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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#141

Post by BigJono »

Semaphor wrote: post #109
BigJono wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civ V is an interesting case, since there's another thread in here somewhere about companies charging to fix design mistakes, and Civilization was really one of the OGs when it comes to that. I wouldn't say Vanilla Civ V was bad , but it wasn't great. I probably wouldn't recommend it without the two expansions. I guess it's a moot point these days though since it's all sold together.

A mod from the early days of Civ V was Communitas [0], it became the Community Balance Patch and is nowadays called Vox Populi [1]. It vastly improves AI, balance and adds a ton of features. There is still regular development, with stable versions being released every 1-2 months. Without this mod I’d have long stopped playing Civ V, and the lack of such a fix/balance mod (Civ V had an official source release and SDK…

Yeah I've been playing the same mod for years now too. It's basically the 3rd expansion as far as I'm concerned haha.

I just remember picking up Civ V when it came out and going back to Civ IV because it got boring after a while. I loved the main changes (more vibrant and realistic graphics style, one unit per tile combat), but the systems didn't seem that fleshed out yet and the games were a bit repetitive. I don't think the game really hit it's stride until the first expansion, so it felt a bit like having to buy the game twice just to get a good product.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#142

Post by playpause »

Gigachad wrote: post #88
JKCalhoun wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, people blame the developers, blame the publishers, but I think the sad truth is, gamers themselves shoulder much of the blame. Somehow the public came to believe that everything should be free. Maybe it was the internet? Maybe it was sites/apps like Facebook? Regardless, when a great piece of software that happens to have a price tag fails to sell, whose fault is that? Don't blame developers/publishers for goin…

Why blame anyone? Gamers get the content they want in the way they prefer to pay for it, developers and publishers get paid. The market has pretty clearly spoken and decided that people prefer cosmetic micro transactions with free to play games. Just because it doesn’t match the Hacker News gaming utopia template doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong. This is especially true for multiplayer games where a lot of…

I also think “Why blame anyone?”, but not because there’s no problem. Just because it doesn’t make sense to blame individuals for market movements.

Markets are powered by billions of instances of “what someone wants” but that doesn’t mean the resulting market movements are always a good indicator of what everyone wants as an environment. Sometimes aggregate human activity results in a crappy experience for most participants. “The market has spoken” is a glib, ideological phrase that can be used to dismiss any discussion about ways we could steer and improve markets to make them do a better job at facilitating human happiness and flourishing.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#143

Post by tsimionescu »

telchior wrote: post #89
falcolas wrote: post #61

I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of the “it’s fine because it’s just cosmetics, and it doesn’t affect the game” line of reasoning. Because that’s patently not true. If cosmetics didn’t affect the gaming experience, they wouldn’t be worth anything. Certainly not worth paying above and beyond the purchase price for. Cosmetics are just the easiest to monetize and normalize, to the point where players will now defend…

As someone who has worked in F2P games: you're quite wrong that cosmetics are "easy to monetize". Good god, it's HARD. Because the only way it works, at a scale that can support a studio, is if people really, really love the game. Even something that can capture attention for dozens of hours may not be good enough. As a gamer, you're looking at something like Rocket League and going "oh yeah, it's so easy! They just…

They said "easiest to monetize and normalize", not "easy to monetize".

Also, your argument seems irrelevant. Making a successful anything is hard. The fact that you may make money off of a mediocre shrink wrapped clone of a clone of a clone when you hook a few suckers selling time crystals for hundreds of dollars is not an achievement, and not something that anyone should feel entitled to. And yet, it's 99.99% of the mobile "gaming" market...

Re: I hate what video games have become

#144

Post by JetAlone »

wincy wrote: post #129
JetAlone wrote: post #37

One interesting thing I've heard when working for a company that had microtransaction mechanics is, "Non paying players create content". By engaging in the community, even if in isolation they cost the devs money to host, they create the content and also the audience for the whale's behaviour. I think a lot of us have a vision of a childlike, halcyon "purity" of experience, in the joy of gameplay itself, that we woul…

I guess I’m not quite a whale but for a brief period of time I was spending several hundred dollars a week to run contests and pay for ships and game time for an Eve: Echoes (the mobile version, although I did play the original) corporation. We had 100+ people playing, I was their fearless leader, we had a war at one point, lots of fun. I knew once I stopped all the spending a lot of people would just leave and I wan…

Thank you, this is a very interesting answer.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#145

Post by rafadc »

IMHO the video game scene is better than ever. Maybe you don't like what 90% games have become and that is fair. But go to itch.io and you will find a wide array of different games that will for sure suit your tastes. Maybe they are not that popular.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#146

Post by robin_reala »

telchior wrote: post #86
holler wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One complaint I've had with RL recently is that it seems like they've put all their energy into new visuals and cosmetics while leaving the game mostly unchanged. The standard multi ranked map sometimes feels boring and I've wondered why they don't add different types of maps to the mix; spheres, tubes, different physics, goals in the center, figure 8 map(?), embankments (like map in season 1), etc. I guess it's simp…

Fair criticism, but one that is only relevant in the first place because of freemium. Prior to that business model, there was no such thing as a company continuing to provide regular, ongoing support to a 7 year old game of the non-subscription variety. I mean, how or why would they? You release something; it makes 90% of its lifetime revenue in year 1; if you continue working on it for 6 more years, you're out of bu…

No Man’s Sky has been getting 6 years of updates purely out of a wounded sense of pride.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#147

Post by therouwboat »

dado3212 wrote: post #7

I have basically the opposite opinion of this article. I often hold up Rocket League as an example of a great free-to-play game. 1) You 100% can unlock a lot of cosmetic items through free play. 2) The items that you buy have absolutely no impact on gameplay and are just visuals. For the same reason that people wear nice clothes in real life, why are you surprised that some people want to look cool in a video game? A…

"Are you surprised that people don’t just wear monochrome black shirts in real life?"

No and thats why its silly to say rocket league items have no impact on gameplay, ofcourse its nicer play with hot wheels car that has animated decals than grey corolla.

I would like game to be more like "if you get this good, you get these cool items" instead of something like "if we put paid rewards right next to free rewards, then 15% of our playerbase is going to buy paid tier." :/

I had no problem with dlc cars, it felt like I was supporting the game, now it feels like I'm being manipulated to give money to somebody who owns rocket league.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#148

Post by Semaphor »

BigJono wrote: post #141
Semaphor wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mod from the early days of Civ V was Communitas [0], it became the Community Balance Patch and is nowadays called Vox Populi [1]. It vastly improves AI, balance and adds a ton of features. There is still regular development, with stable versions being released every 1-2 months. Without this mod I’d have long stopped playing Civ V, and the lack of such a fix/balance mod (Civ V had an official source release and SDK…

Yeah I've been playing the same mod for years now too. It's basically the 3rd expansion as far as I'm concerned haha. I just remember picking up Civ V when it came out and going back to Civ IV because it got boring after a while. I loved the main changes (more vibrant and realistic graphics style, one unit per tile combat), but the systems didn't seem that fleshed out yet and the games were a bit repetitive. I don't…

I honestly can’t remember :D Only about 300 hours were unmodded ;)

Re: I hate what video games have become

#149

Post by amatecha »

This seems like a good time to mention this site DarkPattern.games[0] which lists mobile games that utilize such things as loot boxes, etc. and actually has quite some granularity over the different types of mechanics and how that game rates for those. For example, games which force you to wait some duration of time before being able to proceed, or force you to watch an ad, or other things like that.

"A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player with a positive outcome for the game developer."

The site also lists games which rank very well in this regard, and _don't_ contain such dark patterns. IMO a great place to find some games which actually show some respect for the person playing the game. :)

[0] https://www.darkpattern.games/

Re: I hate what video games have become

#150

Post by auriplane »

peepop6 wrote: post #70

There are games like Elden Ring that are purely addictive and immersive through great game design. And then there are MMOs and mobile games that are purely addictive through dirty psychological and immoral tricks. Just don't play the latter. Those games (like modern WoW, HS, gacha games, etc) are garbage that will be looked at in disgust in the future.

Rocket League is both at the same time, an absolutely brilliant core game (albeit with extreme QA problems), with manipulative and unethical business practices layered on top, both to keep people playing and to monetize those people.
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