borborygmus
Member
Benefits to the ecosystem are this...
They exist.
You might not like them, but there's no denying they serve social, competitive gamers exponentially more than any single player game has ever done. A market historically underserved.
As Sid Meier once said "A game is a series of interesting choices" and those four games are interesting choice generators for a massive population of gamers.
We can debate about their merits, but they're all fresh franchises that provide newer gameplay mechanics.
Without F2P, the industry would be dominated by Uncharted 9, Gears of War 7, Final Fantasy 18, Gran Turismo 7, Mario 22 etc...
I think most people can appreciate how boring franchises generally are.
F2P gives developers an opportunity to take riskier chances in terms of gameplay design, and that's why it's objectively the healthier model.
I don't think "what's good for the industry" can be determined objectively, but arguments can be made.
The question that determines whether they are a net benefit is this (imho): generations later, will these games be studied as master classes of game design? Maybe "yes" in MBA programs, but "no" in game design as an art. The paradox is that the Mona Lisa was not made for commercial purposes, yet still draws paying crowds to this day, and I'd argue that it's these kinds of edifying works that are good for the ecosystem. And you can't study how to recreate that in an MBA program.
We lose something over time if we stray from making things under these kinds of principles.
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