Eurobum

@acharlie1377:

I appreciate the first part you wrote, it would be a good general criticism of anything really: "You don't explain enough. The burden of proof is on you." Except I don't make extraordinary or unfalsifiable claims, I just generalize. My goal is to disprove such a Teapot claim, that it is somehow possible to give away a game and charge people after, without cheating or abusing most of them.

My sentence which you singled out, doesn't even need proof, we don't need to imply intention. It is stated in Doublespeak in the earning reports of these companies. Such as for Acti.blizz.: "Engagement drives recurring revenues and strong cash flow."

I've been quoted out of context a couple of times already. Fine, I'll explain, but was it really necessary to truncate that sentence to make your point? Post release monetization betrays an intent to profit from addiction...., be it addiction to progression or gambling.

The two predominant methods of monetization are gating progression (Pay-to-win) and gambling (loot boxes). Both of them are notorious for making people act compulsively towards a rewarding stimulus otherwise known as addiction.

Rewards in a game allow to teach a player to act in a certain way. It's just like training a pet, by using positive reinforcement / treats. But animal experiments also show that subjects can learn this conditioned behavior from each other. B.F. Skinner experimented with hungry pigeons in a box and he figured out a way to quantify their response (=engagement). This is him in a 4 min clip.

So that part kind of explains "All causes are external". But one needs to contemplate that stuff, to understand its significance : Nobody acts, people only react to their environment. Enjoying isn't an act, it's a reaction. This is also the second characteristic of addiction - reinforcement.

Reinforcement and Reward characterize addictive stimuli. Reinforcement is the external stimulus (You got a Raise!), reward is the internal stimulus. (Wow!). That comic is really, spot on. I just realized.

The second quote I'm not going to argue. It explores the question of how much exploitation of psychology should be allowed, enough to serve a noble purpose. Not keep people playing for 1000 hours.

For very long time the difference between enjoyment and addiction is indistinguishable to the person in question, to friends or to parents. It's anything but clear cut, even for trained professionals. After repeated scandals psychology developed standardized questionnaires, to be able to deal with this vagueness and uncertainty. These yes/no questionnaires even reached pop-magazines in the 90's as the Psycho-test. While they allow statistical evaluation of larger groups of people, they may still occasionally fail when it comes to any one individual diagnosis.

Your portrayal of addiction as destructive, unstoppable, ugly extreme, is more or less one possible final form. We know it as a movie trope and from scare campaigns. The reason you use this "gallon tub of ice cream" exaggeration, is to skew perception towards a low likelihood. However it's the worst possible example to use, since the vast majority of adults now suffers from some form of behavioral issue, when it comes to food. Sugar may be the 'level progression' of food, it's easy, it's cheap, it makes everything tastier, everybody likes it.

Luckily, in the practical world there are practical solutions. Doctors don't determine if someone's an alcoholic, by asking him/her all these questions: how often they tried to quit, or if they have ever lied about drinking to their next of kin. Doctors just ask someone how much they drink in a given amount of time, and they probably don't even bother converting percentages into liters divided by body weight. The answer is often plain as day: Regularly drinking too much is alcoholism.

Believing that someone isn't addicted as long as they enjoy themselves, is extremely dangerous and completely false. To be fair, you phrased it slightly differently.

The two properties that characterize all addictive stimuli are that they are reinforcing and intrinsically rewarding (i.e., they are perceived as being inherently positive, desirable, and pleasurable). -1. Paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction

@acharlie1377 said:

Intent is very important when it comes to judgment. Post release and ongoing monetization betrays an intent to profit from addiction, be it addiction to progression or gambling. In fact my argument is anything but extreme, free-to-play is simply the most obvious. There may very well be other addictive games, but arguing that is called deflection.

Monetizing addiction makes these games much worse. Just like intent makes the difference between murder and manslaughter. Monetization also changes these ongoing games structurally and socially.

Other staggered releases and episodic content didn't work, because people only seem to spend money when jonesing or fiending. I once blew someone's mind by explaining, that being manipulated doesn't mean that you are spending money against your own will, it just means that somebody makes you spend it voluntarily.

Whether somebody is spending money or time, does not matter much either, because you can turn time into money and you can pay money to save time. Time is money. The sky is blue. Corporations are evil.

Honestly, I don't want to just wag my finger and moralize. My biggest criticism is that exploitation for exploitation's sake makes a game bad. Before addiction, there was other exploitative stuff: war, violence, sex, power-fantasy, mystery. But these are exploitative means to an end. For instance someone could create a great fighting game and make it really gory (or bouncy), to bring in the crowd. When numbers going up ceases to be a means to an end, but instead it becomes an end in itself, then you have a bad game. Free-to-play & as-a-service titles all share this pointlessly perpetual attribute.

The actual fallacy happens when a supposed game critic says: "I can't put this game down, therefore it must be good."

Firstly, this well-trodden political rhetoric is absurd, because it argues against your own interest. Why would for instance junkies or society at large want opiates to become more addictive or more lethal, as has happened in the case of Fentanyl?

Secondly you can only hold someone accountable for a crime, whereas responsibility requires a certain understanding and awareness. Which is why a child or a fool cannot assume responsibility unlike say a politician or CEO.

Whether or not a society should opt to "coddle"/protect people from fraud, should never be decided by political ideology (ideology tends to be BS), but by the practical viability of any kind of prohibition, regulation or restriction.

Gaming Disorder is too big and too widespread to be a just a "personality thing". What is known: it is somewhat correlated with young age, being male, anxiety and depression. Lastly, Arguing that something cannot be helped is all kinds of wrong and simply dishonest.

I want someone to prove me wrong. I would also like the discussion to mature and sober up, stop using industry doublespeak and side with the interests of consumers. It can't just be Jonathan Blow and Jim Sterling in a sea of influencers, steamers and hype-men.

Why would any of this matter? No developer is going to want a bad relationship with the people giving them money, especially not long term. Let's see, the community of a cooperative game is nice, the community for the competitive Dota is "toxic"! Pretty sure, that's why.

PoE is a Diablo clone, Diablo II released in 2000 A.D. was one of the first successful and really addictive and repetitive games. People auctioned off items on Ebay for a thousand bucks and some guy died playing it in an Internet-cafe for days straight. Battle.net (games as a service) ran on dedicated servers, that prevented cheating. This closed random loot system became the template for WoW. MMOs popularized by WoW found ways to charge "super-fans" uncapped amounts, creating the free-to-play payment model. Other MMOs started to sell their subscription for in game currency and thus reward the really unhealthy lifestyle of the gold-farmer, splitting the user base into pay-not-to-grind and grind-not-to-pay, both being bad choices.

Borderlands became Diablo with guns, but it didn't have dedicated servers. So grinding didn't make much in game sense. Warframe(?) and Destiny cloned the cooperative shooter adding forced matchmaking, along with an MMO like (as a service) loot system, incentivizing spending vast amounts of time on repetitive activities.

Funny thing is, that these games literally are the spawn of Diablo.

One thing you can never say: That you haven't been told. (to quote my favorite Sopranos moment)

Frankly, I have difficulty to articulate the last and first missing piece, in a deservedly impactful way, to sew up this argument.

Cosmetics is meant to convey that these items don't affect gameplay, but it doesn't at all describe the nature of these purchases. People don't pay for lipstick or hair product, they buy clothes, armor, mounts, pets, ships, shaders, skins. These are hardly cosmetics. The word is just the best possible description for an excuse. "Look we aren't Pay-to-Win, it's all just superficial!"

So how to best characterize, what people are actually buying? Why would anyone buy that shit? And why are they only buying it in multiplayer games?

The answers to these question should inevitably lead someone to realize how cunning these sales tactics are! Provided one's answers are slightly more in-depth than: Fun, for fun, most fun.

Some games call them vanity items, which is slightly more fitting. Sadly, I don't have a better suggestion. What do you call expensive clothes, cars and wrist watches in real life? They clearly serve a social function: to show off, to make someone feel special. A high price is part of the deal with status symbols. Furthermore status symbols have a function beyond vanity, like civil rank insignia. Dress the way you like to be treated! Especially when dealing with rather anonymous interactions.

The fakeness of these social dynamics is what I hinted at. The admiration and envy someone receives from his peers in game for owning something rare is fake, after all it's virtual play pretend, which is enough to really want something, but instantly vanishes once you step out of the bubble.

Sometimes social dynamics lead people who have the least, to spend the most in a phenomenon called, conspicuous consumption. Frustrated youths are desperate to find something to be passionate about or a thing at which they're good at. People like their Kool-Aid.

From experience: Being able to grind in game for items of status is the worst possible option, games that have an exchange rate between their two currencies actually allow to make these conversions. Even using cheats, exploits and market speculation, I personally never managed to get anywhere close to minimum wage. Making it up by grinding overtime. Is it addiction or determination? It's funny how real life social divides creep into games and re-create a virtual working class of the addicted and disenfranchised. Some even argue, it wouldn't be so bad if somebody of means spent more than a kid who has to mow lawns to purchase virtual stuff.

The problem isn't so much that the money goes to some Chinese conglomerate (that also bought into the World Series of Poker), the problem is that people with their wallets vote to rather be manipulated than pay for games upfront. People spending money on free-to-play are responsible for games getting worse. Instead of diversifying and developing a variety of games, Tripple-A now doubles down on single popular franchises as-a-service.

Meanwhile people are getting tired of in-game stores, unless someone also has the collector bug, there is only so many wrist watches somebody can buy. We see games circle around to subs, passes and event bundles. The "just cosmetics" lie worked for a while, pretty sure the next big thing will be when they rename F2P to Free-Lunch-2.

@onemanarmyy:Your take is spot on especially in regards to endlessness. I forgot, the real progression of skill can be just as addictive as artificial XP, unlocks and collection progression which emulate it. From your recalling of history from the industry's perspective: it is crucial to realize, that these games aren't free out of the kindness of Icefrog's heart, but because they need bodies (MAUs) and they need newbies. The industry has recognized how it can turn participation and mind-share into green. A self enhancing feedback loop of tournaments that create publicity, which creates item sales, which finance tournaments. Even more important to realize that in turn nobody needs Dota 2, HoN or LoL. No game becomes the national pastime. All games eventually peak and decline, it seems. Players are well advised to divest themselves early.

Pretty sure F2P came about as an alternative (open ended) long tail payment model for MMOs. Free-to-play did not invent addiction or the MOBA, it evolved and optimized a way to monetize, grow and spread a mental disorder along with their game even to people not willing to spend a single dime. I suspect that not paying for F2P is even more dangerous, because of the erroneous impression that you outsmart the game by avoiding payment, while still being exposed to the much bigger risk.

@mike:

Thanks for chiming in. I know you read and skim through many posts. I have already explained (#13) why I chose a formal fallacy for the title. As far as you other reply.

Here is the thing it seems like you might be completely missing. Some people enjoy that type of experience. They like to grind away and earn things in games that take inordinate amounts of time - they find it fun, and playing F2P games for free or nearly free is part of the experience for them. It's completely fine if you don't enjoy that type of game, but try to see these things from others' perspectives.

I'm not quite sure what you are saying. Addiction does imply that someone really enjoys and likes something. This enjoyment may not ever stop. Sometimes people get tired of the lifestyle, other times they chase it from one game to the next. Is it fine for some to "enjoy" an addiction, or remain in denial about it? Hardly. In any case it helps to understand, that an unhealthy amount of enjoyment always brings with it an interference with priorities, it also betrays an ill, perfidious intent on the part of the devs. I would never wish any addiction on anyone. Sid Meier for instance probably got a lot shit for his making light of the "one more turn"-syndrome when people play Civ, I've heard him openly question on a podcast, whether it is a good thing. This, not entirely candid, but somewhat critical doublespeak is the state of the industry today.

There must exist plenty of people and I've met some, who don't care much about loot boxes or progression for whatever reason, or they have their priorities straight and can put down a game after an hour. But even they should be open to talk about the risks. My point is that this dark side should more negatively affect perception, discussion and review scores. I think the attitude of "live and let live" is too trite to deal with the kind of finely tuned and highly polished trap exploitative practices present, I'd prefer a community in which people act like "If you see something, say something."

@efesell said:

Why should my mind matter at all. But you are right it is a trick. I obviously don't think people will be able to produce an example. All free-to-play games tend also to be "games-as-a-service" and by definition something that keeps people busy with time gated challenges, progression grind, loot farming basically meddles in a player's priorities.

Path of Exile is a Diablo clone, which is basically a loot/slot machine, is it not? Same goes for Warframe, it's basically Destiny loot-chute.

Competitive games like Dota, CS:GO, skew towards blind boxes, while RPGs can safely rely on addiction. This shouldn't surprise you. And yes clearly Free-to-play is an evolution of the MMO model, discussed in a previous topic I hijacked.

Do I enjoy telling people, that there is no Santa? - Not, particularly. I know how soul crushing disillusionment can be. But there are benefits, I've always had a suspicion and about being cheated, when playing an addictive game, but it isn't easy to articulate this intuition. In 2017 I've read a meta study about the Prevalence of Gaming Disorder in Adolescents, but it only said that research in the type of games is ongoing. In this topic I tried to make a case and collect my thoughts for which games do the most harm and how.

Being able to tell the difference, between good and bad games, is very advantageous. It makes the choice of game easier, it frees up a lot of time. In the past I simply rejected all games at times, but now I can seek out non exploitative games with a clear conscience, knowing that they have the benefit of a warm satisfying conclusion instead of a cold turkey.

@bladeofcreation said:

Look, I realize that I'm trowing out a sweeping generalization, but I do so to challenge a persistent lie, that there is a way to do F2P right.

In formal logic asserting something like: all swans are white, would be near impossible to prove and easy to disprove. Just present a black swan. BTW, I challenge anyone to name and make the case for a good free-to-play game. My two already named criteria: 1. not being deceptive, 2. not addicting (not perpetual).

Formal logic aside, in reality there is value to understanding, that swans are white and that black swans are mere exceptions that prove the rule. In reality there such a thing as a degree of certainty. I can say, with a high degree of certainty, that F2P simply has to be exploitative and extortionate to make money. Such is the power of abstraction: it applies to a lot of things, but I might be wrong. I just don't see how.

Besides while it isn't hard to make free-to-play games on mobile, the market isn't all that diverse. It is dominated by a very small number of big titles, when it comes to multiplayer games. Although there is a high churn rate. While the seemingly endless procession of single player F2P and their clones, basically has to be pay-to-win, which, people already seem to agree, is kind of bad.

It's really peculiar just how similar games and in-game item shops are (from the limited sample I've witnessed), the tricks are the same everywhere. From time gated progression, to the two currency systems and the infamous blind boxes. Understanding how it works, I simply cannot unsee it.

There are reasons: The target audience for free-to-play are basically younger people, who are rather crafty freeloaders, making them spend is not that easy, games have to go with what works.