Look at DLC. The generation that scoffed at horse armor is now middle aged. The current generation of gamers, the ones born into a world where DLC has been fully normalized? Yeah, these kids are asking for virtual currency for Christmas.
Excellent analogy. Even to this day I see some of the people talking about how X game or Y game doesn't have a "Battle Pass" (and I still don't understand what a "Battle Pass" is -- I think I recently watched a LevelCap video where he explains you pay for it and it allows you to unlock content? So it's paid DLC with content you can't even use until you unlock it?) and how they wish X or Y game had a "Battle Pass", or how that game updated its "Battle Pass" with more content.
The idea that you pay for what I assume is a season pass but lock-gates all the content behind a grind is absurd. It's one thing if it's story-related content with unlockables via natural story progression, but it's just paid content gated behind a grind. Yet people are okay with this. So yeah, it seems we've come a long way from the outrage over horse armour, to people now looking forward to a "Battle Pass" where they can pay a premium fee to grind for content they can't use but paid for.
I didn’t find out what a battle pass was until Diablo 4. My first reaction was “oh, this is that thing deep rock galactic gives you for free”. Like you, I can hardly believe this shit is real. It’s so transparently scummy. The “content” on offer is the most anemic pretext imaginable for their brazen monetization. Other than DRG, the only game I’ve seen doing the battle pass remotely well is Helldivers 2.
Look at DLC. The generation that scoffed at horse armor is now middle aged. The current generation of gamers, the ones born into a world where DLC has been fully normalized? Yeah, these kids are asking for virtual currency for Christmas.
Excellent analogy. Even to this day I see some of the people talking about how X game or Y game doesn't have a "Battle Pass" (and I still don't understand what a "Battle Pass" is -- I think I recently watched a LevelCap video where he explains you pay for it and it allows you to unlock content? So it's paid DLC with content you can't even use until you unlock it?) and how they wish X or Y game had a "Battle Pass", or how that game updated its "Battle Pass" with more content.
The idea that you pay for what I assume is a season pass but lock-gates all the content behind a grind is absurd. It's one thing if it's story-related content with unlockables via natural story progression, but it's just paid content gated behind a grind. Yet people are okay with this. So yeah, it seems we've come a long way from the outrage over horse armour, to people now looking forward to a "Battle Pass" where they can pay a premium fee to grind for content they can't use but paid for.
I didn’t find out what a battle pass was until Diablo 4. My first reaction was “oh, this is that thing deep rock galactic gives you for free”. Like you, I can hardly believe this shit is real. It’s so transparently scummy. The “content” on offer is the most anemic pretext imaginable for their brazen monetization. Other than DRG, the only game I’ve seen doing the battle pass remotely well is Helldivers 2.