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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#371

Post by AtlasBarfed »

bootloop wrote: post #184
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…

This is absurd. So you also don't use any software products which are a) free to use or b) habe a free tier?

bootloop: have you tried machine zone or other popular FTP "games"?

These "games" are HIGHLY MANIPULATIVE. They use bullying, false cult inclusion, peer pressure, gambling reward ration, false emotional and time investment, and outright slot machine tactics to extract money from players.

They are worse than Las Vegas gambling by a country mile, since at least Las Vegas gambling is open and honest about the fact that the house wins and has established rules.

The social bullying that comes from "fake players" that are paid employees of the company is among the most disturbing aspect of these games. They exists to "shake down" players to upgrade with paid upgrades, to sow conflict, etc.

The rules of these "games", including the value of in-game currencies of dizzying types, is routinely nerfed/devalued at rates similar to the more comical instances of hyperinflation in the real world.

These "games" are at the extreme end of the spectrum for now. What is truly disturbing is that practically every "platform" of gaming drools over the revenue streams they produce. It is a sad dark gravity hole that is sucking the entire industry towards it. It is the depravity of capitalism in action, the almighty dollar destroys any idealism.

Aside from that, the appalling ad and currency extraction tactics used by virtually every "free to play" kids game is perhaps more distrubing, not because of the extreme tactics of the MZ games, but because the target audience is young children with demonstrably biological inability to properly regulate the addiction and investment behaviors involved.

Rather than a 10 second toy ad "hooking" a kid, you have a program that can spend an hour or more "hooking" a kid with tactics that aren't as immediately apparent to regulators in their manipulation.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#372

Post by auto »

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #363

Over the last few years I have gotten hundred of hours of enjoyment from games like League of Legends, Valorant and Halo Infinite and couldn't even tell you how to spend money on those games if I wanted to. I honestly doubt I would have ever picked up any of those games if they were not free and I'm guessing since many other would say the same thing the lobbies would be empty and the games would die. In those case th…

My experience lines up with yours, as a looong time Halo veteran who is a bit bummed with the state of Infinite, I'm happy to not pay a cent, despite spending thousands on Halo over the years. I've also spent a decent amount of the previous year playing Valorant, and I almost feel bad that I've paid nothing for it, but the the problem is that apparently the economists Riot employs have figured the sweet spot for selling in game items is $20+ (with many items in the 30-40 range), which is just too much for a single item for me.

The irony is that if gun skins were all $5-10, I'd probably have already spent over $100 on them. Oh well, time to queue up again and contribute nothing back.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#373

Post by phelm »

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 can't believe how many people care about the cosmetics, I've been playing RL for years, unlocked heaps of things to wear but never changed the appearance of my car once. All I really care about is playing and trying to win, although sometimes other peoples cars do look cool, I have no desire to update mine.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#374

Post by some_random »

nopcode wrote: post #254
SentientNo4 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cosmetic items are not just visual though. They are real elements in the game. Yes, I really hate this argument that cosmetics are not gameplay. Visuals are a huge part of what makes a game, no one would be happy if games shipped without textures and shaders and people would have to pay to unlock them.

A better phrasing is whether they offer a competitive advantage.

The reality is that they kinda do, people with expensive cosmetics are viewed as being better players by their teammates and opponents. The significance of this can be hard to measure, but in most games it's bigger than a small stat boost that would be immediately seen as p2w

Re: I hate what video games have become

#375

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

Yeah, cosmetic items are the least bad solution to this problem since they provide zero advantage to players. They're there for people who want to look cool online which is fine.

Paying for items that impact the game balance turns them into spending competitions: whoever pays the company the most money wins. Games designed like this are not even worth playing. I fell for one of these money sinks once, never again.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#377

Post by XCSme »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #365
jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #363

Over the last few years I have gotten hundred of hours of enjoyment from games like League of Legends, Valorant and Halo Infinite and couldn't even tell you how to spend money on those games if I wanted to. I honestly doubt I would have ever picked up any of those games if they were not free and I'm guessing since many other would say the same thing the lobbies would be empty and the games would die. In those case th…

"Laurey LoL statistics indicate players spend an average of $92 a year on the game."

The thing about IAPs in games is that most money comes from whales, people spending thousands of dollars for customizations or pay-to-win items, this rises the average by a lot. It would be nice to see the distribution of payments.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#378

Post by cinntaile »

imiric wrote: post #179
therouwboat wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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, the…

> now it feels like I'm being manipulated to give money to somebody who owns rocket league. Epic Games. Why are we surprised by this when they saw a cash cow when they bought it, and have done nothing but turn it into another Fortnite? I think this type of game needs its own genre. Fortnite, RL, GTA Online, Warzone... They all follow the same model of "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it" perpetually…

> They all follow the same model of "build a good multiplayer experience and "support it" perpetually by squeezing as much revenue as you can from your users".

It's a viable business model and it allows players to enjoy the game for many years to come. What bothers me a little is that these revenue extracting schemes are usually very complicated and are probably complicated because it allows them to extract as much money as possible from a small subset of players. Like casino's and mobile games.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#379

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

You can play those beautiful single player games that have none of these problems, or play rocketleague for the gameplay instead of trying to play "pimp my car" while playing rocketleague. I think it's good training for life: practice with temptetion with something as cheap as a videogame and stretch your "resistence" now, so that later when your income increases even further, you will avoid spending on way more expensive things. I'm talking by experience, wasted quite some money in league of legends, but I don't play it anymore

I played yesterday night couch coop rocketleague with my friends (my daughter, me, my wife and 2 friends), we have the basic cars and had a great time with that game.

And yes, bought the game for super cheap long time ago

Re: I hate what video games have become

#380

Post by wly_cdgr »

Cosmetics are a fine business model. I am more worried about the assholes who think it's fine to play a game for dozens or hundreds of hours without buying any. These are the entitled freeloader scumbags who ruin it for everyone else (by forcing gamedevs to use P2W instead of cosmetics to stay in business), not gamedevs
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