Not to be that guy or anything... but none of this is news to me. Haven't these conversations been going around for years at this point?
As far as accountability goes, I think it's wishful thinking to expect people not to fall for P2W. I think too many people neglect the power of the psychology involved, simply because they can't see themselves falling for it. But the funny thing about this is... neither do the people who ARE falling for it. It's every bit as manipulative as the very mechanisms of social media... maybe even more so because of the sensory immediacy of a game. Neurodivergent people are the most vulnerable - it's a combination of unchecked issues, and poor integration with society that opens the door for many people to fall off of the face of the earth and drown in this garbage. It's despicable. The success of P2W mechanics speaks to deep voids in peoples lives. I don't think you even need to have abnormal psychology to fall for it. Everyone is seeking some escapism in their entertainment, and often we lose scrutiny when we engage with these things - see them as being way rosier than they are. We are all human. We rationalize. We narrativize our lives and experiences. And then we gather in communities that support these realities. We are at our most vulnerable, when we are seeking out our escapes. Healthy balances with vices (such as regular gaming of any kind is - yes, the regular consumption of entertainment products is a vice) are attainable for just about anyone. Moderation, harmony with one's nature is arguably the most attainable route for your average person.
This is to say: not everyone will fall victim at any given time. However, everyone does fall victim at some point, to some degree.
I can say, as someone with pretty severe (and unmedicated) ADHD, I can see myself in that trap. I look at it and think, "Wow, so this is pretty much made to destroy people like me." It's glaringly obvious to me, just how easy it would be for me to lose perspective and fall into addiction. So I steer clear. But I do consider myself lucky to have that self-knowledge. I had the privilege of growing up in a healthy home with parents who cared to feed that growth in positive ways. I was lucky to make friends who love and care about me as I do them. The internet also wasn't the same at all back then. It's crazy to me to think back on how much more innocent things seemed then, in spite of the ills it very much did have. Those experiences allow me to see the voids clearly. I think that holding others to that standard would be unfair of me. I will not be the one to blame the guy stuck in mom's basement with deteriorating health, underdeveloped coping strategies, almost nonexistent social connections, and nothing but P2W games keeping them company... maybe they go to the toxic communities around it and soak that shit up too. I tend to see those people as me without good support and the right learning opportunities in life. To me, they are symptoms of problems in the world, not causes. In a better world, either these things would not exist, or people would simply not fall for them because they would be seeking better things to do intuitively. They would not see this success. P2W basically capitalizes on depression and addictive personalities. It's pure fucking evil. While I don't know if it necessarily has to be that way, the inherent predation in its present forms is evident. It's a new plateau of social engineering.
There is also the aspect of children being targeted and ignorant adults not keeping up. And you can say they should parent better... but those are empty words, and those kids continue to suffer, just because their parents dropped the ball. To be brutally honest... I don't think it's even fair to expect MILLENNIAL parents to keep up with the level of scheming and scamming happening. It takes an untenable amount of time and mental energy to hold any meaningful picture of it... not something reasonable to expect someone to maintain on top of trying to support a household. Things are on a whole new plane these days... shit happens fast and we only understand it in hindsight. The kids always seem to get to it before we do. It's like an epidemic now. This has been happening for generations - many a dysfunctional adult has already been created this way. And I think it's fair to say that modern times have only poured accelerant on the process. I'm sorry... but I think the whole "Well, people buy it." rationale does absolutely nothing to change the situation, or address the harm caused. If anything, it gives these elements permission to exist unchecked. You end up spending time being mad at people who themselves are victims in at least SOME capacity, while forgetting about the people actually profiting off of it, and essentially plundering the culture of genuine humanistic value in the process. I say fuck em. The people making and pushing P2W will always be the real evil in it, not the people who fall for it. Every moment spent blaming the players is another moment spent not looking at the entities setting the stage for them enter cycles of loss and self-isolation. It suits them well for us to blame our fellow gamers, put them in a separate group from us.
It's all wayyy more commercialized now. I could write paragraphs about this, but do I really need to? And the thing is... you gotta understand... people organizing this stuff to pull in money KNOW what they are doing. They know how people work, and they are experts at working people and systems in order to extract maximum profits without getting shut down. That's the whole reason they are successful on the level they are. Every kind of person is vulnerable. Even people smarter than anyone here. It's not about intelligence, or some sense of maintained conscious fortitude. It's a matter of how human rationality works on a more fundamental level - beyond that, it's a simple matter of timing. Ask anyone with a severe drug addiction if they ever believed it about themselves at first, ever in their lives thought they would wind up there. I don't see how being hooked on P2W is all that different.
They are essentially mining capital from people's brains and leaving husks while everyone beneath them fights each other over it. I wish more people would look at THAT and see it for the horror that it truly is, rather than blame people down and out with serious, life-corroding relationships to media and entertainment. That shit is
designed to take you out of yourself and mold you into a consumer that goes where they want consumers to go, regardless of the effect it will have on individual lives, let alone society at large. It's poison. And the people buying have taken it in. It's bad for everyone, and the last people who are going to be able to change it, are the people falling for it. This is bigger than any of them. Those who can see the bigger picture have to step up. It's not only the problem of P2W playerbases, it is everyone's problem. Even many people IN P2W see the problems with its present incarnations, but they alone are quite disempowered to change it. All of us together can fight this. If we don't, they come for the rest of us next and then nobody is fucking happy. It's just a matter of finding those ins with those demographics. You are lying to yourself if you think there aren't people out there constantly working to try to crack the code on YOU. And the amount of resources they have to throw at that amounts to thousands of human lifespans, while you get just one to figure the shit out.
What's the saying? Something something "Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people."
Two things can stop this... an AMPLE body of research on the associated phenomena, full proof of the mechanisms driving trends in legislature that choke these practices out of the market. Not an easy battle by any means... but not made easier by not holding the sources to the problems they cause. The public at large has to understand it and push back. Which is more viable and productive? Making it illegal for people to buy into predatory P2W schemes (or perhaps somehow convincing them to forget all of their problems and magically think better of it,) or making the P2W schemes illegal and branding them as unethical? I think we go a long way by just establishing an objective and meaningfully understood framework for what the problematic elements are, and what problems they cause, and getting everyone on the same page. This is needed before anything can change, regardless of how it ultimately gets done. For instance, with enough awareness, it could be booed out of hegemony, as many shitty, scammy practices have been and continue to be across eras.
To me, the bottom line is that allowing people to make money this way is the core problem. Of course people will buy it... it's carefully designed to dupe people. P2W is almost always done in an unethical way. They're basically selling digital hard drugs, and I blame the dealers first and foremost. They are the ones who deserve to lose out, for the suffering they bring into the world. People down bad for P2W are already losing out. The devs and publishers are the ones actually promoting it, the ones with the most control over the situation. And just look at what they do with the power they hold over markets! They do not deserve to hold that power, and it can only be taken from them en masse. What we fail to take from them, they will take from all of us.
I leave my little schizoid rant off with this... the way things are right now, will inevitably change with time. And whether those changes are for better or worse, comes down to where accountability is dished out. We have to ask ourselves what a better future looks like for these markets, and then take an honest look at what the obstacles are... what can and cannot be tolerated in a healthier gaming market supporting healthier consumption attitudes. The market we have now actively promotes the absolute worst possible habits. The single-player spaces are not exempt from that either - it's simply a matter of degrees and specific avenues for locking-in engagement. It's just a different machine doing the same job. Like, really now. What breed of gamer isn't getting screwed in some major way? Right? You guys never got your gamer buttplugs? I thought they were standard-issue, the games don't even start until the buttplug detects rectal temperatures
Really though, it is super-easy to forget this in the haze of all of these hot topics. I think the moment you make it about people consuming the products... gamers at large... you sort of give up on accomplishing that change and indirectly support the status quo that nobody seems to like. It's fun to believe we all have the power to avoid influence as individuals, but it is still a state of denial of how every single market fundamentally works. A very dangerous one, at that. I'm happy to admit that sometimes in the gaming world, I feel like I'm getting reamed even as a single-player gamer - and I don't like it. Nobody likes it. We pay in because it is simply the state of marketing. It is pervasive and unavoidable. If you participate in life, you will be falling prey to it at some points, like everyone else. The range of products available sets the range of available decisions (and how we percieve those decisions,) short of unplugging.
You can't have good habits when using heroin. Does that make sense? If one of the main products being pushed is heroin, you get a culture of addicts. That's the real causal dynamic at play, as far as I can tell. People thinking it's only the problem of those choosing to participate, neglect to realize that the heroin will be slipped into their food at some point, and maybe then they will understand. They're trying all of the time to make it more palatable. Some would argue we're all on it to some extent already.
Used to be a rewarding deviation from stock, although nowadays you get peanuts in return.
