[HN Gopher] 'No way out': how video games use tricks from gambli...
___________________________________________________________________
'No way out': how video games use tricks from gambling to attract
big spenders
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 173 points
Date : 2023-07-19 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Don't forget that Google and Apple make a lot of money from this.
| They could ban these games from their appstores without waiting
| for legislators to act, but they won't.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Gambling tends to spur much greater ethical concern and
| regulatory scrutiny, yet overlap - in practice and even game
| design - is becoming increasingly evident.
|
| This seems like the understatement of all understatements. These
| games are almost exactly like casino games in all ways, visually,
| game mechanics, incentives, except there's actually no monetary
| payout so suddenly it's not gambling and therefore not regulated
| by gambling laws? Lawmakers around the world are asleep at the
| wheel.
| rodgerd wrote:
| > Lawmakers around the world are asleep at the wheel.
|
| Lawmakers are actively pandering to the gambling companies, as
| the likes of Epic successfully push to make it illegal to have
| controls on gaming devices under the rubric of "breaking walled
| gardens" and such.
| coding123 wrote:
| If 855 people are going to these therapists for overspending...
| shouldn't they be going to a therapist?
| ponderings wrote:
| I fear it might be the other way around. The ingame rewards are
| real while the payout pretty much doesn't happen. It's a carrot
| on a stick, the donkey gets nothing. It seems to me that one
| can have a much greater sense of progress if there is actual
| progress.
| autoexec wrote:
| The ingame rewards are real only until the game goes dark,
| your device is no longer supported, or their servers shut
| down and suddenly you're left with nothing. At least real
| life gambling can leave you with something tangible.
| falcolas wrote:
| Rewards are also frequently devalued to push you into
| getting new rewards. Either by power creep in released
| rewards or active nerfing of existing rewards.
| doctorwho42 wrote:
| I think another aspect that my friends and I talk about,
| seeing the evolution of micro transactions over the past
| decade or two, is the fact that gambling or making
| transactions for what is essentially an artificially scarce
| thing that can be duplicated ad infinitum without much
| cost.
| kwanbix wrote:
| 100% agree. My youngest son got hooked into a game called Mech
| Arena. By the time I realized he had spent 200 dollars (my
| fault 100%). Games like this should be forbidden or made
| forbidden for people under 18 years old.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I'm not a parent myself so maybe I'm talking out of my ass
| here.
|
| but how is this even possible? my parents never gave me
| direct access to a credit card as a child. eventually I got a
| debit card to spend my own allowance chore money, but if I
| blew it all in something dumb that was my own problem. no
| pizza/movies with friends until I built it back up
| err4nt wrote:
| I would have to beg my dad to use his credit card to make
| an online purchase, even if I had the cash equivalent in my
| hand to give to him right then!
|
| If I new kids would be using any device I would make sure
| it had no payment information accessible. Which may mean
| the inconvenience of adding and removing payment
| information before and after making purchases. I can't
| imagine letting a child have access to a device which can
| spend your money, it's essentially like letting them hold
| your wallet, and we probably wouldn't trust them to do that
| if they were in an arcade, or theatre, or shopping mall,
| etc.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| I remember buying my Runescape memberships and eventually
| Minecraft that way. Not having the freedom to spend my
| own money on the things that I actually wanted was weird.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My sister-in-law who is an elementary school teacher and a
| good parent in many respects would let her preverbal
| toddlers play with her phone which is problematic in many
| respects.
| kindatrue wrote:
| If you're not careful about in app payment settings, your
| kid can rack big bills with just a few taps. I know parents
| in Silicon Valley who have had this happen.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I'm trying to find something which explains it clearly (so
| I could be wrong), but I don't think you can give a person
| the ability to hail Uber rides without also giving them the
| ability to do microtransactions in a mobile game.
|
| The former is highly useful for parents and from what I can
| tell very common, not just for independence, but also
| safety reasons.
| asah wrote:
| ? just enter your credit card info into Uber separately
| from other apps?
|
| also, there's credit cards that require approval for each
| transaction: https://www.google.com/search?q=parental+con
| trol+credit+card...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes, you can. Uber doesn't go through in app purchases
| (Apple gets a 30% cut). You have to set up a separate
| account with payment information.
|
| On iOS devices, you can use Apple Pay for Uber (standard
| credit card charges). But I doubt many parents are
| putting a credit card on their child's phone where they
| can just tap to pay at any store.
| hiatus wrote:
| When you were a kid your N64 wasn't hooked up to the
| internet with an app-store to which a credit card was
| already provided to pay for your monthly multiplayer-access
| subscription.
| bamfly wrote:
| Set up store on device before kids, or when they're very
| young and not gaming. Do not set require-password because
| putting it in with a controller for every single should-be-
| locked-to-kids action is very slow and annoying. Forget to
| change that when the kids start messing with the device.
| indymike wrote:
| For a long time, there were not parental controls on
| purchases, and some platforms would force you to lie about
| age, and give access to the family card to allow children
| to play games (that were clearly not adult content). Some
| may still have that antipattern. Parent friendliness by app
| store: Amazon(best), Apple(meh), Google(beware yer wallet)
| lozenge wrote:
| The kid's phone was set up against the parent's account and
| the stored payment methods were applied. Or the kid was
| borrowing the parent's phone.
|
| Kids apps pull/pulled all sorts of tricks to prevent people
| from understanding the modal purchase confirmation dialog
| (eg https://www.mactrast.com/2019/04/apple-adds-an-extra-
| confirm... )
| indymike wrote:
| My (at the time) 9 year old daughter once bought $7,200 worth
| of dragon in game content on her Kindle Fire (before amazon
| had parental controls to stop this). The good new is that
| Amazon INSTANTLY refunded all of it as soon as I explained 9
| year old daughter to their support team. I'm sure there's a
| game publisher that is still disappointed that their whale
| was more of a guppy.
| bamfly wrote:
| Lost about $100 a while back because my 8-year-old didn't
| realize he was spending real money in some F2P game on an at-
| the-time unlocked PS5 (though I didn't realize it was so
| unlocked that you didn't need a password to make purchases--I
| do most on my phone, for all consoles, because it's much
| smoother than wrestling with on-console game stores).
|
| Shame on me for not locking it sooner. Shame on every goddamn
| company that knows for a fact this is happening--probably _a
| lot_ --and prefers to keep robbing people rather than do
| something about it (say, something ethical--like shut down
| their company). $100 doesn't mean much to me (like, I'm not
| well-off enough that I don't think a thing of spending $100,
| but unexpectedly losing that much every now and then has
| basically zero effect on my life) fortunately, but that could
| really screw over a lot of people, in a ruin-their-whole-
| month kind of way ("why do they even have a playstation to
| begin with if $100 can really mess them up?!" PS4s are pretty
| cheap, used, or may have been handed-down for free or very
| cheap from a better-off relative or friend, and have
| basically the same store and most of the same games--besides,
| a planned expense is very different from an unplanned one)
| ryaneager wrote:
| Shame on the company? Sir this is America where Capitalism
| is king. Profits come before all else. Doesn't matter if
| you deceive children or exploit your workers those profits
| must rise!
| asah wrote:
| Cheap education!
| tacocataco wrote:
| > "why do they even have a playstation to begin with if
| $100 can really mess them up?!"
|
| People want something to take their mind off of things. I
| am glad to hear your life is good and something you want to
| experience. Not everyone has that privilege.
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's not helping that _Apple_ - of all companies - is making
| banks off softcore porn lootbox games. They had war on gaming,
| and got lootbox gaming eat out the platform. Congratulations,
| Mr. Jobs.
| jgilias wrote:
| The sound too, they even sound like slot machines.
| 3327 wrote:
| [dead]
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > except there's actually no monetary payout so suddenly it's
| not gambling
|
| Yes, and it is extremely important. The monetary payout is what
| ruins lives instead of "just" wasting time and disposable
| income.
|
| The added monetary payout creates an incentive to play even
| more to cover for the losses. In video games, when you make an
| in-game purchase for instance, the money is gone, so if you do
| that instead of paying the bills, you know you won't be able to
| pay the bills, this is usually enough to limit the spending.
|
| If, as in casino games, there is hope for you to get your money
| back, and more, there is temptation to play just to cover your
| losses, which will eventually result in a downwards spiral.
| That is, you already can't pay the bills, so you take a loan to
| play more. After all, it was a bad losing streak, you will win
| the next one, that's for sure...
| jchw wrote:
| Although I do agree with what you're saying, it's worth
| noting that even though there are no orthodox ways to turn
| virtual currency/winnings in video games most of the time,
| there are plenty of under the table ways to sell virtual
| assets for real money.
|
| A cynical part of me wonders if the hope with NFTs from game
| developers was actually that it could run around this problem
| and provide a more direct way to allow monetary payouts
| without running into issues with regulations on gambling.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It can cost almost $500 to roll for a character you want in
| this game
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate/Grand_Order
|
| some fans have such strong connections to the characters that
| they'll spend that much. One fan spent $70,000
|
| https://www.destructoid.com/a-look-into-a-dude-who-has-spent...
|
| Contrast that to having a $10 a month Love Nikki habit.
| terribleperson wrote:
| I've spent irresponsibly in FGO in the past. I still play,
| but for the last three years I only spend $15 twice a year.
| Gambling is seductive, and it's clear that the lack of a
| monetary payout doesn't make it any less dangerous.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I was a big fan of _Fate /Extra_, _Fate /Extella_, _Fate
| /Stay Night_ and I've gotten exposed to FGO because I
| follow danbooru but avoided FGO if only because I don't own
| a high-end smartphone and FGO has usually been difficult to
| run on any unusual environment like the NVIDIA Shield or
| emulation on a PC probably because they want to stop
| "cheating".
|
| Then one day I was riding the bus and found that the
| obnoxious fellow rider (let's see, sometimes he drinks hard
| alcohol from a flask...) that I call "Francis" (not his
| real name, but he looks just like "Francis" from _Pee Wee
| Herman 's Big Adventure_) knew all about FGO characters and
| was the first person I met in person who knew about Nero,
| Tamamo, etc.
| topato wrote:
| Obnoxious? Sounds like a pretty cool guy to me. Don't
| knock it until you've gotten drunk on a bus.
| raincole wrote:
| $70,000 is casual number.
|
| I'm not trying to be snarky or anything. I mean it. It's not
| a newsworthy number when it comes to modern pay-2-win games.
|
| What's newsworthy today? Let me show you:
| https://www.mmobomb.com/news/player-spent-3-5-million-
| lineag...
| pton_xd wrote:
| People wasting thousands without realizing it through
| gambling mechanisms? Absolutely.
|
| But millions? I really doubt it. It's probably a buy /
| trade / sell money-laundering type of operation, and that
| player was pissed they lost some of their assets.
| raincole wrote:
| I guess you're not familar with streaming culture, nor
| you live in an Asian country. Bragging on how much you
| spend on games and streaming the process is a thing.
| There was a Taiwan streamer who spent about 100k in hours
| on stream.
|
| Of course it can be all staged. But the culture is there,
| and it's not that hard to imagine some people who has
| more money than they can spend in a lifetime doing this
| just to show that they can outspend the streamers.
| hooverd wrote:
| I think Hoyoverse (formerly Mihoyo) has the formula down. You
| don't _have_ to spend money on their games. They play just
| fine without. But you think "wouldn't it be nice to have
| Ganyu or Hu Tao". I think the drop rates are better than FGO
| at least.
| terribleperson wrote:
| I think it's worse than that. Miyoho gives you the
| impression you can play their games without spending money,
| but in practice the gap between one copy of a character and
| four copies of a character can be enormous. By the time you
| realize this, you've been on the game for a while and are
| more likely to spend.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| A lot of gacha games use this. Right when players think
| they've got something top tier, no no, the real top tier
| version is that .0001% drop x 4 to merge into some super
| version.
|
| It's gross when you hear a young kid talk about how much
| some youtuber or twitch streamer "whaled" on stream like
| it's a flex to be admired.
| raincole wrote:
| The only "You don't have to spend money"-games are like
| Dota2. In Dota2 you literally can't get any gameplay
| advantage by spending money. You get different visual
| effects or audio effects and that's all.
|
| All the other freemium models are just tricking you into
| thinking you don't have to spend money.
|
| And even _that_ is still quite gambling-like, if you think
| about it.
| hellojesus wrote:
| OW2 offers no gameplay advantage of which I'm aware.
| However, they did remove the loot boxes for pay2cosmetic
| which really made the game unrewarding.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Which is the main reason I stopped playing. I can
| understand why they were removed but the lootboxes in OW1
| could be farmed at a quite reasonable pace and beside
| cosmetics they also dropped a currency used to unlock
| specific items. Meanwhile I don't even know what that
| battle pass in Overwatch 2 does, the only thing
| Blizzard's marketing managed to tell me is that they want
| my money.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I feel like if the game isn't fun enough to feel
| rewarding on its own you were playing lootboxes and
| overwatch was the interactive ad to get more lol
| raincole wrote:
| I like OW1. Personally I didn't think the game had a big
| problem, but unfortunately the market didn't seem to
| agree.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The market seemed to agree that OW1 was a good game. It
| had a good player count and looked like it made decent
| money. Until the end of 2019, when Activision/Blizzard
| decided to basically halt all work on OW1 in favor of
| work on OW2. It didn't help that Blizzard also moved all
| esports content (which they consolidated under their hat)
| from Twitch to Youtube at about the same time.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _I think Hoyoverse (formerly Mihoyo) has the formula
| down. You don 't have to spend money on their games. They
| play just fine without_
|
| That only makes it more tempting to start playing. You
| can't get hooked on these games if you never play them in
| the first place, so making it 'easier' to start playing is
| a big part of the problem.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That was the realization that turned me off video games.
|
| What is any modern, non-boxed sales model videogame
| selling?
|
| Artificial scarcity.
|
| And who is in absolute control of that scarcity?
|
| The developer.
|
| Why addict yourself to something your counterparty has
| every incentive to abuse you over?
|
| Or as I asked in terms of my EVE Online experience, "Am I
| actually enjoying every moment of playing, or am I doing
| work I don't enjoy just so that I can get something?"
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Artificial scarcity controlled by the developer is what
| pretty much all software, movies, tv shows, streaming,
| etc. are selling.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I've wondered many times how close videogame companies are to
| accidentally repeating the Pinball Prohibition. There was a
| period of time when _all_ pinball machines were forbidden,
| because lawmakers throughout the US couldn 't easily enough
| tell the difference between which ones were gambling and which
| ones weren't. (That was an extinction level event that
| bankrupted a bunch of pinball manufacturers and nearly ended
| several industries.)
|
| On the one hand, a lot of the specific loopholes that games
| claim come directly out of the results of the Pinball
| Prohibition and contest laws (can't win cash back, must have
| winning odds posted but it can be in the fine print, things
| like that) so it is unlikely to repeat exactly like it happened
| before. But on the other hand, some of what is going on with
| current whales is _so_ blatant that some have been famously
| referred to gambling addiction counseling and we do seem close
| to that political brink that "somebody must do something" and
| if it happens as the wrong sort of mob mentality panic,
| politicians are just as likely to use a sledgehammer to the
| entire industry than a scalpel to the worst offenders _just_
| like the Pinball Prohibition.
|
| (I sometimes worry, too, about the role that Steam's Trading
| Cards and Inventory items play into their Auctions might impact
| any sort of "videogames are gambling panic". Those systems'
| interaction with Steam Wallet is even dangerously close to
| feeling like "cash back" sometimes, though you can't actually
| cash it out and it is more of a gift card. [Though gift card-
| based gambling/embezzling is another potential panic of its
| own.] It's hard not to imagine politicians preferring a
| sledgehammer when even the largest, most trusted videogame
| store on personal computers wasn't immune to adding gambling-
| like elements and making extra money from whales.)
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| > politicians are just as likely to use a sledgehammer to the
| entire industry than a scalpel to the worst offenders just
| like the Pinball Prohibition.
|
| This is unlikely simply due to the size of the market. Video
| games are played by >60% of the population and generate more
| revenue than movies with hundreds of thousands of jobs at
| stake.
| virtue3 wrote:
| Pretty sure Microsoft would have something to say. And I'm
| pretty sure the federal government really gives a fuck
| about that one.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The point of any crackdown on gambling is to reduce revenue
| for what are considered to be bad actors. The size of the
| market _might_ be a factor for politicians when considering
| how much revenue to try to reduce the industry by, but law
| makers continue to prove over and over again they aren 't
| necessarily that smart once they believe their constituents
| are panicking about "think of the children!"
|
| Admittedly yes, destroying an entire industry that large
| would be an absolute worst-case scenario you would _hope_
| politicians are smart enough to avoid, I don 't think it
| "likely" but I do find it useful to consider how far it
| could go, _because it happened once_ (to Pinball), and we
| shouldn 't forget that.
|
| (ETA: Keep in mind that gambling laws in the US are
| extremely local with sometimes even cities in the same
| state disagreeing, and if a panic happens you just need a
| few localities with dumbest politicians to pass the
| harshest bills, and others to copy cat it at "public
| demand". That's how it happened to Pinball. That's how it
| happens for all sorts of terrible laws in the last few
| years we could point to. Bad laws in a panic are viral in
| the worst ways.)
| raincole wrote:
| > Those systems' interaction with Steam Wallet is even
| dangerously close to feeling like "cash back" sometimes
|
| Uh... it's actually very, very common to cash back from
| Steam. There is a subreddit for CSGO's real money trading[1].
| It has 230k subscribers. And it's just a single game, not the
| whole steam.
|
| [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensiveTrade/
| fbdab103 wrote:
| For those who had never heard of the Pinball Prohibition,
| here is an article about it[0]. Features a great photo of the
| authorities smashing machines like it was the 1930s and
| eliminating a speak easy.
|
| [0] https://www.history.com/news/that-time-america-outlawed-
| pinb...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > Gambling tends to spur much greater ethical concern and
| regulatory scrutiny, yet overlap - in practice and even game
| design - is becoming increasingly evident.
|
| The government hates competition. They want to be the only ones
| that can swindle money out of whales via state lotteries.
| hristov wrote:
| State lotteries were actually specifically designed to
| discourage whales and big spending. That is why tickets are
| relatively low priced and there are no high priced super
| tickets. It is very difficult to impulse buy a mass amount of
| tickets.
|
| They were also designed to replace numbers -- a similar game
| run by mobsters that took money from the poor. The rates of
| return of lotteries are much better than the old numbers
| games.
|
| Of course some states have gotten greedy and have changed the
| rules to encourage more impulse spending.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| https://bigthink.com/the-present/poor-americans-lottery/
|
| The poorest households spend 9% of their income on the
| lottery
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/amazin
| g...
| hx8 wrote:
| I'd like to see some numbers about how many people struggling
| with gambling addictions compared to how many people struggle
| with in-game-purchase addictions. Both share the negative
| reinforcement of spending money. In exchange one gives you the
| positive reinforcement of playing a game. Another gives you the
| positive reinforcement of money. I have the feeling money is a
| 10x more potent reward.
|
| This is to say, the gaming industry makes games that are a
| problem for some people but I'd like to see some hard numbers
| comparing it to gambling before I would say the product is as
| dangerous as gambling on a population level.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| It's not just the winning that is addicting to gamblers. More
| often, it's the losing. Losing recapitulates the feelings of
| deep shame that they feel, but don't feel are necessarily
| justified. So in order to re-justify those feelings, they
| gamble away money and "act shamefully" so to speak.
|
| This same pattern is behind a lot (if not all) addictions.
| It's not just a physical addiction or a dopamine rush, and
| it's not generally the upside that addicts are addicted to.
| bradford wrote:
| > one gives you the positive reinforcement of playing a game.
| Another gives you the positive reinforcement of money.
|
| I'll assert that dopamine is the actual reinforcement in both
| cases.
| hx8 wrote:
| Sure. What I'm really saying is that I bet cash payment
| triggers more dopamine than whatever gotcha/powerup/etc
| mechanic a mobile game can use. That cash payment is so
| much more of a potent reward that it makes sense to
| regulate gambling much more strictly. Of course, I'm
| speaking on aggregate and across the entire population,
| it's clear some individuals overspend on mobile games.
| c0balt wrote:
| It has become more difficult, at least for me, to find games
| without gambling components as a main design elwment in recent
| years.
|
| On the one hand this lead me down a quite enjoyable route of
| (re)discovering single player indie games and retro tutles but on
| the other hand it also made me avoid most modern, AAA-level
| games.
|
| My current recommandation would be, if anyone is also looking for
| tutles like this, Cloudpunk, an athmospheric, indie, simple
| driving game in a cyberpunk-ish dystopia. The game runs great on
| Linux w/ Steam.
| nottorp wrote:
| I don't understand why the press keeps calling those things
| "video games".
| snvzz wrote:
| Surprisingly, no mention of gacha in the whole article.
| SirMaster wrote:
| I've honestly never minded all the micro-transaction stuff
| myself.
|
| It means I get to play tons of games now for free, subsidized by
| others.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Playing games with micro transactions and not paying playing it
| wrong. The games are specifically designed such that not paying
| feels bad, but paying _just a little_ gets you to enjoy it
| significantly more.
|
| If a game includes micro transactions its most important goal
| is to get you to spend money once, that is the most important
| psychological barrier to overcome. And that is why many "free
| to play" games are unpleasant to play without paying money.
|
| There are a few exceptions (Dota2, csgo, path of exile and sone
| more) but on mobile these are exceedingly rare and drowned out
| by games designed to get you to spend money.
| feoren wrote:
| > path of exile
|
| Path of Exile actually _is_ unpleasant to play toward the
| endgame without specialized stash tabs, which cost money. PoE
| has possibly the most irritating item /inventory management
| of any game I've ever seen, and those purchased stash tabs
| make it tolerable. But the total cost of the mandatory tabs
| is still somewhat reasonable compared to what you can get out
| of the game.
| jowea wrote:
| Although I try to avoid them I do feel bothersome that a large
| chunk of the market is taken up by games that are made with the
| goal of getting you to pay instead of being fun. Broken
| incentives.
| j-bos wrote:
| Reminds me of how sweepstakes always include a no purchase
| necessary option. Maybe there's a legal analog to be seen.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Eh, it depends. A lot of free games are trash from a gameplay
| perspective, if you spend any amount of time in them it's
| obvious how they're trying to milk you for money.
|
| Free games with cosmetic mtx are usually better, but I really
| don't like the direction the industry is taking.
|
| While really great fixed-price games with no mtx are still
| being made, it certainly feels like a dying model in the AAA
| world.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Maybe, but I seem to have fun with plenty of free games.
|
| DotA 2, Call of Duty Warzone 2.0, PUBG, etc.
|
| I am looking forward to Embark Studio's 2 free-to-play games
| (Arc Raiders, and THE FINALS)
| constantcrying wrote:
| Try some random appstore games.
|
| There are very, very few games as generous as Dota2 out
| there.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| I realized that playing free to play online shooters was
| detrimental to my health. Fortunately I did not fall victim to
| monetization and only spent what I thought to be reasonable for
| the quality of the game. However I would stay up all night
| playing, hoping for one extra loot box or one more battle pass
| level. I've had to force quit these types of games multiple
| times. I'm fortunate in the ways games affect me, but others
| are not so. Their finances can be ruined, their lives taken
| over by a psychologically damaging product. I just can't
| support this. People are getting hurt. It's equivalent to the
| addictiveness of smoking and alcohol. This can't be the way we
| have fun
| bamfly wrote:
| "One more turn/match" is bad enough for sleep & life when
| it's _not_ supercharged by actual gambling mechanics designed
| by a team of professionals to keep you playing. Yeesh.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| That is important to say. I have definitely stayed up all
| night playing games with zero extra monetary support. Those
| nights are infrequent and devoted to games I absolutely
| enjoy. Once I get my fun from them I go back to sleeping
| normally. Free to play games override this sense of
| contentment.
| SirMaster wrote:
| I play multiple free online shooters. But I have never spent
| a penny on one and never plan to.
|
| They also don't affect my health as I just play a normal and
| reasonable amount of time and it doesn't seem to interfere
| with my life or sleep or heath in any other way that I or
| anyone around me has seen or said.
|
| Maybe it helps that don't care about loot boxes and battle
| passes and such? The battle pass (if free) levels up, but I
| rarely even look at what it does for me.
|
| I just play and enjoy these games for what they are like I
| did 20 years ago (quake, counter strike, call of duty 1/2,
| bf1942, unreal tournament, etc). No unlocks, no progression,
| etc.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| What's your point? The parent post said they find the games
| addictive. Your comment is like bragging to an alcoholic
| that you can drink in moderation.
| SirMaster wrote:
| My point is just to tell my point of view and my
| experience on the topic at hand.
|
| If they are sharing their experience, why shouldn't I
| share mine?
| constantcrying wrote:
| Your experience is irrelevant, since, as you stated in
| another comment, you play the most popular f2p games on
| PC, which are actually reasonably monetized. The games
| remain fair and monetization focuses on cosmetics and/or
| faster progression.
|
| The article on the other hand explicitly talks about
| mobile games, which are monetized vastly differently and
| significantly more predatory.
| hoherd wrote:
| > It means I get to play tons of games now for free, subsidized
| by others.
|
| The article does mention some tactics that would prevent this,
| such as a bottleneck in the game where a level is so difficult
| a user can't reasonably win without having to pay. With such a
| tactic, you would not get to completely play tons of games, and
| the game becomes more of a free demo where the later parts of
| the game are unlocked with money, but that fact is hidden
| behind a manipulative psychological mechanic.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Ah, I only play multiplayer games, and so I have never really
| seen much of anything that I can't do for free.
| simiones wrote:
| There are many multiplayer games, especially on mobile,
| where the more you spend, the more powerful you are. One of
| the more infamous recent examples was Activision-Blizzard's
| Diablo: Immortal, where the most powerful items were locked
| behind either significant monetary investments (think tens
| to hundreds of dollars) or unfathomable amounts of grinding
| (literal decades for a >80% chance at some of the top-tier
| items, or something crazy like that). And these items were
| very much usable in PvP combat, where any non-paying player
| has about 0 chance of ever winning.
| SirMaster wrote:
| >There are many multiplayer games, especially on mobile,
| where the more you spend, the more powerful you are.
|
| Sure, but none of the ones I play work like that. There
| are plenty that don't. Easy to simply avoid the ones that
| do.
| simiones wrote:
| Companies are actively working to make it harder. Some
| games now launch without microtranscations of any kind,
| or with cosmetic-only ones. Then, after they gain
| popularity (and thus hook you in), they start adding more
| and more pay-to-win transactions. Sometimes it's also
| unclear that an item they offer for sale will make it
| easier to win, by hiding the advantage behind various
| layers of obfuscation.
|
| Also, if you agree that these types of games are not
| worth playing, perhaps you also agree that not much would
| be lost if they were outright banned?
| tiltowait wrote:
| The mobile Dungeon Keeper was pretty infamous for this.
| simiones wrote:
| Same with cheap shoes - I get to buy new cheap shoes every
| month, subsidized by child slave labor in some far away place.
|
| Or, perhaps I should feel some moral qualms about riding on the
| suffering of others. And make no mistake: most F2P games are
| subsidized not by some million people each spending $2 dollars
| to get a Candy Crush hammer or some nicer-looking toy, they are
| subsidized by some hundred people each spending $2000 to fuel
| their addiction to seeing the numbers go up.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Are we really comparing voluntary entertainment to working a
| job to make a living?
| seeknotfind wrote:
| Rules against bad tactics also prevent society from learning to
| cope with them. The internet connects the whole world. How do you
| balance legislature restricting known problems from exposing
| people to external and unrelated threats? It's impossible to
| measure, for instance, Zynga's impact on cons. Perhaps just
| wishful thinking.
| blargey wrote:
| Societies cope with bad tactics by making rules against them,
| and enforcing those rules.
| [deleted]
| doctorwho42 wrote:
| Eh, I think the concept of benefiting from being exposed is on
| the face not a bad one.
|
| But this issue is, the first exposure these kids are having is
| gambling on steroids. Which in itself is bad, but their brains
| aren't fully developed.
|
| Where if you were born in the 80's or 90's you had at least
| somewhat of a chance to learn while these companies tried
| things out. Think of it like this, we were given the
| opportunity to start in the baby pool - get our faces wet/etc,
| then the shallow end, then in the last decade we started to get
| to play in the diving well/deep end of the pool. Where kids now
| are thrust into the deep end without floaties, sink or swim,
| get a crushing addiction ruining your life and your family
| dynamic or learn how to cope with the constant pressure to
| spend money
| taneq wrote:
| Note how social media apps use the same "pull down from the top"
| action to check for notifications that you'd use with a one-armed
| bandit.
| codetrotter wrote:
| I agree in part. But so does Safari on iOS. Probably most other
| web browsers on mobile as well.
| [deleted]
| pawelduda wrote:
| Coupled with all the likes, reactions, red notification dots
| and so on to trigger you into looking at shit you'd never care
| about otherwise
| hooverd wrote:
| Ironically enough, most of the slot machines I've seen in Vegas
| only have levers as an afterthought. The controls remind me of
| arcade games.
| Minor49er wrote:
| Interesting observation. It reminds me of when people would
| point out that people who interact with computers are referred
| to "users" which is a term that is also used to describe drug
| addicts
| shultays wrote:
| Money is not the only problem. Allthough my mom mostly plays
| "f2p", she is still a farmville (and candy crush to a degree)
| addict. She spends a big part of her daily life on those two
| games. And that is what I observe when she is with me, she
| probably spends even more when she is at her house.
|
| The worst part I see is "water rush" or whatever that is called
| on farmville. The water is basically the premium currency you
| only slowly gain if you are playing free. But on that rush time
| you gain a lot more and it is 6 hours or so. My mom pretty much
| plays that game for 6 straight hours when that rush is available
|
| I tried hooking her to other hobbies but it doesn't really work.
| Farmville's claws are hooked too deep on her
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I wonder if a really good clone of farmville that slowly
| detoxes players would work.
|
| Slowly remove the dopamine hits or mistime them to be less
| effective. Push the player to play and check in less to gain
| more ("Kittens" has this mechanic - you gain resources faster
| by being offline).
| jrockway wrote:
| Is this even a "video game" phenomenon? Consider things like
| Magic: The Gathering. Is anyone in that community spending an
| excessive amount of money on cards in an attempt to find the most
| powerful ones? Is it a problem?
|
| Anyway, here's my understanding of the problem and the proposed
| fix. The F2P + Whales model is popular because games typically
| need players (for people to play against), and it's hard to get
| people to spend $60 on your game outright. People have been
| burned far too many times; F2P is nice because if you don't like
| the game, you're only out the hours that you played. That's good
| for the industry because instead of a fixed $60 that was sunk on
| a game that the player doesn't play, they can go play your game
| instead. The problem comes from the monetization; it depends on
| whales, and the whales are probably spending money on the game
| because of a mental illness. As a society, we want to protect
| people from themselves where possible. If they spend all their
| money on Genshin Impact, then our taxes have to pay for their
| food and housing. A solution would allow video game companies to
| continue to develop games and be compensated for them, but remove
| the negative effects on society that comes from unbounded
| purchases.
|
| My proposed fix is for games to set an upper bound on the
| expected value per player. This would have be set by regulations
| (don't forget to adjust for inflation!), but can be above the
| cost of a standard video game. I'd say something like
| $1000/game/year. Then, it's up to the video game to track what
| each player spends per year. When they reach the regulatory
| maximum, all future unlocks are free for the rest of the year.
| How many users hit the limits will have to be reported to
| regulators on a yearly basis, as well as the average spend per
| user. (That way, the limits can be intelligently adjusted as the
| industry landscape changes.) This lets the small time players
| continue to ponder whether or not they want to buy something in-
| game, but people with a major problem will have their losses
| limited. Spending $1000 on a computer game is not the greatest,
| but an upper bound is better than no upper bound.
|
| I also think the numbers are pretty reasonable. Take Overwatch as
| an example. You used to have to buy loot boxes to get cosmetics
| (or play a lot; I never needed to buy anything with real money).
| They switched to a shop + battle pass model. A battle pass is $10
| for ~2.5 months, which is like $50/year. And they have weekly
| cosmetics you can buy for $20. That would be $1040 per year to
| buy all the cosmetics, if I'm right about getting new stuff every
| week. So, the maximum amount of money they can get from a single
| player (on a single account, which they theoretically enforce
| with SMS) is around $1100/year. (Since coins can be bought in
| bulk for less than $1/coin, I'm guessing that the $100 that my
| regulation forces you to lose out on isn't a problem at all.)
| This doesn't seem to be causing people too much trouble, and is
| obviously a viable business model because they did it on their
| own without being required to by regulators. (Incidentally, one
| of the most common player complaints on Reddit is the removal of
| loot boxes. But I think people are mad about having to buy
| everything outright instead of getting a % chance just from
| playing the game. I doubt anyone liked buying 100 loot boxes for
| $100 when a new skin came out, and they still might not get it.)
|
| TL;DR: I think this would be fair to both players and video game
| companies. Video game companies would have the opportunity to
| make 17x more per player than a traditional pay-before-you-play
| model, but no one person could be financially ruined by their
| desire to have every possible item in the game.
| nextmove wrote:
| Yes these companies use tricks to get you addicted to using their
| low quality products for as long as possible and spending as much
| as possible.
|
| But people fail to realize that the bigger issue resides in
| society. These people are escaping reality to virtual spaces
| where they feel they have power or have value.
|
| Just look around you and you'll see what these people are
| escaping from. Churches at every corner spewing out lies and
| hatred. Propaganda spewed out by governments on the television.
| etc.
|
| These people are searching for a safe space away from the cancer
| that is society. Prove me wrong.
| TimPC wrote:
| It's insane that we are permitting tactics that are already
| sketchy when applied to gambling addicts to be used to target
| teenagers and other young individuals who are still developing.
| We are enabling behaviours in video games that will shape
| lifelong addictions and other huge problems all because we are
| unwilling to call loot boxes gambling because of half-baked
| analogies to opening a pack of baseball cards.
| chongli wrote:
| Simply put: technology is one step ahead of the law. All of
| these 'tricks' should be regulated as gambling for the same
| reasons gambling is regulated: they're addictive, they
| disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, they extract large
| sums of money from these groups and enrich some large companies
| in the process.
|
| When viewed in that light, perhaps even existing gambling
| regulations don't go far enough because there are plenty of
| people who suffer from gambling addiction and even ruin their
| lives in the process.
|
| As for the people who oppose all of this regulation on the
| basis of individual freedom (and perhaps don't care about
| gambling addicts), here is the issue: externalities. People
| with severe gambling addiction can do tremendous damage to
| society as well as enable and enrich organized crime groups.
| It's well documented that people with gambling addiction can
| and do commit thefts and even murders to fuel their addiction.
|
| Now you might also argue that regulation does not prevent
| gambling addiction but that is only evidence against the
| current set of regulations, not proof that all regulation is
| ineffective. Trying to determine the right regulations to
| minimize the harms of gambling addiction while balancing
| personal freedoms is the hard part of policy debates.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Simply put: technology is one step ahead of the law
|
| No, lawmakers are choosing to keep their eyes shut.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> we are unwilling to call loot boxes gambling because of
| half-baked analogies to opening a pack of baseball cards
|
| Here's your odds for opening a pack of baseball cards:
| https://www.topps.com/media/pdf/odds/2023ToppsSeries2Odds.pd...
|
| Looks like the rarest insert is 2022 SILVER SLUGGER AWARD
| WINNERS CARDS PLATINUM at 1 in 1,036,176 packs.
| revscat wrote:
| [flagged]
| ambicapter wrote:
| Why isn't everything legal then?
| appletrotter wrote:
| We live in a society with rules and regulations.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Maybe, but there has to be a limit to how far we expect
| humans to override their programming. With technology and the
| full force of the market behind probing our weaknesses,
| there's a good chance we will reach that limit soon.
| [deleted]
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| My very general response to that very general statement is:
| choices and decisions can be made collectively as well.
|
| At their best, regulations ARE exactly that - bunch of us
| getting together and saying "well THAT sure sucked; let's not
| make THAT mistake again; let's do better choices in the
| future". It's us saying that we are capable of learning and
| we _don 't_ have to make
| every.stupid.mistake.over.and.over.again individually.
|
| We will probably also agree _very quickly_ on what
| regulations are at their very worst, or even at their median
| / mediocre! :). And then it becomes an intelligent discussion
| on where we each draw the line and what are good ratios and
| compromises.
|
| But I have limited respect for drawing the line at either
| plus or minus infinity and pretending it's a meaningful
| statement or a good principle to live by :-/
|
| [if your post was sarcasm, apologies/nm; easy to miss those
| online]
| tsunamifury wrote:
| You understand that when you are free you can be free to
| collectively regulate too.
| braymundo wrote:
| Netherlands and Belgium are ahead of the curve, though.
| maccard wrote:
| No, they're not. For all intents and purposes the industry
| has moved on from loot boxes. The top grossing mobile games
| aren't using them, and AAA/F2P games have for the most part
| moved on from them. There's a few holdouts (notably Fifa
| Ultimate Team), but everyone else has moved on. The article
| does a really good job of explaining what the _actual_ model
| is now.
| veave wrote:
| What's insane is that some want to replace the irresponsible
| parents of those teenagers with a nanny state.
| doctorwho42 wrote:
| Now that's some hyperbole, government regulations are some of
| the best tools we have in creating a reasonable society that
| is desirable to live in.
|
| For example, your nanny state comment could easily be
| modified to describe chemical waste dumping.
|
| "What's insane is that some want to replace the irresponsible
| CEO's and C-suite execs of those workers with a nanny state."
|
| Well fucking hell yes I do, I want the government to have to
| power to ruin companies if they negligently damaged or
| destroyed the environment we all share, for profit, stupidity
| or laziness.
|
| Government regulations are the only reason we the workers
| have it as good as we do today. 5 day work week, EPA
| restrictions, etc.
| veave wrote:
| You opt into gambling, you don't opt into having your water
| polluted
|
| Teenagers shouldn't be gambling, their parents should be
| responsible for that, but some don't want to rear their
| children.
| [deleted]
| brenns10 wrote:
| Children don't have the luxury of choosing their parents.
| Having guardrails to increase the odds of success for a
| child with imperfect parents? I'd say that's a good idea.
| hellojesus wrote:
| But the guardrails disallow everyone else from engaging
| in voluntary transactions with no third party harm.
| That's the real issue. Reduce everyone's freedoms to save
| a few from themselves.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| You're free to move somewhere else with clean water, why
| do you want to get a nanny state involved?
|
| If that "solution" sounds sketchy to you, note that
| that's how you sound to everyone else here.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You're probably not speaking for anybody else than
| yourself here, none of us are.
|
| When people start moving away from the nanny state in
| sufficient numbers, the nanny state will also hinder
| people from escaping. Look at the Soviet Union, China,
| etc.
|
| Australia did that during the covid pandemic, they
| literally banned citizens from leaving the country.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| No one is "free" to move anywhere. Moving is not free in
| any sense or term. There are enormous costs to moving
| anywhere. There is no cost to "not" gambling however.
| This is a poor analogy regardless
| Analemma_ wrote:
| If you're not willing to pay the transaction costs of
| moving to a different place with clean water, then you
| clearly don't actually value it very much. Why should the
| government get involved?
| TimPC wrote:
| Sure but when teenagers shouldn't be actually gambling we
| have age restrictions in casinos and levy fines/revoke
| licenses if they violate those restrictions. Meanwhile,
| we allow this thing that pretty much everyone agrees is
| gambling, right down to being able to cash out winnings
| at a profit and we want to say "only your parents can
| stop you". How about putting loot boxes behind an 18+
| restriction, and requiring id checks like casinos do? Is
| that not nanny state for actually gambling but is nanny
| state for thing almost identical to gambling?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| How well is that working with underage drinking and
| smoking?
| TimPC wrote:
| Not as well as it could be but certainly better than
| doing nothing at all. It does create a barrier that
| otherwise doesn't exist and that barrier does reduce
| underage drinking and smoking compared to what it
| otherwise would be even if it doesn't zero it the way
| we'd ideally hope it would.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I can't say how easy it is for an underage person to get
| cigarettes. But I do know how easy it is for them to get
| weed. I can't imagine any teenager who wants to smoke or
| drink being stymied by the law
|
| Do you also think governments forcing schools to teach
| abstinence is diminishing kids from having sex?
| blargey wrote:
| Both underage drinking and smoking rates have gone down
| precipitously over the past few decades, so quite well?
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/f
| ast...
|
| https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/surveillance116/f
| igu...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And now they are smoking more weed...
|
| https://news.ohsu.edu/2022/12/07/teen-cannabis-abuse-has-
| inc....
|
| Win?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Why should a child be doomed for life to a gambling addiction
| because they had the bad luck of being born to shitty
| parents?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You eventually grow out of the influence of shitty parents.
| It's a whole lot more difficult to escape the influence of
| a shitty nanny state.
| [deleted]
| fullshark wrote:
| Sometimes I do pine for the days when governments would overreact
| to this stuff and ban pinball machines and the like for decades.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I've known people to spend hundreds of dollars on Clash of Clans.
| I would always ask, "you know you've spent enough money to by a
| PS5". The response is 'they pay for the time' being entertained,
| what's 50 dollars to play for a night?
| qingcharles wrote:
| I spent thousands of dollars on in-game content for some pretty
| lame city building game back in about 2013. The difference was
| that I had the money. I guess if you have the money and it
| makes you happy, then fuck it, spend away. As long as you're
| not harming anyone.
| autoexec wrote:
| Mobile games have been mostly scammy ad-filled trash for ages,
| but what kills me is how it's polluting PC and console titles. I
| picked up a copy of Mortal Kombat 10 and while I have no idea
| what it looked like when it launched, now it looks just like a
| shitty F2P mobile game complete with full screen ads you have
| click past, as well as paywalled off characters and moves. I'd be
| so pissed if I'd paid $60+ for it instead of < $10 for a used PS4
| disk.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| This is a really disgusting phenomenon in modern society.
|
| We all know how ghastly it is when an adult loses their mind with
| gambling, but when I realized my nephew (12) is already being
| strung out by these same mechanics through 'games' on his phone,
| I felt a sort of despair and psychological darkness descend over
| me and it's like the world is a little bit less bright,
| permanently.
|
| Instead of thinking about his bright future now it just seems
| like a matter of time till he can get dragged down further. And I
| wonder what percent of kids are getting sucked into it too. Is
| half a percent too pessimistic? A gambling addiction is
| inculcated in one out of 200 kids before they're even old enough
| to work?
|
| And as I'm sure you all can imagine, the desperate pleas and
| arguments of a kid who needs more 'coins' or whatever have a
| negative impact on the whole family dynamic. All a parent can do
| is block the kid from installing new apps on their phone and try
| to weather the storm of withdrawal, knowing that once they can't
| protect their child anymore, the kid will also be old enough to
| do real & permanent damage to their own life.
| ryandrake wrote:
| If you step back, it's really sad how much of our society is
| based even partially on chance and gambling.
|
| 1. College admissions: There are not enough seats for everyone
| who wants to go to school at a top college, so colleges filter
| via things like merit and race, but also random chance
| lotteries.
|
| 2. Applying for jobs is a form of lottery. You typically apply
| for many jobs and hope one or two get back to you.
|
| 3. Savings: The only place normal people have access to get
| decent returns is the Stock Market Roulette wheel
|
| 4. Business Success: Often boils down to right place, right
| time, and massively overindexes on luck.
|
| 5. Housing: Leverage up and buy a house for perpetual asset
| growth. But watch out for the once-a-decade collapse that will
| put you underwater and in foreclosure!
|
| It's like we've permanently decided that rewarding risk is the
| only way for a society to function.
| nradov wrote:
| Investing in the stock market is hardly a roulette wheel.
| Unlike gambling, stocks are a positive sum game. If you had
| purchased a broad based stock index fund at any point since
| the creation of the modern US financial system in 1971 and
| held it for 30 years then you would have made a profit.
|
| As for housing, a collapse in residential real estate values
| doesn't equate to foreclosure. Lenders can't call in mortgage
| loans and borrowers have the option to continue paying even
| if they are underwater.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Why should we not reward risk taking in general? The
| alternative would be militant conservatism (not in the right
| wing sense, but in the societal stagnation sense)
| voakbasda wrote:
| I would add:
|
| 6. Shopping: Sales, promotions, and coupons are all designed
| to induce more frequent and varied consumption. Pricing for
| the same item can be wildly different depending on the store
| or the day of the week. Attempting to secure the best price
| is a gamble even after carefully researching your options and
| making price comparisons.
| raincole wrote:
| But before all of these modern shit, the length of your
| lifespan mostly depended on two things:
|
| 1. Which family you were born in
|
| 2. Literally the fucking weather
|
| So I don't think modern society is that luck-based,
| relatively speaking.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| I can also think of some social functions that I think random
| chance is appropriate for:
|
| Most Western, democratic countries select jurors for a trial
| by one's peers by lottery and I consider this to be an
| important aspect of having a more "just" justice system -
| particularly compared to what preceded this system: trial by
| one's betters (a magistrate).
|
| In Ireland, we've also also recently started using Citizens'
| Assemblies who are randomly selected to make recommendations
| on matters of public policy to the houses of parliament:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Assembly_(Ireland)
| cpfohl wrote:
| I got invested in "Carrie" but we never found out whether or not
| she got help!
|
| As a sidenote: How does self-exclusion work for online gambling?
| Do you have to provide a gov't ID to signup?
| cjs_ac wrote:
| > Do you have to provide a gov't ID to signup?
|
| Yes[0].
|
| [0] https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/public-and-
| players/gui...
| bragr wrote:
| >Zynga's vice-president of player succcess, Gemma Doyle, referred
| unabashedly to internal models that identify people who are on
| course to spend high sums. Should they reduce their outlay, she
| told GamesIndustry.biz, the company would "reach out and call
| them to find out what's wrong"
|
| That is just so actively evil, it should be criminal.
| nancyhn wrote:
| What does that email look like?
|
| "Hi, we noticed your bank account hasn't been completely
| drained yet. How can we help you resolve this? And have you
| considered intermittent fasting?"
| raincole wrote:
| I guess it'd offer you some little free game coins or
| something? Just like when you unsubscribe from Adobe CC it
| offers you a month of free subscription?
| mcpackieh wrote:
| _" vice-president of player succcess"_
| User23 wrote:
| Casino Hosts, aka Casino Marketing Executives, do this too.
| Probably where they got the idea. Although my hosts have never
| been pushy. But by Vegas standards I'm a guppy, so I don't
| think they care to waste too much time on me. I bet things are
| different for the guys whose trips can make or break a quarter.
| Given_47 wrote:
| Oh yea that's been super common in the gambling industry for a
| while. For casino games, losers will get comped a night, maybe
| a weekend even to encourage them back. In betting, losers get
| incentivized back into the habit by receiving "free play" or
| "free bets." It's all based on their internal LTV calculations
| and shit it's nuts.
|
| It's already beyond fucked up but imagine how infuriating it is
| for anyone with a clue that does this. If u show the slightest
| indication that u possess >= 1 functioning brain cell ur done.
| Eg my max bet at Pointsbet was limited to a couple bucks fairly
| quickly (my account was literally negative too lol! Altho there
| were some pretty obvious tells: brand new American account
| immediately starts exclusively betting obscure stuff like
| Bulgarian basketball) and similarly at draftkings (tho they
| were more lenient).
|
| It's pretty trivial to churn out a 7-12% ROI as side income
| until it isn't! I get it but that obviously doesn't make it any
| better. It's so predatory and coupled with how conservative
| they r about anyone that _might_ win it's just disgusting
| haunter wrote:
| How did Pokemon, MTG, and Yugioh get away with it? This is not a
| new thing, started in the 90s with the card games
| tiltowait wrote:
| CCGs are a pale shadow to these gambling games. Beyond that, I
| think there are some important differences:
|
| * There's no "free". You _must_ spend money at the outset in
| order to play. This sets precedent and expectations.
|
| * There's a physical good involved. You always get something,
| and you've got total freedom with how you use it. You can play
| it, sell it, trade it, turn it into an origami crane, use it as
| a proxy for a different card, etc.
|
| * Because people can sell cards, this means you can simply buy
| the exact cards you want without resorting to randomized packs.
|
| * Buying a randomized pack is a much more involved--both
| physically and psychologically--process compared to an IAP. At
| your local game shop, you have to go up to the counter, ask for
| one or more packs, and hand over your money/card. If you want
| more, you have to do it all over again. With an IAP, you just
| tap the "OK" button.
| xxr wrote:
| Additionally:
|
| * Once the bottom falls out, bag-holders get burned, but the
| collective nightmare is over.
| [deleted]
| autoexec wrote:
| We've had collectable cards for ages. Baseball cards, garbage
| pail kids, etc. Those you couldn't even play a game with, you
| just tried to collect and trade. Honestly even MTG and Pokemon
| cards are so much better than mobile games which are there 24/7
| begging for attention and making kids feel like they're missing
| out if they don't check in every few hours. Plus with the cards
| in the end, you've got a collection of cards you can play with,
| sell, or keep for the memories or whatever. With digital stuff
| you'll be lucky if you can still access in your ingame
| purchases after a few years
| cruano wrote:
| And the worst you can do is to buy all of Walmart's stock of
| cards, while digital stuff has no upper limit
| Ekaros wrote:
| I think there is real option of buying worthless fakes
| online for overinflated price of real one...
| bentley wrote:
| When I was a kid with no money and no game stores nearby, I
| "collected" Pokemon cards by pasting JPEGs from the web into
| Corel Wordperfect documents stored on my stack of 3.5''
| floppies.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| >Examples included exploiting a player's "hot state", an
| impulsive mood created by game dynamics, giving them a time-
| limited opportunity to spend hard currency to progress.
|
| It only takes one whale to offset thousands of regular players.
| Games are ruined by these predatory tactics. They are literally
| abusing mentally ill people, it's pretty sick!
| axus wrote:
| It seems like expanding the "national self-exclusion scheme" to
| online spending is a good idea. Opt-in for the people who need
| it, and casino taxes pay for the government to maintain the data
| and API.
| can16358p wrote:
| I know I'm going to be downvoted to hell but:
|
| As long as it's not a forced choice, the user/player downloads
| the game at their own will, knows exactly what they are getting
| and the odds of getting/winning (if the developer clearly states
| that, say, there is 1/1000 of "winning" some random thing and the
| algorithm is indeed randomized to produce thar outcome 1/1000 of
| the time fairly), and even the outcome is not real money, could
| the devs really be held responsible for anything?
|
| It's a free market and someone did a terrible choice. Condolences
| to their family, yet... As a for profit company it's perfectly
| normal for a company to follow tactics that guide the user into
| spending, it's called, well, business.
|
| So we should sue everybody? Of course not. Zynga is just playing
| by the playbook, which is perfectly normal for a company to
| maximize the profit. As long as they don't outright lie like
| saying you can get some random item 1/10 of chance but it's
| actually 1/1000, they should be fine.
| rrsmtz wrote:
| Businesses and the free market are not an inherent good; they
| exist for the benefit of people and not the other way around.
|
| Gambling companies, drug dealers, and scammers share a business
| model that is only profitable when preying on the vulnerable
| (and causing more suffering in the world), yet they hide behind
| the excuse that it's up to the individual to self-regulate.
|
| The people that can self-regulate are not their target
| audience! Their "tactics" are engineered to take advantage of
| the vulnerable, and not your average person. And they get away
| with it because of the American self-centered individualist
| mindset.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Allow me to play devils advocate. If a consenting adult wants
| to blow their whole paycheck at the casino, who are you to
| stop them? The casino did not trick or coerce the gambler.
| The rules are known and unchanging. According to the
| principles of freedom, you can't interfere with what two
| consenting parties agree to on their own. Why do you get to
| insert yourself in this transaction?
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| First, of course the casino "tricked" them, they literally
| manipulate their senses (visual, audio, temporal, spatial),
| they are Skinner boxes controlled by the opertaor.
|
| Second, addiction suggests lack of full consent.
|
| And clearly there are negative externalities to such a
| choice. That person may have a family, other debts they
| don't pay, may make poorer life choices as a result of
| blowing their paycheck , may choose violence or drugs or
| self-harm ... most of which will cost taxpayers and other
| third parties.
| justinhj wrote:
| The argument seems to be whether people should be free to
| pursue activities they enjoy even if there are inherent
| risks, or if people feel that they know better and should
| step in to protect them from their own choices. It seems
| similar to how people feel about free speech.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Again, "choices" made while in an addictive state is not
| "your own choice" (especially as it pertains to the
| developing brains of minors) and couching it in those
| terms is not helpful.
|
| Also "enjoy" is a loaded term.
| affinepplan wrote:
| "X is a bad idea, therefore it should be illegal"
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| I didn't comment on the legality at all. I just disagree
| that this proposed scenario happens in a vacuum of full
| consent and free of consequences.
| coding123 wrote:
| It sounds like a person that could spend their money like
| that because of the right music and lighting effects
| should probably get help before going to a casino.
|
| Also, just as likely this person is already abusing their
| body with drugs.
|
| This planet is HARD and not every thing born on it is
| going to have a good time. Ask the squirrels my neighbors
| shoot at if life is fair.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Isn't this article and thread about a kind of "help" that
| person could get from regulators?
| pharrington wrote:
| How about you just don't _go out of your way to
| predictably, deliberately make people 's lives worse_ just
| so you can make a buck?
| jowea wrote:
| Nobody is an island. I would guess that the vast majority
| of cases of "blow their whole paycheck at the casino" is
| going to lead to some problem that society is going to have
| to solve afterwards.
| d_sem wrote:
| This is not a devils advocate because in your hypothetical
| you already defined the gambler was a fully consenting,
| which is in alignment with the persons comment you replied
| to.
|
| A more accurate devils advocate could be one who suggest
| that forms of manipulation and coercion should be allowed
| because its physically possible in reality to do so.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| I think it is a devils advocate because there are plenty
| of people who think the state should disallow gambling by
| consenting adults.
|
| As for when coercion is used... I don't think it's useful
| to play devils advocate for coercion. That one is
| settled, everyone already agrees that coercion is bad.
| affinepplan wrote:
| should it also be illegal to hire attractive bartenders?
| simiones wrote:
| Well, one answer could be: if we as a society look at this and
| decide that it does more harm than good, why allow it at all?
| There are many other forms of entertainment available, so what
| is lost by eliminating this easy-to-abuse choice?
|
| It's similar to the reasons we chose to eliminate certain
| classes of drugs. They cause significantly more harm than good,
| so what is lost by limiting the ability to produce and sell
| them is less important. Of course, there are often problems
| with the way such bans are enforced (the disastrous effects of
| the war on drugs, or prohibition before it, are hard to
| overstate). But that doesn't mean that there aren't workable
| ways to regulate such things without being so vicious to the
| victims (as can be seen in the much more successful bans on the
| sale of many other substances, such as non-addictive
| prescription medications or weapons-grade chemicals).
| ponderings wrote:
| If I play chess against Carlson every move is my own choice,
| I'm really good at the game but he will manage to dictate the
| entire course of it. The only way to not lose is to not play.
| There are so many mind tricks available to game makers and they
| are so sophisticated at playing their hand they will find ways
| to win 1 game every 1000.
|
| As for the random thing, it isn't random. You fit a profile to
| spend 1 time every 3 months and it's been 3 months since your
| last purchase. "Random" can be stacked against you. The next
| player who by age and demography shall never spend, he will get
| favorable "RNG". You are far behind, do you even belong in this
| clan?
| phone8675309 wrote:
| I know I'm going to be downvoted to hell but:
|
| As long as it's not a forced choice, the user buys the drugs at
| their own will, knows exactly what they are getting and the
| odds of addiction (if the chemist clearly states that, say,
| there is 1/1000 of "being addicted" some random thing and the
| does is indeed randomized to produce that outcome 1/1000 of the
| time fairly), and even the outcome is not real money, could the
| dealers really be held responsible for anything?
|
| It's a free market and someone did a terrible choice.
| Condolences to their family, yet... As a for profit company
| it's perfectly normal for a company to follow tactics that
| guide the user into spending, it's called, well, business.
|
| So we should sue everybody? Of course not. Purdue Pharma is
| just playing by the playbook, which is perfectly normal for a
| company to maximize the profit. As long as they don't outright
| lie like saying you can get some addicted 1/1000000 of chance
| but it's actually 1/10, they should be fine.
| can16358p wrote:
| Yes exactly. I don't remember saying that I don't follow the
| same logic for chemicals.
|
| The same applies: your body, your money, your choices.
|
| It shouldn't be anyone else's business as long as you don't,
| say, do drugs and physically attack someone.
| mathgladiator wrote:
| It's business, but we can also label it as predatory,
| unethical, immoral.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| You can label it, sure. The question is should we outlaw it.
| autoexec wrote:
| Yes, we should outlaw unethical exploitative business
| practices just like we outlaw snake oil salesmen and ponzi
| schemes. There's no benefit allowing scammers to take
| advantage of people, especially when they're targeting
| children.
| can16358p wrote:
| I agree. But it shouldn't be illegal; many legitimate
| businesses also follow very similar dark patterns to acquire
| and retain customers/users, that's a fact of doing business.
|
| It shouldn't magically be an issue when the company provides
| gambling games.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| It seems like some people want to figure out laws for
| everything - literally every. last. thing. If we have enough
| laws there won't ever be another problem, or so it seems.
| Regardless of the impossibility of that outcome or even
| agreement on what "good" and "bad" is.
|
| Nevertheless, I think many people can agree with you that
| action should be taken when one party is no longer able to make
| a choice. Perhaps it's fine for gamers in 1st world countries
| to choose how they waste their money.
|
| What isn't okay is when people have no other choice but some
| shady practice like the company that employees them also
| setting their rent prices.
| autoexec wrote:
| > It seems like some people want to figure out laws for
| everything
|
| Mostly the things that are harmful to society. Turning
| children into gambling addicts seems like an easy target.
| Kids have no defenses against even unsophisticated
| manipulation and don't always know what's real money or just
| part of the game. I've seen _adults_ unclear on that
| sometimes!
|
| Choice is great, but it has to be a free choice. You can't
| have that when you're being manipulated and deceived. Forcing
| games that feature gambling with real money to be transparent
| about their odds would help.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| People think that the laws make the society, not the other
| way around. They want people to live THEIR way, and they see
| the force of government as the fastest route to obedience.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| I see this ad nauseum in the weekly "f*ck cars" thread.
| Some young ideologue wants to create their personal utopia
| by banning cars, parking lots and highways and building
| trains.
|
| > People like their cars. I don't think they want this
|
| "They would like subways more"
|
| > Are you sure about that? Phoenix is geographically
| massive. People tow their boats, horses, and trailers to
| remote places here
|
| "That's not very green of them"
| RajT88 wrote:
| > It seems like some people want to figure out laws for
| everything - literally every. last. thing. If we have enough
| laws there won't ever be another problem, or so it seems.
|
| Something to think about - the number of anti-corruption laws
| on the books of a given country/state/city is a reliable
| proxy for how much corruption is there. The reason being,
| non-corrupt jurisdictions don't need those laws.
|
| There is a very real (but arguably small) problem with
| phasing out laws which have long outlived their usefulness.
| These occasionally get used as a sneaky way to either escape
| prosecution, or prosecute someone who otherwise has done
| nothing wrong by modern standards.
| falcolas wrote:
| Sure, when you pit investments of billions of dollars into
| researching the psychology of addiction and marketing against
| an individual's willpower, it's not _technically_ a "forced
| choice".
|
| But of course the customer's going to lose. They never had a
| chance to begin with. Regulate these like we do gambling.
| Because that's what it is under the hood.
| can16358p wrote:
| Or better, don't regulate the business, cure the addict,
| solving the root cause.
|
| I'm not saying curing addiction is easy, yet if they have
| that much power, they can focus their efforts there.
| User23 wrote:
| Out of curiosity do you oppose the tobacco lawsuits and
| restrictions on how tobacco companies do business? It's not a
| forced choice, people buy tobacco of their own will and at this
| point everyone knows what they are getting into and the odds of
| bad outcomes. So can the tobacco companies really be held
| responsible for anything?
| skizm wrote:
| Yea, it should all be allowed and just as regulated as gambling
| is the point.
| eska wrote:
| How do you regulate gambling for teenagers?
| simiones wrote:
| You don't allow teenagers to gamble, and revoke the
| licenses of gambling places that don't enforce this.
| autoexec wrote:
| How do we revoke Fortnite's gambling license?
| skizm wrote:
| Classify it as gambling, tell them to apply for a
| license, fine them heavily every day they are not in
| compliance, shut them down if they fail to comply for
| long enough or make obvious attempts at getting around
| the law.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| The point is that Fortnite has already instilled gambling
| addiction to a generation of children. Anyone interested
| in perpetuating this addiction (Microsoft, Sony, Sega,
| Epic, Apple, Google, Meta) will fight back and probably
| kill any attempt at regulation
| tharax wrote:
| Are you saying that if massive corporations will probably
| fight regulation we should just give up before even
| starting?
| simiones wrote:
| The same way we can revoke NetBet's gambling license,
| right?
|
| The government could easily require a gambling license
| (or a "random gaming" or a "f2p game" license or whatever
| form it takes) to be able to distribute a certain type of
| game which would be legally defined. Then, they could
| impose requirements like age checking for such games, and
| companies who failed to respect the requirements would
| lose the right to distribute these games in that country.
| International treaties could be used to extend this ban
| across a wider economic area.
|
| Note that there already exist laws that define precisely
| what types of games require a gambling license, extending
| that to a new type of game has to be done carefully, but
| is definitely achievable. As just a low-effort pass at
| it, we could require a license for any game that includes
| a way for the player to pay to have some advantage in-
| game, where this advantage is obtained via random chance
| after the payment is made. An advantage could be defined
| as any change to the player that statistically increases
| the player's chances of reaching a win state.
| skizm wrote:
| Gambling is already regulated for teenagers. They can't
| until they are 18. Companies caught allowing underage
| gamblers get fined and/or shutdown.
| badtension wrote:
| Nowadays an informed choice is an illusion. We are all
| manipulated beyond belief in all kinds of decisions.
|
| Tell people what design choices were taken to maximize profits,
| what specialists were consulted, what went on behind closed
| doors, what is the research and statistics on gambling and
| addiction and how they used it to waste people's lifes and
| drain their money.
|
| Tell them that and see how your "business" is doing.
| autoexec wrote:
| I'd love to see that level of transparency. It don't think it
| would change as much as you'd hope though. Even when we're
| aware of the manipulation and the vulnerabilities in our
| brains we're still susceptible to them (some more than
| others). It's just how we're wired.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| People literally buy packs of cigarettes with graphic
| pictures of bloody lungs full of tumors on them. They are
| not being fooled about what a cigarette does.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I think this is a sign that the matter half of mind over
| matter is much more powerful than people realize. For
| most addictive or maladaptive behaviors I think the
| solution is rarely additional education or being upfront
| about the choice that needs to be made.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Or perhaps people just have different values than you?
| Perhaps they are fully aware of the cancer risk and have
| full agency over their decisions yet still prefer to
| indulge themselves?
| autoexec wrote:
| At least there's been a massive decline in smokers over
| the years since we learned the tobacco industry was
| covering up the risks. Vaping set us back a bit, but
| plenty of kids these days grow up knowing better than to
| touch the stuff.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Well thats... a take. Do you believe you have any agency at
| all in your life? Or is everything controlled by the puppet
| master?
| danaris wrote:
| That's a false dichotomy.
|
| Yes, we have agency. But it's not absolute. For instance,
| you don't have the agency _not_ to use the toilet for days
| on end (or end up going somewhere less sanitary) if you 're
| eating and drinking.
|
| If you're on your third day without food, you don't have
| complete agency _not_ to eat whatever food is put in front
| of you, even if there 's some negative consequence to it.
| Yes, _technically_ you can choose not to. But even if you
| know, without a doubt, that you will have another
| opportunity to get food before you would literally starve
| to death, there are biological and neurological processes
| at work that make it _very, very, very_ hard to choose not
| to eat the food in front of you.
|
| I have ADHD. In a very real sense, I am "addicted to doing
| engaging tasks". I don't always have full agency to choose
| to do a task that I know will be stressful and unrewarding.
| My brain treats it as if it is painful and dangerous.
|
| Many games create a dopamine loop that is very hard to
| break out of. Many game companies have done neurological
| research to understand how to make that even stronger.
|
| Agency is _not_ a binary thing: you aren 't either
| completely free of outside influence, or completely under
| the control of another. There are influences all around us
| all the time, some of which are heavy and obvious like
| near-starvation, others of which are much more subtle like
| advertising.
|
| However much you may think you are immune to outside
| influences, you're not. None of us are. That's just an
| undeniable fact of how human brains work.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Choice either is or isn't an illusion. YOU presented that
| dichotomy. I simply took the other side of it.
|
| I understand that we do not live in a vacuum. Yes of
| course we respond to stimuli, that's part of what it
| means to be alive. What I am advocating for is more
| agency in your own life.
|
| You are the one in the drivers seat. Act like it and your
| life will be better. Pretend you don't have agency and
| your life will get worse. It's really that simple. I
| think that's why your original comment triggered me so
| much.
| danaris wrote:
| Well, this is the first comment I've made in this
| discussion, so no points for observation.
|
| Aside from that, people like you make me sick. Acting
| like everyone who has an addiction, or a mental illness,
| just has to "act like they're in the driver's seat" and
| everything will be all better.
|
| It just makes it _painfully_ obvious how privileged you
| are, and how you take that privilege as proof of your
| rightness and completeness--and other people 's lack of
| that privilege as proof of their inferiority.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Woah, pump the brakes there. I never passed a moral
| judgement. I never called anyone inferior. Believe me, I
| have plenty of vices.
|
| Question. The addict you mentioned. Do you believe they
| more or less likely to recover if they believe they have
| agency rather than believing "informed choice is an
| illusion" as the other commenter so eloquently put it?
|
| The question is rhetorical. The answer is obvious.
| danaris wrote:
| Yes, everything in your world is beautifully obvious,
| starkly black and white.
|
| Choice is either _fully in our hands_ , or _fully an
| illusion_.
|
| We either have _full agency_ , or _no agency_.
|
| I understand full well about the importance of a growth
| vs entity mindset, but that's not going to stop the very
| powerful dopamine-seeking urge of the brain. At best it
| can keep you moving forward toward something that will
| (eg, rehab, ADHD medications, parental controls that
| prevent you using gambling apps on your own phone). But
| unless you've experienced one of these _genuine mental
| disorders_ , preaching at people who do or have had them
| about how _easy_ it is to get out of it, you just have to
| _believe you can do it_ , is nothing but condescending
| bullshit. However many "vices" you have.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| You're putting a lot of words in my mouth and I don't
| believe you're arguing in good faith.
|
| I never said it was easy, and I never even said you can
| get out of it at all. I simply said you're better off
| believing one thing over another.
|
| >that's not going to stop the very powerful dopamine-
| seeking urge of the brain
|
| This is our fundamental disagreement. Plenty of people
| have their urges under control. Believing you are somehow
| "different" or your brain is "broken" is the ultimate
| toxic mindset. You can't fix your life until you fix your
| mind
| danaris wrote:
| Thanks for defining my mental illness out of existence.
|
| Bye now.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| I also have ADHD. That doesn't mean we're not in control
| of our lives. I'd suggest you don't let your ailments
| define you.
| badtension wrote:
| Why do you mock me and take it out of context?
|
| > As long as it's not a forced choice, the user/player
| downloads the game at their own will, knows exactly what
| they are getting
|
| Most ads are not about informing us but manipulating into
| buying their crap.
| autoexec wrote:
| Deterministic universe. We're all just slaves to cause and
| effect.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence :)
|
| You would also need to prove to me that a deterministic
| universe where individuals do not have the capacity to
| calculate the future is somehow distinct from a non-
| deterministic universe from the individual's perspective
| constantcrying wrote:
| Companies shouldn't be allowed to prey on people's addictions.
| I think it is pretty simple to see that certain business
| practices should not be allowed. Gambling _is_ already
| regulated and self exclusion exists for a reason.
|
| I see no reasons why games designed to extract wealth from
| gambling addicts should be freely available to anybody
| (including children) and why anybody should be allowed to spend
| any amount of money on them.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| I see people get their insecurities exploited by companies that
| sell Veblen goods. They use psychology tricks to make people
| feel inferior or part of an out-group.
|
| Makes me sick. Its basically impossible to stop because you
| have a Trillion dollar corporation with psychologists,
| marketers, and astroturfers who's job it is to reinforce the
| brand with persuasive techniques.
|
| Today all of this stuff seems fine under the guise of 'free
| will'.
|
| In the long term future this will look ignorant as we find out
| the brain merely responds to impulses.
| d_sem wrote:
| I hypothesis that this position will be largely debunked as we
| learn more about how computer algorithms can manipulate people.
| Hopefully advances in scientific research will allow us to
| better model and categorize unethical systems.
|
| "could the devs really be held responsible for anything" - Yes.
|
| "It's a free market" - algorithms which can hijack the mind are
| a form of coercion. A free market is roughly defined as
| voluntary exchange without coercion. That's why we ban children
| from gambling.
|
| "playing by the playbook" - society gets to define ethical
| constraints in which companies must comply. We learn this in
| business ethics. eg: Labor rights, safety, health, etc.
| can16358p wrote:
| It doesn't need to be debunked.
|
| I think everyone here knows (including me OP) more or less
| how algorithms manipulate people.
|
| So did people manipulate others into buying things that they
| don't need for centuries without technology too.
|
| It doesn't have anything to do with algorithms, it's just
| automating an existing process.
|
| With the same logic we should practically ban every
| commercial and ad, as they are trying to manipulate us to buy
| something to some extent.
| kindatrue wrote:
| I'd only downvote this if you don't have the same opinion for
| street fentanyl and heroin.
| can16358p wrote:
| I do.
|
| Everything one does to themselves or to their own body should
| be legal as long as they don't harm others.
|
| I never support narcotic use, but I equally think government
| should never have rights over what people put into their own
| body either.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Thankfully laws are written by people who look past the
| surface and consider second order effects on communities
| and society.
| taeric wrote:
| Coerced choices are just as insidious as forced ones. All the
| more so when you consider all of the research and effort into
| the coercion.
|
| This isn't even getting into "nanny state" policies. It is in
| the best interest of everyone to not go down a lot of these
| "free market" directions. Folks like to bitch about
| regulations, but everyone wants to have safe water. This is not
| much different. For another very real and recent example,
| consider the peril of allowing the free market to ignore
| earthquake building codes.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| If one thinks its okay to prey on the weak, okay, sure. But
| that's how you end up with a totally fucked up society where
| you find yourself only feeling safe within gated communities
| and police driving MRAPs.
|
| Protecting the weak _is both a noble and selfish endeavour_ :
| it fosters a habitat in which you and your children will enjoy
| living so much more. A lot of people have completely lost sight
| of this and now they're walled up, gunned up, copped up,
| screaming about crime and unemployment and bootstraps.
| dghughes wrote:
| I worked in a small casino. The cockiest players were the Hold Em
| poker players. Most were in their 20s. They saw it as a skill not
| gambling and certainly not an addiction at least any I spoke to
| didnt.
|
| The slots players were never satified. They were excited to spend
| $100 and win $10. Or win many small wins and play it all away
| since it wasn't real money to them. It was staggering at times to
| see people in one evening spend $100K casually and could no
| problems. Others not so much but the majority just dabbled.
|
| I gave up computer gaming before the loot box trend. But I could
| see its popularity. I went back to school and many 18 - 25 year
| old guys talked about it constantly. It was very obvious in its
| popularity.
|
| With slots just like US military training is stimulus response
| reward. I've been caught up in simple games from their hold a
| past time a dopamine rush. It's that 3% of people who can't turn
| it off that get hit the worst.
| dudul wrote:
| I dont think hold em is equivalent to gambling. It is
| definitely a skill/game. It has an element of randomness just
| like most board games for example, but it's not gambling
| yCombLinks wrote:
| I love poker, and it is definitely a skill game. It's also
| definitely gambling though. It just doesn't have the same
| addictive feedback loop that slots do.
| raincole wrote:
| Is gambling's issue its addictiveness, or its luck-based
| nature?
| dudul wrote:
| I dont know if it's an issue, but what characterizes
| gambling for me is indeed the randomness. Otherwise we
| would literally call any game "gambling". I'm not even sure
| I would put sports betting in the same bucket as gambling.
| Vespasian wrote:
| If I recall correctly, randomness is a great way to get
| people addicted and engaged more.
|
| In Pocker there is a clear correlation between your actions
| and your results. The other people are clearly better than
| you are and most get the hint after a while. It's also slow
| enough so you get some time to think
|
| Engineered randomness (like slot machines or loot boxes)
| use the means of technology and presentation to dangle that
| bit price juuust outside your reach. They also use flashy
| lights and fast paced games to get you in the "zone" of
| gambling more and longer.
| raincole wrote:
| > In Pocker there is a clear correlation between your
| actions and your results
|
| Years ago I was okay-ish with Poker (positive net outcome
| after about 20k hands on pokerstars) and I'm not so sure
| about this.
|
| I mean it's statistically true, and calling Poker a pure-
| luck game is like calling golf a pure-luck game because
| of wind. But to me the addictiveness of Poker is pretty
| "Skinner Box like" -- you can literally do nothing wrong,
| do the theoratically best moves, and still lose _hard_.
|
| Of course if you did the same move every time in the same
| situation, it would eventually pay off. But if people are
| so reasonable addiction wouldn't be a problem in the
| first place?
| dudul wrote:
| I'm not sure why you put the pure-luck-or-not aspect on
| par with the addictiveness. People can get addicted to
| winning, regardless of if it's due to their skills or
| just luck.
|
| The problem with e.g. slot machines is that anyone can
| win, with the same odds, so it's easy to get addicted to
| it. You can't get addicted to winning at golf unless
| you're already putting the work to get good at it. With
| slot machines you can win, without doing any work. That's
| the catch.
| raincole wrote:
| > With slot machines you can win, without doing any work
|
| Uh, this is the exact my point. With Poker you can win,
| without doing any work, for one hand or even one night.
| You can't win forever, but gamblers are not famous for
| their long-term thinking ability.
|
| And I didn't put the pure-luck-or-not aspect on par with
| the addictiveness. Actually I opened this conversation
| with this:
|
| > Is gambling's issue its addictiveness, or its luck-
| based nature?
| affinepplan wrote:
| poker is a skill.
|
| it is also gambling, but it's certainly very achievable to be a
| profitable poker player with a bit of study & practice
| golergka wrote:
| Proper holdem skill involves so much math that it makes chess
| seem like a more relaxing game in comparison.
| Bluecobra wrote:
| Why would someone would spend $100K at a small casino vs.
| somewhere like Caesars Palace or Bellagio? At least you will
| get some nice comps. Was it better odds?
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