7 ms·

This is such a Hackernews take "I thought it was gambling and immoral, but now that it has made billions there might be a point". It can still be gambling and/

This is such a Hackernews take "I thought it was gambling and immoral, but now that it has made billions there might be a point". It can still be gambling and/or a Ponzi schemes. Adding obfuscation over methods to tap into greed and gambling euphoria does not technical innovation make. Cryptocurrency already attracts people who like to gamble and want to get rich quickly, so this is just docking onto a natural pipeline of marks to deploy their scheme. I have nothing but disgust for these types of games, even without the block chain veneer. No hate against the players and we know prohibition doesn't work so not calling for a ban, but at least I can contribute a small bit of social stigma against those that profit by hijacking their customers reward functions like this.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Not every person or every culture has the same sets of values around gambling. Not every ethical philosophy thinks of gambling the same way. In many developed countries gambling is legal and regulated in many forms. Governments around the world spend a lot of energy deciding what the lines for regulating gambling is. When I see ethical takes like this, I feel like I'm missing a _lot_ of context. The Islamic world for example sees consumption of alcohol as a sin. Is this a Christian ethical take? What's the difference between markets and gambling in this ethical philosophy? Islamic states see any form of interest as sin after all.
- stavros 5y ago
  You can think that gambling is moral. You can think that gambling is immoral. To think that gambling is immoral unless it's earning a lot of money is... something.
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    I mean sure but that's not what GP is saying. GP is purely laying into gambling by itself. > I have nothing but disgust for these types of games, even without the block chain veneer That's where my question arises.
    - stavros 5y ago
      Are you talking about reggieband or igorkraw? I was referring to the former.
      - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        Igorkraw
    - igorkraw 5y ago
      I'm specifically laying into people getting rich off of other people gambling and making a business out of it. If a group of friends wants to play poker, or if the Axie platform was a co-op owned by all of the players (and no 20% dev stake like most premined cryptocurrencies) I'd say "eh, it's their choice". But making money off of hooking into and pushing our vices is something I personally disagree with.
      - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        Sure but what about the folks that run casinos, pachinko parlors, mahjongg dens, card clubs, horse race betting owners, claw machine owners, etc, etc. There's a _lot_ of gambling around the world and it's the owners' job to market these gambling houses. Why are these crypto scams so deleterious when there's probably an order of magnitude more people gambling their money away in more traditional gambling houses designed to keep you inside, fed, and spending money for as long as possible? Is your position that all gambling like this should be run by the state?
        igorkraw 5y ago
        By the state or by private individuals without profiting and without advertising. I'm also in support of banning loot boxes in commercial games like we've seen in some European countries. Again, the problem isn't gambling. The problem is people making money off of pushing people to gamble more than they'd do naturally.
- igorkraw 5y ago
  Answering directly to your questions, I don't have any religious background on this, I just see hijacking of our primitive vices for personal profit as immoral and shun-worthy. I think prohibition is bad (just creates Shadow markets) and the main thing to stop is running profitable gambling houses and advertising/incitement - if nobody could make a profit off of it, people would still gamble, but at least it would be intrinsically motivated and you don't get the consolidating and exploitative effects that arise from privatised gambling. Same with all other "sins" - don't stop the sin, stop the profiteering and the exploitation. The sins are fine and fun
  - zenplant 5y ago
    Hijacking of our primitive vices, isn't that the basis for most economic activity? The food industry, television/movie industry, all of social media including the site we're on right now, the list goes on indefinitely. Normal video games without a crypto element do this as well. I currently have real money tokens in at least 4 of the most popular games, none of which I can ever get anything back from except in game cosmetics. But even games like Stardew Valley that wouldn't dream of taking extra money from you are tapping into our vice centers to keep us playing. As someone deep into video games to me this is just an evolution of world of warcraft gold, or what steam has going on with their in game items and trading cards. I can exchange wow gold/steam items for real money, which blizzard or valve takes a generous % of. I can then only use that money to buy blizzard/steam products from their respective stores. People grind for countless hours in games even for these relatively worthless (when compared to crypto/nfts) currencies. Hell people spend countless hours grinding for in game currencies that will never have any real world value at all. Mostly because it can be wildly fun to do. I feel like a whole lot of the hatred towards the crypto space will go down in history as an old man yells at cloud moment.
    - igorkraw 5y ago
      Well, yes,you have rediscovered a core theme of criticism against the capitalist, consumerist mode of production anarchists and other leftists tend to raise, together with commodification. There is a coherent view that most AAA video games are skinner boxes aimed at extracting cash and Indie Games being closer to the "original" idea of them, and there are real discussions to be had about grinding on that context as a worthwhile escapism vs. a symptom of a bigger problem vs. a tool to build emotional investment that will keep you subscribing. Don't get me wrong, I'm the old man yelling at the crypto cloud as well, but in this case I'm the old man yelling at business foundations of questionable morality. Providing healthy food, fodder for emotional and personal comfort and growth or shelter has very different business models and foundations from providing fast food/sweets, skinner Box Dopamine drips or artificially hyped status Symbols.
reggieband 5y ago
> "I thought it was gambling and immoral, but now that it has made billions there might be a point" That is an inaccurate/misleading summarization of my post. It is a least-charitable interpretation structured to forward your own viewpoint. When I thought the game was simply gambling I ignored it (and in fact I assumed it was earning high revenue). This financial times article explained that the game is not gambling and instead is something more complex. The mechanic of ownership allowing players to lend in-game assets to free players for the purposes of in-game currency generation is novel to me. The additional fact that the earned in-game currency can be converted to real world cash is not novel but certainly interesting when combined with the former. Ostensibly, someone can find a sponsor who will lend them in-game assets. They can then apply/increase their skill in playing the game to earn a share of in-game currency. So for zero stake they can earn in-game currency that is convertible to real world cash. That, to me, is NOT gambling. Another person can invest real-world cash to buy in-game assets. They can then seek out people willing to play the game on their behalf. By finding and retaining the best players they can earn a share of the most in-game currency. That, to me, is close to gambling. It reminds me of horse owners who participate in competitive racing. People gamble on the outcome of races to be sure. But it is a stretch to me to think of the horse owners as gambling. They are investing in the best horses, the best trainers, the best jockeys with the hope that those investments will lead to enough wins to turn a profit. A growing market, especially on Twitch, are competitive gaming orgs. These orgs seek out the best game players and sign them to contracts. They then turn a profit by leveraging the players success into brand sponsorships. I see a lot of parallels between the mechanisms behind this game and real-world economic activity. The fact that a pretty prosaic mobile looking game ballooned to such a valuation and attention suggests to me there is something worth being curious about here. It is causing me to think. Apparently it is causing you to turn away in disgust.
- igorkraw 5y ago
  > Sky Mavis has acknowledged that Axie relies on new entrants for growth and promised to release new features that will make the game more desirable for people who are not primarily motivated by cashing out their earnings. Right now, it's difficult to differentiate from a pyramid scheme. There are RNG elements related to breeding, which means the best this game can hope to be compared to is poker, except it has the added layer of cryptocurrency "investment" which taps into the same energy as gambling and pyramid schemes, which I guess makes sense. Without being mean spirited: do you also see something profound and interesting in GME and other meme stocks? Because in my opinion, just because it got a lot of attention and money doesn't mean that there is something meaningful there. Bernie Madoffs scheme took from the 90s (maybe 70s) to 2008 to implode, bitconnect rose and fell faster. And as I clarified in another comment, what is causing me to voice disgust is the fact people are using these schemes to get rich off of others. And I think that even if we cannot to anything else, social shunning still has its place as a soft regulatory mechanism. If it people want to go to Vegas, let them have Vegas, if they want to gamble in this, let them gamble, but we can still express our distaste and deny respect. (Not that I think I matter much here, even if people were to follow my lead I'm sure the founders will dry their tears with dollar bills)

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

Not every person or every culture has the same sets of values around gambling. Not every ethical philosophy thinks of gambling the same way. In many developed countries gambling is legal and regulated in many forms. Governments around the world spend a lot of energy deciding what the lines for regulating gambling is. When I see ethical takes like this, I feel like I'm missing a _lot_ of context. The Islamic world for example sees consumption of alcohol as a sin. Is this a Christian ethical take? What's the difference between markets and gambling in this ethical philosophy? Islamic states see any form of interest as sin after all.

stavros 5y ago
You can think that gambling is moral. You can think that gambling is immoral. To think that gambling is immoral unless it's earning a lot of money is... something.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  I mean sure but that's not what GP is saying. GP is purely laying into gambling by itself. > I have nothing but disgust for these types of games, even without the block chain veneer That's where my question arises.
  - stavros 5y ago
    Are you talking about reggieband or igorkraw? I was referring to the former.
    - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
      Igorkraw
  - igorkraw 5y ago
    I'm specifically laying into people getting rich off of other people gambling and making a business out of it. If a group of friends wants to play poker, or if the Axie platform was a co-op owned by all of the players (and no 20% dev stake like most premined cryptocurrencies) I'd say "eh, it's their choice". But making money off of hooking into and pushing our vices is something I personally disagree with.
    - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
      Sure but what about the folks that run casinos, pachinko parlors, mahjongg dens, card clubs, horse race betting owners, claw machine owners, etc, etc. There's a _lot_ of gambling around the world and it's the owners' job to market these gambling houses. Why are these crypto scams so deleterious when there's probably an order of magnitude more people gambling their money away in more traditional gambling houses designed to keep you inside, fed, and spending money for as long as possible? Is your position that all gambling like this should be run by the state?
      - igorkraw 5y ago
        By the state or by private individuals without profiting and without advertising. I'm also in support of banning loot boxes in commercial games like we've seen in some European countries. Again, the problem isn't gambling. The problem is people making money off of pushing people to gamble more than they'd do naturally.
igorkraw 5y ago
Answering directly to your questions, I don't have any religious background on this, I just see hijacking of our primitive vices for personal profit as immoral and shun-worthy. I think prohibition is bad (just creates Shadow markets) and the main thing to stop is running profitable gambling houses and advertising/incitement - if nobody could make a profit off of it, people would still gamble, but at least it would be intrinsically motivated and you don't get the consolidating and exploitative effects that arise from privatised gambling. Same with all other "sins" - don't stop the sin, stop the profiteering and the exploitation. The sins are fine and fun
- zenplant 5y ago
  Hijacking of our primitive vices, isn't that the basis for most economic activity? The food industry, television/movie industry, all of social media including the site we're on right now, the list goes on indefinitely. Normal video games without a crypto element do this as well. I currently have real money tokens in at least 4 of the most popular games, none of which I can ever get anything back from except in game cosmetics. But even games like Stardew Valley that wouldn't dream of taking extra money from you are tapping into our vice centers to keep us playing. As someone deep into video games to me this is just an evolution of world of warcraft gold, or what steam has going on with their in game items and trading cards. I can exchange wow gold/steam items for real money, which blizzard or valve takes a generous % of. I can then only use that money to buy blizzard/steam products from their respective stores. People grind for countless hours in games even for these relatively worthless (when compared to crypto/nfts) currencies. Hell people spend countless hours grinding for in game currencies that will never have any real world value at all. Mostly because it can be wildly fun to do. I feel like a whole lot of the hatred towards the crypto space will go down in history as an old man yells at cloud moment.
  - igorkraw 5y ago
    Well, yes,you have rediscovered a core theme of criticism against the capitalist, consumerist mode of production anarchists and other leftists tend to raise, together with commodification. There is a coherent view that most AAA video games are skinner boxes aimed at extracting cash and Indie Games being closer to the "original" idea of them, and there are real discussions to be had about grinding on that context as a worthwhile escapism vs. a symptom of a bigger problem vs. a tool to build emotional investment that will keep you subscribing. Don't get me wrong, I'm the old man yelling at the crypto cloud as well, but in this case I'm the old man yelling at business foundations of questionable morality. Providing healthy food, fodder for emotional and personal comfort and growth or shelter has very different business models and foundations from providing fast food/sweets, skinner Box Dopamine drips or artificially hyped status Symbols.

reggieband 5y ago

> "I thought it was gambling and immoral, but now that it has made billions there might be a point" That is an inaccurate/misleading summarization of my post. It is a least-charitable interpretation structured to forward your own viewpoint. When I thought the game was simply gambling I ignored it (and in fact I assumed it was earning high revenue). This financial times article explained that the game is not gambling and instead is something more complex. The mechanic of ownership allowing players to lend in-game assets to free players for the purposes of in-game currency generation is novel to me. The additional fact that the earned in-game currency can be converted to real world cash is not novel but certainly interesting when combined with the former. Ostensibly, someone can find a sponsor who will lend them in-game assets. They can then apply/increase their skill in playing the game to earn a share of in-game currency. So for zero stake they can earn in-game currency that is convertible to real world cash. That, to me, is NOT gambling. Another person can invest real-world cash to buy in-game assets. They can then seek out people willing to play the game on their behalf. By finding and retaining the best players they can earn a share of the most in-game currency. That, to me, is close to gambling. It reminds me of horse owners who participate in competitive racing. People gamble on the outcome of races to be sure. But it is a stretch to me to think of the horse owners as gambling. They are investing in the best horses, the best trainers, the best jockeys with the hope that those investments will lead to enough wins to turn a profit. A growing market, especially on Twitch, are competitive gaming orgs. These orgs seek out the best game players and sign them to contracts. They then turn a profit by leveraging the players success into brand sponsorships. I see a lot of parallels between the mechanisms behind this game and real-world economic activity. The fact that a pretty prosaic mobile looking game ballooned to such a valuation and attention suggests to me there is something worth being curious about here. It is causing me to think. Apparently it is causing you to turn away in disgust.

igorkraw 5y ago
> Sky Mavis has acknowledged that Axie relies on new entrants for growth and promised to release new features that will make the game more desirable for people who are not primarily motivated by cashing out their earnings. Right now, it's difficult to differentiate from a pyramid scheme. There are RNG elements related to breeding, which means the best this game can hope to be compared to is poker, except it has the added layer of cryptocurrency "investment" which taps into the same energy as gambling and pyramid schemes, which I guess makes sense. Without being mean spirited: do you also see something profound and interesting in GME and other meme stocks? Because in my opinion, just because it got a lot of attention and money doesn't mean that there is something meaningful there. Bernie Madoffs scheme took from the 90s (maybe 70s) to 2008 to implode, bitconnect rose and fell faster. And as I clarified in another comment, what is causing me to voice disgust is the fact people are using these schemes to get rich off of others. And I think that even if we cannot to anything else, social shunning still has its place as a soft regulatory mechanism. If it people want to go to Vegas, let them have Vegas, if they want to gamble in this, let them gamble, but we can still express our distaste and deny respect. (Not that I think I matter much here, even if people were to follow my lead I'm sure the founders will dry their tears with dollar bills)