Action-RPG colossus Elden Ring is reportedly getting a free-to-play mobile adaptation with in-app purchases, which takes inspiration from miHoYo’s Genshin Impact. It’s being published by Tencent, who apparently acquired the licensing rights to Elden Ring back in 2022 and put a few dozen people to work on a prototype, even as the company acquired a 16% stake in Elden Ring developer From Software.
Sad to see From licensing their good name to someone like Tencent. Be prepared to see some predatory shovelware
IMTX can be fair if these don’t abuse the players time, and offer fun content. You’re paying the game for free, mind you.
Tencent already had invested in From Software. They want to see returns, and this is how.
I disagree. Just you saying mtx can be fair is proof that younger gamers are just used to them being in the game. They shouldn’t exist. Period.
Why did you assume they are young?
Servers cost money, adding content costs money, if you want something for free, who’s paying these costs? Because if it’s the business, they won’t be in business very long if they just spend money and have nothing coming back in.
I say this as a person in their 30s, age is irrelevant here.
I feel like it’s just wrong to call these games ‘free’. They are ‘partially free’ with the incentive to extract as much money from you as possible in order to get the ‘good stuff’ or simply to avoid endless hours of unfun grinding. It’s just inferior in every way compared to games you pay for once and that’s it, because they don’t need to drip feed you ‘fun’.
Exceptions apply to competitive games that need a changing meta and content updates. New content for non-competitve ‘free’ games mostly amounts to new stuff you can buy to surpass new arbitrary walls built in front of you.
IMTX can be fair if these don’t abuse the players time, and offer fun content.
IMTX and not wasting players time are nearly mutually-exclusive. These games are designed with the MTX in mind at every single step of the process, and are made with the sole intent of maximizing MTX sales. Them wasting your time is not a mistake, but an intentional (and meticulously-researched and -designed) feature.
There are exceptions, yes, of course, but they are few and far between.
You know there are people at tencent unironically thinking “People were happy with how unmonetized Elden Ring was. How can we monetize that satisfaction?”
Usually, the devs aren’t thinking that, management is and that’s what’s shoveled downward. Still people at tencent, but I imagine it’s not everyone ludicrously evil.
I guess it’s cool that some people may be able to play the game when they wouldn’t otherwise, but yeah I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being shit.
I doubt is Elden Ring actually, probably is just the IP name with some of the assets toss over in a simplified version.
My first instinct was to check if this was an Onion article…
I definitely didn’t have Elden Ring gets a gotcha game on mobile on my 2024 bingo card.
Should call it Elden Ring Ring Ring
