GunsBox VR

[quote][b][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtransaction]Warning: In-Game Cash Shop[/url][/b] This game is infested with a toxic mobile app style cash shop. You will be prompted to and expected to give money/credit card details to the developers through this cash shop to buy in-game goods so you can play the game.[/quote] "GunsBox VR" is a badly made and objectively failed "gun simulator" VR tech demo that's more about how the developer wants all of your money than being a real game... at best this is a badly made shooting range for VR, and almost all the content is blocked behind MTX and ridiculously priced DLC. Yeah, the developer didn't even bother finishing to make this, but they worked out three different ways to try get your money! This has been abusing Steam Early Access, in Development Hell for 4 years (they committed to finishing this at the end of 2022), but it still isn't complete. Developers have an essential obligation to abide by their promise and commitment to complete developing a game in the set timeframe. They made and broke a promise, and it indicates either sheer incompetence, or worse, deliberate intention to abuse Early Access for profit. Despite not being able to finish the game, the developers apparently had all the time in the world to build that fully functional cash shop, and financial transaction back-end system into the game. That shows the developers primary goal was just to set out to gouge cash from Steam gamers just like mobile devs do with mobile peasants. It's VR exclusive, and that shows the developer failed to understand the most basic axiom of VR game design... if the only cool thing about your product is VR support, your product is not cool. On the important matter of pricing and value for gamers, there's a lot going on here with monetisation, so this really shouldn't be considered a truly free product because of that. There's no initial download price, but the developer was charging $16 USD for this. Price barriers, especially on low quality products, can be a direct cause of failure. It seems like a nice gesture for the game to have no up-front cost anymore, but it also tells us that the game wasn't good enough to succeed as a paid product. This is also a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who showed enough questionable judgement to pay money for this... nobody got refunded. It doesn't stop there, this game is also infested with mobile app store like microtransactions. This is a consumer hostile model that we don't need to see on PC. It's deceptively priced to gouge gamers, and that's a reason in itself to avoid this. Even after that, you're expected to pay up to unlock content through DLC purchases. The game should not be considered completely unlocked until you empty your wallet for the developer. This is misleading and predatory pricing on a product falsely marketed as "free". What makes the monetization situation even worse is that "GunsBox VR" is still in Early Access. Games aren't accidentally published in Early Access, the developer deliberately acknowledged this is an incomplete product. Then they locked content behind DLC you have to pay for despite not finishing the game. It takes a special kind of audacity to start selling paid content for a game you haven't completed yet. The priorities are completely backwards: money first, delivering on the Early Access promise a distant second. That makes this a cash grab. Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 130 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB shows this peaked at just a dozen or so concurrent players, and now there's basically nobody playing it. Even though it's free, that was a dismal public reception. But if you take into account the problems I bring up in this review, it's easy to see why gamers rejected it. Given that this free game won't increase your game collector count, is it worth your time to add it to your library? Not on a bet. This might be "free", but I still feel like I got ripped off. One final note, there's so many games on Steam, it would be impossible for anyone to play all of them in one lifetime (although I am trying). As gamers, our time is important and we have the luxury of choosing between so many games... but so many of them are so badly made, often unethically through incompetence or greed, so I think it's important for gamers to help each other find the games that deserve our time. If you don't agree with my review here, prove me wrong, download this game and play it for yourself. My reviews are just intended to help gamers make informed choices, and I hope they help you, too.