Saturday 7 March 2015

Boom Beach is eating my soul...

I'm not convinced that so called 'free to play' games should be legal, though I guess there's no rule in the world that stops bright folk playing us for saps.

I've been addicted to 'Boom Beach' since the day I bought my Samsung Note. It's supposedly a strategy game in which you build a small army which you can use to conquer islands overrun by computer generated force or forces controlled by other players. What's become obvious over the time I've been playing it is that there's actually very little strategy other than the psychological strategy of the creators who have a deep knowledge of what motivates human beings.

2015-03-07 14.17.50

I've been playing it for months and I'm now at level 46, my HQ at level 16. That will mean nothing to you unless you play 'Boom Beach' but, to put that into context, the highest players in the world are around level 60+. What's more significant is that I've played it without spending a penny.

Money is a big element in the game. I read somewhere recently that 'Boom Beach' earns the makers hundreds of thousands of dollars each and every day. The money comes from players buying 'diamonds' which are the most powerful currency in the game. You'll notice that all these supposedly 'free-to-play' games require a virtual currency. In some games it's gems and in others it's coins. In 'Boom Beach' it's diamonds and diamonds allow you speed things up because without diamonds, everything takes an eternity to complete.

That delay is a powerful motivation. The psychology of delayed gratification is a strong one, as the best writers often prove. If you've ever read 'Lord of the Rings', you'll notice that Tolkien interleaves three narratives through the final half of the book. It's a brilliant technique which means that he can delay the gratification of giving you a vital piece of plot for the next but two chapters. He does this at the end of nearly every chapter, meaning you're always left on a hook.

The same is true of these games. As you level up, you feel more motivated to carry on and yet the goals become harder to achieve. Or, that is, harder to achieve without paying. In the course of a week, I can earn about 100 free diamonds by simply playing the game. However, I could buy diamonds which cost £3.99 for 500 or £79.99 for 14,000. I don't, of course, but lots of people do. 14,000 diamonds would allow me to level up my base (the game's single most important unit) at least three more times. As it currently stands, I'd probably have to play it for 140 weeks to get that far. That's nearly three years.

Without buying diamonds, you get stuck like I'm currently stuck. Every day, I try to get my resources (wood, stone, metal) to a level where I can upgrade my base. Every day, I'm raided by players and I lose all my resources. I often wonder how many of those players have paid the £79.99. It's been going on for months now and I'm at the point where I wonder why I keep going.

The reason I keep going, I suppose, is because I've already invested time into the game. Once somebody is locked in a pattern of behaviour, it's hard for them to break out of it. I'm locked into a pattern of behaviour. I need to quit now and spend that time reading a book or going for a walk because I should realise that at an elevated level, the mathematics of the game have already been carefully modelled by very bright people who also understand human psychology. The game, like so many others of the same type, is bright and cheerful and you feel like you're having fun playing it. Yet it's also unbeatable. There is no goal other than the goal of making me return to it and (had I cash) encouraging me to pay money for a completely virtual reward. More than that, it reveals how easy it is to manipulate people, break their free will and turn them into drones. Deep down, the whole culture of these games is very sinister. It reveals the mean truth of consumerism. The system tempts us, flatters us, sweetens us, courts us, romances us, but in the end, it only really wants to consume us entirely.

 

35 comments:

  1. Well done!

    Some friends got me into Candy Crush which I now find quite addictive...

    Like you, I refuse to pay anything so I've reached level 140 for nothing... I'm currently in a three-day 'no play' period at the end of a particular section... I can of course pay and play but not doing so is part of the satisfaction of the game! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. I used to play The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth on my phone and I recognise what you're talking about. I couldn't resist spending money from time to time but it soon adds up. I think as well as the frustration of having to wait the competitive nature of people explains why these games are so lucrative. I used to chat to fellow players on the games chat facility and some used to spend thousands to maintain their ranking.
    I saw the light eventually and quit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I didn't know there was a Hobbit game (he says reaching for his tablet). I could easily get myself lost if they put the free-play model to a half decent Middle Earth since I'm a sucker for everything elvish. Never really wanted to communicate with other players, though, and I think it might break the immersion into a fantasy world if I was suddenly hearing somebody talking about modern life. In fact, I imagine it might break my immersion as much as that moment in the last Hobbit movie when Billy bloody Connolly turns up as a dwarf. I mean I like Billy Connolly but it was like a sack of reality landing on my head when I was miles away with the hobbits.

    ReplyDelete
  4. […] Stephen’s comment this morning got me thinking about ‘The Hobbit’. I recently saw the third part of the trilogy and, though I didn’t think it the best of the three, I did think it a fitting end to both the adaptation and Peter Jackson’s long sojourn in Middle Earth. I say that having not always been so positive in my thinking. When I first heard about a new big budget version of the ‘Lord of the Rings’, I felt a mild disappointment. I knew Tolkien would become bigger and even more popular, whereas previously, I knew very few people who’d read the books. I’d read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion at school and had given a small presentation about it to a class who clearly thought I’d gone mad trying to explain the attraction of hobbits and orcs. I’d loved the Radio 4 adaptation of the Rings and also quite enjoyed Ralph Bakshi’s animated version, though he’d only made the first half of the trilogy with a hastily tacked on ending completing the story. My main disappointment with Jackson’s films was that John Hurt didn’t play Strider. Strider was my favourite character but made special because of Hurt’s voice and the gnarly version of the Son of Arathorn in the Bakshi version. Despite so many obvious improvements in other respects, Jackson’s Strider was never that good. […]

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, Candy Crush was a game I deleted really quickly. It felt like a straight dash for my cash: a horrible game. How you've managed to play it without paying a dime is, in my eyes, a miracle. You deserve rewarding and/or ennobling. Either that or psychological profiling because you mustn't have normal human instincts.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I too played candy crush, up to level 161, and not a cent ... more because I didn't really know the ops of the icons.
    Yet Boom Beach "makes" u pay. In candy crush there is no-one to steal your hard work. But with BB what is $5 to protect all your hard work. I know of only one person, at level 54, who has never spent a cent... his strategy was get power stones first! He has one which gives him a 49% extra chance of being rewarded with them. Power stones can make his base almost impenetrable! And in the beginning they produced extra resources. I know BB talk here but any new players concentrate on getting the highest power stone for extra stones, followed by extra % on your gunboat and everything else will follow.
    Wish I knew this at the start. BTW he has been playing for 18 months+.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the tip! About to hit level 47 but it's become so slow. I've got power stones which I use regularly but my problem (like you say) is stopping people stealing my resources. In fact, just checking to see my current level, I discovered I've been hit again! I just can't upgrade my idol maker to use my extra power stones. What I'm discovering is that BB actually rewards me for not playing. So long as I stop invading other islands and allow my victory points to be reduced, I tend to get attacked less (though still at least once a day). However, then it becomes a very slow process of amassing resources by building them myself. I'm now at the stage that anything requiring over 1,000,000 wood or stone is just impossible. I rarely get more than 700,000 of any single resource before it's stolen from me. Such a great game but I'm really hitting a wall and I'm not going to spend my entire day playing it just to save my resources! :(

    ReplyDelete
  8. having spent about £100 and realised that BB was taking over my life (checking it when out with friends or at a dinner party even) I decided to delete the game and reclaim my life. Going cold turkey is the only way, forget the time you have invested instead think that you had hours of fun out of the game so you had good value from it, but you realise than now enough is enough and you want to return to your family or loved ones. JUST DELETE THE GAME AND FEEL THE RELIEF!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I admire your strength of character to do that. I've still not deleted it but, to be honest, it's become a game I rarely open. I've discovered that the best way to advance is simply not to attack people. That way your score comes down and the higher power players don't hit you that often. I'm glad I began to find it so boring that I stopped playing. I definitely felt the relief! These games that delay gratification but tease you with quick upgrades for money should be outlawed. There's something deeply unhealthy about them.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I agree with every one, they should outlaw this types of game... I just spent $500 on this game and I finally had enough....I deleted it and I'm not going back...thank you guys, I did find courage to do it once and for all. To the new comers on BB don't be a victim like me, spend your money wisely on something useful. Game addiction is for real, and the only way to do it is to stop cold turkey. Spend your precious time on something more meaningful...

    ReplyDelete
  11. $500! Hell! I'd love to know what kind of level gain that got you but I bet it's all relative. That's the problem with these games. You think you'll get ahead of the competition but there's always competition at every level. It's an unbeatable game unless you delete it.

    I do agree. They should be banned. Not least because they're destroying true gaming because companies are realising it's stupid spending money developing top quality games when they can just produce this kind of addictive psychological hook.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I hate bb!!! My partner is addicted and it's ruining our relationship!

    ReplyDelete
  13. When I first started playing Boom Beach I realised early on that the designers wanted the plastic in my wallet. So, I made the decision to change the goal of the game to one where psycholigically I HAD to attempt level 62 HQ20 WITHOUT spending any hard cash. It has taken 11 months and I'm almost there and I've enjoyed the journey!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Pretty good approach. I've done the same, swearing I wouldn't spend and so far I've done that. However, I find it damn frustrating. The grind of earning the cash and then watching as other people come and nick it drives me crazy. I still have it on my tablet but I'm playing it far less. Stuck around level 50. Level 62 is insane.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I've probably taken a more pragmatic approach and just accepted that as I raid about 60 to 80 OTHER people's bases every week, I should accept that with a wry smile my own base is going to get raided a few times every week also. A bit of calculated give and take!
    And I use the strategy of raiding when only trying to reach an upgrade target, and then stopping. I log off knowing I have almost zero resources to lose! Stress levels are somewhat diminished!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I don't play many games, almost none, but as a professional database and web applications developer, I was awed by reports that Super Cell made something like $1.7 billion last year on what is marketed, essentially, as free games.

    I'm fascinated by the psychology employed to get people to pay money to speed things along. Toward what end? So I watched a couple of 'advanced' boom beach players videos on YouTube, and well, let's just say I don't want to be like those guys. Addicts to what, in the end, is a pointless game.

    Spending your time on virtually anything else is more productive. I'm at level 29/129, and haven't spent a dime. But I've lost countless productive hours/days of my life. I'm deleting it now. My brain tells me it will only become harder if I wait. I've gleaned some insight into how these companies make money, which is the only thing of value to be found on Boom Beach.

    ReplyDelete
  17. That's pretty much my thoughts. Admire the game and the psychology is fascinating, especially since I occasionally make my own games and would love to catch a bit of that magic. However, these aren't really games. Games bring pleasure into people's lives. These are addictions which I think people should rightly worry about. Not played it now in over a month. I feel like my life is my own again... Besides, prefer the new Fallout game. Much more friendly.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Wow! 60 or 80 each week! I probably haven't done 60 or 80 in all the time I was playing. Are you sure it's not an addition? That's ten raids a day!

    ReplyDelete
  19. It took me one year and 4 months to reach level 62 in boom beach. No money spent. However careful strategizing is needed and if you have a life outside of gaming it's easy to time the upgrades to happen when you know you'll be busy. Still play, reached #2 world rank in taskforce for a brief period then started another tf to have fun with friends. Good stuff but it is time consuming and requires a lot of discipline to enjoy this game AND still be productive in life.

    ReplyDelete
  20. oi.stoppit@yahoo.co.uk27 September 2015 at 11:49

    lol, to be honest, 10 raids a day isn't really that much. About 6 of those are the NPC bases (computer bases) and the other 4 are PVP's (player bases). It takes about 20 minutes in total, roughly 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening, so it's certainly not an addiction or controlling my already busy family/work/social life. And I also have not spent a dime so far! I decided at the start that a free-to-download game for a mobile phone would be just a bit of fun, and wouldn't run (ruin?!) my life 24/7.

    ReplyDelete
  21. oi.stoppit@yahoo.co.uk27 September 2015 at 11:56

    Those advanced Boom Beach guys on youtube are actually a bit savvy. They have created a money-making business by just uploading those videos onto youtube in an attempt to get 'hits' or subscribers. The more popular they are, the more revenue they make from advertising, and as they are promoting the SuperCell games they get their diamonds for free!

    Nb. As a further point to the above, the guy uploading Minecraft videos (his Minecraft name is Scampy Longnose), has the most followers on youtube in the world! Over 30 million people tune in monthly to watch his videos, more than Justin Bieber gets! (And he makes a lot of money from it!)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Its kinda crazy that a game that is advertised is free, but still capable of making someone spend more money towards it than an actual game console, with much better graphics,etc.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Am level 46, HQ19 and leader of a Taskforce, I looked up a few tips early on so I don't have too much vp meaningI'm rarely ever attacked. Again a quick look on YouTube can find a decent way to layout your base to put others off.. Currently have about 2.5k in diamonds and have never spent a penny. I feel you get allot of diamonds to help you along certainly more than other "free to play games" meaning all you need do is save for those key moments. It certainly doesn't force you to pay to win as with many others. I'm sure this game can be very addictive but like you mentioned earlier your basically rewarded for not playing and letting your vp go down, the game rewards the lazy and punishes the diligent. For this reason I rate boom beach highly as I don't need to spend loads of time or any money to have a bit of fun on my ride to and from work.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hq20 in 11 months... ha good luck with that

    ReplyDelete
  25. Don't seize any resources unless you can spend them that simple. And this is designed as an app game--spend 10 minutes at a time, not hours.

    ReplyDelete
  26. $500?!?!?!?!

    i've hit the brick wall at level 37, HQ upgrade to 16 is nearly 3 mil of resources, and i worked out if i spent £80 (about $130?) i could maybe get about 4 or 5 big upgrades - or i could buy a couple of amazing PS4 games. Or save the money. So there's no way they're getting any money now as its simply too expensive and won't be long til i'd need to spend more.

    But i wont delete it lol, i'll just keep up with the free stuff as its still quite fun though as it gets harder to progress I find i'm weaning myself off it naturally..

    Just keep upgrading the vault so the raids don't hit you as hard.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Boom Beach, no actually Cash Beach and in reality more like Sucker Beach. Like arcade slots, the only way to win, is to walk away. A phone is no longer a phone it is a device to track you, relieve you of money you don't need to spend and turn you into a mindless zombie. I walk down the street and watch the rows of bowed heads, each absorbed in pointless, unhealthy and costly nonsense and weep for the Western world. Wake up, throw your 'phone' in the bin, pick up a book (or anything other than watch TV or go online - another soul sucking enterprise) and be free of the corporate world. Boom Beach is but the tip of the iceberg and a symptom of a very sick society.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Wow...I'm reading all the comments here and laughing out loud in my office. Its a game.
    If you are spending so much time/money on this that its effecting your work or social life then there are some other serious underlying issues that you need to address. I play the game nearly every day - whilst having a cigarette break in work or on an advert whilst watching tv with my girlfriend. I've progressed fairly well to level 46, hq level 18 and I have paid for gems twice when I was nearing an hq upgrade and ran out of storage. I've played the game for about 9 months now and its great. I have no issue spending about £6 on some gems every 2-3 months, especially as I don't have the time to sit down and commit 2 hours of my evening to a playstation or xbox game.
    All the people moaning on here about relationship problems and money problems.....seriously get a grip. I mean really...if you can't control yourself enough to restrain from spending your hard earned (or parents - which is even worse) money on a f*cking game then you shouldn't be playing it in the first place.
    Chill out, enjoy the game - or don't! But stop moaning about it just because you've hit a plateau. Games like COD that cost £50 to buy then every expansion is an extra £15 are just as bad. This is the real world after all where companies design games to be addictive and cost money.

    "drops mic"

    ReplyDelete
  29. Well , I also play boom beach and I would be glad if you join my task force sword / shield which have 4171 force points now , so please join , my name is cssav in that game with 367 victory points , please join
    🙂

    ReplyDelete
  30. As a player of this game, how would you feel if your wife deletes it from your phone and iPad? I have no idea what level he is at but the time he spends on it is ridiculous, our family life is not what it used to be...

    ReplyDelete
  31. Oh, I would see it as an act of love and respond accordingly, possibly with gifts up to and including a luxury Caribbean cruise.* Of course, I deleted it from my tablet months ago and was very happy that I did.

    * Not the guaranteed response and I don't accept any blame if he responds differently.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I spent $1,500 on this freakin game...finaly had enough at level 56...spend your time and money on meaningful activities, get to the gym, educate yourself on current events or something useful that you might be passionate about. Game is bothing but a waste of time.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Hello,

    I have been playing boom beach for a while, it is a funny game, I am level 53 almost. I have not spend any money, in those 11 monthes. For me the bad point it is that it takes some of my precious time..
    It is a game that you have to think a litlle bit to go ahead. It is not that easy. but it is true that it catching you a little bit.. but I still enjoy for free. :))

    ReplyDelete
  34. After playing the game since the day it came out I quit just last night.

    Maxed out base, 500 powders, 1000 prototype parts, 4000 diamonds, very strong statues... Never spent a cent.

    My 50 person task force has been #1 in Australia for some time now, and we recently reached #61 in the world.

    I'm feeling a bit depressed after leaving behind people I've spent every day talking to - some of them for over 4 years because I've known them since Clash of Clans days.

    For me the Task Force operations are so much fun, but the daily grind of clearing your map with the exact same style bases just became too mundane and that part was a waste of quality work and family time.

    These games are great and genuinely enjoyable in the long term as long as you have balance in your life. Once you have an argument with a loved one about too much time on the game, or you are late to an event because you need to do 'one more attack' you need to have a look at your priorities. It can be lots of fun, but be certain that there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    ReplyDelete
  35. It wouldn't make a difference - if you reinstall the game it restarts at the state you deleted it. As my partner complained about my time spent on the game, and I agreed it was too much, I deleted it. I didn't play for a year, but got back in the "bad" habit as work got increasingly stressfull (sounds like addiction indeed) - I find it a great way to unwind (I am still in denial), I rate it a slightly better way to waste your time than zapping mindlessly through tv channels. Of course, I secretly reinstall the game when I am alone, and delete it again as soon as I am done, it greatly limits my time spent. I only run into time issues when I need to complete a campaign to make the resources necessary for the next big upgrade (without logging off - I decided I will not spent a penny on the game as the game is so obviously designed towards commercial gain and towards that goal aimed to exploit my weaknesses - rather than being just a great game. Still I think it is a very well made game, with amazing gameplay, although I dislike the matching by VP - it makes the game so much more pointless.

    ReplyDelete