A Quick Rant: The Wait for upgrades game design and how it sucks balls

[Flatflyer]

Alright so I'm just gonna start off with saying that this is my Opinion entirely on this subject.
I'm sure theres going to be someone who disagrees with me so Just want to let you know that
Anyways,
I'm sure you all know of the type of game where you earn money/resources from playing, upgrade/make something and have to wait from around 3 hours to a week for it to complete.

This trend has been popping up recently as of Iphone games coming out (or at least that's when I started to notice them).
and many companies and games have been using this.
but why?

well its a simple Idea that a Impatient player will instead of waiting for the timer to end, they will buy a Ingame Currency using real money to finish it instantly. thus creating profits towards the company.
seems simple and effective doesn't it?

Simple, yes. Effective, Not really.
Because you see, as you get people who pay for this and immediately advance through the game, you drive off other players that don't want to spend large amounts of money on things like this.
There is a much larger amount of people who don't spend money to rush these timers than those who do. and games that have this mechanic tend to make those players leave.

I honestly dislike this because in games that do this, during the time when the item is being made, I never actually PLAY until its done.
there just isn't any reason to until you get your shiny new item most of the time.

There are a few examples of this I can name off the top of my head:
Clash of clans: This game uses this mechanic all over the place, although it has a slight excuse because its an Iphone game which isn't meant to be played constantly

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot: This game use to use this mechanic for the castle defense system, but the devs finally realized that it wasn't effective and took it out.

Warframe: This is one of the Bigger offenders of this. This game has a crafting system which requires a ton of resources which will most likely take a few days to obtain, and then you'll have to wait 1-3 days for a new weapon/Warframe. then Include this with the fact some more basic things like keys for specific areas take about an Hour to make and a rare Item that is needed for every room in a Guild hall takes around a day to be made.
Really This mechanic should just be removed entirely from anything that isn't an Iphone game.

it isn't fun, it's boring and makes people not want to play

[Ad Bot]

[Camel]

it's an artificial way to elongate a gaming experience, and as long as free-to-play continues it's not goin away.

[Choi]

it isn't fun, it's boring and makes people not want to play

it isn't fun and boring is redundant

[Camel]

it isn't fun and boring is redundant

something could be not fun but enraging or just depressing

not fun =/= boring

[Jubel]

the game mechanic should be removed from any game altogether
it's pretty much a tax on stupid iphone soccer moms

any game with this mechanic is not worth the time it wants you to wait for

[Bushido]

yes flatflyer everyone hates f2p

the only people who like f2p are the people in charge of f2p games

[Flatflyer]

and then about an Hour later after making this topic I found this video
what a coincidence.

[CharlesSpeaking]

wait for upgrades game design?

you should just call it the "facebook game design"

[otto-san]

This is to better adapt to a platform where players typically do not want to play for long periods of time. Instead, they can progress through the game passively and do a somewhat brief routine every time the timer or w/e resets to advance, rather than actively working at progression. Monetization of this could potentially be done abusively, but it also acts as a) disincentive to play the game 'too quickly', b) incentive to pay the company, c) damage to the game experience because you're making it too easy.

This kind of game existing on PC (on a non-social media-type context) would be unacceptable because PC games are made to be played for long periods of time rather than maybe an hour at the very most when you have nothing else to do.

[Treynolds416]

This is to better adapt to a platform where players typically do not want to play for long periods of time. Instead, they can progress through the game passively and do a somewhat brief routine every time the timer or w/e resets to advance, rather than actively working at progression. Monetization of this could potentially be done abusively, but it also acts as a) disincentive to play the game 'too quickly', b) incentive to pay the company, c) damage to the game experience because you're making it too easy.

This kind of game existing on PC (on a non-social media-type context) would be unacceptable because PC games are made to be played for long periods of time rather than maybe an hour at the very most when you have nothing else to do.

Right. It's a specific model for something like a mobile game
I don't think it's going to go away any time soon, because guess what: it works. People are dumb. Companies are rich.

[Flatflyer]

This kind of game existing on PC (on a non-social media-type context) would be unacceptable because PC games are made to be played for long periods of time rather than maybe an hour at the very most when you have nothing else to do.

Yeah, Warframe which is a PC game is trying to pull this same thing but it just doesn't really wok out well.
I agree it should just stay to Iphone games.
that's where it belongs.

[Bushido]

i would go so far to say it doesn't belong anywhere

the issue is that people on iphones and mobile gamers in general dont seem to care that its such a terrible trend because these people just see like 'oh, that's a one dollar purchase! that's way better then spending 20 dollars on a game that i might not even play!' and then burn 200 dollars on the little bullstuff flash game anyway

[xxxxkill]

Yeah, Warframe which is a PC game is trying to pull this same thing but it just doesn't really wok out well.
I agree it should just stay to Iphone games.
that's where it belongs.

Warframe attempts to pull that stuff because DE knows they can get away with it. Warframe is easily the exact opposite of what you do with monetization (despite the fact that people will spend about $150 on a loving scarf) and things like that.
But I digress.
While waiting for upgrades doesn't really belong anywhere, it isn't as bad if you are doing something else. Say, for example, I toss something to do whatever in a game then go to do something else and when I get back, it's done and I can go do something else. If it's just like an hour I won't mind, I can kill an hour. But once it gets to absurd levels, like upwards of twelve hours, that's when it's time to loving stop.

[Tonkka²]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/8773-Free-To-Wait

[tikitai]

Warframe attempts to pull that stuff because DE knows they can get away with it. Warframe is easily the exact opposite of what you do with monetization (despite the fact that people will spend about $150 on a loving scarf) and things like that.
But I digress.
While waiting for upgrades doesn't really belong anywhere, it isn't as bad if you are doing something else. Say, for example, I toss something to do whatever in a game then go to do something else and when I get back, it's done and I can go do something else. If it's just like an hour I won't mind, I can kill an hour. But once it gets to absurd levels, like upwards of twelve hours, that's when it's time to loving stop.

dont you just love those 3 days for a new character