How much are live service games bleeding people dry?

[Yankee Zulu]

****** and their gachas have nothing to do with this ****. MOBILE GAMING SAYS HELLO. Do you have any idea how much money some individuals spend on mobile games? A LOT. Chinese gaming is on the rise in general because their income level has increased in recent years and they can spend some money on video games.

More like because they work 70+ hours a week (see:996) and have no real hobby rather than consooming. Think about ******* and their shoes obsession. Another reason is because, like poojeets, they are hierarchical creatures, so they do have a tendency of paying microtransaction in order to prove themselves being economically superior by winning p2w pvp combat.

***** do you need me to tell you how much money games like Candy Crush Saga or Clash of Clans make? Angry Birds? **** its a bottomless pit. Stories about some uniqums spending fortunes on these games pop up from time to time.

[Arilando]

Adjusted for inflation I probably spent way more at arcades than most kids spend on gacha, and I wasn't even a big arcade player.

Didn't you claim to be 19 in another thread?

[rusty_shackleford]

Adjusted for inflation I probably spent way more at arcades than most kids spend on gacha, and I wasn't even a big arcade player.

Didn't you claim to be 19 in another thread?

I'm 19

[Arilando]

Adjusted for inflation I probably spent way more at arcades than most kids spend on gacha, and I wasn't even a big arcade player.

Didn't you claim to be 19 in another thread?

I'm 19

Arcades have been dead in the west your entire lifetime, so i don't understand your claim to have spent more on arcade games. The only real arcades left (where you actually have to put coins in the machines) are in Japan, otherwise it's those places where you pay to get in and then get infinite "coins" for each game.

[Stack of Turtles]

Didn't you claim to be 19 in another thread?

I'm 19

Arcades have been dead in the west your entire lifetime, so i don't understand your claim to have spent more on arcade games. The only real arcades left (where you actually have to put coins in the machines) are in Japan, otherwise it's those places where you pay to get in and then get infinite "coins" for each game.

yeah he's Japanese

[Arilando]

He's full of ****.

[maidenhaver]

I go to the arcade, every day. What third world shithole did you fall into?

[maidenhaver]

Imagine the 2020s in a country without arcades or orbital space colonies.

[Tangerine]

****** and their gachas have nothing to do with this ****. MOBILE GAMING SAYS HELLO. Do you have any idea how much money some individuals spend on mobile games? A LOT. Chinese gaming is on the rise in general because their income level has increased in recent years and they can spend some money on video games.

More like because they work 70+ hours a week (see:996) and have no real hobby rather than consooming. Think about ******* and their shoes obsession. Another reason is because, like poojeets, they are hierarchical creatures, so they do have a tendency of paying microtransaction in order to prove themselves being economically superior by winning p2w pvp combat.

But many of the top games don't have any PvP elements at all?

(I actually hate any game that forces PvP on me, I play games to get away from insufferable people!)

They're PvPing socially by showing off their skins.

[Arilando]

I go to the arcade, every day. What third world shithole did you fall into?

Okay? The arcades left in the West still tend to be cheap and it's something other than the machines that makes money for the establishment.

[maidenhaver]

If you buy microtransactions you deserve to be poor.

Truly, the aristocrat pirates, while the pleb consumes.

[Oyster Sauce]

I go to the arcade, every day. What third world shithole did you fall into?

Okay? The arcades left in the West still tend to be cheap and it's something other than the machines that makes money for the establishment.

So wrong. Guessing you're a Europeon.

[Arilando]

I go to the arcade, every day. What third world shithole did you fall into?

Okay? The arcades left in the West still tend to be cheap and it's something other than the machines that makes money for the establishment.

So wrong. Guessing you're a Europeon.

How is it wrong? In the US the vast majority of "arcades" mix the arcade machines with other forms of entertainment and don't require payment at the machines.

[J1M]

I hope anyone spending money on these sad excuses for games wastes all of their money on them and all of the money they are able to borrow. Same with anyone spending money on 'cosmetics'.

If they hadn't been so easily parted from their cash we could have actual games being made instead.

[Stack of Turtles]

I hope anyone spending money on these sad excuses for games wastes all of their money on them and all of the money they are able to borrow. Same with anyone spending money on 'cosmetics'.

If they hadn't been so easily parted from their cash we could have actual games being made instead.

This is also true for everything else in the entire world btw, including tv, movies, food, religion, politics...

The fault is with the people whose standards are low & they deserve everything they get

[NotAI]

Gatcha isn't gambling. Gambling works because people try to make it like a job, since you have the chance to earn real money. Not just spend real money.

Gatcha games is generally you buying waifus and waifus costing $100,000 to level up, which is something else than gambling. You can generally only spend money.

So there is no misleading attraction to try to keep doing it, trying to make money. Not gambling.

In a market you can charge any price for anything. It's a different question whether anybody will buy it for that price, obviously.

So then what's this thing called a gatcha game, eh?

Luxury good spending, duh!

Like a Birken Bag. Proof: You know what that is, even though you don't want it. And one of the most valuable companies in the world makes it.

Why does it work? Because people in their social group recognize the character and it brings status.

That's why this is mostly an asian thing.

Because, furthermore, even if you don't show off your Birken Bag, you might feel, by having a Birken Bag, that you are doing as well as people much wealthier than you who have a Birken Bag.

The reason people diss gatcha is the same reason they don't like brandname based business models. Because they feel it is unfair that a brand name on a cheap shirt can bring the price of a shirt from $30-80 to $300-800, nothing else different about it.

If Pokemon had come out today, rather than twenty years ago, Pikachu, Mew, Mew2 would have cost....$500,000/each. After all, the ability to capture them, without a master ball was....<1%. Then your juju amongst your peers would be maxed out. Hooray.

Proof: Watch Tik-Tok. YouTube. Instagram.

Comment: This should be another Substack post.

[maidenhaver]

Gatcha isn't gambling. Gambling works because people try to make it like a job, since you have the chance to earn real money. Not just spend real money.

Yes, and not just the chance, either. Gambling can be played with true games, which can be learned and mastered.

[Nessa]

I find the gacha thing ridiculous in the extreme. Why would I buy some crap fake digital item, that gives me a chance to get another fake digital item for a game that won't be around in 10 years anyway?

And yes, I play Nikki sure but haven't spent a dime. My philosophy is quite simple:





What gets me though, is it's not even hard. It's not like have to stop myself, buying anything in Nikki is just stupid.

[Norfleet]

Like a Birken Bag. Proof: You know what that is, even though you don't want it. And one of the most valuable companies in the world makes it.

Why does it work? Because people in their social group recognize the character and it brings status.

This is definitely a weird culture thing, then. In the culture of my people, buying expensive things doesn't bring status. Status comes from solving the problem in a cheap and efficient manner and frugality (read: cheapassery) is considered to be virtuous. To die with most of your money unspent and buried in a hole somewhere is considered to be a life lived well and virtuously.

[NotAI]

Like a Birken Bag. Proof: You know what that is, even though you don't want it. And one of the most valuable companies in the world makes it.

Why does it work? Because people in their social group recognize the character and it brings status.

This is definitely a weird culture thing, then. In the culture of my people, buying expensive things doesn't bring status. Status comes from solving the problem in a cheap and efficient manner and frugality (read: cheapassery) is considered to be virtuous. To die with most of your money unspent and buried in a hole somewhere is considered to be a life lived well and virtuously.

Exactly.

But that's where somebody makes the most money. Alas. They are the largest profit opportunities in any market. Precisely because something previously low value becomes, for a closed small group, items of high profit, courtesy nontransferable intangibles.

Weird, temporary, cultural glitches, that last a decade or two, enough to make a couple billion and start to donate to the democrats.