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Walmart and Unity To Bring Immersive Commerce to Games, Virtual Worlds and Apps
(corporate.walmart.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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I don't think it should be banned, but it should probably be treated like gambling: strictly unavailable to minors. Minors are a huge market, so this should limit the appeal of this nonsense to games developers.
And it shouldn't just be games, but any kind of software product should exclude kids from any form of in-game currency that can be purchased outside of the game.
Fuck them kids. The primary victims here are adults - those are the "whales" these bastards hunt. Kids don't have a thousand dollars a month to blow on one stupid game, but hoo boy do a bunch of waifu-susceptible adults.
Nothing inside a video game should cost money. Games make you value arbitrary nonsense. That is what makes them games! There is no ethical form of charging real-world currency for that made-up value. Not even if it's "just cosmetic," or whatever other dismissive excuses people have for lootboxes with more steps. If all the game's money comes from stupid fake hats, then the entire game exists solely to funnel people toward buying stupid fake hats.
We are talking about game developers - the foremost experts on guiding experiences, disguising shortcomings, and making objectively worthless things seem like amazing rewards. And they want a siphon attached to your wallet. They will make their products objectively less enjoyable to frustrate and cajole you into forking over unlimited sums of your actual money.
And we're not about to shop our way out of this, before anyone glibly says 'juuuust don't buy it!' like that's a novel insight. I'm not-buying it as hard as I can. I'm warning others not to buy it. Guess what? It's still swallowing the entire industry. This abuse is the dominant strategy. It costs next to nothing, it risks next to nothing, and it turns a trickle of content in an avalanche of money. So of course it's in $60, $70, $90 games now. It's in every genre, at every price point. It's in single-player titles. All excuses have been disproven. It's just plain greed, and it's infecting everything.
Only legislation will fix this. If we allow this to continue - there will be nothing else.
I hesitate to call adults "victims" here since they are completely responsible for their decisions. But that's not the point at all.
Kids are enablers here. Whales only exist because there's someone to show off to. These big MTX games need a lot of nonpaying customers to stroke the egos of their whales. If kids can't play games with MTX, the whales have far fewer people to show off to.
Kids are also a huge market, so companies would still want to court them, so those of us who don't want MTX will have a good selection to choose from because games companies will continue to cater to them.
Psychologically exploiting people for unlimited sums of money sounds pretty victim-y. We regulate all manner of demonstrably irrational behavior - like your own example, gambling. I have zero patience for the libertarian argument that nothing short of a gun to your head can be wrong.
You could get exactly what you want - no kids in any of these games - and the problem would not change, at all.
Trying to convince people to do something that's not in their interest isn't a crime, that's marketing.
Gambling is regulated, but only to the point of ensuring the game is fair, as in the customer understands the terms of the game as well as their risks. People aren't prevented from gambling, and institutions aren't prevented from marketing their games.
The same should be true in this case. People should understand the chances of getting something good from a loot box or whatever, as well as understand that the digital things they buy only exist for as long as the game is supported (or some other window of time).
Children cannot consent, so they cannot engage in gambling. That's why it's illegal, and also why that should extend to digital purchases.
And I have zero patience for "the government knows best" type arguments.
I should be allowed to do pretty much anything that doesn't negatively impact others, and that includes making stupid decisions. However, that only applies to adults, children can't consent, so they should absolutely be prevented from doing things that could harm them.
That's the most erudite "you just don't like it!" I've seen so far, but it's still dismissive horseshit.
Understanding cannot help. This is active, weaponized, evolving manipulation. Businesses are taking people's money for things with zero value. That is a scam. It doesn't have customers, it has victims.
All appearance of value is made-up by the people taking your money.
This is ruining an entire entertainment industry. It affects all of us! Video games as a product are being threatened by this bottomless pit. A sign saying "do not plummet if you're under eighteen" is aggressively failing to solve the problem.
No, the value is in the experience, and that can vary from person to person. Having a digital item that others don't absolutely has value for those that buy it.
It's not a scam if they're getting exactly what was advertised. If I buy a cosmetic item, I'm not getting scammed unless I don't get that cosmetic item. If I get a loot box with a 1% chance of something good, I'm not getting scammed if I don't get it unless the actual chance is lower than 1%. If I'm getting exactly what was advertised and it's a consensual transaction, it's not a scam, but it could absolutely be a stupid purchase.
I agree, but just because the majority does something stupid doesn't mean it should be illegal, it just means the majority is stupid and we probably need to improve our education system.
I get it, it really sucks, but banning something you don't like is a form of tyranny since you're essentially saying "this lifestyle choice is invalid." Perhaps there can also be some controls against dark patterns to limit manipulation (i.e. would a reasonable person understand the risks, know how to avoid it, etc), but you should be allowed to make stupid choices.
I don't gamble or play predatory games (except MtG: Arena, but I'm F2P because screw MTX). It's really not hard to resist, so I don't think it rises to the level of needing to be banned. There should probably be some changes, and starting by banning those games for minors is a good start.
Hey look, the red flag for any discussion of systemic issues, guess we're done here. Blame the victims and cross your fingers that the as-yet-unborn generation can be saved from this thing that's affecting the hell out of people right now and didn't really exist a decade ago. Why would government do anything about that?
Fucking hate everyone who reduces anything to this infuriating garbage. This is uncivil behavior - this is a personal attack - this is trolling. Telling someone where to shove it would not be.
... hypocrite.
I'm not blaming victims, I'm saying there aren't any victims because they made a conscious choice knowing exactly what they're buying. You can't just call yourself a victim when you do something stupid if there was no deceit in what you're getting.
How so? Dark patterns manipulate what you think you're getting, or what you need to do in order to get what you want.
For example, I've seen crap like a window popping up that says, "Buy gems to play more! $5 for 10, $8 for 20, or $15 50!" with no cancel, close, etc bottom. However, if you click outside the window, it disappears and you can play the game like you have been. That's a clear example of a dark pattern that's implying strongly that you need to pay to continue playing, and that should be illegal.
But if the transaction is clear (spend $X to get Y), and you get exactly what's advertised, I don't see that as something that should be banned. It shouldn't be illegal to market bad products for bad prices, it should only be illegal to misrepresent the product.
That said, the standard for minors should be much higher, and should disallow any chance-based purchase or anything related to addictive behavior. But that standard shouldn't apply to adults of sound mind (i.e. people without a mental disability that impacts ability to consent, such as being slow).
Calling the grindstone of continuous manipulation "conscious choice" - when YOU propose outlawing some of these abusive mechanisms - is blame. Why the hell would you discuss outlawing any portion of this, if you don't recognize people are being harmed?
Hello, and welcome to the point.
Games make you value arbitrary nonsense. That is what makes them... games. Literally fundamental. When a game makes all its money by manipulating people into throwing money at bullshit, over and over and over and over, the entire rest of the game is just a gaudy funnel toward that "choice."
Making you think you wanted it is how it works.
Because there's a difference between a scam and a stupid, conscious choice. The former misrepresents or replaces what you're buying, whereas the latter does not. The former should be illegal, the latter should not.
That's totally different from what I'm talking about.
If you actually value the thing and want it, you're not a victim for buying it, you're a customer. If you're buying it because it seems required (and it's not), that's a scam. Dark patterns influence both behaviors, but that doesn't automatically mean all dark patterns should be illegal, it really depends on the details.
I think we should treat it similarly to cigarettes: put a bunch of warning labels on it and prevent children from buying it, but don't make it illegal for consenting adults.
Need and want are equally artificial. It's a game. And these games will use whichever lever works best, to subvert your rational decision-making and maximize how much money you throw at them, for the absolute least quantity of effort.
All apparent value is arbitrary. There is no relevant difference between cajoling people into craving a different-colored hat, versus some scimitar with bigger numbers. The mechanisms of this manipulation are identical.
But you will never change anything by attacking those mechanisms - because developers will find new ones. They already have. They already do. "Lootboxes" became a dirty word, finally, but do you think this bullshit makes less money now? Nah: they squeeze people for additional billions, doing the same old bullshit with new language.
They make the fishhook gentle enough that people defend the taste of the bait.
That may be true, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal.
Laws shouldn't be crafted to eliminate stupid decisions, laws should penalize and discourage fraud and other direct forms of harm. Saying "you should buy this" isn't fraud in any way, provided the customer gets what they paid for, even if that thing is worthless (provided they were fully aware that it's worthless). People put a lot of value in vanity, and they're usually using money to stroke their own ego.
And that's totally fine, provided the transaction was consensual and the product wasn't misrepresented. It's disgusting and I will never work for or purchase from a company that does that, but I don't think it should be outlawed. We should absolutely make information public about how these things work so people can be informed and choose to make different choices.
Like charging real money to flip a bit inside a video game. So you can say you have something that's already in the game, because it's already onscreen, in the game, on your machine. When the whole game exists to make you want that bullshit.
Which is now a multi-billion-dollar industry unto itself. That is the only way they make money.
They take money for things they will just give you, if you play long enough. As if playing is labor. As if another dozen hours of grinding would mean they owe you a hundred bucks. Nah: they just take that much, so you'll avoid that frustration. You are paying money to play the game less.
That's a scam.
That's a big fuckin' hint that rational purchases leading to optimal consumer value are not what's happening.
That's an environment where all apparent positives are made-up by the people taking your actual money.
Misrepresentation is what manipulation is. There is no form of it that's not exploitative, and when that's just for yuks in a game you already bought - great! That is how games do. That is central to the concept. But when it's exploitation for money, we have words for that, and none of them are pleasant.
Information will never stop human beings from being predictably irrational. That's... what those words mean. More data won't help. That's why this shit works, at all, despite widespread vitriolic hatred toward the entire business model. It works no matter how anyone feels about it.
This business model is the entire problem. Wagging a finger at individuals only makes it worse.
Legislation is the only thing that could possibly help.
If the customer knows that's what they're paying for, there's no fraud.
No it's not. The player gets exactly what was advertised, so it's not a scam. There's no fraud there.
That may be true, but I firmly believe it's immoral to restrict a consenting adult's choices just because you don't agree with them and think you know better (you probably do, but that's beside the point).
Not all problems need solutions. If an alcoholic wants to destroy their life with alcohol, that should be their right. However, I think society should provide tools to help that alcoholic recover once they decide to fix their life (free rehab funded with taxes on alcohol, for example). That obviously won't help all alcoholics, but it provides options to help people fix their lives.
The same should apply here. Tax MTX and use it to fund game addiction rehab. But don't ban the MTX.
In other words, the ends do not justify the means. An immoral law is immoral even if it was created to help people, and restricting choice and limiting self-determination are immoral.
jUsT bEcAuSe YoU diSaGrEe yeah fuck all the other words I keep saying. And some of the words you keep saying.
You know this is rife with exploitation. You refuse to acknowledge the exploitation is all there is.
Charging money per-goal in soccer is fraud, even if you "get" the goal, for the money. The game, the stadium, the sport, exist solely as a dark vortex toward that decision. Your consent was manufactured because the entire thing is manufactured.
This business model is intolerable. There is no ethical form.
Taking back part of the money they ripped off will solve nothing.
Exploitation in general isn't illegal, only certain forms are.
A casino that offers free alcohol and has enticing games isn't illegally exploiting its customers, even if those customers get addicted to the games and their inhibitions are reduced due to the effects of alcohol. However, there are limitations, such as not allowing obviously drunk people to gamble since they're sufficiently impaired so as to not be able to legally consent.
I don't think MTX rise to that standard.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Are you saying viewers are charged per goal scored while they're watching? Is that actually a thing that happens, or even remotely similar? And how is that fraud? Fraud is when you misrepresent something:
Maybe if the ticket to the game said $50, but in the fine print you need to pay $100/goal and that's not disclosed anywhere prior to purchase.
Or are you saying that P2W is fraud generally? That really depends on how the free or lower cost tier is advertised.
I agree, which is why I don't engage with it. But something being intolerant or untasteful doesn't mean it should be illegal.
I find gambling to also be intolerable, so I don't gamble. However, I'll be first in line to support making it legal because it's tyrannical to prevent people from consensual gambling.
Yes.
Jesus, why do I bother typing words?
That's not what intolerable means! You're fucking tolerating it! You're fucking DEFENDING it!