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@snow Everything in life is a gamble, you cant exist without gambling, underage or otherwise. People just think once money is the thing being gambled away it is somehow worse than other gambles, I dont think it is.
The wordplay works of course, but if you think about it, equating any risk of life to gambling, is akin to equating death to murder. One is an uncontrollable circumstance imposed on people by nature, that most of them strive to circumvent, and the other is a conscious activity people engage in by choice and encourage others to engage in. Of course there is no harm in playing games with your friends, as long as you realize what you're doing and take it lightly, but that's not at all what people usually end up doing when gambling. To me "gambling industry" being an actually meaningful phrase is bizarre, if not tragic.
@snow
But im not equating any risk of life to gambling... I am equating any **choice** you have to make in life to a gamble.. big difference.
@snow
You sure know how to be confusing... what is that supposed to mean? That everything is random and unpredictable? Oh gee, might the next key I press activate the orbital death ray that might exist and might be in a quantum entanglement with my keyboard and might fry me where I stand?! Chaos is the only true religion, and casinos are its shrines!
@snow
Gambling is where there is a random choice, and you stake your own benefit on the outcome of it. Which as I said is unavoidable and constant in life.
Stock markets are a form of gambling we do that involves money, which people might be more quickly to accept as gambling because of the use of money. But most people wont view it as harmful.
Casinos are no different but is seen as harmful..
Moral of the story, gambling is constant and unavoidable, it is not inherently bad in nature it is just part of life. The only time it is really harmful is when you take risks that are not advantagious, such as the case of a casino where the odds are rigged to always be against you no matter what you do.
@snow
Well, I guess we can say that "gambling" is not really well defined, and not say that you trying to stretch the meaning of the word... doesn't matter though... What I was trying to say is that there is a big difference between unpredictable natural circumstances(risking) and conscious setups of randomness(gambling). Even those stock marketers, as far as I understand, simply found themselves in a situation where some risks can can be beneficial, they did not orchestrate that situation (at least in principle), and they are trying to do everything in their power to mitigate the risk, predict the outcomes. Gambling on the other hand is intentionally random, the whole point of the industry is to ensure "fair" randomness(in principle again), and in that sense is just the complete opposite thing. It's "the church of random" vs "the church of 'I wish it wasn't random, but oh well'".
@namark I agree I was trying to stretch the meaning of the word.
But remember this started as a rebuttal to snow calling skin boxes gambling in games. I would argue that was already a stretch of the word and I was applying that mentality to the general case to show exactly why stretching the definition to that point isnt useful.
We have now come full circle.
I don't really know how any given loot box system works, and there can be some grey area there(for example, if you always get equal value out of it, but in different form), but the whole gist seems to be the same. It's entirely artificial and it's appealing to and encouraging the same mindset that one would need to have to play, say, slot machines.
I also have to say that to me the whole idea of buying a ready made in game item in general is absurd, but I guess that's our reality now.
Cant say I agree. It is no more a slot machine mentality than fighting a mob in a game wuld be with randomness in it. Every decision is little more than a gable with rewards and penalties
The nly time it encourages a unhealthy gambling mentality is when the risk-reward is low and people are expected to engage in it to play anyway.
The entire competitive videogame scene revolves around removing uncertainty of outcome. People who partake in it want to be able to win more money for winning more matches with which to buy their rewards from a shop.
The reason why everyone is so mad is because this is slowly going away and being replaced by timed, impulse-buy favoring systems and gachapon-style rewards. This, to people who go out of their way to have the least uncertainty of outcome possible, is infuriating, and is gambling.
On the other hand, the people that don't care to remove uncertainty of outcome, which are kids and normies, will gladly show the hardcore crowd that they aren't worth shit by dropping fifty dollars for a fast track to being cool, falling into the trap and exarcebating the problem.
To argue in the stead of the guy whose rhetoric extends no farther than "zzzzz"
Honestly, I think there's a distinction to be made between an educated, favorable gamble and throwing money away hoping for something nice.
Videogames have slowly been going from one end of this spectrum to the other, and it's fucking with kids, it's making enthusiasts pissed off because they hate uncertainty in outcome and it's making normies think they can be like the enthusiasts by dumping more and more money. Nobody wins. It's kind of frustrating.