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People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

Microtransaction games are based around exploiting an inherent flaw in human reasoning; predatory behaviors that exploit our weaknesses as humans should be regulated against.

edit: to back this up: The wordpress blog linked below references 19 clinical studies and explains in detail much better than I care to write up.

https://platinumparagon.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/the-psychol...

discuss

ApolloFortyNine|6 years ago

>People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

When people start killing each other, or letting their lives fall apart around them, just so they can spend more money on another cute girl in Fate GO, then I'll let you make that analogy.

darpa_escapee|6 years ago

> When people start killing each other, or letting their lives fall apart around them, just so they can spend more money on another cute girl in Fate GO, then I'll let you make that analogy.

Gambling, video game, and internet addictions are real and do ruin lives.

While I don't want to dive into hyperbole territory and don't blame video games for this instance of violence, just this week someone punched and killed their 1 year old child because they lost at a video game[1].

Brains are weird and are easily highjacked by dopamine hits, whether they're obtained from drugs or external stimuli.

[1] https://people.com/crime/dad-allegedly-kills-baby-son-punch-...

0_gravitas|6 years ago

Anecdotal but I've personally known people that have sunk thousands into microtransactions for a single game. Claiming that they arent harmful or predatory in any way whatsoever just seems to be an intentionally obtuse claim to me.

baybal2|6 years ago

>People want to do heroin, why is it you (or the government's) job to tell them not to? ...

In China these days, parents pretty much do treat smartphone games "as bad as drugs" for kids.

Rooting phones to prevent game installation and removing/breaking/locking payment APIs is one of most popular services in phone repair shops.