Wednesday, February 12All That Matters

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older but I still don’t understand what a multiplayer “season” is

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Maybe it’s because I’m getting older but I still don’t understand what a multiplayer “season” is

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32 Comments

  • Think of it as a mini expansion, depending on the game. For COD it replaced the whole DLC system, so all the content is given through free seasons with free/paid content to be earned through a Season Pass

  • It’s a way to get people to pay for content they have to work/grind for. If you don’t grind through all of the levels of a season before the new season rolls out then you miss out on certain stuff…even though you technically paid for it.

  • Proud to say I’ve never bought a battle pass or season pass, ever.

    So I’m the dude yeeting other players with base skins on in most games.

    jk – I get my ass kicked.

  • I hate seasons with a passion in any game. It just hamstrings actual progression by no-fuss players like myself who just want to play and unlock things, without being told to buy a season pass to unlock the things I’m playing to unlock. I get games like destiny 2 that are F2P, but it’s season passes that are suffocating Halo Infinite.
    Maybe it all started with Fortnite; in which case ‘Call of Duty’ deserves to be in the same basket.

    Imagine going to work and your boss tells you that you need to buy a pass to get the rest of your wages. It makes me wonder what the point even is, when fun is taken out of the equation. It makes me wonder even more how some people can sit for days on end just grinding at a game like they have nothing else to play. But myself; I’m perfectly happy jumping from game to game without microtransactions and season passes, comfortable that I’m having real wholesome fun that I’m not forcing myself to enjoy because I paid through my nose for the luxury of enjoying it. Most importantly, I have the luxury of playing a game knowing that I’m not missing anything and can take my time. Seasons introduce a chaotic sense of FOMO (Fear of missing out) that can be unhealthy for a community.

  • It’s just a post hoc pretense for adding new content to multiplayer games after their initial release dates.

    Think about the analogy here, and it makes much more sense: TV shows come in annual seasons, like 10-20 episodes over the course of a couple months. Each of these seasons encompasses fans’ lives to a certain extent; they’re thinking about the show, talking about it with friends, and getting hyped for the next episode. It’s a zeitgeist.

    “Season” in multiplayer games just means the company is releasing continual, periodic waves of new in-game content that last a few months. The connection with a TV season is that both create a unique, transient zeitgeist over the course of a clearly demarcated period. Since people are all wary of being advertised to or tricked into spending money these days, companies dress up cynical money-making schemes as being friendlier than they are. Gaming companies decided to appropriate the term “season” from the TV business for multiplayer games. Clever, huh? Video games have no need for seasons in the way TV does, but marketing people realized they can retrofit a familiar term into something else and have it become the new normal.

    Additional content for people to purchase is given the pretense of belonging to a temporary, special occasion, usually with some sort of unique theme. It’s just good marketing, albeit obnoxious.

  • It’s the coolest thing.

    You remember the satisfying feeling of saving up your money to buy a great game? You went to the store and bought a shiny new cellophane wrapped copy. You raced home to unbox and install it, eagerly awaiting the pure joy that was to come. Then you were entertained for dozens of hours by the full version of the game, only stopping once you had discovered every hidden secret, beaten every boss and completed every storyline.

    Well this is the exact opposite of that.

  • In ARPGs seasons are when seasonal characters are reset and it’s a race among the players to achieve certain challenges like completing a hard mission or getting to max level. The accomplishments are enshrined in the games history and you may even be given cosmetics based on your placement. In FPS games it’s when they add new content which usually comes with new purchasables.

  • It’s a way to get people to come back and, more importantly, remain invested in the game for long periods of time. If you have to spend X time a day logged in and playing to get season rewards, then they’ve succeeded with their objective of adding a season in the first place.

    One of the largest complaints any online multiplayer game has is lack of end game content (i.e. something to do once the main content of the game is complete) seasons alleviate that issue somewhat by giving content spread out over a certain period of time which requires players consistently log in and engage with the game in some way in order to get season rewards.

    Fallout 76 is a fantastic example of really well done season content. Spending an hour a day for five days out of the week will keep you engaged for a bit over a month and a half and unlock all of the season rewards. You don’t even need to be a subscription holder to get them, having a sub just gives you bonus rewards. It keeps you invested without being too grindy and really doesn’t take to much time out of your day.

  • Depends on the title actually. League of legends seasons are just a way to say ‘this is the start and end of competitive focused balance’, but for most of other games is more like a way to make a chunk of new paid content, sometimes all of it thematically connected, have a ‘big event’ sort of thing.

  • Yeah. I still don’t get used to so extravagant skins and characters. I find most of them very ‘noisy’ but generic at the same time.

    I mean, Rambo it is still OK for me. I mean, it is a very iconic character related to war. But I think charcaters like him should only be for very special events or something.

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