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Activision Patents Pay-To-Win Matchmaker (rollingstone.com)
New submitter EndlessNameless writes: If you like fair play, you might not like future Activision games. They will cross the line to encourage microtransactions, specifically matching players to both encourage and reward purchase. Rewarding the purchase, in particular, is an explicit and egregious elimination of any claim to fair play. "For example, if the player purchased a particular weapon, the microtransaction engine may match the player in a gameplay session in which the particular weapon is highly effective, giving the player an impression that the particular weapon was a good purchase," according to the patent. "This may encourage the player to make future purchases to achieve similar gameplay results." Even though the patent's examples are all for a first-person-shooter game, the system could be used across a wide variety of titles. "This was an exploratory patent filed in 2015 by an R&D team working independently from our game studios," an Activision spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. "It has not been implemented in-game." Bungie also confirmed that the technology isn't being used in games currently on the market, mentioning specifically Destiny 2.
Definitely not! In fact, it's not in *any* of our games, but **especially** not in Destiny 2! We would never do that! (Please play Destiny 2!)
Wargaming.net sure has. They have a patent on almost the exact same thing in World of Tanks.
We should be horrified at mass shootings like the Las Vegas massacre and many of the other gruesome attacks that have taken place in recent years. First person shooters provide a training ground for violent people to act out their rage, practice their tactics, and obtained pleasure from killing. Over time, that pleasure decreases from first person shooters, and the most violent types move on to acting them out on real people. First person shooters should be banned because they lead to violence in real life. Activision's patents should be useless because they're built around dangerous games that need to be outlawed for the good of society.
You're trolling too hard.
I've been playing FPS for as long as they've been around and I've killed all of 0 people. I've shot all of 0 people. I own 0 firearms and I'm even from the state of Texas... (however, I am a rather good shot with real firearms -- so my lack of owning any is just that.. I don't own any).
So they are starting to separate out the proletariat on the gaming front.
They may have started a proof of concept for Marxism. We shall see.
I am willing to bet that in 5 years, all of Activision/Blizzard games with be using this exclusively for matchmaking.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Before Apple had IAP, you paid a few dollars for a game, and got a decent amount of levels. Often, there was a sequel, so you spend $3.99 or so, bought that.
Then came IAP. Games which were challenging but fun became a lot harder, in order to force people to buy powerups to beat the game, or the game would have a delay if you lost... of course, you could pay something to have the delay removed. Additional levels? More dosh. Even a basic tower defense game became so loaded with costly powerups that the whole genre wound up collapsing.
If I want Farmville, I'll play Farmville. The whole gaming genre has been so polluted by this P2W crap that it just isn't worth the time, and since older games that have not been recompiled for 64 bit which haven't been updated are wiped off Apple's App Store, what is worth playing is pretty hard to find.
It is said that when there are cheaters in a game, nobody wins. When the PROVIDER is cheating, that goes double. But as Cory Doctorow has pointed out, if you can't check the source code, how do you know for certain?
Computers can match things, Duh!!, so putting in a game, for a preference makes it special.
When are these losers going to accept the fact that software algorithms are copyright-able but not patent-able!
discuss
That's a false equivalence if I've ever seen one. Most people who play games know that they are just games. There's no evidence to suggest that video games have lead to violent shootings. The people who have engaged in such behavior all have one thing in common. They were all mentally ill. So if we're going to start banning stuff maybe we should start with banning mental illness. We'll just write a law.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
... as no self-respecting gaming company will want to license it.
AC comments get piped to
It's customized matchmaking based on preferences. So, you buy a sniper rifle, and you want to play on maps where sniper rifles are popular, for example.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
You should try Game Of War: Fire Age. I've spent over $14k on it, and I am still only barely able to keep up. It's absolutely crazy, every day they release new powerups and things that make everything else you've bought up to that point completely obsolete.
Nothing says horrible like a company who distances themselves from a patent they filed without ever actually implementing or selling the technology.
I.e. the Dunning-Kruger sufferers of players, that are pretty bad by do not know that. Well, I predict they will make great business with that model, but quite a few players will find themselves disgusted and repulsed by these games. I certainly will very carefully check before I ever buy anything from the again.
Incidentally, why can you patent such stuff? this is both trivial and highly immoral. Both should make this completely non-patentable.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I once got in to Hearthstone briefly. This was the first time I have ever tried a card game or anything like that. Let me also say that I have been in to game theory since the 70's, probably before the Hearthstone's developer's parents were even born.
I first learned how the game worked. I was able to climb to the top rankings even then. I then developed a set of Lua scripts that calculated the best plays based on the game at hand. Well, in short, I got banned. Not because they thought I was using a bot or cheating (and I wasn't, I was just playing as a regular human-controlled, me), but because I won too often even against people that payed lots of money for superior stacks that should have wiped me off the floor.
Oh... OK. Fuck you too, morons.
Nice lie you are spreading there. Completely and utterly debunked, of course. You are an evil person, because some will believe you and some of those will lose their children to infectious disease because of it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I do not see how an "invention" like this deserves to receive government protection. I thought patents were meant to encourage innovation. This seems to encourage making money instead, which I think spits in the face of real inventors and their inventions that provide real value to society. I would argue that all "inventions" used for the purposes of purely entertainment should never be granted.
Current research says you are full of it, i.e. nothing of what you say is actual fact. Please go away ans top spreading lies.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
A former co-worker plays World of Tanks, and spends at least $1500 a month on it... and he still loses left and right.
As an aspiring indie game dev who likes single-player games I have to say I really like these moves by places like EA and Activision. If they want to piss off their user base with game play choices that people hate, and abandon single-player games exclusively for P2W MMOs, hey go for it.
I'd like nothing more than these titans to exit the scene. I can only hope when the time comes people will choose with their money what game choices they like and not just hop on the mindless consumer bandwagon.
Hear me out on this. The practice described in the patent is total garbage and a very bad thing. However, the patent itself is excellent. If Activision owns the patent on this, then other game makers would have to pay to do the same thing, thus making them less likely to do it, thus making it less likely for us to see the practice used in actual games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
This is why I avoided smartphone games in the first place. I keep some Chess games and single-player puzzlers like Monument Valley on my Fire, but multiplayer? That's console or PC, and I'm picky there, and willing to pay on upfront cost to avoid P2W.
That's a great story, Mrs. McCarthy-Wahlberg.
Amount of evidence you have that the MMR caused the autism: none. There is as much reason to believe it was the orange juice he had for breakfast.
You really shouldn't reply to your own posts.
Except they're not alienating their users.
The free players? They don't care about them very much.
Think about the other posts where people spent 1500+. That one player represents 40 players buying a 60 dollar game...(the game store doesn't take a cut, hence not 1500 \ 60)
I would patent that idea Sam I Am!
I would patent it electronically.
I would patent it with a computer.
I would patent it online.
I would patent it every time!
I would patent it with nanobots.
I would patent it as a drug.
I would patent it as a business process.
I would patent it in an office!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
All former Cryptic games, as well as King of Dragons/9Dragons use spreadsheet based advancement. Thanks to source leaks I have been able to investigate this more thoroughly and basically all major current-generation MMOs have advancement spreadsheets determining your level to damage output to ensure you advance at more or less the same rate regardless of the type of mobs you attempt to grind. So even if it seems like you are getting more XP per kill, oftentimes they have it calculated out to ensure that your XP per hour comes out the same regardless of which mobs you kill, which quests you take, or where you travel.
If you are still playing MMOs, understand that they are built like another job. If you play them to level up, or compete in PvP you have already lost. If you want to truly enjoy the games you need to think outside the box and outside your level and have fun making a cool character, or exploring the visuals of areas you are far too low level to fight in. Because if you waste your time grinding your way up, 1-5 years of your life will be gone and you will realize you wasted them all mindlessly clicking buttons just like your 9-5 for 2-8 hours every night.
Take it from someone with experience: Modern videogames have taken all the interesting mechanics out of videogames so they can better choreograph your experience. Unless you like enjoy being someone else's puppet, don't grind for experience, or equipment you spent months attaining that you will throw away when the next expansion comes out.
And if you do tire of it, come and look at the world of indie/open source games. There are a lot more out there than you realize, some just as addictive but with gameplay breadth that will keep you coming back just to try things in a different way, sometimes even without resorting to mindless violence.
If you are such a good shot you wouldn't have missed so much resulting in having shot 0 people.
Fuckoff creimer you fat stale bitch lasagna
But if I play in a game and my rivals can buy their way into superior position, I would stop playing.
Once all the rubes leave, where are they going to find unlevel playing field to help these paying dudes?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Your blog has been submitted to the fbis anonymous coward tipline!
I've also sent a report to the IRS detailing your Amazon referrer income!!!!!!! Yay!
So no 1040ez or TurboTax free for you this yeah... Booooo!
Balance is essential in a fun game. New players should have time to get up to speed, but otherwise everyone is on a level playing field. The only distinguishing thing being the player's skill, reflexes, strategy or whatever skill the game demands.
I have faced a similar 'unfair' situation three times among chess players. Nobody literally paid for an advantage, but they did it indirectly.
Each time, a group of ordinary people discovered that we all knew how to play chess. Each time, none of us were expert. Each time we had a very enjoyable time exploring this game as a learning experience. Each time, people outside our group joined in, creating a group of 30-90 people. And each time it became competitive, and the fun slid out under the door.
Certain players, maybe 10%, began studying. Within two months substantial libraries were being accumulated. Money was wagered. Friends became enemies. A few players went on to become serious but the vast majority lost interest and left the group. What could have been fun for all was compromised by those seeking an (unfair?) advantage.
There are also people who study to excel in Scrabble and spelling bees, etc. Let them compete against other anal retentive types and leave the fun contests to regular people.
...omphaloskepsis often...
You said you were still using a c64 20 years ago there were no fps games for the c64.
Which part of the story is the lie?
This is... awful, really, this company like to scam and cheat their customers so much that want other companies to pay them for scamming their customers...
Also, World of Warcraft didn't make it first? and later League of Legends? and later EA?
I would like to know how much money they did invest in R+D to come with this geniality and those economic scientifics that made such huge advancement in the scamming field. ;)
Oh well, that comes from Activision... I though they were dead since the 2000's.
The whole point of buying or acquiring anything is to take it somewhere it will be useful.
YOU FAIL IT!
I think that was pretty much the idea...
Activision has discovered the secret to making money with online games: let players pay to enter newbie areas and slaughter the low-level masses.
They'll make billions.
Looks like creimers trolls have won again
Zombies, alien bugs, and nazis aren't technically "people".
Just sayinâ(TM)
First person shooters should be banned
Current research says you are full of it, i.e. nothing of what you say is actual fact. Please go away ans top spreading lies.
No, no -- he's right. Remember the "Punch the Monkey" Ad that used to appear on articles? It made me want to get violent and punch the screen itself every time I saw it.
Maybe he meant "First Person Punchers" instead.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
You're trolling too hard.
And you need to learn not to bite. The troll got modded into oblivion, but his efforts remain because you bit back.
Internet 101: Don't feed the trolls.
I've been playing FPS games and hearing this canard for 20 years. I haven't gone out to shoot anyone. Yet.
Not yet, but anybody can tell it is coming if you manage to live just a couple more years. The Las Vegas guy was 64 or something.
You've already threatened to shoot somebody on Slashdot and you posted this 2 days ago:
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Here's the deal: the beatings will continue until the trolls leave creimer alone.
You seem like somebody quite on its way to me. Talking about doing it in the third person is further sign that it is coming.
By the way, your stupid blog post on the topic is just a cut and paste copied from somebody else. Its goal is obviously an attempt to lure people into your blog to then spam them by injecting amazon affiliate link cookie and to inject other malware on their computer. My CPU spikes when I load your site pages, bitcoin mining creimer?
The whole gaming genre has been so polluted by this P2W crap that it just isn't worth the time, and since older games that have not been recompiled for 64 bit which haven't been updated are wiped off Apple's App Store, what is worth playing is pretty hard to find.
There's no P2W in Counterstrike, just skill...
Apple takes a 30% cut for in-between game purchases...
Never understood that. The whole challenge and joy of free to play games is to play them free and still win.
55+% WR free to play all the way. Tier 8+ average. The key is mostly tank angles. And weak spots. Fantastic game.
He's quite the disagreeable horrible little homunculus, isn't he?
The best multiplayer game I've played is still HalfLife.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
There's no evidence to suggest that video games have lead to violent shootings.
But there is plenty of evidence for the opposite.
You're trolling too hard.
And you need to learn not to bite. The troll got modded into oblivion, but his efforts remain because you bit back.
Internet 101: Don't feed the trolls.
Don't even start with me on what I do and don't need to learn. I'm well past Internet 101.
How about we compromise. You pay the upfront cost for a regular game and then through updates and patches we slowly convert the game to pay2win after you've bought it!
"For example, if the player purchased a particular weapon, the microtransaction engine may match the player in a gameplay session in which the particular weapon is highly effective, giving the player an impression that the particular weapon was a good purchase,"
So...I get to enjoy the perversity of griefing, without having to do the tedious chore of out-grinding everyone else for superior equipment?
Sweet!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I appreciate the troll you're going for here, but you should have spun it more about the casino/gambling industry and how the model of the app will get kids addicted to gambling
As long as you pay for it.
Oh, and as an added bonus all superior players who manage to wipe the table with you despite your upgrades will be labeled cheaters and banned.
Oh, next step: Replace human opponents with AI bots that are artificially dumb, so that the player feels properly superior. Hey, it works for dating web sites, why not for games?
You are an idiot of the highest caliber.
Based on the comment threads I have glanced through I think most people are missing the big picture here. Sure it is bad that Activision has a pay-to-win mechanism in the works but is this really something that should be patent-able?
Don't make generalizations. I am a mass shooter and I don't play FPSs.
Then came IAP. Games which were challenging but fun became a lot harder, in order to force people to buy powerups to beat the game.
And before before IAP were arcades, where games were very hard, in order to force people to put in more quarters.
Your comment is interesting because it is like history repeating itself.
Arcades games were hard, because that's how they made you spend money.
Then home consoles came in and used arcades as a model, which meant hard games.
Then later, developers realized that there was nothing to gain by making game hard and frustrating as they were one time purchase, so games became easier.
And now, with the pay-to-win model, difficulty as a money maker is coming back.
Interestingly many old gamers say they miss the times where games were hard (I doubt they really do), well, it looks like those times are coming back.
Creimer boasted about walking 2.5 mph for 20 minutes. You know the fat guy who walks in the middle of the sidewalk swinging his arms and wobbling as he walks so there is no fucking way you can get past him?
Cdreimer is that idiot. Except on a fucking treadmill
we will have a party
oh please.. We should ban puzzle games, as that would increase the intelligent thinking of a person.
Mass shootings have got absolutely nothing to do with FPS shooters. Before you go ban FPS shooters, let's ban weapons.
And it's better to get rid of your frustration through a computer game, than having it build up and go rampage in real life..
Unless they are getting the patent to block everyone from doing so, and also don't use it themselves, then it's Ok, otherwise good luck with your games, as you won't see me buying any of those.
There is a difference between hard for a challenge, versus hard just to extract dosh from people. The people who made games like Gorf and Sinistar didn't give a rat's ass if someone could beat it or not, which actually meant doing well was an achivement. The people who make the cheesy apps on smartphones only care about forcing people to pay $1.99 for a sack of brains for their zombie farm every couple minutes.
you're a nut ... i grew up in a place with guns around all my life ... right wingnuts everywhere ... i have been gaming since i was eight, i never shot anyone ...
... belgium is the second biggest provider to IS in syria (kids, mostly young adults) during the high days ... not that its over ofcourse, none of them were really poor, living on the streets, most of them probably came from third generation working class
...
... and shot up half of paris, killing a lot of teens and young adults all alike
...
i'll give you another problem to solve
why of all countries in europe ? so why of all places in the world you get the most shooters ?
is it because of duke nukem ? because of the guns ? cos here you can't have guns without severe licencing and screening, DEFINITELY can't have AK's
yet six guys with kalashnikovs blew up brussels airport
most of the six from belgium, none of them poor or homeless
now you tell me, is that because of duke nukem ?
cos i think you're a nut who should be banned, you clearly don't know how a petri dish works
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
indeed, let's ban monopoly for encouraging wallstreet behaviour and the six o clock news for encouraging politics i think that would be way more productive ...
the activision thing sounds a bit like steemit : "the crypto-anarchists social network based on BLOCKCHAIN technology
... the salespitch was nice though ... you cant be censored (but your posts get hidden if one or two 'whales' downvote them)
you can't be censored !
in fact it comes down to : you can buy votes, you can buy voting power (means weight means your vote weighs more), you can pay bots to downvote competition and in the end if two heavyweights vote you down while you start up, it takes about 30 minutes before your account is useless
the equivalent of say Trump and Mister wallstreet CEO telling you you'll never get a job in town again, despite the fact that the other 300 (400?) million americans and cants wouldnt care or wouldnt oppose or be against thats all it takes
in crypto-capitalism
nice try there lol
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
yea i know, thats why they have a preview button, mea maxima culpa i need to clarify however ... this is not about hacking on "that poor CEO" there, i'm absolutely willing to believe he meant it since he never said "this is not about me geting rich" and he just claimed "other networks keep all the profit and dont share it with the users"
im 100% willing to believe that exact phrasing ... (just like i'm willing to believe the cop who said "o someone probably put it in the mailbox" referring to my passport in a police station here in hickville while i was still living 30km away in a city i had been registered for 3 years by then and i hadnt been in hickvill for six months or more ... perfectly willing to believe that's all the local dude knew)
... the call it anarchy ??? if that's not an exact copy of the current social model, down to "roll over to alpha alpha skull & bones club" on the college campus or you're un-cooled right here
... its weird however, slashdot seems to be the only site where i have good karma (LOL) ... which means probably half the users here would last about as long as i do there unless they buy power (which i won't ofcourse, that's silly, i can make more begging with a styrofoam cup or robbing whatever's politically convenient at the present day, lets hope we don't have to before i start using royal plural on myself)
mea maxima culpa ... nuff said i think thats all i needed to spit
as for the execution of steemit however
then i dont know what is
allow me to apologize again for the reply to my reply
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
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Yet here you are...