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From: Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Two Random PC Business Facts
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2024 10:22:58 -0700
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On 6/14/2024 11:54 PM, JAB wrote:
> On 14/06/2024 16:00, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
>> <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>>
>>>> The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
>>>> this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
>>>> longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
>>>> who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
>>>> codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
>>>> free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
>>>> money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
>>>> at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
>>>> took it as far as modern publishers.
>>>>
>>> They also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
>>> make MTX feasible at current tech.
>>
>> Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
>> more, they certainly would have.
>>
> 
> It was a sound business model and I didn't think it was that expensive 
> (10p a go) as long as you were half decent at the game and even less so 
> if you played with friends and spent more time watching someone else 
> play than playing yourself.
> 
>> (but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
>> "Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
>> thirteen seconds later. ;-)
>>
> 
> Oh I remember Dragon's lair and for us I think it was 50p a game. I 
> never played it more than a few times before I realised that you weren't 
> playing a game as such but instead can you remember what to do to avoid 
> dying like you did last time.
> 
>> Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
>> happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors,
>> including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
>> they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.
>>
>> Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
>> seemed to be competing on the quality of their product.  That isn't to
>> say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
>> success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
>> games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
>> shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
>> hell out of them".
>>
> 
> There's still lots of games out there that are based around the idea of 
> you pay us money and we'll give you a game you like. Unfortunately the 
> big money seems to be made with here's a game that's just about adequate 
> and now we'll chuck the sink of phycological warfare at you to keep you 
> paying and playing.
> 
> The bit I don't understand is overall they don't even seem to be 
> particularly good games but people buy them in their droves anyway.
> 
Good games require players to think.  Most people don't want to think.

>> Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
>> give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)
>>
> 
> I do play quite a few MTX mobile games just to pass the time but I've 
> never spent money on them. Basically it's play until the soft paywall 
> kicks in and then delete and find another one.
> 
Or uninstall then re-install to re-start from the beginning.  :P

-- 
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky 
dirty old man.