• bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    23 minutes ago

    I actually do know people who do this. Its pretty crazy to me. Like I game a decent amount, then feel bad that I wasted that time. So I do a bunch of projects and get out of the house to feel better. I guess these people don’t have that need, which must be kind of nice!

  • BootyEnthusiast@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1015·
    1 day ago

    Dude needs to stop playing predatory gacha games.

    I don’t understand people who WILLINGLY install that shit. They KNOW how they work and are monetized. And unlike gambling at a casino, there’s zero chance of you being up money at any point.

      • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
        386·
        1 day ago

        That feels an awful lot like saying opiates are fine just don’t get addicted. It’s easy to say when you aren’t susceptible, but clearly some people are and it’s not very productive to be dismissive of the primary way they make money.

        • NIB@lemmy.world
          161·
          1 day ago

          A better comparison would be alcohol. Many of people consume alcohol but very few people become alcoholics. Maybe it is genetic predisposition or environmental/mental factors that lead people to abusing it.

          Similarly with gachas, millions of people play them as free to play, without ever spending money. A lot of people spend 10-20€ a month and very few people spend hundreds or thousands of euro every month.

          As far as honkai star rail is concerned, i enjoy the story, environments, music and the characters and i recommend it. You dont need to spend and you can do everything(or miss like 5% of the rewards, if you dont want to tryhard) without ever spending money.

          The main selling point of the game is the story and you can do that with any characters. If you dont want to participate in the endgame, you can ignore it. Ultimately it is a singleplayer turned based “rpg”, though it is actually just an anime+idle game. Every 40 days, you get a new episode/season.

          • Ech@lemmy.ca
            42·
            23 hours ago

            You can still be addicted, even of you don’t spend a dime.

            • NIB@lemmy.world
              11·
              2 hours ago

              Sure but then you only waste your time. Some more casual gachas, like star rail, are deliberately designed to be casual, in order to increase their retention rate(ie keep most of the players playing in the long term). They dont require much time daily(you can afk do the dailies in the background within 5mins) and while there is replayable content, it isnt necessary and eventually you will be done with that too.

              Some gachas are more hardcore, demanding more time, which enables them to have a smaller pool of players who are more dedicated(ie less likely to quit because of sunk cost).

              I assume addiction rates are higher on those gachas, then again mainstream casual gachas like star rail, have tens of millions of players, so maybe they have more “addicted” players(total, not as a percentage).

        • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world
          51·
          23 hours ago

          I think there may be a slight difference between doing heroin and playing a video game where you get anime girls by chance.

        • steeznson@lemmy.world
          4·
          1 day ago

          They are not a great analogy because they at least have a legit use in medicine.

          That said, not really sure what the best analogy for SAAS slot machines would be. Even playing them for free you still have the sensation of pulling down on the device (phone screen/machine lever) and then the “spin” with variable rate rewards.

          • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            21 hours ago

            They do, but given everything Purdue’s done I felt it was fitting. Fine as a concept, awful when the sole goal is extracting money.

      • papalonian@lemmy.world
        101·
        22 hours ago

        Because your top level comment makes sense while the rest of your replies devolved into a caps-locked crash out aimed at anything resembling nuance. Now I’m more convinced you’re 14.

    • ikt@aussie.zoneEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      I was going to say YEAH! but then remembered I was addicted to World of Warcraft from 2006 to 2017 and then relapsed started playing again in 2019 after WoW classic came out and every now and then something wriggles in my brain to say you should sign up again, it’ll be fun

    • slaacaa@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 day ago

      Exactly. I have been gaming for decades, yet I never played any of these. Only heard of WOW and Apex Legends out of all the names, no idea what the rest are.

      It is possible to spend your money and time on games that provide the entertainment you’re looking for, but not exploit you.

      • reev@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        23 hours ago

        All (or most, don’t recognize some) of these are gacha games. You get characters by participating in essentially a slot machine (hence the name “pulling”), more or less. The more powerful characters have lower odds. You can do dailies for pulls or you can spend money to pull more often.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          5·
          23 hours ago

          Huh, that sounds like shit. Why would anyone play that?

          I know when Factorio introduced quality some people complained it was like gambling, but in Factorio its done at a level where probability just averages out. I want a rare shiny iron plate and 2% of the time I will get one. So if I make 25,000 iron plates per minute I will be getting 500 rare shiny plates a minute.

          • Xabis@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 hour ago

            Why do people gamble? Because that’s what this is.

            The companies don’t even care about the average player. They are trying to hook rich people with more money then sense, aka whales.

            A long time ago the industry realized an extremely small percent blows way more money than all the others combined.

            If you ever played a game with any kind of monitization and asked yourself why everything is $40 and how the average player can afford it, this is why.

    • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 day ago

      I played Arknights for a bit because there’s actually a pretty solid tower defense game in there. There’s not a big selection of good games for Android and I wanted something I could play when I have no laptop with me.

      Unfortunately the good gameplay is buried under tons of attention hogging gacha bullshit.

      I stopped playing once I realized that I was spending more time doing chores than actually playing through interesting content. Also, while the BGM is nothing short of lavish, the presentation of the story is like a very cheap VN, which basically killed any hope of getting engaged in the story or the characters.

      I didn’t spend much more than maybe twenty bucks on it so it’s not too bad given the partially solid gameplay. But yeah, I’m done with live service bullshit games.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    What kind of time warp are you in? Just doing WoW dailies took all day and made me realize I was wasting my life.

  • mad_lentil@lemmy.caEnglish
    58·
    22 hours ago

    And we wonder why Jordan Peterson telling someone like this to make their bed blows their whole mind.