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Sammus posted:Are there any decent space trading/shooting/piracy games similar to the Escape Velocity series for iPhones? I want to re-double the suggestion for Galaxy on Fire 2. Starts a bit dull, but when you get into it, it becomes rather playable. One of the few 'proper' iOS games I played to completion. Xenochrist posted:See, e.g. Mobacoins, Microsoft points, Nintendo points, Clash of Clans gems, etc. etc. I don't get what's wrong with COC - it says you buy X gems for Y $, and delivers it? You might not like IAP, but it's not obfuscating what you get in any manner. It's about the most straight-forward one there is, in fact.
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Oct 26, 2013 13:33
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Rexicon1 posted:Buying X gems for Y$ is a layer of value abstraction. It's a deceitful practice used to obfuscate the actual value of the product you are buying. If a little kitty decoration bullshit in hay day is worth 2$ or 17 diamonds, you'd find way fewer people would plunk down 2$ for the stupid little thing, but gladly fart 17 diamonds. I think it's a pretty lovely business practice that is actively hostile to the consumer In all cases, it's to allow finer granularity of the pricing. For instance, some transactions have a real-world cost equivalent of less than 5p/cents, not something you would want to enter your iTunes PW for, even if it was an amount supported. It also allows you to get "gems/funbux" for free and have this make sense in the context of the rest of the UI. It would be easier to make the argument paying by "gems" (when you know their explicit value from buying them) was an effective layer of obfuscation if Candy Crush Saga wasn't raking in billions at 69p/£2.49 a time. If someone buys 500 gems/funbux for £1, then being asked to pay 250 gems automatically makes people think "50p" - I think you're likely overselling the cognitive dissonance on people making that distinction. Now, there's absolutely an argument to be made that if everything is sold in 500 unit intervals, but you buy the currency in 450 unit intervals, that they're exploiting your ability to convert the currencies, but largely it's a useful convenience compared to authorizing many smaller transactions. Ultimately if you dislike IAP, you dislike any method of selling them, though.
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Oct 26, 2013 16:14
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Emron posted:None of this matters. The whole point is adding layers of separation between the monetary transaction and the purchase of the in-game item. A current example: you can buy a chance at a random hero in the new Marvel Puzzle quest for 150 coins. A pack of 600 coins is 5 dollars. So a pull on the slot machine is $1.25. But people don't think like that. They immediately think of it in terms of coins, since thats the purchase they already made. They stop thinking of the monetary cost of the item, only the monetary cost of the virtual currency, and even then typically only at the point of purchase. That's the entire point, and it's wildly successful. There is no denying this. You're talking about a system that is wholly different in every facet. Buying coins / gems / funbux at a (near) fixed exchange rate is more similar to buying a foreign currency than gambling, and oddly enough the world economy doesn't crumble because people throw money at foreign countries because the value of purchases is "obfuscated" by there being an exchange rate. You absolutely have a point in your example, but it doesn't translate to every IAP that uses a currency other than an established fiat currency. All you're describing are gambler's fallacies, which is something many games do, sure, but not every IAP is immediately evil and trying to hide what it does. I'll use the same example again - CCS is #1 most grossing mobile game even though it asks you for REAL MONEY you have to digitally sign for every single time, and is almost always a gamble. Narrow your brush.
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Oct 26, 2013 19:22
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Emron posted:I'm not talking about tricking people, though. I'm talking about making the transaction mentally easier. Separation from the value of the purchase is good for the point of purchase, and that's all. As soon as you get someone okay with the idea of buying virtual money, they're more likely to spend real money on the game. I completely agree with you guys in that it's incredibly successful, and that it's not the only method going to promote profit within the model. It's just a key concept the the model itself. It normally goes in conjunction with another method, like removing a negative experience (timers), adding a positive experience (boosts), or accessing special content (those items in gamevil games that are only purchasable using premium currency). You have valid points, but I think it's incredibly important to distinguish between IAP that are triggering gambling impulses and those that simply try to streamline the way in which you hand over your money. Those that do the former, or both, will be where a lot of legal lines are drawn when the whole industry is looked at closer, I feel. Candy crush is so interesting, because I think the opposite of what you're saying is the case. First it creates genuine frustration "gently caress, I have been on this level all week!" and then offers you a reasonably small price to pay to end it, 69p/99c - I honestly think by making this a trivial real world cost, to end a non-trivial real world frustration, people rationalise it is worth it. Maybe putting the extra step of having you buy candy-money and spending part of that would make people disjoint it? Who knows. Human addiction is a very interesting subject and there is zero doubt many IAP are designed to encourage and exploit addictive personalities. Most games offer their funbux for advantages, particularly over other people (MMOs and such) and so people are definitely measuring a real-world cost to an ingame advantage. Yes, they think, paying to win is acceptable to me. Do gems/coins make that easier to rationalise? Perhaps, but often I think not. Many times when playing a game like Planetside 2 I would have been happy to directly buy the item for a smallish cost, but having to buy more than you need and then realising the amounts don't divide equally put me off every time. Maybe it's just me, but if I want an item, I want to buy the item. On iOS at least gems and such are almost always a way of breaking down an amount (1.99 or whatever) into smaller parcels. This can have the effect of making people rationalise every part as being a trivial cost, and ergo the whole thing as "great value" - but often this is a side effect of a necessity, albeit a convenient one for the purpose. It's probably the case I didn't like your statement because I draw my ethical line in a different place than yours, because I certainly perceive a difference in business techniques, and where some seem acceptable, others are just obnoxious.
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Oct 26, 2013 22:16
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smackfu posted:Simpsons Tapped Out sure has an interesting freemium model. It's so expensive it's really not tempting at all. Like pretty much any premium building is $10. There are dozens of them. Skipping a 24 hour timer is $2 and there are a lot if timers since that is the whole "game." And you earn premium currency in-game incredibly slowly, like $1 a month. In business there's the 80:20 rule (the Pareto principle applied); that 80% of your profit is made from 20% of your stock/customers. With IAP, it's probably closer to 98:2, with a very small minority of people spending $100 a week or more paying for the other 98% who drop less than $5. Tapped out is WILDLY profitable, top-3 grossing since release, only really losing to Candy crush and COC.
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Oct 28, 2013 13:48
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Sad lions posted:You understand that marketers by and large don't typically openly tell their intended audience how little they think of them, right?
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Nov 7, 2013 01:08
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pixaal posted:In Tiny Death Star I have a quest to have 30 Bitizens move in. I have 31 bitizins now and the quest is not complete. Is this a bug or does it mean 30 additional or something silly? (I had like 20 when I got the quest) It's buggy, I had it telling me to get three floors fully stocked when I had 5. Try evicting people and getting new ones and seeing if it trips it.
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Nov 10, 2013 00:47
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donJonSwan posted:Are there any good, free, multiplayer Chess or Go games you guys can reccomend? I want to take a moment to recommend Stockfish chess : https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/stockfish-chess/id305558605?mt=8 No, it's not multiplayer, but if you want a challenging single-player game it's probably the best free one there is. Unless you're Gary Kasparov, it will be all the chess engine you need.
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Nov 10, 2013 13:51
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Or you can earn it without paying. If you're complaining about the price that means you want to buy it on some level, so you're half way to clicking buy. It's how IAPs get you. Instead see it as a challenge and it's all gravy.
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Nov 10, 2013 18:46
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bobfather posted:And paying for an app that does lousy things just encourages the developer to publish more apps that do lousy things in the future, so hopefully most people won't. Can I assume you've not played the thing you're spending time raging about? Because it doesn't do anything lousy, though. It's a cutesy 8-bit building sim* which at no-point does anything like: - be a PVP game where people spending gets you an advantage over other people - shove that fact in your face - paywall the poo poo out of things - offer *any* content that is paid-only - constantly ask you to buy - perform any manner of pop-over screen, or anything else - have the odds loaded against you unless you pay The literal only thing you can spend money on**, is an in-game currency that you are given periodically by chance, or can earn through gameplay otherwise. That's how I think IAP should work, so I guess I should support them, then? People have been spending money on virtual items for nearly 20 years. I can see that as an example of it IAP have gotten a bad rap (loving Candy Crush Saga) but that's no reason to hate on people who leave you able to fully enjoy the game for free without deliberate frustrations, and give decent return on amounts paid in <$10 If your presumption is that if enough people just think "nah this is lovely all over" that every developer will up sticks and stop making games that include IAP, then you're laughably out-of-touch with what is now, by far, the dominant business model. It's trite, pointless, and you should just say what you actually mean: I don't like them and want no part of them. People like spending money in these games. Games companies are going to make games that people want to spend money on. This isn't unique to the app store either; games with a $60-75 up-front cost, with no demo and no returns policy both exist, and are (since GTA5) the dominant entertainment media in the west. People spend money on games. Yelling at people who don't mind IAP done right as though *they* are the reason whatever ill you think exists is around, is a waste of time and counter-productive to any reasonable discourse. Not to mention "I guess we'll just change the subject then .. AFTER THIS PARTING SHOT!" is bad posting. * - and some of the artwork is really nice. ** - anything else in the shop can be bought with green currency alone Evil Sagan posted:I was really digging TDS in all its IAP-grubbing timer-oriented glory, but I hit a bug (I think) where getting 30 bitizens doesn't complete the mission so I guess I'm SOL unless I want to use IAP-money to get past it. You should be doing this anyway to cycle tenants so you can fill more dream jobs and get more green. Khablam fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Nov 10, 2013 |
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Nov 10, 2013 23:27
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Never not drop someone off at the first imperial level  (unless they're going to an apartment with spaces)
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Nov 18, 2013 15:29
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Surprised people keep mentioning Oceanhorn as though it's the first RPG to hit iOS. There's been a few of different types that are pretty decent. The Zenonia series are great if you want a retro action RPG kick. IAPs turn up in the second game onwards, but you can 100% ignore them as the games are balanced around them not being in the game at all (They're basically cheats you pay for). Not sure if the first one made it to HD resolutions, but the others have.
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Nov 18, 2013 20:14
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furushotakeru posted:Keep an eye on Rocketcat Games  (also see this as a rather late shout-out to Hookchamp and Super Quickhook)
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Nov 18, 2013 21:26
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If they manage it right, unlikely. For every 95 people going "grrrrrr IAP!" there's 5 shoving their money at the screen. That's why it works. You only need look at the literal 1000s being spent at a time on Star Citizen (a game not even loving made yet) to see there's a very strong market for this stuff.
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Nov 19, 2013 13:15
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cryptoclastic posted:Every time I load TDS after the update it makes me log-in to the iTunes store. Anyone else experiencing this, or now how I can get it to stop? Yeah, on top of myriads of glitches, unresponsive menus and other performance issues. What's the dream-jobbers issue you guys are complaining about? I've been able to fire people from jobs to move in people who have it as a dream job, fire everyone in a level to re-order their levels, and everything else I was doing before. What were you doing that is now being complained about?
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Nov 22, 2013 00:09
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Sock The Great posted:Whenever I try to change the job of a bitizen already employed, I get a message saying Lord Vader wants me to build more businesses. i.e I need to have an open spot in a business (preferably their dream job). Yeah I still don't get this, there must be something else you're doing that is triggering it, be it intentional or a bug. I'm on the latest version and I can fire Bitizen A (not a dream job candidate) and hire Bitizen B (is a dream job candidate) in his place just fine. Maybe if you have tons of slots open or something it stops it.
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Nov 22, 2013 00:42
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Thwomp posted:Previously, you could make a bitizen "unemployed" after assigning it a job. This is different than just evicting an employed bitizen. I can still do this. Either way, for all the gnashing of teeth and 'grrrrr IAP grabbing scum!' that's being implied here, I encourage people to realise that even in single player games, developers patch out ways by which people can get something faster than the game intended them to. I rather assume people complaining here are doing something else than trying to swap one job, based on the fact I am still able to do this after updating. How many people do you have unemployed that could be?
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Nov 22, 2013 18:50
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Inadequately posted:Worms, of course. I'm not sure how faithful the ports are, though. Looking it up and it seems there are several versions ported. Generally Worms Armageddon remains a perennial favorite, although I'm not sure how well it plays with touch controls. You'll throw your phone at something when you lose a winning game by jumping forwards into water, instead of back-flipping. It's not unplayable, but it's frustrations abound. Samara posted:So that means games up to 2004 are playable on iOS. Something like GTAIV, or FPS games from a couple of years prior, are a long way from playable on mobile just yet. Khablam fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Nov 27, 2013 02:17
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TraderStav posted:My buddy got me into Clash of Clans and its a nice distraction and you can get by without IAP. Was wondering if there was a goon clan still about or has everyone moved on already? Thanks! Here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3573117&pagenumber=1 Though you might need to wait for a space.
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Nov 28, 2013 17:21
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TheManWithNoName posted:In TDS it says I've completed all the Assembly Missions, but I'm still getting the assembly VIPs. What's the point of these guys if I don't need to assemble anything? All VIPs are Supply Officers or Level Movers, all the time.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:27
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What Dark said. Your ROI is linear and proportional to the initial size of the stock, so throwing bux to make 10 turn into 11 is pretty much pointless when you could be making 500 into 550. Basically just ignore those levels and only bother stocking them incidentally. Chuck your bux at your 5000 stock x 3 dream-jobber levels to receive the highest payback when you've left the game alone 12 hours and it's still selling. Also, what happens when you have built all the level designs, does it loop?
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Dec 4, 2013 00:45
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If anyone's interested, Greedo shoots first in the related TDS scene 
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Dec 4, 2013 09:46
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Pahonix posted:In TDS what's the point of not allowing you to unemploy a bitizen if all the jobs are full? My recollection is that TT allowed that. It really makes min/maxing your bitizens annoying. I've just been leaving one job empty somewhere so that as I move new bitizens in, I can rearrange without issue. Just wait until there is a slot, then do all the moving around you need in one go. Or, evict a lovely guy then do this. People stamping their feet and whining that Disney don't let the entire IAP system be circumvented by an exploit (apparently you could loop this is something) are a little silly.
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Dec 4, 2013 21:08
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As far as I remember, you can cross the international pay problem by registering a US/UK account, then using an appropriate US/UK pre-paid voucher. It's been a long time since I've known someone who has done it, though. If you have someone you trust 100% from the UK, you can sign out of your account, into theirs, buy and download the app. Then give them money by paypal or something. Doing this you will need to do the updates via the handset, as iTunes itself won't recognise ownership of the app to you. e: this isn't  as far as I am aware, you are allowed a certain number of PC (5?) activations and device (20?) as well. It allows you to run and update apps from multiple account owners on one device. The whole process probably falls foul of the EULA at some point (password sharing) though, but then so does any other method mentioned.
Khablam fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 21:38
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Backup chat: I've always restored/setup from backup and all my app data carried over. Am I lucky as hell or is this not working for anyone else? I have locally stored highscores in some apps from 2009 that have persisted across 3 device changes and 2x that number of full restores.
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Dec 7, 2013 19:17
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Unless you like to  around your friends as an early adopter, now is the time to sit back and see what happens. What's being sold is barely more than a proof of concept.
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Dec 8, 2013 23:05
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Feenix posted:You know, I know there's probably not laws against it specifically, or whatever, but the App Store has made me painfully aware of how lovely developers and publishers can be when it comes to their marketing. Back in the late 90's something done on videogame boxes was to simply quote reviews, even if in doing so they were taking the quote out of context and changing the meaning. On a box for the awful game tie-in for Tomorrow Never Dies, it said "Groundbreaking 3D visuals" -- the actual article said something like "even groundbreaking 3D visuals wouldn't have made this playable, and they aren't". Sadly, rather than any legal change I think reviewers have just learned to write so they can't be taken out of context.
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Dec 13, 2013 10:59
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omg chael crash posted:I know most of you guys were expecting this, but I have to say a few missions in GTA:SA are nearly unplayable with the touch screen(iPad Air). Most of the combat is bullshit, too. Can't say I recommend picking it up until we get some slick wireless controls. This has been the problem with all of them. I picked up GTA3 when it hit, and they were promising a patch to make it more playable. Never happened, and later versions just clone the same controls. As such I've avoided them It needs more than a port, someone needs to recode some of the missions to allow for non-bullshit combat that you can reasonably pass, and re-works of the driving model to let it work more fluidly on the device. Dozens of driving games have nailed this, it just takes some effort.
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Dec 14, 2013 16:48
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Dredrum posted:You'd think they'd learn from the past 2 iOS ports and reviews... Maybe third times the charm. Well, judging on the reviews posted on the AppStore, response is basically: 1) OMG GTA ON IPHONE WTF LOLZ (BUYS) 2) Plays for 2 minutes, runs to write review: OMG A PS2 GAME WORKS ON IPHONE THIS IS AMAZING 5 STARS (some time) 3) Huh. Well, you can drive around a bit but actually playing the game is a nightmare. Oh well. Pretty sure the truth of it is, the lazy port makes as much money as the proper-port, with much less effort.
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Dec 15, 2013 04:04
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:Oh and in new releases that cannot possibly play well using touch controls, Tomb Raider 1 is out. Remember all those jumps that needed pixel perfect takeoffs or Lara would just walk off the end? Yeah.
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Dec 18, 2013 02:54
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Tomb Raider 1 chat: Surprisingly playable with touch controls. Pretty much every complaint about the control scheme is a straight-up lift from the original, like the fact Lara handles like a barge. I did however lose loads of progress when I died looking for a blue diamond. It uses a quick-save you hit in the menu 
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Dec 23, 2013 19:55
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TraderStav posted:It's mostly for my kid so single player is fine! e: Crash Kart Nitro 2. The original doesn't work on ios7 Khablam fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 00:01
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