1) Apparently, Nvidia is now worth more than Apple, valued at $3.01
trillion USD versus Apple's piddly $3 trillion USD.*

Of course, this is market capitalization, which is less 'real' value
than the speculative beliefs of market traders. That both Apple and
Nvidia are valued so highly on the market is sort of ridiculous, but
that's tech stocks for you. Still, it's a reminder of how big a name
Nvidia is in the industry now... and its not because of their video
cards. /That/ division is pocket change to them; they're all about
GPU-compute and AI these days.

I sort of wish Nvidia would divest its GPU-gaming division so that its
gaming video-cards wouldn't be second fiddle to all its other
activities. Then again, I'm not sure that any company could continue
to develop high-end gaming cards without the deep pockets of a larger
parent corporation. It's no coincidence that there are really only
three options for PC gamers when it comes to video cards - GeForce,
ATI, and ARC - and all three are backed by mega-corps (NVidia, AMD,
and Intel, respectively) who look at their GPU divisions as 'neat
extras' rather than their primary products. Long gone are the days
when there were dozens of options for PC aficionados to choose from;
things have changed. And not for the better, as far as I'm concerned.

2) Mobile gaming brought in $90 billion dollars in 2023, making up 49%
of revenue of the global gaming market.** And, as far as I can tell,
that's just for the sale of games and MTX, and doesn't include revenue
from advertising/data-harvesting.

"Real" gamers often focus on whether the best option is PC or
Playstation or XBox, and bemoan when their favorite game only appears
on one platform or the other. But the above is a reminder that, as far
as the financiers are concerned, the BEST platform is the one that
brings in the most cash... and that's mobile gaming. Everything else
is small potatoes in comparison. And if those other platforms want to
keep up, they'd better start following mobile gaming's example.

Which is why we keep seeing more and more MTX in our 'real' games.

It's depressing, really.

* read here:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/5/24172363/nvidia-apple-market-cap-valuation-trillion-ai
** read here:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/mobile-accounted-for-904bn-of-global-games-revenue-in-2023

On 06/06/2024 22:42, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> 2) Mobile gaming brought in $90 billion dollars in 2023, making up 49%
> of revenue of the global gaming market.** And, as far as I can tell,
> that's just for the sale of games and MTX, and doesn't include revenue
> from advertising/data-harvesting.
>
> "Real" gamers often focus on whether the best option is PC or
> Playstation or XBox, and bemoan when their favorite game only appears
> on one platform or the other. But the above is a reminder that, as far
> as the financiers are concerned, the BEST platform is the one that
> brings in the most cash... and that's mobile gaming. Everything else
> is small potatoes in comparison. And if those other platforms want to
> keep up, they'd better start following mobile gaming's example.
>
> Which is why we keep seeing more and more MTX in our 'real' games.
>
> It's depressing, really.

The depressing thing about the mobile market is just how little effort
goes into a large number of games. The formula is take an existing idea,
change it just enough so you don't get sued and then stuff it with MTX.
An example was someone who looked at the figures for a Vampire Survivors
+ MTX clone. They made a ton of cash and probably more than VS itself*.

The shame is that there's quite of few games that I feel are better
suited to the iPad than a PC but why bother putting 'actual' games on
the iPad when they are just drowned out by MTX nonsense.

*And yeh, I do know VS can't really be considered an original idea either.

JAB wrote:
> On 06/06/2024 22:42, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> 2) Mobile gaming brought in $90 billion dollars in 2023, making up 49%
>> of revenue of the global gaming market.** And, as far as I can tell,
>> that's just for the sale of games and MTX, and doesn't include revenue
>> from advertising/data-harvesting.
>>
>> "Real" gamers often focus on whether the best option is PC or
>> Playstation or XBox, and bemoan when their favorite game only appears
>> on one platform or the other. But the above is a reminder that, as far
>> as the financiers are concerned, the BEST platform is the one that
>> brings in the most cash... and that's mobile gaming. Everything else
>> is small potatoes in comparison. And if those other platforms want to
>> keep up, they'd better start following mobile gaming's example.
>>
>> Which is why we keep seeing more and more MTX in our 'real' games.
>>
>> It's depressing, really.
>
> The depressing thing about the mobile market is just how little effort
> goes into a large number of games. The formula is take an existing idea,
> change it just enough so you don't get sued and then stuff it with MTX.
> An example was someone who looked at the figures for a Vampire Survivors
> + MTX clone. They made a ton of cash and probably more than VS itself*.
>
> The shame is that there's quite of few games that I feel are better
> suited to the iPad than a PC but why bother putting 'actual' games on
> the iPad when they are just drowned out by MTX nonsense.
>
> *And yeh, I do know VS can't really be considered an original idea either.

I'm surprised the market doesn't dry up. I just don't find these games
fun. Like you said they take an idea and make it all the same by adding
MTX. It really comes down to which player is captivated enough to spend
the most money. That's not competition - that's an auction.

On Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:14:31 -0500, Mandrake <prmandrake@gmail.com>
wrote:

>JAB wrote:
>> On 06/06/2024 22:42, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>I'm surprised the market doesn't dry up. I just don't find these games
>fun. Like you said they take an idea and make it all the same by adding
>MTX. It really comes down to which player is captivated enough to spend
>the most money. That's not competition - that's an auction.

For PC games, a lot of the titles that use extraneous MTX (cosmetics,
etc.) are involved in the grey-market gambling that is a major part of
Steam's ecosystem. Having little value in themselves, they're used as
'poker chips' for the gambling websites, representing more valuable
prizes for better games.

Even when the MTX are legitimate, it doesn't take all that many gamers
to be engaged with the MTX before it becomes extremely profitable;
more profitable than selling the games themselves. There are people
who literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on MTX (Although
most 'whales' -as the big-spenders are called- only spend ~$500 to
$2000 on a game). But even the tiny fish -the sort who spend <$10 per
game- are amazingly lucrative if you can lure in enough of them. Which
is why so many of these games are given away for free.

The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
took it as far as modern publishers.

On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:14:31 -0500, Mandrake <prmandrake@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> JAB wrote:
>>> On 06/06/2024 22:42, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
>> I'm surprised the market doesn't dry up. I just don't find these games
>> fun. Like you said they take an idea and make it all the same by adding
>> MTX. It really comes down to which player is captivated enough to spend
>> the most money. That's not competition - that's an auction.
>
> For PC games, a lot of the titles that use extraneous MTX (cosmetics,
> etc.) are involved in the grey-market gambling that is a major part of
> Steam's ecosystem. Having little value in themselves, they're used as
> 'poker chips' for the gambling websites, representing more valuable
> prizes for better games.
>
> Even when the MTX are legitimate, it doesn't take all that many gamers
> to be engaged with the MTX before it becomes extremely profitable;
> more profitable than selling the games themselves. There are people
> who literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on MTX (Although
> most 'whales' -as the big-spenders are called- only spend ~$500 to
> $2000 on a game). But even the tiny fish -the sort who spend <$10 per
> game- are amazingly lucrative if you can lure in enough of them. Which
> is why so many of these games are given away for free.
>
> The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
> this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
> longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
> who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
> codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
> free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
> money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
> at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
> took it as far as modern publishers.
>
They also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
make MTX feasible at current tech.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>> The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
>> this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
>> longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
>> who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
>> codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
>> free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
>> money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
>> at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
>> took it as far as modern publishers.
>>
>They also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
>make MTX feasible at current tech.

Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
more, they certainly would have.

(but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
"Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
thirteen seconds later. ;-)

Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors,
including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.

Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
seemed to be competing on the quality of their product. That isn't to
say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
hell out of them".

Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)

On 6/14/2024 8:00 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
> <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
>>> The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
>>> this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
>>> longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
>>> who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
>>> codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
>>> free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
>>> money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
>>> at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
>>> took it as far as modern publishers.
>>>
>> They also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
>> make MTX feasible at current tech.
>
> Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
> more, they certainly would have.
>
> (but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
> "Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
> thirteen seconds later. ;-)
>
> Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
> happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors,
> including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
> they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.
>
> Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
> seemed to be competing on the quality of their product. That isn't to
> say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
> success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
> games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
> shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
> hell out of them".
>
> Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
> give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)
>
Yup. 14, sometimes even 15 seconds of gameplay.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On 14/06/2024 16:00, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
> <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
>>> The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
>>> this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
>>> longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
>>> who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
>>> codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
>>> free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
>>> money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
>>> at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
>>> took it as far as modern publishers.
>>>
>> They also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
>> make MTX feasible at current tech.
>
> Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
> more, they certainly would have.
>

It was a sound business model and I didn't think it was that expensive
(10p a go) as long as you were half decent at the game and even less so
if you played with friends and spent more time watching someone else
play than playing yourself.

> (but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
> "Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
> thirteen seconds later. ;-)
>

Oh I remember Dragon's lair and for us I think it was 50p a game. I
never played it more than a few times before I realised that you weren't
playing a game as such but instead can you remember what to do to avoid
dying like you did last time.

> Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
> happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors,
> including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
> they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.
>
> Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
> seemed to be competing on the quality of their product. That isn't to
> say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
> success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
> games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
> shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
> hell out of them".
>

There's still lots of games out there that are based around the idea of
you pay us money and we'll give you a game you like. Unfortunately the
big money seems to be made with here's a game that's just about adequate
and now we'll chuck the sink of phycological warfare at you to keep you
paying and playing.

The bit I don't understand is overall they don't even seem to be
particularly good games but people buy them in their droves anyway.

> Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
> give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)
>

I do play quite a few MTX mobile games just to pass the time but I've
never spent money on them. Basically it's play until the soft paywall
kicks in and then delete and find another one.

On 15/06/2024 02:27, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>> Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
>> give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. 😉
>>
> Yup.  14, sometimes even 15 seconds of gameplay.

The worst mobile game I remember was Dungeon Keeper. Within about twenty
minutes it became practically unplayable without spending money. It was
so bad that the British advertising authority told them they couldn't
describe it as free-to-play.

It should come as no surprise that it was released by EA.

On 6/14/2024 11:54 PM, JAB wrote:
> On 14/06/2024 16:00, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:10:17 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
>> <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/13/2024 10:22 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>>
>>>> The truly sad thing is how so many gamers have become acclimatized to
>>>> this sort of thing. There's an entire generation of gamers who no
>>>> longer expect to receive full and complete games for their purchase;
>>>> who are shocked when they learned we used to get things like cheat
>>>> codes or fun extras like 'big head modes' and extra characters for
>>>> free, included in the base game. Which isn't to say publishers weren't
>>>> money-grubbers back in the 80s and 90s either (you just have to look
>>>> at arcade game design to disprove that theory!) but even they never
>>>> took it as far as modern publishers.
>>>>
>>> They also didn't have an internet ecosystem with things like PayPal to
>>> make MTX feasible at current tech.
>>
>> Yeah. If Arcade manufacturers of the 80s could have socked players for
>> more, they certainly would have.
>>
>
> It was a sound business model and I didn't think it was that expensive
> (10p a go) as long as you were half decent at the game and even less so
> if you played with friends and spent more time watching someone else
> play than playing yourself.
>
>> (but maybe I'm still just sore at the $1USD in quarters I shoved into
>> "Dragon Lair" back when that game was the new hotness only to die
>> thirteen seconds later. ;-)
>>
>
> Oh I remember Dragon's lair and for us I think it was 50p a game. I
> never played it more than a few times before I realised that you weren't
> playing a game as such but instead can you remember what to do to avoid
> dying like you did last time.
>
>> Not that Paypal itself is required these days. All the modern MTX
>> happily accept payments from (slightly) less skeevy payment vendors,
>> including credit cards and banks. I'm pretty sure that if Steam could,
>> they'd put a box in everybody's house to take cash if they could.
>>
>> Still, there was an era -mid 90s to early 2000s- when publishers
>> seemed to be competing on the quality of their product.  That isn't to
>> say there weren't some bad games back then but the way to financial
>> success was to invest in your development teams and let them crank out
>> games people wanted to play. Now it seems to be "crank out any old
>> shit, you'll find some suckers who'll play it and then monetize the
>> hell out of them".
>>
>
> There's still lots of games out there that are based around the idea of
> you pay us money and we'll give you a game you like. Unfortunately the
> big money seems to be made with here's a game that's just about adequate
> and now we'll chuck the sink of phycological warfare at you to keep you
> paying and playing.
>
> The bit I don't understand is overall they don't even seem to be
> particularly good games but people buy them in their droves anyway.
>
Good games require players to think. Most people don't want to think.

>> Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
>> give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ;-)
>>
>
> I do play quite a few MTX mobile games just to pass the time but I've
> never spent money on them. Basically it's play until the soft paywall
> kicks in and then delete and find another one.
>
Or uninstall then re-install to re-start from the beginning. :P

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Sat, 15 Jun 2024 08:04:57 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>On 15/06/2024 02:27, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>> Still... gotta give mobile games at least THIS much credit; they do
>>> give you more bang for your buck than 13 seconds of gameplay. ?
>>>
>> Yup.  14, sometimes even 15 seconds of gameplay.
>
>The worst mobile game I remember was Dungeon Keeper. Within about twenty
>minutes it became practically unplayable without spending money. It was
>so bad that the British advertising authority told them they couldn't
>describe it as free-to-play.
>
>It should come as no surprise that it was released by EA.

Yeah, EA is particularly bad when it comes to mobile games and their
older IPs. They did it with Ultima too.

What's worse is that it's so unnecessary. Mobile games don't cost much
to develop, and there's a ready market for good mobile games using
those older franchises. A new official "Wing Commander" or "Command &
Conquer" on mobile? It's been decades since the last one came out;
there's pent up demand. Just don't make it suck, and EA would more
than make their money back. Sure, it wouldn't sell gangbusters but
you'd make profit.

But mere profit isn't enough... not when you can exploit the franchise
to make so much more. Sure, it will sour gamers on the brand (and your
company) but short-term gains are all that count, right? So tell those
devs to shove in as much MTX as they can!

And then watch as your market starts to shrivel up in front of you,
and you wonder what you'll do once those whales that are keeping you
alive find something new to throw their money at.

On 15/06/2024 18:24, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> And then watch as your market starts to shrivel up in front of you,
> and you wonder what you'll do once those whales that are keeping you
> alive find something new to throw their money at.

The thing I objected to with WoT was as MTX was pushed harder and harder
it changed from money being mainly a time saver to money being an
in-battle advantage. Oh that tech tree tank you've worked on for many,
many hours to make it as competitive as possible, well we've just
released a paid for tank that outclasses it. Sucks to be you!

I'm just not interested in a game where it fills liked I'm forced to
spend money, and keep spending it, not to be at a practically disadvantage.

As for whales, boy there are some in that game. You'd have players who'd
only been in the game for four or so months and had already managed to
spend several hundred pounds. You'd think they'd take a step back and
say, is this really a good idea.