Genuine Question: Why do mobile games need to be pay to win?

[Cthulhu 2020]

Personally i think milk being in the back of a supermarket and mobile monetization is not the same ballpark, it's not even the same galaxy.

This is my thought as well, but then again I'm a person who does their research, shops around, knows the general price of items, etc. Some marketing practices are far more scummy than others. Not all marketing is equally scummy. And I think it's incredibly disingenuous for people to claim that they all hold similar weights in terms of how dishonest and manipulative they are. And as you said, at the end of the day, if you buy something from a supermarket, you're generally going to have something to show for it that will contribute to your life.

I don't shop at big department stores. For one reason, I never did like the big department stores like Macy's and whatnot. The last few times I've gone to one of them in the last decade, I will generally look up the same item online and find that it's 1/3 the price just to order online than it is at the brick and mortar. But again, I do my research.



Another thing on the issue of professional critic scores vs user scores, does everyone remember when the Metacritic professional critics scores were listed near the top of a game's store page? That same spot, at the top of the steam page, has been replaced by user reviews, being overwhelmingly positive, very positive, mixed, etc. The professional critic scores have been relegated to the bottom, where nobody generally looks any more unless they're still reading materials on the game and aren't sold on the game just yet.

And again, those in the know, know that "professional critics" are just another branch of marketing for video games. IGN in particular has been terrible about this, many of their former reviewers outright admitting they got paid to give certain games higher scores, when they didn't believe the game deserved it. The video game publishers have a vested interest in getting a high critic score, so they can plaster it on advertisements for their game. Thus the counter to the statement made earlier in this thread that when publishers advertise their game, they use critic scores. It's all marketing, and dishonest. And has nothing to do with how good a game actually is. Players have been waking up to this reality for years now, and critic reviews have become gradually less and less trusted by the gaming community. Perhaps some "dads who don't have time to play video games for more than an hour a week and thus need pay to win" will fall for such marketing, but gamers at large are rejecting pro critic scores.

[Tentim]

Moblie gamers are a different market mostly addicted to gambling.

They don't really want to play a video game they just want a dopamine hit.

[Kilpi]

why do you hate mobile gaming?the industry has come an insane long way in a very short time,its a perfectly good gaming platform these days,they just need to stop getting kids and bald middle aged men addicted to gambling

Touch screen is the worst currently in wide use method of controlling almost anything, games included.

[Flurryfang]

....Because they CAN.

It gives more money, so why not implement P2W? You get in the whales and most mobile gamers don't take the hobby serious enough to care about it.

They would do this aswell in PC games more, if it weren't because players keeps an eye on that and make such games bomb. Instead we just have lootboxes and predatory game mechanics instead.

[Elim Garak]

They would do this aswell in PC games more, if it weren't because players keeps an eye on that and make such games bomb. Instead we just have lootboxes and predatory game mechanics instead.

PC decided to go the cybersport route. Also lucrative. It's just the money gets to devs indirectly and not from mere gamers (ad revenue from sponsors - like real sport events).
It's just very hard to enter that market now. So expect p2w everywhere.

[deenman]

Touch screen is the worst currently in wide use method of controlling almost anything, games included.

Thats kinda subjective,some people think controler is smooth and easy to use,but give it to someone whos never used one and it will feel like the weirdest experience switching from mouse and kb

[Kilpi]

Thats kinda subjective,some people think controler is smooth and easy to use,but give it to someone whos never used one and it will feel like the weirdest experience switching from mouse and kb

Yea, just as subjective as the whole "mobile games suck". That's kinda the point here. Someone asks "why mobile games suck", and IMO it doesn't matter how well the game is designed, I'd rather play it on something else. For example 80 Days. It's as good as a game can get to play on mobile, but I'd still rather play it on anything else.

[Elim Garak]

Thats kinda subjective,some people think controler is smooth and easy to use,but give it to someone whos never used one and it will feel like the weirdest experience switching from mouse and kb

It's not really that much subjective. there's objective truth to it. Touch screen is worse than controller worse than kb/m. You can get used to worse controls and people who never played on kb/m or just tried it a bit after gotten used to controller might tell you that controller is smooth. But that's just the same matter of gotten used to it. The mere fact that there is aim assist on controllers is enough to understand that mouse is better for aiming. The stick is better for movement.

Can't wait for someone to design a controller that only replaces the KB (single stick) and lets you use the mouse on PC, or even adds specifically designed mouse for it with extra and better placed buttons.

[RobertoCarlos]

It's not really that much subjective. there's objective truth to it. Touch screen is worse than controller worse than kb/m. You can get used to worse controls and people who never played on kb/m or just tried it a bit after gotten used to controller might tell you that controller is smooth. But that's just the same matter of gotten used to it. The mere fact that there is aim assist on controllers is enough to understand that mouse is better for aiming. The stick is better for movement.

Can't wait for someone to design a controller that only replaces the KB (single stick) and lets you use the mouse on PC, or even adds specifically designed mouse for it with extra and better placed buttons.

holy shit an elim garak post that I actually agree with.

Analog stick is better for character movement and mouse is better for aiming.

[Mysterymask]

Can't wait for someone to design a controller that only replaces the KB (single stick) and lets you use the mouse on PC, or even adds specifically designed mouse for it with extra and better placed buttons.

So Nintendo's Nunchuck?

[Elim Garak]

So Nintendo's Nunchuck?

The stick controller part yes. Same with Nintendo Switch joy-con (but it's worse than nunchuck).

But we need that to work without anything from Nintendo. As a standalone controller. On PC. That still allows you to use a mouse. They can at least let us use regular gamepads for the left stick and mouse at the same time - but right now it's either or.

[Beefhammer]

Correct, everyone who claims there's some mass conspiracy to make D:I look bad is idiotic at best.

But I will again reiterate, you said that consumer reviews were useless, and perhaps had you used different vocabulary, you may have been right. Unoderated, uncurated, sure, but not useless.

I see you at least didn't try to argue against my point that professional reviewers were worse than user scores. You and I both know this. Professional critics are absolute garbage in the gaming industry. There is no board or commission that monitors or regulates this stuff, so when game studios were caught buying off critics, they continued to do it without shame. And beyond even the issue of critics being bought off isn't the worst part.

Think about the user experience within D:I, you can play unhindered without needing to grind for many, many hours. And then you hit "the wall" where the entire experience becomes gated behind exp, which is most easily gained from the battle pass. That's also the point where it feels like you're wading through waist deep mud just to progress. ... BUT YOU CAN ALWAYS BUY YOUR WAY TO FASTER PROGRESSION *WINK WINK* HEY HERE'S THE CASH SHOP, 800% BONUS VALE!

D:I critic scores on day 1 started out in the high 80's, and perhaps even higher from what I recall. You know, from "Critics" that played for 2 hours and thought the game was awesome. AAA game studios know to frontload their games with the best gameplay because that is what they are rated on, the first few hours of the game. And it's just another reason why more and more gamers are turning to user reviews like metacritic scores. They feel lied to and taken advantage of by the professional critics, which we all know are just another manipulative marketing scheme, and have NOTHING to do with the game's quality.

User scores, unmoderated, uncurated, unregulated, sure. Useless? You know nothing if you think that. D:I's metacritic user score is plastered all over every media site covering the game, aside from the few shills remaining. That makes the score far from useless, as it's getting in a lot of leg work.

madcat129
"Shame on Blizzard! I hope legislators start to crack down on this kind of **** soon."
Posted on June 4

Please enlighten me on how this is a useful review of the game?

[Jerot]

And some people really like that sort of thing. Others don't. It's why people budget X amount of dollars to literally throw away on a trip to Vegas. You don't have to like the same thing as them to respect that they like it.

Vegas is age restricted and regulated though, why shouldn't videogames that operate similarly be too? Not outright banned, just not allowed to target kids who aren't old enough to know better.



Gambling aside, pay to win models are stupid to me. It kills all competition, imagine if your local sports team could just pay the referee to disqualify half the points the other team scores or vice versa. It would be boring to play and to watch.

In a strictly PvE game, where presumably your goal is to become powerful, the journey to that power is the entertainment. By buying power, you're paying to play the game less. It's pay to lose. And it incentivizes the developer to create absurdly long and grindy games just to sell shortcuts. It takes no effort adding timers or changing some numbers in a spreadsheet. They're choosing to monetize player frustration instead of fun because it's easier. It's inherently self-sabotaging, and leads to mediocre to below-average games that cost significantly more than non-mobile AAA games.

It's a similar dynamic to companies that design their products to break and fight for sole control over their part sources and schematics. Just so they can make extra revenue on the repairs or replacement sales. Worsening the value to create a steady income stream, riding the line between making something good and something that will inevitably frustrate you into giving them more money.

A game that only sells cosmetics has more responsibility to make sure the game is as fun as possible or people won't stick around long enough to warrant spending money on it. A P2W game just has to be fun enough that it can leverage frustration to convert people into repeat customers. It's not about creating additional value for the paying consumer, it's about creating hurdles for people to pay their way around.

[deenman]

It's not really that much subjective. there's objective truth to it. Touch screen is worse than controller worse than kb/m. You can get used to worse controls and people who never played on kb/m or just tried it a bit after gotten used to controller might tell you that controller is smooth. But that's just the same matter of gotten used to it. The mere fact that there is aim assist on controllers is enough to understand that mouse is better for aiming. The stick is better for movement.

Can't wait for someone to design a controller that only replaces the KB (single stick) and lets you use the mouse on PC, or even adds specifically designed mouse for it with extra and better placed buttons.

there are mini one hand keyboards

[Kumorii]

They don't need to. But it's accepted in the community.

Now why they do it.. is very simple. It is very easy to incentivize people to use money on power when you have them see what other people do with money. And with the power being behind loot boxes, you don't know how much money the powerful people have used. So you think small amount of money gets you somewhere. And once you use a bit, you have already justified using money to get power and the next step is to use more money. And once that's justified, what is another $100. Eventually you go out of money or you have the money and end up using thousands. And better yet, people with a lot of money are really competitive and are used to success in life. So getting those people competing against each other is winning the jackpot for the company.

And that is just the basics of it all.

Which community accepts p2w? Haven't heard of any community... I think most are against and some are split. Maybe some tinier elite groups / communities that push to be the top accepts it, but those are small.

It's "accepted" by the majority who isn't part of any community and just plays games in their spare time casually. They don't get involved in gaming politics. It's there because they earn stupidly amount of money by doing so, which is funded by the ones, mostly, who aren't part of any gaming community. Not saying there aren't gaming communities that support p2w, but personally I see little of it... I see mostly communities being against it.

Question is, why would a company who wants to earn money, listen to the people who don't want to spend money? That's what people are up against, and it's a uphill battle, not because of lack of support within communities but because of money.

speaking of just this community I would say majority is against p2w.

[Popastique]

Vegas is age restricted and regulated though, why shouldn't videogames that operate similarly be too? Not outright banned, just not allowed to target kids who aren't old enough to know better.

Target kids who have no income whatsoever?

[Elim Garak]

there are mini one hand keyboards

It's not the size of the keyboard that matters. it's the stick.

[Kumorii]

Moblie gamers are a different market mostly addicted to gambling.

They don't really want to play a video game they just want a dopamine hit.

Literally everyone who plays a video game is doing it for the dopamine hit. The ones that don't, don't play games. Or they have it as a job and have to to keep living.

- - - Updated - - -

Target kids who have no income whatsoever?

the targeting kids argument is kind of weird, yeah.
Its targeting young adults who has their own income. Which is why p2w stuff is marketed as "pay to skip" because these adults now have less free time than when they were kids.

It works on some kids if they are left with their adults credit card for some reason though. Which is horrible when it happens of course, but that's not exactly the target market. And yeah, you shouldn't give your kids access to your credit card with easy "one click" payments.

[Popastique]

the targeting kids argument is kind of weird, yeah.
Its targeting young adults who has their own income. Which is why p2w stuff is marketed as "pay to skip" because these adults now have less free time than when they were kids.

It works on some kids if they are left with their adults credit card for some reason though. Which is horrible when it happens of course, but that's not exactly the target market. And yeah, you shouldn't give your kids access to your credit card with easy "one click" payments.

Well, if they are adults - they are free to spend money how they wish. And such phrase as *young adults* somehow sounds pretty strange to me.

[Elim Garak]

Literally everyone who plays a video game is doing it for the dopamine hit. The ones that don't, don't play games. Or they have it as a job and have to to keep living.

Akshually that's only true for extraverts who dominate pvp/social games, sports, shooters, arcades. Action.
Introverts are doing it for acetylcholine and prefer solo play, rpgs, story and theorycrafting. The things that stimulate the producing of it - thinking. It has the same stimulating effect as dopamine for extraverts.