Decline Ethics of Free-to-play games.

[Ranselknulf]

I can fully understand the desire people have to spend money to win at games. Some times I feel frustrated by my lack of domination in games because of time constraints, but paying to win doesn't make me feel any better either.

 

[Stabwound]

Free to play, and especially pay to win games like World of Tanks are a scourge on gaming, but that's really the fault of the people that are into these kinds of games. I don't understand why anyone would want to play a game and then pay money to be better than others, but it seems incredibly stupid to me.

On this topic, the most egregious example I've seen is in Path of Exile, where several people have purchased the new supporter pack that costs $12,500USD. Yeah, that's no exaggeration. You get a bunch of physical bullshit (keychain etc), get to design a monster, get to design an item, and a bunch of cosmetic effects. The kicker is that there is one somewhat pay-to-win aspect in that you can purchase in-game stash slots where are pretty much vital. Needless to say, with a donation that large, you get a shit ton of stash spots.

 

[Night Goat]

I have no sympathy for the stupid. If people are dumb enough to blow huge amounts of money on a "free to play" game, then they deserve what they get.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's worth keeping in mind that while traditionally the 18-25 segment doesn't have much to spend, the true no-life segment has a ridiculously high disposable income. If your only expenses other than P2W games is bread, water and housing you can afford a lot even at a relatively low-income job. And if you still live with your parents or something, you can pretty much spend every penny you have on them.

 

[Aeschylus]

I have no sympathy for the stupid. If people are dumb enough to blow huge amounts of money on a "free to play" game, then they deserve what they get.

The funny thing is, a lot of pretty bright people get suckered into these things. Hell, one of the people I talked to who dropped thousands on a game was even a programmer for the Circle of Eight Mod for ToEE. That should provide some cognitive dissonance for folks here. Though I suppose you could argue that no one who falls for such scams is really all that bright.

 

[Ranselknulf]

"Thousands" might not necessarily be a significant portion of a persons income.

 

[Night Goat]

I have no sympathy for the stupid. If people are dumb enough to blow huge amounts of money on a "free to play" game, then they deserve what they get.

The funny thing is, a lot of pretty bright people get suckered into these things. Hell, one of the people I talked to who dropped thousands on a game was even a programmer for the Circle of Eight Mod for ToEE. That should provide some cognitive dissonance for folks here. Though I suppose you could argue that no one who falls for such scams is really all that bright.

There are different kinds of stupid. That programmer probably had a high INT but a low WIS.

 

[evdk]

The GDC video is truly something else - turning games into a second job, complete with clocking in and itinerary, the yellow peril is way ahead of us.

 

[Turjan]

Though I suppose you could argue that no one who falls for such scams is really all that bright.

If realizing that you do something stupid automatically prevented you from doing something stupid, the world would be a much better place. We as human beings are much more slave to our desires than we normally like to admit to ourselves. In the end, bright people simply find better excuses for following their desires than dumb ones.

 

[Dexter]

Oh yeah, I also remember this. Here's a sad tale of celebrity gaming addiction explained in front of a camera about 20 Minutes in and the sad thing is she doesn't even realize: http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/po...-and-star-wars-the-old-republic-release-date/
Apparently spent thousands of dollars on it and did a bunch of free PR: https://twitter.com/Jessica_Chobot/status/119595327278940160

I have no sympathy for the stupid. If people are dumb enough to blow huge amounts of money on a "free to play" game, then they deserve what they get.

Almost everybody can fall prey to any number of addictions. All that's needed are just the right circumstances and self-justifications. There are very few people that you can say are completely "immune" to something like that.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

What do you gain from playing tetris ?

When you play Tetris you don't have to spend $100 to unlock the square block.

Chumps. The real money is in the long block.

 

[Night Goat]

I have no sympathy for the stupid. If people are dumb enough to blow huge amounts of money on a "free to play" game, then they deserve what they get.

Almost everybody can fall prey to any number of addictions. All that's needed are just the right circumstances and self-justifications. There are very few people that you can say are completely "immune" to something like that.

There are very few people who aren't idiots.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I have no sympathy for the stupid. If people are dumb enough to blow huge amounts of money on a "free to play" game, then they deserve what they get.

Almost everybody can fall prey to any number of addictions. All that's needed are just the right circumstances and self-justifications. There are very few people that you can say are completely "immune" to something like that.

There are very few people who aren't idiots.

If we're going by bell curve, 75% of people are stupid.

 

[Aeschylus]

There are very few people who aren't idiots.

If we're going by bell curve, 75% of people are stupid.

It is more likely a Zipfian distribution (oh yeah, statistics burn).

 

[DragoFireheart]

There are very few people who aren't idiots.

If we're going by bell curve, 75% of people are stupid.

It is more likely a Zipfian distribution (oh yeah, statistics burn).

I had to look that up.

*Summons the Deity of Knowledge, Google, and reads the book of Wikipedia*

Zipf's law states that given some corpus of natural language utterances, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. Thus the most frequent word will occur approximately twice as often as the second most frequent word, three times as often as the third most frequent word, etc.

So basically for every one smart person there's one-thousand morons?

 

[Aeschylus]

So basically for every one smart person there's one-thousand morons?

Basically. And ten-thousand :patriot:

 

[DragoFireheart]

So basically for every one smart person there's one-thousand morons?

Basically. And ten-thousand :patriot:

And then 100 thousand :kwanzania:

I feel depressed all of a sudden. I have a theory!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The only F2P game I play is TF2, so I thought I'd share my experience of it with you, to help some arguments here.

In general, people claim that I'm smart. At least I'm no sucker when it comes to money-grabbing ventures, so I have at least that. I started playing TF2 before it went F2P, before the hats were introduced, before the trading system, before the item drops. In fact, it's been 5 years now. I recently did a tally of the amount of money I've used while playing the game.

# There's $10 for the game itself, bought it at a Steam sale, IIRC.
# A total of 3 keys, which I used in trades to get the EXACT items I wanted, instead of trying to chance my way to the right item through a crate or ten. The items in question were unavailable in the store at the time, so this option was the only one available. That's $7.47.
# I bought a bundle of some 'just-released' weapons, because I didn't feel like waiting for the drop system to get them, nor the crafting system. I honestly do not remember if the trading system was out at this time. That's $30.
# I once spent around $22 on various items that were hard-to-get or unavailable via item drops. These included the two "Jumper" weapons, some Name and Description Tags and the only Set Hat I felt I needed to have.
# Last year I spent $9 on cosmetic items on a sale, including one that is usable by all classes, and is 'standard issue' in almost all my loadouts. Trading for them or waiting for them to drop would have taken me FOREVER.
# During some sale I spent something like $11 to buy one of every Noisemaker available. They all sit unused in my backpack.
# Earlier this month I spent $0.49 to buy a Description Tag. I had been looking for one for 2 months and they ended up on a sale.

Total: $89.95.

That's the price of one AAA game nowadays, with DLC included. Keep in mind that TF2 has kept me entertained for 5 YEARS. It's hard, if not impossible, to name a AAA title that can claim the same. Even so, I still feel like a chump for splurging those $30 on that bundle, and my plan for the Noisemakers still goes unexecuted. My other TF2 purchases do not bother me. I have NEVER felt the urge to splurge massive moneys at the game to have awesome pimp fits for every class.

So what do I have to show for it?

# The only Unusual item I have is the Headless Horseless Headman's Headtaker. You know, that axe you got from the Halloween event. I have NO Unusual hats or miscs, and no items with craft numbers.
# I have a pimped-out Demoman loadout that really makes him stand out. I've received loads of comments for the "silly" loadout, but what people fail to understand is that a Demoman in full Lime Green gear is REALLY easy to spot, so Spies disgused as me tend to have short lifespans.
# I gave my Medi-Gun a Name Tag and a very odd name: "The Thank-U-Nator." No item that I've personalized had received more comments than that one... mainly because most people don't get it. (If you don't get the name, think of this: What does the game make EVERYONE do that you heal as a Medic?)
# I've since stopped using that Medi-Gun, and my Medic loadout is now all Strange weapons. You'd be surprised how much respect a pimped-out Strange Medic gets. (It's my most-played class.)
# My most valuable item is the Big Kill. I traded 4 hats (including 2 Vintage hats) and all my extra metal for it at the time. It was one of the items I pimped out with a Name and Description Tag. Its value has grown considerably since, and I get CONSTANT trade offers for it. I should have named it "It's not for sale."
# I spotted the crate game for what it was immediately, a gigantic money-grabbing scheme, and I've either traded away or scrapped every crate I've received, with one exception; I once got a Salvaged Crate which are very rare and contain valuable and sought after items. I traded for a key for Refined Metal and unboxed it. What I got is currently worth 2 keys, so I came out ahead on that one.

And all of the above... means... absolutely... jack shit in the long run. It means next to nothing for me. I'm fortunate in knowing that when I give up on TF2 for good (which seems to be in the not-too-distant future) I can use the Steam marketplace to get some of that money back... which I can then use to buy something on Steam... which I loathe to use.

 

[Gurkog]

I felt burned after buying the $10 Broken Steel DLC for FO3. I was so hoping it would make the game entertaining.... but alas, my lesson learned has prevented me from wasting money on any other over priced digital content.

 

[baturinsky]

There should be some top limit of how many you can spend on game - total or per month.

 

[chestburster]

I don't understand why anyone would want to play a game and then pay money to be better than others,

Let me offer some perspective from China (where P2W monetization is the most rampant).

Suppose you're born a super rich kid (of which there are so many in China due to the recent economic boom and the political system). You have sports cars and women and basically anything you want in real life. What else would you want for satisfaction? You have essentially two revenues to pursue:

(1) you can go after the great achievement of human intelligence/physical body. Go work on some math question unsolved for 2000 years, become a great President, or win some Olympic medals. But this is not something traditional Chinese culture encourages. Achievement in Chinese culture is basically sought through comparison to other people, not through the metaphysical path of challenging oneself. Which brings to the second revenue:

(2) You may want to extract enjoyment from dominating other people. And unfortunately for you, it is 2013 now not the feudal times. You can't just walk on the street and whip some peasants and rape their wives for fun (well some rich kids sometimes actually do similar things and they're usually arrested).

Therefore, tons of those super rich kids (called "Gao Shuai Fu" in Chinese, meaning "tall handsome and rich," literally) spend their easy money in games, beating some none-paying poor kids (called "Diao Si", meaning dick hair, literally), for fun.

Hence, the great Chinese P2W market and the so-called "Catching the Whale Players/Payers" practice of those P2W developers.

The person that invented this model, Shi YuZhu, is the greatest merchant/scammer of modern China, of the same caliber of Steve Jobs. Before inventing the P2W model, Shi sold sugar water as miracle medicine and made billions.

 

[sea]

I have little sympathy for people who are weak-willed enough to blow all their money on a game. You are in full control of your wallet and what you want to get out of the game, and you are responsible for what you do no matter how the game is designed.

The bigger problem is creating games that suck or with business models which force people to spend absurd amounts of money to have fun. That's a problem because it actually limits your customer base by driving away players, whether they're long-time fans or people who would otherwise get hooked on the game. As a free-to-play games maker you should be doing everything you can to expand your audience, not milk the existing audience for more and more cash. You'll get a few people paying, sure, but many more will simply stop paying or leave entirely, and worse, spread negative word of mouth about the game and the company running it that will alienate more potential customers.

There's a reason certain free-to-play games are huge - even with their problems, there's still usually a good game underneath that people enjoy, and the more players a free-to-play game has the more vibrant the community, the more fun it is as a social experience, and the more people are going to decide to spend money. People don't drop money on a game that sucks, or has a dead online community.

It's always better to have someone be a repeat customer by spending $10 every month or two, than to have that person spend $50 and leave the game forever. That blatantly greedy, get-rich-quick attitude isn't so much despicable as it is stupid.

 

[wergle]

Remember multiplayer games weren't public dick measuring contests

 

[Metro]

I bought TF2 in the orange box. Later I gifted a couple of copies to friends when it was only $2.50 (this was about a year or so before it went F2P). Never bought a single item on the market. Found some stuff in-game, though.

 

[Turjan]

I may buy too many games for my own good, but when it gets to buying something from within a game, I develop some hot boiling anger that usually sours my mood to the point that I drop the game.