5 ms·

I used to live by the same principles, viewing in-app-purchases as something that's always bad. I have now, though, decided that I will decide what value a game

by donkeyd 10y ago

I used to live by the same principles, viewing in-app-purchases as something that's always bad. I have now, though, decided that I will decide what value a game has to me and will probably spend that amount on in-app-purchases. If the game has purchases that I think are worth it though. In Pokemon Go i haven't found them worth it yet, but that may come later. Also, I think a game shouldn't impose too many boundaries when not buying anything in-game. So I won't buy off timers that essentially break the game (i.e. Candy Crush, though I never played that, so I might be wrong). I will, however pay for something to get that instant gratification of speeding up a timer that isn't game breaking.

mentalpiracy 10y ago
I have come to see the same. I want to reward game creators for giving me enjoyable entertainment, and taking the risk by going free-to-play rather than forcing me into an up-front purchase. I admit have become a bit jaded when it comes to gaming generally, but I still think it's worthwhile to speak with my wallet when I see someone doing something I think is good.
vidarh 10y ago
> Also, I think a game shouldn't impose too many boundaries when not buying anything in-game This is the big problem the way I see it. Done badly, in game purchases become cheats, and I don't want to spend money on cheats. Not for any moral reasons, but because it's no fun. In game purchases that don't serve as cheats is another matter. E.g. as you mention speeding up something where the only difference would be that you'd have to wait longer to achieve the same.
- Ntrails 10y ago
  I disagree, I'm all for buying cosmetics etc (praise gaben) to support a game. But I fundamentally am not going to spend money to skip over an artificial timesink that only exists to get you to spend money to speed it up. That's not content, it's a joke. The idea of the two suggested actions being "spend more money or close the game and wait 2 hours" should be indicative of how they view the player. I'm perfectly happy to just close the thing and go play something else.
osi 10y ago
free to play, with no gameplay restrictions is an excellent model. when you can then do IAP to get "extras", it's a great "pay what you feel it is worth" type model. another mobile game, Vainglory, does this with currency to unlock heros and skins. you can play the game to earn currency to get them, or just purchase outright.
- donkeyd 10y ago
  Also works well in CS:GO. The skins add nothing to the actual game play, yet people like the value they add. Just a shame that it brings kids into a gambling state of mind. Would've been nicer if you could just buy them outright.
  - croon 10y ago
    You can, it's an actual market. The price is just high, because the chance to get them is low. If you could buy them for what I assume you expect to be a lower amount, they would not sell nearly as many chests, or no one would want the item anymore because it's no longer rare.
nemo44x 10y ago
> In Pokemon Go i haven't found them worth it yet, but that may come later. It's not a requirement but I highly recommend to people to buy some "Lucky Eggs (2X XP for 30 minutes) and extra "Incense" (attract more Pokemon for 30 minutes) and use them together in the early game. The reason why is that you get 2X the experience for discovering a new Pokemon which you will do a lot of early on. By doubling that further you save a ton of time in getting to a reasonably high level and collecting a lot of Pokemon quickly. I'd also buy some "Egg Incubators". You get 1 for free and it has infinite uses. The ones you can buy get 3 uses before they "break". My advice is to use the infinite one on all eggs that will hatch after 2km of walking and use the breakable ones on 5km and 10km eggs. You get more use out of them this way. And eggs can hatch new Pokemon which benefit from the bonus described above. For a few dollars you'll save many, many hours which to me at least makes the game more enjoyable.
- jpreiland 10y ago
  also, save up a bunch of Pokemon ready to evolve (such as the ever plentiful Pidgey) and do them all at once with a Lucky Egg. 500 xp per evolution turns to 1000, making leveling pretty fast. The last few days I've been saving all of my stuff until the end of the day to evolve and easily pick up 12k+ xp it's tempting to evolve everything as soon as you can, but waiting to do batch evolutions with double xp is much more effective
  - nemo44x 10y ago
    Good idea. I haven't evolved many of my Pokemon's yet. Just saving the dust and candy for when I want to evolve higher level captures I'll get later. Of course, at some point you need to figure out when it makes sense to just start evolving! But, I'll certainly use this idea when that time comes!
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  Why bother playing the game at all if you're paying to skip it?
  - 10y ago

by donkeyd 10y ago

mentalpiracy 10y ago

I have come to see the same. I want to reward game creators for giving me enjoyable entertainment, and taking the risk by going free-to-play rather than forcing me into an up-front purchase. I admit have become a bit jaded when it comes to gaming generally, but I still think it's worthwhile to speak with my wallet when I see someone doing something I think is good.

vidarh 10y ago

> Also, I think a game shouldn't impose too many boundaries when not buying anything in-game This is the big problem the way I see it. Done badly, in game purchases become cheats, and I don't want to spend money on cheats. Not for any moral reasons, but because it's no fun. In game purchases that don't serve as cheats is another matter. E.g. as you mention speeding up something where the only difference would be that you'd have to wait longer to achieve the same.

Ntrails 10y ago
I disagree, I'm all for buying cosmetics etc (praise gaben) to support a game. But I fundamentally am not going to spend money to skip over an artificial timesink that only exists to get you to spend money to speed it up. That's not content, it's a joke. The idea of the two suggested actions being "spend more money or close the game and wait 2 hours" should be indicative of how they view the player. I'm perfectly happy to just close the thing and go play something else.

osi 10y ago

free to play, with no gameplay restrictions is an excellent model. when you can then do IAP to get "extras", it's a great "pay what you feel it is worth" type model. another mobile game, Vainglory, does this with currency to unlock heros and skins. you can play the game to earn currency to get them, or just purchase outright.

donkeyd 10y ago
Also works well in CS:GO. The skins add nothing to the actual game play, yet people like the value they add. Just a shame that it brings kids into a gambling state of mind. Would've been nicer if you could just buy them outright.
- croon 10y ago
  You can, it's an actual market. The price is just high, because the chance to get them is low. If you could buy them for what I assume you expect to be a lower amount, they would not sell nearly as many chests, or no one would want the item anymore because it's no longer rare.

nemo44x 10y ago

> In Pokemon Go i haven't found them worth it yet, but that may come later. It's not a requirement but I highly recommend to people to buy some "Lucky Eggs (2X XP for 30 minutes) and extra "Incense" (attract more Pokemon for 30 minutes) and use them together in the early game. The reason why is that you get 2X the experience for discovering a new Pokemon which you will do a lot of early on. By doubling that further you save a ton of time in getting to a reasonably high level and collecting a lot of Pokemon quickly. I'd also buy some "Egg Incubators". You get 1 for free and it has infinite uses. The ones you can buy get 3 uses before they "break". My advice is to use the infinite one on all eggs that will hatch after 2km of walking and use the breakable ones on 5km and 10km eggs. You get more use out of them this way. And eggs can hatch new Pokemon which benefit from the bonus described above. For a few dollars you'll save many, many hours which to me at least makes the game more enjoyable.

jpreiland 10y ago
also, save up a bunch of Pokemon ready to evolve (such as the ever plentiful Pidgey) and do them all at once with a Lucky Egg. 500 xp per evolution turns to 1000, making leveling pretty fast. The last few days I've been saving all of my stuff until the end of the day to evolve and easily pick up 12k+ xp it's tempting to evolve everything as soon as you can, but waiting to do batch evolutions with double xp is much more effective
- nemo44x 10y ago
  Good idea. I haven't evolved many of my Pokemon's yet. Just saving the dust and candy for when I want to evolve higher level captures I'll get later. Of course, at some point you need to figure out when it makes sense to just start evolving! But, I'll certainly use this idea when that time comes!
Nullabillity 10y ago
Why bother playing the game at all if you're paying to skip it?
- 10y ago