Question is, is it moral to work on that kind of game? You're describing the predatory IAP fests.
Edit: although I suppose it's equivalent to working on "engagement" algorithms in social networking.
Edit: although I suppose it's equivalent to working on "engagement" algorithms in social networking.
The reason mobile game companies have hordes of data analysts and data scientists is to figure out the optimal point where enough people pay to speed up progress so the game is profitable, but not so much that non-payers stop playing because they feel they can't progress without $$.
Nobody bats an eye if someone spends $80 on the latest console, but everyone is sharpening their pitchforks if they spend a similar amount in mobile game IAPs. Even if the hours played and enjoyment received are perfectly equal.
Most people who buy IAPs exchange money for progress in games, they work 8-10 hours a day so they don't have the time that a Monster Energy Drink fueled teenager has to grind equipment. But they have money they can use to catch up somewhat so they can enjoy their evenings playing the fun bits instead of grinding for that 1% drop like a second job.
You're basically describing old single player games that did rare drops to pad gameplay time, then the first MMOs where grinding was there to keep you paying for the subscription, and now the IAP fests where the grinding is there to make you pay something.
However, there still are games that do not involve grinding out there. Even some AAAs. You do not have to be predatory to enjoy some success making video games.
Edit: I missed that: "Even if the hours played and enjoyment received are perfectly equal."
They aren't equal. Do you call grinding for rare drops equal to enjoying a story or developing and applying some skill?
And how is hours played a metric of enjoyment? If you count hours played, the game i spent the most time in ever is Minecraft. Paid all of $20 for it.
I would've gladly paid money to skip that bit and get to the fun parts even then and I was a mostly broke student at the time.
Now I play mostly story-driven single player games that don't rely on fetch quests to pad the runtime. Or games that really don't have an ending like Factorio, Dwarf Fortress and the like.
What fun parts? You just grind more, perhaps in a group. Or a larger group. I know, I could probably still lead a Kharazan (of the Burning Crusade flavor) raid from memory. The only fun part of WoW is the group interaction.
The sad thing is when people have only played WoW and its successors and start thinking this is the only way to do a game...
I'm all for people spending money in the way they want to... but I think people that buy little bits of virtual powerups and collectables for a mobile game lean closer to "addiction" than "gameplay" or "enjoyment."
A console is a physical device that you can play tons of games on. An IAP, even a collection of $100s is just not the same.
I used to have friends that would spend $100s of dollars on those mobile games. They don't play them at all anymore. So what was the point? They spent $100 to get to the next $100 barrier to spend another $100? And then they quit?
Again, I'm all for people doing whatever they want and think any regulation would cause casualties but I will always say a game designed in such a way where you either have to "grind 8 hours on monster energy" or "buy your way up" is just a predatory and ridiculous "game" right out of the gate.
People usually have two commodities, time and money.
When you're young, you have virtually endless amounts of time. You can just sit down and grind a game to get better at it and get better equipment.
When you're older, you don't have as much time, but you have money. Then (in my opinion) you should be able to use money to get on par with the people who have spent all the time gaming you spent at work and with your family.
Of course there are games where you just need to "git gud", because it's all your own reflexes and knowledge, in-game items and boosts don't matter that much if at all. If people using money to offset time used bothers you, you can play any of these games.
This is why people selling MMO accounts is a thing. People with money want to enjoy endgame content with friends who have unlimited time.
I suppose. I feel at that point, its more a chore than a game tho, lol.
I don't play those games, exactly for this reason. I feel the reasoning "offsets time" is honestly just a coping/irrational justification. Imagine paying to skip to the good part of the book or movie. Makes 0 sense.
So you have to buy the game and then pay to skip parts of it? That sounds like a system designed to extract extra money from people, not a game...
>This is why people selling MMO accounts is a thing. People with money want to enjoy endgame content with friends who have unlimited time.
This is a bit more justifiable, as long as the game isn't designed around the idea of creating the very situation... I say this as someone that almost failed out of college because of spending too much time on an MMO (talk about no time _or_ money, lol) I'd suggest the friend group just play a different game entirely. MMOs are big commitments... same as any other hobby you could get deep into though. I don't think its good for a group of friends to constantly be throwing time or money at something just so they can stay "at the same level."
*edit* Just want to add to the idea of regulation and casualties. I wouldn't fault a father for spending a little extra to "catch up" with his son so they can play together or something. I can't think of a situation off the top of my head but in that instance, I wouldn't say that's "bad" or "predatory." Everyone's situation is unique. So these comments are more directed to those mobile "games" that involve sinking time or money into them to "advance."
Games need to be designed for both groups to be successful.
They need to satisfy the people who pre-order the game and are sitting there with controller in hand hopped up on Monster the second the game launches. Then they'll play a 100 hours straight and complain there wasn't enough content because they finished it in 5 days (...of 20 hour/day playing, but they're not sharing that bit on the forums).
Games also need to be fun for the people who don't have a 100 hours to invest in a game, but still want to experience it.
This is why games have Achievements that are nigh-impossible. They're for the first group. Nobody in their right mind would attempt some of them unless they're sitting on a literal mountain of free time and nothing else to do.
Some games (like a bunch of Assassin's Creed games nowadays) allow the second group (money, no time) to buy better equipment with actual money for the single player game. They can still experience the plot of the game and have some challenge, but don't need to spend hours fine tuning their dodge reflexes for that one boss they got stuck on.
Let's call spade a spade.
This is a convenient rationalization to justify adding elements of unnecessary grind to with intent to get people to spend more money on a game they already paid for.
Games used to (and to a degree, still do) have difficulty selectors and cheat codes to accommodate different types of players. Publishers of AAA games like the ones you mention (Assassin's Creed) monetize this because of greed.
I finished Resident Evil: Village recently. On the "Casual" difficulty. First RE that has that. Every boss went down in a couple shots and I was swimming in the supposedly scarce ammo at the end.
Somehow they forgot to charge me extra for this.
I can sorta understand in some cases but I have no idea why there is a market for "skipping around" in single player.
You have blown my mind, as I hadn't realized this has gotten into single player games like Assassin's Creed.
I generally agree games should be fun for everyone... but at that point is it even a "game" if you're paying money to skip around? What happened to difficulty selection? Or just plain old grinding? That's part of the experience.
There's a game called Cuphead that I really enjoy(ed) but never beat. I couldn't in a million years think "let me just pay 10, 20, or 30 dollars to skip these hard levels." The very idea just seems so antithetical to gaming in general.
What about putting them in Elden Ring, just go right to the last boss if you pay $200-300 (assuming $ scales with progress).
If you're finding yourself with not much time, I recommend rogue likes. I never liked them until I understood that the "playing" was the experience, and grinding to the end was the reward. Now I like them b/c with a Steam Deck, I can play short sessions. Not once have I ever considered paying actual money to "skip" a game. That is just wild to me.
Again, at the end of the day, ppl can spend their money how they like... I just find it a bit ridiculous and that's not even touching on the "gacha" mobile games.
They don't hand out skips and it's just purely about the player's skill.
That's why I don't play any of them, I don't have the free time to spend that's required to get good enough.
I currently play mostly story-driven single player games like the new Tomb Raider games, Quantum Break, Control etc. on my Steam Deck.
Want to buy my save just in front of the last Elden Ring boss fight? :)
Considering your earlier posts, it's the logical thing to do.
Actually the game doesn't stop after you beat the last boss, I could do that and sell you a save right after.
the problem with this is that you assume "all the time gaming" is a bad and nonfun thing, at that point you're essentially paying the developer to not play the game. Sure those situations do exist, but they are design flaws* that should be fixed. Accepting a quick way to get thru them gives the developers incentive to not fix them but to actually make them more prevalent, and this has been happening in games more and more, just look at overwatch 2 and the hero unlocking speed as an example on a huge AAA game.
>This is why people selling MMO accounts is a thing. People with money want to enjoy endgame content with friends who have unlimited time.
This could be argued as a reason for selling currency, but for selling accounts I harshly disagree. The vast majority of people that buy accounts in MMOs do it to get "stolen valor" such as buying gladiator/rank 1 accounts in WoW or exclusive items/mounts/etc. The endgame activities most take part in takes orders of magnitude more time to progress in than the lead up to it nowadays, makes no sense to buy an account to skip it if you're genuinely time constrained. I could see that being a relevant case back in Ultima Online days for setting up a new PK character but that's not really a thing today in any big capacity.
*: some exceptions exist to make balancing passes I suppose, just to not speak in absolutes