If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.
I can’t even respect people defending this, when the glorified fake hats cost orders of magnitude more than a whole-ass game. Five bucks for all of what’s new would still be exploitation built on psychological manipulation constantly steering people toward throwing more real money at content that’s already visibly on their computer. When it’s hundreds of actual dollars, for one stupid thing, how do you not see the wider problem?
This doesn’t exist in a vacuum. This is what the entire game is for. It only exists as bait on this hook.
when the glorified fake hats cost orders of magnitude more than a whole-ass game.
This is the exact reason I never bought anything when TF2 introduced this garbage to gaming. The hats, which were the most desirable cosmetics, were (and probably still are) more than it would cost to have the same exact hat made IRL.
I don’t know where they come up with the prices for this crap. Even the first micro DLC to come about, Horse Armor for Oblivion, was extremely expensive given the content (2 different models and skins with no actual gameplay value for $5).
Horse armor was 100% above-board, relative to this abuse. It was new content. It was dumb, and solved a problem the devs themselves caused, but you paid for and received a digital purchase. That is never the same thing as paying so your character can say they have something.
If it’s already on your computer - charging for it is probably a scam.
I don't really get why this matters that much? If they want to charge ridiculous amounts for stupid cosmetic shit, users don't have to buy it. I've put a couple hundred hours into Apex and Fortnite and have literally spent $0. Best investment I've ever made.
Congratulations on resisting manufactured discontent and weaponized frustration. Even if they never crack you, personally - they’ll get a lot of people, and take them for as much as they’re worth. Some for thousands upon thousands of dollars. For hats.
The entire industry is becoming infected by this business model. It is the dominant strategy. It’s in full-price, major-franchise, single-player games. It’s in subscription MMOs. All dismissive excuses have been proven wrong. It’s naked greed, on top of whatever money they can already charge. And in pursuit of that, these products are made objectively less enjoyable. They openly employ fear and impatience to provoke irrational decisions. Your enjoyment without paying them is a bug to be fixed.
At this point they must consider you an NPC. A generic inconstant target for paying users to feel superior to. That feeling is the only reason you can throw money at this crap. The entire experience has been engineered to maximize how much better you feel, every time you fork over more money - moderated only by keeping you addicted so you never just leave. The longer they have you padding their servers, the more they can harass you with limited-time offers for shiny nonsense.
Why is that tolerable?
This has become half the industry, by revenue. What part of that is not a horrifying warning of things gone wrong? It’s not like the billions in revenue have been great for anyone doing the work, what with investment-drunk publishers slashing studios apart. Turns out when you forecast unlimited revenue, there’s no such thing as enough.
You could say society has always been like that, and we as a society have decided it’s fine. Advertising as an industry is inherently manipulative, they want to convince you to buy their products, and they’ll use whatever strategies they think will work best.
It’s the exact same with the video game industry, they’ve just realized that “in store” advertising works really well. Yes, it’s manipulative, but people wouldn’t keep buying it if there wasn’t a payoff. I think buying digital items is incredibly stupid, but I also think buying trendy clothes and whatnot is also incredibly stupid.
If you think of cosmetics in the same sense as trendy clothes, it makes a lot more sense. It serves the same sense of vanity, and that vanity will always exist regardless of the laws you set. That demand exists whether you like it or not, and that demand will be satisfied as long as there’s demand for it.
Don’t take this as me saying I approve of the practice (I actively avoid those games on principle), just that I don’t think it should be outlawed. I do think we need policy here, but I should be limited to banning loot boxes, unless there’s a secondary market, in which case it should be regulated as gambling. There’s also an argument for treating F2P games as using F2P players as advertising, and thus banning it for minors unless there’s express, documented parental approval (unlikely to happen at scale). The second one is a bit trickier because social media companies have the same business model, and I’m not a fan of giving personal information to SM companies, so there should also be a way to separate that approval from actual identities (i.e. a digital token signed by your state/country authorities that verifies your age and relationship to the minor; should be automated).
I believe there will always be a market for games that respect your time though since there’s going to be a very real limit to how many of these there can be at a given time, so at a certain point, building traditional games has more value.
Ah yes, that exemplary industry with no need for regulation: advertising.
Banning specific mechanics will never solve anything. It’s all tiny variations on the same abuse. You recognize it’s bad enough to become illegal, but think chasing existing forms that feel especially bad will make you any less manipulated. All that’s going to accomplish is a focus on smoother needles for more efficient wallet siphons.
The existence of non-abusive games is utterly irrelevant to the problems of escalating and spreading abuse. When I point out this is infecting everything, objections that go ‘well only nearly everything’ are wildly missing the point. I don’t fucking care if that’s still a game that doesn’t do this, when I condemn a multi-billion-dollar industry for practices you know include criminally abusive exploitation. All I am telling you is that “include” is insufficient.
Yes, it’s manipulative, but people wouldn’t keep buying it if there wasn’t a payoff.
I never said this. I never said any of it is or should be illegal, except loot boxes (only illegal because they should be classified as “gambling” and regulated as such) and maybe minors playing F2P games supported by cosmetics (smells like child labor since showing off to F2P players is the main attraction).
I merely said I don’t like it, not that it is or should be illegal. I don’t have to make everything that I don’t like illegal, only things that actually have victims, and someone choosing to buy something stupid doesn’t make them a victim unless they were defrauded in how that thing was presented (i.e. false advertising). You’re not a victim if something bad happens to you, you’re only a victim if you didn’t consent.
“Except loot boxes” is you-saying-that. You’re even suggesting a partial ban on cosmetics, unbidden. Thanks? Nice to know you understand it’s awful, and why it’s awful. Not sure why you think it becomes okay when the targets are adults.
Consent means nothing if it’s manufactured. Which these systems obviously do, through utterly shameless manipulation, in an environment made-up by the people taking your money. All appearance of value is contrived. The fact you get the worthless geegaw you were cajoled into believing is worth fifty actual dollars doesn’t matter. The process is the problem.
That’s a special case because it’s gambling. That’s not a comment about MTX in general or addictiveness, but that specific form because it’s based on chance and there’s no way to recoup your “investment.” Anything that’s purchased based on chance should have a secondary market to exchange things you don’t want.
Adults are capable of consent, so they should be free to make their own decisions.
Consent means nothing if it’s manufactured.
I disagree. People should be absolutely free to attempt to manufacture consent, and people should be absolutely free to oppose it. I hold that to be a fundamental freedom, because a restriction of that means you’re letting someone else decide what’s best for you. Nobody has that authority other than the individual themselves.
I make my own decision to avoid such nonsense, but I think it’s unjust to forcibly restrict someone else from making a stupid choice, provided they are capable of consent. There are certainly limitations here (e.g. should be illegal to coerce someone under the influence of drugs/alcohol), but those all must reach some standard of foreknowledge.
If there’s a law here, it should be refunds if the person was not of sound mind when they made the purchase, so perhaps a mandatory 36-hour window for returns if the user presents reasonable evidence that they were impaired (i.e. if the purchase was made at an irregular time, or the person can show evidence of being under the influence), and if the purchase was of an abnormal amount (i.e. spent hundreds instead of the usual <$10).
People should be absolutely free to attempt to manufacture consent
Jesus.
a restriction of that means you’re letting someone else decide what’s best for you.
We ban scams. Identifying and preventing abuses that work is good, actually. Downright necessary. Because it turns out, people are predictably irrational, and some exploitation of that works frighteningly well.
‘I want to choose not to get robbed blind’ is not compelling.
How do you not hear yourself proposing all this nitpicking legislation? You are staring straight at examples of people being tricked into bullshit… and figure the real problem is a lack of “undo.” Nah dude. It’s the part where this entire business model is built on tricking people into paying for bullshit.
Tricking them hard enough that they don’t regret it is actually commonplace in scams - like already-illegal, selling-a-bridge scams. Some victims get taken for everything, and then come back to the scammers with more money, hoping to try again. Regret is not a meaningful measure of victimization, when human beings will bend over backwards to justify their past decisions. Your brain does it for you.
Because they’re not consensual. A scam (or fraudulent transaction to use actual legal terms) is when you agree on one thing but deliver another. This could be false advertising, or using consent for one purpose (e.g. fix your computer) to so another (clean out their bank account).
That’s a very different thing than convincing someone the transaction is a good idea by making the product look enticing or necessary. If you’re getting exactly what was promised for the price that was agreed on, it’s not a scam.
MTX have nothing to do with scams, you’re getting exactly what was advertised and often there’s a “try before you buy” setup (i.e. it’ll show you what your character looks like with it on).
hoping to try again
Well yeah, because they didn’t get what was promised. Whether they think it was a fluke is irrelevant, if you’re not getting what was promised, it’s a scam.
With MTX, you’re getting exactly what was promised, so it’s not a scam, it’s just a stupid purchase.
When the infomercial promises “a fifty-dollar value!” and delivers the two-dollar pan you paid thirty dollars for, you were still scammed. Belief in value is not value or proof of value. Not even if that belief persists. So long as it’s not obviously bullshit… you can remain satisfied.
It’s still bullshit.
You, personally, endorse that bullshit. “Absolutely,” no less. Corporations should be totally free to harass and manipulate people into saying yes. That’s how consent works in the bedroom, right? So long as you don’t technically make threats or tell lies, implication and misdirection are completely ethical. If existing laws don’t already ban something new - it must be fine.
I reiterate: Jesus.
We can, should, do, and must protect people from outright abuses they’d otherwise gladly fall for. Civilization is a series of other people making decisions that limit you. If you want to buy an unsafe house, tough shit. If you want to advertise Russian roulette, tough shit. Knowing the risks is not a universal excuse for risk. Sometimes we just stop problems before they happen.
On some level you recognize this, or else ‘regret for being misled’ wouldn’t be among your several suggested reasons for partial bans. Not even you can take the absolute stance seriously.
When the infomercial promises “a fifty-dollar value!” and delivers the two-dollar pan you paid thirty dollars for, you were still scammed. Belief in value is not value or proof of value.
I disagree. It would only be a scam if they normally sell for $10, then they jacked up the price to $50 just before the infomercial just so they could “lower” it to $30. But if the item is normally $50, it really doesn’t matter what it costs them to make, what matters is if the product performs as advertised.
And no, I don’t endorse it, but merely accept it as a part of a free market.
implication and misdirection are completely ethical
Ethics and law are two completely different things. It may be ethical to steal from the rich and give to the poor, but that should also be illegal.
That said, implication and misdirection can constitute a threat. When it comes to something like rape, there is an actual, tangible relationship to account for, as well as the idea of “implied consent” (lack of resistance), which is quite at odds in a market situation where the individual needs to take action to make a poor choice.
IMO, you can’t really be a victim if you consented and took action in making a decision. Clicking “buy” is very different from not shouting “no” (and potentially running from the house).
If you want to buy an unsafe house,
Then that should be my right. However, I could see authorities preventing me from having children or unaware adults enter the house, because they did not consent to the risk and rightly expect houses they are welcomed into to be up to code.
We should only step in, imo, if an innocent party is at risk. But if they’re all consenting adults and there’s little to no risk to innocent bystanders, I don’t think that interaction should be illegal.
On some level you recognize this, or else ‘regret for being misled’ wouldn’t be among your several suggested reasons for partial bans.
It’s more to ensure proper consent. With MTX, for example, the buyer could be under the influence of some drug, and therefore not completely able to consent to that purchase. Or maybe a child got on the account and made the purchase. Or maybe the UX was so poorly designed (e.g. dark patterns) that they didn’t realize they were making a purchase. There are so many ways for someone to have not completely consented to a transaction that there should be some way out of it.
However, if the individual fully consents and regrets it later, well, I guess that’s a learning experience.
The role of government here is to:
protect children
ensure clarity in the purchase agreement
provide a way out if the purchaser did not fully consent
It’s not to prevent people from making stupid choices or to destroy business models “we” feel are bad for society. It should be focused on ensuring consent between two parties.
Why bother discussing anything if people don’t listen to themselves?
but merely accept it as a part of a free market.
We invented “the free market.” It’s a system of protective restrictions - mostly, banning abusive bullshit, once it’s proven to work. Some options are not allowed to exist because they make everything terrible for everybody.
You are actively defending that bullshit, tooth and nail. Splitting hairs about ethics versus law. Pretending money isn’t a real material concern. Defending unsafe construction? Fuck off, guy. What’s the point explaining systemic exploitation to someone who thinks fire codes are tyranny?
People are getting tricked and robbed for billions of dollars, just trying to play some games, and every single discussion veers into batshit crazy nonsense. I shouldn’t have to defend law, as a concept, to condemn an industry-swallowing problem with no justification besides greed, when even the cranks getting on my case agree that it’s fucking garbage.
You don’t use this. You don’t want this. You don’t benefit from this.
When you care about people besides yourself, why is it the assholes with money, and not the millions of people they’re subjecting to this manipulative crap?
No, the free market is what naturally exists without any government whatsoever. We add restrictions on top to make sure everyone is playing fair.
We should only restrict options that are unfair, such as fraudulent transactions, anticompetitive behavior (e.g. monopolies), etc. Convincing someone to buy your thing isn’t unfair or fraudulent, so it should be allowed to happen imo.
actively defending
There’s a difference between defending something and refusing to attack it. I’m not saying these are good practices, just that they shouldn’t be illegal.
fire codes are tyranny
When did I say that? I merely said I should be able to buy something that doesn’t pass code, not that the code shouldn’t exist.
The vast majority of people won’t buy something that doesn’t pass code, especially if it comes with a bunch of restrictions, like increased liability for any injuries due to not being at code. Building codes have a ton of value, but they don’t need to be proscriptive.
I know I wouldn’t buy a house that’s not up to code (and I passed on one with foundation issues), but that doesn’t mean it should be illegal. It should only be illegal to claim a house is up to code when it isn’t.
When you care about people besides yourself
I care about all people, especially the poor. What I don’t care for is restricting individual rights just because some people make stupid choices.
There are plenty of people who genuinely like the MTX model. I think their shallow and vain, but that doesn’t mean I should take something they enjoy away because I don’t it, or because some people can’t handle it.
Should we make alcohol illegal because alcoholics exist? I don’t like it, I’ve seen plenty lives ruined by it, and the US felt strongly enough about it to pass a constitutional amendment banning it (and later reversed it).
the free market is what naturally exists without any government whatsoever.
Hahaha, nooo. In the absence of restraint you get robbed and pound sand. The state-of-nature wild-west is never what y’all mean, when you fluff up “the free market.” You mean a space where competition matters because people can trust they’re making rational decisions on good information.
Charging real money inside a video game is inherently irrational because all the information is made-up. There’s only one vendor and they control gravity. The environment is as arbitrary and fictional as any con-artist’s story. More “tiger rock” than “deed to the Brooklyn Bridge,” but still a complete fabrication that exists only to part you from your currency in exchange for approximately dick.
There’s a difference between defending something and refusing to attack it.
Declaring an absolute right to manipulate people is the first one.
“Manufacturing consent” is not some unfortunate side effect, for you. You defend it by name. You describe it the way more sensible people describe religious freedom. How much more throat do you have, if that’s not a full-throated endorsement?
Here, I’ll be more libertarian than you: why shouldn’t we let people get scammed? Fuck 'em. They’re adults, right? It’s their money to lose. How can I be absolutely free to manufacture consent, if lying isn’t an option? It’s an abrogation of my right to free speech. Lying is legal. Scams should be legal as well, because ethics shouldn’t dictate the law. They clicked Buy and it’s my money now and tough shit. Caveat emptor, bitches!
Please tell me why you think that’s wrong.
When did I say [fire codes are tyranny]? I merely said I should be able to buy something that doesn’t pass code
Do you read all this, or just type it?
There are plenty of people who genuinely like the MTX model.
And a bunch more who FUCKING HATE IT, but are subjected to it anyway, because hey guess what - other people’s decisions also affect you. What everyone else wants and does will always limit your choices. We have to ensure assholes and morons don’t ruin it for everyone else. Sometimes that means enforcing building safety, Jesus Hoobastank Christ, and sometimes that means recognizing a bullshit way to make money is illegitimate and unacceptable.
“Just sell video games” is not exactly an anticapitalist hellscape. We have to stop the abuse.
I think people are naturally moral toward one another, at least in smaller groups, and commit crimes when there’s a level of abstraction (i.e. you’re not hurting your neighbor, but someone you don’t know). The reason we need strict rules and policing isn’t because people are naturally bad, but because population density creates more opportunity for crime, as well as desperation (poverty rates are lower in rural areas).
My point with all this is that people are naturally good, it’s the system we create that enables bad actors to get into positions of power.
Lying is legal
Your right to lie stops when you make a contract with someone, such as when you sell something. It’s one of those necessities as the market pool gets bigger and you can’t operate on trust anymore. I can say whatever I want to entice you to buy, but I cannot misrepresent what I’m selling.
There’s no fraud with a typical MTX, you get exactly what’s it says. Whether that has value is up to the buyer.
And libertarianism isn’t “screw you, got mine,” it’s a set of principles that centers around non-aggression. I happen to be a somewhat left-leaning libertarian
Do you read all this, or just type it?
Both. There’s a difference between something being certified and something being legal. I can buy something that’s not certified, I just don’t get the guarantees that come with certification.
subjected to it anyway
Nobody is forcing you to interact with a MTX model. I have never bought a MTX, and I actively avoid games that use it. There are a ton of great games out there, I don’t need to play the ones with a predatory profit model.
Sometimes that means enforcing building safety
Sure, and that absolutely makes sense for something like a commercial building. It doesn’t make sense for my personal residence. The first prevents injustices against the innocent, the latter just screws over the DIYer.
“Just sell video games” is not exactly an anticapitalist hellscape. We have to stop the abuse.
I would be a bit more sympathetic if there weren’t other options to MTX, but the non-MTX model is extremely healthy, so I don’t see a case for restricting it when the market is ensuring alternatives exist.
There are issues WRT kids and those with addiction problems, but we can ban the first and limit the second with less invasive policies.
My point with all this is that people are naturally good, it’s the system we create that enables bad actors to get into positions of power.
The anarcho-pastoralist argument for unrestrained capitalism. Eugh. That’s worse than the joke about principles. Yeah keep going on about the evils of systems and power, as you argue these corporations have every right to manipulate money out of people.
I cannot misrepresent what I’m selling.
Says who?
“The free market is what naturally exists without any government whatsoever.” It can’t be a crime if there’s no government. I didn’t put a gun to anyone’s head. The true free market says I can make up whatever I want, and it’s on them to evaluate whether I’m full of shit.
You cannot argue otherwise without acknowledging systemic issues require limitations. That’s exactly what you’re doing, when you say that as a society “gets bigger,” individuals need guarantees that they’re not about to get fucked over.
I would be a bit more sympathetic if there weren’t other options to MTX
No you would not, if your principles existed. You’d just frown along with this shrug.
The existence of non-abusive options never excuses the abusive options. For exactly the same reason we don’t say, well, truthful advertisements abound, so just pick those - we don’t tell people to shop for houses that meet the fire code. They should all meet the goddamn fire code.
When did I ever claim to be an anarchist? I explicitly explained how we need more rules the larger a society gets. I’m not making the argument that we need no government, but that we should have a restrained government.
Look at all the nonsense we’re getting with opposition to police. Do you think that’s a general opposition to rule of law, or perhaps it’s just opposition to unjust laws? (i.e. laws w/o victims, like marijuana possession)
So I’m going to be very hesitant to create new laws where there is no clear victim. And I don’t believe convincing someone to buy something make them a victim.
And no, individuals don’t need guarantees that they’re not going to get a bad deal, they need guarantees that they’ll get what they expect to get in the transaction. Whether they can get a better deal somewhere else is completely irrelevant.
They should all
Should and must are very different things. Should is about morality, must is about law.
Games shouldn’t use MTX because that’s a manipulative way to run a business. But provided they’re not misrepresenting the product, I don’t see any reason to turn that into a legal ban. I’ll never recommend a MTX-heavy game, and I’ll avoid them at every turn, but I am unwilling to turn my preference into law because that’s restricts others’ rights. Many people like evergreen games, and MTX is the main way to fund that.
We can discuss requirements for games to make and advertise options to set purchase limits, but I will never support a bill to ban that type of game, unless there’s some kind of monopolistic behavior that’s preventing alternative monetization options in other games.
Of course you don’t support meaningful consumer protection laws. You don’t support fire codes. Stop typing another denial: you know goddamn well the point of them is that they must be followed, otherwise they’re just fire suggestions. Fire… best practices. You can figure out which meaning of should I am using, as I tell you, there should be no fire-prone homes allowed!
People shouldn’t have to choose between something tolerable and something that will fuck them over. Sorry, I’ll retype that to appease your latest hair-splitting: people must not be forced to choose between acceptable options - and becoming a victim.
Anyone buying an unsafe house is a victim, no matter how ardently they insist it’s fine. It’s not. These laws are written in blood. Innocent strangers die when we let that shit happen. In large part because, hey guess what, markets only care about money. Optimize for money alone and you get places where no home is safe, but people still have to live, because it’s where they are. Scolding those people for wanting a home that won’t burn down, but buying one that might, is blaming those victims.
You know this. These are the laws we require, in large societies. You chafe at the comparison of your arguments to anarchist arguments, albeit possibly because you’re unfamiliar with actual anarchist arguments.
And you’ll glibly suggest “purchase limits.”
Why?
What principled reason is there, if the right to manipulate people toward whatever you’re selling is absolute? You insist this business model of selling soccer goals is in no way a scam, so who cares if someone blows every paycheck on it? If you want to say it’s addiction, do we stop people from being alcoholics? Are you against substances that are almost unavoidably addictive, on a physiological level?
If this continues to spread, and becomes an effective monopoly - why do you suddenly care? Why is the point where it becomes a problem for you the point where it’s too late?
I never said that. I think fire codes are a fantastic idea, I just don’t think a house not meeting code should make it unsellable.
And that’s essentially what the current law is, at least in my area. New construction is required to meet code, older houses are not required to in order to sell. If you want to turn a house into a business, it needs to pass code (e.g. I had to buy and install a couple fire extinguishers when I registered my home business).
If I made a legal change here, it would be requiring an up-front disclosure of any building codes the seller is aware of violating so the buyer doesn’t need to waste time and money with an inspection. I’m also a fan of requiring any legal contract to be understandable with an 8th grade education (i.e. no legalese) and reasonable in length and scope (i.e. a page of 12pt font should be fine for most cases). I want contracts to be something people are expected to read and understand, not where you hide all the gotchas on page 22 of small print.
Are you against substances that are almost unavoidably addictive, on a physiological level?
No, but I’m okay with requiring them to be used under supervision, especially since a “bad trip” often presents a hazard to the public.
I see two options here:
ban harmful drugs
control harmful drugs
The first just pushes it to the streets, and you’ll end up having to police that, which means a ton of innocent people get screwed over. Look at how successful our “war in drugs” has been, it’s an absolute clown show, and things are way better in places with looser restrictions (i.e. Portugal, The Netherlands, etc).
Controlling it means allowing pretty much all drugs, but with increasing requirements on supervision for use. Maybe some drugs just aren’t allowed because there’s no safe way to use it (e.g. fentanyl), but there should be an avenue the public can use to get legal access to most drugs. I think we should tax it as well to fund rehabilitation, but almost never outright ban it. Safer drugs (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, etc) should be allowed over the counter, while others may require a supervised appointment (heroin, cocaine, psilocybin, etc).
If this continues to spread, and becomes an effective monopoly - why do you suddenly care?
That depends on the type of monopoly, I suppose, but suppressing alternatives is a big no for me. If the public decides MTX are the way to go and there’s no force from game studios to make that dominant, that’s a very different thing.
I really don’t see that being the case. In almost every case, a “natural monopoly” is anything but, usually it’s due to some entrenched business being able to craft laws such that competition is impractical. Look at places where cable is the only available from of Internet access, this isn’t because competitors don’t bother servicing an area, but because the local cable company has put so many legal barriers in place that competition isn’t practical.
So if everything turns into MTX, there’s probably illegal coercion going on behind the scenes because I know there’s a market for non-MTX games. The more market share it gets, the more seriously we should look at regulation (e.g. How does this look for children? Is there a way to place caps? Is there a form of gambling here? Etc).
Just because something is “bad” doesn’t mean it should be illegal, it may just need to more transparent about the bad bits. But if people want to smoke and drink, I’m fine as long as they understand the health risks of doing so and they don’t bother others while doing it.
I am just so tired of dealing with your entire worldview.
We can’t ban unethical business practices because that’s dictating customers’ morality, somehow.
Oh but it’s not unethical because manipulating people is good actually.
Oh but it’s not manipulation if it works.
Don’t I know that consumer protection laws are like banning drugs? Which you’re okay with if they’re the wrong drugs?
I just do not give a shit what you want, anymore. Your principles are slippery and their justifications are ahistorical and it all leads to conclusions that should make you reconsider. I’m not convinced you know what cognitive dissonance feels like.
This entire business model is horrible in a way you ardently defend, whilst insisting you’re not defending it. You have grand-sounding reasons for encouraging everything short of already-criminal fraud. You keep saying you’re not encouraging it, but quite frankly, come the fuck on. All you’ve had to say against it is the wishy-washiest nitpicking at the boundaries of this metastasizing industry-wide problem that didn’t exist a decade ago. And you seem serenely unbothered by how often your unprompted legislative suggestions do not square with the alleged rationale for otherwise naysaying the only solution that would actually work.
I do not intended to give you further attention on this subject. Quite frankly ‘absolute freedom to manufacture consent’ is where I should’ve pulled the chute, and it’ll be my point of reference next time someone asks why I don’t give a shit about libertarian arguments for this blatant exploitation.
I said manipulating people (as in, advertising a product using research about efficacy) is covered under free speech. That doesn’t make it good, it just makes it protected. That right ends when you defraud someone though, because that’s a contractual violation.
Which you’re okay with if they’re the wrong drugs?
No, the only drugs that should be banned are those that present a significant risk to others. Something like Fentanyl has an incredibly high risk to the public because even a small amount can cause serious side effects, whereas something like marijuana has pretty much no risk.
There’s a spectrum here, and the standard should be risk to the public, not whatever nonsense the DEA has come up with.
That also goes for business practices. If it’s consensual, it should probably be allowed, even if it’s predatory in nature (e.g. gambling). If it’s coercive (e.g. ransomware attacks), it should be banned and prosecuted. There’s a pretty clear distinction there.
This entire business model is horrible
I absolutely agree. I just disagree about it needing to be banned. I’m also disgusted with the tobacco industry (and they’ve done some truly predatory advertising in the past before the crackdowns), but I’ll defend everyone’s right to buy cigarettes.
metastasizing industry-wide problem that didn’t exist a decade ago
This type of business practice is very old. Yeah, video game MTX are new, but selling FOMO isn’t. In the past it was subscriptions to all kinds of things, collectibles, “as seen on TV” nonsense, etc.
The main shift is moving that to digital products and reducing the barrier to payment, but the business model itself is quite old. Basically the pattern is:
Create mediocre product with catchy name
Hire charismatic businessman to create a feeling of need
Introduce a “limited time” to the offer
That’s basically a MTX, just with a physical product instead of digital.
I do not intended to give you further attention on this subject
Then thanks for the discussion, and I hope you have a fantastic day. But if you want to continue, I’ll probably respond.
Your words keep being ‘well no, but actually yes.’ Almost verbatim re: drugs. “No, the only–” if there’s an “only” then that’s “the wrong drugs,” ya doof.
This bullshit isn’t “mediocre.” It’s a scam. I do not respect the framework you push to deny that it’s a scam. What you consider above-board is fucking horrifying.
The shittiest possible physical product is infinitely more real than charging actual money to increment a variable inside a video game on your computer. Even if people don’t think they’ve been tricked into that - they have. It’s nonsense. It is neither a good nor a service. It needs to be stopped, and no half measures will suffice.
The alternatives are still super duper capitalist, so you can relax.
Your words keep being ‘well no, but actually yes.’
No, you’re being overly reductive. For example:
if there’s an “only” then that’s “the wrong drugs,”
That strongly implies that argumentation here is subjective. It’s not, it’s based on objective measures, such as harm to non-users. The current law is objective, but stupid (based on usefulness in medicine).
Your arguments are overly reductive.
You do precisely that’s with your argument re: MTX (MTX is bad so it should be banned). Your strongest argument is, “it’s addictive.” Should we ban everything that’s addictive? (e.g. food, sex, work) Or only things with a financial consequence? (e.g. stock trading, extreme sports) Or only things without a physical good attached? (e.g. digital books, digital video games) Or things with a manipulative aspect? (any form of advertising, time-based exclusivity, etc)
What exactly is the objective measure you’re basing the ban on? Why doesn’t that apply to other, similar things? It sounds like your argument is, “I don’t like it and I (or a friend) have made poor choices, so it shouldn’t be allowed.” Yeah, banning it will probably help some people, but that’s very much “the ends justify the means” logic, and therefore invalid.
The alternatives are still super duper capitalist, so you can relax.
I don’t care if it’s capitalist, socialist, etc, I care about use of force. You need a very good reason to prevent me from doing something, as in, it would violate someone else’s rights or would likely cause someone else to violate another’s rights.
The economic system isn’t important to me, individual rights are. I actually don’t like capitalism much, but it has so far done a decent job of preserving self-determination. I also believe a lot of people will make stupid choices, so I also believe in a social safety net (something like UBI, addiction recovery programs, etc) so people who have screwed up have a way out. But I’m opposed to the government making choices for me.
‘My normative opinion is objective’ really underlines the problem.
As does calling an argument reductive before reducing it to ‘it is bad.’
And then focusing on the word “addictive” when the actual argument is, this entire business model is fucking nonsense that sells literally worthless things for real money, in a way that is fundamentally unethical specifically because tricking people into valuing arbitrary garbage is what games are for. That’s what makes them games! I’ve only mentioned addiction as an example of the manipulation used to gouge people as hard as possible in spite of their better judgement. It is a how. The problem is why.
If that sounds like ‘well I just don’t like it,’ fuck off.
As does calling an argument reductive before reducing it to ‘it is bad.’
I did that intentionally to show how ridiculous reductive logic is.
worthless things
It’s obviously not worthless to the people who buy it, otherwise they wouldn’t buy it. Value is almost entirely subjective, and frequently based on what others think.
That’s the same for MTX. People often buy MTX to show off, and that has value to them. It’s the digital equivalent of wearing designer jeans or carrying a designer wallet.
manipulation used to gouge people
You’ve just described the entire field of advertising.
And there are good parts to MTX as well, it’s the free market solution to “take from the rich and give to the poor” since it makes games available for free and largely funded by wealthier people. A handful of people feeling superior to others funds development of a game available for free to everyone else.
I still don’t like it because I think the end product is worse than charging everyone for admission, but there’s an solid argument there that the net effect for the majority is more games available for free (most people don’t buy MTX).
‘My hypocrisy was a clever ruse except when I meant it, and this mostly-subjective thing is objectively–’ yeah okay I think we’re done. Even circling right back to where you came in: advertising, that totally ethical field with nothing to condemn or curtail. What you want is awful and why you want it is awful and dealing with how you choose to write it is draining.
And there are good parts to MTX as well, it’s the free market solution to “take from the rich and give to the poor”
… I am dumber for having suffered this conversation. This is a wallet siphon you think is targeted at children, and-- no.
I only started playing apex when the new season started because ea doesn't want to let me plat titanfall 2 anymore.
The game is honestly really fun. But holy shit, people should really stop spending money on it.
What’s funny about this stuff, is Apex Legends developers more than likely gets paid to include this cross promotional material in their game, then they turn around and sell it to players. Really this is all just an ad, and if you pay for an ad you’re an idiot.
The game itself can be extremely good, well made, and fun. You can choose not to participate in the MTX stuff.
Kinda wonder what would happen if such a game came out, was insanely popular, but literally nobody bought any MTX in it ever. Obviously a FTP game would just die, but would they take the hint if it was a $60-70 AAA game that also included BS MTX systems?
It’s not like MTX is popular. They specifically go after the small percentage of players that get addicted and spend their life savings on that shit.
I game with people who just cannot help themselves and must buy everything. One guy spent nearly a thousand on Overwatch before he was able to walk away.
I just don’t even tempt these guys anymore, I only ever play games that don’t abuse them. We’ve enjoyed plenty of Factorio, Valheim, Avorion, Volcanoids, Deep Rock Galactic, etc… I had to stop playing Vermintide/Darktide with them along with a few others, which has honestly pissed me off.
Now they’re all eyeing Helldivers 2 and I’m spooked that the game is going to be MTX hell and we can’t touch it, because I’ve enjoyed a lot of Arrowhead’s previous stuff.
This is a perfect example of my above reply to another user:
Multiplayer games with a certain blend of either competitive play, or cooperative play that lends itself to competition amongst the cooperative players as to who is carrying the team vs who is getting the whole team wipe, these kinds of games /are known and understood by game developers/ to cause a toxic social dynamic amongst many of its players that escalates into basically an extremely expensive fashion competition.
This can also be accomplished by basically nailing some niche art style, by being a very popular established brand, or by simply using cartoony graphics and appealing to basically children with poor impulse control.
Microtransactions are well known to be an extremely effective psychological manipulation technique that is both highly effective against basically a certain market demographic/psychological profile of players (whales), and also when combined with the social dynamics of a certain set of games with certain attributes (which are also designed and targeted through market research and psychological profiling) create an atmosphere of peer pressure that is known to be effective on basically bullying many other players into at least some MTX.
It is a highly predatory and ethically repulsive practice that is done with precision and intent.
You say ‘you can choose not to’ which is fine from a theoretical perspective of basically a libertarian economist, where you assume that all human beings only make rational decisions that would benefit them and do not have human emotions, desires, you know, psychology.
The fact is there are now many documented cases of people having their lives literally ruined by spending too much money on these things. And I mean documented as in journalism on more extreme, individual cases as well as more comprehensive scientific studies.
Further, many MTX games are also obviously marketed at children with cartoony graphics and other marketing amd stylistic techniques that are, again, market researched to understand their viability in appealing to the demographics that will be most likely to make irresponsible spending decisions.
You claim that MTX is not popular and this basically baffles me as MTX is astoundingly popular in mobile phone games and there have been many popular games in the last few years that have featured MTX.
Case in point to your hypothetical example of a AAA 60 or 70 dollar game with MTX would be the buggy catastrophic mess that was/is Fallout 76.
So there is your answer: Video Gamers in general are highly susceptible to brand loyalty, and will often, very often pay for broken unfinished games, even with MTX, if those games have a sufficiently popular brand.
The big price tag is part of the ad! That’s how you get mentioned and people speak about it.
Some idiots will also buy it, so there’s that, too.
I actually don’t care if a free to play game has cosmetics you can buy. They need to make some money some how. As long as you don’t get a real advantage by paying money.
I also don’t mind being able to purchase cosmetic, non-gameplay affecting items. But I have always felt the prices are wack as fuck, even back when Horse Armor dropped. A skin should not be more than $1, IMO. Especially skins that are nothing more than a color swap.
I’m not paying so I can see the skin. I’m paying so everyone else can see how cool I look. If it’s single player, I would never pay for a skin. At the prices they charge, I don’t buy them in MP either. But I might if they were $1 or less.
I am opposed to having to pay more real world money for content that already exists in the game, for everyone, that has no other way of accessing it.
You could, for example, have a cosmetic system that works something like the character creation spore:
Design a bunch of modular elements that can be assembled together in many ways, though bounded by various constraints so they would not break gameplay.
An even simpler version would be ok you unlocked this style of say pants, and it has various ways it can be hemmed or rolles up or dyed or have accessories mounted to it, and there are accompanying in game mechanics for being able to do all that.
Honestly PayDay 2 has a fantastic system for its Masks: Some masks you can only get via certain in game achievements, others from luck of the draw (but its not a paid for loot box). Then the game has other similar ways to handle how you get the items to be able to customize your masks.
PayDay 2 does not have microtransactions.
It does have DLC. This is a far better funding and development model than MTX.
Finally, if your sense of fashion in the real world is that you have to pay more to look good, then you have no real sense of fashion beyond signalling ‘Look At Me I Am Cool Because I Bought Expensive Thing’.
That is not a sense of fashion, that is just flaunting your wealth in am ostentatious, crude and immature manner.
An even simpler version would be ok you unlocked this style of say pants, and it has various ways it can be hemmed or rolles up or dyed or have accessories mounted to it, and there are accompanying in game mechanics for being able to do all that.
So is your issue that people who don’t pay still have to download the content to see it on other players?
Would you be okay with a certain color of pants that’s only accessible through outside purchase of a dye (i.e. one that cannot be traded)? That way other users don’t need to download the dye, but they do need to have code on their machines to display that color.
The whole point here is to separate yourself from the unwashed masses, it doesn’t matter as much what the character looks like. It’s why the whole “blue bubble” vs “green bubble” thing is a thing, it’s a separation between “classes” of people in a sense.
It does have DLC. This is a far better funding and development model than MTX.
DLC is the same thing, especially since so many are simply enabling a license for existing content. For example, I can play maps I don’t have the DLC for provided the host has it, which means one of two things is happening:
I download the map when I connect, but still can’t access it w/o the license to do so
The map is already downloaded (that’s how most work) and I just load it up when the host verifies their license
The only difference is where the DLC is purchased (and maybe when the data is downloaded), and many games let you buy the DLC directly through the game. DLC can also be delisted, so what you seem to be asking for is for games w/ MTX to just jump through some extra hoops.
That is not a sense of fashion, that is just flaunting your wealth in am ostentatious, crude and immature manner.
That’s what fashion is, and why “fashionable” things are expensive. People don’t buy Rolex watches because they work better or look cooler than cheaper options, they buy them because they’re expensive and others recognize that they’re expensive. These usually have a level of quality to them, but they’re rarely more durable or have more utility than cheaper options.
We treat it differently because we give it a different name, but at the end of the day, those fancy stores (MK, Coach, etc) are the “poor people’s” designers and a way to flaunt some level of wealth (e.g. my in-laws gave me a ~$400 wallet from Burberry, which was functionally equivalent to other $50 wallets), and rich people do the same but with more private labels. I think I have successfully convinced my inlaws that I feel incredibly uncomfortable with such things (my current wallet cost $15-20, and I like it much better), but they still like buying that crap for themselves, despite being relatively poor (they live in an apartment, I live in a nice house).
It’s the same thing, people like to look successful to other people and flaunt what they have. It’s why so many rap songs boast about how much money they have, why celebrity awards ceremonies are largely about the fancy designer clothes they’re wearing, and why luxury cars are so popular (I see a lot more luxury cars in apartment complexes than my middle to upper-middle class neighborhood). For certain types of people, flaunting wealth is the point, it makes them feel wealthy, even if they’re up to their eyeballs in debt. I see exactly the same thing in upper-middle to upper-class neighborhoods, which is why I prefer to stick to the middle-class neighborhoods.
The same exact thing is happening with these games. People like to flaunt wealth, and that comes in a ton of forms.
My issue is that MTX is an exploitative predatory model for designing games and funding game development that essentially always leads to games that are unoriginal, that allows for and incentivizes very toxic social dynamics amongst its players, and that this often leads to many people with either poor impulse control or those susceptible to aforementioned toxic social dynamics will spend /too much/ of their money to the point it seriously negatively impacts their lives.
No, I would not be ok with a certain color being MTX only.
Not sure what you mean by blue bubble vs green bubble, but there are many ways one can seperate themselves from the masses in many games that feature character customization that do not feature MTX.
So, no DLC is not the same thing.
MTX to a large extent works by incremental gradualism in terms of the actual psychology of how it exploits susceptible people.
DLC on the other hand does not do this. Here is an outlined block of content, it usually features many new things in addition to new cosmetics, and usually all those things are not dependent on further microtransactions, but actual game play of some kind.
This is a much more straightforward and much less manipulative way to expand your games content.
While it still is not very common for games in general to allow players to play on maps they do not have, but a friend does, yes you are correct that a few games feature this.
This is irrelevant to the discussion of MTX, though. I do not have total and complete knowledge of all video games, but I have /never/ heard of playable maps as MTX before. Even if such a phenomenon does exist, maps are not usually tied to the player being able to alter gameplay for themselves /specifically/ or to clothing or weapons that /specifically/ are proven to be crucial elements to the toxic amd exploitative dynic that MTX creates.
The closest thing I can think of would be maybe an MMO with a player customizable house that has many things only obtainable via MTX, but I am not aware of a game with such features, and I would be against it anyway. Just make the things obtainable in game.
As to your views on fashion, I mean yes, many tasteless people view fashion only as a way to flaunt wealth.
That is /not/ what fashion actually is though to anyone with an actual sense of creative style.
This is not my area of expertise by any means but try asking actual character art designers what fashion is and how it works.
Different color schemes, styles of clothes, materials can all be mixed and matched, or paired neatly to convey certain elements of a character trying to be portrayed visually.
People who obsess over branded clothing items are nearlt always tasteless and have absolutely no sense of style.
It is entirely possible in many games, with and without microtransactions, to take different individual pieces of clothing amd make a unique look.
As example, though I dislike RockStar’s incorporation of a premium currency mechanic that allows for players to pay real world money for in game content, the games both feature a wide array of clothing choices that can be mixed and matched individually to create your own looks for your character.
Or, you can buy a pre made outfit and immediately be laughed at by everyone for spending money on it, because there are now thousands of other clones that look just like you, and its entirely possible to look good without doing this, you just have to put in some effort and actually, you know, have an actual sense of fashion to determine what looks good or conveys what you want your character’s appearance to convey, and when you have done this, it will actually be unique to you and your character.
Another example of this would be Cyberpunk 2077.
Its entirely possible to have a wardrobe that both looks good and is also effective in game… and is not just a cookie cutter clone of some faction or other character, but this requires actual work.
Much like how actually looking fashionable in real life does.
Further examples would be countless MMOs and even some more clothing heavy Survival Sims and MilSims at this point. Those games less commonly feature outright MTX, and again its entirely possible to do actual fashion by mixing and matching things until you find a ‘look’.
The point of true fashion may be said to convey certain things about yourself or the character via their attire, and the art of it comes in to understanding how styles work, how the human form works, how colors work, how materials work, and then all of this is constrained by other factors such as practicality, affordability, etc.
Its more impressive to pull off a good looking cheap dress than a just as good looking but 20x as expensive one, unless your entire goal is projection of wealth /over/ actually looking good.
Work boots are relatively common and know for being useful in hard physically demanding conditions, so both a construction worker and a soldier may wear different versions of them.
But when a construction worker puts on mil grade knee pads and a scavenged carrier rig, and carries a battered rifle, this conveys a very different character than a standard soldier in BDU does:
We can immediately tell that he is doing this not as his profession and as a rather impromptu affair, that he likely did not plan for this.
I list these examples to attempt to show you how fashion and character appearance is far more than a competition of wealth display: In video games and movies it is very often a means of conveying the character through ways other than what they do or say.
As yet another example I once designed basically Sam Fisher in Arma 3, wearing pants utilitarian enough to be practical, but also conventional enough to look like many civilians. Had a button up dress shirt with plate body armor with PRESS emblazoned on it, shades, no helmet.
DLC on the other hand does not do this. Here is an outlined block of content, it usually features many new things in addition to new cosmetics, and usually all those things are not dependent on further microtransactions, but actual game play of some kind.
That’s one form of DLC, sure, but there’s no technical reason why MTX couldn’t just be transitioned to appear as DLC. For example, you can buy Shark Cards for GTA V as a DLC, and that type of thing would normally be MTX within the game.
MTX is just a special type of DLC that is usually time-limited and is logged in your online account instead of your launcher. That’s really it.
I have /never/ heard of playable maps as MTX before
You can buy maps for Risk: Global Domination as an MTX and use them if the host has them. Likewise, you can use any EU4 or CK3 DLC in an MP game if the host has them (only gameplay DLC, not cosmetics like unit packs). It’s relatively common for SP games w/ MP mode, but a bit less common to gate maps behind a DLC/MTX for F2P games.
My point is that this is very similar to a cosmetic DLC/MTX. Basically, player A buys the “DLC,” and other players can “use” the DLC when they see the player using the cosmetic. That’s the same general idea as temporarily “getting” a DLC when joining an MP game. If we make MTX illegal, they’ll just call them DLC because on a technical level, it’s the same thing.
That said, I don’t know of any games with “DLC” cosmetics that are visible but not usable by other players, aside from F2P games w/ MTX. But that’s probably because if they’re going to go that route, they’ll make them time limited instead of permanent like most DLC are, but there’s really no technical reason why they can’t just make MTX work exactly like DLC (i.e. show up in your launcher under the DLC section). In short, why would they do the more complicated thing if they don’t need to?
Thanks for letting me know what the green bubble blue thing is. I have never and will never use an Apple product for many reasons, so, didnt know that.
That being said, yeah, thats another example of an exploitative business decision that has no technical reason for existing whatsoever, and uses peer pressure to get children to waste money, like MTX.
I expanded my post a good bit a couple of times but maybe you missed it: Purchasable premium currency is /also/ a horrible, exploitative practice that is functionally indistinguishable from MTX in almost every way.
The fact that RockStars shark cards and gold for rdr2 are only purchasable on steam in the DLC section does not make premium currency DLC.
DLC is essentially an addon pack, an expansion of the original game with new levels, characters, maps, weapons, equipment, new gameplay modes, etc.
Another way of looking at DLC is that in the old days before it was practical to download more than around 100mbs as a patch, and a game developer wanted to release an expansion pack, they would sell a whole new cd at stores for maybe 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of the base game.
Now, for the rest of your comment:
I am not saying that outlawing MTX would be 100% effective. My point is that MTX is /bad/, games that heavily rely on MTX are often bad, that it is exploitative, blah blah blah already wrote everything.
That being said: Your reasoning here is not certainly wrong, but likely not very good. Loot Boxes have been functionally banned after the EU figured out how to precisely define them, and shortly thereafter many games had to alter their mechanics to not explicitly be loot boxes, and these days it is rare for new games to come out that feature them.
Should a law be sufficiently well worded and have the teeth to be enforced, I would say its actually pretty likely that the practice of designing MTX into games could functionally be ended, though of course not totally, not perfectly.
I personally do not care if F2P games with MTX are affected, as being F2P is the equivalent of a crack dealer offering you your first hit free of charge. Enough people get addicted that to the game that its profitable to just sell them new cosmetics.
Further, nearly all F2P MTX games are based around extremely boring, simplistic and repetitive gameplay, which is itself designed to actually be effectively random in terms of your skill level having anything to do with your actual success at the game. Less mature players will believe that they can actually get good at the game by playing it enough, because either they have not played many games before or they basically become addicted to the gameplay loop itself, which is /also/ knowingly designed to be both addictive and rage inducing.
So with F2P MTX you generally get the absolute worst possible situation from the standpoint of a child or a person susceptible to peer pressure or with basically the same personality of a gambling addict.
The technical implementation of MTX just shifting everything over to being outside of the game itself /would actually be a significant success/ from the standpoint of preventing impulse purchases quite literally because it forces the user to undergo more steps before making their purchase.
Another thing that could potentially be done from a legal standpoint is to quite literally make it illegal for a game to allow you to spend more than so much on MTX or Premium currency in a certain amount of time, and/or only allow a purchase every so often, and or display government mandated warning placards in the same vein as cigarettes must display every time you access any in game or out of game market for the game.
These things are all definitely legally and technically possible to implement.
It does not matter what section of some menu has what UI label to a well written law. Such tbings are laughably easy for any competent programmer to alter within at most a month.
What matters is the functional workings of the entire system in its totality, and the precedent for this approach working has, again, already been established by the EU’s ban on lootboxes.
exploitative business decision that has no technical reason for existing whatsoever
There is a technical reason, actually. The messages from Android are SMS, whereas the messages from immediate iMessage are encrypted and sent over a different channel.
But the net result is a lot of social pressure.
DLC is essentially an addon pack, an expansion of the original game with new levels, characters, maps, weapons, equipment, new gameplay modes, etc.
It sounds like you’re explaining what you want it to be. Some DLC is certainly like that, but quite often it’s not. Sometimes you get that kind of content as a MTX. People try to draw a line here, but there really isn’t one because it’s all convention. Some DLC require a download (e.g. the D part), many do not (i.e. just a DRM check when you launch).
Yeah, in the old days, you’d buy your expansions as a separate product (e.g. Brood War for Starcraft), but these days there’s a lot less formality and variety to it.
So if we try to craft some kind of law against MTX, companies will just call them DLC. The only difference is how they’re marketed; on a technical level, there’s no clear separation between the “good” and the “bad,” it comes down to how it’s marketed and the value you get. The only clear separation I can think of is things that are time limited (i.e. you can only buy it for the next X days), but that’s a practice in pretty much every industry and a practical necessity for copyright law (e.g. music is usually licensed for a set number of years, hence why older GTAs aren’t available for purchase).
I’m guessing there’s a mechanism to buy DLC from within a game, and if there isn’t, game studios would push for that to be created.
worst possible situation from the standpoint of a child or a person susceptible to peer pressure or with basically the same personality of a gambling addict.
I agree children should be protected here because they cannot consent. However, we don’t prevent people with gambling addictions from gambling provided they’re adults, because they are responsible for their actions even if they suffer from addiction. Adults are expected to take measures to protect themselves, children are not.
So I’m absolutely in favor of banning children from F2P games where profit comes from manipulative practices (either they’re being manipulated, or they’re being used to manipulate others, both of which are wrong). Maybe that’s enough to dramatically reduce these games, maybe it’s not, but that’s not the goal; the goal is to protect those who cannot consent.
make it illegal for a game to allow you to spend more than so much on MTX or Premium currency in a certain amount of time
That sounds overly restrictive. If I want to buy an expensive item, I would need to make that MTX several times over the course of days in order to get it? Why?
A better solution, imo, is to provide a mechanism for customers to set their own limits so they can self regulate. It would be up to them to decide what that limit is, so they get to decide what they’re comfortable with. But they should also be allowed to disable that limit as well, though perhaps with a multi-day waiting period so they don’t just disable it while drunk and render the whole thing useless.
Apple designed their different protocol early on for no actual reason other than to intentionally be incompatible with the standards used by the entire rest of the industry, entirely to use as a peer pressure and marketing tactic to make less technically knowledgable users believe that it is somehow better or has more features or is more secure or somethimg.
It isnt, it doesnt, and it isnt more secure.
They easily could have used existing standards, but again, decided to develop their own exclusive standard and them basically lie and make misleading statements that would promote exclusivity and a superiority complex amongst its user base.
Your quibbling about the definition of DLC is irrelevant and pointless, and you do not seem to know what DLC is if you think DRM is DLC. Its not.
I already outlined substantive definitions of what constitutes DLC and MTX, and you are just repeating yourself saying the line between them is blurry. It is no where near as blurry as you think it is, and its now becoming clear that you do not appear to be able to comprehend what I have written.
The only difference is absolutely not how they are marketed. I think you are referring to how they presented in a UI.
I already addressed this, MTX is a system that has identifiable characteristics and properties that make it distinct from DLC, regardless of UI labelling.
Thats not marketing. Marketing is promotional material, trailers, paid game reviews, statements made by the company selling the product for the purpose of getting you to buy the product, a demo held at a convention, that sort of stuff.
As to your preference for allowing customers to self regulate:
Congrats, you have missed the entire concept that large demographics of people do not have the ability to self regulate their addiction problem, because an addiction problem literally is the lack of the ability to self regulate in regards to a certain activity or substance.
Anyway, I was not saying I would be necesarilly for or against such a measure, I was merely proving to you that it can legally be done, with examples.
Its clear your reading comprehension is not that good and you have at no point acknowledged that basically I have disproved everything you think you understand about how anything we have talked about works, functions, is actually defined, etc.
I will likely not be responding to you on this matter further as it is evident you basically have no idea what you are talking about.
integration with macOS - you can message people on macOS/iOS without going through your phone
features like read receipts and reactions
aforementioned encryption (and yes, it is encrypted, and you want that), which has the practical benefit that telcos (read: police, hackers, etc) can’t see the content of your messages
There are practical benefits, and you would want to know if a message is encrypted or not. The issue isn’t that they’re using a nonstandard protocol, it’s that they didn’t open it up to others. I’m sure Android would’ve loved to integrate with it, but instead Apple kept it proprietary and even took steps to shut down a competitor that found a way to be compatible, all to drive purchases for iPhones.
The problem isn’t making an alternative to SMS, it’s actively preventing competitors from making a compatible app. This wouldn’t be an issue at all if Android users could install a compatible app.
Your quibbling about the definition of DLC is irrelevant and pointless, and you do not seem to know what DLC is if you think DRM is DLC
I’m explaining how game companies will react to a ban on MTX.
And yes, DRM can be a part of DLC. Instead of downloading content, many games just check if you have a license for the content and flip a switch internally to enable it. That’s how DLC gets to be available for clients if the host has the DLC, it just enables that switch if the host has it. There’s no actual download process, it’s literally already included in the game, just disabled.
That’s literally the same way MTX work, but instead of the DRM check happening with the launcher, it happens with the game server.
its now becoming clear that you do not appear to be able to comprehend what I have written.
No. You’re writing what you think DLC is, I’m providing examples where the line actually is blurry.
Yes, there are plenty of cases where DLC requires a download and is local only, but there are also plenty where it doesn’t and is shared with others who play with you. MTX is like the latter.
If we ban MTX, we run the very real risk of banning other, “good” forms of DLC that work in exactly the same way. So the distinction becomes very subjective. Sure, maybe you and I could agree that a given method is “good” or “bad,” but that’s not something that can easily (read: feasibly) be written into law, and the gaming industry will find workarounds.
And that’s not even getting into the discussion about whether it’s moral to restrict individual choice of adults in the first place. So my focus will be on protecting children, not trying to ban MTX entirely because I honestly don’t think that’ll work.
Congrats, you have missed the entire concept that large demographics of people do not have the ability to self regulate their addiction problem, because an addiction problem literally is the lack of the ability to self regulate in regards to a certain activity or substance.
No, addiction is not the inability to self-regulate, it’s a physical or psychological dependence.
Someone with an alcohol addiction probably needs to avoid alcohol entirely. That’s a form of self-regulation. If you’re addicted to MTX, your form of self-regulation is either to entirely avoid games with MTX, or put a lock on your account to prevent purchases (if there’s a PIN, have an SO set it so they can help you control it). If you only make stupid decisions while drunk and you look to drink while playing, putting a daily purchase cap could be enough.
We don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater here, we can instead provide tools to help those with addiction problems self-regulate. That would be the direction of legislation, not banning things that impacts a small subset of the population.
Yep, you continue to be wrong in ways that I have already explained which you obviously do not understand, and in more baffling ways that would require even further in depth explanations from me which at this point you quite clearly would also misunderstand.
You often do not even understand how to make relevant criticisms and simply assert something false or irrelevant about one point I make and use it to argue against some other point in a way that I have already shown to be false or failing to even grasp the concept being discussed.
You are in this latest post just outright contradicting yourself within the span of two adjacent sentences as opposed to separate posts.
Obviously you are someone who plays games and has opinions about them and has no actual programming or tech industry or video game creation experience, as opposed to myself who does have actual experience making games and has worked in the tech industry for a decade.
Again, you have no idea what you are talking about and have basically been wrong about literally everything you have mentioned.
DRM still is not DLC. Yes. They interact. That does not mean they are the same thing or necessarily must coexist. DRM is not /content/ it is /content management/.
Their interplay or relationship is irrelevant to a discussion about MTX, which you still fundamentally fail to grasp is a system with definable attributes, which I again have already defined more than sufficiently, which you again are either forgetting or ignoring.
You insist on relying on astoundingly vague and unspecified concepts of ‘good’ DLC vs ‘bad’ DLC which is obviously not possible to legislate or regulate because it is not well defined.
We absolutely do not run the risk of banning any kind of DLC if MTX is regulated against.
Again, as I already stated, in a world where say games were not allowed to, within the actual game itself, offer access to the player to additional content that applies specifically to that character’s avatar as either a cosmetic or a functional in game item, where the actual digital code for said items is already present to all players without additional download, this would 1) lessen impulsive purchases 2) reasonably result in many games moving there stores for MTX to a program or website not actually in the game itself.
Then, if you combine that with my other theoretical restriction of being able to purchase additional DLC for a specified game only every so often, or put a cap on max spending on DLC in a time period, what this results in initially MTX individual items to be sold as bundles, and at the very least highly incentivizes game companies that rely on MTX to make reasonably priced bundles, while also not seriously affecting non MTX games that semi-regularily release DLC that contains more substantial things than just items for the individual player.
While this would not entirely destroy the ability of MTX games to sell more content, it would seriously dampen the exploitative power of their predatory business model to harm those susceptible to it.
In the world of preventing addictions and similar things, there is never a full proof solution, but there often are very effective harm reduction techniques.
Not that you have any understanding of such policies as you apparently still cannot grasp that addiction literally is a self regulation problem, but also simultaneously that it is and MTX is somehow unique and special and different than other addiction problems and should be addressed by methods which are very, very well known to be very ineffective for all other addiction problems.
I cannot believe that I have actually wasted my time repeating myself due to your inability to string together consistent concepts from my differing posts.
You are just arguing for the sake of wanting to be right and have absolutely no ability to realize you are incorrect, uniformed, and also just at this point unable to make a coherent argument.
You are in this latest post just outright contradicting yourself within the span of two adjacent sentences as opposed to separate posts.
Then please point that out so I can either explain how it’s not a contradiction, or learn where I was mistaken.
DRM still is not DLC. Yes. They interact. That does not mean they are the same thing or necessarily must coexist. DRM is not /content/ it is /content management/.
I never said they were. I said that in many cases, DLC is already “part of the game,” just hidden behind some DRM. That seemed to be the contention you had with MTX, that content was in the game, but not available unless the player purchases it. I’m sure there are plenty of games in your library with content locked behind a DLC paywall, but still in the binary you downloaded.
DLC used to simply be a replacement for those expansion disks you can buy at the store, and now they’re just unlocked in the same binary everyone downloads. MTX is extremely similar in that you get to see content you can’t access directly, provided someone you’re playing with has paid for that content.
Again, as I already stated, in a world where say games were not allowed to, within the actual game itself, offer access to the player to additional content that applies specifically to that character’s avatar as either a cosmetic or a functional in game item, where the actual digital code for said items is already present to all players without additional download, this would 1) lessen impulsive purchases 2) reasonably result in many games moving there stores for MTX to a program or website not actually in the game itself.
Games would just provide a link to a browser (or embed a browser directly, depending on the wording of the law) in the game itself, and then you’d see the effects immediately in the game when buying cosmetics. Yeah, maybe it would be a slight hurdle to jump, but it would basically only be one more click.
And that’s if your bill even passes. The market is just too lucrative for these companies to just roll over, they will find a way to capitalize on players’ vanity and desire to have “everything.”
theoretical restriction of being able to purchase additional DLC for a specified game only every so often, or put a cap on max spending on DLC in a time period
How would that be enforced? Unless that number is quite high, it’s going to annoy a lot of players (i.e. let’s say I come back to a game like Magic Arena or Hearthstone and want to get caught up with the latest cards), and if it’s too high, it’s probably not going to help much. Maybe a requirement for games to block users for unusually high spending would help in some cases, but would that really apply to people who are addicted (i.e. that have consistently high spending)?
It just seems incredibly hard to craft a law that effectively solves the problem, doesn’t restrict players’ freedom too much, and that large gaming companies would not fight too hard against. And I’m sure large gaming companies would find a way around whatever law is crafted (i.e. maybe gifts don’t count, so players gift each other stuff instead).
addiction literally is a self regulation problem
No, addiction is a dependency problem.
Ask anyone who has made it through AA or any similar program and you’ll learn that the (physical or psychological) dependency is still there, but they’ve learned how to self-regulate to avoid triggering it. What seems to work is placing obstacles in their way to force themselves to make a conscious decision instead of giving in to that need.
So if there’s any regulation here, it should be around giving people the tools to self-regulate (and perhaps requiring games to advertise them), not on preventing the behavior directly (that limits individual choice). If people know they have an addiction problem, they can set a cap (or ideally just not play predatory games).
You are just arguing for the sake of wanting to be right
No, I’m arguing because I have a different opinion, and I think you’re misunderstanding it. If you simply disagreed, you’d presumably stop replying, or try to convince me of yours. But if you attack my arguments, I’ll clarify and explain.
Here you are, considering whether it is worth a dollar to show off your fashion to those you compete against and or cooperate with.
This is literally how it starts.
I cannot say with certainty that you in particular will become addicted to buying more and more cosmetics, but I can say with certainty that many, many people do, especially when combined with the feedback loop of peer pressure.
Further, there are many other alternative funding models that would easily allow for lots of in game content to be added to a game, and then you can make it unlockable via achievements or specific missions or something.
Any one who tells you that games /have/ to do microtransactions to exist in some cases is basically nearly always lying. You can prove this easily by saying: What if all these game studios cut the pay of their executives in half or down to 1/10th?
Its not like they need the money, and its not like they usually even make good decisions in terms of game design, when you are talking about larger studios or those beholden to large funding entities for recognizable IP rights, or some new unique graphical technology or something.
MTX is also astonishingly easy to recognize as a deplorable joke from those who have been playing a wide breadth of games for a while.
A phenomenon that originally started in MMOs and has since spread to other genres is this:
When content becomes stale, when gameplay becomes boring due to those who are not good st the game leaving and those who are good basically becoming near god like, these situations often devolve into the game simply becoming a fashion contest.
What this actually means is the game needs something new to keep it interesting, or it needs to be gently put into retirement phase, perhaps open sourcing some server material for the truly dedicated to be able to continue playing it.
What MTX represents, with the knowledge I just outlined, is that you basically have a cookie cutter core game whose general gameplay loop is known to appeal to a certain demographic, but you /know/ the only new real content you can expect is the fashion contest, maybe a broken or OP item or weapon from a patch that will be heavily rebalanced by the next patch.
You can also know the game will never add anything that really radically forces players to re evaluate the way they play it, because that would alienate the core player base.
So, any game that embraces MTX heavily from the get go is thus usually always a very boring game anyway, at least to those who are interested in novel and challenging experiences, and there will be many slight variations of the same game with slightly different art, characters, or gameplay, but usually very similar core mechanics and general experience.
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