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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.
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The last person who made this kind of argument to me was a gambling addict who had gotten into day trading.
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.
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.
It’s your choice whether to install them or not. Let’s stop treating people like children please.
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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 play…
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 à 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 y…
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.
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.
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
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.
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It depends on the timeframe obviously, but $10k is hardly cheap.
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.
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.
We've passed some really unhealthy point in game development with this bonus money making...
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> 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.
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 the…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax#United_King...
This might not quite meet your threshold, but it's probably close. More regulation around sugar is definitely around the corner.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 the…
> 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 bra…
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.