EPTThe Games Industry And ATVI - Page 15
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21248 Posts
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cha0
Canada518 Posts
On May 29 2019 02:25 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: chinese game consoles...all zero of them? Not sure you understand how business and manufacturing works. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada18017 Posts
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/video-game-industry-gaming-disorder-who-disease Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) introduced a bill earlier this month that seeks to ban the sale of so-called “loot boxes” and pay-to-win micro-transactions from games marketed toward minors, a broad definition that would likely apply to most video games. The bill has drawn bipartisan support. "Only the addiction economy could produce a business model that relies on placing a casino in the hands of every child in America with the goal of getting them desperately hooked," Hawley said at the time. "I'm proud to introduce this landmark, bipartisan legislation to end to [sic] these exploitative practices." | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5776 Posts
On May 30 2019 07:15 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Video game industry leaders request WHO to remove "gaming disorder" as a disease. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/video-game-industry-gaming-disorder-who-disease Interesting choice of quotes  . I had to read to check if they were from the same article.Anyway, I'm not sure if "“loot boxes” and pay-to-win micro-transactions" are a "broad definition that would likely apply to most video games". Maybe the are "most" if you weigh games by hours played, given the popularity of LoL, Dota, CS, etc. If you're just checkin for majority though, I would guess that less than half of the games currently in my Steam library are pay-to-win or have lootboxes. Also, I find regulating loot-boxes to be very reasonable, but I'm not sure about regulating pay-to-win. Sure, I usually find the practice despicable, but I'm not sure if legislation can be effective in intervening nor that it should. | ||
Excalibur_Z
United States12273 Posts
1. The whale who will just pay their way regardless of the monetary cost. Most F2P games have gated content through time or progress that can be skipped with cash by design, and if the end goal is worth it to this category of player, they will brute force their way through with money. They may even stockpile in-game currency in anticipation of future events if they get into a spending mood. 2. The hesitant payer who will only spend money when pinched, and only in small amounts ("I can wait 24 hours or pay $1... I'll just pay the $1 and keep playing, it's worth it to me"). The goal has to be tangible and the player will weigh both options in terms of effort versus value. 3. The hardcore nonpayer who will never spend any money at all. Because many events or goals in F2P games are designed around "tough but fair" practices, it is still possible to complete them at the cost of extremely high engagement and very long user session length without paying anything. Essentially these players are paying with their time at a particularly skewed scale. F2P events and goals are designed around resource management, and by and large it's a math problem. Let's say that my game has 60 stamina and stamina refreshes at 1 per minute and each play toward the goal takes 10 stamina at 2 minutes per attempt. You know that after 6 plays you'll have used 60 stamina and taken 12 minutes, gaining 12 stamina back which is enough for an extra play. Then you spend 56 minutes gaining back enough stamina for 6 more plays and you repeat the cycle. Then you balance the goal requirements such that it takes ~60 hours of real time worth of stamina to complete, but you make the event last 72 hours. Sure, you could spend an average of 4 hours sleeping per night to hit the goal (or just setting your alarm to wake you up every hour), OR you could spend $1 to recharge all your stamina and keep doing that to grind through it and preserve your normal sleep schedule. Sometimes developers will nudge the difficulty a little more based on feel in anticipation of irregular player behavior. For games that don't have "win conditions" per se but do have coveted cosmetics that drop randomly, you just set that as your big goal and math out the drop rate in the same way. Whatever you perceive (or want to declare) as your highest value prize, promote that with flash and fanfare and make players want to have it. If they get one roll per match and each match takes 15 minutes, and the prize is only available for 72 hours, then maybe you're expecting that a highly engaged player will be in the game playing for a total of 60 hours grinding it out, or 240 rolls, so you set the drop rate to 1/240 or 0.4%. Maybe you let the players have a bonus roll for $1. Of course, the perceived value of the goal is different for each player. Some players will push harder than others, some will supplement their chances with money, and for some players, money will be no object. That's what makes difficulty tuning in F2P games so challenging. You are attempting to balance known resources against an unknowable supply. The reason some believe this practice is "predatory" is because it is based on the assumption that the Category 1 players have disposable income, which they may not. It's possible that they are spending money they need for food, rent, or medication, and are simply fiscally irresponsible. There is no way to know that, and there is no reasonable expectation that a player will volunteer information that may expose themselves as compulsive. I don't think anyone has a problem with millionaires just buying everything they can if they want to, and in fact those are the players any developer would be thrilled to get. But when it comes to potentially exploiting a person susceptible to compulsive behavior, nobody feels happy about that. The Category 2 players are typically either fiscally responsible or have little to no disposable income. If they do splurge on something, it's generally going to be one time with no guarantee of future conversion. Category 3 players are die-hards and fall under the other end of potential addiction. They will reorganize their schedules, routines, and lives to accommodate events happening in the game. Because many games contain events designed around "well, you COULD win if you just do nothing but play the game... or you could just spend a little bit", the expectation is that you would have to be of a certain mindset to be able to handle that amount of required engagement. Although I do work at a F2P game developer, I should specify that I'm not a designer (and in fact when I spoke with a designer I was told that they basically discount those Category 3 players altogether when tuning because they're so anomalous). So this information is coming from a slightly different perspective. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada18017 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada18017 Posts
On May 29 2019 02:25 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: chinese game consoles...all zero of them? The #1 location for console manufacturing is China. The product of the efforts of the chinese factory workers may be passed on to companies whose HQs are not in China. However, these pieces of hardware will be the subject of tariffs. In a worst case scenario Americans will be looking at the most expensive console cycle since the very first console cycle that included the Atari 2600//Intelliivision consoles of the late 1970s. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada18017 Posts
a bunch of top financial officer guys quit https://www.wsj.com/articles/gamestop-cfo-leaving-company-in-leadership-shake-up-11559254049 Gamestop stock falling fast. https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=fin&q=NYSE: GME&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgecRoyi3w8sc9YSmdSWtOXmNU4-IKzsgvd80rySypFJLgYoOy-KR4uLj0c_UNzKtySpLKeRaxcvpFBrtaKbj7ugIAhI9LJUYAAAA&biw=1344&bih=728#scso=_Q4nxXLziO4O2tQXptJSQBQ2:0 https://www.wsj.com/articles/stocks-towatch-uber-gap-costco-wholesale-zuora-and-okta-11559298788 | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17868 Posts
On June 01 2019 05:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I wonder if Gamestop will survive this summer. I wonder if they'll still be around to profit from the lucrative fall/winter holiday season. a bunch of top financial officer guys quit https://www.wsj.com/articles/gamestop-cfo-leaving-company-in-leadership-shake-up-11559254049 Gamestop stock falling fast. https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=fin&q=NYSE: GME&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgecRoyi3w8sc9YSmdSWtOXmNU4-IKzsgvd80rySypFJLgYoOy-KR4uLj0c_UNzKtySpLKeRaxcvpFBrtaKbj7ugIAhI9LJUYAAAA&biw=1344&bih=728#scso=_Q4nxXLziO4O2tQXptJSQBQ2:0 https://www.wsj.com/articles/stocks-towatch-uber-gap-costco-wholesale-zuora-and-okta-11559298788 No wonder. In the past 10 years I bought maybe 2 physical copies of a game (that includes PC and console). | ||
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Simberto
Germany12068 Posts
On June 01 2019 07:30 Manit0u wrote: No wonder. In the past 10 years I bought maybe 2 physical copies of a game (that includes PC and console). Indeed. I don't play many console games, though. I think in that space physical copies are a bit more important? | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21248 Posts
On May 29 2019 02:37 cha0 wrote: Not sure you understand how business and manufacturing works. not sure you understand how tariffs and pricing work | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21248 Posts
On May 30 2019 22:22 JimmyJRaynor wrote: The #1 location for console manufacturing is China. The product of the efforts of the chinese factory workers may be passed on to companies whose HQs are not in China. However, these pieces of hardware will be the subject of tariffs. In a worst case scenario Americans will be looking at the most expensive console cycle since the very first console cycle that included the Atari 2600//Intelliivision consoles of the late 1970s. this is not going to happen | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7439 Posts
I was under the impression that the console in itself was always bad business for the company (hardware) and money was made by selling software. It certainly was the case with most Playstations, dunno about Xbox. | ||
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cha0
Canada518 Posts
On June 06 2019 11:37 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: not sure you understand how tariffs and pricing work Yes I do actually. What about it do you think I do not understand in this context? If Trump goes through with putting tariffs on game consoles then Sony, and Microsoft will be either taking a hit or passing it onto the consumer, similar to what Apple may go through soon as well. Consoles have already generally been selling at either a loss or marginal profit so an additional tariff would be substantial. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17868 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada18017 Posts
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48701962 FIFA card packs and sports game card packs are a massive source of revenue for EA. This is a very big , very serious fight for EA. Before any controversy erupted EA acknowledged taht FIFA card packs pulled in 0.8 Billion a year in 2017. Further, they spend lots of time thinking about how to add CardPack//Lootbox mechanics to their other flagship titles. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-03-01-eas-ultimate-team-now-worth-USD800-million-annually | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7439 Posts
 And nobody tried to save me from spending my wellearned pocketmoney Edit: This might have actually been the start of "lootboxes" lol The only difference is, I wasn't buying that shit with the credit card of my parents | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17868 Posts
On June 26 2019 17:59 Harris1st wrote: In EA's defense, I remember buying panini card/ stickers packs (I guess this was a thing in more countries?) as a child for World Cups and the likes. Had like hundreds of useless cards and still not a complete set of stickers And nobody tried to save me from spending my wellearned pocketmoney Edit: This might have actually been the start of "lootboxes" lol The only difference is, I wasn't buying that shit with the credit card of my parents It's not the only difference. Trading card games were (and still are) pretty huge. The biggest difference between your normal TCG and digital products is that the digital version has a rather short shelf-life and is worthless outside of the digital realm. For card games like Magic: The Gathering etc. there are people for whom a big part of their income comes from just trading cards to others and you can't do that in the digital world. What EA is doing is actually even worse than gambling, since what you're gambling for doesn't even have any material worth whatsoever. With real-world TCGs even if you don't get lucky you can usually get at least some of the booster cost refunded by selling duplicates and what not and if your collection is big enough that everything you get from boosters will be a duplicate that you can sell then most of the time each pack will actually bring you profit instead of a loss money-wise. I for one have been into TCGs for the past 25+ years or so. I know that if I ever get bored with VTES I can sell my collection (and I know people who will buy it) and get myself a new TV worth of money. Hell, the game was out of print for nearly 10 years and people still made money out of cards for it. | ||
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riotjune
United States3394 Posts
I mean coding a theoretical desire sensor shouldn't be too hard, all you have to do is see the players' frequency of opening packs/loot boxes/surprise mechanics/whatever-the-fuck they call it, compare it to what they don't have in their collection, and make it so that they continue not getting whatever they don't have, easy. But can't make the odds too bad, gotta give them a carrot here and there so you don't completely turn them off from the game. Profit. Some regulation is in order. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada18017 Posts
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