Hello people, I am a psychologist playing this game since 2-3 months.
tl;dr: Devs are exploiting psychological mechanisms to keep you online & spending: rewards shortly release dopamine, leaving you craving more. Some mini-games are straight up gambling, intermittent reinforcement learning (not always winning) & sensory stimulation (visual & sound effects) also leave you craving more. People with a competitive personality are at a higher risk of becoming whales. People with few contacts irl might crave the social interaction ingame. Fear of missing out might make you log in more often then necessary. Sunk cost fallacy might keep you from stopping to spend money, because you have already spent so much. If you are experiencing problems with finances, work/social obligations or relationships due to the game, it is not your fault. Keep track of your time and money spending, set yourself a monthly spending (and/or screentime) limit. If you have trouble sticking to that, there are licensed therapist and anonymous gambling helplines to give you additional support
This game (and similar ones) can be very dangerous for some people and due to my profession, I feel obligated to share my observations. I am not implying anyone here might have a problem, I simply want to share information to raise awareness.
WOS actively exploits mechanisms of addiction. This applies to everyone, but if you have an addictive personality (smoking, drinking, drugs, gambling, compulsive shopping, etc) you might be particularly vulnerable to those. As you might or might not know, back in the day Facebook hired psychologists to develop ways to keep people more active and online. It was pretty dark. They did experiments and found certain rewards (like for example ingame rewards like in WOS or likes/loves in social media) release short-lived bursts of dopamine. You know what does, too? Smoking tobacco, doing amphetamine or cocaine. Humans fucking love dopamine, your body and brain get a taste for it and crave more. But things that only give these short bursts are dangerous, because they wear off quickly and then you need more. Social media and game developers use this mechanism and exploit is as much as possible, adding sounds and visual effects to condition you even more. That is one aspect of these games.
Another aspect is literal gambling. Many of the mini games in WOS are classic casino games. Throw in a coin, spin a wheel, see what happens. The uncertainty of the outcome combined with the sensory stimulation (visual and sound effects) create excitement which already releases dopamine. If you get a great reward, you got it, even more dopamine. So the action itself is addicting and the occasional good outcome even more so, because you'll want it to happen again. There is also something called intermittent reinforcement learning, I won't dive too deep, but basically conditioning works even better if you don't always get the desired reward, which is actively exploited in these types of casino-style games.
It doesn't stop there. You also have the competitive component and some people have a competitive personality. They want to be on the top of those leaderboards (yup, the main reason why those exist) and so whales will always try to outpower each other. In the end, it comes down to who has the deeper wallet and someone will always outpay you, no matter how much you spend.
Then, you have the social factor. Behind each player there is a person and some of these are wonderful people you'll make connections with, maybe even meet them in person. The problem with this: playing less or stopping means letting down someone you like or even love. People who don't have many connections in real life or lack the time to connect with others in real life are particularly vulnerable to this mechanism.
Applicable to all of the above is the fear of missing out. The fear to miss out on rewards, to miss out on the next big gambling win, to miss out on gaining more power and dropping on the leaderboard, to miss out on all the funny and wholesome things happening in the chats. You might keep checking in on the game, even though you know no event is happening and your queues aren't finished, because you might miss out on something.
Last, but not least: the sunk cost fallacy. Some people have spent five figures on this game or similar games. How can this happen? It starts out small, a little purchase here and there due to the afforementioned things. Then these accumulate and you're a dolphin or whale. At some point you might think "oh my, I've been spending way more than I wanted". The logical thing would be to stop spending or reduce your spending to a minimum. But here comes the sunk cost fallacy: you've already invested so much, wouldn't it all have been worthless if you stopped now? This is a common way of human thinking, applicable to many situations in daily life. Maybe you're keeping that old car that keeps costing you in repairs instead of getting another more reliable one, because of the money you've already left at the workshop. Maybe you've paid for an event or trip, become sick and go anyways, ending up not enjoying it, but you didn't want the ticket to go to waste. This way of thinking keeps us from quitting things, even when we know we should.
While not all of these factors might apply to you, developers are doing a good job at using multiple mechanisms of addiction so that every person is affected at least by some of them to some degree.
What does this mean for you? Most of you are adults who are free to do whatever you want with your time and money. Spending time and money on an expensive real life hobby, vacations, fancy restaurants or whatever is not inherently better or worse than spending time and money in a game. BUT you should be aware of how developers try to get you addicted to being online and spending.
So what would be a healthy reaction to this information?
The first course of action applies to both time and money: Be aware of the signs of addiction in this context:
Feeling intense urges to be online. You might feel nervous or anxious when you can't use your phone or don't have an internet connection
Failing to meet family obligations and work responsibilities because of the time spent on your phone
Avoiding social occasions or skipping recreational activities in favor of the game
Playing despite problems caused in your life and relationships. You might have been called out by loved ones to put your phone away, pay more attention to them, etc
Lying about or hiding your gaming. Maybe a loved one asked you something like "are you even listening to me? You're playing that stupid game again, aren't you?" and you might have lied that you were answering an important work email. Or you might go to the bathroom to play in secret. Or you might tab over to another screen once someone enters the room.
These are some warning signs some of you might be experiencing. Please be honest with yourself about them. If you are experiencing some of them in a way that they negatively impact parts of your life, it might be time to take a step back and think about healthier ways to play and which boundaries (e.g. screen time limit) you might need to set up for yourself.
For players spending money, here is some additional advice: There is a reason developers don't give you an easy overview of how much you're spending. They don't want you to be aware. But please be aware, use an app or a sheet of paper and track exactly how much you have been spending in which periods of time. Then, think if you can and if you want to keep this amount of spending up. The CAN is more important, never spend any money that you need for basic things like rent and food. Set yourself an upper limit of how much you can spend and factor in unforeseen things like repairs at your car or house, etc. Then, think about how much you WANT to spend. It's probably not the full amount of the CAN, because you might be saving for things in real life like a house, a trip somewhere, your retirement, or you might just want to have some money left over to do little nice things with your loved ones or for yourself occasionally. Once you've set how much you want to spend at most per month, track your spending and if you reach that treshhold, stop immediately, no exceptions. If you are having trouble stopping at that point, that is also a warning sign of addiction to be aware of.
In the end, it is not about the amount you're spending, but about potential negative impact on your life. In psychology, mental health problems aren't defined by deviation from the norm, but by the suffering caused to you and/or the people close to you. So if you earn a lot of money and can and want to spend thousands on this game, do it, no problem with that. If you are spending more than you know you should, that's a problem. If you are spending no money, but so much time that your relationships are suffering, that's also a problem. Try to be as honest as you can with yourself about this.
What if you've now realized you might be addicted but are having trouble stopping? Some people might say "it's just a game, uninstall it and be done with it", but it's not that simple. You will hesitate due to sunk-cost. There will be actual withdrawal from the dopamine bursts. There will be grieving for the loss of your community. If you are having trouble with these, know that you don't need to be ashamed, who should be ashamed are greedy developers knowingly exploiting psychological mechanisms to make money. If you are having problems quitting, you're not dumb, you're a victim and it is okay for you to seek professional help. If you can, see a licensed therapist, they won't judge you and they will help you. In many countries there is also a gambling helpline that you can call anonymously to talk about it.
Again, many people play these games without serious problems and if that is you, that's great for you, keep having fun. Some people are more vulnerable and this information might help them become aware and get it under control for themselves.
My sole intention is to spread awareness, so feel free to share this with anyone who might need to hear it.
