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Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

clickerheroes2.com

41–50 of 179 posts

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#41
I've been enjoying a f2p game for a while - Paladins. I understand it's a lot like Overwatch, and that the comparison annoys both camps.

They charge for skipping a bunch of grind, but in this case 'grind' is playing matches, which is why I'm here in the first place so...

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#42
post #27

I hope (though I'm not truly that optimistic) in a decade that the trend of F2P will have passed. I find them extremely parasitic, exploiting human behavior. I also hate the term free-to-play, because it purposefully hides the fact that for many games, you either need to grind a lot to acquire content/in-game currency or have to spend a lot.

Just yesterday I was looking for a simcity-like game for my iPad to play that didn’t use microtransactions. It’s simply not there. Not a single city simulator that you can actually play without paying for some stupid credit system. I was easily willing to spend $10 for such a game, because of the scarcity. I would expect some indy dev to jump into this space, but I guess microtransactions are just too lucrative?

> I was easily willing to spend $10 for such a game, because of the scarcity.

Your willingness to pay $10 for a SimCity-style game probably explains the scarcity. If you and enough others were willing to pay $40-60, you'd find that game.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#43
post #26

A cute story about whales. Jeremy Lin, the NBA player, talked about getting his teammates to play Clash Royale with him. He was shocked that everyone had better troops than him after two days. Apparently they all dropped thousands.

Clash Royale brands their philosophy as pay-to-advance. You can upgrade faster with real money, but that doesn't mean you will win matches. At some point at the top I assume everyone is spending a lot of money, and is matched up with similar level cards. As a player it doesn't really bug me.

That sounds fine at first, but tends to mean that real progression is heavily slowed down in order to encourage people to buy cheats.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App stores could easily enforce a rule like this. The maximum price could also appear next to the download link for the app so you know what you're getting into.

The Play Store already does that.

From what I can tell, the Play Store only shows a price range per individual in-app-purchase item, not a maximum overall spending limit.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#45
I'm active in the clicker/idle game scene so I can give a bit of background:

It isn't rare lately for people to come to https://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games/ and discuss possible ways to monetise games. How to best implement microtransactions, opt-in ads, or even some talk lately about cripto mining.

Then yesterday someone wrote a post about the 'unannoying way to monetise', which is to make the game paid.

https://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games/comments/7e1u9f/t...

It wasn't massively well received. If you look at the top comments, they still prefer F2P and microtransactions. And then CH2 dropped this bomb today.

From my personal experience, I am quite skeptic about a paid model for this particular genre of games. Also, 30$ for this kind of game seems a little bit too step.

Nevertheless I wish them best. Hopefully if they are successful they will show the way for others and we will move away from these kind of predatory techniques.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#46

I wonder if you could still have free to play, but just had a limit to how many different things to buy. Say, you could buy everything for $60. That way, you don’t have to worry about someone spending thousands because they wouldn’t get any more than if they spent $60.

Most free to play games have completely different mechanics to traditional games. Typically you get to a certain level, after which you are hooked, then you are faced with a choice: Pay or keep grinding. There's no real end, so even if you choose to pay now, you will face the same decision again. I assume a lot of users will abandon the game at this point, because most games purposely don't make the grinding fun to e…

There are games like EU4 or other paradox games that kind of straddle the barrier. You don't need the DLC, but your game is updated and the AI and all other players you play with has it so your game will get worse over time unless you pony up.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#48
post #28
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor nitpick: League of legends requires you to purchase heroes as they come out, and this gives the player incentive to spend ~5$ every month or so. DOTA would be a better example as you are not required to purchase heroes.

Let’s not also forget that they make a hero a little OP at launch and then it gets tuned.

Exactly why I quit playing league of legends. The meta is much more stable in DOTA as a result of the champions being free (and properly balanced).

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#49
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could but the profitability of free2play games are whales. I don't remember where I read it, but the vast majority of people playing free2play mobile or Facebook games never spend a single dollar. This means that if you set a limit on it, you'd be limiting your profit by an extreme amount. I'm all for it by the way, I think games that sell game affecting content for thousands of dollars are targeted scams portray…

Minor nitpick: League of legends requires you to purchase heroes as they come out, and this gives the player incentive to spend ~5$ every month or so. DOTA would be a better example as you are not required to purchase heroes.

It's possible to never pay a dollar in League, and wind up owning all champions. The problem is how long it takes to unlock them all with the free in-game currency (previously IP, now Blue Essence). It takes 3-4 years of near-daily play. Once you own all to-date champions, there is no monthly real-money requirement - you earn enough free currency to instantly buy new champion releases.

Some people, like me, spent a ton of real money to unlock all champions faster. According to Riot, it's not "necessary" to have all champions unlocked. However if you don't own a champion, you cannot pick that champion early in the team drafting phase for someone else to play (swap/trade) - even in ranked. It is a disadvantage, though admittedly minor - a 5 man team that owns all champions has more flexibility in drafting than an enemy team that has holes in what they own.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Play Store already does that.

From what I can tell, the Play Store only shows a price range per individual in-app-purchase item, not a maximum overall spending limit.

It is in the 'read more' button allowing you to read the whole app description.

Maybe it is A/B tested ? I doubt it though, I think it is an old feature.

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