The Gaming Industry And My Gambling Addiction

[@DogginsFroggins]

As a person who doesn't see the point of gambling, this sounds scary, I hope your message spreads and prevents any future victims.

[@waarschijn]

I've never gambled but I've fallen for all kinds of manipulation. As an adult, I have habits that my younger self couldn't imagine getting into. So for all I know, I could become a gambling addict. I find the metaphor of Satan helpful: think of the scariest, ugliest monster and imagine him monitoring your behavior, analyzing your weaknesses, and crafting all the exciting promises in order to suck you in and bleed you dry until there is nothing left of you. He'll dump your rotting corpse into the garbage when he's done with you. That's the mental image those blinking lights of the slot machine should evoke. They should scare you do death so you don't think twice about avoiding them.

[@Impbrush]

The odd thing I recall was I somehow got the timings perfect on the old Pokémon slot machines. It was funny peaking the coin count. But looking back, making a slot machine skill based is dangerous in a game. I later would have a compulsion to buy way too many boxes from overwatch when they did that back a few years ago. I hate how I spent a single cent let alone a couple euros on this bullshit. I am disgusted to see children’s properties like, Mario, Pokémon, and even popular anime like one piece use these mechanics and see influencers advertise them (I respect the influencers need for money they need to eat and should not be hated for taking these deals) . But I always have a fear that maybe someday I might lose myself and spend a lot of money on gambling. I thankfully haven’t done this yet. But we shouldn’t have to live in a society where gambling is so openly shown as a positive experience when it has destroyed lives and blames the victims while the abusers profit.

[@Skylos]

I used to play Magic The Gathering, and have probably spent over $10 000 on that game in total back when I did play. I've also had problems with whaling on Fate Grand Order in the past as well. I find it incredibly frustrating whenever I speak to people, especially in the game dev space, and they tell me that "It's not gambling because you cannot win money" as if that somehow makes these systems that have sucked my wallet empty okay. I am slowly doing better these days thankfully

[@Missiletainn]

I was in my first year of University when the gacha game Fire Emblem Heroes (FEH) came out, as a fire emblem fan and someone who'd never really touched gacha games, i went into it thinking it was just gonna be this fun thing to touch and put down. It destroyed my attention span and damaged my ability to focus so much, I fell behind and eventually completely did nothing in my final year of uni because I managed to get enough to scrape by with the lowest of passes. I played a few other gacha games, only spent money on one other, but I knew I had a problem when it came to self control on FEH. I had to set it up so that I would be discouraged from spending, make it ask for my password, never save my details, blocked paypal and such. A few times I dropped about £300 in a week just for maxing out that new character. I tried to count how much I had spent overall, and I only ended up going half a year back to see £2500, and I had been playing for at least 6 years by the time I counted, spending would flucuate with my mood (Bipolar and depression baby). It was the first thing I did in the morning and the last thing I did before bed. In my last year before quitting I had narrowed down my spending, but it was a fanbase thing which got me to quit. I only managed to quit it in feburary this year, and I feel so much better, I still have the bad habit of checking my phone every time i'm bored, even though my phone has no games on it. But now whenever I see someone talking about the newest unit I just look at how bloated it is and think thank **** I managed to pull myself out of that. Because I'm stubborn, and I was never going to be able to ask for help without having a Panic attack. Gacha and loot boxes and all sorts of gambling I find so dangerous, and I actively feel disgusted at most F2P games these days because its the same tactics, and no ones talking about it. This is a very important video, thank you for making it.

[@GCVazquez]

Thank you for sharing your experience! I'm glad you were able to quit the habit!

[@xalt255x]

I played the Granblue Fantasy gacha game for thousands of hours without spending a single cent. Then, I decided to spend about $3 to get a really important character because I was a bit short on in-game currency (basically I had accumulated ~280 in-game rolls and after you roll 300 times you can pick something guaranteed for free). That was the first and last time I wasted money on gacha. I've been clean for 3 years now, there're hundreds (literally) single-player games to play instead

[@kentonroush]

Man. This stuff's always been hard for me to wrap my head around. I just didn't see the problem with any of it for most of my life- Eventually realized, that's because I just don't have the right personality type. *I'm* not vulnerable, I spin the slot machine once, lose money, and go "well that was stupid" instead of seeing the appeal, and that makes it hard to get into the head of someone who does have an addictive personality - I always agreed with the "it's fine if it's cosmetics" argument, because I just couldn't imagine anyone actually enjoying the gambling itself. ...I think that's a big part of why it's hard to get people to fight against this kinda stuff. If you're not the target, it's hard to grasp how bad the problem is.

[@lilyhoch269]

I'm kinda the same way in that games of chance have always seemed stupid to me. I'm autistic though and I would get attached to all the cool characters and designs I'd see in cartoons and I developed a love for opening booster packs as a kid that is now nostalgic for me. Games of chance don't really do anything for me, but loot boxes and gachas that feed my subconscious desire to accumulate more cute and cool characters in a collection continue to get me. As I've gotten older and started working, I've actually casually dropped hundreds on things like getting new characters in Genshin Impact and other similar games. If you do it long enough, then the appeal for other forms of gambling and the loop of gambling itself absolutely does develop. Sometimes all it takes is the right coat of paint and subconscious hook to get your feet walking down the road of addiction

[@ronwisegamgee]

The most I've spent on video game gambling was $10 to get Nexon currency to unlock chests in Dungeon Fighter Online (back when it was still under Nexon). Didn't get any cool cosmetics for my slayer, so I never did it again. As for the Dragon Quest games, I would dedicate sessions of gameplay just to rack up casino coins to get those sweet, sweet prizes. As of late, I'm playing the DS versions of DQ 4/5/6 and employing cheats so that I can just get max casino coins to get myself Falcon Blades, Meteorite Bracers, Gringham Whips, Liquid Metal Helms, and whatever else I get my hands on. Same goes for DQXI on the PC: I got myself that mod from Nexus mods that turns every successful spin into a Jackpot. Last but not least, I've employed cheats/mods to get 100% drop rate (making stealing from enemies irrelevant, because I stealing from enemies in RPGs is another huge waste of time). These are games that I've beaten before and I just rather not have my time wasted just so that I can get the same gear I'd get anyways.

[@Ophelia381]

I wonder if the fateful moment I managed to not go through the pipeline is because, as a kid, I wanted a porygon, saw the game corner, thought it looked like a chore so I bought a gameshark to bypass the minigame. Now that I think about it, I also got a gameshark for the ps1 and ps2 back in the days for stuff like that. Huh.

[@tyedmonds258]

A good portion of my friend group is addicted to these gaccha games and defend them like their lives depend on it. It's sad to see the road a lot of modern games are going on.

[@KBash]

I HEARD YOUR GAME PROFESSOR REFERENCE 🤝

[@GCVazquez]

THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

[@spellblade]

Great video GC. I've always been a pretty cut-and-dry nerd. I like videogames and I don't really care about sports at all, so gambling never interested me. A couple of years ago I started Matched Betting (A system in the UK to make money off bookmakers by exploiting backing both sides of an event and using free bet offers) and I was making some good money off of it. Enough to get cocky and not always follow the rules/systems to guarantee profit but to risk it for a much bigger profit. Eventually i'd be throwing down £100s on events... yep, I was just gambling, and with more money than I could afford to. It didn't take long for me to notice the signs in myself and just stop it all entirely before it got too far. Honestly before that I was a bit of a smug prick and thought people with gambling addictions were idiots, but I've also seen many friends and family who I've admired and respected intellectually fall into these habits and lose thousands. People might be smart, but the gambling industry has the money to pay even smarter people to cook up whole new ways to entice people. It does sadden me to see so much of it in videogames nowadays. I hope more regulation and protective legislation gets put in place without needing hundreds more examples of ruined lives before it happens.

[@GCVazquez]

Thanks for sharing!

[@thepositiver9977]

As someone who put too many hours to count in the casino in any DQ game... I feel it

[@2122Super]

At least dq11s casino just paid out extremely fast and well haha

[@InsaneGreatsword]

I’m remembering my time with Battle Cats as a kid, it was a game my brothers and I played. It was Gacha and my brothers got lots of the best, Uber Rare, characters. I was getting unlucky so over a few months I spent about $100 on this game. The funny part is that I HATED that game, it was funny yeah but the gameplay was garbage. It was right before a massive depressive episode I had in 2016 that I kept till 2020 when I got Dark Souls 3. I don’t remember much about those 4 years.

[@InsaneGreatsword]

The moral of this story is Dark Souls is better than therapy

[@Mickeyds11]

i was at evo, a fighting gsme tournament, the event is connected to a casino, so i was in and out a lot. i saw lots of the attendees goin at it. some who have never gambled before. i tried with 1 dollar i had found on the floor. lost, and just stopped, because ive seen, and heard horror stories. amazing video, kept me engaged, you're absolutely right.

[@GCVazquez]

Thank you!

[@ultimaxkom8728]

Just one more hour. Just one more video. Just one more pack. This is the key mantra.

[@rerunx5]

Very well done video. I've visited the casino last week as my first time. I can understand how addicting it can be. I saw someone lost $300 from a coin pusher and slot machine combo. He kept spinning to he can get a chance to push some coins. I do admit I spend hundreds of on Overwatch because of a new skin that was in a loot box.

[@GCVazquez]

Gambling can get outta control fast!

[@caturiges]

I never had been introduced to gambling when I was a kid/teen, but the pinball machines on the arcades that I regularly visited sure got my attention.

[@CheeerriOH]

This is a fantastic and important video. Thank you for sharing your experiences. Personally, i went into those game corners for less than 10 mins and spent less than an hour of my Yakuza playthroughs in the dens. Hearing how differently it effected you shows the breadth of the human experience and how predatory it was that these are in G and PG video games. The parallels drawn to arcades and card games were super enlightening. Thank you for this video.

[@GCVazquez]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Rihcterwilker]

I think depending on how it is done, it can add an element of surprise to a game, like the kinstones in zelda minish cap. I know that isn't exactly gambling, but it felt like a good way to motivate the player to keep playing without that feeling of "i have to make more money so i can continue doing bets in hopes of getting the cool prize"

[@royalbandit8106]

Even as a kid, I never understood people who enjoy gambling because even normal card games bores the shit out of me to this day. People who think they can control luck are ether morons or conartists in my experience. But! I can understand people being manipulated into thinking they are benefiting from a system exploiting them. More people talking about this is good even I don't understand or care 👍

[@dondashall]

This was a sobering video to watch. While I've heard stories of addicts & victims of predatory monetization before, hearing it directly in this way hits different. Great video.

[@rosly_yt]

I think that there is a distinction between skill-based games in arcades (such as the Big Bass Wheels at 14:22), and gambling machines in casinos. The big wheels you showed a picture of are skill-based, because some states require that companies that manufacture them prove that they're skill-based. With practice, you can increase your average payout, unlike with slot machines. Bay Tek, the company that manufactures the Big Bass Wheels, along with many other arcade machines, doesn't dabble in luck-based games like slot machines. Everything they manufacture is certified to be skill based by the handful of states that require that certification. As far as I know, Dave and Busters, which is the arcade chain I go to, and which I think is depicted in these pictures, doesn't have any pure-luck games. The spinner at 14:17 requires skill to hit the jackpot, with skilled players much more capable of getting there than people who've never played before. How hard you pump the lever is directly tied to how much the wheel moves, nothing random involved. The Monopoly game uses "dice" that are similarly skill-based, using a small wheel that can, in theory, be used to consistently land it where you want it, although they feel random if you're not good at manipulating them. Coin pushers aren't random, either. Some combinations of coin placement and pusher timing get better results than others, and even the side games involving cards often ask you to time your coin correctly along a certain path to get cards in the first place. And, the balloon game, like the similar carnival game, is unfair, but not random. And, of course, we can have the discussion of skill vs luck, and how much luck can be in a game while still staying "skill based", or even if things that feel random despite factually being skill-based should be classified as gambling due to employing the same core sales pitch, but there is a difference between arcade machines which allow you to develop the skill to increase your odds, and slot machines which don't. Plenty of problem gamblers do play games like poker, blackjack, etc. with some degree of skill, and I don't want to dismiss the harms that those games can cause, but it feels unfair to lump pure luck-based games like slot machines with pure-skill games like Big Bass Wheel that can feel random to the uninitiated.

[@thepositiver9977]

This was eye opening and the section on tcg made me think about my relationship with them and how some old games based on them were designed. As a kid I collected a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh cards until I fell out of it, but had a suit case full of cards. These days I returned to TCG with the One Piece and new Digimon game despite getting the chance to actually play them once in couple months because of busy adulthood life. Was interested in playing them because friends were so I decided to join and I adore the artwork for both. Despite this yesterday I thought about it and yeah buying TCG booster packs are no different than figure blind box, which can be seeing as real life loot box, which can be seeing as gambling for kids. To be fair card games are meant to be played between at least two people and I personally always cared about that, I don't even follow any competitive scene or care about getting the rare. But to get back to the connection you made with the finishing games video, this made me think of the infamous PS1 Yu-Gi-Oh game: "Forbidden Memories". Like many I had it as a kid and didn't get it because it doesn't explain anything and even with the information from the manual you'll get an understanding of the mechanics but not the depth of it. Cut to me at high school when I started collecting games and got the game again, trying my best to complete it when the horror strikes... this game is miserable to progress through and despite realizing it, I wanted to see the end of it. Imagine having to grind *a lot* to get good enough cards to beat the last 6 bosses (which you can't take break from and need to do them in a row because if you die it's game over, and three of the last opponents can summon powerful monsters like blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon which you can't get). The game never gives you an indication of what cards specific opponents give you so you have to guess, there is a password system but you need to pay in game money for it (and most of the famous and really good cards cost the max amount), despite the main campaign having a card shop which it really should be called save point because that's what it is. The max amount of money you get is 5 and there is a ranking system depending on if you used an aggressive strategy or not plus you only get one card per fights. to conclude, this game is miserable to beat, it has the RNG of a gatcha game, grinding of an RPG that wasn't properly play tested and it feels like stockholm syndrome playing it. I don't know if it's a joke that it became a popular game to speedrun or what however it has the vibes and amazing soundtrack but the game just feels like an addicting chore. Thinking about this made me that my experience with this game was exactly what was described in this video, it was miserable and I even felt this way while playing the game but because I wanted to see the end to finish a game from childhood that wasn't even good to begin with and a friend at the time really got into it and convinced me to keep going. The grinding felt like the tcg booster pack tactic but it's like if it gave you only a single card.

[@JohnyParuwka]

My story with gambling in gaming is that I played a lot of Marvel Avengers Alliance (which despite the predatory practices was a really cool rpg) and Urban Rivals or something like that. MAA got scrapped after surprisingly long considering it was a facebook game and I just stopped playing Urban Rivals. I don't really get anything out of gambling minigames in regular video games, except for liar's dice in Red Dead Redemption which somehow captives me like nothing else but it's not really about the gambling there, just a fun minigame

[@hugogieles4816]

Hey thank you for sharing this it moest be hard to talk so openly about something that you might still be struggling with till this day

[@MoonSpiritChannel]

EXCUSE ME!!! THE CORRECT TERM IS "SURPRISE MECHANICS", SIR!!!! No but seriously, this is a great dissertation, and it's pretty scummy that gambling is technically okay when you're doing loot boxes and the like in video games. I'm so glad I haven't done any gambling in real life, but thank god I'll be unhurt financially in games. Closest I've gotten to gambling now is just the lottery. I don't pay off $$$ to win big, but I still drop $10 for lotto numbers to see if I can win big. Biggest I won was $200. I guess that got me brainwashed in thinking, "Hey, if I can win that much, I bet I can do better too!"

[@GCVazquez]

Heck even I play the lottery from time to time. Thank you for sharing!

[@MoonSpiritChannel]

@@GCVazquez Heh. Well, I only play when it reaches a certain threshold

[@GCVazquez]

@@MoonSpiritChannel same! The powerball was massive lately

[@NoraNoita]

I never won at the Pokemon Yellow machines, so I always grinded the Elite 4 for money and bought the coins directly-

[@ChrisTheFields]

I don't consider myself a gambling addict. None of the symptoms that were cited in this video apply to me. But the funny thing about the tactics used by these game manufacturers is they still do a damn good job at getting me to spend a little more money than I initially intended whenever I do bother to spin the wheel "just one time".

[@GCVazquez]

They're very good at what they do best: convince you to spend your money

[@culIen]

Commenting to bump the homie's work, keep it up 👏

[@GCVazquez]

Thank you!!!!!! ;v;

[@gornothdragnbone5898]

Man... The section on tcgs really hit home. I've got addictive tendencies, that's something that took a long time to be honest with myself about. Hearthstone and Yu-Gi-Oh took up almost all of my free spending money, even for months after I wasn't really playing. Marvel snap obfuscating their economy by reworking it every month was a breaking point for me. I pretty much dropped competitive tcgs, they just feel like capitalisms dream version of tabletop gaming. The rest of the vid was fantastic as well, tcgs just really hit home for me. Thank you for making this

[@Laezar1]

Yep... also seen gambling for the first time in pokemon and spent a lot of time on it. I think one really insidious aspect of pokemon slot machine or a lot of videogame gambling stuff is that the game doesn't have to be unfair to you. Like you said you lost all your coin, but personally I was winning a lot, even if it was slowly and as far as I'm aware the payout is generally positive expected value which is WORSE cause it habituates you to the idea that even if you lose often you'll eventually steadily make money, which is the OPPOSITE of what slot machine do where you sometimes win but on average you lose money. I think that's also true of things like lootboxes, like, think about it, a lot of lootboxes have pity timer where after a certain time not winning you eventually get a win, and basically what it means is that the game lets you feel like you're winning but in reality they're just optimizing how much money/time they can get out of you without you quitting. Because the thing they give you (be it cosmetics or in game advantage) has no real world value and is infinitely reproducible. They could give it all for free they wouldn't be losing anything, so unlike gambling with money they don't *need* to make you lose for their scheme to work, they just need to maximize the amount they can make you pay. Basically it lets them sell an item at 10, 20, 100, 1000times what you'd pay if you could just buy it directly. Since the price is arbitrary the company, ironically, is itself gambling on how much they can make you pay before you quit. this would be funny if they could lose, but they can't, any amount of money they make off of you is a win for them. Also as a sidenote I kinda want to say that I'm definitely sensitive to gambling and if I wasn't aware of all that I would have developped an addiction at some point. Had pretty toxic/addictive relationship with games like league of legends, and I really appreciate games that don't try to abuse my brain and try to stick to those (it also extends to stuff like "numbers go up" and collectibles so I tend to avoid games that have those element when possible, which sucks cause I otherwise really like RPG's...)

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Fantasy sports is the next big "gambling" adjacent thing now. In India where Cricket is in heart and soul of Indians, Fantasy Sports (and even betting sites) openly advertise with some of the biggest celebrities in the country. Stuff's disgusting.

[@ararebeast]

Luckily for me somehow I've avoided getting addicted to gambling or even doing any real life gambling at all. I've played a few mobile games and never spent a dime, I've played a tiny bit of poker in a game or two for funsies, but it's never a high for me. I'm not too hyped about wins and frustrated by losses. But gaming's efforts to sneak very real gambling through gacha and other things and spend more money to claim that it isn't than their employees ever see is just disgusting from the outside. The fact that the smallest thing can set off an addiction and some recovering addicts can't even touch many AAA games anymore because the loot box crap was shoved in for a long while is truly a black cloud of shame that hangs over the industry. And now that we're making the move to battle pass-type stuff don't think that's much better. "Infinite Growth" always pressures shortcuts and shoddy revenue generation on the backs of the player, and I'm glad some places can finally be bothered to take them into account. I am surprised the Lord-of-the-Rings-Helmet-Kick fact that Nintendo started out making playing cards wasn't brought up for the section on games companies working directly in gambling though!

[@GCVazquez]

Ahhh I forgot about the Nintendo origins!!!! I knew I was missing something!

[@Laezar1]

Having a friend who plays roblox I kinda feel like whatever's happening in that game is so much worse than what you're describing, a lot of kids being groomed into gambling addiction, aswell as fascists normalizing hate speech and child labour being exploited. This platform is so fucked up.

[@rkroll17]

I feel pretty lucky that I don’t have a gambling addiction at all. In my mind I just think about the statistics and how unlikely you are to gain any money and I just avoid it. I did lose money in the stock market once but luckily instead of doubling down and trying to get my money back I just switched to low risk long term strategies.

[@Pakanahymni]

Thank you for speaking so candidly about things that many people are ashamed of. I know that for a gambling addict it's probably all the same, but I like differentiating between sports gambling and like actual games of chance. I think games of chance should be illegal or heavily heavily regulated but sports betting is not "as bad" because something else has to happen for you to be able to play.

[@DefinitelyEllie]

Genshin Impact is my white whale