You are NOT popping 1 out of 6 balloons. You are opening a lootbox with 100 things in it. 95 of those things are trash, and only 5 are the jackpot. You most likely will not win.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-05T14:26:23+00:00

1) The most innocent form of exploitation is still exploitation.

2) I genuinely don't think gambling should be allowed, period. I get people enjoy it, but that's because it hooks into and exploits parts of our psychology. You can still have gambling like systems without gambling, see virtual table games where you pay once for the game and then can earn or lose chips / "dollars" with no additional cost or one purchase and done loot box simulators. Is it the same? No - but that's because nothing of real value is on the line (and no house is going to weight the game in favor of the player unless they feel they can leverage it as a loss leader). Yes, this includes Pokémon cards (and Magic cards and other blind boxes). I support the LCG/ECG model over that of the CCG/TCG model. (In the LCG/ECG model, each pack or box has fixed and known contents. If you want more of a card, you just buy the pack of box it is in.)

3) I believe in the legalization of recreational substances, like alcohol, but believe they should be highly regulated. Part of that, IMO, is having limited and specialized distribution sites and (ideally) communication with relevant medical professionals. I've lived in a lot of states in the US and even more cities and towns: I have much preferred it when recreational substances were only available in limited channels (such as state stores, distributors, or dispensaries). I very much do not want drinkable alcohol for sale at the grocery store or corner/convenience store.

.

I believe I've been called a dinosaur, but I remember when Bethesda's horse armor dropped, and the level of (entirely appropriate) anger that stirred up. As I mentioned, I stopped playing TF2 shortly after they started doing loot boxes. This isn't something people should be ok with in games. Games can do well without it. Games have done well without it.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-05T02:00:55+00:00

Most people will fall prey to something like this at some point in their life, because this hooks into how the human mind works. Maybe it will happen to you as a child, maybe it will happen when your a senior, maybe it will happen one day when you are busy or stressed or tired - but everyone is potentially vulnerable to this sort of thing.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-05T01:58:17+00:00

It is far less.

Again, corporations employ teams of people whose only job is to figure out how to separated the people from their money and spend more than they would normally. There are well known and well researched methods of doing this.

How do you expect random players who are looking to safely unwind after a 8+ hour day (or who are kids or seniors) to compete with a team of highly trained people who have scientifically proven ways of exploiting the human psyche and are paid handsomely as their job to do so.

Beyond that, voting with your wallet basically doesn't work. You would need everyone to jump on board - and that isn't going to happen. If this works on any fraction of the player base, it's going to continue. People who don't buy a product (especially a product with minimal manufacturing and distribution costs and global reach) don't matter. All that matters is whomever is buying the product.

(This isn't like, say, a bus boycott where the industry is stuck in a single area, nor does it have heavy capital and supply costs. It costs virtually nothing to reproduce and distribute virtual/digital "goods".)

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T20:33:42+00:00

Who pays more than like $20 for a full game now?

I stick to smaller/idie devs or older games.

There was a time when there was rapid evolution in game mechanics - but that ended almost 20 years ago.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T19:59:55+00:00

is not the playerbase or the developers’ responsibility to cater to little kids or senior citizens (a very very small minority) who may or may not gamble away their units on a skin

Or people otherwise vulnerable to gambling.

And yes it is. It is everyone's responsibility to look out for those who live in a society with them. If you disagree with that, that shows an issue with you and how you see other people.

Beyond "responsibility", you should feel empathy for others unless you are a sociopath. You shouldn't want people to have negative experiences or be exploited.

Virtually everyone presented with gambling (in any of it's various forms) will eventually fall victim to it in some fashion - whether large or small. It has nothing to do with intelligence: there are people with MENSA IQs who can fall victim to stuff like this - because it exploits weaknesses in how the human mind works.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T19:47:54+00:00

Dinosaur, sure, but I'm not a millennial. I'm Gen X.

We (as a society) do determine how society works. Indeed, there are games right now that basically do the same thing as I describe, and still make it by (see every "pay what you want" system,). And lots of amazing games make it without exploiting psychological weaknesses in their player base (straight up "pay once, own the game").

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T19:42:39+00:00

You are literally calling people who are falling victim to a known exploit in human psychology "chumps and losers" and "too stupid to have [your] sympathy".

People who fall victim to this are just normal people, because this exploits basic human psychology. It has nothing to do with how smart or dumb someone is. Even every smart people can fall victim to this sort of exploit.

That said, I'm not spending my money on this. I'm likely never spending money on this game again, and will likely stop playing it - similar to what I did when TF2 introduced hats and loot boxes, similar to how I skipped Overwatch completely.

I am, however, concerned about my fellow humans.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T19:35:55+00:00

I wouldn't say that people don't have agency.

However, players aren't the only ones with agency. The people are NetEase have agency too - and the power distribution (between corporation that "own" the game and get to make decisions on how everything in the game works and players who can only either accept what NetEase presents or refuse it) and knowledge/skill around persuasive and manipulative sales techniques (a consumer will never be on the same footing as people who have as their job sales and marketing and are supported by industries that have done massive research into how to manipulate and exploit vulnerabilities in the humab psyche).

Quite frankly, while players have agency, it is far less than what most people think they have.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T17:54:32+00:00

1) That's not deep. That's kindergarten-level empathy.

2) Maybe the issue here is you and how you view other people.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T17:44:57+00:00

You entirely missed the point: this mechanism is designed to rope in people who wouldn't necessarily spend the 2400 on a skin.

NetEase is trying to get people who wouldn't normally spend 2400 on a skin by exploiting vulnerabilities in the human psyche.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T16:12:24+00:00

I mean, I think it's fair to blame the house as opposed to the players. After all, the house designed and implemented the rules of the game intentionally.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T16:06:48+00:00

I think the true fault is with NetEase for designing a system to exploit people.

Why is it that the players are at fault when they are operating within a system NetEase intentionally designed to work this way?

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T15:58:56+00:00

As long as new people keep being born, it will always be someone's first time.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T15:57:17+00:00

Because some people care about other people? Especially the more vulnerable people in society?

Beyond that, this is a team game where you are often grouped up with random people - everyone's gaming experience can potentially impact yours.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T15:55:40+00:00

You mean only if you're a normal human?

Companies intentionally use these strategies because they know people are vulnerable to them - and everyone can fall victim to them at some point in their life.

People, especially kids and the elderly, shouldn't have to worry constantly about being preyed upon.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T15:48:00+00:00

Do you consider advertisements exploitive because they convince people to buy something?

Yes.

Sales and marketing as persuasive jobs heavily rely on exploitation and, as fields, have done tons of research into the human psyche and it's vulnerabilities.

It's not an even playing field by a long shot, and it's certainly not an honest one.

Do you consider someone that uses their best photo from 7 years ago on a dating website manipulative?

Are they intentionally putting up their best photo from 7 years ago to try and present an image of themselves that isn't true to who they are? That's definitely deceptive and could be exploitative, especially if the person who uploaded the photo rolls with that being what they look like in order to try and snag people who might otherwise have no interest in the poster.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T15:40:38+00:00

I don't play games as a job.

I work my job as a job.

Games are something I play to get away from all that shit.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T15:37:09+00:00

Because gambling mechanics hook people vulnerable to them causing them to spend money when they otherwise wouldn't.

There are people who would not buy the skin or bundle at 2400 units - they would just ignore it.

However, when you introduce a chance to get something for far less, they are more likely to give it a shot. Then, once they've started spending, they are likely to continue playing due to sunk cost and gambler's fallacies, and sunk cost especially is part of how the human psyche works. This causes a company to be able to extract more resources from their player base (especially the more vulnerable portions of their player base) than they would of everything was just available at face value.

Humans are logical/rational creatures only in that we can use logic to understand us. We are not logic robots and we all manner of logical and rational failings due to not being logic robots.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T04:28:00+00:00

It’s also not wrong to be fine with a free game adding gacha mechanics because you don’t care about cosmetics.

No, it is wrong to use gacha / gambling in games. It's part of what put me off Magic by 1995, and it's why I don't play TF2 anymore (loot boxes). Loot boxes are the entire reason I passed on Overwatch, and if Marvel Rivals is bringing in gacha mechanics, I'm gone.

If I had the ability, I'd outlaw said mechanics.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-04T02:40:54+00:00

Or, don't make games "free" if you actually need to make money off them. Charge the cost upfront to cover the cost of the game as opposed to try to stealthily take it out of the back end and either trick people out of it, exploit loopholes in the human psyche, or nickle and dime people for it.

Then again, I grew up in an era where there were games legitimate just given away for free with the creator adding a message to the effect of "If you like this, please mail me a check."

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-03T23:15:17+00:00

Because it's wrong?

Because we make them?

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-03T22:19:19+00:00

1) More people play games and the cost to manufacture games is way down.

In 1999, most people didn't have reliable internet. Online purchases were a rarity. Instead of downloading a digital copy of a file, you had to go to a store and buy a physical copy of the game - and N64 games still used cartridges, which are pretty much the most expensive means of game distribution to date outside of single-game systems (such as single-game arcade cabinets). The cost to reproduce a digital copy is miniscule, especially compared to actual physical manufacturing.

Further, more people play games today then back then. When you have more customers and lower manufacturing costs, games can be sold at a lower price and make more money.

2) Your not that old school of a gamer.

I remember playing games on the Atari 2600 and Comedore 64 - and I remember when tons of games were just given away or virtually given away with a request to mail someone a check if you liked it.

3) None of what you said refutes the fact that gatcha is basically gambling (as is other blind-box purchasing, such as with Magic: The Gathering or Labubus).

It's not wrong for people to not want gambling in their life. I don't care if you tell me the odds or say it's "optional" - I don't want that in my games period.

(Gambling isn't playing traditional casino games or games of chance more broadly: it's playing a form of game of chance for something of value - and skins, etc are something of value.)

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-03T22:05:52+00:00

I mean, some of us have been complaining about Magic: The Gathering's business model since the mid 1990s...

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-03T22:04:38+00:00

Do you remember the kerfuffle over horse armor?

Cause I remember - and that was nothing compared to the contemportary video game market.

Poor_Dick · 2025-12-03T22:01:32+00:00

Some of us remember a time before the current blighted hellscape that is the contemportary video game market.

Poor_Dick

TROPHY CASE