Many simulators have players gathering things that go into an inventory with limited capacity, then the player goes to sell their things once they are at full capacity. However, one question I’ve wondered for awhile is: Why have an inventory when the player can just get the currency directly without needing to trek back and forth between the sell button and the gathering point? Let’s say the player picked up a rock. They could get a gui notification saying “Rock +$50”.
I’m sure there’s a very good reason. This kind of inconvenience wouldn’t be the standard if it wasn’t serving some important function. I’d like to know what that function is in order to improve my understanding of these reward systems.
It’s just more “fun” I mean I liked bee swarm a lot (not the walking between the points) but without that you would only be able to buy bees and new tools. Then I wouldn’t enjoyed it
I haven’t played any of these simulators in a long time, but here’s what I think of it…
When you have a limited inventory capacity, then you are eventually forced to stop gathering, and do something else. Otherwise you could continue gathering forever.
This has little to do with “balancing” and more to do with the flow of the game.
Players will need to rest every once in a while, so that they do not burn themselves out.
It also modulates the intensity of the gameplay a bit: too much of an awesome thing is not awesome. Some rest is needed to make the awesome things matter.
A visual form of this is white-space in graphic or website design. You don’t usually notice it working in modern websites, but it hits you hard if it’s missing, e.g. in old, extremely busy Japanese websites that cover every single pixel with information, a button or an advert.
I’m not a professional developer or a game designer so take this with a grain of salt, but throughout my times playing games for years, I could say it’s because of:
Longer playtime, developers want you to stay longer in the game, longer playtime slowly accumulates players, larger amount of players in the game attracts more players due to the “bandwagon effect”, that what makes simulators so successful, players doesn’t notice how much time they spend playing the game because of the extremely simple task repeated over and over again.
Additionally longer playtime could attract the players to purchase more micro-transactions for upgrades since players always want the fastest and most efficient way to accomplish something, otherwise they are just wasting time.