I want to shed light on a tactic that involves collecting data as you play, feeding this data into complex algorithms and models that then alter the rules of your game under the hood to optimize spending opportunities.
I want to shed light on a tactic that involves collecting data as you play, feeding this data into complex algorithms and models that then alter the rules of your game under the hood to optimize spending opportunities.
Scams work by choice. Putting a gun to someone’s head is a mugging. Scams, you walk into freely, and still get robbed. You don’t quite get nothing… but for the money, you don’t get much.
What game could sell for $130, on sale, and be taken seriously? That shit only works because breaking it up into little pieces obfuscates the total cost. Same shit as “five easy payments!” in TV infomercials.
And $130 is the low, low end. So many of these games, especially the ones that slog on for years, have thousands of dollars in stupid shit you can blow your money on. Gambling makes it worse - but worse isn’t necessary, for it to be bad.
calling everything predatory
Can we please go one interaction without you lying to me about my own opinions? I called skins predatory. Because Jesus Christ, have you seen Fortnite? They could ditch whatever mechanisms you consider beyond-the-pale, and the whole game would still exist as a funnel to exchange your whole wallet in exchange for playable references.
I will again grant that this is the gentle end of the spectrum. But it’s all the same spectrum. There’s no hard cutoffs between thirty-seven characters at five bucks apiece, and pay-to-win weapon unlocks. Grinding instead would be worse. It’s even less like an actual product. All incentives point straight toward maximum revenue through engineered frustration.
I literally didn’t. I said it’s inseparable from this business model, eight hours later. The comment you’re replying to explains how it’s all one spectrum - including the things you, personally, would call predatory. The only specific examples I’ve given are skins and skip-the-grind.
What I get in response is ‘do you still beat your wife?’ over the apparent impossibility of updates that already happened, and repeated misrepresentations of how this thread started. You have quoted me directly and then been wrong in the next comment. I sound aggravated because you’ve been aggravating.
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My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Scams work by choice. Putting a gun to someone’s head is a mugging. Scams, you walk into freely, and still get robbed. You don’t quite get nothing… but for the money, you don’t get much.
What game could sell for $130, on sale, and be taken seriously? That shit only works because breaking it up into little pieces obfuscates the total cost. Same shit as “five easy payments!” in TV infomercials.
And $130 is the low, low end. So many of these games, especially the ones that slog on for years, have thousands of dollars in stupid shit you can blow your money on. Gambling makes it worse - but worse isn’t necessary, for it to be bad.
Can we please go one interaction without you lying to me about my own opinions? I called skins predatory. Because Jesus Christ, have you seen Fortnite? They could ditch whatever mechanisms you consider beyond-the-pale, and the whole game would still exist as a funnel to exchange your whole wallet in exchange for playable references.
I will again grant that this is the gentle end of the spectrum. But it’s all the same spectrum. There’s no hard cutoffs between thirty-seven characters at five bucks apiece, and pay-to-win weapon unlocks. Grinding instead would be worse. It’s even less like an actual product. All incentives point straight toward maximum revenue through engineered frustration.
Can you go one interaction without the excessively hostile tone?
We started this conversation because you said that the act of selling anything at all in games is predatory.
I literally didn’t. I said it’s inseparable from this business model, eight hours later. The comment you’re replying to explains how it’s all one spectrum - including the things you, personally, would call predatory. The only specific examples I’ve given are skins and skip-the-grind.
What I get in response is ‘do you still beat your wife?’ over the apparent impossibility of updates that already happened, and repeated misrepresentations of how this thread started. You have quoted me directly and then been wrong in the next comment. I sound aggravated because you’ve been aggravating.