, now is the time to check it out.
     But even if that weren't the case I've still paid for a subscription every time I've gone back to the game because in the case of SWTOR, you get what you pay for.
     SWTOR was designed with a subscription model in mind, so when they included a free-to-play option, they did it by stripping away all but the most basic features. Free players can technically play the game, but they face experience penalties and limited access to content and conveniences.
     It's simply not worth it to play the game without a subscription.
     Which brings me to the last "free" game that I've recently spent money on. Blizzard's "Heroes of the Storm."
     Of all the "free" games I've been playing lately, it's the least expensive. Like most MOBAs, "Heroes of the Storm" has a rotating pool of characters for new players to jump in on. From there, it doesn't take long to earn enough in-game currency to permanently unlock your favorites. By playing regularly, you can unlock all of the game's characters at a reasonable pace without feeling pressured to spend real money.
     There is a catch, but it's a minor one. While you can unlock all of the characters without spending any money, you will have to open your wallet if you want to dress them up. Alternate character skins can only be unlocked with real money, so if you want to give a new look for your favorite character, you'll have to pay for it.
     One might say that the pricing of the costumes is a little high, but the fact remains that the only things in the game that require money are purely cosmetic.
     All in all, this is a fair compromise that benefits everybody. The players that are most invested into the game are the ones that pay to keep the game running while the more casual or financially limited players keep the player pool large enough that there's always somebody to play with.
     Like it or not, the free-to-play model isn't going away. The trick is to remember that free-to-play rarely means free-to-play-well. Reward the games that offer you the most bang for your buck and avoid the ones that would take advantage of you.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and prefers the subscription model, for both games and newspapers.