131–140 of 179 posts
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> 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).
But if you pay up front the whole concept of paying to make your clickies refresh faster (IE, the entire business model of clicker games) goes away. What's left after that?
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> 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).
But there's no gameplay! Sorry, I mean to say: there's no inherent evolution of plot or mechanics. It's a game that's literally defined by "numbers increasing on the side of the screen, and microtransactions to make those numbers go up quicker." What would that look like without the microtransactions? while True: i++ print i Done.
That's demonstrably not true. Universal Paperclips[1] had a progression, with new game elements becoming unlocked. Spaceplan[2] had a plot, and quite a bit of humor, and was absolutely worth paying for.
I'm really surprised to see this from a company that makes, of all possible genres, clicker games . Clicker games usually have almost no actual gameplay, and pretty much only interest people because they exploit many of the same type of psychological tricks that free-to-play games use to keep players hooked. They're a great demonstration of how the illusion of progressing at something is all you need to keep people i…
At least for me, they made the math behind the grind so blatantly obvious I've lost interest in any game that uses this mechanic for real.
I wasn't aware there were people so into these games they'd drop real money on them, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around gacha games being so profitable.
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If it has no in-game shop the price is perfectly valid IMO, and I wish every mobile game was like this.
The problem isn't the price point, but what you get for that price. From the video, it looks just the same as the original, and I definitely wouldn't pay $30 for that.
A game with one repeating background, versus a game with a whole range of varied backgrounds, can be order of magnitude cheaper to make. But typically this will be reviewed as "crappy graphics" or "boring art", and the more expensive version will be panned for being too expensive. Sometimes crappy graphics won't matter, sometimes it will.
From the video, there is no comparison in terms of development resource. There is much much more art, many more frames of animation, much less smoke and mirrors in the engine. I can understand why the development budget is $2m.
But I have a horrible feeling that most consumers will be like you, and not see that, and not think that all that effort is worth it, or that they've put much effort into the new game at all. And a good chunk of them (not you) will be very entitled about it, about not getting it for free. The reality of game development, unfortunately.
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But there's no gameplay! Sorry, I mean to say: there's no inherent evolution of plot or mechanics. It's a game that's literally defined by "numbers increasing on the side of the screen, and microtransactions to make those numbers go up quicker." What would that look like without the microtransactions? while True: i++ print i Done.
how does tetris work then? You press button in response to what's on the screen. The clicker does have _some_ choices you have to make - it's just an easy choice most of the time.
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I love how paperclips is extremely addicting, but short. These games can eat up all your free time for months easily. Paperclips takes one day or two.
Spaceplan ( http://jhollands.co.uk/spaceplan/ ) also ends after a while and was very entertaining for a clicker game. Apparently they have paid versions now too, which I haven't tried.
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> 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. If anyone wants to try this type of "game" give cookie clicker a try.
One more with the niche of this forum, and one that doesn't take that much time (depending on your take on the task), is Paperclips http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
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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 go…
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Considering a decent NES game cost about $50 in 1987, how is $30 too steep for a game in 2017 that provides many hours of gameplay?
IMO, a game price shouldn't be about how many hours of gameplay it provides... $30 for a mobile clicker game just seems too much to me. I don't think it holds so much value. NES games were a lot harder to and took more time to produce (we're talking writing the game in assembly for a lot of them) and had less effective tools at producing content than we have today. You also had to assembly the cartridge and transport…
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Considering a decent NES game cost about $50 in 1987, how is $30 too steep for a game in 2017 that provides many hours of gameplay?
IMO, a game price shouldn't be about how many hours of gameplay it provides... $30 for a mobile clicker game just seems too much to me. I don't think it holds so much value. NES games were a lot harder to and took more time to produce (we're talking writing the game in assembly for a lot of them) and had less effective tools at producing content than we have today. You also had to assembly the cartridge and transport…
Don't you think that a game providing hundreds of hours of gameplay does hold a lot of value for the user? Getting hours (or even days) of entertainment for $30 certainly looks like a good deal. Especially if you compare it to $8.50 for a ticket to a 2-hour movie.
It also follows the sentiment often found on HN, where freelancers and consultants are advised to price their services based on the value they provide to their clients.
Pricing is more nuanced than just calculating the expenses.