OK, you've got me. I haven't gone out and researched everysingle freely downloadable, micropayment-driven game in the world. So I can only really talk anecdotally. But it feels like every time I bite on one of these free games, I come away feeling like I've wasted my time. Need For Speed World is just the latest example, and the crazy part is that it's really not a bad game. It just doesn't feel current or particularly well-conceived. Visually, the game looks like it's one or two iterations back when you compare it to the other Need For Speed games EA has released. The convenience side isn't in place, either, but hey... maybe that's why the game's site still says "beta" on it, right? So even though the game offers gamepad support, it doesn't offer the things that fans of driving games would actually expect it to have. Like... reconfigurable buttons and keys might be nice. Also, from a design perspective, the game is rooted heavily in the Most Wanted era of open-world driving mixed with race events and the occasional cop chase, if that's your thing. But you're limited to only a handful of events, and it seems like you're sort of expected to grind against these five or six races until you can level up and unlock one or two more options for your race grind.
Add to that some dicey online glitches that have awarded me first place in races that I clearly lost on my end of the Internet, and you've got a sloppy game. If you went out and bought it in a box in July 2010, you'd feel like you made a poor choice. It'll probably get better--after all, this is only the first full day of proper, widely available service. But it's still a great example of the free-to-play problem, if you'll allow me to continue generalizing a bit. These games aren't as good as the ones we're already paying $50 or $60 to acquire. Forget about money, why would I want to level up my driving ability in NFS World or unlock additional weapons in GunZ: The Duel if the core game isn't actually worth the time investment? Persistent worlds only pay off when the world is good enough to make me feel good about investing all of that time. Most paid games can't even do that these days. Being that I'm not the most price-sensitive consumer in the world, how the heck is a free download supposed to compete with that?
For awhile, I thought that SOE's Free Realms might actually usher in a bit of change. Not that it's some amazing MMO that you all must play or anything, but as a kid-focused online game, it felt well-made. It felt like a "real" game in spots. Of course, I'm not 11, so it also felt pretty boring after an hour or two. Now SOE is in the middle of a quick promotion to sell "lifetime memberships" to the game. For players hooked on the members-only content found in that game, dropping the equivalent of six months' worth of fees to play with that stuff forever is probably a pretty good deal.
But there I go again, talking more about the business models behind the games rather than the games themselves. And that's the real problem. Debating the dollars and sense behind these games has become more interesting than the third-tier gameplay experiences that are typically on offer. Perhaps that won't always be the case. Some maintain that there's an entire generation of kids out there getting used to these sorts of micropayments, and that a shift away from the traditional sales model for games is inevitable. I just hope that by the time those kids grow up and take over, the games they're choosing to (not) pay for have gotten better.
So where do you guys actually stand on these games? Are you playing any of this stuff? Do you actually enjoy any of it, or are you only playing it because better games cost too much?
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