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I don't understand why game designers implement FOMO in video games?

levyjl1988

Banned
FOMO (fear of missing out) is associated with painful negative psychological associations for things such as ANXIETY and STRESS.
FOMO works to ARTIFICIALLY get gamers to make spontaneous decisions such as making purchases for timed events.
Now I understand that the video game industry is a business, and they have to meet certain quotas and levels of player engagement.

But FOMO actually disengages players. Players who have already missed out on the content due to life obligations or simply they just weren't aware of the event, missed out.
These players who have already missed out are extremely less likely to jump back in the game.
If a player is a completionist who likes to collect and earn everything possible in the game, and they miss out on such an item, their collection is therefore ruined, so why even return to such a game?
The gameplay loop must be really good if it is to get a collector to return back to the game.

Gamers play video games at their own pace. They play games to sit back, enjoy the ride, and socialize with their friends.
But modern games are an absolute abomination. They mutated into something fucking horrid that the creativity and talent behind these games are replaced with fucking corporate business people that know nothing of what made the game special, to begin with.
Why would anyone want to play and engage with a game that creates associations such as ANXIETY and STRESS, and not in the good kind.
Anxiety and stress are good in the atmosphere it tries to create in horror games.
But in game design where it preys on player monetization in a negative way is just fucking terrible.
Like the Battle Pass system, where players can purchase a battle pass, for a limited time and it goes away, and if you didn't make any progress and you purchased it, you missed out. That's fucking anti-consumer. It's the reason why I never started or began Fortnite.

Farmville introduced something horrible, and it was a scheduled check-in system, where you have to come back and visit to ensure progress has been made.
Game Designers purposely do this to encourage, and incite players to return, to create a repertoire of a scheduled system, creating a habit of daily maintenance of the in-game world, this is often synonymous with farming games or like Animal Crossing.
There are points where this is an acceptable practice and in others where it is downright psychological exploitation.

In the games that I've played that had FOMO, where the reward was either a timed exclusive in-game skin, title, or etc does indeed in fact affect player engagement.
If that in-game asset was part of a set or something you wanted to add to your customizability. But having players unable to get it through effort, time, or even money can be disheartening for players.

I missed out on in-game items out of the lack of awareness of the event.
Because of such cases, I have created negative associations with brands like Gears of War, Destiny 2, Halo Infinite, GTA V Online, Nintendo Switch Sports, etc. I won't engage or play any of those games because of my negative experiences due to FOMO.
Does anyone else feel the same way?

Games these days feel like a fucking grind fest.
Games nowadays feel like a goddamn chore.
It feels like a second fucking job.

Remember the good old days when the height of Halo was in Halo 3.
Now for video games to engage players they do it artificially with a bounty system for dailies and weeklies.
Challenge systems are fucking stupid. They hinder your play style, like getting a challenge to perform assassinations in a playlist for SWAT.
Stupid fucking shit like this is why games are going to shit.
Halo Infinite is fucking garbage.

Destiny 2 is a fucking chore.

Nintendo is putting Seasonal events in games where it doesn't need any, but instead creates lesser incentive to play games going forward if past items cannot be obtained.

Gears of War eSports is dead, the mass amount of players don't give a shit and skins are locked behind twitch streams where they aren't even fucking awake.

FOMO is bullshit and this shit needs to end.
It doesn't help players come back to the games and it pisses players who missed out on the content.
Why engage with something if it treated you badly, sounds like a bad and toxic relationship.

FOMO is a disgusting game design tactic and needs to be removed like all the woke shit we are getting in today's entertainment. It needs to go.
FOMO is the pretty much the alternative to loot box.
The second thing to psychological manipulation and exploitation.
If you can't earn things from chance, then you have to get them through inconveniently timed events.


tl;dr Video games are supposed to make you relax and be entertained, FOMO does the opposite, it creates anxiety and stress, and does the opposite thing video games are meant to do.
FOMO from a player who did miss out is more likely to disengage with the game and attribute feelings of a negative association.

Fuck FOMO and the game developers and designers who use it.
This is why single-player experiences will always rock like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and games like Elden Ring. No FOMO, no BS!
I want to go back to the era of games where games were engaging without any of this BS. The good old times.

Fuck Gears.
Fuck Halo.Fuck GTA V Online.
Fuck Nintendo.
Fuck Destiny 2.
Fuck Bungie.

Fuck FOMO.

/rant
 

ManaByte

Member
Fuck Nintendo.
498.gif


FOMO exists to make money in a short period of time as well as make sure people are playing your game in the increasingly competitive MAU metric.. It's that simple.
 

levyjl1988

Banned
498.gif


FOMO exists to make money in a short period of time as well as make sure people are playing your game in the increasingly competitive MAU metric.. It's that simple.
But it does the opposite to those already affected by FOMO. Why would any player who missed things the first time around want to join an event in which they can;t get the item from the previous event again.
I know I wouldn't. I dropped GTA V after realizing I missed out on certain event items only.
Same thing with Overwatch.
I missed out on skin and said, fuck it, there's no point playing if I can't get it.
I'll pretty much be playing for nothing.
 

GHG

Gold Member
I fucking hate it and tend to drop any game that aggressively does this, especially when it comes to time limited unlocks that can only be attained during that time.

The more recent Forza Horizon games are terrible for this when it comes to the weekly forzathons and locking cars behind those events. GT7 with the rare car dealership. Hitman as well with the elusive targets.

It's like seriously, fuck off, I don't want to have to play your game every day/week in order to have access to stuff that's already in the game. Let me play at my own leisure and unlock things/events via normal progression.

Just another one of the many things that turns me off modern games, this kind of crap has no place in single player games.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I want to go back to the era of games where games were engaging without any of this BS. The good old times.
its not like every game implements stuff like this you know, you mentioned some yourself.
Avoid the ones that do, have fun with the rest.
 
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NanaMiku

Member
It's because of mobile games/free to play games. This thread made me remember about the Granblue Fantasy scandal that Japan introduce a new law for gacha system

 
But it does the opposite to those already affected by FOMO. Why would any player who missed things the first time around want to join an event in which they can;t get the item from the previous event again.
I know I wouldn't. I dropped GTA V after realizing I missed out on certain event items only.
Same thing with Overwatch.
I missed out on skin and said, fuck it, there's no point playing if I can't get it.
I'll pretty much be playing for nothing.
If someone is going to drop a game over FOMO they probably weren't going to be very supportive in the first place. Meanwhile if you give someone who cares FOMO they turn into an addict.
 

Naked Lunch

Member
I got wrapped up in this a few years ago playing World of Tanks. The gameplay was good - theres a ton of depth - competition - a real world military history with lots of different nations featured. That was the bait.

But just playing the game for fun eventually (de)volved into getting caught up in limited events. You basically got $50-100 tanks in these events - or lots of bonus xp to advance down the nation trees - but you had to play a ton. It got to the point where there was literally no time to play anything else - you wouldnt be able to finish the event you started in time. I missed out on playing so many other games during that timeframe.

Sadly and embarrassingly, it took me awhile to realize the game was basically forcing you to play it. Uninstalled - And wont touch any games that are soley designed around this shady tactic.

FOMO is a terrible disgusting tactic - but the optimist in me feels people will catch on to it eventually. I hope people do anyways...
There are other forms of FOMO in gaming where people get wrapped up into it like Limited Run games - but thats a whole other topic...
 
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Sorry it's bugging you. This might help, download 3 or 4 of these games and look at their fomo store. After, you will probably have a firm grasp they are all pathetic, and meant for someone else. Then you have to really wonder who is on the treadmill.
 
They want you dedicated to their game only, so that when they introduce new paid content, it seems like a decent deal relevant to how much you play.

Also instills a pattern of playing on the user, making it difficult for players to break off unless they feel like playing catch up later. Developers can point to player retention when raising funding for their next project.

Sunk cost fallacy with both time and money.

See it all the time similarly (Monte-Carlo fallacy) with gamblers for example.... Been playing a game of chance all night, down big and know they should probably stop, but since they've been losing so much, odds say they must be due for a win! Despite the mathematical fact that every game with fixed odds has the same chances of winning as the game before or after.

TLDR: when people have time and/or money invested they're less likely to walk away even if they know it's for the better
 

Dthomp

Member
FOMO is awful, but I deal with it in Destiny 2. The problem though for me is I love MLB the Show, and it's gotten WAY worse with FOMO the last two years to the point where I put it down with 1/2 the time put in from last year, and 1/4 from the year before (2020 had no FOMO). IT is a double edged sword, some will play and spend not to miss out, for me it's made me drop one of my favorite games as I couldn't play a bunch over an in game season and a half due to medical shit so I missed a ton of crap and figure why bother, I missed all kinds of content and would have to spend major cash to get the items from the market. In turn, I'm pretty sure I'm skipping next year for the first time in close to 10 years as I have no interest in being forced to play a game 8 hours a day every day or not be able to grind out the stuff I need, and I sure as shit don't wanna drop 70 on the game and then have to drop hundreds more for the cards.
 

laynelane

Member
I remember way, way back I had a friend over for coffee. She had to stop at an exact time and log in to Farmville. I questioned her about it since I didn't and don't do FB and she explained it was something she had to do. Even back then, before all this stuff became common, it came across as work which is not something I ever want in my leisure and gaming time. I've never played a game with that kind of stuff and never will. It's sad, though, that when so much creativity, originality, and fun is possible through gaming - so many games are degraded to nothing but FOMO, "engagement", whales, and other soulless concepts.

In short, totally agreed OP and I hope one day there is a push back on this - you know, people get tired of being manipulated, game companies rediscover integrity, or ideally both.
 
FOMO and the idea of being forced to play when I didn't want to is the reason I stopped playing both Destiny 2 and Genshin Impact. Strangely enough, Destiny 2 was the worst out of those two. Some of the weapon unlock goals in that game were insane. I wasted a ton of time trying to get a seasonal multiplayer weapon before a season reset and all my progress would be lost, but it still wasn't enough. All my progress was deleted with the new season, and I was done with that game forever.
 

Three

Member
FOMO (fear of missing out) is associated with painful negative psychological associations for things such as ANXIETY and STRESS.
FOMO works to ARTIFICIALLY get gamers to make spontaneous decisions such as making purchases for timed events.
Now I understand that the video game industry is a business, and they have to meet certain quotas and levels of player engagement.

But FOMO actually disengages players. Players who have already missed out on the content due to life obligations or simply they just weren't aware of the event, missed out.
These players who have already missed out are extremely less likely to jump back in the game.
If a player is a completionist who likes to collect and earn everything possible in the game, and they miss out on such an item, their collection is therefore ruined, so why even return to such a game?
The gameplay loop must be really good if it is to get a collector to return back to the game.

Gamers play video games at their own pace. They play games to sit back, enjoy the ride, and socialize with their friends.
But modern games are an absolute abomination. They mutated into something fucking horrid that the creativity and talent behind these games are replaced with fucking corporate business people that know nothing of what made the game special, to begin with.
Why would anyone want to play and engage with a game that creates associations such as ANXIETY and STRESS, and not in the good kind.
Anxiety and stress are good in the atmosphere it tries to create in horror games.
But in game design where it preys on player monetization in a negative way is just fucking terrible.
Like the Battle Pass system, where players can purchase a battle pass, for a limited time and it goes away, and if you didn't make any progress and you purchased it, you missed out. That's fucking anti-consumer. It's the reason why I never started or began Fortnite.

Farmville introduced something horrible, and it was a scheduled check-in system, where you have to come back and visit to ensure progress has been made.
Game Designers purposely do this to encourage, and incite players to return, to create a repertoire of a scheduled system, creating a habit of daily maintenance of the in-game world, this is often synonymous with farming games or like Animal Crossing.
There are points where this is an acceptable practice and in others where it is downright psychological exploitation.

In the games that I've played that had FOMO, where the reward was either a timed exclusive in-game skin, title, or etc does indeed in fact affect player engagement.
If that in-game asset was part of a set or something you wanted to add to your customizability. But having players unable to get it through effort, time, or even money can be disheartening for players.

I missed out on in-game items out of the lack of awareness of the event.
Because of such cases, I have created negative associations with brands like Gears of War, Destiny 2, Halo Infinite, GTA V Online, Nintendo Switch Sports, etc. I won't engage or play any of those games because of my negative experiences due to FOMO.
Does anyone else feel the same way?

Games these days feel like a fucking grind fest.
Games nowadays feel like a goddamn chore.
It feels like a second fucking job.

Remember the good old days when the height of Halo was in Halo 3.
Now for video games to engage players they do it artificially with a bounty system for dailies and weeklies.
Challenge systems are fucking stupid. They hinder your play style, like getting a challenge to perform assassinations in a playlist for SWAT.
Stupid fucking shit like this is why games are going to shit.
Halo Infinite is fucking garbage.

Destiny 2 is a fucking chore.

Nintendo is putting Seasonal events in games where it doesn't need any, but instead creates lesser incentive to play games going forward if past items cannot be obtained.

Gears of War eSports is dead, the mass amount of players don't give a shit and skins are locked behind twitch streams where they aren't even fucking awake.

FOMO is bullshit and this shit needs to end.
It doesn't help players come back to the games and it pisses players who missed out on the content.
Why engage with something if it treated you badly, sounds like a bad and toxic relationship.

FOMO is a disgusting game design tactic and needs to be removed like all the woke shit we are getting in today's entertainment. It needs to go.
FOMO is the pretty much the alternative to loot box.
The second thing to psychological manipulation and exploitation.
If you can't earn things from chance, then you have to get them through inconveniently timed events.


tl;dr Video games are supposed to make you relax and be entertained, FOMO does the opposite, it creates anxiety and stress, and does the opposite thing video games are meant to do.
FOMO from a player who did miss out is more likely to disengage with the game and attribute feelings of a negative association.

Fuck FOMO and the game developers and designers who use it.
This is why single-player experiences will always rock like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and games like Elden Ring. No FOMO, no BS!
I want to go back to the era of games where games were engaging without any of this BS. The good old times.

Fuck Gears.
Fuck Halo.Fuck GTA V Online.
Fuck Nintendo.
Fuck Destiny 2.
Fuck Bungie.

Fuck FOMO.

/rant
Why do you think? To get you to pay for microtransactions to not miss out. That's what FOMO is.
 

Neolombax

Member
I used to have FOMO, with Destiny especially. Nowadays, I dont think its worth it. If a game gets me worked up, then I dont think gaming is for me anymore. I play games to relax, if it does the opposite for me I'm still in control and will put a stop to it.
 
Well, first of all they don't even refer to this as FOMO half of the time, in order to not face the reality of their own doings they have to defend their own decision in their head by saying that people want this, but unfortunately not all of them have realized that just because people are paying for something it doesn't mean that they want to. Game publishers and developers are in a "neat" spot where they can get away with almost anything, you don't need to have a $100 skin set for Valorant... but if it's there, then surely someone will pay that much, right? Especially when it's available for a limited time. The price could have been $50, $30 even, which is where I personally think that you're going overboard, because this is the price of some of my favorite games at this point.
 
Last edited:

HL3.exe

Member
I kinda like the idea of missing out on content, if its player based (meaning determined by systemic rules or player choice. It makes the world feel more alive and consequential, instead of feeling like a glorified theme park ride.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
I dropped GTA V after realizing I missed out on certain event items only. Same thing with Overwatch. I missed out on skin and said, fuck it, there's no point playing if I can't get it. I'll pretty much be playing for nothing.

The ironic thing is, it exists because of this mindset. People that think they're playing a video game "for nothing" if they can't get some little serotonin boost in the form of a checkbox or character skin. Playing the game and having fun isn't enough for some people any more.
 

Kev Kev

Member
My answer is developers/publishers know peoples attention spans are very short these days, and they will move on or forget about it fairly quickly. So whether or not they get the content, or miss it, it doesn’t really matter because they will forget about it either way in a couple weeks. And by that time the devs will have come up with a new FOMO plan.

It all comes down to how short our attentions spans are in modern times.
 
Glad I don't have FOMO. I couldn't care less about a skin, weapon, vehicle or whatever. My enjoyment of a game doesnt depend on it, nor is it impacted by missing out..
 
The ironic thing is, it exists because of this mindset. People that think they're playing a video game "for nothing" if they can't get some little serotonin boost in the form of a checkbox or character skin. Playing the game and having fun isn't enough for some people any more.
If they cant enjoy a game because of FOMO, they shouldn't be playing in the first place.
A timed freebie cannot, under any circumstance ruin a game. Unless it was to do about said freebies in the first place.

But then one should re-evaluate why he/she is playing. Is it enjoyment, or running along with the masses?
 

VN1X

Banned
One word: Engagement.

If you introduce mechanics like this it will make players keep coming back to your game. Keeps the population up, keeps the revenue stream going, keeps the lights on at the office, etc.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
FOMO (fear of missing out) is associated with painful negative psychological associations for things such as ANXIETY and STRESS.
FOMO works to ARTIFICIALLY get gamers to make spontaneous decisions such as making purchases for timed events.
Now I understand that the video game industry is a business, and they have to meet certain quotas and levels of player engagement.

But FOMO actually disengages players. Players who have already missed out on the content due to life obligations or simply they just weren't aware of the event, missed out.
These players who have already missed out are extremely less likely to jump back in the game.
If a player is a completionist who likes to collect and earn everything possible in the game, and they miss out on such an item, their collection is therefore ruined, so why even return to such a game?
The gameplay loop must be really good if it is to get a collector to return back to the game.

Gamers play video games at their own pace. They play games to sit back, enjoy the ride, and socialize with their friends.
But modern games are an absolute abomination. They mutated into something fucking horrid that the creativity and talent behind these games are replaced with fucking corporate business people that know nothing of what made the game special, to begin with.
Why would anyone want to play and engage with a game that creates associations such as ANXIETY and STRESS, and not in the good kind.
Anxiety and stress are good in the atmosphere it tries to create in horror games.
But in game design where it preys on player monetization in a negative way is just fucking terrible.
Like the Battle Pass system, where players can purchase a battle pass, for a limited time and it goes away, and if you didn't make any progress and you purchased it, you missed out. That's fucking anti-consumer. It's the reason why I never started or began Fortnite.

Farmville introduced something horrible, and it was a scheduled check-in system, where you have to come back and visit to ensure progress has been made.
Game Designers purposely do this to encourage, and incite players to return, to create a repertoire of a scheduled system, creating a habit of daily maintenance of the in-game world, this is often synonymous with farming games or like Animal Crossing.
There are points where this is an acceptable practice and in others where it is downright psychological exploitation.

In the games that I've played that had FOMO, where the reward was either a timed exclusive in-game skin, title, or etc does indeed in fact affect player engagement.
If that in-game asset was part of a set or something you wanted to add to your customizability. But having players unable to get it through effort, time, or even money can be disheartening for players.

I missed out on in-game items out of the lack of awareness of the event.
Because of such cases, I have created negative associations with brands like Gears of War, Destiny 2, Halo Infinite, GTA V Online, Nintendo Switch Sports, etc. I won't engage or play any of those games because of my negative experiences due to FOMO.
Does anyone else feel the same way?

Games these days feel like a fucking grind fest.
Games nowadays feel like a goddamn chore.
It feels like a second fucking job.

Remember the good old days when the height of Halo was in Halo 3.
Now for video games to engage players they do it artificially with a bounty system for dailies and weeklies.
Challenge systems are fucking stupid. They hinder your play style, like getting a challenge to perform assassinations in a playlist for SWAT.
Stupid fucking shit like this is why games are going to shit.
Halo Infinite is fucking garbage.

Destiny 2 is a fucking chore.

Nintendo is putting Seasonal events in games where it doesn't need any, but instead creates lesser incentive to play games going forward if past items cannot be obtained.

Gears of War eSports is dead, the mass amount of players don't give a shit and skins are locked behind twitch streams where they aren't even fucking awake.

FOMO is bullshit and this shit needs to end.
It doesn't help players come back to the games and it pisses players who missed out on the content.
Why engage with something if it treated you badly, sounds like a bad and toxic relationship.

FOMO is a disgusting game design tactic and needs to be removed like all the woke shit we are getting in today's entertainment. It needs to go.
FOMO is the pretty much the alternative to loot box.
The second thing to psychological manipulation and exploitation.
If you can't earn things from chance, then you have to get them through inconveniently timed events.


tl;dr Video games are supposed to make you relax and be entertained, FOMO does the opposite, it creates anxiety and stress, and does the opposite thing video games are meant to do.
FOMO from a player who did miss out is more likely to disengage with the game and attribute feelings of a negative association.

Fuck FOMO and the game developers and designers who use it.
This is why single-player experiences will always rock like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and games like Elden Ring. No FOMO, no BS!
I want to go back to the era of games where games were engaging without any of this BS. The good old times.

Fuck Gears.
Fuck Halo.Fuck GTA V Online.
Fuck Nintendo.
Fuck Destiny 2.
Fuck Bungie.

Fuck FOMO.

/rant
I will only buy it when it is on sale. /Thread.

But yes, engagement over time is the other keyword, welcome to subscription based games…
 
Last edited:

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Wild guess: It actually works, because many people are desperately afraid of missing out and have little self control.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Games are here today, gone tomorrow. I don’t play the games with special events or limited time offerings anymore. A lot of the popularity becomes a fad or something to watch someone else gloat about. It probably is fun for those involved, but it’s definitely not for everyone.

I don’t want to say it’s all bad because it’s probably not. It’s just not that enjoyable for someone who understands their own game time and what they want to do with that time. I got bored sticking to one online game back when I had 8-10 hours a day to play. I like multiple games versus sticking it out with one game.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
It is designed to fuck parents. It's predatory BS aimed at children or others with under developed self control mechanisms.
 

Verchod

Member
But isn't this stuff fundamental to the games you're buying? The games I play don't have these type of events or structures built in.
 
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