this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

I'm so glad that I looked up some cheat codes for Turok 64 back in the day. It had two powerful weapons that were meant to be used sparingly after finding a rare inatance, in one case, or searching the entire game for pieces, after which you only got 3 shots with it. I used those two weapons until I got bored of them.

Then I tried to play the game again without the cheats and realized it was ruined for me. Why would I care to spend time searching for each piece of that weapon, knowing it only has 3 shots, when I was already bored with it?

And then later on, after I had been raiding in WoW, very focused on getting my loot upgrades, I noticed the loop of raiding to get better gear to get better at raiding to get better gear and realized it only had a point if I enjoyed the raiding, otherwise the gear didn't matter, regardless of what stats or graphics it had.

Those two things together have made it easy to never spend any money on game progression. It's basically spending money to either get bored of the game quicker by trivializing the powerful things (monetized cheat codes or powerups), or to avoid playing the game in the first place (getting the gear without the raid, when the whole point of the gear is to help with the raid).

And yeah, often the game isn't worth going through the loop, but they design the early stages to give fast progression to build up an expectation but tune it so that it's a slog grind if you don't buy anything, hoping for a few bucks from people as they learn this, or a lot of bucks from those who set strong habits and never do learn.

And when progression is pinned to an exponential curve while upgrades are non-exponential but tuned to be ahead of the curve when you first get them, it doesn't matter how much money you spend, eventually you'll always be back at a curve that looks more vertical than anything else and you'll need to spend money or wait a crazy amount of time.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 3 weeks ago

1000 people is statistically shit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

someone help me understand what gacha is and what it means to these folks in simple terms?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Another comment explained what it is but to explain where the name comes from, you remember those capsule machines where you had to collect all the toys? Those were called gachapon machines, often shortened to just gacha (i might be slightly wrong on a little bit of the words, but they are the capsule machines)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

Games with casino style gambling to unlock characters or skins or whatever. Often times you'll have like 1/100 chance to unlock a character you want when opening a "box".

Hugly mobile popular games run like this with new more powerful characters releasing monthly

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

The way these studies are phrased feels gross and seem to only serve to perpetuate these problems by shifting the blame of systemic issues on the individuals suffering from them instead of the powerful people benefiting from wealth inequality that cause this kind of desperation.

The US is guilty of this too with our "Financial Literacy" propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Almost as if capitalism was specifically designed to shuffle all wealth from the bottom to the top in a neverending ratchet of human degradation and exploitation

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

You guys spend money on games?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I knew this was a fucked up industry when I heard they were successfully diversifying into women-centric gatcha games where the game is also centered on gooning over various character designs but the gatcha pulls correspond to specific romance scenes and interactions.

Japanese companies really have minmaxed exploiting every demographic. They have this garbage for the young people and pachinko parlors for old people and rural folks.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

The widespread deregulation of gambling in the US is heading that way too.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago

Funny thing is I know more women playing these games than I know dudes. Which of course does not reflect player statistics. I know that. But it‘s probably more popular with women than you would think based on character designs. I think it has a lot to do with cutesy Japanese pop culture that‘s appealing to a lot of people. There‘s a reason many Chinese and Korean games are copying it recently.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I had an argument with a guy who was in a shared friend's discord server about this. He was adamant that, if somebody spent too much money on a game, then it was all their fault. Despite me going over several (clearly manipulative) tactics, all he said was that people who fell for these must be stupid and that they deserved it

Yeah later on he was kicked because of other (Similarly dickish) reasons

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah American is a victim blaming culture

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago

It is as much their fault as it is any addict's fault, which is to say, partially but not entirely

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I mean....

The unfortunate reality is that both parties, the customer and the game company, are culpable and both share blame

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

These gacha companies pay ridiculous amounts of money for psych profile info specifically to target vulnerable individuals, yet individuals don't have that same kind of access or understanding

This is NOT a both sides thing.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I mean, he's not wrong. it is something within their power to control, and only they can stop the cycle.

addiction is a hell of a drug though.

companies that prey on the vulnerabilities of humans like that should be regulated no different than drug, alcohol, or firearm companies.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And if we were all smart people we would have far less laws. Sometimes laws protect us from ourselves. Anyone who has experience with addiction knows how hard it is to just stop. Instead of blaming people for their inability to stop we should emphatize and understand that this needs an intervention. If these predatory practices were illegal those people wouldn't need to stop themselves because they wouldn't be put in that situation in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Regulation of predatory practice. Taxation on the games to pay for rehab and support services for people that experience negative effects from it. It's really easy to do, but every single gambling operation gets the big bucks from the heavily addicted. The whales are the entire business.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

I agree they're partially at fault, but to deny the part the company played by creating artificial FOMO, sales, and gates is barbaric to say the least

It needs more regulation, I agree. Particularly for premium currencies (which thankfully the EU seems to be doing something about)

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