Couldn’t figure out now to cross post this from the games community
Crazy how when you make a fun game it sells well. Who woulda thought!
It’s not just that it’s fun, but that Arrowhead are respecting their player base. No subscription fees, no timed battle passes, no pay-to-win mechanics, real-money currency can also be earned for free by just playing the game (I’ve already bought 2 warbonds with SCs that I found completely in-game, with enough currently banked to insta-buy the new one whenever it drops)… They know what players want, and they made the game to those specs. They’re treating their players like people, instead of cash cows to be milked.
I was explaining the in-game progression system and war bonds stuff to a friend, who is a long time gamer. He interrupted me and said, “You don’t have to explain it to me, I know how battle passes and in game stores work.”
But that’s the thing, he knew how most in-game stores and battle passes work - but Helldivers isn’t like that. There’s no time pressure battle passes where you have to play a certain amount in a month to get something. There’s no pay to win mechanic where you are pressured to spend money. It really is different from modern games. It feels more like an old school game where you can get anything just by playing whenever you want, except with the benefit of them constantly adding new stuff
They are using typical battlepass mechanics including locking gameplay affecting content behind a battlepass.
It’s a fun and successful indie game, but it’s not some paragon of monetization models.
I wouldn’t say there’s anything “typical” about HD2’s warbonds. They’re not time-gated like normal battle passes, and they can also be purchased with currency you can find in-game.
Spending more than $40 on everything Helldivers 2 has to offer is completely optional. Even if you do spend money on warbonds, you still don’t get immediate access to the new gear, as gameplay is still required to unlock the individual pieces of the warbond. The content is grindwalled, moreso than it is paywalled.
You do have a point about it not being timegated, although because they are constantly releasing new warbonds, you constantly have to choose which content sounds enticing or not. It’s not reasonable to expect to get everything in this game, especially without paying more money, and that’s a form of FOMO tactics.
As for earning the “premium” currency in-game, most freemium games do this. Examples:
- League of Legends and other MOBAs
- Genshin Impact and other Gachas
- MTG arena and other digital TCGs
Call of duty and fifa sells very well every year…
And they just ruined all that good will over night.
What happened?
Sony has announced their intentions to reinstate the Playstation Network account requirement to play HD2 on PC. Steam users aren’t happy about it.
I’m kinda torn. I have a PS5 and a PC, so I have a PSN acct. But I bought this game on PC, I didn’t realize it required a PSN acct when I bought it because it was disabled at that time due to the server issues, and I really didn’t want to link my account.
It’s also problematic because the game was sold in markets where PSN isn’t available, so those people are just SOL I guess. Too much play time to refund, and using a VPN could get your PSN account banned by Sony.
I just wish they made it optional. People would be perfectly content if it was an optional feature.
Ah that’s a pain in the ass. I vaguely remember something with my PSN account when I first bought the game, but can’t remember if I entered it or skipped through. I’ll have to check tonight.
But yeah, I’d be pissed if I were one of those people who have been playing for months and all of a sudden can’t play anymore. I’m wondering how that works with Steam, since having hundreds of hours into a game several weeks after you bought it probably makes it outside of their return policy. But the publisher unilaterally changing requirements has got to warrant a refund, right?
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That’s ok, I pretty much captured it all in the title. The only other point it mentioned was that the game has only been out for a few months and is already Sony’s 7th best selling game.
