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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

#281

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

matwood wrote: post #252
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.

You mean pay for loot box games? I ask because Diablo is one of the original grind for random drop games. At its core, Diablo has always been a gambling game even before micro transactions.

Yes, paying out of game currency for in game rng loot.

It has always had the gambling element though. While doing Meph runs I came to the conclusion that I wasn't playing because I was having fun, I was playing for the thrill of the loot drop rng.

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

#282

Post by skohan »

curiousgal wrote: post #279
skohan wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be the greatest evil on earth, but knowingly preying on vulnerable people in society, and causing harm for your own benefit, to me is sickening and evil.

That's the thing though, vulnerable people in society don't have access to $110k.

But it’s not just harming people who spend $110k. All sorts of people will end up spending money they shouldn’t because they’ve been trapped by an addictive product.

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

#283

Post by kareemm »

curiousgal wrote: post #279
skohan wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be the greatest evil on earth, but knowingly preying on vulnerable people in society, and causing harm for your own benefit, to me is sickening and evil.

That's the thing though, vulnerable people in society don't have access to $110k.

We’re talking about addiction. Last I checked addiction doesn’t discriminate based on socioeconomic status.

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

#284

Post by dmix »

Beltalowda wrote: post #267
lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

> It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds and thousands of dollars". What makes you say that? I mostly play single-player games where I just buy a game and then play it. There are loads of those out there, with more released every week. Even with my underpowered Linux laptop I have plenty to choose from.

Diablo 4 will probably just be a normal PC game too. Those freemium mobile games are always scammy but that doesn't mean there aren't endless classic business model games.

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

#285

Post by seventytwo »

j_4 wrote: post #47
jiggawatts wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen similar comments by several game devs, but at least some of them said that they make most of their money from the kids of the ultra-wealthy. Think of some oil Sheik's son bored to death at home because it's too hot to go outside. But yeah, the "loot boxes" that are mostly gambling have been banned in many countries because they're targeted at young children.

To me this "ultra-wealthy" thing has always sounded like a convenient lie whale-game devs tell themselves to sleep soundly at night. These dark pattern black holes are made purely to form an addiction and turn it into profit, they don't care about who's on the receiving end. There's an increasing number of players who expect that either a) a game will take unlimited money and feed them dopamines in return, or b) they…

Totally agree. I’d love to see any hard data for that claim.

Does the same pattern hold true for casinos? Or are the bulk of the profits coming from the poor SOBs who blow every paycheck there?

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

#286

Post by ClumsyPilot »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #146
kybernetyk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not and has never been a duty to do absolutely anything anyone can possibly conceive of that will enrich the shareholders. This. Otherwise Apple and Disney would be forced to sell porn. But they don't because of their moral (one could argue prude) stance which makes less money for the investor.

Both companies target demographics that would oppose that. Also the PR storm of such a reversal would significantly damage their stock prices. More importantly, stockholders suing either company to force them to reverse the policy would be an even bigger story. It's not a fiduciary responsibility to make as much money as possible, it's to maximize value for shareholders which means stock price rivals revenue.

> PR storm of such a reversal would significantly damage their stock prices.

Like the PR storm from searching the customer's device for evidence of illegal material they could pass on to the police?

> stockholders suing either company

What would be the basis for the lawsuit, prudishness is not codified in law.

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

#287

Post by horsawlarway »

eurasiantiger wrote: post #229
elif wrote: post #212

It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is sickening. The stance of NL and belgium of jus…

They will just move on to countries with less regulation, which usually means poorer countries with less educated people. You can probably see where this is going. Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time.

I don't understand this comment at all.

> They will just move on to countries with less regulation, which usually means poorer countries with less educated people. You can probably see where this is going.

Great - they've moved on from my country because of the ban.

> Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time.

Just above you told me what it was accomplishing. And if it "just moves one appearance of [capitalism making it so that businesses have desirable incentives that would make them willing to literally instill gambling problems in children] out of sight for a period of time" then also GREAT! That's what the legislation was FOR.

If the legislation stops working, we can discuss again then.

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

#288

Post by jmuguy »

eurasiantiger wrote: post #229
elif wrote: post #212

It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is sickening. The stance of NL and belgium of jus…

They will just move on to countries with less regulation, which usually means poorer countries with less educated people. You can probably see where this is going. Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time.

If you believe that, I have some leaded gasoline to sell you.

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

#289

Post by ascar »

elif wrote: post #212

It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is sickening. The stance of NL and belgium of jus…

This effectively needs at least the same kind of regulation as Casinos. It's nothing else than gambling, arguably much worse and predatory in luring you in and making you spend money.

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

#290

Post by viraptor »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #169
usrusr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fitness hobbies also punish you for taking some time off. But they still just happen to be that way, instead of being deliberately designed, and that's a distinction that should very much be allowed to make a difference. It's not unusual at all for intent to carry legal significance.

The risk/benefit calculation of fitness activities is overwhelmingly positive. Their health benefits of exercise might as well be infinite. Even such a benign activity can be pathological though: accidents and lesions during training, anabolic steroid abuse, body image issues... The risk/benefit calculation of predatory gambling video games is overwhelmingly negative. It's really no big loss if they were to be outlaw…

There was a leaderboard posted in the local gym. It was for the most frequently coming members. Some of them regularly racked up >400 visits a year. I didn't even realise at the time that it was weird until a doctor mentioned that these are likely people with addiction or body image issues. I guess you can overdo anything.
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