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The casino in your pocket

blog.curtii.com

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Re: The casino in your pocket

#251

Post by musicale »

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.

Prize game machines (crane games, stacker, etc.) are scams (though technically not gambling since they are predictable?) but they seem to be the last arcade machines standing in many venues.

I was encouraged recently to find that Mountain Mike's chain pizza restaurants seem to have mini-arcades with emulated retro cabinets from Arcade1Up.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#252

Post by NiloCK »

a13o wrote: post #242
artursapek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever regret working on this kind of software?

No, I think F2P is just another way to fund game development. There's no indication that it will cannibalize premium games. So everyone can play games the way they want to play them. Mobile gaming created an entirely new sector and doubled the total revenue of the games industry. It did it by finding people who weren't playing games, and giving them games to play. I think a lot of the panic around microtransactions i…

Has the future-self of gambling addicted eight year old been forced to spend money on video games?

Re: The casino in your pocket

#253

Post by Semaphor »

jacksontheel wrote: post #229
Semaphor wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all of it, it has about a second before and after that are not skippable. All I do is spam clicks during those damn dice-rolls.

Especially bad when trying to pick a lock ten times in a row haha

Which luckily rarely happens once you get the "advantage on sleight of hand" gloves.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#254

Post by cletusw »

dubya wrote: post #225
chinathrow wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My advice is to play these games if you understand all this and have friends to play it with. My advice to law makers is to regulate these games into the ground. Your statements enforce my world view. My kid will not play these games.

Not mobile as far as I know, but Prodigy (prodigygame.com) is allowed/encouraged at my kid's school and has a lot of these traits. There are treasure chests at the end of a battle, gems or coins collected, and a constant reminder that subscribers get more rewards. Many of his classmates subscribe.

Ugh, yes. My kids play this one at school and when I read about the game mechanics I was super disappointed. Luckily they stopped begging me to subscribe eventually since I wouldn't budge.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#255

Post by fho »

russh wrote: post #243
m463 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of thing people should understand about "modern entertainment". My moment of realization was when I found out the truth of those "claw machines" that pick up a fuzzy stuffed animal. Turns out the claw itself is rigged so that it rarely grasps tightly.

Reading the owner/technical manual for a claw machine can be a real eye-opening experience.

Honestly I thought you were joking ... but the very first claw machine manual I found details how they lower the voltage available to close the claw with increasing height.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#256

Post by ychnd »

otikik wrote: post #124
bakugo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of mobile games do. If you want to keep your children away from these things, you don't really have much of a choice beyond not letting them have a phone at all.

One possible alternative to banning the phone or total surrender could be finding proper games for them, instead of these slot-machines-in-disguise. One would need alternative App browsers for that, the default ones don't allow filtering out apps with in-app purchases since they are too lucrative. Here's one: https://appapp.io/us/genre=Games;has_iap=false;supported_dev...

Thanks for this! I've been searching for this simple filter (no in app purchases) for a long time. Unfortunately, this particular site is Apple only, so I'll have to keep searching for Android counterpart...

Re: The casino in your pocket

#257

Post by chinathrow »

fho wrote: post #255
russh wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the owner/technical manual for a claw machine can be a real eye-opening experience.

Honestly I thought you were joking ... but the very first claw machine manual I found details how they lower the voltage available to close the claw with increasing height.

What? Any pointers?

Re: The casino in your pocket

#258

Post by chinathrow »

a13o wrote: post #242
artursapek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever regret working on this kind of software?

No, I think F2P is just another way to fund game development. There's no indication that it will cannibalize premium games. So everyone can play games the way they want to play them. Mobile gaming created an entirely new sector and doubled the total revenue of the games industry. It did it by finding people who weren't playing games, and giving them games to play. I think a lot of the panic around microtransactions i…

> So everyone can play games the way they want to play them.

This is simply not true if a game has addictive features built in. And you know that by now, I am certain.

Re: The casino in your pocket

#259

Post by Ekaros »

a13o wrote: post #242
artursapek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever regret working on this kind of software?

No, I think F2P is just another way to fund game development. There's no indication that it will cannibalize premium games. So everyone can play games the way they want to play them. Mobile gaming created an entirely new sector and doubled the total revenue of the games industry. It did it by finding people who weren't playing games, and giving them games to play. I think a lot of the panic around microtransactions i…

I think hate of micro-transactions comes from the value perspective of those who choose to not participate. More traditional games are pretty cheap if you compare them and spending on f2p type of games can rack up. To substantial numbers. When talking about hundreds or thousands spends you could get dozens or hundreds of very decent traditional titles for that money...

Maybe part of the fear is that those consuming traditional games would end up spending lot more per game and that is not entirely unreasonable...

Re: The casino in your pocket

#260

Post by dspillett »

pjlegato wrote: post #224
iFreilicht wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you replied to and don't have kids yet, but with the current state of TV, I'd much rather let my child watch their entertainment on an old laptop (or tablet or whatever) that I control rather than a TV. They can more easily watch with headphones, they can even watch in private if they're introverted, and I'd feel a lot better knowing they won't switch channels without my knowledge or watch adverts for…

Children don't actually NEED electronic entertainment of any kind. Kids lived that way for a very long time.

They do benefit from access to technology to an extent though: they need to know about it in order to fully interact with the world they are to grow up into.

At what point this becomes necessary is a matter of much argument. They certainly don't need it in the first few years, but I'd suggest they need to be at least aware by the time they are going to school.

It is difficult to separate this from entertainment, because being entertained/interested/curious is largely how our brains do some of their best learning at early ages.

> Kids lived that way for a very long time.

Be careful with appeals to tradition.

The world doesn't exactly work the way it did a long time ago, so we are not preparing kids for the same life they were expected to experience back then.

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