As someone that's into the classic AAA $60 games, I'm happy that F2P is sucking all of the casual gamers out of the market - I think the overflow of smart, challenging, deep games coming out owes a lot to the fact that the market is efficiently segmented.

There may be benefits for AAA gamers to these games that collect/analyze massive amounts of data - I wouldn't be surprised if some of this analysis leads studios to stumble across really engaging/fun patterns that are applicable to AAA games. As an example, I've heard discussion of how analytics has raised game "shininess" (basically making every screen tap/game interaction viscerally satisfying) to the level of an artform - I'm assuming that this has led to knowhow that EA/Blizzard/Rockstar have gone on to apply to some degree in $60 box games.

Huh. This is an interesting consideration, that by pulling casual gamers out of the AAA market, your dollar/vote has more weight wherever you put it, which means a much more selective and competitive market for those titles.

You assume that just F2P games do this? If it "adds value" - however management describes that - then you can assume that they've considered it (at minimum) or have done it (likely).

Do what, exactly? I said a bunch of stuff about the badness of F2P. Some of it, yes, is not exclusive to F2P.

Let's be specific. I extolled the superiority of AAA. (Edit: I admit I wasn't specific before. I said PC and console, and the 'best' games.) I don't think Metal Gear Solid 5 or Bloodborne mine my data and try to sell me endless IAP trinkets.

But I did give my the PlayStation service access to my Facebook and Twitter to I could post screenshots. So maybe they're already doing datamining there, and it's only a matter of time before everything goes totally corrupt and shit.

But it's a totally different economic model. £40-50 per game. For the time being, I reckon I'm safe.

There is an intersection between F2P and AAA, you know. TF2, StarCraft II, LoL. Most online-only competitive games. Even Nintendo's Splatoon is sort of here, despite costing $60. They all mine metrics; wouldn't you, if people's gameplay was going through your servers?

And that's ignoring MMOs. I don't think anyone can say WoW isn't "AAA".

I don't think mining metrics itself is a bad thing. As a player of primarily online competitive games like Counter-Strike or SCII, there are certain metrics that I want devs to keep track of, like average game length, which units/guns/etc. are used most commonly (may indicate an issue with game balance). I think data about the game is useful to the devs and ultimately the players, since it can influence improvements to the gameplay experience. I'm sure that the data being kept by many F2P games is well beyond what I would consider acceptable or necessary, though.

I guess you're right. I prefer single-player games, so I'm mostly unaffected.

But there's less of an incentive to mine data and go whale-hunting when you are paid up a flat fee (whether up front, or regular subscription) by your customers.

Of course, it's all software and can change at any moment.

True but with DLC and the catalog that more and more of these studios have (aka EA), I'd wager this is becoming more regular and more likely. I think for subscription-based games, it would be even worse.

Imagine that you lament on Twitter "I just don't time to play X as much as I'd like!" and then someone else pops up and asks "oh, have you fought Y? Did you find [unique drop] yet?" Then next time you're in the game, you get that special drop.

All of it appears to be unconnected and random but odds are you'll go back to that person to celebrate and be hooked again.

(This is an off the cuff scenario, the actual scenarios are probably way more mature.)

All games are Skinner boxes. F2P are just more obvious ones.