Like most stuff that have gone the subscription route, I don't even bother. That's why I dropped photoshop and bought Affinity Photo instead. I use to feel sorry for corporations that got pirated but not anymore. I also have a short attention span with video games today. I can go back and play the hell out of Final Fantasy 7 from 1997 but you could never pay me to play the woke ass remake of it that the Japanese devs f***ed up on purpose. The crossdressing part in the original was funny and intended to be made fun of. Then these dipshits go and make it about something to be proud of in the remake that he's dressing like a woman.Pixel--Dude wrote: ↑July 6th, 2022, 3:03 pm@Lucas88
@WilliamSmith
@WanderingProtagonist
Hey guys. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the dark side of the video game industry. Surprisingly, video games that promote drug use or violent crime are not the real evil when it comes to video games. As I pointed out in WilliamSmiths thread about video games, violent games do not create violent people who shoot up schools etc. The reality of that is most likely caused by things like bullying, pre existing mental instability, shitty family life etc. It is mostly coincidental, in my opinion, that these kids who shoot up schools happened to also play violent video games, most likely envisioning their bullies being the victims in their video games. (Like Bill Gates was in our DLC of Vice City, Lucas88)
No the evil of video games is much worse than that. Some people just don't see it. You guys will see it when I explain. I used to think video game addiction for the most part was purely the fault of the individual, but after realising what sneaky and psychologically manipulative techniques video game developers use, I can't say I'm sure about my previous position on gaming addiction.
This is where I need to tell you guys about Skinner Box, a psychological behaviour control experiment created by B.F. Skinner. The experiment involved a rat in a box, which coined the term Skinner Box. B.F. Skinner learned in his experiment that he could train the rat to press a switch in exchange for food pellets, or conversely could be dissuaded from pressing a different switch by having the switch administer an electric shock when pressed. Now that you know about the Skinner Box I will explain how game manufacturers use this technique to get people addicted to their games. It's by design.
Back in the day game developers were happy to make video games for people to play at steadily incrementally rising prices. As developers advanced their technology video games had increasing levels of story, advanced mechanics and larger maps to explore etc. Video Games for the PS1 used to cost around £20 (at a guess) in the UK and now with the PS4 video games cost around £75 pounds...
But some sneaky game developers realised that the maps they can create and game play will always be limited in scope. This is where the Skinner Box strategy comes into play. The industry moved towards subscription based games and MMO games which incorporate the Skinner Box technique that mean the subject has to keep playing and paying indefinitely...
Realistically even a massive game with a set story has to end eventually, also maps will always be finite. So these greedy game developers had to change the mechanics of the games so players are kept repeating the same actions over and over and over until their pensions come in.
They used Skinner's technique and created virual pellets for their subjects to keep clicking buttons in exchange for their virtual food pellets, loot items which create a perceived value in the players mind so they will continue to hunt for these items.
Then there are variable rewards strategies. The rat knows that every time he presses the button a food pellets will appear, so the trick is to have the rewards appear at random button presses, or random item drops. A prominent feature in most MMO games.
If you think that using the principles of Skinner and slot machines is diabolical enough it gets worse! Once it is established that clicking and clicking over and over again leads to random rewards they then make sure the players don't stop clicking by using a carrot on a stick with item drops increasing in power so that players perceive that playing more yields higher rewards. This strategy ensnares players and keeps them playing for years! It is psychological manipulation and social control.
We fall for their application of the Skinner Box experiment because the system of work=reward in the real world, the corporate world, is much slower and people feel daunted by it, that they're living week to week and never actually getting anywhere. Progress in the financial sense for most people is excruciatingly slow and frustrating. This is why people willingly crawl into the Skinner Box these game developers have set for them, because video games are just a form of mental escapism. Perhaps this could be why some intelligent people end up stuck in dead end jobs when they have the brains and talent for so much more is because they wasted their youth obsessively playing video games.
What do you guys think about this thread? Has your perception of MMO and subscription based games changed?
Modern games today is ass compared to what they use to be. I was going to get GTA6 until people started bitching and demand Rockstar add a female lead in the next one which I'm sure they'll do...I can't even stand female characters in leading roles anymore when I play a game. Ellie from TLOU1 f***ed that up for me despite I didn't even play the game aside from helping my brother get passed parts he got stuck on. I mean she was 14 years old pulling rambos out the ass, not to mention overpowered a full adult male in a fight and killed him...When that happened I said "enough bullshit, I now officially hate female characters in video games." And they are always making all the female characters use profanity now in everything too. Like in Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes Claire and Jill were throwing profanity all over the place. Go back and play the original ones on the PS1 they didn't use profanity at all. But these days, developers feel the need to make every female character swear even if she's just 12-14 years old. It's the most irritating thing about female characters aside from how a lot of them feel like feminist icons nowadays and they get mentioned a lot on feminist websites like TheMarySue, Jezebel, etc.
