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The casino in your pocket

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Re: The casino in your pocket

#101

Post by julianwachholz »

chucky_z wrote: post #40
hristov wrote: post #37

This is pretty screwed up, because it kind of trains your brain to be a gambling brain. To crave the instant gratification, the high of risk taking etc. I think the time has come when android and ios should make a special versions of their online shops for children and teenagers and simply ban those types of games from those shops. This will at least prevent children from having their brains rewired. Of course this w…

Apple Arcade allows these types of games and removes all monetization like this. The games are still kinda predatory in their frustrations, however there’s no coin to spend. You just randomly get items and that’s it.

So it's exposing those games for what they really are: not-fun time wasters.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#102

Post by julianwachholz »

fbdab103 wrote: post #2

Vegas machines are calibrated with a certain win rate. The author surmises that this game has something more like a loss rate at pre-determined points. Would such a machine be legal in the regulated real-world? Or only in the wild-west of online casinos?

It's not a casino or falls under gambling laws I assume because there is absolutely nothing to be won.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#103

Post by ezconnect »

fbdab103 wrote: post #59
kioleanu wrote: post #41

Many years ago I worked for a company that offers a very popular in-browser game. The company branched and expanded and had more than 10 games with various levels of profitability, but this game, which was bringing in about 30 millions EURO per month, was the only thing keeping the company alive. Then they decided they want to try to sell the company to a fund and wanted to increase the revenue this golden goose was…

>...which was bringing in about 30 millions EURO per month, was the only thing keeping the company alive. I am curious what were the expenses. Few things are as simple as they appear, but from the mobile games I have seen, they look like they could be put together by tiny development teams: simplistic (+recyclable) art and rules. Once the foundational app is created, feels like the further development could happen on…

Most spend is on advertisement. The churn rate of users is very very high because it's a time waste game play.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#104

Post by NeoTar »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #75
_delirium wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is still mostly like that, one-time up front payment for the main game, with infrequent optional expansion packs added for particularly popular games. I played Animal Crossing: New Horizons regularly for about two years of the pandemic, and there were only two possible places to buy anything: the original game purchase for $60, and one optional expansion pack released 18 months later for $25. There were also…

> Nintendo is still mostly like that, one-time up front payment for the main game, with infrequent optional expansion packs added for particularly popular games. Have you seen what happened to the Pokemon games?

yes; it's ... similar?

Pokémon Sword/Shield released Nov. 2019, a two part expansion released June/Oct 2020. Current costs of £50 for base game, £27 for expansion.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl (remakes) released Nov 2021. No DLC. £50 for base game.

Pokémon Legends Arceus released Jan 2022. Free content addition in Feb. 2022. No paid DLC. £50 for base game.

Pokémon Scarlet/Violet released released Nov. 2022, a two part expansion released/releasing Sept/Q4 2023. £50 for base game, £31.50 for expansion.

So, a smaller gap between the base-game and expansion, but a comparable price differential.

Now, if you were talking about the quality of the latest games you might have a point - Sword/Shield were OK with a weak story. DB/SP were remakes, but added little to the originals (and arguably took away some things). Arceus was great! A really interesting game. Scarlet/Violet - some good ideas, but very poor execution.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#105

Post by ehnto »

keithalewis wrote: post #46
beebmam wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are dumb enough to consentually waste time and money on casinos, they deserve to lose their time and money. Some might say the government should intervene; I personally don't care.

Do you mean people should be held personally accountable for their actions? Next thing you know we might be living in a country full of responsible citizens. /s

They are accountable, they lose their money just like you'd expect. But I don't think we should let companies get away with exploiting people either. They have the upper hand, when it comes to exploiting psychology of the everyman.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#106

Post by robertlagrant »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #55
ehnto wrote: post #32

It has been fascinating and demoralizing to watch monetization roll out. To younger generations like my brother, they don't know any different, it's just part if gaming for them. But at least something like aesthetic loot crates are a sideshow to the actual game. Some games are good at keeping the separate and you can understand that it's just how they choose to fund the game. When the whole game is just a loot crate…

gamification? No, this is illegal use of casino algorithms and payoff psychology / slot machine psychology, outside of regulation, restriction from exposure to children, without disclaimers for gambling problems and hotlines. The middle-tier issues I have: the same issues that used to exist with gambling and introducing it officially: moral concerns over degeneracy, the family impacts of gambling addictions, the regr…

> What I'm really really really concerned about: the use of gambling payoff/reward psychology/neurotransmitter biology in games that CHILDREN are being subjected to, or even worse, they are ACTIVELY targeted by the "free to play" games, by the "click/watch ad to keep playing" ads in the FTP games.

Toy adverts push the same buttons. I don't know how you regulate this effectively except (as toy adverts are) retroactively.

> Many of these free to play games, which even cursory experience educates you to a world where "whales" that are paying thousands of dollars a month or more

I think whales are usually adults, though. They're wasting their money, just as they waste it paying for a superchat so an influencer will say 5 words to them, but as far as I know this isn't a kid thing, unlike the other points you make.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#107

Post by kalleboo »

xcdzvyn wrote: post #76
hristov wrote: post #37

This is pretty screwed up, because it kind of trains your brain to be a gambling brain. To crave the instant gratification, the high of risk taking etc. I think the time has come when android and ios should make a special versions of their online shops for children and teenagers and simply ban those types of games from those shops. This will at least prevent children from having their brains rewired. Of course this w…

> I think the time has come when android and ios should make a special versions of their online shops for children and teenagers and simply ban those types of games from those shops. IMHO this shouldn't [have to] be any of Apple or Google's business. It's a parent's responsibility to parent their child, not some conglomerate's.

Societies have been raising their young collectively since time immortal

Re: The casino in your pocket

#108

Post by kioleanu »

sznio wrote: post #71
kioleanu wrote: post #41

Many years ago I worked for a company that offers a very popular in-browser game. The company branched and expanded and had more than 10 games with various levels of profitability, but this game, which was bringing in about 30 millions EURO per month, was the only thing keeping the company alive. Then they decided they want to try to sell the company to a fund and wanted to increase the revenue this golden goose was…

>in-browser game >euro InnoGames/Gameforge?

I can't, of course, name the company, but no, none of the two

Re: The casino in your pocket

#109

Post by enlyth »

yosito wrote: post #77

I would love to see this analysis applied to mainstream dating apps, which I'm convinced are rigged exactly like casino games. You win often enough to feel lucky, but infrequently enough to keep you paying and pushing buttons hoping to win more.

Funny you say that, Tinder has the exact mechanic described in the article, if you're on the free version once every while it will show you 4 hidden cards to reveal one secret match, but it's the same trick, doesn't matter which card you pick, the API has already predetermined which person it reveals.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#110

Post by kioleanu »

fbdab103 wrote: post #59
kioleanu wrote: post #41

Many years ago I worked for a company that offers a very popular in-browser game. The company branched and expanded and had more than 10 games with various levels of profitability, but this game, which was bringing in about 30 millions EURO per month, was the only thing keeping the company alive. Then they decided they want to try to sell the company to a fund and wanted to increase the revenue this golden goose was…

>...which was bringing in about 30 millions EURO per month, was the only thing keeping the company alive. I am curious what were the expenses. Few things are as simple as they appear, but from the mobile games I have seen, they look like they could be put together by tiny development teams: simplistic (+recyclable) art and rules. Once the foundational app is created, feels like the further development could happen on…

I am assuming they had pretty high costs, more than 120 employees working on more than 10 different games, none of which was profitable. Offices in a high-rent European city for all these people and so on. Then comes marketing

The blockbuster hit was actually the first game, with success never to be replicated

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