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From: JAB <noway@nochance.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Single Player FTW
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2024 08:17:20 +0100
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On 11/10/2024 16:19, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 08:57:08 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 09/10/2024 04:16, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>>> Still, for years publishers parroted the line that multiplayer was the
>>> only way to profitablity, and strictly single-player games (or even
>>> single-player modes) were often given short-shrift. There have been
>>> numerous reports of attempts by developers to push forward
>>> single-player games that have been shot down by publishers, who told
>>> the devs that single-player games 'just don't sell'.  And why not?
>>> Multiplayer games sold tremendously well, and you could attach all
>>> sorts of live-service features onto the games to rake in even more
>>> money
>>
>> I'm not sure it's that they don't sell but instead the really big bucks
>> are to be had in multiple-player games that are far more amenable to
>> having MTX shoved in them providing a healthy income stream possibly for
>> years to come.
>>
> 
> 
> Except the study showed that you _aren't_ necessarily promised massive
> revenue just because you make a multiplayer game. Or rather, it isn't
> simply the fact that the game is multiplayer that guarantees that
> money. It's that wildly unpredictible, "is it a good/popular game"
> factor that brings in the big bugs. All the more so since there's a
> glut of online-only titles all vying for the same audience.
> 
> The take-away of the study was that there's a huge audience that's
> underserved, and you're more likely as a game publisher now to make
> profit with a single-player game because the numbers are advantageous
> and there's less competition in that market. And while it's possible
> that Fortnite-profits are only achievable with online-only games, very
> very few games are Fornite. Games like Fortnite are an anomaly and
> hard to replicate (much less depend upon to build up a business).
> 

I'm not disagreeing but I can see the mentality of chasing that longer 
term big cash cow even though companies should have have learnt, well 
maybe not all of them, the hard way that spending millions upon millions 
of dollars to 'replicate' an existing formula doesn't mean success.

>> Personally the problem I have with multi-player games in general is they
>> don't offer that type of narrative game experience which i now prefer.
>> Saying that World of Tanks is my most played game by far but even with
>> that I think a lot of it ended up as I was playing just because that's
>> something I did and not because I was particularly enjoying it.
> 
> Sadly, a lot of games suffer from this; they've found the perfect
> balance of effort and reward that gives you _just_ enough seratonin to
> keep playing even though the actual gameplay isn't that exciting. This
> tends to work better in online games, because there's no expectation
> of a climax. You just need to keep everything at _just_ interesting
> enough to keep them playing. But with single-player games, there's
> usually a definitive ending, and you need to slowly ramp up to that,
> making each instance just a bit more exciting on the way to the big
> finish.
> 

With WoT I did very much enjoy it at the start as the battles were fun, 
well once you got used to the idea that it was a team game in name only, 
and a lot of the draw to play just one more battle was can I earn the 
exp. to get the next upgrade. I could easily rack up 15+ hours per-week.

Possibly a turning point was when they took my favourite tank and turned 
it into a turd. Insult to injury was I had spent gold (a.k.a real money) 
on buying cam schemes for it and no refund or anything.

I did find another tank but the same happened to that. The other big 
turn off was as they slowly introduced more MTX it did feel like you 
were being left behind and were being forced to spend money to stay 
competitive.

> There's a very brutal science to a lot of game-development these days
> which relies on psychological manipulation of the player. It's not
> that earlier games weren't trying to achieve the same thing (I mean,
> look at Pac-Man) but they weren't so... industrial about it. If they
> were successful, it was more because they happened to luck onto the
> formula. Nowadays, it's all pre-calculated intent.
> 

I'd say I was certainly naive for at least the first few years until I 
started become more aware of how I was being manipulated into spending 
money. So a couple of examples, having an in-game currency to provide a 
disconnect between real money and in-game money. A money only, something 
like 5p, dismount equipment option to break that psychological barrier 
of spending money on the game. All quite clever really.