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it concerns me how many of my friends in free to play game dev are okay with exploting whales for profit.
I wonder if you could still have free to play, but just had a limit to how many different things to buy. Say, you could buy everything for $60. That way, you don’t have to worry about someone spending thousands because they wouldn’t get any more than if they spent $60.
I'm not super interested in clicker games, but I pre-ordered anyhow, because I have to believe the future of gaming isn't just a never-ending series of venal cash grabs.
I love this essay. Thinking about people who've damaged their lives on addictive gaming.... those people behind the four-figure numbers on the spreadsheet of Whales. That's sad as hell. But... it's a clicker game. A hilarious-looking clicker game... but a clicker game. Would anybody spend $30 on a clicker game?
Well that's the thing, isn't it: A lot of people spent a lot more than $30 on Clicker Heroes 1. So yes, obviously people will spend $30 on a clicker game. The question is whether they'll do so via an ethical business model.
I wonder if you could still have free to play, but just had a limit to how many different things to buy. Say, you could buy everything for $60. That way, you don’t have to worry about someone spending thousands because they wouldn’t get any more than if they spent $60.
This means that if you set a limit on it, you'd be limiting your profit by an extreme amount.
I'm all for it by the way, I think games that sell game affecting content for thousands of dollars are targeted scams portraying as games to get away with it.
Especially because games like league of legends and path of exile had shown how you can do free2play while only selling cosmetic items, if you make a good game.
I wonder if you could still have free to play, but just had a limit to how many different things to buy. Say, you could buy everything for $60. That way, you don’t have to worry about someone spending thousands because they wouldn’t get any more than if they spent $60.
Train Simulator 2018 does that. All the DLC comes to $7800.
> Also, we like games with mods and we want mods. Real-money shops make little sense with mods, when you can just download a mod to quadruple the number of rubies you get. Also, it is simply too easy to cheat. I think this touches on an important aspect of microtransactions that to my knowledge remains largely unexamined (but maybe I'm just not reading the right critics). Specifically, games are traditionally built a…
Well written and thought provoking. I'm not super interested in clicker games, but I pre-ordered anyhow, because I have to believe the future of gaming isn't just a never-ending series of venal cash grabs.
(bought with in-game currency; I never spent real money)
> Also, we like games with mods and we want mods. Real-money shops make little sense with mods, when you can just download a mod to quadruple the number of rubies you get. Also, it is simply too easy to cheat. I think this touches on an important aspect of microtransactions that to my knowledge remains largely unexamined (but maybe I'm just not reading the right critics). Specifically, games are traditionally built a…
Check out Roblox. They are a UGC platform that enables creators to take microtransactions via a centralized currency (Robux).
it concerns me how many of my friends in free to play game dev are okay with exploting whales for profit.
It's a sad fact of human nature that it's really easy for us to compromise our morals when the only person hurt by doing so is an anonymous stranger on the other side of the Internet.