I truly hate the F2P mobile gaming industry. Clone a quality (and reasonably priced) PC game, add dark patterns and microtransactions, then make money hand over fist by taking advantage of people like this.
FOMO marketing, gambling mechanics, and unrepresentative ads really need to get self-regulated by the app stores, otherwise it's going to become necessary to legislate this.
ActionHank · 8m ago
The online gambling industry sees people spend huge amounts of time and effort on regulations and their requirements.
F2P games need the same regulation, if not more given that kids are targeted.
stewx · 37m ago
I wonder what would happen if the app stores posted info on the app page like "the top 1% players of this game spent an average on $5,000 on it last year". Would that do anything to help people avoid getting into this form of quasi-gambling?
Aurornis · 31m ago
> like "the top 1% players of this game spent an average on $5,000 on it last year"
The top 1% don’t spend nearly that much. The number of people spending eye-popping amounts is relatively small. You have to get deep into the long tail before it gets into the hundreds or thousands.
Posting these numbers might have the opposite effect: Players who spend a lot of money want to be at the top of leaderboards. If they saw what the 1% were spending they might convince themselves that not only is it okay to spend that much, but that they need to spend even more.
juujian · 34m ago
Except both apple and Google earn a cut on revenue so they don't have any interest in stopping the money flow.
abakker · 36m ago
I love this idea. I think it would be useful for all app categories, not just games.
Aurornis · 32m ago
> I’ve struggled with gambling issues in the past, and the more I look at this, the more it feels like the same pattern playing out again
This is a common theme: Someone has a recognized gambling problem, but they don’t realize that a game like this is feeding their gambling habit.
A similar thing happens with stock trading apps like RobinHood: People who know they have a gambling addiction don’t recognize (or won’t admit) that their usage patterns are just gambling in a different format. These are the stories that end up on /r/wallstreetbets where someone traded their $30K account down to $20 through options trading before they admitted that they had a problem.
bayindirh · 36m ago
I think Apple Arcade is a good compromise for high quality gaming access.
In game purchases are banned. Games can't track you as heavily, so they are lighter on your device. They are some genuinely good games, and you pay with your wallet and play time.
I don't like ads and to be nudged to purchase stuff to be able to kill some time. Game developers need a roof, the ability to pay their bills and eat.
Also, it's a universal membership. macOS and iOS games are all included.
nlitened · 39m ago
Such people are called “whales” in mobile gaming industry, they pay all the game developers’ salaries, they are the reason for many private jets.
tyleo · 33m ago
I feel like we’re in an era of dark monetization patterns. This “whale” monetization reminds me of online advertising where if you aren’t paying you’re the product.
It isn’t quite the same but it’s something like, “if you aren’t paying, you’re incentivizing whales.”
Underneath all the darkness a business has to make money. People are voting with time and money that the whale strategy is optimal just like they vote with time and money that advertising is optimal.
I don’t know what to do about this all. It seems like it’s just a shitty fact of human nature.
fuzzy_biscuit · 45m ago
I played this game briefly and jumped before I got hooked. It's a game of progressively longer timers, resource crunches and anything to make you feel stuck so you will spend. What's more, it's not fun, imho.
It still shocks me how we all look for time sinks when we have so much we could be doing. I'm no better.
iammjm · 28m ago
Also speedrunning through life like that, the only life we will ever get. "killing time" = killing yourself
I had a similar experience on a smaller scale (but it was huge to me). Spent around $300 on a mobile game that was on top the charts at the time. Before that I didn't think I was the type of person who could fall prey to such a thing. A bigger mistake was thinking that there was "a type of person". (Or maybe there is and I'm in denial!)
It was humbling to realize how warped and blind I became.
Had to google it, but the game was Game of War: Fire Age. At the time they had a gambling mechanic where you'd buy chest with say 1000 gems and, for a time, it would be guaranteed to grant you well over 1000 gems. That hooked me and I felt really smart. Then they set the real plan into action --gradually and silently nerfing the payouts. And I played right into it, spending a little more and a little more to keep up. This was 2018, or so, I think.
So, for me, it was my pride and ego combined with seeing a rise in leaderboards and esteem in my clan that hooked me.
The core game mechanic was one where everything you built up would be utterly destroyed by someone much stronger every day or two, but you'd be left with just enough that you felt like you could rebuild and get stronger. And just another IAP or two would prevent it from happening again. It would help, but it only meant that you were an even juicier target for an even bigger whale.
The game was slick, but not too slick. It had some rough UI elements which perversely made me less alert to how well-engineered the IAP psychology was.
Ekaros · 20m ago
And this is why even with all the calls on gambling I hate Valve's model on CS2 and TF2 lot less. At least you might be able to extract some money in one form or other. Instead of all of it being just gone.
progx · 51m ago
Unbelievable, but such guys exist in nearly every game.
SilverBirch · 41m ago
Not just such a guy exists. The business model of these games almost totally rely on these people to be profitable. When you spend any time thinking about this at all it's totally unethical. It would be trivial for them to put a simple spend cap in. Sorry, no matter how into this game you are you can't spend more than $1,000 in a year, or $100 in a day. That would make them tonnes of money and prevent most people making life changing mistakes. But they don't do that because their entire business plan relies on getting hundreds of thousands out of these players.
gorbachev · 50m ago
pay to win is cancer.
swader999 · 43m ago
Clickbait. I thought he was getting ready for The Day After Tomorrow.
koakuma-chan · 1h ago
What is special about Whiteout Survival?
mustyoshi · 44m ago
It's not a bad game, I played for about a year in a relatively well run clan. Never spent any money on it though.
close04 · 52m ago
It's the typical extremely biased mobile game (Frostpunk clone in this case), where the imbalance can only be fixed by spending a lot of money.
It's counterintuitive but the article almost reads like a promotion piece. The game is so good it can get you to spend that much money. But most gamers wouldn't fall for this would they? Maybe some of them try. If a few people hear of the game and play it because of the shocking title and curiosity that's a win.
koakuma-chan · 39m ago
But is it actually that good? If it is, it may be worth it. I assume it's one of those games where you need to upgrade buildings, and it takes longer and longer? In that case I am disappointed.
aeve890 · 21m ago
>But is it actually that good? If it is, it may be worth it
TF? Worth $31k? Nice try centurygames
monero-xmr · 38m ago
So many criticize gambling when the same patterns pop up in so many other places. I would argue gambling is far more ethical considering the odds are posted and the systems are regulated, with the ability to self exclude.
F2P games and loot boxes are just unregulated black-box gambling. And beyond that, the people who implement dark patterns in so many things, would certainly increase their morality if they switched to building slot machines. Terrible
api · 48m ago
It seems like the mobile ecosystem is the most user-exploitative of all software ecosystems.
Outside apps for accessing useful services or doing work, everything seems designed to addict, manipulate, or drain bank accounts: most games, social media doom-scrollers, payday loan in your pocket apps, crypto and stock trading apps that are built like casino games on purpose, and now sports betting.
Everything is also loaded with as much spyware as possible, and given that it's a phone and users say 'yes' to permissions it can often do very invasive things like track the user's location in real time.
jajko · 43m ago
> Outside apps for accessing useful services or doing work, everything seems designed to addict, manipulate, or drain bank accounts: most games, social media doom-scrollers, payday loan in your pocket apps, crypto and stock trading apps that are built like casino games on purpose, and now sports betting.
You just described the work of a better half of this forum, don't expect much sympathies. Of course most will say they don't / didn't work on the evil part like it somehow actually matters.
pengaru · 15m ago
Last I checked it's trivial to not spend your time and/or money on such stupid apps.
checks his pixel 8a yep, there's no games installed here
The amount of people in both this and the reddit thread treating the poster like some minor without responsibility for their actions is pathetic.
This is a grown ass adult pissing their time and money away on mobile games. Then when they realize how totally reckless they've been, seek a f*cking refund? And people are calling for laws protecting this grown ass adult from themselves? We're clearly not talking about some eight year old people.
Quit expecting some nanny state to do your adulting for you and grow the fuck up.
It doesn't have to be either-or. We can expect grown adults to control their behavior, while at the same time deciding as a society that there are some industries/products that are harmful enough, and without any beneficial effects to offset that harm, that we just don't want them around tempting people who might have a weakness for them.
We already do that with lots of things, from hard drugs to prostitution to owning your own nuclear weapons. Some of us may disagree with some of those laws, but unless you're the most extreme libertarian who ever doffed a fedora, there's probably something that you'd say shouldn't be accessible to every random adult capable of poking at a phone.
FOMO marketing, gambling mechanics, and unrepresentative ads really need to get self-regulated by the app stores, otherwise it's going to become necessary to legislate this.
F2P games need the same regulation, if not more given that kids are targeted.
The top 1% don’t spend nearly that much. The number of people spending eye-popping amounts is relatively small. You have to get deep into the long tail before it gets into the hundreds or thousands.
Posting these numbers might have the opposite effect: Players who spend a lot of money want to be at the top of leaderboards. If they saw what the 1% were spending they might convince themselves that not only is it okay to spend that much, but that they need to spend even more.
This is a common theme: Someone has a recognized gambling problem, but they don’t realize that a game like this is feeding their gambling habit.
A similar thing happens with stock trading apps like RobinHood: People who know they have a gambling addiction don’t recognize (or won’t admit) that their usage patterns are just gambling in a different format. These are the stories that end up on /r/wallstreetbets where someone traded their $30K account down to $20 through options trading before they admitted that they had a problem.
In game purchases are banned. Games can't track you as heavily, so they are lighter on your device. They are some genuinely good games, and you pay with your wallet and play time.
I don't like ads and to be nudged to purchase stuff to be able to kill some time. Game developers need a roof, the ability to pay their bills and eat.
Also, it's a universal membership. macOS and iOS games are all included.
It isn’t quite the same but it’s something like, “if you aren’t paying, you’re incentivizing whales.”
Underneath all the darkness a business has to make money. People are voting with time and money that the whale strategy is optimal just like they vote with time and money that advertising is optimal.
I don’t know what to do about this all. It seems like it’s just a shitty fact of human nature.
It still shocks me how we all look for time sinks when we have so much we could be doing. I'm no better.
https://www.centurygames.com/games/
It was humbling to realize how warped and blind I became.
Had to google it, but the game was Game of War: Fire Age. At the time they had a gambling mechanic where you'd buy chest with say 1000 gems and, for a time, it would be guaranteed to grant you well over 1000 gems. That hooked me and I felt really smart. Then they set the real plan into action --gradually and silently nerfing the payouts. And I played right into it, spending a little more and a little more to keep up. This was 2018, or so, I think.
So, for me, it was my pride and ego combined with seeing a rise in leaderboards and esteem in my clan that hooked me.
The core game mechanic was one where everything you built up would be utterly destroyed by someone much stronger every day or two, but you'd be left with just enough that you felt like you could rebuild and get stronger. And just another IAP or two would prevent it from happening again. It would help, but it only meant that you were an even juicier target for an even bigger whale.
The game was slick, but not too slick. It had some rough UI elements which perversely made me less alert to how well-engineered the IAP psychology was.
It's counterintuitive but the article almost reads like a promotion piece. The game is so good it can get you to spend that much money. But most gamers wouldn't fall for this would they? Maybe some of them try. If a few people hear of the game and play it because of the shocking title and curiosity that's a win.
TF? Worth $31k? Nice try centurygames
F2P games and loot boxes are just unregulated black-box gambling. And beyond that, the people who implement dark patterns in so many things, would certainly increase their morality if they switched to building slot machines. Terrible
Outside apps for accessing useful services or doing work, everything seems designed to addict, manipulate, or drain bank accounts: most games, social media doom-scrollers, payday loan in your pocket apps, crypto and stock trading apps that are built like casino games on purpose, and now sports betting.
Everything is also loaded with as much spyware as possible, and given that it's a phone and users say 'yes' to permissions it can often do very invasive things like track the user's location in real time.
You just described the work of a better half of this forum, don't expect much sympathies. Of course most will say they don't / didn't work on the evil part like it somehow actually matters.
checks his pixel 8a yep, there's no games installed here
The amount of people in both this and the reddit thread treating the poster like some minor without responsibility for their actions is pathetic.
This is a grown ass adult pissing their time and money away on mobile games. Then when they realize how totally reckless they've been, seek a f*cking refund? And people are calling for laws protecting this grown ass adult from themselves? We're clearly not talking about some eight year old people.
Quit expecting some nanny state to do your adulting for you and grow the fuck up.
I'll defer to the late George Carlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pz8jO2Sht0&t=460s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leWjdWUR_KI&t=85s
We already do that with lots of things, from hard drugs to prostitution to owning your own nuclear weapons. Some of us may disagree with some of those laws, but unless you're the most extreme libertarian who ever doffed a fedora, there's probably something that you'd say shouldn't be accessible to every random adult capable of poking at a phone.