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Comment by aaronetz | Hacker News Reader

God, this is devious. While reading it I was thinking, "where does the sarcasm part end?" but it never did. I mean, as an aspiring indy dev I can understand the need to make a living, but this is in the same league with casino money. I really hope this is just a phase, and people would collectively understand that these games are designed to take your money, and that they're not worth it.

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This is the voice of a high-functioning sociopath. It's shocking because we usually don't hear these things spoken out loud, although by now it's pretty well known, or at least widely suspected, that the top management of many of the most successful corporations are largely sociopathic.

Look hard at the advertising and sales techniques that we are awash in: this is the style of thinking that animates them. Why does a car commercial have music? To trick the brain into making a major financial decision based on emotion, bypassing the rational process. Good for Toyota, bad for you.

One of Steve Jobs' proudest moments, in one of his last keynotes, was announcing an alliance with Zynga. This is the man who spoke derisively of others' "taste".

Ramin is criticizing the practices of the big free to play companies by explaining their practices in plain english, he's not saying you should do this (I'm sure some money hungry devs will read this as a guide though).

I understand, and I saw his comment at the end, which makes this clear. I meant that he's adopting the voice of the sociopath to expose their reasoning.

At the end of the article, in the first comment, he says:

"Note that as a rule I do not publish my F2P monetization models. In this case, I am publishing the methods used by others to make money games, and since I only make skill games, I'm not creating any competition for myself. While the information I have provided here should lower the barrier to entry for commercially effective money games, I hope the discussion will lead some of you to consider making skill games instead."

I know. Please read the reply to hatu I left 15 minutes before your comment. In case it's still not clear: "this is the voice" means the author is letting us hear this voice, not that he personally is one of them

Why would it be a phase? This has been happening since the very first video games were created. It's exactly what an arcade is. We like to look back at games like Pac-Man with nostalgia. And it's easy, since you get to play that game for free anytime you want today. But that game was efficient at separating you from your quarters back in the '80s.

and look at well arcades are doing now.

In arcades, the money was still not inside of the game design. In IAP centric games, dollars are inside of the game mechanics.

Hehe yes, obviously totally not worth it and it will go away (just like the casinos did)!

I'm relieved to see we didn't use any of these tricks with our F2P game. We have an in-game currency, but all purchases are with regular currencies and there is no way to buy power or even in-game money.

Sure, there is a place for in-app purchases. But there has to be some moral code involved. I think that in general, paying for consumables is bad, but paying for extra (permanent) features is fine. There may be exceptions to this. There's this website, http://honestandroidgames.com/, that has its own moral code but it is quite restrictive (must have no ads, must be either free, paid or free with a single IAP that unlocks the full game.) I wonder if it is possible to come up with a more flexible moral code for game monetization.

But there has to be some moral code involved.

No, there absolutely does not. The only way to filter your game usage through a moral filter is to subscribe only to things like honestandroidgames.com, which is akin to programming out all non-Christian TV channels in every TV in your house.

There already is a moral code for app content required for store submission.

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

Whether or not these guidelines should extend to IAP implementation is up for debate, I'm of the opinion that consumable IAP should be a blocker.

Those aren't a moral code, they're editorial policies. Even if they were moralistic, the only thing that is summarily prohibited is "Bum Fights Video Library" type apps, which is a nearly-nonexistent bar.

> I wonder if it is possible to come up with a more flexible moral code for game monetization.

Sure: come up with your own moral preferences and (1) as a producer, don't make games that violate them, and (2) as a consumer, don't pay for games (or IAPs within games) that violate them.

This is a complete hypothetical, but how do you feel about consumable hats?

I'm thinking something like you spend real dollars on a hat (or other item) that does nothing but change cosmetics, but disappears after a week/month/quarter/year.

That doesn't sound too bad... It's definitely not the same as using psychological tricks to coax people to pay. As long as the game is not designed around getting your money, it should be okay, I think.

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