| And now for a rant no one is going to care about |
[Sep. 19th, 2009|09:08 pm] |
| [ | Mood |
| |  bitchy | ] |
| [ | Music |
| | Reel Big Fish - Hungry Like The Wolf | ] |
Related to my last entry in terms of "goddamn it Facebook I hate you for wasting my time like this." This is why I specifically hate most Facebook games and will probably end up leaving them in frustration sooner or later.
Because most of them are gardening games. And while there are some aspects of gardening games that are extremely fun and addictive, there are also ones that are just inexcusably frustrating and contradictory to the object of a successful gardening game.
Okay, okay. First, let me explain my terminology here, because by "gardening game" I don't mean a game where you grow plants. Though some of them are literally about gardening. What I mean by a gardening game is one that requires you to wait a period of time between major actions to make any progress. It is a game where you invest some time and energy, but more patience than anything else. These are the games that want you to check back every day, and gives you rewards and incentives to do such. A good example of this sort of game, including its best and worst qualities, would be Animal Crossing. You've played Animal Crossing, right?
Some of them are quite successful games, and I would recommend them. But there are some pitfalls they often fall into.
First off, one is your starting 'seed packet', the materials you're given to start off in the game. Now, sometimes, they'll give you a nice and hefty amount of 'seeds', enough to get started in the game and also plenty of ways to get more if you really want to invest some time and energy into it.
But many of them, particularly the ones on Facebook? Not so much. You'll get some half-decent goodies, a bit of pocket change, and some way to scrape up a little more cash. You feel pretty good... until you check out the items for sale in the game, and realize just how far the gap is between your inventory and the good items. Forget the luxury items, I'm just talking about the good items.
Your options come down to: A. Expect to wait five years before you have anything you want, B. Invest hours upon hours every day into that one game for a month straight, C. Invite everyone you know to join, becoming a free advertising agent for the game, or D. Pay them money. Not in-game money, but real-life money. Because why spend that five bucks on a nice sandwich when you could get an imaginary car for it?
As a side note? I don't frown on games offering in-game incentives for inviting friends to join or paying them money. I'd be a hypocrite to suggest that it was a bad thing, given that I have bought stuff on Gaia in the past. They gotta spread the word and pay for the servers somehow, and it makes sense for them to be generous to those who support them. But games should also reward effort and loyalty. Otherwise, you're not offering them any good reason to play it. And if your players have to invest months of hard work to get the equivalent of five bucks? That's just plain insulting.
But everyone on the internet complains about paying real money for anything. Yeah, I know, boohoo, crai moar you broke college student. But this is not the only thing that pisses me off about gardening game. In fact, this is only a mild irritation compared to the terrible, skin-damaging rash in inappropriate places that I have gotten thanks to gardening games. No, you know what really pisses me off about them?
Weed-tending.
See, the idea behind any good gardening game is to give you a reason to check back regularly over time, thus cultivating a lasting interest in the game. Reward them for daily logins, offer them new bonuses each day, give bigger rewards for keeping up with it every day. Like a real garden, if they care for it a bit every day, they will reap a great harvest.
But then they add 'weeds'. Rather than just giving you incentives for playing it regularly, they also give you disincentives for forgetting about it. You'll not only come back to find literal weeds, but to find that your pets starving, there's garbage all over your floor and a hobo moved into your broom closet that you can't seem to get rid of. The idea here is to prey on your OCD tendencies and make you check back as often as they demand, rather than as often as works for your schedule, just to avoid your 'garden' getting overrun by these 'weeds'.
As anyone who used to play Animal Crossing but doesn't anymore can tell you, these are a double-edge sword. Just as they encourage people who are playing the game to keep with it regularly, they discourage people who forgot about the game from picking it up again, even if they remember it. Because it's a pain in the ass to tend to all the weeds that piled up! At some point, you might as well just let the weeds have it, and go start a new garden from scratch, rather than salvage your former glory garden.
Look, game developers of the world, look at what you're making. Your garden-tending game is not a literal garden. You don't have to include weeds, do you? Really, these games need to offer more incentives for playing, and less disincentives for forgetting. Because at this point, I'm just about ready to take a woodchipper to the whole damn thing and replace it with some good ol' fashioned grass.
... I'm just going to pretend that last metaphor made sense.
Now, here, on a completely unrelated note, have one of my favorite AMVs. |
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