AggroChat #223 – Freemium Monetization

Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast and Kodra

aggrochat223

This week we are down half of our show, but weirdly enough ended up very close to our original line up from the first few AggroChat shows…  only missing Rae. We were concerned we might not have enough material for a show, but wound up only about 10 minutes short of our average which seems pretty good.  Tonight we talk about Monetization in Free to Play games and in part why some games it feels good to spend money on, and others it feels exploitative. This explores mobile games and mmorpgs as well.  From there Bel talks a bit about his experiences restarting with Monster Hunter World PC and how weirdly most of the progress was raising his skill and not necessarily his gearing. Kodra talks about his experiences with Mega Man 11 which leads to a discussion of this golden age of modern 2D side scrollers.  Finally we wrap things up with some discussion about Guilds of Ravnica and how it feels in a constructed and sealed environment on MTG Arena.

Topics Discussed

  • Free to Play Monetization
    • Mobile Games
    • Dragalia Lost
    • MMORPGs
    • Elder Scrolls Online
    • Star Wars the Old Republic
    • Neverwinter
  • Monster Hunter World
    • Skill Acquisition vs Gear Acquisition
    • Small but awesome PC community
  • Mega Man 11
    • Hollow Knight
    • Shovel Knight
    • Celeste
    • Bloodstained: Circle of the Moon
    • Retro Feeling Modern Games
  • Guilds of Ravnica
    • MTG Arena
    • Sealed Play
    • Constructed Play

AggroChat #222 – Gacha of Mana

Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

aggrochat222

Tonight my stalwart friends managed to make me completely fail at getting through the intro once more.  The truth is I never know what Ash is going to say when I call upon him… tonight was not a thing I was expecting.  The first game discussed was Spiderman for PS4 which had rolled over from a few shows. Next up the start of the MTG Arena Open Beta and the end of wipes…  so that everything from this point in theory carried forward indefinitely. Kodra talks about his experiences playing Celeste and its interesting variable difficulty settings.  We talk about Dragalia Lost and how it is once again taking the world by storm… as most Nintendo mobile releases seem to. Finally we talk a bit about Battle for Azeroth and why some of the systems and the grind involved with them feels bad and often times pointless.

Topics Discussed:

  • Spiderman PS4
  • MTG Arena – Open Beta
  • Celeste
  • Dragalia Lost
  • World of Warcraft Grind