Considering the recent exposure to gambling themes in this blog’s games, as well as playing a Darkstalkers franchise title for the experiment, I am reminded of an experience from college: I rather enjoyed playing the Darkstalkers game in the Student Union video arcade. Every now and then, a friend from math class would notice this frivolous exercise and chastise me. “That’s no different than gambling, you know.”
She was an excellent math student so I expected her to know better. “Actually,” I retorted, “if this activity bore any similarity to gambling, I would have at least some probability of regaining some of the coins I have dumped into this machine. As it stands, I am quite certain that they are gone forever.”
WildKard says:
Now Pinball on the other hand is similar to gambling because it’s often possible to win free games. Which unfortunately you can’t take home with you, but at least you can give them to sad looking 8 year olds in the airport.
Multimedia Mike says:
That’s a sweet tale. Actually, from that perspective, there are probably a lot of games in which it’s possible to gain extra lives.
And I won’t discount the fact that many arcades do have something much closer to gambling in ticket-dispensing games, where the tickets are redeemed for a variety of prizes. A few games require skill (notably Skee-ball). But there are many games which are essentially slot machines and operate on pure chance.