4 ms·
This is pretty screwed up, because it kind of trains your brain to be a gambling brain. To crave the instant gratification, the high of risk taking etc. I thin
by hristov 3y ago
This is pretty screwed up, because it kind of trains your brain to be a gambling brain. To crave the instant gratification, the high of risk taking etc.
I think the time has come when android and ios should make a special versions of their online shops for children and teenagers and simply ban those types of games from those shops. This will at least prevent children from having their brains rewired. Of course this will remove the vast majority of games from the online shops, but so be it.
I remember my experience with these types of games. I wasted a lot of time and got a lot of needless frustration but I never once paid those bastards a single cent. There was a game called Candy Crush Saga. It was very popular in its day. Their in game super power currency was something called "lollipop hammers." They made one candy disappear. It seemed a pretty simple game, assuming the game boards (i.e., the candys) were randomly generated, but of course they weren't. They were carefully created so that they present problems that are very difficult to solve under the game's usual rules but were easy and downright delightful to solve using a lollipop hammer.
I would look at the gameboard for a long time and imagine all the great combos I would achieve, if I could only get rid of a single pesky candy, but alas, one had to use a lollipop hammer for that. I actually ended up having a lot of respect for the designers, it was not easy to design a board that would be incredibly difficult unless one candy was removed but if that candy was removed, it would all solve itself in an explosion of combos and extra points.
I was very proud that I solved so many of these boards without using a single lollipop hammer. But my reward would always be a board that is even harder and where the temptation to use the hammer was even greater. Eventually I decided that this is simply torture. I did not mind hard puzzles, I liked solving hard puzzles, but the temptation of the lollipop hammer being always there and me having to constantly use willpower to avoid clicking on those hammers made the whole experience miserable.
So quit and deleted the game, but I can proudly say that I never paid for a single lollipop hammer and I left 8 of the 10 hammers you get for free unused. I hope some random King employee looked at my cancelled account with so many puzzles solved and yet so few lollipop hammers used and felt a little pang of defeat. But I doubt it.
- chucky_z 3y agoApple Arcade allows these types of games and removes all monetization like this. The games are still kinda predatory in their frustrations, however there’s no coin to spend. You just randomly get items and that’s it.
- julianwachholz 3y agoSo it's exposing those games for what they really are: not-fun time wasters.
- gambiting 3y agoSo I tried Bloons TD6 on apple arcade, a game which has very heavy monetization strategies, thinking ok, maybe the apple arcade version is finally playable without spending money - and no, they literally just removed the in-game store but haven't adjusted the curves it takes you to earn anything so if you want to unlock anything prepare for a VERY long grind.
- JopV 3y agoThe Apple Arcade and Netflix versions give you double the Monkey Money as the microtransaction version. I agree they should have changed more, but it's not true they didn't adjust it.
- gambiting 3y agoWait, really? It's been a while since I tried it, maybe they've changed it(or maybe I'm just being stupid) - either way, I guess I'm wrong then!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- livrem 3y agoReviews for the PC version of Triple Town on GOG says the same thing. They removed the option to spend real money, that was part of the popular mobile version, but they did not replace it with anything else, so supposedly you have to grind forever to get anywhere. Pity since are some mobile games that look like pretty good games. If only all the built-in gambling was removed and the game re-balanced (and drm-free) I would be happy to buy them, for my phone or desktop. But that is almost never an option.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
- xcdzvyn 3y ago> I think the time has come when android and ios should make a special versions of their online shops for children and teenagers and simply ban those types of games from those shops. IMHO this shouldn't [have to] be any of Apple or Google's business. It's a parent's responsibility to parent their child, not some conglomerate's.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RhodesianHunter 3y ago>It's a parent's responsibility to parent their child Most won't. Call it lack of time or attention, ignorance of the problem, apathy... ultimately parents can't be aware of everything. We have shit like micro plastics in the water to contend with. What's the effect on society?
- hotnfresh 3y agoEvery time you stack on more crap to worry about, more parents will fail to do the right thing. That’s just how life is. Policing electronics and internet access is a huge pain in the ass that wasn’t a concern at all, not that long ago, and more-recently was a ton easier than it is now. I don’t even control all the devices in my house, some belong to the kids’ schools that for some reason won’t stop giving them goddamn computers. I can solve these problems but it’s a big pain, and most parents realistically cannot. It doesn’t help that all parental controls are pretty bad, usually for no good reason.
- Damogran6 3y agoIt's an easy statement to make: "Parents take care of your kids" Which is interestingly subverted by "Can't raise my kids if we don't have enough money to eat" leading to both parents working, sometimes multiple jobs, and the kids left to their own devices/daycare The older I get, the more I'm reminded pat/easy/black and white solutions just flat don't exist.
- alibarber 3y agoThe fact that I'm in my 30s and still have to sometimes show ID to buy booze points to the fact that society doesn't really agree.
- expertentipp 3y agoThis describes my frustration using Tinder. Every mobile app, regardless of its purpose or theme, has become like this. > I hope some random King employee looked at my cancelled account with so many puzzles solved and yet so few lollipop hammers used and felt a little pang of defeat. Nope, the low paid employee in scam-center somewhere in Balkans, Eastern Europe, or South Asia doesn't care. This is not a tournament against some super mind, it's addictive money drain run by lowlifes.
- meheleventyone 3y agoOne thing to be thankful for is the Apple privacy changes have absolutely wrecked their business model that essentially requires targeted UA spends to go “whale hunting”. It’s really interesting to hear the reaction on mobile oriented dev podcasts like Deconstructor of Fun even though I have little sympathy with these predatory business models.
- secabeen 3y ago> I think the time has come when android and ios should make a special versions of their online shops for children and teenagers and simply ban those types of games from those shops. This will at least prevent children from having their brains rewired. Of course this will remove the vast majority of games from the online shops, but so be it. Amazon did this with their Kids+ service, at least they did 5-10 years ago. They had a selection of popular apps with all the monetization removed. My daughter and I played a lot of OG Plants vs Zombies as a straight game, really fun. I later installed the public Google Play version to revisit it, and it felt completely different, with all the gates and upselling we avoided back then.