Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think
Featured Blog | Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think
I want to shed light on a tactic that involves collecting data as you play, feeding this data into complex algorithms and models that then alter the rules of your game under the hood to optimize spending opportunities.
Where was this article when candy crush became big? This article is literally 10+ years way too late. Mobile games to me are basically just one giant scam that forces you to pay or have a horrible time in comparison.
Mobile games to me are basically just one giant scam that forces you to pay or have a horrible time in comparison.
There are so many ports of PC games that are far better than the "exclusively mobile" category of games.
It wasn't even that hidden back then, games like candy crush admitted to journalists that they changed the difficulty based on spending habits. The fact they might have that formula fine tuned even more shouldn't be surprising.
Mobile games to me are basically just one giant scam that forces you to pay or have a horrible time in comparison.
So they're the modern arcade games?
They are so much worse. I worked with a guy who was pretty damn cheap. I would sometimes pay for his coffe or lunch sometimes, but he would never even drop a cent for me. I didn't really care much, cheap guy, maybe poor, i had no idea. I talked to another guy about video games, and the cheapskate chimed in, saying: i would never play video games, it's a waste if time and money. I didn't think much of it, it made so much sense.
Another time the same co worker said something like: "the most he ever spend on a game was 60 dollars for a counterstrike skin". Cheapskate chimed in again, (he was also a bit of a one upper) hah, that's nothing, i spend 900 bucks on clash of clans last month.
We both were absolutely flabbergasted, and he started to panic a bit abd said: "you think that's crazy? My girlfriend spends way more on candy crush a month." It's been a while, but i think we calculated that the spend a combined 2000 to 3000 bucks on mobile games a month, for years.
Except the arcade games were at least upfront about it and didn't DELIBERATELY turn up the exploitation a few notches when a potentially EXTRA profitable player was detected by an algorithm made specifically for that purpose.
Maximizing corporate profiteering has become the best funded and least regulated scientific discipline in the world and it's not even close.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
Ban the entire business model.
If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.
There are 14,000 games released on Steam every year. What percentage do you believe contain in-game purchases? It's quite literally just the giant AAA venture capitalist backed studios that do this. Just don't buy them.
It's like saying if we allow AI art to continue soon there will be no more humans making art. People will always make art. People will always make games. If all the art you see is corporate slop that's a you problem.
Half the industry by revenue and growing.
'But indies!' means nothing, when you count two games with $43 in revenue between them, like that's twice as many games as Fortnite.
People will always make art. People will always make games. If all the art you see is corporate slop that’s a you problem.
Jesus, why can't people differentiate the content of games from the way they're sold? It's about the money. I'm not shitting on your favorite time-sink, for its art style. I'm angry about the fact it goads you toward paying twenty actual dollars to give your character an ironic t-shirt.
Yeah, no.
I like a bunch of games that do this. I've liked games that do this for 40 years.
I mean, technically you just banned all arcade games that ever existed. I liked a bunch of those.
And I like a bunch of free to play games. I spent a bunch of time playing Hearthstone. I'm gonna say that at least some of the millions of people in LoL would like to keep playing what they're playing. I am looking forward to a bunch of new characters in Street Fighter 6. I kinda don't want to go back to the days where I had to buy a second full price copy of Street Fighter 2 just to get access to 4 new characters.
I get that it sounds good to say this when thinking about the worst parts of the industry, but... yeah, no.
'But arcades!' Are renting someone else's hardware. Different thing. This did abuse not exist fifteen years ago.
'But free games!' Can just be free. Or pay-what-you-want. Or cheap. Or something you already own. How's your back catalog on Steam?
This Skinner-box horseshit where a game is free but somehow makes a billion dollars is weaponized frustration. The handful of games that were re-released with tiny updates at full price are now the entire industry's goal, thanks to this specific abuse. (And they still got you chumps to buy three 3D versions of Street Fighter.)
You can pay the price of a whole-ass game for a hat.
Lesser versions of that aren't better, just lesser. The opportunity to spend one hundred dollars right the hell now is shoved in your face between rounds. Or dangled each time a lootbox animation juuust misses. Or crammed into your inventory, as a gift, mmyes, if only you bought a key.
If LoL wants to keep making money they can charge a subscription or sell expansions. Y'know - rational consumer purchasing decisions. Not playing keep-away and then tickling people's balls in a controlled environment where fireworks go off each time you click Confirm Purchase.
Inevitably: 'but people don't often go for subscriptions.' Yeah! It's almost like conscious choices are less generous than engineered decisions! Or: 'but budgets rely on that immense revenue!' Then they should shrink. Budgets follow revenue. Always always always. Whatever money these fuckers spent, they expect to extract from you, three times over.
That would also ban online gambling like poker
If you see a difference between two things, so can the law.
Great!
That's already banned in quite a lot of countries.
I'm already sold, you don't have to keep trying to sell me on it.
This is primarily why I don't bother discussing game balance in live service games. They will never balance the game to have a level field between the items and characters. They will always balance the game to keep you playing and spending money on mtx.
Most players thinking of quitting a game, generally are losing often. The game will notice this, and then give you a win. It's always been noticeable, but some games, like The Finals, are super egregious with it because it shows everyone's MMR right off the bat and you will be able to tell if you will win or lose a match right as it starts when you see that your team is 5 times higher ranked than the other 2 teams, or vice versa.
curious about their opinions on games like apex legends that is absolutely a free to play game, but has a way to pay for characters instead of using the in game method.
"Pay to skip the grind" is weaponized frustration.
Free games that somehow make a billion dollars only exist to drag people across their wallet-hooks.
This site is fake, it doesn't have Dead By Daylight at the absolute top of dark pattern design, and says DBD Mobile (now shut down) is only -1.43?
Also, why would anyone need an account for this? Isn't this just a database? What, does it have a linked forum?
"SEO experts" skew results for pay. They are doing mobile games for now, because they are particularly egregious "dark pattern" games.
Piracy FTW.
Again. 🤷🏼♂️