Common sense needs to be re-searched, as in it seems it’s no longer as common. The latest in a series of meaningless studies was a study on virtual slots. Researchers conducted lab studies on the effects of slot machines on its users and came to some groundbreaking conclusions. Read more.
Among the findings, were that the slot machine already knows if you are a winner before the symbols stop spinning. Well Yeah! It’s not like its looking at you thinking, hmm, should I let him win…It’s a fucking computer!
Another finding was that people are attracted to continue playing because the symbols are designed to make you think you almost won. You only need to play the slots a handful of times to figure that one out on your own. The games wouldn’t be as fun if every time you lost a big “fuck you loser” showed up on the screen.
The study also found that most gamblers are motivated by the thrill of winning and that most problem gamblers use it as an escape. If anyone is surprised that gamblers are motivated by the thrill winning they should go put on a cone hat and sit in the corner. As for problem gamblers, I can see how the slots in the casino are an escape, an escape from your cleaver wielding wife waiting at home after discovering the mortgage money has just been spent, that sounds about right. All I got from this study is these researchers have too much time on their hands and I chose the wrong profession. Who the hell is funding these studies? They should just pay me the grant money and I’ll just email them the answers after I get back from Vegas.
The worst part of these research studies is not the fact that all the answers obtained are just common sense, rather it’s the suggestions or remedies that are dreamed up as a result of all this meaningful research. One suggestion made in this particular study was to come up with ways to make slot machines less addictive. Let’s just think about that for a second. What are people addicted to? Well, the fact that the game is entertaining, quick, easy to play, fun, and it provides a thrilling chance opportunity to win money or lose it, that’s pretty much a slot machine in a nutshell. So to make less addictive is to destroy the reason people play the damn thing in the first place. The point is, you’re not going to stop addictive gamblers from playing the slots by changing them, they’ll go gamble on something else more entertaining, all you could do is fuck it up for the rest us who enjoy being mesmerized by those noisy things.
The next obvious point is what is the market like right now for unattractive, un-entertaining, less addictive slot machines? I think I’ll conduct my own research study on that and see what I come up with. Any funders?
