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eFootball (All Platforms)

msgbk83 said:
You can critisize of course. But here lies the problem why further discussion makes no sense: I told you my experience and you immediately called it PR.

You didn't even consider that maybe yes I really have experienced the things I talked about. That I have seen how companies contacted players when there was a feeling someone is overspending or not in control of their spend. Or that credit card payments have been paid back when a child got hold of their parents card.

Maybe I have seen enough companies in my career that actually cared and have experienced games where players in general spend less than I do for buying games each month.

As long as you don't consider there is some truth in what I am saying there is basically no ground for discussion.

Especially since I fully admit there is bad apples who target what they call whales and so on.

But there is enough companies who realised it is better to have players long term who are not abused by a game but feel respected and Free2Play done right is not a bad thing.

And that's why we leave it at that because we are both biased in one direction so to speak. You called me overly subjective but are doing the same by not even trying to see my view.
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I take your point that I've not been very conciliatory, and have been incredulous about some of your claims. And that's not a good ground for discussion.

The problem is a claim as general as this:
msgbk83 said:
Having worked in the free2play mobile industry for a couple of years: that compulsive spenders are exploited is one of the false myths in this industry.
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Compulsive spenders are exploited in this industry, and it's demonstrable. Your claim to have worked for X or Y company that (in your view) didn't so exploit such customers doesn't support this very general claim. It's a myth! Meanwhile: we can login to these games and see the mechanics at work, and there are plenty of first-person stories out there to support the idea that it's fairly widespread.

I grant you that some companies may have looked at that trend and thought: it's better for our public image if we curb that a bit; or we might create more long-term revenue by not turning people off our game. So let's fine tune the extent to which we exploit our customers (in corporate speak: let's adjust the value we offer consumers).

Re cancelling credit card bills of parents' cards where children have run up a debt: that hardly deals with the issue. Which is that these games are (a) addictive enough for kids to be doing this in the first place (and not only kids); (b) that these games are sold and marketed to children; and (c) that kids are inducted into a form of spending and gambling that could cause problems far beyond the present moment, so that refunding the parents' money has not addressed the harm.

Re your own experience: I'm sure you are sincere in saying that you've not consciously employed these mechanics or sought to exploit customers. Though it may depend on what we each count as exploitation. To be clear, if the games you've worked on:

- have paid lootboxes/chance/gacha elements = gambling = exploitation
- sell cosmetics which create a sense of FOMO in users = exploitation
- sell XP boosters or other devices to overcome grinding in the game = exploitative game design
- offer users a nice chunk of something at the beginning for free and then slowly start increasing the cost of that asset/tool/element = exploitation

These elements are, I think, very common in F2P games, as well (to the industry's shame) as fully paid £60 games (hello, Ubisoft). Are you saying that the games you've worked on don't employ these monetisation strategies, as well as that it's not common in the industry?

Meanwhile, you see, we are gamers and play games and so can notice this stuff. Look at eFootball: the users are already complaining about struggling vs hyper strong teams and no team strength filters. That clearly creates an incentive to spend, even if you didn't want to – just to have a decent playing experience. They have lootboxes. They sell special bonus players that give you extra in-game rewards. They are giving us lots of in-game currency right now, and it will surely drop off (like before in myClub) or else upgrades will be locked behind a different, paid currency. I'm already seeing in YouTube comments sections, on Twitter, on Discord channels gamers talk about having pumped £££ into the Dream Team mode. I know people spent sometimes more than £1k on the mode before.

Is this all a myth?
 
Here is where I think you are to biased. For example you call Cosmetics exploitation. I wouldn't.

If a game is free, you as a company still have costs: developers, servers and so on. Now you could of course just hope people pay freely and willingly and make nothing in the game to be bought. That won't happen though anymore, also from players side. Sadly with a few exceptions classic subscriptions and so on have died out.

Cosmetics are a positive and nice way to reward players for supporting the game. You get something without it influencing game balancing or the experience of other players. You support a company by buying a skin.

For me this is a fair trade for the costs the company has that gives you the gaming experience for free.

Now can this be exploited? Yes every mechanic can. But calling the mechanic exploitative itself is in my opinion wrong.

Same by the way with XP boosters. Can they be exploited? Yes if you make the grind intolerable and brutal. But if your grinding mechanics in the game are fair then an XP booster in itself is not exploitative.

I am not saying there aren't companies who exit mechanics and players.

What I am saying is calling these mechanics inherently exploitative is not really correct.
 
msgbk83 said:
Here is where I think you are to biased. For example you call Cosmetics exploitation. I wouldn't.

If a game is free, you as a company still have costs: developers, servers and so on. Now you could of course just hope people pay freely and willingly and make nothing in the game to be bought. That won't happen though anymore, also from players side. Sadly with a few exceptions classic subscriptions and so on have died out.

Cosmetics are a positive and nice way to reward players for supporting the game. You get something without it influencing game balancing or the experience of other players. You support a company by buying a skin.

For me this is a fair trade for the costs the company has that gives you the gaming experience for free.

Now can this be exploited? Yes every mechanic can. But calling the mechanic exploitative itself is in my opinion wrong.

Same by the way with XP boosters. Can they be exploited? Yes if you make the grind intolerable and brutal. But if your grinding mechanics in the game are fair then an XP booster in itself is not exploitative.

I am not saying there aren't companies who exit mechanics and players.

What I am saying is calling these mechanics inherently exploitative is not really correct.
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For the record: I called cosmetics which induce FOMO exploitative, not cosmetics altogether. E.g., consider the reports of kids being bullied with the insult "Default" in the playground, because they don't have paid cosmetics in Fortnite. If you look at the video I shared above, you'll see the guy quite explicitly say it's vital to get your player base to realise that others are spending on the game, to advertise it to others as much as possible, and so to set the social expectation of the norm. And that norm, as he says, is: spend. That is certainly a use to which cosmetic sales may be put, and often are. So that's what I'm talking about.

Re XP boosters to overcome a grind: frankly, I think having a grind in the game which is even just a bit of a chore (if not brutal) is shit game design, an example of how monetisation strategies have degraded the videogame artform to being with. If you're designing a gameplay experience to be time-consuming and not rewarding, level-gating progression off etc., and then selling XP boosters as a means to reduce that boredom, then yes, this is a form of exploitation. You are doing your best to get players hooked on a particular gameplay loop, then changing the way the reward structure works once hooked, making it much more likely they'll have to spend to keep going.

Arguments to the effect of "well, this is free to play and they have to make their money somehow!" don't show these strategies not to be exploitative just because necessary; they rather just show the F2P model itself (or many variants of it) as necessitating exploitation to make money. That's of course the central conceit of free to play: you give people the impression that it's a giveaway at first, and eventually they either suffer through inconveniences or else pay up.
 
janguv said:
For the record: I called cosmetics which induce FOMO exploitative, not cosmetics altogether. E.g., consider the reports of kids being bullied with the insult "Default" in the playground, because they don't have paid cosmetics in Fortnite. If you look at the video I shared above, you'll see the guy quite explicitly say it's vital to get your player base to realise that others are spending on the game, to advertise it to others as much as possible, and so to set the social expectation of the norm. And that norm, as he says, is: spend. That is certainly a use to which cosmetic sales may be put, and often are. So that's what I'm talking about.

Re XP boosters to overcome a grind: frankly, I think having a grind in the game which is even just a bit of a chore (if not brutal) is shit game design, an example of how monetisation strategies have degraded the videogame artform to being with. If you're designing a gameplay experience to be time-consuming and not rewarding, level-gating progression off etc., and then selling XP boosters as a means to reduce that boredom, then yes, this is a form of exploitation. You are doing your best to get players hooked on a particular gameplay loop, then changing the way the reward structure works once hooked, making it much more likely they'll have to spend to keep going.

Arguments to the effect of "well, this is free to play and they have to make their money somehow!" don't show these strategies not to be exploitative just because necessary; they rather just show the F2P model itself (or many variants of it) as necessitating exploitation to make money. That's of course the central conceit of free to play: you give people the impression that it's a giveaway at first, and eventually they either suffer through inconveniences or else pay up.
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"They either suffer through inconveniences or else pay up" This conception is dying out in Free2Play thankfully. Regarding you posting this video: Pocketgamer is the equivalent to The Sun in the industry. They still have videos and presentations like this but these opinions are so outdated.

Whenever I mentor young designers in the industry or talk to people outside of the industry I make sure to point out that these beliefs are not only wrong but more and more players are turning away. Making your game punishing and inconvenient might have worked a couple of years ago when mobile and Free2Play was still new. But the trend is going to quality experiences beating these companies.

You still have bad experiences like Coin Master and some are still trying to emulate them. But there is a definite change in Free2Play to the better.
 
It's amusing to see certain PES fans prance around praising Efootball oblivious to the fact that Konami is historically known to kill their IP's.

PES was no exception neither will be Efootball. :LOL:
 
msgbk83 said:
"They either suffer through inconveniences or else pay up" This conception is dying out in Free2Play thankfully. Regarding you posting this video: Pocketgamer is the equivalent to The Sun in the industry. They still have videos and presentations like this but these opinions are so outdated.

Whenever I mentor young designers in the industry or talk to people outside of the industry I make sure to point out that these beliefs are not only wrong but more and more players are turning away. Making your game punishing and inconvenient might have worked a couple of years ago when mobile and Free2Play was still new. But the trend is going to quality experiences beating these companies.

You still have bad experiences like Coin Master and some are still trying to emulate them. But there is a definite change in Free2Play to the better.
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Well I hope your optimism about the direction of the industry is ultimately well-founded.

In the specific case of Konami and eFootball, I think the future is rather bleak indeed, given they are already implementing the game mechanics I'm talking about. (Not just implementing: making the main point of the playing experience.)

Outside of this, another trend we can look forward to, following its success in the mobile space, is ads in console/PC gaming. I'm sure Konami will avail themselves of that after both Microsoft and Sony made clear they plan to introduce it later this year. At which point: I will bow out completely. I block all ads at a system level on my phone and laptop; short of setting up ad-blocking on the router (which I would consider), I will not entertain them on console. That's a side rant – just another negative influence from the mobile F2P world.
 
Chrissimao14 said:
It's amusing to see certain PES fans prance around praising Efootball oblivious to the fact that Konami is historically known to kill their IP's.

PES was no exception neither will be Efootball. :LOL:
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That's their own way to wash their "laundry". What sickens me more is their cowardness and goofiness to speaks things as they are about eFootball (their only cashcow besides pachinko) or about whatever new SHIT they are creating now. They even imposed a clause interdicting Kojima to speak out on game awards in 2015. Even worse, they interdicted him to show there and get the award for one of their best games ever made Metal Gear Solid V (act that speaks volumes). That's how low this company is, and they deserve the worst. If they'll get bankrupt, good riddance. Thing is, people are forgetting fast their actions and their rotten behavior...

P.S.: That's the company who shits on the community members who are discovering or using the unlocker on their "offline out of season" trial mode...
 
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Everyone scores with kick off with just one pass. Yes you heard right. I've never seen anything like this any other football game. Game is full of momentum :)
 
zlac said:
Or simply classic scum of the earth player base, which would use any kind of cheating method available?

If that's the true rationale behind this warning, than so be it - ban them all.
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Oh yeah ofcourse. I more meant classic konami in terms of messaging and communication clearness
 
VENOM59 said:
Everyone scores with kick off with just one pass. Yes you heard right. I've never seen anything like this any other football game. Game is full of momentum :)
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Don't really see how that's attributable to momentum. Rather: a win-at-all-costs playerbase with no scruples, and an unresponsive back line that comes forward straight from kick off and can't adjust.

It's called a kick-off goal / glitch. It's been in PES for years as an exploit, and it's arguably worse in this one. Just as effective with long ground balls as a lofted one. You can often defend it, but just needing to is part of the problem.

It's a very sad state of affairs, online play.
 
gabe.paul.logan said:
Gameplay, player development.
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player development is more than fiction beyond fiction .
nowhere in the world a soccer player in age at 25 can be trained and gain speed from 74 to 90 within a month on his contract duration.
that kind of development is more as arcade than sim
do not speak about develompent system in eFOOTBALL ithis kond of development is for pokemon not soccer
 
milenec11 said:
player development is more than fiction beyond fiction .
nowhere in the world a soccer player in age at 25 can be trained and gain speed from 74 to 90 within a month on his contract duration.
that kind of development is more as arcade than sim
do not speak about develompent system in eFOOTBALL ithis kond of development is for pokemon not soccer
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Well its more fun for me an addictive than PES21 Master League for sure.
 
I totally understand. When you have Coinami's PR man, Adam Bhatti, praising your main account in a tweet, you're going to find any rational out there. I get it.;))

 
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Just a reminder, i started this trend.
 
Sami 1999 said:
If this turns out to be true, then it just proves how less of a shit they really give about offline content.

Ideally they would have made it in such a way that, one could mod the game offline and as long as he/she didn't cheat online or tamper with online matches, they would be fine.

This also kills any confidence I had for a possible future offline mode updates.
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Konami are still shitting themselves over the PES 2013 Demo fiasco where Jenkey and others unlocked all the teams and some modes.

Konami got in deep shit with licencing breaches and have been ultra cautious ever since with the modding community.

Still. Really would like to see some information on when offline modes will come. Im just not motivated to even get to Division 1 or whatever or having to pay real money to buy these legends which is all we have to do in efootball.
 
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