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lizzy-frizzle · 4 years

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I’m going to start this by saying, I have bias. Everyone does. I do not intend for this to come off as “the thing you like is bad”, but moreso “the corporation that controls the thing you like is manipulative”.

My background; I am a 26 year old trans mom, I have a history with addiction, particularly gambling, and spend most of my time playing video games. I have gone to college for about 3 years for my psychology degree, and while I do not have my degree, I have been studying psychology for roughly 12 years. This is to say, my views will reflect this background. Just because I present this information like I do, does not inherently mean I’m right, though it also doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Try to view things with a critical mind, and know that most topics have nuance.

Ok, so lootboxes, booster packs, gacha games, all of these are gambling. This is not really an argument. You are putting money into a service of sorts, and receiving a randomized result. Be that a fancy new gun, that same boring legendary you have 5 of, or that final hero you’ve been trying to collect. You don’t know the outcome before you give your money. As defined by the merriam-webster dictionary: “Gambling; the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”

You are risking your money in not getting an item you want. There are ways this is handled acceptably, and ways this is handled poorly. Gambling is also illegal to people under 21 in a lot of places, but places online aren’t quick to tell you why. I don’t have any sources because every source requires a paywall to get any information, but pulling from my own personal experience and what I learned in college, it’s because children are very impressionable. I say “I like pokemon” and suddenly my 2-year old can’t go anywhere without her pikachu. I remember distinctly playing poker with my mom and her friends when I was 12. When you normalize gambling, what it does is lower the risk aversion of gambling. You are less likely to see a threat in playing that card game, because when you are that young you have no concept of money. You don’t know what a dollar is, so why not throw it away so you can have fun. This is...I hesitate to call it fine, but it’s mostly harmless. The issue is with children and their lack of knowledge of money. When I grew up and got a job, it’s a lot harder to tell my brain, “hey, don’t spend that money, you won’t get it back and you won’t get what you want.” Because my brain just acknowledges the potential for what I want. I want to buy the booster pack so I can have the potential to get that masterpiece misty rainforest. I want to buy that diamond pack so I have the chance to get the cute hero. I want to buy that lootbox so I can get the battle rifle that does a cool effect. These are harmless concepts, but very dangerous.

Make no mistake, companies know how psychology works, and will use it to their advantage. MatPat from game theory states that companies have even go so far as to have systems in place that change the odds as you’re losing, and monitor your skill level to put you up against harder opponents, to see the better weapons and go, “Oh I want that!” and entice you to buy more lootboxes. As it turns out I found an article covering what he was talking about, Activision had actually acquired a patent to arrange matchmaking to do just that [x], and the article says it’s not in place, but my trust in companies is not high enough to actually believe them.(honestly, matpat made a 2-part video series about lootboxes, and I’d recommend watching them)

So, companies are trying to manipulate you to buy more gambling products. There’s proof of it. It’s also more blatantly obvious in games like Magic the Gathering, where they release fancier versions of cards at rarer probabilities. To better explain it, from a collector’s standpoint, you want the fancy card cause it has value, it has value because it’s rare, rarer than the other versions, so if you’re on the lower end of the income ladder you buy a pack, or two. After all, you could get lucky and get it. On the higher end of the income ladder, you buy the card outright and hoard it. Maybe sell it off later if you notice the price goes down. From a player perspective, you see a card is being used by tournament players, you want to win more games, so you want those cards, which encourages you to buy products and try to get those cards. That’s predatory behavior. It’s predatory from the company’s perspective because that poor person might not be able to afford the card outright, but $5-$10 isn’t much, plus they always entice you with that Chance. They also further this desire for the cards by making it limited runs, such as the secret lair packs, if there’s a low amount purchased and it’s made to order, or worse, if they limit the order capabilities themselves, that drives up the value, and provides further incentive to buy the cards and packs. This not only creates an impossible barrier between the poor and the rich, but also heavily encourages people buy their gambling pack than people would have in other conditions.

For the record, I love magic the gathering, I’m not saying the game itself is bad, this is just a VERY predatory marketing tactic.

Let’s switch gears. Gacha games. I play AFKArena, because like I said, I have a gambling addiction and cannot stop myself. In AFKArena, you collect heroes, and battle with them in various ways. If you collect more of similar heroes you can rank them up. If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, it sounds like this is pretty common for gacha games. So what makes it bad. In AFKArena you use diamonds to summon heroes, now, you can acquire diamonds by beating specific story chapters, logging in every day, random limited time events, or paying for them with real money. AFKArena hero drops don’t seem that bad compared to the free diamond amount they dish out, which has resulted in me not spending all that much money on it, all things considered ($20 over 2 years). I believe that for a mobile game like this, that’s fair. I get way more enjoyment out of the game than I do most $60 games, so it balances out. However, this isn’t the case for every gacha game, and my trust in companies, as previously stated, is very low. The issue lies in them making the rates for good heroes so low that you HAVE to spend money on the game to really get over a roadblock of sorts. I do think that there is this issue in my game and I just didn’t notice it, someone with a lower tolerance or patience might absolutely have the incentive to drop hundreds of dollars on the game over a month. There are people of all different flavours, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing these topics, just because a marketing technique doesn’t work on you, does not mean it doesn’t work on anyone. After all, they have those $100 packs for a reason, you might not be that reason but someone is. That’s predatory.

I feel like I’ve gotten off track, let’s get back on the rails. Where was...gambling...predatory…ah, kids. So my biggest issue, is that Magic the Gathering is marketed towards 13 year olds. Not directly, but the packs say 13+. AFKArena and any mobile game for that matter, can be downloaded by anyone with a phone for free, with minimal mention that there’s microtransactions. AAA title games like Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc. are probably the worst offenders. A kid spent $16,000 of his parents money on fortnite in-game purchases, and that’s not the only time this has happened [x] [x] . More often than not, what happens is, the kid wants to play a video game, like halo on xbox, or destiny, or something, they ask their mom for their credit card, and the system saves it. I mentioned before that kids do not have a concept of money or its value, so giving kids unlimited access to the credit card is going to result in this kind of thing happening. I’m not blaming the parents for not being hypervigilant, sometimes you are really busy, or disabled, or whatever the reason, and you don’t notice the system just saved your card. I’m not blaming the kids cause their brains are literally underdeveloped. I blame the corporations, because they make the process as easy as possible to prey on kids and people with gambling addictions. (as a personal anecdote, I found that if I want a magic card in MtG:O, I’m way less likely to try and buy it if I have to get up and get my card, I’d recommend not saving your card if you suffer from gambling/addiction problems)

So after all of this evidence, how can anyone still view these things as anything but predatory? The answer is simple. You’re told they aren’t. Businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on really good marketing, and public relations. I tried to google why gambling is illegal for people under 21, and got nothing, I got a couple forums asking the question, and a couple religious sites saying it’ll make them degenerates. I try looking up sources to prove the psychology behind these concepts, but they are locked behind paywall after paywall after paywall. Businesses and capitalism has made it so incredibly hard to discover the truth and get information you need, and it’s on purpose. They want you to trust that that booster pack is a good idea. They want you to spend money on lootboxes (look at all the youtubers that shill out for raid shadow legends, or other gambling games to their super young fanbase [x]). They want you to lower your guard and go, “well, it’s a video game, how can it be predatory?” “it’s a card game with cute creatures on it, surely it’s not that bad”

But it is. So why did I make this post? I dunno, my brain really latched onto the topic, I see so many people enjoying gacha games, but I’m worried that it’s going to ruin lives...I just want everyone to be informed and critical of what is going on.

#gambling addiction tw #addiction tw #this is probably a bad idea to post knowing how this site operates #but it matters to me

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vikas-room · 4 years

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rant about the matpat thing or whatever

i think my issue with the matpat finding omori thing is that he's gonna equate it to "another undertale!!" (or earthbound which he already has) and make a super lazilly done theory (his phoenix wright and hollow knight videos the second of which he publically apologized for because it was such a trainwreck) that treads over already discussed theories in some desperate attempt to add something new to the story side of theories instead of bringing something new to the table.

but everyone talking about how "oh no the fandom is going to be overrun with kids!!! now it's going to be toxic and annoying!!" Please Shut The Fuck Up.

yeah a bad fandom can ruin a game or show for you but matpat's fanbase is almost entirely children and like... that's not going to ruin much.

like what are you people afraid of? shipping? bad fanart? gacha life? that's not "cringe" that's children expressing themselves and trying to contribute to something they love.

we have things like kpop and dreamsmp as examples of overzealous fandoms but honestly looking back the worst things to come out of undertale were just results of everything the fandom did being seen through the lense of "cringe culture" when it was just people making aus and doing their own thing

sorry im just tired of everyone going "oh no the game is doomed!!"

matpat made a hollow knight theory and nothing about the fandom changed

yes that was years after the game came out but there's lots of kids in the hollow knight fandom already making what some might consider "cringe content"

let people have fun dammit

uh yknow within reason im not condoning p*do or anything but that should be common sense

but like seriously who cares if kids enter the fandom (though now that i mention it i feel like the heavy themes are a bit much for a lot of young children but the content warning's are plainly visible)

pretty much, uh, matpat please add content warning to your theories and also maybe make one that's worth watching

and to the omori fanbase... just... idk chill maybe. this isn't really as big and/or bad as you think it is.

#rant #long post #let people have fun dammit #omori #tagging bc I Give Up

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luwupercal · 3 years

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the primarchs and the videogame i want to see them stream on twitch.tv

lion eljonson: dark souls 1

fulgrim: literally fucking anything with ferrus but i kinda want to see him play crusader kings 3. im a moderator on his twitch chat and discord server

perturabo: i want to watch him dead-eyedly nail the hardest rhythm heaven remix theyve got on tap and not even acknowledge the 600 dollar donations he gets w the entire chat going pogchamp. i also want him to react to jerma rat movie live

khan: not quite a videogame but recently i caught a cr1tikal stream where the guy just kinda watched internet historian videos about PR disasters and came out of them rooting for some guy who was an absolute chad and i think khan would be extremely fucking fun at this

leman russ: nier automata. cant explain it i just think hed enjoy moderately weeby videogames of that tier. he does like that stream matpat did of earthbound calling it “undertale zero!!!” but its with drakengard and he keeps making the chucky cheese eye stare face whenever the heroes talk about eating babies or whatever

rogal dorn: [looks you dead in the eye] kerbal space program. i’d be down to watch him play getting over it also but i think the stream would end up with a nc17 rating. if you dont understand this joke dont worry about it

(bonus: i want rogal dorn and perturabo to be forced to play mystery visual novels together. ace attorney, the 999 series and danganronpa specifically. in that order. i want dorn to react stone facedly to nagito komaeda)

konrad curze: Pathologic (Russian: Мор. Утопия, tr. Mor. Utopiya, IPA: [ˈmor ‖ ʊˈtopʲɪjə], lit. 'Pestilence. Utopia') is a 2005 role-playing and survival game developed by Russian studio Ice-Pick Lodge. The game was released in Russia by Buka Entertainment in June 2005, followed by a localised English release from G2 Games in 2006. An updated version, Pathologic Classic HD, was developed by General Arcade, published by Gambitious Digital Entertainment, and released in October 2015. A remake was developed by Ice-Pick Lodge using the Unity game engine and released as Pathologic 2 in May 2019 by tinyBuild.

sanguinius: any multiplayer videogame as a salty healer

ferrus manus: there are so many videogames i want to see ferrus manus play but the thing i most, in all my life, want to watch him do live on twitch.tv is browse the skyrim nexus female companions tag. alternatively i want him to play pathologic with konrad or mario party with fulgrim. fuck i actually kinda want to watch him play pathologic by himself. or Loop Hero. goddamnit. i want to watch him play bideo games. i also want him and fulgrim to do a Monster Factory type series and/or play increasingly godawfully-modded skyrim

angron: aminal crossimg... pleese... he gets raymond as a starter villager. hes always threatening him with an axe but then goes ha ha ha just kidding

mortarion: i am genuinely blanking on what mortarion could stream on twitch tv but i know in my heart of hearts hes an envtuber which is what really matters

magnus: league of legends with voice chat on that slowly turns into political debate. gacha whales live. 5D chess with multiverse time travel speedrunner

horus: he only plays shooters and its usually the flavor of the day like... apex legends type stuff, dips into fortnite/pubg type battle royales and valorant/overwatch type hero shooters, got his start on tf2. but hes got this miniseries where he plays slime rancher and its the funniest shit ever

lorgar: disco elysium (to watch the world burn), fallout 1, planescape torment, a bunch of visual novels like just throw higurashi at his face and go, maybe even put him in the pathologic squad, mother 3... i also want him to play mario party w Leman and Magnus because again watching the world burn

vulkan & corvus corax: they have an SMP server and their channels are genuinely extremely underrated. they have a running gag about treating dream the minecraft guy as their esteemed colleague but in reality corvus is starting to crave spilling his blood a little. corvus moonlights as an envtuber and vulkan does the best irl streams youve ever seen

alpharius: paint drying

#primarch listicles #holy fuck this was lost media until today when someone randomly liked it and i could tag it appropriately #thank you tumblr user rudyismycat

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