Devs should not be "forced to run on a treadmill until their mental or physical health breaks", says publisher
www.eurogamer.net
Manor Lords' publisher has hit back at claims the game is an "interesting case study in the pitfalls of early access", …

This really does not sound healthy. The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.

But by now gamers have been so trained to expect to endless content treadmills and all their ilk like mtx and battle passes that publishers/developers get egged on if they don’t work on their game 24/7 and forever.

  • Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    93·
    4 months ago

    microtransaction hell

    As far as i know the full game is entirely playable without spending a dime more than the price of the game. You can join an infinity of multiplayer servers or play the game solo from start to finish and beyond, and you still get the yearly update which, despite your statement, includes much more than “a new mob every six months”.

    I personally don’t mind that cosmetics and entirely optional non-game-advantaging additional content are paid, as it is what bankrolls the studio to keep pumping out free updates every year. How do you propose they finance this otherwise ?

    • simple@lemm.eeEnglish
      10·
      4 months ago

      As far as i know the full game is entirely playable without spending a dime more than the price of the game.

      That’s not the point, they took something that was free and community-driven and locked it down so you can only install things from the store where everything costs money. Only specific people even have access to make mods in that version.

      as it is what bankrolls the studio to keep pumping out free updates every year.

      They’re not a small indie company. Mojang earns hundreds of millions of dollars per year. They can afford to do something with the game other than pumping out dozens of microtransactions a month. They could optimize the good version of the game but actively choose not to. They promised a proper modding toolkit for the game but never made it because it would harm their paid store. The game practically lives off its modding community and in the last 10 years they’ve done nothing for them.

      • Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        12·
        4 months ago

        I don’t know, the bedrock version started in 2011 way before Microsoft bought the studio. It was never free or community-driven, it is cheaper than the Java version, but it doesn’t have access to the free modding community. This sounds like a relatively good non-toxic deal to me, either you pay upfront or you suffer the micro-transactions. If you don’t have the money, you can still play the full game for a relatively low price.

        Your implication that they don’t optimize or develop new content for the base game is simply unfounded and proven wrong every year like clockwork.