Asimech @Asimech@mastodon.social

To clarify: I'm not judging anybody for playing or wanting to play a game.

I _am_ judging someone if they will promote a game and dismiss criticism of that game being predatory because they just "don't agree with it". And the reason for the latter is simply "b/c it's not that bad" rather than them actually knowing enough about how predatory game design works.

"I like this game and want it to have a large and healthy player base, therefore I will promote it."

Ok, but if it's using predatory tactics to get money from people with impulse control problems / gambling addiction and you're ignoring people who are bringing those up because you _feel_ they're "not that bad", well.
I can't help but feel that you've crossed the line from "reasonable self-first" to "plain selfish".

It doesn't matter at all how much someone without gambling addiction etc. "doesn't feel like the game is pushing you to spend" the reality is that the systems are almost always built to target people who do suffer from problem gambling.

And I can't help but be put off by people who will promote games with manipulative pricing systems, no matter how well that manipulation is hidden, because at this point being dismissive of it sounds just selfish.

Even they don't go so far as to be off-putting to everyone they can discourage new players from getting in, especially if you can buy in-game "power" enough to make newbies feel like they're unfairly disadvantaged.

And no amount of "well, X did fine" works here. Most F2P which do "fine" do so because of "whales" –people who can't control their impulse spending– rather than because the playerbase is healthy.

Which another reason for people to be put off: Most F2P models are predatory.

Currently in video gaming the most common reason to hold your horses on putting your trust behind something is microtransactions and "freemium" / Free to Play systems.

B/c yes, they need to finance the game somehow. But it's not exactly rare for them to readjust the rates for earning stuff for free after the initial launch window and associated coverage has passed.
And then suddenly that "not a big deal" stops being so small.

Always a bit sad when you see an otherwise smart person fail at pattern recognition.
It's almost always a case of them moving too quickly from one thing they're excited to other to give themselves time to reflect on something turning sour.

And the whole "don't want to dwell on negative stuff" attitude sadly harms here. If you don't stop and think about why something that was "going to be so great" ended up disappointing or even awful you have no chance of learning to spot the red flags.

Though now that I think about it this wasn't entirely unfamiliar and the temperatures had gone down for today. So it could be the cooler air making my body do that "oh, we're not in danger heat anymore, nap time" thing.

The heck is with this day?
I woke up at 7 AM (4-7h of sleep), felt ok but a bit groggy until it got worse and I felt compelled to go back to bed.
Woke up again at ~11 (+3h), this time I felt too groggy to stay up for the rest of the day sooner, though still stayed up about an hour.
Then after two briefer interludes, around 17:30 (+5h). Now I'm feeling more of the regular "just woke up" grogginess instead of the other times' "I might not be able to stay up" kind.
So maybe the weirdness is over.