As ever with these trends, copycats have started springing up.
No one is playing any of these games because they're 'fun' they're doing it for the skins. It would be kind of funny if what ends up killing the skin market overall would be these idle clicker games unless Valve decides to have a clamp down.
I'm still pondering the maths behind the trend a bit, with botting and cheating it's definitely going to be worth it for some people to do this. All I know is as far as I'm concerned multiplayer gaming that has any kind of micro-transactions like this are massively dead to me and these idle clickers are clearly an exploit people have found in the market.
Edit: There's a third copycat game that I didn't notice LOL, the cancer is spreading
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3015610/Banana__Cucumber/#app_reviews_hash
I still think it's much ado about nothing. Maybe I'm missing something, but someone has to be buying the skins for any of this to work.
It's basically NFT-like market speculation, but done within the marketplace and cutting Steam in on the profits.
If all these stories weren't propping it up as, "lol, banana!" it would have collapsed already.
It would be a harmless shitpost of an idea if it weren't for the top game charts. Block it from charting it and let people have their stupid fun.
I should tell you something I remember hearing from Cryptobros. They would often use steam's item trading marketplace as a sort of sign that NFTs could work, saying that their version was open source and free of DRM. However, I think that this entire fiasco could be seen as a warning sign of why this example could be turned against them, especially considering the CSGO skin gambling debacles, and I don't think they know how to solve most of the problems that already exist with steam's marketplace.
If mainstream media is reporting on something like this without shitting on it, it's not important enough to worry about and is a distraction from things that are.
This is the thing about getting on the trending pages, if you even get one or two mentions it creates a snowballing effect. The worse people for this are the 'commentators' they'll see this shit pop up on the news articles and start talking about. This in turn generates more interest and more idiots will install it and try to click on it which is exactly what the devs are counting on.
I mean, I admire the hustle in a way, it's just obviously not a video game and none of these marketplaces or live service products can ever be classed as that. Hell, even the ones that technically are games these days sort of do the most half-arsed and limited gameplay possible then spend the rest of their time on customisation.
Legit question: Who is actually BUYING the shit? You keep talking about the skin market, but that sort of thing has to actually have people that want to buy the skins. Are you telling me people legitimately want to buy fucking banana skins for a fucking banana clicker?
There will be some sucker that thinks this is the next BTC or GME that FOMOs their meager savings into a splat.
Sounds like the mobile "games" that "gurl gamer" types play while claiming to be gamers.
Not being funny I am curious but didn't you ever watch the 'hunting for whales' video? It's this games industry type who did a presentation on it and details exactly how they deliberately psychologically target the sorts of mentally ill people who buy into it and they know for a fact that the vast majority of people won't pay a penny for these games.
Seems like we need to potentially spam that video around again because it's very relevant to this, yes, there are retards who want to buy these skins thinking they can speculate on them but they just have an addiction problem and are being taken advantage of. There's also this absolute psycho from Riot games who performed psychological experiments on the studios' own fanbase and this is why I reeee so hard about glowies and gambling in video games.
None of these people are gamers who take part in this shit they are corrupting the industry hard. I was getting annoyed seeing the way people play on CS:2 these days compared to back in the day and I started wondering how many of these accounts were just phoney bots idling for skins or people trying to preserve k/d among other things.
A big part of why you see so many shit heads I think trying to make a game go F2P on the steam pages or weirdly begging for achievements is probably just these retards wanting to farm skins or trading cards is another one.
I remember when the gaming industry got slapped with gambling regulations and the top corporate leeches of the studios who had paied gambling mechanics ''warned'' that they would have to find ''other ways'' to monetize their games.
Yes the ones who sell games $60 - $80. said that too.
Glowies have infiltrated the games industry at every level, psyops are real and yes, they are out to get us.
Yes.
People are just that bored. 1st world is just that comfortable and devoid of meaningful hardship.
The whole "game" shouldn't be a thing. It obviously only exists to cash in on Steam items.
These kind of "devs" used to at least try and make an actual game to cash in on items and cards. These days they don't even try anymore.
Surely they'll devalue the price of the skins by over supplying the market
I actually love some Idle games but these are shit. And no, I don't mean cookie clicker either. There's not that many good ones sadly and most are free and just on websites.
Its honestly amazing how Cookie Clicker basically set the foundation for the genre, and then not a single one has managed to replicate what made it good in the first place.
I'm always on the hunt for a good one but its always either predatory MTX or absurd time investments without that sweet dopamine hit.
I like Idle Dice way better than cookie clicker.
I find it hilarious how every time you maximize an exponential vs polynomial curve there's an entire new one layered on top that opens up. It eventually gets really crazy.
There is always something like this going on on Steam. A few years back it was the "Achievement" games that had 900+ achievements just for opening the game that was either being sold for the icon on people's profiles or to buy things off the Steam Marketplace with points gained. Same with badges/cards before that, and so on.
Steam is an International Marketplace with regional pricing. Which means that 3rd Worlders and Eastern Europeans make more money by doing dumb shit on it than they would working real jobs in their own country. The same way Gold Farming in MMOs continues.
What's a "skin" and why is it worth anything?
My sympathies if you're new to all of this, a skin is just a wearable item in the game. It's something that's very common in free to play games where you can purchase 'skins' (items ) that can be equipped on a character to change their appearance and these can also be traded among players for real money as well if they want to buy it. They vary in rarity and it works a lot like trading cards etc. back in the day, this is just the digital equivalent.
Thanks. Maybe I should have added "What is a skin in this game, or what passes for a game?"
Stepping out of the sea was a terrible evolutionary mistake.
I'm sorry but stupi people deserve to lose.