Back in high school, my brother and I used to play this game called Clash Royale. It’s made by a company called Supercell. It’s made to played in tiny bursts of minutes. It’s really easy to pick up and put down (I found myself reaching for my phone in my pocket whenever I used to go to the bathroom). I, rather thankfully, never spent money on the game. But the game had very cleverly placed pay points. Imagine this: you’re playing a round of Clash Royale and you just had a massive win! For this win, your reward is a massive chest. But unlocking this chest takes time—a lot of it. Depending on the size of the chest, it could be from 2 hours to 12 hours or 24 hours. Do you really want to wait that long? For the low price of a couple dollars, you could have it unlocked right now! And on top of that, they’ll throw some extra goodies in the bag. You can also pay to increase the power of your characters, you can pay to get extra skins for your castle, you can pay to get power-ups for your troops. Oh and you can pay to get a subscription-like list of rewards called a “Battle Pass”.
All these pay points get pretty dangerous. Clash Royale puts players at risk for addiction through a combination of fast-paced gameplay (unlocking chests faster) and social competition (you’re battling real people from all over the world—I can attest to how this makes it all the more important to win than if you were going up against a COM bot). Clash Royale also, rather cleverly, uses a random rewards system. You can never really tell what you’ll get. It’ll be dull most of the time, but every now and then it will be a massive, mega reward that completely boosts your gameplay. So there’s always this incentive to keep unlocking more and more and more. The progression of the game is tightly tied to unlocking and upgrading the troop cards you earn as you play. Now that I think back, I found myself in a loop where I was making slow progress, but still felt the need to keep playing because I felt like my next big break was just on the horizon. I was encouraged to keep playing not really for the improvement of my skill in the game, but to chase uncertain rewards—which sounds a lot like the psychological mechanisms of gambling. The randomness taps into variable-ratio reinforcement. Variable-ratio enforcement is a method that keeps users engaged longer because the brain is wired to seek unpredictable rewards. I think it’s really interesting how psychology taps into all of this. I think it can be manipulative or very cool, depending on how it’s used.
Compared to other games that use chance—like Hearthstone or Genshin Impact—Clash Royale is arguably more insidious because it layers randomness over competitive PvP. This means players aren’t just gambling for fun cosmetics or story content; they may feel pressure to keep spending or grinding just to stay competitive. The frustration of losing due to under-leveled cards can push players toward monetization, where even spending money doesn’t guarantee the upgrades they want, due to chance-based reward systems.
Morally, using chance in games can be permissible when it’s transparent, non-exploitative, and not tied to competitive advantage or psychological manipulation. It becomes impermissible when developers exploit players’ time or wallets through addictive mechanics, especially in games marketed to younger audiences. Ethical design means respecting player agency and well-being, not monetizing uncertainty at the cost of mental health.
