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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Huge_Trust_5057 on 2024-09-21 04:38:10+00:00.
It’s me, and I know it’s only been a week since my last post, but I do have a quite sizable stockpile of half-written hobbydrama posts so I could write this one quickly.
Note: this is kind of part 2 to my old lineage write-up. You don’t read to read the first one to understand this, but I recommend you to read the first one.
Video games! If you haven’t heard of them, they are games where you play on your computer, or console, or whatever electronics. One type of video games are MMORPGS, commonly called MMOs(although one might say that other smaller genres like MMOFPS are still MMOs but not MMORPGs), where you play as a character in a large multiplayer world.
South korean video game development is mostly done by 3 large companies, commonly refered to as the 3N, due to how all companies start with N. The 3N are: Nexon, Netmarble, and NC software. There’s also Neowiz, which does also start with N but is much smaller and isn’t commonly refered to as one of the 3N.(I just wanted to mention Neowiz because they made/published and , which I consider really good games. also looks very interesting.)
First, Nexon! The biggest of the 3N. Well known for , a ripoff that’s so bad it honestly deserves another writeup. And , a game hillariously P2W it deserves at least 5 other series, and…you know what’s going on. They also do have a ton of other games, and they are hillariously P2W. However, it is worth noting that recently, most likely due to F2P/P2Ws becoming less profitable, nexon did try other things like or which were very successful, so I’d say it gets a 5/10, great potential. More on this later.
Next, Netmarble! They are more of a publisher than a developer, really. And they are really, really P2W. They made, uh, ? Its, uh, a CoD if it had guns bought with real life money and had gun lootboxes and gun upgrades. Never played it really. And uh, ? Its like, an online version of monopoly, that’s again, P2W. They put luck items on dice in monopoly so its more likely to get the number you want if you use a good dice. It’s honestly amazing how far they go to make it p2w.
And finally, the main subject of this writeup, NC soft.
** NC soft **
NCsoft is well known for their biggest hit series, lineage, which is again, the focus of this post. The Lineage series was a wildly successful MMORPG, but it is hillarously P2W and grindy, with many lootboxes, microtransactions, and honestly, borderline scamming and gambling come into play. Many korean gamers don’t even consider lineage a game worth playing, and even consider it the game that brought the downfall of the entire south korean gaming industry. The fans of lineage are mostly older people, who played it from the first game (which came out in 1998).
It was, still, an extremely successful and influential game, that even gave birth to an entire “genre” of games, called “Lineagelikes”
“Rougelikes” are a genre for games like , like or . There’s also roguelites,like or , which are games with some elements of roguelikes, although the exact line betwen roguelikes and roguelites is confused a lot(and confusing the two is, honestly, my pet peeve). Metroidvanias are games like or . Soulslike is a genre for games like , and similarly, lineagelikes are games like . (although classifying these as a “genre” could be quite controversial, but like, whatever.)
Lineagelikes are very obviously MMORPGs, and rely on two basic principles: easy PvP, and Money above all.
First one, PvP means a player fighting another player in the game. PvPs aren’t uncommon in MMORPGs and they are not bad, in fact they are amazing content when done well. The battleground system of and the battles and wars of are great examples. However, the thing with lineage is that PvP is encouraged to the point of borderline bullying. Usually in other games PvP is heavily limited to certain areas or situations. Not in the case for lineagelikes. In lineagelikes, PvP is easy and encouraged. This makes it easy for powerful players, and usually groups, to bully other players. Entirely taking over an area and making sure nobody except your group gets in is extremely common. Wars and battles over these is also common.
Now I’d like to say that again, unrestricted PvP itself isn’t a bad thing. EVE online has relatively unrestricted PvP, with PvP being possible even in high-sec areas(but the space police will still avenge them if you do PvP there), and it’s a nice feature of the game. However, the biggest problem is when it’s combined with the second one:
Second, Money over all. Now generally there are 4 elements which decide who gets strong in a game. Time(which he spent in the game to collect items, level up, ect), Skill(being fast at clicking, knowing game systems, ect), luck(random elemts, lootboxes(ugh)), and money(real life money, spent as microtransactions). When I play and rate a game I always like to rate the importance of these 4 elements as Time=Skill>Luck>>Money. Time and skill being the most important part of being good, luck being an element that often does add some fun and unexpectedness to the game but is bad when its used excessively, and I hate microtransactions. Personally I’d rather quit a game than have to use them.
Now the thing about lineagelikes is that it goes Money>>luck>time>skill. Money buys the best items, often in the form of lootboxes or items for upgrading. Lootboxes and upgrading requires luck(upgrades have a chance of upgrading, and also has a chance of destroying the item), time is needed to level up, and skill is nearly unneeded as lineagelikes have auto-playing, which is that you click one button and the game basically plays itself, hunting nearby enemies and levelling up. Even if you do want to actually play the game and control the player, it doesn’t change that much, and you will still lose to someone using better items on autoplay. In other competitive games-say or , there’s pro players who got famous due to their amazing skills and can win most people. In lineagelikes, there are no pro players, only “whales” who sunk a horrible amount of money into the game, and has the best items, and thus can win anyone in a fight.
So its pretty self explanatory how these work. It competes players against each other by PvP, and makes sure the only way to win in that competition is by spending real life money. And I dont mean a few dollars either, there’s like a lot,lot of money involved here.
To cite a korean post about lineage M, a mobile version of the game: $32.99 gets you 1200 diamonds and a few other items. Apparently that’s the materials to make one 3+ earring and 4 basic rings. That’s bad, but not like horrible right? Except this is, quote, “minimal spending”. On another post about lineage 2M, which is like lineage 2 but 2nd, there’s a guide to spend money on the game, and there’s cases on how to spend $200/$400/$700 in the game.(the dollars are roughly translated from won). And then there’s top tier items, which due to lootboxes, microtransactions,and extrememly small percentages, is traded between users at tens of thousands of dollars, which was the subject of my old write up. It is worth, however, noting that not all lineagelikes are this expensive, and most games, especially ones that aren’t the lineage francise and are developed by other comapnies, are cheaper. Personally I’d never do microtransactions even if it was a cent for stuff,but still.
There’s also smaller predatory designs like making sure fights break out as much as possible, turning the whole game into a constantly evolving place and giving out stuff so that top spenders need to keep spending money to stay there, and so on. Honestly, it’s impressive and there’s whole korean youtube videos explaining how the game design of lineagelikes milk literally every cent and turn itself into a neverending slot machine where not playing means losing, and playing means sticking thousands of dollars into the game.
It is a well known fact [citation-needed] that the top 1% of players spend 97% the money. The actual amount of money the top players, often called “nuclear whales”, spend in these games are horrifying, most likely spending over a few million won(a few thousand dollars) every months into the game. At this point this really isn’t a game anymore, it’s just gambling. And it’s kind of no wonder why koreans used to be so against video game addiction, as the image of a video game addict wasn’t someone in their room playing video games a lot, it was someone throwing millions into a video game and bankrupting themsevles.
** Lineagelikes: it’s a genre! **
As much as most people hate lineagelikes, it is undeniable that it was an immense success and basically defined korean MMORPGs for a while. Not only NCsoft but other developers like nexon or netmarble used to jump in here, making tons of lineagelikes every year. Nexon’s <[AxE](https://www.nexongames.co.kr/en/game/a…
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1flv4w0/video_games_lineagelikes_predatory_design/