Gaming Gimmicks

I just read a great opinion piece on Mortal Kombat X, and well, about buying games in general. The writer basically explains how Mortal Kombat X is a shining example of how games come out these days: basically not in full.

From preorder bonuses to DLC, it seems like every publisher is out to squeeze as much money out of you for a taste of more of the game you want. It’s frankly sad because we all know very well by now that if you truly want the “full” game, you either buy all the DLC or get the Game of the Year edition.

Last generation, most people put up with the whole notion of DLC and saw it from a “glass half full” perspective: nobody’s pressuring you to buy more, and if you liked the game and wanted a bit more, you had that option. For the most part, I still don’t agree with this argument, but I do believe in its validity. Moreover, most of the games I played last generation still seemed fairly complete anyway.

Fast-forward to the present, and we’ve seen several games turn out to be either underwhelming or worse, broken. From Destiny to The Order 1886, the list of games I don’t see value in is fairly exhaustive considering how early we are in the product life cycle of this generation

Maybe Mortal Kombat X isn’t one of these games, but it certainly suffers from some of the same symptoms I find myself partial to when determining the “completeness” of a game. These same symptoms prevent me, at this point, from buying games at full price. Why? Because a better version will be out in a year, or it’ll be $30 in a few months. Last time I checked, Watch Dogs was $15 on Amazon. Give it a few more months and I’m willing to bet it’ll be free on Games with Gold or Playstation Plus.

On the other hand, we’ve had great games like Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Bloodborne. I think Bloodborne was the first game to finally deliver on its promises, and it shows in both reviews and the opinions I hear. Not one of my friends has said one bad thing about this game’s worth, and so I got tempted. In the end, I traded away Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare for Bloodborne.

I’m only about 8 hours into Bloodborne. It’s been hard and I haven’t gotten very far into the game, but it’s safe to say that this game came out in full, pretty much like how all older games did. I didn’t lose out on some special in-game deal for not preordering it, nor are they trying to take more money out of me for better weapons etc (as Adam has proven, the best weapon is one of the game’s starters). Sony / From Software could have very well implemented a way to pay money for better weapons and items, but they didn’t. Instead, I’m going to be spending a lot more time dying. Regardless it’s commendable that Bloodborne doesn’t suffer from stupid business tactics that basically every game publisher uses to steal even more money from you.

Here’s to Bloodborne: a game made the way games should be made.