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The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

jeff-vogel.blogspot.com

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Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#41

Post by lioeters »

rimliu wrote: post #28
xg15 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the article provides some good points why a free market system does not work. The basis of free markets is that participants act rational and have full knowledge. Yet here we are researching increasingly sophisticated ways to undercut their rationality...

Was there rationality in the first place, ever? Just a casual glance at the stock markets gives an answer.

Indeed, one could argue that in reality, most market participants are irrational, emotional and never have full knowledge.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#42

Post by ps101 »

seventhtiger wrote: post #30
ps101 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upfront sale is not like the others at all because it doesn't interact with addictive behaviour in the same way.

It doesn't relate to addictive behavior, but there's still continuous uproar about deceptive marketing and lack of support. Developer interviews are picked around and lists of promises are made. Any monetary incentive a developer has will be viewed through a bad faith lens at every turn. That can't win.

It's not about winning - people will complain because that's what people do. Users complain about free products as well, sometimes rightfully and sometimes with too much entitlement. It's not about the monetisation model.

Creating something and putting it out there for free or for a one-off payment is the cleanest possible model.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#43

Post by Gimpei »

seventhtiger wrote: post #26

I've thought about this a lot. Every way to monetize a game will be interpreted with hostility. If you sell games for $60 upfront then your marketing will be perceived as a scam in the face of any failures or shortcomings in your game. You're trying to hype people up and sell them something bad. If you sell attempts, or lives, like an arcade or candy crush, then when players lose a level they think you're extorting t…

I'd argue that the upfront model leads to higher quality games. They're actually fun to play rather than simply being addiction machines.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#44

Post by john_minsk »

I wouldn't mind DLC and virtual slots model, if only it delivered better games in the end.

In reality games became just a gateway to these slot machines or DLCs. i.e. development happened only in one direction: money.

There is no way to explain how 15 years ago developers were able to build incredible open worlds with hours of dialog and tons of possibilities worth 100s of hours of gameplay on a single pay model, except priorities change in the industry. Fast forward 15 years - all the progress and tools, developing practices, experience accumulated in the industry - but no real progress or innovations.

There are still games that push quality mark forward, but mass market is going away from it. Companies like EA have to make a choice: do we fund this game that will sell for 60$ and give 100s of hours of diverse gameplay or do we fund this online game with proven gameplay and sell ingame items for 1$/piece for next 2 years. Both of these games not only differ in terms of money they make, but also in terms of time people spend on them. So EA is better not to fund game 1 at all, to let people spend more limited gaming time on the game that has a potential for more profits.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#45

Post by cthor »

seventhtiger wrote: post #26

I've thought about this a lot. Every way to monetize a game will be interpreted with hostility. If you sell games for $60 upfront then your marketing will be perceived as a scam in the face of any failures or shortcomings in your game. You're trying to hype people up and sell them something bad. If you sell attempts, or lives, like an arcade or candy crush, then when players lose a level they think you're extorting t…

> If you sell games for $60 upfront then your marketing will be perceived as a scam in the face of any failures or shortcomings in your game. You're trying to hype people up and sell them something bad.

Between Steam's refund policy and review system this is basically a solved problem.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#46

Post by seventhtiger »

DanBC wrote: post #39
seventhtiger wrote: post #26

I've thought about this a lot. Every way to monetize a game will be interpreted with hostility. If you sell games for $60 upfront then your marketing will be perceived as a scam in the face of any failures or shortcomings in your game. You're trying to hype people up and sell them something bad. If you sell attempts, or lives, like an arcade or candy crush, then when players lose a level they think you're extorting t…

I feel like you're mixing justified complaints ("this game has addictive gambling elements and you're targetting it at children") with less justified complaints ("this completely optional skin which has no effect on gameplay looks cooler than the default but costs money").

I'm mixing them because they are mixed. Go to any gaming community and look at what they're talking about. Justified and unjustified complaints, with the main focus on monetization and how evil the developers are who are manipulating them to pay.

What I want to figure out is how to monetize a game that removes the assumption of bad faith and detoxifies the community. I came to the conclusion that it has to be free. Every other monetization will lead to the abuse we see developers receiving.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#47

Post by antisemiotic »

seventhtiger wrote: post #26

I've thought about this a lot. Every way to monetize a game will be interpreted with hostility. If you sell games for $60 upfront then your marketing will be perceived as a scam in the face of any failures or shortcomings in your game. You're trying to hype people up and sell them something bad. If you sell attempts, or lives, like an arcade or candy crush, then when players lose a level they think you're extorting t…

There's one of the lesser-known rules of the internet - if it exists, there is an outrage about it.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#48

Post by seventhtiger »

cthor wrote: post #45
seventhtiger wrote: post #26

I've thought about this a lot. Every way to monetize a game will be interpreted with hostility. If you sell games for $60 upfront then your marketing will be perceived as a scam in the face of any failures or shortcomings in your game. You're trying to hype people up and sell them something bad. If you sell attempts, or lives, like an arcade or candy crush, then when players lose a level they think you're extorting t…

> If you sell games for $60 upfront then your marketing will be perceived as a scam in the face of any failures or shortcomings in your game. You're trying to hype people up and sell them something bad. Between Steam's refund policy and review system this is basically a solved problem.

No Man's Sky developers can't say the same.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#49

Post by baud147258 »

socialist_coder wrote: post #16
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #14

Suppose the people who hate free to play games win the argument and get rid of microtransactions. Suppose they change the laws so you have to get your looter shooter Destiny/Anthem/Division dopamine drip for one fair fixed price. So you're grinding hundreds of hours to get better armor, but you aren't spending more money. Just time. If it’s a single fixed price, what is incentivizing the developer to make the game mo…

If your game only has 10 hours of gameplay, people will complain that it's too short. Then your game gets bad reviews and you don't eat. So you need to have more gameplay, and that's either through cleverly addictive game mechanics or a ton of expensive to produce content.

It depends on the game and on how it's advertised. And I personally prefer 10 fun hours than 25 padded to hell and back. Other than Portal, there's also the latest Wolfenstein game, which had less than 10 hours of gameplay.

Re: The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction

#50

Post by baud147258 »

seventhtiger wrote: post #30
ps101 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upfront sale is not like the others at all because it doesn't interact with addictive behaviour in the same way.

It doesn't relate to addictive behavior, but there's still continuous uproar about deceptive marketing and lack of support. Developer interviews are picked around and lists of promises are made. Any monetary incentive a developer has will be viewed through a bad faith lens at every turn. That can't win.

But then it's an incentive to make a good product to get good sales on that game and the next
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