Gaming should be fun, right? I would think at least for most of us, those who play games because its fun to play. Some of us maybe professional gamers, earning their bread and butter with it. For those, gaming shall also be fun otherwise they would not be able to continuously play well enough to earn enough money to survive in life. But I can understand these type of gamers may experience other things than just fun, and are ok with feeling eg stressed over the games they play.
I'm far from being a professional gamer. I'm not even an amateur gamer. I may not be a gamer at all, since the games I play are nothing like all these adventure, shooting and racing games. Though the adventure and building games I may like to play. But every time I try one of these. I end up in the same state...
published at PNGitem (source)
FEELING STRESSED BIG TIME!
A month or so ago I started playing poker (no real money involved, just fake money) using the Governor Poker 3 smartphone app. Looks all pretty cool, but MAN, how this game is driving stress levels! The app is not only offering poker (single plays and some kind of tournaments), but it tries to drive you nuts by all these daily activities and challenges! Skipping a day, means for many of those challenges a clear: out and over with! Like the Spring event ongoing right now to get to some big bonus prices...Only when done daily activities for the length of 40 to 60 days pfffff. Am at day 15 or something though :)
For a little while its fun to keep going, but at some point in time it starts to feel like work: daily I need to attend to this game to stay in the race of all these challenges.
Sure I understand why the app builders do this, in the end to create a level of stickiness, get more returning users, resulting in more revenue for the app owners because users start to buy waivers for these challenges or extra coins to stay in the race.
But MAN, that's not only makes people hooked but also drives the sane, INSANE. The feeling is growing I’ll gonna quite all these challenges and likely gonna delete the app. Will give me (loads) more time for other lower stress activities like hanging out on HIVE, read a good book, or something like that :)
screenshot from my own account
A RIDE IN THE PAST
Late last year / Early this year I had a similar experience with Drugwars. Been kinda playing that game since its inception quite a long time ago. For a long time I was a guy at the bottom of the pyramid: Been able to win some; Gain some powers by building out my (defending) army; But mostly got attacked by the big guys.
Springtime last year I decided I wanted to grow bigger providing my position more stability. Every day I spend a few hours playing the game, trying to rob resrouces as much as possible in order to grow my own powers and army to a good size. Somehow I was successful and could defend myself against the big users; My army became to big just to take them out for fun whilst not able to steal any of my other resources since I kept them save every single day.
Then the music festival season started and it became difficult to take care of my position in the game on a daily bases. I survived the first multi day festival, but during my second multi day festival my good size army was taken down by a whole team of players. The result: I was angry at myself for not handling my 5 to 15 minutes daily tasks at Drugwars just to stay save in the game. I stopped playing!
Then autumn and winter came and I decided, I would try Drugwars another time. This time I wanted to grow my army soooo big, even the most powerful players would not take my army out just for fun. I think I spend 4 hours every evening for at least four, maybe even five to six weeks! Build an army soooo big that I thought: WOW, I kinda belong to the big guys now!
Then this whole STEEM/HIVE drama started in February; I spend lots of time on STEEM, in Discords, in discussions and all and simply forgot to attend my Drugwars thingy. The moment I realised I didn't logged into Drugwars for a few days, and my position may be in danger, I discovered I was just attacked be a sh*tload of users (all from the same gang)! My complete army was take out, and millions of my weapons, drugs and whatnot resources was stolen! Fine thanks: 20 to 30 hours per week playing, for many many weeks and then this! Since then, I never logged into Drugwars anymore. Need to get my whatever token they have, transferred to something else and them Drugwars is history full stop! Can't or don't want to deal with all that STRESS, while the FUN is taken away completely.
published at State of dApps (source)
FINAL NOTE
What I don't like of all these games is the fact they demand daily activities to stay in the game, to try and increase the fun. In short term, the fun levels are increased, but I think it actually takes away the fun; In the longer run at least. It builds up stress levels, since every single day I'm thinking: I need to find some time to play this or that game, otherwise all my efforts of the past may have been for nothing! Even when I only need to spend 5 minutes per day playing a game, it gives me lots of stress. I'm for instance not always connected to the internet. I may be a day or two or even a week at places where no internet is available, or it is so slow these games can't be played. I had occasions where I toke a taxi to go to some place where bandwidth was sufficient, just to make sure I would stay save and sound in the game.
I've done the Drugwars thingy a few times, but now I'm done and over with. Still today after not playing it for 2 or 3 months, I feel NO urge at all to login that game. They probably lost me forever.
Though this morning I played Governor Poker 3 for half an hour, I think they gonna loose me as well. Sure, this poker game is a little less demanding than Drugwars, I can continue to play it when not participating in all these challenges... But hey, I want a poker game that doesn't have all this BS build into. I like a clean poker game, just poker, nothing else. But I guess, these are hard to find (I didn't, but I may haven't researched long enough).
ANYWAYS...
Since four decades I see myself from time to time spending sh*tloads of time in a game, and then remove myself completely from it, until the next game that somehow draws my attention (usually with intervals of a few years). Drugwars and maybe also Governor Poker 3 could be my last online gaming experiences. Both are driving me NUTS! Well, Drugwars did big time, and Poker still does!
I like to spend my free time with positive stress only, this could be watching great thrillers, reading a marvelous book that gets me exited, play a cool board game with my friends and more of that sort. I don't need the stress coming from all this digital games.
I do wonder how these game developers and product managers determine what is the right approach for their games. The approach taken for Drugwars and Governor Poker 3 is definitely not the right one for me.
I can only conclude in general terms: How easy it is to loose users/customers when apps and services don't offer the right user experience!
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
I really wonder how other gamers think about all of this? Do you play games that require constant attention to stay in the game/race? When so, do you continue to like the game over time? When no, why are you still continuing the game? What is your secret? How do you keep happy levels up when driven into daily activities?
ANY STRESS FREE GAME RECOMMENDATIONS ARE WELCOME :)
a HIVE original
all photographs by edje unless stated otherwise
qsounds music library with more than 300 entries | A...K | L...Z |
hive curator for illuminati-inc / c-squared / c-cubed