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Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

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Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#41

Post by vorpalhex »

thebean11 wrote: post #33
vorpalhex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't agree on what file format to use most of the time, nobody is going to make interoperable textures/models/etc between games. NFTs would still be a "thing of value" and still be beholden to all the same rules as other things of value. You still have AML issues.

> nobody is going to make interoperable textures/models/etc between games Unity / Unreal Engine asset stores are just that aren't they?

And how often do you import those assets to find they don't work correctly in your game? That they need a different shader, renderer, lighting or additional configuration? How often do they fail to blend in with other prefabs?

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#42

Post by kipchak »

fattless wrote: post #13
Bombthecat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea of nfts is cool, imagine star citizen where everyone could model ships and sell them as nft and set a counter of how many they sell (are available) the market should then set the value between work put in to design the ship, sell it and how many are available. So juat like right now, you could buy a ship for 5 dollar, cheaply designed and thousands are available (or endless) or get a unique nice and…

I’ve always said that something like this could be a cool idea, but I don’t get why nft/blockchain is necessary. Speaking about the Ubisoft nft thing (because I understand it the best), Steam marketplace has been doing the same thing very well for years, offering a very similar expirence. Is there something I’m missing?

The only downsides to to the Steam marketplace is it hasn't caught on very much outside of Valve's own titles, and you can only cash out to store credit, which has resulted in third party trading sites that run on top of the steam marketplace to emerge such as marketplace.tf, which relies on trusting the site not to swindle you. Both of those are fairly small issues, I think the trickier part is creating an environment/reason for anyone to care about the digital items that are for sale.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#43

Post by donmcronald »

prox wrote: post #36
donmcronald wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the NFT thing should be illegal. It adds nothing beyond a false promise that you're buying an "investment" instead of an in game item. IMO it's disgusting to see game companies targeting kids with a scam like that. As for the rest of the article, he could be talking about me. I've basically given up on PC gaming. I used to love gaming and now it feels like a second job. It feels like I'm being forced to "acco…

I guess it very much depends what kind of games you play. These are the games I enjoy : Rimworld, Valheim, Police Simulator, Project Zomboid, Space Engineers, KSP 1, Factorio, Skyrim, Mount and Blade 2 : Bannerlord. None of them have significant money sinks with add on purchases. Most are modable, adding to their appeal and longevity.

You're right! Rimworld and Factorio have been on my Steam wishlist for a while.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#44

Post by [deleted] »

imiric wrote: post #27

Sid is a few years too late with the warning. Gameplay and original game design have taken a backseat to increasingly hostile monetization schemes, lazy/safe/rehashed game loops and marketing/shareholder driven development for at least a decade now. The amount of AAA titles built on hype and released broken at launch, with promises of future patches, is too long to list. With some notable exceptions, most of the inno…

[deleted]

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#45

Post by 34679 »

imiric wrote: post #27

Sid is a few years too late with the warning. Gameplay and original game design have taken a backseat to increasingly hostile monetization schemes, lazy/safe/rehashed game loops and marketing/shareholder driven development for at least a decade now. The amount of AAA titles built on hype and released broken at launch, with promises of future patches, is too long to list. With some notable exceptions, most of the inno…

If I understood Zuckerberg correctly during his Lex Fridman interview, he's trying to build an entire alternate reality based on this concept of monetizing in game items. He said something along the lines of, "People want to dress nice and look good in person, so why not in a VR meeting?" and then proceeded to talk about charging people for clothes and haircuts in the Metaverse. I have to wonder what sort of scenarios this might lead to, with all of Facebook's corporate partnerships. Are people going to end up having to pay Facebook in order to keep up with dress codes at company meetings? Will hair grow so anyone who doesn't pay Facebook for a haircut shows up looking like a bum? Will clothes become stained and ragged over time?

Lex even proposed an alternative of a closet that you only pay for once, but updates with a basic style over time. The suggestion was mostly dismissed by Zuckerberg.

Way too late to be talking about video games, this stuff is about to hit many other aspects of human interaction.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#46

Post by thebean11 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #41
thebean11 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody is going to make interoperable textures/models/etc between games Unity / Unreal Engine asset stores are just that aren't they?

And how often do you import those assets to find they don't work correctly in your game? That they need a different shader, renderer, lighting or additional configuration? How often do they fail to blend in with other prefabs?

The cost to integrate them into a game certainly isn't zero, agree with you there

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#47

Post by usrusr »

ranger207 wrote: post #23
fattless wrote: post #19

The worst part of this trend to me is how many games sacrifice their identity to fit the mold that is now most profitable, it feels so soulless. This is all from my own experience/memory. Every game needs live service, seasons, and a battle pass. While I appreciate that it can keep the game fresh and evolving over time, I think a lot of times its harmful. Sometimes a relatively simple game is blown out of proportion…

I agree. At this point AAA games are a genera unto themselves, whether they're a shooter, adventure game, sports game, whatever. They all share the same elements you outlined: seasons, battlepass, in-game currency, microtransactions for the smallest items, and game design that puts the focus of the entire game on those elements. AAA games are made with massive budgets and are designed to be very attractive to play, t…

Time to establish a different term than triple A? What you describe reminds me of what is usually called a B movie: those always had the biggest, cheesiest monsters...

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#48

Post by bitwize »

34679 wrote: post #45
imiric wrote: post #27

Sid is a few years too late with the warning. Gameplay and original game design have taken a backseat to increasingly hostile monetization schemes, lazy/safe/rehashed game loops and marketing/shareholder driven development for at least a decade now. The amount of AAA titles built on hype and released broken at launch, with promises of future patches, is too long to list. With some notable exceptions, most of the inno…

If I understood Zuckerberg correctly during his Lex Fridman interview, he's trying to build an entire alternate reality based on this concept of monetizing in game items. He said something along the lines of, "People want to dress nice and look good in person, so why not in a VR meeting?" and then proceeded to talk about charging people for clothes and haircuts in the Metaverse. I have to wonder what sort of scenario…

> He said something along the lines of, "People want to dress nice and look good in person, so why not in a VR meeting?" and then proceeded to talk about charging people for clothes and haircuts in the Metaverse.

"Her date doesn't look half bad himself. The other girl is a Brandy. Her date is a Clint. Brandy and Clint are both popular, off-the-shelf models. When white trash high school girls are going on a date in the Metaverse, they invariably run down to the computer-games section of the local Wal-Mart and buy a copy of Brandy. The user can select three breast sizes: improbable, impossible, and ludicrous. Brandy has a limited repertoire of facial expressions: cute and pouty; cute and sultry; perky and interested; smiling and receptive; cute and spacy. Her eyelashes are half an inch long, and the software is so cheap that they are rendered as solid ebony chips. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes, you can almost feel the breeze. Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. He is craggy and handsome and has an extremely limited range of facial expressions." --Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (whence the term "metaverse").

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#49

Post by Tyr42 »

Bombthecat wrote: post #14
nest0r wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would I need NFTs for that?

Nfts itself aren't the "game changer" the game changer is the combination of nfts and smart contracts, where various attributes are defined for the nfts, and they are not changeable. In the steam marketplace, the developer can change things easily, like changing a super rare card in a collectable card game to a common card.

Or just reprinting a card in future sets, if you want an example from Magic the Gathering.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#50

Post by paulmd »

thebean11 wrote: post #32
nest0r wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be difference between whaht they are doing now ie. Steam wihth cosmetics in csgo or tf2 and NFTs? It would only add overhead.

Wouldn't it remove overhead? They don't need to develop or host the "auction house" or whatever it is.

tokens are just tokens, it's like having a bunch of pointers to JSON documents in a big flat file. if you want the tokens and their data to be discoverable then you still need to host some kind of UI to let people browse and issue transactions.

All blockchain gives you is the payment and settlement part of the process (a private key can reassign "ownership" of the pointer to your document), and it does so at the expense of any ability to reverse a fraudulent or accidental trade. Got a virus and lost your apes? Wow sucks to be you, if you're no longer the owner please take it out of your profile.

this is such a widespread misrepresentation/falsehood in crypto, that it makes all this other stuff go away, like we suddenly won't have any trading firms or crypto exchanges, therefore no need for buildings or employees or heating or lighting. I've literally had people on HN tell me that crypto was gonna mean no more "wasted power and heat" from financial services companies, like commodities or equity traders are just gonna disappear because we came up with a new mechanism for HFT.

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