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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

There are still a ton of solid games that aren't constantly asking for money. TLOU, Elden Ring, RDR2 to name three huge ones. I'm 50/50 on Ubisoft because their games are still great standalone, but do offer IAP that I just ignore.

I'm OK with those offering freemium and such so long as it doesn't kill off the old model. I don't think it will.

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The problem with Ubisoft's model is that it affects game balance. Before when there's a problem with a game, the developers will patch it for free. Now, solutions are sold as IAP. It's even worse when the problems are now intentional.

Wait, what? You have to pay for bugfixes?

You have to pay for fixing poor game design or balance.

Game trainers exist, at least on PC and Android. I feel no qualms about using trainers to grant myself unlimited in-game currency rather than buying their IAP ones.

Personally I enjoy games that bring a good challenge with the tools provided. The existence of IAP gates those tools or artificially inflates the challenge e.g. buy level boosts because the game purposely give little experience.

I find giving myself unlimited resources (e.g. with cheat codes in the old days or with credit cards today) greatly diminishes the experience. At that point, why even bother playing? There's other mediums of entertainment that makes colors splash on monitors.

Sure, it doesn't have to be unlimited resources, you can give yourself however much you feel would balance the game to your fairness level. I just meant that it's one way to remove IAP gates as you mention.

Oh come on... GTA(3, VC, SA) with cheats were great games to play... get all the weapons, be invincible, destroy everything, instead of a baseball bat, use a rocket launcher, instead of a bike, drive a tank.

God mode tends to be fun for an hour or so

It's also fun to go through the missions, without doing the hard part.

I will say that RDR Online pushes you hard towards micro transactions. That said, the single player game is worth $60 on its own, so I don’t mind just skipping the online.

There are countless indie games out there too worth all your time and more. If you like elden ring you need to experience the whole soulsborne series. AAA games are as trash as they've ever been.

Is Elden Ring not a AAA game?

Elden Ring is published by Bandai Namco, which makes it an AAA game; Bandai Namco is larger than Ubisoft which is where most of the "AAA = bad" games are from.

I'm not 50/50 on ubisoft, they sell level boosts and stat upgrades in a singleplayer games (assassins creed) it's hilarious

I've played every Far Cry and AC game. Never did I buy an upgrade or boost, or feel that one was needed to be honest.

I agree re: Ubisoft. I played through Far Cry 6 and never felt like I was missing out by avoiding the micro transactions.

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