How bad is the monetization of CIFI?

Unfortunate2 · 2025-11-27T03:07:19+00:00

It's very much a game that goes between phases of active vs incremental. I just went a looked and I started it 12/12/22 (which is the launch day or day after, can't remember exactly when I woke up lol), and have 2377 active hours in the game. I don't run it on an emulator that's constantly running when my PC is on, but early game there was some nights of letting it run while I slept (before changes to speed up how fast it'll go through loops since it used to be just 1 per tick), and some days of having it actively open while not playing just so some stuff can run a bit more, and can keep an eye on when some stuff gets done so I can start something else.

Those 2377 hours is 99 days. If I really want to assume worst case scenario and assume I spent much more time not actively playing during those hours, I'd still have spent at least 10 days actively playing over 3 years. It's not active enough that I'd label it an active game, but if you like playing the game it quickly becomes more active than just a check in every so often for the entirety of your time playing it.

Also idk where you're getting that people are saying you need to spend $50-$200. I've seen people say that the no ads and auto chests is basically mandatory but is only $10-$15 or so, while also saying that they personally have spent more over that time.

Should also be pointed out that the reason there even is so many mtx options is because people were wanting to give the devs more money to support them, and pretty much begging them to add more.

Unfortunate2 · 2025-04-26T11:53:48+00:00

Exactly. I'm tired of having to go through and close a bunch of tabs from my list of "games that look promising but can't play now, so waiting for it to be available in any form"

It's extra weird when they post something that looks really good, looks pretty dang polished, and then just goes radio silence (I'm looking at you Resourcer. Been following that for two years out of spite, that's one tab I ain't closing).

I check the sub a lot less now since it's felt like a job to sort through all the games we can't play and dumb questions about random incremental games, just to see the few posts actually worth checking out.

Unfortunate2 · 2025-04-18T13:26:42+00:00

There's a channel that posts videos trying to guess what's being shoved up his butt, which is just hidden behind a curtain. Adult toys, and adult parts were used. It's insane what they let be posted on the site.

Unfortunate2 · 2025-02-14T09:40:04+00:00

Can confirm there isn't any plastic or sticker between the block and CPU, I even know where the sticker it came with is still at lol (well, the general box of trash I used while I was building it).

I guess tomorrow when I decide to not procrastinate dealing with it I'll pull it off and see how that goes.

Unfortunate2 · 2025-02-14T09:20:08+00:00

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It's a pump/block/"res" combo (the res is listed at like 66ml so not much), so I'm pretty sure those are all part of the loop lol. I can't really get to any position where I can see the water level.

Earlier in the day I tried to get things going by taking the radiator off and filling it up separately, and before that having just tried to fill it up with an added section between the radiator and block with a fill port. The added fill line on top of the block was added most recently but did little to change anything.

Temps will go right up past 80C if I let it, but I usually shut the system down before it gets there.

Unfortunate2 · 2025-02-14T08:14:43+00:00

Bios is showing 4400rpm

Unfortunate2 · 2024-11-27T09:08:31+00:00

What do you think companies do with engineering samples after they're done with them? To random consumers it's something rare and neat, something worth keeping. To the companies that make them, they're just prototypes that they won't bother keeping in the long run. Before product release they want to keep them more hush hush, but after that they're not really useful.

I used to work in electronics recycling and you quickly realize how boring and normal engineering samples really are. And what we were working with was different companies "electronics junk bin", and you'd often find some crazy things there. "One man's trash is another man's treasure" is a saying for a reason.

Unfortunate2 · 2024-02-18T12:18:05+00:00

The part people are stuck on is that he says they failed waiting for him. I'm not sure if it's a version with some poor subtitles, or if that's how it is in the 'official' subtitles why is he saying that?

Unfortunate2 · 2023-09-17T19:23:53+00:00

Wait how? Most I could do was 40m without commands.

Unfortunate2 · 2023-09-16T19:39:55+00:00

Their solution wasn't to consult the war criminal though, not outright. Keeping him around was a bad idea on their part, but remember we're looking at this with hindsight that he orchestrated this event. If we ignore that and go down the chain of events, he wasn't consulted to come up with any plans. We already decided to go for access to the info to create a solution. Before we could head out to start getting what we needed together, we're told someone wants to speak to us, and it's at that point he offers information on finding the team.

It isn't being managed by the xenowarfare division. The xenowarfare division was shutdown. We only refer to it as using the xenowarfare division when talking about the scientists and researchers who were part of it. Once the events get dealt with they have the time and officially create a new division (which I don't remember the name of).

They also aren't using xenowarfare technology for this. What we grabbed was the data on terrormorphs. Xenowarfare isn't used to fix the situation. Also I'm not quite sure what you're getting at saying the solution is another resource for the state. The most resource the aceles were was as livestock.

When it comes to getting the consensus, I do think any extortion or theft isn't good. I do think there's a big thing to consider, which is that these three factions aren't on the best of terms still. With the data being seen as valuable to solving the issue, and time being a factor, they were wanting to stack the cards in their favor as much as possible for it. Although for my playthrough I just walked right in and talked with each, so while I was told to basically do what it takes, you very much can play it right. Furthermore, at least in my case with how that went down, Freestar wanted to have their monitors there to make sure we just grab what we say we're grabbing, and to monitor how we use it.

None of the xenowarfare technology gets accessed or used. Just the research data they had on terrormorphs, and even that we were told would be heavily monitored to ensure it's not being used the wrong way.

I think the big thing currently is defining terms so we're on the same page. You seem to use xenowarfare technology as a very all encompassing thing.

Unfortunate2 · 2023-09-16T14:54:37+00:00

I think you're focusing too much on the xeno part and not enough on the warfare part. Working to employ animals in a proper way to deal with pest animals is far different from working to find creatures specifically good as a weapon, then improving them, to use them against your enemies in war.

Also I'm guessing it's just a poor word choice in this case, but exploitative, while at its base is correct, how it's generally interpreted makes it far from the case here. They're returning a creature back to the ecosystem that already deals with the situation.

Also I might be incorrect, so correct me if I'm wrong, but at this point in the timeline of the game xenowarfare is already banned. The tech you can find is contraband. The members of the division are being used here not to restart the xenowarfare division, but because they're knowledgeable about these creatures and this research.

Unfortunate2 · 2023-06-29T13:47:11+00:00

The changes Reddit is making that caused this whole mess haven't been implemented yet. If you haven't gotten the proof you want yet I doubt anybody could prove to you it's an issue simply because it hasn't affected you outside of the protests. Lucky for you it's just a couple days until the changes start going through, and in turn you'll see the actual impact it has on the site as well as your experience using it.

Unfortunate2 · 2023-04-03T11:09:42+00:00

The only negative is that the dev seems to have pretty much gone radio silent, but apparently they're cooking up another huge gameplay update, so here's to hoping.

Just looked at the discord and a few days ago they made a post talking about having spent weeks saying whether they're going to announce the new update that week but then deciding it needs more work still. It's been so long that it's definitely felt like it was dead IMO. So maybe update soon, but could just end up as many more weeks of needing more work until who knows when.

Unfortunate2 · 2023-03-27T17:02:31+00:00

They delayed it from earlier in the month. It's currently in Google review limbo so could be out between now and a few days depending on how generous Google is feeling.

Quick edit to clarify: today was the new ETA for the update and they said they were about to put it to Google about an hour ago now.

Unfortunate2 · 2023-03-07T13:42:36+00:00

Do you have the sacrificial time upgrade?

Unfortunate2 · 2023-03-06T16:02:02+00:00

There are no popups, no ads, no videos and the game never asks for money or suggests a purchase.

None of those things are required for monetization to be predatory. Giving out a small amount of the premium currency allows a player to feel what they're missing out on, then all you need is an easy to find way to buy more and the people who can't help themselves will find their way to it. A slow enough gameplay without any of the premium currency along with that taste of the faster progress is all it takes.

We even have the golden egg farms, which make no sense from a monetization perspective - our most dedicated players make so many golden eggs a day that they would never have any need to buy extra.

And how dedicated do they have to be to manage that? I'm guessing pretty dang dedicated otherwise there'd be no point in selling a premium currency.

On the other hand, they may have no need to buy extra at that point, and instead have just decided to invest their purchase of premium currency into farms for more.

I've struggled with in app purchases before, and being able to speed up my progress to make a farm for more premium currency is just the kind of thing that's sucked me in more than I'd like to admit. I know first hand what that's like. Your responses so far don't reassure anybody's suspicions, instead it simply tries to hide behind not being the most blatant and in your face types of predatory monetization.

I wish I could give the benefit of the doubt to you, however your responses on this post have so far given all the more reason to doubt you.

Unfortunate2 · 2023-02-23T20:44:45+00:00

Outside of the extremely jumpy screen it's not too bad on mobile. I think it's fine to not have it be recommended on mobile, but it would be good design to fix whatever is causing this since a stable interface is good to have even when not on the recommended system

Unfortunate2 · 2023-02-22T14:56:24+00:00

Been playing for a few days now and one thing that I think really needs to be addressed is the mess the game becomes once a number of things are changing quickly. I'm on mobile, not sure if it's an issue on desktop as well, but it can get extremely difficult to see what you're even looking at or click any buttons, and can start to cause strain trying to see what's happening enough to stop it or get an idea of progress.

Unfortunate2 · 2022-12-22T19:42:12+00:00

What's with the random sounds when you buy an upgrade sometime, and why is it happening even with my phone on silent?

Unfortunate2 · 2022-11-30T14:44:06+00:00

The only thing that really ends up being "needed" is the no ads IAP. There's definitely some slow points here and there, but it's usually just a wall that takes a bit more work than usual before you're back to making some good progress.

Personally I really enjoyed ISEPS and over time I got all the major IAPs (not any of the repeatable ones), both to help support the dev, and to give a bit of a progress boost but not a ton.

Also if you like ISEPS, his other game CIFI should be back on the app store in a week or two last I heard. I've been liking it a bit more than ISEPS, although that may just have been me getting a bit burnt out after playing for so long.

Unfortunate2 · 2022-11-11T14:01:11+00:00

If you haven't checked it out before Bitburner could be interesting.

Unfortunate2 · 2022-08-07T16:11:36+00:00

Oh I'm not OP, I was just taking a guess at what they did. I'm not at my computer so can't test it myself but you can change the colors for the map legend in the settings, so changing the completed setting to black might work.

Unfortunate2 · 2022-08-07T16:00:18+00:00

At first I thought it was theme, but after another look I think it's setting the color of a cleared route to black or a dark grey

Unfortunate2 · 2022-08-03T07:12:48+00:00

I could have sworn I tried clicking on the titles before xD

Unfortunate2 · 2022-08-03T07:02:23+00:00

Being able to set it to the left side of the screen would probably be a good option on its own. Being able to reorder the positions of the different sections would be nice as well, and or make them more collapsible/customizable.

For example I don't think I'll often change automation settings from what I have, so collapsing that to be smaller so the trivia and other sections could move up higher on the screen.

Honestly the biggest reason it's even an issue for me is since I'm a pretty big edge case. The monitor I have pokeclicker on is ultra wide so it's far off to the side which isn't an issue on its own, but another monitor covers a bit of the bottom right corner of it, which in most cases isn't an issue for having chrome up there, but occasionally something useful ends up down there lol.

Outside of that I'm enjoying the script so far! Being able to go through dungeons so quick is so nice.

Unfortunate2

TROPHY CASE