ever since reading addiction by design and vicious games i’m insane about the machine gambling industry. one of the most evil…
ever since reading addiction by design and vicious games i’m insane about the machine gambling industry. one of the most evil soul-crushing parts of this world
there’s a passage in vicious gameswhere cassidy interviews betting shop owners and literally every single one of them tells her that once they started introducing betting machines (slot machines, video poker, etc.) customers getting violent went from being a rare possibility to being a regular occurence that had to be considered ‘part of the business’
and the pathologization / disease model of gambling addiction is so fucking evil too. these industries are spending millions of dollars to create open air spike traps and invite people to take long walks on the slippery path around the spike traps and when people fall in and get impaled by spikes they say “it’s very sad that these people had personalities that were so prone to getting spiked and are now suffering from spikes-impaling-them-disease. we have utmost sympathy and encourage everyone to walk responsibly around our giant open-air spike pits”
I read Addiction by Design during one of the UK lockdowns.
One of the things I found interesting is that the authors only mention the design of 'progressive chance mechanics’ once - in relation to slot machines.
Meanwhile just a few years later we have games like Geshin Impact, that are basically highly designed casino worlds/virtual spaces that are entirely in service to highly addictive Gacha mechanics. (Geshin impact made $393 million within two months of the release of the mobile client).
I am agreeing here with @txttletale 1000% but would like to expand out the scope of the scorn to virtual environments. This also includes other techno-social-systems like candycrush, kingsofwar, clash of clans etc too. EA need investigating.
The EU has clamped down on loot boxes sure, but that’s a single mechanic. The 'design’ of code spaces needs to be regulated in the same way casinos are(not).
My day job is literally world running and consulting on virtual worlds/hybrid code spaces. Everyone is always surprised at how strongly I feel about this.