The first time I walked into a casino I wanted to vomit. I hated everything about it. The lights, the smell, the sound, every sensory input rubbed me the wrong way. If hell exists, this is it.

And yet some people have the opposite response. They get hooked.

I suspect it’s the same here. The tactics that are wildly addictive dopamine pumps for their largest cohort actively repel you and me.

Pokemon Sleep and Pokemon TCG apps (ran by two different companies) are very annoying with this. I had to drop TCG because it was much worse than Sleep with all the menus. The only reason I keep up with sleep is because it allows me to gamify my sleep and it honestly has a pretty good UI with its calendar view of my sleep patterns.

I suppose all "gacha" games use this pattern. I find it interesting that gachapon machines are so ingrained in Japanese culture because it is basically culturally approved gambling.

Then again, the West had similar with sports trading cards, which are less popular now. Then again, again, NFTs kinda brought this back for a bit with the randomized drops.