Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games

Comments · 98

• KY

  @KyrosQuickfist · 4 years ago

  The important thing to take from this is how monetization strategists figured out how to add an energy systems to ANY type of game without actually putting an energy system in the game.

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• CO

  @codetaku7 · 9 years ago

  Idle games started on IRC.  They were around for years before moving to the web and other places.  They were a bit different, where the challenge was to stay connected, and utterly inactive, as long as possible.  If you changed your nickname, or lost connection to the server, etc, you would lose experience points or such.  One that I 'played' had you gain experience over time, and also random events which occurred like battles and found items and other things.

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• YU

  @yuriscarbaci124 · 8 years ago

  When talking about idle game history i wonder why Ogame wasn't included there, i mean that's exactly the first idle-mmo game ever hitting the big screen.

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• 71

  @717pixels9 · 2 years ago

  Thank you for the great presentation!

• RM

  @rmt3589 · 3 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu-RjxeDpU8&amp;t=2863">47:43</a> That was my first idle game, and one of my first mobile games. Loved that game! Still have an old phone devoted to that save specifically. (I should go dig that out)

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• LO

  @Lovuschka · 7 years ago (edited)

  Evolution of game length (years not entirely correct because of satire reasons).<br><br>1976: Get your 1 minute arcade games at home now with this Atari system!<br>1986: Sure, you can beat Super Mario Bros. in under ten minutes, but it has good replay value!<br>1996: Here is another 80 hours hardcore game for dedicated players.<br>2006: Here is some paid Horse Armor, so your horse looks better while you play through our 250 hours RPG.<br>2016: You can buy multipliers for your idle game, so you play even less while you don&apos;t play our 5000 hours idle game.<br>2026: We made the augmented life simulator so you can live in real-time while you live in real-time. With a playtime of up to 100,000 hours you can start playing at birth and end at death.<br>2036: Our AI has created the ultimate game. Unfortunately we don&apos;t understand anymore how it works, but all other AIs love it. As it&apos;s self-evolving this will be played until the end of time.

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• FL

  @FlameRat_YehLon · 9 years ago

  What I kinda want to have on mobile platform is some sort of &quot;supply line management&quot; idle game, that is similar to how you play factory style modded Minecraft. The goal is to create the highest productive system rather than having the number go high enough (because, well, you really need those UU matters in your DSU that much?)<br><br>Maybe I would ended up making my own game but I really hope that other game devs can try such thing as well, because that&apos;s like, ultimate math exam that is actually fun rather than super frustrating, if that make sense.

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• SK

  @SkittleBombs · 3 years ago

  I loved seeing the cahrts about progression, i feel like so many mmo rpg need to have this level of thinking. Then the microtransactions is cool to hear but definitely not as fun to watch as a gamer

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• RM

  @rmt3589 · 3 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu-RjxeDpU8&amp;t=187">3:07</a> I may have spent more time playing the incomplete cookie clicker I&apos;m making than actually making it...

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• RE

  @realbrickbread · 3 years ago

  Humans love seeing numbers getting bigger

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• JA

  @jameswilson422 · 8 years ago

  I love playing so-called ‘self-playing’ games, especially the ones with the rankings and competitions/events as I don’t have much time to spend on ‘real-games’,…Not every idle game is worth playing, but I love interacting with other players inside the game through chats,… what I lately find in War Clicks. <br>Anthony, thanks for your speech, it was a pleasure listening to it!

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• KU

  @KugleeKuglee · 3 years ago

  I think Tamagotchi was also an idle game back then...

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