Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

positech.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 245 posts

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#81

Post by adrtessier »

peterashford wrote: post #75
mikeash wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no fan of these games, but is it fundamentally different from, say, Harley-Davidson?

Yes. When HD advertises to you, you buy a bike and you're done. And you have an actual, existent bike. And you could sell it later should you feel like you made a mistake. With whales, they spend and spend and spend - way more than a Harley costs them. And what do they end up with? Sweet FA.

I don't think that is his point; that's not what Harley does, at all.

H-D markets themselves as a "lifestyle brand". You don't just buy a motorcycle and you're done. You are aggressively marketed toward for a bunch of different pieces of clothing, spare parts, co-branded partnerships with automobile companies, et cetera, ad nauseum. You are effectively buying into a subculture.

Furthermore, Harley-Davidson has been known to use almost identical sales tactics. IIRC and I can't find it now, but sometime last year a sales guidelines book was leaked that actually did things like put attractive models at gas stations to tell the prospective buyer "nice bike" or the like on their test rides.

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#82

Post by npunt »

morgante wrote: post #50
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #32

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 a massive difference between fraud (promising impossible returns or cures) and advertising. Game makers aim to addict you, but they don't lie and they do give you exactly what they say they will.

What part of making a fraudulent Facebook account and friending users to get their information isn't fraud?

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#83

Post by xtian »

petke wrote: post #69

I think there would be a better case for regulating in game purchases. Some kind of limit, or a at least a warning at the beginning so people know what they are in for. "This game contains purchasable items. You may spend more than 10 000 dollars in this game." Marketing on the other hand is a different story. We cant really ban that.

> We cant really ban that.

Why not?

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#84

Post by vezzy-fnord »

rayiner wrote: post #77
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's no doubt in my mind that fully legalizing drugs would lead to a more volatile society Many hard drugs (including cocaine and heroin) were legal in the United States prior to the 1920s. To the best of my knowledge, there was no massive social breakdown as a result. The ultimate irony is that a major motivation for the criminalization of cocaine was, for poor rural whites, a fear that drugged up blacks would st…

The united States was very violent in the early 20th century and many blamed cocaine.

It certainly was a tumultuous period, but what reliable evidence is there of cocaine being a major causal factor? The USA was plagued by lots of labor-related violence, race rioting and organized crime (peaking during Prohibition, of course), but was cocaine ever anything more than a scapegoat?

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#85

Post by mentat »

adrtessier wrote: post #81
peterashford wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. When HD advertises to you, you buy a bike and you're done. And you have an actual, existent bike. And you could sell it later should you feel like you made a mistake. With whales, they spend and spend and spend - way more than a Harley costs them. And what do they end up with? Sweet FA.

I don't think that is his point; that's not what Harley does, at all. H-D markets themselves as a "lifestyle brand". You don't just buy a motorcycle and you're done. You are aggressively marketed toward for a bunch of different pieces of clothing, spare parts, co-branded partnerships with automobile companies, et cetera, ad nauseum. You are effectively buying into a subculture. Furthermore, Harley-Davidson has been k…

You make a good point, identity based marketing is, I think, fundamentally manipulative, whether the purchased product is physical or not. The "problem" is that it's just so damn effective. There's a void for identity sources (which one might claim was caused on purpose) and so anything that fits will be used to fill it. Then it's just a matter of effective propagation.

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#86

Post by [deleted] »

adrtessier wrote: post #68
guntars wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in your opinion there's nothing a gaming or marketing company can do that's legal now, but really shouldn't be? 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.…

I don't believe that the original author is making the argument that "marketers sometimes do shady things with data." From its title and lede to the end, I read it as "some of these games are manipulative and use manipulative tactics and mechanics to suck money out of people, sometimes to their own demise. The government needs to regulate this industry to protect people from themselves and ban these mechanics." This…

[deleted]

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#87

Post by ajuc »

adrtessier wrote: post #12

> "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…

When a new addictive thing happens - people aren't adapted to it at first. Both individuals, and whole civilizations have to learn how to use the thing responsibly. Sometimes state control may help to limit the damage until natural adaptation occurs.

As time pass, people learn to use the thing without too much harm, and then it may be OK to lift the ban: completely, or for adults only (like with alcohol - notice that it's still controlled, just not outright forbidden for everybody).

There's no reason we have to think in absolutes ("state control in one case was bad = all state control is bad", or "particular measure of state control was bad at one point, therefore it was bad since the beggining and will be bad forever"). It's possible that a good policy in one circumstances became bad policy later. I think war on drugs is the example of this. And consider the harm strong alcohol did among native Americans when it was introduced. I think prohibition for a few decades would be net positive for them, if they could enforce it.

Slippery slope arguments are tricky, they often lead you to overgeneralize.

As for particulary addictive games (like ogame etc) - I think it would be beneficial if they were regulated similary to gambling. I am open to arguments.

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#88

Post by wpietri »

adrtessier wrote: post #12

> "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…

You should probably work out your contradictions before you froth like this. Consider:

> necessary for the vast majority of the citizenry to even know what is out there to purchase

and

> I block ads everywhere

So you are stumbling around unable to buy things you need, totally uninformed about what products and services are available? Poor kid. Want me to bring you a sandwich? If only you had access to some sort of information network that contained the collective opinions of a large and growing portion of humanity.

If we gradually banned advertising, nothing particularly bad would happen. Advertising is an arms race; most of it is done only because competitors do it too. We'd still find things to buy, and we might do it more easily if we weren't distracted by paid messages. As a bonus, we'd have half a trillion dollars of people's time and brainpower to spend on something that mattered.

Re: Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us

#90

Post by morgante »

npunt wrote: post #82
morgante wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a massive difference between fraud (promising impossible returns or cures) and advertising. Game makers aim to addict you, but they don't lie and they do give you exactly what they say they will.

What part of making a fraudulent Facebook account and friending users to get their information isn't fraud?

That's hearsay and I highly doubt it happens on an institutional scale.
Post reply on HN