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Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

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Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#111

Post by criddell »

chii wrote: post #90
noncoml wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're a great demonstration of how the illusion of progressing at something is all you need to keep people interested, even when the only thing they're progressing towards is... the opportunity for more progression First time I heard about clicker heroes game was 2 hours ago, reading your reply. Guess why it took me 2 house to reply? That’s right, I’ve been clicking and clicking. It’s crazy how something so point…

> pay $30 up front to play it i'd rather pay upfront than be nickeled and dimed afterwards. Esp. if the production quality of the game is up to scratch (e.g., no unrecoverable bugs, good looking graphics/sound, and intuitive UI etc).

I have no problem paying for additional levels. I don't like paying to alter the game experience, but I do like paying for more game.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#112

Post by SXX »

spondyl wrote: post #91
mirashii wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Valve's model of pure cosmetics with an active workshop and ability to implement custom games shows you can still have microtransactions without turning away the notion of a player community. It just seems to me that the common monetization schemes implemented in other games is a bit of a blatant money grab made by forcing people to artificially grind.

On one hand I agree but on the other, Team Fortress 2, where the model originated has stagnated with only a handful of team members shipping actual content updates to the game with the majority of it just seemingly being community items made canon. There is still a community but it doesn't feel like the same game since microtransactions were added. It's still a fascinating example of a player run economy though with…

This is tell nothing about monetization model though. It's just how Valve operate: too few developers interested in working on game so its stagnates.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#113

Post by woogley »

alanfalcon wrote: post #5

Awesome, good on them! Another studio who dipped their toe in the F2P model then ran away screaming (in their case, to great success) is Butterscotch Shenanigans--three brothers in Saint Louis who released the game Crashlands for mobile and Steam which I've probably sunk 300 hours into (but I'm weird like that). I really hope this works well for the Clicker Heroes 2 developers. I've enjoyed Clicker Heroes and I'm rea…

For those who haven't seen it, the development story behind Crashlands is very inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQHtOg46eOw

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#114

Post by james-skemp »

norlys wrote: post #106
stingraycharles wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday I was looking for a simcity-like game for my iPad to play that didn’t use microtransactions. It’s simply not there. Not a single city simulator that you can actually play without paying for some stupid credit system. I was easily willing to spend $10 for such a game, because of the scarcity. I would expect some indy dev to jump into this space, but I guess microtransactions are just too lucrative?

Try Cities: Skylines. They offer a lot of (in my opinion) overpriced DLCs, but it's already a great game without them. You can get it in a Humble Bundle for about 10(?) bucks right now.

They said iPad though. Cities: Skylines is great, but there isn't a similar experience on mobile.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#115

Post by fro0116 »

mirashii wrote: post #54
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #4

> 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…

I think Valve's model of pure cosmetics with an active workshop and ability to implement custom games shows you can still have microtransactions without turning away the notion of a player community. It just seems to me that the common monetization schemes implemented in other games is a bit of a blatant money grab made by forcing people to artificially grind.

I am a fan of the _idea_ of only charging for cosmetics customizations instead of hiding actual game content behind paywalls, but the way that Valve and others have implemented it in practice is highly predatory, because nearly everything desirable is hidden behind an opaque wall of RNG instead of just put up for direct purchase for a known price.

This is how you end up with gambling addicts blowing thousands of dollars for a virtual in-game skin, and it has enabled a vast network of grey-markets gambling operations to fuel those addictions [1].

It can be difficult for normal people (who mostly just enjoy the gameplay and maybe once in a while splurge on a few dozen bucks to make our virtual avatars look nicer) to emphasize with people who have real gambling problems, but that doesn't make it any more ethical to exploit them so blatantly.

Hiding these gambling platforms behind the veneer of innocent-looking games also exposes gambling to a younger audience that's much more susceptible to predatory tactics often used by gambling platforms to build up their addiction. There are pretty good reasons why gampling is a regulated industry, and online games that employ these kinds of systems are way overdue for some oversight.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_gambling

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#116

Post by cableshaft »

stingraycharles wrote: post #39
colmvp wrote: post #27

I hope (though I'm not truly that optimistic) in a decade that the trend of F2P will have passed. I find them extremely parasitic, exploiting human behavior. I also hate the term free-to-play, because it purposefully hides the fact that for many games, you either need to grind a lot to acquire content/in-game currency or have to spend a lot.

Just yesterday I was looking for a simcity-like game for my iPad to play that didn’t use microtransactions. It’s simply not there. Not a single city simulator that you can actually play without paying for some stupid credit system. I was easily willing to spend $10 for such a game, because of the scarcity. I would expect some indy dev to jump into this space, but I guess microtransactions are just too lucrative?

Probably won't quite scratch the same itch, but check out the Suburbia Board Game iOS app. It was a board game inspired by city building games that's fairly popular, that has since been converted to an iOS game. It won't make pretty cities, but it will give you some interesting choices, at least, and has multiple scenarios and levels you can play. It's only $3. No microtransactions, and if it has any DLC it's only going to be the expansions that came out for the physical board game.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/suburbia-city-building-board...

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#117

Post by r0ze-at-hn »

jon_richards wrote: post #38
csours wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clash Royale brands their philosophy as pay-to-advance. You can upgrade faster with real money, but that doesn't mean you will win matches. At some point at the top I assume everyone is spending a lot of money, and is matched up with similar level cards. As a player it doesn't really bug me.

That is an interesting point, but I think most companies incentivise whales by putting them up against people who they can crush, whether it is deliberately (as in the case of activision's patent) or by having a matchmaking system that doesn't strictly separate people by their in-game power. Imagine a game where players only interact if they are the same level. If you can pay to gain levels, that doesn't necessarily…

So I did play such a free-to-play game where you could pay to level up, but you just battled the same level. I grinded my way up the level tree exploring the different systems that the game had and got my fun out of it. What was interesting was I realized you could craft a "team" that the system thought was a low level team, but what actually something no one would have at that level and was actually more powerful. Think Level 1 character, but somehow was equipped with a great fire sword of the deep and level 10 strength. This was a evening of fun building up such a wacky team that could defeat everyone the system put up against them. And then I realized I had beat the game and never played after that.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#118

Post by kbutler »

Solve the ethical dilemma/charged too much issue:

Cap the max expenditure in the real money shop. After that level, players can continue to purchase, but they won't actually be charged real money.

If desired, can also add a "donate" button for the hypothetical players who pay huge amounts to support the game/company.

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#119

Post by beaconstudios »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #99
beaconstudios wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the main reasons F2Ps have become so prominent is that players want something for nothing - sure, you get all these games for free (but then, most players could easily afford $40 for a game they'll spend hours on) but then your weighted cost of development will get offloaded onto either some rich person with too much time on their hands (ethically fine) or someone with chronic gaming addiction or depre…

"I'd much rather live in a world where people were just more happy to pay for things they consume" As an "old" and grumpy gamer, I agree, but I think we are past that point. Nowadays I think new gamers are losing track of the fact that they are supposed to play to have fun, and see getting rewards as the only end-goal. Recently Hearthstone (collectible card game) announced a free roguelike single-player mode, and the…

yeah I think both sides of the equation feed into each other to create some kind of Skinner box with mutually-dependent researcher and subject. It's not a pleasant formula and it's started to leak into paid AAA games too (for example, Battlefront II's loot-box controversy and Deus Ex's single player microtransactions).

Re: Clicker Heroes 2 is abandoning free-to-play

#120

Post by gberger »

cwyers wrote: post #42
stingraycharles wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday I was looking for a simcity-like game for my iPad to play that didn’t use microtransactions. It’s simply not there. Not a single city simulator that you can actually play without paying for some stupid credit system. I was easily willing to spend $10 for such a game, because of the scarcity. I would expect some indy dev to jump into this space, but I guess microtransactions are just too lucrative?

> I was easily willing to spend $10 for such a game, because of the scarcity. Your willingness to pay $10 for a SimCity-style game probably explains the scarcity. If you and enough others were willing to pay $40-60, you'd find that game.

I would pay $40-60 for an AAA console or PC game, not for a random mobile game. For that, $10 is about right.
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