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The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

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Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#101

I'm continually fascinated by the gaming community's relationship with EA. It's like, "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me 37 times. . . ahh, what the hey, let's throw another 60 quid in this hole. I'm sure this time it'll be different."

I can't think of any way out honestly. You can say anything you want about EA but I'm sure they act very rationally. If despite the heavy backlash over the years they keep doing what they're doing then it must be working for them.

That's the problem with these lootboxes, given how fast they spread to every AAA games these days (including single player games where they hardly make sense in the first place) it's obvious that the maths work out for them. The amount of principled gamers ending up not buying the game is probably more than compensated by the dividends of microtransactions. There are not enough gamers who care enough about the issue to stop buying the game. The marketing and network effect is simply too strong. A mob downvoting a comment on reddit won't change anything, it's nothing but slacktivism. Might as well sign an e-petition at this point.

It's not the first time it's like this. "We don't want always online DRM! We won't buy your game!", "We want to be able to host our own dedicated servers for multiplayer! We won't buy your game!". And now it's the new normal, hardly anybody expects these things from new releases or even mentions them. Lootboxes and microtransactions are headed down the same path IMO.

Here's my prediction: five years from now every big release will contain microtransactions one way or an other and nobody will find it surprising or inappropriate.

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#102

I'm continually fascinated by the gaming community's relationship with EA. It's like, "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me 37 times. . . ahh, what the hey, let's throw another 60 quid in this hole. I'm sure this time it'll be different."

Gamers aren't known for their resolve. I remember when Modern Warfare 2 came out (eight years ago) without the option to run private servers, which resulted in this rather famous image: http://i.imgur.com/MLZ0bMu.png That being said, 40 hours doesn't seem like an awful amount of time to sink into a game to unlock a character. Heck, I'm ashamed to talk about how many hours I've put into CS:GO, and it's only triple dig…

> That being said, 40 hours doesn't seem like an awful amount of time to sink into a game to unlock a character. Heck, I'm ashamed to talk about how many hours I've put into CS:GO, and it's only triple digits.

Its not the 40 hours. Its the fact that its 40 hours or $10 In previous iterations of the series these types of characters were only available for free, and to every player with in a couple of hours.

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#103
post #74

This is why I've stopped buying new games. At 31 years old, I've realized that learning new things is more important than paying to entertain myself.

Wait, which is it? When you say "this is why" it implies you stopped because of unbounded greed on the part of large gaming publishers. However, then you explain it as growing out of gaming and a shift in your interests to learning. Also, in my opinion, learning and entertainment don't have to be mutually exclusive. You sound like an I-don't-watch-TV snob right now, to be honest.

Agree. As much as I love HN, I think it suffers from too much snobbery at times...

Which is why I've decided recently (since turning 27 and a half) to transition away from online forums and focus on building pen-pal relationships with fellow hackers through physical mail. Really makes me feel like I'm improving myself

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#104

I left this comment in the previous edition of this post, reproducing here for some context around the "why": There was another post on Reddit which “did the math” a few days ago: unlocking a hero would take around 40 hours of play, modulo a few challenges and other purchases. There was concern about loot boxes and micro transactions affecting gameplay; I feel it’s safe to say those concerns were justified.

... at which point a person can calculate their 40 hours of play * what the time is worth to them, and decide if $80 to just buy the thing is worth it.

It's 40 hours after you buy the game ($80).

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#105
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the same with me. I never buy games at launch and I tend to stay away from F2P games entirely. There's way too many games coming out compared to the free time I have available to play them, so I've accepted that I'm never going to play the vast majority of releases. Others need to come to that same realization -- it's perfectly fine to skip a game if the company's practices suck. As for what I have been playi…

On Factorio and those kinda game: To me, Factorio is very basically just simplified Eagle with monsters (Eagle is PCB designer software). You have underground belts (vias), smelters (ICs), inserters (Caps, resistors, 2 lead parts). Then you throw some monsters in there to give some random fuzz on the designs and make things a bit more 'spicy'. Mincraft is much the same, it's a very basic Solidworks. You can extrude a…

True! The exploding bridge with dynamite about 10 years ago, and Workd of Goo: blob-bridges and structures, more recently.

Edit: Pipe Dreams(?) about 20 years ago, and more recently Where’s my water.

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#106
post #101

I'm continually fascinated by the gaming community's relationship with EA. It's like, "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me 37 times. . . ahh, what the hey, let's throw another 60 quid in this hole. I'm sure this time it'll be different."

I can't think of any way out honestly. You can say anything you want about EA but I'm sure they act very rationally. If despite the heavy backlash over the years they keep doing what they're doing then it must be working for them. That's the problem with these lootboxes, given how fast they spread to every AAA games these days (including single player games where they hardly make sense in the first place) it's obviou…

So there's a market for these kinds of games. I don't like microtransactions and what they do for gameplay, either. But I don't see the point in getting worked up about it like this. It's so much easier to just not buy those games, and spend my money on the kinds of games I do enjoy, instead.

It leaves me thinking that maybe melodramatic wailing on Reddit is secretly a big part of the fun.

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#107
post #57

Ahah, not surprised. That game felt like a beta when it was released, I could not comprehend how they could release something like this. I only started getting back into gaming recently, and to my surprise, the issue of launching broken games seems to be industry practice. Battlefield 1 had so many issues, the new CoD:WW2 has so many issues. I stopped gaming a few years ago (last game was CoD:2), and I am shocked tha…

Battlefront 2 (the new one) isn't released until the 17.

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#108
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the same with me. I never buy games at launch and I tend to stay away from F2P games entirely. There's way too many games coming out compared to the free time I have available to play them, so I've accepted that I'm never going to play the vast majority of releases. Others need to come to that same realization -- it's perfectly fine to skip a game if the company's practices suck. As for what I have been playi…

On Factorio and those kinda game: To me, Factorio is very basically just simplified Eagle with monsters (Eagle is PCB designer software). You have underground belts (vias), smelters (ICs), inserters (Caps, resistors, 2 lead parts). Then you throw some monsters in there to give some random fuzz on the designs and make things a bit more 'spicy'. Mincraft is much the same, it's a very basic Solidworks. You can extrude a…

You just gave me an idea.

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#109
post #101

I'm continually fascinated by the gaming community's relationship with EA. It's like, "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me 37 times. . . ahh, what the hey, let's throw another 60 quid in this hole. I'm sure this time it'll be different."

I can't think of any way out honestly. You can say anything you want about EA but I'm sure they act very rationally. If despite the heavy backlash over the years they keep doing what they're doing then it must be working for them. That's the problem with these lootboxes, given how fast they spread to every AAA games these days (including single player games where they hardly make sense in the first place) it's obviou…

How annoying UX affects the bottom line was one of the most important lessons I learned working on apps.

Take for example removing the Cancel button from the sign up screen, 5-10% bump in sign ups, etc. (Eventually Apple made us 'fix' this)

Generally, the only time a minorly annoying UX affects you negatively is when the platform penalizes it, like the notifications prompt on iOS, if they don't agree the first time you ask, you have to make the user to into settings to enable it. So generally you put your own prompt in before the system prompt, else users might deny the request.

Re: The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history

#110
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Factorio and those kinda game: To me, Factorio is very basically just simplified Eagle with monsters (Eagle is PCB designer software). You have underground belts (vias), smelters (ICs), inserters (Caps, resistors, 2 lead parts). Then you throw some monsters in there to give some random fuzz on the designs and make things a bit more 'spicy'. Mincraft is much the same, it's a very basic Solidworks. You can extrude a…

> some kinda Wall-Street software http://store.steampowered.com/app/271240/Offworld_Trading_Co... ?

Railroad Tycoon 2 had a better market simulation component than Offworld Trading Company, which in my opinion never really came to completion. OTC just doesn't have any depth to the gameplay, or for that matter the game mechanics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Tycoon_II

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