8 ms·

Yeah, this stinks. I despise fake currency created to form a disconnect between the real-world costs of items and their "in-game" price. It's used as a form of

• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• aphextron 10y ago
  >I despise fake currency created to form a disconnect between the real-world costs of items and their "in-game" price. That's the entire point; it's a psychological hack. It's the same idea as gambling chips at a casino. If they force you to purchase "coins" in bulk, then you are much more likely to spend them freely once you have them than you would with actual cash, as the value is too abstract. They will also set the prices in such a way that you just need to buy one more "coin pack" even though you only need a few individual coins to get what you want.
  • gdulli 10y ago
    Many casino games don't work well with cash. You'd use plastic or ceramic chips even if you were playing at home against friends. Common coins have too little value, larger coins get very heavy and loud in bulk. And paper money doesn't work well. You can't toss it to the center of the table as easily as chips, it's harder to count a stack of dollars, paper money would tear when handled so heavily, etc. There are very practical reasons to use chips instead of cash in a casino. Slot machines, which don't have those considerations, can be played with your choice of cash or cards that can have value loaded onto them, as of the last time I checked.
    • ballenf 10y ago
      Very true, but it sure is a lot easier to toss a "chip" tip to your dealer or waitress than cash. Or place a long shot bet that you don't expect to win. And I mean psychologically less painful, not logistically even though it is both. You have the added pain of turning chips back into dollars, so your mind starts to play tricks on you making parting with the chips ever so easier than parting with cash. You discount for the hassle of getting back to cash. In addition you get chips from any and every dealer in the casino. You get cash from one of a couple cashiers placed very inconveniently around the periphery where there are often lines or uncertainty about which windows are open. Just a touch of uncertainty. Virtual game currencies are, amazingly, even worse. It is incredibly painful and difficult to walk away from them since you lose all that fake "value" you've built up or bought.
  • problems 10y ago
    Does it ever work though? First thing I do is do the math on what each individual item I'm interested in costs in dollars based on the price of both the most and least expensive coin pack or whatever.
    • graedus 10y ago
      > First thing I do is do the math Me too, but I guarantee we're outliers. You probably look at your credit card statements sometimes too :) They could easily choose to make the exchange rate easy (at least in e.g. USD), or even better, forego the fake currency system entirely and allow transactions in the user's local currency. Instead they erect multiple layers of obfuscation to keep you from thinking about the idea that you're actually spending real money. Something tells me they spend the resources on this system because it results in increased net profits.
      • problems 10y ago
        I'm not so sure - I think it's more for other reasons, I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to something so complicated when there's a few quite less complicated good reasons I can see for it too - like lowering transaction fees by performing less transactions (if I buy a big pack of tokens, I only make 1 purchase, rather than doing a ton of small transactions which will kill you on fees from many payment gateways) - or easing the burden on customer support to explain why they can't refund a partially spent balance. When I buy a pack of tokens rather than depositing USD or similar into an account, I'm more likely to spend all of those tokens. I'm also not likely to say "hey, I demand you give me my remaining balance back" after buying a single cheap item. It also makes giving rewards easy and makes sure that money will be spent in the same place. Some free to play games, World of Tanks for example have larger things that are sold both in gold and in USD - because they make it possible for people to earn gold in game through multiplayer competitions but want it to be easy for someone who just wants premium time to buy it with cash.
        • graedus 10y ago
          > When I buy a pack of tokens rather than depositing USD or similar into an account, I'm more likely to spend all of those tokens. In my experience, it's exactly the opposite, since packs of points/tokens are not typically divisible by the price of common purchases. For example, you might have the option to buy 500, 1500, or 3000 points; items then cost something like 740 or 800 or 1600 points. To spend your last point/token you almost certainly have to buy more than you originally intended.
  • Dylan16807 10y ago
    Casino chips are 1:1 and refundable, I'm not sure that works the same way.
  • linkregister 10y ago
    I've never been to a casino where I can't use cash to get chips for that hand's stake at any dealer's table. The friction of cashing out has always been low as well by going to the cash-out points by each exit.
• hasenj 10y ago
  > It's taking advantage of children and their connection with their funders (parents). Couldn't that be said about any business that sell products aimed at children?
  • colordrops 10y ago
    Yes, but widespread precedent doesn't make it any less despicable.
• whazor 10y ago
  Currently, Minecraft servers are already having in-game currencies and are heavily taking advantage of children. I think Microsoft want a piece of the pie, but maybe also they want to regulate the market a bit. Then it becomes less shady for the parents compared to some random server.
• graedus 10y ago
  100%. This looks like the same idea as my old "favorite" example: the xbox live store, where players were forced to convert from their local currency into "Microsoft Points" before buying anything. Of course, the exchange rate was always something weird and difficult to mentally calculate, like $10 = 830 points or whatever, as a further hurdle to clear in order to find out what something in the xbox live store actually costs in real money. Total scumbaggery.
  • btym 10y ago
    Right, and the smallest conversion was $5, so more often than not you'd have to spend an extra few dollars.
• powvans 10y ago
  I cannot take my 5 year old son into a supermarket. Entering and exiting requires passing by so much candy and other garbage that it's just not worth it. He will invariably pitch a fit when I say no and we will invariably have a tear filled exit from the store. The store is effectively weaponizing my child against me to extract money from my pocket. This is similar. My kids don't play video games, but I have friends who will hear no end of whining and crying when their kid needs more Minecraft $$$. Of course they can refuse to participate, but as a parent it's frustrating.
  • holri 10y ago
    This is one reason I prefer Foodcoops.
  • ImSkeptical 10y ago
    I can't help but see this as an opportunity. In a way, the store is providing for you an environment to reliably reproduce bad behavior in your child. You could establish some reward (choosing a movie to watch, game to play, a sweet snack, etc). You could then teach a lesson in temperance or read an appropriate child's book. After, you can test the lesson by bringing your child to the store. If he behaves well, then you've succeeded. If not, you remove the previously established reward for a day or two, and then try a different teaching method.
    • robotresearcher 10y ago
      You can also go to the gym three times a week, give 10% of your income to charity, call your mom every weekend, never raise your voice in anger, and never have more than two beers. On the other hand, to those of us not 24/7 paragons, the goddamn store being deliberately set up to stimulate three year olds to beg for sugar is a pain in the ass.
      • linkregister 10y ago
        I think you read too much into that commenter's expectations. Parenting is forgiving enough where only a few minutes of hard, engaging teaching is sufficient to help improve behavior. Your examples are way harder. Never raise your voice in anger? That's unachievable and absurd for most people. Take ten minutes per week to work with a child to improve unacceptable behavior? It sucks but is pretty realistic.