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How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

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Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#111

Post by psygn89 »

balls187 wrote: post #101
satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

I feel the same. Factorio was fun for a small bit but it really just felt like a job, same with Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, etc. After beating prepatch PCR, I switched back to Call of Duty for a bit.

Same with me. When I was younger I was able to just enjoy myself without mixing irl thoughts. Unfortunately these days as an adult if I'm stuck in a game or have to chip at it in some tedious fashion, a part of my brain goes "you can spend this time learning something new or productive irl".

I think my attitude changed the games I play also. I used to play MMO when I was younger but FPS games give me that dopamine rush without any commitments.

Sadly it's only when I'm sick do I feel I'm able to just cozy up without these "you can be doing something else" thoughts and truly enjoy games for what they are, tedious or not.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#112

Post by chatmasta »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

Some of my most overengineered code was written after a Factorio session… maybe it’s better treated as an outlet for some urges to which you shouldn’t acquiesce :)

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#113

Post by mdaniel »

egypturnash wrote: post #105

> Tobias Lütke, co-founder and CEO of the ecommerce platform Shopify, lets his staff expense their copies of Factorio. “It’s just bound to be good for Shopify if people play Factorio for a little while,” he told the Invest Like The Best podcast. “Because part of Shopify is building warehouses and fulfilling products for our customers. We are building global supply chains, and Factorio makes a game out of that kind of…

Heh, I would think that Amazon would allow expensing Wilmot's Warehouse since that feels more in their wheelhouse than Shopify

---

wowzers, "hate" is not a strong enough word for how I feel about that raging piece of junk. Holy hell, I'll never get that 15 minutes of my life back

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#114

Post by mdaniel »

TYMorningCoffee wrote: post #108
egypturnash wrote: post #105

> Tobias Lütke, co-founder and CEO of the ecommerce platform Shopify, lets his staff expense their copies of Factorio. “It’s just bound to be good for Shopify if people play Factorio for a little while,” he told the Invest Like The Best podcast. “Because part of Shopify is building warehouses and fulfilling products for our customers. We are building global supply chains, and Factorio makes a game out of that kind of…

If you've been consistently redeeming free games from Epic you might already have it. It was free on 2020-08-06[1]. [1] https://josephmate.github.io/EpicFreeGamesList/

For anyone similarly confused by the "it," the Aug 6 one was Wilmot's and not Factorio (which, AFAIK, has not been a participant in any giveaway)

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#115

Post by fragmede »

aphantastic wrote: post #31
Xeronate wrote: post #7

The article mentions one of the main appeals of factorio is you get to think like a programmer without bosses/overhead from actual work but it’s always been hard to get into games for that reason because I could just work on a side project with the same result. I really don’t understand the appeal.

Mindusry scratches the same itch, but in perhaps a slightly more appealing way for me at least. Rather than the entire game being dedicated to creating one massive monolith dedicated to the one goal of rocket building or whatever, there are many different levels each where you’re just playing classic tower defense and using the layout of the map to your advantage to extract resources and kill bad guys. It’s casual an…

hopefully not a spoiler given the name, but the space mod that was released on Monday opens new planets to explore, after you manage to build the rocket to space on the first level, so it's no longer an "entire game being dedicated to creating one massive monolith dedicated to the one goal of rocket building"

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#116

Post by mdaniel »

solardev wrote: post #30
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #8

Is there a better graphics version of factorio? And no I don't mean Satisfactory or Dyson Sphere Program though those are good games in their own rights, I mean something with the same level of depth and camera as factorio.

What kinda depth are you missing from DSP and Satisfactory? And what do you mean by "camera"? There's also Shapez 1 and 2, which is like the essence of Factorio abstracted into shapes and colors. Shapez 2 has more mining and trains and multiple levels.

Shapez 2 is just stellar. I mean, Shapez 1 was good, but 2 is just awesome (IMHO, of course)

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#117

Post by fragmede »

mdaniel wrote: post #114
TYMorningCoffee wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've been consistently redeeming free games from Epic you might already have it. It was free on 2020-08-06[1]. [1] https://josephmate.github.io/EpicFreeGamesList/

For anyone similarly confused by the "it," the Aug 6 one was Wilmot's and not Factorio (which, AFAIK, has not been a participant in any giveaway)

Factorio doesn't go on sale. The author's reasoning being it's disrespectful to those who paid full price for it.

Edit: official forum link stating thus: https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?p=159626#p159626

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#118

Post by dgacmu »

satvikpendem wrote: post #72
averageRoyalty wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the FPS games you play also about impact? You seem to have set yourself a different bar for 'fun' for this title (or genre?) alone.

Of course not. I think you misunderstand, if a game is too similar to real life, I am unsure why I should play it, whereas if it is fairly different, such as an FPS, it becomes much more fun for me. My question is primarily on the former, of why people seem to play a game that basically is like work but has no benefit for them. If it's fun for them, then that's fine, but my question more, why is it fun for them in th…

Sometimes it's fun to do things when there's no real world consequence attached to failure and experimentation even if the mechanics are similar to something we do for work.

I sometimes do project euler puzzles for fun. I'm a CS professor - this starts to feel kinda close to my job. But it's relaxing and there's no pressure and no one is affected when I screw up; I just get to keep kicking at it, or put it down. The freedom makes a big difference.

The "solving an interesting problem" part of my job is the part I love. It's the other stuff I need a break from sometimes. :)

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#119

Post by treflop »

luffy_t wrote: post #94
satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

I feel exactly the same. I don't think the problems you solve in factorio are that complex, they are just tedious. It feels like calculations that a calculator can do. It is utterly boring to me personally, I can simply write a program or come up with a formula once I know what I need to make to calculate how much of everything I need. I also like to play simpler games which stimulates more of a lower part of my brai…

I’m inclined to agree.

I also don’t get people who look up YouTube videos on how to do things in Factorio.

What’s the fun part left to do if you just use someone else’s factory or belt design?

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#120

Post by miki123211 »

dartos wrote: post #50
Taek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its just fun. "Okay wth, today we're going to make the entire base solar powered" When making software that's supposed to be used, you can't mess around that much. At the end of the day, someone has to use it and if its weird it'll be bad. But in Factorio? Nobody is using it so sure, make it bizzare. Change the rules, let yourself go. Don't test the design just send it. Bored? Too challenging? Don't bother finishing…

> When making software that's supposed to be used, you can't mess around that much. At the end of the day, someone has to use it and if its weird it'll be bad. This makes me sad. You don’t need to make software for mass appeal. Git is weird and bizarre (especially when initially released), but it’s used and well loved.

Used? Certainly. Well loved? Oh boy do I disagree.

I think it's an extremely powerful tool, and it's worth knowing how to wield it well, but that power comes at the expense of user friendliness, especially for junior devs who don't have an intuition of git internals and how commands map to them.

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