Giant Bomb Presents: How F2P Ruined Tales of Phantasia on iOS

What a terrible thing to do. Tales of Phantasia is an absolute gem and to see it tarnished like this makes me sad. I have only been able to play the GBA port but even with the flaws that version has I was able to recognize ToP as one of the greatest RPGs of its generation. I would love to replay it with a superior translation and proper graphics, but not like this. I would have gladly payed a premium price for this port but instead it gets drug through the exploitative free to play mud and came out as an inferior experience. Great games deserve respect.

This is a damn shame. I played this game back when the Dejap translation first came out and I absolutely loved it. The side-scrolling battle system is a nice change of pace from the rest of the RPGs of that era. It also has a few nice twists and turns in its story that I still remember years later.

Hell, the fan translated version even let me save wherever I wanted thanks to save states. I almost wish these publishers would just sell me rom/isos files for an emulator. Although I know that is never going to happen.

now do How F2P ruined Dungeon Keeper

Great interview, thanks for posting it. This is another reason why I dislike so much of free to play. I am perfectly willing to pay $60 and just have the ability to unlock whatever I want to.

Namco's pushing free to play a lot, and is willing to try just about anything. God, I recall like 10 years ago I paid 7 bucks for a galaga cell phone ring tone pack. I'm not surprised by this

@patrickklepek : That was a really interesting interview. It's always nice to have a point of view from someone who actually deals with mobile games on a daily basis. And if it's easier for you to get a 30 minutes interview on the site rather than have to write an entire article, I say go for it ! Getting an angle on a story from someone external to the site could be really enriching !

I still have an issue with this interview though. The title implies that the Dungeon Keeper "reboot" is a really bad example of F2P. But I have no idea how or why. I didn't even know that was the case. I remember someone on the podcast mentioning they thought it was bad but that's it. Did I miss an article or something ? Because Dungeon Keeper being bad is kinda news for me, weird to imply I already know about it.

This is why I gladly payed $16 for FF VI on IOS.

I don't care what anyone says, with extreme few exceptions, free to play model leads to toxic game design where developers are focused more on how they can monetize the game than how they can make a great game.

I got an iPad this year and have found that the best games are those that are one time purchases and were designed simply to be good games - stuff like Year Walk, Device 6, Badland, Ridiculous Fishing, The Room series, and ports of PC games that were designed to be one-time purchases such as XCOM.

I really wish the tablet game market would change to one where people were willing to spend say, $20, on good, more traditionally balanced games...but sadly I don't see that happening.

I almost abandoned this interview because the clip at the beginning doesn't have enough context. I felt like the audio file had been uploaded wrong and was going to come back to it later. If it was trying for a PRI radio production flair, it fell short of that. Either Patrick should introduce the topic in a radio voice and then excerpt a teaser, or it should just go straight to the music.

But that's a minor criticism. I'm glad he's covering this increasingly abusive and cancerous trend.

My response to the Dungeon Keeper fiasco was to go out and pay for my copy of Dwarf Fortress. I realized that the game had given me hours of enjoyment and I hadn't even bothered to fork over a chicken dinner's worth to the developers when the people making these F2P games are swimming around in cash like Scrooge McDuck. If you want something to keep happening, support it.

@koolaid:

Saw an article that did the math and determined that in order to 100% complete a free-to-play racing game on the iPad, you had to either grind for thousands of hours, or pay upwards of $3000, all told. They're doing it this way because they can actually make a lot more money sneaking it out of people bit by bit in the free-to-play style than they can just charging them one solid price off the top, and yes, that is very much an unethical practice.

Thanks for this Patrick, it was really interesting - Tales sounds like a train wreck, which is a shame because the original game was so awesome.

I have 0 problem paying for DLC. On the other hand I will never ever pay for any micro transaction in any game. Charge a normal fee for the whole game and I will happily buy it but if you expect me to pay throughout the game I will completely ignore your game.

Unfortunately the model appears to be successful which means it's not going anywhere soon. All of a sudden Square's outrageous pricing of the Final Fantasy IOS ports don't seem so bad

Oh humanity.
All the effort you put into making things worse. And it gets rewarded. Quite a society.

@jamesjeux007:

They talk about Dungeon Keeper iOS on the podcast, and Jeff also goes about it in more detail on his Vegas Jar video. It has a similarly fucked up free to play model than Tales does.

The original is awesome of course. (In both cases.)

even if i end up spending as much money as i would potentially for the full game to unlock everything, it just seems to break things up in such an arbitrary way. it just doesn't feel like Dungeon Keeper when everything is so arbitrarily blocked. i don't have as much of a problem with new games that are designed from the ground up as F2P (depending on their pay structure, at least).

@deusoma: Oh yes, there is a very high ceiling on F2P games. I'm not arguing that. However, there are extremely few people who spend that much money on f2p games. Though they do exist. And a lot of the time, those people are loaded and don't think twice about spending money like that because they don't care. And why should they if they are rich? And I'm sorry, but I don't think offering something for sale is unethical. A game like some of the worst F2P examples may be a bad game. But they made something and they are selling for a price. It's up to the consumer if they want to buy it or not.

The real problem IMO, is how to do you make the game fun and fair for the other 99.999% who don't endlessly spend money. What about the people who spend no money? Or who spend around $10? Are they having a good time? What's really rotten about F2P is the act of spending money becomes a game mechanic in itself. And that to me, spoils a lot of why I would even play games in the first place: To escape to other worlds. I don't wanna bring my credit card with me!

I just don't understand who this is aimed at. The people who actually played and liked this game won't touch this with these new "additions" and it's a long-form RPG so almost no casual game players will want to play this either. Someone didn't think this through at all.

Great interview here, Patrick. I look forward to more journalist Dump Trucks. And the random "drop" around the 20m20s mark threw me off.

@patrickklepek, do you have any plans to dig into this Dungeon Keeper mess? Especially that thing about how it straight-up won't let you rate the game less than 5 stars from within the app? Some shady shit right there.

Michael Transactions strikes again

Just wanted to add my two cents that this type of interview with other writers is something I really like hearing. Thanks!

What does that have to do with it being a shitty version of the game? Yeah, you can ignore it (which most people probably will) but it doesn't change the fact that it's got a lot of really gross microtransaction practices in it either.

Like I don't really get your point.

See, I would describe this as "just another shitty game," but evidently Patrick doesn't otherwise it wouldn't have received this interview on the site. The people that so often have problems with microtransactions will throw around terms like "disgusting," "unethical," and "morally bankrupt." I say you really have nothing to worry about unless you have problems of your own. That's the point I'm trying to make.

Also, as I've mentioned before, this actually sounds like a perfectly playable version of the game to me. Were it not for the fact that it is played on a touchscreen, it'd get my seal of approval, and I've played far more of these games than most. If these changes scare you off, there's a myriad of other RPGs you shouldn't be touching either, many of which are quite well liked around these parts. Maybe you're not in the mood for challenge, but I'm sure there's some 10 y/o out there with no money that's more than up for it.

Patrick, this might be one of your best interviews yet.

I love this entire format. This type of content is a window into a deeper understanding of the industry. Keep. It. Coming. Beep. Beep.

Nice bit of talk. Like to see more of this. Also... you other guys talk a bunch.

Square Enix business model as of late, obviously inspired by the popularity of f2p apps in Japan (think Puzzle & Dragons) has let me down. It's a shame. It's now in the same group as Ubisoft, a company that a held in high regard but its now overly aggressive business approach makes me avoid their products.

It's all the more sad when I remember Dragon Quest belongs to Square Enix :(

I rather pay up front. Only time I prefer F2P is in MMO's and where you can enjoy the game without paying but paying gives you cosmetic stuff. But mostly I rather just pay up front and know that the game was designed for fun and not designed as a money sink.

I really like the interview dumptruck series. Keep 'em coming!

@axersia said:

Some people (apparently not you) mind that instead of game publishers operating like book publishers, or movie studios, or TV networks, where you finance a creator who has a cool idea for a thing, some game publishers are transitioning into full-on shady casino industry territory, where they want each user to spend the most irresponsible amount of money on their game as possible.

It cheapens the medium, because now you have to look at every game and go "Is this an actual game where some game designer had a fun idea for a game mechanic or story or something, or is this a crass money-making machine constructed by a bunch of suits in a board room?"

Not totally clear on what you consider the "typical MMO", but I really don't think that MMO subscriptions or the arcade days of yore were ever trying to fleece individual people for the sums of money that some F2P games allow for. Plus, MMOs and running an arcade both actually have considerable overhead to justify asking for a more continuous stream of money than your average console or PC game. F2P mobile games cost next to nothing to make, yet are asking for way more money just to access incredibly basic features. It's the scummiest the games industry has ever been.

As someone who avoids microtransactions like the plague, I feel like I'd be more willing to purchase them if they felt less exploitative. Been playing a lot of Apex Legends lately, and skins in that game cost $18. If they were $1 or $2, I'd be more willing to throw some money their way. Sure, maybe they make more money off the whales, but I wonder if it's worth in in the long term if 99% of your player base thinks your pricing structure is gross.