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Comment by dannyw | Hacker News Reader

I played F2P games for a number of years and spent probably thousands of dollars on one. I don't regret it. I made a lot of friends, one of whom I still hang out in real life, learned leadership skills, and it was a pleasurable pasttime.

I don't think it should be demonised.

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That still makes you a "social drinker" in this context. We need to hear from the 30 rack a night folks to get a fuller picture.

They said they've spent "thousands" on a single mobile game.

We might just have different standards, but that's past "social drinker" status to me. I don't know anyone in my social circle (online or offline) that have spent that much on a mobile game, and my social circle games a lot.

How many thousands does someone have to spend to move past "social drinker"?

The difference seems to be whether its social or alone. I've never spent anything on microtransactions/f2p, but I've certainly spent money on alcohol. It's a world of difference spending $100 in a night with good friends, and $50 on a night alone at home.

Alcohol recovery meetings are absolutely full of people who have to say "I thought if I wasn't doing it alone it wasn't alcoholism." The social context of use is only one factor, it can't be used by itself to determine if the use is a problem.

IDK, it's not really relevant to my point I don't think. It sounds bad to me too but you're not going to argue an addict into believing they're addicted, even if they are. My understanding of gambling addiction isn't that sophisticated but I think that sort of use still puts them firmly in the minor leagues of use.

Anyway though an essential mechanism of addictions is that they are dynamic. You can interview large groups of users of any drug (and also probably gambling) who will attest to its benefits in their lives. Even if they are currently correct, some of them will later become full blown addicts. It doesn't mean they were wrong at the time, just maybe overly confident about why it suits their lives.

A common AA dark joke is that "high-functioning isn't a type of alcoholism, it's a stage in it." A lot of normal users will end up addicts, a lot of mildly problem users will progress. AFAIK the same patterns show in gambling addiction which is imo one of the major problems with these super accessible entry points into it.

> They said they've spent "thousands" on a single mobile game. We might just have different standards, but that's past "social drinker" status to me.

Assuming “thousands” means 5000, thats 416 per month. Taking an average cost of 10/drink (5 for beer, 15 for cocktail - this skews higher in major cities, lower out of major cities, lower still outside of cities), thats ~8 drinks a week.

I regret choosing to continue the GPs use of "social drinker" to establish the "level" of spending.

If you spend thousands of dollars on a mobile game, that is dramatically outside the average (of my experiences).

Demonized? Maybe not. But these games should be 18+ like any other gambling product.

how do you make friends from an online mobile game?

would make friends over chat. I had some friendly interactions with other Hearthstone players, and could see how we might have established friendships (I did playing WoW, though the game was the glue and I only have the good memories of those shared experiences now).

I finally pulled the plug on videogaming, though, because I found it too compelling; when everything else pales in comparison, and all I think about is the game, and after playing I don't feel very good (as opposed to after reading, for example), it's time to recognize my limitations and stop. I'm still riding out the withdrawals, as autumn is a time where I feel especially drawn to that escape, but I'm confident it'll get easier and I'll continue to thank myself for making the leap.

I do need to actively remind myself that my experience is not universal, and that videogames can be part of a healthy and/or social life.

"Gacha" games typically have some kind of "guild" system (often as another ploy to increase stickiness and engagement) and many better guilds will have Discord servers.

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