Dr. Mario's Sketchy Pill-Mill

[roadrunnertwice]

I spent some time this year playing the new Dr. Mario mobile game, and I think I’m now at the point where it’s no longer possible to progress without an eternity of grinding/paying for gachapon drops. In other words, I beat the game… because whatever’s left is something other than a “game.” Guess I might as well delete it instead of leaving it to soak up bandwidth with its updates.

I’m kind of amazed that this nihilistic style of monetization is still a thing after all these years. TBH I’ve always been confused that it worked at all, because I think I don’t have whatever brain glitch is supposed to make slot machines compelling. So whenever I encounter gachapon/lootbox mechanics, it’s like... look, picture my brain as like an 1986 Macintosh or something. There are twenty different ways to bring this thing down and ruin my month, but if you send it a Windows 95 Ping of Death, all you're gonna get is “huh??”

I wonder if that’s one of those weird ADHD perks. Slots are just so boring! I'm vulnerable to all kinds of other attention-drains and sunk-cost-fallacy hacks, but totally randomized ones where I might as well not even be there? I don't get it.