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The casino in your pocket

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Re: The casino in your pocket

#171

Post by dddddaviddddd »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #149
underdeserver wrote: post #137

This reminds me of the claw machines you see in malls. They look like something you can be good at - place the claw more accurately, choose a toy placed at a cleaner angle - but what they actually do internally is randomly give you a (say) 10% chance, if you hit it you will grab the toy (unless you're REALLY far from one), if not you won't. The illusion is there, but the profit is stable and guaranteed.

Is there a source for that? Has anyone ever reverse engineered the code driving one of these machines? Would be interesting to read about it.

You can just read the machine's manual: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37658844

Re: The casino in your pocket

#172

Post by flir »

numpad0 wrote: post #116
efitz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>something like aesthetic loot crates are a sideshow No, they are very much a part of the experience. The anticipation of the reward and the tension build while the opening animation plays is an addiction mechanism. This is why we wrap presents and why “blind bags” are so successful (and also why toddlers will watch “surprise egg” videos for hours).

On that aesthetic, and promised satisfaction - I once read some offhand BBS post that catharsis works slightly differently in gambling and other entertainment, such that, the anticipation phase is built up the same, but the release phase is crippled. This is so that the player is only partially satisfied and left frustrated in seek for a deserved full gratification, which closes the loop. One clear demonstration of t…

It's a Skinner box. If the pigeon never gets a reward, it'll lose interest in the key. If it always gets a reward it'll hit the key, but not that much because the reward is always the same and its boring. If the reward only occurs sometimes, the pigeon'll go nuts hitting that key. We're the pigeons, and the "randomness" is constantly being tweaked to make sure we never get bored.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#173

Post by ohdannyboy »

lsmeducation wrote: post #34
ohdannyboy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a five (or even six) figure unsecured and non-discharhable loan given to fresh 18-year-olds for education that often has no market value?

No, people who took those are just morons. I'll leave it up to the finance people to come up with interesting instruments to take advantage of these kids. Maybe their bank accounts will just become money market accounts that are tied to leveraged ETFs. I think abstracting away their real life money into a crypto that is worth 1/10th of the dollar is a good way to go. Make that crypto the exclusive currency for their…

Too many people fell for it for them all to just be morons, but that's not my point. What I'm saying is that young people will make fall for all sorts of scams if the adults in their life (and government incentives) push them in the wrong direction. Same thing for older generations thinking that things like social security was ever going to be more than a Ponzi scheme (similarly, too many boomers fell for it for me to write them all off as morons).

Getting kids addicted to gambling with virtual currencies might shape the structure of the scams, but the idea that Gen Z is going to be uniquely vulnerable to finance scams doesn't track for me.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#174

Post by xcdzvyn »

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #160
xcdzvyn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine answer! You've made me reconsider quite a lot, actually. Intuitively I'd say yes, it should be legal to do that. But then, I would consider that a violation of property, because really, a child is unlikely to understand the consequences of a herion addiction. But then I suppose nobody addicted to herion really understands the consequences of addiction, or they wouldn't buy herion. Which almost makes me recons…

To be perfectly clear, most addicts understand that their addiction is killing then, but caring about that pales in comparison to the addictive urge to continue using. It's not some cerebral choice- once addicted, you are no longer in control of your body, or it's urges. With that said, we as a society do have a responsibility to protect children - free access to heroin (for instance) would be incredibly harmful to c…

> most addicts understand that their addiction is killing them

Of course, yeah, I meant it more in the "no rational actor would choose to use heroin" sense :)

Re: The casino in your pocket

#176

Post by nwellinghoff »

redka wrote: post #141

Couple years back I joined a paid accelerator program to write a mobile game under the wings of some company. My eyes were opened after having a fun time creating my game when the time came to publishing and tweaking. My mentors from the company explained to me the _requirements_ for it to succeed. Basically every change from that point was about manipulation. In order for the game to be high on the charts it needs t…

Why doesn’t anyone who tells such stories also reference the game and the company that made it? Wouldn’t it be good to call out the actors explicitly?

Re: The casino in your pocket

#177

Post by micromacrofoot »

I think there's a major player here that most adults overlook because it's a bunch of kid-created nonsense: Roblox.

This platform is absolutely rife with gambling and scammy currency-spending mechanics, and all of this is directed towards children. You're constantly bombarded with pay-to-win, pay-to-cheat, pay-to-play, one-arm bandit, "donation" requests, "invite your friends to unlock", literally every dark pattern you can imagine... all on top of near-constant copyright and trademark violations.

I'm entirely convinced that this platform only exists because it's too annoying for adults to even scrutinize too closely but they pull in huge amounts of money from this stuff.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#178

Post by livrem »

gambiting wrote: post #114
chucky_z wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 I tried Bloons TD6 on apple arcade, a game which has very heavy monetization strategies, thinking ok, maybe the apple arcade version is finally playable without spending money - and no, they literally just removed the in-game store but haven't adjusted the curves it takes you to earn anything so if you want to unlock anything prepare for a VERY long grind.

Reviews for the PC version of Triple Town on GOG says the same thing. They removed the option to spend real money, that was part of the popular mobile version, but they did not replace it with anything else, so supposedly you have to grind forever to get anywhere.

Pity since are some mobile games that look like pretty good games. If only all the built-in gambling was removed and the game re-balanced (and drm-free) I would be happy to buy them, for my phone or desktop. But that is almost never an option.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#179

Post by giraffe_lady »

dannyw wrote: post #170
artursapek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever regret working on this kind of software?

I played F2P games for a number of years and spent probably thousands of dollars on one. I don't regret it. I made a lot of friends, one of whom I still hang out in real life, learned leadership skills, and it was a pleasurable pasttime. I don't think it should be demonised.

That still makes you a "social drinker" in this context. We need to hear from the 30 rack a night folks to get a fuller picture.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#180

Post by grotorea »

xmcqdpt2 wrote: post #138
vintermann wrote: post #85

> In a casino, any rational adult expects this. Whoa, no way we don't. I do expect that while the game has a house edge in a casino, if something seems random (roll of dice, draw of cards) then it's random in the way it seems, e.g. that there's a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 6. I'm pretty sure that's regulated in most places. That online casinos and casino-like games rampantly cheat is another matter, I do expect that…

Exactly! This isn't a casino, it's three card Monte. It's not gambling it's being conned. This should be outright illegal. The rules for slot machines are quite intricate in many jurisdictions. Ontario for example requires minimum payouts of 85%, no change in payout schedule based on eg patron or day of the week, monitoring of machines, rules around serving intoxicated patrons etc. https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/conten…

There's some countries that enforce making the % of payouts publicly available for apps. Hope that goes global at very least.
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