Dude, just shut up. Your "fall in line" attitude is not doing you any favors, and this is coming from a guy who spends most of his spare time on TF2 and Dota 2.
Candy Crush Dev: Microtransactions Are The Future of Games
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
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"Free to play" games are all to often "Free to wait or give me money", actively putting obstacles, that you can pay to remove, in the way of the player. This is not, in the slightest, appealing to me and I've so far avoided all games that are free to play on these grounds. I don't want the damn game pestering me to buy things, just like I don't want to pay to watch TV-commercials.
F2P in itself isn't bad although it can be and is a lot of the time. That being said, this guys point is essentially that once all your alternatives are taken away then you'll naturally love all the options that you have.
Let's say you're deathly allergic to peanuts and you get trapped on a desert island with a few people and a lifetime supply of peanut butter and bread. Of course you can eat only bread and you'll survive, but now take that bread away and your trapped on a desert island with an endless supply of food that will kill you if you eat it, and a whole bunch of well-fed people. And while your starving to death trying to make the decision between death by food or death by starvation, according to this guys argument "free to Play" Games aren't gonna sound to bad then now are they?
Let's say you're deathly allergic to peanuts and you get trapped on a desert island with a few people and a lifetime supply of peanut butter and bread. Of course you can eat only bread and you'll survive, but now take that bread away and your trapped on a desert island with an endless supply of food that will kill you if you eat it, and a whole bunch of well-fed people. And while your starving to death trying to make the decision between death by food or death by starvation, according to this guys argument "free to Play" Games aren't gonna sound to bad then now are they?
free to pay model certainly brings in a lot of money for them, but what the developers need to realize is that with free to pay you have to actually make a good game and expect people to buy it later, becasue they can no longer ask full price ahead for a shitty one.
I also would like to make a prediction that gamers will "Fall in line" with this model as much as they "Fell in line" with always on Xbox.
I also would like to make a prediction that gamers will "Fall in line" with this model as much as they "Fell in line" with always on Xbox.
Not like they had much of a reputation before, but this is not going to speak well of their practises.
I'm going to enjoy watching them crash; I'll give it a year.
I'm going to enjoy watching them crash; I'll give it a year.
Doubtful. The F2P+microtransactions model can work well in many genres, but I'm sure even this game guru hasn't come up with an idea to make this model work properly with, say, triple-A story-driven single player experiences like The Last of Us or Bioshock: Infinite.
Then again, now that I think about it... having to type in your credit card number as fast as you can in order to pay Elizabeth for the stuff she throws at you, that could make for a whole new gameplay element.
Then again, now that I think about it... having to type in your credit card number as fast as you can in order to pay Elizabeth for the stuff she throws at you, that could make for a whole new gameplay element.
Except that pre-packaged games are designed to be fun.Steven Bogos said:
Free-to-Play games are designed to be painful, and then temporarily make the pain stop if you pay.
Source: Gamasutra.
Edit: Oh, great, so they changed the content of the article in response to pressure from King's CEO. Way to censor the internet. Well, it doesn't matter. We all saw the article as it was originally written, and we all know that F2P developers of games that are coming out now took their cues from that version of the article. This is just a thin layer of P.R. paint over the top of it. The entire business model is built on coercion, with the notable exception of a handfull of games, such as LoL (until they started selling rune sheets, that is. Sigh.)
If we're going to be F2P, then there better be a good system for it. Personally, I favor the system used by TF2 and War Thunder, mainly that the microtransactions are there, but the things you are purchasing are side-grades at best. TF2 can be played excellently using only the default weapons, and most of the better items can also drop randomly or be crafted. As for War Thunder, while the premium planes do exist, they do not necessarily give an advantage on the battlefield. Yes, your shiny new Pe-3 may come with all the upgrades pre-installed, but it's still a Peshka. It will still explode in a great ball of fire if another plane so much as turns in its general direction. Everything is a sidegrade, and the game can be completed in a reasonable amount of time with the same level of skill without buying anything. If there is a microtransaction system, that is how it should be implemented.
"If you talk to many hardcore gamers, they're not happy about it right now, but if you asked them about the long term, 'do you want to continue playing your favorite game for years to come?' And the answer will be yes,"
Well if the current companies turn their franchises into f2p, they won't be our favourite games anymore. People didn't accept the new Dungeon Keeper, it's universally hated. If the majority of developers took their products that way, they would pretty much crash the whole market, but good ideas and creatively made games will pop up and get attention and praise, renewing the development of proper games. A lot of people can lose their jobs over this greedy short-term strategy and some already are, we've seen studios being turned into mobile-game departments and subsequently shut down.
Well if the current companies turn their franchises into f2p, they won't be our favourite games anymore. People didn't accept the new Dungeon Keeper, it's universally hated. If the majority of developers took their products that way, they would pretty much crash the whole market, but good ideas and creatively made games will pop up and get attention and praise, renewing the development of proper games. A lot of people can lose their jobs over this greedy short-term strategy and some already are, we've seen studios being turned into mobile-game departments and subsequently shut down.
If it was Valve or Riot saying this, I'd grumble, but give them a pass.
Considering this is coming from the dickhead "Hurr durr copyright anythign with Candy in the name or Saga in the name, hurr durr" company, I am not going to give them a pass.
Especially when they basically tell us "Fall in line and do as you are told or else the games you like will cease existing". That just riles me the hell up.
If we just "fall in line" you know what the future holds? Dungeon keeper mobile style cons. EVERYWHERE.
So this "game guru" can go do something very rude to himself for all I care.
Considering this is coming from the dickhead "Hurr durr copyright anythign with Candy in the name or Saga in the name, hurr durr" company, I am not going to give them a pass.
Especially when they basically tell us "Fall in line and do as you are told or else the games you like will cease existing". That just riles me the hell up.
If we just "fall in line" you know what the future holds? Dungeon keeper mobile style cons. EVERYWHERE.
So this "game guru" can go do something very rude to himself for all I care.
That's right. We didn't ask for this.Adam Jensen said:
I read that article, and was sadly aware of most of those tactics, but I did not know about the age-specific exploitations of psychology.Scrumpmonkey said:
In any case, it's rather horrifying to consider, from two perspectives:
1) I'm going to sound like a hipster old man, but this exploitative mentality just screams "Gaming I knew is moving diametrically away from me." Video Gaming has always had exploitation of some sort, but the sheer volume of these F2P scam-games is just getting overwhelming. As a demographic, I'm simply not that relevant anymore, partly because I'm "wiser".
2) At what point do these things cease being "games" and start being "scams"?
I cannot think of any other product or service where someone pays to be deliberately inconvenienced or jerked around.
When a game demands you to spend real money to retain some metric of progress (purely artificial progress) you already worked for, we seriously need to stop and ask ourselves "What the unholy fuck am I doing?!"
It makes sense if you add a specific qualifier: Middle aged women...who have children and credit cards.
Remember: "Whales" spend copious amounts of money on the spot. Who is more likely to do that? Mom who plays Match-3 on her smart phone on break from her job to help raise her family, or her kid with far more free time and no realistic grasp of fiscal responsibility?
I remember reading an article last year about the growing issue of credit card debt from kids running up insane bills on these kinds of games (especially in Japan). While my hypothetical situation is certainly not absolute, I'm willing to believe it over anything from King; they're definitely not telling us the whole story.
I've played the remaining 1% that are pretty decent, and even then, in all instances I was ultimately convinced that those games could have been made much better if they were sold as full packages.
-Mechwarrior Online is just a shinier version of MW4 with grind.
-HAWKEN is an Unreal Tournament 3 mod with grossly overpriced skins and grind.
-Tribes: Ascend is just Tribes 2, but utter shit.
-Warframe doesn't even have host its own game on its own servers; it's all Point-to-Point with a governing matchmaking system that holds your save file hostage on an account.
The multiplayer-centric components of these games make F2P-server centricity appealing, but in the end I just gave up on all of them mostly because I just got tired of grinding all the time. The only F2P games that I haven't felt were total wastes of time thus far were the MOBAs: DotA2 and LoL (well, I quit LoL for good, but for technical reasons)
While I've tried to remain impartial and objective about F2P (especially as of late), I honestly cannot ignore the obvious problems with the model anymore. It's not even a matter of just me not liking it subjectively, but the fact that it's just a flat out worse deal for the gamer on the whole.
The name "Free to Play" is extremely misleading.
"Free" implies freedom of cost, but these games are among the most costly possible (not just money, but time too; which itself is being directly monetized now).
Stop calling yourselves "game developers", now!
If every game became free to play (with micro-transaction) , I would drop the hobby and never fucking look back.
Arcades died out because people didn't want to keep paying endlessly to play a game, and the home consoles offered a better price, and gave people ownership and control.
If this is the future, if every game is "free to play (with micro-transaction)" then Mr. Ebert was right all along.
If every game became free to play (with micro-transaction) , I would drop the hobby and never fucking look back.
Arcades died out because people didn't want to keep paying endlessly to play a game, and the home consoles offered a better price, and gave people ownership and control.
If this is the future, if every game is "free to play (with micro-transaction)" then Mr. Ebert was right all along.
EA, you know how you've done that thing a lot, where you buy a company and then destroy them?
Buy these idiots, destroy them, monopolize their garbage apps however you want but for god's sake, gross monetization and abusive policies are YOUR realms, not these young punks. SO GET BACK IN THE SADDLE AND GIVE US CANDY DUNGEON CRUSH KEEPER 2 ALREADY.
Buy these idiots, destroy them, monopolize their garbage apps however you want but for god's sake, gross monetization and abusive policies are YOUR realms, not these young punks. SO GET BACK IN THE SADDLE AND GIVE US CANDY DUNGEON CRUSH KEEPER 2 ALREADY.
Has the guy even made a game that cost more than a case of beer and a large pizza to make? Of course he can turn a profit on that with microtransactions. But I have never seen a big F2P game last any amount of time, exceptions would be League of Legends and DotA, but that is mainly due to the competitive scene.
Simple. You do it the way most F2P games get made:DrOswald said:
- Step 1: Start with a good game.
- Step 2: Break its kneecaps.
- Step 3: Sell crutches.
- Step 4: The crutches need to be bought again every time you play.
See? Simple! We call this the Dungeon Keeper Formula, and it's THE FUTURE OF GAMING according to these guys.
I guess now we know what went on behind closed doors in that "How to Reduce Backlash" panel.FalloutJack said:
"The best way to reduce backlash is by telling your detractors that it's my way or the highway. Also: Fight each other over the whales, they're providing more and more of our actual revenue for some reason."
METRICS!
Genre is restricted, I'll grant you that. PvP is a certainty, PvE as a minority at best (Bots in MOBAs; Warframe was overwhelmingly PvE, but the way the server system was designed it might as well have been sold as a regular game)Scrumpmonkey said:
As much as I loved my DotA1 LANs, I realize that the main appeal of the game requires player diversity.
So for skill based games, I maintain that F2P is best to engage in what I call "MMO-like" design: Where you have a large population of players, but the game state is confined to small matches instead of plopping them all in one big digital world. What separates this from contemporary "hybrid" Singleplayer/Online-Multiplayer titles is the benefit of centralizing the matches.
As for "ethos", it's a matter of not letting your players pay for direct advantages, or gating them into paying money (at which point it ceases to be a game, and becomes a scam or ante-game).
I am wary of games where random-reward is a driving element. Historically, most games use Random Reward as the final stage in "Skinner Box-ing" a game; that is, where they turn the grind dial up to 10.
In a F2P environment, the urge to exploit that is magnified greatly; to the point where it can quickly devolve into gambling (many digital CCGs do this; especially Eastern digital CCGs).
These are issues that packaged games can avoid entirely, since that model innately has little to no incentive to push grind onto the player, barring the usual artificial methods (like selling a service-centric game as a package *glares at Diablo 3*).
For F2P, at best, we can only hope that random reward elements are purely optional and/or player-involved as Valve's efforts have shown (DotA2 and TF2). But in practice, that system is an extreme minority.
Simply put: It's trivial to point to games that are sold as complete packages even today, but the new business paradigm is trying to push more easily exploited service-centric games. The latter is what I'm opposed to and to me, it just seems as though the practical benefits of F2P are grossly outweighed by their restrictions.
In any case, the market will have to work extremely hard to obtain my trust of the F2P model going forward.
Well, yeah. Free can also retain its actual, literal definition too.