What kind of dumpster-fire developer gets out-competed by a game they released fourteen years ago targeted at a platform with a 320x480 screen and 128MB of RAM?
ads and pay-to-play
Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
191–200 of 255 posts
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is definitely an element of conditioning here. People have grown accustomed to frenetic action and the studios like it because it’s easier than hiring good writers – especially since they’re hoping for global sales and humor, subtly, and nuance are hard to translate – but that’s a learned preference based on what dominates the market. If different things came back on the market people would get used to them, to…
> especially since they’re hoping for global sales On top of that, a lot of actually interesting content has the potential to cause shitstorms. Like, especially anything LGBT and women's rights won't fly in China, Russia, Arabia and lots of Asian countries. Black lead actors lead to massive shitstorms from the far-right in the USA and parts of Europe [1] - and so, producers leave all that "potentially troubling for s…
> [1] Black Panther and the 3rd Star Wars trilogy were surrounded by some of the most vile harassment campaigns I've seen, for example
Or, movie studios have exaggerated the impact of (real, but not very numerous) internet trolls to protect their own egos from valid criticisms. The third Star Wars trilogy was an incoherent mess. And for reasons I still don't understand, the end of Black Panther was released in a rough half-rendered state. But the people making these films don't want to hear criticism of their baby, so online critics get dehumanized as "trolls". Rare instances of real trolling from the likes of 4chan get highlighted and blown out of proportion as a defense mechanism.
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you just extrapolate a low unemployment rate from the actions of a developer of a old free mobile game?
No, I already understood the today's labor market and modern consumerism. I'm just showing a way it plays out in the real world. Here is another example: If you asked 100 random 20 year olds in 1985 what "success" looks like. There is a high likelihood some would mention large house, BMW, pool in the back yard, large TV, executive at a large company. If you did the same thing today you are much less likely to get tha…
> If you did the same thing today you are much less likely to get that answer
If that's true, that sounds like progress to me.
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me about it. I'm an iOS engineer at FAANG, but I've been shipping my own apps since 2011. It's depressing that there's no longer a market for paid, high quality, ad-free, fully packaged apps and games. I actually interned at a mobile games studio for a summer and it was made clear to me what the profit model was: pander solely to the whales, ignore the free users. Something like 70% of our revenue came from 2% o…
Is that the only conclusion? There's a subset of users who are hungry for high quality applications and games. They will happily pay for substantial extensions and content upgrades. They will remember your name and see anything you release as worth considering. It's a smaller market of course but a sustainable one. In terms of video games. I'm personally not a mobile gamer though. Maybe it's quite a bit different fro…
I actually think there is a function of whales, not yet explored. Dont try to milk them with items. Make them gatekeepers. They get to decide who plays the game, who gets to enter, and who gets to stay. Sounds strange, but if they keep the thing afloat, they might aswell have a total say on that.
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is definitely an element of conditioning here. People have grown accustomed to frenetic action and the studios like it because it’s easier than hiring good writers – especially since they’re hoping for global sales and humor, subtly, and nuance are hard to translate – but that’s a learned preference based on what dominates the market. If different things came back on the market people would get used to them, to…
> especially since they’re hoping for global sales On top of that, a lot of actually interesting content has the potential to cause shitstorms. Like, especially anything LGBT and women's rights won't fly in China, Russia, Arabia and lots of Asian countries. Black lead actors lead to massive shitstorms from the far-right in the USA and parts of Europe [1] - and so, producers leave all that "potentially troubling for s…
Thanks for expanding that idea - completely agree, and this doesn’t need anyone at the studio to be a villain, it’s just standard corporate paperclip maximization at work.
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#196It's almost as if when given the choice people prefer games without microtransactions, even if they're older and have fewer features/powerups etc.
I won't play any iOS game with either ads or with a "free but micro-transaction model." If you look in the pay up front category on the app store, there are very very few games. It's too bad.
luckily there are still good quality games that can fill in some downtime / waiting.
Highly recommend "Slay the Spire", "Dead Cells" and any of Trese Brothers games. Of the free games "Vampire Survivors" is really good and not intrusive with ads (I think it's some kind of altruistic business model).
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's about conveying atmosphere and mood, not conveying plot-points as rapidly as possible. Same reason a book might spend two pages describing a lazy dog laying on a porch swatting flies with his tail, instead of cutting straight to who said/did what.
OK, so movies have gotten better at setting the mood without derailing the story's momentum.
The opposite, really: they’re relying on non-stop action and familiar franchises to keep viewers from thinking about how thin the setting is or noticing the holes in the world building.
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Over time movies have learned to cut a lot of fat. Sometimes those scenes are fat. Poorly made movies are certainly not just a modern phenomenon. But sometimes it's critical that those scenes are as they are.
I'm not saying it's true 100% of the time, but I've noticed that older movies tend to have more fat and when they do it's more egregious. Throughout this discussion I've realized that this whole conversation is fraught with survivorship bias - we imagine generic marvel movies or the fast and the furious stuff when we think of modern movies, but when we think of the past we really only consider the classics. We haven'…
That is a really good point.
The 80/20 rule holds here: 80% of everything is crap. That applies to movies now, and it also applies to movies in the past.
There's also the very real thing of changing tastes. Movies are made to appeal to the taste of audiences in the time they're made. Modern tastes are different than the tastes of yesteryear.
I think it's not right to say that modern tastes are better or worse than older ones. They're just different -- but it makes sense that the ones aimed at different tastes will be a less popular.
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with the sentiment, but is Disney a good example? has Disney not recently had a pretty strong run of form critically and commercially?
If you're buying a DVD for your child, but only have the budget for one, would you buy Snow White , or Snow White 5: The Slushening ? In most cases, the classic original is the no-brainer. The sequels to Disney movies are pale cash-grab imitations with far less cultural significance.
once again, I agree with your sentiment - this culture of simulation and replication is extremely tiresome - but as a case in point, Disney doesn’t fit the bill
to illustrate, the realistic choice would be to choose between Snow White and Frozen and Moana.
to be clear, this isn’t me blindly supporting Disney: I don’t watch their films, I don’t work for them, I don’t own their stock. moreover, I in fact have swathes of scepticism for colossal nation-shaped megacorps; nevertheless it’s a bad example weakening a good hypothesis, and this I have a problem with
Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that the only conclusion? There's a subset of users who are hungry for high quality applications and games. They will happily pay for substantial extensions and content upgrades. They will remember your name and see anything you release as worth considering. It's a smaller market of course but a sustainable one. In terms of video games. I'm personally not a mobile gamer though. Maybe it's quite a bit different fro…
> There's a subset of users who are hungry for high quality applications and games. They will happily pay for substantial extensions and content upgrades. Can you point to someone having this sort of success based on this model in the mobile space?
I have no idea how financially successful they are but the game Dawncaster is great and seems to be faring well.
$5 up front, $5 for each expansion (currently 2) which add a substantial amount of content each.
The devs are active, patching regularly, and planning another content update this year. They just released a free new mode to the game as well.
No ads, no microtransactions just a fun and complete game with lots of replay value - I hope they can sustain it over time