Free-to-play in Pokemon Games

[Poké Bean]

Nothing divides like money! What are your thoughts on Nintendo introducing this pay model into the Pokemon franchise? Is it something more suited to mobile games? Do you think it devalues 3DS games? Does it give more people the opportunity or incentive to try out Pokemon games? Would your head explode if they tried it with the main series?!

I'm not against free-to-play if it's done right. A lot of mobile games seem just gross money grabbers but I don't think that's the case with Nintendo, I think they're just trying to compete.

Having said that, as far as perceived value for money, I think Rumble World works much much better than Shuffle as in Rumble you're actually buying something tangible and lasting for your game rather than seeing your money just disappear.

It's difficult to say for the main series as I don't know how they would implement it but I think I'd rather pay up front and have a full game from the start. I'm happy for them to try it again with smaller spin-off games.

There is another issue to consider with this in that free-to-play only works with downloadable games. I would be very sad to not have a main series game on a cartridge as well as the bigger spin-offs.

 

[Sun]

It devalues not only the 3DS games, but 3DS and even the Pokémon franchise! Unless it's a very unique yet fun game, otherwise I'm not really a fan of such and I'm against them.

The microtransactions make me feel like the game developers or Nintendo are desperate for cash.

I just hope that they won't apply the microtransaction stuff over the main core Pokémon games.

 

[Megan]

I'm no fan of f2p in general. Most of these games abuse one of two really annoying systems in order to drain the money out of non-casual players, as in you're either seeing advertisement the whole time, or the game forces you to play by its own pace and by that I mean, you're forced to play the waiting game...a lot. That is, unless you pay a little bit of money, to speed things up.

Shuffle, for example, limits your playtime by a handful tries, all in all, that's about enough for 10-20 minutes worth of playtime, before you have to wait 2.5 hours before you can take advantage of the full playtime again. Combine that with an easy skinner box system, that abuses people's desire for accomplishment, and you create an addicting game, that looks like fun on the outside, while being rotten to the core in the inside.
I mean, look at the prices they want you to pay in order to make your playtime longer. It doesn't look like much, but the more you play and the more you pay, it all adds up and more sooner than later, you end up spending more money on a match 3 game, than your latest main series game.

I'm not saying, Nintendo should refrain from making use for f2p games, they should just look for a system, that's not as gameplay disrupting.

Pokemon, sadly, has a lot of things that can be abused in order to gain money, considering there a over 700 of them, but at least I think, the main series should be relatively save. Fortunately, the main series is too different from the f2p market, which means if they ever decided to go that route, a lot of people will start complaining, which should be something, that hinders GF/Nintendo, to build it into the games, hopefully.

 

[Starry Windy]

For me, every gaming makers need to understand how F2P (or Free-To-Start, as Nintendo calls it) works and how to make it enjoyable to everyone while still cashing some potential money for them, Pokémon included, because it can be a success or failure depending on how it's executed.

In case of Pokémon, I'm pretty sure Rumble World is one of the Free-To-Start games done right because you can play it with your own pace if you needed to, without any forcing elements available (unless if you want to get more balloons).

Initially I also enjoyed Shuffle and its gameplay, but it has big flaws, not only because of Free-To-Start system, but also because of time-limited events which causes me to force myself into my limit if I want to play it for getting a rare Pokémon or Mega Stones (not to mention some are having low catch rate), which sort of ruins the experience for me.

Despite Free-To-Start mechanic might work fine on Pokémon spin-offs as long as the game doesn't pressure you to get achievements and all, I'm against it being implemented on main games because it would ruin the experience of every Pokémon gamer.

 

[Frozen Lotus]

By Free-to-Play do you mean micro-transaction content? Basically a free base game where all the extra stuff has to be paid for? If some... I'm not even aware of it existing in the Pokemon series. Sounds like a bad idea in general, though. It's very rarely done properly and it just doesn't suit Nintendo.

 

[Drayton]

I'm not much big fan of freemiums and I like it much better if Nintendo just publish main series than desperately milking people's wallet because they release shuffle and rumble world. I enjoy rumble world more than shuffle; Rumble World stuff are actually permanent so they won't disappear after you used them (of course, you want more balloons than go ahead) it have no candy crush-ish heart system and lots more enjoyable all the way while Shuffle is bit trial and error, several contest rewarding mega stones/mons for limited time, rare pokemons come and go from time-to-time it makes you just lock up and the horrible catch ratio is just plain awful (more moves = better catch rate, less move = least better catch rate/no bonus) unless you want to use great ball to boost the catch ratio and did I mention 2 currencies (coins and jewels), coins on first go gets big value than small value for repeated stage, expect meowth special which gives lots of coins and jewel awarded on competive zone and after boss battle going and the boss can be hard sometimes


Freemium may not be good model for spin off just to get something desire or achieve something, you just better play games that doesn't push in-app purchase than freemium