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  • streamlining

    you mean instead of playing the game, i could pay you to not play the game i'm playing instead?

    sign me up

    • I have this same mindset and it's great because it results in 0 temptation to spend money on game progression or items. If I'm playing a game where it feels like spending money like that is the only way to have fun with it, I just drop the game.

      Actually, I don't even really bother with any games that I understand to have p2w aspects or any mtx that aren't just cosmetic.

      • If I’m playing a game where it feels like spending money like that is the only way to have fun with it, I just drop the game.

        A big part of the "hook" in GACHA and other whale-hunting games is the initial hook of a fun and engaging setup. Genshin Impact and Sword of Convallaria both stick out to me as initially very fun and captivating games. They draw you in with the cut scenes and ramp up the curve like a normal open world JRPG.

        But the longer you play, the more you start tripping over resource requirements and timers on abilities and the need to do "daily" activities that involve logging on every day. All of this is fun in the early cycles but feels more and more like work by the later stages of the game. Dungeons start looking more and more basic - big empty rooms with a bunch of respawns in the center. Fights feel more contingent on having a bigger number than any kind of strategy or skill.

        If you've played older traditional JRPGs before, it'll start feeling weird because you know you should be expecting the game to pick up towards a dramatic conclusion after 100 hours of play. But these games just... go on forever. There's no payoff. You get tired and bored and you leave.

        But if you haven't played older traditional JRPGs, you're just falling into this skinner box of induced anxiety. The game becomes habit-forming. The induced reflex to trigger a feature or use a power that's increasingly paywalled encourages you to open your (parent's) wallet.

        Actually, I don’t even really bother with any games that I understand to have p2w aspects or any mtx that aren’t just cosmetic.

        There's a networking effect to a lot of these games. Up front, you're strongly encouraged to get your friends to join in. And friends playing a game together can have enormous staying power. I know people who have been running the same D&D game for 20 years (literally the same characters and world, going on into the level 200+ range as they just crank those numbers higher). I know a couple that's been doing WoW for their entire relationship - they started playing when they started dating and now they've got their ten-year-old son along for the ride.

        I think part of what gives these games staying power is that they don't require you to empty your savings account to participate. But I think its naive to discount the addictive power of a community space you're comfortable socializing in.

        These places are predatory. I can't discount them just because I'm not one of the ones that got eaten.

  • Recently I re-played Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 on an emulator and did not feel ashamed by making save points everywhere to avoid re-playing the levels, I had time for that as a kid.

    • I get the urge, but I wouldn't reccomend doing that on any of the later Wario Land games. They're puzzle platformers, so (especially in 2 and 3) the punishment for messing up is the short window of time it takes to get back to the start of the puzzle.

      • I used save states on them also, I can't remember if there were any problems with the puzzles.

    • I use save function though but differently instead of saving everytime I breath I just save once at start of Level then everytime even if I take a single hit or Fall somewhere. I load my last start save no matter progress. That's why it take me around 1 week just beat one game.

131 comments