Hey, Kid, Got a Dollar?
There's a darker side growing in the free to play games market.
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There's a darker side growing in the free to play games market.
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Hey, Kid, Got a Dollar?
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That's the thing... What are they doing wrong in the eyes of the law?RvLeshrac said:
Computer games are for children; why bother regulating and understanding this evolving medium when we have to deal with more pressing adult issues like who is Americas next top model?
Gotta hook 'em while they're young.
Since it's a way of getting parents to sign off on something which is invariably going to lead to problems with payment, that should be enough. There's precedent in 900 numbers in the early to mid eighties.
But if you file FTC complaints you're entitled and stuff!RvLeshrac said:
These things are largely advertised as free, which is intentionally misleading. That is the basis for an FTC investigation EVEN IF they decide the practice is kosher.Gather said:
Since it's a way of getting parents to sign off on something which is invariably going to lead to problems with payment, that should be enough. There's precedent in 900 numbers in the early to mid eighties.
I still maintain that the goverment should ban all Microtransactions for virtual property. Right now there is nothing illegal about it, but that doesn't mean that it should remain legal. We can already see the immorality and exploitation involved, and that is exactly why laws have been created in the past. I see banning piece by piece charging for virtual property of this sort as equivilent to banning other scams throughout history, many of which were legal when they were first conceived, probably 90% of the stuff considered "White Collar Crime" wasn't illegal when people first started it. Heck, right now simply talking to your competition or people from companies your speculating on can be considered a crime under many circumstances, falling under "Insider Trading".
Bssically, the industry is not going to hit the "reset button" to the pre-microtransaction days of fully self contained products unless they are forced to do so. There is too much money to be made otherwise, which is why we ultimatly need Uncle Sam to break out the cudgel.
Of course given that we're dealing with what is now a billion dollar industry, I'd imagine the games industry as a whole is spending a lot of that money under the table to try and prevent that from happening.
Bssically, the industry is not going to hit the "reset button" to the pre-microtransaction days of fully self contained products unless they are forced to do so. There is too much money to be made otherwise, which is why we ultimatly need Uncle Sam to break out the cudgel.
Of course given that we're dealing with what is now a billion dollar industry, I'd imagine the games industry as a whole is spending a lot of that money under the table to try and prevent that from happening.
Possible, but unlikely. The reason simply being that they brought in all of the casuals and mainstream gamers, the lowest human denominator being ripe for exploitation. That's why I feel that it's actually the place of the goverment to step in to stop that exploitation when it's going on, since it's not liable to be a case where backlash straightens things out.Crono1973 said:
Even if there was a backlash in the US, you have to consider that the gaming industry will still be propping itself up with the Asian market where standards are substantially differant. After all this whole "microtransaction" thing is pretty much what companies were doing throughout Asia. You'll notice some of the more progressive nations in the area like Japan are already making moves to limit this, starting with the "Gacha" content (there was an article about this). In general if even Japan sees a problem with some of the bizzare marketing that takes place there, the Western World should start to take notice.
Right now if we see a crash, it's likely to only be an American (or perhaps western) crash and it just means we'll lose out in this competitive market, and see things shift back to total asian domination like we did. Now that Western games are starting to dominate I think we kind of need to take action to prevent the people in the industry from being too exploitive, in part because of the fact that they could destroy themselves with another crash which doesn't benefit anyone.
Now, I myself have pointed out an alternative here. I feel that if we're going to stand by trade in virtual property, that virtual property needs to be protected and assigned actual value. Among other things the companies doing this should be required by law to have their games backed by a trust to ensure indefinate operation, a trust being a bunch of money investd in such a way so as to continually grow and only allow a portion of the interest to be withdrawn at any given time. The idea here being that to create a game based on virtual property the company should have to not only develop a game, but have a trust in place that produces enough money to keep the servers operating indefinatly. Likewise the companies involved should be held liable for the value of the property in the game, perhaps even being required to insure themselves. Meaning that if they are going to charge you say $25 for something in a game, that item is worth $25, and all NDAs aside, if that property is lost they should be required to refund the price of the purchuse, especially since it exists on their servers and is under their protection.
That's the start of a big mess of course, which is why I suggest it's easier to just ban microtransactions and virtual property of the sort we're seeing, and require that games be self contained.
The casuals are the least loyal group and the first to abandon them. It's why Nintendo is now regretting that they lost core gamers this gen. For all their success, they know they can't live on casual gamers, many of who are playing games on their phones now.
The 1983 crash was NA only wasn't it, it was still a crash.
If if the government does nothing, it might cause a crash there too as parents begin to push their kids away from playing games because of trust issues.
Yes but more like the 2 year gap between the crash in 1983 to the release of the NES in 1985. A crash would mean that retailers would want no part of gaming and it would no longer be mainstream, for NA.
Well, the greedy nature of western game companies doesn't make me want to save them. I almost feel like Japanese companies are doing all the microtransactions to keep up with western companies. For example, Final Fantasy XIII needed no DLC according to SE, it's sequel has ridiculous amounts. That's a quick transition.
That sounds like a plan, all DD should be insured. This idea that you could lose all your Steam games one day is scary.
This is fine too, at the very least, no microtransactions in games lower than a Mature rating.
Thank you for this. As a gamer and an educator, this has been eating at me immensely. Whenever I raise my voice against it, all I hear back is, "Well, they're companies. They're supposed to make money." Either that, or they insult the people who "fall for it," calling them some variant of stupid consumerist sheep.Jeremy Monken said:
I find it reprehensible enough that we allow these companies to produce games that target adults. They use psychological tools and tricks that have resulted from billions of dollars of research into how to manipulate other human beings... but those "customers" don't have access to billions of dollars of research into how to recognize and resist that manipulation. Not everyone sees things with perfect clarity.
Especially children. See, that's where it gets just plain bleak. There are plenty of adults who have learned to resist the manipulation of advertisements -- even those as insidious as the in-game variety -- but they weren't always that way.
It's a Terminator plan. You're going to grow up to be too smart to fool, so we're going to "go back in time" and get you before you become that smart. And then, still believing you're too smart to be fooled, you'll dance to our tune.
_____________
Now for a separate rant: The increasing "gamification" of education is doing the same thing. It's not new, either. We've been doing it for a long time. We reward kids for every tiny "accomplishment." We're constantly telling them how smart they are for tying their shoes or wearing pants correctly. Rewards and praise are a currency, and we're inflating it.
We're too interested in the short-term results -- 'Hey, I made science class feel like a game, and the kids liked my class more! Grades even went up a little!" Yeah, this year. The next teacher is going to have to do the same thing, but with bigger and better rewards.
What's more, there's plenty of evidence that these hyperactive reward schedules are actually reducing student achievement in the long-term. Consider the "Book-It" program.
Book-It, sponsored by Pizza Hut, is a reading incentive program. I went through it in elementary school. I'd read a book, write a short "book report" on it, and get a certificate for a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. The idea is to reward students for reading.
The real result? Kids in programs like this are reading shorter books. And when the program ends, or they grow out of it, the reading habit doesn't continue. Why? Because the game was the point of the activity, instead of the activity being its own point.
It's the same problem of "motivating through manipulation" that we see in these "free to play" games... it's just that we believe the mechanism is being used for good instead of evil. Short term results, long term harm. But hey, that's the next year teacher's problem, ain't it?
There are tons of great games that go on sale for free on the App Store every single day. (and I mean ones that were paid apps that become free, not the ones that are just made free and make money through in-app purchases)
Yes, there are a fair share of games that abuse the hell out of in-app purchases (I myself am very annoyed at what happened to To-Fu: The Trials of Chi, especially considering that's a game I actually PAID for and they're still expecting in-app purchases from me...)
But if you ignore the games that just try to squeeze the money from the players wallets, you eventually realize that the iOS market is a market where you can get literally HUNDREDS of good games for FREE if you just take the time to look around and do some research.
I currently have 127 games in my iTunes (and I've deleted a lot of them) and I've only paid for...MAYBE a quarter of them. The rest I just found by checking the top free games, and thanks to the Youtube channel TheGameTrail for often uploading videos of the best free games of the day.
I'm a little sad that a market that offers awesome free games to people gets so much hatred from gamers, especially when one of the biggest complaints in the gaming community these days is that games are too expensive.
Yes, there are a fair share of games that abuse the hell out of in-app purchases (I myself am very annoyed at what happened to To-Fu: The Trials of Chi, especially considering that's a game I actually PAID for and they're still expecting in-app purchases from me...)
But if you ignore the games that just try to squeeze the money from the players wallets, you eventually realize that the iOS market is a market where you can get literally HUNDREDS of good games for FREE if you just take the time to look around and do some research.
I currently have 127 games in my iTunes (and I've deleted a lot of them) and I've only paid for...MAYBE a quarter of them. The rest I just found by checking the top free games, and thanks to the Youtube channel TheGameTrail for often uploading videos of the best free games of the day.
I'm a little sad that a market that offers awesome free games to people gets so much hatred from gamers, especially when one of the biggest complaints in the gaming community these days is that games are too expensive.
Ah, how times have changed since making a joke about getting money from kids got you knocked off TV for a couple of weeks [http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/soupy1.asp].
More simply put, "free-to-play" is an abomination. Back in the Shareware days, only products that were actually GOOD could afford the risk of giving out a free sample and relying on its quality to draw in follow-on purchases (DOOM). But now with the awful advent of micro-transactions the whole point of giving the teaser away for free has been lost, because there's no "there" there. There's no game that's worth playing in the first place - it's just a sham designed to give you game-like rewards in exchange for money.
Of course I have my iTunes password locked all 24/7 so when my neice wants to download more Angry Birds she has to come to me and I say "no". Anyone who gives their kids an unlocked device that has direct access to their credit card is fracking insane.
Of course I have my iTunes password locked all 24/7 so when my neice wants to download more Angry Birds she has to come to me and I say "no". Anyone who gives their kids an unlocked device that has direct access to their credit card is fracking insane.
Yes, let's place the onus on the businesses whose job it is to make money (doing anything less is grounds for legal action from shareholders) and not on the parents.
This mentality people have nowadays of wanting the world to work for them instead of them actively, you know, being a parent, is mind boggling. But of course you only agree with me when it comes to things you do like; say, they want to change video game rating laws to make it easier for parents - up in arms, the lot of you. But because it's EA and them damn businesses trying to make money, suddenly everyone is worried about the children.
This mentality people have nowadays of wanting the world to work for them instead of them actively, you know, being a parent, is mind boggling. But of course you only agree with me when it comes to things you do like; say, they want to change video game rating laws to make it easier for parents - up in arms, the lot of you. But because it's EA and them damn businesses trying to make money, suddenly everyone is worried about the children.
Because the majority of gamers are entitled and believe every game should be perfect for them and they shouldn't have to look for it. It's the reason you hear so many clowns going on about how the RPG genre is dead and has been converted into things like Mass Effect 2 and 3. A simple Google search shows hundreds of RPGs that are as oldschool as it gets--think, Baulder's Gate--for sale from independent and larger companies all over the world. Hell, there's a sale on right now for one such new RPG series on Steam.Strain42 said:
The way this community behaves, you'd be forgiven for believing it's composed entirely of twelve-year-olds.
Off topic really, but I think the majority of people here at the Escapist WANT stronger ratings, so long as when a game is given a 18 or 'Mature' rating, it's allowed to be that, violence and sexual content should be allowed. We WANT clear ratings so that parents can do their job (and admittedly so we can blame them when they buy GTA for their 8 year old despite being advised not to by the store clerk.)Grey Day for Elcia said:
I would however say many parents don't understand just how much access you get to stuff, when you have a smartphone or the like, and they need to be informed about how easy it is to spend money on nothing, and lots of it, however.
I would however, like to see some regulation brought in, that when some kid goes mental, unknowingly running up $1000 bills on Mom's credit card, the companies should do the decent thing, charge an admin fee of ,say $50, remove the content and refund the spend, as anyone blowing $1000 on a free game doesn't know what they're doing. It's pretty much guaranteed to be a kid who's somehow got access to a parent's card that they shouldn't have, and it shouldn't be a case of take your own child to court or suck it up.
I'm normally the one going 'do some damn parenting' but so much of this stuff is a mystery to parents and I don't think the industry does much to help educate them.
That's my issue. It would be nice if the companies made it easier for parents, but that's not their job and it shouldn't be expected. It's this whole mentality people have of wanting everything to be easy and everyone else doing their bit to help them. If you want your child to be able to use, say, an iPhone, it's your job to know the ins and outs of it.SenseOfTumour said:
Again, yeah, would be nice if it were easier, but people just want to be lazy parents and expect the world to half their job. Parenting aint easy and the job of business is to get as much money out of you as possible--this shouldn't be news to people.
Had to read this article twice to even attempt to get at what Mr. Monken was even talking about. No.. No... I know what he "wanted" to say, but what he was really talking about.Dastardly said:
I really like your response, so let's chat about it.
Recently Peter Moore discussed how retailers where "purveyors of the digital media". It's an interesting use of the word. On the one hand we could say they are purchasing for resale intellectual property like an art dealer, on the other, and taking a look at the theme of DICE 2012 this year. Gamer life cycle: Eat Sleep Play. The idea seems to be that interacting with these modern forms of artifice are necessarily essential. At least, that's the idea. Food dealers. I don't know about "supposed" to make money, but one must assume for reason's sake, that was and is the intent of these companies and individuals. There is a double speak and double standard for sure.
It's selling cotton candy (at best) as if it where salted pork and hard tack, and saying "it's the same thing". It fails utilitarianism or any pragmatic investigation for that matter.
It's not anything new though, some of the Freud family went into administration, politics, and advertising. Using the skills and techniques pioneered by Sigmund. The VAST majority of video "games" are hardly anything more than skinner boxes with 60 dollar cover charges. I have attended management meetings at Chemical companies FFS that have openly stated "we do not advertise based on empirical information, we advertise based on implication (implied value)."
If a po-dunk Chemical company is candid about it, I think it's pretty much assured that a large conglomerate publisher of video games has it in neon "somewhere" in the building.
My point is this, most everyone knows, and no one cares. In fact, that is the whole idea behind the idea. In the wake of confusion there will always be a waste of money.
Considering that it is a business that has grown by leaps and bounds, I would have to disagree, however, for the smaller developer ohh.. I mean "purveyor" of food stuffs, the kiddie market is untapped, and heck, one doesn't even have to really try very hard. The younger the audience (even mentally) the less one has to "hide" the fleecing.
Every slant, every bent of the product is designed specifically to capture that market. A young child with free reign access to an I-whatever, falls within a certain financial means and are clearly, the weakest "cork" between a wallet and profits. Some call it art?
Really astute statement... going to have to write that down. Thing is, "gamification" looks to be just another pop term to generate buzz, to create a market, in which a new platform can be used to sufficiently justify the creation of crap content. Hell, I have looked into it to see if it was feasible to get a government contract for development. MANY companies are. I didn't look into it to "educate", I looked into it as a profit vehicle. Your an educator, it's for you to call bullshit on this stuff.
Needs pilot programs and empirical results held against a control or a series of controls to work out what is working and what isn't. Until there is data it's a hypothesis at best.
Reward systems have demonstrated a plateau of engagement as long as the reward is scheduled in a linear progression. Look at something like the "loot grinder", Diablo and others... MMO's are notorious for this. Gambling centers discovered this as well. Random reward schedules break up this plateau. The question is, are the audience engaged or grinding out? Needs more evidence and data to support it one way or the other.
The fact that the game was systematized to facilitate a segway to corporate product "pizza" would of been the first indicator. However, it is hard to say "at the time" if the marketing folk at the pizza joint were aware or even cared about the long term results. Teaching someone to "care" is extremely difficult if not impossible. You do remember that it was sponsored by Pizza-Hut... so there we are mission accomplished.
Good and Evil are impossible to put to quantitative structure outside of the cultural paradigms from which the terms are being defined. That is to say that they are indicators of "limits" of acceptable mores.
I like where your going with this, and I see it OFTEN in industry, politics, name it. For simplicity sake it's oft times just called "kick the can". Padding around the problem rather than addressing it head on.
Such as:
Give a war veteran a video game to blow off steam rather than a psychologist to discuss the trauma.
Give a kid a video game instead of engaging the kid in a more one on one setting.
Put the lesson in the video game instead of engaging the material to a standard with testing.
To some degree it is the cultural paradigm of the western, and "strongly" American view point of life the universe and everything. It's lazy, it's lacks empathy, and is demonstrably short sighted as far as worthwhile goals are concerned for the audience. It's a confidence game, artifice.
Read the article again, Mr. Monken is NOT talking about anything you mentioned. He is talking about structuring game design around the game being a vehicle for profits utilizing different methodologies.
Problems I have with what he is saying.
I am able to make 3:1, 4:1, maybe even 5:1 crap games that capture 1 percent in fractions of the time and cost. So why would I make a game that attempts to capture a 15 percent returns when I am able to flush through half a dozen games at 1/3 the cost? Because of my "ethical responsibility?" HAHA!
The problem with that is that he has to justify what is different between a game created to make money and a game created to make money. They are both purveyors. Both selling cotton candy. Neither game really does anything outside of it's entertainment "value". There are no "minors" with an "I-whatever" with a legally binding subscription contract, so it falls to the parents which enabled the scheme to work in the first place.
Market forces will have to mitigate these products, but like any digital medium, porn included; as long as there is a market there will be a product produced and provided to capture it. This article is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Shame that.
The problem is app stores really need an ignore and a sorting mechanism. I want to ignore all of the games by EA, I want to ignore all of the games by Zynga. With those off the app lists I could see other things to try but its just too much of an asspain to scroll through 800 other apps to find something interesting.
Also at least for android 99.99% of the stuff out there is terrible.
Angry Birds is good, plants vs zombies is good. I haven't seen anything else that is really worth it.
Also at least for android 99.99% of the stuff out there is terrible.
Angry Birds is good, plants vs zombies is good. I haven't seen anything else that is really worth it.
Thanks for this well-thought-out response. I'll attempt to balance brevity with doing your response justice. Please, forgive any failings:
I know it sounds a bit Orwellian, and I'm aware that I'm overstating things a bit. This is, however, how the whole thing feels to me. Advertising is an entire industry based around doing just that, and these "freemium" games (as many currently exist) are essentially interactive commercials for the virtual goods, services, and currencies they're peddling.
These systems cause a lot of problems when the students move into a grade or school that doesn't use them. In fact, even when you do continue them to the next grade, you'll still have problems with students expecting more for less. It's human nature -- we acclimate ourselves to the reward, and it loses its power.
We're not training animals to perform abstract behaviors for our convenience. At least, we shouldn't be. Yes, getting them to perform the behavior is step one, but we shouldn't be building our own roadblocks to step two: understanding the reason for the behavior, and allowing that to be the reason for performing it.
And the first portion of my post really centers on a lot of this. The idea is to capture the market when they are very young. We're not just trying to convince them to want our product. We're teaching them to fall for the next commercial's "tricks." We're leading them to believe we're their best source of information. We're using these tactics to train them to be obedient customers.mfeff said:
I know it sounds a bit Orwellian, and I'm aware that I'm overstating things a bit. This is, however, how the whole thing feels to me. Advertising is an entire industry based around doing just that, and these "freemium" games (as many currently exist) are essentially interactive commercials for the virtual goods, services, and currencies they're peddling.
Agreed. And I don't mind folks being open about the profit motivation. I need money to eat, too, so I understand. My problem, again, is how it's being billed: As some kind of noble endeavor to improve young minds. Some folks honestly believe it, to be sure, while others know that's just how you sell something.
Actually, I'm speaking from experience. Gamification is a relatively new term, but the practice is an old one. Plenty of elementary schools use a "token economy" system, or provide treats for good performance, or other structured incentive programs intended to distract students from any feeling of "work." (Systems like this can be beneficial, if based on long-range goals, with sufficient emphasis placed on effort and the seeking of challenge. Most of the time, though, they only apply to one school year... or, most often, one short grading period.)
These systems cause a lot of problems when the students move into a grade or school that doesn't use them. In fact, even when you do continue them to the next grade, you'll still have problems with students expecting more for less. It's human nature -- we acclimate ourselves to the reward, and it loses its power.
And even then, that's just the most basic kind of "engagement." A slot machine only needs to bait you into pulling a lever. These reward schedules are good for the superficial performance of simple, prescribed behaviors. You might get Johnny to say, "Please," by occasionally giving him a treat when he does it... but this says absolutely nothing about whether or not Johnny understands the reason for doing so. In fact, it eclipses that reason (Showing consideration for other humans) with another, more immediate reason (Candy!).
We're not training animals to perform abstract behaviors for our convenience. At least, we shouldn't be. Yes, getting them to perform the behavior is step one, but we shouldn't be building our own roadblocks to step two: understanding the reason for the behavior, and allowing that to be the reason for performing it.
I'm simply speaking about the general perception of good and evil. You can pretty easily get folks to agree that using shady tactics to convince kids to spend money is "a bad thing," just like you can convince people that when the enemy tortures our captured troops it's "a bad thing." But when those same tactics are being used to ostensibly benefit a side with which we identify? It gets harder to draw that line. In short, people believe the end justifies the means, and they don't look very hard at whether or not a particular "end" is really as good as it sounds.
I think it's a case of realizing the beast can't be killed... but it can be leashed. Yes, companies will keep trying to pull these tricks, and yes, they'll always go as far as you'll let them. So, the idea is to rein it in a bit. I just went on a mildly-tangential trip into where the same methods (used for "Good," namely education) can cause the same kinds of problems if we don't also monitor them in that setting.