Upcoming guild war is totally pointless unless you are one of the top 10 guilds.

[Eunuchorn]

Top spender franticly defending investments in K&D. Kinda sad, but each to their own, I guess.

McRay vs Busteroaf : 10 - 0

Buster just wants everyone to be as good a friend with Mr. Gree as we are. He's really a nice guy. You should come play chutes & ladders with us.

[Eunuchorn]

You only scored that 10-0? I'm impressed. I thought I was getting beat worse.

My defending investments in KnD is based on the entertainment factor. Different people get differing levels of entertainment from everything. That is all. End of story. He keeps saying its a ****ty game, when that is just his opinion. I'm not the only one who disagrees with him on that point.

You are all ignoring my point. You're comparing nothing with nothing. So what does it matter how much I spend on this or that? Numbers on a computer screen, my friends.

[Tachycardia]

He has yet to say "Ha" "lol" or "haha lol" at the end of a sentence/post... frankly, I'm not convinced.

Or the always clever "Cheers!"

[McRay]

You only scored that 10-0? I'm impressed. I thought I was getting beat worse.

My defending investments in KnD is based on the entertainment factor. Different people get differing levels of entertainment from everything. That is all. End of story. He keeps saying its a ****ty game, when that is just his opinion. I'm not the only one who disagrees with him on that point.

Obviously we have differing opinions on the relationship between quality and value. Fair enough, I respect your opinion.

But let me just end off with this thought:

If everyone thinks like you, we end up with... well, what we have now. A simplistic game that dangles a carrot on a stick, and a developer that has board room meetings about the best way to scam you into spending more money. (which is what this guild war is all about, and why this thread exists).

If everyone thinks like me, developers are forced to actually care about the product they sell, because they know if they just try to scam us, that we won't give them any of our money. This results in more competition between developers, which results in more games, better games, and better prices.

Regardless of who is right and wrong in this discussion, which of the above scenarios would you rather have?

[Sparkle_DPA]

Im confused. I dont see how this is a scam. All of us know that the war is 4 days long and all of us know that it will cost the guild thousands of dollars to get into top 10. For it to qualify as a scam wouldn't the company have to trick us into spending money..? Even the chests I don't consider a scam, they are just stupid. We are all choosing to do it and we know the possible outcomes. Enlighten me :O

[busteroaf]

Obviously we have differing opinions on the relationship between quality and value. Fair enough, I respect your opinion.

But let me just end off with this thought:

If everyone thinks like you, we end up with... well, what we have now. A simplistic game that dangles a carrot on a stick, and a developer that has board room meetings about the best way to scam you into spending more money. (which is what this guild war is all about, and why this thread exists).

If everyone thinks like me, developers are forced to actually care about the product they sell, because they know if they just try to scam us, that we won't give them any of our money. This results in more competition between developers, which results in more games, better games, and better prices.

Regardless of who is right and wrong in this discussion, which of the above scenarios would you rather have?

Your reasoning is fair. But you also mentioned in a previous post how video games used to be pay to play arcade boxes, then home consoles, then more advanced consoles, now mobile. It isn't because developers all the sudden just said "lets make crappy games and shake people down for every last bit of money." It is because the world is changing. 10 years ago, people didn't have access to games 24/7 on their phones. They had Snake and Tetris style games. You also didn't have access to every bit of info at your fingertips. Developments in technology did this. People want access to things instantly, because its readily available now. It didn't use to be. And since whatever % of the developed world has smart phones, developers, and well, everyone, decided to cash in on the market.

Hell, if I want to read a book on the toilet, I used to have to pick up a book and bring it with me. Now, instead I can just pull out my phone while dropping my pants, click an app, download the newest Christopher Moore novel and be reading within a few seconds. Is that my fault? Its adapting to today's technology. I don't fault business for having meetings to say "hey, how can we get our products out there even faster and to more people". Do I prefer having a nice hardcover book, or even paperback version of a book? You bet. But for ease of use, you can't beat the current technology with e-readers and similar apps.

Also, no offense but I haven't seen a price drop in video games in ... ever. I remember Nintendo games used to be 20-30, then 30-40, then 40-50. Now $60 is standard for new games, and console games HAVE gotten better, depending on your opinion. Not seeing a price drop because of better games and more competition. If anything, its raised the cost.

[cafedecoy]

Is it just me, or I feel like we are all a bunch of pinatas hung next to each other on a rope waiting for GREE to smack us and we spit out money. This whole reward system, they've been playing the drama of over-rewarding us (beast chest? the fusion boost coughing guardians in the old wars?) and under-rewarding us (current war?) and the lack of consistency is driving us mad and getting us all riled up to spend more gems.

I bet you, now that the rewards are stingier than ever, epic battles will be fought by the very members who kick and cry here lamenting about how stupid the game has become who are secretly hoping that everyone else except them will be dissuaded from spending gems leaving the top prize up for grabs. I also think that there will be about a dozen or so new threads in this very forum with people whining about the prizes and threatening to quit the game only to be overjoyed by... I predict a more generously rewarded quest/war/challenge that GREE will churn up.

We all bicker and fight, but there's one thing we all have in common. That no one here is ready to quit the game just yet. The quitters just do it. They don't declare it, they don't cry about it. They simply delete the app off their phone or ipad or what have you, and move on to do something else to entertain themselves.

[McRay]

Also, no offense but I haven't seen a price drop in video games in ... ever. I remember Nintendo games used to be 20-30, then 30-40, then 40-50. Now $60 is standard for new games, and console games HAVE gotten better, depending on your opinion. Not seeing a price drop because of better games and more competition. If anything, its raised the cost.

I've had variations of this argument on other forums as well, it's not like the problem is exclusive to mobile gaming, it's just more obvious here.

In 2009, I was excited to play Killzone 2 on PS3. It was a pretty good game, but it had some pretty serious balance issues. The "assault" class was ridiculously overpowered, and it was ruining online gameplay. After hundreds of threads on the Guerilla Games forums, we thought for sure the first patch would address this issue. But instead, they released a "DLC map pack" for $9.99. I was disgusted and outraged by their decision to ignore the community, and instead try to cash in on us by releasing these garbage maps, which were nothing but single player maps that were converted into multiplayer.

This was my first experience with the new wave of game development. I was very vocal on those forums about it, but in the end, I was met with a lot of "if you don't like it, don't play it" type of responses. I warned those people that this was just the beginning, and that these companies would simply find ways to milk you for as much as they can, unless you make a stand and show them that you won't tolerate it. Clearly my words fell on deaf ears, because the problem is now much worse in the console community.

The golden age of gaming was the PC gaming market in the late 90's and early 2000's. During these years, companies released amazing, quality games, for reasonable prices. They supported the games for years, interacting with the community, doing everything they could to cater to the needs of their consumers. They HAD to do this, because the PC gaming community was so picky about what they would spend money on (after all, piracy was rampant).

All I'm saying is that if you were lucky enough to be part of that era, you should understand why giving money to a greedy company like GREE or EA is detrimental to all of us as consumers at the end of the day.

[template]

stuff

So how far did your protests get you?

You're not going to get any traction on an issue like this. Whether you like it or not, gaming as an industry has changed so much since the 90s. If you want to prove a point, then don't play this game and spend money where you think you're going to get your money's worth. Unfortunately, you'll find that most of the other "gamers" (and I use this term loosely) aren't going to really care.

From my perspective, games in the past were an investment. You spent X dollars and they gave you a certain amount of quality and replayability and you had a relationship with that gaming company. But with the casualization of gaming, a large part of which comes about because of smartphones, that dynamic has changed. It's no longer a niche market where you had to try and earn revenue from a small subset of the population. Now the potential market is so much larger because of the availability of mobile devices that the marketing/sales dynamic has changed. That's why mobile games can cost a dollar because the potential reach is to millions of people that want to play casual games.

You're fighting an entirely new paradigm based on what you liked in the good ol' days. Those days are gone.

[forcefed4door]

Basically this whole discussion is a way for some dummies trying to justify how dumping a bunch of money into this game is fine/normal. I can't even feel bad for them.

[template]

Basically this whole discussion is a way for some dummies trying to justify how dumping a bunch of money into this game is fine/normal. I can't even feel bad for them.

I don't think it's justification that it's fine or normal to spend money on this game. It's our money and we can spend it however we deem fit. It's the same way you can spend your money on whatever brings you pleasure/entertainment and we can't condemn you for it (well except for certain things which are pretty much universally agreed as bad ideas like drugs). Want to spend on a good meal? Go ahead but some will argue that's a waste of money. Spend on good wine? All pretty much taste the same to me. The list can go on.

Where the discussion has taken a turn is on the argument that it's apparently stupid/silly/wrong to spend this money based on what someone else besides the spender thinks.

[Eunuchorn]

Basically this whole discussion is a way for some dummies trying to justify how dumping a bunch of money into this game is fine/normal. I can't even feel bad for them.

I haven't seen anyone asking for your pity? Go look up the wage disparity between actors/sports star & you. That's not normal. There is a lot of money out there, so much that whatever its actually spent on is trivial. You just don't have any of it & that should bother you. I don't need to justify why or how much money I spend on this game. I'm an economic slave the same as you, & have nothing else to spend money on so who cares.

[forcefed4door]

Don't they have meetings/counseling for game addicts? Just like aa? I think some of you need it lol. Carry on.

[Sparkle_DPA]

Don't they have meetings/counseling for game addicts? Just like aa? I think some of you need it lol. Carry on.

I hope they increase the energy refill to 50 gems. Yer right, the game is not expensive enough.

[jon_funzio]

My thoughts:
- prizes for 11 down aren't great but, for people who don't have good friends and who can't beat boss 43, are desirable.
- Gree would do well to reconsider the reward system, perhaps give you a maxed legendary as a prize for top 25 rather than a non-upgraded legendary.
- I would like it if they removed gems and keys from the reward structure, these encourage people to "freeload", promising points that they have no hope of achieving. Decent armours also do that of course.
-- as a sub point, it would be nice if your performance in every war was attached to your profile for your viewing, this means that everyone would have a record of past scoring.
- Despite the prizes not being great, Guild War is fun - I'll be competing.

- The increasingly over-powered top 10 armours should also lead to considerable levels of top ten consolidation, after all there's no point scoring over 100k points for lower prizes!