Insider Update

Sooooo... What the hell? The dashbots are mobile fujins, plus a dash feature! How in the world is that not the most obvious cash grab OP robot? It has 3 mediums, a shield, moves FAST, AND can dash, wait for it, TWICE.

Are they gonna release a mobile raijin, with 2 heavy weapons, a 360 physical shield all the time, and a feature that extends the legs to make you taller and still mobile while at the dame time giving a 50% increase to weapon damage?

LOL

Ya no..you just made all that up. Sounds good but is utter BS. Physical coercion is absent in all Pixonic transactions which is all that's legally and morally relevant. Most People know what gambling is and how it works...and consent or they don't. For the kiddies who blow up their parents credit card spam buying...refunds are usually available..

I agree the mobile gaming industry needs some oversight.

The whole business has become exceedingly predatory, and I think that's probably reflected in Apple's willingness to issue refunds - because they know gaming companies are taking advantage. Pricing needs to be regulated, psychologically manipulative sales tactics need to be prohibited, and age restrictions need to be strictly enforced so kids aren't allowed to make  purchases.

As an example of things that can happen, my girlfriend let her 8-year-old niece play with her Kindle.

She told her it was OK to install some games, but not to buy anything without asking. The girl is generally pretty responsible, more mature than her age, and said she understood. So, even though the GF's bank card is connected to her gaming account, she didn't think it would be necessary to disconnect it, especially because it would affect other stuff, too.

Kid is glued to the Kindle for a few days days, then returns it. Says she had fun playing with it, so the GF figures she'll get her one of her own at some point in the near future.

Meanwhile, the niece starts acting a little squirrelly around the GF, which is strange because those two are tight. GF says it seems like she's a little ashamed of something, but isn't positive and wants to give her time to come out with it on her own.

The GF reviews all her accounts regularly, so she's going through her charges and finds a bunch for some unicorn game and, I crap you not, a baby dress-up game. How is dressing a baby a game? Anyway, they were small charges...$2.99, $4.99, etc. Thing is, they added up. All together, $167.

It's obviously the niece.

GF goes to her, asks if the kid has anything to tell her. Kid breaks down crying, says she didn't mean to, the game just kept popping up these small offers, the GF wasn't around to ask, but the niece thought she wouldn't mind because it's such a small amount.

Then the next offer, then the next one. This went on for a couple of days.

GF asks her how much she thinks she spent. She does that little kid 'I-don't-know' shrug, looks down at the floor and says in a tiny voice, "a lot." Not sure what her idea of a lot was, but when the GF told her how much, her eyes and mouth went huge and she started bawling all over again.

The obvious question is why did she keep buying unicorn turds - or whatever made-up game currency - when she knew she shouldn't? But even the kid couldn't say exactly. She just said she felt like she needed them, like it was important, but after she stopped playing, it didn't seem important at all.

The GF took a look at the games, which are clearly for kids, by the way. She said sure enough, every couple of minutes there'd be a pop-up: You're so close to level blah blah...you just need blah blah unicorn turds to get there...buy some now for $2.99. Don't fall behind all your friends.

Now that kinda ?poo-poo? can be predatory with adults. With kids, it's downright evil. So yeah, I'd definitely support some oversight and regulation of mobile gaming.

And it wouldn't have to be done by governments. In fact, it would be better if they weren't involved. Those old firetrucks wouldn't know a mobile game from a VCR remote. Them trying to regulate the industry would be a goatscrew.

This could be handled by the platforms: Google, Apple, Amazon, whoever else. They already regulate game content regarding ?popcorn? and whatnot. All they would have to do is set pricing caps and establish rules on how in-app purchases are presented. Easy peasy.

Of course, it would cost them money, since they get a piece of all purchases. They'd need a little moral courage. Apple has never shown any that I know of, but Amazon has from time to time. And isn't Google's motto "Don't be evil." It's possible they might be convinced to do the right thing.

Probably not. But I do enjoy a good fantasy.

Just to let you know, I read that FULLY.

Again, the same thing is prevalent in real life. Take scratch tickets. They do not tell you what your chances are, and again, you could get nothing. The keys are rewarded for just playing. Do you get scratch tickets or any other gambling devise by doing normal things? NO. And manipulation of info is nothing new either. Seriously, look in any other game with a possibility for different rewards. What about them? This is not something Pix came up with. Games have had it for years.

With all due respect, not really to "so is life" or "we can turn our games off" that's not how society works. As mentioned by some there are laws and regulation to provide a safety net for people as unethical business conduct can be predatory and uneccaptable by the majority of society. That's when authorities respond and provide or attempt to provide protection. This extends from complex insurance policies, utilities contracts, advertising, monopolies........ the list just goes on and on. 

It's all about what the majority sees as reasonable or unreasonable and eventually what the law sees as legally acceptable or uneccaptable. When you examine pixonic's conduct i challange you to show any kind of evidence that the conduct aligns with and does not  contradicts expectations required from other gambling institutions.

if you were to provide evidence that it does align to expectations and regulations I am wrong. without trying to sound pompous or something along those lines you will not be able to provide that evidence. 

Pixonic can can get away with all this for the time being because the authorities haven't caught up with this industry yet. May take some time.

edit: this is my opinion, if Pix keeps going down this track thE game will start withering away due to decline in participation numbers. I am not sure if that's a good outcome for most of the players. Possible not a good outcome for Pix either. It's just heading into a lose lose situation in the medium term.

First of all, that others do something similar doesn't justify doing evil.

But seriously, do you not see the problem with the spinning wheel, which is completely fake, and designed to make people to buy snowflakes or keys or whatever, by giving fake impression, that about 50% of the items on the wheel are good items, even though the whole wheel is fake and has nothing to do with what one may win from a chest?

It took me a long time to accept that a seemingly successful company like Pix would run a complete scam, even though I noticed this "funny" wheel on my first event last Christmas. But it is designed to make people spend money on false information about winnings, on lies. In other words, it's a scam.

Personally, I won't stop playing because of it, but I think there's no way I can spend money on War Robots ever again with good conscience.

Not to be splitting hairs here, but I don't know if you can really call it a scam. Questionable marketing, maybe, because it's getting people to fork over money they otherwise wouldn't on a chance to win something. But people are winning stuff from it; whether it's random or based on some convoluted algorithm, not everyone comes away empty-handed. If no one were winning, that would be a scam; but that's not the case.

In any gambling machine the odds of winning should be clearly visible i.e. The house/slot machine pays out 94%. It's clear you stand to lose 6c on very dollar.

you do realize that most gambling machines are actually changed to pay out less then advertized right?

recently I had this strange feeling that the chests are not like slot machines despite the spinning wheel providing the illusion that they are slot machine like in reward determination. I would not be surprised that there is a list of prizes on a spreadsheet. The person opening the chest simply gets the next prize on the list. the slot machine graphic then simply aligns to the prize that was on the spreadsheet. eg, next item to win on the list is 1 galahad. person opens chest, chest registers that the prize is a galahad and activates the right spin video where the stick lands on the galahad. not sure if people noticed that the commencement of the spin is instantaneous but there is like an overlap of images at some stage. I suspect the appropriate video is slotted in during the overlap of images.

I have been opening bronze chests (during the BM and past events). so so so frequently the stick lands on the 1 key icon and the 1 key icon is followed by a 10 key icon. that is just not possible statistically!!..... well possible but the odds are astronomically high for that to happen.

"New mechanic" doesn't really give me much hope of having a Dash this year or probably ever. Which really sucks because most of the reason I still play War Robots was because the dash bots were so awesome and I was waiting for them. I should have known better after the WW bots nonsense.