Godus - 'In-Yer-Face-Monetization'?

edited in General


Just watched this. It manages to be hilarious while simultaneously filling me with terror and despair. Thoughts? Has anyone played it?

Comments

  • I am so so sad about this. That interview between Double Fin's Vanaman (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/19/telling-tales-molyneux-vs-vanaman/) had me hopeful again for Monyleux's latest escapade. After seeing Curiosity for what it was at the end of it, I was ready to write him off completely.

    And now this? This is Curiosity with different things to tap on. Over and over and over. And they're charging people for it. WAT.

    "It's a beta". If Godus is going to be any good this better be the Alpha.
  • edited
    Just found something else amusing (to put it lightly);

    image

    And then watch this vid from the linked time(15m18s):



    It's very wiley. 'We MAY never charge for getting gems' and then 'the only place you can find gems AT THE MOMENT'...
  • edited
    That guy with the mic is so his gay groupie.

    (And I mean no disrespect to gay guys. Really really.)

    2:50 he said Farmville. And he said they were greedy.
  • edited
    [edit... in response to the first to posts only]

    I've been a bit sad about Godus since it started.

    I have some pretty negative reactions to that video: I don't think Peter Molyneux cares about his players' time the way I expect game designers to. But more than that I'm just not sure he understands what is interesting and what is not.

    I watched a bit of an interview with Adam Sessler that Peter Molyneux did recently, in which Peter played in actual god mode (with infinite money) and was incredibly happy with how boring it all was.

    At the same time, I wonder if the necessity to fund their kind of bloated team has resulted in going to Steam beta too early. Maybe there are a ton of interesting things they desperately want to do but building their own engine has made impossible.

    Though it seems like the core of Godus is working for your people, rather than the other way around, which might never be my taste in game. I don't care about it having microtransactions (or not), but the core of the game isn't even up to the standards of the money grabbing mobile games it seems to be emulating (like Clash of Clans).

    Why don't we talk about a good god game instead?

  • Ahhh Reus. Still haven't picked it up but heard so much good about it.

    "Though it seems like the core of Godus is working for your people, rather than the other way around"

    I noticed that in the video. Surely the point of being a God in a God game is having minions to order around?!
  • Reus was so much fun, with all its layers of interaction between different facets, it's really complex but simple all at the same time. I agree that it's a much more interesting way of portraying a god game.

    At this point, anything is. Sadface :(

    Was Monyleux involved in Bullfrog from Populous to Syndicate to Theme Park to Dungeon Keeper? (I'm skipping Fable and Black & White cos I know they're his)
  • edited
    @Tuism Molyneux was lead designer on the first two Populous's (but not the excellent third one) and was on syndicate and dungeon keeper and theme park and magic carpet and (the ill-fated but brilliant Genewars). Though there were other extremely talented people at Bullfrog.
    WelschPixie said:
    I noticed that in the video. Surely the point of being a God in a God game is having minions to order around?!
    Well... if I were to respond technically (which I think misses most of the spirit of your statement).

    I think technically in a god game ordering around minions isn't at the core of the game play. My definition for a god game would be that:

    A ) The player is more powerful than the actors over which the player has influence. (like a god or a dungeon keeper)
    B ) The actors in the world exhibit their own will, and along with other factors form a system that the player is expected to manipulate in order to win.

    So the player is playing with a simulation (of which the minions may be a part) and the events in the game are more complicated than the sum of the player's actions.

    So Starcraft is not a god game. The minions pretty much only do what the player tells them. But Majesty is a god game as the minions have minds of their own and they form part of an economy.

    It follows that a god game's quality can be judged by how interesting the consequences of the player's actions are and how what the action to consequence ratio is (i.e. how much affect the player can have on the world).

    Which is one of the places where Godus is failing miserably. The player is asked to do a lot of things (like clicking on houses) that have zero consequences, these actions are just work.

    Which is sort of like the player being impotent. The majority of what the player is doing in Godus doesn't have far reaching implications, just direct repetitive results. The player is technically more powerful than the actors in the game, and the sum of what the player does might amount to a lot, but it isn't a powerful experience.

    Sorry about the long soliloquy. All I really wanted to say was that I think that the god game genre is especially interesting precisely when the player doesn't order minions around to achieve goals, but rather when the minions act to achieve the player's goals of their own accord.

    Though I think ordering minions around can be a part of a god game, but I'd think of that as RTS elements in a god game.
    Thanked by 1Elyaradine
  • edited
    Got this back from a 22Cans employee:

    https://twitter.com/SamVanTilburgh/status/379362616067768321

    "Sam Van Tilburgh ‏@SamVanTilburgh 14m
    @WelshPixie @ajdaniel there is no shop. But great to hear your uninformed opinion."

    I asked about the screenshot;

    Sam Van Tilburgh ‏@SamVanTilburgh 14m
    @HM_Axyl @WelshPixie @ajdaniel it's a screenshot from the alpha, backers did't like it, made it well known, we changed it.

    Then I asked about the 'beta' text at the bottom of the screenshot:

    Sam Van Tilburgh ‏@SamVanTilburgh 5m
    @WelshPixie aha that! it was from a pre-beta that we asked alpha backers their opinions on, they were clear. The guy who posted it went nuts

    Sam Van Tilburgh ‏@SamVanTilburgh 4m
    @WelshPixie the beta version we launched (and disabled that overlay label) was 35XX (not sure on full number).

    And then

    "Sam Van Tilburgh ‏@SamVanTilburgh 59s
    @GrayImpact @WelshPixie I don't know if there'll never be micro transactions thats not my decision alone, but we hate the greedy shit selves"

    Thanked by 2EvanGreenwood Tuism
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    @WelshPixie @ajdaniel there is no shop. But great to hear your uninformed opinion."
    Sam Van Tilburgh ("creative monkey working @22Cans") sure sounds like a asshole.

    What baffles me is that they thought backers (who paid them money when Godus was just an idea) would be happy with a free-to-play system strapped into Godus on PC.
  • Cool investigative journalism :) By "dig dig dig" I assume they mean click click click.

    Ah well I'll let the cynicism rest till the game comes out proper.
  • Tuism said:
    Ah well I'll let the cynicism rest till the game comes out proper.
    Yeah, they've managed to surpass my lowest expectations so far, but maybe that'll change.

    Speaking of expectations, I had a look at the Plannetary Annihilation progress the other day (which was Kickstarted around the same time), and that is looking very impressive (so it's not a Kickstarter related problem).
  • No... I have never thought of it as a Kickstarter problem. There's been a few really awesome looking games coming out and still to come - stuff like Radio the Universe and Hyperlight Drifter has gotten me genuinely excited - and not big-name-hype excited.

    Though that thing by the FFVI team is looking tempting, I remain skeptical until gameplay footage emerges.

    Oh and Mighty No. 9 also looks DAMN SWEET. Again, waiting gameplay footage :P
  • I've backed Mighty No. 9 ...but actually I feel it's kind of a Godus situation. A veteran designer trying to recreate past glories with only a tenuous grasp of how to create a glorious game in 2013. It kind of look like a heartless Mega Man clone so far and not a game that can stand on its own merits.

    Maybe that'll change. But I'm much more excited for Shovel Knight (which is a game inspired by Mega Man) than Mighty No. 9 (which is Mega Man without the license).
  • Sam Van Tilburgh sure sounds like a dick.
    Reading the entire twitter thread, it sounds more like some dude replied without thinking and then got called out for being snippy. At least he both climbed down later AND said that backer feedback nixed the in-game shop (and hence microtransactions) that seems pretty cool of 22 Cans, actually. I mean, the game might still be frustrating as hell, but at least they're not trying to force a business plan down people's throats if they don't want it.

    Dude could have apologised better on twitter though, nobody needs to defend being peeved. Ever.
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    BlackShipsFilltheSky said:
    WelschPixie wrote:
    Har :p Just noticed that. Don't usually see it from non-Americans though :D
    BlackShipsFilltheSky said:
    (which I think misses most of the spirit of your statement)
    Yeah, it's the spirit I was going for.
    BlackShipsFilltheSky said:
    Which is one of the places where Godus is failing miserably. The player is asked to do a lot of things (like clicking on houses) that have zero consequences, these actions are just work.
    After being told by that 22Cans guy that there is no shop in the game, it now feels to me that they've left all of their monetisation strategies in there and just removed the way to skip the boring bits to recapture the fun. If it even IS still fun when you can speed up building and resource collection and population growth that way. When you design a game that's going to include a 'F2P' monetisation strategy you're building the whole game around it. Getting some form of fun or addictive gameplay, and then placing a limitation or barrier on it that can be removed by spending real money. So now they've got this game that revolves around having this business model in place, even though they're no longer using that model.
    Tuism said:
    Cool investigative journalism :)
    Haha, it was less investigative journalism and more Van Tilburgh stalking the #Godus hashtag on Twitter and pouncing on any negative feedback. I got off lightly for my uninformed opinion;

    image

    image
    dislekcia said:
    I mean, the game might still be frustrating as hell, but at least they're not trying to force a business plan down people's throats if they don't want it.
    Before heading to bed I asked him about the shop message that you can see in NerdCubed's YT video. Currently in the game, you have your gems total displayed at the top right of the screen. When you click it, it opens a window titled 'Upgrades Store' and text below that says 'There is no shop'. I wanted to find out why that message is still there; if it's permanent that there's no store and that window will eventually be removed, if it's placeholder until they re-implement a store, or what. My thoughts are that they've either left it there - to make it very clear to the backers who complained - that they have removed the store, or that they didn't have time to take it out before going Early Access on Steam (Re. BlackShips - "At the same time, I wonder if the necessity to fund their kind of bloated team has resulted in going to Steam beta too early."). Or, of course, that the shop will be coming back in some form and that's why they haven't taken it out.

    And then this;

    "I don't know if there'll never be micro transactions thats not my decision alone, but we hate the greedy shit selves"

    And yet they were prepared to at least TRY that method of monetisation in the alpha so they must have been considering it / seeing if they could get away with it.
    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
  • I was so excited to see a re-imagining of what looked like the classic Black & White sans Creature but then I read it was 22cans and I felt I had to completely disregard the game. But the genre is intensely appealing so I keep following Godus.

    I want to add to @BlackShipsFillTheSky's definition of a god game.
    C) The game world must be a system that can run without the player's influence.

    As an example, an RTS is not a god game because the player must interact to create buildings and units; in a good game units are automatically broken, buildings are created and the units harvest resources without the players interaction. I'm not saying that it has to be a perfect or even working system; that's what makes a god game interesting in that the player is trying to influence and rectify the system.

    On this note, Godus isn't a god game based on the Nerd video because the player has to click to generate new people and click to collect faith. I did chuckle to myself watching him click though because I was thinking to myself that, as a designer, I would create a hub object that collected surrounding resources and then he talked about the statues you would be able to build.
  • Man the free Cookie Clicker game looks more fun than this!
    http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/
  • ok sorry i'm a bit late to the party. HOLY SHIT HOW BAD IS GODUS. It's like it's a parody of the game that was promised. what is with all the clicking!? woah. only positive thing is the arpeggio sound when you click on things. Or maybe nerd3 was just completely missing the point of the game? and wow lets not even talk about the microtransactions/f2p cancer in the game. FOR A PAID GAME! this is terrible and insulting to players.
    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
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    Boysano said:
    Man the free Cookie Clicker game looks more fun than this!
    A vastly superior design : ) (To the current state of Godus)

    image

    LOL! That's what I meant when I said that guy seemed like an arsehole. (I had snooped around his twitter and his blog before making that accusation).

    I know bad manners don't really reflect on game development talent in a 1 to 1 ratio. But something is definitely wrong at 22cans, and I can't imagine Sam being a force for good in that company.
    Fengol said:
    C) The game world must be a system that can run without the player's influence.
    Yeah. I don't think Majesty can run without player influence (if you don't build anything then nothing will happen). But I definitely agree that the more self-interactive the system is the better the god game (in terms of the things I enjoy about god games and the things that distinguish god games from RTS's).

    @WelschPixie Sorry about my daft spelling : P (I'll check it in future)
  • In Majesty you start with your castle which has guards which will kill the rats in the initial surroundings. Sure the castle won't grow but I think you'll find you gain a coin or 2 every minute or so for nothing.
  • On your recommendations got myself Rues yesterday on Steam! its fun...thanks
  • @BlackShipsFilltheSky No it's cool, I thought you were doing it for fun :) There's a brand of jam in the US called Welch's Jelly and people who know it sometimes call me Welsch ;p
    BlackShipsFilltheSky said:
    I know bad manners don't really reflect on game development talent
    Well, not just that, but I find it surprising that an established studio would be okay with one of their staff publicly calling people idiots - and that he'd think it was a good idea in the first place. I know he said he'd been up long hours and was very tired, but he should have recognised he was at that point and logged off instead of going hunting for naysayers on Twitter and ending up being a bad public face.
  • I wonder if there's any value in "there's no such thing as bad publicity". Personally I don't think it's true, but I dunno! Maybe there's something I don't know about the industry. It seems like all you ever do hear about are people who blow up. It's much harder to be nice and not an ass, but then you never hear about those people.
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    Bad publicity can be good when you are fighting obscurity. Going from unheard of to heard of can be useful.

    But in the case of Godus on these forums, we all know about the game already. So the publicity is probably mostly doing harm.
    Thanked by 1Tuism
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