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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#221

Post by wink »

wodenokoto wrote: post #213
yourdeadneopet wrote: post #168

A few years ago, Nintendo made a wonderful game called Super Mario Run. It was simple - Mario automatically runs and you tap to jump - but surprisingly deep. The timing of the jumps and the height of jump was paramount, and there was a ton of replayability in trying to get out-of-reach coins and finding shortcuts. It also captured the aesthetic of the Mario World games with modern graphics. I was VERY skeptical of a…

Super Mario Run, on top of being a great game at a great price is basically single payment f2p. And most people didn’t get that you could buy it and not worry about needing to buy berries or diamonds for real world money. Not worry about your child spending hundreds of real world dollars when playing on your phone. People just hated the fact that they had to pay for the cheapest priced Mario game ever.

It's based on the platform. Nobody would've bat an eye at a Switch or PC game for an upfront cost, but asking 10$ for a mobile game was kinda unheard of. I think they misjudged the market response there.

I can't say I'm not biased here, I basically hate 95% of all the mobile games I ever tried, or at least stopped playing after an hour - so a 10$ purchase for me would simply never happen, because I don't like the platform. On the other hand I did do the "paid unlock" after trying it out for a few. (Ignore this if they had a demo, I never tried it, wasn't it iphone only?)

Re: I hate what video games have become

#222

Post by sofixa »

Semaphor wrote: post #187
sofixa wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people hate the Paradox DLC style, personally I think it’s amazing Yep. Some people might argue that this or that mechanic should be in the base game because it's too important, but in general the Paradox model is great. Games get interesting new content many years after release, which you have to pay for, but it enables Paradox to actually do the work. The latest DLC for Hearts of Iron 4 took more than a year…

Often, content also does end up in the base game after some time. It happened with Utopia for Stellaris, most of what it initially offered is now included in the base game. And people who can’t or don’t want to pay still get some benefit as part of the features are always public and not DLC-only.

And there are promos a few times per year where all the DLCs are available at a huge discount. And now there's a monthly subscription for all the DLCs. So there are multiple options available to get DLCs. All in all, not a bad way of doing things.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#223

Post by hypertele-Xii »

bradknowles wrote: post #57
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly makes you think as someone who "dabbles in games" to be entitled to profit? AFAIK it costs $100 +30% to publish on Steam. It only takes 260 people to buy your game at 50 cents to break even. If your game can't sell 260 copies at 50 cents then it's just that, worthless. Why not just release your game for free, for free? Does it have to be on Steam? Does it have to make money?

Do you have to eat? Do you have to have a place to sleep? Seems to me like making a reasonable amount of money to help towards these goals is not an unreasonable thing to hope for. But maybe you can prove me wrong?

Oh sorry sometimes I forget most people live in wage slavery.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#224

Post by Sander_Marechal »

sofixa wrote: post #171
Semaphor wrote: post #90

I’m glad there is this whole parallel universe of amazing single player (or MP-optional) games with absolutely no dark patterns, loot boxes or any of the shit people who play MP games have to put up with. I buy a game, and unless I get the DLC(s)/Expanions pack(s), that’s all I’ll ever have to pay. Civilization V: Over 2000 hours. Pathfinder: Kingmaker/Wrath of the righteous: Over 1000 hours each. Stellaris [0]: Almo…

> Some people hate the Paradox DLC style, personally I think it’s amazing Yep. Some people might argue that this or that mechanic should be in the base game because it's too important, but in general the Paradox model is great. Games get interesting new content many years after release, which you have to pay for, but it enables Paradox to actually do the work. The latest DLC for Hearts of Iron 4 took more than a year…

From an engineering perspective I wonder how sustainable that is. For every new DLC X you need to test with (X-1)! combinations of previous DLCs. Sure, not all DLCs interact with each other but many will in some limited way.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#225

Post by badsectoracula »

madrox wrote: post #164
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…

I think a lot of people naively think of moves like this as pure money grabs and don’t appreciate that a lot of these moves are out of survival…especially for games like Rocket League that require a sufficient player base to even be a viable live service game.

Well, Rocket League doesn't need to be a "viable live service game", it could just be a regular multiplayer game that gives you a client and server executable to run your own.

It isn't like not being a live service game killed Quake 3, for example.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#226

Post by j_4 »

Kiro wrote: post #200
j_4 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another comment you've admitted to spending $10k on some games, so clearly the patterns are doing their job. These things are specifically made to create a strong addiction and wring the max possible amount of money out of people whether they can afford it or not. If you are in the former camp then you do you, but it doesn't make them not dark.

The games I like grinding in (Factorio/Satisfactory, survival games) and with guilds (World of Warcraft) are not the same I spend money in. I feel it's unfair to use another unrelated comment of mine and make assumptions on that. The rest of the mechanics (especially the ones making me spend money) I have no problem calling dark patterns.

Then the site mostly agrees with you on that, and I do as well. These things are only dark patterns because they usually interlock with the money sinks. I'd say they still mostly cater to an addictive personality, but it's a very mild vice when the game's design doesn't follow the incentive to cash in on that.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#227

Post by bhedgeoser »

holler wrote: post #66
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…

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…

I think their dev team is too busy with the UE5 port.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#228

Post by darkwater »

q-big wrote: post #185

> Can you imagine if other art mediums where this ridiculous? Like you are watching Avengers End game in Netflix and they ask you if you wanna pay 5 dollars more to watch Captain America use his well known outfit instead of regular clothes? Or you are reading a cooking e-book that asks you for one dollar for each desert decoration recipe you want to unlock? Don't give managers bad ideas.

I think the idea is already there, they just miss the technical capacity for now to implement it.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#229

Post by [deleted] »

Kiro wrote: post #155
OtomotO wrote: post #151

As a (non game) developer, I can say, thay free to play is instantly dead on arrival for me. The moment something is known to become or becomes free to play is the moment I lose all interest. The dishonesty in the system itself is what makes this unbearable for me. Developers need to eat, Managers need to eat, Marketeers need to eat... And sometimes psychologists doing evil mindtricks and supporting gambling addictio…

Good thing they have whales like me who will spend 100x of what you would have paid. They don't need you when they can milk me.

[deleted]

Re: I hate what video games have become

#230

Post by wink »

I think that's an overly general view and in my experience you have to decide case by case, but of course you're free to ignore anything you don't like.

Take Guild Wars 2 for example, it used to be Buy To Play with an excessive ingame shop that sells not only cosmetics but also quality of life improvements, but no 'power items'. I love this model, I bought it years ago on a sale and was happy to give them money for expansions and cash shop items because it's a nice game with an MMO scope, I want it to survive.

Star Wars: The Old Republic launched as a subscription game and went F2P but with certain benefits once you had subbed for a month once. Many people were upset about some of the things they locked and you only get the full experience (or the newest expansion) if you subscribe, but over the years I did spend some time in f2p and I think it's fine.

I guess in general I don't have a problem with free games with a big cash shop (unless it's pay to win), but maybe that's because I either play a game for 10h and then not touch it again (so free would be... I don't see the limitations before I stop) or I'm playing it for years (then I pay hundreds in subscription fees or if it was a one-time purchase and I feel bad not giving them money after a while).

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