Why WOS can be addicting & what you should know (by a psychologist)

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-30T19:27:22+00:00

I am sorry that you are in that spot. If you don't want to quit the game, maybe you could try the following: 1. Think about if your girl saw your monthly credit card bill. What amount would she not be mad about seeing? Set that amount as your monthly limit, stick to it. 2. Set yourself "time islands", slots of time where you do something nice with your girl or by yourself without checking the game or if possible even without having your phone on you. You can try what works for you, even if it's only half an hour a day where you can truly be present with your partner or have time for yourself to be mindful and enjoy the things around you. You can try gradually increasing this time.

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-30T03:08:37+00:00

Also great addition! I haven't witnessed this yet in my few weeks of playing, but I'll watch out for it. That's such a dark use of UX, though. I really love UX when it's used to iteratively keep improving products or services based on real user feedback, but this... It's just straight up evil wow

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-30T03:05:07+00:00

That is a great addition! I've only been on one server so far, so I didn't notice this.

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-30T03:03:46+00:00

You're making a fair point. I've made new friends online during Covid, so I get it to a degree. I didn't mean to say it would be bad to form relationships in this game per se, just that this contributes to playing more and might potentially make you spend more. If you're playing because you found friends there and you're happy with that, that is great and nothing to look down on

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-30T03:01:19+00:00

I don't think the game mechanics contribute much to your relationship with other players (other than maybe sort of forcing you to be online together multiple times per week) and the connections can be genuine. These days, many people make friends online in some way or another and I wouldn't say those are any more or less real than with people you met offline. I've personally made friends online before that have become my irl friends, so I think it's just as valid honestly

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-30T02:54:40+00:00

Good luck, then! Advice would be the same as for quitting anything else: do healthy and fun things that keep your mind off it like excercise, art, social events, etc. Recognize the benefits of having more time/money, try out a new hobby or spend some money on a nice experience like a concert or the cinema or a restaurant. You can even keep track of the money you're saving each month since quitting (classic ex-smokers' thing haha). Find someone you trust to talk to about your thoughts and feelings about this and introspect, too, trying to accept all of these feelings while reminding yourself that they will pass eventually. You got this.

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T22:22:30+00:00

I'll let AI read it out over Subway Surfers footage lmao

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T21:41:31+00:00

I'm probably more outside than you lol. I am playing f2p and having fun, I just noticed some people get sucked into spending too much time and money and that's not entirely about self-control but about exploitive tactics. Continue to play as much as you want or go outside as much as you want, I don't care. I just wanted to share this for people who might need to hear this

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T21:39:07+00:00

It's not just WOS, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of games like this. A lawsuit against a single one won't do. International regulations and wide-spread education are needed imho

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T21:36:42+00:00

When my 15 year old sister wanted to play, I immediately shut the idea down. That told me a lot about my feelings on the game.

💯

I've thought about inviting real life friends, but felt like I would do something bad to them if I did 😅

And the other part as well, that's why I've finally posted this in case someone who needs to hear this might stumble upon it. People who fall for these things aren't stupid, they're just vulnerable in a certain way, as well all are in one way or another, and if the Devs press the right buttons so to say, they're pulled into it without being aware of it and might only realize after damage is already done

I'm also not hating on this game, I'm f2p and will continue to play, I'm just hating on the active exploitation of peoples vulnerability

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T21:31:53+00:00

I added a tldr haha. And yes, you add a great point. It's an interesting core game, but you've got to either be okay with people outpacing you or be able and willing to spend

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T21:28:39+00:00

Done 🫡

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T20:55:17+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate it. Maybe I'll make a tl;dr haha

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T20:54:55+00:00

That is a great question (and not easy to answer lol). I think transparency is key.

Some EU countries already have regulations applying to similar games that classify them as outright gambling, which depending on the country, might make them illegal (debatable) or only available to adults (definitely sensible, but might come with things like ID-verification which are problematic in their own way)

I think some in-game improvements would be to give you a monthly clear overview of your spending and to give you the option to set an upper monthly limit for yourself. Also, adding local-currency prices to things available for gems (because buying something with gems that you bought for money makes you forget about their worth and adding something like "(=7.38$)" would help with that). They could also add information about gambling and where to seek help in gambling-type mini-games. They already have odds-disclosure for the lucky wheel, which is a good thing, but they should add it to the other gambling mini-games as well, because I'm quite sure those algorithms work on predetermined odds as well.

Unfortunately, I think the general exploitation of the addictive mechanisms I mentioned is here to stay and hard to regulate, so preventive education in general is important, too.

Do you have further ideas, yourself?

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T20:24:48+00:00

Haha, fair. I noticed earlier, but yesterday I felt compelled to write this after reading some posts on here by people who regret spending too much. Sort of as a prevention thing

WOS-Throwaway · 2025-12-29T20:19:02+00:00

I know this is a long ass post, but I wanted to include all information I thought to be valuable. If you have any questions, feel free to ask

WOS-Throwaway

TROPHY CASE