401–410 of 769 posts
Every new game from the last five years has been a disaster in one way or the other. They are even managing to slowly kill their never-ending holy cow: World of Warcraft.
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There are plenty of children whose online behavior is oblivious to their parents, or they circumvent restrictions their parents placed.
That seems like a problem with those parents, not blizzard or the government.
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.
The funny thing is the unmitigated, most pay2win version of Plants Versus Zombies 2 - the game at launch - was accidentally one of the most amazing and intense gaming experiences for people who never spent anything. For people who just really enjoyed a vastly more challenging version of PvZ.
I loved the first game but it was never a challenge, it was rare to fail a level more than once. But the levels in the second were passable if you spent zero premium currency (even not spending any of premium currency they gave you for free for logging in) - they were just very very challenging. Passing every single one required novel strategies and slowly revising, eking out a few more tiny edges each time you try, combined with absolute precision in execution, until somehow the level was passable.
I'm not actually sure every single level was passable by not even spending the currency they gave you for free, I never quite finished it, but I got through most of them! When I logged in to finish the remaining levels later, they had made them all way easier in an effort to respond to p2w criticism so I never had a chance.
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Amazon Kids+ is also a really good option for younger kids. Got a large number of games for a few pounds a month. All the games are ad free and IAP free.
Yeah, we tried going to iPad for our kids but it’s so full of free to play junk. Even with Amazon Kids, though, the games are still their free to play selves without purchases, so I still see these games where dopamine hits (get coins!) are a main mechanic :(
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> The stance of NL and belgium of just banning all games that have gambling elements, is truly the only path forward. It means that you, the user, don't get to play the games you want to play or it will have no effect. Publishers will figure out ways around it and you're never going to stamp it out as long as there is demand for it. I don't like Diablo Immortal's monetization, so I don't play it. I suggest everyone e…
"Going to end in disaster" -> that's hyperbole The fact that the Belgian and Dutch governments label these predatory microtransaction schemes as gambling, shows that they understand the subject matter perfectly fine. Yes, you and I can sensibly choose not to play those games or spend money on them. But lots of people can't. That's why laws regulating gambling exist. Nobody is saying that you can't play these games. T…
The Dutch and Belgian government quite literally are saying that you can't though. Of course, in practice it just means Dutch and Belgian players will pretend they're from another European country via VPN.
>Those gaming companies just have to accept that their products are a form of gambling and will be regulated and taxed as such.
I'm not sure if you're saying this in bad faith, are ignorant of gambling laws or truly believe this. If you were to regulate video games with gambling laws then that video game ceases to exist.
Nobody can afford to publish even a remotely complex game while following gambling regulations, because every single country makes their own rules on that. You would essentially be creating a game for one country only. And at that point why bother? Just push out another actual slotmachine. You cut development costs by multiple orders of magnitude and increase accessibility of the game.
Of course, in practice the countries that regulate it would just be banned. And the players would play the game via VPN.
Also, what I'm saying is that when dozens of countries come up with new rules some of them are going to do something stupid with them. You're asking for legally mandated region locks in gaming.
Just to be clear, I don't like these games either. I hate that game companies do this.
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The article is really quite confusing. Early on it says F2P can't get the best gear, then later says they can. Then they say even for paid players it's random so I'm not even sure how they come up with 100k figure. It's just hard for me to get upset about a game that's always been a pretty skin over a blatant Skinner box.
Yeah I mean the game is intentionally confusing. You have these things called eternal crests which cost 160 “gems” (the real money currency). These let you run a special dungeon that guarantees a drop of a legendary gem rated between 1 and 5 stars. In fact if you fail the dungeon somehow it’ll refund the crest and let you try again. Apparently the drop rate for the 5 star gems is 4.5%, so my napkin math works out to…
I agree there.
I think my char is ~38 and I have 4 legendary gems mixed levels 2-3. I haven't and won't pay any money, but so far the game has been fun. I haven't been limited at all in my progression, in fact the game has felt too easy. Will I ever have 5x5star gems? Probably not, but I would have gotten bored way prior anyway.
I dislike F2P/micro tx games as much as anyone, but so far I haven't been limited in any way. When it does (or I get bored) I'll stop playing.
Regulation proposal: Set maximum spending limit/time tied to the purchase price. The limit is tied to account and player character. example: 1. free-to-play: $100/year. 2. other: 10×purchase price/year. For a $50 game the maximum spending is $500 per year. This would not set hard limit. It would only mandate up-front investment related to the amount of in-game spending. A Whale who spends $10k a year would have to pa…
How many accounts you got? These are gamers... We've been trained to bypass arbitrary obstacles in the easiest way since birth.
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Gambling in the gaming world is even more prominent on Twitch and it's not even pretending to be gaming related anymore. An incognito screenshot of Twitch I captured just now https://i.imgur.com/fgXDAHB.png - The biggest streamer on the platform is currently streaming real money (crypto) online Slots gambling to 100k+ viewers, and a second streamer in the top 5 category is also streaming Slots. Supposedly these strea…
My take on cryptocurrency has become: it’s also all gambling, and for that reason I no longer think there is any chance of it going to zero. Absent regulation there is a simply massive market for gambling. It’s shameless exploitation but people will do it (on both ends). Most of this stuff is actually worse than casinos. Casinos have a social component, employ people, and are often at least a little regulated so that…
I have the same feeling towards the stock market. Sure, it can be well researched information on the stock in question, but it's all a bet your interpretation of that stock is right.
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…
It's kind of sad really, because the generation that's talking about this here are the same the people that had the best, and least adulterated versions of gaming growing up. So the grew up and ruined games going forward by making them only about money.