451–460 of 769 posts
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…
[1] https://thinkcomputers.org/odds-of-gaming-earning-you-money/
First it was the lootboxes that became widespread:
~2010 Steam Team Fortress 2, later Counter Strike
2012 EA's Mass Effect 3
2014 Call of Duty and Battlefield
2016 Overwatch
After that it seemed lootboxes were everywhere. In 2017 there was some backlash for EA's Star Wars game and they removed lootboxes, but it did not change the situation overall.
Then in 2020 western gamers were exposed to gacha mechanics with the release of Genshin Impact, where you "roll" with special currency for weapons and characters that you can't get otherwise. And this currency is either bought with real money or VERY slowly accumulated by playing game. The game is free to play otherwise.
In february this year there was a western release of Lost Ark - MMO ARPG(genre similar to Diablo) that involves probabilistic gear upgrades where you either play weeks to months to fully upgrade it, or drop hundreds to thousands of dollars on upgrade materials, game itself is free to play. It was backed by Amazon and promoted by huge Twitch events.
Both Genshin Impact and Lost Ark have very impressive amount of content, beautiful visuals, music - all while being free to play. Could these games be made and succeed without gambling mechanics? I don't know. My experience with Genshin has been that I got a lot more out of it in terms of fun per money spent than out of most from what I buy on Steam sales - which I play for few hours and forget.
I think the regulations about these kinds of games should at the very least require devs to: - State all the probabilities - Define a guarantee or a "pity": at which attempt will you succeed with 100% probability.
Then for each desired outcome, e.g. fully upgrading weapon, there should be displayed an expected and maximum "price", preferably in real currency. This would at least help the adults to moderate their spending. And as for children, yeah, these games should be 18+, I don't believe a child can handle the urge to spend in these games.
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…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
10k a year is hardly a lot… As a Japanese gamer says, paying for games is like dining out. You get nothing useful after a good meal, and paying for games may as well be more useful.
> You get nothing useful after a good meal Uh... the nutrition that your body needs to keep going? Is this a trick question?
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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> That sounds like an arms race that's both wasteful and difficult to win. It is. > Why should we not use the tools democracy provides to shape society? We should, if we can. I'm just not holding my breath. I think copyright should be abolished but the trillion dollar companies that depend on it will never allow that to happen. So we're better off de facto abolishing it by making copyright unenforceable and eliminati…
>I think advertising should be illegal but companies like Google will never let that happen. So I use software like uBlock Origin to block ads whenever I can. Honest question (and I am not fan of advertising here and not trying to be an apologist).. What business model replaces it, in your mind? In the world that exists today, how do companies who provide free services online (including the creation of information) p…
There will be, for sure, lives ruined because of this game's predatory practices. It really sickens me. To quote myself from a previous thread: "If you could hear the contempt that "some" game devs have for their customers, you might never buy a game ever again. It really is quite shocking...and the contempt exists from top to bottom, its everywhere. That isn't to say there's not a vast number of of honourable people…
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.
Diablo Immortal is not available in Belgium and the Netherlands due to that: https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-immortal-wont-be-released-in-...
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.