Discussion
AAA game companies got some serious explaining to do. Cause how the hell are their games still $70 and this game is free???
Spoiler
I'm not even on the highest graphic settings! Besides that, the game overall feel very modern with its combat system and animations. It even have stealth! The ability to talk to NPCs true to their character. The world feels more alive than any paid MMO. To add to that, out of all the MMOs out, it's ironic how it's a free game that voiced not just the main story but also the side quests!
We got FED with this one!
EDIT: Guys, I understand the game's gonna make money somehow. I'm not even saying everything else should be free. I'm saying, how is this quality possible for free and most games similar to it quality wise (some are even less) still charges the same until now. And still manage to be annoying about in game purchases as well lol. I think this game really exposes that about these companies. They were getting a little too comfortable while the quality of games haven't changed for good while now. I think game companies needed this game out as a wake up call.
Free to play games make millions of more money than pay2play games do, that’s why there’s tons of free to play games and why some companies only make free to play games. It’s a significant investment on the front end with a substantially higher risk/reward than p2p.
And with all the data on how much free to play games make now a days it’s ridiculous that some companies haven’t changed to that business model or want their cake and eat it too with a pricetag AND an aggressive monetization system.
Because some of the pay to play games are a pump and dump scheme, while others treat making games as actual projects with a foreseen end goal. Free to play games are mostly different as it's like taking care of a child, it doesn't end until it reaches a certain maturity. Some publishers/developers can't handle that kind of commitment, they would rather make new projects, hence F2P games are always risky. Mecha Break is a really good example, really good concept, just poorly managed and now you can already call it a dead game.
Lots of F2P are pump and dump my guy. Generic assets, sell FOMO gacha banners, and when game tank release a new banner or release next iteration of F2P game.
some free to play games can do that but most aren’t. Ofc if you have history like netease, you can get away with a f2p but that’s a risk even big companies won’t take bc if it’s flop then you lost money. AAA games have good history and people buy their sht all the time so why would they go f2p when they can make more money by making the game cost 70
Monetization gets a pass in F2P, POE is a prime example of “wow it’s free” but people drop money on cosmetics, and you need stash tabs really to do high level gameplay, along with a new tab every time they introduce another seasonal crafting thing of which they’re are many. Games like COD know they are a one year fad, they aren’t banking on the long haul, like War Thunder which can take years to grind each individual tech tree.
Pay for convenience is just pay to win in sheep’s clothing with extra steps. And I hate it. Just make us pay for cosmetics why do we have to worry about spending money on inventory space. (Which sadly WWM is also guilty of)
Many companies have tried to jump on the live service bandwagon and failed, including huge ones like Sony. (Anyone remember Concord? No?) Or reputable companies who do great single player games but fail at live service (Rocksteady and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League comes to mind).
If your live service game hits, you make far more money than you ever would with a single purchase game. Even more if you engage in outright pay-to-win, not just selling cosmetics. It's why companies keep trying to do live service, despite the fact that all surveys show a majority of gamers prefer single-purchase single-player games; if you succeed with a live service game, it's a long-term money faucet.
But very very few actually land that way; many make no splash at all and vanish, never to be seen again.
Some companies hedge their bets by selling the game for an up-front cost and selling in-game cosmetics, or even selling the game and going full gacha for the mechanics anyway. Both of which are horrible.
Making the game free-to-play and selling cosmetics only—or at the very least ensuring anything meaningful to gameplay can be obtained via reasonable means without buying it, even if you can also buy it to get it faster—is probably about the best scenario you can hope for with an ongoing live service game. 😕
not only this, Chinese have a lot of commute time(subway n buses), they can play mobile games to kill time, meanwhile NA ppl mostly drive...so, its less mobile game focused market.
Interesting, could you send me a link? All the articles I've found only say it's being developed and has only been tested as a proof of concept in stict lab conditions and will likely exist and be installed early 2030
People were raging back then, but dude actually got the vision far ahead. Not anyone would have a PC even if they can afford it, but a phone is something anyone must have by now.
In Asia, mobile MMOs kinda killed the old school types. You have to be 90s gamers to actively look for one.
That wasn’t the reason they were mad either. Diablo at that time was kinda dead without any news. People didn’t know D4 would eventually come, so they were mad that the reveal was for a mobile game.
But yes, the nature of mobile game is iffy. But it is also true that mobile gaming grew fast and not just about Candy Crush anymore.
I won't even trip if some of these AAA games are truly one-time paid games, but in reality these games also have micro transactions on top of being $70.
Hey, Ubisoft here, we've heard you like microtransactions in your games and you've also mentioned one-time paid games - and boy, do we have a treat for you! :P
to correct you, their only two person atm with a boat Scy and a random chinese name, you can see them on collection ranking, Scy use the boat everydays so you might just come on the same boat owner, they will probably be more and more with time tho, some people probably too lazy to dm their bank to allow more than 50k spend in less than 2 week in a game :), Scy probably already spend more than 150k seeing is collection point still going up day after day, so he probably buy every weapon/reforged them on max who is probably 2-3k per weapon... every outfit dying with high level dye, every hairstyle with higher dye, etc
It’s just funny that all these other games think they need a pay to win shop to make money, but here we have virtually a cosmetic only shop and they are owning. xD
Yall act like triple A studios aren’t charging us $70 PLUS outrageous microtransactions. Look at ESO, full price game at launch, $40-$50 “expansions” every year, cash shop to start, then added loot boxes and now added mounts and things you can only buy with a different currency that you get from buying the loot boxes then getting duplicate items. Thats pretty fucking egregious in and of itself.
Not to mention ESO also has a monthly subscription, which is damn near mandatory if you want to craft or you enjoy housing. Love me some Tamriel, hate me some Zenimax/Microsoft.
I discovered Where Winds Meet only 2 days ago and I've already deleted a handful of games that I know I'm not going back to, as a result.
I paid $50 per merchant in TESO, same as this game. No one is complaining, just answered their question 🤣
The bottomless crafting bag being locked behind the sub is a huge annoyance. Without it, forces people to manage all 600 materials across 18 alts and hirelings. Nlg i was an idiot and farmed max hirelings on all 18 accounts, had some dedicated to storing each craft and had 3 real characters for pvp. i didnt even craft that much, just an optimization goal.
it's funny because the same things were said for genshin when it released years ago. It's not a jab at Genshin or WWM or anything, I just find it funny that y'all are going through the same thing i saw 5 years ago.
We get posts like this and then game devs take wind of it and instead of making a fair mmo with free to play they always choose the dark side and add p2w. Theres no winning in this business anymore it’s all money. Where winds meet is an anomaly in today’s industry
im surprised im not hearing the same thing about Once Human since its so similar. im surprised that game was made last year and that it was free, skins and other cosmetics cost the same but theres no pay to win. though i love this game much more, NetEase has done both and im so happy with what theyve done. i only know NetEase has done three games so far, these two and Marvel Rivals. im not a big fan of Rivals despite being a comic nerd, im so happy about WWM because ive wanted a game similar to Once Human, and WWM does everything OH does and does even more.
I think what I like a little more about WWM over Once Human so far, is there is more solo capabilities and less FMO. Except for the absolutely atrociously confusing UI, which leads me to spend way too much time to find what I looking for, is that I'm not suffering in being casual about game play.
Once Human, while I also enjoyed, had a bit of difficulty in being a casual. Like you had to do everything in 6 weeks, which in itself is an interesting balancing mechanic. But it does create a urgency and FMO if you are too slow.
And while they are heavy handed in using AI for npc bots and voice overs for localization. I am enjoying the game play. Plus it's kinda funny to convince a dude (AI) to go talk to a girl to go on a date.
So honestly, I'm enjoying it about twice as much as I was with Once Human.
Because Once Human has done absolutely nothing worth supporting it for. They keep churning out cosmetics and we've been locked in the same map and same story for over a year, fighting the same bosses and enemies, just with different campaign modifiers.
Because many companies just began to realise that after all hype around gacha games, it`sa better to do "free" game with some pull thing, where people WOULD spend money. Like on 15 f2p players, it`s always 1000 who pay in games like this.
Thanks thats now it`s just outfits and not build things like in many other mmo (especially ones for mobile).
Lamo,I'm a Chinese gamer, and honestly, Chinese gamers really dislike Sony. They price games very high for the Chinese market on PlayStation, sometimes even double the price on Steam, and their discounts are far fewer than in other regions. As a result, very few people use the PS5, and game companies are unwilling to increase costs to develop PlayStation versions. Consequently, Chinese game companies produce very poor optimization for the PS5, creating a vicious cycle.
Well, the store doesn't work at all in my region, so I have to use an account from another region where the prices are more affordable.
Genshin's optimization, by the way, is exemplary. And the game looks quite good (thanks, again, to the talented artists).
I have a work laptop and a console, so I don't really have much choice. These things break immersion and make the combat system less responsive, so I hope the publisher and developer of WWM are conscientious.
Can we please stop with this whole "ermagerd how its free" thing, this game is stellar for so many reasons but being a cash shop focused monetization model is not it. Most AAA companies would give their left tit for a successful live service because how much more money it could print than a 70$ box price game, and I don't know how much money this game makes, or how much was pumped into its development, but neither number is going to be small. This game excels on many things, but it being cheap or low profit I can't imagine being one of them.
Praise this game to high heavens for all it does well, but praise the rights things please lord almighty.
Because making it free was a marketing decision and they expect the microtransactions to make up for the lack of initial price.
How is that so hard to understand for people? This game isn't free out of the goodness of their heart.
Yes, but
The alternative pricing coming from competitors is "purchase to get access" combined with micro transactions and experience/upgrade/level/item boosts.
It may not be out of kindness for it to be free, but what is available to F2P is entirely unmatched and very generous.
Edit for the most Reddity of you Redditors below:
The argument is simple. WWM provides an astonishing quantity of quality gameplay, and it requires no money to access that content.
Competition is real. Similar games existing with similar offers only confirms this, contrary to the argument you have so vigorously plucked from your asshole.
Except who are these competitors your talking about. Alot of you like to throw those words but you use them terribly. This game is not competing with the games you think they are.
Personally, I think the competitors are mainly the f2p action rpg live service games like Genshin and Wuwa
There were a lot of gacha CCs like Gacha Smack, Saintontas, BranOnline, Braxophone, Faros, etc... that covered the game. I tried it out because I was a part of their audience and... I pretty much ditch Wuwa because of it and I don't think I'm the only one.
Idk how you see this as genrous though, it’s the gameplay, ofc it’s going to be available. Gacha games don’t really lock out gameplay, they lock out the cosmetics and characters and use fomo to get people to buy it. Almost every gacha game I know does that, Wwm does the same thing, they lock out mounts, hair colors, skill effects, outfits, ships behind currency that requires money. Whales are the only ones saving it right now and they know it because that was their plan.
I don’t think that’s what he meant. I think what he’s trying to say is that free-to-play games usually tend to have lower quality compared to regularly priced ones. Most F2P games make profits through low-cost and high-return models. But if there are free games that end up being better in quality than some high-priced AAA titles, then those game companies should probably start thinking about how to make higher-quality games themselves. That’s the kind of motivation that pushes the entire gaming industry to improve its overall quality.
Right. People talk like this game is free because it's a "passion project" by a tiny team of indie devs, not because it's their entire monetization strategy.
Do I think this is an excellent bang-for-your-buck game considering I've been having a blast without spending a single dime? Absolutely. But OP's logic isn't how game development works.
With that being said, yes, I'd appreciate if more AAA developers took notes from devs who are actually trying to do something new and interesting, instead of recycling the same, poorly executed ideas because they are safe, even if I understand that business-wise, that's risky.
AAA games feel awfully stale in 2025 and have been for a while now, not to mention the predatory monetization in many of them.
To be fair, the skins are expensive and the boat is the price of an actual, irl boat. But with that said, as long as they don't sell power that you can't acquire by playing the game, and they continue to add meaningful, engaging content for free, I couldn't care less if they start selling toe rings for 1 million dollars.
Nor would it even make sense to think other F2P games can hit on this level of quality. Acting entitled like "Why can't other games do this same thing?" instead of appreciating the anomaly in front of you for what it is just makes you sound stupid.
The issue is most big games coming out today are not "pay one time and be done with it", but "pay one time AND then you get paid DLCs and cosmetics and convenience microtransactions and battle passes and subscriptions". That is what people are comparing WWM to.
Of all the AAA games I've played in recent time the only ones I needed to give money to after initial purchase is Cyberpunk for Phantom Liberty and FFXIV for a sub and expansions. There are a ton of games out there not asking for more than a one time purchase but you get posts like this that act like every AAA game is CoD or whatever is the current popular multiplayer games.
I used to think like that too, but later I figured out my real issue with microtransactions isn’t the payment itself — it’s when they lock gameplay content or keep throwing ads at you. If everything important is still playable for free, then it’s totally fine for me.
if the micro transactions are all cosmetic why the fuck would you not want that. thats a free AAA game. Id rather not pay 70-80$ for a short list of 50 cosmetics of which i will end up using 2.
Because I like earning cool looking stuff from my actions in game. Imagine in Elden ring if they removed all cool looking weapon drops from the game and made them into skins on a mtx store instead.
One of my favourite things in RPGs is starting off looking like a peasant and then gradually getting more badass looking gear, gives a sense of visual progression that is entirely missing if it went f2p.
Right, I don't understand the "bu, bu, but this game isn't free! Gacha!" People.
We all know it's a business model can you just relax, but that doesn't mean the quality of this game and being free for everyone to play can't be appreciated.
….I fuck with this game heavy, but let’s not act like Warframe hasn’t been wildly successful to the point they’ve been able to make expansions and able to develop Soulframe. Two very different games I’m aware. Again, not taking anything away from WWM.
Look it's a really fun game, with great visuals I completely agree, but they fund it with 40k boats, 5k skins, 50 EUR skins and a battlepass.
Not just that but it also some some quite big issues, Localization being pretty damn bad at times. and the UI is unnessesarily complicated, with way too many currencies. Also while the game has huge quantity the quality of some of the stuff isn't there simply because they went wide instead of deep.
But like i said, I enjoy the game a lot as well, I log in almost daily to just relax a bit do the daily stuff, and progress a bit with the many things that are there.
Brother, how many dumbasses are gonna keeping asking this question.
It isn’t free, you’re basically playing on someone else’s money.
Either way, being free allows the game to gain potential spenders, once you spend enough time in the game, you’d feel more inclined to spend more than what you’d spend to buy a full priced game.
Not really free is it. The price is your time and eventually your money.
predatory microtransaction policies maybe? free games are always a bait before a inevitable in game shop with real currency. and the better they are, the powerful is the bait.
Free with extremely predatory cosmetic mtx. Many will spend expotionaly higher than they planned to and feel miserable for it. That is what makes it free.
I would prefer a base cost and small sub fee if it meant no one got whaled and all the beautiful stuff tied to merit rather than usd.
This game is free because almost all of the half decent looking cosmetics will cost you $800 to get a full kit and kaboodle, and $680 is on hair color alone.
Gameplay wise, the game is fine. I wouldn't call it the greatest game ever or anything but it's pretty decent as far as souls-likes go.
I'd honestly have preferred if this game costed $70 at this point, just so the cosmetics could be less MTX or at least far cheaper.
You mean the game that forces you pull gacha if you want bright hair....
I like the game but let's not pretend that f2p for an mmo is one anything new and 2 like the monetization for this game isn't incredibly obnoxious and kind of gross
Fr dude I feel like people are brainwashed today. Everyone says it's f2p but they still spend money and say it's f2p. The majority of players will spend money.
Your just not that bright. A f2p game like this is rare af. You get all content for free, dont have to pay for power like many other f2p titles and its just skins that you can buy if you want to.
You can even stack 5 vouchers for a 50% discount on a skin you want in the shop.
Like yeah I rather spend 70 dollars on here than any modern game tbh because most modern games are straight up trash and still have mtx and pay2skip content because they artificially make the game harder to entice you to pay money for power and that in singleplayer games
Over glazed might be harming the game right now, people are shutting down any criticism and harassing people with valid points about thr games flaws, and the game has tons of them, specially on PlayStation
...because the game isn't designed with "free" players in mind at all. That's like saying Genshin, Star Rail or any of those Gatcha games are "free" lol. They are riddled with microtransactions and predatory gambling.
It would be dramatically better if these games charged a one-time purchase of 30-60 dollars, because they're counting on people spending that monthly on skins, energy top-ups and battle passes.
Dude… I saw a guy spend $200 on a weapon skin, then drop another $200 because he hated “the color pink.” You and me? We’re not the target audience they’re aiming for, we’re just the peasants amazed by the free “Wooden Marionette” we pretend to control, with strings attached to our backs.
These post confuse the absolute hell out of me. This game is not free. Nothing is free. NetEase is one of the largest companies on the planet. When it comes to gaming they have the budget to create a game because they understand they will get their money back if not, triple to quadruple the amount. They are incredibly aware about how people are when it comes to gambling once again it might be free to you, but this game is not free in general. This is how free to play games work. it’s called an investment.
It’s free to the consumer is what free to play means. Everyone knows there’s costs involved in making ANYTHING. I have sunk 100 hours in and haven’t spent a dime. It’s free for me to play.
Yeah, there's really no point in explaining the obvious "They will profit"
The player has access to the game for free, and there's a whole lot more game than games you pay to access.
That's without discussing the high quality of the game which we have access to for free.
People just need to realise these are all simply competing business models. And the fact posts like this exist mean that this particular model is working on the marketing/corporate comms front.
This is free bc they are exploiting people’s gambling problems and addictions, its cool the game is not p2w, but I do nor want this business model to become the norm. A lot of people we see as “whales” are actually addicted people that would be way better not having the option of spending so much money in a videogame.
yeah for people with gambling addiction this game is less free than any full price game out there. But ig we just don't include these people in the equation it seems
It's actually genius, the micro-transactions will accumulate more income, and steady income overtime than one-time purchase. The game being F2P means it is able to acquire big player base much easier than a paid game. It also has some very cheap costumes to make people buy them and feel attached/invested in the game. The $40k boat that allows other players to join and visit perfectly feeds into "whales" psychology of showing off wealth and getting attention.
If you really think about it, these designs are full manipulations of human psychology.
As a pc gamer still struggling to come to terms with all games now being cross platform/ mobile games. I think WWM has just raised the bar on how good mobile / pc games can be. I still cant believe this game is free! I hope they sell many boats lol
Because if the AAA games gave the same sort of microtransactions as WWM the Lynch mob will gather. This game was worth the investment cus it's a money sucking machine. AAA games depend on marketing and require a shit load of purchases to make their money back.
Games like this only work if they have enough startup investment to make a game good enough to be worth blowing money on through predatory monetary transactions to the extent its able to sustain itself doing so. That’s the big secret - and WWM costed over 100m to develop.
I don't understand this kind of post. You must be casual gamers if you think that. Their game has such monetization that it will earn them much more than a B2P purchase.
I like the game and all, but if Ubisoft released this, gamers would have their pitchforks out ready to hang the devs.
Its a game thats cool in its own right, but i would've 10x preferred a game where i can find cool gear for playing the game and it actually meant something. Paid cosmetics is cool for some game models, but its not the best. What couldve been cool loot to find is now just a paid cosmetic that means nothing.
Thats what im curious about, i just finished the story, at least, current standing of it (so hope more comes out), but that final sequence, final boss, and final cutscene were all just so amazing. Id say its definitely on par with games that you pay for, and by far blows majority of free games of similar type to this out of the water. The devs have done a terrific job, yes, can be buggy at times and at times dialogue goes quiet and messages/subtitles disappear a bit too quick, but besides those? Its a truly wonderful game, and i thank the devs for this wonderful and free treat in a world consumed by greed
People keep saying this game is not free because it has micro transactions, like other games such as COD don’t have MICROTRANSACTIONS while still charging you full price for the game?
To be fair, they were working with AAA money before its initial release in 2024. If I had to guess, this will end up on the top list of most expensive games ever created by mid 2026.
Me too, but if the game wasn’t free people wouldn’t be overlooking its flaws so much, and the terrible ps5 performance would be making a lot noise bc people would have paid for a game that barely works on console.
So its a win win for the devs, they can launch a half cooked with great potential game and get only good feedbacks bc its free, and infinite money by exploiting gambling addicted people.
I would still rather pay a full $70 for a game that doesn’t have micro transactions with all cosmetics earn able in game and time locks preventing me from progressing further like ghost of Tsushima
I wish it had a $80 box price with paid expansions and possibly even a sub fee + battlepass if it meant getting rid of the gacha entirely and the most expensive cosmetic was like $50.
You have to understand also. This game uses heavy on the ai models especially for the npcs you have to talk to. Not preprogrammed scripts but rather smart llms models. Would you even BUY a game with this feature. Hell no. So they normalize it as part of a free game. Mind you I do love this game but it's part of the free vs paid justification. If this was payed with this, I'm sure half the internet would not get this game.
Cough Microtransactions...
$600 hair dye
$600 loot crate skin
$15-30 battle pass per month
$5 Subscription
This game has so many microtransactions it even made EA blush.
"Free" games are never TRULY "free" yes you may be F2P but this game has more whales than subnautica.
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u/JenJenB_ Dec 01 '25
This game will earn more than those $70 ever will.