Who Killed Videogames?

jjp9999 writes "Video game developer and novelist Tim Rogers exposes the underbelly of free-to-play games that use real-world currency. They're not trying to entertain you — they're trying to get you hooked. Every minute you play is being analyzed by men in suits reeling you into a cycle of addiction so they can keep you coming for more, and hopefully opening your wallet to buy premium points here and there. To do this, they intentionally give you an hour's worth of gameplay dragged out over the course of a week to keep it on your mind, dropping coins here and there for you to pick up, and playing on your own sense of work and profit to keep you coming back."

Comments

I haven't read the article, but hear me out here..

[intellitech]

This summary quite literally illustrates exactly what is driving away gamers, and which nothing to do with the games but instead the various companies behind it and their various little pay-as-you-go niches (map packs, songs, excessive subscriptions, etc.). It's all about the various companies involved in the development and marketing of a game, who nearly always turn out to be greedy little pigs. Take, for instance, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and their Double XP Promotion. This really pisses off real gamers (the ones who play a lot and get better through time and practice), and especially pisses off those who had to work hard for their last prestige. One mere example, but, regardless, they really need to knock it off.

Re:Silly.

[Osgeld]

I was watching a old computer chronicles from 88? anyway there was a game designer talking about arcade games

"Its almost like inventing a drug, and finding that balance between letting people play forever and not frustrating them so they keep dropping the quarters in, is the key, just give them a big enough dose that they cant stop"

Re:same as with everything else

[FooAtWFU]

You're both wrong.

Capitalism is the idea that whoever builds the means of production gets to have its output. If you own capital, you get to benefit from it. This means that people have an incentive to invest in capital, and build things which will make money for them. This results in a society with more capital to do useful things for it (factories, homes, restaurant espresso machines, satellites, server farms). It also means that people take better care of the capital.

Capitalism harnesses the inevitable human vice of Greed, and (when combined with free-market competition in an efficient market) can make this greed more productive to society at large, but reckless wonton greed is not a value it intrinsically promotes. It's not really a value system; it's merely an ownership system. (Notice also that only markets with low transaction costs and low barriers to entry are really efficient. This is important. Notice what a mess we see when neither is the case: health care, cell phone providers...)

Usually, competition with other greedy capitalists is enough to keep a capitalist in line, and not exploiting and abusing his fellow man too much. When this is no longer the case, it's entirely reasonable to pass moral judgement (or attempt to restrain) these people who are taking their reckless, wonton greed and exploiting their fellow man. Capitalism is not an excuse... but it's not the illness, either.