I felt that way too, but I have mostly changed my mind. My wife, who has a FT job, a purse company, and 2 kids, plays a SHOCKING amount of Maple Story. She never pays money, but at a reasonable-for-her time value of money, I'm sure she'd be well into 10s of $K/year of cost. Is that malfeasance on the developer's part? I dunno. I'd generally prefer she play less, but she is an extremely functional adult, and she gets to make her own choices.
Thought experiment: if she spent 10X less time but $2K/year on the game, would that be more or less troubling? If she took that trade, she'd be an addict by your lights, but she'd be spending 10-30 min rather than 3-5h/day, and I'd be THRILLED. It's interesting to me that we are generally totally fine with something that sucks up (or alternatively, makes enjoyable) all or more-than-all of someone's free time, but we get upset when it takes even trivial amounts of their money.
That's actually part of the problem I have with this model. These companies are charging you to reduce the amount of time you have to play the game to achieve the goals set in the game. They could make a game where you get the same satisfaction in 30 minutes as you do in 3 hours now, but then they wouldn't be able to charge you for the shortcuts.
I have my own gaming addiction (with games that have complex systems), but I find the mobile gaming model perverse and manipulative.
Ultimately, entertainment is just "A time waster". Games from their core commercial history involve ways to get more money or time (often both) from a player. including:
1. Arcade machines meant to be overly difficult to extend playtime and each quarters
2. early console game made to be extremely difficult with punishing systems (limited lives, lack of save states, etc) that artificially extend the playtime of what's not ~3-5 hours on an emulator
with these features
3. early online computer games inflating engagement with horrendously low drop rates, and requiring groups to be formed to very slightly accelerate the rate at which content can be cleared so they can keep a monthly subscription up. Bonus points for the group forming an in-pressure to stay engaged, possibly after you've tired of the grind.
4. splitting of the game into 2 or more "versions", which have minimal differences but require both versions to truly gain completion or some specific rare item. Again, bonus for forcing social interaction amongst peers to give pressure to buy the game (or a different version so you can interact).
5. in the realm of 4), sometimes rereleasing a "director's cut" a year later at full price with cut content (that you can argue was cut purposefully) in order to get more money out of 90% the same content
6. DLC that includes anywhere from cosmetics that used to be available in game to the direct "time saver" item packs that is now often contributed to mobile games.
We're just at the newest iteration. And much of the west is already moving from #7 being taled about today (stamina systems and random chance at drops) towards 8) Battle pass structures to encourage playtime and give extra rewards on a pseudo-subscption system. An interesting combination of 3) and 6).
Pokemon is the biggest example and it's been ingrained in fans for 25 years to
1. choose 1 or buy 2 versions of a game that is 90% the same (example, Gold or Silver, whose differences are in some dozen pokemon exclusive to one version)
2. a year or two out, receive a 3rd version with extra content charged at full price (Crystal). Often acting as the "definitive version" for that generation.
It's not the most common model, but a few other franchises outside of pokemon have definitely applied their own take on it (often Nintendo related ones).
I've been getting into SplitGate the last few weeks, I've been using my one hour a night of free time on it. Every minute has been a blast, but it has put a real dent in my progress on my side projects . :)
> if she spent 10X less time but $2K/year on the game,
Does that matter? Is it a meaningful option?
If she made that trade, she'd have free time, and there are a milion more addicting options (plenty of which are free!), so the steady state would likely be the same time spent on similar whatever, plus the $2K/year. Or, if she finds a better hobby (yay), no need to pay $2K/yr!
depends on how you value time. Which seems to change based on age. At 14 it wouldn't matter, I'm happy spending hours grinding. Now at 27, it's much more ambivalent.
>she'd have free time, and there are a milion more addicting options (plenty of which are free!), so the steady state would likely be the same time spent on similar whateve
maybe, maybe not. I've had friends who quit big mmo's just play other MMO's. Some just moved to a new MMO, some moved to new hobbies. Sometimes even more expensive (oh boy, I'm SO glad I'm not a car junkie. Geez, the money and time spent on parts... not to mention the danger. ), some "productive" and even profitable (e.g. I helped give some tips to a friend learning to program and said he quit Lol, which I remember him playing pretty heavily even before college).
Thought experiment: if she spent 10X less time but $2K/year on the game, would that be more or less troubling? If she took that trade, she'd be an addict by your lights, but she'd be spending 10-30 min rather than 3-5h/day, and I'd be THRILLED. It's interesting to me that we are generally totally fine with something that sucks up (or alternatively, makes enjoyable) all or more-than-all of someone's free time, but we get upset when it takes even trivial amounts of their money.