3 ms·

> Even the content that made it into the game will never be seen by most users, as most buyers of a video game will never complete your game. But if the ending

> Even the content that made it into the game will never be seen by most users, as most buyers of a video game will never complete your game. But if the ending is not satisfying for those who complete it, they will impact the buying decisions of those who never play through it anyway. How is this different from any book, movie, or other form of entertainment? Case in point: I have not yet watched Game of Thrones, but much of my momentum to watch it was stymied by fan outcry of just how atrocious the final season was. If I do watch it, I will probably stop before I get there.

rickdeckard 3y ago
> How is this different from any book, movie, or other form of entertainment? I'd say if you spend millions to make a movie to be shown in the cinema you don't expect that by default 50% will walk out before the finale. But even more crucial: If that would happen, your ticket-sales would plummet week-by-week. > Case in point: I have not yet watched Game of Thrones, but much of my momentum to watch it was stymied by fan outcry of just how atrocious the final season was. If I do watch it, I will probably stop before I get there. The final season of Game of Thrones was based on the success of the seasons before it, it was produced AFTER Season 1,2,3,4,...
- AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
  > I'd say if you spend millions to make a movie to be shown in the cinema you don't expect that by default 50% will walk out before the finale. But even more crucial: If that would happen, your ticket-sales would plummet week-by-week. Maybe walking out in the middle of the movie is a bad analogy, but, it would certainly be applicable to the streaming world, where half your audience might watch Episode 1 of New Netflix series but stop watching well before Episode 10.
  - themoonisachees 3y ago
    Valid in some way, however there is an additional half of users who never launch the game at all. Several high-profile games on steam have global achievement stats where the achievement you get for launching the game / completing the tutorial /creating a character is only earned by at most 60% of people who own the game.
    - derefr 3y ago
      I've purchased some of my favorite games multiple times — both to support the developer, and because I prefer the newer platform and don't want to have to deal with playing the game on the old platform. But often, after the secondary purchase, I won't actually play the game again. I didn't feel like playing it again in that moment where I purchased it again. I know I will want to replay it one day, which is why I re-bought it. But until I actually do, that second copy will seem to be have been purchased by someone who has never played the game at all.
      - imtringued 3y ago
        The vast majority of games aren't bought twice or released. What happens is that people buy bunch of games at the same time and then don't play the third or fourth game.
    - rickdeckard 3y ago
      That's true. But you can look at specific trophies to narrow down the users who actually engage but then still "walk out of your story" (a ratio which of course varies largely from game to game). Spiderman, one of the high-profile games of PlayStation, has a trophy for each of its 3 Acts of the story. While 67% of the players finished Act#1, only 49% actually finished Act#3. So setting completion of Act#1 as a minimum to measure engagement, 27% of those who "sat down" still walked out before the end. And that is not a sign of failure but a landmark success of that industry. That's quite unique for a product of creativity. And even more odd: it doesn't even mean that those 27% disliked your product. They might even buy your next creation...
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    > Maybe walking out in the middle of the movie is a bad analogy, but, it would certainly be applicable to the streaming world, where half your audience might watch Episode 1 of New Netflix series but stop watching well before Episode 10. What would be "applicable"? The streaming world of a TV series would be comparable to a streaming world of games. Here the gaming industry is largely selling products of entertainment to customers who pay explicitly FOR THAT product, yet a significant portion of that audience actually never fully consumes it. That's how it is different. CREATIVELY different. A team of possibly hundreds of people invest years to create a creative product which only a fraction of their paying audience will ever experience in full. It's like a non-Spotify world where every Artist produces an Album to be sold on CD, knowing that 50% of the paying audience will never hear more than Track 1-4.
echelon 3y ago
> Case in point: I have not yet watched Game of Thrones, but much of my momentum to watch it was stymied by fan outcry of just how atrocious the final season was. If I do watch it, I will probably stop before I get there. With AI, we might one day be able to remake the last (two) season(s). Everything leading up to the end was magnificent and breathtakingly fresh. No reason it shouldn't be salvaged. I bet a lot of movies and shows will get "fixed" by fans in this fashion. We've already seen dozens of Star Wars OT and PT edits, several Lord of the Rings edits, and my take is that this trend will grow to encompass everything as it gets easier to do.
boppo1 3y ago
> I will probably stop before I get there. Watch up to and include season 5. Then treat it as if it was unfortunately cancelled.
- mjrpes 3y ago
  Why not season 6 or 7? Season 8 is the one that fell off the cliff. Episode S6.E9 is one of the best in all of television history.
  - mholm 3y ago
    Season 6 was alright, with the ending making up for a largely mediocre season. Season 7 was about as bad as 8, but it's harder to tell because the bad moments weren't character/plot altering payoffs, just teleporting around the map and ignoring depth in favor of spectacle.
  - boppo1 3y ago
    I just felt like 6 is where the writing became very amateurish. Iirc, 5 was where source material ran out. It has been a long time so I can't pick out details but I recall the change in quality between 5 and 6 was pretty Stark to me. One thing I remember is that instead of "smart" characters really being smart, everyone else got dumb as hell. Then the smart character would 'win' and another would make a comment basically explaining how smart they were. I know a lot of people think it was good right until the finale and only dislike it because a certain fan favorite has a "change of character". Except it wasn't a change & was obviously telegraphed since season 3 or 4.
    - gothrowaway83t 3y ago
      I don't think the finale is that bad. My only objection is that the character didn't seem to have been pushed so far based on the previous episodes. It would have been better if the previous seasons showed even more conflicts internally.

rickdeckard 3y ago

> How is this different from any book, movie, or other form of entertainment? I'd say if you spend millions to make a movie to be shown in the cinema you don't expect that by default 50% will walk out before the finale. But even more crucial: If that would happen, your ticket-sales would plummet week-by-week. > Case in point: I have not yet watched Game of Thrones, but much of my momentum to watch it was stymied by fan outcry of just how atrocious the final season was. If I do watch it, I will probably stop before I get there. The final season of Game of Thrones was based on the success of the seasons before it, it was produced AFTER Season 1,2,3,4,...

AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
> I'd say if you spend millions to make a movie to be shown in the cinema you don't expect that by default 50% will walk out before the finale. But even more crucial: If that would happen, your ticket-sales would plummet week-by-week. Maybe walking out in the middle of the movie is a bad analogy, but, it would certainly be applicable to the streaming world, where half your audience might watch Episode 1 of New Netflix series but stop watching well before Episode 10.
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  Valid in some way, however there is an additional half of users who never launch the game at all. Several high-profile games on steam have global achievement stats where the achievement you get for launching the game / completing the tutorial /creating a character is only earned by at most 60% of people who own the game.
  - derefr 3y ago
    I've purchased some of my favorite games multiple times — both to support the developer, and because I prefer the newer platform and don't want to have to deal with playing the game on the old platform. But often, after the secondary purchase, I won't actually play the game again. I didn't feel like playing it again in that moment where I purchased it again. I know I will want to replay it one day, which is why I re-bought it. But until I actually do, that second copy will seem to be have been purchased by someone who has never played the game at all.
    - imtringued 3y ago
      The vast majority of games aren't bought twice or released. What happens is that people buy bunch of games at the same time and then don't play the third or fourth game.
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    That's true. But you can look at specific trophies to narrow down the users who actually engage but then still "walk out of your story" (a ratio which of course varies largely from game to game). Spiderman, one of the high-profile games of PlayStation, has a trophy for each of its 3 Acts of the story. While 67% of the players finished Act#1, only 49% actually finished Act#3. So setting completion of Act#1 as a minimum to measure engagement, 27% of those who "sat down" still walked out before the end. And that is not a sign of failure but a landmark success of that industry. That's quite unique for a product of creativity. And even more odd: it doesn't even mean that those 27% disliked your product. They might even buy your next creation...
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  > Maybe walking out in the middle of the movie is a bad analogy, but, it would certainly be applicable to the streaming world, where half your audience might watch Episode 1 of New Netflix series but stop watching well before Episode 10. What would be "applicable"? The streaming world of a TV series would be comparable to a streaming world of games. Here the gaming industry is largely selling products of entertainment to customers who pay explicitly FOR THAT product, yet a significant portion of that audience actually never fully consumes it. That's how it is different. CREATIVELY different. A team of possibly hundreds of people invest years to create a creative product which only a fraction of their paying audience will ever experience in full. It's like a non-Spotify world where every Artist produces an Album to be sold on CD, knowing that 50% of the paying audience will never hear more than Track 1-4.

echelon 3y ago

> Case in point: I have not yet watched Game of Thrones, but much of my momentum to watch it was stymied by fan outcry of just how atrocious the final season was. If I do watch it, I will probably stop before I get there. With AI, we might one day be able to remake the last (two) season(s). Everything leading up to the end was magnificent and breathtakingly fresh. No reason it shouldn't be salvaged. I bet a lot of movies and shows will get "fixed" by fans in this fashion. We've already seen dozens of Star Wars OT and PT edits, several Lord of the Rings edits, and my take is that this trend will grow to encompass everything as it gets easier to do.

boppo1 3y ago

> I will probably stop before I get there. Watch up to and include season 5. Then treat it as if it was unfortunately cancelled.

mjrpes 3y ago
Why not season 6 or 7? Season 8 is the one that fell off the cliff. Episode S6.E9 is one of the best in all of television history.
- mholm 3y ago
  Season 6 was alright, with the ending making up for a largely mediocre season. Season 7 was about as bad as 8, but it's harder to tell because the bad moments weren't character/plot altering payoffs, just teleporting around the map and ignoring depth in favor of spectacle.
- boppo1 3y ago
  I just felt like 6 is where the writing became very amateurish. Iirc, 5 was where source material ran out. It has been a long time so I can't pick out details but I recall the change in quality between 5 and 6 was pretty Stark to me. One thing I remember is that instead of "smart" characters really being smart, everyone else got dumb as hell. Then the smart character would 'win' and another would make a comment basically explaining how smart they were. I know a lot of people think it was good right until the finale and only dislike it because a certain fan favorite has a "change of character". Except it wasn't a change & was obviously telegraphed since season 3 or 4.
  - gothrowaway83t 3y ago
    I don't think the finale is that bad. My only objection is that the character didn't seem to have been pushed so far based on the previous episodes. It would have been better if the previous seasons showed even more conflicts internally.