Would you play a free to play infinite roguelike whose only microtransaction was permanently unlocking permadeath for a single character / run and what do you think the fair price per character for this kind of monetization should be?

Submitted by LasciviousApemantus t3_10q3mgu in gaming

Edit: I mean permadeath and the standard roguelike elements is standard for every run but you can pay to keep that character permanently. Like an infinite arcade token for infinite "continues"

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StupidGenius11 t1_j6nlqtz wrote

To be blunt: fuck pay-to-win gaming, and this is precisely that.

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SaiyajinPrime t1_j6nlvjk wrote

Why would I pay to unlock permadeath?

Maybe you can explain the possible benefit of paying for that.

Cuz if I wanted permadeath on a character enough that I would be willing to specifically pay for it per character, couldn't I just stop playing that character once I died? Making permadeath free.

It makes no sense.

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MrWednsday t1_j6nlyio wrote

I would rather pay for the game and have everything. Microtransactions i think its a bad idea.

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asunamyag t1_j6nmgqk wrote

So if I die, I get sent back to some checkpoint, but if I want to restart the run from scratch I have to pay? Why would I do that rather than just continuing?

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SaiyajinPrime t1_j6nmt00 wrote

Replying to LasciviousApemantus (#1,667,315)

It sounds like what you're describing here is the exact opposite of what your post is asking.

It sounds like what you're saying is permadeath would be the standard, and you would pay to remove permadeath from a character you liked.

Which sounds like an absolute bullshit mechanic.

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Sophia724 t1_j6nqf7r wrote

This seems more money hungry than electronic arts.

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Resident-Wonder36 t1_j6nxgby wrote

It would depend on the gameplay and how much $ per character. Let's say I wanna pay for a character to keep for $5, I guess I could see myself or others paying for it, but again it would have to really have some fucking banger gameplay to keep me drawn in.

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ThreeStoogesFan t1_j6nxkgv wrote

This reminds me of a few games I've read about, yesteryear. One was roguelite where viewers could have say in what kind of run, a player would encounter. Kind of like running man. And another one was where if a player died, they lost access to the game, meaning permadeath. Don't recall much else about them.

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dat_potatoe t1_j6o64xh wrote

Doing that in a permadeath MMO like Realm of the Mad God would be one thing. Where a character takes 20 hours to maximize their stats, and then can be used for hundreds of hours beyond that to grind for general account progress.

But in a roguelike, a singleplayer game designed around short 2-8 hour runs, where survival during that singular run is the entire point...I don't see why I would. I don't see why I would pay real money to revive myself in Risk of Rain 2 or something.

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IncognitoSlug123 t1_j6o7e45 wrote

I wouldn't play that game, no. If the base game was balanced well, I might pay for different game modes that could include different death mechanics, but I wouldn't pay to throw off the balance in a game I liked as is. Throw in a few achievements and put it up on steam and I might pay for almost no changes, just to support the dev(s) (I did it for Tales of Maj'Eyal).

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Sycokinetic t1_j6ofxgx wrote

No, the keep-your-character mechanic sabotages a core characteristic of the genre; and the mechanic doesn’t benefit in any way from being paywalled.

You could have locked it behind an in-game challenge or a puzzle, or you could have buried it away subtly as a kind of “assassins creed style memory device”. But instead it’s just a microtransaction.

Its only purpose is to generate money, not provide a meaningful service or enable a unique experience. That’s predatory.

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jdeezy t1_j6p2w4t wrote

Just release the game with one char. And have other chars behind a one and done paywall

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