3 ms·

the games industry is shifting to the casino whale poaching mindset, and taking advantage of borderline gambling addiction through loot boxes/crates to get kids

the games industry is shifting to the casino whale poaching mindset, and taking advantage of borderline gambling addiction through loot boxes/crates to get kids to (steal their parent's money sometimes) and buy shit in the places they hang out with other kids/socialize/spend a lot of time watching professional gamers play makes me very sad as someone who grew up with amazing RTS and the first generations of online/LAN games where $50 would buy you hundreds of hours of entertainment sans microtransactions there are still some amazing games coming out graphics and storywise, it just sucks to see names i once respected trading in their reputation for cash - blizzard, bioware (EA), and obsidian chief among them

notTyler 8y ago
Obsidian is doing fine and releasing relatively great if buggy games. Unless you're counting them getting bought by Microsoft.
eric-hu 8y ago
I'm pretty happy with what Blizzard has done for the StarCraft 2 esports community. I'm actively trying to get better at it. I got more into following the professional scene over the last year, and I just purchased a War Chest in game this past weekend. It's a skin pack for my units, but 25% of the sale goes towards the winter WCS prize pool for professional StarCraft 2. I bought it to support the top tier competitors. I also enjoy a game with a good single player mode, but StarCraft is deep mental challenge. There is no pay to win. I have a consistent pool of opponents near my skill level to play against, and the game is balanced enough* that I should be able to climb the ladder with any race. * I think players will generally whine about balance in the matchups they struggle with. I do too, but this is actually part of the challenge of improving at the game.
- roymurdock 8y ago
  my game of choice was WC3, i still watch it played at high levels and it's pretty amazing how well designed and entertaining the game is 15 years on with the 3 unique race systems, beautiful tilesets/models, fantastic music, etc. props to blizzard for keeping SC2/WC3 balanced and trying to bring in a new generation of fans with the graphical refresh but lets be real about the resources expended on these old games and developing their successors vs. the new generation of money sinks. it's a simple ROI calculation and unless you have an old school game fanatic running the show, i know where you're going to put your money to sustain/grow the studio
  - wsc981 8y ago
    4 races: horde, humans, undead & night elves.
    - roymurdock 8y ago
      you're right, 4 races for WC3. switched into SC2 thinking for a moment
  - eric-hu 8y ago
    For StarCraft 2, I think they're also doing a good job keeping it alive and relevant with the WCS brand. The collective prize pool for all tournaments is several million dollars. You're right that this is likely a drop in the bucket for Blizzard. I appreciate it anyways, since it's not likely to be a huge money maker for them.
stcredzero 8y ago
makes me very sad as someone who grew up with amazing RTS and the first generations of online/LAN games What did you find magical about those RTS? (I say this as someone who happens to have an online multiplayer engine which is best suited to RTS.)
- roymurdock 8y ago
  per my comment below > it's pretty amazing how well designed and entertaining the game is 15 years on with the 3 unique race systems, beautiful tilesets/models, fantastic music, etc. add to that: great lore borrowed from mythology/made up, fantastic voice acting, champion units with extra abilities and item usage, complicated (but not overly) resource management, competitive online community, modding ability with a full map editor/scripting engine. plus a lot of interesting/funny people play the game all over the world which always spices things up. and continuous tweaks to improve the games balance
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    What would you think of a multiplayer RTS, but where there is a vast ongoing struggle between various kingdoms and empires of the 4 races? (Persistent, vast MMO shared world.) The player doesn't command any side or any kingdom in its entirely, but can act as a hero unit and can command forces in his/her vicinity. (Basically, they're all like a kind of King Arthur who can reappear in a time of need.) The empires and kingdoms are entirely managed by AI and follow a cycle, where they reach a peak of their power (a morale stat follows a peaking curve) then decline and die. The player works to increase his/her own legend by winning battles. The purpose of this design is to create an extremely complex and immersive world with depth of gameplay, but still enable players to "dip in" for a half hour session every once in awhile.
    - roymurdock 8y ago
      sounds a lot like Eve online set in medieval times. Guild Wars had a similar system where you could choose a faction and battle other factions to win reputation etc but was nowhere as dynamic as you're describing. also kind of sounds like Dynasty Warriors which kicked ass but followed a more traditional set path of battles all of these are great games and a blend of them would be awesome if you had a clear vision for how to combine them, but would also probably be a massive undertaking side note, i wouldn't consider anything a true RTS unless it has some type of resource gathering and tech/unit building element to it

notTyler 8y ago

Obsidian is doing fine and releasing relatively great if buggy games. Unless you're counting them getting bought by Microsoft.

eric-hu 8y ago

I'm pretty happy with what Blizzard has done for the StarCraft 2 esports community. I'm actively trying to get better at it. I got more into following the professional scene over the last year, and I just purchased a War Chest in game this past weekend. It's a skin pack for my units, but 25% of the sale goes towards the winter WCS prize pool for professional StarCraft 2. I bought it to support the top tier competitors. I also enjoy a game with a good single player mode, but StarCraft is deep mental challenge. There is no pay to win. I have a consistent pool of opponents near my skill level to play against, and the game is balanced enough* that I should be able to climb the ladder with any race. * I think players will generally whine about balance in the matchups they struggle with. I do too, but this is actually part of the challenge of improving at the game.

roymurdock 8y ago
my game of choice was WC3, i still watch it played at high levels and it's pretty amazing how well designed and entertaining the game is 15 years on with the 3 unique race systems, beautiful tilesets/models, fantastic music, etc. props to blizzard for keeping SC2/WC3 balanced and trying to bring in a new generation of fans with the graphical refresh but lets be real about the resources expended on these old games and developing their successors vs. the new generation of money sinks. it's a simple ROI calculation and unless you have an old school game fanatic running the show, i know where you're going to put your money to sustain/grow the studio
- wsc981 8y ago
  4 races: horde, humans, undead & night elves.
  - roymurdock 8y ago
    you're right, 4 races for WC3. switched into SC2 thinking for a moment
- eric-hu 8y ago
  For StarCraft 2, I think they're also doing a good job keeping it alive and relevant with the WCS brand. The collective prize pool for all tournaments is several million dollars. You're right that this is likely a drop in the bucket for Blizzard. I appreciate it anyways, since it's not likely to be a huge money maker for them.

stcredzero 8y ago

makes me very sad as someone who grew up with amazing RTS and the first generations of online/LAN games What did you find magical about those RTS? (I say this as someone who happens to have an online multiplayer engine which is best suited to RTS.)

roymurdock 8y ago
per my comment below > it's pretty amazing how well designed and entertaining the game is 15 years on with the 3 unique race systems, beautiful tilesets/models, fantastic music, etc. add to that: great lore borrowed from mythology/made up, fantastic voice acting, champion units with extra abilities and item usage, complicated (but not overly) resource management, competitive online community, modding ability with a full map editor/scripting engine. plus a lot of interesting/funny people play the game all over the world which always spices things up. and continuous tweaks to improve the games balance
- stcredzero 8y ago
  What would you think of a multiplayer RTS, but where there is a vast ongoing struggle between various kingdoms and empires of the 4 races? (Persistent, vast MMO shared world.) The player doesn't command any side or any kingdom in its entirely, but can act as a hero unit and can command forces in his/her vicinity. (Basically, they're all like a kind of King Arthur who can reappear in a time of need.) The empires and kingdoms are entirely managed by AI and follow a cycle, where they reach a peak of their power (a morale stat follows a peaking curve) then decline and die. The player works to increase his/her own legend by winning battles. The purpose of this design is to create an extremely complex and immersive world with depth of gameplay, but still enable players to "dip in" for a half hour session every once in awhile.
  - roymurdock 8y ago
    sounds a lot like Eve online set in medieval times. Guild Wars had a similar system where you could choose a faction and battle other factions to win reputation etc but was nowhere as dynamic as you're describing. also kind of sounds like Dynasty Warriors which kicked ass but followed a more traditional set path of battles all of these are great games and a blend of them would be awesome if you had a clear vision for how to combine them, but would also probably be a massive undertaking side note, i wouldn't consider anything a true RTS unless it has some type of resource gathering and tech/unit building element to it