Motivations and character of the author matter little; the article which was written is pushing an agenda: a justification of (and if not a justification, a recommendation for) the use of what could be seen as questionable practices for reducing costs and getting more money out of their audiences.
What practices do I consider to be questionable?
> "de-emphasize bytes in favor of other types of content"
This, and the rest of the suggestions reads as "don't build a hand-tailored experience, instead build more random permutations of generic content." There's even suggestions to find ways to monetize some of those permutations.
I'll admit it: I'm a gamer, not a professional developer. But these things matter to me. Good, profitable, games do exist - I am playing many of them. What bothers me as a gamer is that all of the suggestions being offered up here will never re-create one of these good games. The games being advocated for describe yet another vehicle for selling lootboxes or skins or weapons.
The whole article closes with the comment "I would love it if these graphs were wrong". Charitably, we can say that the graphs the author displayed are not wrong. However they provide, at a minimum, an incomplete picture. They invite readers to come to a very specific conclusion. That practice is what I'm criticizing with the phrase "lying with numbers" (credit for which goes to "Penn & Teller's Bullshit").
> This, and the rest of the suggestions reads as "don't build a hand-tailored experience, instead build more random permutations of generic content." There's even suggestions to find ways to monetize some of those permutations.
Chess, PUBG, CounterStrike, and soccer fall into this category. It is the art of systemic game design. Saying games should tilt more systemic doesn't mean they get worse. It means they are different.
In the commercial history of the game industry, we've seen entire genres fall out because they stopped making financial sense. Often, they come back later, when the finances make sense again.
I really think you are filtering the entire article through a lens based on your assumption that I am advocating for a world where Uncharted and Edith Finch can't exist, and every game is a lootbox-driven roguelike or something. That world would actually make me very sad.
"Horizon: Zero Dawn", "Final Fantasy 3", "Nier: Automata", "Opus Magnum", "Bastion", "Transistor", "Tomb Raider", "Redout", "Mass Effect", "Hellblade", "Braid", "Divinity 2" ... these do not fall into that category.
Not everyone is driven by competition.
The niches which fell into oblivion were driven there by the fact they are niches - their consumers too small a group to justify the investment. Crafted, story-driven games are not niche. They are not running the razors edge of being barely profitable, instead some are becoming profitable well before they're expected like "Hellblade". They are funding future games like "Bastion". They are being held as the pinnacle of a genre considered to be a dead horse like "Horizon: Zero Dawn".
Whether you're sad or no, the practices advocated by your article doesn't include these games, these experiences. Your comment here even condemns them as not making financial sense, being doomed to only be revisited at some point in the future.
And yet, these games are being released today, are being funded by major and minor publishers and developers alike for tomorrow. That, more than anything else, is a compelling argument for the gameplay you recommend is not the only way forward.
What practices do I consider to be questionable?
> "de-emphasize bytes in favor of other types of content"
This, and the rest of the suggestions reads as "don't build a hand-tailored experience, instead build more random permutations of generic content." There's even suggestions to find ways to monetize some of those permutations.
I'll admit it: I'm a gamer, not a professional developer. But these things matter to me. Good, profitable, games do exist - I am playing many of them. What bothers me as a gamer is that all of the suggestions being offered up here will never re-create one of these good games. The games being advocated for describe yet another vehicle for selling lootboxes or skins or weapons.
The whole article closes with the comment "I would love it if these graphs were wrong". Charitably, we can say that the graphs the author displayed are not wrong. However they provide, at a minimum, an incomplete picture. They invite readers to come to a very specific conclusion. That practice is what I'm criticizing with the phrase "lying with numbers" (credit for which goes to "Penn & Teller's Bullshit").