I feel sick even after just going through article - it would probably kill me to play games mentioned there. I can hardly belive anyone over 10 years old not actualy play those games but invest real cash in them! Given that it actualy works, there’s no room really to wonder why D3, TL2 and so many more games are turning to dumbed-down cartoony craps.
It’s an interesting point you are raising here. I don’t really play these “social games”, so my understanding of them comes from watching others. I never understood the appeal they could have, because they seem devoid of any sort of depth. And they don’t have any depth, because there is nothing to master. These are not games you get better at, because the gameplay mechanics are close to non-existent, and the range of decisions you get to make is extremely limited. These are not games you get better at.
Which means that the “success” feeling is entirely artificial:
- There is no actual progression in skill
- There is no challenge to overcome, since there is no real path to failure (unless you consider having a less pretty farm “failure”)
So they are able to generate an addictive feeling by tapping into the reward mechanism without asking any effort from the player. It’s quite fascinating, really.
RMAH and making the loot grind extremely long and tedius.
The game is reduced to its essential elements in the most basic possible form. The player presses a button - there is an outcome on screen. The reward is a prettier vista and progression is measured by the number and variety of collectibles.
All chance/skill/technique is removed from the game and there are absolute guarantees about the outcomes. Therefore, the method to achieve success is completely transparent and there is nothing hidden about the mechanics.
The game is ostensibly free and the only contribution the ‘player’ has to make is time. all she/he has to do is wait. The similarity to other games, in that they require a commitment of time, but the ‘fun’ part of actually playing a game and leading towards a success/reward is minimised. This is both good particularly if you do not like playing games or don’t have the time to play and bad because there is nothing you can do to speed up progress except to obtain a buff that accelerates the game’s progress. These buffs are initially available free for a limited time in response to the player’s actions thereby giving him or her a taste for the potential these status effects have. If you choose to use these buffs then you will then be rewarded with equipment that has better statistics enabling less time to be spent waiting for an improvement in the quality and number of your collectibles.
So the playing elements of these games, although diluted in the extreme, still provide, as you suggest, reward aspect and it, is achievable on demand.
Along with the achievement comes a feeling and that is what the player is aiming for. The companies producing such games know this.
I would use the analogy of psychological states - we can wait for any state to occur within us e.g. calm, happiness etc but certain states can (to some degree) be brought about by the ingestion of particular substances - hence the success of many purveyors of pharmaceuticals and chemicals - a specified feeling on demand or perhaps more accurately - the removal or reduction of an unwanted or uncomfortable feeling.
The main problem I have with Steam is that, even if you play in off-line mode, you STILL have to load the Steam client in order to play. When Skyrim first came out, the only connection it had with Steam was that you had to register your game there.
Then you could play Skyrim without ever running the Steam client again (unless you wanted to check for game updates). But then they had to go and change it so you were forced to load the client. That is the kind of thing that really chaps my butt.
The other problem with Steam is that very often, a game update will break the game (until the next update). If I have a game that is running perfectly fine, I do not want to be forced into an update that is broken.
You may say “just stay in offline mode”, but even if I only want to log on to Steam long enough to see what new games are in the store, boom all my games get an update (if there is one).
I would prefer just registration and nothing more. If there is an update available, let me read about it in the forum first, then decide if I want it or not. As it is, there is no choice in the matter.
All that being said, Steam is not a terrible service, and offers an alternative to GFWL, Origin and other big publisher sites. I just wish they would make it optional as to whether you have to run the Steam client in order to play…
You can go to the Properties section of any game in your Steam library (left click on the game’s name), click the Updates panel and disable automatic updates - this should prevent the game updating.
Also, there are games purchaseable On Steam that do not use DRM and that can start without loading the Steam client. This requires clicking the in-game exe file but this is at the discretion of the game’s publisher/developer.
Another thing is if the devs are only releasing patches via steam and have no way to manually patch backwards they are failing at giving proper support for the game in my opinion.
A fool is easily parted with his money.
This is why i don’t play MMo’s - not that it isn’t perhaps a good deal for entertainment, far more than television, movies, going to the bar or whatever. But just because i don’t like the idea of people siphoning my money on a monthly basis.
The way i see the world, everyone is trying to take your money. My boss ( a girl) says “nuh uhh”. She doesn’t get it. She’s also in huge debt.
This is also the reason i do not have cable tv, or a cell phone contract - I have a phone, i use it for a walkman ( that’s mp3 player for the kids out there going wtf is a walkman ). When i intend to us it as a phone, i buy some pre paid minutes and use it for emergencies.
I don’t like contracts, and i don’t like bills - or mail. I check my mailbox once a month, i get hardly any mail.
No credit cards either. Imo, it’s just a setup for a fall if you ever get in a pinch, then all of a sudden your getting behind on your payments, ect ect, seen it uncountable times… Sorry, …i know there are a lot of people out there that have them, peoples business is their own. I’ve always thought credit cards were the most idiotic thing…not that they wouldn’t have helped at times in my life, but i survived so…
btw, i’m 42 and have ZERo debt… None…other than the cost of living,
i own everything i have outright payed cash.
Two different things come to mind from the previous post
-
A credit card is a tool, not a means to borrow money (people with credit card debt lack this understanding)
-
Do you own a house? Can’t imagine paying for one in cash.
It was a square brik that fit into the palm of your hand and had caset tapes - miniture videotapes - for music. You couldn’t connect online as such things like the internet didn’t exist back then. gasp I know, shocking isn’t it?
If you wanted a song you had to go out and buy a caset from the local music shop. If you wanted various songs from different artists you had to listen to the raidio and hit record when it came on, listen to it and then press stop when it finished.
Then along came the diskman - portable CD player an upgrade from the walkman and one step away from mp3 player i believe.
the kind of ‘credit card’ i have is more of a debit card. It’s pretty much a debit card with visa/mastercard/whatever else stuck on it attacked to my bank acount. I can only spend what I have.
good read. thx for sharing.
Good grief I never suspected they let Skinner loose on computer games.
Then again I’m quite immune to games trying to bilk money out of me in the way described.
A good game performs it’s own operant conditioning on people (think just 1 more turn, level, rank or whatever) but it is chilling to see how deliberately they’ve inserted it into games to bilk money from people.
Loved the take home message of the article, “pay to win” mechanics are evil. And they are.
But, the writing style was so uneccessarily convoluted, that it really makes the article inaccessible. Sad, because people need to hear this message. Even “TLDR” doesn’t quite capture the inaccessability.
happened to stumble across an article about some stuff that happens on the other end of game development - if we assume a range from casual/“social” games to huge budget 3xa-rated ones.
free radical design vs mainly ea & lucas arts
tales from the trenches (just below the comics) offers a lot of insight also. piece of advise: take a chill-pill and read in small doses.
Wow. Just wow. That was brutal to read. I had to take a break when it got to the Battlefront 3 portion. 
I wanted that game so badly… in fact I still want that game.
OK, now I’ve read the entirety of the article, and I am pissed. :furious: I think I’d better stop typing now and save it for the rant section…
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I dont know but for me, wii is killing videogames.
what with my friends i call “girl`s videogames” are a sad time in videogames history…
look, 30 years old people playing games “for a 10 years old child looks alike” a saturday night… there is something worse to think about for a classic videogames fan??
maybe wii is not killing videogames alone… someone is helping it: girlfriends! girls who dislike classic videogames (bloody videogames, etc) …
For ages videogames players have being fighting vs other great enemy of videogames: mothers! but that war was not so terrible as the new one is.
I still rock the flip phone. But a lot of this junk is making it to the ever so popular smart phones. Which everyone seems to have except me. The fact that some of these games are so accessable is terrible. Well art least in terms of my perspective. I really dislike paying to win. To me that says. why am i even playing this game.
no idea if im in context thats all i have to say.