Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation • Hacker News Board

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#121

Post by pdimitar » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

newsclues wrote: post #61

cehrlich wrote: post #35

I agree with him completely. But I also wonder sometimes: Who is spending money on all of these awful games? There's so much good stuff on Steam, GOG, the Switch eStore, etc. Wonderful games made by people who care, for a fair price, without exploitative monetisation, that I don't feel even remotely tempted to play whatever Ubisoft is currently peddling. Some examples I've played in recent years are Celeste, Into the…

Who watches all the crappy superhero movies instead of great cinema?

Me. I had enough tragedy in my life and I'm not interested in looking at other people's tragedies -- this is what often passes as "great cinema", I hear.

I go to cinema to have some brainless fun. It works. I get out smiling and criticizing the dumb plot holes in the superhero movies. It makes for a great social interaction, too.

Life needs contrast. My life is busy and not easy so I need pass time that relaxes me. "The crappy superhero movies" are one of my venues towards relaxation.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#122

Post by antifa » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #90

3np wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is very good, still. BoTW, Animal Crossing.

Not really, in my opinion. Animal Crossing pocket. Mobile Mario Kart. Even Animal Crossing on the switch gated its expansion behind the new, expensive subscription.

I'm surprised no one has made an indie AC clone for Android. AC Pocket sucks.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#123

Post by antifa » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

lewispollard wrote: post #4

It's a bit rich, given there are 14 paid DLCs for the latest Civ game, and they all have pretty negative reviews for being too expensive while adding little to the gameplay.

Also, at least in civ5, if you want to play online as a DLC-only civ, you can't unless everyone else bought the same civ.

Can you imagine if you could only join fork knife games with your Spiderman skin if and only if every other player already in the game also owned it?

Can you imagine paying $5 for you favorite LoL character then the game rejecting you because you got matched with a player who is only using the free ones?

Dawn of War 2 didn't have this issue. You could choose to not buy chaos but still play against chaos players online.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#124

Post by antifa » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

labster wrote: post #102

> [Civ] has spawned five sequels, the most recent of which was released in 2016. More like one sequel, SMAC, and five remakes.

Colonization is kind of a spinoff.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#125

Post by bzzzt » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #90

3np wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is very good, still. BoTW, Animal Crossing.

Not really, in my opinion. Animal Crossing pocket. Mobile Mario Kart. Even Animal Crossing on the switch gated its expansion behind the new, expensive subscription.

The mobile games are experiments for Nintendo to find out how their games fit in the mobile gaming world. I think they are full aware of how perverse incentives can kill all the fun in games, so for now I give them the benefit of doubt.

ps. the Animal Crossing expansion can also be bought for a fixed price.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#126

Post by falcolas » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #94

falcolas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine being a player who wants to collect new skins or looks in a modern game. In almost any modern game that offers microtransactions. Even indie games are starting to sell cosmetics, so they aren't left out of the feast, err, leaving money on the table. Your choice is usually limited to: 1) spend money, 2) be unable to get all cosmetics, and occasionally 3) spend hundreds to thousands of hours to obtain the skins…

Power is the only thing that directly affects other people you're playing with. I don't mind if my opponents want to pay for some particular look - them having a nice skin takes nothing away from me (Oh no, I'll "be unable to get all cosmetics", the horror!). I mind a lot if my opponents can pay to have better winning chances, since that part is zero-sum.

This trend is in no way limited to competitive games. Tales of Arise, to list merely one example, is a full priced single player game that offers gobs of cosmetic microtransactions. Assassin's Creed is another such example.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#127

Post by thebean11 » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

antifa wrote: post #119

thebean11 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But a dev will spend time making or integrating them just so you can buy an NFT from a random other dev?

Not sure, maybe not. There are probably incentives in terms of playerbase, depending on how big these NFTs are. The NFT holders could also voluntarily fund the cost of integration, as it adds a "use" to their NFT.

My point was though that interoperable game assets aren't farfetched, they already exist.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#128

Post by thebean11 » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #50

thebean11 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expe…

> All blockchain gives you is the payment and settlement part of the process

Like I said they give you the trading platform too (the thing web app that issues the onchain transactions, and shows what's for sale) because you can use a third party one.

> and it does so at the expense of any ability to reverse a fraudulent or accidental trade.

That is mostly true now, but it doesn't have to be that way. We've come a long way with things like time locked transactions and social recovery features, but I agree it still needs to improve.

I don't think I'm under any misconceptions here, my work is related to crypto, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#129

Post by exdsq » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

exdsq wrote: post #74

gman83 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of peer pressure among kids to play certain games. I bought a Nintendo Switch for my kids, and they certainly love the games, but a lot of their friends play games like Clash Royale together. Games like this are full of in-app purchases to be a better player. So obviously, they ask if they can play these kinds of games. For the moment, they're still satisfied playing on their Switch, but once they get t…

There’s a really good South Park episode on microtransactions and why they’re stupid. The devil explains to Stan why people get addicted and how stupid it is to be addicted to microtransactions in a game about collecting Canadough to spend on building a city. I’d watch it and consider re-watching it with your kids prior to getting phones, I think it genuinely might work at highlighting why they’re a bad thing! Obviou…

Edit: for context here’s a clip https://youtu.be/2luhwy3KAE0

Re: Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation

#130

Post by vorpalhex » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

thebean11 wrote: post #127

antifa wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a dev will spend time making or integrating them just so you can buy an NFT from a random other dev?

Not sure, maybe not. There are probably incentives in terms of playerbase, depending on how big these NFTs are. The NFT holders could also voluntarily fund the cost of integration, as it adds a "use" to their NFT. My point was though that interoperable game assets aren't farfetched, they already exist.

It wouldn't be a one time "make NFTs work" task.

Every NFT requires the work.

We are talking a couple of hours per NFT - and ongoing work and testing.

There's a reason most games only have a few outfits or a handful of cars players can choose. Every model, skin and so on is a pile of regular, ongoing work.

Even SecondLife required per-model import work, rigging, custom scripting, etc.