Jordan Declined Sponsor?

[Badfish]

Hobbies can absolutely be addictive and even destructive. My point is that I have never seen such overly protective measures for anything else out there. It's like they pick on these so called "predatory" games.

I'm not interested in white knighting for any gaming company out there but ultimately it's up to each individual how they want to spend their money.

Facebook and Instagram devote resources into researching how the dopamine reward system works and have deliberately designed their platforms to addict people. Games like this are the same. It is the sinister "intent" of these games' designs that people take issue with. If you're not someone with addictive tendencies, it may be hard for you to relate to them, but they aren't preying on people like you, rather the population of people who are susceptible.
I agree though, there are plenty of things out there that can addict people. Gambling companies, cigarette companies etc have to place warnings on their adverts and I think these games should do the same.
What I cant get is why anyone would want to even try this game after watching an ad. It looks absolutely dreadful

 

I already posted this video before, but reading that capitalist "free the markets" band waggon I can't do else than repeatedly posting it. Company's using these dark patterns against users don't need anything else than hard state regulation like tobacco, like alcohol, like gambling, like private weapon possession.

Because it can't be up to the individual to resist against this "psychological warfare" through dark patterns.

And don't ask me why this stuff isn't already generally forbidden by european laws. Because it should.

 

[dodageka]

Hobbies can absolutely be addictive and even destructive. My point is that I have never seen such overly protective measures for anything else out there. It's like they pick on these so called "predatory" games.

I'm not interested in white knighting for any gaming company out there but ultimately it's up to each individual how they want to spend their money.

While some hobbies can also be addictive, the big difference to these games is the intent. These games are not developed to be fun in the first place, they are developed to be as addictive as possible and trap people. I would go so far to not call them games but drugs instead, as this is what they are. And this is also what they are developed as. If you look at these games with a bit of distance, there isn’t anything fun about the actual gameplay, they are instead super frustrating and the only pleasure comes from overcoming this frustration. Because the best way to overcome the frustration is spending money one associates spending with happiness. It’s the 101 of creating an addiction. It indeed could be questioned why these games are allowed while other drugs aren’t

 

[Bourne2Die]

Hobbies can absolutely be addictive and even destructive. My point is that I have never seen such overly protective measures for anything else out there. It's like they pick on these so called "predatory" games.

I'm not interested in white knighting for any gaming company out there but ultimately it's up to each individual how they want to spend their money.

If you consider what @dodageka says and add, that for games like these psychologists are main parts of the dev team, you might start to see the difference between hobbies like running, where there is a minor chance of getting addicted, just by your bodies natural reaction, or a game that is 100% designed to be addictive.

 

[Oli King]

the only "educational" video you need on this topic is the Southpark episode "Freemium isn't free"

Here is the link to the german website: https://www.southpark.de/folgen/jy5lbq/south-park-freemium-gibt-s-nicht-umsonst-staffel-18-ep-6

 

[doacid]

Seems like some you are misunderstanding the reason for the "hate" received by said game. It's not about the game in particular, but the kind of predatory tactics games like these employ to get people into the game and spend a ton of money.

The excellent last video linked by simonsan in their post's spoilers contains a lecture by a game company CEO highlighting the predatory practices used by these kinds of companies. For those of you who do not want to watch it, let me just quickly highlight one part of it (and there's a reason why I'm talking about this part). The whole appeal of a lot of these mobile games is that it's free to play on the surface. The video explains how companies do their monetization in stages. The first stage is what they call the Hook or Ice Breaker. This stage is often tutorial based where people are given some freebies, and some really cheap offers that are too hard to resist, but need you to pay up a tiny amount of actual money. The idea behind this is to break the wall that a lot of people have which prevents them from spending on a mobile game. The next stage, as people develop a Habit of playing the game, is to sell them conveniences to help quicker progress. And lastly, as the game becomes a Hobby, it tries to sell them end-game consumables which are often more expensive than the rest, since people are addicted to the game by then.

For about two years of my life and until quite recently, I was addicted to a game similar in concept to Raid Shadow Legends. The game's story was actually decently compelling, and while it started out fairly innocently as a free to play mobile game, the incentive to spend keeps getting higher and higher as you play. They often try to keep you playing the game by giving shin rewards to make you login daily (and they progressively less shiny as you play more). Are some of these strategies obvious? Well, perhaps in hindsight. To me, who had never previously played any game similar in concept to this, the appeal of the game was in the fact that they kept updating their content each month, releasing new characters (which are often broken to incentivise more spending), and the uncertainty that you aren't always guaranteed to get what you want. I ended up spending about $10 a month on the game, which isn't the end of the world, but more important to me was the sheer time I wasted playing it (3-4 hrs a day on average, 10ish during special events) and making me feel like I haven't gained anything important in any way. But it's fairly easy to imagine people who lose both time and money to these tactics.

Now arguably, when a streamer promoting games like these, they are essentially asking people to try out the "Hook" stage of it. Most people will think of it as another way of supporting their favourite streamer, complete the tutorial stuff once and stop playing. But there will be the 1% who actually find it appealing enough to stay. Does this mean streamers have a moral obligation to stop promoting content like this for the minority who cannot see a game for what it is and will end up losing more time and money than is good for them? In my opinion, not necessarily. But it's always worth appreciating when someone calls it out for what it is (like Viper did) or refuses the sponsorship (like Jordan) if even to prevent the 1% people like me who have nothing but regrets about the time and money they won't ever get back.

If anyone made through this wall of text, thanks. This is my first and probably last post here, and I would have been fine being a lurker if this topic wasn't so personal to me.

Thanks for sharing your experience, it was insightful
Lurk away my friend, I've got you covered, I'll keep posting enough stupid **** for the both of us.

Props to Joadn

 

[willdbeast]

Facebook and Instagram devote resources into researching how the dopamine reward system works and have deliberately designed their platforms to addict people.

You forgot the 3rd of the big three social media platforms and the most addictive of all: AoEZone

 

[Tempires]

Doesn't seem to be super interesting, but not sure it's necessary to jump on someone for asking the question.

Because in same day there is multiple threads about 2 weeks old topic which involves known streamer and player even though question is answered in same tweets as were Jordan told about it.