Couldn't agree more. Treat your customer's the way you would want to be treated. Fair, ethical and transparent transactions that create a trust between the client and publisher are a win/win for everyone. You may be sacrificing the short term rewards earned through manipulation, but the goodwill generated will strengthen your customer base and build much stronger brand loyalty and positive word of mouth.

It's a shame ethics are not an innate trait to all put in a position of trust by consumers or their parents.

I was reading this article today showing research that economists are less compassionate than the general population, and those studying the field become more so over time:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131021124625-6924407
3-does-studying-economics-breed-greed?trk=tod-home-art-list-large
_0

I studied nursing and exercise physiology first, and taught myself economics over decades before stepping into a "real" economics class when I was in my 40's. I was a bit shocked at the bias inherent in the material being presented by most of my professors, as described in that article.

While people in the real world accept inequity as inevitable in real space, they don't like to be reminded of it in their play space, and they certainly don't like to pay for that experience. This creates a lot of mismatches when conventional economists try to make game economies.

Great article, as usual. The fact that conversion rates are so low has always bothered me as a designer. I don't understand the people who make these purchases well enough to design a game for them. When asked about designing what I will henceforth refer to as compassionless free to play titles, I've had to demur, in part due to my own objections, but mostly due to a lack of understanding.

What troubles me is the executives deciding on monetization strategy don't really care where the money comes from - which is not only cold-hearted, but short sighted. It's a shame so much venture capital is going toward gaming startups whose executives don't care to understand their real customers. I miss the days of creating value for customers, or if you have enough capital, creating a game which allows players to create value.

Thank you for the article. Its been a wonderful read. I think I will be able to apply and uphold some of your concerns.

I studied economics as part of my overall education and they tend to write off human behavior as "rational" and just leave it at that.

This article reminds me of the basic Marshmallow test I read about a few years back. A group of kids, I believe they were about 6, were given a marshmallow (or a cookie, I don't exactly remember, but marshmallow is more catchy). They were told that they could eat the marshmallow now or they could wait 15 minutes and get a second marshmallow. About a third actually delayed for the second marshmallow. I think the purpose of this test was delayed gratification but it eventually related to self-control. It makes me wonder if games could find a way to tap into the 2/3rds who don't like waiting without worrying about that group just closing the app for the time being and doing something else and whether that would be considered "ethical" - since every other retailer/consumer-selling-business also tries to do so.

You are confusing compassion with paternalism.

First of all, starting somewhere completely different, you are blatantly misusing the term "altered state of consciousness", and by the frequency of sentences in your posts containing the word "I", I will assume that you are knowingly misusing the term to make yourself sound more credible and scientific. This is a recurring theme, as has previously been noted by commenters much smarter than me.

Second, I am amused to see that you FINALLY found a way to squeeze in the specifics of your otherwise irrelevant neuroendocrinology research to a Gamasutra ARTICLE, and that you have stopped calling your articles "papers".

An unusually large percentage of all sentences written by you on Gamasutra, in articles or comments, contain the word "I", or is in some other way self-promoting. I have learned more about you as a person than I have learned from you.

But now to the crux of the issue, the much more annoying misappropriation of the word "compassion":

After your rather lengthy throat-clearing (yes, I notice the irony) you give an example of people having different experiences at the DMV. You state, in a self-contradictory and/or linguistically sloppy manner, that people experience "the same stress as everyone else" at the DMV, yet have noticeably different reactions.

You are basically saying: Some people will be more stressed than others when experiencing the same amount of stress.

That makes no sense, but nitpicking aside, it cuts to a very important point: Not everyone EXPERIENCES the world the same way, and what is enjoyable or miserable for you is not the same as what is enjoyable or miserable to someone else.

I am in total agreement with you on that one point, but here's where you lose me, and anyone else that gives it a moment's thought: Your view of "compassion" rests on some VERY shaky ethical premisses.

If someone finds waiting in Clash of Clans unbearable, they are having a negative experience. For brevity's sake, let's just call possible negative experience tied to this wait as "discomfort", since we got here by discussing stress rather than impatience and delayed gratification.

The discomfort is very real to the player, and the player will reasonably want the discomfort to end. Her options at this point are to quit the game, wait or monetize. Three (3) choices. Within the player's attention scope at the time, the decision to monetize seems like an acceptable path to ending the discomfort. Giving them an option OTHER THAN QUITTING THE GAME is not compassionless, and designing a game that requires patience as a measurement of mastery is not cruel.

For 1-2% of players, your words, these kinds of waits are discomforting. Letting these players pay to remove the wait is no more immoral than it was to sell TiVo machines so that people could skip commercials.

If we correctly admit that not all men and women are created equal, biologically, then it does not follow that catering to immediate needs of the 1-2% is immoral. It is poor philosophy, poor ethics, and frankly a poor argument - and it was hard to separate it from all the blatant self-promotion.

I tend to believe that exposure to such underhand tactics or trust damaging mechanics is as important in video games as it is in real life. We need to learn from our mistakes, we need to understand that things are not always what we assume and not everyone has the same values or beliefs that we do.

So when you see "We recognize a special obligation to protect young children in our games” you should know why these are just words, because you have that experience of being cheated or fooled into believing they mean it.

The only way we define what we believe and who, is based on our life experiences by being let down. I understand peoples desire to protect children or those who perhaps do not have the life experience to understand the concept of manipulation, but it is that desire to protect which creates the problem, because those people do not have experience of what you are protecting them from.

In short "Tough Love" sometimes really is helpful to life. You can only take advantage of people who have never been aware they are taken advantage of.

Ramin, while I appreciate your passion for the topic of Free to Play games, I have to say this article is overly simplified and borderline insulting. First, you seem to be conflating childhood development and personal responsibility in one article. It is easier to address these problems if the two are separated.

You seem to be implying that F2P developers are preying on children. While there have been examples of children buying copious amounts of Smurfberries, these are the exceptions, not the rule. To imply that the companies making these games are specifically seeking out children in order to exploit them for their copious disposable incomes is ridiculous. If these companies were specifically targeting children for exploitation, they would be in violation of COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). I'm sure that the first time a game company was found in violation of COPPA, it would be all over Gamasutra, but this hasn't happened yet because F2P developers aren't doing anything that violates rules specifically set up to protect children in an online environment.

Looking at the OFT principles as proposed by the UK government, most of the F2P games (I've played) are either in compliance already, or need a few text changes to get there. You frequently bring up Candy Crush Saga as a game that is going to be heavily impacted by these new OFT rules. Comparing them with what is in the game now, there are exactly two areas in which they are not in compliance. The first can be fixed by changing the text on the game over pop up by adding the line "or wait to continue for free". The other is "principle 8" which requires changes from the platform holder (Apple, Facebook, Google Play). Even the OFT committee states that Principle 8 will probably not be enforceable against the game developer. If these principles, which are specifically designed to protect children, only require minor changes by a developer, I find it extremely hard to believe there is some nefarious child-preying going on in the F2P development world.

I've seen this number thrown around quite a bit about brain development not being complete until 25. This number is taken way out of context when it comes to F2P games. Child development theory states that children reach the ability to use formal (logical) reasoning somewhere around the age of 12-14. Even if you add 5 years for developmental differences, this means most people are capable of rational thought by the age of 17-19. It is not a coincidence that the age of majority in most countries is around this same age. This type of reasoning should be sufficient to be able to look at a pop up that says "buy more gold?" and say no. But what does that 25 years to get the brain fully developed actually mean? It's talking about post-formal thought. This is the type of thought that allows adults to sympathize with others who hold abstract beliefs that are different than theirs. In fact, some psychologists believe that a good number of people are incapable of developing extremely abstract thought. However, this is not viewed as a disorder or disability because that level of complex abstract thinking is not required to live a fully functioning, complete adult life. Hardly something needed when declining a purchase in Candy Crush Saga. If you look at where F2P game choices fall on the model of hierarchical complexity, this example scores on the low end of both the horizontal and vertical axes. In fact, it's not even abstract. These pop ups are literally asking a direct question (buy stuff?) with a dichotomous result (yes / no). So while it may be true that the brain does not fully develop in some people up to the age of 25, that number is completely irrelevant to the F2P discussion.

So let's look at adults and F2P games. Is it unethical for F2P developers to ask players for money? The argument you are trying to make is yes, because there could be people out there with physical disabilities that could be vulnerable to lowered impulse control. While this might be true, it's also true in every area of life. Are we to start regulating frozen food makers because they have pretty cool packaging and delicious chicken nuggets? Should we stop distributing coupons because people could see the savings as irresistible and blow all of their money on Healthy Choice pudding? No, this is absurd. There is a level of personal responsibility that you have to assume adults have. Otherwise, our personal freedoms would be so restricted, we couldn't do anything. There is a theory in psychology that states this hand-wringing over the safety and responsibility of others is actually damaging to people with diagnosed psychological and developmental disabilities. People need to feel like they have control over their lives. Regulating what they can or cannot spend their money on is not the way to do that.

I get that free to play is an easy target. Five years ago, games like Farmville and Mafia Wars challenged what "Games" meant. A lot of game developers were insulted that glorified spreadsheets and cartoon dollhouses were being called games. There's a lot of truthiness in what you are saying. It feels good, and it makes "real games" seem more legit. However, I haven't seen any suggestions on how to improve the situation from you. You call out a lack of compassion, and yet offer no suggestions. You say "think of the children!" but have not produced any examples of how you could do it better. Even worse, while disparaging developers who make games for kids, you have not given any recent examples of exactly how they are doing this. I've tried finding your papers, and while I have found copious blogs, I haven't found any academic works with your suggestions. Recently, you have said that you are working on World of Tanks. I can only assume this game is the result of your proprietary work on developing a new F2P system. Let's examine World of Tanks: It has premium currency. It has paywalls to exclusive content. It has premium items that give advantages to players who spend money. It has feedback loops that encourage constant play. In short, it's exactly like most good F2P games out on the market.

You are building a career on platitudes and disparaging other developers, while producing nothing that can be peer-reviewed. To say that a mother who clearly cares about raising her children and a PhD candidate are lacking in compassion because they disagree with you is rude, unprofessional, and damaging to your own reputation.


Sources:
http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/Complying-with-COPPA-Freque
ntly-Asked-Questions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_develop
ment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postformal_thought
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_of_Hierarchical_Complexity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Adult_Development
http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/psych406-5.
3.2.pdf
Ajzen, I. (2002), Perceived Behavioral Control, Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control, and the Theory of Planned Behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32: 665–683. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00236.x
http://minerva.mq.edu.au:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:
6094

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/consumer-enforcement/oft1506a.pd
f

http://wiki.worldoftanks.com/Gold_Economy

What in the crap is with the hostility in this chain of posts and articles? From a simple non-PhD layperson's perspective, this has gone from constructive and useful information and turned into some malformed academia pissing-contest. And unfortunately, that really detracts from some of the excellent points presented by each party involved in said contest.

Nice article once again. I tend to agree with you. The Golden rule of treating others is a good yard stick everyone should measure themselves with. Just because you can do something, doesnt mean you should.

The more behavioral science knows and predicts, the more it can be used for good and bad. Often its bad unfortunately. Everyone is vulnerable, I love how I see people saying it could never work on them, meanwhile they sit their drinking their $1.50 bottle water. oh brother
Even those of us who know the game arent immune, For example, I know why they put the milk in the back left corner of the supermarket, I know why end caps are done as they are, I know why certain lighting is found on certain items, and yet it still works on me. I still buy stuff on occasion due to marketing/merchandising manipulation.

And that is exactly what we are talking about, its all manipulation. So as you point out, how do you want to proceed with the known use of manipulation. That is the crux of the whole F2P debate. Do you want to be honest and straightforward as possible while still attempting to make a few dollars, or do you want to be a dick and manipulate the hell out of anyone and everyone you can.

As always thanks for bringing the deeper subject matter and science into the debate. Well done as always.

In the last few years our industry has adopted a "metrics driven" design philosophy. The idea is that this can boost productivity like it supposedly does in other industries. But the problem as I see it is which metrics are used. "Metrics" often just becomes a euphemism for "profits", and even "profits" often is just a euphemism for "short term or real time profits". This makes the math extremely simple. This also allows people to say they have "proof" or "data" or "results".

The problem is that consumer behavior, especially over the long term, is not so simple. I would argue that it IS predictable, but that the amount of complexity added when you try to accurately model long term consumer behavior is not desirable to companies with short term goals. When you make "ethics" or even "consumer perception" or especially "societal perception" part of the metrics, it all gets much harder to measure. This complexity is not welcome in a metrics driven design studio. These studios, and those that populate them, are going to move aggressively to stop what they see as "metrics creep", and they certainly don't want another agent telling them how to run their business.

If I happen to be that agent, the risk is relatively low. If I happen to have the ear of consumers and international regulators, then the risk gets higher. If the agent is actual regulators, then the risk becomes very high. I just interpret these posts as risk mitigation. The hope is that if they can discredit me, the risk will drop back to zero. I don't think the people attacking me consider that when they attack me when I suggest we should be more compassionate to our consumers that consumers and regulators might actually read these posts and feel a bit alarmed at where things are going.

its just sad that wealth extraction is finding its way even into this industry. Its the whole reason I left Wall street many moons ago, and hell its only gotten 1000x worse there, and now its spreading its tentacles into all sorts of industries and practices. I guess building wealth became to much work.

Hi Ramin,

I have come to appreciate your knowledge sharing here. Thanks so much for this and understanding that with sharing your opinion, you will aggregate other opinions, often in disagreement. This is par for this course. I really don’t see personal attacks here as much as people who absolutely disagree with your opinion, and they make some valid arguments I think. That being said, there may be more diplomatic ways to help you understand that your opinion isn’t necessarily other peoples realities, but it very well could be related in many game industry situations.

I do understand where Nils, Katy, and the last article's responder, whom you address as the "mom" who suggested you might not understand what kids are really dealing with, are coming from. Gamasutra is not only a great outlet for contemporary landscape understanding, but it's also a launch and voice pad for many in the related industry who don't have this opportunity elsewhere. You have used this forum to your and the communities advantage. How else will people virtually be engaged in this conversation? Thanks to Gamasutra for providing this ongoing forum as well. There are very few game sites willing to host serious business and technical discussions/arguments like this.

I do think you are sharing an opinion here that is highly subjective. Are you a parent? If so, then your qualifying remarks might also be quantified to a stronger degree with some specifics. Can you share? If not, then it might feel intrusive for a parent to be hearing your assumptions you are making without parenting experience. Even teachers who don't have kids might not understand exactly what goes through the child's very personal and evolved minds when presented with tough F2P decisions. These are things we parents have to deal with 24-7. Unfortunately, most parents these days are not able to devote 24-7 to parenting. That's another story.

Most importantly, in the context of creators (aka businesses) being compassionate, and IMHO, the candy at the shelf in the grocery store, the gift shop that traps you at the end of the Aquarium tour, and the non-stop barrage of ads and media in our kids faces is no different than the virtual "for pay" carrot that Candy Crush dangles in front of your face after 51 failed attempts at level 29. Not unlike the game scenario, there IS plenty of emotion in that store line with my son and I standing there faced with a purchase decision. He wants that "stuff" and has emotions and a story to validate his need.

Additionally, the point of your economists analogy is an obvious one to me, much the same way as a politician falling out of his or her constituents reality, and more obviously soldiers who have killed in battle and now become less sensitive to life. I guess we are lucky economists are not game designers here ;)

The fact that you are now working your theories into practice (ie. WOT) is a great step in the direction of sharing some of your wisdom within the industry for actual change. It's one thing to point, blame, etc. when you are not in the center of the problem, but more than not, people tend to just bash that which they don’t accept or know. This is where I read into some of the people disagreeing with you so passionately. If "compassion" has any place in our society it's going to happen first at a much simpler level than in F2P games IMO.

Currently, I see almost no compassion in any part of our public lives or society. How can we introduce that emotion into one part of our day (ie. games or entertainment) without it existing in the rest of our day? And, why does the CEO who doesn't even play games have any intent on being compassionate on his customers wallets? That goes against the entire game industries strong roots to profit, just like every other entertainment media globally. Maybe we need to build game content that teaches compassion (and its falllout) more?

We live in a world where hunger and garbage are acceptable every day sights in a country that is easily capable of feeding and caring for it’s own. Look at the US govt. these days. Some representatives actually campaign against the most basic compassion (ie. health and wellness) for human beings in the US. There is so little compassion in the world today IMO that applying it here in some pre-requisite game design or game philosophy feels totally impractical to me. Currently, I would say it's actually unnatural to expect this in a world devoid of compassion as a whole.

You working your theories into games and us seeing the outcome is absolutely a great work in progress though. I wish you the best of luck in this effort!

To the commenters referring to the Golden Rule, please note that the gist of this article is that there's a non-negligible chance that it won't be good enough.

Just wanted to pop in and talk quickly about Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, which you mentioned at the bottom of your article. The prize wheel in our game has never used real money, ever. You spin the wheel using tickets that you can freely and easily earn in the game and the vast majority of our players have hundreds of tickets in their banks sitting unused.

I know it’s easy to think of most developers using the F2P model as evil arch-villains who only want to wring as much money as they can out of players, but there are some of us that do really stop and think about how our decisions will affect the kids (and adults!) that play our games.

Thank you for this nice opinion piece.

Unlike you I eat meat. I think it is pretty unethical, but I do it nevertheless.

I think it is up to social consensus (and legislation) to decide where people cross the line of being too unethical. I guess you think that too, so you wrote this article to affect social consensus.

I think many F2P "hacks for game monetization" are unethical (just see http://blog.betable.com/roger-dickeys-hacks-for-game-monetization).

A friend of mine recently outed himself as addicted to gambling. He works at a fast food restaurant and does not earn much. Yet he piled up ~10k EUR depts in an insanely short time span. In terms of gambling den language he is probably a whale. When I witnessed his breakdown and the following drama first hand, it really challenged my lax view on F2P. Most F2P mechanics are simply too close to gambling mechanics.

Now I think monthly spending caps and warnings about how much you've spent should be mandatory for games with RMT. Such a cap would be active per game account and could be changed individually by written consent (advertising this would be prohibited). The cap could be aligned to the age rating/target group of the game. There are ways to circumvent this, but I believe it would prevent much misery.

To try and make a shorter and less general point about some stuff that I said in my post above:

I have ADHD. People always used to get mad when I twitched and fidgeted and couldn't sit still and when I couldn't focus or pay attention. I kept trying to tell them I couldn't and I was trying so hard but sitting still for multiple hours is just not something I can handle unless something really interesting is happening.

"Exercise some self control. You just have to commit and do it. Stop trying to avoid taking responsibility for your actions."

Well many years later after I flunked out of college like 3-4 times it turns out I have ADHD and that knowledge, taking meds, and being cut some slack in certain areas has made a huge difference.

Now I see a problem brought up and the response is that people, especially adults, just need to take responsibility and man up. Just gotta take ownership of your poor decisions and behavior.

Talking like a duck. Walking like a duck. Hmm...

I really like this line "To dismiss those that are not as good at handling some situations as I am as weak is showing a lack of understanding and compassion." I think that it underlies the whole point you are trying to make. But further I think it underlies the problem with many arguments in our society, not just freemium gaming.

"When I see the tutorial training our children to use what looks like a roulette wheel that gives common and premium currency, and promotes their subscription, it makes me uncomfortable to think what we are teaching our children."

You call out Marvel/Disney for implied unethical behavior (oddly you omit the direct words and only imply this). My question back to you is how is Superhero Squad's "spin the wheel" any different from simple carnival games which have been played by children for the past hundred years? Are those evil too because they "train" children to gamble and have bright lights and colors that knowingly attract kids? What does Marvel do that carnival games don't that makes them uniquely evil?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_game

All I see is scare-mongering in this exact statement: "it makes me uncomfortable to think what we are teaching our children."

You write: "These people may be disabled too, it is just less obvious. In the case of those that have FAS or are children, how can you blame these people for their condition? Do you really want to say it is okay to prey on these people?"

The implications this article makes about humanity and a person's ability and freedom to self-govern including statements like the above are among the most patronizing views I have ever read someone's serious views on humanity to be.

"Sure they may only make up 1 or 2% of the population of our games, and we can get them to spend so much money that the other 98% of us get to play for free while laughing at the people that actually fund our game play."

I have worked as a monetization and game designer for top social game developers and I can honestly say that not ONE of those companies has EVER had a meeting where players and payers were discussed with anything but the utmost respect and consideration. We want people to enjoy our games, enjoy them so much they pay, enjoy them so much they tell their friends. That is good business, good profits, and good karma. And it's not rocket science.

The statement about laughing at our customers clearly shows to me you have almost zero actual experience in the trenches of F2P. Nobody is laughing at our customers. We are professionals. I am hugely insulted but more importantly, this is patently inaccurate.

I have worked almost exclusively in F2P mobile games. F2P gets too much hate for no reason at all.

Read about game design during the arcade days where games were specifically designed to make players put in quarters every 2 1/2 minutes. Think about the ethics of Street Fighter where two players, who both pay, fight each other with only the winner staying and the loser having to deposit another quarter or else admit defeat. Take it all the way to modern AAA games where the advertising budget regular exceeds the game development budget. They could care less if about ethical design and only wish to recoup their budget in those precious first 2 weeks (and will likely lay off a majority of the staff in doing so). You can paint anything in a bad light this way.

Checking out your linkedin you have a lot of game industry experience, specifically in monetization. I have to assume you write these articles to gather a following and gain attention to yourself. After all, you work for a F2P company and it would be extremely tacky of you to start pointing fingers at your peers (specifically mentioning Marvel SHSO) as if you are someone much more ethical than anyone else in the field.

It's business people. We make products and the consumers decide where their money goes. If you want to end the "evil" of free to play, produce a better model/product/company/anything and bring the consumers to you. Otherwise you are just crying "I don't like f2p design and I can't think of anything better so we should recognize how evil it is and ....blahblahblah".

My boss just handed me some non-proprietary data saying that the number of children playing mobile games doubled from 2011 to 2012, and that the average age of heavy spenders in F2P games is 6.4 years less than the average age of non-spenders in mobile games. This seems to give evidence that our "whales" are increasingly children.

It also states that 22% of children spend on mobile games without parental permission.

Actually, there are scarier numbers in this report. I am going to speak to the source tomorrow and verify because if true what I'm looking at is profoundly damning evidence.

Ramin, do you know who the whales really are at this point? They are mainly Video Game Executives who get their internal peers (other Executives) to play alongside them. They each spend $5K> monthly individually within groups of 10+ at a Microsoft, Qualcomm, EA or elsewhere. They probably expense their purchases as industry related.

Your above statement is guess work at best with the help of a 2nd party report IMO. And, I would guess too that kids doubled on mobile game play between 2010-2012 because that same growth appeared in phones that were in young peoples hands.

Why do you introduce conjecture and speculate on data that deserves much more quantification and valid use case evidence in the continuous furthering of your position? Are you really just trying to promote yourself here? That's what it genuinely feels like to me at this point.

Rather than grow contention here, as none of this is intended to insult or demean you, why don't you and I catch up offline sometime soon. I'm happy to connect on LinkedIn and have some reasonable dialog.

What you are doing here is counter-productive to your efforts and more importantly, our industry IMO. I am willing, like you, to stand up and voice my opinion. I like a lot of your energy and opinions, and I would love to see them involved affecting change.

We have far too many newcomers in this industry that count on discussions like this for education. In this case, I think it's fair to share the above as well as others here who question your info, tactics, and motive.