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Optimisation<\/p>\n
6.8 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a while now since the warfare raging amongst AAA publishers switch from trying to take all your money to trying to take all your time. They still want the former, of course, but they\u2019ve gradually figured out that the more of your time they can steal, the greater the eventual flow of money. It\u2019s a perpetual spiral upward as well. If you play something a lot, you\u2019re more inclined to spend money. And, the more time you spend playing a game, the more your friends will see you playing it (and potentially play it themselves), and the more active you keep the player base. It\u2019s a win\/win for publishers whom rather than charging a small proportion of the player base for a new map, can instead milk a little cash from everyone instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The current means of weaponising your time is the Battle Pass. Pioneered, to a degree, by Valve and DOTA 2, the Battle Pass has now become the norm. Battle Passes can be found in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Red Dead Redemption 2, Rocket League, Fortnite, PUBG, Apex Legends and Destiny 2. These are all pretty much the biggest games in the world right now, and they\u2019re all treading a similar path. It\u2019s everywhere you look and it\u2019s the sort of delicious marketing genius which is so typical of Valve.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
You see, the Battle Pass is an insidious system, one which very capably extracts money from those who otherwise wouldn\u2019t even think of paying ten bucks for a new cloak. It breaks down the barriers we have built up to defend ourselves against in-game purchases. Rather than pay for one item, or a randomised box, here is an entire torrent of items and all you need to do is keep playing the games you like.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Only, once you\u2019ve dropped that cash, you\u2019re in. You\u2019re in because you need to get to the end of the Battle Pass in order to get your money\u2019s worth. You\u2019re in because you need to complete those daily challenges. You\u2019re in because this Battle Pass is great so why not drop five bucks on that new weapon skin? You\u2019re in because you don\u2019t want to miss out on exclusive content. And you\u2019re in because if you and all your mates have a Battle Pass each, you will unlock the content quicker.<\/p>\n
<\/ins><\/p>\nThe trouble is, as with all these things, is we only have so much time. Money isn\u2019t even factoring in at this point. You could buy eight battle passes for \u00a360 and never have to play another game ever again, but it\u2019s the time commitment to see these through which sees reality bites. Battlefield V invites players back most weeks to unlock a new weapon. Miss it and it\u2019s gone. Red Dead Online is adding epic bounty hunts which are available for one week only. Fortnite\u2019s best cosmetics are tucked away at level 100 of any given Battle Pass. Meanwhile, time ticks down. You\u2019ve got 64 days to complete Fortnite\u2019s Battle Pass. You\u2019ve got 13 days to complete Fortnite\u2019s Battle Pass. Before you know it, you\u2019re not playing because you want to, you\u2019re playing a game because you feel you need to or you\u2019ll miss out on the best gear.<\/p>\n
Battle Passes are the new norm but they\u2019re ultimately as divisive as any other form of in-game purchases before it. I both love them and hate them. A battle pass can keep me hooked on a game or it can put me off playing a game entirely. They\u2019re weird like that, but they ultimately feel problematic. FOMO is a powerful thing and with more games and more Battle Passes, it only adds to the pressure.<\/p>\n
What are your thoughts on Battle Passes then, do you think they\u2019re a great move for the industry or a terrible waste of time? Do you ever feel obliged to play a game just to level up a Battle Pass? Would you prefer we went back to paid map packs? Let us know what you think of them below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
System Requirements Low vs Ultra Screenshots GPU Performance Chart CPU List That Meet System Requirements…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[408,249,1189,1190],"class_list":["post-3415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-news","tag-battle","tag-debate","tag-fan","tag-passes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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