Aielyn said:
Yet you still haven't responded to my point about it not being a game of luck. Let me put it this way - you know what Skee Ball is? It's a game of skill. It's found at various arcades and similar places, and if you do well, you get a heap of tokens, which you spend to buy little trinkets, not unlike the badges. Playing Skee Ball is not gambling, because it's not a game of luck, and it's not a competition. Your reward does not depend on anything except your own skill. It is not even in the realm of gambling. It is only "risky" in the sense that you won't do well if you screw up. But it's within your control, not the game's. And the only rush you get it when you play really well and pick just the right badge to get, thus getting a heap in one go... and that sort of "rush" isn't the sort that gets people addicted. The game is a diversion, not a gambling machine. It's a little something you spend a few minutes on each day for the practice, and hopefully free, plays. And if you really want to get a particular badge or set of badges, and aren't patient, you spend a small amount of money, and get those badges. |
I conceded that I can't know if it qualifies techniquly as gambeling or not having not played that game. Not that that make the slightest diffrence to my argument either way.
Nit picking sematics asside. My point is about Nintendos direction in exploring the usage of the risk/reward rush (Which you seem to scoff at) heavily association with gambiling. I don't want Nintendo to go down this path. I don't see this as a diversion. If it's successful at making money (Which is nintendo goal here) it does so by being a tool for extrating young childrens pocket money for next to nothing in return. If they were just selling these badges on the estore at a silly price I wouldn't have the same issue. That's the straght up way of doing it.
I'm not aware of skee ball but the consept of games for crap prizes is not uncommon. One excample would be games in a fairground, I'm not attually in favour of the way many fairgroung games operate (and in that case many are scams) but those are events in places you have to travel to, and you expect to be riped off to some extent. Parents leave their kids alone with their 3ds's eveyday. It's naive to think of this as either a diverion or a one off. If it's successful it may be the first of many.
