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 Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
The cards were not actively being put in front of you
Were you even alive in 1989? We didn't have the internet, or smartphones. My house had 12 channels. People got out more back then. And virtually every point-of-sale in America had a rack of baseball cards.
and changing it contents algorithmically (read: by a machine) to keep you buying them.
Dude, I know 1989 feels like forever ago, but math had been invented by then. Are you claiming that trading card companies had no idea which cards would be most coveted? Are you saying that they did nothing to drive the scarcity or distribution of the most coveted cards? C'mon.
No it isn't.
Still, they woudl be worth something. It's an asset, and you can trade it with your friends. There is some, even however miniscule, intrinsic value in these.
Again, why is permanent liquidity suddenly the only measure of "worth"? Sometimes an item's worth is consumed.
A digital lootbox has no value other to than your account by design
So? There is a sandwich in my stomach right now that has no value to anyone other than me. It's useless to you, but it's giving me nutrition and the energy to write this post.
So, it is literally a money pit. By design.
So?
Again, you fall into the common trap. These things have no value outside of the game BY DESIGN
So?
It is literally worhtless to anyone but you, or other gamers in the game which will by design never have owner access to your shit.
So?
Lootboxes have been implemented in modern games with the sole purpose of replicating Skinner's Box environments in order to maximize the cash they can grab in games from everybody.
ZOMG!!! You mean corporations will leverage the popularity of their licensed content in order to increase profits among their target audience??? What foul treachery!!!
The thing is, most of these games are marketed towards underaged persons, up to the 17 year old demographic (Most games are rated E or PG13. Rarely do you get a. Mature rated game). So you can't really tolerate the gambling elements in them. Particularly if these are not advertised as such up front.
^This is complete and utter bullshit that I will address at the end
Read about half of it. Basically the author is a whiny bitch who got 'hooked' on an indulgence and doesn't accept responsibility for his own weakness. He blames it all on the evil corporations.
It's not your fault that you do not understand the issue Banana. Obviously you always take the "Corporations should be allowed to fleece you any way they see fit" approach whenever we have had any discussions on here because Capitalism and bootstraps or whatever, and that's ok,
Who is getting "fleeced"? You can spend $0 (other than the cost of the disc) and still play the game right?
but do a little bit of research on this one and you will see how bad this shit is.
Honestly, it doesn't seem that bad. It seems pretty similar to tons of other business models that have already existed for a long long long time. It seems to me that the most butt-hurt people here are the ones who are just a little irked that video games got more expensive.
These AAA-game corporations, particularly EA, Ubisoft, Activion and Blizzard bank on casual gamers, like apparently you, to keep the practice going. They bank on the ignorance of the masses to normalize it. They bank, literally, on you not understanding this and therefore not giving two shits about it.
No, I think they are banking on people like you eventually shutting up and realizing that your precious little past-time is provided for profit. No one owes you free extras.
The vast majority of people don't follow the industry; you want to play soccer you just buy the latest FIFA. They do not know beforehand about all the microtransactions (actually getting closer to being just transactions nowadays, these are definitely not micro anymore), consumables, lootboxes and the fucking bottomless pit slots that they will be faced with in the game which is designed to deceive and exploit you into paying more and more into the game.
So what you're saying is that they have found a way to make video games a deeper and more immersive experience, but in order to do that, it costs more. Rather than raise the price of games, (they've been $60 each for like 30 years now!), they implemented a system where the extras are optional and the user can make a conscious decision about whether or not to purchase them. How's that a bad thing?
And of course, this is mostly/all geared towards children.
This is the saddest and most pathetic of all of your arguments dude. I don't believe for a fucking second that you're really moved at all by any concern regarding children. I think it's just a convenient argument that you're co-opting to help keep your games cheap.
You obviously don't have children, because if you did, you would know that EVERYTHING THEY DO COSTS FUCKING MONEY!
Kids are bombarded with thousands of marketing attempts a day. Virtually every minute of their lives they are fed hype for every type of toy, game, show, movie, song, and electronic device you can name. It's all designed to get money. You never cared until it touched your precious little star wars game.
And finally your "but think of the children" argument fails hard when you realize that this is all pretty much driven on card-based transactions, am I right? Kids 17 and under, shouldn't have credit cards. Period. It's up to mom and dad to secure their cards and make sound decisions on how, when, or even if they allow their kid to spend money on a loot box.
Or...if the kid is buying gift cards with cash and then using them online.....so what? Kids blow their allowance on all kinds of shit. If a 15 year old works a paper route and blows the money on new elbow pads for C3PO, why do you even care? He doesn't have a credit card, so he can't go into debt. He can't spend more than he earns, so the worst case scenario is that we have a kid who learns that he can have more of what he wants if he works more. You know...... 'bootstraps and whatever'.
If parents aren't securing their credit cards, or if they aren't informed of their 13 year-old's finances, then bad things are going to happen. Period. It could be video games, it could be phone sex. Are you just gonna outlaw everything because some parents are shitty enough to let their kids do bad things?
I realize you're pissed about having to shell out a few extra bucks to feel "cool" among your digital trekkie pals, but a nanny-government solution is not the answer.
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