I admit that Dota 2 has the benefit of an established fan base unmatched by almost any free-to-play game (League of Legends excluded). Not many games have fans who are willing to pay for something that doesn't benefit them in any way. Taking that into account, though, there still is no good excuse for free-to-play micro-transactions that benefit the company more than the player. Honestly, the solution is just to make your game cost money. Remember that? When games cost a flat fee for the entire thing? This was a largely successful model, and the only reason I can see for the shift is pure greed, especially by a company like EA that already has boatloads of money to roll in.

At this year's Heroes of the Dorm tournament, DualShockers spoke to one of the casters of the event, Albert "Halorin" Haily III, to discuss his personal journey on becoming a caster, his dream opportunity, and his prediction for the winner of Blizzard's collegiate eSports tournam

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Peter Cullen, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Isabela Moner, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Liam Garrigan, Santiago Cabrera, John Goodman, Ken Watanabe, John DiMaggio, Frank Welker, Jess Har

I feel that way with for all four of these teams. It'll be heartbreaking to see three teams not win but I'll be happy to see one of them actually become heroes of the dorm. It's very easy to find protagonists in this tournam

BAFTA announced the nominees today, and somewhat unsurprisingly The Last of Us is top dog once again with an impressive ten nominations. These include a Best Performer nomination apiece for Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, as well as nominations for Artistic Achievement, Action and Adventure, Audio Achievement, Original Music, Multiplayer, Story, Game Design and - the big one - Best Game. Naughty Dog may well end up needing a wheelbarrow to carry home those golden ma

Everyone here at Game Rant would like to wish the inanimate, mass-produced, nostalgia-inducing Game Boy a very Happy North American Birthday. While it can't reciprocate the love many gamers still have for it, it revolutionized an industry that we still care about all these years la

In the past, I shared the belief that mobile gaming would eventually become so inherently convenient that it would change the modern gaming landscape in one fell swoop. Speaking in 2018, one look around my bedroom would prove otherwise. On my coffee table lays a Nintendo Switch console recently used to play Dead Cells , on the top of my desk is a gaming PC mostly used for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds , in my media cabinet is an Xbox One frequently used for watching television, and in my pocket is an iPhone primarily used for, well, going on Twit

The games that turned the market on its head. There was no way that Nintendo could have ever known just how popular Pokemon was going to be, but the company decided to test its luck with a new second-party property. This move eventually spawned a trading card MOBA Game News, an anime and countless piles of mo

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V isn't lagging too far behind, with a respectable nine nominations in categories including Best Game, Best British Game, Best Performer (for Steven Ogg, who voiced Trevor) and Game Innovation. Released to both critical acclaim and the usual controversy, Grand Theft Auto V was the first game in the franchise to feature three protagonists, with the player able to move between each of them at almost any t

Along with marking the debut of the now infamous anti-hero Wario, Super Mario Land: 6 Golden Coins improved upon its predecessor in nearly every way. Suffice to say, when the villain of the original game get his own spin-off series, it's likely that the source material struck a good chord with audien

The same goes for League of Legends, bringing it back into the discussion, and they have shown no sign of ever stopping this practice. They release a new champion every week, some of which cost money to play, and many of which are "worth," leaving the players who don't have the money behind. I was this close to trying out Orcs Must Die: Unchained before I found out that it uses the League-of-Legends-style system for hero purchasing. These games are no better than the cable company. In fact, they may be worse. Imagine if every week, Comcast started a new channel with new and amazing shows, but made you pay a new fee if you wanted to experience it.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 already has 10 "premium plants" for a total cost of more than $30 altogether, tax included. And that's just plants. You can also pay for upgrades and in-game coins. To my knowledge, Plants vs. Zombies never went higher than $20 for the whole game, with no micro-transactions, so I can only assume PopCap is making a truckload off of this. Now I know people like to point out how less than 10 percent of people who play free-to-play games participate in micro-transactions. This makes it seem like the companies are doing what's best for the player by offering a portion of their game for free, while only making a small chunk of change on the side to get by. It's a compelling narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. This number conveniently leaves out how much money they're actually making from those ten percent of people who want a full gaming experience.