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Suppose the people who hate free to play games win the argument and get rid of microtransactions. Suppose they change the laws so you have to get your looter sh

Suppose the people who hate free to play games win the argument and get rid of microtransactions. Suppose they change the laws so you have to get your looter shooter Destiny/Anthem/Division dopamine drip for one fair fixed price. So you're grinding hundreds of hours to get better armor, but you aren't spending more money. Just time. If it’s a single fixed price, what is incentivizing the developer to make the game more addictive? Purchasing the sequel? Wouldn’t the developer instead be incentivized to make a game with novel and compelling gameplay that isn’t necessarily addictive?

socialist_coder 7y ago
If your game only has 10 hours of gameplay, people will complain that it's too short. Then your game gets bad reviews and you don't eat. So you need to have more gameplay, and that's either through cleverly addictive game mechanics or a ton of expensive to produce content.
- karlp 7y ago
  Plenty of games have less than 10h of gameplay, and an even bigger amount of games have less than 10h of non grind gameplay. Portal is a good example
- baud147258 7y ago
  It depends on the game and on how it's advertised. And I personally prefer 10 fun hours than 25 padded to hell and back. Other than Portal, there's also the latest Wolfenstein game, which had less than 10 hours of gameplay.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  That's only if you didn't tell the players your game has 10 hours of gameplay, and made them expect it to have much more. I.e. you engaged in dishonest marketing. If you present the game honestly, then people can evaluate the price you're asking for vs. what's being offered, and they have no reason to complain that it was too short.
seventhtiger 7y ago
The incentive will be to hype the game up, encourage people to preorder, go on a massive marketing spend, and then don't fix anything broken about it after launch to make sure it's dead within 2 years in time for the new hype cycle.

socialist_coder 7y ago

If your game only has 10 hours of gameplay, people will complain that it's too short. Then your game gets bad reviews and you don't eat. So you need to have more gameplay, and that's either through cleverly addictive game mechanics or a ton of expensive to produce content.

karlp 7y ago
Plenty of games have less than 10h of gameplay, and an even bigger amount of games have less than 10h of non grind gameplay. Portal is a good example
baud147258 7y ago
It depends on the game and on how it's advertised. And I personally prefer 10 fun hours than 25 padded to hell and back. Other than Portal, there's also the latest Wolfenstein game, which had less than 10 hours of gameplay.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
That's only if you didn't tell the players your game has 10 hours of gameplay, and made them expect it to have much more. I.e. you engaged in dishonest marketing. If you present the game honestly, then people can evaluate the price you're asking for vs. what's being offered, and they have no reason to complain that it was too short.

seventhtiger 7y ago

The incentive will be to hype the game up, encourage people to preorder, go on a massive marketing spend, and then don't fix anything broken about it after launch to make sure it's dead within 2 years in time for the new hype cycle.