Call of Duty, Clash of Clans, Diablo, Halo. What do all of these games have in common?

They are all often criticized for being “cash grab” games that offer little in the way of new content. Each year they are released and somehow they continue to charge hefty amounts to own the game or to add features and advantages to help players win.

Traditionally, the attraction of playing video games has been about the thrill of overcoming adversity and achieving wins. Sadly, however, many developers have turned to some typical cash-grab strategies to milk money from their customers. This includes pay-to-win features and upcharging for good-looking cosmetics for characters.

Cash grab games are hated by gamers, including myself.ames. What exactly are cash grab games you may be wondering? Well, a cash grab game can be in the form of a pay-to-win game or even just a game that was made purely for money.

I consider the follwing games to be some of the worst offenders of being cash-grabs.
Call of Duty War Zone (2019)
In Warzone’s early days they released the fourth seasonal battle pass. This was just your average seasonal pass; you would get a few skins for weapons, calling cards, and operator cosmetics for about 10 U.S dollars. This seasonal pass was different from the other battle passes; this one would contain a certain operator cosmetic that would haunt the game and its players until they would either give up and leave and that would result in the game losing popularity. The cosmetic that would enrage players and would be seen as a sign of a toxic player and someone you would certainly send back into the lobby. The cosmetic for the operator “Roze” would be called “Rook” and it would have features that would offer a huge advantage over other players. Some of these features are that the skin is all black that ensures that unless you looked hard enough you would not see them in the dark corners of Verdanks. The Roze operator was a female character so there already was an advantage there because of the hitbox mechanics and how she had a smaller character model than most. This skin gives players an advantage even to this day after being out for about 2 years. And a few months before that infinity ward, the developers of modern warfare the main game that shares an engine with warzone had DLC guns that would give you an advantage over all the free-to-play players. The only ways you could get access to these powerful weapons would be by either doing an extremely difficult challenge like getting 5 eliminations in a minute with an assault rifle 5 different times. That was one way you could get it but in a battle royal the only way you could do this was if you landed in a really populated area and you got a gun first and it had to be an assault rifle. Then you would have to worry about confirming the kills and having a point for the challenge. Or for 60 U.S.D you can have that overpowered gun that would not get fixed and balanced for months and easy access to the next wave of powerful weapons. So if you had an extra 60 U.S.D or you just wanted a fighting chance at playing the game you could have the gun within about 10 minutes and about 3 hours of leveling up the gun you would have the ideal attachments and you could compete with the other 149 other people you would play against.

Clash of Clans (2012)
Clash of clans is a mobile strategy game made in 2012 and it’s free to play but one of the in-game currencies called gems and they are exactly what they sound like. They were introduced in the tutorial when you first played the game. The developers tell you that you can use gems to complete anything building you’re upgrading or any troops you are training. Therefore meaning if you spend money to buy gems you can save real life time and go upgrade other things. So the fastest way to have an endgame-level town was by spending more money. How did you get more gold or elixir? You have to buy that with gems too unless you want to spend hours or days even, letting your collectors fill up. And if you wanted more builders so you can upgrade and build more stuff you might guess that it would cost gems you would be correct more builders can cost up to 1,500 gems which comes out to about 10 us dollars which isn’t much until you factor in the gold and elixir you bought, the gems you bought to upgrade all your defenses, barracks, troops and any other reasons you bought the gems. Gems of course can be obtained in-game without spending but you might have guessed, it’s a very time-consuming process. First, you have to wait for your gem mine to fill up and get 16 gems and you get a few every day. You can also take down any trees, trunks, bushes, and other vegetation, and from removing all of that you get only a handful of gems or even gem boxes that give you up to 25 gems. This is also a very, very time-consuming process taking about 2 weeks until another one can possibly spawn in the outskirts of your village.

Diablo Immortal (2022)
Diablo Immortal is a HUGE money grab, it’s such a money grab that the creators themselves have revealed that the game is a “Microtransaction Money Grab” which they sell is like other games on the list. Diablo Immortal sells resources that are obtainable in-game but if you stop playing for a little bit you will be behind all other players and you need to get the resources that you missed out on. These resources are used to max out a character and people have calculated how much it can cost to max out a character and the cost came out to around a very, very small amount of 100,000 thousand U.S dollars or even 1.8 to 3.6 MILLION U.S DOLLARS in gacha rolls.

Halo 5: Guardians
Halo 5: Guardians is a game that had packs called “REQ” packs that varied in price from as low as 1 USD up to 100 USD and what you could get are weapon variants that make the base weapons way better. It’s how you earned things like a covenant sight on a UNSC weapon like the battle rifle. Examples of how this made things more powerful than their base variants are the “SAW” light machine gun and its variant that gave it a higher fire rate and explosive bullets. Or even the notorious halo combat evolved pistol that would kill a fully shielded opponent in just 4 shots. It’s a pistol chambered in 50. Caliber armor piercing (SAPHE) rounds in a 12-round magazine. This was ok in halo combat evolved because everyone started out with it but imagine having a smaller pistol chambered in a much smaller round. You get into a fight with another player who paid an extra 20 bucks to get a gun that would make quick work of anyone who was foolish enough to hear the shots and not run away. There were even vehicle variants that made vehicles better like ghosts, a covenant vehicle that shoots bolts of plasma could have a variant that made those plasma bolts explosive and it dealt even more damage. One more example is a tank variant that made the tank stronger and dealt more damage. Or even halos infamous vehicle, the warthog a truck with a machine gun on the back in the base variant and for the upgraded and more rare variant, you could add a fully automatic rocket launcher to the back. These variants could be used in player vs environment and player vs player game modes and they were obtainable in the game but if you’re just starting on a new account they can give you a massive advantage over your opponents whether it’s enemy ai or even other spartans.

In conclusion, these were games that once or still have the pay-to-win aspect that makes the game a cash-grab game. As you can see the players that play these games for fun can’t have fun the same way they once did in previous installments in the game franchise. Hopefully, one-day game developers can put their players’ enjoyment as a higher priority than filling their pockets.