For example, my DropZap game could show sad faces in the blocks when it is neglected. The player would not be penalized though (unlike farmville). Another possibility is to have a startup delay proportional to the time that the game has been neglected. During this delay, an animation would be used to clearly convey the extent to which the game is upset. Would something like this make a game more addictive?
The only game I've played that has this sort of thing is CJS, and I hated it. Some people, however, ended up playing it every day. Having a penalty for not playing for a certain amount of time could appeal to some people. However, if someone doesn't play for a while, they might not ever play it again because of that penalty. EDIT: I just reread it; that sort of thing might appeal, but I'm not completely sure.
I don't get the logic of this (I thought you were joking with this thread at first). If you don't play a game, that means you're bored of it or you found another good game to play. When you come back to it and have to suffer a penalty for not playing it, what do you expect to achieve? You're gonna get annoyed and like the game less from straight logic.
Yes, the game should welcome you even more. "I'm soooo happy, that you are finally back." That would be great.
Not a bad idea. A witty little joke might be the best way to do it. Or maybe even some sort of hidden bonus that would serve as an incentive.
I think something that won't affect the user in any way is the best way to do it. Adding a load time proportional to how long they have neglected the game is a terrible idea. It may work on some people, but for others it will just be that one extra thing they need to kick that game off their iPhone, and never play it again. That's my thought, at least.
Agreed. That's the big reason I deleted Car Jack Streets. I forgot to play the game for a long time, and when the endless waves of mobsters came and killed me after I made some really good progress, I just gave up. That, and the fact that I had to sit around for 15-20 minutes just to start up a mission. Please, don't use real time to do anything that actually affects the game, other than having things like hidden secrets or monsters that only appear at day or night, which is affected by the real time. Other than that, it just becomes a burden, and when you get bored and feel like going back after a long time, you shouldn't be punished for giving up for a long time, but not wanting to delete so you lose all your progress.
it sounds like a cute little gimmick, but ultimately it sounds like a waste of time and resources that could be better spent developing other products. The best way, in my opinion, to drive players to your games is to produce a hit and then upsell to your other products from within there. At that point, either they like the game (for what it is) or they don't.
Good point. If the player doesn't want to play, punishing them for not playing isn't going to make them want to play.
A perfect example of this would be Seaman on the Sega Dreamcast. If you didn't "play" for awhile he would get mad at you for ignoring him. I REALLY wish we could have an updated version of Seaman for the iPhone.
Doesn't this sort of thing work for farmville though? Actually, farmville takes it further by allowing your neighbor(s) to maintain your farm, so it also provides an incentive to invite friends to play.
I think it all depends on how it is implemented... i don't think it should be a negative, but in certain types of games i think showing change (e.g its been a while since the player has last played) shouldn't be considered negative. I have over 30 PS3 games, just because i haven't played one in a while doesn't mean i don't want to play it anymore. With people being more busy these days, and having lots of choices, it is nice for a game to give something back to the player after a while. I guess this is why i like open world games, MMOs are also a good shout for this type of thing. I think its probably harder to implement this for most games on the iphone, but i think some would suit this perfectly.
