In a casino, you know what you’re there for and what you’re up against. Gaming commissions have curbed many of the worst abuses with inspections, posted odds, etc.
With mobile gaming you have a free for all that is intentionally exploiting the same neuroanatomy of addiction, but it’s wrapped up in pretty pixels and you can do it anywhere, privately. The industry is too big for gaming commission type controls to work.
I think that mobile game monetization is populated by morally deficient actors and we should consider banning the whole thing.
In a meatspace casino, if someone shows you 4 face down cards, asks you to pick one, and then turns them all up to reveal 3 prizes and 1 "you lose" card, you can be fairly sure you had a 25% chance of losing.
If the croupier used sleight of hand or secret e-ink cards to turn your card into the "you lose" card after you'd picked it, that would be fraud.
The dark patterns and dopamine manipulation are bad enough, but isn't it fraud in this case? They're using a visual metaphor that is a straight-up lie.
But they do it within, often, quite tight regulation on game mechanics. People compare loot boxes to slot machines, but often loot boxes are allowed to be much more manipulative than would be allowed for a casino slot machine in many jurisdictions. For example, slots can juice the number of near misses (two cherries, and the third reel has a cherry that's just offcenter), compared to what would arise naturally if the reels were independent. But they might not be allowed to vastly increase the likelihood of near misses just as the player gets to the last few spins before inserting more cash (each spin has to be essentially the same game). Mobile game monetization does stuff like this all the time.
With mobile gaming you have a free for all that is intentionally exploiting the same neuroanatomy of addiction, but it’s wrapped up in pretty pixels and you can do it anywhere, privately. The industry is too big for gaming commission type controls to work.
I think that mobile game monetization is populated by morally deficient actors and we should consider banning the whole thing.