4 ms·

More time spent does not equal enjoyment. Some games treat their players like employees and make them work pretty hard for their imaginary prizes. I wouldn't wa

More time spent does not equal enjoyment. Some games treat their players like employees and make them work pretty hard for their imaginary prizes. I wouldn't want a games library optimized for maximum time expenditure.

PaulHoule 4y ago
I've only seen a few games so I can't say this is universal but when I play Japanese games on the Xbox all of the achievements say something like "5.4% of gamers accomplished this" which indicates that very few people finish this games, but a few western games I played didn't seem to show these percentages and I wonder if this is an attempt to work on people's psychology.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  I didn't realize this was a thing that could be enabled/disabled per-game. I think all achievements on Steam come with the "x.x% got this" stat.
kbenson 4y ago
While I agree paying out based on time spent may incentivize games into poor behavior, I think there are ways to account for that (e.g. weeks of the month the game was played more than an hour or two total). Greatly reducing the up-front investment to try out a game allows for different types of games to find an audience. If I have to pay $20 to try out some indie title, I might put it off a long time until it's on sale or never try it. If it's already included in a subscription I pay for, I might try it early or right after hearing some buzz about it. More people jumping in on that buzz can create a wave of enthusiasm that greatly increases the reach of the game that wouldn't happen if a similar number of sales trickled in over an extended period, which might increase players (and possibly sales on other platforms) more than otherwise. It's been noted many times in the past, some of the big breaks for indie studios were when they got accepted into these programs or ones like it.
AlexandrB 4y ago
No kidding. The whole idea of (even partially) evaluating a game's value/quality by how long it takes to finish it is a mind virus. It leads to bloated, grindy experiences where a shorter game might have been more appropriate or even more fun.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I've only seen a few games so I can't say this is universal but when I play Japanese games on the Xbox all of the achievements say something like "5.4% of gamers accomplished this" which indicates that very few people finish this games, but a few western games I played didn't seem to show these percentages and I wonder if this is an attempt to work on people's psychology.

AlexandrB 4y ago
I didn't realize this was a thing that could be enabled/disabled per-game. I think all achievements on Steam come with the "x.x% got this" stat.

kbenson 4y ago

While I agree paying out based on time spent may incentivize games into poor behavior, I think there are ways to account for that (e.g. weeks of the month the game was played more than an hour or two total). Greatly reducing the up-front investment to try out a game allows for different types of games to find an audience. If I have to pay $20 to try out some indie title, I might put it off a long time until it's on sale or never try it. If it's already included in a subscription I pay for, I might try it early or right after hearing some buzz about it. More people jumping in on that buzz can create a wave of enthusiasm that greatly increases the reach of the game that wouldn't happen if a similar number of sales trickled in over an extended period, which might increase players (and possibly sales on other platforms) more than otherwise. It's been noted many times in the past, some of the big breaks for indie studios were when they got accepted into these programs or ones like it.

AlexandrB 4y ago

No kidding. The whole idea of (even partially) evaluating a game's value/quality by how long it takes to finish it is a mind virus. It leads to bloated, grindy experiences where a shorter game might have been more appropriate or even more fun.