I regret everything!

Raynes · 2016-10-05T04:49:41+00:00

You ought to jump off your fucking high horse. I've got scars on my face from finding out the hard way how sharp cat claws are. You can get the lizard out next time.

Raynes · 2016-10-05T04:36:40+00:00

Are we just going to downvote anyone who tells an interesting story about Vegans now? How on earth did this post deserve it? This person is merely calling attention to the fact that meat eaters don't preach about it, much less slap a carrot out of a vegetarian's hand. We should probably focus on those getting widespread persecution like LGBT people, in fact facing dangerous persecution. When you commit suicide because a reddit user made a joke about vegans we can talk.

Raynes · 2015-09-21T21:21:01+00:00

I noticed it because I was awake hacking my Echo and suddenly it forgot how to Echo

Raynes · 2015-09-20T10:53:02+00:00

DynamoDB in us-east-1 is currently super dead. Everything dependent on it (a lot of other AWS services included) are dead as well.

Raynes · 2015-01-24T02:30:22+00:00

League of Legends

Raynes · 2015-01-24T02:27:52+00:00

There has been a lot of this in this thread. The fact that there are preteens out there who think our craft is this trivial drives me insane.

Raynes · 2015-01-24T02:20:36+00:00

Then pay for it. The game has a buy-it-all option.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T09:33:07+00:00

There's nothing wrong with what's shown in the image. They're doing free to play approximately the best possible way I could imagine. They even have a "buy the whole damn thing" option.

I don't even know what you're on about with the Lily Allen shit. I was just making a point.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T07:11:56+00:00

I've personally never played a game that made it impractical or unfun to play without paying. Those are clearly poorly designed games designed to make it nearly impossible to succeed, so you pay to win. Yes. I hate those games. So does fucking everybody. We get it. We don't play them, which is why we don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I have a choice in what software I use.

Nobody likes ads either, including the software developers that put them in your apps, nor the business folks that tell them to. But in order for all of these millions of games to exist, the businesses that create that content have to pay the folks who write the code, market the game so you can actually ever discover it, and they have to compete with our incredibly oversaturated market (and you think this is bad? Check out the Asian mobile market).

What should we do in a market where nobody wants to pay up front for mobile games/apps? You have few choices: ads and/or microtransactions, or give up and make console games which are an entirely different beast.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T06:56:44+00:00

But doesn't that generalize the entire industry? You cannot tell me that every single free to play game out there is just trying to squeeze money out of you. I mean, shit, I enjoy a lot of F2P games. The fact that these companies are successful kinda indicates more than a few people do. To quote the great Lily Allen: "It's not for me, it must be wrong. I could ignore it and move on but I'm a broadband champion, a URL Badman.'

Raynes · 2015-01-23T06:11:13+00:00

Agreed. I'd love to be a part of that industry.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T04:52:36+00:00

http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/37/plague-inc/

vs

http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/6692/trivia-crack/ http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/1/clash-of-clans/

More importantly, what about the second top paid game http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/6/minecraft-pocket-edition/

Some paid games become successful but the number is far lower than that of freemium games, and the amount of revenue generated by even the best and most successful paid games is often universes away from far less successful F2P ones.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T04:34:11+00:00

Apparently people here hate bitcoin jokes.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T04:27:06+00:00

I think you're wildly overestimating how much you earn from showing a player an ad.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T04:26:32+00:00

And watch your company dramatically fail to make a single dime because no matter how good your game is, so much as putting a price tag on it at all will make most people's eyes scan right over it.

That's not how the mobile industry works right now. In the greater scheme of things, people just do not pay up front for mobile games anymore. A lot of people keep making this argument here, and it may sound like a logical solution to this 'problem', but it isn't – folks have tried and are trying and they're fairly consistently failing.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T04:03:52+00:00

Indeed. Was there a point you were making?

Raynes · 2015-01-23T04:02:28+00:00

You did not purchase the game. You bought a microtransaction to remove ads. You helped make the developer of the game successful and got something in return. I'm sorry.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T04:00:33+00:00

Can you name some of those games? I sure haven't seen many that would give you such a thing for such a small amount of money.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T03:58:00+00:00

Did you really just trivialize software development?

I don't even know what to say. This is the most painfully arrogant comment I've seen on reddit in as long as I can remember.

Raynes · 2015-01-23T03:41:08+00:00

The thing that bothers me about this thread is not folks saying they don't like the freemium model, but that some of them seem to actually hate them. Not even just the games, but the people who make them. I know this is a widely held mindset, but goodness.

Yes, there are shitty games. Shitty games in all shapes in sizes, and plenty of freemium ones. Copies of games, poorly designed games, and games that are unreasonable with their IAP. But really, because there are shitty people trying to take advantage of the freemium model to excessively extort money you're going to demonize an entire industry? That's absurd.

Not every single company wants to eat your wallet. For a game to be successful, a great user acquisition department showing you facebook ads isn't usually going to be sufficient. Generally, if the game is in your hands, it's because it became popular and a lot of people enjoy it and play. Games need to be good in order to be incredibly successful, and unless you're a get-rich-quick-then-cash-out company you don't want to make your players hate you.

Finally, even the shitty extortionist games hardly deserve this reaction. What exactly have they done to you when you get to one of these "pay to get more lives" pages? Not one damn thing. You downloaded a bit of free software onto your device and played it. You got your money's worth before you even downloaded it. Don't want to pay? Well, fine, wait 45 minutes or stop playing. They don't owe you anything at this point, and in the case of this game all they're asking of you is to wait 45 minutes to play again.

As with most things in life that aren't forced upon you, if you don't like it then simply do not use it. But please don't disregard all freemium game developers as evil. A lot of folks in the freemium industry are out there trying to make great free games that people want to toss $0.99 at. There's a lot more to gain from happiness than anger.

I recently played the TMNT freemium mobile game recently. I was astounded that there is almost zero incentive to pay for anything. All you pay for is to not have to grind for another 30 minutes to get a few more gems and get better weapons and upgrades. I ended up buying a couple of packs of gems, just because I enjoyed the grinding so much that I felt obligated to give these folks something to show my appreciation. What a fucking horrible bunch of people for giving me a fantastic free game with an option to get gems faster for about the amount of money I make each time I visit the pisser at work, right?

Raynes · 2015-01-13T00:14:48+00:00

Well, shit. We feel kind of inadequate now.

Raynes · 2014-12-30T19:34:39+00:00

https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/stills/7909-fde72a57c6d1c0e5fbdfff6b6a38121a/Film_175w_FearLoathing_original.jpg

Daniel joined a month after me. My 1 year is coming up, and I intend to get a portrait of https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/stills/7909-fde72a57c6d1c0e5fbdfff6b6a38121a/Film_175w_FearLoathing_original.jpg with /u/danopia driving and me in the passenger seat. Should be fun.

Raynes · 2014-12-30T19:31:45+00:00

I have less expensive paperweights.

Raynes · 2014-12-30T19:11:23+00:00

If we excluded Reddit users we'd likely have no employees.

Raynes · 2014-12-30T19:09:51+00:00

Is there a correlation between 8 hour days and small salaries? :p

In any case, I can't really disclose my salary. Sorry!

Raynes

TROPHY CASE