Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please stop us • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by triangleman » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:28 AM UTC

kozukumi wrote: post #26

Hmm this is a tough one. Firstly I should make it clear that my wife works in the games industry. She works on PC, Console and Mobile titles. She has mentioned several times how there is a lot of pressure put on developers and publishers to "catch the whales". They employ psychologists and gambling specialists to make games, mostly mobile but it is also creeping into PC and Console, super addictive. Personally I am o…

The original article is bad. It can be summed up in a key phrase the author used 3 times: Governments need to "save us from ourselves". I'm sorry but that's not the role of government. "Protect us from each other" as well as "provide us necessary public services" is closer to the actual design of government.

I wish that instead of running around screaming "think of the children", the author actually respected his audience and their very real free will, rather than just wave his hands, claiming that free will does not exist, except when we use our political will to save people from themselves, or something.

I wish the author addressed people like your wife, who is dealing with an ethical dilemma at work. These are the people who have the choice to stay or to leave their jobs--an incredibly hard choice for someone who has a family to think about.

Let me offer my respect to your wife who is dealing with this issue first-hand. Whatever choice she makes, it will not be without much anxiety and it will not take a small amount of courage.

There are other jobs out there, and I'm thankful that I live in a country where I have the freedom to choose where to work. Such a freedom--the expansion of my free will to include the needs of my conscience--was enabled by the work of men who came before me, men who used their free wills to establish a system that protects this freedom. I am grateful for this system, and I reject any attempts to pervert this system towards poorly conceived ends in the name of "saving me from myself".

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

#122

Post by ethbro » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:31 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #108

ethbro wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both the original article's and your points are valid. Especially when you start to see games/virtual items as a "thing" (which probably started with UO/WoW) as opposed to a "fake thing". That said, as a thought experiment, I disagree with the fact that government and regulation have no place in the way a society consumes things like this. If you accept that our knowledge of psychology, biochemistry, and neur…

> we're getting pretty damn good at it I'm not so sure. I play a video game, and invariably get bored to tears within 30 seconds or so. It might have something to do with when I was a student, I had a job that involved play testing video games. It's also true that my old game Empire was well known to be addictive. I'd play it myself, but would rarely get too far into a game before I'd go back to tweaking the AI, whic…

Ironic username, given the conversation topic. ;)

While yours may be a true experience: statistics. I'm not sure a personal experience poll on an entrepreneurial technology news site is the best place for a representative sample of people with low willpower. And social psych findings have born out that are a lot of easily manipulated levers to reliably influence people's behavior in an intentional way.

To me, it's not about the people with Fort Knox reserves of willpower. Say instead I'm born into the genetic/epigenetic/life lottery with a crappy ticket, what's fair? (And if you don't agree that that's possible, try volunteering at your local homeless shelter a few times)

Is it fair that everyone else gets to leverage my vices to transfer my wealth and the profits of my work to themselves? Or is there something morally not right about that scenario?

I agree it's easy to go overboard with regulation, but just because it's possible to addict babies to cocaine in utero doesn't mean that's the society we should build.

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

#123

Post by mcphage » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:33 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #112

bduerst wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not putting money into his hobby. If you buy $30k worth of golf clubs, you have $30k worth of golf clubs. If you put $30k into a kickstarter project for some digital assets exclusively in a piece of software that isn't even written yet, you don't own that. That's not putting $30k into a hobby, but giving $30k to someone without even a contractual obligation for delivery. It's exactly why the SEC won't let non-a…

There is at least an implied contract on Kickstarter. They say as much in their TOS: https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4

Star Citizen isn't through Kickstarter, though. At this point it's through themselves.

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

#124

Post by vezzy-fnord » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:34 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #117

moonchrome wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some people have better impulse control than others; it's not the state's job to regulate the impulses of their populaces, or regulate systems that know how to manipulate them. 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 l…

I'm amazed you're the first (or highest rated) one to mention addictive drug control. It's a pretty clear analogy. And I think the point is more directly made by the effect on the individual themselves. The reason unreasonably addictive drugs should be illegal isn't to save me the safety issues of addicts: it's the respect the addict's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - qualities which are substan…

Nothing like respecting individual rights by bringing the wrath of the criminal justice system on anyone who dares exercise their right to self-ownership by altering their state of consciousness.

The purpose of a drug policy is not to reduce consumption rates. Consumption is not intrinsically bad. My use of the dangerous and potent drug known as theobromine (translation: I eat chocolate) is not itself the problem. A higher rate of consumption of pure and unadulterated drugs with active health and rehabilitation initiatives is preferable to lower consumption but with autistically intervening in people's self-ownership through use of the police and penal apparatus, disincentivizing health treatment as a result, bringing about organized crime and making addiction more dangerous because of tainted drugs that are peddled by unreliable black marketeers.

Paternalistic and destructive nonsense through and through.

(You did say illegal, not criminalized. Latter would be more humane in being a fine, but still unacceptable.)

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

#125

Post by wildmusings » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:34 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #105

nostromo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at someone who spent $30k on ships in Star Citizen. http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-a-fan-who-has-spent-30000-on-sta... He seems like a reasonable person to me. He's not in financial ruin. He doesn't seem to regret his purchase. He's just putting money into his hobby, the same way a different 40 year old would buy an "unproductive" boat or an "unproductive" Rolex.

He is not putting money into his hobby. If you buy $30k worth of golf clubs, you have $30k worth of golf clubs. If you put $30k into a kickstarter project for some digital assets exclusively in a piece of software that isn't even written yet, you don't own that. That's not putting $30k into a hobby, but giving $30k to someone without even a contractual obligation for delivery. It's exactly why the SEC won't let non-a…

If I want to spend $100,000 on ephemeral virtual items in a video game that might never actually be released, that's my problem, not the government's. I'm the one that earned the money, so I'm the one that decides how to spend it. It's totally inappropriate for the government to insert itself between two informed and consenting parties.

A paternalist government is not compatible with a free society.

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

#126

Post by mikeash » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #115

mikeash wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean the fundamental problem is the inability to resell in-game purchases?

That, and if the game closes up for whatever reason (no longer making money, whatever), all of your investment into it can quickly vanish into literally nothing.

If you crash your uninsured Harley it's no different.

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

#127

Post by vinceguidry » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

Retra wrote: post #104

vinceguidry wrote: post #56

Look, this is just commerce at work. People are going to use whatever edge they can get to make more money. These edges only go so far. If you think the only reason Game of War is popular because of the million dollar ads, then why isn't every single product, everywhere using these ads? These games fulfill more than just some need to mindlessly click on shit. Just because doesn't do anything for you, that doesn't mak…

>Look, this is just commerce at work. And? Oil drilling and pharmaceutical production is just commerce at work. As is child labor, sex trafficking, drug trade, and slavery.

So they are. Are you really equating them?

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

#128

Post by njharman » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:43 AM UTC

> have an incredibly fine tuned and skillful marketing department bent on psychological manipulation.

This.

This is not specific to games industry. In fact they are rather late bloomers and amateurish. This is consumerism. This is production driven economy (in which goods are produced and post facto demand is manufactured). This is inevitable in any market with unequal ownership of resources (that is any market system were it's possible to profit or "get ahead", i.e. all of them).

All advertising is this. Almost all marketing is this. It only varies in it's sophistication and subtleness.

I can not fathom why people watch commercials, don't ad block, read advertising based periodicals, go to shopping centers, etc. Why people willingly participate in being psychologically manipulated into beliefs, decisions, and actions.

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

#129

Post by falcor84 » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

I wonder how i is that South Park did a great episode[0] on this subject of addiction to freemium games, and neither the post nor anyone in over 100 episodes mentioned this. Is South Park completely passé?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium_Isn%27t_Free

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

#130

Post by njharman » Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

chiaro wrote: post #54

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…

It's strange to me that a group of people that is sometimes stereotyped as being too preoccupied with logical fallacies will still invoke slippery slopes. Making good decisions now does not remove our capability to make good decisions in the future. Nor is it particularly reasonable to draw parallels between "don't fake users to befriend key targets" and "we may as well ban alcohol". The status quo isn't as black and…

It's strange to me that anyone believes humans are rational and that logic can be applied to their behavior. Esp in the face of innumerable studies showing that we are exceptionally irrational. It simply is not logical.