41–50 of 245 posts
One thing though is I've never saved more money than when I was playing WoW because I never went out. These newer games do seem to have a different financial model that exploits addiction in potentially a much more dangerous fashion.
I don't think I've ever thought of "addictive" as a positive attribute to a game. Reddit and HN are addictive, I want entertainment that I can leave when I want and that has depth.
I don't play games, but my roommate does for several hours every day. I asked him about it and he said he loves being immersed in it, and finds it much more engaging than other forms of entertainment, such as watching a movie. I wouldn't call him "addicted" though. We hang out all the time, and I never see the sort of desperation that the author describes. ... Are there specific genre's of games that have the sorts o…
Free-to-play games are the obvious example. MMORPGs are another, though I would say they are somewhat less sinister as — while they use many psychological tricks to keep players coming back — they are at the core generally an attempt to produce an interesting or enjoyable game world, which is generally not the primary goal in F2P games.
I feel one of the worst (or at least most interesting) offenders for gambling is Valve, through Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike. In those games people can buy "keys" to open randomly dropped "chests" which may or may not contain valuable items (valuable in the sense that they can be traded to other players for sometimes hundreds of dollars in Steambux). They are essentially running a lottery. I will concede that it's quite similar to Magic: The Gathering's business model (small chance to find something valuable!), but something about the exact implementation (perhaps the ease of trading and valuation of items, or the heavy use of Steambux which can only be redeemed in a Valve store?) Valve uses feels a bit more skeevy.
> "We need to reign this stuff in. Its not just psychological warfare, but warfare where you, the customer, are woefully outgunned, and losing. Some people are losing catastrophically." I strongly disagree with this statement. I am very aware of the psychology behind marketing and advertising, and anyone with half an interest in it has probably read Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders , which was released, oh, 58 y…
I'm also not buying that it's a slippery slope and banning, say, cross compiling profiles on customers from different, unrelated platforms would "take down the entirety of marketing and advertising as an industry".
In capitalism, companies will do everything within the legal framework to make more money. That's their job. Ours is to set and adjust those bounds to keep the whole system productive.
Any book recommendations? Sounds like this would be really interesting to read about
> "We need to reign this stuff in. Its not just psychological warfare, but warfare where you, the customer, are woefully outgunned, and losing. Some people are losing catastrophically." I strongly disagree with this statement. I am very aware of the psychology behind marketing and advertising, and anyone with half an interest in it has probably read Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders , which was released, oh, 58 y…
Individual freedom part of me would agree but in reality governments do this all the time and I can't say it's all bad either.
A good example is drug control - while it's currently taken to the extreme there's no doubt in my mind that fully legalizing drugs would lead to a more volatile society - even if drugs were legal they would still cost money, as would other basic necessities - and hard addicts aren't in any position to be productive. At best they will be a burden on their community. At worst they turn to crime. Not to mention the increased number of psychotic breakdowns.
I value a society which is based on individual freedom but I don't like the idea of living in a society where I have to be afraid of a junky robbing me if I step outside of my house or dying in a random guns blazing suicide shooter spree.
>but this shit has been around as long as humanity itself has existed
Interesting and somewhat obvious point that gets overlooked a lot. For example the "mainstream media conspiracy" argument (which is rather accepted considering how implausible the argument is on the grand scale) of dumbing down the population and intentionally shoving superficial crap/shocking stories as a part of some coordinated conspiracy to divert attention from "important issues".
I don't doubt that there is plenty of media manipulation from political and private circles - in the grand scheme of things a far more plausible explanation for the media we have is that they cater to their audience and know which buttons need to be pressed to get viewership. And their profit model is not aligned with quality content either.
A lot of people here seem to be missing the main point of this post. It's not about crowdfunding or advertising, it's about using hugely manipulative tactics within the games to get people to basically throw money at them. The reason they're called microtransactions is because they're small, usually priced at a point that's negligible. Using these tactics, they entice people to buy over and over again, each time the…
With gambling offline, well you have to leave your house, gonna dress up, and people will notice if you fuck up your life by gambling every day. Also, maximum losses per machine and hour are usually regulated and you can have yourself banned from gambling venues.
Online gambling - and online playing of the "free to play" or "pay to win" sort - however, does not offer any of these advantages. Instant pay-ins of five-figure sums (and instant pay-outs, publically shown)... or just the pleasure of 0wning an opponent because you paid for the "by-cash-only" battleship.
No limits at all, disgusting. And no one will see you going down and down, except the pizza delivery guy and the coroner when it's too late.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People know what pushes their buttons, too, and we have a name for it: interest. Not "manipulation". Certainly not "psychological warfare". So if people are interested in Ponzi schemes or magical remedies, the state should not interfere, right?
There's plenty of legal Ponzi and pyramid schemes out there right now. Amway and plenty of other multi-level marketing enterprises, for instance. As long as you're (sort of) honest about it, it isn't even fraudulent to run one. "Magical remedies". I assume you mean alternative medicine. Does this mean you're going to ban various herbs, or what?
A lot of people here seem to be missing the main point of this post. It's not about crowdfunding or advertising, it's about using hugely manipulative tactics within the games to get people to basically throw money at them. The reason they're called microtransactions is because they're small, usually priced at a point that's negligible. Using these tactics, they entice people to buy over and over again, each time the…
The problem is that there is nothing that can be done due to the fact that its all opt-in and is based on ( as the article points out ) psychology. Free to play has gamed the inherit structure of the world wide web.
> "We need to reign this stuff in. Its not just psychological warfare, but warfare where you, the customer, are woefully outgunned, and losing. Some people are losing catastrophically." I strongly disagree with this statement. I am very aware of the psychology behind marketing and advertising, and anyone with half an interest in it has probably read Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders , which was released, oh, 58 y…
> People know what pushes their buttons, too, and we have a name for it: interest. Not "manipulation". Certainly not "psychological warfare". So if people are interested in Ponzi schemes or magical remedies, the state should not interfere, right?
Game makers aim to addict you, but they don't lie and they do give you exactly what they say they will.