4 ms·

Video game industry is pushing these tactics to new heights with loot box gamification, even better the target consumers are young, mentally underdeveloped chil

Video game industry is pushing these tactics to new heights with loot box gamification, even better the target consumers are young, mentally underdeveloped children who are much easier to addict to gambling. China/Japan have regulated these practices for years already (with minimal effectiveness because money wins and publishers have found loopholes), but at least they're trying. Over here we just let companies go to town on our youth, mental health and stability be damned. They are printing money at the expense of hooking children into gambling. This is no different than tobacco companies targeting children with advertisement which was rightfully outlawed. - Corporations encouraging and nourishing gambling addiction in underage consumers (with the help of trained psychologists) for profit is despicable. Don'tunderstand why more people aren't upset about this.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago
My guess is lot of us adults don't really see much of it, cause it's not targeted at us. I see the regular "come to hopping awesome great casino" ads on tv/radio/internet. My thoughts - thats where people go to lose money. But these loot boxes, I had to research what this was referring to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box And after reading how they're used, yeah, thats like years ago when I played and bought Magic The Gathering. Sure, a pack was $2.95, but it was a complete gamble on what rare you got. You didn't buy packs for commons and lands - you bought them for a chance at the chase rare (now ubers). Maybe its just my age. But I think lowly of "buying" some digital construct in a game that I don't own is completely ridiculous. I get spending time and running up levels, but spending actual hard cash (past a per month cost) is just.. bad.
- lsmarigo 9y ago
  you're absolutely right you can trace the roots of this back to Magic and if you want to go further back Baseball cards. It was fairly innocent back then, with the advent of gaming technology and research into dopamine-releasing mechanics/skinner boxes it's reached insidious levels.
  - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
    Tell me about it :/ I remember the older days of MTG, around revised and 4th ed. There were ante cards - it was set up so games could be gambling between players. They finally removed all the ante cards (like ante another card, and gain life back to 20 and a full hand of cards). But in the end, there were good and bad cards - but the game was fun. MTG started doing the "YuGiOh" scam, of foil cards. Then uber-rares. And then also using the chase-rares to loot-boxify the game. But now, I've seen a few games that try to incentivize purchasing coin to play more. There was some car game I remember that did that - if you were to buy every upgrade it would be over $12,000 . Hill Climb Racing 2, I think its name was. And here I was, thinking that a $50 game was expensive. Yeouch. I feel bad for people who got suckered into that scam.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago

My guess is lot of us adults don't really see much of it, cause it's not targeted at us. I see the regular "come to hopping awesome great casino" ads on tv/radio/internet. My thoughts - thats where people go to lose money. But these loot boxes, I had to research what this was referring to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box And after reading how they're used, yeah, thats like years ago when I played and bought Magic The Gathering. Sure, a pack was $2.95, but it was a complete gamble on what rare you got. You didn't buy packs for commons and lands - you bought them for a chance at the chase rare (now ubers). Maybe its just my age. But I think lowly of "buying" some digital construct in a game that I don't own is completely ridiculous. I get spending time and running up levels, but spending actual hard cash (past a per month cost) is just.. bad.

lsmarigo 9y ago
you're absolutely right you can trace the roots of this back to Magic and if you want to go further back Baseball cards. It was fairly innocent back then, with the advent of gaming technology and research into dopamine-releasing mechanics/skinner boxes it's reached insidious levels.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  Tell me about it :/ I remember the older days of MTG, around revised and 4th ed. There were ante cards - it was set up so games could be gambling between players. They finally removed all the ante cards (like ante another card, and gain life back to 20 and a full hand of cards). But in the end, there were good and bad cards - but the game was fun. MTG started doing the "YuGiOh" scam, of foil cards. Then uber-rares. And then also using the chase-rares to loot-boxify the game. But now, I've seen a few games that try to incentivize purchasing coin to play more. There was some car game I remember that did that - if you were to buy every upgrade it would be over $12,000 . Hill Climb Racing 2, I think its name was. And here I was, thinking that a $50 game was expensive. Yeouch. I feel bad for people who got suckered into that scam.