mindbleach comments on Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think

Predatory tactics in gaming are worse than you think (www.gamedeveloper.com)

submitted 1 year ago by ryanee@fedia.io to c/games@sh.itjust.works

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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.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (8 children)

You’re deliberately ignoring the path to get from point A to point B if you think that in your world it would just be the final version right away.

Who are you talking to?

We just discussed how to incrementally build a game, without this specific business model. I am only against the business model. Do you know how to address that, without slapfighting a strawman? 'Game design is hard' doesn't excuse this creeping systemic abuse.

Again: this is the low end, and it still expects $130 for an eight-year-old 1v1 fighter. 70% off. This business model inflates prices to the absurd extremes, even when it's not an antipattern vortex.

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[–] missingno@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

I'm talking to you. You're living in fantasy land claiming these games could be the exact same thing without the business model that made them possible. They would not.

Can I have the games that I know and love, in the format that allowed them to be the games that I know and love? There is no third option here.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

We don't have to leave your stated examples to find disproof of your pet dichotomy. SF4 had the same kind of evolution while selling versions like they still came on cartridges. It's possible. You just don't like it.

Unless you mean one single byte of FighterZ being different would be a completely different game, in which case, just, shut up. You keep trying to treat any change what-so-ever as equivalent to the whole game ceasing to exist. That's horseshit. You need to stop.

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[–] missingno@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago* (5 children)

I already told you that SF4 is exactly what people don't want to go back to. The game was widely criticized for the fact that you had to buy every upgrade or be left behind. You might be the only person in the world who thinks that's better than what we have now.

By the way, despite characters not being DLC when they should've been, SF4 did sell costume DLC, which you seem to think is the worst thing ever. IIRC, the kicker with SF4's costumes is that your opponent couldn't see them unless they also bought the costumes, and that was also something people disliked because they didn't want to buy costumes no one will see.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

That is what it means, to sell content. That is what actual expansions are. This song-and-dance where you have the whole game, but you're not allowed to really have the whole game, is inseparable from everything you would call predatory. It's only a matter of degrees.

One of the several alternatives you've repeatedly ignored is that these additions can be added to the game people already bought. Surprisingly, this does not involve slave labor for artists, because games that stay popular keep selling more copies. Do they make as much money? No. But it turns out maximum corporate revenue is not a guideline for ethics.

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