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Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

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Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#111

Post by klodolph »

nlowell wrote: post #100
klodolph wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple currency types are a key part of freemium / microtransaction games, but there are other reasons to have multiple currency types, and it’s becoming more and more common across all types of games. In a sense, games are often about managing resources. Currency is a resource. If you have one currency type, you can come up with a dominant strategy that maximizes production of that particular currency type. If you…

I think multi-currency systems can be used to juice microtransactions pretty hard still. For example League of Legends gives players free "chests" and free "keys" as a slow-drip, and you can open any chest with a key to get some random loot. If your chest count doesn't match your keys you can buy more of either using real cash. So basically multi currency systems can be used to keep players intentionally in a state o…

Sure, but multi-currency systems juice anything. Control, for example, has tons of different materials used for upgrades and crafting. In order to get the right mix of upgrades, you have to travel to all different parts of the game world. Nier has something similar.

By comparison, there are plenty of games (especially older ones) with only one or two currencies. Maybe you just find the one place in the game world that lets you grind out those currencies the fastest, and you do that over and over until you’re sick of it.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#112

Post by alliao »

I played an ultra exploitative game for "fun" for a bit, these things are WILD. It should be illegal, it competes not with other games, but with beer/tobacco/casino aka predatory to those with addictive disorders.

it's called cookie run kingdoms and it triggers me on two points, not only it's exploitative model it's at the same pushing sugar, I called myself diabetical or something to raise however slim hope of awareness.

crazy times.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#113

Post by officeplant »

Naga wrote: post #5

Nintendo has such a great, family friendly brand. If I was in charge, I wouldn't want my brand to be anywhere close to being associated to this type of thing.

Their entire line of mobile apps are just profit mills with little actual gameplay value.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#114

Post by roskelld »

_puk wrote: post #93
frumper wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a few SNES games being $79 at release. One example I remember buying was Street Fighter II.

But that came in a nice metal tin :) I can remember having to go halves on it for my Xmas present, as I think it was well outside the norm price wise. Never regretted that purchase though! Unlike a lot of the overpriced half finished pre-order games we get nowadays..

Oh that tin! I was so excited with my purchase--having saved up for months to get it at launch--that I missed my stop on the bus home. I had to get off about a mile away and ran to my SNES like I'd never ran before.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#115

Post by falcolas »

goosedragons wrote: post #70
falcolas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a game that isn't trying to exploit you at every turn. With as profitable as these tactics are, I wonder for how much longer they’ll keep those tactics off their Switch games. Or, more cynically, “… game that isn’t trying to exploit you yet …”

They've been pretty good so far. Mario Kart Tour is 4 years old at this point, Fire Emblem Heroes is 6 years old. We've seen 3 non-spinoff Fire Emblem games since the release of Heroes and AFAIK they aren't microtransaction filled nonsense.

They walk an awfully thin line, offering “expansion passes” and Amiibos.

Not to mention locking game content behind two different tiers of subscription plans.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#116

Post by xg15 »

This was a really great writeup and an amazing way to present it.

My hunch is, there is another dark pattern hidden which he didn't discuss yet: the quantities in which you buy gems. You'll often land just one or two gems short of the number you actually needed. Then you can either buy the 3 gem pack for the worst relative price or buy another larger pack, encouraging you to come back later.

It seems hard to really spend all your gems and come out at zero. Usually there is a small amount left that on its own is useless but lures you into buying more.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#117

Post by xmonkee »

preinheimer wrote: post #10

First, that was an amazing breakdown of what's happening. If you enjoyed reading that you might like Folding Ideas breakdown of Fortnite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0 Second, I've personally become very wary of any mobile app that introduces multiple currency types. There's gold, and rubies, and power balls, and stardust! At some point pretty early on I decide it's not worth it to figure out how much…

Folding Ideas is the greatest youtuber

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#118

Post by currymj »

Naga wrote: post #5

Nintendo has such a great, family friendly brand. If I was in charge, I wouldn't want my brand to be anywhere close to being associated to this type of thing.

they didn't initially. their first mobile game, Super Mario Run, cost $10 and had none of the usual manipulative mobile game elements. People did not buy it so they switched to the same F2P nonsense as everyone else for future games.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#119

Post by bentley »

falcolas wrote: post #115
goosedragons wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been pretty good so far. Mario Kart Tour is 4 years old at this point, Fire Emblem Heroes is 6 years old. We've seen 3 non-spinoff Fire Emblem games since the release of Heroes and AFAIK they aren't microtransaction filled nonsense.

They walk an awfully thin line, offering “expansion passes” and Amiibos. Not to mention locking game content behind two different tiers of subscription plans.

What feels most offensive to me is that people’s previous digital purchases of classic games through Virtual Console are permanently stuck on their Wiis and 3DSes, and can’t be transferred to the Switch, which only supports emulating classic games through paid subscriptions.

Compare that to the PC market. I signed up for Steam in 2010 to buy Orange Box—Half‐Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal—for $10, and for over a decade that entire game pack has remained downloadable and playable on every PC I’ve owned, including most recently the Steam Deck.

Re: Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

#120

Post by guelo »

Naga wrote: post #5

Nintendo has such a great, family friendly brand. If I was in charge, I wouldn't want my brand to be anywhere close to being associated to this type of thing.

I've never been into Nintendo but after having kids I kept hearing this about how great they are for families so I bought a Switch. That's when I learned what a greedy exploitative platform it is: overcharging for games, nickle and dimeing for everything, and abusing their fan's nostalgia. I definitely don't want to get my kids invested in their platform so I got rid of the Switch. Steam has more than we need anyway. (just wish Steam had better family friendly search filters, why is it impossible to search for games by ESRB rating?!).
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