3 ms·

I wonder how much of the money basically comes from something virtually identical to "gambling addiction."

thebean11 5y ago
I briefly worked at a slot machine app company (microtransactions, but you cannot win real money) and my guess would be a lot. I did not feel good about that job.
- spicybright 5y ago
  I'm also really curious about the behind the scenes of companies like this Would you mind sharing some of your experiences? What were some moments in particular that made you feel not good about what you were doing?
  - thebean11 5y ago
    I used to sit by the customer support agent, and she mentioned that one of our players frequently opens tickets asking for more "slot chips", promising to make a purchase as soon as their next paycheck comes in. It seemed even sadder to me than pouring your paycheck into a real slot machine, there wasn't even the potential of a reward beyond worthless chips and endless levels. I was only there about 4 months. From talking to the folks at the company, I got the impression the target demo was lonely, often alcoholic people in their forties and fifties. Although I find it pretty hard personally to see what the appeal of our product was, I do think the business model was based on getting these people addicted. If you want to see what the product was like, just search slots on iOS or Android app stores, the company in question doesn't exist anymore but it's all the same stuff. Google and Apple must be making a killing off of it.
radicalbyte 5y ago
The vast majority of it I would wager. It's shocking that the EU hasn't regulated against it yet.
derefr 5y ago
Not too much, AFAIK. I worked for one of these companies way back in my career (didn't realize what they were when I signed on.) Our whale customer profile was something like "Saudi oil-tycoon's trust-fund kid trying to keep up with the Joneses [other Saudi oil-tycoons' trust-fund kids] by throwing money at lootboxes until they get the high-spec or rare equipment required to be equal-or-better in social status." The way to make whales spend money wasn't to make our mechanics more addictive; it was to "seed" a rare item to one whale in a friend-group of whales, and watch the others scramble to acquire it too, so as to not suddenly be relegated to lower status. We actually built measures into our game mechanics that would try to subtly disincentivize people from playing if they looked to be genuinely addicted—and for truly severe cases, we actually reached out to customers to get help (since if they're addicted to our game, they're probably addicted to other games, too, so just kicking them off ours probably wouldn't help.) These people were never the key user-story for us, so doing things like this was essentially free publicity.
- worrycue 5y ago
  Reminds me of the GDC presentation on Chinese web browser games. https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An Frankly, I think the Chinese took it to another level.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > Our whale customer profile was something like "Saudi oil-tycoon's trust-fund kid trying to keep up with the Joneses [other Saudi oil-tycoons' trust-fund kids] by throwing money at lootboxes until they get the high-spec or rare equipment required to be equal-or-better in social status." I have seen no evidence that is true. I guess most of them would be a person working a regular office job who has $1000 dollars to spend per month and throws it at the game since they are bad at managing money / say no. There are way more middle class people who are bad at money than there are rich people who care enough about games to throw money at them. The story about the trust fund kid millionaire is to help you sleep, it isn't reality. For example, I had a friend who spent thousands of dollars on league of legends over the years, he worked minimum wage jobs. That is the norm. Edit: > The way to make whales spend money wasn't to make our mechanics more addictive; it was to "seed" a rare item to one whale in a friend-group of whales, and watch the others scramble to acquire it too, so as to not suddenly be relegated to lower status. Seeding rewards early to a person/group is a common way to trigger gambling addiction. So to me it seems like you are doing the worst of the worst kind of gambling addiction scheme here, since you admitted to not having fair chances per try but instead seed out items to trigger gambling addiction in people.

I briefly worked at a slot machine app company (microtransactions, but you cannot win real money) and my guess would be a lot. I did not feel good about that job.

spicybright 5y ago
I'm also really curious about the behind the scenes of companies like this Would you mind sharing some of your experiences? What were some moments in particular that made you feel not good about what you were doing?
- thebean11 5y ago
  I used to sit by the customer support agent, and she mentioned that one of our players frequently opens tickets asking for more "slot chips", promising to make a purchase as soon as their next paycheck comes in. It seemed even sadder to me than pouring your paycheck into a real slot machine, there wasn't even the potential of a reward beyond worthless chips and endless levels. I was only there about 4 months. From talking to the folks at the company, I got the impression the target demo was lonely, often alcoholic people in their forties and fifties. Although I find it pretty hard personally to see what the appeal of our product was, I do think the business model was based on getting these people addicted. If you want to see what the product was like, just search slots on iOS or Android app stores, the company in question doesn't exist anymore but it's all the same stuff. Google and Apple must be making a killing off of it.

radicalbyte 5y ago

The vast majority of it I would wager. It's shocking that the EU hasn't regulated against it yet.

derefr 5y ago

Not too much, AFAIK. I worked for one of these companies way back in my career (didn't realize what they were when I signed on.) Our whale customer profile was something like "Saudi oil-tycoon's trust-fund kid trying to keep up with the Joneses [other Saudi oil-tycoons' trust-fund kids] by throwing money at lootboxes until they get the high-spec or rare equipment required to be equal-or-better in social status." The way to make whales spend money wasn't to make our mechanics more addictive; it was to "seed" a rare item to one whale in a friend-group of whales, and watch the others scramble to acquire it too, so as to not suddenly be relegated to lower status. We actually built measures into our game mechanics that would try to subtly disincentivize people from playing if they looked to be genuinely addicted—and for truly severe cases, we actually reached out to customers to get help (since if they're addicted to our game, they're probably addicted to other games, too, so just kicking them off ours probably wouldn't help.) These people were never the key user-story for us, so doing things like this was essentially free publicity.

worrycue 5y ago
Reminds me of the GDC presentation on Chinese web browser games. https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An Frankly, I think the Chinese took it to another level.
Jensson 5y ago
> Our whale customer profile was something like "Saudi oil-tycoon's trust-fund kid trying to keep up with the Joneses [other Saudi oil-tycoons' trust-fund kids] by throwing money at lootboxes until they get the high-spec or rare equipment required to be equal-or-better in social status." I have seen no evidence that is true. I guess most of them would be a person working a regular office job who has $1000 dollars to spend per month and throws it at the game since they are bad at managing money / say no. There are way more middle class people who are bad at money than there are rich people who care enough about games to throw money at them. The story about the trust fund kid millionaire is to help you sleep, it isn't reality. For example, I had a friend who spent thousands of dollars on league of legends over the years, he worked minimum wage jobs. That is the norm. Edit: > The way to make whales spend money wasn't to make our mechanics more addictive; it was to "seed" a rare item to one whale in a friend-group of whales, and watch the others scramble to acquire it too, so as to not suddenly be relegated to lower status. Seeding rewards early to a person/group is a common way to trigger gambling addiction. So to me it seems like you are doing the worst of the worst kind of gambling addiction scheme here, since you admitted to not having fair chances per try but instead seed out items to trigger gambling addiction in people.