Lol yes we can. We regulate gambling which is arguably just a very addicting game. Because it intentionally and maliciously preys on known psychological weaknesses and does so to extract enough money from victims to ruin them, we regulated it.
I think it’s quite a fascinating subject. In my opinion, the real problem is the stakes.
When you have RNG in a game, the only thing you have to potentially lose is the time you’ve spent in that game, so there’s a natural reasonable cap. Once you introduce outside currency, the stakes can grow way outside that bounds.
The reason gambling is so problematic is that the higher the stakes, the more adrenaline is released. This causes sensitivity to adrenaline decreases, and even bigger risks need to be taken to elicit the same reaction.
Gaming generally has a hard cap on how much you can lose, so there simply isn’t a way to increase the risk. The only thing that can happen is that you get bored of the game.
On a fundamental level, though, there’s no mechanical distinction between gambling and (some) RNG in games. In both cases you put your time on the line.
I suppose the other element is that expected value (ROI) is often >=1 in games and <1 in gambling. Usually in gaming it’s expected that if you continue to put in time you’ll eventually progress, whereas the opposite is almost universally true in gambling; the more time you put in, the more you stand to lose.
Shit like this is why forums need to protect vulgarity. It’s a deeply dishonest “just because you disagree” insult that takes ten times longer to pick apart or respond do, when really it’s just fucking LYING.
That’s not why you’re being sued.
And you know it.
You bastards.
Cigarettes aren’t regulated to death because they’re “too good.”
excellent comment, analysis and subsequent defense of your position in the following discussion. i feel like i learned something, thanks for this homie. 👍
What? I don’t understand this comment.
Where energy. Just don’t play their games
“Just don’t smoke them!”
No I’m talking to you, not the industry.
You clearly have a formed opinion on these games " bastards". Why do this to yourself?
Pictured: the problem, blind to itself.
I know you’re talking to me. I am shitting on your argument, by metaphor, by showing it’s exactly what I already dealt with.
None of that is “done to myself.” What the fuck would that even mean? I am condemning a business model and this propaganda used to defend it. It has nothing to do with me, personally, and the suggestion is derailing horseshit.
And the fact I have to triple-check I didn’t end any of these sentences with so much as a comma and a G-rated insult, when it’s such fucking nonsense to deal with, is why enforced civility is a failure of any forum. An unforced error that freely tolerates overt trolling but viciously punishes the natural and necessary response to such verbal abuse.
Like dude you are so certain, and express yourself with such clarify. I’m saying it’s all there, why are you wasting time on this.
Edit “Why do this to yourself” refers to THIS exchange. Why comment on these threads or on this topic? It clearly brings you no joy.
You have a lot of anger on this it seems like you’re ready.
If you’re taking what I’m saying as an insult deserving a rulebreak, I think you need to take a break. I’m just a commenter on a website.
“Why deal with people like me?” is quite a fucking angle.
I comment on this topic because it’s important, dammit. Venting about it is not making things worse for me.
I deal with people like you because you fucking asked. How irrational! Apparently.
I’d love to have more constructive discussions on this. There’s a wide variety of sensible ways the conversation could go. But for some god-damn reason, I mostly attract the same “juuuust” nonsense over and over, even when it is explicitly dealt with in the comment you’re rolling your eyes at.
I absolutely should not have to educate every Lemmy user, individually, on why this business model is a scam, and how it threatens gaming as a whole. But if I have to - I will.
If you’re taking what I’m saying as an insult deserving a rulebreak, I think you need to take a break. I’m just a commenter on a website.
“Wow you actually believe your criticisms of me? Calm down, honey. I’m juuuuuuust the reductionist definition of the only thing that could break the rules about commenting on a website.”
Dude, everyone knows it’s a scam. It’s literally gambling, which is a scam.
Your energy is way too high.
You aren’t an educator.
I’m not obligated to to digest the entire scope of the industry in any comment or reply I make, same as you. So my addressing one small facet of one comment on one thread is it. That’s the end of the scope.
This is not an academic, or formal space. You aren’t on the clock.
You’re clearly very angry and you’re obviously just putting that anger on me. Do what ya gotta do, again, none of this matters.
That would be a good argument if the addicting part were the gameplay rather than the
casinoMTX store.I mean, I play fortnite because it’s fun and i don’t like more realistic shooters or small maps. I still haven’t spent any money on it.
Don’t regulate actual gameplay which is entertaining, but regulate strongly microtransactions and the like.
Ok, but what would be the legal precendent there? We regulate tabacco precisely because of it’s psychological and medical effects, not because it’s bad for your wallet. This lawsuit depends upon a claim of addiction because you can’t just regulate something for annoying you.
Call it what it is. At the very least, loot boxes and the like should be considered outright gambling – which is highly regulated.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
Not sure I totally agree. The idea of researching and applying addictive traits to anything feels like something to be regulated. It’s not literally brainwashing but applying pressure to these topic can make anything positive into a negative. Even something like getting people to exercise could turn into someone collapsing if addictive qualities were applied.
Fuckin watch us
Nobody is mad that Civilization and Factorio cause us to accidentally pull all-nighters, they’re mad that the latest Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and other similar games are designed to extract as much money as possible from people.
Once upon a time people worried about MMO addiction and that was before they added $40 horses. I was on the other side back then, now game publishers can go fuck themselves.
The science of slot machines is applied directly to some video games. The Molecule of More is worth a read.
Never forget it was Bethesda that started it all with the fucking horse armor.
Horse armor is completely above-board, relative to this abuse. It was a real expansion: you paid money for new files. Stupidly tiny new files that solved problems the game created. But new files nonetheless.
Horse armor was the warning sign for the next decade of min-maxed bullshit DLC. That didn’t turn into this fresh hell until publishers tried doing “on-disc DLC.” I.e., you pay us for the game, and the whole game is on the damn disc, but you don’t get the whole game until you pay us again, for the game you just fucking bought.
Once mobile trash started charging repeatedly for the same geegaws, we were fucked. Only legislation will fix this.
Rtfa.
Call of Duty, for instance, is criticized for rewarding players with gun and attachment unlocks, which the suit calls “a form of operant conditioning,” as well as for featuring “fast-paced play, satisfying graphics, sounds, and other dopamine lifts.” Minecraft’s multiplayer features are said to “addict players to connecting with others in the Minecraft world” and the suit warns that players with ADHD “can become easily hyper focused and addicted to building worlds.” Grand Theft Auto 5, the suit says, “includes endless arrays of activities and challenges to continually engage users and ensure they are never bored.”
Lol. Their lawsuit sounds like a good videogame ad.
Well, this particular lawsuit is pretty stupid and does indeed cite things that are just fun and not part of the “get them addicted” machine such as Minecraft having multiplayer.
I still don’t agree with the quote in the headline, though.
You can when you bastards have psychologists on staff for the explicit purpose of creating systems that, through the power of science, are guaranteed to be addictive.
I’m suing disney world. They made a park that my kids want to go to, too much. They need to make their parks no more fun for kids than six flags is.
“You can’t sue us for making opiods ‘too pleasurable’, say major drug manufacturers in response to addiction lawsuits.”
The reality is that it comes down to motive. In the case of the Sackler family, lawsuits showed that they were effectively trying to get people addicted to their opiods. They lied about them, claiming they weren’t addictive. They tried to push doctors to prescribe them for everything from sports injuries to arthritis, not just for ultra-serious pains like from cancer. They were rewarding doctors for prescribing them, even when it was obvious those doctors were just selling drugs to addicted patients. They especially liked to try to talk to doctors who were not pain specialists. Sales reps were trained in how to overcome objections from doctors, like saying “The delivery system is believed to reduce the abuse liability of the drug”, even though they knew that wasn’t true. They gave doctors all-expenses paid junkets to Boca Raton, Florida to attend seminars on OxyContin.
If a developer ends up making a really good game that keeps you wanting more, that’s one thing. But, if you have internal messages from that developer talking about how they can hack dopamine releases and keep people coming back, that’s another thing. If internal messages are about the “whales” and how to get them to cough up the most money, that’s yet another one. If someone leaks internal memos where employees are laughing at idiots who are ruined after spending all their money on loot boxes, that’s even worse.
IMO, the developers who really need to be sued are the ones developing gambling machines. They seem ultra-optimized for addiction, and to extract as much possible cash from the victim. It’s amazing that that kind of thing is legal, but as long as it’s legal, it needs to be heavily regulated so that gamblers are actually having a good time, not that they’re simply being slowly drained of their blood.
