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Comment by tobico | Hacker News Reader

"The company generates revenue by selling virtual items to a small fraction of its players who wish to enhance their playing experience" should read "The company generates revenue by psychologically manipulating players into spending money in order to progress through the game"

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It actually is rather solidly into gambling territory. It's basically a worse version of pachinko or even slot machines. It's primary purpose is to draw the user in to addiction in an unregulated system of player manipulation. There is nothing preventing those pathetic savages at king.com from implementing algorithms that manipulate the odds and outcomes to trigger users making in-games purchases.

A friend who works at a similar casual gaming company has told me exactly this. They a/b test giving the player a "run of luck", to see how that improves conversion.

That sounds like every startup, ever.

Becoming a publicly-traded company would only increase the odds of something like that happening, too, as they desperately try to increase revenue all the time.

"Versace/Starbucks/Cadillac generates revenue by psychologically manipulating customers into spending money in order to .."

Are you serious? You're comparing micro-transactions in Candy Crush to Versace/Starbucks/Cadillac. Do you honestly think that's a reasonable comparison?

There is a comparison. Both companies purposefully attempt to persuade people to pay money for their products. Like every other company that has ever existed.

there's a difference though. In one, you get a useful product: a car. And a good feeling that goes with it.

What king does, and what is being called manipulation, does not result in satisfaction or good feeling. A person simply spends money in order to progress, but ultimately does not actually get an enjoyable experience or useful product out of spending the money. It's borderline gambling.

If King's customers didn't get satisfaction from their purchases, they wouldn't make the purchases. It sounds like you simply don't get satisfaction from that type of product (I don't either), so you leap to a normative claim about which feelings are "legitimate" and which aren't. I don't agree with your comparison to gambling, but even if I did, I don't have a problem with gambling either.

Compulsion is not the same thing as satisfaction. Satisfaction is not the only thing that drives purchasing decisions or compulsion. You don't get it.

your comments about gambling are really cold and detached from the real world suffering that gambling addiction causes people and their families.

How does one decide what is "compulsion" and what is "satisfaction"? What if someone really believes that they find Candy Crush fun and are very satisfied with the money they spend on it? Are they wrong? Are you able to determine what they truly enjoy better than they themselves?

People attempt to construct this dichotomy all the time, but I have yet to hear of a decision procedure.

Gambling addiction is unfortunate, but completely irrelevant to this point. People get addicted to prescription pain medication, exercise, and sex, but I'm not against any of those things either.

What about Versace? Is a watch a useful product when its priced at $2,000? Is convincing others to pay $1,500 for a pair of jeans anything other than manipulation?

Your counterpoint doesn't really hold any water. King might be sucking value out of manipulating customers into buying into imaginary value, but they are the far from the first successful company to do so.

that's not a fair comparison. those products are about conspicuous display of disposable wealth. Candy Crush impresses no one.

So now, only companies which sell things that you find satisfying or which impress other people are legitimate companies?

I think you are being deliberately obtuse. We are talking about exploitation here. Finding bugs in the human operating system and exploiting them. It's technically a legitimate business, but is it moral, or ethical? no.

You have not described any procedure to decide whether something is "exploitation/compulsion" or simply someone being persuaded to buy something they enjoy.

are you a computer with no native facility for judgement?

Are you implying that it's up to your judgement? What if someone else judges things differently?

Okay how about this for a definition of compulsion.

You do not want to do it, it causes you a lot of problems and pain, and yet you find yourself doing it anyway. That is compulsion. Have you never once experienced this in your entire life?

I've experienced that, but I don't blame the company that sells the product. Have you surveyed Candy Crush spenders to see if the game causes them lots of problems and pain? I highly doubt it does for very many.

>Candy Crush impresses no one.

Now you are moving the goal posts. So Versace is "fair" because of intangible feeling X, but Candy Crush isn't because of intangible feeling Y? For all you know high Candy Crush scores could be a display of high status on some college campus somewhere. Neither companies sell anything other than the feeling you get when you buy their product.

You can argue that versace is wrong on its own terms, but people aren't buying versace for the same reasons they buy candy crush power ups. Maybe you're right, maybe Candy Crush high scores does impress someone, but that's a superficial observation. the real question is why should it impress anyone? what did King do to make that impressive?

And is it really impressing other people that is truly the motivating factor in buying more power ups? Or is it.... the exploitation of bugs in the human operating system? The construction of game mechanics to manipulate people's emotions into doing things that don't make rational sense?

Loyalty programs are very similar psychologically to what King and other game makers do in their games to get you to buy from them. Give someone a reason to spend money and they will and without realising it, you've spent more than it cost you to give away that free coffee are purchasing 5 coffees.

starbucks relies on providing the user a quick fix of doamine when they feel stressed or unfocused, which keeps them coming back.

versace and cadillac rely on providing their customers a feeling of superiority and social status. cadillacs are arguably better engineered than other brands, but versace is clearly all about status.

i think it's a reasonable comparison, but as others have said, this is what most companies do anyhow.

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