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How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

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Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#71

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

charliesharding wrote: post #56
JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In CSGO, your skins are a direct representation of how good you are. This is fact. If you spent 1k on a Dragonlore, you're one of the best AWPers in your region, hands down.

As someone who drunkenly bought 10 keys and unboxed gloves I can confirm. I'm now competing at a much higher level. Seriously though I think the loot box model is ethically wrong. However, I don't believe it's wrong to offer skins for sale - this is no different than people wearing different brands of clothing when they compete in sports

I unboxed a knife and turned that into 2 knives and a pair of gloves. I am solidly in GN, but I do wonder if I had that better knife if I would be Global.

But, I completely agree. And whats worse is that Valve has done little to combat the darkest side of this industry, such as the 'futures' and stuff like that. Every CSGO video has an ad for some gambling site, and major events are sponsored by these companies.

The only part I like about the skins in CSGO is that you can actually 'own' the skin to a degree and make real money on it. But because of that, CSGO might also have one of the most predatory skin communities in all of gaming.

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#72

Post by PhasmaFelis »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #62
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People mostly agreed when it came to cigarettes, now they're coming for sugar Where is sugar being regulated as tightly as tobacco?

I'm talking about the hate tax. It's not nationwide yet, but you see more and more people pushing for one every year.

A tax is hardly comparable to heavily restricting sales and making it completely illegal to buy or consume for under-18s.

("Sin tax" is the popular dysphemism, BTW.)

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#73

Post by TeMPOraL »

ralusek wrote: post #59
bairrd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you define as the third party in cigarettes? Smokers and cigarette manufacturers seem to not have some negative third party by your definition, yet I find it pretty hard to accept that the current legislation against cigarette companies hasn't done a world of good for humanity.

I don't think that the role of the government is to do good for humanity. The role of the government, at least in a liberal democracy like the US, is to preserve liberty. In a state where the primary mandate is to pursue actions on behalf of the "good," the obvious problem is to do with how we define "good." There are plenty of cases to be made for the prohibition of alcohol and cigarettes altogether, and there have…

> There are plenty of cases to be made for the prohibition of alcohol and cigarettes altogether,

Prohibition of alcohol wasn't a problem because mitigating social issues caused by its abuse is a bad idea. Prohibition was a problem because it was a bad tool for the job; it didn't solve the issues it was meant to, and caused many more of its own.

Drugs, pornography, prostitution and violent video games aren't the problem (except for people who don't think much). Drug abuse-related crime and health issues are the problem. Sexual abuse and crimes are the problem. Human trafficking and forcing people into sex work are the problem. Violence is the problem. I agree that bans are a wrong idea, but I also disagree about the role of the government. It's absolutely a responsibility of governments to deal with these issues - because really, no one else can.

> Government is force, no matter what, and even democracy is tyranny of a thin majority.

If democracy is a tyranny, then so is the "free" market. A tyranny of those who have more, who rule over those who have less. The tyranny of the economy that forces most people to make bad choice after bad choice, because the alternative is starvation. Truth is, there is no absolute freedom to find anywhere. Not in a world with so many people, not when the "minimum viable reproductive unit" of human species is a village. It's a game of finding the balance that ensures most freedom and most happiness.

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#74

Post by SkyMarshal »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #8

What scares me about modern "casual" games like this one is their ability to extract money from people in a methodical, merciless way. There's no proper defense for most people. I fear our society will end up in a worse place because of businesses like this one.

>There's no proper defense for most people.

Education is a defense. Once a person is aware of the psychological dark patterns being used against them, they start becoming less susceptible. Whether it's by video games, salesmen, politicians, etc. education is the best defense.

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#75

Post by TeMPOraL »

maccard wrote: post #68
chipperyman573 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A really simple solution would be to cap the amount of money a user can spend on a single game in a certain time period after the initial buy-in (so games could still charge hundreds of dollars for Premium/GOTY/etc editions). Even something like $50/mo would stop whales

Why is $50/month an acceptable amount to spend on alcohol or coffee but not on games? Does it only apply to these style of games or do games like league of legends need to limit purchases too? (I don't have an answer, fwiw, but I'm not overly keen on this solution)

I'm of two minds about this solution (I like the "it'll immediately destroy the whole business model" approach), but I'll bite. There are couple of reasons:

1) Children are already restricted from consuming alcohol and coffee.

2) You can only drink so much coffee before your body asks you to stop, or gives up completely. It's not pleasant.

3) Coffee doesn't have this level of addictive properties (alcohol has, and as you'll note, alcoholism is a big problem, though see #5 and #6).

4) There are already "social antibodies" preventing most people from overconsumption of alcohol (and to some extent, coffee).

5) Alcohol prohibition didn't work because it unfairly punished the addiction-free majority, but what's proposed here isn't a restriction on video games, but on a particular aspect of a particular set of them. The proposal doesn't restrict the fun-giving part, only the addiction-inducing and addiction-exploiting parts.

6) Nobody designs alcohol or coffee with the sole intent of causing addiction their users that can be exploited for money. Whereas these games absolutely are designed like this.

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#76

Post by caprese »

charliesharding wrote: post #56
JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In CSGO, your skins are a direct representation of how good you are. This is fact. If you spent 1k on a Dragonlore, you're one of the best AWPers in your region, hands down.

As someone who drunkenly bought 10 keys and unboxed gloves I can confirm. I'm now competing at a much higher level. Seriously though I think the loot box model is ethically wrong. However, I don't believe it's wrong to offer skins for sale - this is no different than people wearing different brands of clothing when they compete in sports

> As someone who drunkenly bought 10 keys and unboxed gloves I can confirm. I'm now competing at a much higher level.

That's life and I'm glad that worked out for you.

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#77

Post by ricardobeat »

I had no idea what 'autobattle', 'heroes charge', 'idle game' meant, and wonder what exactly gets people interested in games of this kind.

It doesn't even look like a game in the traditional sense at all - for enjoyment / fulfillment / fun. More like a colorful spreadsheet, with cheap visuals and not even mechanical skill. 'Gameplay' videos on youtube show people flipping cards and clicking through a dozen inventory management screens, nothing really happens. Really puzzling.

Is this what getting old feels like?

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#78

Post by mlrtime »

ricardobeat wrote: post #77

I had no idea what 'autobattle', 'heroes charge', 'idle game' meant, and wonder what exactly gets people interested in games of this kind. It doesn't even look like a game in the traditional sense at all - for enjoyment / fulfillment / fun. More like a colorful spreadsheet, with cheap visuals and not even mechanical skill. 'Gameplay' videos on youtube show people flipping cards and clicking through a dozen inventory…

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

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#79

Post by logfromblammo »

DanHulton wrote: post #65
shados wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking away people with gambling addictions, children, etc (all good reasons for these games not to exist at all), I've felt for a while that their success is a great example of disparity in disposable income. I'll be forward and be completely honest: I've spent several thousands of dollars on a single of these games. And I've played many of them. Some with just straight micro-transactions (eg: League of Legends skin…

The problem, is how do you identify which of your "whales" (industry term, and useful to identify the mindset of the industry) legitimately have that extra disposable income, and which of them are maxing out credit cards and spending money they don't have?

We have "qualified investors" for the worldwide casino that is the equities market, to ensure you can't gamble more as an early investor than you could afford to lose.

Re: How Idle Heroes Made $100M in a Year

#80

Post by ralusek »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #73
ralusek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the role of the government is to do good for humanity. The role of the government, at least in a liberal democracy like the US, is to preserve liberty. In a state where the primary mandate is to pursue actions on behalf of the "good," the obvious problem is to do with how we define "good." There are plenty of cases to be made for the prohibition of alcohol and cigarettes altogether, and there have…

> There are plenty of cases to be made for the prohibition of alcohol and cigarettes altogether, Prohibition of alcohol wasn't a problem because mitigating social issues caused by its abuse is a bad idea. Prohibition was a problem because it was a bad tool for the job ; it didn't solve the issues it was meant to, and caused many more of its own. Drugs, pornography, prostitution and violent video games aren't the prob…

Human trafficking violates consent. Violence violates consent. Sexual abuse violates consent. The government has a role in preserving consent in transactions. The third-party negative externalities I mentioned fall within the purview of government responsibilities precisely because they have an impact on those who have not consented.

Gambling does not violate consent. Drug usage does not violate consent. Prostitution does not violate consent, or in the cases that do, those independent instances are where enforcement needs to occur.

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