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Clash Of Clans Makes $654,000 in a day

I would have never imagined something like this would happen, really. Then suddenly I see 50+ years old relatives who would never touch any videogame in any form spending money on Candy Crush Saga. It's so weird.
 
The game uses every psychological trick in the book to pull that money in. I wish the app stores would list them as 'Unlimited Pay' games. It'd be a lot more honest.
 
Yep. This is the new growth area of gaming. While "traditional" gaming houses continue to consolidate, newer juggernauts like Supercell and Gung Ho continue to rise up.

Let's wait before we make generalizations like that. When Zynga, Supercell, Rovio, King.com et al. have existed for 10 years and generate similar profits to where they are now/couple months ago, we can call them juggernauts.
 
Maybe he can find solace in the fact that his company still makes games and not socially engineered scams.

I don't particularly know much about Clash of Clans, but I will say this: this is always the defense of the old guard against the new.

That new music is nothing but noise!
Movies today have no class!
In my day, men were men!

Movies with sound were decried as a vulgarization by many established silent movie stars, and so forth. This doesn't prove that the same thing is happening here, mind you. But it's certainly something to guard against, mentally. "Old man yells at cloud" syndrome is a real thing, and we shouldn't think ourselves above it.
 
I can't thank you enough for introducing me to yet another 'why am I playing this? Can't stop playing this' game.
Unfortunately the EXP climb vs total energy pool starts to get steep and you have to put the game down for a while to let stuff recharge, in addition to needing to grind out certain combinations to evolve your characters depending on what your capture rates are like, or simply grinding for cash to fuse.

Still, the actual uptime when things are charged up and you are near the end of an exp bar is pretty good compared to a lot of mobile games where you are mostly just free to wait it out as long as it takes.
 
I don't particularly know much about Clash of Clans, but I will say this: this is always the defense of the old guard against the new.

That new music is nothing but noise!
Movies today have no class!
In my day, men were men!

Movies with sound were decried as a vulgarization by many established silent movie stars, and so forth. This doesn't prove that the same thing is happening here, mind you. But it's certainly something to guard against, mentally. "Old man yells at cloud" syndrome is a real thing, and we shouldn't think ourselves above it.
I think this is a false equivalency. "That new music is nothing but noise" complaint applies to dubstep, for example. I've never heard anyone call dubstep a scam. I don't think arcade gamers called home console games a scam either. People may be disappointed in aspects of the new experience, but that's quite different from games that actively prey on consumers.
 
I think this is a false equivalency. "That new music is nothing but noise" complaint applies to dubstep, for example. I've never heard anyone call dubstep a scam. I don't think arcade gamers called home console games a scam either. People may be disappointed in aspects of the new experience, but that's quite different from games that actively prey on consumers.

That's possible, but it's also why I gave multiple examples: people come up with all sorts of negative depictions of new mediums when they're predisposed to dislike them. "Nothing but noise" was one example; classless another; a sense of what a "man" is yet another. Think of how there have been attempts to make new forms of music or games illegal because they're viewed as vulgar or obscene.

This doesn't mean that iOS games will follow the same path, necessarily. I agree with that, as stated. But it's certainly something to be cautious of -- to be wary of falling victim to the same behaviors our parents did, and our grandparents did, and our great grandparents did when they considered Jazz vulgar and obscene. I don't think it's shocking to say that most "core" gamers on GAF are predisposed to dislike casual and social games.
 
Damnit, what have you 2 done!

My phone got wiped, lost my P & D code and had gotten on with my life

downloading.....

Be careful of the addiction. I've been playing Brave Frontier for quite some time. It consumes the soul.
 
Be careful of the addiction. I've been playing Brave Frontier for quite some time. It consumes the soul.

I'm hoping it crashes my shitty S2...problem solved :P

So far seems to be downloading an update properly

I tried to play Clash of Clans, I just couldn't get into it for some reason.
 
i cant believe this. there are tons of games who have the same formula, but only certain specific games are making the big cash.

how does that come?

isnt there no one out there who is researching this kind of phenomena?

there are so many other really good games out there but these are rarely considered as good or well known...

maybe its only these games which offer a lot of stupid IAP/DLC?
 
If I made that much in a day I wouldn't have to work another day in my life based on how little I spend. Although, I'd probably just immediately blow it on a Ferrari.
 
That is astonishing. On average how much does it cost to develop these mobile games? I mean the smaller simpler titles. Flappy Bird for example. $50k a day and I am sure R&D and dev costs were covered immediately. Yeezus that is pure profit! o_O
 
Forms of gambling exist, in a quasi slot machine style mechanics. Any title that involves a fixed or bought resource that produces random result could be construded as gambling. Brave Frontier has it, Castle Clash has it, etc.

Clash of Clans is more straightforward in this regard.
I guess to rephrase it, are there apps/games in which you can cash-in, play games that involve chance (such as black jack), and then cash-out?
 
...that's a reskinned Puzzle & Dragons!

downloading.

Puzzle dragons...
7d367_ORIG-115d9_ORIG_dog_flashback.gif
 
That is literally insane. No surprise at all why all the pubs are putting microtransactions in their games. I'd be curious to see what kind of revenue they're making on microtransactions for their $60 games
 
I don't particularly know much about Clash of Clans, but I will say this: this is always the defense of the old guard against the new.

That new music is nothing but noise!
Movies today have no class!
In my day, men were men!

Movies with sound were decried as a vulgarization by many established silent movie stars, and so forth. This doesn't prove that the same thing is happening here, mind you. But it's certainly something to guard against, mentally. "Old man yells at cloud" syndrome is a real thing, and we shouldn't think ourselves above it.

I think that as soon as a game is made with the intent to extract money from you through sheer randomness, is that it becomes a video scam and not a video game. I haven't played CoC but I've heard the model is similar to Puzzle & Dragons (and I've played enough of endgame PAD).

Bad leader? Pay up.
Bad subs? Pay up. (or waste stamina on RNG drops in RNG dungeons which leads to no stamina which lead to paying up)
Bad starting orbs? Pay up.
Bad skydrops? Pay up.
Wasted stamina and got no drops so you have to wait to actually play the game? Pay up.
Monster dropped but you didn't get a skill up because everything is random (and the odds are heavily against you) so now you have no stamina again? Pay up.
Boss oneshot you because you had bad luck and/or couldn't kill him in time (and the meta is heavily spiraling into that direction)? Pay up.
The free stones aren't endless, especially when you cleared all the normal dungeons.
Not to mention the whole psychological aspect behind the stamina system, the d̶a̶i̶l̶y̶ hourly timetable events and being invested in the game by already having spent some money on it.

And PAD is a rather mild in that regard, probably because the game is single player only. Other games are much much worse at this. I've heard of entire in-game mafias in Rage of Bahamut where you had to pay hundreds of dollars a week just to keep up with everybody else.
 
That's possible, but it's also why I gave multiple examples: people come up with all sorts of negative depictions of new mediums when they're predisposed to dislike them. "Nothing but noise" was one example; classless another; a sense of what a "man" is yet another. Think of how there have been attempts to make new forms of music or games illegal because they're viewed as vulgar or obscene.

New mediums which are seen as vulgar or obscene are one thing, at least there's an equality and people can freely choose to whether or not to engage in them. With these games taking advantage of human psychology in a way that takes away choice from people it can arguably cross the line into abuse. But then I suppose that could be and has been levelled at any game of chance.
 
New mediums which are seen as vulgar or obscene are one thing, at least there's an equality and people can freely choose to whether or not to engage in them. With these games taking advantage of human psychology in a way that takes away choice from people it can arguably cross the line into abuse. But then I suppose that could be and has been levelled at any game of chance.

Or pop music or blockbusters movie or porn magazines...
 
Because the audience who pay for microtransaction in this game does not know the value of a game, and take $0.99 for an extra live or timewall remover as the norm.

I know over a dozen both game developers and console gamers who have paid hundreds of dollars in Clash of Clans.

Do they not know the value of a game?
 
It will always leave my mind in a boggle how some people spend so much on these types of games. The big 3 really need to figure out how to get those whales spending money on their games.

Sony has a mobile games section on Vita PSN......MS has WP.

They just need to tap into their mobile sections more, focus on it a lil more. Nintendo is the odd man out in this....might not hurt to tap into it Nintendo. I dont think the big 3 need to go the super micro transaction route for their home consoles. After playing Candy Crush...I see how it can get you.
 
I'm starting to think that some people don't even want to pay a fair price for a product.

I'd much rather pay full price for a full and fair product that doesn't have traps laid out at every corner to fuck with me and my game flow and coerce me into paying more and more as time goes on. Because this is essentially what all IAP games are, some are just more blatant about it like Dungeon Keeper.
 
I don't particularly know much about Clash of Clans, but I will say this: this is always the defense of the old guard against the new.

That new music is nothing but noise!
Movies today have no class!
In my day, men were men!

Movies with sound were decried as a vulgarization by many established silent movie stars, and so forth. This doesn't prove that the same thing is happening here, mind you. But it's certainly something to guard against, mentally. "Old man yells at cloud" syndrome is a real thing, and we shouldn't think ourselves above it.

The sole issue is the heavy monetization of addiction, paired with the strong potential of harm from said addiction. The fact these sort of games are also heavily targeted towards children isn't helping matters either. In other industries where potentially dangerous addictive forms of entertainment are heavily monetized, regulation tends to get involved pretty quickly. For instance as with gambling or alcohol.

I don't have any problem whatsoever with the genre itself. Trade Wars was already refining the play-build-wait-repeat competitive strategy genre 30 years ago. The fact it took so long for somebody to decide to try to add a "Or you can skip the wait part right now for just $0.99!" is likely the same reason it's taking regulation so long. It sounds dumb. Who in the world would do this, let alone get addicted to it? But people are, en masse. Keep it clean and it's all good. But relying on companies to self-regulate and keep it clean is a sadly comical suggestion.
 
New mediums which are seen as vulgar or obscene are one thing, at least there's an equality and people can freely choose to whether or not to engage in them. With these games taking advantage of human psychology in a way that takes away choice from people it can arguably cross the line into abuse. But then I suppose that could be and has been levelled at any game of chance.

And I'll point out that this is effectively what critics of violent video games would say, or critics of Jazz would have said in 1920: "but this time it's different." Again, it doesn't mean you're wrong. Maybe it is different. I'm just suggesting caution: from the outside looking in, it certainly has many features of history repeated.
 
I'd much rather pay full price for a full and fair product that doesn't have traps laid out at every corner to fuck with me and my game flow and coerce me into paying more and more as time goes on. Because this is essentially what all IAP games are, some are just more blatant about it like Dungeon Keeper.

Noting you pay for in Clash of Clans really counts as product.
Yeah, it's just so weird. I get that they have to make a revenue somehow, after all is the game for free. But that someone can pay over $100 but still only has some temporary benefit is so crazy.

Let alone that the gameplay itself is incredible basic. It's built around waiting. If you could unlock the game, and get everything instantly, there really wouldn't be much left to actually do in the game.
 
I guess to rephrase it, are there apps/games in which you can cash-in, play games that involve chance (such as black jack), and then cash-out?
Sans the implied minigame.

In the instance of both Castle clash and Brave Frontier. You can earn Gems. Gems are also purchased. You can use them to acquire heroes. The hero you get is random and quite often a duplicate or trashy (hence slot machine reference). There is no element of skill or minigame to adjust the outcome, simply RNG. Gems can be used for other purposes as well with fixed and expected results. So, you could, in essence, stuff the slot machine with money to get the gem tokens to pull the lever until you get your desired result(s). The odds are never in your favor though, since the house always wins in the end.
 
"Old man yells at cloud" syndrome is a real thing, and we shouldn't think ourselves above it.

I appreciate the usually underrepresented viewpoints that you often bring to threads, but in this case I think it's fair to say that these F2P games truly are a bad thing for everyone except those profiting off of them.

This talk from Jonathan Blow really breaks things down well in my opinion;
Jonathan Blow: Game design: the medium is the message
 
I don't think it's shocking to say that most "core" gamers on GAF are predisposed to dislike casual and social games.

*shifty eyes*

*whistles discreetly to myself*

*yells at cloud*

:P

In all seriousness though, sometimes I really do wonder if my crisis of principle is really just me being behind the times.

/shrug
 
My boss plays this game sometimes at work. He brings is iphone and sets alarms at certain times of the day to do attacks and stuff. We share an office thats how i know this but he tries to keep it a secret from others.

I asked him how much he has spent so far and he told me only 5 EUR, to buy an extra worker i think.

He also plays Candy Crush and beat the game and claimed he only spent 20 EUR, not sure I believe him though lol. I have never played either game but I am fascinated by these games that hook people with microtransactions.
 
My boss plays this game sometimes at work. He brings is iphone and sets alarms at certain times of the day to do attacks and stuff. We share an office thats how i know this but he tries to keep it a secret from others.

I asked him how much he has spent so far and he told me only 5 EUR, to buy an extra worker i think.

He also plays Candy Crush and beat the game and claimed he only spent 20 EUR, not sure I believe him though lol. I have never played either game but I am fascinated by these games that hook people with microtransactions.

This is another part of the problem. The scheduling permeates into your normal life worse than any MMO does because something happens every day and oftentimes every hour. You're constantly 'forced' to check for something and do something. It's really troubling how something that's often touted as a "casual" game can be so dangerous for your free- or not-so-free time.
 
And I'll point out that this is effectively what critics of violent video games would say

No it's not. If you buy a violent videogame it's not really going to make much of a direct impact on a person. Maybe it has unintended consequences of desensitising you to violence but fundamentally you play it, you stop playing it and get on with your life, end of story. The psychology of what happens to the user is unclear and unproven. The users themselves say they are happy and it's others that are complaining.

With games taking advantage of addictive tendencies a person can start playing the game and then suddenly become hooked and have their decision making process impaired such that they end up bankrupt or killing themselves or just having a detrimental effect on their day to day life. This can happen to well adjusted people who got caught up in this. This is psychologically proven. In this case, it's not the old guard that's complaining, in this case the new guard are the ones complaining:
 
No it's not. If you buy a violent videogame it's not really going to make much of a direct impact on a person. Maybe it has unintended consequences of desensitising you to violence but fundamentally you play it, you stop playing it and get on with your life, end of story. The psychology of what happens to the user is unclear and unproven. The users themselves say they are happy and it's others that are complaining.

With games taking advantage of addictive tendencies a person can start playing the game and then suddenly become hooked and have their decision making process impaired such that they end up bankrupt or killing themselves or just having a detrimental effect on their day to day life. This can happen to well adjusted people who got caught up in this. This is psychologically proven. In this case, it's not the old guard that's complaining, in this case the new guard are the ones complaining:

This is not "psychologically proven." You will lose this battle if you want to get in to a neuroscience study war. Further, the new guard aren't the primary ones complaining; they're mostly playing iOS games. Are there some complaints by iOS gamers? I'm sure there are some. Just as some console gamers complain about EA's business practices or Microsoft's business practices, but we keep buying Xboxes and Madden and Battlefield.

I certainly think it's plausible that mobile games are somehow worse. I also think, as stated, that people on GAF are predisposed to think the worst of mobile games immediately.
 
I think this is going off topic, so I will simply summarize my position one more time and then ask that we return to the economics:

I am not saying that mobile games are necessarily a good thing. Maybe they aren't, I don't know, I haven't played many myself. Instead, what I'm saying is that a "hardcore" gaming forum is naturally predisposed to dislike casual and social gaming, and as such are likely to rapidly accept any criticisms of the medium. By contrast, because we are more affectionate towards traditional gaming platforms, we're likely to defend consoles and PC much more aggressively and to actively seek out ways to shoot criticisms of those platforms down.

This is not intended to be particularly critical of traditional gamers, it's supposed to be a general observation of the human condition, including me. In short: be wary of confirmation bias, because it affects us all.
 
Psychological principles behind addiction and gambling are "psychologically proven". Psychological principles behind watching violent media and it making you commit violence were(still are?) unproven.

Gamer might complain about business practices,but they don't complain about the games themselves, they don't complain about violence in the games they buy. If they didn't like it they wouldn't buy it, or if they did they'd class it as their mistake, get rid of the game and not buy it in future. The complaining is done by others.

In the case of some of these addictive games it's the users themselves that complain about the detrimental effect on their daily lives.
 
This is not intended to be particularly critical of traditional gamers, it's supposed to be a general observation of the human condition, including me. In short: be wary of confirmation bias, because it affects us all.

Is it really confirmation of bias if much of the same criticisms levied at DLC and microtransactions within the PC space and console space are also levied phone and tablet games or is it simply calling out the poor use of the mechanism to acquire more money? The same criticisms for touch screen use witihin the handheld space or touchpads on laptops transfering over to tablets and phones. The same kinds of bemoaning regarding content quantity and style regardless of platform.

Old arguments are old sure, but if folks can't be at least consistent in their remarks and risk being labeled a luddite/old guard/anti-casual, then why does a forum exist? Is it the failing of the audience or the medium if many of those elements which garner scorn all happen to occur within a particular medium?
 
Create another account.
Unfortunately, not an option if you've linked it to Facebook, since there's no way to un link it, even with a jailbroken phone. Wish I hadn't now. Only option is to completely factory restore your phone I think, which isn't worth it. Unless there's another way to do it on iOS?

So yeah, here's a warning, if you're going to consider playing Brave Frontier, play as a guest repeatedly until you get a decent first roll, then play on your Facebook account to ensure that its all saved.
 
I think this is going off topic, so I will simply summarize my position one more time and then ask that we return to the economics:

I am not saying that mobile games are necessarily a good thing. Maybe they aren't, I don't know, I haven't played many myself. Instead, what I'm saying is that a "hardcore" gaming forum is naturally predisposed to dislike casual and social gaming, and as such are likely to rapidly accept any criticisms of the medium. By contrast, because we are more affectionate towards traditional gaming platforms, we're likely to defend consoles and PC much more aggressively and to actively seek out ways to shoot criticisms of those platforms down.

This is not intended to be particularly critical of traditional gamers, it's supposed to be a general observation of the human condition, including me. In short: be wary of confirmation bias, because it affects us all.

Well yeah. You would think Clash of Clans was eating babies judging from this thread.
 
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