[HN Gopher] It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
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It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal
Author : ddtaylor
Score : 627 points
Date : 2022-06-05 07:40 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gamerant.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gamerant.com)
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| A better way to think about it is that these games are designed
| for - and paid for by - exactly the very few people who want to
| spend this much on winning a game. Everybody else gets to free-
| ride on this, and only pay what they want (mostly zero)
| hammock wrote:
| An interesting way to think about it for sure. Sub in "jack
| daniels" or "bud light" for Diablo and it gets depressing fast
| when you consider 80% of liquor is consumed by less than 10% of
| drinkers, who each have an average of 20+ drinks a week, every
| week (forgive that I cannot source but trust this is based on
| seeing real data).
|
| Still, we must consider that growth is what a company is after,
| and that growth happens at the margin, not the core.
| Ruthalas wrote:
| The problem with this is that games designed to be monetized
| this way are going to build their progression, reward-systems,
| cosmetic systems, grind balance, etc. around it.
|
| So the players who are "paying what they want (mostly zero)"
| aren't getting a normal but free Diablo game, they are getting
| version of that game balanced and prioritized around the whales
| that /will/ be spending the money. The actual customers.
|
| I'd rather pay than "free-ride", because I don't want incessant
| popups telling me how how I can skip the grind (that is tuned
| to irritate me) by buying a gems with my credit card.
|
| I'm not as valuable to Blizzard/Activision/NetEase with my one-
| time-purchase though, and they know it.
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| That's why I don't play these games. But other people have
| different preferences and that's okay by me. I don't see a
| need to judge the company(ies), the users, or the system. Not
| saying you are, but it seems to be the flavor of this article
| and much of the sentiment in these comments. Why?
| Ruthalas wrote:
| I think there's a point where it feels like it's gone
| beyond simple price discrimination to leveraging hundreds
| of employees and millions of dollars to actively manipulate
| and exploit a player base that is often substantially
| comprised of children. I've watched developer presentations
| on how best to implement Skinner boxes and other gambling
| mechanics to help condition users and obscure exactly how
| much they are spending. That may be fair to judge a company
| poorly for.
|
| For me personally, it represents the fact that the company
| is actively working against my best interests, and that
| feels bad. Additionally, completely selfishly, it makes me
| sad to see games that I would otherwise enjoy be distorted
| by this sort of monetization.
| ThrustVectoring wrote:
| You have to identify and avoid the p2w rails in order to pull
| this off. Specifically:
|
| 1. Put the game down when you get hard time-gated
|
| 2. Don't do PvP
|
| 3. Especially with a leaderboard feature
|
| 4. Especially in grouped content
|
| I'm sure it's a good game up until the PMs and behavioral
| psychologists decide you're invested enough to put up with
| time-walls.
| MrMan wrote:
| swgoh has a multi hundred k cot to max everything
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| As an iOS user, I will be downloading this and giving it one star
| and a scathing review.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Micropayments and ad-games ruined video games. It's depressing.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| How can micropayments have ruined anything? Nobody's found a
| way to implement micropayments in a way that works, to my
| knowledge.
| can16358p wrote:
| While I definitely don't like pay-to-win monetization style, what
| I find even more ridiculous is the laws at Belgium and
| Netherlands around loot boxes.
|
| I mean, no one is forcing anyone to play a game or purchase a
| lootbox. Why ban a game mechanics for this? It hurts the
| (potential) players, let people decide for themselves FFS.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| Because the monetization mechanics in this games rely on
| predatory practices employed by casinos which we already
| regulate?
| can16358p wrote:
| Predatory?
|
| Casinos shouldn't be regulated too. If nobody is forcing
| anyone to attend into something (like going to a casino or
| playing a pay-to-win game) nobody should have the right to
| change or regulate the inner dynamics.
|
| As long as the game doesn't clearly lie (e.g. telling a
| lootbox does something that it doesn't) everybody knows what
| a lootbox is. Playing the game is a voluntary action taken by
| an individual, just like going to a casino. They are
| responsible for their own actions, and blocking a certain
| demographics' (e.g. people in Netherlands) to access to a
| game/mechanics (e.g. Diablo Immortal + lootboxes) is
| fundamentally against people's freedom of choosing to play a
| game or not.
|
| It's their money, they can spend $1m if they want to, on
| lootboxes.
|
| Would I? Definitely not. But blocking someone who _does_ want
| to from doing it, whereas it doesn 't have negative effects
| to society (e.g. Doesn't affect anyone but the person
| themselves) is ridiculous.
| vkou wrote:
| > Casinos shouldn't be regulated too. If nobody is forcing
| anyone to attend into something (like going to a casino or
| playing a pay-to-win game) nobody should have the right to
| change or regulate the inner dynamics.
|
| In theory, humans are rational, and in theory, spherical
| cows are an excellent basis for economics.
|
| Human brains have bugs, and these industries exploit them.
| It's predatory, and utterly reprehensible.
| can16358p wrote:
| Human brains have bugs, and anyone going into a casino or
| a pay-to-win games know what they are going into. (If
| they don't that's their problem for not doing their own
| research and using common sense before putting their
| money)
|
| Human brains also have a bug around sugar consumption.
| I've yet to see selling people sugar or sugar-containing
| foods/beverages being regulated.
|
| Human brains also have a bug making many of them social
| media addicts.
|
| Human brains have so many bugs. At the end of the day
| regulating these businesses will hurt more people who
| voluntarily want to be involved than saving potential
| addicts.
|
| The real solution is never preventing people from doing
| things (of course as long as they affect only the person
| and not the others' rights), instead, it's educating.
|
| If those governments placed their efforts into educating
| the people about addiction mechanics of those
| games/casinos etc. instead of blocking/regulating
| altogether, it would be much more beneficial than
| blocking people from their own decisions.
| less_less wrote:
| > Human brains have bugs, and anyone going into a casino
| or a pay-to-win games know what they are going into. (If
| they don't that's their problem for not doing their own
| research and using common sense before putting their
| money)
|
| "It's OK if people's lives are intentionally ruined
| purely for corporate profits, so long as it's at least
| partly those people's fault. They shouldn't let
| themselves be tricked."
|
| > Human brains also have a bug around sugar consumption.
| I've yet to see selling people sugar or sugar-containing
| foods/beverages being regulated.
|
| By the way, San Francisco taxes sugary drinks and
| requires them to have a warning label.
|
| > The real solution is never preventing people from doing
| things (of course as long as they affect only the person
| and not the others' rights), instead, it's educating.
|
| These approaches are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's
| best to find a balance between them?
| eesmith wrote:
| > San Francisco taxes sugary drinks
|
| And see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax .
|
| Also, NYC tried to ban some sales of sugary beverages
| over 16 oz, thrown out by the courts.
| can16358p wrote:
| Ruining their lives is a bit exaggeration for playing pay
| to win games though.
|
| I do not support them, I only hate the idea of banning
| anything more.
|
| I believe education is the key but never see that done
| enough. (Not only about these topics but pretty much
| anything).
|
| Banning should really, really be the last option.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| > I've yet to see selling people sugar or sugar-
| containing foods/beverages being regulated.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax#United_K
| ing...
|
| This might not quite meet your threshold, but it's
| probably close. More regulation around sugar is
| definitely around the corner.
| can16358p wrote:
| Okay. That's a step in the right direction. Taxing might
| be the middle ground instead of banning something
| outright.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| The last person who made this kind of argument to me was a
| gambling addict who had gotten into day trading.
| can16358p wrote:
| Well sad for them. I'm not involved in either gambling,
| daytrading, nor pay-to-win games, or any other addictive
| practice.
|
| Just because they shared a similar view on this doesn't
| mean that I'm also an addict too.
|
| While you didn't explicitly tell such a thing, directly
| replying with this example implies that.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| This is like saying people ought to be free to sell meth
| on the corner because you are smart enough to avoid
| addiction. Societies have good reason to ban things that
| are a net negative to society.
| can16358p wrote:
| Yup. Exactly. Drugs should be legalized too.
|
| I don't do them but have respect to one's own opinion
| about their own body even if that means poisoning/killing
| themselves.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| There is an argument for decriminalizing drug possession.
| The same argument in no way holds for drug dealing. The
| price would come down and availability would skyrocket as
| would the problems that stem from use.
| gspr wrote:
| > Casinos shouldn't be regulated too. If nobody is forcing
| anyone to attend into something (like going to a casino or
| playing a pay-to-win game) nobody should have the right to
| change or regulate the inner dynamics.
|
| This is, of course, a position that is yours to hold. But I
| do hope that you recognize that it's quite a small, fringe
| one. It's a bit strange to use a fringe opinion about
| casino regulation as the stepping stone for an implication
| that loot boxes shouldn't be regulated.
| can16358p wrote:
| I was replying to the argument by parent comment which
| gave that specific example of gambling vs. loot boxes.
| npteljes wrote:
| You emphasize personal responsibility, but most of the
| world doesn't have that on the top of their societal
| values[0]. And one person's problematic gambling, as any
| other addiction, definitely impacts others, similar to how
| substance abuse or any other addiction really[1].
|
| [0] See it as "individualism" here on the first map:
| https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-
| ho...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_gambling#Signs_an
| d_sym...
| mfashby wrote:
| > Playing the game is a voluntary action taken by an
| individual, just like going to a casino.
|
| The same argument can be made for other regulated
| activities like drinking alcohol or smoking (whether you
| agree or not, that's how it is in a lot of places today).
| Those are voluntary activities too.
|
| > whereas it doesn't have negative effects to society
|
| Addiction _does_ have negative effects on society, which is
| why these rules get introduced. It looks like this ban [1]
| is enforcement of gambling laws, because the loot is
| transferrable it's deemed to have value. I'm curious in
| this case to know how much of an impact banning these
| particular games actually has though.
|
| [1] https://www.thegamer.com/netherlands-loot-box-ban/
|
| edit; haha, lots of people spotted this same argument.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| You're dealing with addicts, and often times very young and
| impressionable addicts.
| einrealist wrote:
| If Microsoft wouldn't buy ATVI (at a higher price than the
| current stock price), I would have sold my shares months ago. I
| don't have any hope for ATVI anymore. Instead of providing value
| to their customers - the gamers, they squeeze it for
| shareholders. I doubt, Diablo 4 will be any different.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| I am not a gamer, but I am fascinated by all manner of
| monetization. Is Diablo Immortal unique as a free-to-play game
| that has a microtransaction model to support continued
| development, or do other games do this? It seems the equivalent
| of the freemium model with web applications. Does buying the so-
| called Legendary Gems enhance "winning" or just game playing? And
| can "winning" result in a financial reward (like in League of
| Legends, Super Smash Bros., EVO 2022, Mistplay, etc)? I read that
| "the 1% of top professional gamers make tens of millions of
| dollars per year with a combination of sponsorships, ad revenue,
| and subscriber dues". [1] Mind blowing.
|
| [1] https://thinkcomputers.org/odds-of-gaming-earning-you-money/
| 8note wrote:
| At like 50C//subscriber/month, that adds up fast for people
| with millions of subscribers. I bet the sponsorships are moreso
| about figuring out how to fill the streaming time, rather than
| the payment itself
| mattnewton wrote:
| > Does buying the so-called Legendary Gems enhance "winning" or
| just game playing?
|
| Yes. Look up "gacha games" [0] for the broader category. One
| very successful and very rich version of this genre is "genshin
| impact"
|
| > And can "winning" result in a financial reward
|
| In this case, no, not currently. People tend to structure
| competitive scenes around games without these mechanics but it
| could be done by the company developing the game. People are
| playing for the satisfaction of winning rare items or beating
| other people on a leaderboard.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gacha_game
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| For a programmer, are those gacha "vending machines"
| available in code libraries? I would love to experiment with
| implementing one in a productivity web application.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I am not sure I understand what you mean. The core mechanic
| is that rewards are randomly distributed - the namesake
| "gacha" machines dispense a capsule with a random toy.
| Think of it as a slot machine where if it hits you get an
| item you wanted / needed for gameplay and if it doesn't it
| just took your money and gave you something useless.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| Perhaps I need to play to understand, but it sounds like
| "gacha" machines behave like in-game vending machines
| where the player can purchase "features" to enhance their
| avatar etc.? Or do I have that wrong? I just assumed that
| those "gacha" machines are code libraries in gaming
| engines (Unity, Godot, GameMaker: Studio, etc), and that
| maybe a "gacha" machine code library is available open
| source or in some other fashion.
| mattnewton wrote:
| The machine is a metaphor for gameplay mechanics where
| you purchase a random chance for a reward. They are not
| something I can see related to libraries, but a kind of
| gameplay, in the same way that "leveling up" in an rpg
| wouldn't really make sense to me as a library.
| effingwewt wrote:
| No, they are wosrse.
|
| Gacha games are mostly card-puller games. You pay $X for
| X pulls, with more expensive packages giving more pulls
| with a supposed higher success rate of 'winning' (getting
| a good/rare pull).
|
| They use hidden weights, as well as max item rolls per
| day. This means that to keep items rare via artificial
| scarcity they will only allow so many of those cards to
| be pulled per X hours/days/whatever but they don't tell
| you this anywhere. So if that new hot card that just
| dropped is up for grabs, you buy 10 pulls. But you don't
| know that it's already been pulled X times by other
| people, so you have literally no chance to 'win'. So
| those pulls will be wasted.
|
| The companies always lie about chances to win, the pulls
| are insane, you can see streamers do massive pulls, the
| numbers are sometimes out there, just community gathered.
|
| A real life example is one of those light-roulette
| machines at arcaded where you slam the button to stop the
| spinning light. The only actual chance you have to win is
| after $X has been spent on the machine, before that
| threshold has been met winning is impossible, stopping
| the light at the correct spot won't matter it will simply
| roll to the next losing light. Or claw machines are the
| same and will only actually close enough to grab a toy
| after $X has been spent.
|
| Gambling is one thing but these skinner boxes
| masquerading as games are pure evil as they change the
| rules constantly and make winning downright impossible.
| countrpt wrote:
| There are many gacha games on the market today that do
| post their odds and where player-validated data seems to
| support it. (Some jurisdictions like China and Japan
| require these kinds of disclosures.) But there are also a
| lot of markets that don't require these kinds of
| disclosures and where there isn't enough player data to
| draw a conclusion. So, in that case, how could you have
| confidence that they are _not_ doing what you suggest?
| Even if they were, would it even be illegal? (If you
| never post what the odds are in the first place, is it
| fraud to keep changing the rules?)
|
| This is why I've always been a bit surprised developers
| haven't done more to get ahead of these kinds of issues
| with responsible disclosures and transparency, because it
| seems to be just inviting regulation. I honestly don't
| think most F2P games pull the kinds of slimy tricks
| you're accusing them of (most just use simple loot tables
| and RNG), but there's nothing holding them accountable to
| say they can't because everything is opaque.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Even the disclosure of odds isn't enough imo, because
| often it's odds of a "pull" that costs various amounts of
| abstracted in game currencies with complicated conversion
| rates between each other and to the money you put in. It
| becomes a very complicated math problem most people just
| ignore.
| mywaifuismeta wrote:
| The model is extremely standard in mobile games, especially in
| Asia, where it has been the norm for almost a decade in gacha
| games, and where people are used to paying and gambling. They
| all have the same mechanics, or variations of them, Diablo
| doesn't really do anything innovative here, but it certainly is
| on the aggressive side.
|
| A lot of the outrage comes from the fact that 1. Diablo is
| originally a PC-based IP with a PC gamer fanbase, and PC gamers
| are used to different monetization schemes and generally don't
| play mobile games. Even without the gambling mechanics, there
| already was a huge backlash about Blizzard making a mobile
| Diablo game 2. Diablo is a "western" IP where such monetization
| schemes are less common and the penetration of PC players is
| higher compared to other parts of the world where mobile game
| penetration is higher.
|
| > And can "winning" result in a financial reward
|
| Generally speaking, no. There are no competitions for these
| kind of games. The only way you could cash out would be to sell
| your account, which is against the ToS, but commonly done
| nonetheless.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Remember also how Diablo 3 was released (in most countries)
| with a real money Auction House, which was later removed
| because even the devs realized that it hurt the game ?
| callahad wrote:
| What's interesting is Diablo Immortal's monetization
| introduces a level of indirection compared to Diablo 3's
| Real Money Auction House (RMAH), and I think it's
| sufficiently distinct to avoid the same fate.
|
| In D3, you could buy equipment directly from the RMAH. This
| undermined core gameplay mechanisms since any loot you were
| likely to find would be inferior to whatever was available
| for pennies in the store. So why bother running the
| dungeons at all?
|
| In DI, you don't buy gear directly with money. Instead, you
| buy access to dungeons with guaranteed drops of high level
| items which are statistically infeasible to obtain any
| other way. But this still lends plausible deniability:
| you're not buying your gear, you're just buying a spin at
| the (very weighted) wheel.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| > The only way you could cash out would be to sell your
| account, which is against the ToS, but commonly done
| nonetheless.
|
| Interesting. Why would the publisher have such a ToS? Just so
| they monopolize the revenue from in-game sales? Or is it more
| altruistic, like preventing new players having an unfair
| advantage? I would have thought encouraging a secondary
| market in their game would actually attract players.
| mywaifuismeta wrote:
| I would imagine it's because they want to avoid people
| building bots and creating businesses around accounts
| creation and selling. Once you have such a secondary market
| you get a cheap supply of accounts due to outsourced labor
| or bots. This devalues the in-game purchases. Why would I
| spent more money in-game if I can just buy a cheap account?
| sextus_prop wrote:
| This is a culmination of a trend that has been going on for at
| least a decade:
|
| First it was the lootboxes that became widespread:
|
| ~2010 Steam Team Fortress 2, later Counter Strike
|
| 2012 EA's Mass Effect 3
|
| 2014 Call of Duty and Battlefield
|
| 2016 Overwatch
|
| After that it seemed lootboxes were everywhere. In 2017 there was
| some backlash for EA's Star Wars game and they removed lootboxes,
| but it did not change the situation overall.
|
| Then in 2020 western gamers were exposed to gacha mechanics with
| the release of Genshin Impact, where you "roll" with special
| currency for weapons and characters that you can't get otherwise.
| And this currency is either bought with real money or VERY slowly
| accumulated by playing game. The game is free to play otherwise.
|
| In february this year there was a western release of Lost Ark -
| MMO ARPG(genre similar to Diablo) that involves probabilistic
| gear upgrades where you either play weeks to months to fully
| upgrade it, or drop hundreds to thousands of dollars on upgrade
| materials, game itself is free to play. It was backed by Amazon
| and promoted by huge Twitch events.
|
| Both Genshin Impact and Lost Ark have very impressive amount of
| content, beautiful visuals, music - all while being free to play.
| Could these games be made and succeed without gambling mechanics?
| I don't know. My experience with Genshin has been that I got a
| lot more out of it in terms of fun per money spent than out of
| most from what I buy on Steam sales - which I play for few hours
| and forget.
|
| I think the regulations about these kinds of games should at the
| very least require devs to: - State all the probabilities -
| Define a guarantee or a "pity": at which attempt will you succeed
| with 100% probability.
|
| Then for each desired outcome, e.g. fully upgrading weapon, there
| should be displayed an expected and maximum "price", preferably
| in real currency. This would at least help the adults to moderate
| their spending. And as for children, yeah, these games should be
| 18+, I don't believe a child can handle the urge to spend in
| these games.
| pvg wrote:
| FIFA is missing from your timeline and it's what really started
| EA on this pathway into darkness - the 'success' there is what
| inspired lootifying ME3. FIFA remains one of the biggest
| lootbox games around.
| [deleted]
| crazypyro wrote:
| There is a large difference in lootboxes that have the ability
| to give you more power in the game versus lootboxes that just
| drop new cosmetic items with no gameplay affect.
|
| Some of those games that you mentioned only contained cosmetic
| items in the lootboxes.
|
| Gamers as a community have a much more visceral reaction to
| paying for power in the game, compared to paying for cosmetics.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| I think these free to play might be more of just 'pick your own
| price'. That way they get people that wouldn't pay 60$ for a
| mobile game and also people that would pay 1000$ for a game.
|
| While I personally don't like it, because it feels like I'm
| getting an unfinished game if I don't spend a lot, I'm sure that
| there are many that enjoy this model and don't mind it at all.
|
| And at the end of the day, these people that spend more money are
| actually the ones that feed the developers~
| RyEgswuCsn wrote:
| I think you are right if the game offers mostly single-player
| experiences, though the developers of such games often
| implement dark patterns that set players up for spending more
| than they rationally would.
|
| As soon as player-vs-player is introduced, f2p players become
| part of the "experience" for the whale players.
| superkuh wrote:
| Another problem with Diablo Immortal is that they gimped the game
| to allow for people using mobile devices to play it. It's really
| weird to see a Diablo game where inventory management doesn't
| play a big role.
| remram wrote:
| Isn't that a good thing? The fact that there is so much content
| that getting the best version of every item cannot happen, even
| if you spend some money?
|
| Is a game fair only if you can acquire the best gear in the game
| (for real money)?
| Timshel wrote:
| Probably depends of your definition of content and tie with the
| discussion around Gacha game.
|
| The part discussed here with the gem system looks more like a
| slot machine than anything I would describe as game content.
| remram wrote:
| Well for sure I don't know much about the game. If it's bad
| or uses predatory tactics to get people's money then that is
| awful. This specific point though, summed up in the title,
| seems kind of weird.
|
| Like imagine if someone said the same thing about EVE Online,
| how much does a "fully geared up" space station cost? How
| much is the combined cost of Team Fortress 2's (cosmetic)
| items?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I think the problem is that having such a high peak implies
| you'll have "pay to win" mechanics dominate:
|
| Players will be stratified by how much of that $110,000 they
| can pay -- with no reasonable way out of that class system.
| ratonofx wrote:
| I see no problem about 110k "end game"...
|
| 1) If the journey have enough content to sustain a huge grinding
| time, it's ok. 2) If you can make it expensive without making
| mandatory (to buy), it's ok. 3) If you build a legit character
| buying or farming and it can be evaluated at 100k USD, it's
| pretty awesome! (Check MIR 4 Top Characters Price)
|
| But if you play a blizzard game, with no NFT (or Open
| marketplace) and being treated as criminal if you sell the
| product of your farming/grinding time, it's pretty fucked up.
| INGELRII wrote:
| Regulation proposal: Set maximum spending limit/time tied to the
| purchase price. The limit is tied to account and player
| character.
|
| example:
|
| 1. free-to-play: $100/year.
|
| 2. other: 10xpurchase price/year. For a $50 game the maximum
| spending is $500 per year.
|
| This would not set hard limit. It would only mandate up-front
| investment related to the amount of in-game spending. A Whale who
| spends $10k a year would have to pay $1k to get started.
|
| I think this would effectively kill addictive impulse for people
| who can't afford it. At the same time it allows games to create
| expensive games.
| [deleted]
| elif wrote:
| How many accounts you got?
|
| These are gamers... We've been trained to bypass arbitrary
| obstacles in the easiest way since birth.
| INGELRII wrote:
| Multiple accounts would be allowed since they don't
| circumvent the mechanism.
| gooses wrote:
| This just woundn't work unfortuantly. It's a known fact that
| the large majorirty of the player base will not spend any
| money. This has the knock-on effect that the whales have to be
| squeezed in order for the game to turn a profit.
|
| People underestmate the UA costs on these games. It can cost
| >$10 to get a single player into the game through advertising.
| So right off the bat you need to make $10 back per player to
| make a profit. Say 95% dont spend anything, so then you need
| $200 off each paying player to cover the costs of acquiring
| everyone else. Thats why this situation has evolved and why the
| games build themselves around the whales.
|
| Of course games do get some players for free via app store
| discovery but predonminatly it's through advertising.
| bo1024 wrote:
| It sounds like you are saying the regulation _would_ work (as
| intended)?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This is some backwards logic there - its the problem of the
| businesses to provide value.
|
| If some business model provides no value, it is not a viable
| businesd model.
|
| The rest os society shouldn't be taking a hit to make some
| business work artificially
| skohan wrote:
| Yeah exactly - if these games can't afford to exist without
| causing social harm then they should not exist.
| INGELRII wrote:
| Killing UA business model would not be that bad. Protecting
| big business should not be the goal in itself.
|
| We don't know what kind of games would replace these
| malevolent business models. We might get new kind of games
| and companies. Maybe less flashy, but more fun to play and
| better game mechanics.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| If it doesn't work then this model would simply disappear.
| Not a bad thing either for gaming.
|
| In the Netherlands there's already laws around this kind of
| business model, requiring the company to specify win chances
| and other things. The publisher has decided not to release
| Diablo immortal there for this reason.
|
| If more countries follow suit they'll have no option but to
| just go back to regular business models.
| tsuujin wrote:
| Regulation limiting the amount of notifications you can receive
| for microtransaction purchases would make a big difference I
| think.
|
| Even though I am refusing to spend money for gems, there is
| effectively always a "look at me" notification on the screen
| reminding me that the store is open. They're gaming the fact
| that we have all been trained through habit to check those
| notifications, and it is really effective.
| bo1024 wrote:
| This is very intriguing. I would love to hear a take based on
| research in psychology of addiction and gambling. I think the
| reason it would work is forcing people to decide to play with
| the analytical part of their brain, ahead of time, rather than
| with the addiction part in the moment.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| What you're not understanding is that this game violates the
| players constitutional right to have legendary gems that are as
| good as their favorite YouTuber.
|
| What are they supposed to do? Just pick away at rifts for free
| to build up their legendary gem count like secondary citizens?
| Are they supposed to ONLY use the crests from the battlepass as
| if this is some kind of subscription based game? What if they
| want to work tirelessly day and night to grind legendaries to
| make their character more powerful but don't have as much money
| as the next guy? Shouldn't the government step in?
| encrux wrote:
| This would pretty much kill the current industry (*as we know
| it).
|
| F2P/mobile games are monetized through Wales, but they're only
| willing to spend if there's enough incentive (e.g. prestige).
| That's not given if there's no F2P player base, because the
| base game would be too expensive.
|
| IMHO the best way to go about is to vote with your wallet.
| There are plenty of worthwhile games where you don't have to be
| a whale to be successful.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Well good.. Let's kill it. Who cares if the business model
| works. It shouldn't work.
|
| The idea of such regulation is to stimulate the business to
| move back to normal models.
|
| In the Netherlands this is already working, Diablo immortal
| is not available there. It's a small market but once the
| whole EU does it they won't have a choice but to come up with
| something more reasonable. Win-win.
| teawrecks wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing, but the money will.
| INGELRII wrote:
| It was thought that people would use less restaurants and
| bars if smoking was forbidden.
|
| It's more likely that when incentives change, the whole
| customer base changes.
|
| The current system of preying whales to pay for games has
| negative externalities for gamer's who don't have addiction.
| Playing is cheaper, but people play less games because
| addictive spending mechanics is affecting where the game
| development money goes.
|
| Regulation would create incentives to make games that are
| expensive because they are so good.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Regulation would create an incentive to region lock out the
| areas that regulate it. Now you have people from the
| regulating country use VPNs to play the game in another
| region instead.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Diablo Immortal is not available in Belgium and the
| Netherlands.
|
| It's not about the VPN, it's the payment method and App
| store setup that determines if you can install the game.
| Regulation does not have to be watertight. It just needs
| to work well enough to drastically reduce harm.
| cdash wrote:
| Yeah sure, but say the EU as a whole or the US regulated
| it. You aren't region locking them out.
| Aerroon wrote:
| But you are though. Lots of games region lock US and EU
| out of their game.
|
| Lost Ark is in the top 3 of all games played on Steam and
| has been since it released this February. The game was 3
| years old when it launched in NA/EU though - it had been
| out for 3 years in South Korea, 2 years in Russia and
| Japan. This is a game that ended up being very popular,
| but if nobody had bought the NA/EU publishing rights then
| the only way to play it would've been to play on the
| Russian, Japanese or Korean servers.
|
| It's pretty normal for online games that come from Asia
| to not cater to the western market. I don't see why they
| wouldn't do this even more if we get additional
| regulations on games. And even when they do cater to the
| western market the priority is going to be North America,
| not Europe. Europe's almost always second class in these.
| (And when these games are brought over they're often
| Americanized/localized.)
|
| PS Lost Ark is banned in Netherlands and Belgium too.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Why do you think Wales has so many wealthy mobile gamers in
| the first place?
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > I think this would effectively kill addictive impulse for
| people who can't afford it
|
| It would be nice if simply pricing out poor addicts worked as a
| deterrent, but it just doesn't. We see this in sports betting
| all the time, young men are committing suicide in England after
| getting in too deep on the betting apps.
| INGELRII wrote:
| My proposal would work equally to everyone because the limit
| would be related to purchase price.
| Animats wrote:
| There are single BAYC NFTs that have sold for more.
| theptip wrote:
| But you can easily re-sell that NFT, whereas it's against the
| T&C to sell a game account for real money, and it seems there
| is no "real money cash out" in Immortal. So not really
| something you can speculate on or trade as far as I can tell.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I feel sorry for today's gamers.
|
| When I was a gamer during the Quaje2 era, my "addiction" was in
| trying to be the best.
|
| Immediately after school, I would practice various maps to
| understand their jumping kinetics and would spend time studying
| and understanding all the weapon shots/kill zones to the pixel
| level.
|
| No money was spent on the 'addiction for excellence'.
|
| These days, I actually miss this type of addiction, the one where
| you want to excel at a skill-based game. (Mostly a matter of not
| having time)
| wincy wrote:
| My introduction to coding was making Quake engine maps for the
| Jedi Knight game as a young teenager. It was super fun and I
| guess Minecraft or Roblox is similar to this but adding money
| to it kind of makes the whole thing icky and exploitative.
| djhworld wrote:
| Eh, the gaming industry and the amount of games you can play is
| so vast these days you can still play games without having to
| invest further amounts to progress.
|
| Yes there are loot box games and so on, but in reality they're
| a small subset. Admittedly if you primarily play mobile games
| then that subset is quite large.
|
| Stick with console/PC, be suspicious of free to play and you'll
| be fine.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Something about the paradox of choice makes me wonder whether
| it's a worse situation because more fragmentation means fewer
| shared experiences...
| beebeepka wrote:
| Oh yeah? Next year it will be 220k.
|
| For me, Blizzard has always been the WarCraft 1-2 and StarCraft
| 1-2 company. Never liked the rest of their output over the years.
|
| That said, it's a shame the company has been reduced to a
| gambling shop. Sign of the times, I guess. The writing was on the
| wall 10 years ago but I am no longer scared about my hobby. So
| what if the big guys all do lootboxes. Don't buy from them.
|
| Activision used to have stellar catalogue 15 years ago. Now look
| at them. It's all junk
| lekevicius wrote:
| It's even more frustrating, because the game is _good_. I really
| enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good
| controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just
| have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend
| a cent on consumable in-app purchases.
|
| It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars -
| hundreds and thousands of dollars".
| rapind wrote:
| > It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars -
| hundreds and thousands of dollars".
|
| I think the assumption that another model was even considered
| is what people are getting wrong. The game was made explicitly
| and intentionally for this p2w / gamble business model. There
| was never an attempt to make it anything else. Blizzard lent
| their IP to make a cash grab. They're milking their IP while
| they can, and monitoring both back lash and revenue, and will
| be repeating it.
| Timshel wrote:
| > It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars -
| hundreds and thousands of dollars".
|
| What I find really sad is that multiple games have proven that
| there is a middle ground and that making a f2p while making
| enormous amount of money is possible (League of Legend ...) and
| using such predatory system that are so prevalent on mobile is
| not the only solution.
|
| There is probably already enough monetisation around skins in
| the games that they would have easily turn up a profit.
|
| The rest is just greed and disregard for players but then when
| they don't care that the game is banned in two countries at
| launch because it violate gambling laws what else to expect ...
| noobermin wrote:
| Also, F2P isn't the only option, we could pay (once) for
| games like we used to.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| If you need to reference LoL/Fortnite to make a point, you
| are not making a point.
|
| In fact, there are very few games that have done the f2p walk
| successfully, sustainably, and all of them pale in comparison
| to the few extraordinary exceptions.
| vvanders wrote:
| Back when I was in the industry there was very few games
| that did better than breaking even. It's the same reason
| you don't see a lot of independent large studios any more.
| If you need to hit the top 15-20% to make it only
| publishers who can afford to spread out the risk are able
| to stay afloat.
| qrazhan wrote:
| There are a _ton_ of successful f2p games with reasonable
| monetization models - Valorant, CSGO, Warzone, Dota, Path
| of Exile, Lost Ark, Hearthstone, etc. It's just that games
| in general are a power law industry - I don't think
| monetization model is really what will prevent a game from
| being successful. In fact, much of the discourse around
| Immortal is that the gameplay itself is in fact top notch.
| Blizzard has the dedicated fanbase to make a healthy profit
| and more with a reasonable cash shop - they don't _need_ to
| resort to these extremely cash-grabby mechanics.
| green_on_black wrote:
| And how do those compare to the cash-grab market revenue?
| (Actual question). Let's include games like Genshin and
| FGO.
| Plasmoid wrote:
| Yatzhee posted a video on how the mobile gaming space is
| basically dead because of this -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30qZSEnI9Q
| bckr wrote:
| you know, this helped me realize why I rage-quit C&C Rivals.
| I was having a lot of fun, thinking I'm good at the game,
| going on 40-game win streaks.... then suddenly I am facing
| opponents with characters 2 levels above mine, getting
| creamed 90% of games and coming nowhere near being able to
| upgrade my characters... unless I spend and unknown amount of
| money on crates.
|
| So, I'm not just a quitter, I ran into the trap.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It works.
|
| But nowaday, you cannot just be profitable. You gotta make your
| investers very happy.
| grayfaced wrote:
| And no matter how well it does, investors will expect growth.
| So what further sliminess does Diablo Immortals 2 do to get
| growth? This behavior is unsustainable.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Elden Ring was exactly "make good game, sell it" and it sold
| very well.
| pawelmurias wrote:
| Elden Ring shouldn't be even treated as the same sort of
| thing as an addiction focused mobile game.
| abletonlive wrote:
| diablo immortal is going to make A LOT more money than elden
| ring, so your example is not a good one. not even in the same
| universe.
| interroboink wrote:
| It seems like a good example to me. It was a sales model
| that worked. That's all. It doesn't have to work better
| than every other sales model out there. It just has to be
| profitable and successful on its own.
| anonydsfsfs wrote:
| Everything I've reads says the opposite. Elden Ring has
| sold at least 13.4 million units so far[1], which is >$800
| million in revenue. The only revenue figure I could find
| for Diablo Immortal is $800k [2]. They're not even in the
| same ballpark.
|
| [1] https://www.polygon.com/23070948/elden-ring-sales-
| chart-npd-...
|
| [2] https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/06/03/diablo-
| immortal-gen...
| ketzo wrote:
| Diablo Immortal earned $800k in its _first 24 hours_.
| anonydsfsfs wrote:
| Elden Ring earned $720m in the first 2 weeks, which
| averages ~$51m a day.
| PradeetPatel wrote:
| We should be mindful of the biggest difference between
| Elden Ring and Diablo Immortal - the latter has a
| constant revenue stream via its in game microtrasaction
| capability.
|
| Whereas the former, despite being a good game, may not
| provide the revenue model desired by its stakeholders.
| anonydsfsfs wrote:
| Elden Ring isn't going to be a standalone game. The
| publisher (Bandai Namco) says it's the start of a
| franchise, which fans are almost certain to lap up for a
| long time to come. Had Elden Ring included
| microtransactions or other questionable features, it's
| likely fans would be far less enthusiastic about future
| installments, which means revenue from the franchise
| would dry up faster.
| Hemospectrum wrote:
| The "no longer works" comment clearly refers to the business
| model, ie. ignoring the quality or popularity of the product
| itself and just looking at the balance sheet. The gambling
| (microtransaction) model is enormously more profitable than
| the classical "just sell a game" model.
|
| Elden Ring was spectacularly well received and has sold
| millions of units, but it's "only" a game. There's no casino
| in the back, and therefore no gambling-related revenue
| stream.
| interroboink wrote:
| Maybe I misunderstand you, but if the "no longer works"
| comment refers to the business model as you say, then the
| person you replied to is saying "no, it can still work as a
| business model -- here's an example."
|
| It may not work _as well_ or _as easily_ , but I don't
| think that's the point being made.
| Hemospectrum wrote:
| The customer might want to buy a product, and the studio
| might want to make it, but isn't there someone they
| forgot to ask?
|
| Business models that are lower-risk and higher-return are
| systematically preferred by investors. Games are
| expensive to make. FromSoft has been successful _enough_
| to stay in business _for now_. They'll always be in
| competition with studios that sacrifice product quality
| for profitability. Many studios literally cannot afford
| to do things their way.
| glouwbug wrote:
| But the reputation of Elden Ring far outshines the
| reputation of Diablo. Activision Blizzard is dying for
| reason
| jacooper wrote:
| Are they though ? All of their numbers are positive
| skilled wrote:
| Sure, positive from people who are happy to pay their way
| towards a victory. Blizzard as a gaming company is dead
| and if you never played their games you probably
| shouldn't involve yourself in this discussion.
| swampthinker wrote:
| The cynical response there is "It would've performed even
| better if it was a subscription"
| encrux wrote:
| It does work though.
|
| "Escape from Tarkov" and "It takes two" are just some of the
| more noteworthy ones. There's tons more on steam.
|
| It's just the mobile market that's screwed entirely. Which I
| find odd, because I'm convinced there are opportunities for
| games that work especially well on small screens with
| touchscreen (like Nintendo demonstrated half a decade before
| mainstream smartphones)
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Precisely, Nintendo tried a sane sales model with Super Mario
| Run back in 2016. You would have access to some levels, then
| pay and unlock the rest. No more in-app purchases, IIRC.
|
| The reaction was a lot of angry comments about the game being
| locked and that it should be free-to-play, etc.
|
| Their next games (like Mario Kart Tour) went back to the
| exploitative loot box model.
| cehrlich wrote:
| Mario Run was also just not a very good game (this is
| obviously an opinion, but still...). I wonder how it would
| go if Nintendo tried releasing an actual good game for $10
| or some other amount, not an infinite runner with a Mario
| skin.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| It wasn't an infinite runner. It was puzzle levels with
| blocks you stopped on and timed jumps.
|
| Anyone who describes Mario run as an "infinite runner"
| didn't play it.
| skohan wrote:
| Yes it does work. Elden Ring is another example of a hugely
| successful product which is solely focused on being an
| excellent piece of entertainment.
|
| It's just more optimal for Profitability to create addictive
| garbage like this. Blizzard has chosen to be greedy and
| predatory rather than trying to create art of entertainment.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| Whats Elden Ring got to do with it?
|
| You are comparing a full AAA game for PC and console made
| for hardcore gamers versus a mobile game with loot boxes
| designed to attract and exploit kids or people that
| addicted to this kinda crap and disguise it like a game,
| pretty much like slot machine do.
| elromulous wrote:
| > It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars -
| hundreds and thousands of dollars".
|
| Fwiw, I would be onboard with some kind of model where one pays
| a small monthly (or additional fee) for continued updates. For
| instance, I play a few multiplayer games (overwatch, hunt
| showdown) and I'd be ok paying $1 a month or so to support
| continued updates / balancing etc. It seems like companies are
| missing the boat on the nominal recurring fees (vs say, the WoW
| level subscription of tens of dollars a month).
| bentcorner wrote:
| I play Overwatch too and I'm kind of worried about what's
| going to happen when Overwatch 2 releases. OW 1's
| monetization policy is extremely generous, at this point in
| the game's lifecycle I have about 1000 hrs of playtime and
| have nearly every single cosmetic, and the only money I've
| sent Blizzard's way is the CD key and the pink charity skin.
|
| I worry that the pendulum will swing too far in the other
| direction and we'll see P2W elements, particularly in the PvE
| mode that eventually releases.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| > It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars -
| hundreds and thousands of dollars".
|
| What makes you say that? I mostly play single-player games
| where I just buy a game and then play it. There are loads of
| those out there, with more released every week. Even with my
| underpowered Linux laptop I have plenty to choose from.
| lekevicius wrote:
| I guess I should have added "no longer works on mobile".
| PCs/Consoles have plenty of good, paid-upfront games.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Ah right, I don't play games on mobile, but I think there
| are still mobile games with simple straight-forward pricing
| models. For example the Baldur's Gate series got released
| on mobile (already a few years ago), and Wadjet Eye Games
| releases most of their adventures on mobile too I think.
| There are undoubtedly others.
|
| But I guess they're harder to find/more rare. As others
| mentioned, most people spend nothing to little on these
| "free" games, so as a no-spend gamer you can choose between
| 1) free, or 2) pay $10 (or whatever they charge) to play a
| game. Not necessarily a hard choice if the "free" game is
| "entertaining enough".
| Haegin wrote:
| I never got much into mobile gaming, but have recently been
| having a lot of fun playing PC or console games on my phone
| (using a controller) with streaming services. I've played
| with both Geforce Now and Xbox Game Pass and (at home on my
| decent cable internet connection) it's working really
| nicely. I also have the Nvidia shield, so when I do want to
| game on the TV I can pick up where I left off very easily.
|
| If you're looking for a game to play on your commute it's
| probably not going to work, but for at home on the couch
| it's great.
| tonguez wrote:
| " It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works." What makes you say that? I mostly play single-player
| games"
|
| it doesn't work for the developers. obviously you can play a
| single player video game.
| dmix wrote:
| Diablo 4 will probably just be a normal PC game too. Those
| freemium mobile games are always scammy but that doesn't mean
| there aren't endless classic business model games.
| jnovek wrote:
| Perhaps.
|
| I still plays Diablo 2 and 3 quite a bit. I don't think I'd
| call myself a "hardcore" player -- I'm not very good -- but
| I'm definitely in the Diablo 4 launch demographic.
|
| I've been keeping an eye on Diablo Immortal as sort of a
| canary. I can say with absolute confidence that I won't be
| buying D4 at launch if Blizzard doesn't fix the DI mess.
|
| Among longtime players of the franchise, I can't imagine
| that I'm alone.
| adra wrote:
| A publisher that has tasted fast cheap low value entries
| has a hard time justifying risky quality entries when the
| risk of failure is much higher. We're seeing the reality-tv
| moment in video games with mobile freemiums and it's
| frightening. I feel like Square-Enix is the perfect nexus
| if these market forces. I'm not even sure they'll bother
| with AAAs after making so much money off their low effort
| mobile cash cows.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Not only that, but many studios are one bad selling title
| away from closing up permanently. They can't afford to
| take risks. Check out "Press Reset" by Jason Schreier for
| multiple examples.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Indeed. I'm personally not a victim of loot boxes and
| exploitative P2W tactics because I just don't buy them. But I
| just want to pay some amount once and have a good game in my
| Android phone, without ads and without constantly nagging me to
| spend more! I'll pay $60 also if the game is good, I just don't
| want to be put into a Skinner box constantly trying to milk my
| "engagement" and my pockets. Is that so much to ask?
|
| Mind you, there are _some_ games like that (my usual routine is
| to go to Google Play Games, navigate to the bottom, choose "no
| ads" and "no in-app purchases"), but it seems that they are
| like 1% of the total.
|
| If you like a specific niche subgenre, a franchise, etc. it's
| very likely that all games you find will be of the exploitative
| variety.
|
| It's sad that I have a pocket computer with an awesome screen
| in my hand the whole day, and other cool features like
| gyroscope, GPS, etc. that can be used for gaming; and I find
| myself going back to my good old PC (or lately, the Steam Deck)
| when I want to play.
| rapind wrote:
| It sucks that the model of pay once ($60) or subscription
| doesn't gel with the in-app purchase or advertising models.
|
| For example YouTube premium is a worse product than it could
| be because the entire platform has been designed with
| advertising and engagement in mind.
| MrDresden wrote:
| YT Premium is not the product it could be because it only
| needs to be better than what it is replacing, or normal YT.
|
| Say this as someone who just subscribed this month.
| wincy wrote:
| It's even worse on mobile as the app might forcefully update
| you to a new Free to Play version. I spent $8 on Galaxy On
| Fire 2 HD which was acquired by another company then suddenly
| dropped the price and added ads and in app purchases. Very
| frustrating.
| eyeownyde wrote:
| Similar experience for me. I bought the no ads version of
| plants vs zombies- "no ads" was even in the title. A few
| years later EA changed the app name and added ads.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| >> It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works.
|
| That model still works very well, probably as well as it ever
| has. But now there are also other models for your phone and
| computer. If people rejected them, only the "make good game,
| sell it" model would be left.
| iaaan wrote:
| I feel like we're well past due for some kind of price hike on
| AAA video games. Games were $60 when I was a kid, and
| inexplicably, they still are, for the most part.
|
| Unfortunately, since investors have figured out that the
| subscription model extracts the most profit possible, I have a
| feeling we're going to be seeing more and more of that rather
| than a simple price increase.
|
| Wouldn't surprise me if we even see Steam unveil something like
| Xbox Game Pass for their marketplace within the next few years.
| Maybe the worst part is the fact that you no longer actually
| own anything when all you're paying for is a subscription, but
| that's more or less how Steam already works, minus the
| recurring payments.
| nightski wrote:
| The market has been rapidly expanding for a long time, hence
| less need to increase prices. That plus if you include
| special, gold, ultimate editions, dlc packs,
| microtransactions, etc prices have been going up.
| wetpaws wrote:
| People keep saying games should cost more, and yet games
| routinely gross orders of magnitude more than in the past due
| to sugnificantly expanded market.
| pwthornton wrote:
| It's a pretty great Diablo experience on an iPad with a
| controller. It is sad that you can't just pay a decent amount
| of money to get a classic experience. Maybe people will
| discover a path where you could pay a reasonable sum of money
| to get a fairly normal grinding experience with Diablo. I'm not
| opposed to in-app purchases, but I'm not a gambler, and I don't
| support gambling business models.
|
| I saw some reviews and write-ups saying that it would be more
| fun as a $10 game, but I think that's part of the problem. This
| is not a $10 game. It should be fully priced.
|
| For whatever reason, proper up-front never took hold on mobile.
| I know Apple really pushed 99-cent apps early on, and maybe
| that is part of the genesis of this. It has been even harder to
| convince Android users to pay for apps and games. And so here
| we are.
|
| I suspect it would be really hard to convince people to pay $60
| for a mobile game after all these years of cheap and free
| games, no matter how good and how expensive it was to make.
| It's kind of illogical when you think about it. The latest
| iPhones are at least base PS4 in terms of power. The iPad Air
| And Pros are well beyond that.
|
| As others have noted, there are ways to make f2p work well. You
| can do season passes and cosmetic stuff. You don't have to go
| whale hunting.
|
| Realistically, we probably need legislation to make this kind
| of whale hunting illegal. We also need Apple and Google to step
| up and start caring about business models that support great
| software.
|
| It's not just games, we aren't getting great mobile software in
| general -- at least not at the rate we saw with desktop
| computers.
| makecheck wrote:
| Proper up-front never occurred because Apple refuses to
| implement a simple free-trial-period mechanism. And it is
| impossible to filter store searches in a way that tells you
| which apps _would_ behave roughly in that way (therefore
| anything with IAP I just _assume_ must be a gambling /gem-
| bags/garbage model).
| sjtindell wrote:
| Really no video game lets you do a free trial. To me the
| start of all this was Google. Google completely changed the
| way we interact with services and technology. It's amazing
| and completely "free".
| darkwater wrote:
| Back when games were distributed as a physical media,
| there were demo version you could get with a game
| magazine for free, or early downloads via Internet. Plus
| Google Play in the beginning let you try any purchased
| app for, what? 48 hours? I don't recall exactly now.
| hw wrote:
| Lots of folks disappointed at Diablo Immortal are comparing it
| to a PC game which it isn't. It's a great game that lets you
| play and experience Diablo on the go, during your lunch breaks,
| and on the porcelain throne.
|
| Once you adjust your expectations and understand that this is a
| filler game before D4 you'll see that it's a great game that
| can be enjoyed for the content without paying a cent
| wincy wrote:
| I mean, you can literally play Diablo Immortal on Battle.Net
| on your PC right now. It's even advertised for PC.
| matwood wrote:
| I've played to around level 30 or so also and it feels just
| like any other recent Diablo. So far it seems like I can pay to
| speed things up/improve the drop rate, or just keep playing
| without just fine. Is there some spot I'm going to hit that I
| can't progress without paying?
| uberswe wrote:
| The article mentions that you can get the best gear for free
| but it will take you about 10 years. So I'm sure you can play
| it and have fun. If you try PVP however then you would be at
| a great advantage if you pay money for upgrades.
| skohan wrote:
| But these games are explicitly designed to be frustrating
| _and not fun_ when played for free.
|
| The math and game design are expertly crafted to make you
| play compulsively. They most certainly have been designed
| to cause psychological pain when you don't play it you
| don't pay. They are not designed to cause fun or joy.
| toxik wrote:
| The free aspect is like your heroin dealer going "the
| first dose is free". That is exactly what they want you
| to do.
| oefrha wrote:
| It's not like you can get the "best" seasonal gear in D3
| (which is paid upfront) without a ridiculous amount of
| grind. Well, not as ridiculous as 10 years, but still.
|
| Without knowing how money scales in this game it's very
| hard to judge the 10 years / 110k figure. In D3 sometimes
| you're grinding exponentially for 1% or even 0.1%
| improvements at a time, and you don't have to.
| hw wrote:
| Time is money. Paying for progress or items provides
| accessibility to that experience for people who just dont
| have the time to grind.
| LeoNatan25 wrote:
| Don't play the "accessibility" nonsense argument with us
| old-time gamers. You know what I could have done in D3 to
| skip the grind, if I wanted to? Use cheats or trainers or
| a save file from the internets, in a single player game,
| for which I paid for. Not this nonsense today, where even
| single player games are gated behind "sErViCeS" backend
| to prevent cheating, aka DRM for the payed DLC stuff,
| that is already on disk downloaded, in a single player
| games. Please stop.
| oefrha wrote:
| D3 is in fact not very single player for all but the most
| casual players who stop at finishing the story solo.
| hnxs wrote:
| How?
| noirbot wrote:
| Really? I did plenty of pushing into high-tier rifts solo
| in D3. It's definitely more stable and reliable with
| multiple people, but I did plenty of grinding solo and
| have a good time.
| matwood wrote:
| The article is really quite confusing. Early on it says F2P
| can't get the best gear, then later says they can. Then
| they say even for paid players it's random so I'm not even
| sure how they come up with 100k figure.
|
| It's just hard for me to get upset about a game that's
| always been a pretty skin over a blatant Skinner box.
| Ralfp wrote:
| The way those games are designed most of time there is a
| way to get good gear for free, but its usually behind
| hundreds of hours of same monotous gameplay.
|
| I've played Homeworld mobile recently. The progress is
| great for first 15 hours but then game drops at you
| timegates. Wanna spaceship strong enough for later
| content? You can do god know how many missions hoping you
| get ship design, or you can do god knows how many
| missions to earn money to buy that from one of factions
| for cash. Or you can buy credits for cash. But only on
| Android because game is in public beta and Apple forbids
| monetization in those.
|
| And once you get the ship design, you need to mine
| resources for it (this is manageable) but then you need
| to refine those, which takes around 70h of wait, but if
| you have other premium currency named ,,adamantium", you
| can cut that wait in half for 100 adamantium, then
| another half by another adamantium and half of that.
|
| And then you need to build ship in shipyard which takes
| between 10 to 15 days, but with adamantium you can slice
| that time down like for refining.
|
| Every day you can collect 100 adamantium for free and buy
| 1000 extra for $9.99.
| foobarian wrote:
| I mean, it's been like this since the first Diablo. Even
| the sounds and animations when killing major bosses
| sounded and looked like a slot machine. It's nice that
| people are upset about it as they should, but this is not
| a new phenomenon and I'm puzzled why the hate is directed
| at DI specifically. At the end of the day a grizzled old-
| school gamer could not play multiplayer, ignore all paid
| options, and end up with the exact same experience as
| Diablo 2.
| Ralfp wrote:
| DI is high profile release, which is why the uproar is
| large enough to reach the mainstream. But its nothing new
| and happens in every fandom when favorite brand enters
| the mobile gaming.
|
| It's rumored that EA lost exclusivity on Star Wars games
| because of their mishandling of license and time-gating
| legendary Star Wars characters behind hours of gameplay
| (it took 42h of grind to unlock Darth Vader, but you
| could just pay extra on in-game roulette to unlock him
| sooner). This also caused uproar that reached mainstream
| media and commentary from members of state governments.
| wincy wrote:
| Yeah I mean the game is intentionally confusing.
|
| You have these things called eternal crests which cost
| 160 "gems" (the real money currency). These let you run a
| special dungeon that guarantees a drop of a legendary gem
| rated between 1 and 5 stars. In fact if you fail the
| dungeon somehow it'll refund the crest and let you try
| again.
|
| Apparently the drop rate for the 5 star gems is 4.5%, so
| my napkin math works out to around $50 per 5 star
| legendary gem.
|
| I can't go back and check my math because I uninstalled
| the game.
| matwood wrote:
| > Yeah I mean the game is intentionally confusing.
|
| I agree there.
|
| I think my char is ~38 and I have 4 legendary gems mixed
| levels 2-3. I haven't and won't pay any money, but so far
| the game has been fun. I haven't been limited at all in
| my progression, in fact the game has felt too easy. Will
| I ever have 5x5star gems? Probably not, but I would have
| gotten bored way prior anyway.
|
| I dislike F2P/micro tx games as much as anyone, but so
| far I haven't been limited in any way. When it does (or I
| get bored) I'll stop playing.
| abxytg wrote:
| People are mad as hell for no reason about this one. It's
| honestly decent monetization and the free game is great.
| margaretdouglas wrote:
| The issue is fundamentally that releasing a single game for a
| single fee yields linear growth, which is to say the amount
| your growing by is stagnant. Stagnant growth, to an investor,
| is essentially a signal that your company is currently failing.
| So unless you can grow your growth, you fail, and the only way
| to continue growing your growth is if new products remain cash
| generating indefinitely.
| hammock wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted. Your insight connects
| the software industry to the larger macroeconomic environment
| of low interest rates and growth-seeking (rent-seeking?). A
| one-off's sales have a ceiling, where a recurring revenue
| source is an indefinite fountain of sales.
|
| The same could be observed of Hollywood. How much of the
| derivative sequels, reboots and spin-offs are driven not by a
| lack of creativity as is often bemoaned, but rather by a
| greater-than-ever desire to develop "fountains of sales"
| rather than one-off artistic hits?
| [deleted]
| greymalik wrote:
| What limitations do you run into if you don't pay that stop it
| from being fun after the first 30 levels?
| hw wrote:
| > It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars -
| hundreds and thousands of dollars".
|
| Same can be said for software. Now it's all SaaS where you have
| to pay monthly and choose from different pricing tiers or ala
| carte feature options to 'win' in a business sense.
| csa wrote:
| > Now it's all SaaS where you have to pay monthly and choose
| from different pricing tiers or ala carte feature options to
| 'win' in a business sense.
|
| While some businesses abuse SaaS pricing (e.g., MS office for
| very basic uses, acrobat pro for basic uses, etc.), I think
| the SaaS pricing model has aligned the interests of
| developers and consumers (esp. smaller devs and smaller
| consumers) in a way that has allowed a wider market to have
| access to a wider range of affordable software _and ongoing
| support /updates_ than would be possible under the previous
| system.
|
| There are definitely folks, often a small niche, who really
| just need an old version of a piece of software for one or
| two small functions, and maybe those folks should be built in
| to the SaaS pricing model somehow, but overall I think that
| the merits of SaaS pricing almost always outweigh the
| demerits by quite a bit.
| Larrikin wrote:
| For nearly everything users should be able to pay once and
| then pay for updates. The model Jet Brains was forced into
| should be the norm and not the abusive model Apple has
| normalized and forced onto consumers
| localhost wrote:
| Office web apps are free with OneDrive and 5GB storage.
| $20/yr for 100GB. Office 365 personal is $70/yr. What would
| you rather see instead?
|
| Disclosure: I work for Microsoft.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I still don't understand how people sell small SAAS
| products with the per-country VAT rules.
| cherioo wrote:
| By using SAAS payment product that solves that for them!
|
| Which makes for a reasonable SAAS model given changing
| nature of tax system.
| cgriswald wrote:
| The SaaS pricing model doesn't mean just one thing, so you
| should probably define what you mean.
|
| As commonly practiced, if you stop subscribing, you lose
| all access to the software (or get bumped down to the
| functionality of some free version). This moves a large
| portion of the risk of developing a new version from the
| developers to the customers. If the customers don't like
| the new version, it's not easy for them to switch; and as
| commonly practiced, they often can't continue using the old
| version.
|
| I do agree that the JetBrains model aligns both developer
| and consumer interests. JetBrains carries the risk of
| developing the new version. If customers don't like it,
| they can unsubscribe and continue using their existing
| software.
| adra wrote:
| At the heart of every SAAS offering is the core of the
| proposal: It takes money to make money. The same reason why
| finance related journals have largely kept alive while
| lifestyle magazines have shrivelled. If a thing costs money
| but ends up making you more then it's still a win-win.
| ksidudwbw wrote:
| VR is so fun if you want basic graphics and fun gameplay
| Andrex wrote:
| > It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer
| works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars -
| hundreds and thousands of dollars".
|
| It does work, but not at the profit multiples that venture
| capitalists and private equity currently demand. Speaking of
| gaming overall, not iOS specifically.
| wincy wrote:
| I spent $7 and just finished the main storyline. Then I joked
| to my friends "okay I'm level 60 I'm done now". But then I
| thought about it and I uninstalled the game. I beat it, I get
| how the game works, I got an authentic Diablo experience. I'm
| done now.
| matt_s wrote:
| That is an outrageous amount of money on a game, the article did
| also say it would take 10 years to amass all that, which is still
| almost $1k per month.
|
| If that amount of gear were resellable in a marketplace then some
| of the moral arguments are empty. And I bet it wouldn't be an
| astronomical amount because there is a random loot
| box/gambling/prize factor in acquiring gear in that game.
|
| It doesn't matter the technology behind a marketplace, SQL+CRUD
| and CC payments or blockchain+NFT, it's tracking a receipt of
| purchase on digital items. Some would argue that blockchain is a
| stupid choice of technology but I would counter that the tech
| world has taken tech and bent it into a different purpose than
| intended with much success. For example, a documentation
| technology and protocol (HTML and HTTP) was intended for
| scientists to link documents to each other. We've taken that and
| bent it into complete client/server applications.
| pfdietz wrote:
| P2W is getting a lot of flak, but any game where you have to do
| not-fun grinding to get to the "good part" is effectively P2W.
| You are trading something of value, your time, not because the
| activity is fun, but because it gives you power to then enjoy the
| game. It's P2W, just not using currency.
|
| And this trade is arguably worse overall for society than P2W
| using money. In that, you are producing something of value for
| society to get that money; in grind-to-win, you are producing
| nothing of value for society (and the game company gets no
| compensation as a result.)
|
| The cost of a grindy game can be shockingly high, if you bother
| to compute the value of the time you are spending on it. That you
| find the grind tolerable doesn't reduce this cost.
| Ruthalas wrote:
| I think a big part the problem is that of you include a cash
| shop of some sort in your game, the incentive immediately
| shifts to maximize the grind as much as your players are likely
| to tolerate. The more you can successfully push this, the more
| money the time-saving items you sell will turn a profit.
|
| So any game that includes this sort of transactional mechanic
| has a strong perverse incentive to waste your time.
| ir193 wrote:
| mobile games: gambling + porn, but legal
| RektBoy wrote:
| Game is coded horribly, nearly no server-side checks on gameplay
| actions.
|
| What I found so far.. speedhack, insta-ability spam,
| immortality(hehe).
|
| Looking for force-invite into party and drop exploit. So far
| nothing. Pouring more hours into this, let's see on twitch ;-)
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| lmfao what a garbage game. so much clientside. this should be
| the top concern considering it sidesteps all of the above
| issues completely but maybe people wont realize till people and
| one shot in their games
| aliswe wrote:
| link?
| mrits wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/DiabloImmortal/comments/v4n35m/hack.
| ..
| Dunban4 wrote:
| Instead of government, an industry standard: total
| microtransaction purchases cannot exceed the full market price of
| the game. If the purchase limit is reached, every
| microtransaction item is unlocked unconditionally.
|
| - DLCs are not microtransactions but they must add either new
| features or narratives.
| maccard wrote:
| What's the full market price of a f2p game?
|
| Why is it ok for narrative content to be considered a DLC but
| cosmetic content to be considered microtransactions?
| Dunban4 wrote:
| > Many non-F2P MMOs have a subscription model instead. The
| market price quota would be based on the market price of
| subscriptions > Assets such as new models and textures are
| the simplest skeletons of a game. A new feature is comparable
| to a side game and a narrative could be an entire game on its
| own ie: CYOA
|
| To clarify, the 2 criterions should be 'best practices' and
| not hard enforceable rules. However, games that don't adhere
| to the best practice should have the stigma associated with
| the ratings M or AO. An adult should be capable of judging
| the poor value of microtransactions and have the choice to
| suffer the consequences of consensual decisions at their own
| expense.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I don't really see the problem if someone is dumb enough to pay
| or stupid-rich enough for this to be pocket change.
|
| Interesting to see how ridiculous an amount it is though.
| totorovirus wrote:
| check out how much money koreans spend on Lineage. 110k? that's
| actually pretty affordable
|
| https://www.mmobomb.com/news/player-spent-3-5-million-lineag...
| Shadonototra wrote:
| Activision/Blizzard wants to destroy thier IP and reputation to
| compete with asian companies
|
| This shit should have been regulated 10 years ago already
|
| PC gaming is becoming infected too
|
| It's very sad
|
| Yet another company i will boycott
| jordan801 wrote:
| Here's the problem with this game:
|
| - Blizzards slew of beloved franchises makes it easy to entrap
| nostalgia addicted masses to a number of pay to win clones. Or
| slowly implement these types of features into existing games.
|
| - Half of the assets are from a 10 year old prequel. This game
| was cheap to make and will have an insanely high profit margin.
| Leading to perpetuation of this model.
|
| - Scummy mobile pay to win is already accepted as the standard
| for mobile. With a desktop port, Blizzard can expand that
| complacency to further markets.
|
| - Pay to Win models incentivize paid content over legitimate,
| engaging content. I.e. story, character models and gameplay will
| deteriorate overtime in favor of producing content that turns
| profit.
|
| This is inevitable though.
| ayngg wrote:
| Blizzard is close to being a zombie company, the last game with
| true Blizzard pedigree was probably around 15 years ago, their
| last decent game was almost 10 years ago, they are milking the
| last few drops from the geriatric cash cow that is WoW, they
| have completely failed to capitalize on competitive games with
| Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm or even WoW arena, and they are
| all languishing, Diablo Immortal is a mobile p2w game, while
| all they have to look forward to is Overwatch 2 which is a
| glorified patch and if Diablo 4 isn't some smash success they
| have nothing else.
|
| Add on top of that the company culture, sexual harassment
| scandals, all of the significant employees leaving, the
| Blizzard everyone knew is long gone. Gamers have moved past
| Blizzard, new gamers don't care about their games, so the only
| thing they have left is the IP to milk nostalgia from, which is
| why they finally started to make remakes of Warcraft 3 and
| Diablo 2.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| I don't think it's true that their last decent game was
| almost 10 years ago. Overwatch is a really great game and it
| came out 6 years ago.
| ayngg wrote:
| Compared to the kind of games that made Blizzard iconic
| like SCBW, TFT, D2, and early WoW which were basically
| pillars in the gaming world, the game, while polished, was
| a fairly mediocre Team Fortress variant in comparison. It
| also had lofty ambitions of sustaining a large e-sports
| scene to the point where investors were paying tens of
| millions to have the right of owning a team. That never
| materialized and the game has basically been stagnant for
| years, waiting for Overwatch 2 (which was recently teased
| and didn't appear to change much) while other games like
| Valorant or Apex have made it largely irrelevant in that
| space.
| jamespo wrote:
| Are you arguing that Overwatch should be F2P like
| Valorant / Apex?
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| All you said is true, but now you're shifting goal posts.
| You previously said Blizzard's last 'decent' game was 10
| years ago, not the last game that was 'basically a pillar
| in the gaming wold'.
|
| While Overwatch may not have achieved it's lofty
| ambitions, it's still extremely well-regarded [0], had 50
| million players (which is quite impressive given that
| it's not free-to-play) and has grossed over $1 billion.
| It arguably brought the modern hero shooter genre to
| mainstream popularity and caused a flood of similar games
| to follow it. You're right, nowadays there are more
| popular games in that genre, but at the time it was quite
| a novel concept.
|
| Since you said 10 years since the last 'decent' game from
| Blizzard, I assume you referred to Diablo 3. I wonder, by
| what metric is Diablo 3 a decent game and Overwatch
| isn't?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_con
| sidered...
| erulabs wrote:
| I don't think its inevitable and I don't think it's a good long
| term monetization strategy. It's just short term planning with
| complete disregard for the long term health of the company. How
| the board of directors doesn't see this is shocking. Maybe they
| do and also want to milk it today instead of tomorrow just like
| the C-suite. Yes, exploitative mobile gaming is profitable as
| hell - but in the current world is alienating your extremely
| loyal (and higher earning) fan-base worth it?
|
| Either way, it's a shame and a waste of a lot of really great
| IP that will be buried alive when the coffin that is Blizzard
| is lowered into the ground.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| > It's just short term planning with complete disregard for
| the long term health of the company. How the board of
| directors doesn't see this is shocking.
|
| I wonder if milking the company's reputation like this
| perhaps actually _is_ the most optimal strategy for Blizzard.
| Innovation requires investment and luck, and it can create a
| great reputation for a brand. Once you have that reputation
| though, perhaps it 's not rational to try your luck again.
| Maybe the expectation value is highest if you just sell out.
|
| It's not just Blizzard, see e.g. the twelfth installment of
| Assassin's Creed or the eighteenth installment of Call of
| Duty. For that matter, it's not even just video games. Look
| at the tenth Fast & Furious movie or the fifteenth iPhone
| that are coming out soon, and will surely sell like crazy,
| even though they'll probably not be very innovative.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Except MS is buying Blizzard, and they seem to have a healthy
| respect for long term recurring revenues by keeping
| franchises alive.
| VHRanger wrote:
| > I don't think it's a good long term monetization strategy
|
| You can look at plenty of games that have lived for a long
| time on this:
|
| - Supercell games (Clash Royale, Clash of Clans, Hay Day,
| etc.)
|
| - Genshin Impact
|
| - Heartstone and Magic Arena
|
| - Rainbow 6 The Division (most profitable Ubisoft game)
| erulabs wrote:
| Of those listed I've only played Hearthstone and Clash
| Royale. I reached top rank in Clash Royale, and I believe I
| only spent 5 dollars on it to get a neat looking board to
| play on - so I don't think they generate quite the ill-will
| that a legendary PC competitive game developer like
| Blizzard generates when they produce something _much worse_
| than most existing (at least in the west) mobile free to
| play games.
|
| My point isn't that these sorts of games aren't profitable
| - it's that they should have spun up a new studio with a
| new name instead of lighting the good will of a 25+ year IP
| that's held so dearly on fire.
| [deleted]
| bitwize wrote:
| What? Do you guys not have $110,000?
| still_grokking wrote:
| In today's world it's hard to tell whether the parent comment
| is sarcasm or meant seriously. I'm kind of worried about that.
| bootloop wrote:
| True, but this in particular is a reference:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/do-you-guys-not-have-phones
| still_grokking wrote:
| Oh, I did not got this reference. Thanks for explaining.
|
| Than that comment is even more to the point than I thought!
|
| At least now I'm sure it deserves an up-vote -- as your
| helpful comment does.
| [deleted]
| nanaboo wrote:
| Let NFTs take care of it.
|
| In-game skins are going nowhere, let a government force the
| company into creating a package with however many skins they want
| (maybe based on prior sales or realistic expectations) per season
| (whatever their season looks like) and walk away from it. You
| know they won't be able to add more.
|
| Because what's stopping them now to change the decimal point
| however they see fit.
|
| I suppose the same could be done with progression (where the real
| money is). Either make it tradeable somehow and lock it down, or
| outright ban it and allow for more expensive but regulated skins
| be the only funding capital.
| seydor wrote:
| Why is that considered a lot? People pay more for e.g sports
| memorabilia
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| I'll go out on a limb and say that spending 110k on a video
| game is considered "a lot" by 100% of all humans, rounded to
| the closest percent.
| donatj wrote:
| People put tens of thousands of hours into these sorts of
| games though to get equipment. Put that same time into a
| minimum wage job and we're approaching the same amount of
| money. Seems relatively fair.
| gspr wrote:
| Those sports memorabilia are at least traded on a market, and
| thus hold and retain that "investment". Not that sports
| memorabilia make much sense to me either, but at least you get
| something of proven value.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Proven value might be stretch, but at least theoretical
| chance to finding bigger fool. And thus recouping some of the
| cost.
| account-5 wrote:
| And another reason I don't play computer games
| INTPenis wrote:
| This seems like a perfect time to point out how well Diablo 2
| Resurrection works with a gamepad. I hooked my 55" Acer monitor
| over DP to my PC, just start Diablo 2 through Proton, move the
| window over to the Acer monitor, sit back in my favorite chair
| and hack and I slash away til my heart's content.
| totetsu wrote:
| But this is just the intangible economy at work..
| minimaxir wrote:
| Actual lv. 60 player here. (proof:
| https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1533201559776923650 )
|
| There's an interesting amount of misinformation regarding MTX in
| Diablo Immortal. But the TL;DR is that the significant gameplay
| advantages from MTX only really apply at higher Paragon levels,
| requiring _hundreds of hours_ to hit. The primary way of
| increasing power before that is the same as it was in any Diablo;
| get better gear, which can 't be accelerated by MTX at all.
|
| Hitting lv. 60/completing the main story content is very easy and
| does not benefit much even if you did spend money to get 5-star
| Legendary Gems (although there are level gates once you hit lv.
| 35; daily quests provide the best way to get around those, those
| aren't paywalls). That takes about 20 hours, which is good value
| for a free game even if you bounce off.
| damowangcy wrote:
| If I can find more progress than in my real life, 110k is a fair
| trade. (joke)
|
| The flip side is, no matter how the general public criticize or
| hate it, it works and at times, more profitable than most
| startups nowadays.
|
| The game was delayed for more than one whole year as they try to
| fix things up, 110k is probably an optimized figure.
|
| That say, the game is enjoyable better than most mobile rpg but
| brings nothing new to the table. I would prefer it to be a pay
| once and for expansion though.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| What upsets me is that in exchange for that money you're treated
| to a low quality game. You can just feel the disdain for the
| user/victim at every step.
|
| While launching the game for the first time:
|
| 1) No sound!
|
| 2) Forced subtitles.
|
| 3) Visible tearing in the video because of a lack of vsync.
|
| 4) Two tracking and notification permission prompts, including
| one that lies to you: "Your game is better if we can target ads".
|
| 5) Obnoxious tutorial that takes control away from the player.
| (If an adult spoke like this to me in real life I would slap them
| for their insolent patronising!)
|
| 6) Forced updates.
|
| 7) Etc...
|
| At this point I deleted then game because I don't want to be
| _gamed_ by a mega corp. I'm not a money bag to be tracked and
| siphoned.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| I found most of your complains either false or non issue:
|
| 1. Ok, maybe a bug.
|
| 2. Given that is a mobile game and most people will no have the
| volume up, it is ok to have subtitles. Not to mention that
| games that start with subtitles are more accessible and the
| majority of players actually don't mind them and find them
| useful.
|
| 3. Fair, but given that this is a mobile game, V-sync can be a
| problem for lower end devices too.
|
| 4. False? I cleared the first mission and had no prompt for
| that and has not requested tracking at all. Android.
|
| 5. The hell you talking about? When you start you get a small
| cut scene and are given full control when they drop you off the
| ship.
|
| 6. The game is mostly online for what I can tell so updates are
| a given (and you can download areas separately)
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| > _you're treated to a low quality game_
|
| You're not only playing a modern Blizzard game, but a _mobile_
| one. This should go without saying. :p
|
| > _Two tracking and notification permission prompts_
|
| Is one of those the face tracking they put in there to satisfy
| Chinese government regulations?
| xyst wrote:
| Gamers of todays generation have been slowly taught to accept
| this as the new norm. IAPs, DLCs, "pay to win", and Battle Passes
| are just acceptable now.
|
| Release a half assed game in a few months. Complete the rest of
| the game on relaxed timeframe and release them as DLCs. Continue
| to milk the consumer for more $$$.
|
| Honestly the entire concept of IAPs is predatory. Consumer
| protection agencies need to regulate these companies.
| reggieband wrote:
| I know this is a crazy thought and not inline with a lot of the
| blizzard hate - but why don't games like this allow more gifting
| style mechanics?
|
| I consider the Twitch gift sub market. And I consider that weird
| crypto game Axie Infinity. It seems we are only considering the
| purchasing power of whales that want to flex. What about whales
| that want to collaborate. Whales that want to demonstrate their
| generosity.
|
| I remember a reddit post about a guy who had a rich friend that
| would constantly take him on wild adventures that the poorer
| friend couldn't afford. The rich guy didn't care about spending
| the money and the poor guy was good company.
|
| I think an interesting monetization mechanic would be a game
| where the pay-to-win aspect was in the recruitment and outfitting
| of other players. So as a poor player I could have the
| opportunity to earn high-level gear based on the spending of a
| whale whose campaign I was joining.
| minimaxir wrote:
| There are a few F2P games which offer a wishlist/gifting
| mechanic. (I know Path of Exile does).
|
| Unclear how successful it would be.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Even Path of Exile only allows gifting microtransactions
| through explicit interactions with support, and they're
| somewhat picky about verifying that you're buying the items
| for someone you know personally -- they're going out of their
| way to avoid letting players trade in-game equipment for paid
| cosmetic items.
| shpx wrote:
| When I was 11 some guy randomly gave me like 20k gp and
| dragonhide in RuneScape and I haven't forgotten that moment in
| the mines outside of Varrock since.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| Whoa, very interesting! i'd love to play this game.
|
| > spending of a whale whose campaign I was joining.
|
| Also, for me very punishing mechanics with high risk, high
| reward games have had an underserved market place. I love pking
| on a variety of different MMO's and sometimes when you are
| pking in max gear you are risking 10g's IRL. Full Torva on
| runescape is 6g's and once you add up the rest of the rings and
| amulets, you can easily be risking $15,000.00 IRL money.
|
| However, there is no benefit to anyone besides yourself. Clans
| are 'superficial' as there is no real 'shared loot' system,
| clan building requirements outside 'daily's', but being the
| biggest clan doesn't give you 'benefits' outside a few dailys
| and some xp.
| cableshaft wrote:
| This was one thing I appreciated about Pokemon Go! when it
| first came out and everyone was playing it. It's one of the
| only free-to-play games that got me happily buying the in-game
| currency to buy items, because I could buy and use the (don't
| remember what it was anymore, too long ago, I'm sure someone
| else here remembers) item that attracted Pokemon to my area for
| a half hour at a time, and all players in the region
| benefitted.
|
| So I was buying and deploying these things over and over again
| just so my wife and kids in the area could have more fun. I
| specifically remember we attended a wedding at Disney World and
| my wife (girlfriend at the time) couldn't move around because
| of a recent surgery (I pushed her around Disney World in a
| wheelchair the whole time), so me buying those things let her
| capture Pokemon from our hotel room, and I could see a bunch of
| other people in the area playing as well. I hope I helped
| several kids enjoy playing the game more during that time.
|
| I'd love more games to have something similar. If something
| only benefits me in a game I don't feel too motivated to buy
| it, as I can usually just deal without and progress slower, of
| just play a different game altogether.
|
| It doesn't have to be specific to your physical region
| (although I think that helps, it was cool to think I was
| helping people near me), but maybe just where you're at within
| a game world, or something.
| [deleted]
| wbobeirne wrote:
| You end up with a huge security incentives problem. If there's
| a way to extract the value from one account and give it to
| another, you massively increase the incentive to phish users,
| set up black markets for buying items off of a hacked account,
| or just transfer it to your own.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| Why not steal the idea of Pokemon go? Transfer doesn't go to
| a person but to an area or group of people. You could pay to
| unlock an area and take a group of people on a quest. Or
| perhaps a boost or buff in an area.
| snek_case wrote:
| You could set up a payment system to buy items that's not a
| player account. You buy an item just to give. There's still a
| phishing incentive, but is it worse than any of the other
| content you can buy online?
| Jenk wrote:
| Credit Card theft/fraud is why. If it was possible to
| "transfer" funds like this then mechanisms for fraudulent
| purchases will increase dramatically. Eve Online introduced
| purchasing in-game currencies because it was rife on the
| "black market" anyway and they also saw a huge number of
| fraudulent purchases and/or charge backs. 3rd party grey
| "broker" sites popped up with way below market rate prices,
| 99% of which are using fraudulent CCs to fund them, and bot
| accounts to transfer the in-game stuff.
| snek_case wrote:
| If you can't gift items, it seems like a huge missed
| opportunity because I feel like there's a lot of things people
| don't buy for themselves but they might be willing to buy for
| other people as a gift.
|
| For instance I don't think I would ever spend 30 dollars on a
| bottle of wine to drink at dinner, but I could pay 50 or 60 to
| buy a bottle of wine as a special gift to a friend.
| ajnin wrote:
| I hope more country follow suit of Belgium and The Netherlands
| and classify loot boxes with a random drop element as gambling,
| and as such make it heavily regulated and banned to kids. This
| kind of practices are evidently predatorial and manipulative and
| should be greatly discouraged.
| qball wrote:
| >classify loot boxes with a random drop element as gambling
|
| Most people who talk about this tend to have no idea what laws
| already cover gambling.
|
| I think that, in this case, loot boxes should be treated like
| slot machines as far as minimum payout goes; in Nevada (for
| example) this is minimum 75% by law- meaning that the house
| must ultimately return 75% of the value it takes in as winnings
| to its gamblers.
|
| As these systems are effectively slot machines (put coin in,
| pull handle, get box), not much more needs to be done other
| than applying the law as written.
|
| It might be tricky to establish a dollar value for the digital
| assets paid out, and would add overhead to assets distributed
| in this manner (how one would put a price on "asset that
| changes the way the game works" is, of course, an open
| question), but provided it's done properly should clamp down
| significantly on the anti-consumer aspects of these practices-
| which is, I suspect, the real reason everyone complains about
| this in the first place.
| fatbird wrote:
| Kids aren't allowed to play real world slot machines either,
| are they?
| qball wrote:
| The last time I went to Dave & Busters, they didn't seem to
| have an entrance policy.
|
| People don't seem to have a problem with this even though a
| minority of their games are ultimately slot machines (the
| simplest of which is the "time the light" game, but the
| coin stackers count as this as well given that they also
| appear in real casinos).
| callamdelaney wrote:
| There is 0 value to things that can be generated with in
| games like the 'loot' from lootboxes. Value is based on a
| limit in supply, not only demand. The massive possible amount
| of supply puts the value at $0. It's worse than gambling.
| qball wrote:
| >There is 0 value to things that can be generated with in
| games like the 'loot' from lootboxes.
|
| But that's false, on its face in fact- there was
| development and artist time involved in every step of the
| process, and that time has a value (and an auditable one,
| at that).
|
| So now that we know what the value is, taking into account
| that the house can only pay out in those assets, we can in
| effect determine a maximum profit per asset (as far as the
| house-player transaction is concerned)- casinos close their
| doors when the house is no longer able to pay out, and it's
| no different here.
| IncRnd wrote:
| In most cases there is no market for the digital assets from
| a loot box, and many game operators aggressively crack-down
| on anyone attempting to setup such a market. The digital
| assets from these loot boxes have no value. These are not
| lotteries or slot machines as these are currently defined in
| Nevada, which you quote.
| DaveSapien wrote:
| There will be, for sure, lives ruined because of this game's
| predatory practices. It really sickens me.
|
| To quote myself from a previous thread:
|
| "If you could hear the contempt that "some" game devs have for
| their customers, you might never buy a game ever again. It really
| is quite shocking...and the contempt exists from top to bottom,
| its everywhere. That isn't to say there's not a vast number of of
| honourable people in the industry, not at all. It's only to say
| that we as a whole are allowing the demons run amok.
|
| I have seen the damage that compulsive behaviour can do to our
| most vulnerable in society. Lives ruined, homelessness, suicide,
| familial dissolution, the list goes on. Children, people with
| mental dysfunctions, suffers of brain injuries, even people with
| Parkinson's disease (on l-dopa for example)"
| ModernMech wrote:
| > There will be, for sure, lives ruined because of this game's
| predatory practices. It really sickens me.
|
| What else is new from Blizzard?
|
| My roommate in college was addicted to WOW. He'd lock himself
| in his room for days, failed his classes, and eventually
| dropped out of school. He finished it later, but only after
| getting over the WOW addiction. Back then (circa 2005) I
| remember reading stories about how Blizzard was hiring
| psychologists to make players more addicted _ahem_ I mean
| "engaged" to WOW. Really, I guess that was just the start of
| it.
|
| Blizzard has a long and sick history of hijacking human
| psychology for profit. Really glad I stopped buying games from
| them after Warcraft III.
| DaveSapien wrote:
| That has been my impression of the company's games, but only
| an impression as I don't play their games.
|
| I might check out this new mobile game for study though.
| [deleted]
| curiousgal wrote:
| arkitaip wrote:
| Why?
| curiousgal wrote:
| Is it really a sickening issue? Like come on. I am not
| saying this predatory behavior isn't an issue but it is far
| from sickening in the grand scheme of things.
| skohan wrote:
| It might not be the greatest evil on earth, but knowingly
| preying on vulnerable people in society, and causing harm
| for your own benefit, to me is sickening and evil.
| curiousgal wrote:
| That's the thing though, vulnerable people in society
| don't have access to $110k.
| fsloth wrote:
| Sure they do. Not on a one go, maybe, just wait for the
| interest to pile up. Shor-term unsecured loans are
| notorious for trapping people into financial ruin. Their
| legality depends on jurisdiction but the last time I
| checked they were present in many first-world economies.
|
| Easy access to high-interest loans is what makes
| deliberate addiction mechanics for mass consumption
| entertainment truly insidious.
|
| Gambling used to be branded as gambling with strict state
| controls, and you could expect people to recognize it as
| a morally questionable endeavor in which only consenting
| adults should dabble. Games that utilize the same
| psychological switches as gambling and allow
| microtransactions that link to these psychological
| switches are similar enough to gambling in my books that
| they should be treated as such.
| MereInterest wrote:
| I think a financial situation needs to be evaluated with
| future needs as well as current assets. Due to the US's
| general lack of social safety nets, retirement is
| primarily funded by savings of the person who is
| retiring. The recommended amount of savings to have by
| the time of retirement is 10 times your salary [0]. So by
| actively cultivating an addiction and leeching away
| retirement savings, this could easily be removing the
| possibility that somebody will be able to retire at all.
|
| I might agree with you in countries that have a more
| reasonable and less individualistic approach to social
| welfare, but not in the US.
|
| [0] https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/retirement/how-
| much-do-i...
| skohan wrote:
| But it's not just harming people who spend $110k. All
| sorts of people will end up spending money they shouldn't
| because they've been trapped by an addictive product.
| kareemm wrote:
| We're talking about addiction. Last I checked addiction
| doesn't discriminate based on socioeconomic status.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Okay, would there have been an outrage if it "only" cost
| $1000 to full gear-up in the game?
| Spoom wrote:
| > Okay, would there have been an outrage if it "only"
| cost $1000 to full gear-up in the game?
|
| Yes, since AAA games are typically $60 - $70. The amount
| here just highlights that they have no real ceiling to
| the amount of money they'll try to extract from someone.
| It's the behavior people are complaining about, not the
| amount.
| MereInterest wrote:
| I'm not seeing the connection here, and don't see any mention
| of country of origin in the parent's post. Can you explain
| further?
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I suppose it's a bit of a first world problem to be able to
| spend 100K on a game. But I'm not sure why this isn't a
| legitimate problem for people in "first world" countries.
| Why shouldn't be allowing companies to capitalise on
| people's addictions. I'm not sure why the existence of
| people who have it even worse off should compel us to do
| what we can to prevent people from not ruining their lives.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Thank you, and that was my guess, but I had been hoping
| the parent poster had a better reason for it. I get
| rather frustrated with the "first-world problem"
| argument, as it can be used to dismiss almost any problem
| at all. So long as there exists a worse problem
| somewhere, every other problem can be dismissed as
| irrelevant. What started as a way to dismiss complaints
| of minor inconvenience ballooned out into a dismissal of
| major systemic problems.
| sirtaj wrote:
| People in the third world are hardly immune to compulsive
| behaviour and the associated risks.
| afarrell wrote:
| Neither are people who move from the third world hoping to
| make money to make a better life for their (now distant)
| families.
| maccard wrote:
| Are "game devs" any different to any other category of product
| developers? You can say the same about tech, design, fashion,
| really any industry. There's assholes in every industry, you
| don't tar an entire industry by its worst offenders.
| DaveSapien wrote:
| Yes. No, each industry has its special flavour of abhorrent
| behaviour.
|
| I'm not 'taring' the entire industry at all. Indeed I said,
| "vast number of honourable people in the industry", what I am
| concerned with is just how wide spread the contempt is for
| customers that play these games. And what the contempt does
| in allowing utterly contemptible business practices.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| I'm glad I don't have time to play video games. The industry is
| getting worse and worse every year. (I thought my WoW addiction
| back in the day was bad - but at least the spending was capped at
| 13 Eur/month).
| [deleted]
| Havoc wrote:
| This sort of stuff reminds me that I've got 200+ unplayed games
| in my steam library.
|
| Of which presumably at least 10 are excellent, so think I shall
| pass on this slot machine game and play something else.
| mywaifuismeta wrote:
| I regularly play games with gambling (gacha) mechanics and I love
| them. The short bursts of fun are exactly what I'm looking for in
| my current busy life. I have nothing against this model of
| monetization. Gambling is fun. Casinos are fun. I am not a big
| spender by any means, but I've probably spent ~$2k on these kind
| of games over the past two years or so. I don't regret it, and
| for me the fun is in figuring out how to maximize the value of my
| spending by doing the math for different types of purchases,
| sometimes even coding up simulations.
|
| The problem starts when it's unregulated and you are tricking
| kids, or people who are not educated about probability, into
| spending their money in casinos, and use dozens of psychological
| tricks to do so and obfuscate purchases. Just like it's easy for
| kids to get addicted to social media like Instagram, it's easy
| and dangerous to get addicted to gambling (especially when you
| see your friends or popular streamers doing it). I believe all of
| these games should be 18+, at the very least, and come with a big
| warning sign.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| You can run the same kind of analysis on different game
| mechanics and strategies on games not designed to rip you off.
| They actually tend to be far more interesting because gambling
| games rarely have any meaningful degree of complexity and the
| singular strategy you are actually optimizing for is how much
| you have to sink into the game to succeed something you can
| probably figure out for a given game in about 30 seconds of
| analysis.
|
| Basically you have a bad habit not that far off from smoking
| cigarettes that will probably eventually lead to dangerous
| overspending the first time you have an economic downturn at
| the same time as emotional stress. Despite such games being in
| general tasteless and boring you have convinced yourself its
| "fun" because you have trained your brain to release dopamine
| when you do it and can't tell the difference being joy and
| dopamine the same way a crack addict can't tell the difference
| between chemical stimulation and actual joy.
| Ekaros wrote:
| At least with actual gambling I have theoretical chance, at
| least momentarily to actually win money... With lootboxes
| outside Valve and maybe some others there is no chance to get
| it back.
| still_grokking wrote:
| With $100 a month you can do a lot of things. (And I'm not even
| talking about the regions of the world where you could survive
| a month with that amount). Just think how may games you could
| have bought on Steam for that money!
|
| Those gambling games are extremely overpriced in comparison!
|
| But they still make that money. Guess how: By addiction, and
| other psychological tricks to make the price seem OKisch, even
| it's absolutely not.
|
| Even the most expensive game productions could make a good
| revenue back than just by charging a _one time fee_ of $40 to
| $60.
|
| Now with those gambling games they made $100 a month on you...
| Continuously.
|
| The whole business model is a ripoff, clearly immoral, and
| should get banned completely ASAP.
| mywaifuismeta wrote:
| > Just think how may games you could have bought on Steam for
| that money!
|
| I don't see the difference. Whether I pay a "subscription
| fee" of $100 per month or I buy two new games per month, why
| does it matter? Why do you think that buying two games a
| month is necessarily more fun than paying a subscription fee
| for the same 2-3 games? For me it isn't, and there aren't
| even enough games I would be interested in buying in the
| first place.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I don't mind existence of those games. But I hate how this
| single mechanics floods the market and makes everything else
| harder to find.
|
| I don't mind casinos in Vegas but I would mind if grocery store
| around the corner was replaced with small, low quality casino.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Heroin is fun too, at least at first.
|
| The problem with gambling is that it taps into the dopamine
| system in ways that people are not aware of, even if they know
| about probabilities.
|
| The effect is cumulative, and the more the person gambles, the
| more they will gamble, take risks, create unbalance and spend
| money.
|
| Now, just like with anything related to dopamine, many people
| will only have a mild effect. E.G: I've played dota for a
| while, and never went into full spending mode.
|
| Like you, I think it's ok to gamble once in a while, to pay for
| the game. After all, it's fun, and the game provides
| pleasurable moments, but does cost a lot of resources to
| develop. It's fair to give money to the company making it:
| after all, other games may be paid up to $60, DLC not included,
| while free to play are always up to date.
|
| Yet, it's very difficult to evaluate if the tactics used by the
| game for gambling are twisted or not, and if the game target is
| going to be abused or not.
|
| For this reason, I do think they should be heavily regulated,
| not just about the age, but about the nature, and intensity, or
| the gambling mechanism in place.
| erulabs wrote:
| How do you stack up this opinion (ban 'immoral' video games)
| with the idea that drug prohibition is widely considered a
| spectacular failure?
|
| Banning games like this will only drive the whales into black
| markets, which are more expensive, more dangerous, and
| benefit criminal enterprises by definition.
|
| Many of the deaths from heroin, for example, are due to
| contamination with fentanyl (which boosts the potency). A
| company who was liable to their customers (ie: not a criminal
| enterprise) would be much less incentivized to lace their
| product, and if they did, there would be someone to prosecute
| instead of an entire black market to wag a finger at.
|
| Anyways, I agree, this is an extremely exploitative design.
| What I don't agree on is using legal regulation to shape
| society into something moral. Historically, that's only made
| things worse.
| yuzugit wrote:
| I work on video games (not on the design side but
| programming) and had to implement some on those systems on
| several mobile games. I agree with the comment above that
| it's hard to draw the line between gambling addiction and a
| faire amount of random that brings fun to a game. Diablo 2
| has already those kinds of random behavior to retain your
| attention and trigger dopamine rushes but without trying to
| grab cash from you.
|
| The only solution to me is legal regulation, companies won't
| listen as it brings money and most people like to play them.
| Features like battle pass for example are pretty moral and a
| good balance between making the game profitable, having a
| retention and not milk users.
|
| I hope EU will flag lootboxes based games as casino games
| globally and that other big countries will follow (like
| Korea, Japan and USA) to stop this trend and force designer
| to find better mechanics.
|
| Also users should also be educated to pay for a game that
| they enjoy. Nowadays with all the free services, it's harder
| to make users pay for something they can get for << free >>
| elsewhere. So it's a complicated issue.
| maccard wrote:
| > Features like battle pass for example are pretty moral
| and a good balance between making the game profitable,
| having a retention and not milk users.
|
| The problem with battle passes is that they rely on you
| having a massive player base, and require an incredible
| amount of effort to develop and keep running. For a game
| like diablo that's clearly not a problem but for anything
| that's not a top 10 game on their platform it is
|
| > I hope EU will flag lootboxes based games as casino games
| globally
|
| I don't think this (specific) categorization is necessarily
| the right approach. The problematic part with casino style
| games and gambling in general is that cashing out provides
| a real money incentive, which is not present here. Calling
| these games gambling is kind of like calling piracy theft -
| the intention is right but there's an important difference.
| We haven't got a category for them yet.
|
| > Also users should also be educated to pay for a game that
| they enjoy.
|
| On one level yes. On the other, f2p games are popular for a
| reason. Excellent games providing a social experience has a
| network effect, and if your conversion rate is 2% you don't
| succeed as a game by monetising better, you succeed by
| increasing your audience. A f2p game could be a profitable
| game if the active playerbase all paid $2-3 each but the
| _second_ you introduce a barrier there you lose many
| players who won't pay, their friends who might pay etc etc.
|
| > So it's a complicated issue.
|
| Amen to that.
| pezezin wrote:
| Japan has pachinko-like machines for kids (and I'm not
| kidding, I just saw one today and got extremely pissed
| off), I wouldn't count on them.
| mywaifuismeta wrote:
| I don't think you can compare these mechanics to heroin,
| which is physically addictive. A fairer comparison is social
| media and timelines/newsfeeds, which use very similar
| mechanics, including randomness, to give people their
| dopamine rush and make them come back. Hence all this social
| media addiction we have. The main difference is that no money
| is (directly) involved there, only indirectly through ads.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| I've played a bit, and the reason I don't mind the p2w model is
| because I've never tried to compete at that level. Let's be real,
| even if it wasn't pay to win there are still people out there who
| will be so far ahead of me that it nights as well be.
|
| When I played D3 I actually played solo most of the time, really
| only competing against myself and enjoying the game. One time
| someone gave me a weapon that let me one shot everything and it
| honestly ruined the game for me. I deleted and started over
| because for me the fun is in the journey.
| jack_pp wrote:
| I've watched a lot of discussions about this from twitch
| streamers and I'm not sure where I stand.. On the one hand I'm
| amazed at how good this game looks on mobile and if you're just
| the type to casually play a game not really caring about being
| the best at it you could have fun playing it for free or for very
| cheap. On the other hand this game is clearly exploitative and
| while other games like Hearthstone or Clash Royale have similar
| pay to win mechanics they also have ways for you to enjoy the
| game competitively without spending a whole lot of money.
|
| I know some countries banned games like this but I wonder, if
| these games get banned why not ban casinos too?
| ImaCake wrote:
| The state of Western Australia has banned poker machines. We
| have a single casino in the capital which is the only
| sanctioned gambling establishment. So our pubs and clubs are a
| bit poorer and there are less of them. But they are not ruined
| by the horrible rooms full of sad people playing poker machines
| that you see in other states. I grew up on the east coast and
| whenever I walk into a pub in Perth I am always surprised by
| how authentic and nice the place feels compared to those that
| have poker machines.
| ptilt wrote:
| Casinos asks for your ID card, and are regulated to protect
| people banned from gambling (at least it is the case in France)
| scotty79 wrote:
| I had a ton of fun with Clash Royale for many months (even
| years at this point) without spending exactly zero money. I
| think the way they mix free players with paying players is
| absolutely brilliant (from a perspective of free player).
|
| If I go against a player two levels ahead of me, I can be
| pretty much sure that he bought his deck and since he's going
| against me not some higher rank I know I have chance of winning
| if I can outwit materially stronger opponent.
|
| When I'm going against someone with lower level then I can be
| sure that this guy has very carefully crafted deck and is a
| very skilled player.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Casinos are banned in many places and also banned for kids in
| most places.
|
| Clash royale is sad, becouse it is a extremely good game if it
| were not for the pay to win leveling mechanics. I used to play
| it alot but it became too frustrating meeting bad players with
| low ELO but high level cards that you essentially couldn't win
| over unless they messed up bad.
|
| Edit: To level up all cards in Clash Royale you also have to
| spend a silly amount of money. Exponential costs.
| Marazan wrote:
| Clash Royale is way more generous with free gold to level up
| cards these days.
|
| Far, far, quicker to get cards to tournament standard.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| I've played Clash Royale since almost when it was launched,
| and I've spent about $10, mainly for a couple of months of
| Pass Royale.
|
| My secondary clash account is staying as Level 1, ie with no
| upgraded cards at all, and I regularly beat level 10/11
| players.
| Marazan wrote:
| Yeah, skill is the dominant factor in Clash Royale right up
| into 5000+
| jack_pp wrote:
| I just started playing it after a long break. I remember you
| used to need to upgrade your cards to challenge level in
| order to be competitive in challenges but now they give you
| all cards in challenge mode at the standard level, even cards
| you haven't found yet
|
| It costs 10 gems to play a challenge and you can buy 500 gems
| for 5$ so that's 50 challenges, say you get at least 7 games
| per challenge so 350 games for 5$ where only skill matters.
| I'd say that's not exploitative.
|
| Of course if you care about your rank and having a Big Number
| in a silly mobile game then yes you either have to play a lot
| or pay a lot of money.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Oh ok. Sounds like a good play mode. Maybe they themself
| realized how silly it was.
| solar-ice wrote:
| Casinos and machine-based gambling are fairly heavily regulated
| in a lot of places, requiring a license with auditing, with
| rules on everything you can possibly think of. The mobile
| gaming industry has so far avoided this body of law by never
| providing anything of value in return.
| chii wrote:
| > by never providing anything of value in return.
|
| you could argue they provided entertainment in return.
| badkitty wrote:
| doix wrote:
| Look at this guy [0], he is the rank one monk in PvP and PvE
| and spent 0 dollars.
|
| I played a wee bit and it didn't seem that bad. You can pay to
| upgrade your gear, but that seems entirely pointless in an
| ARPG. The whole game is a grind to get better gear! Once you
| actually have perfect gear, why keep playing?
|
| My issue with the game is that it lacks depth after having
| spent far too much time playing Path of Exile. There aren't
| that many possible builds, and the game basically tells you
| exactly how to build if you want to do PvP or PvE. As far as I
| can tell, those builds are the meta ones, so the designers are
| forcing the meta.
|
| But as a game to run in and kill some monsters without thinking
| too much, it seems fine. Which makes sense since it's a mobile
| game.
|
| [0] https://www.twitch.tv/wudijo
| jack_pp wrote:
| interesting, so if you can be no1 while free to play is every
| streamer lying?
|
| Edit: Or right now since it's early you can out-skill other
| people while they're figuring it out and soon the people who
| spend more will have both skill and raw power and will
| dominate
| doix wrote:
| I don't understand the comment, sorry. I don't think other
| streamers are lying, you can pay to get stronger, easily
| verified by opening the shop and looking at what is
| available. But it looks like if you play the game as your
| job, you can still be competitive.
|
| Does it suck that you can pay to get stronger and make the
| game unfair? Yep, but I'm not convinced it matters if
| you're playing casually. None of the pay to win stuff
| changes the game play drastically. You're only really
| increasing the amount of damage you do, it's not like Path
| of Exile where some of the really rare items can enable a
| new type of build or trading card games where certain cards
| let you build different decks with different playstyles.
|
| Personally, I see no incentive to buy anything. I can clear
| a level 12 challenge rift, grind slowly and slowly clear
| higher level ones. Or I could spend a bunch of money and
| get to do level 20 challenge rifts or whatever. At which
| point you hit the wall and either pay money or keep
| grinding. But since the game is all about grinding, why pay
| to skip forward and grind more?
| jack_pp wrote:
| I understand your point but Asmongold and Shroud are
| saying it isn't worth playing the game unless you plan to
| spend a couple thousand dollars on it so that's where I'm
| coming from.
| hw wrote:
| Do yourself a favor and play the game instead of trusting
| the words of streamers. You can get a ton of enjoyment
| without paying anything. If you want to be ultra
| competitive then it is a different story
| [deleted]
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| I don't buy the "we have ways to play the game without spending
| lots of money" excuse these companies are constantly peddling.
| I refuse to accept this new default of "games" explicitly
| designed to abuse children and addicts.
| jack_pp wrote:
| Children don't have access to a credit card unless you give
| it to them. If in 2022 you're giving a kid a device where he
| can make payments without your input then you're responsible
| for it.
|
| If you're addicted to spending money online irresponsibly I
| doubt there is any law that will protect you, there's
| millions of ways to spend money to get gratification online.
| dtech wrote:
| "We shouldn't restrict heroin, if you're prone to addiction
| you can get a candybar in any supermarket"
|
| These games are explicitly designed to prey on people prone
| to gambling-like addictions.
| jack_pp wrote:
| Not quite the same thing as heroin as you can easily
| drown your sorrows in any number of cheap video games and
| I'm of the belief that if you are prone to addictions the
| only way to evolve passed them is to go through them. I
| am against putting laws up against these games but I am
| for the community warning and talking about this so
| people know what they're getting into.
|
| I'm also for legalizing all drugs but that's another
| discussion
| AdvicePlz wrote:
| I knew someone who worked for EA as a UX researcher. He said that
| games like these are primarily targeting whales who will drop
| $10k on a game. They are the real money earners. The really sad
| part was the he said the most whales aren't super rich, they're
| just people with an addiction.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Time to start regulating these games in the same way we
| regulate gambling.
|
| They shouldn't be sold to children. They're not Kinda eggs nor
| LOL Surprise and should never be brushed off as surprise
| mechanics. They're glorified slot machines, through and
| through.
| bsnal wrote:
| That's not a problem since children don't have access to
| credit cards or any other means to pay for in-game items.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This is not only morally abhorrent, but also factually
| wrong - you can have a proper bank account with card from
| 16, and you can have pre-paid cards even earlier
| [deleted]
| wincy wrote:
| My nephew stole my sister's credit card and made $2000 in
| Fortnite purchases before he was caught. What's insane is
| after the chargeback they DIDN'T revoke the items. He got
| to keep them. Then his account got stolen later because
| he's a dumb kid but that's a different story. Such a bad
| lesson to teach a kid.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Until they steal their parents credit card, or somebody
| else's. Addicts tend to di desperate moves. Happened to
| friends, their son spent half of their montly salary in
| some stupid mobile game, took too long for them to find out
| bsnal wrote:
| Why is that Blizzard's problem?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Why do you go to jail for selling alcohol to kids?
| bsnal wrote:
| Because you know that they are kids. Blizzard has no way
| to know that some players might be kids.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If you don't ask for ID, you don't know for sure - maybe
| they are adults with impaired growth.
| enneff wrote:
| Except they market their games to kids in myriad ways.
| ArmandGrillet wrote:
| Diablo Immortal is not available in Belgium and the
| Netherlands due to that: https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-
| immortal-wont-be-released-in-...
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| What allows these countries to stand up for their
| population against billion dollar corporations?
| xuki wrote:
| Apple/Google revenue will see a big decline if those games
| are regulated. Most if not all the top grossing games on
| mobile follow the same spending pattern, and a big chunk of
| app stores' revenue come from those games.
| martin-adams wrote:
| It does sadden me that Apple/Google are happy to take that
| revenue
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Oh no!
|
| Anyway...
| weberer wrote:
| The point is that those companies give millions of
| dollars to politicians per year, so they're seen as
| somewhat "untouchable"
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/alphabet-
| inc/summary?id=D00...
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/apple-
| inc/summary?id=D00002...
| caf wrote:
| _" Apple and Google are really gambling companies"_ was not
| exactly the hot take I expected to see today (I am not
| disagreeing!).
| realusername wrote:
| That's exactly what they don't want you to realise, they
| are doing a lot of branding to try to make politicians
| forget that they get most of their appstore/playstore
| money from glorified gambling.
| still_grokking wrote:
| And that's exactly the reason almost all mobile game are
| utter trash.
|
| Of course that was caused because the app-"economy" was
| broken from day one on: You couldn't and still can't call
| out fair prices on mobile software. People weren't and
| aren't willing to pay those. So you have to make the
| software "free" and sell your user's data, or charge one or
| two bucks and use some other immoral scheme to get your
| actual costs covered.
|
| On a broken market there are only broken products... Simple
| as that.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| My thoughts on the mobile gaming market are similar.
| There's great plenty of good ports of games like Slay the
| Spire, Civ VI, or even XCOM II. Problem is the majority
| of interested parties already have 'better' devices
| they'd prefer to play it on, so the prospect of paying
| even the discounted price that these ports have is too
| much.
|
| So now you're left with people who haven't tried better
| games, and with all the good-enough free ones, how can
| even a discounted price full game compete?
| wincy wrote:
| Absolutely, I own Civ 6 on mobile because it was
| discounted on Christmas or something. I got most of the
| expansions for cheap on my PC/MacOS hybrid purchase from
| Steam. Then I'm expected to pay the full fat $40 for the
| "new" (came out in 2019) Civ 6 expansion on mobile. No
| way.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| > You couldn't and still can't call out fair prices on
| mobile software. People weren't and aren't willing to pay
| those.
|
| I'm not sure if that is strictly true. Prices did vary a
| lot in the beginning. However scale created a race-to-
| the-bottom situation for the exact reason you cited: most
| people wanted to pay less. The market was flooded with
| apps and games at the minimum price which created a
| strong expectation among the bulk of buyers.
|
| Consumable IAP is what really enabled the gambling-like
| mechanics. That was discovered not long after the
| implementation of IAP and very quickly the game devs that
| converted to free + consumable IAP started making all the
| money. IIRC it was an open secret in mobile games many
| many years ago that the optimal strategy was to make the
| early game easy to cast a wide net, then slowly ramp up
| the pay-to-win mechanics to milk the whales as much as
| possible. You don't really care if everyone else quits -
| so long as most people get X% of the way through before
| they do. Then you tweak X% to optimize for catching the
| most whales.
|
| The super critical aspect is the deliberate ramp. You
| _have_ to get as many people into the early part of the
| funnel as possible so some of them will become invested
| enough to become whales. This also means you absolutely
| must make the game miserable for 90% of your players but
| only _after_ they 've made a significant investment.
| moomin wrote:
| Not being funny, but I won't buy my kids LOL surprise and
| they know exactly why.
|
| Whether or not this choice of mine is useful is hard to tell.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| They're not much different than receiving a present.
| wincy wrote:
| You have to be vigilant as a parent. I didn't realize until
| my late 20s that Diablo 2 primed me to love slot machines
| and gambling. It's something I have to avoid.
| SalmoShalazar wrote:
| Funny you say this. I've been playing a bunch of D2:R
| lately and it is honestly pretty miserable. It is full
| stop gambling. Grinding out mephisto runs over and over
| again, hoping for that nice drop, getting a minor rush of
| excitement when an unidentified ring drops or whatever.
| Just totally mindless nonsense.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Are there enough of those guys vs people who will spend 10? I
| guess you need 1k of those people to make up one whale, but
| aren't there more little players by a lot?
|
| I guess I don't have the data. Also maybe you can get both at
| once by targeting the big guy.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| The vast majority of users do not spent anything. This is no
| problem for the game developers, as they can serve as cannon
| fodder for the few who do invest money.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| seydor wrote:
| 10k over a long period is very small compared to what one can
| lose in a casino night, and casinos do exist.
|
| What kind of game was your friend working on? Whales do exist
| but they are not the bulk of the revenue
| black_puppydog wrote:
| > 10k over a long period is very small compared to what one
| can lose in a casino night
|
| that's a very low bar to set...
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > 10k over a long period is very small compared to what one
| can lose in a casino night, and casinos do exist.
|
| Casinos are highly regulated. Lootbox are not in most
| countries. And I'm pretty sure minors can't enter a casino
| even with their parent's credit card...
|
| Made videogames with paid lootboxes 18+ only, problem solved.
| seydor wrote:
| is there evidence that any of the whales are kids? i guess
| there are exceptions , but most kids have a highly
| regulated budget, adults do not
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| We are discussing damage to the kids psycology, and if
| they spend 100% of theie lunch money on a game thats as
| bad as adults spwnding EUR10k
| gspr wrote:
| > casinos do exist.
|
| In many jurisdictions they don't. And where they do, they're
| often very heavily regulated.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| While the stock market is much more accessible, operates in
| a less transparent way, and ruins more people for life than
| an actual casino.
| [deleted]
| elif wrote:
| The stock market, by inflationary design, rewards >50% of
| the time.
|
| Gambling, by regulated design, rewards 45-49% of the
| time.
|
| Diablo Immortal, by comparison, is designed to reward 0%
| of the time.
| mafaa wrote:
| Under 1% of users for over 50% of your mobile gaming revenue
| with a not single purchase model has been a good general
| estimate since 2010; I invite you to google an publicly
| available data on that. From what I've seen privately 50% is
| a vast understatement. And no, most of those users cannot
| afford what they spend.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I wonder what we could do to legally balance this. Out right
| banning is bit questionable. But weekly or monthly spending
| reports? Some total number shown regularly to players?
| doctor_eval wrote:
| You could just cap the maximum spend of any one player in any
| game (or group of players). Even if it was some stupid high
| number like $1,000, it would limit the blast radius. Also,
| banning loot boxes of course. Totally can be done.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I think that the option in appstores to completely hide all
| games with in-app purchases would be enough. Like, if you
| don't know they exist, you can't get hooked. Probably banning
| advertising such games anywhere but on the AppStores, too.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I'm all for advertisement ban. Or at least limiting periods
| allowed. It gets either really funny, sad or scary however
| you take it when you see some games like Raid Shadow
| Legends advertised for years extremely prominently. At
| least when comparing to most other mobile titles... And
| then the places it is advertised. Like cooking channels...
| wincy wrote:
| I uninstalled Diablo Immortal last night as the pull to spend
| money was getting greater in my mind. I've been very sick for a
| couple weeks and basically bed bound, so this game was mindless
| and seemed fun. I got to "max level" (which is nothing of the
| sort the game essentially has infinite progression), and Back
| when I worked a dead end call center job working 80 hours a
| week I spent basically $100 a day on a Japanese free to play
| mobile game. It consumed my life and I was super depressed
| anyway. I felt that same feeling last night to just spend $100
| "for fun" and realized how bad this game was going to be for
| me. These games manage to tickle that hyper competitive part of
| my brain that wants to "win at any cost". So I'll spend money I
| shouldn't on a game.
| jules wrote:
| It's not just the money though. Even if you remove pay-to-win
| and move to an ad supported model, these games are still
| engineered to maximally waste your time.
|
| In fact, even games that are not designed to maximize your
| time spent in the game can be bad. The reward hits you get
| from games make you less likely to seek out other types of
| reward in your life. And even when you're not playing the
| game, your brain will be running a background task
| strategising how to maximize your results in the game.
| therouwboat wrote:
| I used to play a MUD thats been around for 30 years and has
| active playerbase of maybe 1-4k people and there were some
| players who would pay 20-40k for special wizard made items. It
| was run by a non-profit, so all that money went to keep the
| game running, but yeah, some people put a lot of money on these
| games.
| Krasnol wrote:
| Star Citizen isn't even a proper game and still works perfectly
| living mainly from whales.
|
| We've passed some really unhealthy point in game development
| with this bonus money making...
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Rich people are rich because they do not spend $10K on a
| digital downloads that have no actual value...
|
| The ONLY people that would do that, are people with an
| addiction
| [deleted]
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| There are a lot of famous rich addicts. Or were.
| concordDance wrote:
| Tell that to the oil shiek's family...
| baby wrote:
| I think it depends, I know a lot of rich people who spend a lot
| on skins and others. Like, a lot.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| People who will throw massive money in games, won't be happy
| about Blizzard.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I've seen similar comments by several game devs, but at least
| some of them said that they make most of their money from the
| kids of the ultra-wealthy. Think of some oil Sheik's son bored
| to death at home because it's too hot to go outside.
|
| But yeah, the "loot boxes" that are mostly gambling have been
| banned in many countries because they're targeted at young
| children.
| spoiler wrote:
| > I've seen similar comments by several game devs, but at
| least some of them said that they make most of their money
| from the kids of the ultra-wealthy.
|
| This seems like naive speculation to me. Think about the
| number/scaling of this. It would give them a few months worth
| of income at best?
|
| The sadder truth is that they're exploiting escapism and
| maladaptive coping (addiction, gambling) in people who also
| use escapism to cope/relax. Often times, those same people in
| desperate need of escapism are there because they struggle in
| real life, often financially too.
|
| So, the little reprieve they get from gaming negative impacts
| their physical lives.
|
| Diablo Immortal is a caricature of the depravity most games
| have become. A few games like Overwatch are not P2W, but even
| they have lootbox mechanics for cosmetic skins (you get boxes
| for leveling up and challenges, as you play, though).
| Blizzard _literally_ can 't help themselves.
| kuang_eleven wrote:
| The interesting thing is that you would think Blizzard
| would have known this. Literally the last game in the
| _same_ Diablo series launched with a much-hated Real Money
| Auction House, which was eventually removed.
| j_4 wrote:
| To me this "ultra-wealthy" thing has always sounded like a
| convenient lie whale-game devs tell themselves to sleep
| soundly at night. These dark pattern black holes are made
| purely to form an addiction and turn it into profit, they
| don't care about who's on the receiving end.
|
| There's an increasing number of players who expect that
| either a) a game will take unlimited money and feed them
| dopamines in return, or b) they never have to pay a dime for
| anything because they're fully subsidized by the addicts. I
| have conflicted feelings about administrative regulation of
| this stuff, I just hate that things are this way, especially
| as an independent game dev.
|
| (I'll do the hustle - my first game Pawnbarian is a chess-
| flavored puzzle roguelike. On mobile it's an ad-free demo
| with a single $7 IAP for the whole thing. Out on Steam and
| Android, iOS will follow soon. j4nw.com/pawnbarian)
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| It's hard for a person in the throes of addiction to last
| as a whale for long. Most long lived whales are likely to
| be from wealthy families, or the fun side addiction for a
| very wealthy individual. That doesn't change the fact that
| there are addicted people who spend a large percentage of
| their income on a game. Whales are one thing and addicted
| players are another.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Why do you think the mechanics of nonchemical addiction
| are different to chemical addiction? I certainly see
| plenty of nonrich people being addicted to drugs and
| essentially spend everything they have on drugs (the
| proximity to crime is obviously an additional factor)
| patrec wrote:
| > It's hard for a person in the throes of addiction to
| last as a whale for long.
|
| They don't have to. Repeatedly unearthing cow-clickers
| whom you can milk for $10'000 before sending them into
| financial ruin sounds like a much more viable business
| strategy to me than trying to build a portfolio of people
| both rich and dumb enough to sustainably cow-click.
| j_4 wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree, but for the purpose of my
| argument this is splitting hairs. Both audiences are
| functionally the same from the game design standpoint.
| jayd16 wrote:
| A lot of the whales and leviathans have some kind of online
| presence so it's really not hard for a game dev to know
| them by name, or even invite them to the studio.
| seventytwo wrote:
| Totally agree. I'd love to see any hard data for that
| claim.
|
| Does the same pattern hold true for casinos? Or are the
| bulk of the profits coming from the poor SOBs who blow
| every paycheck there?
| aliswe wrote:
| > but at least some of them said that they make most of their
| money from the kids of the ultra-wealthy.
|
| sorry, but that's just sickening.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Reminds me of EA Sports FIFA. The whole Build a team process
| is predatory and based on gambling + micro transactions
| ekianjo wrote:
| > they're just people with an addiction.
|
| Everyone has an addiction to something. You are lucky if its to
| something thats cheap and legal.
| xmodem wrote:
| It depends on the timeframe obviously, but $10k is hardly
| cheap.
| chii wrote:
| it is cheaper than drugs. If you got to be addicted to
| something, i don't think these mobile games are the worst
| out there.
|
| Of course, the best outcome is not to be addicted.
| Panoramix wrote:
| What a strange logic. You can be addicted to hundreds of
| things a the same time, it doesn't justify what these
| videogames are doing.
| xmodem wrote:
| I'm not sure that "this thing isn't as bad as illegal
| drugs" is a winning argument.
|
| (I'm also not sure it's actually true, either - would
| depend on what metric you use)
| ekianjo wrote:
| Where did I mention its cheap, exactly?
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| 10k a year is hardly a lot...
|
| As a Japanese gamer says, paying for games is like dining
| out. You get nothing useful after a good meal, and paying
| for games may as well be more useful.
| allarm wrote:
| > 10k a year is hardly a lot
|
| In my country 16k/y is a median salary. It's heavily
| influenced by 1 or 2 major cities - the rest of the
| country earns much less, 10k/y is considered to be a
| decent salary. So no, it is a huge amount of money.
| ryl00 wrote:
| > You get nothing useful after a good meal
|
| Uh... the nutrition that your body needs to keep going?
| Is this a trick question?
| asutekku wrote:
| Compared to $10 meal, nutritionally $100 meal is not
| worth it.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| Right, most "super rich" people don't get "super rich" by doing
| super stupid things.
| lozenge wrote:
| The Chinese proverb "rags to rags in three generations" says
| that family wealth does not last for three generations. The
| first generation makes the money, the second spends it and
| the third sees none of the wealth.
| bobnamob wrote:
| That phenomenon probably has more to do with wealth being
| spread increasingly thin across ever-larger generations
| usrusr wrote:
| Another element is how ambition to have your own
| achievement can team up with risk taking. It's usually
| not the humble playboy who consumes away the fortune,
| it's one who tries to step out of the shadow cart by
| inheritance by growing the fortune through a series off
| get-richer-quickly schemes.
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| Probably less so in China given that, until recently,
| they had severe restrictions on the number of children
| per a family.
|
| Though your point is valid it's only part of the story.
|
| I've seen many scions from China attending western
| universities in a state of decadence, barely focused on
| their course work, all too willing to live off their
| parents' past efforts, while driving expensive cars and
| walking around in clothes and accessories worth tens of
| thousands of dollars.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Maybe?
|
| Certainly more offspring was normal, the further back you
| go. So wealth division could more easily happen.
|
| But most cultures had the idea of the "first born", the
| official heir... for this very reason! Most of the loot,
| holdings, tended to go the eldest.
| algorias wrote:
| This is no longer legal in many jurisdictions. Family
| members often have a minimum allocation of the
| inheritance (e.g. 25% must be equally split among all
| children)
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| What jurisdiction is this?
| plonk wrote:
| France has a floor on the percentage each descendant
| gets.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Interesting, and most places it is culturally
| unacceptable regardless.
|
| Yet the proverb is historical, as all proverbs are, and
| my response was intended to refute the dissolution of
| wealth, historically, by spreading it too thin.
|
| Our ancestors didn't do that.
| forty wrote:
| Most super rich get super rich by having super rich parents.
| It doesn't say anything about how they act.
| taotau wrote:
| True...ish, but i bet a percentage of them get rich by
| focussing on what they are good at and neglecting their
| families, just making piles of money available. There's
| probably enough kids getting 10K a month pocket money to make
| GPs stragetgy viable.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > they're just people with an addiction
|
| Yes. These games are straight up designed to be habit forming
| and should be regarded as equivalent to gambling and addictive
| drugs. I've been down that rabbit hole myself.
|
| Daily tasks and rewards offer positive reinforcement. Timers
| create a schedule for players, place a cap on their progression
| and establish negative reinforcement by punishing days of
| inactivity. Player groups reinforce each other's behavior. The
| goal is to get them to log in every day and invest in the game.
|
| People pay money to uncap their progression. This turns these
| games into spending competitions: whoever spends the most money
| wins the game. The corporation is the only true winner of
| course.
|
| I managed to cure myself of this addiction by... cheating. I
| reverse engineered the game and wrote a bot for it. All those
| silly tasks were now getting done automatically, my progression
| was assured and the game's hold over me was destroyed. The best
| part was my bot was statistically indistinguishable from a
| sufficiently addicted player due to the game's own design. I'd
| like to believe I helped destroy that game.
| chii wrote:
| so the question becomes whether people should be allowed to
| spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending isn't
| great for themselves.
|
| Like someone who's very invested in their hobby, they could
| be dropping tens of thousands of dollars into it (depending
| on the hobby of course). Why are those not considered the
| same as wasting money on mobile games?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Even if you thought that being addicted to gaming or
| gambling is no different for the creature than any other
| hobby, like kayaking, it might help you to look at the
| other side of the question:
|
| How much should we allow others to enrich themselves off
| the addictions/compulsions of others?
|
| I always thought that was a compelling point even when I
| was a libertarian for one year as a uni freshman. That
| people should be able to consume what they want doesn't
| finish answering the question.
| chii wrote:
| > How much should we allow others to enrich themselves
| off the addictions/compulsions of others?
|
| the current line is drawn at 18+ and non-chemical
| addiction, or light chemical addition like nicotine. It
| is worthy of debate, whether psychological addiction
| ought to be included.
|
| My guide would be that if it causes external harm, then
| it should be regulated, where external harm is defined as
| harm that, while undertaking said activity, would befall
| a third, unrelated party.
| enneff wrote:
| Nicotine is not lightly addictive.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Hey, I love video games. They've given me thousands and
| thousands of hours of fun. Awesome games like Subnautica
| can bring joy to the world.
|
| The problem is the one time I tried mobile games I
| eventually started waking up at 3 AM because that's when
| some timer resets. At some point I started wondering where
| my life went so wrong.
|
| Then I started studying the design of these games and I
| realized they are _designed_ to cause this sort of
| addiction and harm. They employ the same strategies as
| casinos and drug dealers. They straight up subvert the
| reward center of people 's brains to the point they harm
| themselves and even destroy their own lives.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Just like much of social media
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Yes. Social media is the exact same brand of brain-
| hijacking dopamine dripfeed. They too want their apps to
| be habit forming in order to maximize the amount of user
| attention they're capturing so they can make more money
| on advertising. Every time you see someone talking about
| "engagement" this is what it means.
|
| Software like uBlock Origin is so world changing they
| should be built into our operating systems in order to
| help destroy the revenue of these abusive corporations.
| martinko wrote:
| > so the question becomes whether people should be allowed
| to spend money any way they see fit
|
| Cant believe you actually want to debate this.
| Termitiono wrote:
| Because a normal hobby is not designed to be addictive.
|
| A hobby like wood working doesn't push you to do
| woodworking every day and there are not people behind this
| non existing mechanism who design it like it.
|
| Also normally a hobby costs money due to physical parts of
| that hobby. A software engineer as a hobby only needs some
| computer, would worker needs a metal saw.
| usrusr wrote:
| Fitness hobbies also punish you for taking some time off.
| But they still just happen to be that way, instead of
| being deliberately designed, and that's a distinction
| that should very much be allowed to make a difference.
| It's not unusual at all for intent to carry legal
| significance.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| The risk/benefit calculation of fitness activities is
| overwhelmingly positive. Their health benefits of
| exercise might as well be infinite. Even such a benign
| activity can be pathological though: accidents and
| lesions during training, anabolic steroid abuse, body
| image issues...
|
| The risk/benefit calculation of predatory gambling video
| games is overwhelmingly negative. It's really no big loss
| if they were to be outlawed straight up. We have much
| better games available for our enjoyment.
| viraptor wrote:
| There was a leaderboard posted in the local gym. It was
| for the most frequently coming members. Some of them
| regularly racked up >400 visits a year. I didn't even
| realise at the time that it was weird until a doctor
| mentioned that these are likely people with addiction or
| body image issues. I guess you can overdo anything.
| elif wrote:
| That's the important part. Not only are these games
| "designed for addiction," they are written as if someone
| opened up a psychology textbook on manipulation and
| implemented every chapter.
|
| It is human abuse.
| donatj wrote:
| > A hobby [...] doesn't push you to do [it] every day
|
| Look at organized sports, if you don't show up enough
| times, you don't get to play anymore.
| [deleted]
| jhrmnn wrote:
| Never thought of that, good point. I guess in the end if we
| wanted to find the boundary for harmful/tolerable
| addiction, we might not be able to find it, it's a
| continuous spectrum. I guess in the end _intent_ would need
| to decide the ethics--is the product designed to leverage
| addiction or is it designed to enable people to have fun,
| which might lead to addiction?
| donatj wrote:
| I think there is a very blurry line between non-chemical
| addiction and just liking something very much. Say a
| person spends thousands on audiophile equipment where the
| layman couldn't hear the difference, and often even a
| double blind of audiophiles can't, is that spending an
| addiction? Or do they just enjoy chasing that dragon?
| viraptor wrote:
| Isn't addiction diagnosis usually about "does this
| negatively impact your life and relationships"? Basically
| on the level of "would you get into risky debt or skip on
| necessities for yourself or family by buying more
| equipment? "
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Isn't addiction diagnosis usually about "does this
| negatively impact your life and relationships"?
|
| Yes. This is more or less standard criteria for
| diagnosing mental disorders.
|
| A. Persistent and recurrent problematic gambling behavior
| leading to clinically significant impairment or distress,
| as indicated by the individual exhibiting four (or more)
| of the following in a 12-month period:
|
| 1. Needs to gamble with increasing amounts of money in
| order to achieve the desired excitement.
|
| 2. Is restless or irritable when attempting to cut down
| or stop gambling.
|
| 3. Has made repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut
| back, or stop gambling.
|
| 4. Is often preoccupied with gambling (e.g., having
| persistent thoughts of reliving past gambling
| experiences, handicapping or planning the next venture,
| thinking of ways to get money with which to gamble).
|
| 5. Often gambles when feeling distressed (e.g., helpless,
| guilty, anxious, depressed).
|
| 6. After losing money gambling, often returns another day
| to get even ("chasing" one's losses).
|
| 7. Lies to conceal the extent of involvement with
| gambling.
|
| _8. Has jeopardized or lost a significant relationship,
| job, or educational or career opportunity because of
| gambling._
|
| 9. Relies on others to provide money to relieve desperate
| financial situations caused by gambling.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| There is a very blurry line between chemical addiction
| and non-chemical addiction
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is a good question.
|
| Golf seems very similar to me. There's the random element.
| A friend described it as a feeling of continual frustration
| followed by a high when he hits a good shot.
|
| You similarly can buy your way to 'success' with gadgets
| and training or investing more time.
|
| There's the community of similar addicts that gather
| together and provide a social element and re-inforce each
| others addiction. People's marriages suffer to the degree
| that there is a term "golf widow" for someone who's lost
| their partner to the game.
|
| But I can still see clear differences between golf clubs
| and casinos, and there's also similar differences between
| different mobile games. I feel it's worth delineating them,
| particularly as golf isn't constantly being replaced with a
| slightly modified version of golf that takes it 2% closer
| to being a Casino and casino's are heavily regulated for
| good reasons.
| elif wrote:
| Wait, what's the random element in golf? I play weekly
| and the only random element I can think of are maybe cars
| and animals distracting me?
|
| Golf is a game of 3D localization and mapping, wind
| analysis, projectile estimation, and fine-tune physique
| control...
|
| If you are treating those elements as "random" you are
| missing large aspects of the game.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It is about hitting a very small/light ball very far. It
| is about interaction with natural elements in real time
| (wind/grass etc). It may be physics but it is physics in
| the real non-vacuum world. Even a perfect robot could not
| place a golfball in the same spot repeatedly. That is the
| unescapable random element.
| elif wrote:
| i havent seen a robot capable of reading wind patterns
| from tree movement as well as humans.. again you are
| minimizing the deterministic factors where humans have a
| compelling advantage by over-essentializing perception
| beyond your personal capability as "random"
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Look to artillery, where billions are spent on robots
| throwing an object through the air as accurately as
| possible. Randomness is still there.
| elif wrote:
| you're just making the same argument with a different
| subject... the same "random" argument can be applied to
| home runs in baseball if you wanted. hopefully you can
| see the ridiculousness of that example... I've researched
| your artillery example enough to know that artillery fire
| is done with a human wind calculation based upon one
| direction of wind... not at all comparable to human eye
| perceiving strength of gusts, wind alleys, etc. based
| upon personal experience with a certain course... but i'm
| not really interested in 1000 red herring discussions.
| please stick to golf if you really care about this.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I'm obviously not a golfer, but here's a write up from
| someone who is, that explores the topic in depth:
|
| http://www.limitlessperformance.ca/blog/the-mental-
| patters-o...
|
| > But the most accurate and refreshing response received
| to this day has been... addictive! And if you think about
| it clearly, what better one-word description encompasses
| all that we know of this exhilarating sport known as
| Golf. There is no description more encompassing of a
| sport such as golf!
|
| > And this is best described by a psychological principle
| referred to as "intermittent reinforcement". Intermittent
| reinforcement is the formula foundation for all forms of
| addition. Take gambling with a slot machine as an
| example. You lose, lose, lose, lose and suddenly you win!
| And yet, despite the guaranteed repetitive loss and the
| incidental win, people love to play slot machines for
| hours. Why is intermittent reinforcement so powerful? In
| its simplest translation, the reinforcement pattern that
| blooms into addiction must entail of high levels of
| reward and amusement without the predictability factors
| which can trigger boredom. It"s the unpredictability of
| when the reward arrives that draws and engages people
| into the activity. The rewards that are distributed
| intermittently trigger and release significantly higher
| doses of a pleasure inducing hormone known as dopamine,
| than the same rewards distributed on a more consistent
| (predictable) basis.
|
| > Can you think of another activity that features in more
| intermittent reinforcement than golf? No matter what
| level of golf you are playing, it is guaranteed that you
| are going to hit more shots that feel miss-struck than
| well-struck. Some may argue that the pros hit the ball
| well on almost every shot, but on the contrary the better
| you are the higher the standard to what constitutes a
| shot that delivers maximum satisfaction and reward. To a
| highly skilled golfer, maximum satisfaction is gained
| through a perfectly struck and executed shot. While by
| the same token, for the double-bogey player, a drive that
| is struck decently and stays in the fairway is also a
| cause for celebration.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| The deflection point for me on Regulation is purchases vs
| loot boxes
|
| If the game is implimenting direct purchases, where you buy
| Item X for Y price then I feel regulation is unwarranted
| even in the context of harmful levels of purchasing
|
| However if the game is using a loot box system where the
| play buy a "chance" to "win" an item they desire, then I
| think that should be considered a "game of chance" like a
| lottery or slot machine, under which there should be some
| regulation to require the disclosure of odds, how many
| times their is a payout, etc etc etc
|
| Diablo seems to use a Loot Box system, not a direct pay
| system
| algorias wrote:
| To be fair, many such games _do_ disclose the odds.
|
| The difference to older tech like mechanical slot
| machines is that the game records everything the player
| does, and can then drop a "discounted" special offer at
| the right time to maximize the likelihood of keeping the
| player hooked.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| While some games do, the few that do those odds are not
| predominantly displayed nor they are externally validated
| as being accurate.
|
| There is also no disclosure as to if the odds are
| manipulated on a per player basis, which I believe there
| are a few patents related to changing the "drop" rate
| based on player behavior, this is similar and can be
| combined with your comment about monitoring to drop a
| discount at the right time
|
| In the context of Diablo, I can not find the Odds of
| their loot boxes anywhere published.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if these predatory games lowered
| the odds for big spenders in order to trick them into
| spending even more.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > so the question becomes whether people should be allowed
| to spend money any way they see fit
|
| You are allowed to be in any number of relashionships with
| other people, and some of them can be pretty weired.
|
| However when someone is manipulating you and pimping you
| out, thats different.
|
| You have the rirgt not to be stabbed, stolen from, or
| manipulated.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| > so the question becomes whether people should be allowed
| to spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending
| isn't great for themselves.
|
| This is an incredibly simplistic view of the problem, on
| multiple dimensions.
|
| On one dimension, a question of to what length should we
| give companies the right to harm people. Because if
| something is knowingly designed to take advantage of the
| study of psychology to hurt people then that's what this
| is.
|
| On another dimension, the person spending the money is
| typically hurting others (spouse, kids... business
| partners) at least as much, but frequently more, than they
| hurt themselves.
|
| Giving companies the freedom to do things like this takes
| away our freedom to live without others harming us. Its
| really hard to understand why this is even debatable.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I agree with you, but it's interesting that everything
| you say applies to the sugar industry, and that industry
| has harmed far more people (and our healthcare system).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Sugar taxes are a thing for this very reason:
|
| https://news.sky.com/story/sugar-tax-consumption-of-
| sugar-fr...
|
| It wasn't liked by the right-wing government, even though
| they implemented it in the first place. They financed a
| report that investigated it's effectiveness, and then
| tried to bury it because it showed it worked as intended.
| kergonath wrote:
| > It wasn't liked by the right-wing government, even
| though they implemented it in the first place.
|
| Quite the conundrum. On one hand, it's a neat tool for
| class warfare, an occasion to have a laugh about those
| bums who cannot control themselves, and drone on about
| Protestant values and work ethic. On the other hand, some
| chums would make less money, and we cannot have that.
| kergonath wrote:
| And it should be regulated as well, for the reasons you
| mention. At the very least a tax to partially offset its
| effects on public health.
| xenator wrote:
| When Facebook introduced games on their site I used to play
| one game. It was some stupid game with limited energy, but
| for me mechanics was pretty new. So I created Selenium bot
| that on schedule do some simple tasks. Since I was little
| addicted to game I created club and invite people to join it.
|
| And I shared my bot with them. Reaction was very negative.
| People blame me for "hacking" and ruining game.
|
| So I made my conclusion and never shared my bots
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I never shared or published my bot either. Gaming
| communities will never understand. They wouldn't even
| entertain the notion that anti-cheating software could have
| false positives.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| This picture is too black and white. I have no interest in EA
| games so I don't know if it appliesto them, but most "social"
| games make the bulk of their revenue from players paying
| small amounts every now and then, or ideally on a regular (a
| bit every events) shedule. The main target is not the whales,
| it's the sustainable long tail (though paying players stay a
| small minority, even 4~5% of hundreds of thousands of users
| is a big pool).
|
| This is basically the "recurring revenue" model, it's the
| monthly packages sold in Yostar or Mihoyo games.
|
| Sure, people who get easily caught in competitive schemes
| will have a hard time to stop, and will get caught in
| nightmarish situations. The same as people who can't stop
| drinking and become alchoholic over time. This is a nefarious
| effect that we should pay attention to, but a super small
| minority becoming alcoholics doesn't mean alcohol industry
| itself is a conspiracy to produce them. Moderate people
| exist. We should find ways to to protect the vulnerables, but
| it also means coming to terms with the nuances of the
| situation.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Do you have any data to support this assertion? It goes
| against everything I've ever read about how games like this
| make money.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I kinda find it surprising to assume a company like
| Mihoyo consistently makes record profits from just a few
| whales addicted to gambling. It litteraly makes no sense.
|
| I also don't see these companies disclose their revenue
| per user statistics, could you share some of what you
| read positing current gatcha games are sustained by
| whales ?
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| https://then24.com/2021/09/23/the-whales-from-the-app-
| store-...
|
| https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/report-whales-
| gobble-...
|
| https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/infographic-
| wha...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Thanks! To TLDR my answer, the first link gives
| interesting numbers but are very generic, and as the top
| gatcha devs won't give breakdown numbers of user spending
| patterns, in the end it doesn't tell that much more.
|
| I should disclaim I do play gatcha games on a somewhat
| regular basis (I need to know how they work for various
| reasons) and follow the different communities around.
|
| On the first link:
|
| > Whale game users: 1% of the players, generate 64% of
| the income spending 2,694 dollars per year. > Medium-high
| game users: 3% of the total, generate 20% of income
| spending 373 dollars a year. > Average game users: 2% of
| the total, generate 4% of income and spend $ 104 per
| year.
|
| First, that 1% of "whales" at 2,694$ per year is
| interesting, as it puts it around the 2,482$ said to be
| spent on entertainment on average in the US [0], which
| doesn't seem to be freakish in context.
|
| Then there's also no breakdown of social games and
| "normal" games, like Minecraft which for instance has
| monthly subscriptions for online services, and other
| games who have season passes or allow to buy in-game
| contents like songs, levels etc.).
|
| Sure social games must have a decent share, but right now
| for instance I see in my [edit to US ranking] Roblox,
| Apex, Pokemon Go in the free app ranking and they aren't
| gatcha. The above number must also including straight
| purchaseable games.
|
| It's interesting numbers, but don't tell us much about
| gacha games in particular (though the author has opinions
| on the subject, which I mostly agree with).
|
| The second link is from 2015, that's almost the beginning
| of the field, the candy crush days and developpers not
| understanding clearly what is ok and what is not. A lot
| has changed since.
|
| I don't have access to the third link, it asks me to pay
| to become premium (the irony), and it's also from 6 years
| ago...
|
| [0]
| https://www.thesimpledollar.com/banking/savings/a-look-
| at-th...
| ramshanker wrote:
| Same for me. 2015 or so. FarmVille addiction. Once I clicked
| 1200 times straight to farm/plaugh/seed, my fingers heart. So
| searched for a solution and found click recorders . Not
| exactly cheat but once I started using the auto click, I was
| out of addiction within a month and left game in Two month.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Awesome. In these cases, bots are not really cheating,
| they're legitimate self-defense against shitty repetitive
| addictive games. They are addiction prophylaxis and
| treatment.
| safety1st wrote:
| This is really insightful. Things in 2022 are so bad that
| the manufacturer of this addictive product is not only
| unregulated, but has actually banned the therapy in its
| ToS.
|
| (If you think about that a bit it follows that the
| smartest course of action is to break the ToS early and
| often!)
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Yeah. The thing about these little agreements is they're
| all about what's good for the company, never what's good
| for us. They are inherently abusive and it's in our best
| interests to subvert them as much as possible.
| yurishimo wrote:
| I think it's okay to label it as cheating and not feel
| like you're breaking some moral code. If the game is
| rigged, then the only way to win is to "cheat". When the
| hero in a story does it, we call them clever.
| azeirah wrote:
| > I managed to cure myself of this addiction by... cheating.
|
| Oh yeah that works so incredibly well! I get addicted to
| idle/tap/infinite progression types of games every now and
| then.
|
| At one point I got sick of it and I wrote a program that taps
| my phone with an axidraw robot. Seeing the progression happen
| without my own input totally broke the addictive cycle for
| me.
|
| And I got to play with the axidraw :D
| SapporoChris wrote:
| I'm sure you know there are other ways. Android phone
| emulator on a PC and scripting the mouse is one of the
| easiest. However I'm incredibly impressed that you used a
| software/hardware solution.
|
| Thank you for mentioning the hardware, I looked it up and
| it looks affordable and interesting.
| https://www.axidraw.com/
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > I managed to cure myself of this addiction by... cheating.
| I reverse engineered the game and wrote a bot for it. All
| those silly tasks were now getting done automatically, my
| progression was assured and the game's hold over me was
| destroyed.
|
| This is absolutely fascinating. It's something I kinda missed
| from Digital Vegan, thinking that extrication would be a
| matter only of self-mastery and access to good information
| rather than fighting back. Most people do not have that
| capability.
|
| But _fighting back_ is exactly what you 've done, and it's
| worked for you. I wrote earlier that the relationship between
| users and developers is increasingly an adversarial one [1].
| Things like "right to repair" have become an open battle
| between ecological common-sense and pure greed. Where your
| health, wealth and environment is under attack from rampant
| greed a legitimate (moral/ethical) response to hostile
| technology is obviously hacking back.
|
| But it's not a universalisable moral principle, unless we
| want a descent into chaos and digital "civil war". Therefore
| the proper solution is to start recognising what some of
| these companies are doing as _crimes_. You need the law on
| your side when you act in self-defence.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31626063
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| EFF calls this adversarial interoperability:
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-
| interopera...
|
| A digital civil war is preferable to surrendering to the
| designs of exploitative corporations. We _should_ fight
| back on principle. We _should_ block ads and tracking,
| scrape websites, reverse engineer private APIs, violate DRM
| technology, replace their proprietary apps with our own
| free software that we control, feed them false data to
| poison their data sets... We should do _everything_ we
| possibly can to defeat any attempt to exploit us. We don 't
| need their permission to do it either.
|
| Turning things into crimes is the corporation's game.
| They're the ones with billions of dollars and expensive
| lobbyists. We shouldn't be trying to beat them in this
| space. We need ubiquitous subversive technology that
| neutralizes their exploitation whether the laws allow it or
| not. It shouldn't matter whether it's legal or illegal. We
| need technology that makes it _impossible_ for them to
| exploit us in any way, and _we_ define what is and isn 't
| acceptable or exploitative.
| geysersam wrote:
| That sounds like an arms race that's both wasteful and
| difficult to win. Why should we not use the tools
| democracy provides to shape society? These corporations
| are not out to get us. They maximize profit constrained
| by the regulatory environment. We have to guide them, and
| channel their capacity for good.
| _jal wrote:
| > Why should we not use the tools democracy provides to
| shape society?
|
| Turns out that's also a Red Queen's race. And if you look
| at the lobbying costs vs. potential rewards, there's a
| lot of room for escalation in US politics.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > That sounds like an arms race that's both wasteful and
| difficult to win.
|
| It is.
|
| > Why should we not use the tools democracy provides to
| shape society?
|
| We should, if we can. I'm just not holding my breath.
|
| I think copyright should be abolished but the trillion
| dollar companies that depend on it will never allow that
| to happen. So we're better off _de facto_ abolishing it
| by making copyright unenforceable and eliminating
| consequences for copyright infringement.
|
| I think advertising should be illegal but companies like
| Google will never let that happen. So I use software like
| uBlock Origin to block ads whenever I can.
| sbarre wrote:
| >I think advertising should be illegal but companies like
| Google will never let that happen. So I use software like
| uBlock Origin to block ads whenever I can.
|
| Honest question (and I am not fan of advertising here and
| not trying to be an apologist)..
|
| What business model replaces it, in your mind?
|
| In the world that exists today, how do companies who
| provide free services online (including the creation of
| information) pay their staff and their operational costs,
| if not through being paid to display ads or sponsorships?
|
| Do all websites become subscriptions?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| The replacement is not another business model
| skohan wrote:
| I agree regulation is needed. I think these situations are
| also partially due to a failure of anti-trust. In many of
| these cases, there is insufficient competition for these
| companies to be forced to act in the user's best interest.
|
| Addictive products are another case where the user is
| unable to choose in favor of their own self-interest,
| because the product is exploiting weak points in human
| psychology.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It is an alcoholic leaping over the bar to start drinking
| directly from the tap. It is a violation of the rules and
| will get you banned, but it will not cure a true addiction.
| Some gamblers are addicted to the game, but some are
| actually addicted to the money they want to win from
| gambling. Gaining access to free ingame stuff by cheating
| might mitigate some harmful economic effects but it wont
| necessarily allow an addict to stop. Making the beer free
| might stop kids from thinking it cool. It wont stop someone
| actually addicted to beer.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Gaining access to free ingame stuff by cheating might
| mitigate some harmful economic effects but it wont
| necessarily allow an addict to stop.
|
| The free stuff exists to instill an habit in players.
| People literally force themselves to log into the game
| and do daily tasks because otherwise they're missing out
| on daily rewards.
|
| My bot completely nullified their little scheduled
| rewards design. I was now free to play the game whenever
| I actually felt like playing. Then I discovered I didn't
| actually feel like it, I was just going through the
| motions due to negative reinforcement.
|
| Don't underestimate the power of software. It can
| literally liberate us.
|
| > It is a violation of the rules and will get you banned
|
| Whatever. No big loss.
| q-big wrote:
| > Therefore the proper solution is to start recognising
| what some of these companies are doing as crimes. You need
| the law on your side when you act in self-defence.
|
| The only difference is _who_ does the _concrete fighting_ :
| you by yourself, or let the police and criminal prosecution
| do the fighting.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Good question. I'm not sure which would be faster and
| fairer. Police and courts have enough to do dealing with
| reality, without getting involved in our messy hacker
| games. So long as the law is clear, we should want people
| to help themselves first and foremost. The key is really
| dismantling protectionist laws that enable powerful
| aggressors, not arming the people with more protectors.
| On what the law cannot speak it should remain silent, and
| I do believe that vast tracts of so-called "cyber-law"
| are absolute rubbish - utterly unfair, bought by
| lobbyists and written by incompetents to defend the
| barons' castles. Take this down and let nature run its
| course to restore the proper balance.
| balaji1 wrote:
| It's similar to TAM of a customer's wallet within a game - how
| much max value a user is to the company. Like LTV, "max customer
| value".
| holoduke wrote:
| Lootbox games: I don't understand why these kind of games are not
| getting banned or heavily restricted. There is absolutely not a
| single positive thing about these games. Moral doesn't matter.
| snikeris wrote:
| If you walk around a low income area in the US, you'll find
| loot boxes littered on the ground. We call them scratch off
| tickets. Getting the okay from the government to prey on your
| fellow citizens has precedent here.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| It seems like the online discourse stalled out at, "Well
| Pokemon cards are legal, aren't lootboxes basically the same
| thing?". I have my own opinion on that but I never saw a
| consensus rebuttal form against that point.
| mywaifuismeta wrote:
| Add to that lotteries, or pretty much anything that has
| random outcomes. Even if you don't gamble with cash, but
| something like Pokemon cards or digital items, there will
| always be secondary markets that let you cash out. If you
| want to ban these things, you'd have to ban all randomness.
| InvOfSmallC wrote:
| Yes and no, they're collectibles and there is a market. So
| not exactly the same but I see the point in a way.
| matwood wrote:
| You mean pay for loot box games? I ask because Diablo is one of
| the original grind for random drop games. At its core, Diablo
| has always been a gambling game even before micro transactions.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Diablo was still enjoyable without the best stuff. And they
| never forced you to pay for anything to progress.
|
| Diablo III made it even easier to get all the set gear (I
| have several sets on Switch and I only play casually) and it
| became about designing builds around gear that could survive
| the highest torment difficulties.
|
| Other games like Borderlands with similar item systems also
| don't rely on the player getting the absolute best gear to
| progress either.
|
| These pay-to-play games on the other hand, force you to hand
| over cash to progress and the fun often stops if you try to
| play for free.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Yes, paying out of game currency for in game rng loot.
|
| It has always had the gambling element though. While doing
| Meph runs I came to the conclusion that I wasn't playing
| because I was having fun, I was playing for the thrill of the
| loot drop rng.
| [deleted]
| paradite wrote:
| China regulates lootbox games. Here's a Cambridge research
| article on the topic:
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioural-public-p...
| taurath wrote:
| Investors love the monetization model and they get to decide
| what is just right and moral in our system of economics. The
| "fiduciary duty" to investors means sociopathy is the only way
| that businesses are allowed to conduct themselves.
|
| If you can make money, you MUST make it.
|
| Someday I hope we find some way as a society to give value to
| other things. Its not really working out.
| tyrfing wrote:
| > The "fiduciary duty" to investors means sociopathy is the
| only way that businesses are allowed to conduct themselves.
|
| Larry Fink disagrees, and companies like Exxon have learned
| that not only is it not the only option, it's not an option
| at all. In fact, it's to the point that politicians like Mike
| Pence are talking about the big bad shareholders terrorizing
| companies.
|
| > If you can make money, you MUST make it.
|
| This is a common sentiment at all levels. Who wants to do
| good if they can make 3 times as much helping big tech sell
| ads?
| humbleMouse wrote:
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| > you MUST...
|
| Common myth but utterly false:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-
| co...
| 7sidedmarble wrote:
| There's a difference between what the law says they can and
| can't do, and what the forces of capital are set up to
| encourage them to do. The law may say you can't avoid
| costly waste disposal by dumping it into the rainforest,
| but the incentive (ie the profit motive) is there to skirt
| as close to breaking the law, and often blowing right past
| it.
|
| I mean I don't think I even need to give examples of
| corporations breaking the law because they thought they
| could get away with it. Corporations, like any group of
| people, can fail to see the big picture. Short term profits
| for the risk of a big slap on the wrist is a gamble a lot
| of companies take.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| > sociopathy is the only way that businesses are allowed to
| conduct themselves.
|
| It would be great if we could stop spreading this
| misunderstanding. Fiduciary duty is a duty not to
| deliberately destroy shareholder value. Basically you can't
| set it on fire or loot it. It is not and has never been a
| duty to do absolutely anything anyone can possibly conceive
| of that will enrich the shareholders. Leaders are free
| morally and legally free to consider intangible factors that
| bear on the long term health and viability of the company and
| indeed do so every day.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Correct. Actually, the directors and shareholders are both
| bound by the company constitution or charter, as well as
| the various agreements between them. None of these
| documents ever say "make money at any cost", and I suspect
| this whole fiduciary duty nonsense was pushed down from
| Wall Street, who of course stand to profit from the
| concept.
|
| You just got to look at a company like Boeing and how it
| changed over the years. The fiduciary duty of the directors
| didn't change; but the directors certainly did.
| [deleted]
| kybernetyk wrote:
| > It is not and has never been a duty to do absolutely
| anything anyone can possibly conceive of that will enrich
| the shareholders.
|
| This. Otherwise Apple and Disney would be forced to sell
| porn. But they don't because of their moral (one could
| argue prude) stance which makes less money for the
| investor.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| Both companies target demographics that would oppose
| that.
|
| Also the PR storm of such a reversal would significantly
| damage their stock prices. More importantly, stockholders
| suing either company to force them to reverse the policy
| would be an even bigger story.
|
| It's not a fiduciary responsibility to make as much money
| as possible, it's to maximize value for shareholders
| which means stock price rivals revenue.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > PR storm of such a reversal would significantly damage
| their stock prices.
|
| Like the PR storm from searching the customer's device
| for evidence of illegal material they could pass on to
| the police?
|
| > stockholders suing either company
|
| What would be the basis for the lawsuit, prudishness is
| not codified in law.
| taurath wrote:
| So then they exploit workers and customers because they
| choose to rather than being forced to, which sorta makes it
| worse.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Yep, definitely this.
| felipelemos wrote:
| They do because they enrich themselves, but not because
| of any 'duty' whatsoever.
| taurath wrote:
| End result is you still have a society run by sociopaths
| then.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Ye but you dont need to make up excuses for why poor
| sociopaths have no choice.
| paol wrote:
| They are: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/1/23149771/diablo-
| immortal-l...
|
| More countries need to adopt similar laws.
| MrOxiMoron wrote:
| it won't be available in the Netherlands or Belgium, because we
| have laws against them, now they just don't release the games
| here. I hope more of the EU will join us with similar laws so
| it will become impactful.
| pototo666 wrote:
| Not to defend lootbox game. But some positive thing: it makes
| some people's life less boring. Lootbox doesn't make games
| interesting. But lootbox generates money to hire good designer,
| programmer to create interesting games, at least for some
| players.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| A more cynical perspective is that the designer and
| programmer are tasked with using all tricks possible to
| coerce their players to pay money. While the players spend a
| lot of time and money on it, their life is only less boring
| akin to an addict's life being less boring when they're on a
| high.
| pawelmurias wrote:
| Actually it's the opposite, the mobiles games are less fun
| for playing because they are optimized for addiction rather
| than fun.
| pototo666 wrote:
| Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate addiction and
| fun.
|
| I am addicted to Dota2. Good game. I spent little money on
| it. I play for more than 3000 hours. I wish I didn't.
| bsnal wrote:
| It's your choice whether to install them or not. Let's stop
| treating people like children please.
| stavros wrote:
| If this were true, people wouldn't literally die of
| addiction. Addicts aren't reasonable adults, addiction is a
| condition.
| x3ro wrote:
| You mean like... all the actual... children who play these
| games? Should we stop treating those like children too?
| bsnal wrote:
| Children have parents who know what their children are
| doing online. In any case, children don't have access to
| credit cards or any other means to pay for in-game items.
| dymax78 wrote:
| There are plenty of children whose online behavior is
| oblivious to their parents, or they circumvent
| restrictions their parents placed.
| bsnal wrote:
| That seems like a problem with those parents, not
| blizzard or the government.
| fizzynut wrote:
| It's like selling cigarettes to children using
| manipulative marketing specifically aimed at children
| like cute characters on the box and blaming the parents.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Every single statement in this post is a lie, its a bit
| of an achievement
|
| 1 - some children have no parents
|
| 2 - we have data to prove that parents don't know what
| their children do online, and never did. This is a
| complete fabrication
|
| 3 - children do have access to creditcards, both legally
| from the age of 14 or 16 depending on jurisdiction, and
| illegally
|
| 4 - there are many non-credit-card ways of paying for
| ingame items, including crypto
|
| Anyway, given your views, I presume you are in favour of
| legalising cocaine and other drugs? Otherwise this whole
| line of argument would be hypocritical.
| bsnal wrote:
| Yes of course I am.
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| "The hope you feel when you are in love is not
| necessarily for anything in particular. Love brings
| something inside you to life. Perhaps it is just the full
| dimensionality of your own capacity to feel that
| returns." - Susan Griffin
| Ekaros wrote:
| True, why have drug restrictions anyway... Or many other
| things. Let adults be adults and have whatever they want.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Yes, but then we should stop socializing the costs of their
| actions.
| Fornax96 wrote:
| Welcome to Rapture
| richardfey wrote:
| Are other articles there paid advertorials? Like this one:
|
| - https://gamerant.com/diablo-immortal-new-players/ "Why Diablo
| Immortal Is The Best Franchise Jumping On Point"
| seattle_spring wrote:
| No? Longtime Diablo franchise fan here. Immortal has been a
| blast without spending any money at all.
| de6u99er wrote:
| [deleted]
| narrator wrote:
| Sometimes I see ads for mobile games and I get curious about
| them. Then I go to youtube and watch the playthrough videos and
| realize just how much of my life and money I could waste on what
| turns out to be 100s of hours of mostly random button mashing.
| The Kim Kardashian video game playthrough is a good one if you
| really want to dig deep into the depths of consumerist
| nihilism[1].
|
| Anyway, doing the playthrough, or watching a video game speed run
| is enough to spoil the whole game for me and make me not want to
| play it. Problem solved. Also, there's all the free to play
| retrogames out there which are great if you just have endless
| amounts of free time. I guess I just don't get gambling,
| especially when you can't actually win money.
|
| [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhizrsqMV8A&list=PL9aL0Ok5ss..
| .
| [deleted]
| elif wrote:
| It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to
| it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone
| decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably
| game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it
| certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually
| walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is
| sickening.
|
| The stance of NL and belgium of just banning all games that have
| gambling elements, is truly the only path forward. There will be
| no self-regulation. The studios have to be stopped from selling
| to care anymore.
| davidweatherall wrote:
| Gambling in the gaming world is even more prominent on Twitch
| and it's not even pretending to be gaming related anymore.
|
| An incognito screenshot of Twitch I captured just now
| https://i.imgur.com/fgXDAHB.png - The biggest streamer on the
| platform is currently streaming real money (crypto) online
| Slots gambling to 100k+ viewers, and a second streamer in the
| top 5 category is also streaming Slots.
|
| Supposedly these streamers make millions per month from these
| gaming sponsorships to pretend to lose their own money in order
| to convince their already primed audience to become addicts to
| these same sites.
|
| Children brought up on gaming have been conditioned into
| becoming the perfect audience for unregulated crypto gambling
| companies to advertise to and ruin their lives
| weberer wrote:
| I remember before 2005 or so, the term "gaming" was
| exclusively used by casinos. We've come full circle.
| balefrost wrote:
| Munecat made a pretty good video on this topic:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGfW5U7d8sc
| api wrote:
| My take on cryptocurrency has become: it's also all gambling,
| and for that reason I no longer think there is any chance of
| it going to zero. Absent regulation there is a simply massive
| market for gambling. It's shameless exploitation but people
| will do it (on both ends).
|
| Most of this stuff is actually worse than casinos. Casinos
| have a social component, employ people, and are often at
| least a little regulated so that the odds can't be absolutely
| 100% toward the house. Also you win actual money not a
| virtual game item.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >My take on cryptocurrency has become: it's also all
| gambling
|
| I have the same feeling towards the stock market. Sure, it
| can be well researched information on the stock in
| question, but it's all a bet your interpretation of that
| stock is right.
| Archelaos wrote:
| The difference is that the expectation value is positive.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Which one are saying then that the expectation is not
| positive?
| jules wrote:
| The stock market can be gambling, but if you put money in
| an index fund and don't look at it for 30 years, that's
| psychologically and financially very different from
| gambling.
| neogodless wrote:
| In other investments, you can pick an asset allocation,
| buy index funds of each asset, dollar cost over time,
| rebalance, invest over a long time.
|
| Maybe some of that is available now with crypto? Index
| funds? But with how heavily the bigger cryptocurrencies
| are price-correlated, I don't think you get good intra-
| asset diversification benefits.
|
| Personally within my asset allocation, crypto is a tiny
| fraction of a percent.
| api wrote:
| If you are doing much other than value investing long
| term you are gambling.
| skohan wrote:
| Long term, Casinos absolutely have odds slanted toward the
| house. With the exception of a very few games, like
| blackjack, which can be effectively gamed, a gambler will
| statistically be guaranteed to go broke as the number of
| games approaches infinity.
| sokoloff wrote:
| That's true of pit and slots games, but there are people
| who make a living playing poker in casinos. (It's a
| player-vs-player hosted game with the casino taking a
| rake or seat charge rather than a player-vs-house game.)
| paxys wrote:
| Some difference in the mechanics, but the overall concept
| is the same. An individual player might be able to win
| money in poker (with some combination of luck and skill),
| but a group of players will always lose to the house.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Poker isn't played as a group. The "overall concept" is
| whether an individual player can profit over the long
| run, and in poker but not (say) roulette, the answer is
| yes.
|
| Your approach reminded me of a joke:
|
| Three statisticians go deer hunting with bows and arrows.
| They spot a big buck and take aim. One shoots and his
| arrow flies off three meters to the right. The second
| shoots and his arrow flies off three meters to the left.
| The third statistician jumps up and down, yelling "We got
| him! We got him!"
| lupire wrote:
| Why aren't they pretending to _win_ money? Is losing money so
| attractive?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| RGamma wrote:
| I remember when we used to decry the "miniaturisation of addon
| content" with the DLC craze (instead of proper expansions) and
| then the preorder boni and season passes and what not (oh, the
| simple days).
|
| Turbo capitalistic exploitation of games is festering; and now
| it's more important than ever to support the good-spirited
| studios.
| Aerroon wrote:
| > _The stance of NL and belgium of just banning all games that
| have gambling elements, is truly the only path forward._
|
| It means that you, the user, don't get to play the games _you_
| want to play or it will have no effect. Publishers will figure
| out ways around it and you 're never going to stamp it out as
| long as there is demand for it.
|
| I don't like Diablo Immortal's monetization, so I don't play
| it. I suggest everyone else should do the exact same thing. If
| you're a parent then you should forbid your kid from playing
| games like that too.
|
| Getting lawmakers involved in regular video games is just going
| to end in disaster. They're not exactly known for making
| sensible laws or even understanding the subject matter.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Anti-gambling laws are not vidoe-game specific, at best they
| just have to be adjusted to cover them correctly. And these
| kind of laws are pretty obvious so I don't see why there
| shouldn't be sensible working laws. There are several reasons
| for such laws. First of all, not everyone is good at self-
| control. Then, there is the big problem of this kind of games
| making so much money, that the alternatives are dying out. In
| my eyes, mobile gaming already is pretty much dead. There is
| too much money being made by games which coerce the user into
| spending more money. This limits the choices and drives more
| people into these games, even if they have some resistance.
| DandyDev wrote:
| "Going to end in disaster" -> that's hyperbole
|
| The fact that the Belgian and Dutch governments label these
| predatory microtransaction schemes as gambling, shows that
| they understand the subject matter perfectly fine.
|
| Yes, you and I can sensibly choose not to play those games or
| spend money on them. But lots of people can't. That's why
| laws regulating gambling exist.
|
| Nobody is saying that you can't play these games. Those
| gaming companies just have to accept that their products are
| a form of gambling and will be regulated and taxed as such.
| Aerroon wrote:
| > _Nobody is saying that you can 't play these games._
|
| The Dutch and Belgian government quite literally are saying
| that you can't though. Of course, in practice it just means
| Dutch and Belgian players will pretend they're from another
| European country via VPN.
|
| > _Those gaming companies just have to accept that their
| products are a form of gambling and will be regulated and
| taxed as such._
|
| I'm not sure if you're saying this in bad faith, are
| ignorant of gambling laws or truly believe this. If you
| were to regulate video games with gambling laws then that
| video game ceases to exist.
|
| Nobody can afford to publish even a remotely complex game
| while following gambling regulations, because every single
| country makes their own rules on that. You would
| essentially be creating a game _for one country only_. And
| at that point why bother? Just push out another actual
| slotmachine. You cut development costs by multiple orders
| of magnitude and increase accessibility of the game.
|
| Of course, in practice the countries that regulate it would
| just be banned. And the players would play the game via
| VPN.
|
| Also, what I'm saying is that when dozens of countries come
| up with new rules some of them are going to do something
| stupid with them. You're asking for legally mandated region
| locks in gaming.
|
| Just to be clear, I don't like these games either. I _hate_
| that game companies do this.
| throwaway17_17 wrote:
| I truly do not mean this as a flippant response to your
| comment, but there is a very simple solution to the
| problem you are envisioning coming from these
| regulations. Developers could just make a game with no
| micro transactions. The only way your 'issues' exist, is
| if these games are only made to make money via the
| gambling mechanics that are being regulated. Want your
| game available everywhere ... just make a game that
| people can pay for and play.
| Aerroon wrote:
| I understand what you're saying, and I don't think it's a
| flippant answer at all, but that's only something the
| game developer can do. Ultimately, they're running a
| business and will make choices that make them money. If
| that means they don't publish their game at all in Europe
| or North America then that's what they're going to do.
| They won't be poorer for it, it'll be us, Europeans, who
| can't play their games (or we get to play some heavily
| Americanized version of the game, because that's the
| company that ends up publishing the game in Europe with
| lots of American changes).
|
| My problem with this is that ultimately it ends up
| limiting _my_ choices _because_ I happen to live in
| Europe. I can choose not to play games that I think are
| trying to take too much advantage of me (or complain
| about ones that try to), but it 's much more difficult to
| play a game that isn't permitted to be playable in my
| region.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is obviously not going to work. You'd have to be
| thoroughly conditioned against government intervention to
| even briefly entertain the notion that it might.
|
| "Well, if I just don't buy any drugs, that'll take care of
| the problem."
|
| Obviously, government interventions can have negative impacts
| (see drugs parallel again) but the answer is encouraging
| sensible regulation, not pretending, against all evidence,
| that it can't work.
| Aerroon wrote:
| What is "all the evidence that it can work"? Drugs are a
| perfect example where governments have spent _a century_
| destroying people 's lives with harebrained regulation. And
| yet all that it has done is empowered bloodthirsty cartels
| in developing countries. It hasn't improved the drug
| situation at all, regardless how much money we've poured
| into it.
|
| As far as I can tell, gambling laws don't stop gambling
| either. In fact, it's usually the government that's the
| biggest provider of gambling services (the lottery). It
| seems like it's more about eliminating competition than
| anything else.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| gonzo41 wrote:
| It's kind of sad really, because the generation that's talking
| about this here are the same the people that had the best, and
| least adulterated versions of gaming growing up. So the grew up
| and ruined games going forward by making them only about money.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Who did it? The gamers playing those games you just
| steamrolled, or the investors in the gaming companies that
| mandated to do whatever to make games more profitable? What
| generation those investors came from isn't relevant as these
| types of investors are in every generation as investors were
| not required to be gamers but just "savvy" business types.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Truthfully, its on the developers. Developer Talent could
| walk, but I suspect golden handcuffs and willful ignorance.
| mLuby wrote:
| I don't think _game_ developers have golden handcuffs.
| Quite the opposite is what I hear, that they 're often
| laid off after a game is released.
| EricMausler wrote:
| Nothing has really improved upon csgo skins either. People
| forget that csgo skins were _tradeable for currency_. Not a USD
| type currency without breaking terms, sure, but steam bucks
| have some liquidity.
|
| If I got lucky on a csgo case, _I could go buy a different
| video game_
|
| Now if I get lucky in most of these other models, _I can 't
| even use that luck to buy more cases_
| seventytwo wrote:
| > There will be no self-regulation.
|
| The idea of self-regulation is a lie told by corporations who
| don't want regulation.
|
| Corporations will do literally anything to maximize their
| profits.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Maximising profits is literally the entire goal of
| corporations. Why would that be surprising?
| sicp-enjoyer wrote:
| Video games are generally upheld as an example of good self
| regulation. In the US the ESRB review system was created
| entirely by the industry. It has universal adoption and is
| enforced by almost every retailer (despite being a diverse
| group). Futhermore the ESRB has much clearer standards than
| the equivalent for films.
|
| Is it impossible to imagine the industry creating a similar
| system around online transactions or gambling?
| mromanuk wrote:
| Goes deeper. Self-regulation is sold by hyper liberals and
| libertarians as the pinnacle of freedom in capitalism. From
| individuals to corporation, where any form of regulation or
| control should be excluded
| withinboredom wrote:
| Self-regulation lasts for half a generation, at most. Then
| people take over who wonder why they are doing the
| regulating in the first place and/or see how to game it for
| profit. I think it does work, just not for long enough to
| matter.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| They will just move on to countries with less regulation, which
| usually means poorer countries with less educated people. You
| can probably see where this is going.
|
| Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one
| appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time.
| skohan wrote:
| You don't think sparing hundreds of thousands of children
| from harm in the Netherlands accomplishes anything?
|
| Is it useless to ban children from using cocaine and rocket-
| propelled grenade launchers in the US just because they're
| not banned in Somalia?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| The Internet does make a country's regulations of such
| services weaker, yet does provide some barrier. Businesses
| will weigh the risks of being discovered and banned if they
| don't comply.
| jakogut wrote:
| Rocket propelled grenade launchers are federally legal [0]
| in the United States. Furthermore, there are no federal
| restrictions on children using legal firearms under adult
| supervision.
|
| I don't think it affects the point you're making, I just
| thought it might be interesting to share.
|
| [0] https://otbfirearms.com/airtronics-llc-rpg-live-dd-
| modernize...
| zamadatix wrote:
| > They will just move on to countries with less regulation
|
| If there is worthwhile money to be made they'll already be
| going to those countries regardless what countries with
| regulation do.
| leodriesch wrote:
| Maybe if it's just two countries right now, but if this ban
| would become EU wide gaming companies would have to care.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Why would they have to care?
|
| They could just block the EU region and publish to other
| countries instead. Plenty of games, especially from Asia,
| already block all EU countries from playing. Usually
| they're looking to sell a license or don't know how to
| enter the market. Nevertheless, they are absolutely willing
| to block the EU region.
|
| I see so many Europeans repeating the line that if Europe
| regulates X together, then companies will have to care,
| because they can't ignore the European market. This might
| be true in other industries, but it's not true in gaming. I
| would even say that it's more common for the European
| market to be treated as second class than not when it comes
| to online games.
| synu wrote:
| Isn't that mission accomplished from the EU perspective,
| though? Whether they don't care very much and left, or
| whether they care a lot and left, as long as the level of
| caring was sufficient that they were forced to take the
| gambling for kids stuff with them that seems like a win.
| The alternative is to not care at all and keep selling in
| the EU anyway even if it's made illegal, which seems
| unlikely at the level of scale it's happening today.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Because I like playing some of these games. I don't want
| to be stuck with the 5 games that are officially EU
| approved. Asking for this kind of regulation is basically
| asking for legally mandated region-locks for online
| games. It's back to being a second class player in
| another region, where technically you're not allowed to
| play via VPN and you might get randomly banned.
|
| Also, it's not about the children. Children don't make
| their own money - they only have money that parents give
| them. Even if these games banned children from playing
| them, a lot of the people complaining about it still
| wouldn't stop. The problem for them is that _they_ can 't
| make their friends stop playing these games, so they want
| the government to stop them instead.
|
| I don't like when games monetize stuff like Diablo
| Immortal does. I hate it. But I'm certain that when
| legislation does arrive it'll be broad enough that other
| stuff gets caught up in it and the people advocating for
| it will just shrug their shoulders and go "lol i didn't
| care about games anyway".
| synu wrote:
| If it went like how nicotine and cigarettes stopped being
| marketed to kids, I'd be ok with that. Adults did
| complain that their right to smoke candy flavored
| cigarettes was being taken away, or that kids don't have
| money for cigarettes anyway, but I think it was a net
| benefit. I do understand the point you're making though
| and bad regulation certainly exists.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Did it really stop, or did it just take another form?
| mejutoco wrote:
| > Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one
| appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time
|
| If the ban is easy to enforce I do not think this is true.
| IMO it is when the ban is next to impossible to enforce when
| the crime just shifts (drugs, for instance)
| swayvil wrote:
| It's a good point, but unpopular.
|
| It's obnoxious how unpopular points get censored around here.
| nanna wrote:
| > They will just move on to countries with less regulation
|
| This knee-jerk application of libertarian ideology makes even
| less sense in this situation than usual. The gaming industry
| is dependent on improving computer hardware hardware, in-game
| sales rely on consumers with at least a certain degree of
| expendable capital. The core markets will always be countries
| that are well off, companies cant 'just go elsewhere' without
| significantly sacrificing their potential income.
|
| Also you do realise that the wealth of a country does not
| correlate directly to it's levels of education?
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| So why don't cars and trucks still use leaded gasoline?
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| They do in many countries.
|
| Edit: Not any more. Even Algeria finally got their show
| together in 2021.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I don't understand this comment at all.
|
| > They will just move on to countries with less regulation,
| which usually means poorer countries with less educated
| people. You can probably see where this is going.
|
| Great - they've moved on from my country because of the ban.
|
| > Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one
| appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time.
|
| Just above you told me what it was accomplishing. And if it
| "just moves one appearance of [capitalism making it so that
| businesses have desirable incentives that would make them
| willing to literally instill gambling problems in children]
| out of sight for a period of time" then also GREAT! That's
| what the legislation was FOR.
|
| If the legislation stops working, we can discuss again then.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is a common trope. When you're arguing against
| something that is obviously good, there's not many avenues
| left, so you hit the same three again and again:
|
| * According to the perversity thesis, any purposive action
| to improve some feature of the political, social, or
| economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one
| wishes to remedy.
|
| * The futility thesis holds that attempts at social
| transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply
| fail to "make a dent."
|
| * Finally, the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost of the
| proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some
| previous, precious accomplishment.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| None of those apply here.
| jmuguy wrote:
| If you believe that, I have some leaded gasoline to sell you.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| at the airport?
| discardable_dan wrote:
| This is, honestly, why I'm focusing my children on Nintendo
| products. They do sometimes charge for skins, but by and large
| they don't succumb to the same "pay me to play" traps as other
| platforms.
| eknkc wrote:
| I have a Switch (got it when I had a surgery to ease the long
| recovery). The Nintendo IP is almost completely bullshit
| free. The success of Switch is nice too.
|
| FromSoftware is another bastion of hope. The popularity of
| Elden Ring is no coincidence.
| azalemeth wrote:
| Honestly, I shamelessly took a switch into hospital and it
| was an absolute god-send. I couldn't manage it while on a
| fentanyl infusion, but combined with the drugs it was
| perfect - episodic gameplay, pick up and put down, and a
| wonderful form of escapism. The Witcher and Skyrim come
| highly recommended, after BOTW.
| Foomf wrote:
| Why did you feel the need to justify your Switch purchase?
| Do people judge others over that sort of thing?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| this is gaming we're talking about: yes, of course.
| exdsq wrote:
| 100%, I'd do the same if I had children and honestly try to
| do the same for myself. It's the only console that keeps
| gaming simple and fun - no achievements, less cosmetic driven
| games, etc...
| aclelland wrote:
| Amazon Kids+ is also a really good option for younger kids.
| Got a large number of games for a few pounds a month.
|
| All the games are ad free and IAP free.
| chucknelson wrote:
| Yeah, we tried going to iPad for our kids but it's so full
| of free to play junk.
|
| Even with Amazon Kids, though, the games are still their
| free to play selves without purchases, so I still see these
| games where dopamine hits (get coins!) are a main mechanic
| :(
| mwarkentin wrote:
| Apple Arcade has a bunch of good games without any of
| this junk (there are some "+" versions of some of the f2p
| games like Jetpack Joyride but lots of other good stuff).
| Spoom wrote:
| Just be very careful in the third party realm of the store.
| There have been a lot more "free to play" games released
| recently on Switch.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Another really great service is XBox Gamepass - you pay a
| monthly fee and just get the games. There's occasionally DLC
| for something but not the voracious grubbiness of the free to
| play and mobile space.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| All you said is true, but they have gotten lazy and
| complacent these days. Not sure I would support them. They
| have become the Disney of video games. Family friendly, but
| at what cost?
| pid-1 wrote:
| Nintendo also went full cassino with their mobile games.
| Pokemon Go, Mario Kart Tour... Huge cash grabs.
| latexr wrote:
| Nintendo's mobile games aren't developed in-house[1]. Not
| that it excuses it[2], but it does create a clear line for
| your parent commenter: as long as the focus is on playing
| Nintendo games on Nintendo platforms, the plan makes
| sense[3].
|
| [1]: Niantic for Pokemon Go, DeNA for Mario Kart Tour.
|
| [2]: Nintendo is bound to have the final say.
|
| [3]: For now?
| vlunkr wrote:
| They tried a more traditional payment model with Super
| Mario Run and it didn't do well. Sadly I doubt they'll
| try again soon.
| weberer wrote:
| Yes, its unfortunate. But at least its just constrained to
| their mobile phone games for now.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Considering they began as a playing card company perhaps
| it's not so surprising.
| kibwen wrote:
| Not just any playing cards, but hanafuda cards, which
| fascinatingly evolved alongside government gambling
| crackdowns specifically to be resistant to gambling: _"
| Though they can still be used for gambling, its structure
| and design is less convenient than other decks such as
| Kabufuda."_
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanafuda#History
| ascar wrote:
| This effectively needs at least the same kind of regulation as
| Casinos. It's nothing else than gambling, arguably much worse
| and predatory in luring you in and making you spend money.
| tekbog wrote:
| I don't understand why people are still surprised about Blizzard
| shenanigans. The golden era was 20 years ago, let it go.
|
| Every new game from the last five years has been a disaster in
| one way or the other. They are even managing to slowly kill their
| never-ending holy cow: World of Warcraft.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| It is almost as if it was an offseason April's fools joke.
|
| It needs a review like this: https://youtu.be/GpdoBwezFVA
| swarnie wrote:
| Anyone who buys from EA/Blizz at this point should know what to
| expect and should be punished for their appalling life choices.
|
| Game company does something shitty > You all still buy it anyway
| like good little sheep > Repeat...
|
| Source: I had to credit card charge back sim city 5 in 2013 and
| never dealt with this joke company again.
| workingon wrote:
| Anyone play WOTV?
|
| It's a gacha that seems slightly less gacha then a lot of these.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Eh, whatever. It's not like it's an esport. Let the whales
| subsidize everyone else if they want
| gambiting wrote:
| The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy the
| game?
|
| As a different example - I'm sure it would cost tens of thousands
| of dollars to max out your characters and gear in Genshin Impact,
| but I've played very enjoyable 100h+ and it's perfectly fine even
| if you don't have the max ascended characters and gear, I have a
| feeling those are there basically for the wales to spend money on
| but aren't necessary for gameplay in any way(well maybe for some
| crazy hardcore end game content, but as always, that seems to be
| something 0.0001% of the playerbase enjoys).
|
| My point is - the game can still be enjoyable and worth playing
| even if you can't get the endgame gear. Is that the case here? I
| don't know.
| ValentinPearce wrote:
| A big part of Diablo (or at least of Diablo 3) once the story
| is finished is to go as far as possible in the post game
| features.
|
| Most people I know who have played Diablo would tell me their
| rift tier, paragon level (might be a different term in English
| but they play in french so that's the term I know).
|
| So for new players, it might not be that big of a deal, but for
| players wanting to play more Diablo the game is telling them to
| cough up as much as they can
| gambiting wrote:
| Well yes, the question is, when is a hardcore player going to
| run into this limit? After 20 hours? 50? 200? The further it
| is along the line, the fewer people it's going to affect. If
| you can have a great experience for the first 100 hours,
| that's still pretty good in my book.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| > The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy
| the game?
|
| It maybe not, the same way it's not necessary to own a yacht
| IRL to enjoy life, but why should we bring inequality in games
| as well?
|
| Multiplayer games are a meritocratic dream that is probably
| unattainable IRL, as only the most skilled (cheaters aside) get
| to the top of the scoreboard.
|
| It kills my fun to know that even this small haven of
| meritocracy is changing to become like the real world: the
| wealthy have better opportunities than I do, independently from
| skills or talent.
| gryn wrote:
| in this game ? absolutely game progress is limited by it. can't
| complete a quest if your combat rating is not high enough and
| the only way to improve it is to upgrade your items.
|
| how do you upgrade your items ? by upgrading their rank and the
| rank of the gems they have attached to them.
|
| so how do you do that ? well either directly pay money, or pay
| money for for stuff needed to to challenge elder rift so that
| you can drop the resources necessary. or if you really don't
| want to do that challenge the rift without the resources and
| have a really shitty drop rate of alternative resources that
| can be converted into runes that can be used to make said gems.
| that would mean that you needs months of repetitive farming.
|
| oh an the first fixes of the paid drug is handed to you for
| free so that you get a taste of how great of a drug it is. then
| once you're dry of it they'll keep giving it you at ever
| decreasing doses to keep you crazed for you fix until you crack
| and give in.
|
| my experiences with game is that it was enjoyable until lvl 35
| which you hit in 2 days of playing and just hit an impenetrable
| wall at lvl 42 where it meant full time grinding or paying in
| order for the story to progress at an acceptable pace.
|
| I'll just remove it from my phone or maybe play with reverse
| engineering it to see how hard it is to make a bot. (on the
| first day there was already one spamming chat)
| nickjj wrote:
| > The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy
| the game?
|
| Technically no but Diablo and ARPGs in general are all about
| items and for a very large class of players who enjoy this
| genre it's all about min / maxing your character, or at the
| very least getting improved items / skills / kill speed as you
| progress. Tying items into a cash shop in the way it's been
| done here feels really dirty, like it's going against the
| entire ethos of the genre.
|
| This is partly why Path of Exile has been wildly successful for
| almost 10 years (it's another ARPG). Their cash shop is focused
| on cosmetics and quality of life improvements. You can't just
| buy items or things that make your character more powerful.
|
| The only reason I bring up PoE is to demonstrate it's possible
| to create a long running profitable ARPG with cosmetic cash
| shop items in a free to play game. I do know things like stash
| tabs are borderline and debatably a kind of essential item but
| I'm ok with that, you can get very far without thinking about
| them and you purchase them once and you're good to go for
| years. It was also like $15 from what I remember, it's been a
| bunch of years since I played so I forgot. I do know I spent
| around $40-50 total on that game on various quality of life
| things and it felt like money well spent. I was happy to
| support GGG. In fact, I ran into a billing situation once and
| they gave me free coins to compensate a customer support pain
| point (which I didn't ask for) but I didn't want their work to
| go unpaid so I ended up purchasing more to match what they gave
| me.
|
| Not nickel and diming your customers and not preying on
| weakness goes a long ways for building up a loyal fanbase. I
| haven't played PoE in years but I feel like they won me over as
| a customer for life. I didn't think it was possible to ruin the
| Diablo franchise more than the original release of Diablo III
| but I think Diablo Immortal may have won in that department.
| lcw wrote:
| This take seems off to me specifically in you last paragraph.
| Whether it is MTX in the form of cosmetics or p2w mechanics
| both are predatory to people with addictions to games and
| kids.
|
| I feel like people are upset about p2w mechanics in the game
| but at the same time say "I'm fine with cosmetic mtx" which
| makes the whole argument read to me as you are upset that
| people want to use money to win and that means they shouldn't
| so you will virtue signal like I care about people spending
| $10k. If you as an individual don't like p2w that's fine. I
| get that, but let's stop acting like we care about the
| virtues of it when kids are spending $1k on worthless Marvel
| skins in Fortnite or Roblox and there is little uproar about
| it... We just don't like going into a game where a rich
| person can beat us, which is understandably frustrating. The
| other virtue outrageous is just disingenuous imho.
| badkitty wrote:
| pdimitar wrote:
| Your take is even more off since you didn't see the
| blindingly obvious difference: having a choice in your game
| progression.
|
| - Cosmetics are a choice. They don't affect your progress
| in any way.
|
| - Bought character power is not a choice. You can happily
| play X amount of hours but at one point you'll hit a brick
| wall you can't overcome without money. And no don't tell me
| that "eventually you will", because elementary psychology
| says people get discouraged and quit if their effort isn't
| rewarded until a certain time threshold. That time is much
| less than what a F2P will allow you.
|
| I don't know if you deliberately missed the point or you
| can't see something that's easy to notice.
| lcw wrote:
| What point are you making? I'm making a point that you
| can spend $100k on cosmetics in Roblox or Fortnite, and
| people do spend thousands of dollars over time almost
| unknowingly. I assume you would think this is bad right?
|
| If manipulative psychology is the issue at hand than
| quantitatively speaking if you spend 10k on cosmetics or
| 10k on p2w through manipulative psychology what is the
| ethical difference?
|
| If you think I'm arguing for a side you are mistaken. I
| just don't think people actually care about people who
| are victims of this. They just don't like p2w games, and
| that's fine. I'm just calling a spade a spade.
|
| Also I feel like you are going down a rabbit hole of
| being gated on a game from being top 10 on a leaderboard,
| because the story mode and making it to level 60 seem
| completely accessible with no money. This is kind of a
| crazy path to walk down especially for PC gamers, who
| seem to be the most outraged, where affluence is
| definitely an advantage even if the game isn't the one
| making the money off it. For instance, the difference
| between a refresh rate of 250hz vs 60hz on a competitive
| FPS game. Try and tell me there isn't an advantage
| between a $800 gaming rig vs a $10k gaming rig...
| pdimitar wrote:
| > _I assume you would think this is bad right?_
|
| Of course I agree with that. I was under the impression
| that we're not discussing whether addiction is bad --
| it's widely known that it is.
|
| I was arguing that "Minecraft and Roblox and millions of
| other games feed off the weak minds of virtual cosmetic
| addicts" does not at all make the pay-to-win model of
| other games okay. Because it did seem like you went off
| on a whataboutism road.
|
| That the world is screwed up doesn't mean we have to give
| up. We can try and improve little corners of it.
| lcw wrote:
| Yeah I feel you. I don't think I was whataboutism-ing.
| The parent comment said PoE is fine because it's just
| cosmetics in game that you can buy. I guess I should have
| said you could spend thousands of dollars on PoE on
| cosmetics, but I'm just stating that one isn't better
| than the other. The main topic to me is that people are
| saying they don't like p2w games, and it feels like a
| weak argument if you say you don't like manipulative
| psychology in MTX but you actually are fine with it in
| regard to cosmetics because it doesn't impact your
| experience.
|
| I just get this vibe that people don't think through
| their stance these days. They just want what they want,
| and use ethics to support their point when they don't
| really have a consistent sense of morality to speak of.
| nickjj wrote:
| > I just get this vibe that people don't think through
| their stance these days. They just want what they want,
| and use ethics to support their point when they don't
| really have a consistent sense of morality to speak of.
|
| I thought it through and my stance is I do think there's
| a very big difference between p2w and cosmetic only cash
| shops from a moral stand point in the context of Diablo
| Immortal and PoE.
|
| I never felt like PoE was trying to push me into buying
| something. The purchases I've made (0 cosmetic btw, it's
| been all quality of life things) were on my own terms, I
| didn't feel manipulated in the slightest. There was no
| gambling mechanic, it was a straight "I give them money
| and they give me stash tabs" transaction, there's no
| catch. I don't need to login every day to keep them, they
| exist until PoE decides not to run PoE anymore.
|
| The above is a lot different than Diablo Immortal trying
| its hardest to convince you to buy something because it
| directly alters the core mechanics of an ARPG which is to
| make your character stronger by trying to get you to
| purchase items that make your character stronger. The
| whole system is set up to make you constantly evaluate
| "well, should I grind this out 8 hours a day for 4 months
| or spend $50 to have it in a few days?", and it's
| painfully obvious.
|
| These elements are also pushed into the game's UI so it's
| in your face all the time. They also took it 1 step
| further and introduced a lot of randomness into your real
| money purchases and they self destruct if you stop
| logging into the game. I was trying to compare this to a
| "real life company" like a casino or car salesman but
| somehow even they seem better from a morality standpoint
| when compared directly to Diablo Immortal.
|
| So yes, in my mind there is a big morality difference
| between these 2 games in how they operate their cash
| shop. One of them feels like inconceivably high pressure
| sales tactics designed to maximize profits at no cost
| while the other feels like a game that does everything in
| its power to kill you with kindness by providing value
| through entertainment in the game so you end up making
| purchases because you like the game and want to support
| the developers, what you get out of that is more like
| warm fuzzies and some quality of life enhancements (or
| cosmetic things if that's what you like).
| pdimitar wrote:
| MTX are not inherently evil, for example I fully support
| one-time unlocks with MTX. It's a fair business model.
| (Although in these cases they might not be called MTX at
| all; probably "expansions" or "DLCs".)
|
| And the thing with cosmetics is that they're opt-in;
| whoever decides to never buy will also never be
| negatively affected -- which is not true for pay-to-win.
|
| I guess that's why there's this "evilest, eviler, evil
| and less evil" scale of game MTX.
|
| I personally would prefer all cosmetics be farmable but
| I'm okay with having those be also available for buying.
| jamespo wrote:
| You might not be negatively affected by not having
| cosmetics but evidently lots of players are.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| > The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy
| the game?
|
| Yes, at least in those types of games. Gear improvement is a
| big part of the game progression. Before microtransactions that
| just meant spending ungodly amounts of time in those games.
| Nowadays it means bankrupting yourself.
| gambiting wrote:
| But it still doesn't answer my question - obviously you have
| gear progression without spending any money, just like there
| is in Genshin Impact. So at what point do you reach a point
| where you literally can't enjoy the game any more without
| spending any money? Because if it's 100h+ like for me in
| Genshin, then I don't think there's any problem for 99.999%
| of players. Yes the option to spend money and get crazy high
| gear is there for the wales, but is the game itself enjoyable
| even if you don't do this? Because I know as a fact that
| Genshin is. Would love to know if the same applies to Diablo.
| gryn wrote:
| if doing the same exact rift over and over for weeks in
| order to unfreeze your game progress is something you find
| enjoyable then yes. but realistically I don't think there
| exist that much people who would enjoy this.
|
| oh and every 15 min or so you're spammed with a
| notification telling you take this one is lifetime
| opportunity to help if only for give them your credit card!
| if you don't hurry you'll miss out on this offer forever.
|
| I've played less than an hour of genshin so I can't compare
| it since I don't know much about it. but as someone who
| played other games where you might need to farm for better
| stuff, this is nothing like that.
| matwood wrote:
| > if doing the same exact rift over and over for weeks in
| order to unfreeze your game progress is something you
| find enjoyable then yes. but realistically I don't think
| there exist that much people who would enjoy this.
|
| It's been awhile since I played D3, but hasn't this been
| the model for years?
| fernandotakai wrote:
| i mean, that's d2 gameplay in a nutshell. i mean, cow
| farming, baal farming, diablo farming... if you played
| any diablo, you had to do the same content non stop to
| get better gear. and sometimes that means weeks of
| farming for a small upgrade.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I disagree, the most enjoyable experience in Diablo 2 is
| probably during lvl 25-40 (/99), roughly corresponding to the
| acts 4 and 5 of the story of the first difficulty level and
| the 2nd difficulty level (out of 3).
| havblue wrote:
| I gave up on plants versus zombies 2 quickly when it became
| obvious the game was just prompting me to spend money at every
| turn. Granted, some people say this was mitigated eventually.
|
| I think games where you have an option to pay for dlc at the
| start screen are fine. It's being constantly pressured that I
| consider to be a breach of trust.
| grayfaced wrote:
| Every game menu feels like a casino now. Even the ones with
| no microtransactions put the trapping of P2W in. Cluttered
| flashy menus. When you get a drop instead of just giving you
| the item, they give you a chest with an unskippable flashy
| animation when you open it. P2W Casino is a horrible art-
| style, I don't know why conventional games are copying it.
| I've refunded games on steam after just seeing the menu.
| havblue wrote:
| I think we just aren't the intended customer for a lot of
| games. I mean, the casino style is used because it works
| for casinos as well. I'd rather just drink while watching
| sports in the comfortable leather chairs than playing slots
| and waiting forever for a drink on the casino floor,
| personally.
|
| Which ones did you return? I think there are a decent
| number of single a developer games out there that have good
| progression systems. Hades, Dicey Dungeons, Golf Story...
| JonathanFly wrote:
| >I gave up on plants versus zombies 2 quickly when it became
| obvious the game was just prompting me to spend money at
| every turn. Granted, some people say this was mitigated
| eventually.
|
| The funny thing is the _unmitigated_ , most pay2win version
| of Plants Versus Zombies 2 - the game at launch - was
| accidentally one of the most amazing and intense gaming
| experiences for people who never spent anything. For people
| who just really enjoyed a vastly more challenging version of
| PvZ.
|
| I loved the first game but it was never a challenge, it was
| rare to fail a level more than once. But the levels in the
| second were passable if you spent zero premium currency (even
| not spending any of premium currency they gave you for free
| for logging in) - they were just very very challenging.
| Passing every single one required novel strategies and slowly
| revising, eking out a few more tiny edges each time you try,
| combined with absolute precision in execution, until somehow
| the level was passable.
|
| I'm not actually sure every single level was passable by not
| even spending the currency they gave you for free, I never
| quite finished it, but I got through most of them! When I
| logged in to finish the remaining levels later, they had made
| them all way easier in an effort to respond to p2w criticism
| so I never had a chance.
| havblue wrote:
| I think that's a testament to how micro transactions can
| ruin the balance of a game as you never know who the
| difficulty is designed for. With SMTV, Atlus added a dlc to
| make it easier to level your characters. So did they
| deliberately pad the leveling in order to make you buy this
| dlc? Or are you paying for an easy mode? Who knows.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Except they later screwed it up by adding plant and zombie
| level ups. And you can't even play the old version any more
| ! That's another issue with those "pay not to grind"
| games...
| luckluckgoosed wrote:
| I've played about 12 hours of Diablo Immortal. I haven't spent
| any money, but also haven't really looked into why I would want
| to do it. The game is already pretty easy, and I feel like
| spending for better gear would make it almost non-sense, where
| I can just stand around while my minions kill the enemies. If
| they wanted to encourage micro-transactions, they should have
| made it a lot more challenging, so that you'd actually you
| know, die sometimes.
| matwood wrote:
| I'm wondering the same. D3 was seasonal grinds, and this new
| game seems to capture the same season grind. So far at least,
| it looks like paying lessens the grind, but rift grinding is
| what Diablo has been about for years.
| Grollicus wrote:
| The worst thing (for me) about this is that whenever I go to the
| Apple App store I get bombarded will all these "games" that just
| try to make my life actively worse.
|
| I don't understand why they pollute their brand like that.
| Hermel wrote:
| That's the key!
|
| The Play Store and the App Store do not even have a search
| filter for games without in-app purchases. I'm sure that is on
| purpose.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| Usually paid games don't have in-app purchases. This site is
| also helpful: https://nobsgames.stavros.io/
| chii wrote:
| it would make sense to scrape the data, and create an
| alternative search engine with such filters imho...
| voganmother42 wrote:
| Apple arcade seems to fulfill this function ( albeit
| subscription cost instead of in app purchases )
| snikeris wrote:
| The trouble is that sometimes in-app purchases means the game
| is a demo, and you use the in app purchase to buy the full
| game. There are good games that follow this model that you'll
| miss out on if you filter out in app purchases.
| toxik wrote:
| Perhaps they would stop doing that if such a filter existed
| in the first place.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| Good point. I get upset with Hulu because they won't
| distinguish ad-supported titles in their apps.
| languageserver wrote:
| This is made by the company that gave us Warcraft III reforged.
| A money grab that made the game worse and ruined the already
| existing game. they have no goodwill.
| creakingstairs wrote:
| It was very surprising how bad reforged was when brood war
| remake was excellent. Even Diablo 2 remake was great.
| tomwilson wrote:
| It's a huge chunk of their "services revenue". It's their dirty
| little secret.
| Joeri wrote:
| Because of the money. Games account for approximately 70
| percent of the entire App Store's revenue, and 98 percent of
| in-app purchase revenue. Apple is not very motivated to stop
| these practices because it makes them many billions of dollars.
| [deleted]
| thejosh wrote:
| I really like the concept of
| [Playpass](https://play.google.com/intl/en_au/about/play-
| pass/), for Android, it gives you a tonne of really good games
| that aren't pay to win, have offline support and are fun. I
| don't really play many games anymore, especially on mobile, but
| I found a few when I went away on holiday and wanted to play a
| few games here and there when travelling.
| sbagel wrote:
| Loot boxes/gacha games are the modern day cigarettes. Harmful,
| addictive, marketed to minors and very lucrative. Rest of the
| world needs to catch up to Belgium and Netherlands in banning
| these.
| pototo666 wrote:
| As someone used to work for Chinese mobile game companies. $110k
| sounds average for a pay-to-win game. But the game is new.
| Designers would create other slots to make money.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| >average for a pay-to-win game
|
| What games are above this average?
| wincy wrote:
| I played a game called Kingdom Conquest then Kingdom Conquest
| 2 that I could see exceeding this. The game reset every few
| months and you'd have to spend the money all over again. I
| quit after my "kingdom" and all the other English speaking
| people got brutally subjugated by our Japanese counterparts.
| We just didn't spend nearly as much money as them and totally
| lost.
| mlindner wrote:
| They're incredibly popular in east asia in general. It's
| practically taken over the game markets over there.
| mlindner wrote:
| Why the downvotes?
| pototo666 wrote:
| Many mobile games made by Chinese, especially Net Ease, who
| also makes Diablo Immortal. Net Ease is notoriously good at
| sucking money from whales.
| phantomathkg wrote:
| At the end, it is a NetEase game with Diablo skin. So do expect
| it use all the horrible trick from China mobile game company.
| uejfiweun wrote:
| I put this game in the same category as Anthem, Fallout 76, and
| unfortunately many others. No fans wanted it, no developers
| wanted to make it, nobody cares about it. The only people excited
| about this are the executives who saw how much money other Mobile
| / Co-op Multiplayer / Arena shooter / Battle Royale / etc games
| were making, and are hopeful they can get a piece of the pie.
| This sort of thing never seems to end well for the game companies
| that push it.
|
| Sometimes though, companies seem to learn from their mistakes on
| these. EA went from a straight awful company to producing one of
| my favorite games, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, with no forced
| multiplayer, no microtransactions, no DLC, just a great game out
| of the box. So although Blizzard franchises are certainly hurting
| right now, sometimes the night is darkest just before the dawn,
| so to speak.
| [deleted]
| lithos wrote:
| Anthem would have been great if it was finished. Core movement
| systems were good, and theming of power armor was great.
| coolgoose wrote:
| This somehow makes me happy that it's banned in the Netherlands
| as gambling.
| rvba wrote:
| I wonder if there is some board / book where you can find those
| psychologists hired to milk money from whales. Nearly all those
| predatory companies have those desingers / psychologists who try
| to invent varioua tricks to get money from whales.
|
| Obviously they also need to make the game fun enough so new
| players come and are converted to whales.
|
| Are there any resources that show player churn?
|
| Blizzard allready has/had Hearthstone that was very expensive
| (500 dollars per quarter to have most cards), but Im not sure if
| this didnt kill the game for 'average' players.
| friendlypeg wrote:
| I have been playing and enjoying the game for the past few days.
| The P2W gem system can be ignore entirely by most players unless
| you want to become the best in leaderboard. Overall the
| monetization is on par with other mobile games. The only reason
| this gets so much attention is because Blizzard is a easy target
| to generate outrages and clicks these days.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Does it get ridiculously hard or monotonous without purchasing
| add ons?
| heretogetout wrote:
| Diablo is the king, or at least a well-placed prince, of
| monotonous gameplay.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| True, this seems to be Blizzard's thing. I also hated WoW
| for this reason, I played along with friends but it took me
| 3 years to teach level 60
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| WoW is _much_ worse than Diablo on that front...
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Is it though? Diablo 100% grind after the story (which
| can be completed in a few sittings).
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Are you saying that "pay not to grind" games should _not_ get
| negative attention ?
| friendlypeg wrote:
| It should, but the negative attention this game is getting is
| not proportional to the degree of awfulness of the
| monetisation. I am just jaded by the misinformation and
| double standard the Internet have these days, when you see
| some content creators even proclaiming this game the
| greediest game ever made! [0] which is objectively not true.
| Will these creators dare to critize other mobile games like
| Genshin Impact and Clash of Clans? No, because these games
| have ten times bigger fanbase than Diablo Immortal and
| Blizzard is a easy target.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6lAfEanRsQ
| xmprt wrote:
| I think the problem is that you've only been playing for a few
| days. Usually these kinds of games are actually fun for the
| first few days or weeks. It only gets back once you've already
| invested a lot of time and effort into the game and are hooked
| onto it.
|
| Of course you may have the self control to pull out when you
| notice it becoming less fun but that's not easy for everyone
| which is why this model is quite predatory.
| calibas wrote:
| > on par with other mobile games
|
| That bad, eh?
| Ruthalas wrote:
| Several of the reports I've read indicate some p2w mechanics
| don't even unlock until higher levels, and so are not
| immediately apparent. How far in are you?
| friendlypeg wrote:
| Granted I am 15 or so levels away from max level and haven't
| touched any endgame activities. Still I am not denying the
| game is not P2W.
| rng_civ wrote:
| If the game's endgame monetization issues are as bad as
| I've heard, then this is a classic example of luring
| players in and then suddenly smacking them with a paywall.
|
| Not to bash you in particular, but it always amazes me that
| people can judge a game's pacing and monetization without
| including the endgame (if it even had a start or middle in
| the first place; endgame can be a nebulous concept). As the
| game ages, that is what the majority of players will be
| doing for the majority of the time and that's where the
| game will reveal it's true colors.
|
| In my most recent memory, this happened with New World and
| its lack of endgame content at release. People defended the
| game as fun then most apparently quit in the levels 20-30
| range because they realized the game was nothing but the
| same anemic game loop.
|
| Now it's down from 900k peak players to 22k peak players,
| which may be a nice number for some games, but it is
| already deader than some older MMOs with no signs of player
| growth (according to Steam Charts).
| dt3ft wrote:
| ...aaand this is exactly why I refuse to "play" such "games".
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Honestly that's pretty cheap for a F2P game. The most financially
| successful F2P games will have planned for spend to 'go
| infinite'. This may be by setting up money fights on a ranked
| ladder, or constantly rotating out characters so that spenders
| have to reset progress.
|
| The fact that you can max out in Diablo Immortal, and so cheaply,
| shows Blizzard still hasn't learned what F2P is all about. They
| are listening too much to their Gamer customers who are a
| microscopic piece of their TAM and unlikely to source many
| whales. Whales are incredibly wealthy people for whom $110k is
| weekend fun money. Gamers are a cohort that like to brag about
| fun hours per dollar. They're budget customers.
|
| Blizzard thinks that you make console & PC games on mobile and
| you make mobile money. A lot of game companies from the before-
| mobile-times think this is a formula. And their customers egg
| them on. But if you build the mobile game those customers want,
| you will lose money at worst and leave money on the table at
| best. Talking 90% of the money still on the table.
|
| Blizzard's biggest problem is perhaps that their IP appeals only
| to Gamers, who as a culture resist F2P business models (budget
| customers.) This article is one such example, meant to stoke
| outrage within that group. The people who are going to spend
| $110k on Diablo Immortal don't read Gamer media, or even consider
| themselves Gamers. They've never been on Twitch and they don't
| have Steam accounts. Gamers think they are the center of the
| gaming universe but mobile gaming audiences have turned them into
| a niche audience in less than a decade.
|
| I think Blizzard should give up at this point and keep making
| games mech-aesthetically tailored for the budget Gamer audience.
| Blizzard and Gamers alike think WoW was a huge gaming phenomenon
| but on the mobile scale it registers somewhere around Subway
| Surfers. Blizzard IP does not splash with mobile audiences. When
| a Gamer brand enters the mobile market it's akin to releasing a
| video game movie in theaters. Diablo Immortal is a lot closer to
| Mario Bros Movie than Sonic Movie in that analogy.
| Ruthalas wrote:
| This comment makes me sad.
|
| Primarily because you are correct.
|
| I think a nice addition at the bottom would be the addendum,
| "if the goal is maximise profit at all costs and there is no
| regard for their customer-base beyond how effectively they can
| be exploited."
| friendlypeg wrote:
| They also have very tame monetization in their upcoming
| Warcraft mobile game when compared to the game it's cloning -
| Clash Royale. There are no loot boxes and you can buy character
| outright. Still the announcement was met with mixed reactions.
|
| Maybe Blizzard's reputation has been so tarnished that even
| that is not enough and they need to forgo any mechanism that
| can be remotely considered giving paying customer advantages.
|
| The thing is Activision has already successfully brought its
| flagship title Call of Duty to the mobile with only cosmetic
| store and making banks with it. So I disagree with you that
| Blizzard will be leaving money on the table by following that
| route.
|
| It would be interested to see how well Diablo Immortal is going
| to do considering how much bad press it gets. Like you said the
| mobile gaming population is so much bigger than the PC one, but
| I question if the former are really immune to the opinions from
| YouTuber, social media and word of mouth from their friends.
| calibas wrote:
| Being a heroin dealer is such a good business model. Give people
| a little bit for free until they get addicted, then you start
| gouging them.
|
| If that sounds appealing to you, but you're scared of getting
| arrested, you can just develop "free to play" games instead.
| supernes wrote:
| Fans have dubbed it "Diablo Immoral" and say that it goes far
| beyond what other mobile titles infamous for their monetization
| have done.
| elif wrote:
| Lost Ark was really the "we don't give a shit anymore" moment.
| Blizzard is just following up behind them with a bigger bag.
| FreezerburnV wrote:
| The funny part about that statement, is my understanding of
| the international release of Lost Ark is that it's actually a
| lot friendlier than the original Korean version. You should
| really look into how Asian MMOs (especially Korean ones, and
| I think I've heard Chinese ones can be pretty bad too) work
| with monetization. This stuff is hardly new, and what we see
| internationally is generally tame in comparison. I remember
| almost 2 decades ago playing an international version of a
| Korean MMO (Dungeon Fighter Online) that had blatant "Buy
| this loot box to get cosmetics which give large stat buffs".
| elif wrote:
| i spent $10k on a kickstarter game as far back as 2013, but
| i viewed it as an investment at the time. investing in the
| developers of the game being able to continue, as well as
| the assets maintained ~60-80% resale value for a time
| period. Sure it gave advantages in the game, but the game
| wasn't /designed/ around those advantages.
|
| I think the part that's a relatively recent phenomenon is
| that games are designed with "free play" as an afterthought
| or even the game designed to push you away from it, instead
| of "free play" being the main design focus.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| LA is a PC game, DI is a mobile game
|
| The standards for the two are quite different.
| tuvan wrote:
| It really doesnt. Fans are just upset the Diablo name was
| stained with this practice. You are looking at this level of
| spend required for pretty much any mobile gacha game
| jayd16 wrote:
| I would have thought so but it does seem to be on the worse
| end. Battle passes aren't even account wide. You need to buy
| per server.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > As of right now, F2P players cannot earn top-rated
| Legendary Games, which are only available via some of the
| game's monetization options,
|
| This was true for earlier games that have been burned to the
| ground at that point.
|
| From the arricle:
|
| > As of right now, F2P players cannot earn top-rated
| Legendary Games, which are only available via some of the
| game's monetization options
|
| Which of the current major mobile gacha games does have this
| kind of exclusive pay-only items mechanics ?
| tuvan wrote:
| Thats true. This is extra scummy. I was just talking about
| the cost to max out mobile gacha games.
| supernes wrote:
| It's not just the amount of money they try to get people to
| spend, it's some really obnoxious tactics, like NPCs telling
| you they "don't run a charity" (i.e. steering you into
| spending real money) and _paid_ bonuses that you lose if you
| don 't login daily (as opposed to free ones in most other
| games).
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Neither of those sound unique to Diablo Immortal. Several
| games employ the "purchase a daily bonus" mechanic. Diablo
| also has several free login bonuses, like the daily kills
| and the blue crest (which granted, is a way to push purple
| crests, but it's still a daily free item).
| [deleted]
| eterm wrote:
| And it's barely even a new game, an absolute ton of assets are
| immediately obvious as very lazily recycled from diablo 3.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| Reminds me of Bethesda's Blades, an even lazier p2w mobile
| title which reuses a lot of Skyrim assets. (Don't check it out,
| it's not worth your time.)
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