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The Future of Planetcrap's Message Board
January 7th 2012, 08:01 CET by Charles With Quarter to Three in the process of becoming a forum that no one can post on at all (with a current 1/15th of the posts belonging to banned users), is this finally Planetcrap's chance to regain the spotlight? Will the site revive? WILL MORN COME BACK? Probably not. |
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Topic: The Future of Planetcrap's Message Board
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Yeah, there's this company called Apple that is sorta completely dominating that market right now. blog | Twitter | The Psychology of Gaming
"It was a little hard to tell how bad I was bleeding on account of the salsa" -- Jibble |
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In theory I'd like if I was a PC gamer. Right now it's a secondary platform and I'd probably get it for a month burn through some games or use it for demo purposes and then quit it. I don't know how many people would be like me that would make it (in my guess) unprofitable. <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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I still don't like the idea of a monthly fee, as sometimes I play more, sometimes I barely play anything at all. But if it was $15/mo with an access to everything, I'd go for it. In general, I would prefer hourly fees - because it both forces me to play less if I want to save money, and forces game companies to put more effort into every minute of the gameplay to make it fun as much as possible (as opposed to bloating gameplay time with "slay & collect 256 mouse tails" type quests). However, the thing that will happen, at least for now, is that $60 AAA will stay $60 AAA and indie will be indie, and the F2P will grow stronger and stronger, effectively becoming "per per hour". Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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Maybe not "pay per hour" but "a la carte". Pay for what you play. Still it'd have to be some reasonable number that people would bite. |
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#124 by Milan Brezovský In general, I would prefer hourly fees - Pricing a game could be very tricky under that scheme. I suggest pay per death instead. ¤ "Apple hates everyone now." - BJB
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I'd prefer Pay Per Cake. Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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I would welcome something like, for example - Skyrim. First quest and the first village would be a free demo, then main quest would be $20, College of Winterhold $10, etc... however there are many problems that make this stupid: - mostly the psychological factor of "OMG I'm paying for something every 5 minutes" that would make 95% of the players (who paid $60 for it without much hesitation) complain. - losing the free spirit of "do whatever you want, go wherever you want" factor Changes to payment model would be easier with games that currently already work as episodic content (TellTale), or games with a lot of DLC (Magicka)... however, I think what needs to change (and what is harder to change) is the player mentality. 1. People would need to realize they don't have time to play most of the crap they buy. 2. People could realize as a side effect that they don't NEED most of the crap they buy. 3. People would need to stop viewing DLC/F2P/rent as getting ripped off, and instead just look at it like their games and time are like LEGO and they just need to pick which parts they want. So yeah, there are no real solutions, until everyone has low-latency broadband and Gaikai kicks off. BTW, the average number of paying players in casual F2P is 4%, including the 1% of players who are the "addicts" who spend dozens/hundreds of dollars on the game. Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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if they did anything like that, I seriously doubt it would apply to brand new games. Hell, Netflix has wait times on new movies because of the various publishers demand it; I'd guess the same thing would happen with games. No way activation would allow people to rent the newest CoD day and date with release, chances are they wouldn't allow it till it was cheap enough to buy anyway. Indies might be against it too, it's not like they have the largest profit margin to begin with. So that really just leaves games that suck anyway (but may be diamonds in the rough), all at least a year old. I might see value in that, but I don't know that I see enough value in it. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
"LP, your big balls are a religion." - Jibble |
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Also, I should note that the reason why I bought a lot of apps on Android Market recently is that I can just click "buy" and then "umkay" and wait 10 seconds until I can play the game - THIS would probably make the conversion much, much, much higher than the current process: Look, we'll redirect you here, select one of 30 payment methods of wasting your money *click* Welcome to PayPal, the thing that costs you money *password* *click* Are you sure you want to spend money? *click* Cool, you've spent money! thanks! *click* Welcome back to our page, you've spent money! *click* You're back in game, here are your Moonies! Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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#128 by Milan Brezovský I would welcome something like, for example - Skyrim. First quest and the first village would be a free demo, then main quest would be $20, College of Winterhold $10, etc... I'll just leave this here. blog | Twitter | The Psychology of Gaming
"It was a little hard to tell how bad I was bleeding on account of the salsa" -- Jibble |
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It's like you were a professional or something! But yeah, APB is what I had in mind when I mentioned people complaining about paying the same amount of money in segments. The APB-related rage baffled me, because I wished I would have something like that with EVE online, because I can play 5 hours a month, which is very not worth $20 a month. Maybe what games could us is a flat rate, but with lower limits - "Sure, you can play Skyrim, COD and Battlefield for $20 a month, but only if you play it 3 hours a month. Or you can play Farmville HD for 500 hours." I mean, there has to be *something* that can be done, seeing as we let mobile carriers suck our wallets dry. Maybe we should let AT&T do the marketing? Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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Milan Your idea of a game scares the shit out of me. I would never even install a Skyrim that wanted me to pay per quest. I would buy into a game service where I could log in and try games that I wouldn't normally buy, but would want to play for awhile (for instance, when the last Batman came out and everyone was big on, I would have played it for a couple few hours just to see). I would probably only pay 15/m for it though. Anything more and I would just rather buy a full game like Skyrim and play the shit out of it. I used to be a member of Gamefly. I enjoyed it for awhile, but soon enough, there were no more games I really wanted to play. Maybe if you added in a whole PC library to go with that, I wouldn't get tired of the service as fast, but I don't know. To be fair, I'm not your average gamer. I only buy 3-4 games a year at full price. I'm happy to way on games I don't think are worth full price and I play older games as much as I pay new games. "programmers talk from a very deep gnome cavern, full of gold mechanics" - wisdom from the ancients
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You guys wouldn't be interested in a subscription that let you play ANY game on Steam --including new releases-- for a fixed price per month, but you lose access if/when you unsubscribe? I'd totally pay for that, though probably not more than the price of one game a month. (Absolutely pie in the sky, though, since the publishers would never go for it.) I buy less than a game a month, so it would have to be much cheaper than that. Maybe $13 a month for all you can eat, then maybe discounts on games you buy to keep forever? Same thing with Xbox, if Xbox live had an all you can eat I'd still only pay about that much, maybe a little more because my kids would use it. I don't know how many people game like me, but it's pretty rare for me to buy a game the month it's released, maybe three a year. Other than that I stock up on Steam sales or buy used on Amazon. |
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#133 by Matt Perkins Your idea of a game scares the shit out of me. I would never even install a Skyrim that wanted me to pay per quest. Well, my idea wasn't "you need to pay $0.25 for this small dungeon" - but for example, I know I don't like Dark Brotherhood, so I could, say, buy Skyrim for $55 and buy DB quest line later when I cave in under peer pressure. Or maybe let's try it this way - make short, good games with lots of DLC. Instead of $50 game make a $30 game with four $5 DLCs. If you're a "AAAA" studio with a product hyped long before it's released (Skyrim, COD, AC), it doesn't make sense, sure - people will buy the $60 game either way. But if you make a games with content-driven design, you can help yourself by releasing the game earlier, getting user feedback, creating more content that makes sense and knowing that you'll get paid based on how good your content is (which is what most publishers want to avoid, of course). Plus, there is a lot of improvement to be done in this area in the way how smoothly the content is introduced. "More levels/maps" is an easy and obvious way to do it. But for example Skyrim could also have DLC that wouldn't shove the new content bluntly - look, a magic door and a new, cleanly separated map. They could make the world age a few months, or make things happen differently in existing quest lines, change a lot of things for people who want a second replay, or add consequences of quests that you've completed. And the best of all, they could STILL tailor it for masses. Oh, more people have finished College of Winterhold than the main quest? No one plays Thieves Guild? Thanks for telling me, Steam! Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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tl;dr - We'll still have $60 games because if arcade is not fun, people don't insert coins. Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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I would love to comment on micropayments and streaming media sales--good golly good gosh, who wouldn't?--but instead, I must reveal to you all that I am a filthy, filthy walnut-eater/drug-user, and so, none of my opinions matter, unless I, I don't know what, but I'm not going to do it, FU, FU, FUE. http://www.riseearth.com/2012/01/fda-claims-walnuts-to-be-illegal-drugs.html (it's a hilarious article, shoot the messenger, read his mail) Charles: you want me to "speak" so bad, send me a bomb-ass phone, Matrix Bunny :P "You've just defined what's rude for everyone, not just you. Thanks, I needed help with that." - Matt P
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It is weird how the psychology on that works. Free to play, $0.25 per dungeon with 400 dungeons to choose from? FUCK NO. $80 up front for 400 dungeons, many of which you'll never visit? YES PLEASE. |
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Well, it's a false example. If you look at what gets included with a game vs what companies charge for DLC, you almost always get less when you buy it piecemeal. It's not 25 cents a level, it's $5 a level, or $60 for 400 levels. "I hope you one day decide to smarten the fuck up so I can stand to look at your posts." - gaggle
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If a review site tells you what the 10 best levels are, you buy those for $50, get all killer no filler, and end up $10 ahead. But ooooh no, that's not how the human mind works. |
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That's true. I always buy DLC on sale, but Shivering Isles was once DLC that was amazing. But I don't recall what was its release price. $20 maybe? Borderland's third DLC also seemed appropriate for the price. Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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Never trust a review site. |
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I'm not gonna argue about whether it can or can't work, I'll just say that the only games I can think of that did DLC right were Rock Band and Fallout 3. All the other games were not enough content for the money. And with Fallout, I didn't even buy it as DLC, I waited and got the GOTY version that had everything. "I hope you one day decide to smarten the fuck up so I can stand to look at your posts." - gaggle
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I think I bought some of the Fallout 3 DLC because it added in levels and some cool armor/weapons for not much cost. I wanted to buy some of the F:NV, but none it ever appealed to me. I burned out on the game twice before I beat it (30+ hours each time), but just couldn't care enough about any of the extra content to give it a shot. I bought the DoW II DLC stuff when it went on sale recently because I could get it all for something like $10. That was worth it to me. Most DLC is not. "programmers talk from a very deep gnome cavern, full of gold mechanics" - wisdom from the ancients
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Old World Blues is about the only F:NV DLC truly worth your time, but it is a very fun add on. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
"LP, your big balls are a religion." - Jibble |
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You guys still have the *worst* ideas about games. No.
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Until somebody actually puts robot police dogs in a game, you have no basis for that claim. "I hope you one day decide to smarten the fuck up so I can stand to look at your posts." - gaggle
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That's not fair. It's mostly just Milan. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
"LP, your big balls are a religion." - Jibble |
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#146 by Charles You guys still have the *worst* ideas about games. We do NOT. For example, listen to this one: quarters. I know, I know: it's been done to death - but what's this? Hey, these are Virtual Quarters! Retro AND fairly intangible, so could it not be an instant winner? ¤ "Apple hates everyone now." - BJB
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Also, I very much welcome both the return of Charles (loved the programming thread, btw) and the haggle-gaggle-armchair-pieinthesky spirit Milan seems to be bringing to the table (in this particular instance, at least). ¤ "Apple hates everyone now." - BJB
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We do NOT. For example, listen to this one: quarters. I know, I know: it's been done to death - but what's this? Hey, these are Virtual Quarters! Retro AND fairly intangible, so could it not be an instant winner? I vaguely recall some downloadable or mobile game trying that. The game was cheap or free but had to buy virtual quarters to keep playing. BUYBUYBUY
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Gametap tried (is trying?) to do the subscription thing. I tried it for a month or two, it wasn't bad. The whole download and install part was a deterrent, so something like Onlive might be smoother. For people that obsess over one game until they finish it it won't make any sense, but if someone likes to sample it would work well. Also recently there's been "play a demo streaming from your browser" from some bigger name games (FIFA 12, Dead Rising 2, Bastion) so if that catches on that could help. |
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#151 by BobJustBob I vaguely recall some downloadable or mobile game trying that. The game was cheap or free but had to buy virtual quarters to keep playing. Yeah, that's what I get for trying to be sarcastic (and failing) about the circular nature of game design and its marketing. ¤ "Apple hates everyone now." - BJB
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#148 by LPMiller That's not fair. It's mostly just Milan. True, but at least I lovingly cherry pick all the worst ideas. #152 by eggbert Also recently there's been "play a demo streaming from your browser" from some bigger name games (FIFA 12, Dead Rising 2, Bastion) so if that catches on that could help. Yes, I mentioned Gaikai twice. It was supposed to be "rent/buy a game, play from a thin client instead of buying high-end PC", and it ended up being just "look, shiny demo! buy full game!" for now. See, I'm not the only one with Cloud In The Sky ideas, Perry has them too! Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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An article about money making myths in app store(s). Koster's article about F2P vs subscriptions. Also, as for my trolling - I'm mostly brainstorming, because this topic does interest me, but I'm tired of current game monetization models. I plan to make/release my F2P game in the next 9-12 months. Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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Koster speaks truth. |
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That Koster article is bullshit. Major League Baseball teams spend money on better players, therefore don't complain when someone beats you because he spent more in a game you are playing for fun? But he is right about how F2P games have to be shitty so you'll spend money to make them better, and that's why they suck. BUYBUYBUY
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Koster is saying that the economic argument of investment vs skill is the same as in MLB, and people don't cry that the MLB is evil and stealing money out of viewers' pockets. It may be unfair, but it's not some new menace devised by cloven-hoofed game designers. Is coach class in a plane shitty? Maybe, but it gets you to the destination at the cheapest rate, which is why it's popular. If plane seats were sold like video games, every seat would be first class and cost many multiples of what coach used to sell for. |
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If plane seats were like video games, I'd torrent myself to Thailand this weekend. Parhelic Triangle is coming. Eventually.
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Players in the MLB are performing a job for which they are being paid. That is completely irrelevant to a discussion of leisure activities. BUYBUYBUY
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You don't understand Koster's point, Bob. |
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His point is he loves money. BUYBUYBUY
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And your point is you're a communist? |
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I like games. BUYBUYBUY
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Stalin also liked games. Damn commie. |
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The economic inequality in baseball is part of the reason the NFL has become the biggest sports league in the US. Because guess what? People like it better when their team has an equal chance to win. Suck on that, Koster. "I hope you one day decide to smarten the fuck up so I can stand to look at your posts." - gaggle
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Koster is saying that the economic argument of investment vs skill is the same as in MLB, and people don't cry that the MLB is evil and stealing money out of viewers' pockets. It may be unfair, but it's not some new menace devised by cloven-hoofed game designers. What you have said here does not make sense. The players in the MLB are not analogous to the players of video games since it isn't like MLB players have to pay to play the game. The real analogy is to say that the MLB team owners are the players of a F2P videogame since they can pay more money to enhance their competitive advantage in the league. The developers in this analogy are the MLB itself, which collectively sets rules permitting money to be used by team owners in this way. There is no mapping analogy for the viewers of MLB games in this context - except to suggest that maybe they are the gaming press? |
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This discussion is just further evidence that baseball blows. |
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I don't think Koster has said anything even remotely intelligent in the last 15 years or more. Zep-- w0rd up!
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I dunno if he's said anything, but he did have that puppycam. "I hope you one day decide to smarten the fuck up so I can stand to look at your posts." - gaggle
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Koster works very hard to make the F2P model seem less skanky. I don't think he succeeds. His argument boils down to, "Look, some people have a lot of money. They will spend it on your F2P if you trick them into it really well. It's all right, because they were going to spend that money on something, why not convince them to do it with you!" Not impressed. "programmers talk from a very deep gnome cavern, full of gold mechanics" - wisdom from the ancients
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