4 ms·

An obvious explanation for why publishers overwhelming focus on multiplayer titles despite consumer demand is that multiplayer games are much harder to pirate

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Maybe? Seems like more and more publishers are trying to sneak in a required internet connection for single player.
mrguyorama 2y ago
Everyone is trying to build AAAA "live service" games because fortnite and friends made a gazillion dollars. They did that by essentially being a very new experience (no, shitty arma mods do not count, they were so clunky you have to be a special kind of patient and weird to enjoy them), so everyone tried it, and that meant they could capture almost any whale, and Epic eventually figured out you could milk literal children and whales for all of their money, because kids will bully each other into buying freaking character skins that used to be just an unlockable or option in multiplayer gaming The problem is that, to properly milk the whales, you have to follow specific strategies that encourage their "I'm better than you because I paid $100 instead of wasting 100 hours" mentality, which means you have to make it suck to not be a whale so that the whales can feel so superior, and to help drive potential whales into entering their payment info and becoming milkable whales. That means that non-whale players, the majority, have to treat the game as a part time job just to keep up with released content (which is partially enforced by the game or community) or else just not get to experience the majority of the game. The game requires more effort per unit of "fun" you want to experience because it has to in order to trigger the whale catching effects. However, most people only have time in their life for one of these part time jobs, including the whales, which means the market is fixed. There's only enough player time and whale money to support a small, fixed number of these games. That's why they keep failing, there are strong network effects, and nobody wants to "invest" in a new game.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago

Maybe? Seems like more and more publishers are trying to sneak in a required internet connection for single player.

mrguyorama 2y ago

Everyone is trying to build AAAA "live service" games because fortnite and friends made a gazillion dollars. They did that by essentially being a very new experience (no, shitty arma mods do not count, they were so clunky you have to be a special kind of patient and weird to enjoy them), so everyone tried it, and that meant they could capture almost any whale, and Epic eventually figured out you could milk literal children and whales for all of their money, because kids will bully each other into buying freaking character skins that used to be just an unlockable or option in multiplayer gaming The problem is that, to properly milk the whales, you have to follow specific strategies that encourage their "I'm better than you because I paid $100 instead of wasting 100 hours" mentality, which means you have to make it suck to not be a whale so that the whales can feel so superior, and to help drive potential whales into entering their payment info and becoming milkable whales. That means that non-whale players, the majority, have to treat the game as a part time job just to keep up with released content (which is partially enforced by the game or community) or else just not get to experience the majority of the game. The game requires more effort per unit of "fun" you want to experience because it has to in order to trigger the whale catching effects. However, most people only have time in their life for one of these part time jobs, including the whales, which means the market is fixed. There's only enough player time and whale money to support a small, fixed number of these games. That's why they keep failing, there are strong network effects, and nobody wants to "invest" in a new game.