this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025

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The AliExpress app is such a bleak example of gamification (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 month ago by doublepepperoni@hexbear.net to c/technology@hexbear.net

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There's an entire ecosystem of Facebook-tier repetitive browser games that are designed to keep you tapping for hours as you chase tokens you can exchange for AE coins or coupons. Actually, the main point is to get you to make impulse buys from within the games themselves

The games all use different tokens and naturally run on slowly regenerating energy. If you run out energy, you can get more by exchanging some of your coins or tokens, browsing products on AE, opening another game, or by ordering something for a large energy boost

Simply buying stuff normally on AliExpress doesn't give you game tokens or energy, you need to directly buy an item from a listing the game shows you for it to count

Every single game also has a battlepass type deal with dailies and weeklies to complete for even more tokens

All of this started when Halo 2 introduced XP into online shooters sadness-abysmal

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[–] miz@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

boomers have very low immunity to shit like this, look at slot machines. no wonder these gamified apps have taken over their brains

[–] mrfugu@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

oh god this is worse than Temu. Temu just has fake games that try to trick you into “taking advantage of this great deal!!” I told my parents they’re not allowed to use it because they’ll definitely fall for the bs.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As far as I can tell, the discount coupons do actually work but holy shit would you need to spend a lot of time (or money!) for the bigger ones

[–] TheSpectreOfGay@hexbear.net 0 points 1 month ago

the coupons work, but they're limited time. so it encourages you to impulse buy something so the coupon doesn't expire. usually has a minimum purchase cost to use it too, so you have to spend more than you save

[–] CDommunist@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Yes, but china!

Therefore based

very-smart

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I was under the impression this was just for the non-china markets

[–] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

its more open to the public yes. if you want a china only storefront, use taobao or tmall.

its why taobao and tmall require agents to buy internationally on, as they dont do the paperwork for you on those platforms.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I did recently manage to get 9€ off a 29€ item using coins I'd collected from daily app logins (which is a separate layer of gamification) so it's not all bad I guess

[–] space_comrade@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Shops like Aliexpress and Temu often use really gross tactics to get you to buy shit but honestly I don't really think the Chinese government should be doing anything about it except protect their own population against it, which I think they are for the most part. Nobody is stopping western countries from banning this kind of shit, they just don't want to.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nobody is stopping western countries from banning this kind of shit, they just don't want to.

I don't want them to ban AliExpress, it's a great place to get certain stuff if you know how to avoid the obvious scams.

I just think the gameification is taken to absurd levels and can imagine people getting addicted to this shit

[–] CptKrkIsClmbngThMntn@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago

They could probably tighten the rules around this kind of gamification and AliExpress would have to comply or lose the market to a competitor.