Another day, another one of these stories.
https://www.polygon.com/features/20...t=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
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
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