3 ms·

The cold hard fact is that F2P games bring in RIDICULOUS amounts of money. I moved from doing code for industrial use and public admin as a consultant to mobil

The cold hard fact is that F2P games bring in RIDICULOUS amounts of money. I moved from doing code for industrial use and public admin as a consultant to mobile gaming. We have one hit game and the _daily_ marketing (a.k.a. user acquisition) budget for us is an order of magnitude bigger than the biggest projects I did at my old job. All the "ethical problems" usually are just older (usually) men in IT not understanding that people want to pay money to have fun. Some people go to bars to relax after a work week and drop $100 gladly. Others use that for going to the movies, some go to have a nice dinner. And some people really like relaxing while playing games and they want to pay for that, because they think it's worth the price.

Hammershaft 3y ago
> All the "ethical problems" usually are just older (usually) men in IT not understanding that people want to pay money to have fun. Fucking absurd, to be frank. Watch a GDC talk on growing mobile F2P revenue and you will be exposed to a slew of deceptive methods for psychologically manipulating players (who are often kids) into addictive spending habits, often literally through gambling mechanisms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4
- theshrike79 3y ago
  There definitely are predatory F2P games as there are shitty cash grabs masquerading as premium games (pay once). But games like Diablo Immortal, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail wouldn't keep their player base if they were just a 100% psychologically manipulative cash grabs.
  - Hammershaft 3y ago
    AAA gacha games & Diablo Immortal clearly have quality production values, but they are also by far the most adept & deceitful at using predatory tactics pulled from behavioral psych to wring addicts out of their money. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs

Hammershaft 3y ago

> All the "ethical problems" usually are just older (usually) men in IT not understanding that people want to pay money to have fun. Fucking absurd, to be frank. Watch a GDC talk on growing mobile F2P revenue and you will be exposed to a slew of deceptive methods for psychologically manipulating players (who are often kids) into addictive spending habits, often literally through gambling mechanisms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4

theshrike79 3y ago
There definitely are predatory F2P games as there are shitty cash grabs masquerading as premium games (pay once). But games like Diablo Immortal, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail wouldn't keep their player base if they were just a 100% psychologically manipulative cash grabs.
- Hammershaft 3y ago
  AAA gacha games & Diablo Immortal clearly have quality production values, but they are also by far the most adept & deceitful at using predatory tactics pulled from behavioral psych to wring addicts out of their money. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs