[yomly]

I think those numbers are all relative?

If you're a bored prince with billions of liquid cash and even more billions of yielding assets, do you really care about 10-20k of weekly outlays?

Or reduce the scale, if you have 100k annual salary, do you miss that $3 a day you spend on coffee or $5 a week you spend on mobile gaming? ... or $15.99 a month you spend on Netflix?

Everyone has a thing and a threshold they are comfortable spending on. Some people want 4 wheels that will take them from A to B and other people are willing to spend $500 a month to get a Tesla.

We focus on digital goods because they have a perceived cost of zero to manufacture and are transient (one day the game will no longer work) but fail to spot that the value we heap on many material goods are social and most of us do not buy goods for life (hence why r/BuyItForLife is a subculture rather than conventional wisdom)

[AussieWog93]

Just to follow up on what you said, one of the things I've learned after a couple of years in online retail is that a huge proportion of people genuinely enjoy spending money.

They don't consider the opportunity cost or feel the pain of lost potential, but get a rush of "feeling rich" whenever they spend $50 on a T-shirt they'll wear once.

It's cross-cultural, natural psychology, and I doubt it'll go anywhere.

[Beltalowda]

A lot of people have this; I certainly do: when I buy something new it feels good, for a short time.

I actually live a fairly frugal life, and I think acknowledging this is important: "do I really want or need this or am I just making myself feel better for a few hours?"

[HWR_14]

Some people have enough money that they don't care about the money. But other people become addicted and end up spending money they don't have.

Just like some people dropping 100k in Vegas in a weekend are paying for the experience and VIP treatment and others just need one more bet to replenish Johnnys college fund.

[yomly]

sincere question - how big of a problem (in terms of #people suffering) is there of people spending beyond their means on online cosmetics?

I could see <18s getting into trouble but are there adults legit bankrupting themselves from paid-for cosmetics?

How common is the pattern for paid-for lootbox cosmetics (as compared to buy-it-now) cosmetics? Wouldn't say I'm particularly deep in either the RL/Fortnite ecosystem..!

[Sohcahtoa82]

Paid for cosmetics? Not likely to be very many people bankrupting themselves.

But Pay-To-Win games like Clash of Clans? I don't have any research, but if I was a gambling man, I'd bet at least a few thousand.

[yomly]

So I haven't played Clash of Clans but know Clash Royale exceptionally well (with a some dedicated training could probably shoot for global 10k league finish)

So speaking from experience: there's probably a finite sum you can spend on Clash Royale. I found the beginning highly addictive and I did spend hundreds when I probably shouldn't have, but the acceleration/frustration and advantage you can buy is very quickly eroded by skill. Once you have a maxed deck, it's pretty hard to buy victories and any new card might buy you some wins but will quickly get nerfed, and players better than you will still beat you (and matchmaking will converge you onto that 49% win rate).

I doubt I'm a typical player but at this stage I've probably extracted more value (by time) from clash than they've extracted from me - even if I spent 2k (a very very generous estimate), amortised over 5-6 years of play, that's not a lot of money (30 a month which is a AAA game every other month, less than a coffee a day) and has definitely given me more than that in enjoyment. And at this point my expenditure has completely plateaued.

Can I see people staying in that honeymoon phase moving from game to game? Yes maybe - I suppose by law of large numbers it's more likely than not Clash Royale peaked at like 100M players so 1k having issues is believable.

I'm all for regulation in this space (it's pretty crazy that it's not that regulated) but without data, my own personal experience feels like this is not nearly as dangerous as gambling or alcohol/drugs. The game milks you of money but doesn't create those boom-bust cycles that the traditional vices do

[HWR_14]

I only have anecdotes, not stats. But some people do ruin their lives with F2P gaming addictions.

[yomly]

financially? ie they played an f2p got hooked and spent dumped their money into oblivion such that they couldn't financially recover?

Getting addicted to an F2P game and losing your time, while sad, is not within the scope of this discussion

[HWR_14]

Financially. I personally know one person who pissed away their rent money on a F2P and got evicted. I also know of several other stories of people (not who I know personally) where they spend a lot of money they don't have, to the point of ruin. (Not being able to financially recover is a very high bar - you can financially recover from a bankruptcy for instance.)

I mean, sometimes they are kids (or the developmentally challenged)[1] but adults [2] too. There are more sad stories. One I recall was a developer who invited their superwhales to a launch of the new beta expansion in person. (All expenses paid) They sent one a plane ticket, but the the player never showed because they couldn't afford to get to the airport. I wish I could find that story online.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48925623

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/03/01/why-its-s...

> losing your time, while sad, is not within the scope of this discussion

I very clearly and explicitly said "money they didn't have" in my first post and was talking about financial costs.

[yomly]

>I very clearly and explicitly said "money they didn't have" in my first post and was talking about financial costs.

fair - I missed that context when reading the immediate response replying to.

Thanks for sharing your anecdata - the industry is definitely in need of regulation something I've long believed. The ubiquity and ease of access is probably the most dangerous bit. It's astounding that mobile games were able to copy/hire all the knowledge acquired in building slot machines to create an industry that doesn't even have to pay out..!