The Cost of 'Fun'

Triple AAA, Steam, Indie, Free-to-play. These are probably just a few of the labels that are pasted onto video games. Another thing pasted onto them(Since you know, they are products), is price tags.

But then I've been thinking:
How do you measure the 'value' of fun a game has and put a price tag on it? (I.E Monetization in gaming).
So I made a list of how games have been earning bucks.

When in arcades, their source of income come from pennies. Coins. The game cabinets required a small amount per play.Arcade tokens soon came in, being a kind of 'exchanged currency' for you to use in that land of fun, though now arcade credits are stored in smart cards(Thank heavens. Those tokens were nightmarish to keep and heavy...).  An arcade game's earnings are mostly dependent on the user(s), how good they are at the game and how much their willing to fork out to keep playing, though there were some machines that were rigged to only /possibly/ give a win after a certain amount of plays, doll catchers or prize machines to be specific. Though not as popular as before, arcades still have an appeal, seeing that the cost per play was cheap and that certain games are pretty much exclusive to them due to the software and hardware, such as guitar controllers. Though the games are cheap to play, it's the travel fares to arcades that probably take a bulk of expenditure(For those unfortunate to be far from one anyway).

As for game consoles, their income of course came from the games sold (Originally anyway). Back when gaming was first starting, there probably wasn't much on games design or quality control in the industry, so early games could be made by almost anyone who knows programming. Such a bloat of terrible games of course caused consumers to start doubting publishers, with one of the last straws being E.T for the Atari.
This decline in trust for video games lead to its major collapse.

Infamous for being a major part of the 

industry crash in 1983

After it was revived, the industry seemed slowly picked up on the concept of proper quality checks(for the most part, anyway). It would seem that these console games had to measure their costs by the amount used not just in production, but advertising as well. Naturally starting with TV ads and print media, games now focus more on online advertising and gaming sites, with print media still being used while TV ads are practically non-existent since they are more expensive. Sadly, as certain publishers pool a lot of money into ad campaigns, they end up having a loss in revenue(Tomb Raider sold 3.4 MILLION COPIES).

As technology became more advanced, online transactions came in. Games could be purchased online after a user has had a try of the free demo provided. Such games tend to be much cheaper to purchase due to the absence of a physical disc to pile on the production costs. These kind of games also provided users a basic preview of what they were going to get, unlike console games where by the only few ways to tell if a game was good was to either hear it from others, or buying the game and hoping it would be good, which was in essence going in blind sometimes. The quality of the games might be mediocre, however, since the sites can basically be just there for advertisements.

Downloadable content for games(DLC) were like a branch off of online transactions. They provided more content for an existing game after purchase, thus placing more replayability onto a game. Besides additional game content, however, DLC also let developers patch up issues that a game might have which are spotted after the game has been shipped. Although this can be a good thing for a game to have good optional content to stack onto what it, some games take it as an excuse to release a relatively buggy or glitchy game, their reason being "We'll fix it in a patch at a later date". Some games even cut off content from a game that are supposed to be there(I.E Special modes or costumes that used to be rewards for finishing the game). The cost of certain content are also unjust, considering that they could only consist aesthetics that do not affect the gameplay. Certain DLCs could have been free had certain developers the choice, but publishers can possibly force them to 'sell' their DLC instead of distributing it for free(See also: Epic Games and Microsoft)

Massive Multiplayer Online games soon introduced a new form of monetization: The free-to-play model. In essence, the game itself was free, requiring a user to just register, download and play. How these kind of games earn money is by having players purchase items with virtual currency traded from real life money. The functionality of these items can vary from being merely aesthetic to making one's character more powerful (In which can possibly cause a game to become what is known as a "Pay-to-Win" game if they focus on the latter. That's bad).

With the age of smartphone games, microtransactions came in. Considering that these kind of games are to be played at one's spare time, be it during travel or awaiting something, their transactions tend to dabble more on providing the user more 'playtime', as they tend to limit the amount one can play in a sitting. Besides that, they can also provide a user an advantage in the game, such a premium items or units that help them progress, or expand on a certain aspect or resource. Some smartphone games, however, exploit this by basically making the wait times between play tortuously long or make the process of going through certain portions of the game very tedious without purchasing the premium item.

At the end of all of this, each method of monetization has it's advantages and disadvantages, the only question being how well they're executed and the interaction between buyer and publisher. A good way would be to ensure a buyer is WILLING. Because when they don't feel like their wasting money, they'll feel like spending more(Or at least consider spending more). A publisher should also keep realistic goals and be careful not to overspend on ads, trusting that their game would be good enough to spread by word of mouth as well.

Game Review:CosmicBreak

Being a guy, liking robots is an almost natural thing. Mechs have been a good part of my hobby and interests for a long time(once even having me consider being an engineer). As such, almost anything with that pasted on would most likely catch and keep my attention. There is one that has it's ups and (horribly plunging) downs. That would be the MMO CosmicBreak.

CosmicBreak is a Free to Play 3D Third-Person Shooter developed and published by CyberStep, with its selling points being that it's a mecha game with intense battles in the style of anime. It's the technical sequel to Cyberstep's C21, another Third-Person mecha game.

The US server of the game had a sadly terrible 'chronicle' while it lasted.....

The game is set in an a alternate universe to C21, being labelled as the Cosmic Ark. In this universe, ancient, titanic robot gods known as Arks awaken from a long slumber to find their galaxy having been taken over by an opposing force known as The Chaos. Due to having been inactive for aeons, the energies of the three remaining great Arks(Each representing Wisdom, Courage and Strength) are drained, which there only being enough to full revive one of the Arks.  Unions consisting of those who follow each of the Arks have been formed and now compete for their Ark's revival in order to defeat the Chaos.

Besides the main story, however, certain characters also have back stories, such as the one of the poster characters of the game Crimrose, and her companion Ivis.

 When a player starts, they will get the choice of what initial robot they would begin the game with. After the basic tutorial, the player would be given the choice to join one of the three Unions and fight for them.

There are 3 Game modes: Arena, Mission and Quest.

The main gameplay involves the player setting up a Commando of three units to use. In battle, the player would use one of the units until it is destroyed

Example of a Commando

As seen on the interface, there's a 'Total Cost', the result of the Cost of every machine. In Arena or Mission mode, when a machine is defeated, their cost is deducted from a BP counter. The match or mission ends in a loss when the BP reaches zero. Quest mode differs in that uses a time limit as the main goal of it is to beat a super-powered mob within it. As such, time gets deducted for each death until time is over.

The selling point of the game is the customization of their robots, both in weapons and performance. Besides changing parts and weapons, players can also affect the statistics by 'Tuning up' parts. Tuned parts provide extra boosts in stats, such as movement on the ground and the robots health, though how much they will affect differs between the type of bots. Speaking of which, robots in the game are split to 4-classes:Land, Artillery, Air and Support. The first three form a Scissors, Paper, Stone dynamic(Land is strong against Artillery, Artillery is strong against Air etc) while the Support types are balanced, though they tend not to have as extensive direct battle capabilities. Further depth is added with sizes:Small, Medium and Large. The size affects what a robot can equip and how well the stats will affect them.

Example of an M-sized AIR unit. They don't like explosive surprises.

This makes Arenas battles more team based, as each player would need to look out for each other to make up for their weaknesses.

The game excels in the realm of customization, as players can build up robots that fit into their own playstyles in a team. Feedback in game is also done very well, with proper prompts when a player is targeted. There is a decent cycle of maps in the game that would make a player change what they should use, ensuring that each match varies to a degree.

Each map has an advantage and disadvantage. Choose what you use wisely.

The game sustains itself with RT and their Garapon System, of which players pay real world money to buy robots or roll what is basically a lottery, where they could get new , premium robots and weapons. 1x rolls cost USD $4 while a 5x roll costs $16

AND HERE IS WHERE IT GOES DOWNHILL.

That this game employs one of the most horrid business models for Free-To-Play MMOs: Pay to Win. Even worse though, is the fact that it's stacked with LUCK.

Every roll will have an animation telling what you MIGHT get. 

Those who see this only see despair.

Charging RT to get options would not be too much an issue were it not for the fact most of the good parts and robots are to be found in the Garapon, with the shop items being subpar(Although with recent overhauls, new stocks in the shops are at least much better than it's initial 2 years).

Those who get better machines tend to almost definitely dominate their opposition. Sometimes even if their opposition IS A TYPE THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT SO WELL AGAINST.

One of the most overpowered machines in game EVEN AFTER NERFS.

Also, Mission and Quest modes are rarely updated. Quests are still relevant in game as they provide Tune Up Materials, but Missions are basically mostly forgotten at this point once a player gets over the tutorial teaching them about the modes. At least until the devs add a new mission with limited drops or something

No one plays this. 

The reason being that the missions are too hard and the resulting rewards being insubstantial.

Because this game is PvP focused and as said with the Garapon incident, balancing is pretty hard to execute, with it being totally possible for a team to lose utterly and devastatingly bad with no chance to fight back.

Overall, the game deserves a 5.5/10. As a PvP Third Person Shooter, it had the potential to be great, as customizing in the game works well. Sadly, the monetization model chops off a good chunk of the score, as you're paying to have the CHANCE for better options, meaning you need to be lucky(Or have a lot of expandable income) for more customization or better machines. Also, the near complete negligence of a game mode feels like a sin.