6 ms·

Clash Rules Everything Around Me

44 points by Hooke 10y ago

minimaxir 10y ago
> I suspect this attitude has something to do with the human fallibilities of sunk cost and cognitive dissonance: if you’ve already spent hours and maybe some cash on a particular activity, you might keep playing because you don’t want that effort to “go to waste,” and then you might imbue that activity with all sorts of heavy meaning and nobility to assure yourself that your time was well spent. Many new freemium games now are trying to copy Clash of Clans with unnecessary resource management mechanics a low-effort PvP mode. Makes sense on paper. However, I've read a lot of discussion about how people are getting bored of these types of games, especially now that they are aware of the time-sink nature of the games after having experienced it (and consumed by it) once before. It would not surprise me if there is a shift from Clash-likes. (indeed, the Hero-collectathons have been surprisingly popular lately...)
- caseyf7 10y ago
  What are Hero-collectathons? Can you give us some examples?
  - minimaxir 10y ago
    The most well-known (#6 Grossing Game on iPhone) is Marvel Contest of Champions (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marvel-contest-of-champions/id896112560 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marvel-contest-of-champions/...) by Kabam, which lets you "collect" Marvel heroes. This lead to similar models for other Marvel mobile games like Marvel Future Fight (which is really good for a freemium game) and Marvel Avengers Assemble (which is not). Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars-galaxy-of-heroes/id921022358 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars-galaxy-of-heroes/i...) (#14 Grossing) by Electronic Arts is similar, but is surprisingly fair in terms of F2P mechanics on the low end. In all these games, instead of using F2P on one-time consumables, F2P are used for progression, and "heroes" are more permanent, tangible things to buy. (this concept predates the Hero collectathons though: Puzzle & Dragons, for example, was one of the big ones that did it first)
ovt 10y ago
The only band that mattered.
- zootski 10y ago
  Thank you - needed saying.
- slyrus 10y ago
  My thoughts exactly. And then "and what's wrong with that?" But then I realized this was about a silly video game. Oh well.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jasonlingx 10y ago
Clash Royale is their new game of the moment. It's taken away most of the meaningless grinding, leaving just enough to monetise.
- SilkRoadie 10y ago
  After playing a bunch of Clash Royale I feel a lot like the author feel's about clash of clans. Clash Royale actually puts you into a routine of opening chests. Setting things in the game before going to bed and then opening things first thing in the morning. Paying increases the speed of your progress. This works well because if you do not play the game you make no progress and feel bad as everyone around you is making progress. It doesn't help that every 3-4 hours you get a notification reminding you of the opportunities you could be pursuing in the game. If anyone is playing Clash Royale I would strongly suggest turning the push notifications off for the game. It makes it far more enjoyable and it helps eliminate the schedule that it tries to impose on your life.
tvural 10y ago
I'm not sure, but I'm hopeful that the title is a reference to C.R.E.A.M
- nkurz 10y ago
  Thanks, I presumed it was in reference to something, but I didn't know what: Wu-Tang Clan - C.R.E.A.M. 1993 Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) [Hook] Cash rules everything around me: CREAM, get the money Dollar, dollar bill y'all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194
  - gosub 10y ago
    This mashup with fugazi is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ourDnKp6x14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ourDnKp6x14
    - nkurz 10y ago
      Wow, I hadn't heard that before. Background: http://www.mtv.com/news/2694103/how-the-wugazi-mashup-album-came-to-be/ http://www.mtv.com/news/2694103/how-the-wugazi-mashup-album-...
rrecuero 10y ago
This article made me think a little bit about games. What are they? Art, waste of time, intellectual gummies for your brain? All of the above? However, I believe that there are forms of entertainment that can enrich your life and others that are simply entertainment. As long as you are aware of it, and being intentional about your decision there is nothing wrong with that. I can definitely remember games that have enriches my life one way or another like the original Metal gear Solid, Silent Hill or Braid but I can also think of many counterexamples like Counter Strike... These games were polished as hell but they just put me into this zombie state where I just cared about one more frag, one more, one more... Without being aware. What do you guys think?
- firebones 10y ago
  I wish it was easier to create games so that there were more games that could teach you specific lessons. The trick is, they have to be immersive enough that they're not merely the narrative equivalent of fables, or parables; they need to be more substantial, so the emotion and lessons take root. A great game should be like a great novel--expansive, teaching multiple lessons over time, not a trifle. Yet with the rate of technological change, it's virtually impossible for someone to take, say, 10 years and write the Great American Game (formerly: Novel) that thematically covers the same breadth.
  - rrecuero 10y ago
    I agree. From my point of view, games as an art form is in its infancy period. It has so much potential because it is interactive and immersive (even more so now with VR), but games often get caught in a core game mechanic and rinse and repeat. Same thing happened with movies too, right? People said that they were just toys and nothing profound could be told with them. In the end is like everything, there are good and bad sculptures, books, movies and games. I am optimistic that we will see the medium evolve dramatically. As you said, with this pace of innovation everything can happen :)
  - justinhj 10y ago
    This sounds remarkably like Dwarf Fortress. Virtually anything is possible if you're willing to spend enough time on it
rtpg 10y ago
I have such mixed feelings about this style of monetisation. On one hand, (as that talk that Blow gave a while back) it usually affects game design badly. If you remove the money element, of course you wouldn't have to sit around for days while things upgrade. But on the other hand, the micropurchase model has helped to sustain games much beyond their original "Fresh by" date. The one that comes to mind for me the most is Team Fortress 2. A huge amount of content has been added, and is at this point subsidised by item purchases. Of course League of Legends and other DOTA-likes do this too. And then there's Hearthstone, which keeps content fresh through constantly selling new expansions a la MTG. Some might make the distinction between the good games and the bad ones, but I have a hard time imagining one without the other. ---- I think a bit of a weird aspect of this is that games are now incentivised to keep you entertained longer. If you buy a $50 game, it's fine for it to take 5 hours and for you to be done. There's no financial advantage for the game maker to keep you around longer. I guess a lot of this is a distinction between kinds of games though. Some games are like books, others are like sports. Nobody complains about the addictive nature of soccer....
- ferbivore 10y ago
  Paywalled content is one thing. Most people - including, I expect, Blow - would agree that DLC and unlockable items are fair ways to monetize a game. In most cases, anyway. Wait timers are completely different. It's hard to overstate how horribly offensive they are to any self-respecting gamer. The only people who tolerate them are the ones that have never experienced a game that didn't try to extort money out of them.
bayesian_horse 10y ago
I played for a few month and stopped it at least year or so ago. It was slightly painful to let go of what I had "achieved". But this achievement was mainly illusory, the only real part about it being the time and consistency invested. But the consistency is also fake: Your phone lets you know when to go back to the game. No amount of organisation or perseverance "skill" required.
cellis 10y ago
Chess is more addictive than Clash of Clans. Download the chess.com app and I promise you will spend hours trying to get just a few more points. Ok, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but if you're writing this piece in the age of convenience you've gotta ask yourself what you would've done instead with that time. Would you work? If the answer is yes, I call bullshit. Humans can only work high level jobs for about 4 hours with roughly logarithmic declines in performance every hour thereafter. So that means you need to fill your time with something. Whether it's clash of clans or some other useless hobby, it most likely will be just as addictive. Oh, and learning new things counts as work.

44 points by Hooke 10y ago

> I suspect this attitude has something to do with the human fallibilities of sunk cost and cognitive dissonance: if you’ve already spent hours and maybe some cash on a particular activity, you might keep playing because you don’t want that effort to “go to waste,” and then you might imbue that activity with all sorts of heavy meaning and nobility to assure yourself that your time was well spent. Many new freemium games now are trying to copy Clash of Clans with unnecessary resource management mechanics a low-effort PvP mode. Makes sense on paper. However, I've read a lot of discussion about how people are getting bored of these types of games, especially now that they are aware of the time-sink nature of the games after having experienced it (and consumed by it) once before. It would not surprise me if there is a shift from Clash-likes. (indeed, the Hero-collectathons have been surprisingly popular lately...)

caseyf7 10y ago
What are Hero-collectathons? Can you give us some examples?
- minimaxir 10y ago
  The most well-known (#6 Grossing Game on iPhone) is Marvel Contest of Champions (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marvel-contest-of-champions/id896112560 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marvel-contest-of-champions/...) by Kabam, which lets you "collect" Marvel heroes. This lead to similar models for other Marvel mobile games like Marvel Future Fight (which is really good for a freemium game) and Marvel Avengers Assemble (which is not). Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars-galaxy-of-heroes/id921022358 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars-galaxy-of-heroes/i...) (#14 Grossing) by Electronic Arts is similar, but is surprisingly fair in terms of F2P mechanics on the low end. In all these games, instead of using F2P on one-time consumables, F2P are used for progression, and "heroes" are more permanent, tangible things to buy. (this concept predates the Hero collectathons though: Puzzle & Dragons, for example, was one of the big ones that did it first)

ovt 10y ago

The only band that mattered.

zootski 10y ago
Thank you - needed saying.
slyrus 10y ago
My thoughts exactly. And then "and what's wrong with that?" But then I realized this was about a silly video game. Oh well.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jasonlingx 10y ago

Clash Royale is their new game of the moment. It's taken away most of the meaningless grinding, leaving just enough to monetise.

SilkRoadie 10y ago
After playing a bunch of Clash Royale I feel a lot like the author feel's about clash of clans. Clash Royale actually puts you into a routine of opening chests. Setting things in the game before going to bed and then opening things first thing in the morning. Paying increases the speed of your progress. This works well because if you do not play the game you make no progress and feel bad as everyone around you is making progress. It doesn't help that every 3-4 hours you get a notification reminding you of the opportunities you could be pursuing in the game. If anyone is playing Clash Royale I would strongly suggest turning the push notifications off for the game. It makes it far more enjoyable and it helps eliminate the schedule that it tries to impose on your life.

tvural 10y ago

I'm not sure, but I'm hopeful that the title is a reference to C.R.E.A.M

nkurz 10y ago
Thanks, I presumed it was in reference to something, but I didn't know what: Wu-Tang Clan - C.R.E.A.M. 1993 Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) [Hook] Cash rules everything around me: CREAM, get the money Dollar, dollar bill y'all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194
- gosub 10y ago
  This mashup with fugazi is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ourDnKp6x14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ourDnKp6x14
  - nkurz 10y ago
    Wow, I hadn't heard that before. Background: http://www.mtv.com/news/2694103/how-the-wugazi-mashup-album-came-to-be/ http://www.mtv.com/news/2694103/how-the-wugazi-mashup-album-...

rrecuero 10y ago

This article made me think a little bit about games. What are they? Art, waste of time, intellectual gummies for your brain? All of the above? However, I believe that there are forms of entertainment that can enrich your life and others that are simply entertainment. As long as you are aware of it, and being intentional about your decision there is nothing wrong with that. I can definitely remember games that have enriches my life one way or another like the original Metal gear Solid, Silent Hill or Braid but I can also think of many counterexamples like Counter Strike... These games were polished as hell but they just put me into this zombie state where I just cared about one more frag, one more, one more... Without being aware. What do you guys think?

firebones 10y ago
I wish it was easier to create games so that there were more games that could teach you specific lessons. The trick is, they have to be immersive enough that they're not merely the narrative equivalent of fables, or parables; they need to be more substantial, so the emotion and lessons take root. A great game should be like a great novel--expansive, teaching multiple lessons over time, not a trifle. Yet with the rate of technological change, it's virtually impossible for someone to take, say, 10 years and write the Great American Game (formerly: Novel) that thematically covers the same breadth.
- rrecuero 10y ago
  I agree. From my point of view, games as an art form is in its infancy period. It has so much potential because it is interactive and immersive (even more so now with VR), but games often get caught in a core game mechanic and rinse and repeat. Same thing happened with movies too, right? People said that they were just toys and nothing profound could be told with them. In the end is like everything, there are good and bad sculptures, books, movies and games. I am optimistic that we will see the medium evolve dramatically. As you said, with this pace of innovation everything can happen :)
- justinhj 10y ago
  This sounds remarkably like Dwarf Fortress. Virtually anything is possible if you're willing to spend enough time on it

rtpg 10y ago

I have such mixed feelings about this style of monetisation. On one hand, (as that talk that Blow gave a while back) it usually affects game design badly. If you remove the money element, of course you wouldn't have to sit around for days while things upgrade. But on the other hand, the micropurchase model has helped to sustain games much beyond their original "Fresh by" date. The one that comes to mind for me the most is Team Fortress 2. A huge amount of content has been added, and is at this point subsidised by item purchases. Of course League of Legends and other DOTA-likes do this too. And then there's Hearthstone, which keeps content fresh through constantly selling new expansions a la MTG. Some might make the distinction between the good games and the bad ones, but I have a hard time imagining one without the other. ---- I think a bit of a weird aspect of this is that games are now incentivised to keep you entertained longer. If you buy a $50 game, it's fine for it to take 5 hours and for you to be done. There's no financial advantage for the game maker to keep you around longer. I guess a lot of this is a distinction between kinds of games though. Some games are like books, others are like sports. Nobody complains about the addictive nature of soccer....

ferbivore 10y ago
Paywalled content is one thing. Most people - including, I expect, Blow - would agree that DLC and unlockable items are fair ways to monetize a game. In most cases, anyway. Wait timers are completely different. It's hard to overstate how horribly offensive they are to any self-respecting gamer. The only people who tolerate them are the ones that have never experienced a game that didn't try to extort money out of them.

bayesian_horse 10y ago

I played for a few month and stopped it at least year or so ago. It was slightly painful to let go of what I had "achieved". But this achievement was mainly illusory, the only real part about it being the time and consistency invested. But the consistency is also fake: Your phone lets you know when to go back to the game. No amount of organisation or perseverance "skill" required.

cellis 10y ago

Chess is more addictive than Clash of Clans. Download the chess.com app and I promise you will spend hours trying to get just a few more points. Ok, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but if you're writing this piece in the age of convenience you've gotta ask yourself what you would've done instead with that time. Would you work? If the answer is yes, I call bullshit. Humans can only work high level jobs for about 4 hours with roughly logarithmic declines in performance every hour thereafter. So that means you need to fill your time with something. Whether it's clash of clans or some other useless hobby, it most likely will be just as addictive. Oh, and learning new things counts as work.