Is the Grindy, Free To Play format dying down?

Otto_iii · November 19, 2019

First off im not including games which are free but offer cosmetics/none essential items as a something to buy or grind, i mean the actual new/unique content of the game requires grinding.

Back around 2010 this genre took off, for me it was games like World of Tanks and War Thunder but there are many titles like this, going into many other niches. I suppose the whole genre taking off as a trickle-down effect of the marketability of earlier mobile games that used the same format and did surprisingly well (Gacha games etc). In my case these games felt like a huge new world due to all the content some of them offered, War Thunder in particular, but eventually i realized i was never, or rarely "playing" the games but essentially just working, and even if i liked some of the gameplay or found it very unique, i just stopped playing them due to the constant stick and carrot element. Likewise i see less developers trying to push into this format as well and wonder if there is a lot of similar sentiment all around.

Shimejii · November 19, 2019

No they are still a massive thing, especially over seas. They are getting stale and boring IMO, New story, new mechanics and interesting gameplay is needed for people to consider new games just due to the timesink required.

flashiling · November 19, 2019

the thing about free to play games is that if they have some sort of power chain then they need either cosmetics to gain revenue or some way to skip the grind by paying which ruins the game.

theese days people have reacted super negatively on things like cod AW where you needed to get lootboxes with weapon skins that gave your weapon different stats which in turn made it pay to win slot machine.

since the latest "trend" of games has been the Battle royale genre and not many different game types have arrived i think the market is at a stalemate waiting for something new to hit the field (well i guess auto battlers did have a big impact on a specific portion of the market like the league/dota/hearthstone players but that wasn't as big as the BR genre was and still is)