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It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

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Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#181

Post by matheusmoreira »

iancmceachern wrote: post #172
matheusmoreira wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cau…

Just like much of social media

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.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#183

Post by bootloop »

still_grokking wrote: post #164
bitwize wrote: post #97

What? Do you guys not have $110,000?

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.

True, but this in particular is a reference: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/do-you-guys-not-have-phones

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#184

Post by moomin »

tjpnz wrote: post #21
AdvicePlz wrote: post #3

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.

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.

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.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#185

Post by makeitdouble »

tuvan wrote: post #163
supernes wrote: post #16

Fans have dubbed it "Diablo Immoral" and say that it goes far beyond what other mobile titles infamous for their monetization have done.

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

> 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 ?

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#186

Post by nonrandomstring »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #68
AdvicePlz wrote: post #3

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.

> 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…

> 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

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#187

Post by havblue »

gambiting wrote: post #54

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 necessar…

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.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#188

Post by saiya-jin »

bsnal wrote: post #77
tjpnz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s not a problem since children don’t have access to credit cards or any other means to pay for in-game items.

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

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#189

Post by rvba »

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.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#190

Post by diffeomorphism »

taurath wrote: post #45
holoduke wrote: post #4

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.

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.

> you MUST...

Common myth but utterly false:

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

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