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>...but he'll have to play it the hard way Ah, but the game developer still nails the player anyway. The "hard way" (playing for free only) in many of these p

>...but he'll have to play it the hard way Ah, but the game developer still nails the player anyway. The "hard way" (playing for free only) in many of these predatory freemium games is often designed to require an enormous time commitment to keep up (e.g. events that require user intervention one or more times daily, time limited premium in-game items that have a high price in free currency, requiring lots of grinding, etc.) that the free user is trapped online constantly to provide a social enticement for more players to join the game.

mmastrac 10y ago
That's true. The consequence of this is that the kids will generally abandon the games after getting tired of this, switching to paid-for games with no IAPs. It's much easier (on me) to let the kids get bored of a game than telling them once a month they can't play a game because it's IAP-heavy.
- harlanlewis 10y ago
  I don't have children, but as a kid I had a strict cap on “screen time”. In the IAP money-for-time bargain, this makes screen time even more rare and valuable a resource than it is for the rest of us. I know parents who see this as a reason to give a small, fixed IAP allowance. Essentially they trade a little bit of money to make it less of an ordeal to get their kids to limit screen time, which they consider well worth the investment. If you view IAP as simply the way of the world, and video games as a reasonable thing for kids to play, this bargain seems pretty reasonably pragmatic. Personally, I think this makes the most sense when that IAP goes toward something that makes the game itself richer, like Hearthstone decks instead of vanity hats, but that's a lesson for the children to learn. I think a lot of us on HN would prefer a world where games have only up-front costs, but that's basically a niche market now. I'm also sure there are stricter schools of thought on parenting that find the idea of bargaining any of this with children a bit ridiculous, but without having any to help shape myself it's pretty far out of my purview.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    Man, i remember the time when games weren't designed to be shit, and cheat codes were discoverable, came in magazines or were traded with friends. Even sadder is when people end up calling non-shit games "a niche market" and don't even dare to call out shit games that sell cheat codes as "shit games that sell cheat codes".
    - pjc50 10y ago
      IAP on mobile is mostly a disaster area, a wasteland of pseudo-gambling addiction mechanisms and timewasting. On other platforms it's not so aggressive yet and may be limited to cosmetic items (eg overwatch).
      - Mithaldu 10y ago
        Fair point, really. There's a lot of games on PC that have micro transactions but sell no cheat codes, or at least have good enough game design for cheat codes to be pure luxury items, nice to have, but not mandatory.
      - pikzen 10y ago
        Even then, the loot crate model that is heavily present in most games today, pioneered by Valve in TF2, CSGO, DotA2 and slightly modified in Overwatch is based on those gambling addiction mechanisms. Random items, different rarities, etc. It's even more egregious in games like Overwatch because you already paid a nice sum for the game, and it's still asking you for more money, drip feeding you a few items here and there, making it pretty damn hard to get the cosmetics you want in the game you already paid for and should have already if this terrible model didn't exist.

mmastrac 10y ago

That's true. The consequence of this is that the kids will generally abandon the games after getting tired of this, switching to paid-for games with no IAPs. It's much easier (on me) to let the kids get bored of a game than telling them once a month they can't play a game because it's IAP-heavy.

harlanlewis 10y ago
I don't have children, but as a kid I had a strict cap on “screen time”. In the IAP money-for-time bargain, this makes screen time even more rare and valuable a resource than it is for the rest of us. I know parents who see this as a reason to give a small, fixed IAP allowance. Essentially they trade a little bit of money to make it less of an ordeal to get their kids to limit screen time, which they consider well worth the investment. If you view IAP as simply the way of the world, and video games as a reasonable thing for kids to play, this bargain seems pretty reasonably pragmatic. Personally, I think this makes the most sense when that IAP goes toward something that makes the game itself richer, like Hearthstone decks instead of vanity hats, but that's a lesson for the children to learn. I think a lot of us on HN would prefer a world where games have only up-front costs, but that's basically a niche market now. I'm also sure there are stricter schools of thought on parenting that find the idea of bargaining any of this with children a bit ridiculous, but without having any to help shape myself it's pretty far out of my purview.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Man, i remember the time when games weren't designed to be shit, and cheat codes were discoverable, came in magazines or were traded with friends. Even sadder is when people end up calling non-shit games "a niche market" and don't even dare to call out shit games that sell cheat codes as "shit games that sell cheat codes".
  - pjc50 10y ago
    IAP on mobile is mostly a disaster area, a wasteland of pseudo-gambling addiction mechanisms and timewasting. On other platforms it's not so aggressive yet and may be limited to cosmetic items (eg overwatch).
    - Mithaldu 10y ago
      Fair point, really. There's a lot of games on PC that have micro transactions but sell no cheat codes, or at least have good enough game design for cheat codes to be pure luxury items, nice to have, but not mandatory.
    - pikzen 10y ago
      Even then, the loot crate model that is heavily present in most games today, pioneered by Valve in TF2, CSGO, DotA2 and slightly modified in Overwatch is based on those gambling addiction mechanisms. Random items, different rarities, etc. It's even more egregious in games like Overwatch because you already paid a nice sum for the game, and it's still asking you for more money, drip feeding you a few items here and there, making it pretty damn hard to get the cosmetics you want in the game you already paid for and should have already if this terrible model didn't exist.