= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
NihilCredo comments on Memetic Hazards in Videogames - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (158)
Blizzard's own Starcraft is competitive and very fast-paced, and yet it has continent-wide servers all the same.
A better reason for the perverse nature of MMOs is that the promise of guaranteed progress, especially combined with social obligations, is much more effective at keeping people paying their monthly fees than the hope of personal improvement.
You see it slowly being integrated with other, more skill-based genres in the form of Achievements, little badges you can display and a progress bar/counter that marks how many you've gotten. Many of these are skill based, but just as many are presence based (ie: complete 1000 multiplayer matches).
Their widespread adoption into nearly every sort of game leads me to believe they're VERY effective for keeping people around.