Spending on games on mobile phone

I know many people play on mobile phone in some games. Quite often you have to wait for something like at doctor appointment and you have nothing else to do and game on your phone looks reasonable thing to spare time. I played many types of games, but I still don’t understand how people are spending money on certain things in games.

1% Spending

For example, Clash of Clans and many similar games. Say to upgrade some tower, you need 20K gold. Your gold mine produces 20K per day. Your successful attack will bring you 40K. So, you wait day, or attack somebody and got enough money to start upgrade. Looks reasonable. But next level you will need 40K, then 80K but now mines brings you 25K per day and attack 45K. Next level will require 160K for upgrade while mines will bring 30K and attack 50K. The same happens with upgrade time. Also, other players will attack you and steel part of your resources and the longer it will take to accumulate resources the more resources you will lose during attacks on you. As you can see requirements and time grow exponentially but you gain will grow linear and after some time will not actually grow at all. It looks simply but many people don’t understand it because naturally in life the more your want to achieve the longer it takes, so it looks reasonable to do the same in game.

But some people decided to spent money to speed things up. Say 1M gold will cost $10. You upgrade one tower but next upgrade for that tower will be 2M, next one will be 4M etc. And difference between levels are minimal and definitely not game changer. And if it takes for example 4 hours nonstop play to get 1M, it usually about 8 hours to get 2M. So, in long run spending $10 to get one million will be less than percent of total upgrade time for this tower. Imagine you are traveling 10 hours and you paid $10 to save 6 minutes. It is nothing when you comparing to 10 hours. Moreover, you next trip will be 20 hours, then 40 hours and then 80 but $10 will still save you only 6 minutes.

It is much better to spend money on something that gives you something for long time. For example, in one of the games I played, you can build some structure that will give you premium currency for free. Little bit every day. This approach looks reasonable because as soon as you are playing game, you will see benefit from money spent. Another example, you spend $10 and get 10% faster upgrades. It looks much more reasonable and much easier to justify. And yet another example, in Clash of Clans you can spend money on builder and the more builders you have the more things you can build/upgrade in parallel. This is good reason to spend money. Kind of like in real life when you spend money on something that will bring money back or will have long lasting benefit.

I do understand that many people spending money in real life on expensive cars instead of investing money in something that will give them stable source of income. But for me it is hard to justify.

Gambling

Another thing that I absolutely do not understand is spending money on boxes that contains random stuff. And in some games, it was only way to buy stuff. And because it is quite random very often you can spend a lot of money and got nothing useful. I seen video where some grown up about 30 years old, decided to save his money on lunch and buy some boxes in Clash Royale. He spent $100 and got absolutely nothing useful. And then one month he will not eat lunch because he already spent his lunch money. I totally don’t understand why people are doing this.

I know that a lot of people are gambling and when I was visiting Las Vegas I said following to my kids: “Look kids, do you see all this beauty and luxury around you? It was built on money of losers that spent their money looking for big prize but left with nothing”.

Excuses

Somebody can argue that “I’m not spending $10 to get upgrade faster, I’m just supporting game”. I will answer “the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves”. You just want this upgrade, or that shiny gear faster, because you don’t want to wait. If developer cannot create good reason in game to spent money on, then sooner or later game will go away, or most likely you will stop playing it.

Years of progress

Many players play game with goal in mind to get everything. I recommend checking how much time do you need to get everything without spending money. In Clash of Clans it is 3-5 years if you get everything in time. In Clash Royale it was like hundred years if I not mistaken. And while you will play developers will add more stuff that will double it. It is wise to check before you commit to game.

Conclusion

I know that a lot of people spent a lot of money on these unwise things. Clash of Clans got a lot of money. I read some time ago that they got almost million dollars per day. I think that whole idea of spending on games is new thing. Everybody knows that smoking is bad, drinking should be in moderation etc. But addiction of spending money on game is relatively new thing and many players don’t know how much about it. One guy checked credit card statements and found that he actually spent $2000 dollars on game only to realize that he has to spend more just to stay on the same place. And game would not that fun. And now his dog needs operation but he does not have money. Be wise people. Game is just a toy that suppose to bring you fun and joy. If you have to spend money on it to continue fun, then just find another game.