Virtual currencies are ‘fictions’, Take-Two argues in microtransaction theft lawsuit : games

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago

God, Take-Two is probably the scummiest, dumbest, and greediest game publishing company around. I know that most companies of this type are appalling, like Activision/Blizzard, Ubisoft, or EA, but I feel that they've fallen to the point where it's expected to be bad. Take-Two has been, in my opinion, just as shitty in forever, but the success of GTA and RDR2 makes them slip people's minds completely.

[–] mindbleach 19 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Ban this entire business model.

Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. It's a scam. Games make you value arbitrary nonsense - that is what makes them games. Attaching a dollar value to that manipulation is instantly unethical.

This exploitation started in "free" mobile trash and is now in full-price flagship titles. It's in subscription MMOs. It's in single-player games. Publishers can shove it in after-the-fact, at little cost and less risk. You were never going to shop your way out of it. It is the dominant strategy.

If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else. Only legislation will fix this.

[–] mindbleach 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Replies so far:

'Why'd you say it's in every game ever?' Didn't. 'But why are you lying though?'

'Just don't buy it!' It's a scam. 'Just don't get scammed!'

This topic invites the dumbest bickering. People hear "game" and "law" and lose their damn minds. Guys: bus-i-ness mo-del. The games themselves will be fine. The problem is the business. They take your money wrong.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago

Since nobody else can see princess whats-her-face:

It's a scam when you get nothing, but think you got something. Consent doesn't matter if the whole thing is a trick. And it is a trick: that's what games do. That's what games are for. They trick you into valuing arbitrary worthless crap. Points, hits, lives, goals - they're not real. They are achievable fictions for making your brain squirt the happy juice.

Your brain is not great at separating forms of value. That's why points and crap feel good. It's also why swapping that made-up value for USD is an exploitation of predictable irrationality.

(And for fuck's sake, 'just sell games' doesn't double-secret-reverse mean 'don't sell games.' Buying games is the ideal. Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. That is the scam.)

Even if you want to bicker about how actually receiving a made-up thing counts, somehow, you will never convince me some fake hat is worth the price of an entire goddamn game. But that shit's all over this industry, now. There's imaginary objects that expect hundreds of dollars. Whole-ass AAA games do not cost hundreds of dollars. Anyone getting manipulated into paying that kind of money, for one thing inside a much larger game, is a victim. As surely as if they'd agreed to pay $5000 for a PS5 because you told them Sony stopped making it. They got exactly what you offered - at a price that's fucking robbery, because you lied to them about everything else.

[–] Syntha 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just don't buy them lol

There are so many games without microtransactions you could only play games that were released prior to 2024 and you'd be occupied your whole life.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

So what if new movies need an anal probe? There's lots of old movies.

This is a scam.

This is an abuse, for money. For a lot of money. It's so profitable that "just don't buy it!" was never going to work. This is the dominant strategy - it is infecting everything. Nothing inside a video game should ever cost real money, but every game that matters is liable to demand thousands of your actual dollars. 'Just play Tetris lawl' is an aggressive denial of a global problem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are plenty, plenty of games that "matter" that respect players and don't rob them blind of their money or their time with arbitrary grind bullshit.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And that makes the billion-dollar scam industry okay somehow.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't think this monetization scheme is valid.

That doesn't justify you fucking lying about it.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"This is spreading to everything." "It's not in everything yet."

Yeah. That's what spreading means.

Do you think this problem vanishes if it only infects 90% of games? You gonna tut and scold over this growing abuse, which you acknowledge is an abuse, so long as there's one game somewhere that didn't choose an invalid money-sucking business model? "Lol?"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's not anywhere close to everything. There are far more quality games that don't do anything like it than quality games that do. It's primarily the same AAA shovelware that's also terrible for 50 other disastrous design decisions and isn't actually playable regardless of the business model.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's spreading TO everything. Do you understand what that means? It does not mean "it's in everything." It means: it's in a lot of things, and it's coming to a lot more things. Potentially: all of them.

And again - if it's not literally everything, does that make the problem go away? You, yourself, just now, said this business model is not valid. Why the fuck are you still defending its existence?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

but every game that matters is liable to demand thousands of your actual dollars

This is not ambiguous. It is an insane ridiculous lie, and the extreme bad faith of posting it inherently invalidates your ability to take part in the discussion.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Look up the word "liable."

Then come back and try to engage in this discussion in a way that matters - like when I ask, if YOU think this business model is NOT VALID, why the fuck is it okay? Even if you think someone overstepped from "it's already half the industry holy shit" to some absolute - why is ANY example tolerable?

If you agree this business model is a scam, the appropriate number of examples is zero. I shouldn't have to litigate whether the current number of example is a fuckload, a bunch, or a totality. All of those are far too many.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's nowhere near half the industry. It's a small corner of games that already are dogshit anyways.

2K is one of the only examples where there's actually a game underneath it to be made worse by the model.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's literally half of all revenue. You wanna split more hairs instead of addressing the fucking point? Maybe do it by yourself.

Every game with this shit is made worse. That's the only way it works. There's some version of the game that's optimized for your enjoyment - and you are granted brief glimpses of it, for money. Frustration, disappointment, and exclusion are all openly abused to shove you toward throwing away more actual money. And again: there's examples of this shit in every genre, in MMOs, in single-player games, et very cetera.

Not that I should have to justify the problem's existence to someone who already said:

I don’t think this monetization scheme is valid.

THEN STOP DEFENDING IT.

Fuck!

[+] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] mindbleach 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

People should be able to buy games without getting put in a vise, god dammit! Everyone gets less and worse and has less money! There is no upside to this shit, unless you're the one sucking on the wallet-siphon.

Nobody's gonna take your precious fucking vidya. This is about a business model. Precisely nothing needs to change, in terms of the game part of a game. The problem is naked greed. Stop flipping out and hurling insults like "stop gouging money" is what you think constitutes censorship.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you don't like it, don't play it. Simple as. The government has no place telling private citizens what games they can buy or sell.

[–] mindbleach 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Banning scams is absolutely the government's job.

This business model is a scam.

Buying and selling is what I want, but it's not what these assholes offer - they are taking money in exchange for fuck-all. For "gems." For time on a clock they made up. For a chance to get a ticket to run a dungeon to roll drops that might give you a thing that's already in the game you're playing.

Horse armor was perfectly ethical, relative to this abuse. That's how bad this is. It is neither a good nor a service. It is fundamentally not an acceptable thing to charge any amount of money for.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just yelling scam as loud as you can doesn't actually make something a scam pal

[–] mindbleach 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ignoring the argument doesn't mean there was no argument.

Troll harder.

[+] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] mindbleach 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

When you get nothing, but think you got something. Consent doesn't matter if the whole thing is a trick. And it is: that's what games do. That's what games are for. They trick you into valuing arbitrary worthless crap. Points, hits, lives, goals - they're not real. They are achievable fictions for making your brain squirt the happy juice.

Your brain is not great at separating forms of value. That's why points and crap feel good. It's also why swapping that made-up value for USD is an exploitation of predictable irrationality.

Even if you want to bicker about how actually receiving a made-up thing counts, somehow, you will never convince me some fake hat is worth the price of an entire goddamn game. But that shit's all over this industry, now. There's imaginary objects that expect hundreds of dollars. Whole-ass AAA games do not cost hundreds of dollars. Anyone getting manipulated into paying that kind of money, for one thing inside a much larger game, is a victim. As surely as if they'd agreed to pay $5000 for a PS5 because you told them Sony stopped making it. They got exactly what you offered - at a price that's fucking robbery, because you lied to them about everything else.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

As gross as the business model is, a lawsuit alleging that it's even possible that a customer thought they were buying anything other than progress for that specific version of that specific game is so obscenely fraudulent that every lawyer involved should be disbarred.

"Pay for progress" shouldn't be legal, but it is, and there's absolutely no legal basis for this lawsuit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Most currency is fiction. A dollar bill only has the value we prescribe for it. Game currency should be treated no differently.

[–] fibojoly 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Currency is a promise. It's a fiction we all agree to be a part of.
The constant argument by game lawyers that digital goods have value and therefore cloning them is theft, should reinforce this idea that, well, if your DLC and your games have value, then surely those virtual coins also have value. And we can precisely calculate that value, too. How can they argue in good faith that digital goods have value, then the opposite is true when they would have to shell out actual money?

Or can banks suddenly do that, too? Can you imagine if banks decide that no, actually, we are closing those branches and since your money was tied to them, you're out of luck, too bad. But we are opening new ones, don't worry, come again!

I think customers are fucking idiots for spending any amount thinking they ain't getting fucked, mind you. But clearly there is some serious fuckery going on. I hope Europe take the lead on that crap, sooner rather than later, since we seem to be tackling lootboxes...

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

Do you believe that every game that uses a central server should be required to compensate players when eventually those online services are shut down? Because I would say that games shutting down is a completely reasonable part of how these things work, and a reasonable expectation by the players when they buy into that system. You're paying for access to content for the lifespan of the game, not an eternal entitlement to active servers until the heat death of the universe.