Valve ban advertising-based business models on Steam, no forced adverts like in mobile games
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I didn't see that permission when I looked for it
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Probably custom ROM only
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Yeah, I have the option on graphene
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Common valve W
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You can always tell when a game has been ported over from PC due to the fact the game takes up the whole screen.
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If you see Google launch a "free game only" store for PC, get worried.
I would be astonished if there was anything good on it though. If you are going to make a microtransaction game you probably don't want to put a lot of effort into it because people won't play it for more than about a week. This stuff's only profitable if you can shovel new games out of the door on a regular basis.
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Well apart from anything else rare cards actually are worth real money. But there's no legitimate way to sell loop boxes if you decide you want to get out of it.
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Rare cards are only worth real money because there is a secondary market for them.
As I understand it, the same is true for lootbox drops. The only difference is in how rare an item actually is, but that is also reflected in price, since the resale is entirely market driven.
You could say that Valve rigs the drop rate, but you could say the same thing for Magic. It's all manufactured shortage.
You could say that Magic items are tangible...but honestly I don't see how that's an argument in the modern digital-first era.
I'm not trying to defend lootboxes...not directly, at least. Just trying to understand the hypocrisy in the gaming community comparing these two.
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I've had a hard time finding quality games in there. Outside of Shattered Pixel Dungeon they are few and far between. I still agree with your take though, because fuuuuck mainstream mobile games.
I made a rare dip into the play store recently and tried to just get the hill climb racing game or a similar one. I played them as web games years ago and liked them and wanted to play them again. All of them are so riddled with ad garbage they are unplayable. Even the lego one was stuffed with "buy gems or your progress is nonexistent" and other garbage tactics.
Every game I get in there is a disappointment. The Netflix games started out solid but I feel like they are going to change to more standard mobile junk eventually.
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Oh there wouldn't need to be anything actually good on it.
You just need Superbowl advert money and suddenly you've got millions of users with no money.
I suspect the only reason this hasn't happened already is that those millions of users are already on mobile, being flashed with garish noisy adverts every two minutes of gameplay, and moving them to PC some of the time wouldn't really increase ad revenue...
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From my POV, there isn't a difference, other than a CCG gives you physical objects so wotc can't just up and decide that they don't want to run magic anymore and make all of that loot disappear.
But from the gambling perspective, it's exactly the same. Oh, actually one other difference, electronic gambling can fuck with the odds in real time while physical cards need to be determined when the pack is assembled. But it's still based on false scarcity.
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F-Drlid games definitely aren't always the greatest, but I have been recently having a lot of fun with Feudal Tactics.
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Valve applying a bit of regulation (the right way) and still making piles of money, weird how that works.
I've been saying for years that if we want healthy economies, compare to human health. When the factors keeping growth at a controlled rate are disrupted, you end up with cancer.
Rant is related although covering hardware manufacturing rather than software:
Commodore manufactured in the USA and Europe some of the best-selling personal computers ever under lack of regulation. When the market became dominated by IBM-compatibles and Macintoshes, Commodore exited the market and left Superfund sites all over. (Superfund is basically EPA disaster declaration allowing for taxpayer funds release for large-scale cleanup operations.) Privatize the profits and socialize the losses. (lack of regulation led to the wrong way)
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I can vouch for Luanti (formerly known as Minetest), Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection, and RetroArch.
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I’ve had a hard time finding quality games in there. Outside of Shattered Pixel Dungeon they are few and far between.
You're not wrong. F-Droid would benefit greatly from having some sort of curated "best of" list, especially for games.
That said, here are some I think are reasonably quality:
- Mindustry
- Frozen Bubble
- Burger Party
- Endless Sky
- Vector Pinball
- Surge Engine
- SuperTuxKart
- Xeonjia Ice Adventure
tried to just get the hill climb racing game or a similar one.
F-Droid has Lato, which seems to be in the same genre. It's pretty polished in terms of having a nice graphical style and music, but IMO doesn't quite make the list above because the gameplay seems a little simplistic compared to e.g. Hill Climb Racing. Still, worth a shot if you're looking for that sort of game.
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But trading cards are real physical things that you can sell loot boxes and virtual goods that will disappear if the game developers ever decide that they'll go and you also can't sell them.
The problem with the CS go gambling site was that that was an extra thing on top of the skins. The gambling was added by a third party.
No one's gambling with Pokémon cards. Any attempt to do so and the Pokémon company would come down on you like a ton of bricks they're about as ligacious as Nintendo.
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to anyone reading this comment:
I strongly recommend going to this government website and checking out the superfund sites located in your area. If you live anywhere east of the Mississippi, your chances of living near or not far from an illegal dumping site are really high.
https://www.epa.gov/superfund/search-superfund-sites-where-you-live
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I almost wish I hadn't looked; knew my area had paper mills and wood processing, they've been dredging the waterways for PCBs (chlorinated organics) for decades.
I work with electronics and have heard from multiple older gentleman that when they were young, they saw old high-voltage transformers from power poles being replaced which would be leaking off the backs of the trucks until empty or even purposely tipped into the storm drains. Why is healthcare so expensive?
No apologies for being politics-adjacent in the Gaming community, billionaires aren't keeping their hands out of anything either. Keep rewarding Valve and the good companies and shitting on the bad ones!
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Some options you could consider include [...] making your game free to play with optional upgrades sold via Microtransactions or Downloadable Content (DLC).
I am not sure this is better. I hate microtransactions usually more than ads.
Ads don't cost you money, just time, and sometimes some screen space. They are annyoing and that sucks. But leveraging dark patterns as stuff like FOMO and other psychological tricks to nudge people towards microtransactions can cost you a lot. A business model, which relies on techniques from the gambling industry – also by catching some whales – is imo way worse than ads.
Such games aren't made for all players, just for some who don't have control over their expenses (or can really afford it).I can live with DLCs as long as there aren't so many that it becomes increasingly indistinguishable to microtransactions. But in the end I don't want to buy a fucking lego set, where I have to constantly buy new stuff.
That's why I prefer single purchase games. I am also ok with paying more for them if that means the devs get the proftis to keep the development of games I like going. Buy once – have it all. Keeping games at a comparably equal price over decades is imo not meaningful anyways due to factors like inflation. But the gaming community can be really unforgiving in this regard. That's why ad-based or microtransaction-based games are taking off. A majority of gamers are uncritical enough that this works. And then they are surprised when it bites them in the ass...
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If the "win for everyone" includes shipping a game as microtransaction-based instead of ad-based, I doubt it's really a win. Microtransactions usually come with dark patterns and rely on techniques from the gambling industry.
