Mobile Gaming. Get Off My World Map, You Damned Kids!

[sei]

This is probably a lot like novel fans decrying the advent of magazines.

I'm uncomfortable with kids' first exposure to video games being via iOS/Android on their parents' phones.

Sins of Mobile Gaming

• Prevalence of free-to-wait and other toxic models. This is in part because ad-based games and the existing $.99 crop anchor people at a low price point. It is also because businesses discovered whales and shitty kids in boating hats who will pay $300 for a gun re-skin.
• Most are shallow, because they're designed to be played in extremely short bursts. This salts the earth for deeper games that require more time.
• Some parents won't get the "need" for richer experiences and may just throw old phones at their kids instead of ever getting them a DS, Wii, etc..
• iOS purchases feed the Cupertino beast.

I'm sure that there's a flip side, like that more people will be exposed to gaming, maybe at a younger age, but eh. I'll let someone else make those points.

[Niku]

luckily, we've never had to deal with toxic children's gaming experiences an

[sei]

that or all the movie/cartoon/comic tie-ins

those are never going away

But this fucking microtransaction bullshit.

[Niku]

With regards to specifically the kids first encounter with games situation, it comes down to the same thing shit that's bad for kids always does: the parenting. It is up to us to teach kids that they don't need to buy 30 crystals to make their farm grow faster when here is a hacked PSP with every NES game ever made on it, have fun with that instead.

[MarsDragon]

Sins of Mobile Arcade Gaming

• Prevalence of free-to-wait quarter-feeding and other toxic models. This is in part because ad-based games the existing $.99 $.25 crop anchors people at a low price point. It is also because businesses discovered whales and shitty kids in boating hats who will pay $300 for a gun re-skin to get the high score on Defender.
• Most are shallow, because they're designed to be played in extremely short bursts. This salts the earth for deeper games that require more time.
• Some parents won't get the "need" for richer experiences and may just throw old phones quarters at their kids instead of ever getting them a DS, Wii, etc..
• iOS purchases feed the Cupertino beast. Arcade purchases feed Bushnell's beast

I'm sure that there's a flip side, like that more people will be exposed to gaming, maybe at a younger age, but eh. I'll let someone else make those points.

Everything old is new again.

[Classic]

That's an appealing analogy, but I feel as though it better applies to the narrower body of free-to-pay model experiences.
Inflation over the past four decades has significantly hurt the middle class's buying power, and can lead to some skewed ideas about how expensive things were in the past.
Using this potentially sketchy omigodiamouttamydepth buying power calculator shows that a quarter back in 1970 was over a dollar's worth of value in 2012.

The ubiquity and quasi-lawless state of the market is definitely back.

It is definitely a scary kind of thing that we're entering a model where shitty rich kids subsidize and determine what experiences are available to others.

[sei]

Whales aren't just kids.

It could be scary, but it could also be kind of cool, in the sense that some other piece of shit's poor decisions drive down the cost of you receiving a satisfactory experience ($300 gun skin). What sucks is when the games get built entirely around whale fishing (see: free to wait).

[Classic]

I feel like you could do a "free-to-wait" type of experience that better provides value and meets the needs of the gamer who sets aside a six hour stretch to play a game by further discretizing your standard subscription model through micro-payments.

I wonder if a game whose monetization incentives were narrative-based could work? Like, in a branching story, you pay for the content that's on different branches.

That concept feels a lot more dead-end though.

[sei]

That description sounds close to run-of-the-mill pay-for-this-smaller-than-an-expack-chunk-of-content DLC.

[Classic]

Are those side stories, or divert you to a different critical path type decisions? I was trying to talk about monetizing only the significant story choices that the players wanted to explore.

[sei]

Not usually major plotlines, but other things that fill the world in.

[MarsDragon]

That's an appealing analogy, but I feel as though it better applies to the narrower body of free-to-pay model experiences.
Inflation over the past four decades has significantly hurt the middle class's buying power, and can lead to some skewed ideas about how expensive things were in the past.
Using this potentially sketchy omigodiamouttamydepth buying power calculator shows that a quarter back in 1970 was over a dollar's worth of value in 2012.

The ubiquity and quasi-lawless state of the market is definitely back.

It is definitely a scary kind of thing that we're entering a model where shitty rich kids subsidize and determine what experiences are available to others.

In other words...one play at an arcade cabinet in 1970 was a little over the cost of a mobile game today? I'm not sure that disproves my point.

For reference, my point wasn't "arcades were super cheap!" it was "arcades were the cheaper, shallower form of gaming back in the 70s/80s (as compared to computer games)". Which they were. How many working/middle class families were able to afford a computer back then? Run that inflation calculator on the cost of any old computer and find that yes, computer and console gaming has always been expensive.

There's a different model now, so instead of brutally punishing difficulty to make you keep pumping quarters into the machine you get "free-to-wait". Which is worse? Waiting until you get more quarters or until you get more in-game deedles?

[Büge]

But wouldn't a skilled player be able to successfully navigate/defeat an arcade game (that didn't have a Gauntlet-style kill timer) on only one quarter?

I doubt the same could be said about mobile games.

[Grath]

But wouldn't a skilled player be able to successfully navigate/defeat an arcade game (that didn't have a Gauntlet-style kill timer) on only one quarter?

I doubt the same could be said about mobile games.

Depends on how Free-to-wait is implemented. For a bit I played Candy Crush (yes, yes, I know) and you only used up lives if you failed levels. (It's also fun messing with your friends, when you figure out which process is the plugin for the Facebook version and freeze it so you can't ever lose a level.)

[Mongrel]

It is relevant to say that yes, Arcade games offered direct rewards in real money and extended play time for skill.

Free-to-wait does not typically offer either of these "escape hatches".

[Classic]

But that skill-based escape hatch is part of what makes the game rewarding (and therefore addicting) for many of these titles.
I'm not sure what makes games like FarmVille addictive... Possibly the sense of seeing something grow?

[MarsDragon]

But wouldn't a skilled player be able to successfully navigate/defeat an arcade game (that didn't have a Gauntlet-style kill timer) on only one quarter?

I doubt the same could be said about mobile games.

Show me the person who can 1cc R-Type on their first try.

Yes, it's possible to defeat arcade games that have an end on one quarter...but it generally takes a lot of quarters of practice first. And of course there's a number of arcade games that don't have an end, they just keep getting harder and harder until you die and have to start over. In theory, you're right. In practice...

[Mongrel]

But that skill-based escape hatch is part of what makes the game rewarding (and therefore addicting) for many of these titles.
I'm not sure what makes games like FarmVille addictive... Possibly the sense of seeing something grow?

Yeah. It's basically non-parody Progress Quest.

The thing to remember about those games is that they share a similar revenue profile as gambling - most users spend little or nothing. The illusion doesn't take hold well, if at all. But then you get the Puerto Rican Grandma who realizes six months in that she's spent $10,000 on funny hats for digital sheep.

[zaratustra]

Oh I could talk for HOURS about all the little tricks Farmville gets you to keep playing. But the basics are:

1) Endless progression - you have a level counter, but it's basically infinite. Every level you unlock the chance to buy a different kind of cow, or a different color of barn, or crap like that. You can see how your friends are "progressing" even though it's a matter of money spent and time played.
2) Energy points - You simply can't play as much as you want, but you play until you spend all your "energy" and then have to wait for it to recharge. This basically sets an appointment for you in the future, with the game. Combine with Farmville's mechanic of "plant something and then BE BACK HERE IN SIX HOURS TO HARVEST or you'll waste the effort you put in now" and you have Vice City.
3) Later updates added "equipment sets" - you need to collect, for example, five different kinds of poop to get a bonus. These poops drop at random, but you can also buy them for money. Guess how long the fifth poop type takes to drop.

[beatbandito]

This feels more appropriate in this thread than gaming stories.

I'm sure that SWTOR will outdo this at least once before I get tired of this go of things, but the current most terrible act of f2p models I've seen goes to paying to increase the ability to have more quickslots.