Every game seems to want to be the player's "main game". as someone who isn't loyal to any one game, the whole thing comes across as a strange scenario where I buy a game but get only half the content because I can't be bothered to play weekly.. or daily.. or hourly. games don't need to be a service if the gameplay is addicting on it's own. If anything, this is a side effect of lazy game creation. they've given us boring level up loops with real meaningful skins and interesting unlocks hidden behind paywalls. calling it a benefit is a mistake made by time whittling down memories of games coming out complete and selling us expansions rather than the opportunity to level up thanks for the video drift0r. I'm a long time fan. I don't know why I'm not subbed on this account but now I am. the reader of this comment should do the same as well
Stupidest arguement ever, "only get half the content". You got all the content and this is extra. There are some very obvious cases of this happening with DLC or pre order only content but you're ridiculous if you're grouping battle passes into them. They don't have 5 or 6 seasons worth of that content already made.
@@aelinstue9431 it depend on the games you played but most big games don't have enough content that the gamers paid for so they charged gamer more to grind the "dlc" content with a deadline that they have to constantly grind for get ther money worth it making gamers feel like the have to stay at one game to fully finish the battlepass
Perfect explanation. Notice how all the games with expensive BP’s lacks in gameplay severely and have been for years. 2K, COD, Madden are prime examples. 2K is the best example of this, you buy the game, you create your player, since there’s no real way to earn VC, you’re forced to buy minimum $50 worth of VC to upgrade your player. That’s why I’ve stopped playing. There’s no incentive on simply playing because the game isn’t designed like that, you start at a 60 and if you don’t buy VC and play the career mode, you’ll soon realize how slow progression is and how boring the mode is in general. It will probably be the same way this year. Just lazy game design, and I believe it’s done on purpose.
@@aelinstue9431 it wouldn't be youtube without a debate goon in the comments. I have a video planned with this topic partially in mind so I'll explain myself further in the next odd months
Deep rock galactic and helldiver's 2 are the only real good battle passes due to there being no FOMO by having non expiring battle passes. Deep rocks is completely free and helldiver's 2 can use ingame earnable credits. Those are the only 2 battle passes that are consumer friendly rn
Helldivers is terrible due to it requiring the install of kernel level anti-cheat software. It doesn't deserve to stand amongst Deep Rock when Deep Rock doesn't require such software to be installed, nor do most other co-op PvE titles.
I wouldn't even call Helldivers 2 an actual "Battlepass". Because there is no distinction between premium and standard warbonds other than the 1000 super credit price. But you get super credits naturally as you play the game. And because they're all shared with your team every mission you play, it's not even that you have to actively seek them out either. Helldivers 2 uses much closer to an in-game, in-universe store. Much like what CoD: Black Ops 1 actually had, where you earn money through playing the game.
Yes we would all want everything to be free but when you take into context that those people don't work for free battle pass still seems way better than buying packs. CoD actually does this well, I will go into most seasons not knowing how much I'll play and only when I've seen I've gotten pretty far thru it will I then pay to unlock all the paid content. Otherwise when I don't end up playing much then I didn't spend the cash and never felt I had to play.
@@Jigolopuff it was cool for free games but then battle passes start to appear in paid games and that where the problem starts just like lootboxes era was
@@JigolopuffBattle passes in any game don't make sense. They're nothing more than a publisher to peddle their sense of greed, and make a game less enjoyable for the player due to locking anything and everything behind a paywall.
The Warbond System in HellDivers 2 and Halo Infinite BS are the way to go. People are learning to just not even TRY your game if they feel like they can't even get a Battlepass done outside their main.... or at all. People might LOVE to grind Mutliple old Battlepass but now people have no reason to keep your game in the backburner for a time they might grind because it will get in the way of the MAIN game Battlepass. It's unhealth gaming is trying to get ALL of your TIME in pursuit of money. NO Money is unlimited resource, TIME IS THE FUCKEN MOST LIMIT RESOURCE. So People rightfully with the MONEY aren't wanting to even get a game if they know they DON"T HAVE THE TIME FOR THEM. Probably why so many have tier skips.
The other issues than time commitment is you are not guaranteed to unlock everything you paid for and IMO all rewards are identical for all players so this makes them not unique.
Very good point. Every player gets every item in the exact same order and it just doesn't feel as special as doing an in game challenge or accomplishment
I hate the battle pass. I just jumped into Battlefield 2042 and I see SEASON 7 pop up and I feel like I missed out on hundreds of rewards and possible gameplay effecting things. I miss when all of my progress and unlocks were simply xp based things that didn't come and go. Let me start the journey whenever I want
I actually liked the supply drops a lot more. I liked how they did it in CoD WW2 where you could earn them. I've used CoD points to pay for the battle pass, but I don't use anything. I mostly buy it for the bonus BP XP to unlock the new weapons faster. I don't want to miss out on early iterations before they get patched or reworked. I don't play any other game. The rest of my time is spent working or catching seasonal Anime. ATM, I already got my unlocks, so it's not a big deal to miss out on the rest of the battle pass, aside from getting my points back. I wouldn't mind an extra 30 day extension or even 15 days that bleed into the next season, where you earn XP for both. In most cases, I complete the BP by grinding out double XP weekends.
I think the point about most battle passes being terrible is pretty true. At this point if theres even one or two standout skins in any game that arent held back in the shop im genuinely surprised
I noticed myself forcing myself to play a game that i didn't really feel like playing just to finish a battle pass i had bought. after this happened a few times in a row, i made the change of only buying battle passes after i've grinded most if not all of it. that way i don't have this pressure over my head that i need to play to finish it. And i also agree on this that yeah sure its "only" $10 usually, but you have to play maybe close to 100 hours to finish it so you are really paying with your time Also on the part about how often the actually goods skins i like, are in the store itself and not the battle pass...
I really hope XDefiant doesn't lock weapons away in the future battle passes. They already locked an AR in preseason, and albeit that gun was trash and it was only like Lvl 5 in the BP, that could set bad precedent for the future.
Its all about FOMO. A battlepass shouldn’t be time limited. And the Battlepass itself shouldn’t be unavailable afterwards. If you want to get into any MP game, there will be a historical amount of skins you’ll never be able to get because they are artificially creating a weird skin economy. About how Battlepass skins are “too popular” at release. But if you use a max Battlepass skin almost a year later, now you are using a super rare skin!
Best way is to buy a battle pass at the END of a season, not the beginning. If you finished it, liked the content, decide to buy or not. if you bought it and didnt do much on it, youre out of luck but if you just play the game and have fun and found out you did a good amount of it, maybe its worth it? or maybe not? Give yourself the option. dont just auto buy it, but also dont disregard if you like the stuff.
BPs have always been a bad idea. my fear in the beginning was it will escalate and spread. look at us now... not to mention expensive cosmetics, rotating stores, and multiple currencies. its all so cancer
Still better than £15 DLCs plus camo add ons. At least the content is free. You can ignore the store and play the game fine. I do just that. Haven’t bought a battle pass for years.
I've started to feel the same BP fatigue. Like you said, the issue really becomes apparent when you wanna play multiple games. When you buy a BP, you feel locked in to grind that game only. So it really just makes me not want to buy them at all. Unless I know I'll play enough to finish. Or wait to see if you finish it,then you can buy it at end of season.
They should have a pool of items we the buyers can choose from to create our battle pass experience. Example: its 100 levels…25 could be weapon skins, 25 could be operator skins, 25 calling cards/ profile icons and 25 stickers or weapon charms or whatever. And the pool could be like you choose maybe 3 or 5 operators you like or use and pick skins (from the pool) to add to the pass. Rinse and repeat for the others and the computer generates where all the items fall in the pass. That way everyone is earning what they want and it doesnt feel worthless to only get a few things.
Black ops 2 you payed $2.99 for the some of the coolest skins ever put into a call of duty. Paying $15 or whatever for dlc wasn’t bad either. So sad we can’t go back to this since they make more money in other ways
I'd rather not go back to paying for map packs, because that would split the player base and make connections worse as a result. I remember in older CoD games, my matchmaking would take longer and my connections would be worse when I had the DLC packs installed compared to when I only had the base maps, because the population of players who bought the DLC was smaller than the population who didn't.
It's the fact that you already paid 60$ for the "full" game, and now have to pay another 15$ for a few maps and weapons. In BO3 it went all the way up to 100$ for the full game.
I completely agree. If this is something anyone truly believes in stop giving these companies money, stop playing their games. Put your money and attention towards studios that respect you as a player. There are more than you might think.
I stopped playing fortnite because of this battle pass fatigue, I felt like a prisoner, playing it every day because of the FOMO of paying for a battle pass and not getting everything from it, not to mention the mental stress from it, nah bro I’m good.
I don't think that next innovation will happen since Battle Passes are nowhere near as disliked as Loot Boxes were, & there were also regulatory issues arising concerning Loot Boxes
On the topic of skips, destiny 2 has "special bundle" that gives 10 tier skips that costs 1000 silver. The funny part about that is that a normal tier skip is 100 silver, therefor the "special" bundle is literally a trap. Correct me if i'm wrong.
It’s sad. I was over the moon for fall guys back when it released and only gave it up because I wanted to play with my friends and they play cod. And as you say cod players tend to only play cod. So now I only play cod
I'm alright with battlepasses if they don't ever go away, or when you can farm the premium currency to buy the battlepasses. I've been playing so much helldivers 2 and it has such a good monetization model that makes me want to play. I dropped every game that makes FOMO an issue. I hope the direction companies take is making games not F2P and having this same monetization model as helldivers. I think this is a good compromise.
i got bored of battle passes pretty quick after they were shoved into cod mp and all the other player retention bs that comes with live service games. in a way it tipped me over the edge to break my addition from playing this game and i've been free of cod for a good few years now...and it's amazing not having to play this game anymore.
Ive been playing a lot of these lives service games for awhile. WoW Fortnite Destiny CoD etc. Once I let myself go from the fomo mindset and just played the game for the game without the battle pass I was much better off and I realized what games I played for the actual gameplay and not because I felt I had to to get my money’s worth. It’s hard to retrain your brain away from that when companies literally use psychological manipulation get you to drop the dough and play their game exclusively.
I'd be fine with battle passes as long as they don't expire. For this to be more economical for the developers, this would probably mean they'd no longer offer a 100% return. I'd be fine with this, as long as I could finish them any time I want.
Last game I bought was MW19. I'm so fed up with the amount of micro transactions I simply refuse to play any full price game with a battlepass. Every game that gets made these days feels like a beta, in which you pay to unlock more of an already crappy game experience.
At this point I actively avoid games with battle passes. So in other words I only play sp games now. I’m also an older gamer who no longer wastes money on extras in games anymore.
While some battle passes do pretty well (shockingly the last couple COD titles did alright with them) the issue is too many games seem to have them even when it doesn't seem necessary
Battle passes and seasonal events seem to only exist these days to create a sense of FOMO. Seasonal events in particular used to feel cool and festive, now they just feel like an excuse to artificially extend your playtime for some lame camo.
TBH, I don’t care about Battle Passes so much, cause it’s mostly cosmetics. The thing that bothers me most is Guns Leveling… Why every game now has to have Guns Leveling… I want to just jump in a game and have some fun without the need to first invest bloody 100 hours PER GAME to unlock and lvl up all the guns… that’s the worst part of it, not these freaking cosmetics…
Call of duty is my one and only live service game. I refuse to get sucked in into another live service game due to time constraints. I also play a single player game simultaneously.
The only battle pass I think is acceptable are the ones that don't expire. Halo Infinite, I have bought a few, and I can switch between them and they never expire. It's crazy that something you buy just times out because of things like you mentioned, life happens.
While not a "Battle Pass" F124 has a season pass, I do not like it, there are very few cosmetics and things; with a limited Multiplayer aspect there is nothing there that entices me to keep playing.
Battle Passes are the worst form of monetization to plague modern gaming since the rise and fall of Loot Boxes. They prey upon the Fear of Missing Out using flashy and typically out-of-place cosmetics in order to keep people hooked onto games. Why should I have to *_pay_* for the right to unlock content, let alone pay even more to _skip_ the grind?
Halo Infinite has a true consumer friendly battle pass where you can buy that seasons pass and have it forever and unlock it whenever you want regardless of the season without a restriction
Halo Infinite had its shop prices raised when 343 had new leadership take the helm. Consumer friendly, is something 343 is NOT, nor have they EVER been.
I’ve really been enjoying your content lately (especially that past year or so). As a gamer who loved COD MW2 through Ghost, the new multiplayer model just isn’t for me. I really enjoy the gaming commentary
I play cod a decent amount but I don’t like their passes that much, especially if they’re not gonna go to the next game. If it’s something I don’t like I’ll skip. I get why they do it, some games I like that have passes that don’t expire and I won’t ever feel compelled to do it cause it’s always there lol. This is just a problem with needing to make wall street dudes stocks go up
The original formula that fortnite used when they first started was GOLD. It would've been fine if the gaming industry didn't tear it to bits for more money.
The battlepasses in CoD have been a complete joke, the only good ones were maybe the first season or 2 for MW19 and Cold War, but the rest have just been filler garbage, it's always just base game operators wearing glowing suits now. They use to have interesting themes that follow the games story and now it's all these nonsense themes.
It was nice playing for things until they made it where u cant complete a batttlepass unless you play 100+ hours a month. Cant put that time into a game
That's not boomeritis, thats you awakening to the fact that the creative, fun impact that games has on our lives is being quashed and taken advantage of by anti-consumer models made to milk every penny out of everyone.
I've been saying that exact line since the BO1 days to describe not just battle passes, but in general people who purposely play a game in a manner that's either boring, chorelike, or extremely frustrating and just un-fun... just to boost their stats or acquire a reward. The idea of wasting hours upon hours of your life playing a game in a manner that isn't bringing you any excitement or sense of fun, just to get some kind of meaningless pixels, or to make their stats look better than they really are. For example, people who are so desperate to have a good KD that they'll camp in the far back of the map, laying on their tummy waiting for minutes at a time just for people to run by so they can shoot them in the back. 0 chance people actually find it fun doing that match after match just to get 5 kills 2 deaths in the entire match. Like nobody cares if you dropped a 2.5KD if that's what you have to do to get it. The game is playing you at that point lol. 🤣🤦♂ I also will never understand people who do long tedius camo grinds that make them rage and ruin their fun of the game for entire weeks or even months... just to get Dark Matter or some camo. Like damn, the camos are cool looking, but they're not going to change the game at the end of the day... are they really worth doing all of these bullshit challenges that you hate doing so much?
I've been saying that exact line since the BO1 days to describe not just battle passes, people who play a game in a manner that's either boring, chorelike, or extremely frustrating and just un-fun. The idea of wasting hours upon hours of your life playing a game in a manner that isn't bringing you any excitement or sense of fun, just to get some kind of meaningless pixels, or to make their stats look better than they really are. For example, people who are so desperate to have a good KD that they'll camp in the far back of the map, laying on their tummy waiting for minutes at a time just for people to run by so they can shoot them in the back. 0 chance people actually find it fun doing that match after match just to get 5 kills 2 deaths in the entire match. Like nobody cares if you dropped a 2.5KD if that's what you have to do to get it. The game is playing you at that point lol. 🤣🤦♂
Battle passes would be literally fixed if they implemented like halo infinite where you keep all the battle passes that come out and can swap between them to unlock/finish them rather than the FOMO system we have in most games now
I wouldn't mind battlepasses so much if they weren't timegated and so predatory. If you could grind any battlepass and purchase any battlepass, i wouldn't mind battlepasses. If anything, I'd prefer them. Another thing is how predatory battlepasses are becoming. Longer XP thresholds (Fortnite), playtime instead of XP (CoD), HEAVY XP scaling for later levels (Fortnite), reducing XP from challenges (Fortnite), and some games don't even let you recoup your initial investment (Valorant). Fortnite, for example, started adding the "extra" V-bucks very deep into the pass and the prestige pass while also increasing XP requirements and nerfing XP challenges. What took reaching level 100 now requires level 140 with worse XP gains.
I think the live service model and free to play gaming system coincided with rise of "SBMM" or more so "EOMM" where data and algorithms to curate the player's experience became super vital to extract the desired amount of revenue. We thought getting rid of paid map DLC was an awesome move however what replaced it was multiple steps back.
This is why I only ever buy Battle Passes if I happen to play enough to finish them. I won't buy it beforehand because I don't want to be manipulated with FOMO and more often than not, they don't have much content I care about anyway. Traditional unlocks are much more fun and rewarding for me instead of just play X amount of hours per season.
I returned to single player games or coop campaigns (which I think is a hidden gold) all of this just because of battle passes. I don’t want to ever return to free to play games. I feel overwhelmed.
Which is funny, because you're probably paying more by cranking through single player games. Their predatory practices literally drove your money out of their hands...
@@DWalter.27 well that’s true to at some extent. I don’t buy that much, and the ones I bought I actually enjoy more. It’s not about money, it’s about the overwhelming feeling.
My breaking point with Battle Passes was earlier this year, I would get home from work, and my thought was quickly shifting from "What game do I want to play?" to "What Battle Pass do I need to finish first?". It made me realize there were games that I was completely burnt out on, that I was only playing to finish the battle pass. So now I don't buy any, unless if I am able to complete the pass by naturally playing the game a lot, then I'll buy the pass to get all the unlocks I already earned. It has been a lot more enjoyable that way, I don't feel like I'm making the wrong decision by setting a game down for longer than a week, and fun is once again my focus.
I’ve always done my best to ignore Battlepass stuff because I see the rewards as a bit arbitrary. “Get level 69 on the battle pass and you’ll get a 420 themed camo for this weapon!” It doesn’t require that the player does anything special with that weapon in particular, it’s just a mark that then player plays a lot. My favorite system of all of the Call of Duties was definitely the original MW2 where there were some pretty difficult call signs and emblems that required all sorts of zany antics to acquire.
You missed a big one, none of the content that you spent money and hours grinding carries over to the next game. Except for some live service games (Destiny) that last 10+ years, all of that content is meaningless in a year.
Not that im defending them, because im not. But the D2 battle pass was the easiest to level up. Play some in the initial launch of a new season then wait till theres a couple weeks left and do the challenges in a couple days and youre like 90% there. No other game has that, fortnite has it some but it takes a bit longer.
That's also why every online-only game is dying too soon after release. Every game wants me to play only that game. Guess what? The time for doing that doesn't exist physically.
The emphasis on daily logins was always the biggest annoyance for me. Where you are all but forced to play every single day to complete the pass. Missing a daily login/challenges would require hours and hours of grinding to make up.
you hit this on the head. As someone who stays home and is able to grind without forcing doing much. i.e. i finish the cod battlepass in 2 weeks and it frees up the ability grind other games, HOWEVER the section speaking about the battle passes pretty much being bloated with stuff that literally NOBODY wants is my biggest issue. hiding overpowered weapons behind the need to grind and then grind those guns out to get the attachments (in the case of cod) is extremely annoying. I too am waiting for the next big thing to come and maybe make gaming centered around just having fun and not being thrown into a GRIND mentality
2 seconds into the video I hear "the good the bad and the ugly about battle passes" ((((((THE GOOD))))))) about battle passes ??? what the hell is wrong with you
An easy solution to battle passes is simply get rid of the tier system and have you unlock “points” you can spend on individual items in a shop through a season (old stuff is all available at an increased price) Then you can pick a select amount of items of your choice, and ignore all the ones you don’t want, and don’t need to bother with filler trash like sprays Obviously you wouldn’t be able to get everything, or even half the stuff in a season so you can pay more if you want even more stuff, but you’d be free to choose what you want, and don’t need to grind to insane levels, if you want just one thing you can get that first I don’t see how this isn’t the easy solution and they’d still make plenty of money if the content available is good
Recently we got Multiversus from Warner Bros... I thought it'd be fun to play this ridiculous Smash Bros type game with LeBron James and Bugs Bunny, but no, instead I witnessed the true horror of being forced to play a battle pass... in a genre that doesn't usually have battle passes. I can barely handle it in an FPS maybe, but having to deal with it in a Smash like game was just tragic. We are all cursed to experience the battlepass-ification of every single genre in real time And yes, it can never be a "normal" battle pass where you get some fun rewards over time... every game wants you to treat it like a full time job now
Hey I've never paid for battle pass or any micro transactions whatsoever. I'm old school and will never sell out to those money hungry leaches who wanna monetize ever little thing. Paying $70.00 for a game is too expensive to begin with but I still do it because I prefer physical games.
Holy Jesus you are so out of sync with reality if you think $70 is a lot in 2024 you probably shouldn't be spending money on a PC or console either. I'm old school and remember spending more than $70 on SNES games and otherwise remember having paid mostly $60 for over 2 decades as if inflation doesn't exist for anyone and anything involved with making a game. You can choose not to pay $70 amd wait fot a deal but to say that is over paying is ridiculous.
@@aelinstue9431it's literally the other way round lmao, gaming companies (executives) are making gigantic profits from microtransactions and online services, releasing completely broken half baked embarrassments then expecting the customer to foot the bill by upping the price of games because they KNOW people will still buy them for $70 or subscribe to an online service, they always win in the end. You are absolutely delusional.
The only games I've ever spent real money on in-game stuff were free to play titles that I've played for over 1k hours already. And even then, I only spent as much as I would have if it was a normal "buy to play" game.
Finding AFK xp exploits in CoD through warzone is always hilarious to me 😹😹 I aint grinding all that bs i'll just play when I want to, and AFK exploit when i'm busy. ☠️
I think the problem boils down to when they first got introduced we grinded the bp cause we loved the game but now people play the game just to grind bp and devs are like oh you want to give your money and we just drip feed mid content why wouldn’t they keep doing it
I think battle passes aren't inherently bad, it's the FOMO aspect of it that sucks. FOMO is so powerful that people will outright buy the battle pass instead of playing the game. I heard some games do it well because they keep every pass available at all times. I don't remember which games do this though. It's kinda like most monetization models. It's not inherently bad on paper but the moment it's used to manipulate the players, it turns something fun to something scummy.
Having booted up old mw3 2011 a couple days ago. I realized just how much advertising is being pushed on the games now. Always have to click through a screen telling you to buy the next game , buy the battle pass, buy this buy that. Its annoying
I hate the time investment needed for battle passes, even before season 5 of DRG it was stressful getting the time in to get what I wanted from the pass even if I didn't really feel like playing it. Thankfully they let you pick any season now. ROCK AND STONE
Honestly, the only type of battlepass I'm willing to buy are the non-expiring ones. For me, at this point any type of FOMO is a reason for me to actually miss out. There's no reason for a digital good to have an expiry date. It's not dairy. It's ones and zeros.
Thats why I love Apex Legends BP, because ok, You need to do missions that force You to play specific way... but You always have a choice between 3 characters per week, You can swap mission for another one... or... there are certain missions that You can go in other game modes... also the biggest W for Apex is that I can hop on the game last week and do all BP in a few days because missions do stack and repeat. It is hands down the best BP Ive ever seen (altho it doesnt have the best rewards but thats whatever)... and its funny that EA (which in many ppl eyes is one of the worst companies out there, can make the best BP ever while Valve which kinda invented the whole BP system made it the worst cancer Ive ever seen in my life just after a couple of years). edit: no Fortnite didnt invented BPs... they stole it from Valve like many other ideas from other games.
Maybe I'm old too. I don't play any games with a battle pass (I don't game much anymore overall) and I can't bring myself to really care to. I don't like the idea of the game telling me how and how much I should be playing. When I do hop on a CoD or whatever I'm just there to point and shoot. What I worry here is inertia. It's hard to roll back changes once an industry has done them. Look at how no one likes the crunch culture of the industry but also a big title without pristine graphics and physics engines gets mocked, so the overworking continues. People are used to having opt-in subscription services with floods of "content". If a title in the same genre were to choose against this strategy it would be seen as a downgrade. And gaming communities are exceptionally knee jerk.
Neither XDefiant nor COD battle passes have anything interesting because they're first person shooters so character skins are worthless (just like emotes, stickers, 2XP token and whatever other stupid filler content they have) and the mastery camos look better than the battle pass weapon skins anyway as they keep all the really good ones behind a separate paywall so I don't care if I miss out on that stuff, I don't even buy battle passes anymore so I never get fatigue, but I'm sick of seeing them in every game... on a different note, the only games that do game passes right are Halo Infinite, Helldivers 2 and Sker Ritual, where they never go away and whenever you pick up the game you can still unlock everything!
I think battle passes need to stop having time limits, I cant keep up with all my favourite games having limited time to unlock things. If I could but current passes on games and approach them whenever i wanted id feel like im playing the game for fun and not like a chore i have to do so i dont miss out on content. It feels like gambling in a way, u pay for the pass but its not guaranteed youll have the time amd effort required to finish it. Rant over guys. 😆
Every game seems to want to be the player's "main game". as someone who isn't loyal to any one game, the whole thing comes across as a strange scenario where I buy a game but get only half the content because I can't be bothered to play weekly.. or daily.. or hourly. games don't need to be a service if the gameplay is addicting on it's own. If anything, this is a side effect of lazy game creation. they've given us boring level up loops with real meaningful skins and interesting unlocks hidden behind paywalls. calling it a benefit is a mistake made by time whittling down memories of games coming out complete and selling us expansions rather than the opportunity to level up
thanks for the video drift0r. I'm a long time fan. I don't know why I'm not subbed on this account but now I am. the reader of this comment should do the same as well
Thank you for the support and I'm glad you agree
Stupidest arguement ever, "only get half the content". You got all the content and this is extra.
There are some very obvious cases of this happening with DLC or pre order only content but you're ridiculous if you're grouping battle passes into them. They don't have 5 or 6 seasons worth of that content already made.
@@aelinstue9431 it depend on the games you played but most big games don't have enough content that the gamers paid for so they charged gamer more to grind the "dlc" content with a deadline that they have to constantly grind for get ther money worth it making gamers feel like the have to stay at one game to fully finish the battlepass
Perfect explanation. Notice how all the games with expensive BP’s lacks in gameplay severely and have been for years. 2K, COD, Madden are prime examples. 2K is the best example of this, you buy the game, you create your player, since there’s no real way to earn VC, you’re forced to buy minimum $50 worth of VC to upgrade your player. That’s why I’ve stopped playing. There’s no incentive on simply playing because the game isn’t designed like that, you start at a 60 and if you don’t buy VC and play the career mode, you’ll soon realize how slow progression is and how boring the mode is in general. It will probably be the same way this year. Just lazy game design, and I believe it’s done on purpose.
@@aelinstue9431 it wouldn't be youtube without a debate goon in the comments. I have a video planned with this topic partially in mind so I'll explain myself further in the next odd months
Deep rock galactic and helldiver's 2 are the only real good battle passes due to there being no FOMO by having non expiring battle passes. Deep rocks is completely free and helldiver's 2 can use ingame earnable credits. Those are the only 2 battle passes that are consumer friendly rn
Halo Infinite has that too, although tbf who tf plays Halo
Halo also has battle passes forever but the content in them is laughably bad
Helldivers is terrible due to it requiring the install of kernel level anti-cheat software. It doesn't deserve to stand amongst Deep Rock when Deep Rock doesn't require such software to be installed, nor do most other co-op PvE titles.
@Game4Lord I'm not defending Helldiver's use of anticheat, but what does that have to do with battle passes?
I wouldn't even call Helldivers 2 an actual "Battlepass". Because there is no distinction between premium and standard warbonds other than the 1000 super credit price. But you get super credits naturally as you play the game. And because they're all shared with your team every mission you play, it's not even that you have to actively seek them out either. Helldivers 2 uses much closer to an in-game, in-universe store. Much like what CoD: Black Ops 1 actually had, where you earn money through playing the game.
I've always hated battle passes. Imagine paying to grind for content
It was definitely cool at the start, gave us something to play for in Fortnite and you could earn next seasons battle pass
Yes we would all want everything to be free but when you take into context that those people don't work for free battle pass still seems way better than buying packs.
CoD actually does this well, I will go into most seasons not knowing how much I'll play and only when I've seen I've gotten pretty far thru it will I then pay to unlock all the paid content. Otherwise when I don't end up playing much then I didn't spend the cash and never felt I had to play.
@@Jigolopuff it was cool for free games but then battle passes start to appear in paid games and that where the problem starts just like lootboxes era was
@@reygamerz8041 Battle pass in a paid game makes no sense, its what ruined Diablo for me
@@JigolopuffBattle passes in any game don't make sense. They're nothing more than a publisher to peddle their sense of greed, and make a game less enjoyable for the player due to locking anything and everything behind a paywall.
Tired of live service games as a whole. Been playing a lot of single player games and that's gotten me back into gaming.
The Warbond System in HellDivers 2 and Halo Infinite BS are the way to go. People are learning to just not even TRY your game if they feel like they can't even get a Battlepass done outside their main.... or at all. People might LOVE to grind Mutliple old Battlepass but now people have no reason to keep your game in the backburner for a time they might grind because it will get in the way of the MAIN game Battlepass. It's unhealth gaming is trying to get ALL of your TIME in pursuit of money.
NO Money is unlimited resource, TIME IS THE FUCKEN MOST LIMIT RESOURCE. So People rightfully with the MONEY aren't wanting to even get a game if they know they DON"T HAVE THE TIME FOR THEM. Probably why so many have tier skips.
The other issues than time commitment is you are not guaranteed to unlock everything you paid for and IMO all rewards are identical for all players so this makes them not unique.
Very good point. Every player gets every item in the exact same order and it just doesn't feel as special as doing an in game challenge or accomplishment
I hate the battle pass. I just jumped into Battlefield 2042 and I see SEASON 7 pop up and I feel like I missed out on hundreds of rewards and possible gameplay effecting things. I miss when all of my progress and unlocks were simply xp based things that didn't come and go. Let me start the journey whenever I want
I actually liked the supply drops a lot more. I liked how they did it in CoD WW2 where you could earn them. I've used CoD points to pay for the battle pass, but I don't use anything. I mostly buy it for the bonus BP XP to unlock the new weapons faster. I don't want to miss out on early iterations before they get patched or reworked. I don't play any other game. The rest of my time is spent working or catching seasonal Anime. ATM, I already got my unlocks, so it's not a big deal to miss out on the rest of the battle pass, aside from getting my points back. I wouldn't mind an extra 30 day extension or even 15 days that bleed into the next season, where you earn XP for both. In most cases, I complete the BP by grinding out double XP weekends.
I think the point about most battle passes being terrible is pretty true. At this point if theres even one or two standout skins in any game that arent held back in the shop im genuinely surprised
I noticed myself forcing myself to play a game that i didn't really feel like playing just to finish a battle pass i had bought. after this happened a few times in a row, i made the change of only buying battle passes after i've grinded most if not all of it. that way i don't have this pressure over my head that i need to play to finish it.
And i also agree on this that yeah sure its "only" $10 usually, but you have to play maybe close to 100 hours to finish it so you are really paying with your time
Also on the part about how often the actually goods skins i like, are in the store itself and not the battle pass...
I really hope XDefiant doesn't lock weapons away in the future battle passes. They already locked an AR in preseason, and albeit that gun was trash and it was only like Lvl 5 in the BP, that could set bad precedent for the future.
Its all about FOMO.
A battlepass shouldn’t be time limited. And the Battlepass itself shouldn’t be unavailable afterwards.
If you want to get into any MP game, there will be a historical amount of skins you’ll never be able to get because they are artificially creating a weird skin economy.
About how Battlepass skins are “too popular” at release. But if you use a max Battlepass skin almost a year later, now you are using a super rare skin!
Best way is to buy a battle pass at the END of a season, not the beginning. If you finished it, liked the content, decide to buy or not.
if you bought it and didnt do much on it, youre out of luck but if you just play the game and have fun and found out you did a good amount of it, maybe its worth it? or maybe not?
Give yourself the option. dont just auto buy it, but also dont disregard if you like the stuff.
And that's why they all come with XP boosts, aka the free tier progression is nerfed
BPs have always been a bad idea. my fear in the beginning was it will escalate and spread. look at us now...
not to mention expensive cosmetics, rotating stores, and multiple currencies. its all so cancer
Still better than £15 DLCs plus camo add ons. At least the content is free. You can ignore the store and play the game fine. I do just that. Haven’t bought a battle pass for years.
I've started to feel the same BP fatigue. Like you said, the issue really becomes apparent when you wanna play multiple games. When you buy a BP, you feel locked in to grind that game only. So it really just makes me not want to buy them at all. Unless I know I'll play enough to finish. Or wait to see if you finish it,then you can buy it at end of season.
They should have a pool of items we the buyers can choose from to create our battle pass experience. Example: its 100 levels…25 could be weapon skins, 25 could be operator skins, 25 calling cards/ profile icons and 25 stickers or weapon charms or whatever. And the pool could be like you choose maybe 3 or 5 operators you like or use and pick skins (from the pool) to add to the pass. Rinse and repeat for the others and the computer generates where all the items fall in the pass. That way everyone is earning what they want and it doesnt feel worthless to only get a few things.
Black ops 2 you payed $2.99 for the some of the coolest skins ever put into a call of duty. Paying $15 or whatever for dlc wasn’t bad either. So sad we can’t go back to this since they make more money in other ways
I'd rather not go back to paying for map packs, because that would split the player base and make connections worse as a result. I remember in older CoD games, my matchmaking would take longer and my connections would be worse when I had the DLC packs installed compared to when I only had the base maps, because the population of players who bought the DLC was smaller than the population who didn't.
It's the fact that you already paid 60$ for the "full" game, and now have to pay another 15$ for a few maps and weapons. In BO3 it went all the way up to 100$ for the full game.
I completely agree. If this is something anyone truly believes in stop giving these companies money, stop playing their games. Put your money and attention towards studios that respect you as a player. There are more than you might think.
I stopped playing fortnite because of this battle pass fatigue, I felt like a prisoner, playing it every day because of the FOMO of paying for a battle pass and not getting everything from it, not to mention the mental stress from it, nah bro I’m good.
I don't think that next innovation will happen since Battle Passes are nowhere near as disliked as Loot Boxes were, & there were also regulatory issues arising concerning Loot Boxes
Tier skips is funny. Paying to not do what you paid to do
On the topic of skips, destiny 2 has "special bundle" that gives 10 tier skips that costs 1000 silver. The funny part about that is that a normal tier skip is 100 silver, therefor the "special" bundle is literally a trap. Correct me if i'm wrong.
It’s sad. I was over the moon for fall guys back when it released and only gave it up because I wanted to play with my friends and they play cod. And as you say cod players tend to only play cod. So now I only play cod
I'm alright with battlepasses if they don't ever go away, or when you can farm the premium currency to buy the battlepasses. I've been playing so much helldivers 2 and it has such a good monetization model that makes me want to play. I dropped every game that makes FOMO an issue. I hope the direction companies take is making games not F2P and having this same monetization model as helldivers. I think this is a good compromise.
i got bored of battle passes pretty quick after they were shoved into cod mp and all the other player retention bs that comes with live service games. in a way it tipped me over the edge to break my addition from playing this game and i've been free of cod for a good few years now...and it's amazing not having to play this game anymore.
Ive been playing a lot of these lives service games for awhile. WoW Fortnite Destiny CoD etc. Once I let myself go from the fomo mindset and just played the game for the game without the battle pass I was much better off and I realized what games I played for the actual gameplay and not because I felt I had to to get my money’s worth. It’s hard to retrain your brain away from that when companies literally use psychological manipulation get you to drop the dough and play their game exclusively.
I'd be fine with battle passes as long as they don't expire.
For this to be more economical for the developers, this would probably mean they'd no longer offer a 100% return. I'd be fine with this, as long as I could finish them any time I want.
Last game I bought was MW19. I'm so fed up with the amount of micro transactions I simply refuse to play any full price game with a battlepass. Every game that gets made these days feels like a beta, in which you pay to unlock more of an already crappy game experience.
At this point I actively avoid games with battle passes. So in other words I only play sp games now. I’m also an older gamer who no longer wastes money on extras in games anymore.
While some battle passes do pretty well (shockingly the last couple COD titles did alright with them) the issue is too many games seem to have them even when it doesn't seem necessary
Battle passes and seasonal events seem to only exist these days to create a sense of FOMO.
Seasonal events in particular used to feel cool and festive, now they just feel like an excuse to artificially extend your playtime for some lame camo.
TBH, I don’t care about Battle Passes so much, cause it’s mostly cosmetics. The thing that bothers me most is Guns Leveling… Why every game now has to have Guns Leveling… I want to just jump in a game and have some fun without the need to first invest bloody 100 hours PER GAME to unlock and lvl up all the guns… that’s the worst part of it, not these freaking cosmetics…
Call of duty is my one and only live service game. I refuse to get sucked in into another live service game due to time constraints. I also play a single player game simultaneously.
afk methods are great for battle passes. Got done with mw3 season 4 battle pass in like a week. without playing the game
The only battle pass I think is acceptable are the ones that don't expire. Halo Infinite, I have bought a few, and I can switch between them and they never expire. It's crazy that something you buy just times out because of things like you mentioned, life happens.
I will only buy a battle pass now if I finish it before the season ends, I don't have 100 hours every 3 months to earn 100 tiers
While not a "Battle Pass" F124 has a season pass, I do not like it, there are very few cosmetics and things; with a limited Multiplayer aspect there is nothing there that entices me to keep playing.
Battle Passes are the worst form of monetization to plague modern gaming since the rise and fall of Loot Boxes. They prey upon the Fear of Missing Out using flashy and typically out-of-place cosmetics in order to keep people hooked onto games.
Why should I have to *_pay_* for the right to unlock content, let alone pay even more to _skip_ the grind?
Halo Infinite has a true consumer friendly battle pass where you can buy that seasons pass and have it forever and unlock it whenever you want regardless of the season without a restriction
Halo Infinite had its shop prices raised when 343 had new leadership take the helm.
Consumer friendly, is something 343 is NOT, nor have they EVER been.
@@Game4Lord talking about the battle pass not the company
I agree with all of this. The fatigue part of feeling like a part time job is definitely real.
ive hated battle passes from the start
EXTREME FOMO from nearly every single game except for maybe halo and a few other games w/ bps
I like the helldivers 2 battle pass. you can complete theme anytime.
I’ve really been enjoying your content lately (especially that past year or so). As a gamer who loved COD MW2 through Ghost, the new multiplayer model just isn’t for me. I really enjoy the gaming commentary
I play cod a decent amount but I don’t like their passes that much, especially if they’re not gonna go to the next game. If it’s something I don’t like I’ll skip. I get why they do it, some games I like that have passes that don’t expire and I won’t ever feel compelled to do it cause it’s always there lol. This is just a problem with needing to make wall street dudes stocks go up
1:30
Funnily enough just like most shitty gaming practices. The first BP was started by Valve with Dota 2.
Obviously haven’t watched the video yet but I’ve been saying the same thing for 2 years now.
Your vid’s aren’t monetized anymore?
The original formula that fortnite used when they first started was GOLD. It would've been fine if the gaming industry didn't tear it to bits for more money.
The battlepasses in CoD have been a complete joke, the only good ones were maybe the first season or 2 for MW19 and Cold War, but the rest have just been filler garbage, it's always just base game operators wearing glowing suits now. They use to have interesting themes that follow the games story and now it's all these nonsense themes.
The black cell is where it really started to go wrong.
Keep up the great work Driftor. Your new videos are awesome
It was nice playing for things until they made it where u cant complete a batttlepass unless you play 100+ hours a month. Cant put that time into a game
Damn I’m getting old too. Everything wants me buy something else in game
That's not boomeritis, thats you awakening to the fact that the creative, fun impact that games has on our lives is being quashed and taken advantage of by anti-consumer models made to milk every penny out of everyone.
I'll never buy a battlepass in cos they're a total joke
the alternative isnt better. ill take optional battlepasses over lootboxes any day. its all just cosmetics not like youre actually missing out.
I've been saying that exact line since the BO1 days to describe not just battle passes, but in general people who purposely play a game in a manner that's either boring, chorelike, or extremely frustrating and just un-fun... just to boost their stats or acquire a reward.
The idea of wasting hours upon hours of your life playing a game in a manner that isn't bringing you any excitement or sense of fun, just to get some kind of meaningless pixels, or to make their stats look better than they really are.
For example, people who are so desperate to have a good KD that they'll camp in the far back of the map, laying on their tummy waiting for minutes at a time just for people to run by so they can shoot them in the back. 0 chance people actually find it fun doing that match after match just to get 5 kills 2 deaths in the entire match.
Like nobody cares if you dropped a 2.5KD if that's what you have to do to get it. The game is playing you at that point lol. 🤣🤦♂
I also will never understand people who do long tedius camo grinds that make them rage and ruin their fun of the game for entire weeks or even months... just to get Dark Matter or some camo. Like damn, the camos are cool looking, but they're not going to change the game at the end of the day... are they really worth doing all of these bullshit challenges that you hate doing so much?
@TheErikjsm
Which would be great if they weren't rigging it so the guns unlocked in BP did more damage
@@stryfetc1471 cant change the way capitalism works
At this rate are we playing games or are we letting them play us?
Oof thats a good one
I've been saying that exact line since the BO1 days to describe not just battle passes, people who play a game in a manner that's either boring, chorelike, or extremely frustrating and just un-fun.
The idea of wasting hours upon hours of your life playing a game in a manner that isn't bringing you any excitement or sense of fun, just to get some kind of meaningless pixels, or to make their stats look better than they really are.
For example, people who are so desperate to have a good KD that they'll camp in the far back of the map, laying on their tummy waiting for minutes at a time just for people to run by so they can shoot them in the back. 0 chance people actually find it fun doing that match after match just to get 5 kills 2 deaths in the entire match.
Like nobody cares if you dropped a 2.5KD if that's what you have to do to get it. The game is playing you at that point lol. 🤣🤦♂
I’ve pretty much always said that to friends.
Games are playing you. They win when they get you to pay up.
@@RandomFandomOfficial Agreed brother!
"Grinding more than a coffee shop barista" lol
Battle passes would be literally fixed if they implemented like halo infinite where you keep all the battle passes that come out and can swap between them to unlock/finish them rather than the FOMO system we have in most games now
Reminds me of the new system of DRG where you can swap between seasons as a whole.
@@maesterdanteamadeus444But you still can't get all the content from last season
Battle passes are designed to keep you engaged. I refuse to pay to be manipulated.
I wouldn't mind battlepasses so much if they weren't timegated and so predatory.
If you could grind any battlepass and purchase any battlepass, i wouldn't mind battlepasses. If anything, I'd prefer them.
Another thing is how predatory battlepasses are becoming. Longer XP thresholds (Fortnite), playtime instead of XP (CoD), HEAVY XP scaling for later levels (Fortnite), reducing XP from challenges (Fortnite), and some games don't even let you recoup your initial investment (Valorant).
Fortnite, for example, started adding the "extra" V-bucks very deep into the pass and the prestige pass while also increasing XP requirements and nerfing XP challenges.
What took reaching level 100 now requires level 140 with worse XP gains.
I think the live service model and free to play gaming system coincided with rise of "SBMM" or more so "EOMM" where data and algorithms to curate the player's experience became super vital to extract the desired amount of revenue. We thought getting rid of paid map DLC was an awesome move however what replaced it was multiple steps back.
This is why I only ever buy Battle Passes if I happen to play enough to finish them. I won't buy it beforehand because I don't want to be manipulated with FOMO and more often than not, they don't have much content I care about anyway. Traditional unlocks are much more fun and rewarding for me instead of just play X amount of hours per season.
That’s how I do it. If I finish them I’ll pay for them but I don’t pay before hand
I returned to single player games or coop campaigns (which I think is a hidden gold) all of this just because of battle passes.
I don’t want to ever return to free to play games.
I feel overwhelmed.
Which is funny, because you're probably paying more by cranking through single player games. Their predatory practices literally drove your money out of their hands...
@@DWalter.27 well that’s true to at some extent. I don’t buy that much, and the ones I bought I actually enjoy more. It’s not about money, it’s about the overwhelming feeling.
My breaking point with Battle Passes was earlier this year, I would get home from work, and my thought was quickly shifting from "What game do I want to play?" to "What Battle Pass do I need to finish first?". It made me realize there were games that I was completely burnt out on, that I was only playing to finish the battle pass. So now I don't buy any, unless if I am able to complete the pass by naturally playing the game a lot, then I'll buy the pass to get all the unlocks I already earned. It has been a lot more enjoyable that way, I don't feel like I'm making the wrong decision by setting a game down for longer than a week, and fun is once again my focus.
I’ve always done my best to ignore Battlepass stuff because I see the rewards as a bit arbitrary. “Get level 69 on the battle pass and you’ll get a 420 themed camo for this weapon!”
It doesn’t require that the player does anything special with that weapon in particular, it’s just a mark that then player plays a lot.
My favorite system of all of the Call of Duties was definitely the original MW2 where there were some pretty difficult call signs and emblems that required all sorts of zany antics to acquire.
I’ve never been a fan of battle passes but the fact that they expire is such a joke. It’s the primary reason why I don’t buy them anymore.
You missed a big one, none of the content that you spent money and hours grinding carries over to the next game. Except for some live service games (Destiny) that last 10+ years, all of that content is meaningless in a year.
Battle pass FOMO killed destiny for me
Not that im defending them, because im not. But the D2 battle pass was the easiest to level up. Play some in the initial launch of a new season then wait till theres a couple weeks left and do the challenges in a couple days and youre like 90% there. No other game has that, fortnite has it some but it takes a bit longer.
Stuff like destiny 2, division 2 ect having battle passes and microtransactions AND expansions/paid seasons is insane to me.
Back in my day (I'm 29 lol) we earned stuff in-game. Those were the golden days.
All about going in fully default and destroying everyone
I never thought i'd say this, but I miss just buying DLC and playing it. I'm tired of the FOMO manipulative crap.
That's also why every online-only game is dying too soon after release. Every game wants me to play only that game. Guess what? The time for doing that doesn't exist physically.
The emphasis on daily logins was always the biggest annoyance for me. Where you are all but forced to play every single day to complete the pass. Missing a daily login/challenges would require hours and hours of grinding to make up.
you hit this on the head. As someone who stays home and is able to grind without forcing doing much. i.e. i finish the cod battlepass in 2 weeks and it frees up the ability grind other games, HOWEVER the section speaking about the battle passes pretty much being bloated with stuff that literally NOBODY wants is my biggest issue. hiding overpowered weapons behind the need to grind and then grind those guns out to get the attachments (in the case of cod) is extremely annoying. I too am waiting for the next big thing to come and maybe make gaming centered around just having fun and not being thrown into a GRIND mentality
Saw the light several years ago, not paying for any battle passes anymore
2 seconds into the video I hear "the good the bad and the ugly about battle passes"
((((((THE GOOD))))))) about battle passes ???
what the hell is wrong with you
An easy solution to battle passes is simply get rid of the tier system and have you unlock “points” you can spend on individual items in a shop through a season (old stuff is all available at an increased price)
Then you can pick a select amount of items of your choice, and ignore all the ones you don’t want, and don’t need to bother with filler trash like sprays
Obviously you wouldn’t be able to get everything, or even half the stuff in a season so you can pay more if you want even more stuff, but you’d be free to choose what you want, and don’t need to grind to insane levels, if you want just one thing you can get that first
I don’t see how this isn’t the easy solution and they’d still make plenty of money if the content available is good
Disliked battle passes since the start.
Having a job and playing different games, that then force you to play, making it feel like a job? Nah thanks.
Recently we got Multiversus from Warner Bros... I thought it'd be fun to play this ridiculous Smash Bros type game with LeBron James and Bugs Bunny, but no, instead I witnessed the true horror of being forced to play a battle pass... in a genre that doesn't usually have battle passes. I can barely handle it in an FPS maybe, but having to deal with it in a Smash like game was just tragic. We are all cursed to experience the battlepass-ification of every single genre in real time
And yes, it can never be a "normal" battle pass where you get some fun rewards over time... every game wants you to treat it like a full time job now
There is nothing good about battle passes, Paid DLC was way better
I always thought Battle Pass' should only be for free to play games
Even need for speed has a battle pass. It’s like why?
I never cared about cosmetics, so if the battle pass is purely cosmetic, that's cool with me
Haven't even watched the video yet and the title made me want to like it already!
Have a great freaking day Drifty
You too!
Hey I've never paid for battle pass or any micro transactions whatsoever. I'm old school and will never sell out to those money hungry leaches who wanna monetize ever little thing. Paying $70.00 for a game is too expensive to begin with but I still do it because I prefer physical games.
Holy Jesus you are so out of sync with reality if you think $70 is a lot in 2024 you probably shouldn't be spending money on a PC or console either.
I'm old school and remember spending more than $70 on SNES games and otherwise remember having paid mostly $60 for over 2 decades as if inflation doesn't exist for anyone and anything involved with making a game.
You can choose not to pay $70 amd wait fot a deal but to say that is over paying is ridiculous.
@@aelinstue9431it's literally the other way round lmao, gaming companies (executives) are making gigantic profits from microtransactions and online services, releasing completely broken half baked embarrassments then expecting the customer to foot the bill by upping the price of games because they KNOW people will still buy them for $70 or subscribe to an online service, they always win in the end. You are absolutely delusional.
@@aelinstue9431My guy, $70 can mean the difference between people being able to survive or not. You don't know the value of a dollar.
@@Game4Lord You think somebody struggling to survive over $70 is going to be debating buying a game? Really?
The only games I've ever spent real money on in-game stuff were free to play titles that I've played for over 1k hours already. And even then, I only spent as much as I would have if it was a normal "buy to play" game.
FOMO bullshit in general is ruining gaming
Finding AFK xp exploits in CoD through warzone is always hilarious to me 😹😹 I aint grinding all that bs i'll just play when I want to, and AFK exploit when i'm busy. ☠️
I think the problem boils down to when they first got introduced we grinded the bp cause we loved the game but now people play the game just to grind bp and devs are like oh you want to give your money and we just drip feed mid content why wouldn’t they keep doing it
I think battle passes aren't inherently bad, it's the FOMO aspect of it that sucks. FOMO is so powerful that people will outright buy the battle pass instead of playing the game.
I heard some games do it well because they keep every pass available at all times. I don't remember which games do this though.
It's kinda like most monetization models. It's not inherently bad on paper but the moment it's used to manipulate the players, it turns something fun to something scummy.
Single Player Gamer to Multiplayer Gamer:
“Wow, sucks to be you.”
I have never not once paid for a battle pass
Having booted up old mw3 2011 a couple days ago. I realized just how much advertising is being pushed on the games now. Always have to click through a screen telling you to buy the next game , buy the battle pass, buy this buy that. Its annoying
I hate the time investment needed for battle passes, even before season 5 of DRG it was stressful getting the time in to get what I wanted from the pass even if I didn't really feel like playing it. Thankfully they let you pick any season now. ROCK AND STONE
Halo Infinite had the best battle pass system... you can work on any battlepass whenever you want as long as you buy it!
Honestly, the only type of battlepass I'm willing to buy are the non-expiring ones. For me, at this point any type of FOMO is a reason for me to actually miss out. There's no reason for a digital good to have an expiry date. It's not dairy. It's ones and zeros.
Thats why I love Apex Legends BP, because ok, You need to do missions that force You to play specific way... but You always have a choice between 3 characters per week, You can swap mission for another one... or... there are certain missions that You can go in other game modes... also the biggest W for Apex is that I can hop on the game last week and do all BP in a few days because missions do stack and repeat. It is hands down the best BP Ive ever seen (altho it doesnt have the best rewards but thats whatever)... and its funny that EA (which in many ppl eyes is one of the worst companies out there, can make the best BP ever while Valve which kinda invented the whole BP system made it the worst cancer Ive ever seen in my life just after a couple of years).
edit: no Fortnite didnt invented BPs... they stole it from Valve like many other ideas from other games.
Maybe I'm old too. I don't play any games with a battle pass (I don't game much anymore overall) and I can't bring myself to really care to. I don't like the idea of the game telling me how and how much I should be playing. When I do hop on a CoD or whatever I'm just there to point and shoot.
What I worry here is inertia. It's hard to roll back changes once an industry has done them. Look at how no one likes the crunch culture of the industry but also a big title without pristine graphics and physics engines gets mocked, so the overworking continues. People are used to having opt-in subscription services with floods of "content". If a title in the same genre were to choose against this strategy it would be seen as a downgrade. And gaming communities are exceptionally knee jerk.
Neither XDefiant nor COD battle passes have anything interesting because they're first person shooters so character skins are worthless (just like emotes, stickers, 2XP token and whatever other stupid filler content they have) and the mastery camos look better than the battle pass weapon skins anyway as they keep all the really good ones behind a separate paywall so I don't care if I miss out on that stuff, I don't even buy battle passes anymore so I never get fatigue, but I'm sick of seeing them in every game... on a different note, the only games that do game passes right are Halo Infinite, Helldivers 2 and Sker Ritual, where they never go away and whenever you pick up the game you can still unlock everything!
I think battle passes need to stop having time limits, I cant keep up with all my favourite games having limited time to unlock things. If I could but current passes on games and approach them whenever i wanted id feel like im playing the game for fun and not like a chore i have to do so i dont miss out on content. It feels like gambling in a way, u pay for the pass but its not guaranteed youll have the time amd effort required to finish it. Rant over guys. 😆