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Comment by johnnycerberus | Hacker News Reader

The most addictive games are not the ones we think about. My friends are into "competitive" gaming, games like CSGO, Dota2. These developers barely bring any content to their games and it amazes me how much profit they make for less work compared to AAA studios releasing blockbusters like RDR2. If your game is not competitive, microtransaction-ready, not a sandbox with procedural, generative stuff, the chances are that the work involved in that is sisyphic. (huge respect for Naughty Dog, Rockstar Games - they found their micro-trans niche through GTA Online though -, CDProjekt, Arkane)

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It seems to me that the trend in tech/games/media is about stimulating the reward system, requiring less attention span, and monetize from it. Social media recommendation systems, mobile games, competitive games that finish in half an hour, etc.

Alternative exists, but probably won't make that much money...

> requiring less attention span

How ? Competitive gaming requires intense uninterrupted focus for 30 min to 1 h periods (which is what got me out of it).

I don't think it is really uninterrupted focus for 30min, but rather a lot of very intense focus for a few minutes or so? I think that is similar to videos in youtube/tiktok (not tiktok user, just heard from the others) that attract users watching a lot of videos, where each is <10mins.

That said, I'm not a gamer and I rarely play games now.

You really need to focus for 30+ minutes, there are 30 sec/minute downtime periods every few minutes, but especially in MOBA games where one mistake can snowball enemies lead, you need to be paying attention the entire match.

You're dead right, and it's a tangent but this is why rocket league is now the game for me. 7 minutes of gameplay at a time. I can fit that around my life.

CSGO? LoL? I play one game and 30-60 minutes of my day gone, half the time to a slow loss. I can't justify it as an adult steadily losing more and more of my free time anymore.

> Competitive gaming requires intense uninterrupted focus for 30 min to 1 h periods

This is technically true, but in most team based multiplayer games you actually get much shorter focus intervals due to breaks and pauses like dying (time to respawn or end of round, which can take up to multiple minutes) or running to the action from spawn (games like Overwatch).

Also the team aspect hides much of it so a lot of players go "on autopilot" too in these games, you have to keep in mind that the far majority of players in the super popular games plays at a lower level.

Compared to this a game like Starcraft 2 (1on1 competitive) actually requires uninterrupted focus for a full game with basically no breaks or pauses, but 1v1 competitive multiplayer games are not as popular as team based games.

That's true but still doesn't back his argument that these games cater to short attention span people. People sink hours straight into these games.

Competitive games and Competitive gaming is not the same thing though. You can play competitive games without being a Competitive Gamer.

You literally cant - you get banned for leaving the game before the match is finished.

> for less work compared to AAA studios releasing blockbusters like RDR2

That's a pretty wild statement. Dota 2 is one of the most supported games out there with giant patches coming multiple times per year. Perhaps only World of Warcraft can claim to be better supported. Games like RDR2 are build-and-forget. They get no long term support.

Additionally there is the difference between playing a game to experience some story (like RDR2) and playing a game because it is challenging and fun (Dota 2). These story based games like RDR2 can be great experiences in short bursts (up to a 100 hours tops), but are incredibly boring for someone who plays 4+ hours per day and puts thousands of hours into a specific game. It's like playing tic-tac-toe when you're a chess grandmaster. Mind numbingly boring.

Dota2 is absolutely addictive.

The chime you get from a last hit/collecting runes, The cosmetic loot boxes, e&.

I had to quit cold turkey after 1500 hours because I realized I was wasting my life.

It's sad that dota2 is far from the worst offender and I would argue one of the best f2p models, but it's addicting non the less.

This made me wonder:

Is there a parallel between the advertising industry and their ever increasing quest to mine more data and the games industry with their incessant need for DLC, microtransactions and whatnot?

It seems that middle-management/VC's in both of these industries are pushing the same processes (or could we use "dogma"?) without any empirical evidence that what they are doing is the right thing, all the while patting each other on the back because that's the way everyone else does it...

Edit: edited for clarity

Looking at Epic Games, I don't think a lot of pushing is required when you see people make enormous amounts of money like they did with Fortnite. My understanding is that they are now using all that money to finance their steam-alternative games store (with exclusives), where they can still afford to offer 1-2 games for free every single week (with a lot more around the holidays).

> Is there a parallel between the advertising industry and their ever increasing quest to mine more data and the games industry with their incessant need for DLC, microtransactions and whatnot?

There is: being "data driven", which is a short for "we need to tighten the feedback loop in our revenue optimization algorithm". The most annoying players in both industries are essentially trying to run a PID controller around the people they're monetizing. For that to work, interactions must be frequent, telemetry must be extensive.

Unfortunately we know the answer and we have data to back it up. EA earned 2x more on FUT and Apex Legends than on normal "full games": https://s22.q4cdn.com/894350492/files/doc_financials/2021/q3...

I wasn't familiar with the term sisyphic so I searched it. I got some results for sisypic, which certainly weren't what I expected but proves that the internet is for porn.

Sisyphean. Greek.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

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