The Steam Summer Sale is going on now and that means there are a lot of games at discounted prices. However, this doesn’t apply to every game in the shop as some are labeled as free to play. Honestly, I hate this term. Today, I will talk about why I find it so annoying. First off, a game that is free isn’t necessarily free to play. There are games on Steam that you can play from start to finish without paying a cent. That is what one would normally think of when they think of free. Typically games like these aren’t very long, but how can you complain about an experience that took nothing from your wallet? The answer is that you can’t and that is where things start to get strange. I wouldn’t have a problem if things ended here, but we still have more to cover.
The next type of free-to-play is free with a couple of twists. These games have more of a focus on endless play. The first noticeable difference is advertisements. These games will periodically present ads for other games you can find in the store should you be interested in them. These are relatively harmless, so they aren’t much of a concern. They can be very frequent and in your face though so they can end up being a huge pace breaker. The other thing of note is that lives are limited. If you run out of attempts you are forced to wait to try again at a later point in time. However, you can pay to bypass the wait for extra lives. You just need to spend some money. This may seem offensive, but it isn’t too bad. After all, these games aren’t meant to be beaten. They are more for casual play. They are almost like arcade machines with advertisements. The difference is you have the choice to wait to play again.
There is still another type similar to the last one. The problem is that these ones are much more vicious than the previous type. The previous type was built around endless play and payments were only there to try and help you beat your previous best. Now, things are different because there is an actual progression system. So to make any headway in the game, it is easier if you pay to win. You can choose not to go this route, but your progression will be at a noticeably slower pace than someone using paid items. So now you are forced to make a choice between spending time or spending money. At least when you play a game that you purchased, you shouldn’t have to pay for additional options just to help you play through the game. It’s like getting a demo of a game for free, but you need to pay for the rest of the game in installments. If all I was going to get was a free demo, I would prefer that the game be advertised as a free demo. It seems that is only wishful thinking.
My main problem with this is mainly that the genre of the game is misleading. Just because the game is free to play doesn’t mean it is actually free to play. I get that nothing in life is actually free, but at the very least, I would rather companies not have to resort to advertising in a way that suggests otherwise. While free-to-play does have its own connotation at this point, I would rather they call it costly-to-continue to make it sound more truthful. Is honesty so hard in this gaming industry? Probably. Well, on that note, I will wrap up my thoughts and wish you all a good night before I start talking about MMOs.
That Casual Gamer Guy 