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posted by martyb on Monday January 07 2019, @07:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the Figured-it-out dept.

ArsTechnica:

Gaming was like breathing. It was the biggest part of my life as a teenager, one of my priorities as a college student, and eventually one of my most expensive “hobbies” as a young professional.

Then all of a sudden, after thousands of hours spent playing across genres and platforms, boredom hit me hard for the very first time in my early thirties. Some of my favorite games soon gave me the impression of being terribly long. I couldn’t help but notice all the repeating tropes and similarities in game design between franchises.

I figured it was just a matter of time before I found the right game to stimulate my interest again, but time continued to go by and nothing changed.

Is it that games have failed to innovate, or that real life is ultimately more engaging?


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday January 07 2019, @09:25PM (5 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday January 07 2019, @09:25PM (#783384)

    The modern games really do suck. A lot. And the main reason for this is that they've shifted their goals from creating great games to pushing the right buttons to convince players to shell out cash for loot boxes and other microtransactions. The general big-budget nature of modern video games coupled with the marketers and other non-gaming suits controlling game companies pretty much guarantees that no great new concepts will be coming forth anytime soon. This was really exemplified with the botched announcement of Diablo Immortal, which is apparently turning the fairly fun Diablo RPG game franchise into a microtransaction-based mobile game aimed at the Chinese market.

    I do still occasionally play older games, though: After 5-10 years or so, they're often released for free, and the ones that anybody cares about after that long are usually pretty good.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 07 2019, @09:45PM (4 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 07 2019, @09:45PM (#783392)

    The "freemium formula" really bores me - no matter how slick the production graphics and sound, if it's a "grind and wait for your shiny, or pony up cash to get it faster" mechanic, I'm done - it's all too familiar and insulting to play.

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Monday January 07 2019, @10:27PM (3 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Monday January 07 2019, @10:27PM (#783412) Journal

      The "freemium formula" doesn't bore me. I boycott it. I do not play games with that kind of gimmick. File Diablo 3 away in this category. They went from focusing on the game and making it fun, to how can we monetize this. It bit them hard. With the announcement of their mobile exclusive, it shows that they haven't listened. You can't convert a good franchise into a cash grab without getting a lot of push back from your fans. I avoid mobile games for pretty much all the same reasons. The mobile game economy is literally built around people paying for virtual money that is spent. So, you can buy more virtual money to spend. PC gaming used to have real DLC, usually extra maps with stuff, an actual serious attempt at giving the customer some more fun game. Now, DLC is synonymous with, we want you to pay more, so we can keep cashing in on our game. Here's some gold color this, or worse yet a feature that should have been in the game, but we released it anyways. So, pay us money for it. If you are going to treat your "customers" like beta testers, at least release it as Early Access or something.

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      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 07 2019, @11:01PM (2 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 07 2019, @11:01PM (#783433)

        I played Hearthstone long enough that it started to resemble this formula for me in the end... they buried it well, but eventually that's what it boiled down to. I also got the sense that as a non-paying player I was used as loser fodder for the payers, not enough to completely discourage me from playing right away, but eventually...

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        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 07 2019, @11:24PM (1 child)

          by Freeman (732) on Monday January 07 2019, @11:24PM (#783456) Journal

          I played Gwent first, so when I got to Hearthstone, I noticed the (I am cannon fodder.) feature, almost right away. Gwent was pretty fun and I hadn't felt the need to purchase anything. I played it to death in beta, and they changed up the formula on full release. The new full release is much more polished and fun as well. I just have lots of other games, that don't have that kind of gimmick in it to play.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:40PM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:40PM (#783663)

            Occasionally I would trade dust for a good card and push my ranking up high, I forget how it went but some Rogue special card I got allowed me to compete up many levels higher than I normally did. Still fun to play at more or less any level, but ultimately just a waste of time - as intended.

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