I did that for a while, but I discovered my local library has a great selection of games. I went from spending a few hundo on games a year to buying two a year - Christmas and birthday, and doing the rest of my gaming exploring their catalogue. It’s been great on my wallet. Hooray libraries.
No it doesn’t. Social media sites that have moderators really need to take a stand about clickbait garbage headlines like this. It’s like getting a free t-shirt with a car purchase and claiming that T-shirt costs $40,000. You’re buying coins which already cost that much, the coins with or without the mount cost that much. Currently you can buy those coins and get a free mount. Lots to be upset with Diablo and Blizzard, but this is just garbage.
They do their prime bundles for a decent chunk of money. But it’s also a really good deal just for the paid currency.
And you can get the same things in game for free.
So how much is the actual item vs the currency?
Its nice to see a low cost microtransaction, and nice to see that you can get the currency in game but really thats just the same as it was a few years back before it went full 100 dollar for a reskin mode.
You are defending a game by pointing out that its money grabbing methods are less greedy than another company.
Games wont make the billions and billions they make now if they move away from the in game purchases models but they also evidently dont need billions and billions to operate.
Some of the best games on the market were made on small budgets by indie developers and sell well because the are fun and people actually want to play them.
These companies are using dark design patterns to manipulate kids and young people into a pattern of behaviour. You can blame consumers, but it’s not exactly a fair fight. These big companies have behaviour specialists employed and tons of data, used specifically to get people to act dumb in a way that benefits these companies. Heroin pushers are more honest.
When it’s as obvious of a scam as this post shows, I don’t really I have any sympathy. There are other games where it’s more cleverly implemented but even then I still lean towards the fault of consumers.
I am not going to blame the chocolate factory for getting someone obese. Sugar is addictive yes, but everything can be to a certain point and it’s a person’s responsibility to manage these potential addictions.
I’m all for personal responsibilities. In fact I believe all drugs should be legal. But if alcohol companies began heavily advertising drinking for kids or young people, making it look like fund and cool and make it easily accessible, I think regulation is needed. People have the right to be stupid and do with their money and body whatever they want, but companies should not be allowed to promoted this behaviour. They should simply offer it and nothing more.
If casinos need to be regulated and strictly scrutinized to prevent children from engaging with them, so should all games that resort to lootboxes. Researchers have made it clear that the psychological effects are identical, and that early engagement with lootboxes tends to lead to issues with gambling.
I would want regulations only if we were talking about opening crates or other forms of gambling. But this is as upfront and crystal clear as possible where you pay money and you get a skin unlike opening crates. We can all agree that the horse cosmetic is a ripoff but it’s open and upfront about it’s shittiness with no aspect of gambling. Unless I’m forgetting something, gambling microtransactions are the only case where I think regulation is needed.
Edit: The reason why I think gambling should be regulated more so than the other addictive substances (sugar, alcohol, the horse cosmetic) is because gambling doesn’t give you a concrete product. Unlike the others, gambling is getting the chance to obtain your desired product while the others guarantee a product to use.
This whole attitude of “its not their fault they can’t help but hand over their money and buy overpriced shit” has got to stop
Economics is very simple here: there is supply, there is demand. If demand outstrips supply, the price will rise. This includes when is artificially restricted (or the market is flooded with alternatives by the same vendor to give the feeling of scarcity).
The demand for streaming services is the same. People will take the hit, so the price goes up until they can’t anymore.
The generation is contributing to inflation because of inability to restrain themselves from buying frivolous shit for extortionate amounts of money, because they can’t psychologically cope with doing without something, then complaining that no jobs pay enough while they try to launch an onlyfans career. Every generation has it’s flaws.
This then makes prices rise for everyone. The infantilzation to suggest they cant help themselves is astonishing. Companies are not going to stop making profit without intervention.
So if boycotts don’t work, what can the consumer do? Just not play the game at all? Even if the developer put effort in, and its a labor of love, but the publisher forced mtx in anyway? Like, what if the game is good and boycotts don’t work? What’s gonna stop greedy publishers?
You are doing that thing where you are replying to something that you made up in your mind instead of the message that I wrote, because you were really hoping that I would say boycotts don’t work because your whole argument is based on it
Customers leaving bad reviews somewhere that is visible and influential to future potential customers works. It stops people buying the game and demonstrates discontent to the vendor. That’s it.
You still believe boycotts work and are describing them and doing that thing where you make up something in youhr head without any proof. I.e., boycotts working in gaming
They really did. The victim blaming is insane. These companies spend money to leverage psychology in their favor to get people addicted to the dopamine rushes from things like microtransactions and loot boxes. Not everyone is able to resist that kind of conditioning on such a large scale.
You clearly have very little experience in the real world. People need to do better, because the freedom of the press and the propensity of businesses to provide goods and services isn’t going anywhere.
Just like being responsible for who you vote for, and a vehicle that you drive, you need to take some responsibility for the things you do, and what makes you act.
This is a common argument used to blame victims in rape cases - “she was wearing something provocative and I couldnt control my impulses”.
Your reaction to certain things is within your control. It is up to you to do something about it. If you aren’t in control and you are addicted to something, then get help - it’s that simple.
This adolescent infancy must stop if anything is to move forwards.
I can tell I have more experience in the real world just from your comment. Nothing is black and white and you not being able to understand others doesn’t change their reality or the world’s reality. Have a nice day and hopefully are able to grow and gain more experience and knowledge of the world moving forward.
Or in other words, you have no point to make and just wanted to try and have a closing comment, offering nothing of substance to the point or the discussion other than a sarcastic “have a nice day” and some vague virtue signalling/insult. Well, thanks for wrapping up the discussion for me I suppose…
I understand people very well, I have had a long career of doing so. To suggest that people have no responsibility for what they consume is incel-level pathetic. Touch some grass and grow up.
There’s no vote with your wallet when the supply is infinite and intangible, me not buying the microtransaction is one person, but a single whale will buy several, getting multiple votes in “yes please continue to shove shit down my throat” this isn’t voting at all.
I think the issue is only blaming the consumer and especially when pointing to the cause of the issue.
Is it naive to vote for someone who obviously tells you all you want to hear but has a record of taking advantage every time they get your vote? Absolutely.
But so is walking in a city at night. All kinds of bad things can happen there but someone who hasnt seen evil firsthand will not recognize it easily.
I grew up in a very rough part of a big city. I knew you cant go outside unarmed at night and especially not linger there. But I cant expect friends from other places who havent seen this to act „wisely“ without telling them. This why we advocate without looking down on people.
The unending desire for superiority as alfred adler describes it doesnt appeal to me. Maybe its just me but I find our constant focus on hierarchical order disturbing. Games are competitive, school is competitive, from a very early age we get that spoonfed. I‘d like to find research about this.
Also kind of crazy that loot boxes were far less predatory than the current ow2 system is. It was very possible to never buy boxes and get everything. Nowadays? No chance
To a healthy person, the current system is pricier and more aggressive. Things are constantly being shoved in your face, but they’re all purchase-only, and 20€/skin is just absurd.
But, I disagree that it’s more predatory. To a vulnerable person, the new system doesn’t elicit an addictive response, which loot boxes due to their gambling nature do.
I think FOMO is quite a strong motivator for a addictive person. At least loot boxes were obtainable via playing the game. I wouldn’t say I am an excessive gamer, but I still managed to basically get everything over the span of 6 years playing the game. But now you HAVE to spend money to relieve FOMO pressure. Forcing you to spend money is quite predatory.
It was possible to get everything but lets not overlook the inherently manipulative framing of either paying or making the game a second job, which cultivates a sunk cost mindset, which might once again make the player pay out of FOMO.
There are reasonable amounts of grind that can make games fun for some people, but the length of grind and the limited timeframes for obtaining items are all geared to feed into the same monetization cycle. All of that artificially, because it’s not like any digital game has to clear their storeroom and shelves to make space for new collectibles.
Game companies have been very sly about how they use physical real world metaphors to create justifications for their manipulative systems. Lootboxes too, because you can’t guess what’s in a closed pack… except the game keeps perfect track of what is available, what you have and what you don’t have. The only reason why anyone would get repeated lootbox items, is to lead them on and get them to waste money.
It’s going to take all kids products with the idea as kinder surprise. All campaigns where you might win something for buying a product you’re going to buy anyway. All trading card games. I think there’s even an argument to be made that it would make looters, battle royales, even Minecraft as gambling because the end result of your gaming experience is random. Broadstroking all random away simply doesn’t work.
Except the whale narrative is largely a false narrative created by the game industry to avoid saying that the money comes from kids and gambling addicts.
Those people with more money than sense do exist and they make up a portion of the mtx money, but the vast majority is from people who probably can’t afford to make purchases like that (but do anyways because their brain can’t say no).
The industry has been honing these skinner box techniques for decades now - it’s what they used to get people to pay a monthly subscription for an mmo they only play when they log in to do their dailies.
I never really thought about it beyond the obvious loot box gambling addiction thing, but after I saw somebody talking about how daily quests in games like WoW do the exact same thing as daily login bonuses and keep you logging in every day to create a habit that’ll keep you logging in whether you still enjoy the game or not, and how battlepasses and rotating cosmetic stores are designed to prey upon FOMO and people with poor impulse control, I can’t stop seeing how the industry runs on exploiting vulnerable people at every turn.
Yeah man I know a lot of guys who drop money on shit like this. None of them are “whales”, but i know they’ve dropped hundreds if not thousands on this mtx bs. None of them own homes (which is kinda normal as we are in our 20’s), but only a few of them are even living on their own at all. Something is clearly going on psychologically there, if someone is willing to forego their own needs for cosmetics (that they will later replace with new cosmetics they bought!!)
Might be the people that play only one game. I used to play WoW and then Diablo III exclusively like it was a full time job, and wound up in social bubbles with people who were equally invested. I never spent money on cosmetics or in-game items or anything but at that point it’d be pretty easy to rationalize since it’s something someone is spending 20-80 hours a week playing.
Back in WoW we used to sell one slot on our Algalon raid (hardmode only raid boss) and pay for our Ventrilo and website with that lol
Grubby is a good example of someone who was recently reformed. In one of his early Dota 2 videos (some time last year), he admitted that he didn’t know that games outside of Blizzard had gotten so good - he actually only played Blizzard games and nothing else. It’s been pretty wholesome watching someone learn the wider gaming world.
I find it bizarre that someone would ever pigeonhole themselves into one developer. I don’t even know who makes games half the time. There’s only one that I have blocked on Steam.
If youre still playing D4, I dont know what to tell you. Most people who pay attention to industry news and the game design philosophy of Blizzard knew well enough to pass it over.
Now I feel all the more right for skipping over it. To be honest, I didn’t mind Diablo 3 once it had all its content and was no longer a dual-wield credit card simulator. It was a pretty fun game by the end IMO. Diablo 4 didn’t feel right to me so I just skipped it.
I saw someone mentioned the other day in that thread about buyer’s remorse that they didn’t even feel like they were playing a game, that it played itself basically and that just made me think about watching my son-in-law playing Diablo 3 and all he really did was walk around while shit died around him due to his character’s abilities and items, and I asked how that was even fun anymore and he turned to me with a straight face and said “it’s not fun. I just want to 100% it.”
I was hoping in vain that Blizzard might pivot even a little when they saw the backlash but nah people continue to throw money away on bullshit so of course Blizzard wouldn’t
Such that laws are created to protect people from scammers? Because that is what really should be done. With the rise of this "buying is not owning’ bulshit, it has been a long time coming.
Or just stop playing games that exist as shitty GACHA vending machines.
It isn’t even the cost per-say. Its the fact that mounts were implemented in D4 as a practical afterthought. They barely affect gameplay, you can’t take them into dungeons, they don’t have any kind of skill progression or character synergy on their own right. Barely more than a TF2 fancy hat.
I got D4 at base price on release, played the main act, and shelved it months ago. I can’t imagine still playing a game that’s been nothing but bloody runs since that initial release. Nevermind paying $60 for a fucking cosmetics improvement while I grind mobs for incremental stat increases at the level cap.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
This sort of thing is exactly why I mostly just play retro games.
I did that for a while, but I discovered my local library has a great selection of games. I went from spending a few hundo on games a year to buying two a year - Christmas and birthday, and doing the rest of my gaming exploring their catalogue. It’s been great on my wallet. Hooray libraries.
There are a lot of solid indie titles you can get for $10
No it doesn’t. Social media sites that have moderators really need to take a stand about clickbait garbage headlines like this. It’s like getting a free t-shirt with a car purchase and claiming that T-shirt costs $40,000. You’re buying coins which already cost that much, the coins with or without the mount cost that much. Currently you can buy those coins and get a free mount. Lots to be upset with Diablo and Blizzard, but this is just garbage.
Question from someone who plays warframe.
They do their prime bundles for a decent chunk of money. But it’s also a really good deal just for the paid currency.
And you can get the same things in game for free.
So how much is the actual item vs the currency?
Reading the article, yeah it’s basically a “hey, buy 65$ worth of our virtual money and we’ll throw in this horse armor!” bundle.
There isn’t a way to get it ingame though. I think the only way to actually earn platinum is if you buy and complete the battlepasses.
Whatever the in game markets sells it for
There is no ingame market, and Warframe is a free game so it gets more of a pass compared to a paid game charging MORE than a f2p one.
Meanwhile, Helldivers 2’s armor is like 2 bucks, and you can find the currency in-game.
For Democracy!
Its nice to see a low cost microtransaction, and nice to see that you can get the currency in game but really thats just the same as it was a few years back before it went full 100 dollar for a reskin mode.
You are defending a game by pointing out that its money grabbing methods are less greedy than another company.
Games wont make the billions and billions they make now if they move away from the in game purchases models but they also evidently dont need billions and billions to operate.
Some of the best games on the market were made on small budgets by indie developers and sell well because the are fun and people actually want to play them.
I would argue that on online game kinda needs a stream of revenue that’s doesn’t only come from the first purchase, since that will stagnate.
Maybe we don’t make every game a live service. Remember halo 2, game was fantastic and no micro transactions in sight if you don’t count xbl.
I need to make a game for rich suckers.
Step 1: make some genuinely top shelf, genre-defining games in the 90s and early 2000s
Step 2: Sell out
Step 3: Become shittier than anyone could ever imagine
Step 4: Charge 1 kidney for a shitty in app purchase
What, dont you all have kidneys?
Step 3.5: Use psychology to “convince” children and those with certain mental health issues that they need the in app purchase.
While simultaneously convincing parents not to vote for regulation because “its optional”
And it looks like the result of a transporter malfunction involving Baron Rivendare’s Deathcharger and Butt Stallion.
Hahahaha! I hadn’t seen it before! And people are expected to (and some do) spend money on that?
Holy information density batman! That’s a fucking mess to look at there’s so much going on it stopped being cool looking
I love the “blame the consumer” mindset so much! It always leads to change and reform
If consumers as a whole keep buying overpriced skins then yes, I will blame the consumers for enabling this behavior.
These companies are using dark design patterns to manipulate kids and young people into a pattern of behaviour. You can blame consumers, but it’s not exactly a fair fight. These big companies have behaviour specialists employed and tons of data, used specifically to get people to act dumb in a way that benefits these companies. Heroin pushers are more honest.
When it’s as obvious of a scam as this post shows, I don’t really I have any sympathy. There are other games where it’s more cleverly implemented but even then I still lean towards the fault of consumers.
I am not going to blame the chocolate factory for getting someone obese. Sugar is addictive yes, but everything can be to a certain point and it’s a person’s responsibility to manage these potential addictions.
I’m all for personal responsibilities. In fact I believe all drugs should be legal. But if alcohol companies began heavily advertising drinking for kids or young people, making it look like fund and cool and make it easily accessible, I think regulation is needed. People have the right to be stupid and do with their money and body whatever they want, but companies should not be allowed to promoted this behaviour. They should simply offer it and nothing more.
If casinos need to be regulated and strictly scrutinized to prevent children from engaging with them, so should all games that resort to lootboxes. Researchers have made it clear that the psychological effects are identical, and that early engagement with lootboxes tends to lead to issues with gambling.
I would want regulations only if we were talking about opening crates or other forms of gambling. But this is as upfront and crystal clear as possible where you pay money and you get a skin unlike opening crates. We can all agree that the horse cosmetic is a ripoff but it’s open and upfront about it’s shittiness with no aspect of gambling. Unless I’m forgetting something, gambling microtransactions are the only case where I think regulation is needed.
Edit: The reason why I think gambling should be regulated more so than the other addictive substances (sugar, alcohol, the horse cosmetic) is because gambling doesn’t give you a concrete product. Unlike the others, gambling is getting the chance to obtain your desired product while the others guarantee a product to use.
This whole attitude of “its not their fault they can’t help but hand over their money and buy overpriced shit” has got to stop
Economics is very simple here: there is supply, there is demand. If demand outstrips supply, the price will rise. This includes when is artificially restricted (or the market is flooded with alternatives by the same vendor to give the feeling of scarcity).
The demand for streaming services is the same. People will take the hit, so the price goes up until they can’t anymore.
The generation is contributing to inflation because of inability to restrain themselves from buying frivolous shit for extortionate amounts of money, because they can’t psychologically cope with doing without something, then complaining that no jobs pay enough while they try to launch an onlyfans career. Every generation has it’s flaws.
This then makes prices rise for everyone. The infantilzation to suggest they cant help themselves is astonishing. Companies are not going to stop making profit without intervention.
You really think boycotts work? Is that for real? Do you have evidence? Like any example, at all, of boycotts working in gaming?
Boycotts aren’t Boycotts, they are just an underperformed product due to bad reviews. This happens every single day on every single platform.
So if boycotts don’t work, what can the consumer do? Just not play the game at all? Even if the developer put effort in, and its a labor of love, but the publisher forced mtx in anyway? Like, what if the game is good and boycotts don’t work? What’s gonna stop greedy publishers?
You are doing that thing where you are replying to something that you made up in your mind instead of the message that I wrote, because you were really hoping that I would say boycotts don’t work because your whole argument is based on it
Customers leaving bad reviews somewhere that is visible and influential to future potential customers works. It stops people buying the game and demonstrates discontent to the vendor. That’s it.
You still believe boycotts work and are describing them and doing that thing where you make up something in youhr head without any proof. I.e., boycotts working in gaming
Did you seriously just write that zoomers buying horse armor caused my groceries and rent to get more expensive
deleted by creator
Yup, and watch them downvote it because they don’t like it
They really did. The victim blaming is insane. These companies spend money to leverage psychology in their favor to get people addicted to the dopamine rushes from things like microtransactions and loot boxes. Not everyone is able to resist that kind of conditioning on such a large scale.
You clearly have very little experience in the real world. People need to do better, because the freedom of the press and the propensity of businesses to provide goods and services isn’t going anywhere.
Just like being responsible for who you vote for, and a vehicle that you drive, you need to take some responsibility for the things you do, and what makes you act.
This is a common argument used to blame victims in rape cases - “she was wearing something provocative and I couldnt control my impulses”.
Your reaction to certain things is within your control. It is up to you to do something about it. If you aren’t in control and you are addicted to something, then get help - it’s that simple.
This adolescent infancy must stop if anything is to move forwards.
I can tell I have more experience in the real world just from your comment. Nothing is black and white and you not being able to understand others doesn’t change their reality or the world’s reality. Have a nice day and hopefully are able to grow and gain more experience and knowledge of the world moving forward.
“Nothing is black and white”
Or in other words, you have no point to make and just wanted to try and have a closing comment, offering nothing of substance to the point or the discussion other than a sarcastic “have a nice day” and some vague virtue signalling/insult. Well, thanks for wrapping up the discussion for me I suppose…
I understand people very well, I have had a long career of doing so. To suggest that people have no responsibility for what they consume is incel-level pathetic. Touch some grass and grow up.
There’s no vote with your wallet when the supply is infinite and intangible, me not buying the microtransaction is one person, but a single whale will buy several, getting multiple votes in “yes please continue to shove shit down my throat” this isn’t voting at all.
One thing I have heard stuck with me fiercely.
“When you vote with your wallet, those who have more money get more votes”.
And you know who got the most money? No, it’s not the whales. It’s the corporations.
I mean I do blame the consumer. Specifically for not voting in harsh consumer- and worker-protection laws curbing corporate abilities.
I think the issue is only blaming the consumer and especially when pointing to the cause of the issue.
Is it naive to vote for someone who obviously tells you all you want to hear but has a record of taking advantage every time they get your vote? Absolutely.
But so is walking in a city at night. All kinds of bad things can happen there but someone who hasnt seen evil firsthand will not recognize it easily.
I grew up in a very rough part of a big city. I knew you cant go outside unarmed at night and especially not linger there. But I cant expect friends from other places who havent seen this to act „wisely“ without telling them. This why we advocate without looking down on people.
Have a good one.
I think I understand, but how do you deal with the unending desire to feel superior over others?
The unending desire for superiority as alfred adler describes it doesnt appeal to me. Maybe its just me but I find our constant focus on hierarchical order disturbing. Games are competitive, school is competitive, from a very early age we get that spoonfed. I‘d like to find research about this.
Every time this comes up (which is too often) I’m like “Who is buying this?” How can we make them stop? Do they need help?
Yes.
People who spend 10s of thousands of dollars on micro transactions do need help.
Said help probably needs to come at a government level banning things that were designed in a computer lab to be digital Crack.
It’s such a shame that the OW1 discussion about loot boxes went nowhere in regards to giving ingame gambling the same legal framework as IRL gambling.
Also kind of crazy that loot boxes were far less predatory than the current ow2 system is. It was very possible to never buy boxes and get everything. Nowadays? No chance
Well, I’m of two minds about that.
To a healthy person, the current system is pricier and more aggressive. Things are constantly being shoved in your face, but they’re all purchase-only, and 20€/skin is just absurd.
But, I disagree that it’s more predatory. To a vulnerable person, the new system doesn’t elicit an addictive response, which loot boxes due to their gambling nature do.
I think FOMO is quite a strong motivator for a addictive person. At least loot boxes were obtainable via playing the game. I wouldn’t say I am an excessive gamer, but I still managed to basically get everything over the span of 6 years playing the game. But now you HAVE to spend money to relieve FOMO pressure. Forcing you to spend money is quite predatory.
deleted by creator
It was possible to get everything but lets not overlook the inherently manipulative framing of either paying or making the game a second job, which cultivates a sunk cost mindset, which might once again make the player pay out of FOMO.
There are reasonable amounts of grind that can make games fun for some people, but the length of grind and the limited timeframes for obtaining items are all geared to feed into the same monetization cycle. All of that artificially, because it’s not like any digital game has to clear their storeroom and shelves to make space for new collectibles.
Game companies have been very sly about how they use physical real world metaphors to create justifications for their manipulative systems. Lootboxes too, because you can’t guess what’s in a closed pack… except the game keeps perfect track of what is available, what you have and what you don’t have. The only reason why anyone would get repeated lootbox items, is to lead them on and get them to waste money.
I mean, they also freed me from my pain wanting to play that game, only with their shitty update, so i have to thank Blizzard.
Anything that costs money to use with a randomised result should be considered gambling.
Yes, it’s high time we shut down the kinder surprise gambling dens.
I mean, yeah. Showing what Kinder toy is inside is a small price to pay for a broad stroke gambling law.
It’s going to take all kids products with the idea as kinder surprise. All campaigns where you might win something for buying a product you’re going to buy anyway. All trading card games. I think there’s even an argument to be made that it would make looters, battle royales, even Minecraft as gambling because the end result of your gaming experience is random. Broadstroking all random away simply doesn’t work.
Not all random events. Just anything that requires payment to activate a randomised event / prize should be forbidden for children.
Whales, idk if we can make them stop, often times yes they need help
People with poor fiscal responsibility skills, such as children, people with ADHD, and people with mental health issues like depression.
They literally hire psychologists to make this stuff as enticing as possible by pushing the right buttons in your brain.
Don’t forget the people with more money than sense. Whales are what keep the microtransaction mechanic alive and well.
Except the whale narrative is largely a false narrative created by the game industry to avoid saying that the money comes from kids and gambling addicts.
Those people with more money than sense do exist and they make up a portion of the mtx money, but the vast majority is from people who probably can’t afford to make purchases like that (but do anyways because their brain can’t say no).
The industry has been honing these skinner box techniques for decades now - it’s what they used to get people to pay a monthly subscription for an mmo they only play when they log in to do their dailies.
The term whale even came from actual casino gambling originally, so that definitely doesn’t help the moral purity of their business.
Jesus. I’m extremely ashamed that I’ve never questioned the whale narrative before…
Thank you!
I never really thought about it beyond the obvious loot box gambling addiction thing, but after I saw somebody talking about how daily quests in games like WoW do the exact same thing as daily login bonuses and keep you logging in every day to create a habit that’ll keep you logging in whether you still enjoy the game or not, and how battlepasses and rotating cosmetic stores are designed to prey upon FOMO and people with poor impulse control, I can’t stop seeing how the industry runs on exploiting vulnerable people at every turn.
Yeah man I know a lot of guys who drop money on shit like this. None of them are “whales”, but i know they’ve dropped hundreds if not thousands on this mtx bs. None of them own homes (which is kinda normal as we are in our 20’s), but only a few of them are even living on their own at all. Something is clearly going on psychologically there, if someone is willing to forego their own needs for cosmetics (that they will later replace with new cosmetics they bought!!)
Might be the people that play only one game. I used to play WoW and then Diablo III exclusively like it was a full time job, and wound up in social bubbles with people who were equally invested. I never spent money on cosmetics or in-game items or anything but at that point it’d be pretty easy to rationalize since it’s something someone is spending 20-80 hours a week playing.
Back in WoW we used to sell one slot on our Algalon raid (hardmode only raid boss) and pay for our Ventrilo and website with that lol
deleted by creator
Grubby is a good example of someone who was recently reformed. In one of his early Dota 2 videos (some time last year), he admitted that he didn’t know that games outside of Blizzard had gotten so good - he actually only played Blizzard games and nothing else. It’s been pretty wholesome watching someone learn the wider gaming world.
I find it bizarre that someone would ever pigeonhole themselves into one developer. I don’t even know who makes games half the time. There’s only one that I have blocked on Steam.
If youre still playing D4, I dont know what to tell you. Most people who pay attention to industry news and the game design philosophy of Blizzard knew well enough to pass it over.
Now I feel all the more right for skipping over it. To be honest, I didn’t mind Diablo 3 once it had all its content and was no longer a dual-wield credit card simulator. It was a pretty fun game by the end IMO. Diablo 4 didn’t feel right to me so I just skipped it.
D4 really isn’t that different from current D3. In some areas it’s actually better. But of course both of those suck compared to D2 or PoE.
I saw someone mentioned the other day in that thread about buyer’s remorse that they didn’t even feel like they were playing a game, that it played itself basically and that just made me think about watching my son-in-law playing Diablo 3 and all he really did was walk around while shit died around him due to his character’s abilities and items, and I asked how that was even fun anymore and he turned to me with a straight face and said “it’s not fun. I just want to 100% it.”
i only played it because it came free with my xbox. then starfield came out and i completely forgot about d4
I was hoping in vain that Blizzard might pivot even a little when they saw the backlash but nah people continue to throw money away on bullshit so of course Blizzard wouldn’t
If they still play honestly …
Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t people warned about this before the game even came out?
This should fall under the purview of “fools and their money.”
Such that laws are created to protect people from scammers? Because that is what really should be done. With the rise of this "buying is not owning’ bulshit, it has been a long time coming.
deleted by creator
Do you guys not have phones?
deleted by creator
Stop 👏 playing 👏 games 👏 that 👏 rip 👏 you 👏 off 👏
Or just stop playing games that exist as shitty GACHA vending machines.
It isn’t even the cost per-say. Its the fact that mounts were implemented in D4 as a practical afterthought. They barely affect gameplay, you can’t take them into dungeons, they don’t have any kind of skill progression or character synergy on their own right. Barely more than a TF2 fancy hat.
I got D4 at base price on release, played the main act, and shelved it months ago. I can’t imagine still playing a game that’s been nothing but bloody runs since that initial release. Nevermind paying $60 for a fucking cosmetics improvement while I grind mobs for incremental stat increases at the level cap.