Perhaps unsurprisingly, the techniques described in Let’s Go Whaling bear comparison to some of those that bookmakers and casinos have long deployed, capitalising on deep understanding of psychology.
The big difference, of course, is that the gamer can never win money, only prestige or progress in a virtual game.
The very uncomfortable truth for Apple and Google: much – 70-75% – of App Store and Play Store revenue comes from exploitative casino games, mostly expertly designed to target the most vulnerable among us, like gambling addicts, children, people with mental issues like depression, and so on. It’s seedy, disgusting, predatory, and should be deeply, deeply illegal.
Left or right, can’t we all agree we should ban these practices?
Yeah, ban them all. There are a lot of good apps worth paying for, Apple and Google would be fine without allowing app developers to exploit addicts.
The trouble is these tactics massively more profitable for companies. Government gets more tax. So losing billions out of the economy probably isn’t politically palatable. Coupled with he headlines “government ban your favourite games” will probably lose more votes than it will win.
Pokémon (to my mind) started the trend with “gotta catch em all) where you had to buy Red And Blue to “really” complete the game. I’ve Still not got them all decades later :p
Nintendo never intended a single person to buy both games. It was just a fun way to encourage trading with friends. There’s like 8 Pokemon that are exclusive to each game. Without them, the player can still play every area of the game, become a Pokemon master, and train their Pokemon to max stats. And even WITH both games, you STILL can’t get the last Pokemon, Mew (without cheating).
Besides, that idea suggests that Nintendo intended kids to each buy BOTH games AND a second Game Boy, and a game link cable if needed, and then play through a game that is over 99% the same as what they already played.
…it’s something I’ve heard expressed in forums before, but I’ll defend the idea of trading Pokemon between two people as something that was fun, social, new, and exciting, at least back when it first came out in Generation 1. 😀
I have stopped playing mobile games simply because there aren’t any mobile games coming out anymore, only slot machines thinly-disguised as mobile games. I mean, what was the last Need For Speed game on mobile that wasn’t a slot machine? Answer: It was Need For Speed: Most Wanted, a game released more than 10 years ago. There is the occasional port of good games such as Wreckfest from the PC and console, but those typically have clunky controls not suited to smartphones.
BTW the industry tried to pull this trick on PCs and consoles too with games such as Need For Speed: Payback and Wolfenstein: Youngblood, but fortunately due to the higher ratio of seasoned gamers vs casuals (who are more likely to fall for slot machines pretending to be games), the attempt failed (with the exception of football games that tend to attract a lot of casuals).
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