I play so many video games I thought that sign was a choice dialog overlaid on the photo for a second. It’s so weirdly flat in the perspective. 😅
I play so many video games I thought that sign was a choice dialog overlaid on the photo for a second. It’s so weirdly flat in the perspective. 😅
Bad policies don’t make it OK, and blaming the victims also doesn’t make it OK.
Don’t trust them. They lure you in with their cuteness, but they’re sketchy trash rabbits underneath
At my old apartment there were alley rabbits. I’d head out the back door for the day and see some rabbits going through a trash bag
Good correction, thanks! I didn’t know about that. I suppose the key there are google play points. Do you know if you could do it separately from that?
Not in google play or iOS I don’t think. Someone else may know more, though.
Store credit is not necessarily simple. There are tons of laws about that kind of thing that differ country to country and in the US state to state. For example in my state, gift certificates can’t expire, so once you give one away as the dev you have to track that on your books forever, even if no one ever uses it. In your free example it’s even worse, because the company has to write that money off as real money, because it can never expire. It’s basically the same as giving away real money from a bookkeeping perspective (at least in my state). Someone with more bookkeeping knowledge can probably give a better answer but that’s my limited understanding of that as a sole proprietor who does my own books.
I would also question if store credit is actually any less predatory than a premium currency. If the premium currency is transparent and easy to understand it’s basically the same thing, no? Hypothetically, if I’m a scummy developer, I could sell $5 in store credit, and then make all the items on the store cost $8. That’s the same result for the player as bad monetization schemes with premium currency. I know in your example you’re saying give it away, but somewhere in there the developer is going to need to make money. They can’t give credit away for in-game currency and hope to stay afloat as a business for long without some deeply predatory stuff going on like in roblox.
At the end of the day I think everything you’re saying is probably feasible in some form for a AAA dev, but not for small devs. Personally I’m also thinking about small devs without an army of compliance specialists and lawyers. I’d like indies to also be able to make money, not just the conglomerates.
For example, saying a system could be worked out to localize an in-game economy is a hand wave. Every game works differently under the hood and in how it paces things, and this would be a huge undertaking to implement and maintain (probably a nonstarter for a small team). It involves more than simple conversion.
Does someone from a weak currency country get different rewards by playing the game than someone from a strong currency? How does that work if that reward is a whole item, not a bit of currency? Do we really want capitalistic shenanigans to extend into the gameplay directly? Personally I prefer that stuff to be cordoned off in the in-game shop.
That’s my take on all that. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t work for a AAA dev, so take this stuff with a grain of salt. My experience comes from having to tackle all these issues as a tiny indie dev.
Can you give me an example of one you’ve seen?
The original poster was saying paid currency shouldn’t exist, so I think in that scenario, you could only have vouchers for a whole in-game item. So for example if an item costed $5, then yes you could give away codes to redeem that item.
There’s also an operational overhead to doing it that way compared to in-game currency though, because setting up products in google play/iOS can be kind of a pain compared to adding them to your own systems. Generally the dev wants as much to be under their control as possible because they have more flexibility that way compared to making products in the app stores.
Also worth noting that iOS will block your app if you provide ways to get products (meaning things that cost real money) through ways other than the app store. So that means the dev wouldn’t be able to ever give you something in the game itself if that thing can also be bought. They could only give coupon codes (these are manually generated) for products to use in the app store interface.
I’d be interested to hear an example of one you’ve seen because it might be a way to approach it that I’m not thinking about.
I’m with you on that. Burgers can definitely get too messy sometimes.
When I personally use it it means “OK, sounds good, I have nothing more to add but I read your message.”
There are many many examples of predatory uses of in game currencies, but here are some big reasons devs use them besides being scummy.
Transparency is good, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I didn’t know there were other care-creatures besides bears
I have no problem with short form video but I don’t know why every video player for them is terrible
Have you tried getting flavored syrups and making your own? That would let you fully control the amount.
Why do the French only eat one egg for breakfast?
Because one egg is un œuf
OK good to hear!
I actually really have enjoyed the game itself but you aren’t fucking kidding about the rest of it. It’s truly insane how much friction there is between deciding to play and getting into a lobby.
I known I’ll like the game (the franchise is one of my all time favorites), it just had a lot of technical problems on launch so that’s what I’ve been waiting to see improved. Sounds like it might still be kinda rough based on the first part of your comment.
How’s the game state these days? I’ve been waiting to play until it got fixed up.
Very sad to hear. Cyan is a massive influence on me and I’m always rooting for them. They definitely haven’t had a smooth or easy road over the years though.