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> And people wonder how the hell do they get away with p2w and gambling mechanics in games. Because that business model is profitable, and entertainment is a b

> And people wonder how the hell do they get away with p2w and gambling mechanics in games. Because that business model is profitable, and entertainment is a business like any other. If you don't like it, you are free not to play it. Besides some potential for gambling addiction (about which state lotteries are a far more important target for your ire if that is your concern), mobile games produce no externalities whatsoever. I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. If you want to be outraged about corporate behavior, there are a multitude of examples of corporate malfeasance with actual negative externalities, such as the coal industry's contribution to climate change.

jakebasile 8y ago
You're mystified by it because you probably aren't a dedicated gamer. To lots of people, including myself, gaming is a huge part of their identity and lifestyle. It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc. The "but climate change" is just whataboutism because gaming isn't important to you, so why aren't people paying more attention to what is important to you. edit to clarify: This may sound a little hostile but it isn't intended as such. I'm just explaining that some people really do care about this stuff just as you really care about your own hobbies or pet cause.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  As someone who self-exiled from the gaming community, there are also people within the community, including journalists, who beat on the war drums in order to rile up gamers. For the last ~4 years, everything from game reviews that gamers disagreed with, to character stencils, have been positioned as the worst things to ever happen to gaming. Some in the community liken it to actual discrimination against gamers.
- BoiledCabbage 8y ago
  > It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc. And yet you don't see people who follow those hobbies throwing an absolute fit like gamers are now doing continuously.
  - jakebasile 8y ago
    A big part of that is comparative population size, and the general "connectedness" of the fanbases. All online communities are trending worse and worse, and gaming is not unaffected.
    - thomasz 8y ago
      I double dare anybody to show me an even remotely comparable example of people getting so angry about fishing gear or woodworking tools.
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    In a group of consumers of an industry that is larger than the film and music industries combined (and this was before casual gaming took off), you are going to get some people who are louder and more committed than others.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    I regularly observe people flipping out because a corporation changed the license of a product to allow them to get more profit and more people being angry about the choice of webbrowser or whitespace character.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    Maybe they are not online to the same extend? Because emacs-vs-vim used to a flame-war guarantee, and the stupid thing is that nobody is impacted by another persons text-editor, unless they are sharing a computer that can't have both installed (so anything with more than 30mb hd)
malvosenior 8y ago
> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. People are always going to be upset when something they're passionate about gets ruined. Being continuously attacked by the game press also sets up the whole conversation to be very hostile. The internet is great for consumer rights. Consumers hold all of the cards and corporations are there to serve them. I don't think anyone should be feeling sorry for companies will multi billion dollar marketcaps or mainstream press. They are not ever going to be the victim.
kowdermeister 8y ago
This is all fine, but I help demystify the problem here. They marketed the new game to a completely detached audience as the highlight of the event. And when real questions came in, like "maybe a PC version comes later?" The reaction is: "You guys not have phones?"[1] I can see people snapping to rage mode. And then the gaming 'media' calls theys guys out as assholes, which really shows how strings are really pulled behind the curtains. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjVdPtB9lU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjVdPtB9lU
- Buldak 8y ago
  So the complaint is just that Blizzard should have framed their announcement differently? The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon? That seems so feeble to me, and the sort of criticism you get when fans can't reconcile their displeasure with the understanding that Blizzard is rational to pursue the mobile gaming market this way. As for "You guys not have phones?", that was obviously a bad look, but seeing as it was an off-the-cuff remark in an awkward exchange, I'm not inclined to hold it against the speaker.
  - sharpneli 8y ago
    >The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon? Precisely this. It's not that feeble because you must remember what Blizzcon is. Know your audience. Blizzcon audience has paid $199 to get in. They are quite hard core PC gamers. If your main show for them is something they are not interested of course they are gonna be unhappy. If Blizzard wants to change Blizzcon they should tell the audience that "Blizzcon 2018 is focused on mobile" before they buy the tickets. Don't suddenly change the theme and expect a good reaction
    - happytoexplain 8y ago
      You're making a point that keeps being brought up about expectations, which is valid and I get it, but I think the point was not that people should not rightfully criticize Blizzard for that, but rather that the absolute outrage seems ridiculous. This sort of over-the-top accusative outrage is a sad fixture in modern culture, but it seems bizarrely more common in video game news than elsewhere.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chongli 8y ago
Besides some potential for gambling addiction (about which state lotteries are a far more important target for your ire if that is your concern), mobile games produce no externalities whatsoever. I don't think it's fair to claim that. Lotteries have been around a lot longer and gambling addiction has had a lot more time to be studied. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if mobile games turn out to be as bad or worse than lotteries. The sheer amount of effort into creating addictive game mechanics and leveraging of statistical methods, such as A/B testing, puts traditional casinos and state lotteries to shame. Having said all that, you don't have to look very far to see some alarming articles about the effects these products have on young children [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-sil...
ggregoire 8y ago
> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. What about the concept of outrage about programming languages, frameworks, web browsers, operating systems, laptops, phones, open source? I guess 99.9% of the population would be mystified with the outrages that we can see on Hacker News. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18052923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18052923 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17927972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17927972 (just few recent examples, the list could go on)
- pcwalton 8y ago
  I think a lot of people have overly strong opinions on things like programming languages and web browsers as well.
- thomasz 8y ago
  The comments in these links are downright tame compared to r/diablo right now, while the stakes are way higher. The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers. Diablo is just a goddamn video game.
  - pcwalton 8y ago
    > The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers. Not only that, they have an impact on democracy. The importance of FB, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and MSFT to society has never been higher. The relevance of ATVI to anything important is, to a first approximation, zero.
    - jakebasile 8y ago
      Again, you're essentially saying that because games aren't something you care about that it's wrong for anyone to care deeply about them.
bassman9000 8y ago
> If you don't like it, you are free not to play it And Blizzard is free not to listen to the otherwise more than justified response. And when they have to close because all the fanbase has moved on, and we get thousands of tweets about how great the developers working there were, and how sad it is they don't have a job any more, we'll be free to ignore them.

jakebasile 8y ago

You're mystified by it because you probably aren't a dedicated gamer. To lots of people, including myself, gaming is a huge part of their identity and lifestyle. It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc. The "but climate change" is just whataboutism because gaming isn't important to you, so why aren't people paying more attention to what is important to you. edit to clarify: This may sound a little hostile but it isn't intended as such. I'm just explaining that some people really do care about this stuff just as you really care about your own hobbies or pet cause.

darpa_escapee 8y ago
As someone who self-exiled from the gaming community, there are also people within the community, including journalists, who beat on the war drums in order to rile up gamers. For the last ~4 years, everything from game reviews that gamers disagreed with, to character stencils, have been positioned as the worst things to ever happen to gaming. Some in the community liken it to actual discrimination against gamers.
BoiledCabbage 8y ago
> It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc. And yet you don't see people who follow those hobbies throwing an absolute fit like gamers are now doing continuously.
- jakebasile 8y ago
  A big part of that is comparative population size, and the general "connectedness" of the fanbases. All online communities are trending worse and worse, and gaming is not unaffected.
  - thomasz 8y ago
    I double dare anybody to show me an even remotely comparable example of people getting so angry about fishing gear or woodworking tools.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  In a group of consumers of an industry that is larger than the film and music industries combined (and this was before casual gaming took off), you are going to get some people who are louder and more committed than others.
- zaarn 8y ago
  I regularly observe people flipping out because a corporation changed the license of a product to allow them to get more profit and more people being angry about the choice of webbrowser or whitespace character.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Maybe they are not online to the same extend? Because emacs-vs-vim used to a flame-war guarantee, and the stupid thing is that nobody is impacted by another persons text-editor, unless they are sharing a computer that can't have both installed (so anything with more than 30mb hd)

malvosenior 8y ago

> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. People are always going to be upset when something they're passionate about gets ruined. Being continuously attacked by the game press also sets up the whole conversation to be very hostile. The internet is great for consumer rights. Consumers hold all of the cards and corporations are there to serve them. I don't think anyone should be feeling sorry for companies will multi billion dollar marketcaps or mainstream press. They are not ever going to be the victim.

kowdermeister 8y ago

This is all fine, but I help demystify the problem here. They marketed the new game to a completely detached audience as the highlight of the event. And when real questions came in, like "maybe a PC version comes later?" The reaction is: "You guys not have phones?"[1] I can see people snapping to rage mode. And then the gaming 'media' calls theys guys out as assholes, which really shows how strings are really pulled behind the curtains. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjVdPtB9lU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjVdPtB9lU

Buldak 8y ago
So the complaint is just that Blizzard should have framed their announcement differently? The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon? That seems so feeble to me, and the sort of criticism you get when fans can't reconcile their displeasure with the understanding that Blizzard is rational to pursue the mobile gaming market this way. As for "You guys not have phones?", that was obviously a bad look, but seeing as it was an off-the-cuff remark in an awkward exchange, I'm not inclined to hold it against the speaker.
- sharpneli 8y ago
  >The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon? Precisely this. It's not that feeble because you must remember what Blizzcon is. Know your audience. Blizzcon audience has paid $199 to get in. They are quite hard core PC gamers. If your main show for them is something they are not interested of course they are gonna be unhappy. If Blizzard wants to change Blizzcon they should tell the audience that "Blizzcon 2018 is focused on mobile" before they buy the tickets. Don't suddenly change the theme and expect a good reaction
  - happytoexplain 8y ago
    You're making a point that keeps being brought up about expectations, which is valid and I get it, but I think the point was not that people should not rightfully criticize Blizzard for that, but rather that the absolute outrage seems ridiculous. This sort of over-the-top accusative outrage is a sad fixture in modern culture, but it seems bizarrely more common in video game news than elsewhere.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

chongli 8y ago

Besides some potential for gambling addiction (about which state lotteries are a far more important target for your ire if that is your concern), mobile games produce no externalities whatsoever. I don't think it's fair to claim that. Lotteries have been around a lot longer and gambling addiction has had a lot more time to be studied. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if mobile games turn out to be as bad or worse than lotteries. The sheer amount of effort into creating addictive game mechanics and leveraging of statistical methods, such as A/B testing, puts traditional casinos and state lotteries to shame. Having said all that, you don't have to look very far to see some alarming articles about the effects these products have on young children [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-sil...

ggregoire 8y ago

> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. What about the concept of outrage about programming languages, frameworks, web browsers, operating systems, laptops, phones, open source? I guess 99.9% of the population would be mystified with the outrages that we can see on Hacker News. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18052923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18052923 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17927972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17927972 (just few recent examples, the list could go on)

pcwalton 8y ago
I think a lot of people have overly strong opinions on things like programming languages and web browsers as well.
thomasz 8y ago
The comments in these links are downright tame compared to r/diablo right now, while the stakes are way higher. The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers. Diablo is just a goddamn video game.
- pcwalton 8y ago
  > The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers. Not only that, they have an impact on democracy. The importance of FB, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and MSFT to society has never been higher. The relevance of ATVI to anything important is, to a first approximation, zero.
  - jakebasile 8y ago
    Again, you're essentially saying that because games aren't something you care about that it's wrong for anyone to care deeply about them.

bassman9000 8y ago

> If you don't like it, you are free not to play it And Blizzard is free not to listen to the otherwise more than justified response. And when they have to close because all the fanbase has moved on, and we get thousands of tweets about how great the developers working there were, and how sad it is they don't have a job any more, we'll be free to ignore them.