6 ms·

All things that feel good and releases dopamine ≠ equally addictive. Video games have reached levels of immersion higher than other forms of entertainment, add

All things that feel good and releases dopamine ≠ equally addictive. Video games have reached levels of immersion higher than other forms of entertainment, add real $ loot boxes to that and it's clear publishers should worry about this, smart ones already are - Valve tracks Anti_Addiction_Rating for users to notify/suggest they play within healthy limits: https://www.pcgamesn.com/dota-2/dota-2-anti-addiction https://www.pcgamesn.com/dota-2/dota-2-anti-addiction.

themagician 8y ago
I think the strange thing that’s happened with video games is that it used to be that you felt good because you were having fun. In this new era of micro transactions the games aren’t even fun anymore. There is only frustration, and then you pay to alivieate that frustration. You sometimes find yourself sitting there say, “why am I even doing this?” I genuinely miss gaming. When I try to get back into mainstream titles these days I evtually hit some roadblock mechanic designed to extract dollars and I’m just like, “This shit again?” and bail on the game. Some developers do it right. Most don’t. There are so many games or experiences that I just don’t think will ever exist again. I don’t know that there will ever be another Ultima Online or EverQuest, or another tactical shooter like Rainbow Six or America’s Army that isn’t pay to win. Or that we’ll ever see another decent RTS ever. It sucks.
- greggman 8y ago
  Aren't there plenty of games that don't follow those pas patterns? I played PS4 God of War. It was amazing and had none of those features.
  - themagician 8y ago
    There are some. God of War, BotW, etc. but they are few and far between and there are entire types of games that don’t even exist anymore or get developed.
    - sien 8y ago
      What genres don't get developed anymore?
      - themagician 8y ago
        RTS. Used to be a very competitor genre. C&C, AoE, WC… every studio had an RTS or one in the works. Now there is only SCII left. I remember playing games of Red Alert and Total Annihilation they would last all day. Fuck, somone port Red Alert to the Switch pls. MMORPGs. They get developed now, I guess, but it’s all pay to win garbage. It’s not even the same genre IMO. Space/tech simulators. We used to have X-Wing, Descent, Freespace, Mechwarrior, Fighter Ace, etc. There used to be an entire SECTION in stores that contained joysticks of all different kinds. Now we just have train simulator with garbage DLC skins. Realistic, tactical, team-based FPS games. Rainbow Six, America’s Army, etc. The “one shot” kind of FPS where you didn’t just jump around like a bullet sponge. Steam has been GREAT for small indie games, platformers, and new concepts like KSP. But we’ve also lost a lot as the major studios have all converged towards mass market games.
        headstorm 8y ago
        One crossplatform MMORPG in development, not pay to win, is Project Gorgon.
        TeMPOraL 8y ago
        Yup. I miss good RTS and spacefighter simulators. With the latter, I think FreeSpace 2 with its open-source community-driven remaster is still the best spacefighter sim available today. And it was also story-rich - which is something I miss these days too. Somewhat related, I spent an ungodly amount of time recently playing Subnautica, and this reminds me that the underwater world has been pretty much forgotten by both games and sci-fi literature/movies. What was the last underwater game I played before Subnautica? Ah, Submarine Titans. A quite fun and beautiful (for that time) RTS. From 18 years ago.
        sien 8y ago
        That's true. I played through X-Wing Alliance last year. It seems weird that they haven't even tried just updating the graphics and re-releasing them. Surely there would be a market. True about Flight Sims too. That's dried right up. It's surprising about RTS games, you'd think that's pretty doable for a fairly small team.
- GW150914 8y ago
  Witcher 3, Nioh, Dark Souls, Elite:Dangerous, Dishonored, Dying Light, Kerbal Space Program, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Yakuza 0/6/Kiwami, Bloodborne, Divinity, Gravity Rush 1/2, Hellblade, Monster Hunter World, Nier, Persona 5, Okami HD, Xcom 1/2, Wasteland 2, and more. There are a lot of really good games that exist to be played for fun, and not just to suck your money and punish you. Avoid Ubisoft, avoid fee-to-play, and ideally wait for “complete” versions of a game.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    I want to add Darkest Dungeon to that list, if you enjoy a dark fantasy/Lovecraftian horror setting and dungeons full of loot.
- simcop2387 8y ago
  > In this new era of micro transactions the games aren’t even fun anymore. There is only frustration, and then you pay to alivieate that frustration. You sometimes find yourself sitting there say, “why am I even doing this?” This is one reason I've stopped playing most games that have any kind of online or multiplayer element. Ones that either have a really strong single player mode or don't engage in these kinds of tactics (see civilization games) have been the ones that I end up enjoying long term. I've found that I end up preferring indie titles not for any philosophical reason, but because many of them don't have the teams needed to create these kinds of mechanisms (successfully anyway). Mobile platforms make it significantly easier to you see it there a lot more too.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    >"This is one reason I've stopped playing most games that have any kind of online or multiplayer element. Ones that either have a really strong single player mode or don't engage in these kinds of tactics (see civilization games) have been the ones that I end up enjoying long term." I've found that Darkest Dungeon is the game I just keep coming back to. No multiplayer, no micro transactions, just you against the game. And I also really like the dark fantasy setting and art style. Plus it runs great on my X220i, which is nice.
- darkkindness 8y ago
  It sounds like games are simply being optimized for monetization, not for making you feel good. For example, someone discovered that 'stamina' (like arcade credits, but recharging over time even when you're not playing) was a great way to monetize, since people will want to open the app more and play and see ads because if you don't you're Wasting Hearts! That's leveraging frustration for sure, but it turns out frustration keeps people playing as much as fun does. And now you wonder why stamina systems are all over microtransaction-laden mobile games.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Welcome to capitalism :). The industry didn't change, it's still on the same trajectory of optimizing for profit. Getting ahead by making games more fun, and then making them prettier, were the lower-hanging fruits. We're past those indirect methods now - at this point, more direct methods of optimizing for profit are being applied. This seems to be a pattern I see in every industry, and with every product. Whenever a market is created, things improve up to some point, and after that they degrade. I wish there was a way to stop this evolution at the peak of quality, before the decay and customer abuse takes hold.
    - rwnspace 8y ago
      Question: is the absolute number of high-quality games released every year going up or down? It's blatant that the average quality has been on a downhill trend since the advent of mobile gaming. But, are many pay-to-win games also good as works of art? Or just good drugs? I have a feeling the power of contrast is at work, though I'm not really 'into' gaming enough to bring much evidence to bear.
- picsao 8y ago
  There are open source projects though trying to cater to this.. Spring-Rats and 0AD come to mind.
  - themagician 8y ago
    Open source games are kind of doomed to fail. At least they always have been.
    - majewsky 8y ago
      Depends on the metric. They'll almost always fail in terms of market share precisely because they don't optimize for market share. They win by other metrics.
- watwut 8y ago
  You don't have to play mainstream if they don't make mainstream for you. You can play niche games or old games.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  If you enjoy good games you're no longer the demographic of 'heavily marketed action game #472103' anymore than a person who enjoys good films is the target demographic of 'heavily marketed superhero film #235132345'. This isn't to say all heavily marketed games or movies are bad, but they are targeting a demographic whose primary motivation in purchasing these things has little to do with quality. Consider how mind bogglingly naive the notion of a 'preorder' actually is. And now think about how publishers view this sort of demographic. This realization is what actually made me drop my disdain for companies like EA. Gaming has gone mainstream. When this happens to anything, the optimal means of monetizing things shifts radically. When you have people that will buy 'artistic products' (as opposed to e.g. - a coffee maker) absolutely blind and will even shell out money to buy products piecemeal, it's hard to be angry about companies taking advantage of this. All this means is that you're no longer their demographic. In the movie industry this kind of sucks since there aren't thousands of amazing independent films being made. But in the games industry there are! We're undoubtedly going through a gaming golden age right now, so happily step away from the 'mainstream' and consider that the games that fit whatever craving you're having do exist, but it's entirely likely that you've never heard of them before. This is because they don't have those nice 8-9 figure marketing budgets of 'mainstream' games, but also even word of mouth is difficult simply because there are just so many great games.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  I worked for a time as a video game tester. It burned out every ember of interest in playing video games in me. I'd say that was a nice fringe benefit.
- krapp 8y ago
  I still have fun with a lot of games, but those are usually indie games from Steam. I've more or less sworn off of AAA games, though. I already know they're going to be ruthlessly monetized, bug ridden, joyless Skinner boxes full of toxic assholes and I'm not even going to bother.
thought_alarm 8y ago
My family has been directly hurt by addicts who have lost their lives to tobacco, alcohol, prescription drugs, gambling, and gaming. Addiction is measured not by what or how much you do, but by negative impact it has on one's life. It doesn't matter how much pot you smoke, or alcohol you drink, or how much coke you do, if it doesn't interfere with your life. If you lose your job or steal from your family to hit the casinos, that's an addiction. If you turn down a job because it's in a different city and you depend on a local doctor to keep giving you a prescription drug, that's an addiction. If you flunk out of school and turn down any opportunity to be self sufficient because you spend all day smoking pot, that's an addiction. If you flunk out of school and turn down any opportunity to be self sufficient because you spend all day playing Fortnite, that's an addiction.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  I found I was 'addicted' to weed, but it was more like- If I'm going to deal with another day of getting my front end auth to work, I dont want to deal with it sober. I can deal with it sober, but its significantly more miserable. I drink way more coffee(which is still a drug) and lose probably a few extra hours of productivity. I'm really not sure how to handle this, because if I'm on weed, its on 100% of the time I program. If I'm off weed, I dont crave it, except when I'm stuck for 5 days on a stupid issue with little resolution. Or I'll be at a party and not want to drink alcohol. However there is an On and an Off. If I'm on, its every day, uncontrollable. It makes me significantly more productive, so much so that friends consider me the smartest person they know. (The reality is I just work 12+ hour days since I became addicted 3 years ago) When I'm off, things that suck, suck without any help.
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    Lol I'm exactly the same way. My solution is to not keep a lot of weed in the house and to make it a chore to do.
  - terminalcommand 8y ago
    I am in no way an expert on these things. But it could be the case that you have anxiety. The 'weed' takes it away and allows you to program. Maybe you could try to lower your coffee consumption and drink relaxing teas instead. You could also take a few days off work and try to figure things out. What is your heart rate like? How much do you sleep? How many cups of coffee do you drink in a day? If you're heart rate is constantly up and you sleep very little (4-6 hours) and you drink more than 4 cups of coffee a day, my opinion would be that you're suffering from anxiety. If you treat the symptoms (without weed ofc :) ), the underlying physical stress might go away and you'll notice that you can program whilst not being under the influence. Best of luck

themagician 8y ago

I think the strange thing that’s happened with video games is that it used to be that you felt good because you were having fun. In this new era of micro transactions the games aren’t even fun anymore. There is only frustration, and then you pay to alivieate that frustration. You sometimes find yourself sitting there say, “why am I even doing this?” I genuinely miss gaming. When I try to get back into mainstream titles these days I evtually hit some roadblock mechanic designed to extract dollars and I’m just like, “This shit again?” and bail on the game. Some developers do it right. Most don’t. There are so many games or experiences that I just don’t think will ever exist again. I don’t know that there will ever be another Ultima Online or EverQuest, or another tactical shooter like Rainbow Six or America’s Army that isn’t pay to win. Or that we’ll ever see another decent RTS ever. It sucks.

greggman 8y ago
Aren't there plenty of games that don't follow those pas patterns? I played PS4 God of War. It was amazing and had none of those features.
- themagician 8y ago
  There are some. God of War, BotW, etc. but they are few and far between and there are entire types of games that don’t even exist anymore or get developed.
  - sien 8y ago
    What genres don't get developed anymore?
    - themagician 8y ago
      RTS. Used to be a very competitor genre. C&C, AoE, WC… every studio had an RTS or one in the works. Now there is only SCII left. I remember playing games of Red Alert and Total Annihilation they would last all day. Fuck, somone port Red Alert to the Switch pls. MMORPGs. They get developed now, I guess, but it’s all pay to win garbage. It’s not even the same genre IMO. Space/tech simulators. We used to have X-Wing, Descent, Freespace, Mechwarrior, Fighter Ace, etc. There used to be an entire SECTION in stores that contained joysticks of all different kinds. Now we just have train simulator with garbage DLC skins. Realistic, tactical, team-based FPS games. Rainbow Six, America’s Army, etc. The “one shot” kind of FPS where you didn’t just jump around like a bullet sponge. Steam has been GREAT for small indie games, platformers, and new concepts like KSP. But we’ve also lost a lot as the major studios have all converged towards mass market games.
      - headstorm 8y ago
        One crossplatform MMORPG in development, not pay to win, is Project Gorgon.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        Yup. I miss good RTS and spacefighter simulators. With the latter, I think FreeSpace 2 with its open-source community-driven remaster is still the best spacefighter sim available today. And it was also story-rich - which is something I miss these days too. Somewhat related, I spent an ungodly amount of time recently playing Subnautica, and this reminds me that the underwater world has been pretty much forgotten by both games and sci-fi literature/movies. What was the last underwater game I played before Subnautica? Ah, Submarine Titans. A quite fun and beautiful (for that time) RTS. From 18 years ago.
      - sien 8y ago
        That's true. I played through X-Wing Alliance last year. It seems weird that they haven't even tried just updating the graphics and re-releasing them. Surely there would be a market. True about Flight Sims too. That's dried right up. It's surprising about RTS games, you'd think that's pretty doable for a fairly small team.
GW150914 8y ago
Witcher 3, Nioh, Dark Souls, Elite:Dangerous, Dishonored, Dying Light, Kerbal Space Program, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Yakuza 0/6/Kiwami, Bloodborne, Divinity, Gravity Rush 1/2, Hellblade, Monster Hunter World, Nier, Persona 5, Okami HD, Xcom 1/2, Wasteland 2, and more. There are a lot of really good games that exist to be played for fun, and not just to suck your money and punish you. Avoid Ubisoft, avoid fee-to-play, and ideally wait for “complete” versions of a game.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  I want to add Darkest Dungeon to that list, if you enjoy a dark fantasy/Lovecraftian horror setting and dungeons full of loot.
simcop2387 8y ago
> In this new era of micro transactions the games aren’t even fun anymore. There is only frustration, and then you pay to alivieate that frustration. You sometimes find yourself sitting there say, “why am I even doing this?” This is one reason I've stopped playing most games that have any kind of online or multiplayer element. Ones that either have a really strong single player mode or don't engage in these kinds of tactics (see civilization games) have been the ones that I end up enjoying long term. I've found that I end up preferring indie titles not for any philosophical reason, but because many of them don't have the teams needed to create these kinds of mechanisms (successfully anyway). Mobile platforms make it significantly easier to you see it there a lot more too.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  >"This is one reason I've stopped playing most games that have any kind of online or multiplayer element. Ones that either have a really strong single player mode or don't engage in these kinds of tactics (see civilization games) have been the ones that I end up enjoying long term." I've found that Darkest Dungeon is the game I just keep coming back to. No multiplayer, no micro transactions, just you against the game. And I also really like the dark fantasy setting and art style. Plus it runs great on my X220i, which is nice.
darkkindness 8y ago
It sounds like games are simply being optimized for monetization, not for making you feel good. For example, someone discovered that 'stamina' (like arcade credits, but recharging over time even when you're not playing) was a great way to monetize, since people will want to open the app more and play and see ads because if you don't you're Wasting Hearts! That's leveraging frustration for sure, but it turns out frustration keeps people playing as much as fun does. And now you wonder why stamina systems are all over microtransaction-laden mobile games.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Welcome to capitalism :). The industry didn't change, it's still on the same trajectory of optimizing for profit. Getting ahead by making games more fun, and then making them prettier, were the lower-hanging fruits. We're past those indirect methods now - at this point, more direct methods of optimizing for profit are being applied. This seems to be a pattern I see in every industry, and with every product. Whenever a market is created, things improve up to some point, and after that they degrade. I wish there was a way to stop this evolution at the peak of quality, before the decay and customer abuse takes hold.
  - rwnspace 8y ago
    Question: is the absolute number of high-quality games released every year going up or down? It's blatant that the average quality has been on a downhill trend since the advent of mobile gaming. But, are many pay-to-win games also good as works of art? Or just good drugs? I have a feeling the power of contrast is at work, though I'm not really 'into' gaming enough to bring much evidence to bear.
picsao 8y ago
There are open source projects though trying to cater to this.. Spring-Rats and 0AD come to mind.
- themagician 8y ago
  Open source games are kind of doomed to fail. At least they always have been.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    Depends on the metric. They'll almost always fail in terms of market share precisely because they don't optimize for market share. They win by other metrics.
watwut 8y ago
You don't have to play mainstream if they don't make mainstream for you. You can play niche games or old games.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
If you enjoy good games you're no longer the demographic of 'heavily marketed action game #472103' anymore than a person who enjoys good films is the target demographic of 'heavily marketed superhero film #235132345'. This isn't to say all heavily marketed games or movies are bad, but they are targeting a demographic whose primary motivation in purchasing these things has little to do with quality. Consider how mind bogglingly naive the notion of a 'preorder' actually is. And now think about how publishers view this sort of demographic. This realization is what actually made me drop my disdain for companies like EA. Gaming has gone mainstream. When this happens to anything, the optimal means of monetizing things shifts radically. When you have people that will buy 'artistic products' (as opposed to e.g. - a coffee maker) absolutely blind and will even shell out money to buy products piecemeal, it's hard to be angry about companies taking advantage of this. All this means is that you're no longer their demographic. In the movie industry this kind of sucks since there aren't thousands of amazing independent films being made. But in the games industry there are! We're undoubtedly going through a gaming golden age right now, so happily step away from the 'mainstream' and consider that the games that fit whatever craving you're having do exist, but it's entirely likely that you've never heard of them before. This is because they don't have those nice 8-9 figure marketing budgets of 'mainstream' games, but also even word of mouth is difficult simply because there are just so many great games.
skookumchuck 8y ago
I worked for a time as a video game tester. It burned out every ember of interest in playing video games in me. I'd say that was a nice fringe benefit.
krapp 8y ago
I still have fun with a lot of games, but those are usually indie games from Steam. I've more or less sworn off of AAA games, though. I already know they're going to be ruthlessly monetized, bug ridden, joyless Skinner boxes full of toxic assholes and I'm not even going to bother.

thought_alarm 8y ago

My family has been directly hurt by addicts who have lost their lives to tobacco, alcohol, prescription drugs, gambling, and gaming. Addiction is measured not by what or how much you do, but by negative impact it has on one's life. It doesn't matter how much pot you smoke, or alcohol you drink, or how much coke you do, if it doesn't interfere with your life. If you lose your job or steal from your family to hit the casinos, that's an addiction. If you turn down a job because it's in a different city and you depend on a local doctor to keep giving you a prescription drug, that's an addiction. If you flunk out of school and turn down any opportunity to be self sufficient because you spend all day smoking pot, that's an addiction. If you flunk out of school and turn down any opportunity to be self sufficient because you spend all day playing Fortnite, that's an addiction.

robertAngst 8y ago
I found I was 'addicted' to weed, but it was more like- If I'm going to deal with another day of getting my front end auth to work, I dont want to deal with it sober. I can deal with it sober, but its significantly more miserable. I drink way more coffee(which is still a drug) and lose probably a few extra hours of productivity. I'm really not sure how to handle this, because if I'm on weed, its on 100% of the time I program. If I'm off weed, I dont crave it, except when I'm stuck for 5 days on a stupid issue with little resolution. Or I'll be at a party and not want to drink alcohol. However there is an On and an Off. If I'm on, its every day, uncontrollable. It makes me significantly more productive, so much so that friends consider me the smartest person they know. (The reality is I just work 12+ hour days since I became addicted 3 years ago) When I'm off, things that suck, suck without any help.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  Lol I'm exactly the same way. My solution is to not keep a lot of weed in the house and to make it a chore to do.
- terminalcommand 8y ago
  I am in no way an expert on these things. But it could be the case that you have anxiety. The 'weed' takes it away and allows you to program. Maybe you could try to lower your coffee consumption and drink relaxing teas instead. You could also take a few days off work and try to figure things out. What is your heart rate like? How much do you sleep? How many cups of coffee do you drink in a day? If you're heart rate is constantly up and you sleep very little (4-6 hours) and you drink more than 4 cups of coffee a day, my opinion would be that you're suffering from anxiety. If you treat the symptoms (without weed ofc :) ), the underlying physical stress might go away and you'll notice that you can program whilst not being under the influence. Best of luck