Soon There Will Be "View-To-Play" Games

First there were free-to-play games, but are "view-to-play" games next?

[DarkOcelet]

"We believe in F2P and ads--both done right can be great, you will see," the company said. "We want to develop fast and have fun launching multiple games per year and not work multiple years per game."

Zero Creativity...

Mobile gaming is a plague that should be removed of this world.

[Pandamobile]

It's almost like it's a business.

[lameguy]

Plenty of business's work fine without junk like that.

[BiggerBoss]

Ill do business with companies that have better practices, thanks

[deadpoolio316]

What that's crazy talk...You mean businesses aren't in business to win hearts and minds, good lord who would have thought the entire purpose of business was to make money in areas you think will work...Next your going to try and tell me these things are also optional, and not something forced upon people who don't feel the need to use such things..

[MWH]

those people wont rest until they ensure complete global saturation.

https://youtu.be/n8uG7wQGVX...

evil sh1t I kid you not.

[comebackkid9891]

1. Mobile Gaming
2. Communism

[dcj0524]

Not really
Hearthstone is freaking awesome and that's mobile.

[donwel]

"Free"-to-play

[hasamalaha]

This is news? Plenty of games already force you to watch ads.

[DarXyde]

I'll get disagrees, but I encourage the lot of you to think about this for a moment. View-to-play is an inconvenience, sure. But let's not get carried away in denying its utility. I know the cost varies by country, but at least here in North America, the cost is the same from last generation ($60USD). There's the common DLC argument, but DLC sales are only good if (a) people are buying your DLC which, to even be a possibility, they would have to (b) have an internet connected console. It isn't guaranteed revenue from games you managed to sell. Consider also that developers don't make $60 per game because that's retail pricing, not wholesale; even then a portion goes to publishers and platform holders (which are sometimes one-in-the-same). Generating revenue from in-game ads doesn't seem like such a bad idea because you can pull in money from other industries to subsidize the costs.

If it saves jobs/adds jobs and keeps the cost of buying a game down, I would struggle to find much fault with that. If you're insistent that you will never benefit from whatever is being advertised, treat the ads as you would the old Bloodborne loading screens. Nothing to read, nothing to watch. Check your phones. Call your mums. Turn off the stove. Whatever it might be.

EDIT: Presumably, developers are making back some money with digital sales (hence the incentives they offer to buy digital on the storefronts) since the prices are still retail in most instances, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt being a bit of an exception. Developers could get greedy and maximize profits by still selling digital for $60 USD...or they just might pass along some savings with in-game ads if you go digital.

[Peace_Love_and_FPS]

I typically buy games day one, and the money you save from taxes alone is enough to upgrade your HDD. I don't think I would go digital for a few dollars saved, because I really doubt they would give us any deals to begin with.

[comebackkid9891]

I'd rather pay $70

[rainslacker]

Or...I dunno, make games that people will just pay for up front(this article is referring to mobile). Anyhow, let the market work itself in such a way to start bringing quality instead of being forced to rely on advertising or nothing but micro-transactions.

Mobile itself was a race to the bottom in pricing, and despite the hardware being significantly better than it was when the iPhone 3 released, games haven't really advanced at all on mobile. The ones that are pushing the limits are the ones that charge upfront costs, because they are actually games that people will spend money on instead of trying to trick people into spending a lot of money in small transactions which they don't really pay attention to.

Games that force you to watch advertisements before you can play a the next part are designed to force you to watch as many ads as possible in the short time you'll be playing. It effects game design, and thus becomes counter-productive to good game design because the game becomes secondary to actually making money.

If we want to talk about AAA games, I would honestly say one of two things needs to happen before publishers decide to go the V2P route. One, publishers need to get costs under control, and set reasonable deadlines, along with finding business models which are agreeable for both the publisher and consumer. Or, price of games needs to go up. Maybe both, but definitely the first. The amount of waste involved in AAA game development is beyond obscene.

[TeamLeaptrade]

I don't have a big problem with ads, it's just that I fear there will be far too many ads during the game that will cause me annoyance. If that's the case, I will not be into this at all.