That's all fine and good until some arse-waffle comes along and says "Make the areas really big and make some paths hard to find. Going from A to B now takes 15 minutes of real time!"

Or they make FFXIII. "Looks like it has big, open areas to explore, but it's actually VERY linear!"

Even good games are getting on the "how much can we cram in here?" band wagon. The game's 50+ hours already; I don't need 90 hidden bosses, 300 sidequests, and 400 cheevos tied to multiple playthroughs and RNG/choice tasks. Endless backtracking and "open world" maps are tiring, too.

I also see Captain N on DVD, as well as Spaceballs. Good stuff!

"Bu-bu-but my followers and all my work there! I can't get rid of that! *sob sob*"

It's like the "I separate the art from the artist" crowd. If it causes them even a slight bit of inconvenience or loss of fun, they can't possibly give it up. Not even if it's run by bigots and pedos.

Always unfortunate when a game could be interesting, but doesn't get any improvements and releases far too late. Still see that with games today, too: development takes longer than expected, and game releases in a state that would've been fine 5+ years ago, but isn't as fun nowadays.

I've seen a few games sold like that. Seems to work nice for short games made by solo devs. If a game I love gets an expansion pack, I'm fine with getting those (so long as it's not microtransaction/lootbox crap).

They obviously hadn't played freemium or pay-to-win games. $2 - $100 for fake "gems" to buy "coins" to buy power-ups, prize wheel spins, or decor. Also: ads and dailies!

I blame THAT shit for ruining games. Corpos couldn't resist testing it in paid games for that extra bit of profit.