Warframe. I spent 2 years around 2020 farming up every frame, every item, every pet, every everything – without spending a dime. I was so grateful for the experience I spent nearly $300 in cosmetics when I finished the game.
They’re always adding more stuff, but I consider Warframe “beat”. It was a killer experience, I had a lot of fun with all the different builds and overpowered shit you could pull off if you were smart. Along with Path of Exile, Warframe stands a pinnacle of how to do Free to Play correctly.
I also did a “No Engram” run on ARK: Survival Ascended – You’re not allowed to learn any of the things you can build; you HAVE to find the items naturally in the world. That was a nightmare, but I managed it – and will NEVER do it again. It gave me new appreciation for specific aspects of the game.
Look, we know we sell little plastic figures—not games, not platforms, not anything remotely digital—but somehow, we’ve managed to trip over our own shoelaces and knock something precious to all of you right off the shelf. Yes, we’re talking about itch.io, and yes, we understand the gravity of what happened.
We’re not going to sugarcoat it: we messed up. We’re not entirely sure how the dominoes fell this way, but somehow, through a series of unfortunate events (and probably some poorly-thought-out legal maneuvers), our actions have impacted an entire community that thrives on creativity and passion. That was never our intention, and it’s not who we want to be.
The truth is, we’re sitting here staring at our little figures, wondering how something so small can lead to such a big screw-up. We know this affects you, and we’re genuinely sorry for the frustration, confusion, and anger we’ve caused.
We don’t expect forgiveness overnight, but please know we’re working hard to make this right. We’re talking to the people who actually know what they’re doing (because, let’s face it, we clearly don’t), and we’re committed to doing better moving forward.
We value this community more than you realize, even if we’ve done a poor job of showing it. Thank you for your patience, and we hope you’ll give us the chance to earn back your trust—not just with our figures, but with our actions.
I think something like 5k hours into Warframe, 15 years into WoW (at least 2 of my characters have 1+ year of playtime–so 17k hours just on those 2; and I max-leveled every class of character up until Battle for Azeroth) and so far, 2 years into ARK. Just over 3.5k hours of playtime between ASE and ASA.