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I hate what video games have become

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Re: I hate what video games have become

#391

Post by hfourm »

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."

I may spend 100-200 a year on Valorant. However, I am getting way more per hour value out of it than say, a 50 - 60$ single player game that I quit after a single play through. Or worse, the 50-60$ AAA titles that popup every few years, get a swarm of players in the first few months, then die off as the ADHD Twitch community moves to something else.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#392

Post by thot_experiment »

collaborative wrote: post #152
thot_experiment wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artificial scarcity is bad, actually. Things that don't cost money to duplicate should be free, we need UBI and maybe a general shift to patronage-based models, luckily this is starting to happen. There are also plenty of games that implement a cometic lootboxes that don't impact gameplay model that are totally fine.

This would lead to a society where there is no incentive to create any new digital goods. The patronage "platform" would be the new Apple/Google and would likely be riddled with corruption

While my original comment is not my best work by any stretch (sorry), I implore you to reconsider the idea that all motivation is monetary (it's absolutely not) and that patronage must happen on a "platform" that will become corrupt in some way. I think discounting the possibility of novel systems that tackle these problems out of hand is not a good way to start.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#393

Post by geraldwhen »

dkersten wrote: post #346
telchior wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Plenty of games get regular patches and updates (Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition being one I recently played) and back in the day, games would release paid expa…

Multiplayer paid map packs fragment the user base and create smaller lobbies/angry buyers. It was a real problem for older halo titles.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#394

Post by andechs »

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 median spend might be zero $ per year.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#395

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #379

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 expe…

> You can play those beautiful single player games that have none of these problems

I was never a small studio lover, until all the large studios started really sucking.

Tunic, Subnautica, Hollowknight, Outer Wilds are absolutely must plays. Tunic being the latest which has been the closest I’ll ever get to playing A Link To The Past for the first time again.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#396

Post by kgwxd »

bambax wrote: post #160

> once you stop playing a game 100% of the money you spend on it disappears, you can’t recover any of it, not 50%, not 20%, just nothing (...) Can you imagine if other art mediums were this ridiculous? Well, we're getting there. Streaming services, and all subscription offerings, are systems where you don't own anything, and you lose everything the moment you stop paying.

When I go to the movies, 100% of the money I spend disappears. It's ridiculous.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#397

Post by [deleted] »

duckmysick wrote: post #178
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…

I've been wondering why we have such different reactions to free to play games and free software. I know gaming has different value proposition, but free software and services share a lot of similarities. It's not just feeding the creators. There are tricks and "addictions" too. Do you like the free version but want to scale up, remove that restrictive license, or unlock new features? No problem, just pay up a bit. I…

[deleted]

Re: I hate what video games have become

#398

Post by jokoon »

I think overwatch is the best fps in the world. I love the game mechanics.

Meanwhile, Im realizing blizzard encourage smurfing, meaning have several accounts, to constantly win against lower skilled players in competitive, instead of playing against players of their own skills.

You now see entire teams "deranking" meaning losing on purpose, to lose skill rating, so they can climb all over again. It ruins the game.

Other games add barriers, like sms, or scanning for ip.

Blizzard does make a lot of money that way.

Re: I hate what video games have become

#399

Post by tsuujin »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #371
bootloop wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Fun fact, in the US it was not permitted to advertise to children on TV at all between the late ‘40s and early ‘80s. It was only because Reagan reversed these laws that advertising to children because permissible and common on tv.

Many other countries still prohibit or limit advertising to children today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_to_children

Re: I hate what video games have become

#400

Post by thot_experiment »

School-Cotton wrote: post #131
thot_experiment wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artificial scarcity is bad, actually. Things that don't cost money to duplicate should be free, we need UBI and maybe a general shift to patronage-based models, luckily this is starting to happen. There are also plenty of games that implement a cometic lootboxes that don't impact gameplay model that are totally fine.

Lot of assertions here about how society should be run without any actual argumentation.

Fair enough, it's not a great comment. I don't really know how society should be run, and I shouldn't have offhandedly emphasized a couple things that I think might lead us to a solution.

That being said I'll stand by artificial scarcity being bad thing and clarify that while I don't have some master plan on how to create a functioning society where we don't have to impose artificial scarcity on the digital world; I absolutely think that is something we should be dedicating a lot of effort to. I reject the premise that we need to deny some people things that can be copied essentially for free.

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