As an avid gamer and Pillar reader (in a good way!) I greatly appreciate the interview with Mr. Floyd. He did a great job detailing the design philosophy behind free-to-play games and how they differ from other games. Less thorough publications would look at Fr. Kozak, say "video games bad" and move on, but the interview makes clear that…
As an avid gamer and Pillar reader (in a good way!) I greatly appreciate the interview with Mr. Floyd. He did a great job detailing the design philosophy behind free-to-play games and how they differ from other games. Less thorough publications would look at Fr. Kozak, say "video games bad" and move on, but the interview makes clear that things are much more nuanced. For what it's worth, a lot of gamers have moral objections to this sort of game design, regardless of religion. (We're also convinced that there's just better games to play.)
On the other hand, you needn't necessarily worry if your spouse or mom or whoever plays Candy Crush from time to time. As Mr. Floyd explained, the vast majority of players never pay anything, and even fewer become the whales that support these games.
Agreed - I also play my fair share of video games, though I read more about the industry than I play these days with two little kids, and this is a very good article about this for people who otherwise know little about the game industry and F2P games in particular. People who play games as one of their primary hobbies are often strongly antagonistic to these kinds of models, but younger and more casual gamers, as well as the "whales" that this article talks about make these kinds of models wildly successful for some companies, so this practice is never going away. I will note however that for every Candy Crush there are a dozen other F2P games put out by various companies that fail badly, so not every game like this is a cash cow, and some fail so badly that entire studios are closed because of it.
I also don't foresee any kind of regulation clamping down on these kinds of practices, at least in the U.S. There have been talks about regulating some aspects of microtransactions in the EU, particularly loot boxes (which are more like gambling than the types of purchases discussed in this article), but I haven't heard of those efforts going anywhere, for now at least.
I think this gets at an interesting issue—you or I might dislike free-to-play games because they feel exploitative or disrespectful of our time, especially when there's more mechanically or narratively interesting games out there that don't artificially gate you from playing to needle you into purchasing credits to continue. On the other hand, my grandmother doesn't feel any exploitation, as she just plays it for a little bit then moves on with her day. It's a weird case where, on the face of it, the practice is exploitative, but most people who play those games don't feel the exploitation.
Yep - totally agree. We're just not the intended audience for these kinds of games, or at least the primary audience. I personally would rather spend my money on a game with an engaging story, fleshed out characters, etc. Though I do play a wide variety of games even without these aspects, but I avoid F2P games altogether. It also helps that there are more options than ever these days to get high-quality, full games at relatively cheap prices if you're not picky about playing new releases and are willing to wait for sales and deep discounts that pop up all the time. For someone like me that's more than enough to keep me occupied during my limited free time these days.
As an avid gamer and Pillar reader (in a good way!) I greatly appreciate the interview with Mr. Floyd. He did a great job detailing the design philosophy behind free-to-play games and how they differ from other games. Less thorough publications would look at Fr. Kozak, say "video games bad" and move on, but the interview makes clear that things are much more nuanced. For what it's worth, a lot of gamers have moral objections to this sort of game design, regardless of religion. (We're also convinced that there's just better games to play.)
On the other hand, you needn't necessarily worry if your spouse or mom or whoever plays Candy Crush from time to time. As Mr. Floyd explained, the vast majority of players never pay anything, and even fewer become the whales that support these games.
Agreed - I also play my fair share of video games, though I read more about the industry than I play these days with two little kids, and this is a very good article about this for people who otherwise know little about the game industry and F2P games in particular. People who play games as one of their primary hobbies are often strongly antagonistic to these kinds of models, but younger and more casual gamers, as well as the "whales" that this article talks about make these kinds of models wildly successful for some companies, so this practice is never going away. I will note however that for every Candy Crush there are a dozen other F2P games put out by various companies that fail badly, so not every game like this is a cash cow, and some fail so badly that entire studios are closed because of it.
I also don't foresee any kind of regulation clamping down on these kinds of practices, at least in the U.S. There have been talks about regulating some aspects of microtransactions in the EU, particularly loot boxes (which are more like gambling than the types of purchases discussed in this article), but I haven't heard of those efforts going anywhere, for now at least.
I think this gets at an interesting issue—you or I might dislike free-to-play games because they feel exploitative or disrespectful of our time, especially when there's more mechanically or narratively interesting games out there that don't artificially gate you from playing to needle you into purchasing credits to continue. On the other hand, my grandmother doesn't feel any exploitation, as she just plays it for a little bit then moves on with her day. It's a weird case where, on the face of it, the practice is exploitative, but most people who play those games don't feel the exploitation.
Yep - totally agree. We're just not the intended audience for these kinds of games, or at least the primary audience. I personally would rather spend my money on a game with an engaging story, fleshed out characters, etc. Though I do play a wide variety of games even without these aspects, but I avoid F2P games altogether. It also helps that there are more options than ever these days to get high-quality, full games at relatively cheap prices if you're not picky about playing new releases and are willing to wait for sales and deep discounts that pop up all the time. For someone like me that's more than enough to keep me occupied during my limited free time these days.