Polygon: "I flushed $16,000 down the toilet over a game," says one Final Fantasy Brave Exvius player

Mezentine · Jun 8, 2018

Another day, another one of these stories.

https://www.polygon.com/features/20...t=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

"It was my birthday and I had to have Elza."

This middle-aged, married man, going by Nothing024 on Reddit, missed out on his first chance to get the limited-time promotional crossover character in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and only had two weeks to try to get her again. A patch had increased the chances he'd pull rare characters like her, but nowhere did it say that Elza was a 1-in-400 pull, with each try costing about $2.50. He eventually got her, though — one character in a game with a cast of hundreds.

"I charged $1500 that day to get her," he wrote.

He didn't know anything about that when he found Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. He was initially attracted to the Final Fantasy name: "It was a fresh take on an old classic, my favorite series of all time," he said in the Reddit thread. Unlike older games, it fit into his life as a family man: "It didn't require a console or a TV, just a few minutes to play a couple of dungeon runs or a quick exploration."

Although he was initially attracted by the limited time investment, Nothing024's fixation on Brave Exvius started taking a toll on his relationship with his family. "[They] kept asking me, what am I tapping on my phone all the time? Why am I always looking at my screen?" he said on Reddit. Despite this growing obsession, he played it without paying, just as he had with other free-to-play mobile games like Candy Crush.

"There was no one I knew spending on it," he tells Polygon.

That changed when Nothing024 found r/FFBraveExvius on Reddit, after getting stuck on a limited-time event. He points to that as the start of his problems: "Seeing other people talk about spending, it felt more acceptable," he says. "That was a big mistake."

Only a few weeks later, however, he was back at it. Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy 5, known as "Greg" among Brave Exvius fans, headlined the banner, and Nothing024 had to pull Gilgamesh in order to get a Genji Glove. He used up his remaining resources pulling, then again considered spending real money, since "it was only $200 to get Luneth," he said on Reddit. He recalled his obsession:

I put in my money again, $99....no Greg, $99....no Greg, $99....no Greg.... I took a break for a little bit. My family had plans for the day. I was angry now. How could I have spent $300 and not gotten what I wanted? When nobody was looking, around everyone, I did it again. $99....no Greg, $99...no Greg, $99...no Greg, $99... Finally. I had Gilgamesh. [...] Yeah, I spent $700, but I would stop now. I had enough.

When Carlos thinks about his spending on gacha games, he cringes. "Honestly, I don't know how I even got up to $20K in debt," he says. He plans to tell his wife about his spending very soon: "I don't want to destroy my family over my addiction." He hopes she'll be able to help him consolidate his debts and limit his access to the family's credit cards.

Carlos isn't shy about calling his problem a gambling addiction: "Looking back at it now, I don't know how I didn't realize it was gambling," he says. "It came up to a point where I didn't see purchasing the $80-$100 [of] in-game currency as actual money." In hindsight, Carlos says he wishes he had known what he was getting into: "If I realized it was gambling from the start, I wouldn't have spent a dime. I know I have an addictive personality." He is outspoken in his opinion that games like Brave Exvius are gambling: "I understand that it may not fit the legal definition of 'gambling', but the motivation of people spending money and effects they can cause are similar to loot boxes. [...] People need to stop being hung up [on] the term 'gambling' for loot boxes and look more towards the effects."

Shane, who estimates his spending on gacha games to be around $10,000 or more, also keeps his spending to himself. "None of my friends know about it," he says. "And I'd rather not really go into it with them."

He is normally frugal, and can't explain why spending on Brave Exvius is different. "Why is it so easy for me to drop $500 on a banner, but when it comes to a whole new console so I can play [Monster Hunter], a game I love, then it becomes such a problem? [...] I've been wanting to buy myself a new trumpet since I had my old one stolen, but hey I have stupid pixels to buy," he says. Shane, too, still plays Exvius. "I'm trying to have self control, which isn't very easy. [...] I'm going to do my best to no longer spend on the game," he says.

Don't fool yourself, these people are exactly the kind of customers publishers of these games hope to ensnare. I know people like to compare to trading card games (which have their own, different shitty practices), but honestly I think there are some very important reasons why we don't actually see "I spent my kids college fund on Yu Gi Oh cards" or "I went $20k into debt opening Magic the Gathering booster packs". There's radically different mechanics and incentives at play, and this shit is exploitative. Full stop

Kabuki Waq · Jun 8, 2018

Man this type of addiction may need to be treated the same way as drugs. heard lots of these stories.

signal · Jun 8, 2018

Mezentine said:
Don't fool yourself, these people are exactly the kind of customers publishers of these games hope to ensnare. I know people like to compare to trading card games (which have their own, different shitty practices), but honestly I think there are some very important reasons why we don't actually see "I spent my kids college fund on Yu Gi Oh cards" or "I went $20k into debt opening Magic the Gathering booster packs". There's radically different mechanics and incentives at play, and this shit is exploitative. Full stop

At least even if you're trying to mask your addiction, you could make yourself believe the cards might be some kind of investment. How someone can spend $16,000 on a jpeg is beyond me.

bluemax · Jun 8, 2018

At least they got something semi tangible, unlike say Star Citizen backers.

But still, Gacha games are the devil.

signal said:
At least even if you're trying to mask your addiction, you could make yourself believe the cards might be some kind of investment. How someone can spend $16,000 on a jpeg is beyond me.

There are people who have spent probably over $100k on jpgs of space ships that don't exist, so yeah.

Deleted member 10629 · Jun 8, 2018

I am in a group of guys who everyday share their stuff from Fire Emblem Heroes.

Honestly I don't know how they can do it without spending a ton of money. Its a glorified jpg, for fucks sake.

These people need help as addicts, and games need to put a cap on how much you can spend per day :/

signal said:
At least even if you're trying to mask your addiction, you could make yourself believe the cards might be some kind of investment. How someone can spend $16,000 on a jpeg is beyond me.

At the very least you could sell in bulk and get a few dollars, but no one will give you squat for your digital jpgs.

potatohead · Jun 8, 2018

They need to put some sort of limits on the amount you can charge daily or month in these games.

There is no reason that there should be no limit. And whatever game content there is to buy needs to be under that limit. Like just excessive.

Protect the players and the victims, that is far more important than "oh they could've just not bought it." No, I'd rather not see a person go in debt for a mistake like this.

Izanagi89 · Jun 8, 2018

Kinda an old story. To be honest this game is the one of most F2P friendly one out there. Been playing for a very long time and hardly spent that much money on it over the course of a year. That said, if you have these kind of tendencies then any game of the sort might be a bad idea

ArkhamFantasy · Jun 8, 2018

Uncapped spending is not great.

signal · Jun 8, 2018

bluemax said:
There are people who have spent probably over $100k on jpgs of space ships that don't exist, so yeah.

Not that it's better but at least those aren't dice rolls. And maybe some people reason they are helping pay for development or something.

newmoneytrash · Jun 8, 2018

imo there should be regulations that prevent people from being able to do this. no game needs to have a pit that you can throw money into. magikarp jump and a hard limit as to how much money you could spend in it before it prevented you from spending anymore and that should be the default model across all games

Mezentine · Jun 8, 2018

Izanagi89 said:
Kinda an old story. To be honest this game is the one of most F2P friendly one out there. Been playing for a very long time and hardly spent that much money on it over the course of a year. That said, if you have these kind of tendencies then any game of the sort might be a bad idea

The game is designed to ensnare anyone who has those sort of tendencies. We know this, developers of F2P games have talked about it. Their best customers are the ones who spend tens of thousands of dollars

ShinySunny · Jun 8, 2018

They were dumb then.
FFBE TMR, gems, and ticket injection were common knowledge back then.
Within the FFBE community back then, the old saying was if you weren't injecting, you weren't playing the game correctly.

I quit during the Cloud stuff, and injections were still going strong.
WTF was he doing all that time if he was on Reddit?
People should've already pointed him to the right direction a long time ago.
He could've bought gems from Malaysia on the cheap end or he can go to the many injection websites.

signal · Jun 8, 2018

newmoneytrash said:
imo there should be regulations that prevent people from being able to do this. no game needs to have a pit that you can throw money into. magikarp jump and a hard limit as to how much money you could spend in it before it prevented you from spending anymore and that should be the default model across all games

I agree but they need to change their gacha mechanics as well then. If you hit the spending limit and don't get this week's SSSSSSR character, what happens?

HTupolev · Jun 8, 2018

potatohead said:
There is no reason that there should be no limit.

$

Majukun · Jun 8, 2018

yeah,people with no self control should stay away from mobile f2p games

tmarg · Jun 8, 2018

This is obviously completely different from gambling.
Regulation can't come soon enough.

Izanagi89 · Jun 8, 2018

Mezentine said:
The game is designed to ensnare anyone who has those sort of tendencies. We know this, developers of F2P games have talked about it. Their best customers are the ones who spend tens of thousands of dollars

No doubt. It's scary that this is bleeding over into console games too

Solo Kazama · Jun 8, 2018

so did a doctor via slot machine (literally saw something like that in real)

at last it created new jobs in gamedev (how to exploit human behaviours; its not a joke:)

Muu · Jun 8, 2018

These games certainly could use regulations like ones now in place in Japan. You might be willing to pull for a 3% chance on a SSR, but what if it's 0.015% for the specific rare you wanted?

Not saying I haven't gone through some of this, since I spent ~$1000 on Granblue Fantasy back when I was playing.

PlanetSmasher · Jun 8, 2018

ShinySunny said:
They were dumb then.
FFBE TMR, gems, and ticket injection were common knowledge back then.
Within the FFBE community back then, the old saying was if you weren't injecting, you weren't playing the game correctly.

I quit during the Cloud stuff, and injections were still going strong.
WTF was he doing all that time if he was on Reddit?
People should've already pointed him to the right direction a long time ago.
He could've bought gems from Malaysia on the cheap end or he can go to the many injection websites.

Pretty much all the injectors got banned.

Masagiwa · Jun 8, 2018

bluemax said:
At least they got something semi tangible, unlike say Star Citizen backers.

Hahaha

Verelios · Jun 8, 2018

That's why everyone should just play Granblue. After a certain amount of time it's not even about chasing dreams, it's about chasing flips and mats.

Strat · Jun 8, 2018

These games a predatory as shit. Full stop. They prey on people like this and it's disgusting. Yeah, people should have self control etc etc, but these games are designed to mentally manipulate people like this. So fucked.

PlanetSmasher · Jun 8, 2018

ShinySunny said:
They were dumb then.
FFBE TMR, gems, and ticket injection were common knowledge back then.
Within the FFBE community back then, the old saying was if you weren't injecting, you weren't playing the game correctly.

I quit during the Cloud stuff, and injections were still going strong.
WTF was he doing all that time if he was on Reddit?
People should've already pointed him to the right direction a long time ago.
He could've bought gems from Malaysia on the cheap end or he can go to the many injection websites.

Pretty much all the injectors got banned.

martinstraka8282 · Jun 8, 2018

Shit is nuts and ought to be illegal not to cap it at something reasonable.

ShortNasty · Jun 8, 2018

The fact that none of this doodoo ass games have a lifetime cap on spending per account tells me all I ever need to know about the true goals of this shit.

trugs26 · Jun 8, 2018

Feels like there should be a daily spending limit on these gacha games. Even if youre super rich, you can just wait a day to try again. Just something to break the compulsion to immediately try again.

Miles · Jun 8, 2018

I had this same problem for a while on Duel Links. I had to have a particular deck and kept spending until the cards I needed dropped.. then I realized I actually want to build a different deck instead so same thing, rinse and repeat so many god damn times.

I still play the game but I stopped spending on it, had a good look at the credit card i'm still paying off. I have a decent amount of disposable income, I could technically finish paying the card today but all that would mean is that since my debt is clear, I can buy more stuff. I'm a little afraid of myself even if i'm aware that I shouldn't do it.

Animal Liberation Ⓥ · Jun 8, 2018

Kabuki Waq said:
Man this type of addiction may need to be treated the same way as drugs. heard lots of these stories.

Well, they consider gambling an addiction in a similar vein, so it will be due time where this gets classified with the same triggers.

Cabbagehead · Jun 8, 2018

bluemax said:
At least they got something semi tangible, unlike say Star Citizen backers.

But still, Gacha games are the devil.

There are people who have spent probably over $100k on jpgs of space ships that don't exist, so yeah.

Spoken like a true person of knowledge....how about you don't talk about SC backers. Maybe worry about yourself.

Mezentine · Jun 8, 2018

trugs26 said:
Feels like there should be a daily spending limit on these gacha games. Even if youre super rich, you can just wait a day to try again. Just something to break the compulsion to immediately try again.

This is a decent sort of patch on the problem, but I'm more interested in the underlying design of the game. What does having these characters be this rare and the economy tilted so heavily towards using real money purchases to obtain them actually benefit the game that is being played? Why do players tolerate this?

The Bear · Jun 8, 2018

Gacha games are designed do squeeze as much money out of the players as possible. They are quite possibly the least friendly to F2P players in mobile market.

Kouriozan · Jun 8, 2018

ShinySunny said:
They were dumb then.
FFBE TMR, gems, and ticket injection were common knowledge back then.
Within the FFBE community back then, the old saying was if you weren't injecting, you weren't playing the game correctly.

I quit during the Cloud stuff, and injections were still going strong.
WTF was he doing all that time if he was on Reddit?
People should've already pointed him to the right direction a long time ago.
He could've bought gems from Malaysia on the cheap end or he can go to the many injection websites.

Latest injection banwave affected pretty much everyone who did it, even a few ResetEra regulars.

milkyway · Jun 8, 2018

I only ever played one such game and it was Fire Emblem Heroes. And I dropped nearly $1000 on it, shamefully. After a ~$250 splurge, I deleted the game immediately and didn't look back. $16,000 is extremely painful and it's a shame these games are allowed to exploit people the way they do.

Boss · Jun 8, 2018

These games are predatory, games designed specifically around pushing people with the right tendencies to spend money they don't have. I'm really sorry for all the individuals who've gotten themselves into thousands of dollars of irrevocable, life debilitating debt. These games ruin peoples lives, and it's not what video games are about.

Nilaul · Jun 8, 2018

I wish he sent me 16,000. That would have been more than enough to start my business and get me out of this shit hole.

On topic: Modern games are designed to manipulate "weak people" and not just kids, into spending. The sooner the government enforces regulation the better.

Deleted member 9714 · Jun 8, 2018

Awful. There's something fundamentally wrong with gacha.

I have been playing Fire Emblem Heroes and Puzzle & Dragons for over a year. Puzzle & Dragons is really good about giving F2P lots of resources and opportunities to get strong units. I've never felt pressured to pay. Fire Emblem Heroes is pretty stingy when you consider the rates and how unit development/growth works.

I'm really grateful I have a good sense of self-control. I will never spend on these games or games like Overwatch. I feel sympathy for the people in the OP who get taken advantage of by these games which are specifically designed to take advantage of them. That's what makes it completely different from a TCG/CCG.

Deleted member 36578 · Jun 8, 2018

I spent more than I care to reveal on Exvius. I ended up deleting the game eventually but it's disgusting what it did to me. It's disgusting what it does to a lot of people.

Transistor · Jun 8, 2018

The funny thing about this game is it so easy to get the in-game currency through just playing the game that you don't need to spend a dime. I have multiple 6-star characters and I think I spent $20, and I did that because I enjoy the game, not because I was trying to get certain characters

Deleted member 9857 · Jun 8, 2018

I dropped ~$100 on that Marvel Academy game on iOS and once I realized that I had barely scrapped the barrel with all the events they were having, I dropped it like a hot rock because I could tell it would be a money pit if I kept playing

this was a couple years back

Izanagi89 · Jun 8, 2018

Mezentine said:
This is a decent sort of patch on the problem, but I'm more interested in the underlying design of the game. What does having these characters be this rare and the economy tilted so heavily towards using real money purchases to obtain them actually benefit the game that is being played? Why do players tolerate this?

It's tolerated because it's free. You can play without spending a single dime, and in terms of this game, you're given quite a lot of chances to pull for characters. The problem comes in when you're chasing the meta, which I've always felt is the main driving force behind these big spendings when in actual fact you can get by with budget teams for a very long time, slowly acquiring stronger units as you go along. This is not a defense of the game, but just the way I see it. The meta is always changing, so once you start chasing, it never stops.

Dreavus · Jun 8, 2018

They really need to put caps on this stuff, man. Do it per banner if you have to. Like even if it's an insane amount to regular people, like say $200, just put it in there. Spending as much as this guy is not okay. It's crazy to me how these big name characters are the big draw for the game but at the same time are "held hostage" (not really, no one is forcing you to buy, but you know what I mean) in these limited time banners

This is such a weird and complex compulsion, like at the end of the article when he talks about it being so easy to drop more money into Exvius compared to buying other things, like a new trumpet. Maybe it's a sunk cost thing? Like he's so invested it doesn't seem as bad somehow?

I always view these games in terms of what my free pulls will get me. Spending money is just not an option I give myself. Not to mention, new stuff is always coming out and it's always going to be more powerful than anything you could pull today. If you strike out now, then that's fine, try again in a bit at an even more powerful hero.

ShinySunny · Jun 8, 2018

Kouriozan said:
Latest injection banwave affected pretty much everyone who did it, even a few ResetEra regulars.

Sure.
But back then, it was a FFA injection fest. Your grandma was probably doing it too.

Anyway, he said he didn't play that much since he sucked at trials, so in the end, he was still dumb no matter how you look at it if he just wanted to play Elza and Luneth.
And how old is FFBE now?
2years? He could've played 2yrs on injection credits instead of spending $15k+ and paying off debt.
Right?

Vamphuntr · Jun 8, 2018

The worst part is that it's money he didn't even have. It's a complex addiction problems with many complicit parties having a role in this. How can your CC let you go 20k$ in debt? How can Apple let you charge that much over a short period of time without locking your account or putting up at the very least warnings on your screen that you have a problem? Why are gaming studios allowed to make mechanics with the sole purpose of exploiting vulnerable people?

Liabe Brave · Jun 8, 2018

Mezentine said:
What does having these characters be this rare and the economy tilted so heavily towards using real money purchases to obtain them actually benefit the game that is being played? Why do players tolerate this?

Because that's not actually how the game is. It is very easy to progress without rare characters, and it's not particularly difficult to get rare characters without spending any money. You can spend time instead, earning them through regular gameplay.

Randomization and rarity are still integral to the game design, which means if you want specific rare characters you can spend a lot of money. But the game's design does not rely on spending money.

Diablos · Jun 8, 2018

I hate that a FF titled game is hooking people like this. Seems beneath the series. Meh.

Slappy White · Jun 8, 2018

I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone that could spend money like that while also feeling like this sort of thing should be regulated or something. I've never even considered paying money on a game like that.

Izanagi89 · Jun 8, 2018

Transistor said:
The funny thing about this game is it so easy to get the in-game currency through just playing the game that you don't need to spend a dime. I have multiple 6-star characters and I think I spent $20, and I did that because I enjoy the game, not because I was trying to get certain characters

Same here. And just last month we got a free 5* ticket too. The game is well balanced and I never felt like it forcing you to chase rare units. There is a lot of depth to team composition so you can make due with budget units too until you get stronger ones

Transistor · Jun 8, 2018

Izanagi89 said:
Same here. And just last month we got a free 5* ticket too. The game is well balanced and I never felt like it forcing you to chase rare units. There is a lot of depth to team composition so you can make due with budget units too until you get stronger ones

Yep. Getting lapis is so damn easy, too. Not to mention a lot of good characters (Chic Ariana, Lara Croft) they literally give you for participation

Deleted member 36578 · Jun 8, 2018

Dreavus said:
This is such a weird and complex compulsion, like at the end of the article when he talks about it being so easy to drop more money into Exvius compared to buying other things, like a new trumpet. Maybe it's a sunk cost thing? Like he's so invested it doesn't seem as bad somehow?

It is ALWAYS a sunk cost thing. It's feeling invested and figuring to yourself, I've put so much into it I'll pull that special character soon. Next pull HAS to be it.
Tbh I'm feeling it RIGHT NOW in Fire Emblem Heroes. I've been pulling on a particular banner for a Flying Dancer because it's a strong character class. Anyway I've dumped over 200 orbs into it at this point. Spent about $80 on it recently too. Just a hour ago I ALMOST added more orbs for a shot. My pity rate gets broken again and again on shiity blue chars I don't want so it's practically throwing them away. But i've dumped so much into it that any free orbs I obtain I throw into the abyss as well. It feels HORRIBLE and I should just delete the game entirely. I CAN NOT put more money into it. But my brain wants to.

Polygon: "I flushed $16,000 down the toilet over a game," says one Final Fantasy Brave Exvius player

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