Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gamerant.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 769 posts

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

#71

Post by still_grokking »

xuki wrote: post #51
tjpnz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to start regulating these games in the same way we regulate gambling. They shouldn't be sold to children. They're not Kinda eggs nor LOL Surprise and should never be brushed off as surprise mechanics. They're glorified slot machines, through and through.

Apple/Google revenue will see a big decline if those games are regulated. Most if not all the top grossing games on mobile follow the same spending pattern, and a big chunk of app stores' revenue come from those games.

And that's exactly the reason almost all mobile game are utter trash.

Of course that was caused because the app-"economy" was broken from day one on: You couldn't and still can't call out fair prices on mobile software. People weren't and aren't willing to pay those. So you have to make the software "free" and sell your user's data, or charge one or two bucks and use some other immoral scheme to get your actual costs covered.

On a broken market there are only broken products… Simple as that.

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

#72

Post by bsnal »

holoduke wrote: post #4

Lootbox games: I don't understand why these kind of games are not getting banned or heavily restricted. There is absolutely not a single positive thing about these games. Moral doesn't matter.

It’s your choice whether to install them or not. Let’s stop treating people like children please.

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

#73

Post by mywaifuismeta »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #50
mywaifuismeta wrote: post #43

I regularly play games with gambling (gacha) mechanics and I love them. The short bursts of fun are exactly what I'm looking for in my current busy life. I have nothing against this model of monetization. Gambling is fun. Casinos are fun. I am not a big spender by any means, but I've probably spent ~$2k on these kind of games over the past two years or so. I don't regret it, and for me the fun is in figuring out how…

Heroin is fun too, at least at first. The problem with gambling is that it taps into the dopamine system in ways that people are not aware of, even if they know about probabilities. The effect is cumulative, and the more the person gambles, the more they will gamble, take risks, create unbalance and spend money. Now, just like with anything related to dopamine, many people will only have a mild effect. E.G: I've play…

I don't think you can compare these mechanics to heroin, which is physically addictive. A fairer comparison is social media and timelines/newsfeeds, which use very similar mechanics, including randomness, to give people their dopamine rush and make them come back. Hence all this social media addiction we have. The main difference is that no money is (directly) involved there, only indirectly through ads.

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

#74

Post by Hermel »

Grollicus wrote: post #60

The worst thing (for me) about this is that whenever I go to the Apple App store I get bombarded will all these "games" that just try to make my life actively worse. I don't understand why they pollute their brand like that.

That's the key!

The Play Store and the App Store do not even have a search filter for games without in-app purchases. I'm sure that is on purpose.

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

#75

Post by chii »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #68
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.

> 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?

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

#76

Post by lordnacho »

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.

Are there enough of those guys vs people who will spend 10? I guess you need 1k of those people to make up one whale, but aren't there more little players by a lot?

I guess I don't have the data. Also maybe you can get both at once by targeting the big guy.

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

#77

Post by bsnal »

tjpnz wrote: post #21
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.

Time to start regulating these games in the same way we regulate gambling. They shouldn't be sold to children. They're not Kinda eggs nor LOL Surprise and should never be brushed off as surprise mechanics. They're glorified slot machines, through and through.

That’s not a problem since children don’t have access to credit cards or any other means to pay for in-game items.

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

#78

Post by jack_pp »

dtech wrote: post #65
jack_pp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children don't have access to a credit card unless you give it to them. If in 2022 you're giving a kid a device where he can make payments without your input then you're responsible for it. If you're addicted to spending money online irresponsibly I doubt there is any law that will protect you, there's millions of ways to spend money to get gratification online.

"We shouldn't restrict heroin, if you're prone to addiction you can get a candybar in any supermarket" These games are explicitly designed to prey on people prone to gambling-like addictions.

Not quite the same thing as heroin as you can easily drown your sorrows in any number of cheap video games and I'm of the belief that if you are prone to addictions the only way to evolve passed them is to go through them. I am against putting laws up against these games but I am for the community warning and talking about this so people know what they're getting into.

I'm also for legalizing all drugs but that's another discussion

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

#79

Post by chii »

xmodem wrote: post #57
ekianjo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're just people with an addiction. Everyone has an addiction to something. You are lucky if its to something thats cheap and legal.

It depends on the timeframe obviously, but $10k is hardly cheap.

it is cheaper than drugs. If you got to be addicted to something, i don't think these mobile games are the worst out there.

Of course, the best outcome is not to be addicted.

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

#80

Post by less_less »

can16358p wrote: post #52
vkou wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Casinos shouldn't be regulated too. If nobody is forcing anyone to attend into something (like going to a casino or playing a pay-to-win game) nobody should have the right to change or regulate the inner dynamics. In theory, humans are rational, and in theory, spherical cows are an excellent basis for economics. Human brains have bugs, and these industries exploit them. It's predatory, and utterly reprehensible.

Human brains have bugs, and anyone going into a casino or a pay-to-win games know what they are going into. (If they don't that's their problem for not doing their own research and using common sense before putting their money) Human brains also have a bug around sugar consumption. I've yet to see selling people sugar or sugar-containing foods/beverages being regulated. Human brains also have a bug making many of the…

> Human brains have bugs, and anyone going into a casino or a pay-to-win games know what they are going into. (If they don't that's their problem for not doing their own research and using common sense before putting their money)

"It's OK if people's lives are intentionally ruined purely for corporate profits, so long as it's at least partly those people's fault. They shouldn't let themselves be tricked."

> Human brains also have a bug around sugar consumption. I've yet to see selling people sugar or sugar-containing foods/beverages being regulated.

By the way, San Francisco taxes sugary drinks and requires them to have a warning label.

> The real solution is never preventing people from doing things (of course as long as they affect only the person and not the others' rights), instead, it's educating.

These approaches are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's best to find a balance between them?

Post reply on HN