It's not fair, it's predatory behavior aimed at addicts and children.
I hope the rest of the EU will follow the fine example set by NL and BE.
I hope the rest of the EU will follow the fine example set by NL and BE.
F2P games which are clear about exactly what you're getting for your money in each transaction are fine, and there are plenty of F2P games which do this successfully and legally.
In general I hate f2p games and any kind of micro-transaction with a loathing passion but this is an example of an extremely fair system in my opinion. I will certainly not play Diablo Immortal. In my opinion they killed the IP and I don't believe Blizzard will ever get to its former success even when completely discounting WoW.
Have you played the game? I saw the OG YT video on this, and I was expecting to see lots of in-your-face tactics, but wanted to be fair before passing judgement. I really don't think it's predatory. At least, not yet. Maybe things change at higher levels - they sometimes do. (I'm looking for points where you can't progress in the mainline quest without spending money or ridiculous time. Haven't seen that yet but it may be there.)
All of this is subject to the definition of gambling, predatory, etc - of which i'm not trying to argue. Just saying that befriending children with the goal of handing them drugs after a "long" period doesn't change that i'm still handing them drugs. Same goes for this, i would think - if it falls within those definitions, of course.
If you are having to pay to enjoy end game now, that's pretty sad.
Inherently games are all just dopamine drivers. Some are of course based on physical skills (coordination/timing/etc), others on knowledge as a skill (exploiting game mechanics/etc). Where it gets fuzzy fast for me is very basic MMOs, RPGs, etc - RNG based mechanics. The fact that i completed the dungeon with a skill (knowledge/etc to play the dungeon correctly and win) doesn't seem, to me, to change the RNG roll at the end.
I'm in no way arguing that any RNG equates to gambling.. in the classical sense.. but it kinda does, if you squint. So when does it become bad? Is it when we make gambling addicts? Because old fashioned games with RNG rewards (loot/etc) likely form addicts (if we stretch the word for discussion).. myself included. Or is it just when we involve money?
Money seems an easy line to draw.. but is it fair to children if we make them gambling addicts and only charge them once they hit 18? Spend their youth training for the casinos, only to take part when their old enough to lose it all?
I don't have any answers.. but it feels like we're playing fast and loose with weaponized dopamine here. As with most of our society, i suppose.
But I find balancing this very difficult. We want fun games and fun things are addictive. But we don't want addict-creating games. So how do you measure which amount of addiction is the correct amount?
The one thing that does scare me about addiction + money is that, like Diablo, the companies incentive seems aligned with getting players to spend vast quantities of hours and money. Regardless of what it is right now or what value it offers for free, that seems to be their incentive.
Simple buy models without MTX seem an easier model to keep company incentives aligned with player incentives.
I then uninstalled the game. My wife was glad and said I’d been a grumpy zombie all weekend, ignoring her and my kids.
I think a lot of folks who are effectively immune to gambling’s allure dismiss the danger to others when they don’t see anything slowing or blocking progression because that’s what would motivate them to even entertain the thought of engaging the gambling mechanic. I think what you’re really evaluating is whether or not it’s pay to win which while terrible, isn’t insidiously predatory.
The difference? Gambling is often regulated so there's specific payout percentages. Because there's not a direct monetary payout but instead a decoupled game benefit, it's not regulated the same way, so they're free to do whatever they want with the payouts (including valuing all the items however they want if they are called on to), as well as market to children who may not recognize the system for what it is.