As far as I can tell, this product never panned out. It was backed by 132 people to cover 150k GBP in 2017. It was called the “Cyclotron Bike”.

Starting off with “we’ve heard your feedback” is something I’ve never heard from an abusive parent?

Many things are designed for engagement, so what’s your point? Some people use Lemmy like Reddit and care about internet points that don’t matter. “The rising number is designed to exploit your behavioral patterns and enforce your engagement.” Instead of daily, it’s multiple times, but the point is you can paint many business models like this.

People download the app to get better at a skill. It’s designed to be effective at doing that. It’s a skill people want to learn. How is that exploitive or manipulative?

Full warning: I’ve worked in game design and F2P for like 10 years. I know there’s some personal bias, but there are much worse examples of this stuff than Duolingo or whatever. Painting good actors as bad actors is not correct.

The anecdote part at the end is irrelevant for both of us. I have the opposite experience and don’t even use this app: a bunch of my friends seem to all use it for learning languages. /shrug

Why evil? I’m not a capitalist, but it’s a language learning company being silly; they aren’t causing massive injustice.

More AI:

Do you hear the denim sing? Singing a song of jean-clad men? It is the fabric of the people Who won’t wear slacks again!

When the stitching in your seams Echoes the rhythm of the looms There is a style about to gleam When tomorrow’s hemline blooms!

The expansion of that abbreviation feels like an idiocracy joke.

“We store the computer data on VBDs.” “What is a VBD?” “Very large disc^tm. It’s pretty advanced.” And then they just bring out an insanely large disc.

It’s not as much. GaaS is the predominant model, and you make more on the LiveOps side than the launch recoup period.

Source: Developer of 10 years, x-Director at 200 person company.

Let’s say “low performing” means you scored 20% or lower on the test. We’d write that as “25% scored 20% or lower.” But you could move the measure of “low” to whatever.

It’s not “the bottom 25% were in the bottom 25%.” It’s “25% met the criteria for low.” Those are different things.

…unless this is a /s that I’m too tired or socially inept to process. i’m trying to be helpful.

Easy back for me. The original RoA is one of my favorite platform fighters. I’m happy to support Dan and crew for their next venture. I can’t wait till beta opens. :)

I live in MA and have an X marker. I really like it? It’s a common variable, and I like the relationship.

I usually say Mixter, but it’s English so it’s all made up.

Pretty sure “intent to deceive” is on his face every day with that horrible tanner/bronzer makeup.

Game designer.

I’m a Director of Game Design now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU7pJ0fF19w

Thank you, tree.

I struggled to find the list of 19 in the article itself, which was disappointing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_economics

I think the internet thinks economics is a hard science. I think it’s mostly due to the math involved.

You are correct, but as someone who has worked in F2P mobile for a decade, it is true that most profitability comes from whales, at least in this market. You might have hundreds of thousands who spend as you mention (dolphins or minnows), but as a percentage of revenue, that aggregate is considerably smaller than the aggregate of whales: I’ve seen that ratio as high as 5:95 on a financially successful mobile F2P 4X strategy game, meaning 5% of total revenue coming from players with a lifetime spend of less than $250, 95% of total revenue coming from those above that. The populations of those groups is usually the opposite (very few whales vs. many dolphins and minnows).

Not all F2P models swing heavily into “whale-based”, but the traditional wisdom is similar to the casino industry. Large corporate companies often have small teams dedicated to servicing VIP players, ensuring they come back to the game through attractive offers or other gifts (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/how-does-zynga-hunt-for-whales-this-week-in-business).

Another component that people don’t understand is that often these aren’t “normal people” in terms of their income. We had geo-tagged data, so when you’re looking at your high level VIPs north of a million in lifetime spend, you’re talking about someone in UAE, someone in Petersburg, someone in Hong Kong, or someone in the Texas oil fields. That’s not to provide moral ammunition, but it is a different viewpoint from these games preying on people who don’t have money. A lot of whales have so much money, they just don’t care about spending $100s or $1,000s at a time.

Finally, I personally know at least 1 divorce caused by a game I worked on: the husband couldn’t stop spending, and it led to a separation. There are likely more. By the same token, I also know marriages caused by that same game.

If people are having issues with spending, please stop playing, stop spending, get help. If people don’t want this to be the dominate model, they need to support with their wallets. Having said that, there’s more free games to play than when I grew up. I do think that is pretty cool.

This looks amazing. Can’t wait to see what Dan and company finalize.