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CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

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Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#171

Post by ehnto »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #104
dirkc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on Jonathan Blow [1], sounds like you might like his philosophy. The short of it is that he believes time is valuable and should be respected. I also love Braid, a game he made. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow#Philosophy_and_v...

I have sort of opposite take on video games to him. To me, video games fill in the time slots when I'm too tired to pursue anything meaningful - they're just mindless entertainment, which would otherwise be spent re-watching shows or, in the pre-electronics era, reading newspapers or staring into the fire. That's the reason I've never finished Braid - I can spend all those brain cycles on my actual work or interests,…

I flip between thought-games and mindless games, it's no different to when I want to go out and ride my bike or just watch YouTube. Different modes for different moods.

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#172

Post by metalliqaz »

raverbashing wrote: post #71
Havoc wrote: post #51

Ransomware crews are bottom of barrel scum of the internet regardless of who the victim is

No kidding. I'd like to see real prosecution of those kind of people

russian gangsters... don't hold your breath

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#173

Post by everdrive »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #143
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this notion. The primary reason why Factorio doesn't feel unethical or exploitative is because the kind of addictiveness it exploits is one that uses your brain, whereas the kind of addictiveness these "unethical" games exploit is one that feels more dumb and low brow. It has nothing to do with it being win-win like you mentioned. There's this bias where games that are extremely addicting but that app…

And I disagree with your take. I've played a lot of videogames in my life, plenty of them feeling "more dumb and low brow". For instance, as a kid, I've spent some ridiculous amount of hours playing Unreal Tournament (and to the lesser degree, Quake 3 Arena) - some of it with friends in an Internet cafe, but a lot in single-player mode too. I'd consider these two games to be pretty addictive for their time. But they…

>Not because they tried to lure me in with skinner boxes, keep me in with time-gating, and monetize me with microtransactions.

I'm familiar with all of these except for "time-gating." What is it?

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#174

Post by TeMPOraL »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #150
TeMPOraL wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I disagree with your take. I've played a lot of videogames in my life, plenty of them feeling "more dumb and low brow". For instance, as a kid, I've spent some ridiculous amount of hours playing Unreal Tournament (and to the lesser degree, Quake 3 Arena) - some of it with friends in an Internet cafe, but a lot in single-player mode too. I'd consider these two games to be pretty addictive for their time. But they…

Well, I still disagree. I've also played lots of games in my life so I also think I know what I'm talking about. You view roguelikes and roguelites as positively addicting because of your personality and the fact that those games test for the traits you care about, not because they're objectively better than other games that focus on another trait. You probably don't view MMORPGs where the entire point of the game is…

It's good that you wrote your thoughts in a longer form, and thanks for sharing it. It's an interesting argument, and one I will think about more, but based on my first reading, I find it lacking. I feel the part about Gacha Games doesn't fit well in this framework. Also, I find it hard to categorize my personality along the lines you described:

- Static/dynamic typing: borders -- I prefer static typing to dynamic typing; this is a change from preference for dynamic typing in the past; today, I find "mixing and matching" of types to almost always cause runtime errors, not new insights

- Engines/frameworks: no borders -- I dislike frameworks in general, gamedev or otherwise, I much prefer to compose libraries myself

- Roguelike/Roguelite: ??? -- I don't care about a strict definition, but having a somewhat clear definition is useful for managing expectations

- Progression/No progression: ??? -- I like both

- Grinding/No grinding: no borders -- Grinding is boring, though I'll do it if you hang a nice enough carrot in front of me

- Gacha Games: no borders -- As expressed above, I consider them immoral, and that has less to do with mechanics and more with why they're employed. That said, I don't think Gacha mechanics have any sort of special borders compared to many other fun, well-defined mechanics.

- Professions: ??? -- My professional software dev is mostly a borderful experience, but I also do gamedev on the side...

- Easy Modes: ??? -- I don't see how it fits in your argument at all, or how is it even a topic at all (except for competitive multiplayer games, about which I don't care all that much). Most games have "easy mode" in form of a wide variety of cheats to choose from.

It seems I'm leaning a bit towards "no borders", but then I think this borders/no borders split isn't really "carving nature at its joints". It does not factor personality cleanly.

Also, as additional objection, I think you could use this argument to justify getting people addicted to gambling as a matter of "personality difference". I feel this explains too much.

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#175

Post by ehnto »

dirkc wrote: post #55
Netcob wrote: post #52

Reading the replies there tells me I did the right thing when I decided against a career in game development over a decade ago. It looks like a constant war between developers and gamers now. Developers are investing a lot of time into making their games literally addictive in the worst way possible, and not even remotely by making it fun - it's all about overpriced DLC, gambling and weird reward systems. Which has r…

Read up on Jonathan Blow [1], sounds like you might like his philosophy. The short of it is that he believes time is valuable and should be respected. I also love Braid, a game he made. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow#Philosophy_and_v...

Jonathan Blow is a refreshing character, truly passionate, opinionated but I don't feel like it's at the cost of others, and his games are pure. They don't pretend they're not games, and they eschew allll the bullshit that comes with modern games. I didn't need to sign up for an account, count any Special Points, fuss with menus or anything. Boot up the game, play away.

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#176

Post by TeMPOraL »

everdrive wrote: post #173
TeMPOraL wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I disagree with your take. I've played a lot of videogames in my life, plenty of them feeling "more dumb and low brow". For instance, as a kid, I've spent some ridiculous amount of hours playing Unreal Tournament (and to the lesser degree, Quake 3 Arena) - some of it with friends in an Internet cafe, but a lot in single-player mode too. I'd consider these two games to be pretty addictive for their time. But they…

>Not because they tried to lure me in with skinner boxes, keep me in with time-gating, and monetize me with microtransactions. I'm familiar with all of these except for "time-gating." What is it?

I'm not sure if this is the correct industry term, but 'wongarsu used it and explained it here[0], so I just picked it up. Basically, it's forcing you to wait hours to do the next step in the game - so that you'll start scheduling your day around the game.

--

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26076702

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#177

Post by BunsanSpace »

johnnycerberus wrote: post #67
Netcob wrote: post #52

Reading the replies there tells me I did the right thing when I decided against a career in game development over a decade ago. It looks like a constant war between developers and gamers now. Developers are investing a lot of time into making their games literally addictive in the worst way possible, and not even remotely by making it fun - it's all about overpriced DLC, gambling and weird reward systems. Which has r…

The most addictive games are not the ones we think about. My friends are into "competitive" gaming, games like CSGO, Dota2. These developers barely bring any content to their games and it amazes me how much profit they make for less work compared to AAA studios releasing blockbusters like RDR2. If your game is not competitive, microtransaction-ready, not a sandbox with procedural, generative stuff, the chances are th…

Dota2 is absolutely addictive.

The chime you get from a last hit/collecting runes, The cosmetic loot boxes, e&.

I had to quit cold turkey after 1500 hours because I realized I was wasting my life.

It's sad that dota2 is far from the worst offender and I would argue one of the best f2p models, but it's addicting non the less.

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#178

Post by TeMPOraL »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #134
wongarsu wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a tell-tale feature of manipulative games is Farmville-style time-gating. They structure their progress around meaningless actions like clicking upgrade buttons, but you can only press that button every couple hours. So playing optimally isn't so much about strategy or skill, but more about incorporating the game into your daily routine. The intent is of course to form a habit, so that players habitually play…

Why is this kind of manipulation bad but RNG-gated content, such as in most roguelikes, which are loved by lots of people, not bad? These value judgements are always arbitrary and hiding the biases of the speaker. You, personally, don't like time-gated content. That's fine. But it's another thing entirely to say that because you don't like it it's morally wrong. Tons of people have no problem with it and in fact enjo…

> For instance, Genshin Impact, a very popular game released recently has time-gated content in the way you mentioned. But it's also a game made in China, where there are rules stating that kids can't play games for too many hours during a single day.

That's an interesting point I've never heard of before, thanks for bringing it up.

Still, I think there's more to tease apart about time-gating. As a high-schooler, I spent plenty of time on time-gated games (AstroWars and OGame). From that experience I know this mechanic alone is very addictive, and I make a conscious decision to avoid these types of games now. I had my fun (particularly social type, my fiends were hooked in just as much as I was). And, I don't consider this mechanic to be a problem alone. What matters is why it's there. Is it to make the game fun, in its particular way? Or is it to maximize the players' exposure to monetization opportunities?

The root of my point is this: particular mechanics a game employs don't matter; what matters is why those particular mechanics were chosen. Intent, not engineering.

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#179

Post by bmn__ »

dirkc wrote: post #55
Netcob wrote: post #52

Reading the replies there tells me I did the right thing when I decided against a career in game development over a decade ago. It looks like a constant war between developers and gamers now. Developers are investing a lot of time into making their games literally addictive in the worst way possible, and not even remotely by making it fun - it's all about overpriced DLC, gambling and weird reward systems. Which has r…

Read up on Jonathan Blow [1], sounds like you might like his philosophy. The short of it is that he believes time is valuable and should be respected. I also love Braid, a game he made. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Blow#Philosophy_and_v...

> he believes time is valuable and should be respected

That's what he says, but not what he does. https://youtu.be/KZokQov_aH0 Haven't experienced a bigger author disconnect in gaming in the decade.

Re: CD Projekt Red has been subject to a cyber attack and ransom demand

#180

Post by [deleted] »

naosouumapessoa wrote: post #145
torgian wrote: post #101

Sucks. I liked cyberpunk, if only because of the story. I like games with decent - excellent stories. Sure, I wish cyberpunk could’ve been even better but it was enjoyable. It’s hard to find games with good stories and lore nowadays, I think.

Is it though? Out of the top of my head: pillars of eternity, divinity original sin 1/2, what remains of Edith finch, firewatch...

[deleted]
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