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Comment by adanto6840 | Hacker News Reader

This type of game monetization essentially equates to slot machines with no monetary reward possible -- but it's otherwise nearly the exact same thing, and it's intentionally engineered to be that way. I'm an indie game dev and I really hate that the industry has become this way.

I also am upset that nearly all sports franchise games have become solely micro-transaction driven (ie Madden, Nascar, etc).

I definitely will do everything I can to prevent my kids from falling into games with these types of 'reward' systems -- and I'll personally only be making games if I'm able to do so without resorting to slot machine monetization tactics. Once it gets to the point that there's no other way to monetize, then even [the 'bad'] big tech starts looking like the lesser of the evils. =\

Government regulation is absolutely needed IMO, and I'm generally not a "regulate it" type guy.

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Yup agree 100%. I don't see how this is ANY different from gambling. It needs to be regulated as such. Although isn't most gambling regulation more about avoiding cheating, rather than actually reducing addiction?

Most gambling regulation is about making sure the right people get their cut of the money flowing through the system.

Yes but also that children can’t gamble which I think is the main regulation people want.

In my ideal world you also wouldn’t be allowed to have any gambling mechanics in any game or app that isn’t exclusively for gambling.

or rather, any game with gambling mechanics should be age rated 18+.

won't prevent all kids from playing the game, but should make most parents think twice.

It is in fact fundamentally different from gambling. In Vegas, there’s a non-zero chance of recouping your “investment” or even to make money. Not even a possibility here.

My kids get a weekly allowance, however, they’re not allowed to spend it on in-game transactions. Once a year, on Christmas, they get $40 they are allowed to spend on digital rewards - Fortnite vbucks are their typical choice. I see the manipulation happening to these kids, and the bad habits it forms. Not to mention how it’s destroying gaming. I’m sentimental for the days when you could drop $60 on a game with a great offline experience, and a online multiplayer world, without additional pay to play.

> I’m sentimental for the days when you could drop $60 on a game with a great offline experience, and a online multiplayer world, without additional pay to play.

There is no shortage of such games.

While there is a large catalog of such games that exist historically, I feel like mainstream AAA and nearly AAA developers have largely abandoned this model. Good standalone experiences do come out, but they're the exception at this point and I imagine their marketshare is declining. They're just less profitable (and probably harder to make) than live service games.

The market for shorter single-player games by smaller studios is amazing however.

I'd posit the of issue is wanting both an online world and offline game as is the problem. There are still non-world online included with games with significant offline content that have no MTX (although some does have MTX too).

And there is still plenty of offline only games not infested with MTX, often with no paid DLC, or only sensible expansions that are very much optional purchases.

But online worlds that are not designed to continuously extract money from people seem to have become pretty infrequent, whether shipped with an offline game or not. And to be honest, I'm not surprised. Unlike matchmaking and the like, the online world type multiplayer tend to require a lot more server resources.

Without MTX or subscriptions, I bet a lot of online worlds would get shut down by 24 months after game release, simply due to exhausting the portion of the game sales allocated to running the servers by that point.

It's even worse than slot machines, as the games are engineered and tweaked around statistical analysis of the players, ensuring that they get the lowest rewards possible that still make them come back. No one can beat the house in that casino.

These games have replaced game mechanics with charged dice.

What’s your game?

No one wants micro transaction games.

By the amount of money they're making, I'd argue that lots of people want microtransactiom games.

There is a lot of demand by whales who want to crush freemium players.

That’s like saying people get addicted to hard drugs and spiral out of control because they want to.

The games are clearly using, I’d argue, unethical tactics to get players addicted.

Not quite.

Is candy a drug? Potato chips?

IAP is like junk food.

Maybe? If they are using unethical means to make junk food more appealing, maybe you could argue that. You’re relying on the same addiction to sell your product.

Fat and sugar together in a food is hard for the brain to stop eating. We are wired to want it (high energy content). To say it can be like a drug, I would say yes. Looking at the stats 2/3 Americans are overweight or obese. I think the stats speak for themselves. Source: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...

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