The problem with free-to-play games.

When I think of free things I think of the best things namely, food. But now, the games industry has ruined the idea of free things. They have created this evil scheme to lure gamers into thinking that they are getting a great deal when in fact, gamers are being deceived.

There are many games that take this deceptive approach. As Iwata of Nintendo said recently said, it's not free-to-play, it's free-to-start. This is something that I have found when I downloaded the free games on my PS4. You can read more about my PS4 experience here.

One of the worst culprits I have encountered so far has to be Blacklight: Retribution.

I have a love/hate relationship with this game.

I have to start by saying, I actually like this game and I understand that the PS4 version is in a BETA stage. I don't really play FPS games anymore. I used to play CoD, but I got tired of its repetitive nature. That being said, I downloaded Blacklight for two reasons: 1. It was free. 2. My PS4 game library was looking really empty. When I first started playing the game I was surprised by how easy it was to pick up and play and most of all, it was fun. However, once I had settled into the game, I wanted to see the way the in-game purchases worked. It was at this point the disgust set in. The game uses a rental system for the in-game purchases. You earn credits or money that you to spend in the game store for upgrades and things of that nature. However, it only allows you access to the item you bought for a certain amount of time or you have to spend real money to obtain another form of currency in order for you to unlock items now and continue to use them after the BETA has concluded. I just find this sort of thing really annoying. It just creates a imbalance for players. On one side you have players that pay to have the best items and these players have an instant advantage over characters that choose to refrain from paying for these privileges.

DC Universe Online is slightly different in its approach to free-to-play. Instead of paying for everything, you can pay for DLC and extra content without being completely limited in the way you can play.

Warframe is like a cross between DCUO and Blacklight. You can play and enjoy the game without having to feed it your entire life savings. However, it does restrict items that you should be able to access in order to force you to buy game currency. I have found that I can still play the game and not have to pay for anything but, if I am completely honest this feels very limited. Knowing that there is so much content in the game that I can not access simply because I choose not to pay for it can be frustrating.

Overall, I found the whole free-to-play system frustrating. The question is, what do you think? Let me know in the comments!