5 ms·

Yep, I spent many years at a large, public US mobile game company and it was the same. We had a considerable number of players who had total spend in the 5-figu

Yep, I spent many years at a large, public US mobile game company and it was the same. We had a considerable number of players who had total spend in the 5-figure range, and a few into the 6's. And that's on one single game. The constant rationalization around the office was basically something like: "They're paying for fun, it would otherwise be drinks/movies/real gambling/etc, we're just a different medium". This, of course, completely ignored the boatload of psychological exploitation tricks that we used to keep people playing (and paying). The game mechanics were literally a rigged slot machine. The meta-game was designed to constantly tantalize you with something just out of reach. The monetization was high-pressure, time-sensitive, and used false discounts to increase value ("Get this $20.00 pack for $1.99! Only for the next 60 minutes!") It got very draining after a while, and I'm much happier now that I've left the industry.

brnt 6y ago
It may be an artifact of the division between body and mind, common in Western cultures. Any problem related to the psyche is treated differently (ie taken less seriously) from problems related to the body. I wonder how many millenia this ostensibly subtle difference in conception will keep on giving us pain and mental anguish. Its so deeprooted, I wonder what it will take to pull it out.
- kingkawn 6y ago
  This division is on the verge of self destruction under the own weight of its inconsistencies.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  There are plenty of people hooked on this stuff in the east. Addiction doesn't care about your philosophy. Some people are just more mentally available to addiction in all it's myriad forms.
  - brnt 6y ago
    I was refering to the tendency to not treat psychological issues as serious as physical ones. Obviously addiction knows no boundaries.
dleslie 6y ago
I left casual games because of this; every partner and publisher we worked with was heavily pressuring us to optimize for whales. They wanted the long tale for marketing, and the whales for revenue; and once hooked, the core interaction loop was to be as addictive as possible. When I left it was Candy Crush that was the top of the field; and we were in awe. They were _always_ rewarding players, and were pushing microtransactions everywhere. It was flashy like a slot machine, and provided a constant stream of "rewards" for continued engagement. It was a disgusting industry then; it probably still is now. I went into game dev to tell stories and explore worlds, not to sell dope.
- mysterydip 6y ago
  The frustrating part is there are lots of people making games to tell stories and explore worlds, but they fall into the void almost inmediately after launch due to the slot machine games taking the lion's share of the attention and money.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    Thankfully, PC Gaming strangely hasn't been dominated by this phenomenon, despite EA's, Activision's, and Epic's best efforts. Fortnite is addiction-tuned F2P casinowear, and it's done gangbusters, but the industry hasn't managed to copy that formula with great success.
    - jsmith45 6y ago
      At least fornite cosmetics have limited gameplay impact (although not zero impact). It is quite possible to be a relatively competitive player without spending a single cent (and without needing excessive grinding to do so, or at least, no more grinding than a paying player). This is a lot better than most mobile games (pay more or wait # hours to continue), or games with lootboxes whose results give serious competitive advantage. (There are far too many of the latter to even list.) But I do dislike any game that depends on any form of microtransaction model. I've no real issue with meaningful DLC for single player games (i.e. the equivlent of the old expansion packs), but otherwise a game should either be a one time cost, or a simple subscription. Not some unholy hybrid of the two as has become all too common.
nonbirithm 6y ago
I was watching a livestreamer that currently organizes their schedule almost entirely around F2P mobile games. I find it hard to tell such a person on an individual level that they are being exploited, because that sounds like moral posturing to me. But from the perspective of the company I could imagine how the effects of time limited sales and events could drive their KPIs on a macro level. How many of those people contributing to the 5 and 10 percent upticks were "exploited" in the truest sense of the word, as in they could not help themselves even if they wanted to? I have to wonder how many of these people would rather stop but are addicted or otherwise not conscious, versus those on the spectrum that see the games as a legitimate outlet for entertainment (and can stop themselves from spending too much). I don't play them though, since I know I'd spend too much money and time on objects intangible. The thing that strikes me the most about F2P is how societally acceptible it is. The people for whom the notion of "casinos" doesn't fit their interests can now have their own preferentially targeted equivalent of a casino in their pockets at all times, branded with things like television show franchises that ground them in a sense of familiarity.
- luplex 6y ago
  Addiction is more perverse than that: I'm sure the players could stop if they wanted to. But they just don't want to. They too start rationalizing "it relieves so much stress", "it calms me down" etc. F2P games are nowhere near as dangerous as casinos. 90% of players waste nothing more but their time. They're more similar to social media. Really, i wonder why social media hasn't figured out a way to have meaningful microtransactions yet.
  - ayyy 6y ago
    > Really, i wonder why social media hasn't figured out a way to have meaningful microtransactions yet. That is what's happening. It's a strip club model where the biggest tippers get the most attention. It is super effective, at least for live streams (see: all of twitch, every adult cam site). If someone wanted to monetize this with static content, you could probably get people to pay for comment responses from content creators, but I haven't seen that done yet.
hogFeast 6y ago
Addiction by Design by Dow Schull is an interesting book on this.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> The game mechanics were literally a rigged slot machine. This is an accurate description. So many games where people have to pay for the chance to get something. It's even worse than actual gambling since the prize isn't even money. All people get is some numbers in a database. Another oppressive feature found in most exploitative games is the timer. Through a timer, the progression of free players is rate-limited. There's almost always some kind of resource that's used up whenever players do anything and when they run out of it the timer reveals itself. The game refills the resource on a regular basis. This creates habits in players. People start out playing normally and next thing they know they're setting alarms to wake them up at 3 AM to do game tasks because that's when the timer resets. This is done deliberately with the goal to increase the number of players who login every day through a mix of positive and negative reinforcement. The timed refills themselves act as a periodic reward which is simple enough. More insidious however is how usually the timers will not start counting down to the next reward until players play the game. Every second the timer is not running is wasted and delays the next reward. Paying customers can reset this timer at will. They are therefore able to progress at an uncapped rate. This implies the game's true form is a spending competition: the whale who gives the most money to the company for the longest time will win. Video game addiction is already a recognized medical diagnosis. I have no doubt this trash is at least partly responsible for that. The reputation of the games industry is only gonna go downhill from there.

brnt 6y ago

It may be an artifact of the division between body and mind, common in Western cultures. Any problem related to the psyche is treated differently (ie taken less seriously) from problems related to the body. I wonder how many millenia this ostensibly subtle difference in conception will keep on giving us pain and mental anguish. Its so deeprooted, I wonder what it will take to pull it out.

kingkawn 6y ago
This division is on the verge of self destruction under the own weight of its inconsistencies.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
There are plenty of people hooked on this stuff in the east. Addiction doesn't care about your philosophy. Some people are just more mentally available to addiction in all it's myriad forms.
- brnt 6y ago
  I was refering to the tendency to not treat psychological issues as serious as physical ones. Obviously addiction knows no boundaries.

dleslie 6y ago

I left casual games because of this; every partner and publisher we worked with was heavily pressuring us to optimize for whales. They wanted the long tale for marketing, and the whales for revenue; and once hooked, the core interaction loop was to be as addictive as possible. When I left it was Candy Crush that was the top of the field; and we were in awe. They were _always_ rewarding players, and were pushing microtransactions everywhere. It was flashy like a slot machine, and provided a constant stream of "rewards" for continued engagement. It was a disgusting industry then; it probably still is now. I went into game dev to tell stories and explore worlds, not to sell dope.

mysterydip 6y ago
The frustrating part is there are lots of people making games to tell stories and explore worlds, but they fall into the void almost inmediately after launch due to the slot machine games taking the lion's share of the attention and money.
- dleslie 6y ago
  Thankfully, PC Gaming strangely hasn't been dominated by this phenomenon, despite EA's, Activision's, and Epic's best efforts. Fortnite is addiction-tuned F2P casinowear, and it's done gangbusters, but the industry hasn't managed to copy that formula with great success.
  - jsmith45 6y ago
    At least fornite cosmetics have limited gameplay impact (although not zero impact). It is quite possible to be a relatively competitive player without spending a single cent (and without needing excessive grinding to do so, or at least, no more grinding than a paying player). This is a lot better than most mobile games (pay more or wait # hours to continue), or games with lootboxes whose results give serious competitive advantage. (There are far too many of the latter to even list.) But I do dislike any game that depends on any form of microtransaction model. I've no real issue with meaningful DLC for single player games (i.e. the equivlent of the old expansion packs), but otherwise a game should either be a one time cost, or a simple subscription. Not some unholy hybrid of the two as has become all too common.

nonbirithm 6y ago

I was watching a livestreamer that currently organizes their schedule almost entirely around F2P mobile games. I find it hard to tell such a person on an individual level that they are being exploited, because that sounds like moral posturing to me. But from the perspective of the company I could imagine how the effects of time limited sales and events could drive their KPIs on a macro level. How many of those people contributing to the 5 and 10 percent upticks were "exploited" in the truest sense of the word, as in they could not help themselves even if they wanted to? I have to wonder how many of these people would rather stop but are addicted or otherwise not conscious, versus those on the spectrum that see the games as a legitimate outlet for entertainment (and can stop themselves from spending too much). I don't play them though, since I know I'd spend too much money and time on objects intangible. The thing that strikes me the most about F2P is how societally acceptible it is. The people for whom the notion of "casinos" doesn't fit their interests can now have their own preferentially targeted equivalent of a casino in their pockets at all times, branded with things like television show franchises that ground them in a sense of familiarity.

luplex 6y ago
Addiction is more perverse than that: I'm sure the players could stop if they wanted to. But they just don't want to. They too start rationalizing "it relieves so much stress", "it calms me down" etc. F2P games are nowhere near as dangerous as casinos. 90% of players waste nothing more but their time. They're more similar to social media. Really, i wonder why social media hasn't figured out a way to have meaningful microtransactions yet.
- ayyy 6y ago
  > Really, i wonder why social media hasn't figured out a way to have meaningful microtransactions yet. That is what's happening. It's a strip club model where the biggest tippers get the most attention. It is super effective, at least for live streams (see: all of twitch, every adult cam site). If someone wanted to monetize this with static content, you could probably get people to pay for comment responses from content creators, but I haven't seen that done yet.

hogFeast 6y ago

Addiction by Design by Dow Schull is an interesting book on this.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> The game mechanics were literally a rigged slot machine. This is an accurate description. So many games where people have to pay for the chance to get something. It's even worse than actual gambling since the prize isn't even money. All people get is some numbers in a database. Another oppressive feature found in most exploitative games is the timer. Through a timer, the progression of free players is rate-limited. There's almost always some kind of resource that's used up whenever players do anything and when they run out of it the timer reveals itself. The game refills the resource on a regular basis. This creates habits in players. People start out playing normally and next thing they know they're setting alarms to wake them up at 3 AM to do game tasks because that's when the timer resets. This is done deliberately with the goal to increase the number of players who login every day through a mix of positive and negative reinforcement. The timed refills themselves act as a periodic reward which is simple enough. More insidious however is how usually the timers will not start counting down to the next reward until players play the game. Every second the timer is not running is wasted and delays the next reward. Paying customers can reset this timer at will. They are therefore able to progress at an uncapped rate. This implies the game's true form is a spending competition: the whale who gives the most money to the company for the longest time will win. Video game addiction is already a recognized medical diagnosis. I have no doubt this trash is at least partly responsible for that. The reputation of the games industry is only gonna go downhill from there.