What do you think are the long term effects of mobile gatcha games?

[Specter Von Baren]

So I was reading a reddit discussion on Take Two acquiring the company that made Farmville and there's a ton of discussion about all of these mobile gatcha games and what effects they're having on people.

The post that made me want to make this thread, not that I nesacarily agree with it, was this one.

think this is a bigger issue than most people realize. People give kids these cheap Fire Tablets and treat it like the Game Boy they had growing up. It absolutely is not. These kids are playing glorified slot machines hours and hours a day/week.

I've watched kids play "racing" games where essentially no input is required. The car will bounce off the walls, keep itself straight, and you'll finish top three. Then a flashy animation plays and you get some random reward, an ad, and the option to buy some fake currency.

There was legitimate value to developing hand eye coordination or puzzle solving skills in traditional games. This stuff is nothing but a casino simulator.

Now this isn't a topic we haven't discussed before but I'd like to see what people think will be the potential repercusions of these games in the long term. Not on a early and case by case basis but in say, 10 to 15 years on people and society as a whole.

 

[BrawlMan]

I hate stuff like this. It preys on people's addictions or manipulate kids that don't know any better. It molds them into basically being glorified crack addicts. Creating FOMO and all the other bad junk. Like that article said, these aren't games, these are glorify slot machines where you do not win any money. Just fake currency. These type of "games" set everyone for failure. The only way to win is to not play any of them nor give them any cash.

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[CaitSeith]

It won't cause much impact in the society as a whole. People already buy lottery tickets and scratchcards now, and more people will do it in the future (probably with Zynga-style artwork). A different predatory monetization will become the new fad in games less than 10 years from now, and gatcha mechanics will be relegated to second place or the mere hook to lure the players to the new gambling mechanic.

 

[meiam]

Close to 75% of the money made in gaming nowaday comes from in game purchase and its just increasing over time. Its clear what people want, there's still plenty of game with no gacha mechanic but more and more player just decide to spend their money on gacha enabled game. imo its their choice, I don't see regular games disappearing anytime soon, just like TV didn't kill theatre.

 

[Gordon_4]

My main objection is games that didn't start that way - Lookin' at you Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Bejewelled etc - and were bought at full price in good faith at time of release now turning into these MTX but mainly advert infested pieces of garbage.

 

[Jarrito3002]

We should of saw this coming once AAA studios started putting mobile micro transaction into their 60 dollar and up. Eventually you have a capilist ouroboros was expected.

Now the impact hell we can see it now my little cousin plays Fortnite and kids his age make fun of other kids for not have skins and even playing with the base line characters. Remind of me of not have the latest shoes in school but now that stupid shame is digital. Plus I have seen money spent on those little by little purchases. Parents have to be more careful what they give their kids but damn I should be able let a little kid play like tetris or some puzzle game to get the brain juices flowing without a charge on the bank account.

I am not even sure what to expect in 10 to 15 years cause the current is already too brazen for its own good so how can it get any higher from here.

 

[Silvanus]

The long term effects would be...
* worsening of standards and quality in mobile gaming, as it becomes more and more normalised to sell poor-quality cash grabs;
* Encouragement of addiction and compulsive behaviours;
* More fucking annoying ads;
* Maybe, eventually, if we're really lucky, some more anti-gambing legislation like that in Belgium to restrict this predatory shite.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Now the impact hell we can see it now my little cousin plays Fortnite and kids his age make fun of other kids for not have skins and even playing with the base line characters. Remind of me of not have the latest shoes in school but now that stupid shame is digital. Plus I have seen money spent on those little by little purchases. Parents have to be more careful what they give their kids but damn I should be able let a little kid play like tetris or some puzzle game to get the brain juices flowing without a charge on the bank account.

That's nothing new. Kids have been making fun of other kids for being poor or different for ages. Back when I went to school you got made fun of for having a cheap backpack, not having Jordans, wearing the wrong brand of jeans, having holes in your jeans, not having holes in your jeans, having holes in your jeans in the wrong spots. If there's something that kids can use to separate themselves into cliques they'll use it and they'll make fun of everyone else.

Frankly if parents aren't controlling their kids that's their own problem. You know you don't have to have your credit card saved as a payment method on your kid's ipad. If you saved it there for your convenience then it's 100% your own fault when your kid spends $10,000 on fortnite lootboxes.

If you want to get your kid a game to play that doesn't have microtransactions then do your research and find one. Don't just download the first free puzzle game you see on the store page and assume it'll be fine and then complain that the devs didn't do enough to protect your kids. It's up to the parents to do the work. I don't see these complaints as any different than parents buying their kids Grand Theft Auto because they had no idea what it was and then complaining that it had sex, drugs, and violence in it.

If people didn't play gacha trash then it wouldn't exist. If people controlled what their kids access on their tablets they wouldn't be able to play the gacha trash. Parental controls exist for a reason, stop abdicating responsibility. The internet is not a safe space for children and you need to deal with it rather than complain.

 

[I can't enter my old name]

think this is a bigger issue than most people realize. People give kids these cheap Fire Tablets and treat it like the Game Boy they had growing up. It absolutely is not. These kids are playing glorified slot machines hours and hours a day/week.

It isn't, real gacha machines have been around for decades. Besides those, you remember those arcade machines where you spin a wheel or hit the button at the right time? If you win you get something no kid could afford, like an ipod? The amount of luck far superceeds any kind of skillful gameplay.

There was legitimate value to developing hand eye coordination or puzzle solving skills in traditional games. This stuff is nothing but a casino simulator.

How is that any different than say farming mobs for a <1% drop? To use the redditor's Gameboy comparison, how is that any different from farming shiny Pokemon? Mindlessly selecting an attack isn't hard.

I'm going guess this redditor cares because lootboxes negatively impacts his experience in video games. He invokes the moral argument because it works very well, especially with today's age regulations with gambling. I could make the same argument about most games being homicide simulators, and this guy would use every minor point and technicality to say how it's totally different.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Frankly if parents aren't controlling their kids that's their own problem. You know you don't have to have your credit card saved as a payment method on your kid's ipad.

This pretty much. My baby sister has been playing Genshin Impact for two years now, and hasn't spent a single centavos on any in-game currency or microtransactions. And she's done pretty well for herself. She has quite a few highly sought after characters and items, and in a way, the game is her "social media" where she interacts with her friends that she hasn't seen in person since the pandemic began. She has no desire to buy Genshin bucks or whatever they're called. Hell, she even takes pride in being a F2P player. That's how our parents raised us. Spending their money on digital nonsense was a big no-no.

I can understand maybe 10 years ago parents being oblivious to the scummy behavior of mobile gaming devs, but it's 2022. Most people who are becoming parents have lived with smartphones for like half their lives by now.

These companies still deserve an enema with rusty thumbtacks, but c'mon pay attention to your kids.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Nausea, shortness of breath, dizziness, headaches, swelling of the hands and feet, muscle cramps, indigestion, hot flashes, numbness, weight loss, rash, suicidal thoughts, heartburn, weight gain, and death.

 

[Gyrobot]

Not a damn care in the world because I actually spend on these games and don't have as much time for long term commitments to games anymore save the odd guilty pleasure in a long session.

The reality of these games is you are going to find someone you are going to main and your money willbe spent on their skins, charms, emotes and anything revolving around them. Trying to be a completionist is a fool's errand in these games and eventually you WILL run out of items to spend on.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I think we already saw that happen with Battlefront 2. Lootboxes were the gacha mechanics that bled into AAA-games and infested them until eventually one went too far. Now the lingering effects of microtransaction filled stores will likely remain until the industry finds another shitty scheme to milk cash from as many people as possible.

 

[Gyrobot]

I think we already saw that happen with Battlefront 2. Lootboxes were the gacha mechanics that bled into AAA-games and infested them until eventually one went too far. Now the lingering effects of microtransaction filled stores will likely remain until the industry finds another shitty scheme to milk cash from as many people as possible.

Or just dig up older methods for efficiency. That is the magic about Live Service Games is the sky is the limit for a service model.