Nintendo splats the
competition
The Battlefront II saga continued this week, as the Belgium
investigation returned some results: loot boxes have been officially credited
as gambling devices, and they’re looking to get them banned in the EU! Now,
there was some issues with mistranslations here so that might not be 100%
accurate, but the testament to what they’re trying to accomplish stands.
Similarly, Australia is beginning to take investigation into loot boxes, and
over in Hawaii government officials called out the game, telling parents to
avoid buying the game for kids at Christmas because, and I quote, “It’s a
trap!”
Nice.
But I went over all that last week.
Today what I really want to talk about it Nintendo and how Splatoon 2 has somehow wound up as the shining example of what all
multiplayer shooters should aspire to be.
Amidst the Battlefront fervor, Nintendo unveiled several new features to be
added to Splatoon 2 in the next few
months, including brand new maps as well as returning favourites from the
previous game, new weapons, an all-new game mode, as well as oodles of outfits
you can use to play dress-up with your squid kid.
Splatoon
2 has always been a great game, but now seeing it in direct competition to Battlefront II and some of the other
recent games in the same genre it seems like one of the best of the year in
comparison. What better way to take a shot at a game currently under
investigation for predatory gambling inclusions than to advertise a bunch of
new content in the game you can unlock with in-game cash acquired by playing
the game itself?
It’s kinda sad how we’ve reached this
point, actually. We’re celebrating a game that came out in July purely because
we can get the new stuff the developer added without having to face down
paywalls and loot boxes and season passes and all that other guff that most
triple-A folks love to cram into their games these days. If I want to buy a new
hat for my Inkling, I can go to the in-game store, use the near endless and
generous supply of coins the game gives me, and buy it. No reaching into my
real-life wallet, just good old-fashioned video games.
People love to joke about how behind
the times Nintendo is, and yes, they’re not wrong. Nintendo’s policy with
YouTube and their voice chat services are both extremely archaic. But with the
Year of the Loot Box, I’ve realized how happy I am that Nintendo isn’t
conforming to what the rest of the industry is doing. Imagine a Super Mario Odyssey where the purple
coins were a bullcrap second currency you needed to pay real money to get more
of, or a Breath of the Wild where you
could reach into your wallet and get some easy weapons, or a Splatoon 2 where the cool gear was only
available in loot boxes.
Yes, having the gear in loot boxes
would have extreme monetary value for Nintendo, especially with the bonuses
tied to them leading people to buy tons trying to get the buffs they want. But
instead they went the high road and allowed you to buy items the same way you
always bought items in games in the ye olden times before online connectivity
felt like a must-have for every game on the market.
Maybe I’m just a 21-year old grandpa
who needs to get with the times, but with all the chaos going on surrounding Battlefront II and loot boxes and all
that garbage which will hopefully lead to them finally being excised from
gaming as a whole, it’s nice to kick back with a game in the same genre that
isn’t afraid to play it old-school, leaving me reaching for the controller to
play more instead of reaching for my wallet to pay more.
Song of the Week
Riptide Rupture – Splatoon 2
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