About a month ago, I gave a speech at Creative Mornings in Portland about the way the Free-to-Play business model affects game design. I compared games to television, looking at the way television business models have drastically affected the composition of those shows.
Exploitative Game Design: Beyond the F2P Debate
The past few months have seen a torrent of articles about Free-to-Play business models, often discussed alongside issues of ethics in games (for example: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). These pieces have addressed the effect on addiction-prone players or children, the possibility of corrupting artistic intent, the sheer amount of money being spent, and other advantages and dangers of F2P. While all of this is relevant, I fear that we’re focusing too much on F2P and glossing over the wider ethical issues in game design.
the Enshittification of Cozy Games
Video Game Monetization | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
Integrating Narrative into Game Design: A Portal Post-Mortem
A lexicon for game activity sharing
I think that discussion landed on atmosphere.games, no? I think it’d be cool to get this lexicon out there soon.
Let’s start talking about advertising games to women
This has been a subject that’s been buzzing around in my head for a while. Should we focus on advertising more games specifically to women, in which case, what would this look like and is it …
Saving Incremental Games | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
The Search For The Apolitical Video Game
The topic every game dev is talking about behind closed doors : The cost of doing business
Content warning : I’ve embedded some tweets to various developers that show the sorts of comments that they receive every day. There’s some…
Game Dev Tree | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
“We Own You” – Confessions of an Anonymous Free to Play Producer – TouchArcade
When it comes to discussions surrounding free to play, people often focus on monetization tactics based on their experiences as a player. Folks commonly get upset based on the disruption of the historical precedent that games should have a price tag, that you pay, then get the game.
Building Games That Can Be Understood at a Glance
Interview With 'The Witness' Creator Jonathan Blow
The video game creator on the nature of science, language and design
The Player and the Played
In an age when capitalism feels like an unwinnable game, extreme reactionary ideas and politics are on the rise. The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Squid Gam...
Atmosphere Gaming
Projects, apps, references, resources, discourse, ideas, etc
CRASH THE ARCADE
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