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Virtual currencies are ‘fictions’, Take-Two argues in microtransaction theft lawsuit
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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Ban this entire business model.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. It's a scam. Games make you value arbitrary nonsense - that is what makes them games. Attaching a dollar value to that manipulation is instantly unethical.
This exploitation started in "free" mobile trash and is now in full-price flagship titles. It's in subscription MMOs. It's in single-player games. Publishers can shove it in after-the-fact, at little cost and less risk. You were never going to shop your way out of it. It is the dominant strategy.
If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else. Only legislation will fix this.
Replies so far:
'Why'd you say it's in every game ever?' Didn't. 'But why are you lying though?'
'Just don't buy it!' It's a scam. 'Just don't get scammed!'
This topic invites the dumbest bickering. People hear "game" and "law" and lose their damn minds. Guys: bus-i-ness mo-del. The games themselves will be fine. The problem is the business. They take your money wrong.
Since nobody else can see princess whats-her-face:
It's a scam when you get nothing, but think you got something. Consent doesn't matter if the whole thing is a trick. And it is a trick: that's what games do. That's what games are for. They trick you into valuing arbitrary worthless crap. Points, hits, lives, goals - they're not real. They are achievable fictions for making your brain squirt the happy juice.
Your brain is not great at separating forms of value. That's why points and crap feel good. It's also why swapping that made-up value for USD is an exploitation of predictable irrationality.
(And for fuck's sake, 'just sell games' doesn't double-secret-reverse mean 'don't sell games.' Buying games is the ideal. Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. That is the scam.)
Even if you want to bicker about how actually receiving a made-up thing counts, somehow, you will never convince me some fake hat is worth the price of an entire goddamn game. But that shit's all over this industry, now. There's imaginary objects that expect hundreds of dollars. Whole-ass AAA games do not cost hundreds of dollars. Anyone getting manipulated into paying that kind of money, for one thing inside a much larger game, is a victim. As surely as if they'd agreed to pay $5000 for a PS5 because you told them Sony stopped making it. They got exactly what you offered - at a price that's fucking robbery, because you lied to them about everything else.
Just don't buy them lol
There are so many games without microtransactions you could only play games that were released prior to 2024 and you'd be occupied your whole life.
So what if new movies need an anal probe? There's lots of old movies.
This is a scam.
This is an abuse, for money. For a lot of money. It's so profitable that "just don't buy it!" was never going to work. This is the dominant strategy - it is infecting everything. Nothing inside a video game should ever cost real money, but every game that matters is liable to demand thousands of your actual dollars. 'Just play Tetris lawl' is an aggressive denial of a global problem.
People should be able to buy games without getting put in a vise, god dammit! Everyone gets less and worse and has less money! There is no upside to this shit, unless you're the one sucking on the wallet-siphon.
Nobody's gonna take your precious fucking vidya. This is about a business model. Precisely nothing needs to change, in terms of the game part of a game. The problem is naked greed. Stop flipping out and hurling insults like "stop gouging money" is what you think constitutes censorship.
If you don't like it, don't play it. Simple as. The government has no place telling private citizens what games they can buy or sell.
Banning scams is absolutely the government's job.
This business model is a scam.
Buying and selling is what I want, but it's not what these assholes offer - they are taking money in exchange for fuck-all. For "gems." For time on a clock they made up. For a chance to get a ticket to run a dungeon to roll drops that might give you a thing that's already in the game you're playing.
Horse armor was perfectly ethical, relative to this abuse. That's how bad this is. It is neither a good nor a service. It is fundamentally not an acceptable thing to charge any amount of money for.
Just yelling scam as loud as you can doesn't actually make something a scam pal
Ignoring the argument doesn't mean there was no argument.
Troll harder.
When you get nothing, but think you got something. Consent doesn't matter if the whole thing is a trick. And it is: that's what games do. That's what games are for. They trick you into valuing arbitrary worthless crap. Points, hits, lives, goals - they're not real. They are achievable fictions for making your brain squirt the happy juice.
Your brain is not great at separating forms of value. That's why points and crap feel good. It's also why swapping that made-up value for USD is an exploitation of predictable irrationality.
Even if you want to bicker about how actually receiving a made-up thing counts, somehow, you will never convince me some fake hat is worth the price of an entire goddamn game. But that shit's all over this industry, now. There's imaginary objects that expect hundreds of dollars. Whole-ass AAA games do not cost hundreds of dollars. Anyone getting manipulated into paying that kind of money, for one thing inside a much larger game, is a victim. As surely as if they'd agreed to pay $5000 for a PS5 because you told them Sony stopped making it. They got exactly what you offered - at a price that's fucking robbery, because you lied to them about everything else.
"Just sell games." "You hate games?!"
Between that the slur-filled abuse, goodbye forever.