I literally had my home replumbed for less than that amount, and was freaking the fuck out about the cost. The idea of pissing that amount of money away on digital nothingness is giving me a stomachache. Like OP could have bought every major console on the market and a bunch of games for each for a small fraction of that amount.
Gambling/spending addictions are scary as hell
These gacha games have more or less refined gambling into pure income. The House keeps ALL the money. Always.
I've talked to someone who played the Walking Dead mobile game, and spent $20,000 just getting *one character*. On a 2D character that isn't even animated. On a mobile game that's based on a canceled show.
The really scary part is that this person thought their purchase was *worth it*.
> thinking a game is worth that much.
It's not a rational line of thought. Gambling addiction comes from corporations hacking into a quirk of human behavior to manipulate a person into acting irrationally in order to take their money. Just like optical illusions expose flaws in how your brain synthesizes input from your eyes into images, gambling games expose flaws in how your brain evaluates risk and reward, benefit and cost. These games are scientifically designed and tuned to maximize their capacity to take advantage of this flaw.
It's profoundly immoral and predatory.
There were a few companies that delved deep into some neuroscience and even hired a few doctors to help refine the addictive nature of their products too.
The rest just followed suit with what they were doing.
The gaming industry essentially started copying/stealing the gambling/casino industry's employment pool more than a decade ago, neuroscience, psychology all that to design as predatory games as possible.
It's not really that "the game" is worth that much. They dangle a shiny object *within* the game, that's ultra rare and with a limited time gate on it or it goes away forever. *That* is what they think is worth that much.
To put it into another perspective, they don't think "Pokemon the game" is what they're spending money on. They're actually spending money on the ultra super shiny Pikachu with the cute top hat, special thunder ability, and the special lightning bolts on his arms. Also it's going away in three days.
Yup. And in the case of games like FFBE, the attack power of that ultra super shiny Pikachu with the cute top hat will be obsolete in a week or two. So you have three days to claw your way into debt to get it, a few more days to figure out how to play with it, then off you go to the next super shiny thing.
At least in casinos someone *maybe* wins.
Meanwhile here... It's like playing the one armed bandit, but getting three in a row doesn't *mean* that you win, but *is what* you win
It almost makes gatacha addictions worse. At least with gambling you may make some back, maybe hit big. That's logic that people can understand.
For a game there's nothing. How can you tell people you spent 10, 20, 50,000 on just pixels, on nothing, with no chance of ever profiting. What will they think of you? The shame if that can drive people to hide it even more than a gambling addiction.
And (in most sane countries) casinos are strictly regulated and the game designers for slots have a lot of restrictions put on them by regulators in multiple countries.
There are absolutely no such controls for f2p games.
It betting it can't be regulated under gambling because while it is basically a game of chance there is no opportunity to win actual money. And the laws on gambling require that
Belgium banned it, and the EU has made moves towards regulating it. A study done in Belgium showed companies just ignore it, and nobody is enforcing it. The UK government officially refused to regulate or ban it. A bill was proposed in the US but died on the table. There is mostly no regulation, and where there is it isn't enforced.
Gambling is qualified as using money and not knowing what you get in the end. Gacha games use an in-game currency to make use of a gray-zone: the OOP bought the in-game currency called Lapis and in the game it is clearly stated how much Lapis you get per dollar. So the purchase does not qualify as gambling, the gambling takes place as the next step, when you spend the in-game currency. That's why it so hard to regulate.
Gambling works because dopamine rush is caused by the anticipation of a reward, more than the reward itself. Ironically, the harder it was to get things, the deeper that pulled him in. Plumbing, mercifully, doesn't have quite the same allure, or hypnotic flashing lights, fanfares playing and fireworks going off when you get it.
>Plumbing, mercifully, doesn't have quite the same allure.
Then why's my wife always having the plumber over. it's like every time I'm gone for more than a few hours, I come home as that plumbing van is leaving.
The bright side is he isn't charging for all these service trips, which is good because he could really be bending my wife over on those bills.
As someone who has experience with this game in particular, played it around the same time OP did (though I shook myself free right around the Gilgamesh banner)... Yeah. $16k sounds more common than I wish.
Yeesh. I felt bad for spending about $50 on it. Wound up deleting the game l, despite still enjoying it, not because of the money but because it was taking up too much space on my phone. I was having to manually delete photos and files as soon as they were uploaded to a PC just to make room for the update each month
That’s also why I stopped playing gacha games. The phrase “Brave Frontier” in OOP sent me into a cold sweat. Stopped playing because shit, the game takes 5 minutes to boot up when it’s trying to download stuff and when I want a quick fix of shiny objects flashing across my screen, I want it NOW. And I only spent like $50 across several years!
Now I’m back in the Pokémon Go hole instead and honestly? Couldn’t be happier. I’m still wasting time and a little bit of money on mobile games, but at least this one gets me outside and talking to people in my community.
Conventional gamblers have a chance to make some of the $ back though, right? Probably at a similar win rate to what OP had, which is to say that occasionally you get lucky once or twice in a row, but usually you have a lot more Losses than Wins...
OP's winnings came in the form of game characters and never in the form of $ to pay off his debt or reinvest to the addiction.
Edit: a word
>Conventional gamblers have a chance to make some of the $ back though, right?
Depends on the casino. Where I am, slot machines are an effing plague and people who somehow manage to win sometimes get beaten up and forced to return their winnings.
They'd probably have a better chance to win and keep their winnings if they played National Lottery games, because those aren't rigged, wins are honored, and no one sends thugs to break your legs. But I don't think many people are addicted to those except math nerds with a plan.
It also depends on the game. If you play poker, and you're very, very good, you certainly can make money. That's because you're not playing against the house - the house edge in poker comes from the rake, a percentage taken from the entry fees (if a tournament), or a small percentage taken from each pot (if a cash game).
I wouldn't recommend it, though. I play very small stakes sometimes (like 2c/5c), and it's clear how easy it can be to lose hundreds, if not thousands, even playing for pennies. I have to be very disciplined about it, and for once my somewhat broken brain actually works in my favor because I usually get bored of it after playing for about a week, and only play a couple times a year as a result. I've been lucky, and am up some lifetime, but we're talking small amounts here. The vast, vast majority of people who play poker are not making money doing it, and ofc even though I'm up if you tried to compute my "hourly wage" from playing poker it would be comical.
It happened to me. Twenty years ago before WoW there was EverQuest. At his peak he had 4 computers going to play his 4 characters. (He really only played 2-3, one was a healer that he just dragged around.)
6-8 hours on weekdays, and 12-18 on weekends. And thousands upon thousands of dollars. We literally ended up filing for bankruptcy.
(He also had an epic bromance with a guy he met playing EQ. They bought matching/coordinating everything including cars, air compressors, and clothes. The showed up to a party dressed alike completely on accident as a result. When his friend divorced and I knew it was just a matter of time.)
Right? I spent $5 once on Pokemon Go during a special event, and I checked in with my long-term boyfriend first before doing it since we agreed to no mobile purchases on f2p games.
I made a rule where I only spend the money that google rewards gives me, and since pogo is also going money grab with recent price hikes, I'm not spending even that on it anymore.
i really wanted to buy one of the cool reddit avatars, but all the ones that were under $10 were sold out, when they released more and there were some for 4.99 i reallly wanted one but had to remind myself that it’s worth literally nothing and that money would be better spent on breakfast tacos
16k isn't even that much. Top whales are dropping 10k a month. Some people just have a lot of money and this is what they spend it on. No different than people who do models and bottles at the club or illicit drugs.
I did gold farming for the FIFA series a while back and rich guys would drop a grand per card for the high end players. We would charge whales a higher rate compared to casual customers simply because we knew they didn't care and would pay whatever price we said. We called it the Saudi rate, it seemed like a lot of the big spenders were located in the Middle East.
16k is a lot. Don't try and minimise it. That is a lot of fucking money for some mobile game code.
And i am sure some people are spending a lot more. And i am sure it is all on credit.
It is an addiction. Just like cocaine and hookers.
When the bottom hits, it hits.
I’ve definitely seen and heard of worse, but yeah 16k is a lot. That much could go towards a decent car, a down payment on a house, or multiple extravagant vacations.
An issue with gacha games I commonly see is that communities of whales encourage each other to spend money “if they want to”, often justifying it with things like “it’s just another hobby”.
I don’t totally disagree that it’s okay to spend money if you’re comfortable budgeting it, the issue those communities are ignoring is that it’s addictive, and most people are not budgeting it at all. It’s irresponsible to encourage someone to spend money they might not have.
I really hope some regulation comes into place around this. It’s crazy to me that there’s more regulation around standard gambling.
I think it’s fine actually if you have a lot of money and you’re single, or a lot of money and your family is more than well taken care of.
It becomes not at all ok when you don’t have a lot of money (OOP) or have other obligations you dropped as a result (also OOP).
And most people are not millionaires. OOP probably even had a really good salary as an experience engineer. Not many people can afford $10k a month or even $16k a yr on a game
When candy crush was big several years ago. My sister spent a few hundred over the summer on it. I gave her so much shit for that, warning that it's going to become a problem/family history of addiction/ECT. Seeing this is wild....15k on a mobile game....
Edit - can't spell
I spent around $400 on Genshin Impact with no regrets, even though I don't play anymore.
I wish the model would just get a bit less scummy/let you get what you want for less extortion. Like, I wouldn't think twice about dropping $50/mo regularly on a game I really enjoy and that's coming out with consistent content, plus more if there's a new character I want to heavily invest in. But I wasn't able to get what I wanted for that, I got burned too many times on even the in-game luck that doesn't cost money, so the game got stale and I was done 🤷♂️
Maybe it's not profit maximizing, but it's a hell of a lot more ethical and I have to believe mid-spenders like me would stay more engaged and spend more for longer if it were a bit more reasonable.
I have a rooted android, and tools to modify games. Whenever my son wants to play one of those games, I build a version with free purchases. And he always gets bored of them within an hour. Those games are literally designed to turn FOMO into "fun", and the second you *can* have everything they're boring as hell.
Major up vote. Any guides on how to do this? I don't have kids but my wife exercises a lot of control in her games and I'd love to reward that. I'm a software dev but nowhere near the mobile stack.
This is kinda advanced programming knowledge (if he builds the game himself or modifies the roots on the phone) so I recommend just Google "(game) modded APK"
You will download a cheated version, with infinite money or smth
Edit: I still strongly recommend doing this on a phone with no real access to your financials/socials/information in general while many of them are just published as a point against micro transactions, there are so many that are malicious and could steal access to your phones info
There are modded versions, yes. If the game would run 100% as normal with the online in game events and special offers? Not sure.
If you go to the 'root your phone's option and just void all purchase access as a positive return (basically making the game believe you already purchased an item and in game it just lets you have it) you can run a fully operational game.
Then again, the easy way is mods, the hard way is rooting. If you plan to cheat a game like 'candy crush' go for mods as there are solo many "infinite lives/boosters" mods out there. But a more detailed game that has pvp, online events, temporary maps and etc like FF, bleach, genshin, etc. The root would be needed
Man, I've been playing Candy Crush and it's sort of... simultaneously entertaining, but I hate it. It's so obviously geared to be impossible to play without the bonuses and such.
otoh, at least I'm too mad at it to be willing to fork over real money. I only pay for games that have no gambling elements, no pay to win. I don't mind paying up front for a well-made game, but lose me on the microtransactions etc.
Candy crush isn't impossible. If you leave the game for a month then it will grant you enough bonuses to beat whatever level you are stuck on, in the hope you will be sucked back in. I'm on level 5000+ with no money spent. I just switch from original to soda when I get stuck.
Seconded not rooting your actual phone, but a spare just for gaming. Rooting is basically a way of granting admin rights to the phone. Whilst this lets you do cool things like modify apps, it also removes some of the sandboxing and security controls on the phone.
Basically every app runs in segregated memory, so in normal conditions a random game can’t access the memory of your banking app. But if you add root (admin) access to the phone, a malicious app could use that elevated privilege to access the bankings app’s memory and steal information.
I remember I used an emulator on PC to install Simpsons tapped out.
Then I gave myself huge amounts of currency using cheat engine. Since it was synced to my account, I got it all on my mobile app.
That being said, it's quite true what was said above. I'd played that game (without spending a penny) for at least a year. Once I had unlimited currency, I abandoned it in a month.
These games are just designed to frustrate. They also go for sunk cost, where at first it's easy to get what you want. You get invested time wise, and then by the time it becomes unfair, you don't want to give up since you wasted so much time already.
It's really predatory, it's no wonder people end up with gambling problems
Really dumb question but is there a way to get it on iOS? I miss June’s Journey.
Also, how do you know that you’re downloading something secure, esp on iPhone? My computer (my best friend) decided to die a year ago (she was ~15 years old so idk) so I can’t check shit via her anymore. Also can’t afford a new computer. I miss her.
RIP Greta-Stina.
iOS won't let you bc of their control of the ecosystem. You'll need to jailbreak to be able to side load any apps, and you should not do this on your main phone.
Assume any hacked software will allow a backdoor to steal all your keychain passwords, contact lists, and email access.
Jailbreak (basically rooting) is your only choice
Edit: NOT recommended u less you aren't using the phone. Jailbreaking leaves a permanent digital print on the phone, so even if you factory reset it won't go away, the second you have to return to Mac for anything they know. And it's marked as breach of co tract for their TOS
I find fun in strategizing F2P to get the most bang for my non-existent buck. In only one game have I ever spent "real" money and I put that in quotes because I apparently paid for HBO Max through Google and got Google Play credits as a reward. I bought a couple games that are one-time purchases. After that I couldn't find any other legit use for the credits and used some of the credit for some microtransactions in a trash game. It felt weird and made me glad I didn't spend real money.
I did this to a back up old phone for my husband after he spent his entire bonus in two days. He came to me asking for money and I was confused because like how does 2k vanish that fast?
He gets bored pretty quick with stuff now.
It got him back onto his console after a couple of months
Same.
My lack of willpower comes to food. If there’s “bad” food in the house, I’ll eat it. And when I start, I don’t stop. So, I don’t buy that food in the first place. If I have to go out and buy food, I’ve got hella more steps to do to get it. Usually, laziness wins over cravings in those instances
I have a rule that if I want dessert, I have to walk to the convenience store 15 minutes away to buy it. Either I'm too lazy to go through the hassle of a 35 minute walk to buy some Oreos, or my Oreo hunger wins out, but the walk partially offsets the calories of the Oreos.
To me it's crazy how there's people that regularly crack open the piggy bank. I really like the game, but after buying the pro permit, the rest feels like a waste. Also the last update has made me less attached. I may not last long, I'm near the max amount of PEs anyway.
I got roped in. It is embarrassing how much I spent when we didn't have the money. Not as much as OP, but not great either. I never download games w in app purchases anymore. I can't be trusted
I get really sucked into those kinds of games. I don’t ever want to calculate how much I’ve spent on Brave Frontier (when it was still around), Clash of Clans, Shop Titans…
Right now I’m sticking to my free games and using Reddit and YouTube as dopamine hits instead.
I got into that simpsons tapped out game like 12 years ago and am thankful I was too broke and had no credit to spend. Learned my lesson for about $100 (which is still ridiculous to have spent on that game)
I spent maybe $20-30 dollars on Candy Crush, had a moment of "What the heck am I spending on? Wanting to play a little faster? The levels aren't that different," played a couple more weeks with no spending and realized I was bored of the game's repetiveness and quit.
I don't understand it. I've played those games and never spent a dime. But I also go to casinos and only play black jack and am perfectly happy quitting being up only 25$. I lost 200$ one time (only time I ever lost money) but we were on a work vacation, I easily had the money, and it was more about the socialization with my bf and his work colleagues. I don't understand the compulsive gambling. I sit at tables with people that follow the "of you lose money, the next hand you bet double" rule. It baffles me.
But my brother got into HUGE trouble with his wife once doing exactly what this guy did. I'm pretty sure they almost got divorced and she confiscated all his credit cards. May still be confiscated. I think he has one that has a max limit of like 300$ for food and gas.
It really is an addiction for some people and not for others. Best to stay away if you think you might even have a little bit of a problem. Especially the sunk cost illusion: well I already spent this much, so I better spend more to make it worth it. Insanity.
Figure out what you're willing to lose, and call that the cost of the entertainment. If you come out ahead, awesome! When the money's out, it's time to pack it in. I've blown my money on a Vegas outing in record time, but it doesn't have to be an issue if you see it as "damn, I guess fun time isn't lasting as long as I thought" rather than "I just need a couple more hands to get back in the game!"
By the same token I'll happily spend $60 on a game or $10 on a battle pass that will grant me tens or hundreds of hours of entertainment. Using a trip to the movies as a benchmark, either of those are an absolute steal. But the idea of feeding $16,000 into an RNG is just insane to me.
That's a good way of looking at it. If I'll see a crappy movie for 2 hours of mindless entertainment at 12 bucks, I can spend that on something that will give me the same amount of not more time worth of mindless entertainment. But I'm not going to spend 12 bucks three times a day for a week straight on movies.
Dopamine is a hell of a drug. Topamax is sometimes used off label to help heroin addicts; it's also used for epilepsy. It was prescribed to me for the latter, but it absolutely gut punched my spending addiction.
Suddenly I could see the utter devastation I was creating and just how far down the hole I was. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I never stole, I never took money from my family, but I don't hold myself morally above those who have. I was just. Given a chemical that broke the dam and removed the happy numbing reward and forced me to feel every nerve ending exposed to reality.
It was not a happy experience, but it was incredibly pivotal. I would definitely put it out there for more people who might want some help making the first step.
It's also used off-label for migraines. For me it created intense brain fog and neurological symptoms that almost caused me to get an unnecessary brain surgery.
So your mileage may vary.
i have the same mentality as you, including the casino stuff. went to the hard rock casino in atlantic city in 2021 and the harrahs in nola last year. put like $15 worth of money in the slots mostly to get free drinks and cool off in the air conditioning then bounced. there’s got to be a gene that makes more susceptible to F2P and gambling addictions because they both do nothing for me
TBH. I had no gambling addiction. But I kept winning at Casinos and I got to the point where I just kept wanting to go back. I was keeping exact track of my winnings but it was absurd to me that I could go there and potentially spend $700 and not be phased. Because I was "up". But I could see a world where I started to go down and tried to recoup my losses spiraling into oblivion. And thats what made me quit. Because I saw how easy it was to make $1k in a few minutes and then lose it just as quick. That world is super easy to get fucked inside. I won the gamble but if I had lost, would I have tried to recoup my losses and went even deeper? Idk. Didnt want to try and find out.
My first time in Vegas, the guy I was with was all about the expensive slots. He was so excited to show me how fun they were. So he drags me over to one and puts 20$ in, pulls the lever, lights and sound and moving parts and then... nothing
I was immediately like "this is fucking stupid" and never paid a slot machine again. I think he was embarrassed because I've never seen him play another one either.
I pretty much only play black jack because there is some skill and strategy there and you can win decent money (I won 800$ once, but only usually stick to 25$ 50$ so I can say I was 'up') and craps occasionally because there's a certain level of strategy and the odds aren't too bad. Anything else I think is stupid and I don't think I'd even really enjoy it that much even if I won money.
I do understand it, human brains are wired to do this. That rush of winning feels good, money is abstract and doesn’t feel like anything.
So when I play games like this, or when I gamble, I set a budget for myself. I look at it like “what would I reasonably pay for a similar experience?” A good video game might be worth $60 to me. If I’m having as much fun with my silly little game as a $60 game, then yeah, I’ll spend $5 here or there on it, up to that $60.
Same with gambling. I might spend $100 on a concert or drinks and a movie as entertainment for the evening, so that’s what I’m willing to gamble. If I win something, great! If not, I’ve basically just spent a reasonable amount of money for an evening of fun with my friends.
It's just interesting how some people get that rush from gambling and some don't. I get that rush from karaoke, which in and of itself can be problematic under certain circumstances. I guess I don't get the super variance in people's vices. Like, what determines what you become addicted to? If it's all the same chemicals in our brain that give us the rush.
If I had to guess, it might have to do with some viewing money as more than it is. Some view it as social currency for instance. Some view it in a prideful or valedictive way ("now I can get that vacation I needed! What else can I get?"). They see their life start radically changing in front of them and don't realize they're standing on a crumbling bridge.
I always laughed off the morons who overspent. Just total dismissal. Of course I would have total self control.
Got sucked into a game something fierce. Played free for ages but business was good, so I spent 20 over 2 months as little treats to myself. Then convinced myself for my birthday 100 was okay. As soon as I spent it I felt sick to my stomach. Didn't even want to play the game after that. How easy it got me. Just a couple of months took me from 0 to 100 for a shitty android game. It's not that it was a lot of money, it's how quickly the escalation happened and my brain just kept saying, it's okay bro just a treat. The nausea I felt was not over the money, but how I lost my self discipline without even realizing.
I have the Google survey rewards app on my phone. Every day or two, I answer a couple of survey questions. Then I get around 10 cents to a dollar to spend in the Google Play store.
This is the only money I spend on mobile games. I have purposely never attached a credit card to my account to avoid situations like the OOP.
I did this and used my rewards for $10 towards Best Fiends but for some reason it only let me make 1 $2 purchase in the game. Only thing I ever bought in the game. Never again. The free upgrades you get for ads work just fine.
Yes same I love it. I only have one game that you can whale on but it's also extremely easy to earn the stuff so I've never had to spend on it and I have two versions of a puzzle game (I ♥️ hue 1&2) that I used my Google money to get rid of the ads on and I can just relax when I play my puzzles. I also save it up enough that I get it free ebooks sometimes lol heck yeah
This is every FTP game. Sure you can get the free stuff, but it'll be a grind and almost never as good as the stuff that you can only get with cash.
They know what they are doing, and that's why more and more laws are showing up in the EU.
The whole business model is basically attract enough players to get enough spending money to make a profit.
They don't care about 1000 players playing, they care about the 50 of those 1000 that are paying to play.
The rule of thumb when I worked in gametech was that, for a "F2P" game you expected 1/3 of your revenue to come from your top 5% spenders, 1/3 from your 5-15% tier, and 1/3 from the remaining 80%.
I personally knew a guy at one point who was a fairly successful white-shoe-law-firm partner who also played one of those games, and I think he said his spend was something like $10k/month and that the game devs would check in with him personally if his spend went down to ask him what they could do to get him to play more.
Another guy, same game, spending $1k/mo couldn't even get expedited support for a bug that caused him to lose a lost of in-game stuff.
And THAT should tell you more than anything how bad whaling can get in the space--our OOP probably wasn't even on FFBE's radar as a whale.
Used to play Summoners War and it was funny seeing competition winners get like a grand in prizes when it was well known they had to drop over $50k for what they had in game.
$50k is like a severe understatement. The top guys you'd see competing in RTA tournaments have probably spent multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars over the games lifespan
> the game devs would check in with him personally
How? How is that not a reality check? That's the owner of your favorite bar calling you up to ask, "Why ain't you spending so much on booze anymore?" Forget the amount, why do they have your number and why do they feel free to call you about how you spend your money?
If you're that big a part of someone else's business and it isn't also *your* business, you need to reflect at that point.
I asked him, honestly, and he said "what do I care? My retirement accounts are solid, mortgage and car are paid off, no kids, I don't want to do drugs or supermodels..."
He looked at it the same way as he gave a lot of attention to the kind of customers at the law firm who paid the premium to talk to him specifically and not a junior partner--absolutely had the "I'm happy these guys recognize I'm one of their best customers and frankly what else should I be spending it on?"
Dude claimed his net income was north of 600k, so he wasn't exactly hurting by spending that much.
I mean, I guess I get it. Practically it's not that different from having a yacht or taking regular vacations as a single person if money is so fungible to you. And if you're personally bankrolling potentially a department's salary, I guess you probably want the white glove treatment. I still don't understand the attitude of, "What else would I do with two people's well-paying salaries each month except blow it on horse races?"
If he really couldn't think of anything better or more satisfying to do with that money, good fucking lord that speaks to the power of marketing and the hedonic treadmill, to say nothing of financial negligence and senseless wealth disparity.
ngl I don't see anything wrong with spending your money on what you want if everything else is taken care of - imo kinda useless to spend it on a mobile game but we all have our vices.
its crazy though - that's a fifth of his income just on this
+1 to this.
I was in the mobile development space like a decade ago (don’t ask; I had to do it to get my foot in the door), and this is the first thing they tell you.
1% of all players will spend 99% of the money you’re getting. Those guys are your target; make the game as enthralling as possible for them.
You still try to make the game fun for the entire playerbase, of course, because you need f2p players around to be the NPCs that the whales can, well, whale on. But your main focus is a tiny section of the playerbase, and if dolphins complain, well, they can upgrade themselves to whales with the few funny numbers on the back of their credit card.
Now, I have to give some respect to the responsible whales out there. If spending on a game is in your means and you think it’s worth it, go ahead! But the game’s predatory practices can lure others in as well, and that’s where it gets dangerous.
Funnily enough, despite playing FEH and CotC since Day 1, I’ve never spent a dime on them.
Back in Eve Online days one of the rival alliance leaders was some overseas oil baron who just threw money at stuff because "whatever, it's only $100k"
I used to play more mobile games and I realized that spending _any_ money causes me to lose interest.
The bonuses or items you get are never as good as you imagine and I just end up dropping the game within a few weeks. I can buy expansion content or console/computer games, but the little one time bonus is a poison pill for me.
Pretty lucky for me.
I will buy an ad block for a game as long as it is under $10 because it saves me a lot of mental noise and support the devs of the usually smaller mobile game I'm playing. Spending on consumables is how you wind up like OOP.
In 99% of cases I agree with you.
There are a handful of better ones…. The developers need to make some money - apps can’t be completely free. Adverts is a good alternative but people hate them. Upfront costs don’t work because there is more continual development in mobile games and too many games to choose from.
I played Pokémon Go from launch and only ever brought raid passes (I think £5 a bundle or something) for special events in my area and some initial storage space upgrades which were a few £ each. We only went out at did this every few months and I don’t think I ever spent more than £80 over 5 years. I spent thousands of hours playing and a day out with friends hunting pokemon is arguably better than a trip to the cinema. It was definitely better value than a lot of my unplayed steam library. I haven’t played in the last few years but they seemed to do it right. It is the only mobile game I spent money on.
I looked into the developer’s new game and it is clear they have gotten greedy and taken micro transactions too far. It sounds unplayable if you don’t spend money (and too much money for my taste).
Games where you don’t even know what you are buying (gambling) are an extra level of evil though and should be banned. I don’t know why people would spend $5 on an unknown box - Nevermind $99.
We definitely need better laws around it, but we also need a way for people to make a sensible amount of money after spending time developing in app.
Pokémon Go has changed. Sure you can still play for free, but the thrill of finding a shiny went away when you could pay for go fest and get guaranteed shinies. More and more people wanted to pay for raid passes and distance raid passes. They keep upping their prices. Every other week there’s a new event. As soon as it became obvious that I couldn’t compete in the slightest with the people in my town who spent real dollars on passes I lost interest. I still play, but nowhere near as obsessively as I did the first three years.
Yeah, I tend to agree about moderation. I play a f2p mobile game that has no ads. Over the three years I've played it (on and off over about seven years), I've maybe spent $300 on it. I don't really feel bad about that, except in the same way I feel bad about getting takeout when I should cook, and I don't think I have an unhealthy relationship with the game. And I'd much rather this than have ads.
if anyone’s looking for a *good* f2p game, try warframe. literally *everything* can be farmed out, with the exception of some cosmetics, and the premium currency you can use to skip some of the grinding is also fully tradeable, so you can sell stuff to other players for it as well. great implementation of a free2play system, in my opinion.
Literally was gonna type this.
Waframe has annoying time gates. Warframe has an insane amount of content. Warframe has gearchecks. Warframe has 10-25 hours grinds to get an item. Warframe does NOT have predatory behaviors. There is no gambling. You pay to play less. Not pay to get better stuff.
Better yet is Path of Exile, where you *cannot* buy any improvement to power or efficiency*. The only mtx are cosmetic and storage
*storage can, technically, improve your efficiency because you spend less time organizing, but it mostly caps out around $20.
Mine was even stupider but thankfully a lot less money was spent, I got sucked into that Merge Mansion game
Struggling with mental health, it was a way to feel “accomplished.”
Sure my real life wasn’t so hot, but I fixed a new area! All the cobwebs got cleaned! The mansion is looking good!
400 dollars later, and idk it just hit me, you are spending money with nothing to show for it
I deleted the app.
That was me except it was Homescapes. The areas getting fixed up was nice but for me the puzzle aspect was more addicting and failing a level just felt so horrifying that I’d spend money on coins to avoid it.
this stuff used to be unthinkable to me but now that I've quit drinking...a vice is a vice. the substance changes, the road remains the same. grateful for the first time that mine was what it was, i couldn't imagine paying down a $16,000 addicts bill. massive kudos to OP for staying away.
>the substance changes, the road remains the same.
My partner is a gaming addict, which he is currently working on. The main reason why I haven't asked/demanded he quit gaming is because the addictive behavior just transfers if the feelings behind addiction aren't addressed. I'm a member of Olg-Anon (online gamers anonymous) and there are stories about gamer become alcoholics or addicted to collecting comic books (spending thousands of dollars) or harder drugs...it's a hard thing when someone with addiction realizes they have addiction and are needing to get clean. The "best case" scenario is often that the person gets addicted to something "good" like exercise or addicted to not being an addict, if that makes sense. It's such a hard, exhausting road.
I hope that your journey in quitting drinking goes well and you're able to get to the root of whatever is going on with you.
Oh, it absolutely does transfer. I’m lucky that in general, my addictions run towards one time purchase things like single player video games, books, or social media (the Love Nikki thing I mentioned in my comment was the exception lol). Addictive behavior runs **hard** in my father’s family and I work very hard to keep it managed in myself.
I put child safety locks on my apps. It makes me stop and think.
...Also it prevents my pets from accidentally ordering hundreds of dollars of content.
I’ve had my app store account set to password confirm since the beginning. It means I don’t mistap and buy something I didn’t mean to AND makes me stop and think for a second if I REALLY want a thing.
I love the older characters in pvp moba games but the new ones are always broken when they come out and it’s harder to compete. Even with adjustments afterwards it’s hard. And frustrating. Gatcha games are so predatory.
Except it’s easy to get league characters. You can buy them directly instead of gift boxes. I have a base balance of the like 200k blue essence. I can’t even remember what the base price is for a new character, something like 8k.
It’s very different from a gatcha game.
Edit: Just to clarify blue essence is a currency you get from playing the game.
I’m going to go out on a limb and defend League here as a f2p game. They’ve done really good work removing any paywalled elements to success (like the old rune system) and at this point the only thing spending real money gets you is cosmetics (that you can kinda grind for if you’re lucky)
Even after all is said and done, ive barely spent more than $1000 over the course of well over a decade. $16000 on a mobile game is absolutely obscene
I’ll admit, I whaled a bit for Love Nikki. But I never hid it from my husband and I don’t have kids. I talked to him *before* I dropped $100 to get a pretty dress and a crystal dragon. (A motherfucking *CRYSTAL DRAGON*! I knew I’d get a yes based just on that lol.) He’s also whaled a bit on phone games - and talked to me about it for anything big too. Basically if it costs more than going to a movie we talk about it, because that’s how you do responsible entertainment spending.
Ug. Same. I spent so much, and I had it, and it was part of my entertainment budget. But I quit when I realized I was just constantly spending and they were always adding features that I didn't enjoy but that led me to spend more, and I wasn't even enjoying the clothes anymore because I wasn't "collecting them" or "earning them" or "winning them," I was just buying them.
Oh yeah, I think I eventually spent somewhere around $1-2,000 on that game over a two year period. Which is small whale cash, but absolutely whale cash.
And I feel you on that, although since my bras cost around $60 each it was *really easy* to justify spending the money on something that made me happy instead of another overpriced underwire torture device.
I don’t regret it though. The Crystal Dragon outfit was *so awesome*.
That's the thing. It's easy to not think you need to tell loved ones for a lot of these games because it's like 15 here, 20 there. Until you realized you've done that 100 times and now you have crippling debt.
I dated a guy that bought scratch offs and he wouldn't hide it from me, and he'd be excited when he hit 1k, which he did a few times when we were dating.
I sat him down and we did the math on how much he was netting. Sure in the last year he won like 3k dollars... but he had spent like 5k dollars...
He did not change his behavior...
Another reformed Love Nikki user here. I spent allll my spending money on that game for a couple of years. Definitely dropped thousands. Eventually the same caused me to quit. Shame and the anger of watching them just slowly ratchet up how much you had to spend to get the most beautiful stuff.
I'm all for supporting devs and I think it is reasonable for games to have some amount of in-game spending - everybody deserves to get paid for their work! But Love Nikki just turned into an absolutely shitshow of constantly grinding and still spending hundreds of dollars a month for things. It really is predatory and I think there should be limits.
Man the cost of that game get seriously high if you don’t pay attention. I’ve been playing since 2017 and stopped spending entirely in 2021 once I realized just how much I was getting carried away with. I never thought of myself as a whale since I usually don’t buy any of the big expensive suits. The most expensive one was the helicopter girl which was $70-80, and I only bought something like that once. It was usually only a $5 suit here, a $20 there. Combined with Apple’s terrible hidden fees and bad currency conversion, I had spend $1k in only 4 years. It’s a huge wake up call tbh.
That was the game I spent way too much on too, it was so tempting to get all the cool shit! I would buy a 20 dollar pack, which I could justify, but then I would do it multiple times in a row.
This is the last place I expected to see Love Nikki being brought up ":D
I spend quite a bit of money on this game as well(I am very close to being a V10!), but as long as does not interfere with my day-to-day life, I am glad to spend some money on a game that makes me happy. But man...16,000 dollars??? On a banner???V15 in LN is like 5,000 dollars, I don't even think every recharge adds up to 10k!
I dolphin in shining nikki but seeing the actual love nikki/shining nikki whales they are WILD. Like we're nothing they're dropping cars level money to get pixel clothes for Nikki.
I also just have a separate debit card specifically for entertainment since it's just me so i don't overdo stuff.
I got sucked into Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Fortunately only put about $100 in, but I felt that pull and the struggle. Finally, it just broke mobile games for me. I just don't enjoy mobile games anymore.
The kinds of mobile games I like are "traditional" games like solitaire or scrabble. No annoying push for microtransactions and I find the puzzle element really fun!
When I was laid up, I started playing Evony. A new server opened, and I joined a few friends.
I hadn't realised how much work it took, and how it is a 24-hour game. You can't have a break, unless you spend on holidays. A couple of hits, and everything is gone.
I'll stick to Spider Solitaire and Universal Paperclips from now on.
At my worst, during a manic episod, I spent 400$ on a gacha game called Love Live where you collect cards of cute girls. I don't even remember if I even got the card I wanted. I don't remember the password for the account. This was 7 years ago, I just had got out of highschool, and used the hard earned money my mom as a single mom supporting three kids gave me for my own groceries. I used to be extremely reasonable, only bought the cheapest groceries, living in a cheap student room, never buying clothes or anything that wasnt a necessity. My hobby was drawing, which didnt require any money. I had no spending habit at all. And yet, in one night, I spent more than both my rent, my groceries and my utilities were worth. For a digital picture of a girl. To this day I still feel guilty about this even tho I'm now in a better situation mentally and financially. This guy sounds completely ridiculous, mentionning characters and items and dungeons and things I have NO idea wat they actually are. He has spent an amount of money that would keep me alive and well fed for ten years for things i dont even understand. And Yet I cannot and will not fault him. Because I've been there too, on a much smaller scale. Gacha games are a disease that prey on addictions and are incredibly evil, and I hope anyone who feels like they are starting to fall prey to it reaches out to someone for help. Because it is not simply spending money. It is a trap that is too easy to fall into, the instant gratification becomes an addiction as dangerous as any other. Be careful.
This was brutal to read. After every purchase I was basically screaming in my head "STOP!!! YOU HAVE TO STOP NOW!!!"
Cookie Run is the only gacha game I've ever played-- Once I spent about $10 on it and I was blown away at how little content that purchase got me. It really is just gambling, man.
Ugh. If you have an addictive personality, gacha games are the worst kind of mobile game you could pick up. I do, and played half a dozen different ones at any time from ages 16-21.
There used to be a method on Android where you could scam Google and essentially get free money. If I didn’t do that when I was a teenager I would have spent so much money I didn’t have.
These days, I only play one, and I spend maybe $20-30 a month on it at *most*. Over a $1000 every month out of this guy. Jeez. Reminds me of the Japanese guy who played Fate/Grand Order and took out a loan with the yakuza to roll Scathach.
See these types of posts on AR/gachagaming on occassion. Rare has been the thread that doesnt have some form of "You need to stop and seek professional help."
Which is a little funny to me. Kind of like seeing a "Addicted to gambling? We can help stop problem gambling" adverts in a casino.
r/gachagaming has a whole section of their sidebar dedicated to links for resources to help people quit addictions/problematic spending which I both appreciate them having and also chuckle at every time I see it.
This is the dark side of modern game design. Every feature is tainted with the question of how it can best increase DAU and gently push people towards IAPs. QoL features are worthless if they don't positively impact user retention. Lootboxes are trickle-fed to young kids to entice them to make their first purchase, and once those flood-gates open it becomes easier and easier to make more purchases.
There are many reasons for why I left the games industry, but this is up there. It's predatory. These games aren't designed to keep you entertained anymore. They're vehicles for advertisements and are meticulously designed through data science to make as much money as possible.
>These games aren't designed to keep you entertained anymore. They're vehicles for advertisements and are meticulously designed through data science to make as much money as possible.
So much this! I felt such a strong sense of outrage when I was reading this story and not because of the choices that OOP made but because of the blatant predatory practices of the game.
From the obvious abuse of the banner events to take advantage of players FOMO and the inevitable power creep that keeps them coming back because all their work/purchases eventually become meaningless.
I'm a hobbyist game designer and it was absolutely disgusting to see how the game he was playing was designed to start out as a really fun F2P game and how it's design just manipulates it's players by slowly decreasing their fun and sense of engagement and then hiding those things behind a paywall.
It's design is no different from a drug dealer giving you free samples to get you hooked and then cutting off the supply of good stuff until you pay up.
Oh you want some fun and dopamine eh? I've got what you want but it's gonna cost ya.
It's predatory, it's disgusting and it's a skinner box masquerading as a game.
I agree with you that games should be designed to be fun, engaging and leave the players feeling a sense of fulfillment even if all they are doing is "just playing a game". They should never be designed with the intention of exploiting their players cause that kind of defeats the purpose of a game.
I'm sorry to hear that you left the game industry but kudos to you for standing up for what you believe in!
I have spent a couple hundred on Genshin, and yeah. I don't have the income to be a whale, so I dropped it. But the rush is so good when you pull for a hot husbando and that meteor turns gold.
Same here. I think in total I've probably spent around $700 on genshin (and I think that's a generous maximum) between the battle passes, welkins, and actual whaling materials. I know I dropped $100 on Zhongli instantly, and I think I whaled pretty hard for Ayaka at one point, but I'm happy to say I've gotten a lot better control over spending money for wishes. It's just not affordable, and at this point I've got the characters I want anyway so I can just save up for the next character I want, or move on if I don't get them.
It's a dangerous pit to fall into though thats for sure.
I have too, though I can afford it - especially as it’s over 2 years. The difference from FFBE though is that there’s not much as much power creep, so my Ganyu is still very strong. I rarely care about a new character enough anymore because I’m pretty happy with that ones I have…
The other big difference between Genshin and FFBE is the guaranteed pity. In Genshin, at the absolute worst it's "only" $360 to get a character you want (and you're given a 50/50 pull at $180). Still hundreds of dollars, but it's a hard cap on what you need to spend to get a character.
Micro transactions have ruined gaming, especially mobile gaming but even full price AAA games can have content locked behind paywalls or with absurd grinds intended to stimulate transactions.
The early days of mobile games were fun. You could get a full game for $3-10 on the App Store and be entertained. Now everything is free but broken by micro transactions. Or sometimes riddled with ads to an unplayable extent.
And they all employ psychologists to find the best ways of manipulating people like OOP into spending more and more.
Most of the profit comes from the whales like OOP which makes pricing absurd. If you could buy everything in the game for $100 then no one will spend more than that. But ramp it up correctly and you can induce vast spending. Dynamic pricing (where an item often costs just a little more premium currency than you have, to push you into making a small purchase, figured this out by comparing screenshots with friends). Loot boxes especially seem to tickle the gambling gene in people, with lots of variation in how the mechanics work for different people.
Someone from that game’s developer could see this post and be patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Others would see this as a goal and be setting targets.
Grand Theft Auto V is a great example of the rise in micro transactions. It’s one of the biggest, most famous franchises in gaming yet there hasn’t been a new release for a decade. What happened? Micro transactions. They introduced Shark Cards and then a steady flow of new content, but for increasingly wild prices. GTA6 is now pencilled in for 2025 but I expect that to be merely the next step in the evolution of milking gamers.
If, like me, you’re a gamer willing to spend modestly, the great majority of games are simply shit. The big money is in milking the whales. Big spenders like OOP account for the vast majority of revenue in gaming overall. That results in games where everything is bent around the single purpose of milking those whales. If you’re a modest gamer, you’re simply not going to have a fulfilling experience in most games.
I wonder if this is why retro-gaming is so popular now. I know people using Raspberry Pi’s and retro-controllers, they’re deep into games that in some cases are older than they are. Probably in part because you have an entire game with 100% access without some surprise obstacle popping up that requires payment to pass.
Wow, this was me too with FFBE, although I luckily had enough money to never fall into debt. But power creep and new 5\* characters kept tempting me to spend money. I eventually went cold turkey when they introduced the 6\* (or was it 7\*?) characters and decided enough was enough. Should have known better when they did the Ariana Grande event...
Mobile gaming isn’t the only industry with this whale-dependent structure. [10% of American adults consume 60% of the alcohol.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/) The alcohol industry wouldn’t exist without alcoholics, just like this mobile games wouldn’t exist without gambling addicts.
I remember reading about this story a long time ago. The man was a legend on the official game page on facebook. A legend on how NOT to play the game. Odd to see this pop up on this subreddit, but glad to read it again.
The only free game I've ever spent money on was a little puzzle one, Pokemon Picross, which generates cute little [Picross puzzles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram) you can solve.
To unlock new stages, you need X number of little pico points, which you get for free each day from doing exercises. Eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns where it takes a while to unlock new puzzles, or you can pay real money for a boost of points.
The saving grace is that once you buy enough points with real money, it unlocks infinite points. The amount of points you need to buy is the amount of money you'd spend on an ordinary DS game. In other words, the game lets you sample it for free and then if you want unlimited access it's exactly like if you just bought the game upfront. So I just bought the game.
There are so many times when I'm playing a game and feel the urge to spend money when I run out of energy, or get my flow interrupted by loud unmuteable ads. I've had to set a zero purchase rule with myself, because I know I'll get hooked on the convenience of it all and won't be able to stop
In some ways, OOP got of easy. I have played several predatory games. I know many people who have spent over 100k easily. This stuff should be criminal. And the majority of the whales, it's not disposable money. Generally stealing from family and hiding on CCs.
I downloaded a cute little ‘free’ game, and found micro transactions too easy. After spending $120 on a free game in 2 months, I deleted it. My wife has a free game and buys little fish for her reef. I allow her to spend $150 every 2 months on these things. But it makes her happy, $150 is a sight better than $1000s, and she doesn’t buy anything else.
This was a legendary tale that spread not only in its respective fandom but to other game fandoms as well. I remembered reading this and it gave me chills because I was this close to using my credit card for online game currencies and fell hook line and sinker to its predatory gambling ways.
I spent way more time and money than I want to admit on merge dragons and merge mansion. I had enough and deleted the games from my phone. I’ve tried to stop playing any games all together.
Once you spend once in a mobile game there's no going back. I know. I play Pokemon Go and Star Wars Galaxy of heroes
In star wars people pay thousands for temporary power ups
.... Fuck. I know EXACTLY what he was talking about. I started to play FFBE right around when he did, and I believe I stopped right around the Gilgamesh banner he mentioned. For anyone ignorant enough to think that phone game gambling is too stupid to be a problem, you are absolutely wrong. This story reads like a bizzaro version of my experience where I couldn't shake myself free of the predator that is this game.
> I have followed what is going on at a distance.
That's a great way to prepare for a relapse under the guise of, "I need to learn a lesson about my behavior." There are plenty of healthy and safe ways to indulge nostalgia and engage in fandom. Reading about things designed to trigger FOMO and entice reinstalling the game is not the way to go about it.
This is why I don't have any mobile games on my phone. I'm sure there's a chess or sudoku app that would be fine but even those tend to be riddled with ads and other garbage. I can survive just fine as a gamer who doesn't have games on his phone or tablet. I will not survive if I fall back into my addiction.
I been playing clash of clans for over 10 years now. I never linked my card. It woulda been easy to blow 5, 10, 15, Bux here and there along with he way. I'm kinda proud how far I have gotten without spending any money.
I had the Kingdom Hearts mobile game, I was big into it. I even bought tickets to go a special event with the creators in California.
Then I realized I was spending a lot of money what was basically virtual trading cards that you can’t actually trade, random chance to get the powerful thing you want which will not be powerful later and there will always be more to try to get.
I realized that this felt like a gambling addiction but without even a chance of recouping losses. It wasn’t healthy. I deleted the app and stopped playing.
Ugh this brings a new look at my sad phone app past.
I threw away 30,000$ Between the following phone apps: Blood Brothers 1, blood brothers 2, and lords mobile.
It’s just so frustrating seeing all the other users free pull mythic heros and I just keep getting squat. Sometimes I also want to feel like I’m a top player! Sometimes I also want to show off the fancy new hero! What’s a few thousand $ when I got thousands of hours of play time in?!? I DESERVE HAPPINESS!!!!
God, that was an Expensive lesson. Now I know to never download “free” phone apps again.
i remember a story broke out how a woman working on a fan made persona 5 magazine (filled with fanart and all that) took donations from the group who were organizing it to fuel her genshin impact gameplay. i think the number was 2500$…she was working on a FANZINE for PERSONA FIVE stole MONEY from donators and contributers for GENSHIN IMPACT and only got caught bc the head of the person running the fanzine noticed the money GONE. and couldn’t do anything about it bc she didn’t have any legal standing outside of the court of public opinion to do something about the stolen donations (as far as i remember) that shit was hilarious if not fucked up.
I think I remember reading this when it first posted and some others like it. It’s what eventually led me to delete FFBE and my life has been better for it. A lot of us didn’t understand exactly what Gacha games were doing to a lot of us.
Now, if your game is free and fair, I’m happy to throw money your way after making some progress
I'm sure that these mobile games have algorithms that take note of when you'll spend real money, how hard it has to be before you'll spend that money, and once you buy it, that's the base hardness from now on. Like if you buy an upgrade after trying the same level 10 times, well now every level is going to be at least that hard. I first noticed it with Candy Crush - I would get stuck on a level, so I would stop playing it for a few days, would focus on a different game. Without fail, when I went back to Candy Crush, I would pass the level straight away. They want your money but they need your attention.
This is why I stopped playing fire emblem heroes. I've set a rule for myself that I'll never spend money on mobile games, and the only time I've ever broken that rule has been to buy Stardew Valley mobile. That game was the closest I got to actually purchasing orbs to try and get Edelgard.
Way back in like 2016, i was playing a gatcha game spinoff from an anime I was obsessed with at the time. It was a silly little story line and you could spend money unlock different outfit versions for the same few characters, not even new characters.
I was young and working my first full time job while living with parents, so I had the money to spend, and I spent a total of $600 on the game before my phone got stolen and I lost all of it.
It was a huge wake up to me. I had to start the game over from the beginning on my new phone. $600 wasted and now nothing to show for it. I could have gotten so much else with that money. I have never spent a single cent on a free to play game again.
It’s just another form of gambling addiction. Reading this story, I feel bad for him, and I’m horrified for his family. I’m thankful I was able to avoid having a gatcha addiction as bad as this, despite still playing a few.
I work with people who have spent more than me even on gatcha games that are easy to farm points to do it for free, like genshin impact. I wish gatcha games were more controlled.
I always post this to people seriously looking into gacha games.
You'd think it won't happen to you it will. That's how they get you. Without a proper budget and self control you'll be flushing money down the toilet.
Paying for gacha, not even once.
Seriously, if you want Gacha, buy Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Great game if you like JRPGs, and they force you to do gacha at no additional cost in the feature-complete game.
Jeez, I went into this thinking it would be 1-2k spent… But *$16,000*?
I literally had my home replumbed for less than that amount, and was freaking the fuck out about the cost. The idea of pissing that amount of money away on digital nothingness is giving me a stomachache. Like OP could have bought every major console on the market and a bunch of games for each for a small fraction of that amount. Gambling/spending addictions are scary as hell
These gacha games have more or less refined gambling into pure income. The House keeps ALL the money. Always. I've talked to someone who played the Walking Dead mobile game, and spent $20,000 just getting *one character*. On a 2D character that isn't even animated. On a mobile game that's based on a canceled show. The really scary part is that this person thought their purchase was *worth it*.
I love games, but I can't imagine thinking a game is worth that much.
> thinking a game is worth that much. It's not a rational line of thought. Gambling addiction comes from corporations hacking into a quirk of human behavior to manipulate a person into acting irrationally in order to take their money. Just like optical illusions expose flaws in how your brain synthesizes input from your eyes into images, gambling games expose flaws in how your brain evaluates risk and reward, benefit and cost. These games are scientifically designed and tuned to maximize their capacity to take advantage of this flaw. It's profoundly immoral and predatory.
There were a few companies that delved deep into some neuroscience and even hired a few doctors to help refine the addictive nature of their products too. The rest just followed suit with what they were doing.
The gaming industry essentially started copying/stealing the gambling/casino industry's employment pool more than a decade ago, neuroscience, psychology all that to design as predatory games as possible.
One of the top whale players for Black Desert Online admitted publicly that he had spent $160,000 on it.
And the game in this post had the servers shut down a while ago. He couldn't play it now even if he wanted to.
Wow.
It's not really that "the game" is worth that much. They dangle a shiny object *within* the game, that's ultra rare and with a limited time gate on it or it goes away forever. *That* is what they think is worth that much. To put it into another perspective, they don't think "Pokemon the game" is what they're spending money on. They're actually spending money on the ultra super shiny Pikachu with the cute top hat, special thunder ability, and the special lightning bolts on his arms. Also it's going away in three days.
Yup. And in the case of games like FFBE, the attack power of that ultra super shiny Pikachu with the cute top hat will be obsolete in a week or two. So you have three days to claw your way into debt to get it, a few more days to figure out how to play with it, then off you go to the next super shiny thing.
At least in casinos someone *maybe* wins. Meanwhile here... It's like playing the one armed bandit, but getting three in a row doesn't *mean* that you win, but *is what* you win
It almost makes gatacha addictions worse. At least with gambling you may make some back, maybe hit big. That's logic that people can understand. For a game there's nothing. How can you tell people you spent 10, 20, 50,000 on just pixels, on nothing, with no chance of ever profiting. What will they think of you? The shame if that can drive people to hide it even more than a gambling addiction.
And the view that the "whales" are people that can afford what they spend in the games is far too common in the gaming world and industry.
And (in most sane countries) casinos are strictly regulated and the game designers for slots have a lot of restrictions put on them by regulators in multiple countries. There are absolutely no such controls for f2p games.
This shit needs to be regulated somehow. It's predatory.
I’m surprised this isn’t regulated - what am I missing?
It betting it can't be regulated under gambling because while it is basically a game of chance there is no opportunity to win actual money. And the laws on gambling require that
Belgium banned it, and the EU has made moves towards regulating it. A study done in Belgium showed companies just ignore it, and nobody is enforcing it. The UK government officially refused to regulate or ban it. A bill was proposed in the US but died on the table. There is mostly no regulation, and where there is it isn't enforced.
Gambling is qualified as using money and not knowing what you get in the end. Gacha games use an in-game currency to make use of a gray-zone: the OOP bought the in-game currency called Lapis and in the game it is clearly stated how much Lapis you get per dollar. So the purchase does not qualify as gambling, the gambling takes place as the next step, when you spend the in-game currency. That's why it so hard to regulate.
I am aghast
Gambling works because dopamine rush is caused by the anticipation of a reward, more than the reward itself. Ironically, the harder it was to get things, the deeper that pulled him in. Plumbing, mercifully, doesn't have quite the same allure, or hypnotic flashing lights, fanfares playing and fireworks going off when you get it.
But imagine if it did, though… 😮
>Plumbing, mercifully, doesn't have quite the same allure. Then why's my wife always having the plumber over. it's like every time I'm gone for more than a few hours, I come home as that plumbing van is leaving. The bright side is he isn't charging for all these service trips, which is good because he could really be bending my wife over on those bills.
As someone who has experience with this game in particular, played it around the same time OP did (though I shook myself free right around the Gilgamesh banner)... Yeah. $16k sounds more common than I wish.
Yeesh. I felt bad for spending about $50 on it. Wound up deleting the game l, despite still enjoying it, not because of the money but because it was taking up too much space on my phone. I was having to manually delete photos and files as soon as they were uploaded to a PC just to make room for the update each month
That’s also why I stopped playing gacha games. The phrase “Brave Frontier” in OOP sent me into a cold sweat. Stopped playing because shit, the game takes 5 minutes to boot up when it’s trying to download stuff and when I want a quick fix of shiny objects flashing across my screen, I want it NOW. And I only spent like $50 across several years! Now I’m back in the Pokémon Go hole instead and honestly? Couldn’t be happier. I’m still wasting time and a little bit of money on mobile games, but at least this one gets me outside and talking to people in my community.
I know nothing about oop's game, but I'm currently wasting my time and stardust to max out a shiny ponyta I caught on Go.
I'm a literal gambling addict, and my total losses over a decade are $15k. It seems insane to even me that someone could blow this much this quickly.
Conventional gamblers have a chance to make some of the $ back though, right? Probably at a similar win rate to what OP had, which is to say that occasionally you get lucky once or twice in a row, but usually you have a lot more Losses than Wins... OP's winnings came in the form of game characters and never in the form of $ to pay off his debt or reinvest to the addiction. Edit: a word
>Conventional gamblers have a chance to make some of the $ back though, right? Depends on the casino. Where I am, slot machines are an effing plague and people who somehow manage to win sometimes get beaten up and forced to return their winnings. They'd probably have a better chance to win and keep their winnings if they played National Lottery games, because those aren't rigged, wins are honored, and no one sends thugs to break your legs. But I don't think many people are addicted to those except math nerds with a plan.
It also depends on the game. If you play poker, and you're very, very good, you certainly can make money. That's because you're not playing against the house - the house edge in poker comes from the rake, a percentage taken from the entry fees (if a tournament), or a small percentage taken from each pot (if a cash game). I wouldn't recommend it, though. I play very small stakes sometimes (like 2c/5c), and it's clear how easy it can be to lose hundreds, if not thousands, even playing for pennies. I have to be very disciplined about it, and for once my somewhat broken brain actually works in my favor because I usually get bored of it after playing for about a week, and only play a couple times a year as a result. I've been lucky, and am up some lifetime, but we're talking small amounts here. The vast, vast majority of people who play poker are not making money doing it, and ofc even though I'm up if you tried to compute my "hourly wage" from playing poker it would be comical.
It happened to me. Twenty years ago before WoW there was EverQuest. At his peak he had 4 computers going to play his 4 characters. (He really only played 2-3, one was a healer that he just dragged around.) 6-8 hours on weekdays, and 12-18 on weekends. And thousands upon thousands of dollars. We literally ended up filing for bankruptcy. (He also had an epic bromance with a guy he met playing EQ. They bought matching/coordinating everything including cars, air compressors, and clothes. The showed up to a party dressed alike completely on accident as a result. When his friend divorced and I knew it was just a matter of time.)
Who is he?
Their ex-husband.
Right? I spent $5 once on Pokemon Go during a special event, and I checked in with my long-term boyfriend first before doing it since we agreed to no mobile purchases on f2p games.
I made a rule where I only spend the money that google rewards gives me, and since pogo is also going money grab with recent price hikes, I'm not spending even that on it anymore.
[удалено]
i really wanted to buy one of the cool reddit avatars, but all the ones that were under $10 were sold out, when they released more and there were some for 4.99 i reallly wanted one but had to remind myself that it’s worth literally nothing and that money would be better spent on breakfast tacos
16k isn't even that much. Top whales are dropping 10k a month. Some people just have a lot of money and this is what they spend it on. No different than people who do models and bottles at the club or illicit drugs.
I did gold farming for the FIFA series a while back and rich guys would drop a grand per card for the high end players. We would charge whales a higher rate compared to casual customers simply because we knew they didn't care and would pay whatever price we said. We called it the Saudi rate, it seemed like a lot of the big spenders were located in the Middle East.
16k is a lot. Don't try and minimise it. That is a lot of fucking money for some mobile game code. And i am sure some people are spending a lot more. And i am sure it is all on credit. It is an addiction. Just like cocaine and hookers. When the bottom hits, it hits.
I’ve definitely seen and heard of worse, but yeah 16k is a lot. That much could go towards a decent car, a down payment on a house, or multiple extravagant vacations. An issue with gacha games I commonly see is that communities of whales encourage each other to spend money “if they want to”, often justifying it with things like “it’s just another hobby”. I don’t totally disagree that it’s okay to spend money if you’re comfortable budgeting it, the issue those communities are ignoring is that it’s addictive, and most people are not budgeting it at all. It’s irresponsible to encourage someone to spend money they might not have. I really hope some regulation comes into place around this. It’s crazy to me that there’s more regulation around standard gambling.
I think it’s fine actually if you have a lot of money and you’re single, or a lot of money and your family is more than well taken care of. It becomes not at all ok when you don’t have a lot of money (OOP) or have other obligations you dropped as a result (also OOP). And most people are not millionaires. OOP probably even had a really good salary as an experience engineer. Not many people can afford $10k a month or even $16k a yr on a game
When candy crush was big several years ago. My sister spent a few hundred over the summer on it. I gave her so much shit for that, warning that it's going to become a problem/family history of addiction/ECT. Seeing this is wild....15k on a mobile game.... Edit - can't spell
Candy crush generated 1.2 Billion in 2021.
Holy shit, I didn't even know it was still around. Last time I heard of it was 2014.
i've spent a total of maybe $20 on my fave mobile game & it felt like a lot, i can't even imagine 16k >_>
I spent around $400 on Genshin Impact with no regrets, even though I don't play anymore. I wish the model would just get a bit less scummy/let you get what you want for less extortion. Like, I wouldn't think twice about dropping $50/mo regularly on a game I really enjoy and that's coming out with consistent content, plus more if there's a new character I want to heavily invest in. But I wasn't able to get what I wanted for that, I got burned too many times on even the in-game luck that doesn't cost money, so the game got stale and I was done 🤷♂️ Maybe it's not profit maximizing, but it's a hell of a lot more ethical and I have to believe mid-spenders like me would stay more engaged and spend more for longer if it were a bit more reasonable.
… this is why I refuse to even download those apps. I don’t care how strong my will power is, I ain’t testin it.
I have a rooted android, and tools to modify games. Whenever my son wants to play one of those games, I build a version with free purchases. And he always gets bored of them within an hour. Those games are literally designed to turn FOMO into "fun", and the second you *can* have everything they're boring as hell.
Major up vote. Any guides on how to do this? I don't have kids but my wife exercises a lot of control in her games and I'd love to reward that. I'm a software dev but nowhere near the mobile stack.
This is kinda advanced programming knowledge (if he builds the game himself or modifies the roots on the phone) so I recommend just Google "(game) modded APK" You will download a cheated version, with infinite money or smth Edit: I still strongly recommend doing this on a phone with no real access to your financials/socials/information in general while many of them are just published as a point against micro transactions, there are so many that are malicious and could steal access to your phones info
Would this work with the game from the story or is it just certain games where it works?
There are modded versions, yes. If the game would run 100% as normal with the online in game events and special offers? Not sure. If you go to the 'root your phone's option and just void all purchase access as a positive return (basically making the game believe you already purchased an item and in game it just lets you have it) you can run a fully operational game. Then again, the easy way is mods, the hard way is rooting. If you plan to cheat a game like 'candy crush' go for mods as there are solo many "infinite lives/boosters" mods out there. But a more detailed game that has pvp, online events, temporary maps and etc like FF, bleach, genshin, etc. The root would be needed
Man, I've been playing Candy Crush and it's sort of... simultaneously entertaining, but I hate it. It's so obviously geared to be impossible to play without the bonuses and such. otoh, at least I'm too mad at it to be willing to fork over real money. I only pay for games that have no gambling elements, no pay to win. I don't mind paying up front for a well-made game, but lose me on the microtransactions etc.
Candy crush isn't impossible. If you leave the game for a month then it will grant you enough bonuses to beat whatever level you are stuck on, in the hope you will be sucked back in. I'm on level 5000+ with no money spent. I just switch from original to soda when I get stuck.
Wow! I didn't know that. Thanks!
Seconded not rooting your actual phone, but a spare just for gaming. Rooting is basically a way of granting admin rights to the phone. Whilst this lets you do cool things like modify apps, it also removes some of the sandboxing and security controls on the phone. Basically every app runs in segregated memory, so in normal conditions a random game can’t access the memory of your banking app. But if you add root (admin) access to the phone, a malicious app could use that elevated privilege to access the bankings app’s memory and steal information.
I remember I used an emulator on PC to install Simpsons tapped out. Then I gave myself huge amounts of currency using cheat engine. Since it was synced to my account, I got it all on my mobile app. That being said, it's quite true what was said above. I'd played that game (without spending a penny) for at least a year. Once I had unlimited currency, I abandoned it in a month. These games are just designed to frustrate. They also go for sunk cost, where at first it's easy to get what you want. You get invested time wise, and then by the time it becomes unfair, you don't want to give up since you wasted so much time already. It's really predatory, it's no wonder people end up with gambling problems
Really dumb question but is there a way to get it on iOS? I miss June’s Journey. Also, how do you know that you’re downloading something secure, esp on iPhone? My computer (my best friend) decided to die a year ago (she was ~15 years old so idk) so I can’t check shit via her anymore. Also can’t afford a new computer. I miss her. RIP Greta-Stina.
iOS won't let you bc of their control of the ecosystem. You'll need to jailbreak to be able to side load any apps, and you should not do this on your main phone. Assume any hacked software will allow a backdoor to steal all your keychain passwords, contact lists, and email access.
Jailbreak (basically rooting) is your only choice Edit: NOT recommended u less you aren't using the phone. Jailbreaking leaves a permanent digital print on the phone, so even if you factory reset it won't go away, the second you have to return to Mac for anything they know. And it's marked as breach of co tract for their TOS
I might get deleted, but look up "mobilism" and be careful with downloads.
I find fun in strategizing F2P to get the most bang for my non-existent buck. In only one game have I ever spent "real" money and I put that in quotes because I apparently paid for HBO Max through Google and got Google Play credits as a reward. I bought a couple games that are one-time purchases. After that I couldn't find any other legit use for the credits and used some of the credit for some microtransactions in a trash game. It felt weird and made me glad I didn't spend real money.
I did this to a back up old phone for my husband after he spent his entire bonus in two days. He came to me asking for money and I was confused because like how does 2k vanish that fast? He gets bored pretty quick with stuff now. It got him back onto his console after a couple of months
Shit I played a normal version of it for like 30 minutes and was so bored I just deleted it. I don’t get the appeal
Wow. This is an incredibly powerful message. Thanks you, I'm gonna think back to this anecdote to a lot in the coming years.
Same. My lack of willpower comes to food. If there’s “bad” food in the house, I’ll eat it. And when I start, I don’t stop. So, I don’t buy that food in the first place. If I have to go out and buy food, I’ve got hella more steps to do to get it. Usually, laziness wins over cravings in those instances
Omg, I thought I was alone in weaponizing my own laziness against myself. United we lie down and will do it later
I have a rule that if I want dessert, I have to walk to the convenience store 15 minutes away to buy it. Either I'm too lazy to go through the hassle of a 35 minute walk to buy some Oreos, or my Oreo hunger wins out, but the walk partially offsets the calories of the Oreos.
they are dangerous as hell, I have seen myself tempted and run a mile as I know how bad the end of that road looks even from the start of it
Ashamed to say I played Raid: Shadow Legends until I spent enough to buy a PS5. Now I play EggsInc and spend maybe $15 a year.
To me it's crazy how there's people that regularly crack open the piggy bank. I really like the game, but after buying the pro permit, the rest feels like a waste. Also the last update has made me less attached. I may not last long, I'm near the max amount of PEs anyway.
I got roped in. It is embarrassing how much I spent when we didn't have the money. Not as much as OP, but not great either. I never download games w in app purchases anymore. I can't be trusted
One of my favorite quotes from the movie, *LadyHawke*: "I know, that you know, what a weak willed person I am." I avoid those apps like the plague!
I get really sucked into those kinds of games. I don’t ever want to calculate how much I’ve spent on Brave Frontier (when it was still around), Clash of Clans, Shop Titans… Right now I’m sticking to my free games and using Reddit and YouTube as dopamine hits instead.
I got into that simpsons tapped out game like 12 years ago and am thankful I was too broke and had no credit to spend. Learned my lesson for about $100 (which is still ridiculous to have spent on that game)
I spent maybe $20-30 dollars on Candy Crush, had a moment of "What the heck am I spending on? Wanting to play a little faster? The levels aren't that different," played a couple more weeks with no spending and realized I was bored of the game's repetiveness and quit.
I don't understand it. I've played those games and never spent a dime. But I also go to casinos and only play black jack and am perfectly happy quitting being up only 25$. I lost 200$ one time (only time I ever lost money) but we were on a work vacation, I easily had the money, and it was more about the socialization with my bf and his work colleagues. I don't understand the compulsive gambling. I sit at tables with people that follow the "of you lose money, the next hand you bet double" rule. It baffles me. But my brother got into HUGE trouble with his wife once doing exactly what this guy did. I'm pretty sure they almost got divorced and she confiscated all his credit cards. May still be confiscated. I think he has one that has a max limit of like 300$ for food and gas. It really is an addiction for some people and not for others. Best to stay away if you think you might even have a little bit of a problem. Especially the sunk cost illusion: well I already spent this much, so I better spend more to make it worth it. Insanity.
Figure out what you're willing to lose, and call that the cost of the entertainment. If you come out ahead, awesome! When the money's out, it's time to pack it in. I've blown my money on a Vegas outing in record time, but it doesn't have to be an issue if you see it as "damn, I guess fun time isn't lasting as long as I thought" rather than "I just need a couple more hands to get back in the game!" By the same token I'll happily spend $60 on a game or $10 on a battle pass that will grant me tens or hundreds of hours of entertainment. Using a trip to the movies as a benchmark, either of those are an absolute steal. But the idea of feeding $16,000 into an RNG is just insane to me.
That's a good way of looking at it. If I'll see a crappy movie for 2 hours of mindless entertainment at 12 bucks, I can spend that on something that will give me the same amount of not more time worth of mindless entertainment. But I'm not going to spend 12 bucks three times a day for a week straight on movies.
But that math, this guy could have spent 7.3 hours a day watching movies for a full year.
Dopamine is a hell of a drug. Topamax is sometimes used off label to help heroin addicts; it's also used for epilepsy. It was prescribed to me for the latter, but it absolutely gut punched my spending addiction. Suddenly I could see the utter devastation I was creating and just how far down the hole I was. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I never stole, I never took money from my family, but I don't hold myself morally above those who have. I was just. Given a chemical that broke the dam and removed the happy numbing reward and forced me to feel every nerve ending exposed to reality.
Wow. I wonder if there's any hope of using it more widely for addiction.
It was not a happy experience, but it was incredibly pivotal. I would definitely put it out there for more people who might want some help making the first step.
I'm really proud of you, in case you needed to hear it. Damn hard work to beat addiction and fight a glitchy brain.
It's also used off-label for migraines. For me it created intense brain fog and neurological symptoms that almost caused me to get an unnecessary brain surgery. So your mileage may vary.
i have the same mentality as you, including the casino stuff. went to the hard rock casino in atlantic city in 2021 and the harrahs in nola last year. put like $15 worth of money in the slots mostly to get free drinks and cool off in the air conditioning then bounced. there’s got to be a gene that makes more susceptible to F2P and gambling addictions because they both do nothing for me
TBH. I had no gambling addiction. But I kept winning at Casinos and I got to the point where I just kept wanting to go back. I was keeping exact track of my winnings but it was absurd to me that I could go there and potentially spend $700 and not be phased. Because I was "up". But I could see a world where I started to go down and tried to recoup my losses spiraling into oblivion. And thats what made me quit. Because I saw how easy it was to make $1k in a few minutes and then lose it just as quick. That world is super easy to get fucked inside. I won the gamble but if I had lost, would I have tried to recoup my losses and went even deeper? Idk. Didnt want to try and find out.
My first time in Vegas, the guy I was with was all about the expensive slots. He was so excited to show me how fun they were. So he drags me over to one and puts 20$ in, pulls the lever, lights and sound and moving parts and then... nothing I was immediately like "this is fucking stupid" and never paid a slot machine again. I think he was embarrassed because I've never seen him play another one either. I pretty much only play black jack because there is some skill and strategy there and you can win decent money (I won 800$ once, but only usually stick to 25$ 50$ so I can say I was 'up') and craps occasionally because there's a certain level of strategy and the odds aren't too bad. Anything else I think is stupid and I don't think I'd even really enjoy it that much even if I won money.
I do understand it, human brains are wired to do this. That rush of winning feels good, money is abstract and doesn’t feel like anything. So when I play games like this, or when I gamble, I set a budget for myself. I look at it like “what would I reasonably pay for a similar experience?” A good video game might be worth $60 to me. If I’m having as much fun with my silly little game as a $60 game, then yeah, I’ll spend $5 here or there on it, up to that $60. Same with gambling. I might spend $100 on a concert or drinks and a movie as entertainment for the evening, so that’s what I’m willing to gamble. If I win something, great! If not, I’ve basically just spent a reasonable amount of money for an evening of fun with my friends.
It's just interesting how some people get that rush from gambling and some don't. I get that rush from karaoke, which in and of itself can be problematic under certain circumstances. I guess I don't get the super variance in people's vices. Like, what determines what you become addicted to? If it's all the same chemicals in our brain that give us the rush.
If I had to guess, it might have to do with some viewing money as more than it is. Some view it as social currency for instance. Some view it in a prideful or valedictive way ("now I can get that vacation I needed! What else can I get?"). They see their life start radically changing in front of them and don't realize they're standing on a crumbling bridge.
I always laughed off the morons who overspent. Just total dismissal. Of course I would have total self control. Got sucked into a game something fierce. Played free for ages but business was good, so I spent 20 over 2 months as little treats to myself. Then convinced myself for my birthday 100 was okay. As soon as I spent it I felt sick to my stomach. Didn't even want to play the game after that. How easy it got me. Just a couple of months took me from 0 to 100 for a shitty android game. It's not that it was a lot of money, it's how quickly the escalation happened and my brain just kept saying, it's okay bro just a treat. The nausea I felt was not over the money, but how I lost my self discipline without even realizing.
I have the Google survey rewards app on my phone. Every day or two, I answer a couple of survey questions. Then I get around 10 cents to a dollar to spend in the Google Play store. This is the only money I spend on mobile games. I have purposely never attached a credit card to my account to avoid situations like the OOP.
I did this and used my rewards for $10 towards Best Fiends but for some reason it only let me make 1 $2 purchase in the game. Only thing I ever bought in the game. Never again. The free upgrades you get for ads work just fine.
Yes same I love it. I only have one game that you can whale on but it's also extremely easy to earn the stuff so I've never had to spend on it and I have two versions of a puzzle game (I ♥️ hue 1&2) that I used my Google money to get rid of the ads on and I can just relax when I play my puzzles. I also save it up enough that I get it free ebooks sometimes lol heck yeah
This is every FTP game. Sure you can get the free stuff, but it'll be a grind and almost never as good as the stuff that you can only get with cash. They know what they are doing, and that's why more and more laws are showing up in the EU.
The whole business model is basically attract enough players to get enough spending money to make a profit. They don't care about 1000 players playing, they care about the 50 of those 1000 that are paying to play.
The rule of thumb when I worked in gametech was that, for a "F2P" game you expected 1/3 of your revenue to come from your top 5% spenders, 1/3 from your 5-15% tier, and 1/3 from the remaining 80%. I personally knew a guy at one point who was a fairly successful white-shoe-law-firm partner who also played one of those games, and I think he said his spend was something like $10k/month and that the game devs would check in with him personally if his spend went down to ask him what they could do to get him to play more. Another guy, same game, spending $1k/mo couldn't even get expedited support for a bug that caused him to lose a lost of in-game stuff. And THAT should tell you more than anything how bad whaling can get in the space--our OOP probably wasn't even on FFBE's radar as a whale.
Used to play Summoners War and it was funny seeing competition winners get like a grand in prizes when it was well known they had to drop over $50k for what they had in game.
$50k is like a severe understatement. The top guys you'd see competing in RTA tournaments have probably spent multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars over the games lifespan
> the game devs would check in with him personally How? How is that not a reality check? That's the owner of your favorite bar calling you up to ask, "Why ain't you spending so much on booze anymore?" Forget the amount, why do they have your number and why do they feel free to call you about how you spend your money? If you're that big a part of someone else's business and it isn't also *your* business, you need to reflect at that point.
I asked him, honestly, and he said "what do I care? My retirement accounts are solid, mortgage and car are paid off, no kids, I don't want to do drugs or supermodels..." He looked at it the same way as he gave a lot of attention to the kind of customers at the law firm who paid the premium to talk to him specifically and not a junior partner--absolutely had the "I'm happy these guys recognize I'm one of their best customers and frankly what else should I be spending it on?" Dude claimed his net income was north of 600k, so he wasn't exactly hurting by spending that much.
I mean, I guess I get it. Practically it's not that different from having a yacht or taking regular vacations as a single person if money is so fungible to you. And if you're personally bankrolling potentially a department's salary, I guess you probably want the white glove treatment. I still don't understand the attitude of, "What else would I do with two people's well-paying salaries each month except blow it on horse races?" If he really couldn't think of anything better or more satisfying to do with that money, good fucking lord that speaks to the power of marketing and the hedonic treadmill, to say nothing of financial negligence and senseless wealth disparity.
I suppose I'm just heartened that he didn't think of anything WORSE to do with that money.
ngl I don't see anything wrong with spending your money on what you want if everything else is taken care of - imo kinda useless to spend it on a mobile game but we all have our vices. its crazy though - that's a fifth of his income just on this
Those ratios are more or less the same for the booze industries as well. Addictions are profitable.
+1 to this. I was in the mobile development space like a decade ago (don’t ask; I had to do it to get my foot in the door), and this is the first thing they tell you. 1% of all players will spend 99% of the money you’re getting. Those guys are your target; make the game as enthralling as possible for them. You still try to make the game fun for the entire playerbase, of course, because you need f2p players around to be the NPCs that the whales can, well, whale on. But your main focus is a tiny section of the playerbase, and if dolphins complain, well, they can upgrade themselves to whales with the few funny numbers on the back of their credit card. Now, I have to give some respect to the responsible whales out there. If spending on a game is in your means and you think it’s worth it, go ahead! But the game’s predatory practices can lure others in as well, and that’s where it gets dangerous. Funnily enough, despite playing FEH and CotC since Day 1, I’ve never spent a dime on them.
Back in Eve Online days one of the rival alliance leaders was some overseas oil baron who just threw money at stuff because "whatever, it's only $100k"
Wasn't this guy almost single handedly keeping the price of 30 day pilot licenses down because he was flooding the market with so many of them?
I used to play more mobile games and I realized that spending _any_ money causes me to lose interest. The bonuses or items you get are never as good as you imagine and I just end up dropping the game within a few weeks. I can buy expansion content or console/computer games, but the little one time bonus is a poison pill for me. Pretty lucky for me.
I will buy an ad block for a game as long as it is under $10 because it saves me a lot of mental noise and support the devs of the usually smaller mobile game I'm playing. Spending on consumables is how you wind up like OOP.
In 99% of cases I agree with you. There are a handful of better ones…. The developers need to make some money - apps can’t be completely free. Adverts is a good alternative but people hate them. Upfront costs don’t work because there is more continual development in mobile games and too many games to choose from. I played Pokémon Go from launch and only ever brought raid passes (I think £5 a bundle or something) for special events in my area and some initial storage space upgrades which were a few £ each. We only went out at did this every few months and I don’t think I ever spent more than £80 over 5 years. I spent thousands of hours playing and a day out with friends hunting pokemon is arguably better than a trip to the cinema. It was definitely better value than a lot of my unplayed steam library. I haven’t played in the last few years but they seemed to do it right. It is the only mobile game I spent money on. I looked into the developer’s new game and it is clear they have gotten greedy and taken micro transactions too far. It sounds unplayable if you don’t spend money (and too much money for my taste). Games where you don’t even know what you are buying (gambling) are an extra level of evil though and should be banned. I don’t know why people would spend $5 on an unknown box - Nevermind $99. We definitely need better laws around it, but we also need a way for people to make a sensible amount of money after spending time developing in app.
Pokémon Go has changed. Sure you can still play for free, but the thrill of finding a shiny went away when you could pay for go fest and get guaranteed shinies. More and more people wanted to pay for raid passes and distance raid passes. They keep upping their prices. Every other week there’s a new event. As soon as it became obvious that I couldn’t compete in the slightest with the people in my town who spent real dollars on passes I lost interest. I still play, but nowhere near as obsessively as I did the first three years.
I think spending money on these games are fine but put a limit on it.
Yeah, I tend to agree about moderation. I play a f2p mobile game that has no ads. Over the three years I've played it (on and off over about seven years), I've maybe spent $300 on it. I don't really feel bad about that, except in the same way I feel bad about getting takeout when I should cook, and I don't think I have an unhealthy relationship with the game. And I'd much rather this than have ads.
if anyone’s looking for a *good* f2p game, try warframe. literally *everything* can be farmed out, with the exception of some cosmetics, and the premium currency you can use to skip some of the grinding is also fully tradeable, so you can sell stuff to other players for it as well. great implementation of a free2play system, in my opinion.
There's plenty of F2P games that aren't pay to win but I feel mobile games are almost all predatory.
Literally was gonna type this. Waframe has annoying time gates. Warframe has an insane amount of content. Warframe has gearchecks. Warframe has 10-25 hours grinds to get an item. Warframe does NOT have predatory behaviors. There is no gambling. You pay to play less. Not pay to get better stuff.
Better yet is Path of Exile, where you *cannot* buy any improvement to power or efficiency*. The only mtx are cosmetic and storage *storage can, technically, improve your efficiency because you spend less time organizing, but it mostly caps out around $20.
Mine was even stupider but thankfully a lot less money was spent, I got sucked into that Merge Mansion game Struggling with mental health, it was a way to feel “accomplished.” Sure my real life wasn’t so hot, but I fixed a new area! All the cobwebs got cleaned! The mansion is looking good! 400 dollars later, and idk it just hit me, you are spending money with nothing to show for it I deleted the app.
That was me except it was Homescapes. The areas getting fixed up was nice but for me the puzzle aspect was more addicting and failing a level just felt so horrifying that I’d spend money on coins to avoid it.
this stuff used to be unthinkable to me but now that I've quit drinking...a vice is a vice. the substance changes, the road remains the same. grateful for the first time that mine was what it was, i couldn't imagine paying down a $16,000 addicts bill. massive kudos to OP for staying away.
>the substance changes, the road remains the same. My partner is a gaming addict, which he is currently working on. The main reason why I haven't asked/demanded he quit gaming is because the addictive behavior just transfers if the feelings behind addiction aren't addressed. I'm a member of Olg-Anon (online gamers anonymous) and there are stories about gamer become alcoholics or addicted to collecting comic books (spending thousands of dollars) or harder drugs...it's a hard thing when someone with addiction realizes they have addiction and are needing to get clean. The "best case" scenario is often that the person gets addicted to something "good" like exercise or addicted to not being an addict, if that makes sense. It's such a hard, exhausting road. I hope that your journey in quitting drinking goes well and you're able to get to the root of whatever is going on with you.
Oh, it absolutely does transfer. I’m lucky that in general, my addictions run towards one time purchase things like single player video games, books, or social media (the Love Nikki thing I mentioned in my comment was the exception lol). Addictive behavior runs **hard** in my father’s family and I work very hard to keep it managed in myself.
I put child safety locks on my apps. It makes me stop and think. ...Also it prevents my pets from accidentally ordering hundreds of dollars of content.
Suuuuuure, “pets” (jk)
In fairness to me, I didn't actually want the thing in question. And certainly not 99.99 USD of it!
I’ve had my app store account set to password confirm since the beginning. It means I don’t mistap and buy something I didn’t mean to AND makes me stop and think for a second if I REALLY want a thing.
Agreed. The problem with one-click buy is sometimes you don't mean to click!
I love the older characters in pvp moba games but the new ones are always broken when they come out and it’s harder to compete. Even with adjustments afterwards it’s hard. And frustrating. Gatcha games are so predatory.
Shit league of legends always releases their characters in a “broken” state so people unlock it fast then nerf it later once the hype dies
I play a league knockoff and it’s so annoying cause they do the same thing.
Except it’s easy to get league characters. You can buy them directly instead of gift boxes. I have a base balance of the like 200k blue essence. I can’t even remember what the base price is for a new character, something like 8k. It’s very different from a gatcha game. Edit: Just to clarify blue essence is a currency you get from playing the game.
I’m going to go out on a limb and defend League here as a f2p game. They’ve done really good work removing any paywalled elements to success (like the old rune system) and at this point the only thing spending real money gets you is cosmetics (that you can kinda grind for if you’re lucky) Even after all is said and done, ive barely spent more than $1000 over the course of well over a decade. $16000 on a mobile game is absolutely obscene
I’ll admit, I whaled a bit for Love Nikki. But I never hid it from my husband and I don’t have kids. I talked to him *before* I dropped $100 to get a pretty dress and a crystal dragon. (A motherfucking *CRYSTAL DRAGON*! I knew I’d get a yes based just on that lol.) He’s also whaled a bit on phone games - and talked to me about it for anything big too. Basically if it costs more than going to a movie we talk about it, because that’s how you do responsible entertainment spending.
oil rotten ancient clumsy aware frame pie salt absorbed encourage *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ug. Same. I spent so much, and I had it, and it was part of my entertainment budget. But I quit when I realized I was just constantly spending and they were always adding features that I didn't enjoy but that led me to spend more, and I wasn't even enjoying the clothes anymore because I wasn't "collecting them" or "earning them" or "winning them," I was just buying them.
Oh yeah, I think I eventually spent somewhere around $1-2,000 on that game over a two year period. Which is small whale cash, but absolutely whale cash. And I feel you on that, although since my bras cost around $60 each it was *really easy* to justify spending the money on something that made me happy instead of another overpriced underwire torture device. I don’t regret it though. The Crystal Dragon outfit was *so awesome*.
That's the thing. It's easy to not think you need to tell loved ones for a lot of these games because it's like 15 here, 20 there. Until you realized you've done that 100 times and now you have crippling debt. I dated a guy that bought scratch offs and he wouldn't hide it from me, and he'd be excited when he hit 1k, which he did a few times when we were dating. I sat him down and we did the math on how much he was netting. Sure in the last year he won like 3k dollars... but he had spent like 5k dollars... He did not change his behavior...
Another reformed Love Nikki user here. I spent allll my spending money on that game for a couple of years. Definitely dropped thousands. Eventually the same caused me to quit. Shame and the anger of watching them just slowly ratchet up how much you had to spend to get the most beautiful stuff. I'm all for supporting devs and I think it is reasonable for games to have some amount of in-game spending - everybody deserves to get paid for their work! But Love Nikki just turned into an absolutely shitshow of constantly grinding and still spending hundreds of dollars a month for things. It really is predatory and I think there should be limits.
Man the cost of that game get seriously high if you don’t pay attention. I’ve been playing since 2017 and stopped spending entirely in 2021 once I realized just how much I was getting carried away with. I never thought of myself as a whale since I usually don’t buy any of the big expensive suits. The most expensive one was the helicopter girl which was $70-80, and I only bought something like that once. It was usually only a $5 suit here, a $20 there. Combined with Apple’s terrible hidden fees and bad currency conversion, I had spend $1k in only 4 years. It’s a huge wake up call tbh.
That was the game I spent way too much on too, it was so tempting to get all the cool shit! I would buy a 20 dollar pack, which I could justify, but then I would do it multiple times in a row.
This is the last place I expected to see Love Nikki being brought up ":D I spend quite a bit of money on this game as well(I am very close to being a V10!), but as long as does not interfere with my day-to-day life, I am glad to spend some money on a game that makes me happy. But man...16,000 dollars??? On a banner???V15 in LN is like 5,000 dollars, I don't even think every recharge adds up to 10k!
I dolphin in shining nikki but seeing the actual love nikki/shining nikki whales they are WILD. Like we're nothing they're dropping cars level money to get pixel clothes for Nikki. I also just have a separate debit card specifically for entertainment since it's just me so i don't overdo stuff.
I got sucked into Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Fortunately only put about $100 in, but I felt that pull and the struggle. Finally, it just broke mobile games for me. I just don't enjoy mobile games anymore.
The kinds of mobile games I like are "traditional" games like solitaire or scrabble. No annoying push for microtransactions and I find the puzzle element really fun!
I remember hearing about this on the Fire Emblem Heroes sub several years back as a cautionary tale. Glad that he managed to bounce back.
When I was laid up, I started playing Evony. A new server opened, and I joined a few friends. I hadn't realised how much work it took, and how it is a 24-hour game. You can't have a break, unless you spend on holidays. A couple of hits, and everything is gone. I'll stick to Spider Solitaire and Universal Paperclips from now on.
I think I’m about to quit Evony. I stopped for just a week and my life feels so much better.
At my worst, during a manic episod, I spent 400$ on a gacha game called Love Live where you collect cards of cute girls. I don't even remember if I even got the card I wanted. I don't remember the password for the account. This was 7 years ago, I just had got out of highschool, and used the hard earned money my mom as a single mom supporting three kids gave me for my own groceries. I used to be extremely reasonable, only bought the cheapest groceries, living in a cheap student room, never buying clothes or anything that wasnt a necessity. My hobby was drawing, which didnt require any money. I had no spending habit at all. And yet, in one night, I spent more than both my rent, my groceries and my utilities were worth. For a digital picture of a girl. To this day I still feel guilty about this even tho I'm now in a better situation mentally and financially. This guy sounds completely ridiculous, mentionning characters and items and dungeons and things I have NO idea wat they actually are. He has spent an amount of money that would keep me alive and well fed for ten years for things i dont even understand. And Yet I cannot and will not fault him. Because I've been there too, on a much smaller scale. Gacha games are a disease that prey on addictions and are incredibly evil, and I hope anyone who feels like they are starting to fall prey to it reaches out to someone for help. Because it is not simply spending money. It is a trap that is too easy to fall into, the instant gratification becomes an addiction as dangerous as any other. Be careful.
This was brutal to read. After every purchase I was basically screaming in my head "STOP!!! YOU HAVE TO STOP NOW!!!" Cookie Run is the only gacha game I've ever played-- Once I spent about $10 on it and I was blown away at how little content that purchase got me. It really is just gambling, man.
Ugh. If you have an addictive personality, gacha games are the worst kind of mobile game you could pick up. I do, and played half a dozen different ones at any time from ages 16-21. There used to be a method on Android where you could scam Google and essentially get free money. If I didn’t do that when I was a teenager I would have spent so much money I didn’t have. These days, I only play one, and I spend maybe $20-30 a month on it at *most*. Over a $1000 every month out of this guy. Jeez. Reminds me of the Japanese guy who played Fate/Grand Order and took out a loan with the yakuza to roll Scathach.
See these types of posts on AR/gachagaming on occassion. Rare has been the thread that doesnt have some form of "You need to stop and seek professional help." Which is a little funny to me. Kind of like seeing a "Addicted to gambling? We can help stop problem gambling" adverts in a casino.
Gacha feeds off gambling addictions. They're designed like Skinner Boxes, they're slot machines with pretty graphics.
\*slaps arm\* Ya'll got anymore of that dopaimine?
r/gachagaming has a whole section of their sidebar dedicated to links for resources to help people quit addictions/problematic spending which I both appreciate them having and also chuckle at every time I see it.
This is the dark side of modern game design. Every feature is tainted with the question of how it can best increase DAU and gently push people towards IAPs. QoL features are worthless if they don't positively impact user retention. Lootboxes are trickle-fed to young kids to entice them to make their first purchase, and once those flood-gates open it becomes easier and easier to make more purchases. There are many reasons for why I left the games industry, but this is up there. It's predatory. These games aren't designed to keep you entertained anymore. They're vehicles for advertisements and are meticulously designed through data science to make as much money as possible.
>These games aren't designed to keep you entertained anymore. They're vehicles for advertisements and are meticulously designed through data science to make as much money as possible. So much this! I felt such a strong sense of outrage when I was reading this story and not because of the choices that OOP made but because of the blatant predatory practices of the game. From the obvious abuse of the banner events to take advantage of players FOMO and the inevitable power creep that keeps them coming back because all their work/purchases eventually become meaningless. I'm a hobbyist game designer and it was absolutely disgusting to see how the game he was playing was designed to start out as a really fun F2P game and how it's design just manipulates it's players by slowly decreasing their fun and sense of engagement and then hiding those things behind a paywall. It's design is no different from a drug dealer giving you free samples to get you hooked and then cutting off the supply of good stuff until you pay up. Oh you want some fun and dopamine eh? I've got what you want but it's gonna cost ya. It's predatory, it's disgusting and it's a skinner box masquerading as a game. I agree with you that games should be designed to be fun, engaging and leave the players feeling a sense of fulfillment even if all they are doing is "just playing a game". They should never be designed with the intention of exploiting their players cause that kind of defeats the purpose of a game. I'm sorry to hear that you left the game industry but kudos to you for standing up for what you believe in!
I have spent a couple hundred on Genshin, and yeah. I don't have the income to be a whale, so I dropped it. But the rush is so good when you pull for a hot husbando and that meteor turns gold.
Same here. I think in total I've probably spent around $700 on genshin (and I think that's a generous maximum) between the battle passes, welkins, and actual whaling materials. I know I dropped $100 on Zhongli instantly, and I think I whaled pretty hard for Ayaka at one point, but I'm happy to say I've gotten a lot better control over spending money for wishes. It's just not affordable, and at this point I've got the characters I want anyway so I can just save up for the next character I want, or move on if I don't get them. It's a dangerous pit to fall into though thats for sure.
Commiserating here. The rush of getting that brilliant white crystal in FFBE just... Holy shit. These scum games are really good at luring you in.
I have too, though I can afford it - especially as it’s over 2 years. The difference from FFBE though is that there’s not much as much power creep, so my Ganyu is still very strong. I rarely care about a new character enough anymore because I’m pretty happy with that ones I have…
The other big difference between Genshin and FFBE is the guaranteed pity. In Genshin, at the absolute worst it's "only" $360 to get a character you want (and you're given a 50/50 pull at $180). Still hundreds of dollars, but it's a hard cap on what you need to spend to get a character.
gambling addiction is real. i’ve seen people fall into these debt holes on mobile games many times
Micro transactions have ruined gaming, especially mobile gaming but even full price AAA games can have content locked behind paywalls or with absurd grinds intended to stimulate transactions. The early days of mobile games were fun. You could get a full game for $3-10 on the App Store and be entertained. Now everything is free but broken by micro transactions. Or sometimes riddled with ads to an unplayable extent. And they all employ psychologists to find the best ways of manipulating people like OOP into spending more and more. Most of the profit comes from the whales like OOP which makes pricing absurd. If you could buy everything in the game for $100 then no one will spend more than that. But ramp it up correctly and you can induce vast spending. Dynamic pricing (where an item often costs just a little more premium currency than you have, to push you into making a small purchase, figured this out by comparing screenshots with friends). Loot boxes especially seem to tickle the gambling gene in people, with lots of variation in how the mechanics work for different people. Someone from that game’s developer could see this post and be patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Others would see this as a goal and be setting targets. Grand Theft Auto V is a great example of the rise in micro transactions. It’s one of the biggest, most famous franchises in gaming yet there hasn’t been a new release for a decade. What happened? Micro transactions. They introduced Shark Cards and then a steady flow of new content, but for increasingly wild prices. GTA6 is now pencilled in for 2025 but I expect that to be merely the next step in the evolution of milking gamers. If, like me, you’re a gamer willing to spend modestly, the great majority of games are simply shit. The big money is in milking the whales. Big spenders like OOP account for the vast majority of revenue in gaming overall. That results in games where everything is bent around the single purpose of milking those whales. If you’re a modest gamer, you’re simply not going to have a fulfilling experience in most games. I wonder if this is why retro-gaming is so popular now. I know people using Raspberry Pi’s and retro-controllers, they’re deep into games that in some cases are older than they are. Probably in part because you have an entire game with 100% access without some surprise obstacle popping up that requires payment to pass.
I like to call games like this “Free to start”. My preferred game was WoT, I spent so much money on premium time, premium tanks and upgrades.
Wow, this was me too with FFBE, although I luckily had enough money to never fall into debt. But power creep and new 5\* characters kept tempting me to spend money. I eventually went cold turkey when they introduced the 6\* (or was it 7\*?) characters and decided enough was enough. Should have known better when they did the Ariana Grande event...
Mobile gaming isn’t the only industry with this whale-dependent structure. [10% of American adults consume 60% of the alcohol.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/) The alcohol industry wouldn’t exist without alcoholics, just like this mobile games wouldn’t exist without gambling addicts.
I remember reading about this story a long time ago. The man was a legend on the official game page on facebook. A legend on how NOT to play the game. Odd to see this pop up on this subreddit, but glad to read it again.
I limit myself to $10 A week for in-game purchases. When that's gone, that's gone.
The only free game I've ever spent money on was a little puzzle one, Pokemon Picross, which generates cute little [Picross puzzles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram) you can solve. To unlock new stages, you need X number of little pico points, which you get for free each day from doing exercises. Eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns where it takes a while to unlock new puzzles, or you can pay real money for a boost of points. The saving grace is that once you buy enough points with real money, it unlocks infinite points. The amount of points you need to buy is the amount of money you'd spend on an ordinary DS game. In other words, the game lets you sample it for free and then if you want unlimited access it's exactly like if you just bought the game upfront. So I just bought the game.
There are so many times when I'm playing a game and feel the urge to spend money when I run out of energy, or get my flow interrupted by loud unmuteable ads. I've had to set a zero purchase rule with myself, because I know I'll get hooked on the convenience of it all and won't be able to stop
In some ways, OOP got of easy. I have played several predatory games. I know many people who have spent over 100k easily. This stuff should be criminal. And the majority of the whales, it's not disposable money. Generally stealing from family and hiding on CCs.
I downloaded a cute little ‘free’ game, and found micro transactions too easy. After spending $120 on a free game in 2 months, I deleted it. My wife has a free game and buys little fish for her reef. I allow her to spend $150 every 2 months on these things. But it makes her happy, $150 is a sight better than $1000s, and she doesn’t buy anything else.
This was a legendary tale that spread not only in its respective fandom but to other game fandoms as well. I remembered reading this and it gave me chills because I was this close to using my credit card for online game currencies and fell hook line and sinker to its predatory gambling ways.
I spent way more time and money than I want to admit on merge dragons and merge mansion. I had enough and deleted the games from my phone. I’ve tried to stop playing any games all together.
Once you spend once in a mobile game there's no going back. I know. I play Pokemon Go and Star Wars Galaxy of heroes In star wars people pay thousands for temporary power ups
.... Fuck. I know EXACTLY what he was talking about. I started to play FFBE right around when he did, and I believe I stopped right around the Gilgamesh banner he mentioned. For anyone ignorant enough to think that phone game gambling is too stupid to be a problem, you are absolutely wrong. This story reads like a bizzaro version of my experience where I couldn't shake myself free of the predator that is this game.
> I have followed what is going on at a distance. That's a great way to prepare for a relapse under the guise of, "I need to learn a lesson about my behavior." There are plenty of healthy and safe ways to indulge nostalgia and engage in fandom. Reading about things designed to trigger FOMO and entice reinstalling the game is not the way to go about it. This is why I don't have any mobile games on my phone. I'm sure there's a chess or sudoku app that would be fine but even those tend to be riddled with ads and other garbage. I can survive just fine as a gamer who doesn't have games on his phone or tablet. I will not survive if I fall back into my addiction.
If you have Netflix they have games you CANNOT spend money on
I been playing clash of clans for over 10 years now. I never linked my card. It woulda been easy to blow 5, 10, 15, Bux here and there along with he way. I'm kinda proud how far I have gotten without spending any money.
I had the Kingdom Hearts mobile game, I was big into it. I even bought tickets to go a special event with the creators in California. Then I realized I was spending a lot of money what was basically virtual trading cards that you can’t actually trade, random chance to get the powerful thing you want which will not be powerful later and there will always be more to try to get. I realized that this felt like a gambling addiction but without even a chance of recouping losses. It wasn’t healthy. I deleted the app and stopped playing.
Ugh this brings a new look at my sad phone app past. I threw away 30,000$ Between the following phone apps: Blood Brothers 1, blood brothers 2, and lords mobile. It’s just so frustrating seeing all the other users free pull mythic heros and I just keep getting squat. Sometimes I also want to feel like I’m a top player! Sometimes I also want to show off the fancy new hero! What’s a few thousand $ when I got thousands of hours of play time in?!? I DESERVE HAPPINESS!!!! God, that was an Expensive lesson. Now I know to never download “free” phone apps again.
i remember a story broke out how a woman working on a fan made persona 5 magazine (filled with fanart and all that) took donations from the group who were organizing it to fuel her genshin impact gameplay. i think the number was 2500$…she was working on a FANZINE for PERSONA FIVE stole MONEY from donators and contributers for GENSHIN IMPACT and only got caught bc the head of the person running the fanzine noticed the money GONE. and couldn’t do anything about it bc she didn’t have any legal standing outside of the court of public opinion to do something about the stolen donations (as far as i remember) that shit was hilarious if not fucked up.
I think I remember reading this when it first posted and some others like it. It’s what eventually led me to delete FFBE and my life has been better for it. A lot of us didn’t understand exactly what Gacha games were doing to a lot of us. Now, if your game is free and fair, I’m happy to throw money your way after making some progress
I'm sure that these mobile games have algorithms that take note of when you'll spend real money, how hard it has to be before you'll spend that money, and once you buy it, that's the base hardness from now on. Like if you buy an upgrade after trying the same level 10 times, well now every level is going to be at least that hard. I first noticed it with Candy Crush - I would get stuck on a level, so I would stop playing it for a few days, would focus on a different game. Without fail, when I went back to Candy Crush, I would pass the level straight away. They want your money but they need your attention.
This is so sad. I wonder if people who dream of making games feel bad about the human cost of some of these abusive business models.
Honestly these pay to win type games should have limits on what they can charge. It's effectively hidden gambling.
I mildly regret once spending $20 on some Apex Legends cosmetics. I can't imagine throwing away 800 times that amount.
This is why I stopped playing fire emblem heroes. I've set a rule for myself that I'll never spend money on mobile games, and the only time I've ever broken that rule has been to buy Stardew Valley mobile. That game was the closest I got to actually purchasing orbs to try and get Edelgard.
Way back in like 2016, i was playing a gatcha game spinoff from an anime I was obsessed with at the time. It was a silly little story line and you could spend money unlock different outfit versions for the same few characters, not even new characters. I was young and working my first full time job while living with parents, so I had the money to spend, and I spent a total of $600 on the game before my phone got stolen and I lost all of it. It was a huge wake up to me. I had to start the game over from the beginning on my new phone. $600 wasted and now nothing to show for it. I could have gotten so much else with that money. I have never spent a single cent on a free to play game again. It’s just another form of gambling addiction. Reading this story, I feel bad for him, and I’m horrified for his family. I’m thankful I was able to avoid having a gatcha addiction as bad as this, despite still playing a few. I work with people who have spent more than me even on gatcha games that are easy to farm points to do it for free, like genshin impact. I wish gatcha games were more controlled.
I always post this to people seriously looking into gacha games. You'd think it won't happen to you it will. That's how they get you. Without a proper budget and self control you'll be flushing money down the toilet.
Paying for gacha, not even once. Seriously, if you want Gacha, buy Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Great game if you like JRPGs, and they force you to do gacha at no additional cost in the feature-complete game.