On 6/26/2024 1:53 AM, Mandrake wrote:

Kyonshi wrote:

On 6/26/2024 4:33 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

The blog post's headline is "Predatory Tactics In Gaming Are Worse
Than You Think".
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/predatory-tactics-in-gaming-are-worse-than-you-think

And the article then straightforwardly follows up on that topic. If
you wanted to get an idea of some of the tactics used by game
developers -especially in the mobile arena- then this is a good primer
on the subject. I particularly enjoyed the bit where one developer
admitted that -through data-harvesting- they identified members of the
Saudi royal family and changed the MTX pricing /just for those users/
to over a hundred times what other people paid.

that is an interesting way of price-gouging. I never thought about
that, but it easily might be that with advanced techniques they can
target rich people with higher prices and they will never notice.

It's worse than price-gouging.  'Price-gouging' satisfies economic
theory.  More along the lines of false advertising here.  Rich people
will notice and then go commit suicide.

With the Saudi royal family they really won't _care_. If you are going
to spend 1.5 Trillion dollars to build a city in the middle of the
desert what's a million or two on a phone game?

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 26/06/2024 03:33, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

The blog post's headline is "Predatory Tactics In Gaming Are Worse
Than You Think". https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/predatory-tactics-in-gaming-are-worse-than-you-think

And the article then straightforwardly follows up on that topic. If
you wanted to get an idea of some of the tactics used by game
developers -especially in the mobile arena- then this is a good primer
on the subject. I particularly enjoyed the bit where one developer
admitted that -through data-harvesting- they identified members of the
Saudi royal family and changed the MTX pricing/just for those users/
to over a hundred times what other people paid.

<snip>

I did watch a video a few years ago from a company touting their tech
for identifying spending habits (in particular whales) and then
tailoring their game experience to get as much money out of them as
possible. At the time I put it more down to hype as surely people just
wouldn't accept effectively being duped. How wrong I was.

I could understand it in the early days of MTX when it wasn't entirely
obvious the tricks be played but now there really should be no excuse.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 26/06/2024 20:03, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Only people with far too little sense and far too much money would
think such a scheme would work. I've no problem with them getting
gouged by mobile gaming companies.

Too little sense, splurge a nice chunk of change on an 'infrastructure'
project and then make sure a lot of the money goes back to the royal
family. If anybody complains, invite them for a chat at an embassy and
then kill them, simple.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 27 Jun 2024 11:16:14 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

The /implementation/ of that idea, however, is completely bat-shit
stupid and insane. And even Saudi Arabia has finally started to
realize this, as the original 170km project has been scaled back to
2km... and even that is unlikely to be finished.

On the plus side... I bet it'll make for some awesome video game
locations in the near future.

You've given me a great idea Spalls. How about using the Saudi
acreage for all the USA homeless bums and sidewalk campers that don't
qualify for local outreach programs?

Domestic outreach programs typically require some effort on the part
of the substance abuser ....which almost all homeless that remain in
that state long enough to be relevant to this idea are... to be
motivated to treat their problem. Most of them opt out of these
programs of course, and prefer to exercise their freedom to live on
the streets, beg others for money (or just rob) and enjoy their
self-entitled right to do all their feel-good drugs and booze.

If we ship all of the ones who don't want to help themselves out to
the remote areas of Saudi Arabia, it's a win-win-win. It cleans up
the festering mess going on in the US, it gives the Saudis a new
purpose for their land, and the homeless won't have to deal with the embarassment of shitting on the sidewalks in front of everyone because
there are no sidewalks in the desert. They can just use their feet to
cover it with sand, kind of like cat litter. Maybe the Saudis can
even figure out a way to turn all the bum poo into energy, making it a win-win-win-win.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/06/2024 16:16, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2024 09:02:09 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 26/06/2024 20:03, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Only people with far too little sense and far too much money would
think such a scheme would work. I've no problem with them getting
gouged by mobile gaming companies.

Too little sense, splurge a nice chunk of change on an 'infrastructure'
project and then make sure a lot of the money goes back to the royal
family. If anybody complains, invite them for a chat at an embassy and
then kill them, simple.

There is /some/ logic behind it. Saudi Arabia's income is almost
entirely based on petroleum exports; you know: oil. However, those
resources are limited in quantity (it is reported that Saudi Arabia
reached 'peak oil' production in 2017), and -as the world faces
increasing climate catastrophe because wastefully burning vast amounts petroleum does nothing good for the atmosphere- people are starting to
buy less of the stuff.

So Saudia Arabia is /trying/ to leverage their current oil-wealth into finding new sources of money. Except, when 90% of your territory is near-worthless, unlivable desert that's a really hard transition.

Projects like "The Line" are an attempt to challenge this. It's
supposed to be a place of business, a new tech-centric utopia where
all the world's best new ideas come from, a massive trading hub, and a
way for Saudia Arabia to push 170km of otherwise useless land into
some sort of productivity. The drive behind the idea isn't entirely
stupid; it actually is surprising forward-thinking.

(that it's also a vanity project that 'proves' that utility of the
Saudi royal family to an increasingly unhappy populace is bonus)

The /implementation/ of that idea, however, is completely bat-shit
stupid and insane. And even Saudi Arabia has finally started to
realize this, as the original 170km project has been scaled back to
2km... and even that is unlikely to be finished.

On the plus side... I bet it'll make for some awesome video game
locations in the near future. Whether it's "The Line" as promised, or
the half-built and abandoned ruins of "The Line" as it really is,
duking it out with other players in an FPS brawl sounds like a lot of
fun.

(I had to bring the topic back to video games somehow ;-)

A problem I can see for Saudi is that as the petrodollars start to dry
up they will no longer be able to afford to rely on a large foreign
workforce. It will come as a bit of a shock to many Saudi that they are actually expected to be productive in the jobs to get paid for them.

It was one of the things that amazed me when in Saudi. A large number of
very new, and expensive, pick-and-place machines but yet I never once
saw them working. You basically had a factory floor where all you would
see was the odd person wandering about.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)