Opinion: Should TU be free to play?

no, just no

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No.

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No.

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As a consumer, I would not feel too keen on PTG switching to one of the most despicable business models in the industry.

Also you’re conveniently leaving out the fact that GTA Online has a $60 entry fee.

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TU was announced as a paid game.
TU was advertised as a paid game.
TU was explicitly promised to exclude any and all microtransactions.
TU was given a final selling price of $15 both in and out of Early Access.

The core of TU is simply a place where people are more or less on equal footing and everyone just wants to have fun. Introducing microtransactions also introduces the notion that people who pay money can get more than those who don’t; in essence, people who pay are more powerful than everyone else. It doesn’t matter how real the claim is, it is a stigma that TU has been adamant to avoid. The backer rewards alone have caused some controversy, and those were a one and done deal at a very crucial point in TU’s lifecycle. Those were justified because, without it, there would be no TU.

To suddenly go back on all of that would not only introduce problems; it would be a big middle finger to everyone who trusted the devs and what they promised. It would bring nothing but harm to TU.

In short, the answer is “no.”

Though a free trial weekend would not be out of the question when TU gets more polished.

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Use the bloody search function next time, will ya?

The game is in Early Access and advertised accordingly. There will always be times with more or less players depending on factors such as time.

I very highly doubt Pixeltail will pull a Starbreeze on Microtransactions… (Scroll down a little for the full story.)

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I used the search function but nothing came up, probably because I searched “Free to Play” and not “F2P”. Sorry about that.

In regards to Payday, what they added is different than what I’m suggesting. They was selling actual content on the store, my suggestion was simply allow users to buy Units if they do not want to earn them by traditional means. I’m not saying sell clothes or items, simply allow users to buy Units or earn Units.

I understand why some users (or most current users) would be unhappy with it.

Pixeltail games have made a pact to never include microtransactions in their games. A free game will not feed them, therefore the game cannot be free.

Besides, free-to-play games generally attract those who wouldn’t pay a single penny for a game, and they tend to not be healthy to the community…

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I am always late for discussions like these, but:

Pixeltail Games cannot make the game F2P anymore without causing massive controversy. It has been set in stone hard that TU will be a paid game without microtransactions, and Mac mentioned this millions of times by now.
While it is possible that F2P would bring in a lot of new players, the quality of the playerbase could be questioned. This is the case with pretty much all F2P games.

Don’t forget they will make other games too, they won’t base themselves on Tower Unite for profit.

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No. Nope. Nerp. Nadda. Hell naw

No one wants F2P, including the devs themselves. The lack of microtransactions is specifically why I love this game. F2P just opens the floodgates to every single 12yr old with a PC and a headset and I don’t want that garbage invading the, currently, quite friendly community. There are a good number of people that currently have the game, they just dont actively play it because they are waiting for closer to full release. The devs don’t seem too worried about playerbase right now; I think it was Mac or Caboose that even said that in another thread. When more content churns out, and comes closer to a v1.0 release, you’ll see more players show up. I am confident in that.

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but

no

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fuck no

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It should not…there are no micro-transactions nor will there ever be

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If the game will make the free online course will be more, but this is only one plus …
Better not to think about minuses.:worried:

NO.
Even though Tower Unite made over 70k in the indiegogo, they still need the money to make the game.
Also dont you get how this works?

If someone makes a game and someone buys it the money goes to the person who created the game.

Our kickstarter failed and we got none of the money from that. We only got the Indiegogo funds (73k) which we spent to develop the build that was shipped for initial Early Access release. So, no, we didn’t get 100k from crowd funding. Just clearing that up because I want to be completely transparent about our crowd funds.

But, yes, we need money to pay our developers. Games aren’t made for free. There’s a lot of labor that goes into developing games.


F2P would mean microtransactions, as we would need a way to generate money to pay for development of the game.

We want a virtual world game where you get access to every bit of content through gameplay. Tower doesn’t entirely fit into the virtual world genre, in my opinion, as it’s not trying to recreate the real world or replace the real world, it’s just a fun virtual resort type game. But I digress…

The “social aspect” you mention is just popularity. A game has to offer something that people desire. Making it free wouldn’t satisfy that desire, only simulate it. I’m not saying Tower isn’t desirable, just that generally, a game has to be good (fun) for anyone to play it (paid or not).

We thought long about our decisions and it’s way too late into the game to really change the pay model. Plus, I personally dislike paying for in-game currency. We’d also have to spend tons of hours to ensure the in-game currency is completely balanced and unhackable.

It ends up going against what we want for Tower. We aren’t a AAA game company with hundreds of employees. We’re a small team. Our goal is to create a game worth $15 and I feel, so far, we’re keeping steady with our goal.

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Ok thanks ill edit that
:slight_smile:

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For me the 7th result of “free to play” is a post from that thread. Not sure what happened for you there.

It’s not what they were selling. It’s the fact they promised they wouldn’t add microtransactions:

“We’ve made it clear that PAYDAY 2 will have no micro-transactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!)”

But then they did and the community didn’t like it. A few profits later, they kind of removed them again.
Luckily Pixeltail is more a group of friends living their dream than a profit-oriented company.

Negative.

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