I think I'm on the short list of people who generally don't mind freemium games. I'm speaking specifically about tablet/phone games. 95% of the freemium games you can play for free. It just takes significantly longer to play while you wait out timers, grinding for in game currency, et al. If I am getting several hours of enjoyment out of a game, I don't see the harm in dropping them a fiver or a ten. After all, it is a game they provided to me for FREE. I'm not owed any certain amount of content for free.

Granted, this has to be done responsibly. It's easy to get caught up and get sucked in to impulse buys at five dollars at a time.

Pokemon Shuffle's freemium aspects aren't bad at first, but when you're spending several hours farming coins before you can have a legitimate chance of just beating the next stage in the later stages, it's not very fun. Hopefully they'll release the game on cart like they did Rumble World.

Tablet gaming isn't the dark side if you play the good games. Hearthstone is a quality Blizzard game (although it was a PC game first, it translated perfectly for tablet play) and you don't need to spend money if you are a good player and can earn more gold than it costs to enter Arenas. It's really not hard to reach that level.

I've been playing a lot of Clash Royale for the last few months too, and I really enjoy it. I never played the other Supercel games since they seem like the stereotypical tablet "pay to win" games but this one is very good. You won't be a world ranked player unless you spend money, but the game is still great to play since you get paired against opponents at your level and I haven't spent a dime.

Ha!  Very true.

Similar thing with the "energy meter" in Quartet, where it influences both your life meter AND your weapon power.
(you could pump $2 worth of quarters into the game to get max-power from the start)

 

DLC and microtransactions will always make me think of Oblivion Horse Armor.

That was definitely what I expected to see in the OP when I came into a thread about the "stupidest examples of DLC".

 

I love Horse Armor now because it was $2 for a line line of cosmetics and horses (and technically a minor quest). It caused such an outcry at the time and no one would blink an eye these days. Now lists of $3-5 DLC for little additions are totally the norm.

That is the reason why I don't buy any new games until the game is on sale with all the DLC included. I got my Civ with all the DLC for around $10 on a sale and without that sale, there would be no reason for me wanting to buy PC games.

Didn't read the list, but good lord Train Simulator on Steam. 251 pieces of DLC. Then there's the price...

I've probably purchased less than a half-dozen pieces of DLC in my life and I've never spent a penny on any of those "freemium" mobile games. With those, I'll play them until I reach the point that the lack of content/necessity for grinding begins to rear it's ugly head and then I quit and move on to another. It's one thing to ask me to pay up-front for your game. You want $5 or $10? Okay. But to ask me to pay real money for "coins" or "lives" or "skins" or "stat boosts" is just about the quickest way to lose my interest.

This guy gets it. I'm seriously considering selling my PS4 because it seems like every single game has them now and I refuse to support that trash. 

 

DLC/Microtransactions are a big part of what make me hate modern gaming. I've lost so much interest in new games, minus Nintendo. At least Nintendo's games have a full game right out of the gate. Yeah Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros Wii U and Hyrule Warriors had DLC but I paid for quality and that's what I got. Even without the DLC those games are full games not watered down experiences forced to make you buy DLC to get the complete" experience.

Precisely why I gave Mario Kart 8 as a perfect example of how to do DLC right.

So now microtransactions are now making the news with the idea that they are a form of gambling...and it's sad that people are wasting thousands of dollars on lottery tickets, eh I mean lootboxes on fake mobile/tablet games (that often get discontinued) when you could get all kinds of real games (like complete NES or SNES sets or something) for that kind of money! Although gaming in of itself and especially the retro gaming part will always be here to stay (because thankfully they're all physical kinds of games that can never be deleted/zapped just because the maker doesn't "feel like" supporting it anymore)...I have a very bad feeling that this kind of nonsense is going to ruin modern/new gaming.   Second gaming crash anyone?

Modern gaming isn't going to crash any time soon. It will just adjust accordingly. Perhaps it is making games $99.99 at the register, which would then be priced appropriately. More likely, since people don't like sticker shock, microtransactions and DLC, which aren't inherently the devil, will be adjusted for transparency and stop insulting the user bases' intelligence. And so it goes.

I saw that and I hope people keep piling on EA as they do not deserve to get off the hook for microtransation abuse as they're one of the worst present and in the past outside of mobile phone whale sucker catchers. They've had the media rag on them for singular points of crazy greed with their sports games excluding parts that a year earlier were included now for split charges going into a value 2-3x over the price of the game or more. What they're doing with star wars is pretty rotten and one could hope after Disney got in their face about it, they just get fed up and null that contract. Factor 5 is back, let them do Star Wars on consoles as they had a clue. And in that long shot we could see SW Rogue Squadron Trilogy which was finished on Wii make a come back on Switch.

I doubt there will be a crash, more likely just a continued shift to a new normal of games based around grinding for progression/loot (and the ability to purchase more loot). Many people are completely unphased by microtransactions and just don't care because they're optional. Half of my family is addicted to F2P grindfests and it's a matter of pride that they'll "play" for 10 hours to get something rather than spend a dollar. As long as games are big, flashy, exciting, and addicitive I don't think they're going anywhere regardless if we like the direction or not.

To piggyback on your point about Mario Kart 8 DLC (and now Breath of the Wild), it was cool that it came out long after the game was released.  It wasn't a day one thing.  This tells me that Nintendo put out what they felt was a complete game and then when it was done they moved their resources to working on extra optional content.  It isn't perfect as I am not a huge fan of DLC in general, but for optional stuff, I like how they've handled it. 

There may be other companies that handle it admirably besides Nitnendo but Wii U is the only new home console that I've had since the Gamecube came out so my scope of experience is limited.

Indeed I wanted to make clear I'm not against all of DLC/microtransactions...but they just should be kept within reason.

We are by far the vocal minority.

Dlc and microtransactions are here to stay. Either live with it, pay it, or don't support the publishers.

I had a game on the ouya called Meltdown that I really liked. It was a lot of fun with some cool gameplay mechanics, unfortunately it's upgrades and progression were designed to favor microtransactions. You could still get there with grinding, but it was a long grind. I think they pretty much ruined any chance of anyone buying a sequel to that game.

Definitions of "within reason" differ from person to person.

 

Mario Kart 8 is a perfect example of kept within reason. These games recently that are abusing the lootbox concept and are nothing more than gambling and being targeted towards minors is most definitely not within reason.

DLC is the reason why I completely ignore the PlayStation Store. Unless there's something worthy of content like Skyrim and Fallout.

You know just when I thought the bar couldn't get much lower with the IOS version of Tales of Phantasia making you pay for save spots before a boss (which in the regular game were standard)...here we have a game also on a bush league platform (Steam) that charges TEN DOLLARS just to have a second save slot!!! Dude, seriously???