I remember the old days, when men were men, women were women, and computer games were designed with skill and imagination and could captivate you with intellectual challenges for weeks.
They still make games like that, but they are becoming increasingly rare; because the big money is in games featuring in-game purchases. And to create such a game you don’t need to craft something with complex, balanced game-play. In fact, you need to create the opposite; something that is so unbalanced that the player is drawn in, but has no chance of making significant, speedy progress without purchasing additional items that facilitate progress in the game whilst simultaneous emptying the wallet.
This is big business, with the more successful games raking in huge amounts of cash; and they don’t come any more successful than “Candy Crush Saga” by UK developer King. Massively popular on Facebook, it also tops the downloads on every phone and tablet platform. 108 million monthly players. 12 billion gameplays per month and more than 200 million dollars annual revenue.
But wait, I don’t hear you say, this game is free, how come they are making so much money? Well, gentle reader, I will tell you how. From the very first level you are bombarded with offers to purchase assorted nonsense that will speed you on your way. You are presented with information that your Facebook friends are making better progress than you (because they are skipping meals to buy the ancillary crap), you spend hours, nay days, stuck on a level because it is so badly designed that only sheer bloody chance will see you completing it. But if you had a pink candy hammer (yours for not an insignificant amount of cash)…
Along the way you are encouraged to share your pathetic progress with your Facebook buddies so they too can be sucked into the nonsense. You tend to go along with this, because you will need your so-called friends to help you pass between each set of levels. If you don’t have enough friends playing the game; then you can of course always pay instead.
The game mechanics may be basic, but the overall design of the game is brilliantly designed to relieve you of as much cash as possible.
I first became aware of the game when she who must be obeyed started to spend ever longer periods on the toilet. I would have suspected constipation, if it were not for the regular beeping noises which I could not associate with any known stomach complaint. She was at level 25 before I found out what she was up to. Fortunately, she uses my Apple account on her iPad and knows I would not countenance any of my money being used on such rubbish, when it could instead be spent on Angry Birds.
So she became one of the hardcore players who refuse to spend any money on the game and instead spend ever-longer periods on the toilet in the hope of beating a level that is not designed to be be beaten without monetary assistance.
Of course you wouldn’t find me playing such trivia; but I thought I should just take a look, purely for research purposes. I am currently stuck on level 102 and have been for some time. If only I had some pink candy hammers….
Comments 🔗
2013-06-29| robin saysI avoid those sort of things. Not because I wouldn’t get addicted, but because I would. However, such crack games do not represent the only state of the entertainment industry.
Instead, try Torchlight II (PC only) which comes all-inclusive for $20. This includes a rich mod community and game editor for those who really want to get stuck in. Multiplayer coop too. Infinite hours of fun, if you like trawling dungeons to find loot.
2013-06-29| Spike saysOr any of the Shogun games, or Skyrim, or Portal. or Sim City. or too many games; not enough time.
And they just put Xcom on the iPad; joy.
2013-07-01| Clive saysAccepting that this isn’t going to be popular with everyone, my fix to the challenge is to not have a Facebook account. As a site it’s just too scary, too intrusive and has the ability to gather far too much information about people for me to consider it safe.
Oddly, I find time not spent in Facebook leaves me free for more time to spend gaming… Tomb Raider 2013, Skyrim, X3:Terran Conflict (with the XTC mod, of course), and even a bit of GT5 on the PS/3 when I can be bothered to get the PlaySeat (oh that sounds dodgy) out…
Currently running Skyrim on PC, which lets me use an extensive selection of community written game mods and patches (over 100 simultaneously at the last count) and even have a go at designing my own mod, which will be a player home set out the way I want it to be…
A little while ago the BBC news site carried a story of a pare t who had let one of their children use their iPad to play a game with in-game purchased content, and had been amazed that the child ran up a bill of more than £1000. Well, shame on them for leaving their kid unsupervised like that. But… £1000 in-game upgrades? For one game? Seriously, what the…? Strikes me that the personality trait the games companies are tapping into is more like a gambling compulsion and they are trying to get you addicted. And succeeding, by the look of it!
And people wonder why I don’t play multi-player games…
2013-07-02| ChristianPFC saysI wish I had a system where I could sell virtual goods for real money!