301–310 of 349 posts
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Ah, but it's a social experience. The primary capital isn't one's competitive standing, it's the uniqueness of your gear. Fortnite's store UI is designed around limited time access panic sales.
This can be easily managed without microttansaction. Simply award in game point that allows a player to buy cosmetics. Do not create any way for players to trade money for in game points.
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Yep, I spent many years at a large, public US mobile game company and it was the same. We had a considerable number of players who had total spend in the 5-figure range, and a few into the 6's. And that's on one single game. The constant rationalization around the office was basically something like: "They're paying for fun, it would otherwise be drinks/movies/real gambling/etc, we're just a different medium". This,…
I left casual games because of this; every partner and publisher we worked with was heavily pressuring us to optimize for whales. They wanted the long tale for marketing, and the whales for revenue; and once hooked, the core interaction loop was to be as addictive as possible. When I left it was Candy Crush that was the top of the field; and we were in awe. They were _always_ rewarding players, and were pushing micro…
Couldn’t have been more happy to get out of casual and F2P games four years ago. I honestly thought I might be done making games after that experience.
Thankfully, between doing the indie thing for a few years and starting a new studio last year, it became clear it was the medium and not the craft that was the problem.
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The frustrating part is there are lots of people making games to tell stories and explore worlds, but they fall into the void almost inmediately after launch due to the slot machine games taking the lion's share of the attention and money.
Thankfully, PC Gaming strangely hasn't been dominated by this phenomenon, despite EA's, Activision's, and Epic's best efforts. Fortnite is addiction-tuned F2P casinowear, and it's done gangbusters, but the industry hasn't managed to copy that formula with great success.
In contrast a lot of the big mobile games are barely even games. They're just AI controlling your gambled for gacha characters, which are very not cosmetic only. And the games that aren't AI controlled are still just basic turn based battle mechanics with very little strategy (and what is there is vastly less important than just getting better characters, probably by gambling).
I suspect the market of "people who play mobile games" and the market of "people who play PC games" are not even the same kinds of people, and if you tried to release the same stuff that makes money on mobile on PC, you wouldn't actually attract many new players. Likewise if the mobile market ceased to exist overnight, I doubt the players would be that attracted to many PC/console games. They're getting different things out of them.
Of course this is all just speculation, I don't really know.
I did an internship with a very profitable Swedish mobile game before the pandemic, and it was really interesting to see the doublethink: everyone knew we were making a drug, but people avoided speaking of it in that way. It was always "our most engaged players readily spend on in-game items", and never "the most addicted users spend money so they can continue playing" It was a great workplace, but I don't think it w…
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Yesterday I saw on Cardi B's stories she did a paid post promotion for a game that is literally a slot machine.. It's designed with childlike graphics and her followers are very young. It's marked as teen in google store. God even the first review shows how blatant this is: "I'm really not big on games but this game is the truth. I cant stop playing it. I go to sleep to it. Wake to it. My day is filled with ways of f…
Why does this type of ad work? Do people want to be addicted to something so badly? Don't they have something better to do?
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How is this that much different to similar "concerns" about kids watching to much tv back in the 60's 70's etc.
Well, what happened to those kids? The kids grew up and now spend the majority of their time working in advertising, supplying games, creating endless streams of new media, etc. how has it NOT been harmful? I'm more inclined to believe my parents did the right thing by limiting TV time and commenting that most of it was rubbish. And I presume like many parents in Silicon Valley, I'm going to fight tooth and nail to k…
Upthread there's a comment on how someone's kid is being made fun of for not purchasing custom skins to use in Fortnight, and I almost commented something about how to me, there's always something been something weirdly uncomfortable about people who choose to spend money on arbitrarily customizing something. I'm glad I didn't, because thinking about it, I am the weird one. Most people are quite happy to "waste" time and money in this way. I'm not one of the kids (or adults) who grew up like this their whole life.
Lest this comment come across as me saying I'm the one sane person in a crazy world, I should add that I'm certainly affected by this when it comes to the Internet. Although I haven't seen more than an ad or two in years (thanks ad blockers), I'm still affected by the addiction-promotion used by websites to keep you there so you (theoretically) see those ads. I caught myself spending hours a day scrolling through Twitter. I'm trying to kick the habit, but it is a habit. Maybe I'm just in a better position to recognize it because I see the damage too much TV did to others.
I always thought it was pretty obvious when YouTube rolled out screen time reminders. It had nothing to do with anything but minimizing liability in case the general public ever catches on to what they are doing to kids mental health. What’s hilarious is they probably have some “data retention policy” and will get away with it. I guess it’s why SV engineers want to care about social issues so much. When you’re up in…
to be honest, AOC doesn't seem very knowledgeable in general, IMO she's just a trump (a less successful one), but on the left.
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> Normal people can't parse probabilities - otherwise nobody would play in the lottery. Yes, they would. The lottery is about giving up something of little value ($1 or $2) for some entertainment and the chance at a truly life-changing situation. I doubt anyone is unaware there's almost no chance they win, and that they're losing on every dollar they spend. Interestingly, the lottery is occasionally +EV to play. I ot…
> The lottery is about giving up something of little value ($1 or $2) for some entertainment and the chance at a truly life-changing situation Wish that were true. Organizers usually take 90% of the money. Just a tiny percentage is paid out. Like Voltaire said: "Lotteries are a tax on stupidity"
I've only been in one lottery and I was forced to enter against my wishes - that was the draft/conscription which, unfortunately, I did win - along with many others.
If I've an interest in lotteries/gambling then it's to question why I'm so disinterested in the subject compared to others. I've not been able to answer that adequately.