Valve’s MMOFPS
I left World of Warcraft ages ago because I was unable to keep myself from the siren call of conditioning under diminishing returns. I went on for a while with various games that promised a fixed ending, or at least a reasonable episodic period that I could withdraw without consequence. Oh, it was working so well.
My favourite for a while has been Team Fortress 2. It’s gameplay is balanced, varied and provides opportunity for both team and solo work. More importantly, I could pop in, play a round or two for some 20 minutes, then pop back out without being drawn in too deeply.
Recently, however, Valve changed things up a bit. I won’t repeat their post, but the short of it is that players that play more are rewarded with special items. My first reaction was “Yay, presents!”, that is until I realized what it meant: to get them I have to grind. It’s like a recovered junkie learning that Kellog’s started putting heroin in their cereal.
I understand that Valve has a stake in keeping the community alive; New players see an active community with a supportive publisher and decide to purchase the game. Still, I suppose I’ll need to retreat back into the single player indie games that don’t care about me after I’ve purchased their product. Fortunately, that genre has been doing quite well for itself.