It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal • Hacker News Board

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#131

Post by doix » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 9:59 AM UTC

jack_pp wrote: post #2

I've watched a lot of discussions about this from twitch streamers and I'm not sure where I stand.. On the one hand I'm amazed at how good this game looks on mobile and if you're just the type to casually play a game not really caring about being the best at it you could have fun playing it for free or for very cheap. On the other hand this game is clearly exploitative and while other games like Hearthstone or Clash…

Look at this guy [0], he is the rank one monk in PvP and PvE and spent 0 dollars.

I played a wee bit and it didn't seem that bad. You can pay to upgrade your gear, but that seems entirely pointless in an ARPG. The whole game is a grind to get better gear! Once you actually have perfect gear, why keep playing?

My issue with the game is that it lacks depth after having spent far too much time playing Path of Exile. There aren't that many possible builds, and the game basically tells you exactly how to build if you want to do PvP or PvE. As far as I can tell, those builds are the meta ones, so the designers are forcing the meta.

But as a game to run in and kill some monsters without thinking too much, it seems fine. Which makes sense since it's a mobile game.

[0] https://www.twitch.tv/wudijo

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#132

Post by doctor_eval » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 9:59 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #75

matheusmoreira wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're just people with an addiction Yes. These games are straight up designed to be habit forming and should be regarded as equivalent to gambling and addictive drugs. I've been down that rabbit hole myself. Daily tasks and rewards offer positive reinforcement. Timers create a schedule for players, place a cap on their progression and establish negative reinforcement by punishing days of inactivity. Player groups…

so the question becomes whether people should be allowed to spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending isn't great for themselves. Like someone who's very invested in their hobby, they could be dropping tens of thousands of dollars into it (depending on the hobby of course). Why are those not considered the same as wasting money on mobile games?

> so the question becomes whether people should be allowed to spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending isn't great for themselves.

This is an incredibly simplistic view of the problem, on multiple dimensions.

On one dimension, a question of to what length should we give companies the right to harm people. Because if something is knowingly designed to take advantage of the study of psychology to hurt people then that’s what this is.

On another dimension, the person spending the money is typically hurting others (spouse, kids... business partners) at least as much, but frequently more, than they hurt themselves.

Giving companies the freedom to do things like this takes away our freedom to live without others harming us. Its really hard to understand why this is even debatable.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#133

Post by concordDance » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:00 AM UTC

phpisthebest wrote: post #112

AdvicePlz wrote: post #3

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.

Rich people are rich because they do not spend $10K on a digital downloads that have no actual value... The ONLY people that would do that, are people with an addiction

Tell that to the oil shiek's family...

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#134

Post by donatj » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:02 AM UTC

jhrmnn wrote: post #100

chii wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so the question becomes whether people should be allowed to spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending isn't great for themselves. Like someone who's very invested in their hobby, they could be dropping tens of thousands of dollars into it (depending on the hobby of course). Why are those not considered the same as wasting money on mobile games?

Never thought of that, good point. I guess in the end if we wanted to find the boundary for harmful/tolerable addiction, we might not be able to find it, it’s a continuous spectrum. I guess in the end intent would need to decide the ethics—is the product designed to leverage addiction or is it designed to enable people to have fun, which might lead to addiction?

I think there is a very blurry line between non-chemical addiction and just liking something very much. Say a person spends thousands on audiophile equipment where the layman couldn’t hear the difference, and often even a double blind of audiophiles can’t, is that spending an addiction? Or do they just enjoy chasing that dragon?

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#135

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:03 AM UTC

ramshanker wrote: post #120

matheusmoreira wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're just people with an addiction Yes. These games are straight up designed to be habit forming and should be regarded as equivalent to gambling and addictive drugs. I've been down that rabbit hole myself. Daily tasks and rewards offer positive reinforcement. Timers create a schedule for players, place a cap on their progression and establish negative reinforcement by punishing days of inactivity. Player groups…

Same for me. 2015 or so. FarmVille addiction. Once I clicked 1200 times straight to farm/plaugh/seed, my fingers heart. So searched for a solution and found click recorders . Not exactly cheat but once I started using the auto click, I was out of addiction within a month and left game in Two month.

Awesome. In these cases, bots are not really cheating, they're legitimate self-defense against shitty repetitive addictive games. They are addiction prophylaxis and treatment.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#136

Post by felipelemos » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:03 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #122

michaelmrose wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sociopathy is the only way that businesses are allowed to conduct themselves. It would be great if we could stop spreading this misunderstanding. Fiduciary duty is a duty not to deliberately destroy shareholder value. Basically you can't set it on fire or loot it. It is not and has never been a duty to do absolutely anything anyone can possibly conceive of that will enrich the shareholders. Leaders are free morally…

So then they exploit workers and customers because they choose to rather than being forced to, which sorta makes it worse.

They do because they enrich themselves, but not because of any 'duty' whatsoever.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#137

Post by kuang_eleven » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:04 AM UTC

spoiler wrote: post #35

jiggawatts wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen similar comments by several game devs, but at least some of them said that they make most of their money from the kids of the ultra-wealthy. Think of some oil Sheik's son bored to death at home because it's too hot to go outside. But yeah, the "loot boxes" that are mostly gambling have been banned in many countries because they're targeted at young children.

> I've seen similar comments by several game devs, but at least some of them said that they make most of their money from the kids of the ultra-wealthy. This seems like naïve speculation to me. Think about the number/scaling of this. It would give them a few months worth of income at best? The sadder truth is that they're exploiting escapism and maladaptive coping (addiction, gambling) in people who also use escapism…

The interesting thing is that you would think Blizzard would have known this. Literally the last game in the same Diablo series launched with a much-hated Real Money Auction House, which was eventually removed.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#138

Post by algorias » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:05 AM UTC

phpisthebest wrote: post #121

chii wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so the question becomes whether people should be allowed to spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending isn't great for themselves. Like someone who's very invested in their hobby, they could be dropping tens of thousands of dollars into it (depending on the hobby of course). Why are those not considered the same as wasting money on mobile games?

The deflection point for me on Regulation is purchases vs loot boxes If the game is implimenting direct purchases, where you buy Item X for Y price then I feel regulation is unwarranted even in the context of harmful levels of purchasing However if the game is using a loot box system where the play buy a "chance" to "win" an item they desire, then I think that should be considered a "game of chance" like a lottery or…

To be fair, many such games do disclose the odds.

The difference to older tech like mechanical slot machines is that the game records everything the player does, and can then drop a "discounted" special offer at the right time to maximize the likelihood of keeping the player hooked.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#139

Post by donatj » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:06 AM UTC

Termitiono wrote: post #92

chii wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so the question becomes whether people should be allowed to spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending isn't great for themselves. Like someone who's very invested in their hobby, they could be dropping tens of thousands of dollars into it (depending on the hobby of course). Why are those not considered the same as wasting money on mobile games?

Because a normal hobby is not designed to be addictive. A hobby like wood working doesn't push you to do woodworking every day and there are not people behind this non existing mechanism who design it like it. Also normally a hobby costs money due to physical parts of that hobby. A software engineer as a hobby only needs some computer, would worker needs a metal saw.

> A hobby […] doesn't push you to do [it] every day

Look at organized sports, if you don’t show up enough times, you don’t get to play anymore.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#140

Post by doctor_eval » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 10:09 AM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #101

AdvicePlz wrote: post #3

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.

I wonder what we could do to legally balance this. Out right banning is bit questionable. But weekly or monthly spending reports? Some total number shown regularly to players?

You could just cap the maximum spend of any one player in any game (or group of players). Even if it was some stupid high number like $1,000, it would limit the blast radius. Also, banning loot boxes of course. Totally can be done.