The original poster was saying paid currency shouldn’t exist, so I think in that scenario, you could only have vouchers for a whole in-game item. So for example if an item costed $5, then yes you could give away codes to redeem that item.
There’s also an operational overhead to doing it that way compared to in-game currency though, because setting up products in google play/iOS can be kind of a pain compared to adding them to your own systems. Generally the dev wants as much to be under their control as possible because they have more flexibility that way compared to making products in the app stores.
Also worth noting that iOS will block your app if you provide ways to get products (meaning things that cost real money) through ways other than the app store. So that means the dev wouldn’t be able to ever give you something in the game itself if that thing can also be bought. They could only give coupon codes (these are manually generated) for products to use in the app store interface.
I’d be interested to hear an example of one you’ve seen because it might be a way to approach it that I’m not thinking about.
There are many many examples of predatory uses of in game currencies, but here are some big reasons devs use them besides being scummy.
Giving currency for free: giving people real money isn’t something any dev wants to deal with, so giving in game currency allows this to happen. This also applies to games where you can convert free currency to premium currency.
Local currencies: currency packages can be set to local prices without having to localize the in-game economy itself. This simplifies development a lot.
Weak promotion support on distributor platforms: believe it or not, iOS and android have incredibly weak promotion and sale support. By giving in-game currency, it gets around that failing of the platforms because the game can do whatever it wants with the in-game currency.
Transparency is good, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I actually really have enjoyed the game itself but you aren’t fucking kidding about the rest of it. It’s truly insane how much friction there is between deciding to play and getting into a lobby.
I known I’ll like the game (the franchise is one of my all time favorites), it just had a lot of technical problems on launch so that’s what I’ve been waiting to see improved. Sounds like it might still be kinda rough based on the first part of your comment.
For real. I had a project to make two full since player campaigns and it was waaaaaay too ambitious. I’ve always been hopelessly ambitious with game dev stuff and I still am honestly 😅
So fun to hear everyone chiming about doing this back then.
That’s so cool sounding too! I made so many half baked ideas honestly. Tower defenses, single player campaigns (way too ambitious ones), and so many more. It really taught me a lot about proper game dev honestly.
That’s cool! I made tons of stuff but most of it never got finished or released cause I just kept starting the next thing. Probably the wildest thing I ever made was a prototype for a sidescrolling platformer in wc3. It had keyboard movement and ability usage, jumping, a heart counter in the top left, enemies, powerups… It was kind of janky but it worked surprisingly well considering what I built it in.
I really liked this game, but I used all my unlock points on the wrong squads and couldn’t progress any further to get new ones. I wish they hadn’t bound the unlock currency to getting achievements with each squad. It made it so if I bought one I ended up hating there was no shot of getting any money back. Otherwise it’s a great game though.
You nailed it about the gameplay in your guess. It was very cutting edge when it came out. The animations on the plasmids were especially memorable I recall. It’s interesting to hear that part doesn’t hold up so well.
I’d highly recommend you play 2 as well. It’s quite different but I thought it was the best of the series gameplay-wise.
If you like the setting I would also recommend you go on to play BioShock infinite and specifically the DLC for it. I won’t say why, and I recommend you go through the base game first (very cool in its own right), but the DLC is really going to tickle your fancy I think.
I think both of these could be great movies, but could also be done extremely poorly (especially helldivers). I hope they get people who like and understand the IPs for these ones.