this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
159 points (100.0% liked)
Gaming
30520 readers
189 users here now
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Here's a big question though
What's the difference between predatory tactics to hook people into a game, and "normal" gameplay, whatever that is? If neither cost any money or have microtransactions in any way?
Is Diablo 2 using predatory mechanics? Is Counter Strike? Is Factorio?
Games are artificial constructs. If you deconstruct them entirely, unless they got some story to tell as the center point of the game, their mechanics and goals are entirely artificial and constructed to get you to keep playing, be engaged, and have fun, whatever that means and implies.
Because, well, in the end, games do not have a grand purpose. Their purpose is entertainment(or be art, but not all games have that goal). And so if vampire survivors keep you engaged and enjoy the game... Is that really that much different to other games? Another example to this are idle/incremental games, as a pure distillation of what games are. Are they predatory? Is there really much difference from the very core of other, more "proper", games?
A game can offer an experience that leaves the player feeling satisfied or at least content with how they spent their time. There is a large space of possible interactive experiences that extend far beyond the simple dichotomy of fun vs educational or productive.
A game can certainly be considered predatory if it exploits psychological vulnerabilities to hook someone on engaging gameplay that gives the player very little in return in terms of fulfillment or mental recovery. Whether or not it takes the opportunity to swindle the player on top of that is a matter of degree in severity. Wasting a player's time (or worse, induce stress or other harmful mental states for no good reason) is not a particularly nice thing to do.