In GME's case the rise in the stock price itself will likely result in fundamental improvements to the underlying economic metrics of the company.I believe.
Google Auth | Authy | OTP Auth | andOTP |
---|---|---|---|
Android | Android | N/A | Android |
iOS | iOS | iOS | N/A |
Store | Product |
---|---|
Bitrefill, Gyft | Gift cards for thousands of retailers worldwide including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc. |
Spendabit, Overstock and The Bitcoin Directory | Retail shopping with millions of results |
NewEgg and Dell | For all your electronics needs |
Piixpay, Bitbill.eu, Bylls, Coins.ph, LivingRoomofSatoshi, Coinsfer, and more | Bill payment |
Menufy and Takeaway | Takeout delivered to your door |
Expedia, Cheapair, Destinia, Abitsky, SkyTours, the Travel category on Gyft and 9flats | For when you need to get away |
Cryptostorm, Mullvad, and PIA | VPN services |
Namecheap, Porkbun | Domain name registration |
Stampnik | Discounted USPS Priority, Express, First-Class mail postage |
Site | Description |
---|---|
WorkingForBitcoins, Bitwage, Cryptogrind, Coinality, Bitgigs, /Jobs4Bitcoins, BitforTip, Rein Project | Freelancing |
Lolli | Earn bitcoin when you shop online! |
OpenBazaar, Purse.io, Bitify, /Bitmarket | Marketplaces |
/GirlsGoneBitcoin NSFW | Adult services |
A-ads, Coinzilla.io | Advertising |
Project | Description |
---|---|
Lightning Network | Second layer scaling |
Liquid, Rootstock and Drivechain | Sidechains |
Hivemind | Prediction markets |
Tierion and Factom | Records & Titles on the blockchain |
BitMarkets, DropZone, Beaver and Open Bazaar | Decentralized markets |
JoinMarket and Wasabi Wallet | CoinJoin implementation |
Decentralized exhanges | Decentralized bitcoin exchanges |
Keybase | Identity & Reputation management |
Abra | Global P2P money transmitter network |
Bitcore | Open source Bitcoin javascript library |
Unit | Symbol | Value | Info |
---|---|---|---|
bitcoin | BTC | 1 bitcoin | one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis |
millibitcoin | mBTC | 1,000 per bitcoin | used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases |
bit | bit | 1,000,000 per bitcoin | colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC) |
satoshi | sat | 100,000,000 per bitcoin | smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor |
UPDATED: 2/9/2021I have been checking my email pretty regularly since this all started. At 6:15AM EST I received this: We are $7.50 sorry. I am excited that the ban was overturned, and I understand that giving a reason that it was banned originally might help some future hacker or bot runner improve their practices. I hope that anyone experiencing this issue, who feels hopeless or is simply looking for how long the experience will take, will find this post. A quick recap for those just finding this post:
The original ban email, as well as many forum and Blizzard posts are written to address legitimate bans. They want to ensure that hackers and botters know that guilty people will remain banned. If you are caught up in this process, don't feel like you're guilty with no options. If you are innocent, just wait out the process. It is a far from perfect system, but it did eventually work out for me. Also, for those of you who read the entire original post, and wonder what I finally decided to do: thugshirt life I'll be wearing this shirt as a reminder of my experience. See you in Oribos, Maw Walkers. Original Post Begins Here:(If you've found this post and want information on the ban and appeal process, skip to the bottom)My Experience Being Hacked/Banned in 2010In May of 2010 my World of Warcraft account was hacked. The hacker attached an authenticator, cleaned out all of my characters, and then (I assumed) advertised gold selling websites until the account was banned. I received an email regarding the ban, and then went through the arduous process of getting my account restored.This was not an uncommon occurrence at the time. As I recall, authenticators had only been out for a little while. I was devastated, as this was during a time when I was a very dedicated raider and missing a week of raiding was a huge bummer. However, nothing was worse than logging back in for the first time. My hunter stood in front of a mailbox in Dalaran totally naked. In my mailbox, a list of items that had been sold to a vendor. The gold sent off to be sold. Seeing each item pop into my bag, I was reminded of the time and effort spent raid, and how easily all of that could be taken away. I'll never forget what happened while I stood at the mailbox, equipping each item, trying to remember what set I was wearing, and if I was missing anything. A stranger sent me a /tell, asking if I just got hacked and of course closing out the message "LOL". How fucking embarrassing it was to be watched like that, shamed because I got hacked, and trying to recover months of work naked at a mailbox. To write here that I think hacking an MMORPG is something scum does is an understatement. I used to watch the orcs in Orgrimmar dance in front of the auction house, spelling gold selling sites in the air, fuming because they were actively working to ruin the game. I preface my story with this anecdote because I want you, the reader, to understand that hacking (and botting) are issues in World of Warcraft that bother me. They actively work to ruin an experience that I have enjoyed since 2006. I have been personally affected by these practices, and understand the impact they can have. Vyve ISP and ExpressVPNSo now it's 2021. I have been playing and enjoying Shadowlands. I don't have the same time to dedicate to raiding, but I've found a lot of joy playing through the Mythic+ experience. For the first time in many expansions, I am spending time outside of the game on forums, discord, and researching my class and spec on websites like icy veins.Summer of 2020, my ISP Northland Cable was bought by Vyve. It seemed like out-of-nowhere my town was swarming with Vyve trucks. My house experienced some outages during this time, but I chalked it up to Vyve setting up it's equipment. There were several bucket trucks combing neighborhoods at the time, fiddling with lines. After these short outages, things seemed to go back to normal. I was able to level and play Shadowlands without issue. It was really enjoyable, and going from Beast Mastery Hunter (which I had played consistently for years) to Marksman was really a great experience. It was almost like rediscovering how much fun Hunter was for the first time. Months passed and one weekend in December, during my only dedicated time to play, I began to experience consistent disconnects. Of course this was during a few Mythic+ dungeons. It made the game unplayable. It even impacted Overwatch, which I decided to play out of frustration that the game mode I most enjoyed wasn't working. I ended up spending the afternoon looking over forum posts. Eventually I found a few WoW forum posts where others were dealing with the same issue. It's a little technical to get into, but essentially an internet hop routing WoW traffic was hitting 100% packet loss. The worst part is that (at the time) there was no easy fix. The only viable option was using a VPN to reroute traffic. I support some creators on YouTube, and so I decided to invest in ExpressVPN. It seemed like the other benefits made it worth the price. I got everything set up and it immediately fixed the problem and improved my performance. I was psyched, if not a little miffed that I had to spend some additional money to play. The Auction HouseThat brings us to February 2, 2021. After scheduled maintenance I decided to get my Renown levels and get the World Boss out of the way. I typically try to knock out everything I can prior to the weekend so I can focus on trying to do m+ chest unlocks.After completing this fairly quickly (I was really surprised how fast I was able to get everything done), I decided to log into some of my alts. I recently cleared out my main character's bank, and was surprised how much I was making off of items that have been sitting unused for a few years. I knew my alt banks were a hoarding nightmare, so I decided to AH as much as I could. After clearing a few alts I logged into my rogue, who is my oldest character. His bank was very small, and only had a few materials. He did have some BoE greens, and I was surprised to see that the first two each went for around 200g. As I moused over the remaining items in my bank, I landed on a green shirt the add-on listed for: 834,000g. Wait what? No no. That can't be right. There's no way. This is a bug. I'm being trolled. I was so thrown off guard that I ran to the Auction House. No mount, no Sprint, just running barefoot fueled by anxiety. 800k? What would I even buy? How much does property in Orgrimmar cost anyway? That's where the real wealth is. Land! I've never clicked the Auction House NPC to hard in my life. I searched for it. "T-H-U-K". No, that's not right. "T-H-U-G S-H-I-R-T" There's no way. Oh, holy shirt. It is real. I posted everything I had. For a moment contemplating equipping the shirt on my Hunter. Finally feel like one of the 1%. But no, we have to see if someone will buy this. I spent the rest of my play time that day going through around seven characters. I think I posted around 200 items. Years of work hoarding things. Thinking "I will definitely use this one day. I shouldn't sell this. I might need it." After that I logged off for the day. I was excited to see what would sell. It also felt good to finally get in the good habit of selling things instead of condemning them to the reagent bank for all eternity. Being BannedIt's around 10AM on February 3. I had taken care of my morning real life obligations, and I was ready to be rich. Filthy rich.I noticed a new icon next to the "Play" button on the Blizzard app. A large blue "no symbol" glared at me. Maybe Blizzard is using this to communicate something important to players. Nope. Not that. Something much worse: Oh, look. It's the worst thing. My first thought, absolutely, was that I had been hacked again. Flash backs to being naked at the Dalaran mailbox. Oh god, the shame. The cyberbullying and the shame. But I can still click "Play". Maybe it's a bug. A horrible horrible bug. The exact opposite of \"cool\" Nope. I went to the email associated with my account. After clicking all of Gmail's wonderful tabs I finally found something: ***NOTICE OF ACCOUNT CLOSURE***This wasn't like my experience in 2010. This wasn't a temporary ban to stop a gold seller. This was a legitimate account closure. What really struck me about this email was how confident it was about my guilt. I was immediately struck with a sense of hopelessness. I mean: We don't take this decision lightly. Our team issued this closure only after a careful review of relevant evidence. Our support staff will not overturn these closures and may not respond to appeals. For information, see our article: https://battle.net/support/article/2639So, that's it? I'm banned and that's it? I want to highlight exactly what made my heart sink again, because I will come back to it later: "Our team issued this closure only after a careful review of relevant evidence. Our support staff will not overturn these closures and may not respond to appeals." Now, I've been broken up with a few times in my life. It hurts, and it really hurts in writing. I've learned as an adult (by being a real bitch as a kid) that you have to let people go when they want to go. Pleading and begging don't solve relationship problems. Believe me. So when I read this, it felt like a clean break. One of those "It's not me, it's you because you hacked the video game" situations. I sat for a while, staring blankly at the screen. My account is about to turn 15 years old. I've been playing this game my whole adult life (on and off, even some of the much maligned Panda Expansion). Nope. Not giving up. I didn't do the thing I'm banned for. I actively report bots. I tell people "Thanks" after Mythic dungeons and tip rogues for opening lockboxes. I'm one of the good guys. Appealing a Ban, WoW Forums and The Waiting GameI followed the link of my ban email and was greeted with this:TFW You want to click \"No\" out of spite. To say that navigating Blizzard's support website is confusing is an understatement. Look at how many games and apps are supported by this website. I spent a few minutes clicking around. I have to make this disclaimer: At the point I was navigating the site, I was still convinced that I was hacked. I was in a state of shock and a little panic clicking. So take my critique of their support site with a grain of salt. Here's my appeal. Not my finest work: I know, and if you play World of Warcraft, you know, that tickets take time. Typically you can spend this time playing the game, waiting for an item to be restored, or waiting for feedback on a bug or issue you've encountered. Not with this, though. Being banned and waiting on an appeal is rough. So of course I anxiety spiraled. What could I have done? Why would Blizzard think I'm hacking or botting. Do I have any software on my computer that might falsely trigger my ban. Oh, god. The VPN. No way, that suggestion was posted on the forums. I'll just search some key terms. That can't be it. Where's that \"Did you find this article helpful?\" button? This forum response and the replies on the thread did not give me a sense of relief. What I gathered is that, for the most part, player's experience being banned for VPN use, and Orlyia's statement did not match. What also stuck me was another example of what I'll call "guilt reinforcement". While I understand that players who cheat will inevitably also lie, for those of us looking for information on appealing a ban, making me feel like I'm a suspect doesn't help. In fact, it definitely discourages honest players caught up in a ban. Additionally, before I move on I wanted to highlight the following post and response: Let's just close this one. I feel like we've made ourselves abundantly clear, you cheaters. This thread of Janury 2019 is one of the few "official" Blizzard results when searching "VPN Ban". It is a little shocking to see an honest response from someone who liked your game enough to get another account after being banned, play it to max level, go on the forum, and post a story related to the topic, just to get the thread locked. Yes, I do understand that this is an anecdotal story, and yes, we don't know all the details, but for someone looking for some insight to assist their appeal, this just looks threatening and dismissive. There were some positive replies to the thread, and it was enough to get me worried. Maybe I wasn't hacked. Maybe it was the VPN. So I updated the appeal. If you've read this far you probably know it won't be the last time. I related the story of Vyve, and how at the time I couldn't play without using ExpressVPN. Use discount code "Bannedforhacking69" at checkout. No, don't do that. I won't bore you (if I haven't already) with the other anxiety driven forum reading I did that day. I ended up amending my appeal several time. I found a few posts talking about bans, and saw a lot of discouraging community feedback. A lot of people dismissing posters, or outright accusing them of being guilty and using the forums or reddit as a way to get out of a legitimate ban. I understand. Like I said, cheaters lie. I get it. I asked around on a few of the WoW discord channels I use. A lot of the same. No real firm responses, no real experience, and a lot of being accused of guilt. Totally discouraged, I came here. I found some interesting stories about being swept up in a ban wave. Very similar email after the ban, but not exactly related. Stories of Druids spending hours legitimately farming herbs banned along with all bot Druids doing the same. Nah, that's not me. I didn't do anything that a hacker would do. I didn't do anything a bot would do. I didn't post 200 auctions including a shirt worth 830k gold. Fuck. I did do that. So yeah, I did this: What about this? Does this get me unbanned? The next morning I was still banned with no response. I read online that the typical response time was between 24-72 hours, so I wasn't in a total panic. I tried to keep my mind off of it, but during my normal morning WoW time I could resist refreshing my email, refreshing my ticket, going on the forum, and bothering people on Discord. After lunch I saw an alert on my phone: Just send me a scanned picture of your town's Mayor holding up a picture of your butthole. I try not to exaggerate my circumstances, but this did feel a little "prove the hostage is real". But ok, fine. I'll do it. I'll show you what you want, I just want to be free. It dawned on me shortly after that moment that I do not, in fact, know where you get a newspaper "of the day". Are Newsies still a thing? Do they still sing about dreams of moving to Santa Fe? I ended up calling the local newspaper office. And, even though telling you that is a little embarrassing, what's more embarrassing is that I was put on holding after asking "Where can I get a print copy of today's paper?" for about 5 minutes. It took a team of people to tell me where to buy the paper. So I did it. I felt like a fool, but I did it. I sat in my car and took a picture of my ID on top of the paper: Artist's Rendering I tried submitting on my phone in the car. I thought maybe if I did it quickly, I could get unbanned before the weekend. Unfortunately, this is where my issues with the ticketing system begin. On an android phone (Hello, fellow kids), trying to log into Blizzard's website with the phone authenticator doesn't work. I tried desperately a few times to no avail. So inevitable I had to upload the pictures back on my computer. FYI When you upload images or other files on an open ticket, there is no indication on the ticket that images have successfully uploaded. So far, this is my biggest complaint about the whole process. After added images to my ticket and hitting submit, I could see no indication that they were sent. During a normal Customer Service call, the tech could verify that it worked, but without speaking directly to a person, and essentially having a GM as a pen pal, I had no idea if I did it correctly. I just had to wait. That felt especially bad when you consider what appears on the email and not on the ticket on the website: And that final update will be \"lol still banned\" I have general feeling about this experience, and how a normal player trying to solve an issue is treated as if they are guilty, but this is probably my only technical process complaint. The time spent waiting, especially when innocent is tough, but not being able to see if your images are uploaded is pretty unacceptable. It would be as simple as adding it to the messages on ticket. This would have made the next 24 wait a little easier. The next morning I received a response. I am, in fact, not a smart man, but I did successfully show a GM my weird face on top of my local newspaper. I should have expected this, but I did not: Hi thereI thought, well, that this was the review. Guess not. This piece was a let down, honestly. It was Friday and I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn't going to hear anything all weekend. That sucks. Also, oddly, the ticket was marked as "Resolved" again. I think one thing that would really help the appeal process would be a bit more insight into what a "resolved" ticket means, and what each step of the process will look like. If the GMs are going to give an authentic response, I think that's great, but I'd like to know more specifically that this will change the status of the ticket, and that my next update will be via email. Which did eventually happen because of course I reopened the ticket to say thank you. Yes, I am that kind of person. I do reply to "thank you" emails with "no problem". That's just who I am. I'm glad I did though because I got this response on Saturday. Good day,Ok, number one. I have never shown patience in my whole life, but I appreciate it. Two, this email hits a little closer to the information I wanted. It would have been nice to read the following:
TL;DR(See update at top for TL;DR of the ticket process) |
This article was written with the feedback of ~300 highly engaged players from the different autochess reddit communities (TFT, DOTA Underlords, Chess Rush...), which participated in interviews and on a poll whose results are available here. They’re especially thanked by name at the end of the article. submitted by JB-Dev-Bcn to TeamfightTactics [link] [comments] In January 2019, Drodo Studio’s Dota Auto Chess mod became insanely popular. Many companies (including household names like Valve, Riot, Ubisoft and Blizzard) rushed to release their own versions. It seemed like the beginning of something big like MOBA or Battle Royale. But it has been more than a year now and the hype seems to have vanished completely. As quickly as it rose, it went away… This is the first on a series of articles where we will analyze the autochess genre. Here we will be exploring the genre’s history, its current market situation and its audience. And also, what are the core design issues that autochess suffers and that no one has been able to solve yet. https://preview.redd.it/tc2c19k4ipg61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=487539f51e104ee7d1aae1a6ded7447b1dee11ca It really helps me if you check this article (or similar content) at my blog https://jb-dev.net/ A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVEThis wasn’t the first time that a mod got the spotlight and ended up becoming the foundation of a genre. It happened in several major, industry-defining cases before (some of which are Team Shooters, MOBAs, Battle Royale…). But on some of these cases events unfolded differently. So we identify 3 distinctive eras related to the evolution of the industry:1st Era (2000s): AssimilationThe company whose original software had been modded (or had a close enough game, like Valve) moved quickly to absorb the successful mods and turn them into even more successful products.Since at that point creating a major game release was very complex (required an expensive development, publishing deals and an infrastructure to distribute the product), the deal was profitable for both sides. But it meant the dissolution of the identity of the original creator team, which became embedded in the bigger company culture. https://preview.redd.it/abyi6d2jipg61.png?width=461&format=png&auto=webp&s=d4171bf9344a162e695a75a91d18eec8206b9123 Team Fortress (1999) was originally a Quake mod. And Counter-Strike (2000) started out as a fan-made mod on the Half Life engine. Both games (and creators) were quickly absorbed by Valve. 2nd Era (2010s): IntegrationBy this time, the previous era model still was going on… but the gaming industry had significatively grown a lot and it was also possible for smaller or even new companies to lure the original developers, and use the mod as a proof for commercial success in order to secure funding and develop it as a full title.The main characteristic of this era is that the original developers were able to keep a bigger share of control and relevance, rather than being integrated as just another gear on a bigger machine, because the companies they joined built their own identity around that key product. This was the case of Riot Games: They were able to raise enough money for the creation of their company through family and angel investors, and then hire some of the original creators of DOTA, and then created League of Legends. https://preview.redd.it/vl6h2l7lipg61.png?width=763&format=png&auto=webp&s=414abb3da2b169966b7bf757a6116f86ef3748d2 Defense of the Ancients (DotA), the foundational title for the MOBA genre, appeared in 2003 as a fan-made custom scenario of Warcraft 3. Foreseeing commercial potential on a full game based on the concept, Riot games and Valve both battled for the Dota IP and the original developers, eventually releasing rival titles League of Legends and Dota2. Interestingly, Blizzard (owners of Warcraft 3) tried to replicate the success without the mod creators in Heroes of the Storm (2015), which hasn’t been as successful as the other two.A similar case happened with battle royale, which also started in 2013 as a successful DayZ mod created by the modder nicknamed PlayerUnknown. Later, it was transformed into a full product through the acquisition of the developer by a korean company (which would later be renamed as the PUBG Corporation, again showing how the company grew around the game rather than assimilating it). This case hints what would later happen with Auto Chess, since Fortnite wasn’t involved in any way with the original creators. They just copied the concept. Fortnite was a product stuck in a kind of development hell (had been 6 years in the works). As the game was getting close to the release, the developers became impressed by PUBG’s success, so they created a quick Battle Royale spin-off which became insanely popular and eventually ate the rest of the game. https://preview.redd.it/zkdv4jjqipg61.png?width=808&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e7ad39e5db4d83b6b927587b59bf1c81fe0ef85 Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (2017), foundational title of the modern battle royale genre, is the successor of PlayerUnknown’s DayZ: Battle Royale, a popular mod for DayZ (which on itself is a mod of ArmA3, making it a mod of a mod lol). The success of PUBG inspired Fortnite (a title on the later stages of a troubled development at the time) to spin towards that genre, becoming PUBG‘s main competitor. 3rd Era (2020s): FragmentationIn all the cases presented previously, the newborn genre ended up in the release of one or two titles which accumulated most of the business. But this hasn’t been the case here.In Autochess, the newborn genre has been quickly fragmented into a big list of competitors. Some are standalone games (like DOTA Underlords or Autochess: Origins), but there’s also several service-model games which released their autochess mode as well (like Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds or TeamFight Tactics, which at the end of the day is a side-game mode of League of Legends). This creates an interesting precedent, which I believe will define future cases where an innovative new game concept appears: The hot idea will be cloned very fast because today the main bottleneck in the industry is having an innovative design that generates player interest and engagement. By 2020, it’s way easier to create and distribute a game, there are way more developers hungry for a hit than ever before, and a lot of service-model games with short development cycles always looking for something juicy for their next update… so new ideas becoming red oceans fast will be the norm. For sure, this won’t affect the ability of small developers and modders to innovate, but it will affect their ability to leverage that to become successful on an independant level, before they get cloned. https://preview.redd.it/51jbq4jwipg61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=fdfcfeb82e73b48210c4d93386438268d6dcbe3b Dota Auto Chess, was a Dota 2 mod which obtained massive popularity. After a failed acquisition from Valve (owners of Dota), the mod developers (Drodo Studios) went to create the mobile standalone Auto Chess: Origins, while still maintaining the PC version linked to Valve.On Autochess, the fragmentation and fast release pace came at the cost of innovation, though. These games feature few unique selling points compared to the original DOTA Autochess experience: TFT’s ‘anti-snowballing’ character selection rounds, Underlord’s bosses and fast-track mode…. And ultimately, they haven’t fixed the core issues of the original game, which separates it from a true hyper-successful product like MOBA. MARKET STATUSBecause of the rain of clones, it’s hard to map all the autochess games on the market. It doesn’t help that some of them are available in both PC and Mobile (playable in PC, Mac, Android and iOS), and also they’re exclusive to different PC stores (Dota Underlords is only on Steam, TFT is on Riot’s LoL launcher, and Autochess Origins is only at the Epic Store…).And if that wasn’t enough, the Auto Chess mod in DOTA2 is still very active and has no signs that it’s going to be dying soon. It’s still being regularly updated, and presumably still profitable: Some months ago they added a battle pass system, with its revenue shared between Valve and Drodo. https://preview.redd.it/8w2lrid0jpg61.png?width=854&format=png&auto=webp&s=3697396edd8af2dff3f8e25cb2dd3829635506d0 What’s interesting is that none of the contenders has been able to become massively successful in terms of monetization, at least not in terms comparable to even a second or third tier MOBA. And while there are definitively different tiers of following among these titles (led by Riot Games’ TeamFight Tactics), it seems that none of them has been able to gather under its banner a significant amount of players, mobile downloads or Twitch Views… Sources: AppAnnie (mobile metrics), TwitchMetrics (twitch) So ultimately, we’re dividing the autochess market into 3 categories: Squires, Would-be Kings and Peasants.
SQUIRE: The gameplay of TeamFight Tactics (slow tempo, no team coordination, decreased attention requirement…) makes it a nice relief mode to play between LOL matches, which is its purpose in the foreseeable future. If there ever was an intention to make it a standalone game, it vanished together with the player interest on autochess…
DOTA Underlords is an extremely polished product in terms of graphics, character design and UX, and yet another proof that Valve devs really know how to do great games. Too bad they aren’t as good at releasing third installments. THE AUDIENCEWe are of the belief that you can’t talk about a game and not talk about who plays it, and that players say more about a game than analyzing all its features and mechanics. So with this in mind we collected answers from ~300 autochess players (check the raw data here). After examining their responses, we’ve identified 3 main player profiles (the comments on each profile are literal):https://preview.redd.it/satixy6cjpg61.png?width=934&format=png&auto=webp&s=80623e39c57f1252b3fc5d04db1d2a20b06928e2
What these profiles have in common, other than being hardcore gamers and having a big interest in competitive games, is the fact that they enjoy the lack of micromanagement, and the demand of reflexes and dexterity of autochess. This is quite interesting, considering that the genre foundation is so close to MOBAs, which are extremely demanding on those aspects. Overall it seems that they belong to audiences below the MOBA umbrella which are currently being alienated by the bulk of ‘younger and dexterity focused’ players. And when it comes to platforms, it seems that even though the barrier between the classic gaming platforms and mobile is progressively disappearing, the genre is still mainly focused on PC: Out of the ~300 players that answered, 50% said that they play exclusively on PC, 25% played primarily on Mobile, and the remaining 25% played in both. https://preview.redd.it/a25azxggjpg61.png?width=962&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc3677e4203abb44d5b60cc2b55e01f4fe839f74 Players said that they enjoy the focus of the game in planification, as opposed to the focus on execution and performance of MOBAs. And when asked about their main points of frustration, they pointed out 2 main topics: 1.- The strong luck factor that has a strong impact on making you win or lose regardless on how well you played. 2.- The fact that the game eventually becomes shallow and repetitive, fueled by the fact updates were unexciting and not rotating the meta.Surprised by the fact that players mention randomness as a factor of both enjoyment and frustration? Don’t be! Competitive players tend to have a love-and-hate relationship with luck, because they tend to consider that external factors outside of skills (money spent, better draw…) stole their well deserved victory. And it’s even more frustrating in autochess, because there’s a strong snowball effect: Players that obtain a big advantage early on in the game become hard to catch later on. Which means that a few bad or good draws early on can decide the rest of the match. There hasn’t been a single feature more criticised in Magic: The Gathering than the randomness of drawing mana. And yet, luck it’s part of what makes MTG stand out compared to other CCGs: For experienced players, it introduces uncertainty and the need to take risks and gamble, like they’d do in poker. And for rookies, it allows beating someone that has better skills and has a better deck, if Lady Luck is on their side. Won’t happen often, but it will feel awesome when it does. Like a friend likes to say: The best feeling in MTG is to draw a mana when you really need it. And the worst? To draw it when you didn’t. This goes to say that in autochess, perhaps the power of luck needs to be reviewed, but it would be a bad decision to completely remove luck from the equation. DESIGN CHALLENGESIn this awesome DoF article, Giovanni Ducati already pointed out the two main problems that the games in this genre need to solve to achieve real success: Bad long term retention and low monetization.To these issues we would add a third one, which is bad marketability: Contrary to their big brothers League of Legends and DOTA2, these games haven’t been able to achieve high organic downloads (at least not to be able to generate significant revenue through soft monetization mechanics). What’s even worse is that all these games, their themes and target audience are quite close to RPG and Strategy, which are genres with some of the highest CPIs on the market. So they need top-of-the-class retention and monetization to get a high enough LTV to scale up. But why do these games fail at keeping players entertained for a long time? And why don’t they monetize enough? Here’s what we think: Flat Complexity & ProgressionYou have some games out there which have a strong entry barrier due to being quite complicated to grasp. But for those that can deal with the numbers and stats, the depth will keep them entertained for months and years. This is the case in most RPGs and 4X strategy games. And then you have hypercasual games, which are simple and plug and play. So they generate a great early engagement, but are too shallow to keep users hooked for a long time.As a genre, Autochess games are in the middle ground: they have a high entry barrier, but also lack the complexity to keep players engaged for a long time… As a general rule, games with long retention tend to follow Bushnell’s Law of being easy to learn and difficult to master. They achieve that by having what we call an unfolding experience: They appear simpler at the beginning (not necessarily easy), but require thousands of hours of practice to master. An example of this are games that level lock most of the game complexity, so the player understands and masters only a set starter mechanics. And then, progressively unlock new modes and demand more specialized builds and gameplay, repeating the cycle several times to keep the game always interesting while attempting to avoid being overwhelming. https://preview.redd.it/e9f8s8tkjpg61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=825c85b7c479b3bf05fc43ac668cbd1eddf17c97 In World of Warcraft, character depth is huge. But this complexity is unfolded progressively, forcing the player to spend time mastering each skill and activity as they level up, before moving further.Another approach to the same idea are competitive games focused on mechanical ability, dexterity or micromanagement. Like CS:GO or Rocket League. They may unlock all the mechanics from the beginning, but a newbie player will only be able to focus and manage some of them, and then progressively discover and master the rest in an organic way. https://preview.redd.it/42cbth8njpg61.png?width=951&format=png&auto=webp&s=241cd59b4468cabf2d0d24e1a4e3a703b74ada51 Rocket League hides its complexity by matchmaking early players with others of a similar skill. This makes beginner players viable even if they grasp only the basic mechanics. But, as they climb further, they’ll face rivals that take those basic skills for granted and the player will need to master more challenging techniques to keep up.League of Legends and Overwatch are actually a combination of both: The game first introduces the player to a small selection of heroes which progressively gets expanded, while at the same time having an insane mastery depth that requires a high APM and reflexes, team coordination and thousands of hours of practice. Contrary to any of those examples, Autochess games throw everything at you from the beginning: Character Skills, Synergies, Unit Upgrade, Gold Management, Items… It’s a lot to swallow. And there’s not even enough time to read what each thing does before the timer runs out. This creates a complex, overwhelming first impression that drives many players out. But that’s quantity, not depth. Once you’ve gone through that traumatic starting phase, you’ve grasped all the mechanics and you know which team builds are dominating on the meta, it’s just a matter of making it happen by taking the right decisions and adapting to a few key draws. Eventually, unless luck is really against you, your skills won’t be challenged and you won’t have new mechanics to master. At that point, winning will be based more on the knowledge of the content database and luck rather than your planning and strategic ability. And that’s boring. So ultimately, these games are hard to grasp for a newbie, but also lack the ability to keep players interested for a very long time since they eventually run out of new features and mechanics to discover and master. Unexciting Updates, Lack of CollectionOn top of that, autochess games seem to have a hard time adding content which reawakens player interest and makes churned ones come back.https://preview.redd.it/52umfcvqjpg61.png?width=796&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd8095e71d025886d3c0313187ead49587459453 The DAU that we would expect on a long term retention game: A decreasing trend of players until reaching a stagnation stage. At that point, a big update (or new season) is required to attract and reengage users back with new content. This is the model we would see on Fortnite or Hearthstone, but it’s not what we see in most autochesses.On this topic, perhaps the one that has put the most effort is Riot’s TFT. Each season update, the game releases a new series of heroes, synergies, items and rebalances, as well as a big bunch of cosmetics. This generates a short lived boost on revenue (due primarily to players buying the pass) and downloads, but ultimately nothing that really moves the needle in a relevant way. ‘Why seasonal updates don’t work?‘, you may be asking. Part of the reason is that TFT, as well as every major contender do not include elements of content progression or collection. Instead, they all stick to the roguelike approach of the original mod: Players have access to the same set of units, and build their inventory exclusively during the match. While at first this seems a good idea, since it keeps the game fair in a similar way to MOBAs, it’s oblivious to the fact that new units do not offer the same amount of gameplay depth as in League of Legends. In LoL, a new unit means weeks or even months of practice until mastering timing, range and usage of the skills, how they interact with every other champion, etc… In comparison, in TFT the new content can be fully explored in just a bunch of matches, both because the new content doesn’t offer that much depth to start with and because it’s available from the moment the player gets the update. By lacking content progression and collection, autochesses miss the opportunity to create long term objectives after an update, more innovative mechanics and less repetitiveness. As a consequence, they have it really hard to hype players on updates. Big ‘Snowball Effect’In game design, the snowball effect refers to the situation where obtaining an advantage or dominance generates further conditions that almost invariably means winning the match. As you can guess, on competitive games this effect can generate a bad experience, especially when the divergence starts early on: The player that obtained the early advantage will keep on increasing the advantage and curbstomp the rest.For example, this can happen on a Civilization game if a player gets ahead of the rest acquiring key resource territories, and uses them to achieve a greater progress in tech and income at a faster pace than the rest. Or in League of Legends if a team scores a bunch of early kills and levels up, becoming more able at scoring even more kills… https://preview.redd.it/s07v5umtjpg61.png?width=620&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae14e6101c2c35da175150251bf592d0598fb76c In this match of Age of Empires 2, the red player (Aztecs) managed to decimate the blue player (Turks) military units early on. Since without an army it was impossible for the blue player to secure enough resources to perform a comeback, for the next 2 hours the blue player was in a pointless, hopeless match. Kudos for not abandoning, though!Autochess games have a huge snowball effect, due to the following reasons:
TeamFight Tactics attempts to decrease the snowball effect by introducing Carousels: rounds where all players pick a character from a list, and where the players that are losing (i.e. have less health) get to choose first. While this decreases the issue, it doesn’t really solve it… It just makes that smart players aim to lose on purpose at the beginning so they can get the better pick and generate the snowball slightly later on.
Excessive Match LengthCompared to PC, on mobile is much harder to keep the player focused for a long period of time on a single session. And having a very long minimum session kind of goes against the premise of being able to play anywhere which is a primary strength of mobile as a gaming platform. This is a problem for autochess games since a single match can last for 30-45 minutes of synchronous, nonstop gameplay.https://preview.redd.it/eh020bi1kpg61.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e98aefdec1c79141d7fe13d02acfadb13e789b7 The knockout mode in Dota Underlords aims to make the game more accessible by skipping the slow beginning of the match (you start with a pre-setup army), and by simplifying the health and fusion systems. This shortens the matches to ~15 minutes, which is still too long for mobile, but better than 30. The problem is that it also increases the snowball effect, since the match has less turns to allow comebacks, and makes any mistake (or a bad roll) way more punishing.‘Isn’t the solution just make the match shorter?’, you’re probably wondering. Unfortunately, there are several reasons that make this more challenging to the core design than what it seems:
FINAL THOUGHTSThe history of the autochess genre serves as an example of the risks of design endogamy: The devsphere rushed to clone Auto Chess, and before a year all the major contenders were in the board. But that speed came at a cost: None of these projects has brought the concept much further than its original conception, and in doing so they haven’t solved any of the core issues.https://preview.redd.it/jptzdrj8kpg61.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f3fb34eb46b610e6ee355ba47782c804cb74186 The folks at Riot games developed the TeamFight Tactics in less than 5 months. This allowed them to release while the hype was still at its peak… but it also meant it added just a couple of improvements, and it’s otherwise very similar to the original Auto Chess mod.After seeing all these projects fail to meet the big expectations that were placed on them, the question is if perhaps the best approach was to avoid rushing, and instead tackle the genre with a title that is not a clone, but rather a more groomed, accessible and innovative successor of the original idea. In our next article on this series will make an attempt to see how such a game could be, rethinking the spirit and fresh design ideas of autochess to solve the issues mentioned above. (May take a while though, I want to focus on smaller articles for a couple of months…) Meanwhile, if you want to read more about this genre, we suggest you these awesome articles from the folks at DoF: Why Auto-Chess can’t monetize – and how to fix that and How Riot can turn TFT into a billion dollar game Special Thanks to…These articles wouldn’t have been possible with the collaboration of ~300 members of the reddit communities of the different auto chess games who provided us with feedback and data. You folks have been incredible solving all our doubts. One thing that this genre has is some of the most awesome players around.So big kudos for Brxm1, Erfinder Steve, Xinth, Zofia the Fierce, STRK1911, LontongSinga22, bezacho, hete, NeroVingian, marling2305, NOVA9INE , asidcabeJ, Eidallor, Rhai, Lozarian, bwdm, Toxic, Ruala, Papa Shango, MrMkay, Dread0, L7, kilmerluiz, Amikals, Sworith, Tankull, B., hete, Bour, Denzel, DeCeddy, Diaa, hamoudaxp, Benjamin “ManiaK” Depinois, Katunopolis, DanTheMan, MikelKDAplayer, 0nid, Tobocto, Tiny Rick, phuwin, Alcibiades, triceps, d20diceman, shadebedlam, stinky binky, Tutu, Myuura, suds, Kapo, Hearthstoned, Engagex, Pietrovosky, Daydreamer, Doctor Heckle, Ignis, ShawnE, NastierNate, LeCJ, Nene Thomas, Chris, trinitus_minibus, Nah, Kaubenjunge1337, Mudhutter, Asurakap, Nicky V, shinsplintshurts, bobknows27, Willem (Larry David Official on Steam), Jonathan, Dinomit24, Monstertaco, GangGreen69, Veshral Amadeus Salieri (…lol!), Kuscomem, Cmacu, Pioplu, Dilemily, qulhuae, Ilmo, MarvMind, facu1ty, crayzieap, Saint Expedite, Lobbyse, Lukino , tomes, Blitzy24, Mcmooserton, magicmerl, i4got2putsumpantzon, radicalminusone, Pipoxo, Kharambit, Bricklebrah, Rbagderp, Merforga, Superzuhong, Mo2gon, MoS.Tetu, MeBigBwainy, Zokus, CoyoteSandstorm, Stehnis, Noctis, Fkdn, Ray, Fairs1912, Fairs1912, Krakowski, HolyKrapp, Damadud, Pentium, Mach, Mudak, CaptSteffo, jwsw1990, Omaivapanda, Inquisitor Binks, Jack, yggdranix, GoodLuckM8, Centy, Prabuddha (aka Walla), dtan, Philosokitteh, Doms, ZEDD, Calloween, Synsane, Kaluma, GordonTremeshko , Djouni, DOGE, haveitall, ANIM4SSO, Task Manager, Submersed, BAKE, Viniv, La Tortuga Zorroberto, BixLe, Rafabeen, Blzane, bdlck666, FatCockNinja86, R.U.Sty, Yopsif, blesk, Quaest0r, FanOfTaylor, StaunchDruid, Rushkoski and everyone else that took some minutes to help us out on the article. |
27 Best Game Apps to Win Money Today If you are looking for real ways to make money from your phone for free then consider checking out my quick list of the best game apps to make money. Don’t worry, I’ve personally tested all of the recommended apps and they are all legit and have great user reviews on the App Store and Google Play Store. This is where money making apps come into play — they’re a great way to improve your money making muscle. You won’t get rich, but you can earn some spending money while building your overall financial strength. To get started, here are the highest-rated money making apps available for iOS and Android. *Ratings as of January 1st, 2021. So you get money when you test the game. Testers ensure whether the games are working properly and are of high-quality. Earn money by playing games on Android and iOS devices. There are plenty of ways to potentially win money with the help of money game apps. It is genuinely possible for anyone to play games and earn money. Best Apps to Play Games for Money 1. Mistplay. This application actually pays you to play online games. Mistplay is an Android-specific application that offers users the opportunity to play video games in exchange for monetary reward. Best Game Apps to Win Money. There are lots of apps that can earn you money just for using them. If you find you’re spending many hours mindlessly playing Candy Crush or Two Dots, try switching to one of the options below. One of the best money-making apps out there, Swagbucks offers a $10 bonus for new users.. Swagbucks allows users to earn money by searching the web, watching videos, taking paid surveys, playing games, or shopping online.You can redeem your rewards for cash deposited directly in your PayPal account or by claiming gift cards to a partner retailer such as Walmart or Amazon. 1. Swagbucks ($5 Bonus) Where to play: iPhone, Android, and Swagbucks.com How much can you earn: $2 – $4 per hour How much does it cost to play: $0 for most games. Some have cash entry costs ... Here are the best money making apps on Android. Please note, these are mostly ideas for small business owners, independent contractors, and those looking for a little passive income. These are not ... Twenty Best Android Apps to Make Money 1. Mistplay. It is always helpful to have a passive stream of income, and while Mistplay won’t make you rich, it can be a great way to earn some extra cash.Mistplay began as an app in 2017 and is a video gaming platform. Specifically, it is a loyalty program built specifically for gamers. Here is the list of the best apps and PayPal games 2021 that payout to PayPal and offer amazing cash rewards and gift cards. Sign up for the apps that pay real money and then get hip to the highest paying apps of this year hassle-free. We can easily make from $100-$1000 via these apps that give you cash rewards.
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