LogFAQs > #965820224

adjl posted...

I'm willing to entertain the possibility in the form of subscription fees, DLC/expansions, and/or reasonable microtransactions, so that total cost is paid over the course of many years of continuous service and new content additions and not designed to cost that much out of the gate

Even then I'd argue you better be one of the best games ever made (and not just an addiction-fueled Skinner Box) and would have to run for at least 15 uninterrupted years of constant content updates before I'd accept the argument.

(And even then, the fact that games like Kingdom of Loathing - which has been running for 20 years for essentially "free" - exist kind of undercuts the idea that games "need" to operate that way. There are ways to create and maintain self-supporting games that don't involve reaping your audience for maximum profits - publishers just refuse to make games that way.)



adjl posted...

but that's still a pretty tall order and the vast majority of games don't stand a chance of keeping my attention for long enough to get there

Worse, these days most "game-as-service" games will never keep the servers running that long. Once they've exploited the initial cash-in period (when the majority of players will pay for microtransactions or new content), they'll shut down in favor of the inevitable sequel (and next batch of having to buy everything in-game all over again). At which point you can't even play the game you've sunk so much money into.