Mario Kart Tour and Dr. Mario World gacha disscusion

Gacha is inherently manipulative trash. I have no reason to be excited about either mobile game especially after hearing stories of people with real and serious gambling addictions turning to gaming to avoid it, only for the video games to eventually be blighted with these mechanics.
 
Worth watching, relevant to this thread. I hope none of you fall prey to this disgusting gacha scheme. Honestly just avoid these fucking games all together.
 
I don't understand this whole gacha scheme at all. People are actually willing to spend real money on in-game currency that will go away in seconds? Or loot boxes that might give you less than you came in with? I can't believe Nintendo's falling prey to this.

There's literally no permanent incentive to pay, either. At least if they set a decent hard limit and give the player a reward for reaching it (such as unlimited premium currency like what Team Kirby Clash Deluxe does), that actually incentivizes payment. But like this? I'm not spending a cent.
 
You say that, but most game companies will try as hard as possible to make you pay extra money. A common tactic is making the method of unlocking items time consuming and a pain to get the thing you want, so they add Loot Boxes as an "option" to "skip the grind".

Oh sorry, did I say Loot Boxes? I meant "Surprise Mechanics". Easy mistake to make.
 
YoshiFlutterJump said:
I don't understand this whole gacha scheme at all. People are actually willing to spend real money on in-game currency that will go away in seconds?
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Welcome to the world of gambling, where people waste away their life savings on things they'll never win anything on because they have a "just one more" tug that compels them to keep playing, especially techniques psychologically designed to lure people in.

That's what addiction does to you.
 
YoshiFlutterJump said:
I don't understand this whole gacha scheme at all. People are actually willing to spend real money on in-game currency that will go away in seconds? Or loot boxes that might give you less than you came in with? I can't believe Nintendo's falling prey to this.

There's literally no permanent incentive to pay, either. At least if they set a decent hard limit and give the player a reward for reaching it (such as unlimited premium currency like what Team Kirby Clash Deluxe does), that actually incentivizes payment. But like this? I'm not spending a cent.
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Well if you watch the video, there's a guy who clearly sold his soul to the devil explaining so blatantly how to hook players and "turn players into payers". They don't make a lot of money from people who shell very little, but from exploiting children who use their parents' cards (remember, gacha is getting really close to gambling, and straight-up gambling is outright outlawed for children), and the children suffer massively from peer pressure to pay up as sticking to "default" gets you bullied at school. This can easily apply to Mario Kart, Dr. Mario, and Fire Emblem Heroes if they were more popular.

But there's another demographic getting exploited, and that's gambling addicts or ex gambling addicts. These people have real and serious problems and working their hardest to cope and deal with it, and these appalling video games are ripe for exploiting their mental health problems and ruining their and their loved ones' lives. There are heartbreaking testimonials in the video that help illustrate what these schemes do to these people.

All of us are losers though, as I imagine even the money from the lower payers add up. But sometimes, even starting to pay up can trigger a verrry loong spiral to hell. Free-to-play, actually, is just the beginning of that spiral. Nintendo mostly avoided these free to play schemes in their console games, but it's despicable they're cashing more and more franchises, Mario Kart, Dr. Mario, Fire Emblem to promote these kinds of trash rather than make real games. Super Mario Run (and hard limits like Team Kirby to an extent) should've been the model, but no, they are just going to be like all the other nasty bandits in the mobile market.
 
YoshiFlutterJump said:
I don't understand this whole gacha scheme at all. People are actually willing to spend real money on in-game currency that will go away in seconds? Or loot boxes that might give you less than you came in with? I can't believe Nintendo's falling prey to this.

There's literally no permanent incentive to pay, either.
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NOT IF GET A +10 LEGENDARY LUCINA
 
GameXplain just uploaded a video on the Gacha elements of Dr. Mario World.


The game has two separate currencies, Coins which you can use to buy characters, and a premium currency in the form of Diamonds, which you can buy extra hearts and characters.

The maximum price you can pay for diamonds is $69.99, that's more then a full price game.

There's a stamina system in the form of hearts, which based of the top left of the video, has a maximum of five. Unsurprisingly you can refill your stamina using Diamonds.

Character unlocking costs 4000 coins, or 40 diamonds, and it's completely random which character you get, and if they're a Doctor or an Assistant. It's essentially a loot box.

There's also tickets that you can use to unlock characters, you receive one after completing the first world and presumably receive one after completing every world.

You can get duplicate assistants to level them up.

There's a daily reward system. The reward was 200-300 coins, which is "not enough the make any meaningful purchase".

There's a challenge system to unlock more coins, but based off the video these rewards are a similar amount to the daily rewards.
 
I think what bugs me the most about this gacha stuff is that this is probably the best looking Dr Mario game in years.
 
Note all the manipulation they do. To try to hook players, they give out enticing rewards daily to keep players coming back. They have two currencies, the common one is there and is common to give players a false sense of worth. The premium one is one that actually matters, the one with most of the impact in the games. And you notice the options, being limited either with getting 5 hearts or spending a little more for an hour of unrestricted play, which is another means of hooking players in. The real goal is recurrent user spending (coinage by the industry, believe it or not) where they lock the great rewards under really low percentages and allowing dupes and spending diamonds or an ungodly amount coins for powerups, which I figure might be way more mandatory in later levels.

It's a real shame since we got a lot of new doctors this time. I'd rather pay up ten dollars. People keep citing the apparent failure of Super Mario Run (only because it performed under industry expectations, but in reality, it topped charts and made a profit of $60 million, dwarfed by another free to play Fire Emblem Heroes, but $60 million is nothing to scoff at) to start this economy, but even if that game was a failure, I see more of a problem with the content of that game and that $10 was a little hefty. Not an excuse for manipulating players though.
 
By the way, Dr. Mario World is not available in some platforms in some countries. Belgium is notable because it's not available to play at all, and it was the home of the recent legislation that defined lootboxes and other schemes as gambling (and it shut down Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp) You can thank EA's Star Wars Battlefront II which started it all.

Not sure why other countries and certain platforms are omitted though.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/06/dr_mario_world_only_launching_for_specific_mobile_platforms_in_some_countries
 
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