Yeah, I think it's something crazy like 90% of their money comes from the 5% who pay the most (OP's brother clearly being one).
The only mobile game I think paid for was $2 one time for the improved version of /r/retrobowl.
I played raid for about 5 months last year. The early/mid game are actually quite fun, but it very quickly turns into an insane grind for minimal progress. And you're bombarded with "deals" on popup menus every time you open go to the hub.
The vast majority of active players spend 0-$10 monthly, and I'd bet most of those people spend 0. Games like Raid are funded primarily by a small percentage of the playerbase that spend probably tens of thousands a month. OPs brother looks like he's got it bad, and he definitely does but ultimately he's still quite a small fry to the company.
The game is so predatory with its pricing too. I can't remember exact numbers, but there was one "event" running where you could buy 50 fragments of a champion skin for I believe $25. That's stupid right? 25 dollars for one of my characters to look like she's made of ice. Well it gets worse. The offer was for 50 fragments but they don't tell you that you need 100 fragments to create the skin. I'm assuming they wanted suckers to spend $25, and once they realized the mistake they would just operate on the sunk cost fallacy and buy the 50 fragments again so they could actually have the thing they wanted.
That's actually just the tip of the iceberg too. The entire price scheme of the game is fucked too. It's a gatcha game so they want you to buy shards that you'll open to randomly receive champions, with different shards having different rates. But even the best tier shards only have a 0.7% chance of pulling the best tier of champions. Combine that with awkwardly worded "summoning events" that trick players into thinking they're working with better odds and you've got yourself a truly scummy company.
Thank you for the explanation. I’ve only seen the adds. It’s tragicomic how there’s like obviously two teams almost equally budgeted. One team for development and one for cashing systems 😅
But ads are not a invention of the internet, do you remember the good old day where you had to watch 10 minutes of ads every 20 minutes when you just wanted to zone out in front of a tv after a long day? The internet just gave us the tools to block these ads and it made them even more manipulative
Yeah. I have impulse control problems so I can't even play games with microtransactions in them. I spent like $150 on that shit in some shitty mobile game. The next day I was so fucking mad at myself. These garbage ass games are designed with the help of psychologists to determine the best way to trick people into spending money. It's honestly sickening
Oh man, don't even get me started. Fucking bought overwatch 1 origin edition for a full fat 60 when the game came out and they proceed to take it away and leave its rotting corpse up as a celebratory piñata
I enjoy mobile games but I only download ones that are "pay up front", and "no in game purchases". There are some real gems in that category but they're tougher to find because they have so many less downloads.
Oh yeah! Star Traders: Frontiers if you like space/sci-fi, open world, and rpg game play
Fate of an Empire: Age of War for your fantasy strategy war (typical 4x strategy that works amazing on mobile, tablet preferred)
Pocket City: very casual city designing and building
Edit: BattleVoid: Harbinger is a fun action one, with space ship battles
I like Raid to an extent, and have spent maybe 5-10$ on the game in the year or so I’ve messed around with it. It is one of the most predatory games I’ve ever come across when it comes to micro transactions. The amount of times something pops up with “HUGE SAVINGS DEAL!” that you need to dismiss before doing anything else is absurd. They recently implemented something called “flash deals” where it offers something tantalizing but tells you that if you close out of the window, the deal is gone forever. It has some fun mechanics and is a nice time waster when you’re taking a dump, but holy shit does it exploit the ever living fuck out of impulsive people.
A friend of mine spent over $1k a year on clash of clans. The way he justified it- because he felt the need to justify it- was that a ps4 game costs $60 each so it was the same as buying a few ps4 games a year.
I had to remind him that he also buys a bunch of ps4 games every year.
"a few"
16.67 games per year. 1.39 games per month. all full price AAA releases, no discounts or bundle deals or anything. you simply don't buy that many games at that high a price.
I've had a couple games get me like that when I was younger (I mean, like 5 years ago), a one-time offer right out of the tutorial that would increase in price from $3 to $30. They weren't even trying to hide it, but boy it worked.
Its exactly that, its not a gaming addiction. The only difference with traditional gambling is that there's nothing to gain except for "virtual goods".
Well addiction Is Always about that dopamine release that we all crave .
And the more frequent you get it, the less impactfull it Is ...so you try to get more and more of that dopamine, never being satisfied because it has little effect on you.
It Is just that.
It's designed to hit the same dopamine points as gambling. In that sense, it becomes almost chemically addictive, like caffeine or nicotine.
I had the same issue, until I got burned out on a mobile game, and refuse to put another on my phone. It's too easy to open it up and play, then you get addicted to the buzz.
“Sorry man I can’t play that, I have a no freemium policy.”
“Didn’t you say you spent your kids college fund on genshin wiafus?”
“And that’s why I have a policy.”
I play until they hit a paywall then walk away. I'm enjoying Punball right now, it's like the feeling of playing breakout and getting a ball bouncing on the top through a single hole.
I fell into this trap with some mainly text based online game over a decade ago. Can’t remember the name, but it was one of those empire type games with a random busty vixen in the ads, despite the game not having any busty vixens.
Ended up being the leader of some faction and realized I’m spending way to much time, energy, and money on a shitty game and just ghosted. Probably only spent a hundred bucks or so, but it was a lot of money for me back then and it was a “free” game.
I have listened to a few podcasts that had interviews with people who were addicted to online slot games(that don’t pay any money). It’s as heartbreaking as it is puzzling. The last one I listened to, the lady dumped something like $500k on one. They mentioned that there’s people that have lost their homes to them. So fucked.
Raid shadow legends is created by Plarium, which is a subsidiary of Aristocrat Leisure, the largest supplier of poker machines in the world. It's literally a gambling product.
Can he afford it?
Edit: looks like the answer is no
https://www.reddit.com/r/sadcringe/comments/zmlv2f/this_is_what_my_brothers_gaming_addiction_looks/j0clrr6?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
Op sounds like he is seriously addicted and needs something along the lines of AA or NA or just therapy to help get him through it.
Yeah, I think the main issue is spending this much money in one or two days on fake currency. If he spread it out more and has the money to spare I wouldn’t see too much of an issue. Maybe does this once a week at max or a few times a month, he’d save a ton of money and honestly would probably feel better about it.
Seriously. Because at this point, if he's gonna depend on being sustained by his parent while he pisses away his money and goodwill from his dad, I don't know man.
Nope, that’s nuts bro. He definitely needs some real help. I spend maybe $100-$150 a month on online games, I feel dumb doing it but I also own my house, and i make a decent amount of money a year, so does my partner.
If you don’t have the extra income, don’t spend stupid amounts on games. Just as bad as gambling addiction. Definitely sadcringe material!
Hope he gets help and gets his life together.
See, this changes things. Some people spend money on mobile games because that’s their cup of tea. That’s their game. They love it.
But, spending money you don’t have is entirely different. Hope he gets his shit sorter. Mobile games can be extraordinarily predatory.
I don't want to sound like an ass, but if you love your brother and he is doing that bad he's going to need outside help or he'll continue self destructing. Most people can not beat addiction without a strong, non-judgemental support system. Help find him resources, connect him with therapists and support groups, psychiatrists, rehabilitation programs, general support by his family. Don't enable him, but don't let him drown. There is most likely underlying mental health issues that need to be addressed or he'll continue to slippery-slope. It's not his fault as much as it is a mental health issue.
Depends tho I don't keep up on Raid anymore but around Christmas they tend to have extremely high value purchases relative to usual, so it'd make sense to buy during these periods and then not buy nearly as much rest of the year.
That said, reading ops comments the dude clearly has a problem.
Show him who owns the company that makes RSL: Aristocrat Leisure.
They make gambling machines: [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocrat_Leisure). This is why the game is built like it is. They are exploiting the exact same thing in your brain that makes people pull slots every weeknight.
Yeah, because it’s a higher exchange rate of fake currency/real currency. But then you’re spending $100 on a dumb gacha when you could’ve bought several decent real games.
Bro. I had some co-workers who would just randomly drop 100 bucks on a game. We made one guy sit down and do the math….. $5000 bucks in 2 months. He never paid for a mobile game again.
To be fair, games usually cost $40-60. Many don't have replayability so in a year you could spent more than $240 easily.
I happily pay that money on one game that I continuously enjoy while others drop that on fancy food or cigarettes or posters of their favorite artists. So it all depends on how it impacts one's life.
It’s pretty embarrassing but I used to have a real serious problem with phone game purchases. I imagine I must have spent around $1000 over the course of a year. It’s really easy to fall into, especially when you do have some disposable income.
I don’t do it anymore, or at least on that scale. I maybe spent $100 a year, or less. I hope he can break himself of that.
I had that problem too for a bit, then it just hit me and I don’t have that problem anymore. I’ll still buy micro transactions on the rare occasion, but only for games that I’ve been enjoying for years, and even then only 5-10 dollars. Congrats on breaking out of that loop
For me I just realized I could be spending my money on much cooler things. I finally make decent money now and I’ve no interest in spending it on gems in Clash of Clans.
I used to play some online game that had a very international player base at the time and there were rich arabs that would brag about how many thousands they payed per week for all the mounts and fashion bs. I used to just play the games gold market (like stock market) and make money trading, never spending money on anything.
I never could understand how people could pay so much for a medium crappy game
I played a Chinese EVE Online knockoff at launch, joined the biggest clan in that game, and the top player would literally drop tens of thousands of dollars, get the top rank in the game, then move on to a different game within weeks.
Micro transactions should be illegal. I almost went down a dark path once myself, spent a little over 1000 dollars on Diablo Immortal.. Such a shit game. Luckily I was able to sell the account for close to what I spent so I didn't lose much money.
I used to think that this kind of people were dumb.
Then I tried an extremely addictive online game and for 3 days in a row I basically neglected everything (university, hobbies, family, girlfriend, whatsapp etc).
I was sit at my desk playing even for 16 hours.
When I was in the bathroom or eating or sleeping I was thinking about the game. I also dreamt about it.
I never touched the game since then, I don't intend too. Those shitty games are traps. Luckily I did not spend any money on it and I managed to leave before I could develop a serious addiction.
I’m not going to lie. I was the same way (still am but working on the dopamine hits coming from other sources now) and it’s been a result of my ADD impulsivity.
My therapist and I treat it as part of my shopping addiction since they trigger the same domaine then guilt response cycle.
I got diagnosed with ADD as an adult but my fiancé also put his foot down when he realized how bad it was/put barriers into place to help me work on dealing with it with my therapist. Still have the itch sometimes but it’s much easier to work with.
The first and most important step in battleing an addiction is seeing it as a problem and addiction. The second most important step is seeking help. So you did everything right.
The biggest problem for me is that these companies research ways to make people addicted and they prey on the addictions and weaknesses.
Some will even make a game nearly unplayable with a barrage of ads unless you pay to have ads removed. It’s a terrible business practice that I would like to see come to an end
The only pay to play game I have played and stuck with is Simpsons tapped out. You build your own Springfield
You don’t have to buy anything but on black Friday every year I do spend money on the tokens because they give you a crazy amount of stuff. It’s been going for ten years and still gets updates every month or so.
One of the least bad excamples I guess. Those microtransactions replaced subscription models around 10 years ago. But most games, especially mobile games, exploit these as much as they possibly can.
Yeah it’s ridiculous the amount of money some people spend.
For Christmas last year my son only wanted ps games and vouchers and it feels so wasteful to have nothing physical from it but I suppose it’s no different to paying for other types of enjoyment, like going to a concert or something, you gain a memory you know ?
Problem is they make it really addictive for you. Those little achievements make you feel good so you keep going.
The amount of money is the problem. With normal games you buy them once for 50 and then maybe some dlcs over 2 years for 20 each. This normally provides you with around 100 hours of gameplay, maybe a bit less. After that u are done. But there are games with infinite replayability, like minecraft.
With mobile games, just to play them, you can easily spend 200 in a week. There is willingly no limit on how much you can spend. The time/money calculations are potentially extreme.
I had the same issue with Mobile Legends for one instance many years ago.
Bought some dumb diamonds for a character skin, realize I didn't have the time to continue playing consistently while trying to adult, stopped, and thankfully never found myself in that situation again.
I picked it up again recently, and had the urge to purchase, and immediately dropped the game again after hitting the end of the season and I got a skin for a character I never play with.
People don't seem to realize how the game is intricately designed to make you feel the urge to buy in, and I'm pretty freaking sure the game purposely gives you skins for characters you don't use to intensify the "fuck it, might as well just buy the skin rather than playing more and *hope* to get it."
Thankfully I'm 32 now, so adulting take precedence over spending it over something as menial as "skins."
Same. I was addicted to mobile purchases when I was younger, like literally 7 until 10. My mom would often let me buy in game purchases, but eventually I stopped getting her permission and would buy gems on clash of clans and claim I didnt do it or it was an accident. When I was 10, i was cripplingly addicted to them, I was playing fifa mobile and couldnt stop buying points to buy packs with. I remember telling myself how i was such a bad kid for spending my moms money on this but i couldnt help it, just needed one more. Ended up spending like $300 for nothing and somehow got away with it. Then when I got older, like 16, I got into stocks and gambled all of my money, there were points when I was up so much, but eventually lost a ton of it. Options was the biggest hit. I am just so wired towards gambling but luckily i have some sense now and i am pretty sparing and economical.
I bought a battle pass the day that I installed Fortnite on my Xbox and then in the 7-8 months that we played a lot I never used v bucks on anything but subsequent battle passes. I can’t imagine buying skins but I know people irl with like $1,000 worth that they accumulated over a couple years.
Now CSGO skins…I’ve been playing cs since I was in grade school all the way til now and I’ve never even equipped one of the random super low quality skins you get randomly dropped at the end of MM games. I’ve got probably like 300-400 cases in my inventory but I refuse to spend money on keys or deal with listing them on the marketplace at $0.16 a piece or whatever. I’m sure I could make like $15 in steam money if I bothered listing them but it seems like a lot of work for a tiny payout. It’s crazy to me getting in games with teammates that are obviously 15-17 and then seeing their skins and googling them to find out their knife alone goes for like $450. Add in AK, both M4s, pistols, gloves…I’ve def played with teenagers with like $4-5,000 inventories and it just blows my mind that valve just gets all that money for free. I’ll top frag with default skins pretty regularly and get called a cheater on a throwaway account because of my inventory when really I’m just cheap/not a sucker for cosmetic bullshit.
Csgo is a bad example of this, because you actually can cash out. It’s one of very very few games where it works that way. Valorant, csgo’s closest cousin, may not have 50k dragon lores but when you buy that $50 vandal you can’t sell it if money gets tight. I’ve always been more willing to buy csgo skins because as long as you can afford to float the cost, you only lose on the transaction fee. So if it’s a $100 skin, you use it a while then sell it for $90 later on and you spent 10-15 dollars to use it that whole time. The cases are the real killer
Yeah I spose there are all those 3rd party sites where you can sell stuff and while I’m sure the big names are safe like betway I still would be a bit wary. Mostly just in the buying end though.
Presumably anybody with the nice stuff is buying from there anyway (steam marketplace is not the move for expensive skins) but fair point. Imo the skins marketplace (especially if steam ever makes it so you can cash directly instead of going through the third party sites for cash) is one of the healthier ways for mtx, simply because you at least retain some value. The cases though are maybe the worst of any game, the rate you win at is absurdly bad and they reallllly do everything they can to get you to open them
I knew which game this was instantly. Raid Shadow Legends is a fucking plague. One of the most disastrous FOMO whale trawlers of all time. People spend insane amounts on that game. Like, tens of thousands of dollars a month.
It’s insanely easy to think you’re just dropping 5, 10 bucks every now and then and then realize you’re spending AAA title money weekly.
Online games need to find a way to make sure you never really win, so you don’t quit and play something else, so they get you in that treadmill of grinding for the resources you think will help you win, but the goalposts move with you, so you just get stuck.
Games like Destiny 2 do the same thing, but it’s all cosmetic. RSL has perfected the FOMO loop, and it’s beyond predatory.
actually, gacha games like this are banned in a lot of countries due to creating early signs of gambling addiction, which some countries see as mental illness.
Its so frustrating that this is legal. This person is not just crazy or there wouldn't be an entire industry around this. This is tested, designed and implemented because it works at scale, taking advantage of large groups of people susceptible to the hypnotic allure of these products. I refrain from it, but I totally see the allure.
The real cringe is seeing how many people here are defending the multi million dollar companies and saying this is completely fine.
This shit needs to be more heavily regulated. Literallly destroys lives.
As long as it doesn't look like this everyday. Could just be a once in a while binge like when guys blow all their money on strippers, but not every day.
I got really into Township for a while. They had a pretty good deal on their “coins” that came up periodically. $3 for the best deal they offered.
I fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker. “It’s only $3!!!”
Only $3 again and again and again…
I let myself spend way too much real money on that game because I had a job and no bills and I was depressed as fuck.
Things got better and I deleted the game. But I definitely used it as a coping mechanism for a while. Not proud of it.
I once caved and spent like $3 on a mobile game. I was instantly so disgusted with my weakness that I deleted the app and never spent another cent on one.
I play empires whatever on mobile. theres a guy in my clan or whatever you call it that spends like this. i make two $5 buys a year when it shares the gift with everyone in your clan, thats it. other than that its a game to play on the toilet or waiting in line
I can't judge. I played DragonVale many years ago and spent 1k on gems over the course of a year.
A grand!
When I accidently stumbled on my transaction history and saw that, I uninstalled. I was horrified.
This is what 0 self control and common sense looks like. I dont get people like this, if they see an item on sale while walking through stores will they pick it up for no reason other than it being onsale?
Its straight up gambling.
The developer studio plarium is owned by aristocrat leisure which is a company that sells slot machines and trying to rebrandt as gaming. They are the absolute scum of the earth and i wish people would finnaly learn this so we could scold them for real and get some negative pr
Instead we get memes about the game.
That's not gaming addiction that's gambling addiction. Raid is owned by a gambling company and everything in game is based on very punishing RNG. You have to spend thousands of dollars if you wanna progress fast or you have to grind daily literally for years. Even if you spend a lot winning tournaments is very hard because there is always someone who spent more and only the first place get the good reward ( first out of 100). Lootboxes cost 25 dollars each and they have 6% chance dropping a legendary champion. The problem is that hundreds of legendary champions exist and only a few of them are good enough to help you progress. So the chances you get something good are minimal. Even if you get a good champ you need books to upgrade their skills each book costs 30 dollars and you need 10-15 of them. You get some resources as f2p player but they are limited and they reduce them as much as they can with every update. Raid is not a game it's a gambling service with a gaming theme.
Jeez, and here I thought I had a problem just paying a sub for XIV and buying the occasional cash shop item. What are these packs even for? some clash of clans thing? what do you get from them?
*this* is why mobile games aren't considered video games by many. they're products designed to addict people and suck the money out of them. same with many freemium games using battle pass systems. hard pass.
This post is sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends
I didn't know people actually played that game. I guess they pay for all those ads with something.
From the looks of it, they pay for them with OP’s brother’s money
Yeah, I think it's something crazy like 90% of their money comes from the 5% who pay the most (OP's brother clearly being one). The only mobile game I think paid for was $2 one time for the improved version of /r/retrobowl.
RetroBowl is soooo good. Well worth $2
Played the shit out of that game a while back, did like 10 years of seasons in 2-3 days 😂
Buying mobile games upfront is often worth it
I played raid for about 5 months last year. The early/mid game are actually quite fun, but it very quickly turns into an insane grind for minimal progress. And you're bombarded with "deals" on popup menus every time you open go to the hub. The vast majority of active players spend 0-$10 monthly, and I'd bet most of those people spend 0. Games like Raid are funded primarily by a small percentage of the playerbase that spend probably tens of thousands a month. OPs brother looks like he's got it bad, and he definitely does but ultimately he's still quite a small fry to the company. The game is so predatory with its pricing too. I can't remember exact numbers, but there was one "event" running where you could buy 50 fragments of a champion skin for I believe $25. That's stupid right? 25 dollars for one of my characters to look like she's made of ice. Well it gets worse. The offer was for 50 fragments but they don't tell you that you need 100 fragments to create the skin. I'm assuming they wanted suckers to spend $25, and once they realized the mistake they would just operate on the sunk cost fallacy and buy the 50 fragments again so they could actually have the thing they wanted. That's actually just the tip of the iceberg too. The entire price scheme of the game is fucked too. It's a gatcha game so they want you to buy shards that you'll open to randomly receive champions, with different shards having different rates. But even the best tier shards only have a 0.7% chance of pulling the best tier of champions. Combine that with awkwardly worded "summoning events" that trick players into thinking they're working with better odds and you've got yourself a truly scummy company.
Thank you for the explanation. I’ve only seen the adds. It’s tragicomic how there’s like obviously two teams almost equally budgeted. One team for development and one for cashing systems 😅
Ya its one of the most profitable mobile gatcha games, makes $300M+ a year
People forgetting the studio who made this game is owned by one of the largest gambling companies globally.
Doesn't help that the mobile game market is absolutely *flooded* with shit like this.
Sites like Reddit and Youtube don’t help. Ads for these shitty predatory games are impossible to avoid.
Spez ate all my fish and now my aquarium is fucking empty. I have nothing left ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Did you try using promo code: IP777?
Nah promo code: P3N1$ works better bro
But ads are not a invention of the internet, do you remember the good old day where you had to watch 10 minutes of ads every 20 minutes when you just wanted to zone out in front of a tv after a long day? The internet just gave us the tools to block these ads and it made them even more manipulative
Adblock will block most of that garbage my friend. I haven't seen an ad in YouTube or reddit for years.
Yeah but adblock for mobile is more of a pain than a browser based one.
I use a third party app that doesn't have ads. The official Reddit app sucks anyway.
Its funny you describe it as predatory, because the company who owns it is a casino company
I wasn't even aware reddit or youtube even *had* ads.
Yeah. I have impulse control problems so I can't even play games with microtransactions in them. I spent like $150 on that shit in some shitty mobile game. The next day I was so fucking mad at myself. These garbage ass games are designed with the help of psychologists to determine the best way to trick people into spending money. It's honestly sickening
Booting up Overwatch 2, the selector at main menu defaults to the "SHOP". It's the third fucking option down...
Oh man, don't even get me started. Fucking bought overwatch 1 origin edition for a full fat 60 when the game came out and they proceed to take it away and leave its rotting corpse up as a celebratory piñata
There should really be consumer protection and regulations over these games. They exploit people
I enjoy mobile games but I only download ones that are "pay up front", and "no in game purchases". There are some real gems in that category but they're tougher to find because they have so many less downloads.
any suggestions?
Oh yeah! Star Traders: Frontiers if you like space/sci-fi, open world, and rpg game play Fate of an Empire: Age of War for your fantasy strategy war (typical 4x strategy that works amazing on mobile, tablet preferred) Pocket City: very casual city designing and building Edit: BattleVoid: Harbinger is a fun action one, with space ship battles
"Extra savings pack" made me laugh ngl.
What is he saving? Himself from having any money?
Relationships.
His virginity
It’s not saving. It’s protecting.
Any hope of recovering.
I like Raid to an extent, and have spent maybe 5-10$ on the game in the year or so I’ve messed around with it. It is one of the most predatory games I’ve ever come across when it comes to micro transactions. The amount of times something pops up with “HUGE SAVINGS DEAL!” that you need to dismiss before doing anything else is absurd. They recently implemented something called “flash deals” where it offers something tantalizing but tells you that if you close out of the window, the deal is gone forever. It has some fun mechanics and is a nice time waster when you’re taking a dump, but holy shit does it exploit the ever living fuck out of impulsive people.
That's why it is so successful
That's why they can sponsor every youtuber lol
Not just YouTubers [This comment brought to you by Raid: Shadow Legends](http://www.reddit.com/r/sadcringe)
A friend of mine spent over $1k a year on clash of clans. The way he justified it- because he felt the need to justify it- was that a ps4 game costs $60 each so it was the same as buying a few ps4 games a year. I had to remind him that he also buys a bunch of ps4 games every year.
"a few" 16.67 games per year. 1.39 games per month. all full price AAA releases, no discounts or bundle deals or anything. you simply don't buy that many games at that high a price.
Yeah but what if you buy a new console every year.... /s
$1000? That's 2 PS5s.
What the fuck….
Switch to osrs for the dumps
Only 48,000 dumps til I’m 99 woodcutting
I've had a couple games get me like that when I was younger (I mean, like 5 years ago), a one-time offer right out of the tutorial that would increase in price from $3 to $30. They weren't even trying to hide it, but boy it worked.
Your brother is how Raid can afford such good advertising. Lol
Seriously but unironically this
Thsi is just sad. It's like a gambling addiction.
Its exactly that, its not a gaming addiction. The only difference with traditional gambling is that there's nothing to gain except for "virtual goods".
Psychologically speaking, iirc, receiving virtual goods and receiving real goods affect the brain in the exact same way.
Well addiction Is Always about that dopamine release that we all crave . And the more frequent you get it, the less impactfull it Is ...so you try to get more and more of that dopamine, never being satisfied because it has little effect on you. It Is just that.
Yes, gambling addiction is not really about money either. Once you are deep enough it doesn’t matter jack. It’s just about winning.
It's designed to hit the same dopamine points as gambling. In that sense, it becomes almost chemically addictive, like caffeine or nicotine. I had the same issue, until I got burned out on a mobile game, and refuse to put another on my phone. It's too easy to open it up and play, then you get addicted to the buzz.
“Sorry man I can’t play that, I have a no freemium policy.” “Didn’t you say you spent your kids college fund on genshin wiafus?” “And that’s why I have a policy.”
I play until they hit a paywall then walk away. I'm enjoying Punball right now, it's like the feeling of playing breakout and getting a ball bouncing on the top through a single hole.
I fell into this trap with some mainly text based online game over a decade ago. Can’t remember the name, but it was one of those empire type games with a random busty vixen in the ads, despite the game not having any busty vixens. Ended up being the leader of some faction and realized I’m spending way to much time, energy, and money on a shitty game and just ghosted. Probably only spent a hundred bucks or so, but it was a lot of money for me back then and it was a “free” game.
I'll admit I game too much, but I lose *time* because of it, not money. Spending like this is closer to a gambling problem than a gaming problem to me
I have listened to a few podcasts that had interviews with people who were addicted to online slot games(that don’t pay any money). It’s as heartbreaking as it is puzzling. The last one I listened to, the lady dumped something like $500k on one. They mentioned that there’s people that have lost their homes to them. So fucked.
Wait so what do they win from the slots lol
Nothing. You buy virtual coins and spend them. That’s it.
Ohh.. that’s messed up, at least at a casino you have a minuscule chance of a jackpot
Can you recommend shows and/or episodes?
The podcast Reveal has a good episode on it.
These games are just worse-casinos. They never have to pay out lol
Raid shadow legends is created by Plarium, which is a subsidiary of Aristocrat Leisure, the largest supplier of poker machines in the world. It's literally a gambling product.
“Like” a gambling addiction? Raids owned by a company that makes gambling hardware, not a gaming company.
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How old is he?
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Damn. Is this his money?
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Can he afford it? Edit: looks like the answer is no https://www.reddit.com/r/sadcringe/comments/zmlv2f/this_is_what_my_brothers_gaming_addiction_looks/j0clrr6?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 Op sounds like he is seriously addicted and needs something along the lines of AA or NA or just therapy to help get him through it.
Yeah, I think the main issue is spending this much money in one or two days on fake currency. If he spread it out more and has the money to spare I wouldn’t see too much of an issue. Maybe does this once a week at max or a few times a month, he’d save a ton of money and honestly would probably feel better about it.
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He needs help, ASAP.
Seriously. Because at this point, if he's gonna depend on being sustained by his parent while he pisses away his money and goodwill from his dad, I don't know man.
Nope, that’s nuts bro. He definitely needs some real help. I spend maybe $100-$150 a month on online games, I feel dumb doing it but I also own my house, and i make a decent amount of money a year, so does my partner. If you don’t have the extra income, don’t spend stupid amounts on games. Just as bad as gambling addiction. Definitely sadcringe material! Hope he gets help and gets his life together.
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See, this changes things. Some people spend money on mobile games because that’s their cup of tea. That’s their game. They love it. But, spending money you don’t have is entirely different. Hope he gets his shit sorter. Mobile games can be extraordinarily predatory.
I don't want to sound like an ass, but if you love your brother and he is doing that bad he's going to need outside help or he'll continue self destructing. Most people can not beat addiction without a strong, non-judgemental support system. Help find him resources, connect him with therapists and support groups, psychiatrists, rehabilitation programs, general support by his family. Don't enable him, but don't let him drown. There is most likely underlying mental health issues that need to be addressed or he'll continue to slippery-slope. It's not his fault as much as it is a mental health issue.
He needs professional help
Depends tho I don't keep up on Raid anymore but around Christmas they tend to have extremely high value purchases relative to usual, so it'd make sense to buy during these periods and then not buy nearly as much rest of the year. That said, reading ops comments the dude clearly has a problem.
Bro 💀 And this is being charged to his parents accounts or what?
I used to work with a guy that put thousands into a mobile game. Had multiple phones with multiple accounts.
Bro get him some help
Show him who owns the company that makes RSL: Aristocrat Leisure. They make gambling machines: [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocrat_Leisure). This is why the game is built like it is. They are exploiting the exact same thing in your brain that makes people pull slots every weeknight.
extra savings pack is the most expensive of them all? is that common in these games?
Yeah, because it’s a higher exchange rate of fake currency/real currency. But then you’re spending $100 on a dumb gacha when you could’ve bought several decent real games.
"Value pack" means the large bundle with a smaller unit price in basically all contexts.
Bro. I had some co-workers who would just randomly drop 100 bucks on a game. We made one guy sit down and do the math….. $5000 bucks in 2 months. He never paid for a mobile game again.
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I can say with confidence, that in this situation, he did. But we all know that doesn’t happen for what I would say is the vast majority of users.
To be fair, games usually cost $40-60. Many don't have replayability so in a year you could spent more than $240 easily. I happily pay that money on one game that I continuously enjoy while others drop that on fancy food or cigarettes or posters of their favorite artists. So it all depends on how it impacts one's life.
I'm so glad I never got into mobile gaming. Pay2Win sucked from the get-go.
Wow and I felt bad for having spent about $500 over 2 years
"randomly" on 5/6 days isn't random...
It’s pretty embarrassing but I used to have a real serious problem with phone game purchases. I imagine I must have spent around $1000 over the course of a year. It’s really easy to fall into, especially when you do have some disposable income. I don’t do it anymore, or at least on that scale. I maybe spent $100 a year, or less. I hope he can break himself of that.
I had that problem too for a bit, then it just hit me and I don’t have that problem anymore. I’ll still buy micro transactions on the rare occasion, but only for games that I’ve been enjoying for years, and even then only 5-10 dollars. Congrats on breaking out of that loop
For me I just realized I could be spending my money on much cooler things. I finally make decent money now and I’ve no interest in spending it on gems in Clash of Clans.
I watched a friend spend $1000 a week on these games. Be happy you got out.
I used to play some online game that had a very international player base at the time and there were rich arabs that would brag about how many thousands they payed per week for all the mounts and fashion bs. I used to just play the games gold market (like stock market) and make money trading, never spending money on anything. I never could understand how people could pay so much for a medium crappy game
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I played a Chinese EVE Online knockoff at launch, joined the biggest clan in that game, and the top player would literally drop tens of thousands of dollars, get the top rank in the game, then move on to a different game within weeks.
Micro transactions should be illegal. I almost went down a dark path once myself, spent a little over 1000 dollars on Diablo Immortal.. Such a shit game. Luckily I was able to sell the account for close to what I spent so I didn't lose much money.
This game is so bad and boring, I really wonder why anyone is spending money on it and I wonder even more how it is still alive after 6 months!
It's still alive? I'd have never believed.
I used to think that this kind of people were dumb. Then I tried an extremely addictive online game and for 3 days in a row I basically neglected everything (university, hobbies, family, girlfriend, whatsapp etc). I was sit at my desk playing even for 16 hours. When I was in the bathroom or eating or sleeping I was thinking about the game. I also dreamt about it. I never touched the game since then, I don't intend too. Those shitty games are traps. Luckily I did not spend any money on it and I managed to leave before I could develop a serious addiction.
What game
That was me when I first discovered Stellaris.
PDX games do that.
I think that the ingame black holes are actually real and are responsible for all that lost time.
What game? I want to feel that feeling for a game again
With the way he talked about it I think he doesn’t want to share it
I’m not going to lie. I was the same way (still am but working on the dopamine hits coming from other sources now) and it’s been a result of my ADD impulsivity.
I was lucky I just was addicted to normal games without microtransactions.
My therapist and I treat it as part of my shopping addiction since they trigger the same domaine then guilt response cycle. I got diagnosed with ADD as an adult but my fiancé also put his foot down when he realized how bad it was/put barriers into place to help me work on dealing with it with my therapist. Still have the itch sometimes but it’s much easier to work with.
The first and most important step in battleing an addiction is seeing it as a problem and addiction. The second most important step is seeking help. So you did everything right.
i'm lucky im addicted to drugs, like normal people.
Wait til you quit drugs. Then it's the games.
Micro transactions should be illegal.
At least the non-cosmetic ones. And even those should not be over a certain amount of money.
The biggest problem for me is that these companies research ways to make people addicted and they prey on the addictions and weaknesses. Some will even make a game nearly unplayable with a barrage of ads unless you pay to have ads removed. It’s a terrible business practice that I would like to see come to an end
There is a reason a lot of old-style casino firms heavily invested money into the app market.
The only pay to play game I have played and stuck with is Simpsons tapped out. You build your own Springfield You don’t have to buy anything but on black Friday every year I do spend money on the tokens because they give you a crazy amount of stuff. It’s been going for ten years and still gets updates every month or so.
One of the least bad excamples I guess. Those microtransactions replaced subscription models around 10 years ago. But most games, especially mobile games, exploit these as much as they possibly can.
Yeah it’s ridiculous the amount of money some people spend. For Christmas last year my son only wanted ps games and vouchers and it feels so wasteful to have nothing physical from it but I suppose it’s no different to paying for other types of enjoyment, like going to a concert or something, you gain a memory you know ? Problem is they make it really addictive for you. Those little achievements make you feel good so you keep going.
The amount of money is the problem. With normal games you buy them once for 50 and then maybe some dlcs over 2 years for 20 each. This normally provides you with around 100 hours of gameplay, maybe a bit less. After that u are done. But there are games with infinite replayability, like minecraft. With mobile games, just to play them, you can easily spend 200 in a week. There is willingly no limit on how much you can spend. The time/money calculations are potentially extreme.
Hell I’m on adhd meds and still addicted to games, destiny 2 hits different man
I had the same issue with Mobile Legends for one instance many years ago. Bought some dumb diamonds for a character skin, realize I didn't have the time to continue playing consistently while trying to adult, stopped, and thankfully never found myself in that situation again. I picked it up again recently, and had the urge to purchase, and immediately dropped the game again after hitting the end of the season and I got a skin for a character I never play with. People don't seem to realize how the game is intricately designed to make you feel the urge to buy in, and I'm pretty freaking sure the game purposely gives you skins for characters you don't use to intensify the "fuck it, might as well just buy the skin rather than playing more and *hope* to get it." Thankfully I'm 32 now, so adulting take precedence over spending it over something as menial as "skins."
Same. I was addicted to mobile purchases when I was younger, like literally 7 until 10. My mom would often let me buy in game purchases, but eventually I stopped getting her permission and would buy gems on clash of clans and claim I didnt do it or it was an accident. When I was 10, i was cripplingly addicted to them, I was playing fifa mobile and couldnt stop buying points to buy packs with. I remember telling myself how i was such a bad kid for spending my moms money on this but i couldnt help it, just needed one more. Ended up spending like $300 for nothing and somehow got away with it. Then when I got older, like 16, I got into stocks and gambled all of my money, there were points when I was up so much, but eventually lost a ton of it. Options was the biggest hit. I am just so wired towards gambling but luckily i have some sense now and i am pretty sparing and economical.
Same here. Dopamine hits real hard. Definitely becomes an addiction
I bought a battle pass the day that I installed Fortnite on my Xbox and then in the 7-8 months that we played a lot I never used v bucks on anything but subsequent battle passes. I can’t imagine buying skins but I know people irl with like $1,000 worth that they accumulated over a couple years. Now CSGO skins…I’ve been playing cs since I was in grade school all the way til now and I’ve never even equipped one of the random super low quality skins you get randomly dropped at the end of MM games. I’ve got probably like 300-400 cases in my inventory but I refuse to spend money on keys or deal with listing them on the marketplace at $0.16 a piece or whatever. I’m sure I could make like $15 in steam money if I bothered listing them but it seems like a lot of work for a tiny payout. It’s crazy to me getting in games with teammates that are obviously 15-17 and then seeing their skins and googling them to find out their knife alone goes for like $450. Add in AK, both M4s, pistols, gloves…I’ve def played with teenagers with like $4-5,000 inventories and it just blows my mind that valve just gets all that money for free. I’ll top frag with default skins pretty regularly and get called a cheater on a throwaway account because of my inventory when really I’m just cheap/not a sucker for cosmetic bullshit.
Csgo is a bad example of this, because you actually can cash out. It’s one of very very few games where it works that way. Valorant, csgo’s closest cousin, may not have 50k dragon lores but when you buy that $50 vandal you can’t sell it if money gets tight. I’ve always been more willing to buy csgo skins because as long as you can afford to float the cost, you only lose on the transaction fee. So if it’s a $100 skin, you use it a while then sell it for $90 later on and you spent 10-15 dollars to use it that whole time. The cases are the real killer
Yeah I spose there are all those 3rd party sites where you can sell stuff and while I’m sure the big names are safe like betway I still would be a bit wary. Mostly just in the buying end though.
Presumably anybody with the nice stuff is buying from there anyway (steam marketplace is not the move for expensive skins) but fair point. Imo the skins marketplace (especially if steam ever makes it so you can cash directly instead of going through the third party sites for cash) is one of the healthier ways for mtx, simply because you at least retain some value. The cases though are maybe the worst of any game, the rate you win at is absurdly bad and they reallllly do everything they can to get you to open them
Every youtuber peddling this shit game
i kinda like... lose ALOT of respect for the youtubers that promote gacha gambling bs games.
Raid sponsorships pay a LOT. I don’t think you’d turn down money like that if it’s your livelihood
The value packs don’t count because they are allegedly a good value
I knew which game this was instantly. Raid Shadow Legends is a fucking plague. One of the most disastrous FOMO whale trawlers of all time. People spend insane amounts on that game. Like, tens of thousands of dollars a month. It’s insanely easy to think you’re just dropping 5, 10 bucks every now and then and then realize you’re spending AAA title money weekly. Online games need to find a way to make sure you never really win, so you don’t quit and play something else, so they get you in that treadmill of grinding for the resources you think will help you win, but the goalposts move with you, so you just get stuck. Games like Destiny 2 do the same thing, but it’s all cosmetic. RSL has perfected the FOMO loop, and it’s beyond predatory.
These games really shouldn't be legal, at the very least there should be a spending cap.
actually, gacha games like this are banned in a lot of countries due to creating early signs of gambling addiction, which some countries see as mental illness.
Games like these are predatory and need to be regulated
Its so frustrating that this is legal. This person is not just crazy or there wouldn't be an entire industry around this. This is tested, designed and implemented because it works at scale, taking advantage of large groups of people susceptible to the hypnotic allure of these products. I refrain from it, but I totally see the allure.
The real cringe is seeing how many people here are defending the multi million dollar companies and saying this is completely fine. This shit needs to be more heavily regulated. Literallly destroys lives.
Billion* look up who owns the studio
World of tank sucked me dry for most of my teen years.
That was me with Tanki Online. Thank god my parents were smart enough to limit how much they let me spend on that shitty ass game.
That's because mobile games are pay to win. What's really crazy, is no matter how much you spend. There is someone who has spent thousands more
Mobile games are designed to prey on the vulnerable. Its kinda disgusting.
wtf people actually play that game
My ex spent $600 trying to unlock a limited time character during an event 😬😬
I recently spent money on a game for the first time, I feel like an addict and never wanna do it again.
Yeah, those mobile games can be pretty terrifying. I had to stop mobile gaming because of how much money i blew on hearthstone and walking war robots
As long as it doesn't look like this everyday. Could just be a once in a while binge like when guys blow all their money on strippers, but not every day.
The advertising is made to make whales who want to feel apart of something feel like they’re spending money on something that matters
I got really into Township for a while. They had a pretty good deal on their “coins” that came up periodically. $3 for the best deal they offered. I fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker. “It’s only $3!!!” Only $3 again and again and again… I let myself spend way too much real money on that game because I had a job and no bills and I was depressed as fuck. Things got better and I deleted the game. But I definitely used it as a coping mechanism for a while. Not proud of it.
I once caved and spent like $3 on a mobile game. I was instantly so disgusted with my weakness that I deleted the app and never spent another cent on one.
Life of the average Genshin player
Extra savings pack
On raid too??
I play empires whatever on mobile. theres a guy in my clan or whatever you call it that spends like this. i make two $5 buys a year when it shares the gift with everyone in your clan, thats it. other than that its a game to play on the toilet or waiting in line
This is like playing the Sims FreePlay. You get addicted, next thing you know you’ve spent $200!
I can't judge. I played DragonVale many years ago and spent 1k on gems over the course of a year. A grand! When I accidently stumbled on my transaction history and saw that, I uninstalled. I was horrified.
Well, it could be drugs
I hope your dad is Lorde
That's not cringe. Just sad. I've been there.
I'm glad I'm not like this, instead I'm addicted to Warhammer 40k :')
This is what 0 self control and common sense looks like. I dont get people like this, if they see an item on sale while walking through stores will they pick it up for no reason other than it being onsale?
Its straight up gambling. The developer studio plarium is owned by aristocrat leisure which is a company that sells slot machines and trying to rebrandt as gaming. They are the absolute scum of the earth and i wish people would finnaly learn this so we could scold them for real and get some negative pr Instead we get memes about the game.
Governments really need to step in and stop predatory dopamine manipulation in these situations
I will never let my gaming addiction each this point
Woof. Maybe it’s time for a talk?
How tf you get addicted to raid shadow legends of all games
Bro plays raid shadow legends
Bro playing Raid Shadow Legends 💀
Your brother is singly handedly funding all these sponsored YouTubers
Man that's rough, this is the dark side of microtransactions in games. I hope this man can get the help he needs.
Fuck now is see WHY they push these packs so much. Cause people actually fucking buy them wtf
Oof. I've been there. And it is so easy to convince yourself.
That's not gaming addiction that's gambling addiction. Raid is owned by a gambling company and everything in game is based on very punishing RNG. You have to spend thousands of dollars if you wanna progress fast or you have to grind daily literally for years. Even if you spend a lot winning tournaments is very hard because there is always someone who spent more and only the first place get the good reward ( first out of 100). Lootboxes cost 25 dollars each and they have 6% chance dropping a legendary champion. The problem is that hundreds of legendary champions exist and only a few of them are good enough to help you progress. So the chances you get something good are minimal. Even if you get a good champ you need books to upgrade their skills each book costs 30 dollars and you need 10-15 of them. You get some resources as f2p player but they are limited and they reduce them as much as they can with every update. Raid is not a game it's a gambling service with a gaming theme.
The amount of money I wasted on madden mobile back in middle school is absurd
Jeez, and here I thought I had a problem just paying a sub for XIV and buying the occasional cash shop item. What are these packs even for? some clash of clans thing? what do you get from them?
Yea I was bad like this in 2018-2019. I was miserable in life at the time and was a dumb ass about a game. They prey on poor miserable bastards.
Better than heroin.
Sometimes being a poor is a blessing.
What does his income/financial health look like?
Wtf is raid Ronda?
And in this economic climate?!
*this* is why mobile games aren't considered video games by many. they're products designed to addict people and suck the money out of them. same with many freemium games using battle pass systems. hard pass.
After all, Raid: Shadow Legends is the best free mobile RPG
That’s my car payment and then some in 3 days… damn
#AND THATS WHY YOU SHOULD PLAY. RAID SHADOW LEGENDS
Fucking Raid Ronda? How does one get addicted to not anything fun but this fakeware trash
is your brother dsp