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How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

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Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#161

Post by oceanplexian »

OJFord wrote: post #130
herval wrote: post #127

Lots of comments on this thread in the vein of “I dislike this game because it’s not productive”. My honestly question is… why? Why is “being productive” this goal that has to consume your entire life?

I think because - or to speak for myself, the reason I've never bought/played it, despite being interested - it's similar and yet not productive. Versus say Call of Duty or whatever that you might lose yourself in, which is also not productive, but bears no resemblance to work. Pilot communities probably say similar things about flight sims (or flight components of games) that aren't good enough to be useful practice…

I’m a pilot and lost interest completely in flight sims when I bought my airplane (And I had a maxed out setup, multiple monitors, VR, controls, etc.) The simulator doesn’t capture the real-ness as ironic as that is, of the sounds, smells, vibrations, emotions and so on. In fact during my flight training my experience with simulators imparted a few low-level bad habits I had to work through when it came to operating the controls.

The analog controls in real life are heavier, more raw, somewhat imprecise, and you can feel them knocked around by the wind for example. Night and day difference. It honestly makes the most state of the art simulator feel like you’re operating a NES.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#162

Post by lowbloodsugar »

Factorio provides the illusion of achievement which produces happy chemicals in my brain. I will happily forego any other work when getting my fix from factorio. So I stopped playing it and returned to interesting side projects. I confess I have purchased the recently released Space Age expansion, and my productivity is in the toilet again. I’ll probably be done with it by thanksgiving.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#163

Post by falcolas »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #37
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…

Fps: the US military thanks you for training for infantry in your spare time.

Practicing point and click skills probably won't to help much with your firearm accuracy. Or cardio.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#164

Post by ClassyJacket »

fragmede wrote: post #117
mdaniel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's funny I came across this thread. Just yesterday I was looking at buying it, but it's 50 AUD. I went to add it to my wishlist to wait for a sale, but it was already there. I realised it must have been on there for a long time.

I was wondering if I somehow missed it going on sale, or it never had.

Glad I know it isn't likely to any time soon.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#165

Post by ClassyJacket »

fragmede wrote: post #123
mdaniel wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, you're right, I misread https://isthereanydeal.com/game/factorio/info/ without checking https://isthereanydeal.com/game/factorio/history/ which shows it was cheaper but only goes up over time

No worries. It's an interesting moral stand for the author to take, so it's one of those random facts that just sticks out of my brain.

I can certainly say I'm an example of someone who hasn't bought it because it hasn't been on sale, but 50 dollars for a good game is entirely reasonable anyway and I admit I will probably still buy it one day.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#166

Post by shadowgovt »

klik99 wrote: post #149
herval wrote: post #127

Lots of comments on this thread in the vein of “I dislike this game because it’s not productive”. My honestly question is… why? Why is “being productive” this goal that has to consume your entire life?

I feel like it and Satisfactory redirects the part of me that creates and looks for novel ways of doing things from something that yields useful byproducts that actually change the world in tiny ways into something that yields nothing but more of itself. And it never really ends. I don't mind useless stuff, I play games, but something about Factorio and Satisfactory both draws me in and makes me feel so empty. I thin…

It's a digital model train set.

At least it doesn't take up the whole basement like the sets previous generations played with.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#167

Post by throwup238 »

oceanplexian wrote: post #161
OJFord wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think because - or to speak for myself, the reason I've never bought/played it, despite being interested - it's similar and yet not productive. Versus say Call of Duty or whatever that you might lose yourself in, which is also not productive, but bears no resemblance to work. Pilot communities probably say similar things about flight sims (or flight components of games) that aren't good enough to be useful practice…

I’m a pilot and lost interest completely in flight sims when I bought my airplane (And I had a maxed out setup, multiple monitors, VR, controls, etc.) The simulator doesn’t capture the real-ness as ironic as that is, of the sounds, smells, vibrations, emotions and so on. In fact during my flight training my experience with simulators imparted a few low-level bad habits I had to work through when it came to operating…

> In fact during my flight training my experience with simulators imparted a few low-level bad habits I had to work through when it came to operating the controls.

When I first started flying my instructor specifically recommended against flight sims for that very reason.

Now that I have my PPL I only use them to practice approaches for new airports that I’ve never visited before and to familiarize myself with the cockpit layout for planes I haven’t flown before. It helps build some minor muscle memory so I can focus on the harder parts of flying.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#169

Post by ninetyninenine »

herval wrote: post #127

Lots of comments on this thread in the vein of “I dislike this game because it’s not productive”. My honestly question is… why? Why is “being productive” this goal that has to consume your entire life?

Most people are brainwashed by the rat race. They don't realize that all the productivity is worthless.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#170

Post by quesera »

DonHopkins wrote: post #77
dowakin wrote: post #26

BTW "Factorio: Space Age" was release a few days ago. Personally, I'm going to spend whole Sunday playing it :)

I've started a new Space Age game, too! With the understanding that you can regularly leave Factorio running overnight or even all week to build up resources, how many hours have other hard core Factorio players logged? My Factorio play time is up to 6,573.2 hours at this point. I love Factorio for the same reasons I love SimCity. 6,573.2 hours seems like a lot of time, but I've probably logged even more hours playin…

> My Factorio play time is up to 6,573.2 hours at this point.

I habitually translate "X thousands of hours" into "full time employment years".

You've been playing Factorio as the equivalent of a full time job, for 3 years and 3 months.

[Edit: Many of those hours were probably background farming, so not a direct comparison.]

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