Was it common knowledge that gambling machines didn’t have losing sounds? Most players don’t even know. Maybe that’s why Aussies lose $12 Billion a year on them. The Losing Sound losingsound.com is a project to make pokies less addictive.
Creative Director Neil Walshe, in collaboration with Rumble Studios and Milos Photography have introduced a psychology-informed losing cue and tested it with real players who didn’t know what had changed.
In this small-scale test, loss awareness increased and the urge to keep playing halved.
The campaign was launched in partnership with two Addiction Recovery Specialists; Ron Isherwood from The Truth About Addiction and Kerrie Atherton from Stories of Hope Australia. And it suggests that losing sounds should be enforced in poker machines everywhere.
Says Neil Walshe “Gambling addiction destroys families and lives. If this project helps players become more aware, that’s a win. If it helps Canberra become more aware, that’s a jackpot.”
