Monopoly GO's EVIL Strategy to Make You Poor

in a world of Illusions and temptations lies a silent Predator that promises you connection but thrives on Deception Monopoly go the latest mobile game app of the classic board game so it seems the industry hails it as a phenomenon as this free game made over $2 billion in under a year but this staggering amount didn't come from game sales but instead from its nearly 8 million daily players or payers spending money inside of it they don't know that this board game is in fact a cunningly calculated system designed to hook and deceive this isn't just a tale of a mobile game this is a story of millions of players not realizing that beneath it this phenomenal board game like the mechanisms of a casino gaming giant the studio behind Monopoly go scopely made its first headlines when it made $1 billion in lifetime Revenue just 7 months after launch a feat only matched by Pokémon go now at 2 billion the Press celebrates it as a mobile game that made history never mentioning any comparisons to casino game has brro the owner of the Monopoly brand is sending congrats and scopely too congratulates the hardworking team of scopan in the typical corporate make believe charade after 7 years in the making and 250 million downloads later it's making about $4 million a day more than traditional casinos I mean all respectable numbers looking at how fiercely competitive the mobile gaming Market actually is with $90 billion it accounts for half half of the global games Market China is leading followed by the US and Europe and with 60% of Americans playing mobile games it's not surprising to learn that the US is publishing most of them fast forward and we're swimming in options half a million games on Google Play and another 200,000 on the App Store no wonder Mobile gaming has the highest consumer spending in the world a monopoly go is killing it consistently ranking top three across the world surprisingly those are playing or paying are mostly the older demographics you might think it's the familiar nostalgic Monopoly brand that pulls these folks in but digitizing Monopoly has been done many times before from Tycoon to solitier and Sudoku nothing hit like Monopoly go so what's its secret How could a seemingly innocent mobile game make $2 billion in just 10 months to find out I had to roll the dice a little bit further back and understand what it is about this brand to begin with she named it the land Lords game the precursor to Monopoly stenographer Lizzy Maggie invented and patented a simple board with rectangles go to jail in public park with two sets of rules players collect and spend money permission with this game to teach the 99% about income inequality because back in her day the US was deep in the Guild of age with capitalism as the economic system it was marked by industrialization and the rise of monopolies controlled by only a few so Lizzy created the game to show the dangers of capitalist monopolies fast forward and she eventually sold her patent to Parker Brothers for just 500 bucks renamed to Monopoly the game sold 2 million copies in 2 years each at two bucks 30 years later and Hasbro steps in when they acquired Parker Brothers they basic Bally took over the entire board game World by the late '90s they owned 85% of the market twister Scrabble risk clue Dungeons and Dragons all Hasbro you could say that Hasbro was a monopoly itself and that in a board game Market that's still raking in cash however they pass creating new games why bother when you can just build on the existing Monopoly brand after chess Monopoly is the most played game holding the Guinness World Record for being played by half a billion so expanding on that Flagship brand is a no-brainer it's cheaper than building new games and just as lucrative and that's why Monopoly has every theme you can think of even a monopoly movie with Kevin Hart is in the talks and that strategy of doubling down on that Flagship brand pays off Hasbro mastered brand extension so much so Mobile gaming was the inevitable Next Step so in 2015 Hasbro makes a really smart move they partner up with scop Ley who was by then already really big in Mobile gaming together they first launched the only officially licensed yatsi game which hit 1 million downloads in Just 4 days obviously scop is not new to this number one game because their track record of number one mobile games is long and loaded with hit after hit so much so it propelled them to number nine on Ink's list of the fastest growing companies in America and among their long list of investors I also found names like Arnold Schwarzenegger and former CEO of Paramount Pictures and even Ellen couldn't resist partnering with them you can even play against me and if you're good enough you might win my lucky dice by 2019 they smashed past $1 billion in revenue and expanded globally acquiring Studio after studio and then in 2023 they hit a jackpot twice a $5 billion acquisition by none other but Saudi Arabia sey game games group and a week later the launch of Monopoly go Hasbro therefore found in scopely their ideal partner in crime here go 1 2 3 4 5 but how does this crime unfold the classic board game is known as a family game that can last hours to best translate this into a mobile game scopely simply looked at the number one Social Casino game that got it all figured out coin Master 100 million Global downloads3 billion in lifetime revenue and still making a ton of cash do I have to say more in coin Master you hit the infamous big red button to spin slots in Monopoly go you hit a big red button to roll dice in coin Master you then build in a themed City with your virtual money Monopoly go same thing potato potato you build landmarks as you progress to new cities in coin Master you then destroy others landmarks or steal from them Monopoly go potato potato same thing attack destroy or steal and that's basically it smash button roll dies attack steal repeat that's the core Loop of Monopoly go in the heart of the game is rolling dice just like in the board game but quicker for God's sake you don't even have to tap the big red juicy button you can just hold for auto roll you don't have to do sh keep rolling oh keep rolling but I'm out of dice five rolls in 18 minutes but if I don't want to wait I can pay 13 bucks no thanks you see the twist everything in this game is time bound deals on the left game modes on the right daily events the amount of dies all attached to timers the game is a raise against the clock first it makes you feel all Lucky nearly all the time you get hooked to this dopamine Loop dice after Dice and then suddenly you're out of dice want more please pay or wait 12 hours it's your call but that's how the game hooks you just like I hooked you with my YouTube intro and this is far from the board game it advertises to be this is a thoughtful reconstruction of a slot machine using all the dark patterns and stimulations you find only in casinos this is a skin box in your phone a dopamine simulator rolling dice that's you pulling the arm of a slot machine this addictive nature however is only one thing what really makes this game so successful are all its social elements it seamlessly integrates with Facebook so that you can nudge your friends to become fellow addicts and together you can trade stickers for your sticker album a feature that simulates progression and people believe you to me they do anything to complete their sticker albums from Rolling more di to paying strangers real money Facebook even has a dedicated official Trading Group where 8 million members are desperately losing it over stickers some people spend their entire day on multiple devices to chase the a back and forth that can keep on for weeks if not months on the App Store it masquerades as a board game cleverly sidest stepping any association with social casino apps its packaging sells you all the classic board game features but once inside none of these matter as you progress everything gets more expensive too it takes more time to complete levels or replenish your dice for very impatient players this can be a massive wallet on Reddit I read how much people are spending on the game it ranges from Modest amounts to jaw-dropping sums all the way to too much for sure but some are straight up calling it what it is a Ponzi scheme pointless garbage a complete scam and some are as baffled as I am but yes people are paying in the industry these payers are referred to as whales a term applied to people who spend hundreds of dollars on inapp purchases a while back a video made the rounds exposing the predatory tactics mobile games use to milk these whales in the video the guy explains how monetization happens in three stages from Hook Habit to hobby in a game the hook is what gets you into the game to try out a free-to-play game then you build it into a habit that you play multiple sessions every day and then at the end it's the hobby phase where where people uh see it as their one of their Main Hobbies and they put put lots of time and resources into it now while the industry calls them Wales to scopely they are regulars the more regulars the more it confirms that you have a very sticky game after all scopely wants their games to become ingrained in your daily life and part of the routine that was a tough pillow to swallow knowing that the game's age rating is 9 plus on the App Store and marked everyone on Google Play despite this scopy says None of our games are targeted to K kids therefore a general audience mhm you're right General audience anyways this General audience cost scopely a lot around $500 million in marketing and user acquisition alone as much as a AAA game development budget just saying their marketing approach is aggressive but that's not surprising given how long it takes for people to install a game and then make a first purchase 36% need several days of AD exposure to install the game and another month to make their first purchase for their mobile game The Walking Dead their marketing was so intense they even flew out of makeup artist to zombify PewDiePie for a play session hitting 4 million views so when sculle launches a game their marketing strategy goes deep and Broad deep With viral social campaigns and Broad with TV and social media ads their ad campaigns usually come in four flavors ads based on IP to show The Familiar board to Target Monopoly fans ads based on wealth and upgrades targeting those interested in progression ads on social interactions targeting those looking for a social Edge and lastly there are tons of paid influencer ads to that I play after school while I eat on the toilet wait what these ad campaigns usually run for 1 to 2 years before they pay off the the idea is to really create a longlasting flywheel effect something that I mentioned in my powerwall video where the end goal is to get players bring in more players not ads but until then it's an aggressive ad campaign and they are effective but this strategy isn't unique to Monopoly go coin Master really pushed that envelope when suddenly you could see JLo and cardi B pressing that red juicy button is that Jennifer Lopez is that coin master is that Jennifer Lopez playing coin Master now coin Master now come on I'm waiting right here to your what spending a ton of cash on celebrities fits right into the Social Casino World a billion doll scene unlike real casinos though Social Casino Games aren't really regulated real casinos they have to watch out for players with problematic gambling behavior and are actually required to step in otherwise they would face fines if they don't that's how strictly regulated the traditional Casino Market is Social Casino Games however they lack these strict regulations and safeguards Against Addiction so there's no obligation for these games to actually monitor excessive gambling and this lack of Regulation means players especially those prone to addiction are less protected given that social casino apps are also up to five times more addictive than traditional games it's also much harder for players to just delete the app and so Monopoly go is the perfect example of a social casino app done right but for all the wrong reasons it makes us casual play and board game Nostalgia but cleverly conceals any casino undertones it's packed with social features and hits every dark gambling trick in the book on dark pattern. games a website reviewing addictive mobile games monopoly go falsely labeled as a family board game is on the naughty list it takes off every box for manipulative design from temporal and monetary to Social and psychological governments are starting to notice how these free-to-play games make their money and they're not happy Belgium has already banned loot boxes that rely on chance and the UK is looking into it as well over in the US where scop sales really big there is talk of tightening the rules on buying things in games especially for kids but the real toll though is on the players who get caught up and now regret it they talk about their struggle to quit with the time they will never get back the facade of Monopoly go might be crumbling as more players catch onto the game's uh true nature but there's still fresh meat coming in every single day fresh meat that is unaware of the Hidden dark cycle they are entering and so isn't it ironic the original Monopoly designed to warn against capitalism has now a billion dooll mobile version that's thriving on the very capitalism it meant to critique how have we come to embrace or even celebrate these monopolistic practices once warned against on scope's website they are boasting big number one mobile board game board game 6 billion jail visits 13 quintilian earned their co-ceo writes that the game is a tangible reminder that there is much to celebrate and the games industry always finds the light really light the only light I see is them cashing in on your addiction this game is a tangible reminder of only one thing that in the end it's the house that always wins happy gambling

Channel: Belinda Ercan

Views: 873,273

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Id: p1CfKgYuMjc

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024