this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Nah, that’s not really it, imo. If that was the case then they could just stick 100 people in a lobby and get them to square off 1v1 in a tournament until there’s one winner.
I swear that battle royales are specifically designed for precisely timed dopamine release to make players have longer play sessions and to encourage addiction
You're really just describing live service games though, of which most battle royale games that come out in the modern era are a part of. Pretty much any AAA online multiplayer game is going to be about encouraging addiction and dopamine release. I think why battle royale games seem to be at the forefront of this is because they are inherently online multiplayer games. You couldn't really make a true "battle royale" game before the prevalence of online multiplayer without some major concessions.
Battle royale games happened to be the industry darling back in 2017 which is why so many AAA studios rushed to carve live service models out of them. If you pay close attention in the coming years you may notice that this will likely again happen to whatever new burgeoning genre takes the industry by storm. They already did it back in the early 2000s with MMO's.
Yeah, you’re not wrong - I guess the difference is that when it comes to battle royales, the medium is the message. I don’t give a shit about levels, ranks, customisation options, skins, perks, etc. in Call of Duty, so all of those manipulative tricks they pull in that area don’t really achieve much. But for Apex Legends, the manipulative shit is the game itself.
There's also the chaos aspect. Put 100 people in an arena and pretty much anything can happen. The top player can find themselves overwhelmed by people, and any competent player can come out the winner with a bit of luck. It keeps things from getting boring in the way a standard 8v8 in a standard map might get.