Re: Single Player FTW

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.