9 Modern Gaming Criticisms That Actually Suck

6. 'Free To Play Automatically Means Lower Quality'

There are a couple of terms in the gaming industry that have been sourced because of too many bad apples ruining a good thing for everyone. 'Live services', 'loot boxes' and 'free to play' have become practically poison to a game looking for an audience, but the latter especially doesn't quite deserve the same venom it receives.

Free-to-play games are treated with suspicion primarily because of how they were viewed by publishers in the early 2010s. Once recurrent spending models proved popular, publishers prioritised free-to-play titles and introduced free-to-play elements into their regular franchise offerings, while justifying a lack of polish with the "it's free, what do you expect?" excuse.

That approach was rejected by fans, but the stink of F2P lingered long after publishers switched gears, which is a huge shame because following releases proved just how rewarding the model could be, and how it could result in some genuinely great games.

Titles like Warframe, Apex Legends, Planetside 2 and a whole bunch more proved that the genre could match the quality of full-price AAAs without resorting to predatory business tactics.