ASA Adjudication on EA Dungeon Keeper

Re:ASA Adjudication on EA Dungeon Keeper by djur on Friday July 04, 2014 @11:04PM (#7990893)

Is there evidence that people who compulsively play games like this are less well-off? My understanding of the profit model of these games is that they hope to extract large quantities of money from a small population of obsessives ("whales"), bolstered by a small amount of money from the otherwise vast majority of non-obsessive players.

There's not a whole lot of research on these people, but I don't know of any evidence that they tend to be poor, while there is definitely anecdotal evidence some of them are extremely well-off ($200k+ salaries [1]).

[1]: http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/1/3587102/high-rolling-whales...

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Re:ASA Adjudication on EA Dungeon Keeper by djokkataja on Saturday July 05, 2014 @01:09AM (#7991094)

If you're into anecdotes... http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195806/chasing_the_wha...

I do wonder about the thinking of people who make games like this. I mean when the business model is about getting your customers literally addicted and there's no benefit besides "it's fun" (questionably), I don't see how it's particularly different from designing slot machines. I did find a blog that discusses that perspective in more detail: https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/tag/slot-machine-addic...

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Re:ASA Adjudication on EA Dungeon Keeper by DanBC on Saturday July 05, 2014 @05:48AM (#7991466)

The gamasutra article starts with a disturbing description of someone addicted to TF2.

Team Fortress 2 is often described as IAP done right - purely cosmetic items that confer no gameplay advantage. So it's useful to see that even that can exploit vulnerable people.

Should game makes pit protective measures in place? Or at least have a process that allows players to self-report their vulnerability?

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