Being mad loudly online at a frequent punching bag with a bad reputation is sheer mob-induced dopamine and that’s why that headline exists and why this conversation happens.
Or maybe they are a punching bag because of the things they repeatedly do, did you consider that?
It isn’t like multiversus is the only one that did this. I clearly said they were an example of a larger trend.
We all realize that in-game cosmetics aren’t real, right?
Yes, but the unavoidable advertising of those cosmetics frequently drag down the experience when there are multiple click through screens and progress bars on battle passes the player didn’t buy and a ton of other negatives that have nothing to do with whether cosmetics affect game play. Free to play frequently means ‘annoying nag menus’.
I happened to focus on getting their money early and calling a reset of their fake money a refund being misleading.
It also happens that my experience with early access free to play was Multiversus, where they took a moderately OK early access game that added mtx, then went silent for months and came back as a trash version of the same game with even more mtx. This being EA I expect them to go even harder into the mtx at the expense of game play.
If the promotion of mtx.is jarring or overwhelming then even limiting to cosmetics sucks. If something ends and there are multiple click through screens encouraging players to by mtx and other ads within the game to buy the mtx it can become a chore to ignore. Even if gameplay itself is not impacted, the things that happen outside of gameplay can deag down the whole experience.
An example would be those stupid unskippable season pass screens where the bar goes up slowly and it reminds you of what you didn’t get becsuse tou didn’t buy the season pass. A few seconds each time, sure, but it adds up and is clearly trying to goad you into spending money. That shit sucks even if it limited to cosmetics.
Except for the ones that don’t do a good job of balancing the two things. Like the games that have incredible detail but shit performance and/or awful gameplay.
They clearly balanced the more detailed art design with the game play.
GTA didn’t have detail on cars to the level of a racing game, and didn’t have characters with as much detail as Resident Evil, so that it could have a larger world for example. Colossus had fewer objects on screen so it could put more detail on what was there.
Like cgi and other visual effects, realism has some applications that can massively improve the experience in some games. Just like how lighting has a massive impact, or sound design, etc.
Chasing it at the expense of game play or art design is a negative though.
That assumes that going all in on mtx an in game currency is the way to go and not other options like offering the game at a decent price and then selling skins and other mtx at reasonable prices.