The article only briefly mentions other games. While Hacker News readers may not be that familiar with slot machines, a higher portion will certainly be familia

The article only briefly mentions other games. While Hacker News readers may not be that familiar with slot machines, a higher portion will certainly be familiar with 'grind' in various computer games, which is essentially the same thing using many similar tricks, and a mechanism to extend play time; most noticeable on MMOs when they get hundreds or thousands of play time out of a customer, when the equivalent budget single player game would get 20.