4 ms·

It's not fair, it's predatory behavior aimed at addicts and children. I hope the rest of the EU will follow the fine example set by NL and BE.

by hh3k0 4y ago

javajosh 4y ago
it's predatory behavior aimed at addicts and children. Have you played the game? I saw the OG YT video on this, and I was expecting to see lots of in-your-face tactics, but wanted to be fair before passing judgement. I really don't think it's predatory. At least, not yet. Maybe things change at higher levels - they sometimes do. (I'm looking for points where you can't progress in the mainline quest without spending money or ridiculous time. Haven't seen that yet but it may be there.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lijogdfljk 4y ago
  I don't think it matters _when_ it becomes predatory. Whether or not gambling should be legal aside, if gambling for minors is illegal in a jurisdiction then i'd expect any game that becomes predatory at any point to be managed as gambling. All of this is subject to the definition of gambling, predatory, etc - of which i'm not trying to argue. Just saying that befriending children with the goal of handing them drugs after a "long" period doesn't change that i'm still handing them drugs. Same goes for this, i would think - if it falls within those definitions, of course.
  - wincy 4y ago
    Diablo Immortal is wild too because Diablo 2 primed me 15 years ago to be a gambling addict. It took them awhile but the finally turned the casino of my teens into a real casino. I hate it, I wish I could get my teen hours back that I played Diablo 2.
    - javajosh 4y ago
      Diablo Immoral!
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      I played a bunch of D2 as well, and D3. The thing with those games is that you can still enjoy the end game content after finishing the main game. Repeat on higher difficulty and then you have the option of respecing without having to start from scratch. If you are having to pay to enjoy end game now, that's pretty sad.
    - lijogdfljk 4y ago
      Agreed. I've often thought of this, with respect to MMOs, and RPGs/etc with drop rates. Inherently games are all just dopamine drivers. Some are of course based on physical skills (coordination/timing/etc), others on knowledge as a skill (exploiting game mechanics/etc). Where it gets fuzzy fast for me is very basic MMOs, RPGs, etc - RNG based mechanics. The fact that i completed the dungeon with a skill (knowledge/etc to play the dungeon correctly and win) doesn't seem, to me, to change the RNG roll at the end. I'm in no way arguing that any RNG equates to gambling.. in the classical sense.. but it kinda does, if you squint. So when does it become bad? Is it when we make gambling addicts? Because old fashioned games with RNG rewards (loot/etc) likely form addicts (if we stretch the word for discussion).. myself included. Or is it just when we involve money? Money seems an easy line to draw.. but is it fair to children if we make them gambling addicts and only charge them once they hit 18? Spend their youth training for the casinos, only to take part when their old enough to lose it all? I don't have any answers.. but it feels like we're playing fast and loose with weaponized dopamine here. As with most of our society, i suppose.
      - fxtentacle 4y ago
        I fully agree that we're training future addicts. And it's not like people don't know. There will be a deliberate sequence of hook, time sink, random reward because that's most addictive. But I find balancing this very difficult. We want fun games and fun things are addictive. But we don't want addict-creating games. So how do you measure which amount of addiction is the correct amount?
- femiagbabiaka 4y ago
  They give out daily free items to draw you into the cash shop and then have small purchase offers to break the first purchase barrier. They sell in game currency to obfuscate the money you're spending and sell it in random amounts so you need to overbuy or make multiple purchases. They set dubious cost savings measures of 500-800% value on items to make them more artificially tantalizing.
  - wincy 4y ago
    They got me for $7 with the small cheap purchases. Then I hit level 60 and found myself thinking “well $100 is something I can easily afford, why not spend it?”. I then uninstalled the game. My wife was glad and said I’d been a grumpy zombie all weekend, ignoring her and my kids.
- brazzledazzle 4y ago
  People aren’t really addicted to progress, that’s window dressing for the mechanic that gives you the gambler’s high. I think a lot of folks who are effectively immune to gambling’s allure dismiss the danger to others when they don’t see anything slowing or blocking progression because that’s what would motivate them to even entertain the thought of engaging the gambling mechanic. I think what you’re really evaluating is whether or not it’s pay to win which while terrible, isn’t insidiously predatory.
- Sakos 4y ago
  Have you played it? I have. It's constantly throwing bundles with "+x00% value" in your face and does everything it can to try to get you to pay for stuff. And it gets far far worse when you hit the level cap. And no, it's not a valid excuse that it's a free game, so "I shouldn't complain". I'll gladly pay 60-120 Euros for a complete game as long as it treats me fairly as a customer.
- kbenson 4y ago
  Being predatory isn't about gating later advancement, that's actually less of a problem in my eyes, that's just a different form of DLC. What makes some games predatory is when when combine payments with randomness as to what benefit you get. That's why people are calling it gbling, because it uses the same mechanisms and is using all the lessons learned from casinos as to how to effectively maximize engagement and income. The difference? Gambling is often regulated so there's specific payout percentages. Because there's not a direct monetary payout but instead a decoupled game benefit, it's not regulated the same way, so they're free to do whatever they want with the payouts (including valuing all the items however they want if they are called on to), as well as market to children who may not recognize the system for what it is.
tempestn 4y ago
I agree. Then hopefully some companies will shift back to the model of making games and selling them. This whole FTP model has horribly misaligned incentives.
- Reason077 4y ago
  To be clear, it's not the free-to-play model itself which is illegal here. There are plenty of F2P games which are fine in these countries. It's specifically gambling-style loot boxes where you pay to have a small chance of winning very valuable items which is banned. F2P games which are clear about exactly what you're getting for your money in each transaction are fine, and there are plenty of F2P games which do this successfully and legally.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    There are games with loot-boxes that I believe have implemented it fairly so it is difficult to generalize this for a law. I am thinking of games like Star Trek Online. It has loot boxes but overall a very fair monetization in my opinion and one of the best models I have ever seen for a free to play game. Don't know if that changed since I played that ages ago but it still is very alive as far as I know. You were able to buy loot-boxes with ingame currency too via currency conversion and there was a market where players could trade ingame vs bought currency. It was or is a really smart system. In general I hate f2p games and any kind of micro-transaction with a loathing passion but this is an example of an extremely fair system in my opinion. I will certainly not play Diablo Immortal. In my opinion they killed the IP and I don't believe Blizzard will ever get to its former success even when completely discounting WoW.
ralusek 4y ago
Europeans understand that you don't have to play, right? I'm not playing. I don't think I've ever played a game with a lootbox. No part of me feels compelled to legislate away the liberties of my fellow countrymen.
- fwsgonzo 4y ago
  It is mostly children playing these games, and yes we absolutely should save our children from gambling-based games.
  - ralusek 4y ago
    So you maintain that it is the role of the state to determine what our children do, and you think that in order to have the state determine what children do...we need to restrict what everyone else does as well?
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  If my tax money pays for treating the ruined lives that these games create, then I feel justified in legislating the risk away.
  - ralusek 4y ago
    Your tax money pays for treating the ruined lives that alcohol creates. Should alcohol be illegal?

It's not fair, it's predatory behavior aimed at addicts and children. I hope the rest of the EU will follow the fine example set by NL and BE.

by hh3k0 4y ago

It's not fair, it's predatory behavior aimed at addicts and children. I hope the rest of the EU will follow the fine example set by NL and BE.

javajosh 4y ago

it's predatory behavior aimed at addicts and children. Have you played the game? I saw the OG YT video on this, and I was expecting to see lots of in-your-face tactics, but wanted to be fair before passing judgement. I really don't think it's predatory. At least, not yet. Maybe things change at higher levels - they sometimes do. (I'm looking for points where you can't progress in the mainline quest without spending money or ridiculous time. Haven't seen that yet but it may be there.)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lijogdfljk 4y ago
I don't think it matters _when_ it becomes predatory. Whether or not gambling should be legal aside, if gambling for minors is illegal in a jurisdiction then i'd expect any game that becomes predatory at any point to be managed as gambling. All of this is subject to the definition of gambling, predatory, etc - of which i'm not trying to argue. Just saying that befriending children with the goal of handing them drugs after a "long" period doesn't change that i'm still handing them drugs. Same goes for this, i would think - if it falls within those definitions, of course.
- wincy 4y ago
  Diablo Immortal is wild too because Diablo 2 primed me 15 years ago to be a gambling addict. It took them awhile but the finally turned the casino of my teens into a real casino. I hate it, I wish I could get my teen hours back that I played Diablo 2.
  - javajosh 4y ago
    Diablo Immoral!
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    I played a bunch of D2 as well, and D3. The thing with those games is that you can still enjoy the end game content after finishing the main game. Repeat on higher difficulty and then you have the option of respecing without having to start from scratch. If you are having to pay to enjoy end game now, that's pretty sad.
  - lijogdfljk 4y ago
    Agreed. I've often thought of this, with respect to MMOs, and RPGs/etc with drop rates. Inherently games are all just dopamine drivers. Some are of course based on physical skills (coordination/timing/etc), others on knowledge as a skill (exploiting game mechanics/etc). Where it gets fuzzy fast for me is very basic MMOs, RPGs, etc - RNG based mechanics. The fact that i completed the dungeon with a skill (knowledge/etc to play the dungeon correctly and win) doesn't seem, to me, to change the RNG roll at the end. I'm in no way arguing that any RNG equates to gambling.. in the classical sense.. but it kinda does, if you squint. So when does it become bad? Is it when we make gambling addicts? Because old fashioned games with RNG rewards (loot/etc) likely form addicts (if we stretch the word for discussion).. myself included. Or is it just when we involve money? Money seems an easy line to draw.. but is it fair to children if we make them gambling addicts and only charge them once they hit 18? Spend their youth training for the casinos, only to take part when their old enough to lose it all? I don't have any answers.. but it feels like we're playing fast and loose with weaponized dopamine here. As with most of our society, i suppose.
    - fxtentacle 4y ago
      I fully agree that we're training future addicts. And it's not like people don't know. There will be a deliberate sequence of hook, time sink, random reward because that's most addictive. But I find balancing this very difficult. We want fun games and fun things are addictive. But we don't want addict-creating games. So how do you measure which amount of addiction is the correct amount?
femiagbabiaka 4y ago
They give out daily free items to draw you into the cash shop and then have small purchase offers to break the first purchase barrier. They sell in game currency to obfuscate the money you're spending and sell it in random amounts so you need to overbuy or make multiple purchases. They set dubious cost savings measures of 500-800% value on items to make them more artificially tantalizing.
- wincy 4y ago
  They got me for $7 with the small cheap purchases. Then I hit level 60 and found myself thinking “well $100 is something I can easily afford, why not spend it?”. I then uninstalled the game. My wife was glad and said I’d been a grumpy zombie all weekend, ignoring her and my kids.
brazzledazzle 4y ago
People aren’t really addicted to progress, that’s window dressing for the mechanic that gives you the gambler’s high. I think a lot of folks who are effectively immune to gambling’s allure dismiss the danger to others when they don’t see anything slowing or blocking progression because that’s what would motivate them to even entertain the thought of engaging the gambling mechanic. I think what you’re really evaluating is whether or not it’s pay to win which while terrible, isn’t insidiously predatory.
Sakos 4y ago
Have you played it? I have. It's constantly throwing bundles with "+x00% value" in your face and does everything it can to try to get you to pay for stuff. And it gets far far worse when you hit the level cap. And no, it's not a valid excuse that it's a free game, so "I shouldn't complain". I'll gladly pay 60-120 Euros for a complete game as long as it treats me fairly as a customer.
kbenson 4y ago
Being predatory isn't about gating later advancement, that's actually less of a problem in my eyes, that's just a different form of DLC. What makes some games predatory is when when combine payments with randomness as to what benefit you get. That's why people are calling it gbling, because it uses the same mechanisms and is using all the lessons learned from casinos as to how to effectively maximize engagement and income. The difference? Gambling is often regulated so there's specific payout percentages. Because there's not a direct monetary payout but instead a decoupled game benefit, it's not regulated the same way, so they're free to do whatever they want with the payouts (including valuing all the items however they want if they are called on to), as well as market to children who may not recognize the system for what it is.

tempestn 4y ago

I agree. Then hopefully some companies will shift back to the model of making games and selling them. This whole FTP model has horribly misaligned incentives.

Reason077 4y ago
To be clear, it's not the free-to-play model itself which is illegal here. There are plenty of F2P games which are fine in these countries. It's specifically gambling-style loot boxes where you pay to have a small chance of winning very valuable items which is banned. F2P games which are clear about exactly what you're getting for your money in each transaction are fine, and there are plenty of F2P games which do this successfully and legally.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  There are games with loot-boxes that I believe have implemented it fairly so it is difficult to generalize this for a law. I am thinking of games like Star Trek Online. It has loot boxes but overall a very fair monetization in my opinion and one of the best models I have ever seen for a free to play game. Don't know if that changed since I played that ages ago but it still is very alive as far as I know. You were able to buy loot-boxes with ingame currency too via currency conversion and there was a market where players could trade ingame vs bought currency. It was or is a really smart system. In general I hate f2p games and any kind of micro-transaction with a loathing passion but this is an example of an extremely fair system in my opinion. I will certainly not play Diablo Immortal. In my opinion they killed the IP and I don't believe Blizzard will ever get to its former success even when completely discounting WoW.

ralusek 4y ago

Europeans understand that you don't have to play, right? I'm not playing. I don't think I've ever played a game with a lootbox. No part of me feels compelled to legislate away the liberties of my fellow countrymen.

fwsgonzo 4y ago
It is mostly children playing these games, and yes we absolutely should save our children from gambling-based games.
- ralusek 4y ago
  So you maintain that it is the role of the state to determine what our children do, and you think that in order to have the state determine what children do...we need to restrict what everyone else does as well?
fxtentacle 4y ago
If my tax money pays for treating the ruined lives that these games create, then I feel justified in legislating the risk away.
- ralusek 4y ago
  Your tax money pays for treating the ruined lives that alcohol creates. Should alcohol be illegal?