Re:The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history
by hawski on Monday November 13, 2017 @01:01PM
(#15688438)
Many of those "whales" have certainly a gambling problem. Of course there may be a few rich enough people, but they also probably have some problems. It's sad that their weakness is exploited this way.
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Re:The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history
by falcolas on Monday November 13, 2017 @01:13PM
(#15688564)
Well, when you consider that gambling (or opening loot boxes) hits some very primitive reward centers of our brain... is it any surprise?
Video games are simply abstracted skinner boxes to begin with; loot boxes with their carefully tuned Vegas-esque lights, sounds, and reward percentages just amp up the "push a button, maybe get a reward" to the Nth degree.
And yeah, it is sad. It's probably even worse than sad.
Re:The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history
by razakel on Monday November 13, 2017 @09:12PM
(#15692072)
>Video games are simply abstracted skinner boxes to begin with; loot boxes with their carefully tuned Vegas-esque lights, sounds, and reward percentages just amp up the "push a button, maybe get a reward" to the Nth degree.
My dad, who was a gamer in his youth, always described gaming as getting addicted to "flashing light boxes".
It was only once I was old enough to go to a bookie's and watch someone feed £20 after £20 into a fruit machine that I saw what he meant.