Do you agree the Animal Crossing mobile spin-off "Pocket Camp" became paid?

[bigthecat_]

It's been a few months since Pocket Camp became a whole different game switching to being free to a full paid mobile game. In my opinion though, it is way better than had to pay for a monthly subscription with basically everything fun they thought in adding later on. I played it since its launch in 2017 and saw with my own eyes this game downgrade to the next level of greedyness. It was hard to believe it was made by the same company that made Fire Emblem Heroes, same for mobile, and less greedy.

 

[Megazao]

I played a bit when it came out and never checked the paid version, but I've yet to see a mobile game that gets worse after changing from F2P to paid, and I wish more games would do so instead of just closing servers (Dissidia Opera Omnia my beloved....)

 

[sunofpearl89]

I haven't played Pocket Camp, but releasing a paid, offline version of a game is preferable to killing it off when the servers are deemed unfeasible to support for whatever reason. I'm in favor of this practice.

 

[bjork]

I played the free version for awhile and fell off, but I did pick up the paid version when it became a thing. I think it's fine, you get enough materials to do everything and the events are long enough that you don't have to play for a super long time to earn all the rewards. It's nice to pop in for like 10 minutes a day, finish objectives, and then go do something else.
As far as FEH, I remember that there was some hook to the gacha that made it where... rates improved if you pulled more or something? But's it's still a gacha, so that makes it more of a cash grab to me. The actual gameplay is fine and fun, but nonstop banners means you either miss out on units and gotta hope they come back next time that holiday rolls around, or shell out that cash to try again.

 

[bigthecat_]

As far as FEH, I remember that there was some hook to the gacha that made it where... rates improved if you pulled more or something? But's it's still a gacha, so that makes it more of a cash grab to me.

Yeah, this is a thing, but despite having a gacha system, the game is fair generous giving the player orbs enough from every single mission, which made me pay nothing for all my pulls.

 

[bjork]

Yeah, this is a thing, but despite having a gacha system, the game is fair generous giving the player orbs enough from every single mission, which made me pay nothing for all my pulls.

I'm not saying it's not friendly to F2P players, and it's nice that it is. But it's a service, once the profit line dips below x amount for too long, a shutdown notice isn't far behind. That said, if they did a paid version whenever that eventual day does happen, and they set it up where you could eventually collect every character and get them to +10 or whatever the max thing was (it's probably been 3-4 years since I played so I'm not up to date), I'd totally buy that. But I don't see any running gacha game as somehow being less greedy than a paid app, because the ceiling is infinite on what you can spend in a gacha. Which is the point of that system in these games.

 

[bigthecat_]

I'm not saying it's not friendly to F2P players, and it's nice that it is. But it's a service, once the profit line dips below x amount for too long, a shutdown notice isn't far behind. That said, if they did a paid version whenever that eventual day does happen, and they set it up where you could eventually collect every character and get them to +10 or whatever the max thing was (it's probably been 3-4 years since I played so I'm not up to date), I'd totally buy that. But I don't see any running gacha game as somehow being less greedy than a paid app, because the ceiling is infinite on what you can spend in a gacha. Which is the point of that system in these games.

That's basically why I hate mobile games and why I think Pocket Camp being paid was a smart move. There are many gacha-RPG games that gives me nuts, there's one specifically I stopped playing because I had to spend hours everyday so I won't lose that short period limited time event that I had to complete tons of story missions. It came to a point I just said I won't be doing it anymore. And the worst is that I actually regret not completing any of the events I missed.

 

[vulonkaaz's iconvulonkaaz]

is the new version any good ?

---

I think there is a huge shortage of android games that are actually good and not just f2p slop

but at the same time, android is the worst platform ever to release an actual game, cause one day Google can just decide that your app is using too old of an API version and just remove the thing, and all paying customers can just go fuck themselves. Really hard to do software preservation on Android whereas normal computers just don't care how old an executable is

(is that off topic ? idk)

 

[CardcaptorEd2019]

I've never played Pocket Camp, but when I think of the game all I think about is this video

 

[Vetusomaru]

Online free2play games later getting offline paid version is always a good thing. But charging 20 dollars for a game like this is too much, especially when Animal Crossing New Horizons exists at Switch. And why it took them such a long time to make it premium? Putting that aside I loved playing it when it was free2play and it was one of the most generous free2play games. And it fixed some issues of the older games with them later using some of these improvements to New Horizon.

Still I'd rather if they made an offline paid version for Dragalia Lost at Switch. Especially since the original game was only released in a few countries and it wasn't released in my country.

 

[MajesticSiN]

I concur

 

[bigthecat_]

And it fixed some issues of the older games with them later using some of these improvements to New Horizon.

Out of curiosity, what are the issues?
Animal Crossing being a communication game series lacking of communication is a issue in the newer games, understandable in PC since it's a spin-off, but not NH, since the charm of the series were thrown away to become a perfeccionist decoration sim city game.

 

[Raidou Kuzunoha]

I played a bit when it came out and never checked the paid version, but I've yet to see a mobile game that gets worse after changing from F2P to paid, and I wish more games would do so instead of just closing servers (Dissidia Opera Omnia my beloved....)

Respect for Opera Omnia ?. One of the most generous f2p mobile games. All the gacha stuff was delegated to weapons, and every single character could be unlocked for free by completing quests. If mobile games have to be f2p gachas, I hope they follow this example.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

On topic though, I have played pocket camp for a while, back in the day. And honestly, it was kind of a drag to play, due to the usual gacha headaches (dozens of currencies which you either pay for or grind for an eternity lol) It didn't really feel like an animal crossing game. I'm glad they're removing all the microtransactions, those are never enjoyable.