State of the Eververse (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Friday, October 18, 2019, 08:31 (1652 days ago) @ Cody Miller

“Hey, you know how we usually make you repeat an activity dozens of times just to get that little piece of loot you want? Well now you can just buy it instead!”

A while ago, I listened to Total Biscuit defend the loot boxes in Overwatch. His argument was that since he has more money than time, he appreciated the option to pay to save time. So he thinks they are a good thing and you can use them if you want, and thus fell exactly into the trap that was created.

See, it never occurred to him to ask "why is my time being wasted in the first place? or "Why does earning skins take so much time anyway?" And so the correct solution becomes apparent. Instead of letting you pay to avoid wasting time, just don't design the game to be time wasting in the first place.

He and most critics fail to see it's a case of Blizzard intentionally creating a problem, then giving you the ability to bypass that problem by paying. When you look at it that way, why not just not introduce the problem in the first place?

This is the insidious part of the manipulation. Not only is the system exploitative, but people will actually defend the system as a good thing.

The thing is, for some people, it really is a good thing when judged through the lens of their personal experience. They might really enjoy a game as it is, and be willing to throw down a few extra dollars for some trinket they’ll like. You and I are zooming out a bit and looking at it from a different perspective. We see the decisions and intentional designs, and we extrapolate the reasoning behind those decisions, and we take issue with some of it. But at that point we’re comparing the game as it is to what it could be, and for some people, that’s just not a jump they’re interested in making.