Issue 383
Dialogue
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Highly cranked
While it’s no PsychOdyssey, Panic’s podcast has been offering a behind-the-scenes look at its Playdate console. This month’s episode was dedicated to the system’s new storefront: Catalog. As someone who has spent the past decade growing weary of the Wild West of digital marketplaces, there’s a lot to like about Panic’s approach here.
Edge and the Playdate have felt like kindred spirits since the system’s unveiling in the cover story for E333. Never has that felt more true than when they discussed on the podcast how their goal was to emulate the feel of a magazine. Users visiting the store are greeted with a loading animation of magazine pages turning before arriving at a monthly updated layout of curated games available for purchase. Having a small group of staff curate a storefront brings several practical advantages for Panic. First and foremost, they don’t have the manpower to maintain an open marketplace like Steam. But they also wanted to keep their store from being an overwhelming experience, so they take a limited number of games and lay them out in a series of panels. I guess the experience of scrolling through endless lewd anime games on the Switch isn’t for everyone!
Then there’s Catalog’s other gimmick: ‘crank to buy’. Walking the line between a joyful experience and psychological manipulation, ample time was spent tweaking UI and UX so that it ‘resists’, forcing you to crank harder to confirm the purchase while providing a satisfying enough off-ramp if you change your mind. This runs counter to the “frictionless purchasing methods” elsewhere mentioned once again in E382.