No way she didn’t spend thousands of dollars on that fucking game.
If true they wouldn’t have pointed her to another game. Whales are the entire business strategy.
Adding thousands of levels for 1 whale is unlikely to be profitable. That’s a lot of development cost for content that likely won’t be seen. Pointing to other games by the same studio is a much better idea if you can get them to make the transition.
Candy Crush Saga now has nearly 17,000 levels in it, so you’d be very wrong about that. Your average player might get into the hundreds, above average maybe thousands, but 17,000? They’re fishing for whales and not even that many of them.
This problem is way worse than people think and most mobile games on the store have the sole entire purpose of only hooking a small handful of whales. Then once they do, they mold entire games around just a few people. These companies that run apps like Candy Crush actively change the price of lives per player and watch the statistics of what they’re buying and when. It’s so sinister and the entire industry survives off of gaming addictions and whaling.
I mean you’re not entirely wrong, but you’re a little wrong. Just because they added levels later doesn’t mean you were correct… These games have road maps, and they don’t quickly change gears. There’s math and analytics that go into all of it.
I think you’re stretching when you say “around a few people”. There’s more money in 10,000 people spending a bit than 10 spending a ton. It’s a gradient. The top 10 spend a lot, but not enough to morph your road map for. Especially when the companies own multiple properties. Better to get them transitioned to a new game within your umbrella than disrupt the entire content road map.
There’s also far worse stuff than that and way harsher criticisms. You’re getting closer with the “changing the prices” bit, but it’s even worse than that, imo.
It’s the reason I left working at one of them as a data analyst. I’m not speaking in generalities or that interested in debating here… I know precisely how the calculations for these types of things are done because I used to be on the team that did them.
Not this game, but a different one. The whole industry operates very similarly.
I really wanted to prove myself wrong because you sound like you know what you’re talking about. So I went and looked it up, turns out I was right to say what I said. Most of the major games out there report that more than half of their revenue comes from whales and those whales make up around 5% of their paying playerbase, sometimes more sometimes less. And in some games, that revenue is 60-70% of the total.
So that’s why there are 17,000 levels which that vast majority of players wont ever see. It’s because they’re chasing 5% or less of their audience.
But when it comes to games that are much smaller, I wasn’t really exaggerating to say that a small handful of players can outspend everyone else. When you have a player base in the hundreds and there’s like 20 people spending 50% or more in revenue for you, it’s going to affect your road map. In a larger game though, that percent will still mean tens of thousands of whale players.
And maybe your experience was different, maybe the games you worked on didn’t operate that way. But the industry absolutely does. It doesn’t mean you can ignore the 50% of revenue coming from regular players by the way, I’m just saying that the percent that spends enormously has almost the same weight in changing the games road map as the majority of players sometimes. Which is crazy to me.
Here’s the relevant Reddit post that was one of the sources I found.
They would have recommended her to play other games they make with the same ad mechanics.
Talking through experience right? I’ve been playing for around 5 years and I’m only at level 3778. Never spent a single dollar on it.
I think I got to 400 and gave up. This post says all 4k in under a year. There’s no way anyone can play free and do that. Unless they’re literally a CC savant, and even then, I doubt it.
I don’t think any amount of skill can get you there for free. The game is literally programmed to get harder and harder until you wait 24h or pay some money (after which point it will actually make itself easier than normal for a while to give you that dopamine hit and train you like pavlovs dog) The game does have impossible configurations and you’d run up against those regardless of skill.
I think you’re right. Never really read the “in under a year” part.
Bragging that your mom spent $1000s of dollars on a mobile game.
Mom has expendable cash and is literally the best at something… Don’t be too jelly now lol.
Vs half of Lemmy spending thousands of dollars on a rig that plays Stardew Valley…
Hey, it plays Crusader Kings III too
“spending thousands of dollars and millions of man hours installing and configuring Arch Linux on a rig that plays Stardew Valley…”
FIFY
I was ready to be insulted, but then I remembered that I bought a whole ass Steam Deck and I’ve pretty much used it as a Binding of Isaac machine.
I started playing might and magic 9 on my steam deck, shit so old it could run on a game boy, talk about overkill
My PC is purpose built for VR, I have a Quest 3 and what do I do most of the time?
Just sit in a cool looking room in VR chat and listen to music while browsing Lemmy or watching videos. Occasionally I’ll play a flat space game in VR so I can have a huge screen. But I mean… I am using the VR technically.
That game isn’t pay to win and filled with dark patterns though.
Candy crush is mobile cancer.
If it were a game that didn’t use a pay to play/continue/win model, I’d agree that she was the best at it. Or at least played it the most. It’s hard to say she’s the best when you have to spend money to do it and you aren’t playing against anyone.
If a better game comes out, we’ll play that.
… then come back to SDV.
Hardware and software are not comparable.
Well it’s great that they’re compared, constantly and regularly.
I’m at level 3000ish and played on and off for 5 years. Never spent a dime on the game.
They said she did it in less than a year.
Well that’s $1000 well spent if she found joy and entertainment and even something like success by being the number one worldwide in this game. I’ve seen much more stupider Guinness world records. And much more stupider ways to spend money.
Not necessarily. I’ve beat several thousand levels of a similar game (because I’ve trained my brain that playing it means it’s sleep time and now it knocks me out) and haven’t spent a dime.
If she can afford it and enjoys it, who are we to judge
People who aren’t addicted.
Off topic: Would a hobby be considered an addiction, too? How about other things we do on a daily basis? Do we draw lines? If so, where?
Compulsion is the line. Compulsion and destruction. If you ignore your responsibilities to play chess, and you spend all your money on chess sets and tournaments, that’s an addiction. If you love chess and play at every opportunity, but don’t let it get in the way of your responsibilities, and don’t spend your gas money on chess, then that’s a hobby. A lot of Candy Crush and other P2W mobile game players spend more money than they can afford, and they play compulsively, because the game is literally designed to be addictive. There’s a lot of addiction psychology that went into the design of these games, using the same principles that casinos use for slot machines.
Candy crush now has 15,000 levels. Good luck keeping up with that.
I hate that that’s true. And that you know it.
To be fair I had to search how many levels. I would never have guessed it was that high.
I mean, considering she had finished 4k by 2018, that is totally doable
Yea, they will keep making more I’m sure.
as long as this mom keeps playing they must keep making levels
Could they not add some level generation?
Is there more variations to even generate past 4k levels??
(Disclaimer idk what the levels look like beyond matching gems)There are six colors of standard candy. A 3*3 grid has over 10 million combinations.
Semi-related factoid: every time you shuffle a deck of cards, it is EXTREMELY LIKELY the deck has never in existence been arranged the same way.
a factoid is something that is commonly believed to be true but isn’t, which I guess this kinda is because it’s not just extremely likely. there is a 1/80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000 chance that it’s been arranged that way before. 52!
Ahhhh I’ve been ignorant about the definition of factoid!
Also I read your post as if you had exclaimed at the end: FIFTY TWO
haha that’s what I was thinking when I typed it tbh, also the meaning of factoid has changed but was originally meant as I had claimed, see my other comment if you want the context :)
Aha! Then, while I’m a huge fan of original meanings of words (AN IMAGE MACRO IS NOT A MEME UNLESS IT DEPICTS A MEME AAAAA), I will continue to use the nü-version of the word FACTOID!
A factoid isn’t inherently untrue, it just means it’s a bit of trivia
“The term was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it is not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print. Since the term’s invention in 1973, it has become used to describe a brief or trivial item of news or information.”
from Wikipedia, so I suppose the meaning of the word has shifted from its original meaning and my claiming otherwise was a Classic Factoid™️, if you will.
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Well, not all of those combinations are playable
Unless you spent 1000s of dollars buying saucers and hammers and lollipops or something garbage that lets you finish without actually playing.
I hate these “gatcha” gaming nonsense where you pay-to-win.
I dont either so I dont know. But as far as I know thats like asking for more levels on like bubble bobble or something? It doesn’t make sense to me from the screenshots I’ve seen. Even with my shitty game Dev experience, I dont see why you would put a limit on the levels unless it encourage people to spend money to “beat it”.
encourage people to spend money
Yeah, exactly that
They add 100 or so levels every week.
To give the most simple and likely reason is just so that there are a restricted set of levels. Adding a “freeplay” mode that can generate random maps is not part of the plan because that would make the regular levels look less desirable. There is also many odd quirks available with special rules. It’s not just because they did not think about generating random maps for those who finished the game. It is so that they can keep control over the game in a way that players are kept playing longer without risking burnout. They don’t want to make the game become a chore but rather a daily task/quest. Spending money to read the last level faster by getting more energy and whatnot is just a plus for them. They know that sunk cost feeling will keep those kinds of players coming back. If not, then it was unlikely the infinite freeplay would.
There’s a level limit? I assumed they were algorithmically created.
definitely pathological
This is a flex??? Lol
Now do a speed run.
e.
This makes me ponder how many unique Mario levels I’ve completed in my lifetime.
