Slashdot Mirror
Why Microtransactions In Games Are Amoral
Sludge writes "Graham Jans, a founder of the Vancouver Design Dojo and designer of Zombie Minesweeper, provides well-thought-out reasons why microtransactions in games are an amoral concept that can be used for good or evil, defying the typical knee-jerk reaction to Zynga-style use of microtransactions as a cynical tool designed to siphon the maximum amount of money from your wallet. Quoting: 'As well, such a thing could be a tool for benevolence. A developer could tune the length between releases to offer just a little more content for the same price, if they felt that was the right thing to do. In fact, most of the factors in microtransactions work this way. The negative reputation these systems have comes from factors that are tuned to maximize profit and abuse players for their money. But that's not an inherent trait in the system; you could just as easily use it to ensure your own bankruptcy!'"
You can buy new costume parts, new archetypes, and some in-game bonuses. None are game required, just cool.
So essentially, making money is immoral?
No - amoral. That is, neither right nor wrong inherently.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10
BF Heroes is a good example of microtransactions gone ape...
You can buy yourself superior firepower, but most times it doesn't even last. Often you just rent it for a day, week, month...
Amoral = doesn't affect morality
(+1, Disagree)
No, it's Amoral.
There's a difference, as noted above. Look it up.
Amoral may or may not conform to accepted standards of morality. An amoral act may be either moral or immoral, the point is you don't care either way.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I don't think you're missing anything. They're different. One is lack-of, one is contra.
One is unconcerned with the principle, the other differs from an accepted societal norm. The latter could change depending on the society, the former doesn't care.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Football Superstars did that nicely for microtransactions, you can buy XP directly, going from level 1 to level 100 cost may be a little bit less than $300.
New Economic Perspectives
... not amoral since the money you spend is gone and the game company still owns the game. All that money you invest is meaningless the second the one of the higher ups in the game company decides to shut-down the game or it goes out of business. This is the problem with game companies who try to sell 'games as a service'.
This also happens with games that are locked down to a service like Xbox live or their own service (steam sdk multiplayer lockdown some games have - see: supreme commander 2) and certain console games that ran their own server/master server (See: Burnout 3 for Playstation2) which later shut down their servers so you are SOL.
This is what I really hate about the game industry's move to try to enclose their games behind the rather dickish language of "games as as a service" and "microtransations". In the end it's just a neo-feudal model of extracting money from people without giving anything real back in return.
You don't have to play the game. There's a free market of video games out there, and it's large. If a developer uses these transactions and becomes unpopular for it, they'll get a bad reputation and people will stop buying the games.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
To put it in D&D terms:
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Good => Moral
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Neutral => Amoral
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Evil => Immoral
I find them immoral for most cases. I don't know whether DLC counts as microtransactions or not, so I'll leave it out.
The problem is that they are common in multiplayer games. Most multiplayer games involve some sort of competition between players. People play games to 'win', and to feel good about it. Now most multiplayer games I saw which have MT end up letting people who buy MT get a huge advantage. Then its not fun for the other players, because you can just buy victory.
Now some games DO keep it down low or don't confer that much of an advantage (TF2 comes to mind), however in the end you need to dangle something in front of the donkey to make it move, and if its a bonus you can only buy, then it'll be popular.
The sad part is that pretty much all the online games I ever played went like this:
Donation -> Basic cosmetic MT -> "Equal to skill" MT -> Overpowered MT -> Seriously if you're not buying you're going to suck -> Game dies.
You mean to tell me that selling stuff is neither inherently moral nor inherently immoral but it can be used for either purpose?
No fucking way...
Ensure your own bankruptcy
Leave the $70 monocle alone!
LEAVE IT ALONE!
*Emoweep*
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Well, except that it's wholly voluntary. I don't see a problem with it really, though I usually choose not to get in to things utilizing that model. With the genuinely nasty drugs, otoh, the seller leverages your addiction... where the buyer has less of a choice in the matter.
In short, Zynga can do whatever they want. I simply choose not to play their shitty games or give them any money. Same for console DLC that doesn't deliver significant value in addition to what I already bought.
I'm one of those luddites whose cell phones makes phone calls, and I'm antisocial, so I'm kind of behind the curve here. Zynga's the guys behind Farmville, right? How do microtransactions come into it?
Are they basically trying to rent you the game by the minute? Or is it that they're trying to actually sell you in-game stuff with real money? I've never understood the point of their games. It's no worse than Solitaire in terms of pointlessness, I suppose, but I'm not exactly excited about Solitaire.
When applied to a moral actor, there is no practical difference between amoral and immoral. A person who chooses their actions without concern as to whether or not they are moral (an amoral person), is unlikely to behave significantly better than a person who conciously chooses immoral actions.
However, when applied to actual actions, there is a world of difference between amoral and immoral. An immoral action is always morally wrong, no matter what the context. An amoral action is neither morally right nor morally wrong, in and of itself. Whether an amoral actions is morally wrong or morally right is determined by the context in which the action is taken.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Corporations may have to work to maximise profits,
They mostly don't even have to do that, if that's not what their shareholders want. Even in purely economic terms, some shareholders want growth over profit. Some want to stay in a particular location rather than make more money offshore. Some want to address social or environmental concerns. Corporations have to look after the interests of their owners, but that doesn't mean the owner's interests are always "maximize profit".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Ahh, that explains everything in an easy to understand, nerd approved format. I approve.
You didn't really expect that to help, did you?
(+1, Disagree)
technology can be used for good or evil...
moving on...
I hated when they brought "micro-transaction" to Everquest. I wouldn't mind paying a dollar here or 50 cents there... but they offered $10 items from day one... and the prices only went higher. Sure, there were deals, promotions, and the like, but I resented it.
And then I learned that the EQ engine is SO old and cobbled together that they would need extra revenue to justify the expense of creating newer prettier items. I began to accept it then, but would only actively participate in their micro-transaction system when there were charity drives.
They really could have suckered me into emptying out my wallet, in retrospect, had they just asked for less money.
You might be on to something... perhaps all journalism should be expressed in D&D terms.
Weather: there is a 2d6 chance of rain today...
Traffic: looks like a car had an unfortunate random encounter with tractor trailer on the...
Sports: X clearly has an advantage in Strength, but Y has a full three points higher Dexterity, which...
The possibilities are limitless!
think of it this way.
immoral - "bad"
amoral - don't give a shit.
I don't have an inherent problem with games that feature microtransactions. Provided, however, that the core game is free and that the game isn't specifically designed to be so tedious as to require those purchases to make the game playable.
I personally can't stand games with microtransactions. That's why I don't play them. I don't really understand what's so difficult to figure out here... A game is not a necessity. It's not like food, insurance or fossil fuels. Don't like it, don't play the damn game. If everyone followed this mantra microtransactions would go away. But a lot of people obviously don't care or are not principled enough to do something about it. So it gets forced on the rest of us, who evidently are in the minority.
It is safe to say that botulism doesn't have an opinion. However, it can be used for either evil (infecting people) or good (genetics research, developing cures). That is what "amoral" means.
You could make a hotel where everything cost a tiny bit of money but the average expenditure for the basics added up to the average cost of a room. You could then charge for things like: taking a shower, having hot water in the shower, access to toiletries, access to towels, heating the room at night, watching TV, etc. You could do this with some kind of swipe card system. Would people enjoy staying in a hotel like that? Probably not.
Apparently some Retirement homes work that way in this country. Just wanted to point that out.
Reducing any moral problem to just whether making money is right or wrong, is, sad to say, bullshit. In fact if that's the only thing that you see relevant in such a discussion, congrats, you might be a sociopath. You may have a successful career in upper management ahead of you.
While nobody says that making money itself is immoral, certain ways of making them ARE. E.g., if you found out that your mayor or the local judge makes some extra money by taking bribes, well, I don't know about you personally, but most people would file that under "immoral."
But generally we have a long tradition of frowning against basically offering to bend the rules in exchange for money. Whether it's in politics or sports or whatever.
If the Superbowl involved officially letting teams pay for the privilege of punching opposite team members, or to get an extra kick at the opposing goal, most people probably wouldn't bother even watching just to see which team spent more money on unfair advantages. Most would also consider it fundamentally contrary to the spirit of sportsmanship or competition.
Ditto if, dunno, the boxing championships started auctioning the right to have a horseshoe in the glove, or if baseball championships started auctioning the right to use a tennis racquet instead of a bat, or if the Olympics started being ok with steroids as long as you buy them from the organizers. At some point any semblance of "may the best sportsman win" becomes "may the guy with the most disposable cash win", and it becomes just a meaningless competition to be the most financially irresponsible loser.
You'll notice that the above are direct equivalents of most micro-transaction schemes in most games. What once at least had some semblance of reflecting relative skill or effort or even just time invested, is becoming a competition in who's insecure enough to blow $1000 on overpowered equipment to finally feel secure to curb-stomp a newbie half his level. And there is no fundamental difference between paying to be allowed to use racquets instead of bats in baseball, vs paying for the Legendary Sword Of Newbie Slaying +9 to use in PvP, or vs blowing some money on whatever else to top some PvE charts either.
So, no, not many of us will frown at making money, but at the way you make them. And if more and more competitions and achievements become rigged to milk money from whoever wants to pay for unfair advantages, don't be surprised if most people don't exactly take that as a positive development.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well, except that it's wholly voluntary. I don't see a problem with it really, though I usually choose not to get in to things utilizing that model. With the genuinely nasty drugs, otoh, the seller leverages your addiction... where the buyer has less of a choice in the matter.
Is there any adult person who doesn't realize things like crack and heroin are addictive? I consider that voluntary too. You choose to put yourself into a position where you have a weakness that can so easily be leveraged. It really gets old watching people play the victim when they do things like this. You really don't want the kind of society and government they would create. Openly stated evil is much easier to recognize and correct than misguided good intentions.
From the summary:
The negative reputation these systems have comes from factors that are tuned to maximize profit and abuse players for their money. But that's not an inherent trait in the system; you could just as easily use it to ensure your own bankruptcy!
You could say that the formation of plutocracies and the concentration of wealth and political influence is not an inherent trait in the system of unregulated or poorly regulated (think: regulatory capture) capitalism. But left unchecked this is exactly what tends to happen. It's repeatable.
... do companies that abuse their customers worry and live in fear of drastic severe boycotts from masses of people who just aren't going to take it? No, instead the "consumers" (a degrading term) find that it isn't perfectly convenient to maintain a boycott, that they might have to actually go a few days or weeks without some frivolous luxury they don't really need, that no one else is doing it anyway, etc. So companies do more or less whatever they want knowing that people will continue doing business with them.
The problem with microtransactions in games is they provide so many different ways to milk the customers. There are many more opportunities to do that with this arrangement than there would be with a flat monthly fee.
The question then is how much faith you have in average people to immediately abandon the game, in droves, the moment it starts becoming abusive. That's what you would need, for the first undeniable sign of abuse to be suddenly and severely punished. Otherwise it becomes entrenched and it becomes like government's game of incrementing by tiny little baby steps, each one justified and excused by various mouthpieces.
To continue the analogy to offline commerce
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I might actually tune the news in instead of tuning it out if it was done in that manner.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Amoral:
amoral/môrl/
Adjective: Lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.
Immoral:
immoral/imôrl/
Adjective: Not conforming to accepted standards of morality.
What exactly am I missing here?
The difference is that one of them (amoral) refers to a lack of interest in the other (namely the question whether a particular act is moral or not).
It seems though that the original poster is using the word amoral in an extremely non-standard way. I think he is trying to say that providing for in-game transactions is not in and of itself moral or immoral. In other words, the concept is morally neutral.
In standard usage of the word in-game transactions would not be described as amoral because they are not reasoning beings able to consider moral questions.
Describing an act as amoral also implies that there is a plausible moral question which the actor has ignored. The behavior of James Bond is amoral because he goes around violating behavior norms without once asking whether his actions are proper.
Botulism isn't capable of abstract thought.
Well, except that it's wholly voluntary.
So's drug dealing.
1. I think you are talking about publicly traded corporations. There are also a lot of large Private corporations, that are not covered by such regulation.
2. The rule is in general to show that they are maximizing share holder equity. Or in general if the company goes down the tubes the share holders who have invested their money will get something back. Vs. Running the company with no profit and the investors (who are also anyone who owns stock including average Joe who has a work retirement plan) will be screwed if there is a problem.
3. Companies are not out to abuse their customers. However anyone who has ran a business or has worked with with a small company or is in a high enough position to deal with the Higher Ups know running a company cost more then most people think. Cutting a penny is a big improvement. And you have competition too so you need to keep your prices high enough for you to continue and grow low enough to be on par with your other customers.
The problem is that people don't really know this type of stuff and they push for laws that will hurt the good guys worse then the bad guys.
Raise the taxes on the rich. Well the rich have resources to move money around to make the government see them as poor, so they get away tax free, or if they do pay more taxes then they have the governments ear, as they pay more they will get more. No matter how much democracy goes on. If you pay the government 10 million dollars a year, vs. average Joe who pays $4k. Your opinions will get the ear.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
@0123456 & @MightyYar
I can't believe people still try to argue this point. Here's your citations:
General Rule: Fiduciary Duties owed to Corporation and Shareholders Directors of financially healthy corporations owe fiduciary duties to the corporation itself and its shareholders. See, e.g., Revlon v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., 506 A.2d 173, 179 (Del. 1986). Courts have generally held that directors of such corporations do not owe fiduciary duties to other constituencies, such as creditors, whose rights are purely contractual. See, e.g., Katz v. Oak Indus., 508 A.2d 873, 879 (Del. Ch. 1986). Some states have adopted “other constituencies” statutes which permit directors to consider the interests of non-shareholder constituencies, including creditors, in making corporate decisions. In general, however, these statutes are permissive5 and do not appear to create new fiduciary obligations for directors but merely allow them to consider other constituencies as a factor in determining the best interests of the shareholders; directors of a solvent corporation who favor another constituency over its shareholders may violate their duty of loyalty.
and
CORPORATIONS ACT 2001 - SECT 53 (a) the promotion, formation, membership, control, business, trading, transactions and dealings (whether alone or jointly with any other person or persons and including transactions and dealings as agent, bailee or trustee), property (whether held alone or jointly with any other person or persons and including property held as agent, bailee or trustee), liabilities (including liabilities owed jointly with any other person or persons and liabilities as trustee), profits and other income, receipts, losses, outgoings and expenditure of the body; and
At this point, I'm tired of searching legalese just to prove my point. If you care, you can Google more. Really, you don't have to look any farther than recent events involving GE's international tax evasion strategy (many other companies as well), BP cutting corners leading to plant explosions and multiple major oil leaks, all the patent trolls, the mobile patent wars in general; the list goes on and on. You'd have to have your head in the sand and/or be a Randian libertarian to miss it.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
So essentially, making money is immoral?
Making money, just by itself, is not. However, the ways in which you make money definitely can be. If you are grossly overcharging in the face of no competition, then that is immoral. If you are charging outrageous amounts of interest (usury), then that is immoral.
Microtransactions by themselves are not good or bad. It's how they are used. If you offer some small bits of content, that don't completely alter the way the game is played or balanced, then that's fine. Even things like offering new maps is fine. However, if you use microtransactions for things that completely alter the balance of the game, and essentially allow someone to pay to win, then that is immoral.
moral:
if (option1.morality > option2.morality) choose(option1); else choose(option2);
immoral:
if(option1.morality > option2.morality) choose(option2); else choose(option1);
amoral:
choose(option1);
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Corporations have to look after the interests of their owners, but that doesn't mean the owner's interests are always "maximize profit".
The cases you mentioned are extremely rare. The biggest shareholders in general are banks, hedge funds, and pension funds. They want maximum profit, period. And they hold several dozen orders of magnitude more shares than anyone after what you mentioned.
A person who chooses their actions without concern as to whether or not they are moral (an amoral person), is unlikely to behave significantly better than a person who conciously chooses immoral actions.
I doubt there are very many people that choose an immoral action BECAUSE it is immoral. Most immoral actions comes from a combination of amorality (don't care about the moral implications) and greed, anger, laziness, etc. (some characteristic that makes the immoral action more attractive). Example: most people steal b/c they want something and don't care that stealing is immoral. They don't go out and steal specifically in order to be performing an immoral act. There are certainly exceptions to this, but I think it is true of the general masses.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
The fact that those laws aren't enforced means that they are free to abuse customers all they want, in the name of maximizing profit.
Twenty years ago, this was a major paradigm in PC gaming. You get the introductory set of levels free, you get the rest when you cough up the dough.
What happened? Why is this paradigm now evil?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
If I do not insert money, I play an extra, a mobile, player controlled target for someone who did.
In a 1 paid hero vs. 100 free mooks situation, you and your free teammates need to think like Tucker's guerrilla kobolds.
In MMOs, it's really annoying when they actually lock content.
What that means is that if you want to play a certain area with your friends and one of you doesn't own that area, he will be left out unless he buys it.
Makes a game become the lowest common denominator.
Aka, boring.
So where does that show:
What they are failing to take into account is that corporations, by law, have to abuse people for profit
Ah, it doesn't, does it?
Are you seriously claiming that there's a law requiring BP to cause oil leaks?
Sure, there isn't even a real moral dilemma-- people can choose which games they play, and there is practically an infinite supply of them. -- But:It's lame if the rich kids get to "own" the fantasy worlds of games. It's not like they don't have enough shiny toys IRL. Micropayments just create an uncomfortable tie-in between real life and games, removing the "magic" from it. Games are actually a bastion of fairness and equal opportunity in a world that seems less than fair to some people.
The fact that those laws aren't enforced means that they are free to abuse customers all they want, in the name of maximizing profit.
The original quote claimed that there's a law forcing companies to abuse customers, not that some companies will do so in the belief that it will increase profits. The government is apparently holding a gun to their heads saying 'YOU WILL ABUSE YOUR CUSTOMERS OR ELSE!'
Except no-one has actually managed to show such a law because it doesn't exist.
Agnostic vs Atheist. Same idea.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Eh, it doesn't bother me. If anything, I like the current trend towards Free to Play in MMO's supplemented with a cash store. If a game is horribly crippled without a cash purchase, I delete the game and move on. If it's worth playing and I enjoy the game, I have no problem throwing a few dollars at it if it results in the game being more enjoyable to me.
Case in point, Lord of the Rings: Online. It was a cool game, I played the beta years ago, but it just wasn't worth $15 a month to me. They moved to Free to Play with a cash store and I started playing again and ended up giving them about $25 over the course of the 6 months I played, and my account is still sitting there with all my mules if I ever do decide to play again. Champion's Online was worth a good 3 months of entertainment and I never spent a dime on that. I've been playing Global Agenda: Free Agent for a couple months, haven't spent a dime on that, either. I'm willing to give almost any Free to Play game a chance, and if it's worth spending money on, I will.
Now, DLC is a different story, as people are already buying a game up front for a hefty sum ($60 usually, even more in Europe, they seriously get ripped off) and all it does is encourage developers to release 2/3 of a game for full price now and then charge another $10-$15 to put the missing content back in. Modern Warfare 2, for instance, shipped with the first DLC content on the disc itself on launch, a month down the road you paid your $10 and they unlocked it for you. That is fucking bullshit. The way the number of included tracks declined with each subsequent Guitar Hero/Rock Band release after GHIII was more evidence of shady rip-off behavior which is why I stopped buying the games. I'm not a fan of the direction that console games are going as far as that goes, nor am I a fan of the way Steam is applying that console model to the PC.
But in itself I don't have a problem with microtransactions, I have a problem when it's misapplied or used nefariously by allowing people to play most of the game but then slamming down a content wall without warning. In the end, you just have to do your research before you hand over your money. Complaining about it after the fact does next to nothing, and the publishers of these games know that.
Chaotic Neutral
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Extra Credit is a great show about games and their development. I'm into game development myself and please, everyone who is too do as I - watch their shows. Think about what they have to say.
They also got a video about microtransactions and one about the skinner box. They don't talk about moral though. So here for those interested in the topic but to lazy to RTFA. Its a video, just lean back and watch. Kinda entertaining as well.
Their video's are currently hard to find because they got apart from their old home "the escapist" and the videos there all just 404.
My favourite to date is Age of Empires Online. Shows you all this "great" content you're missing (forcing some of it to stay in your few inventory slots) and tells you exactly which thing you need to buy to "unlock" it. Better yet, they create achievements which require the purchase of this content to provide further "incentive" to purchase.
When looking at the content provided vs previous AoEs, AoE:O will actually cost about $400 for the same content and all the content will disappear once the servers are shut off (game requires an always online connection and is an RTS with a persistent city which is nothing more than window dressing). Previously you could pop in your disc and play any time.
$eason Passes are my personal favourite in the latest m*cro-transaction world where it's a fixed price for 6 months of content that's yours forever! (forever meaning until they shut off the servers a few years from now). They give a % of savings associated with it - unfortunately they can pretty much release anything they want and put any price on it to fulfill that obligation. Announced content could be delayed and replaced with anything they deem appropriate.
How there aren't consumer protection laws against this sort of thing I'll never understand.
Micro-transactions are bad.
I'm not talking about bad in the moral sense, rather, bad in the efficiency sense.
There's a cost associated with every transaction.
That cost includes the cost of deciding to make the transaction.
More transactions, more cost of deciding.
To put it another way, the smaller the cost of the other things, the greater the percentage cost of making the decision to pay.
-- ABH
I was aware of this. I was using that comparison to explain that while there is no practical difference between describing someone as an immoral person and describing them as an amoral person, there is indeed a difference between describing an act as immoral and describing it as amoral.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
A person who chooses their actions without concern as to whether or not they are moral (an amoral person), is unlikely to behave significantly better than a person who conciously chooses immoral actions.
If one interprets Morality as done for the right reasons without sound ethical argument, then you are flat out wrong. One extracts much more material benefit from others by treating them well than they do from a one time robbery. Very rarely does one go down an unethical path and prosper, long term. I do nothing out of morality, as I define it, because I believe the right (ethically) are the correct actions (logically beneficial). I am amoral, however I would contend that I behave significantly better than the Jimmy Swaggarts and Jerry Falwells of this world.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
Here is an analogy of OP
CHAR != INT
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I was referring to the buying part. There are lots of reasons people turn to addictive drugs, even beside addiction itself. Drug dealers prey on serious physiological and mental weaknesses. I don't think that's really the case with people that make video games, aside from capitalizing on people with mild impulse control problems... but you could say the same of someone that makes cupcakes.
The idea that they're the same seems absurd to me.
God dammit... anyone else remember when we could get on with the discussion instead of wasting dozens of posts on the meanings of dictionary words?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Is there any adult person who doesn't realize things like crack and heroin are addictive? I consider that voluntary too.
Well, there's your first and second problem with this theory. Not everyone that uses drugs is an adult, nor are they usually properly functioning, healthy individuals capable of good decision making. There in-lies the whole business model. Not the same as offering to sell you a $1 hat in a game because you like the color pink.
You could say that the formation of plutocracies and the concentration of wealth and political influence is not an inherent trait in the system of unregulated or poorly regulated (think: regulatory capture) capitalism. [blah, blah blah]
It's farmville, dude.
The problem with microtransactions in games is they provide so many different ways to milk the customers. There are many more opportunities to do that with this arrangement than there would be with a flat monthly fee.
How does any of this have anything to do with what we're talking about? I still don't think microtransactions in shitty games are the same as dealing drugs.
Etc, etc, etc, etc.
You grow two brain cells and don't put all the money that you own into a stupid game?
If, as a result, you do get bankrupt, can't buy perty clothes and nobody wants to mate with you? I'd say let evolution sort 'em out... That way the problem will take care of its own...
Hell... the avarage IQ will go up. I bet we're totaly screwed if that happens...
Here be signatures
Micro-transactions are a tool, a method of payment.
Can we reasonably assign a moral value to something that can be used for either good or evil?
Well, yes we can. In fact, the courts have already done just that when they ruled against Napster, and in favor of video taping.
We look at what the tool is primarily used for, and what other uses it has.
The thing about micro-transactions is that they work on scale which humans have difficulty making rational decision in.
Deciding if, for example, 1/10 of cent is a good price for a piece of paper is not something easy to do.
Slashdot readers are more likely than most to get it right, but that's beside the point. The point is that many humans get it wrong.
And getting it wrong is where most of the money is being made in micro-transaction.
In other words, the primary reason micro-transactions are viewed favorably by business and unfavorably by their customers is because people end up spending a lot more money than they would have if they were better at making decisions on such a small scale.
The primary reason businesses like micro-transactions is because they cause people to make mistakes.
It's like putting a 1 silver item in the auction house for a thousand gold, hoping that someone will accidentally buy it because of the crappy AH interface.
-- ABH
I was referring to the buying part. There are lots of reasons people turn to addictive drugs, even beside addiction itself. Drug dealers prey on serious physiological and mental weaknesses.
You only feel that way because those drugs are illegal, therefore only those willing to become branded as "criminals" use them. The only ones you know about are the ones who either get caught or have to do crazy things to feed their addiction. The responsible drug users look just like people who don't do drugs at all. You won't see them high in public for the same reason you won't see a responsible drinker drunk in public.
Lots of people are addicted to alcohol; we call them alcoholics. This doesn't mean you and I couldn't responsibly enjoy a beer and get on with our lives. The important question then is what makes one person use these things responsibly while the other cannot be trusted with them?
I don't think that's really the case with people that make video games, aside from capitalizing on people with mild impulse control problems... but you could say the same of someone that makes cupcakes.
I tend to look at the problem/weakness instead of the temptation it creates to exploit it. If I really think Microsoft makes terrible products, for example, then I don't blame Microsoft for that, I blame a market that so greatly rewards terrible products. With a market like that it's only a matter of time until someone meets that demand. You have to identify which is the cart and which is the horse.
The fact is, being a responsible adult who is not impulsive or hyper-emotional or reactive, who is not easily diverted from one's goals, just isn't cool anymore. The only people still doing it are those who never gave a damn about how trendy or popular something is. They have always been a minority. The rest think they can instantly gratify every possible little desire they will ever have and can't comprehend the disappointment they are building. In the meantime, plenty of companies will make lots of money promising instant satisfaction by saying you can have this frivolous thing and you can have it RIGHT FUCKING NOW. This is nothing new.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
accepted standards of morality
The Romans already knew that there really was no point arguing about subjective things. Yet here we are 2000 years later doing the same damned thing.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Sophomoric philosophy is still sophomoric when spouted by a game designer.
Microtransaction systems are morally wrong? Who even suggested such a thing? It's like suggesting a hammer is morally wrong, or the idea of barter is morally wrong.
My goodness, I guess when I wasn't looking, computer games became "srs bznss"?
-Styopa
So, if I interpret things your way, I am wrong. Of course, since I don't do that, I am not. I interpret that someone who chooses to behave morally is not amoral. Furthermore, I would contend that Jimmy Swaggart was not a moral actor, at best, he was an amoral actor (I use the past tense because I have heard nothing about him in several years and therefore have no opinion of his current behavior). I do not reference the morality of Jerry Falwell because there were things I "knew" about his actions that reflected badly on him that I later learned were false. At this point, I do not have first hand knowledge of any immoral behavior on the part of Jerry Falwell and because of my experience with other "knowledge" i had of him turning out to be false, I no longer make any judgement about his morality one way or the other. You claim that you behave morally, therefore you are not an amoral person. The reasons for choosing moral action does not matter as to whether or not that action is moral.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
What about outside of gaming? For example I have an iPhone calculator app, Perpenso Calc, that includes scientific functionality, metric conversions, rpn, etc. However specialized functionality - statistics, business and hex - is made available through in app purchases. I thought putting the functionality of handheld scientific, business and hex calculators into a single app was more convenient than having separate apps. I also thought a single and higher bundled price would be disadvantageous. In app purchases seem to handle tailoring functionality for needs quite well. I'm interested in hearing opinions on what people think of this approach.
Back to games. For a gaming related app I would consider in app purchases for very high level things. For example the base game would only include single player functionality. Multiplayer functionality could be unlocked using an in app purchase. This keeps the base price of the game down, and from past experience with very popular single/multi-player games it was noticed that only have of the units sold ever connect to a game server. Again, price being tailored for desired functionality. Any opinions?
Thanks in advance for any opinions or insights.
Well, there's your first and second problem with this theory.
The problem with yours is that drugs are here to stay and planned, coordinated, well-funded large-scale efforts to eradicate them measure their progress in terms of reducing their growth. Since they aren't going away we need a different plan. What do you do with a situation you cannot stop? You find responsible ways to manage it instead.
Not everyone that uses drugs is an adult
For that reason the legal drug, alcohol, is age-restricted. Do those who are underage still obtain and consume it? You bet. There is not and has never been a substitute for actually being a parent. This again is nothing new. What's really amusing is that for those under 21, illegal drugs are actually easier to obtain than alcohol because dealers only care about cash. There is no ID check to circumvent.
nor are they usually properly functioning, healthy individuals capable of good decision making.
That's a rare creature in any arena. Lots of people who fail that description vote, drive, form strong opinions about things they don't understand, etc. That they might also do drugs is no surprise to any realist. This fact means it is useless to talk about whether people do drugs. But it is useful to talk about which model of use we should encourage.
It's farmville, dude.
Have you ever heard the saying (dating back to ancient Hermetic thought), "as above, so below"? Or the notion of a fractal self-similar universe, if you like the abstract method? These games of ours are so often microcosms of more significant real-life patterns. That's the point.
How does any of this have anything to do with what we're talking about? I still don't think microtransactions in shitty games are the same as dealing drugs.
You should ask that question to the person who brought up drugs. I will offer my best guess as to how it came into the discussion.
Spending money on a pink hat for your character in an MMO is a frivolous vanity purchase of something you don't really need. You could characterize casual drug use the same way. I believe that's why the comparison was made.
Just as the more stupid drug users get addicted and find themselves at a disadvantage compared to the dealer, people in online games often feel a need to belong and feel part of a crowd. I'll probably catch flak for this but I'll go ahead and say that the dumber, more naive, less-wise sort of person is the one who cares about following a crowd more than they care about being an individual and remaining true to themselves.
The point is they have a reason other than genuine need or utility to purchase something. When everyone else has their little useless vanity items it creates pressure on those who don't. It makes them stand out. It is a powerful drive not to be underestimated. The only real winner here is the gaming company. They get to extract real wealth (legal tender) in exchange for something of little or no intrinsic value. That's a nice racket if you can get it, but most of the rest of us have to perform useful work to get our living.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
accepted standards of morality
The Romans already knew that there really was no point arguing about subjective things. Yet here we are 2000 years later doing the same damned thing.
Tell me about it. I almost wish our species had some kind of ancestral memory that was an easily-accessible part of our everyday waking consciousness. Then maybe, just maybe we could actually learn from the past instead of repeating the same mistakes and the same useless tendencies.
Of course the only bad thing is, you'd have no privacy at all. At least not from your offspring. They'd know all about that dishonest thing you did 3 years before they were born. It'd be interesting, to say the least.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
My point is that I don't choose my actions based on morality at all, therefore I am amoral. I don't believe in any moral values, I believe in intrinsic value. The social contract benefits all, those who break it benefit least. I don't know one good thing about Falwell, and I don't live far from Lynchburg.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
The point remains though that the corporations are not remotely required "by law" to maximize profits.
At corporation does what their OWNERS want them to do.
While it may be true that most owners want to maximize profits there is no law anywhere to the effect that this must be the case.
In a few games, yes, they're cosmetic or offer negligible advantages. E.g., the jet pack in COH is fully equivalent to something you can buy in game from level 1 for 10,000 inf (think about the equivalent of 10,000 copper coins in WoW) and will last you longer, so, yeah, not much of an advantage.
In others it can get even more extreme than my analogies.
E.g., I remember a web game based on Battletech where
A) fights were at best limited by tonnage, not by points, and you could even spend on blowing that limit in an invasion,
and
B) with enough RL cash you could actually do crap like bring Level 2 or even Level 3 mechs against the Level 1 mechs everyone else was limited to. And if you're not a guru at Battletech, by "level", I mean basically sorta generation, with each being vastly superior per ton to the previous. At the same tonnage, a L3 will curb-stomp any L1. In the board game they're limited by also being worth more points, but, see above, in this game that was removed.
So, yes, for all practical purposes, you could pay to have the equivalent of a spiked steel gauntlet in a boxing match. In fact, you could even splurge a little extra and pay to have a couple more guys with you punching the opponent. It's not just a loaded analogy, you could literally pay to be as disproportionately more powerful as you wanted, if you had enough disposable cash. Rumour had it that the top guy in that game had blown 20,000$ on being the untouchable superpower he was.
It's not even the only game like that.
E.g., in Runes Of Magic, by buying skill books and leaving your character parked at home to study them over night, you can have vastly more skill points than an equal level character who didn't do that. In WoW terms, think having twice the number of talent points of someone who didn't pay. Yep, the equivalent of that was possible.
And it's a shame, really, because ROM was one of the first MMOs which nailed a good enough substitute for WoW. Long before Rift. If it hadn't been for the blatant RL money aspect of ROM, or if they had made a server where it's all free of that crap and rebalanced to work without dumping hundreds of dollars into making your raiding character epic, I wouldn't have minded giving them $15 a month. Heck, even 20 or 30. I'm not opposed to paying for good quality and casual-gamer-friendly gameplay.
But probably they're making more from fleecing their smaller player base than that, so, oh well...
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Then how can you claim that any of your actions are moral? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim to not believe in morality and claim that you behave morally.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Perhaps you're confusing morality with ethics. Some confuse ethics with the study of morals. Morals are more often put forward as if they were facts e.g. "It's wrong to lie". Ethics is based on the logical reasoning behind those suggested facts. It's not that I don't lie because "it's wrong", it's that I don't lie because I know that people will eventually notice, and then they'll never believe me when I'm not lying. It's not that I don't steal because of any religious work, I don't steal because theft destroys interpersonal and business relationships, which are often far more valuable than any perceived immediate gain.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
I get the impression that 99.9% of the in-game 'wealth' created (for eventual real-world transactions) is generated by bots. From 3 years ago: http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-Mediated_Reality#chapter_08
"This shit is like drug dealing."
Addicts choose to be addicted. Tough shit.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"At this point, I'm tired of searching legalese just to prove my point."
Failure is exhausting.
The first says directors of a corporation must not put the interests of others before the interests of their shareholders; it places no restrictions on what the shareholders may declare to be in their interest.
The second might say something if you had quoted a complete sentence, but it doesn't look like it's headed anywhere relevant.
The cases you mentioned are extremely rare.
Nonsense. Growth companies are exceedingly common - pretty much any company that doesn't pay a dividend.
And even dividend companies are under pressure to produce steady, consistent returns. Predictability that the big institutions can use to sell their funds to people with income-centered portfolios.
True that companies like "Ben and Jerry's" were the exception when it comes to activism, but the profit/growth balance is all over the map.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The fact that the guy you replied to didn't realize the submission meant exactly what it said - microtransactions are, in and of themselves, neither good or bad. They simply are. It's how the developer uses them that determines if it's good or bad.
But people don't work that way. Once some "thing" that is not inherently "good" or "bad" has a "bad" association in someone's mind, that thing is "bad". Never mind that the next instance of "thing" that they meet may be used in a "good" manner - they've already internalized the "thing == bad" rule and will blindly apply that to every other instance of "thing" that they meet.
If anything, I like the current trend towards Free to Play in MMO's supplemented with a cash store.
Definitely. Particularly with smaller indie games, they may not have a choice but to offer the game free if they want to get anyone to try it at all. Who's going to fork over payment information, let alone commit to a monthly fee before they know anything about a company? I've got a smallish superhero MMO, and if I demanded a monthly fee to play, I simply wouldn't have any players. But a pure donation model, with no benefit to the player, also won't cut it. My only option is to have something like a microtransaction process.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
The Romans also already knew that there really was no point arguing about a couple of other issues too. Don't claim we've not advanced from there.
Content packages need not be given away for free. All the game producers have to do is maintain the servers and fix bugs. Why? Because that's the bare minimum that you can get by with and still hold onto customers. Giving away content for free at regular intervals (ala Blizzard with WoW) fosters goodwill amongst your userbase however and also helps to keep them paying to play. The way I read what you quoted, is that the developer could choose to release those content packs for free (for the same price) if they felt benevolence was the right thing to do. How this falls under microtransactions I don't know; maybe it's so small it doesn't even exist? You could also read that statement as the developer releasing a base game, then two months later adding a content pack to the base game and charging the same price for it. Existing players have to pay extra to get it, while the new players get it for 'free'. The cost offset for the existing players is that they have been enjoying the game for far longer than someone just buying the game today. It's no different than buying a game in a B&M a few months after release once the price drops, only you're paying the release price and getting additional content instead. Think 'Game of the Year' editions. Come to think of it, the second explanation for that quote makes more sense. Regardless, content need not be free, but its price can be manipulated in order to create an inflated sense of value.
Cool post bro, highfive \o
Drug dealers prey on serious physiological and mental weaknesses.
No, no they don't. Drug dealers generally like stable, middle class clients. The absolute _worst_ client for a drug dealer is someone who is penniless and desperate, because that will likely bring lots of attention to that dealer.
I've seen dealers turn away people with the money because they don't want them as clients.
Now, desperate users entering into dealership to sate their habit will often take anyone as customers. And it's these people who will hit the headlines, and it's these people who most dealers will avoid like the plague, and it's these people who will get caught.
ps. I'm a previous cocaine & plenty of other drugs user, Not vulnerable, not got any major weaknesses, just enjoyed drugs.
I'm fed up of hearing this bullshit.
The problem is with your reading of what these laws mean. The fiduciary duty of a director to his shareholders does not require him to be a cutthroat bastard who makes profits at every possible opportunity for those shareholders. Fiduciary duty, to quote the wikipedia article on the topic, simply means that the director "must not put his personal interests before the duty [to the shareholders], and must not profit from his position as a [director], unless the [shareholders] consent". The extensions to it you quote (which, incidentally, I believe may apply only in Delaware) mean that he must also not put the interests of anyone else over those of his shareholders. This is interpreted narrowly. Basically, the point of principle is this: a director may not rip off the shareholders. He must take no action that he is aware beforehand will decrease the value of the shareholder's investment. Only in unusual circumstances (e.g. the company is about to be declared bankrupt) does the duty extend to requiring him to take positive action.
(At least, from my good understanding of UK law and brief reading of the differences in US law, this is what appears to be the case. OTOH, I could be wrong. If I am, there will be cases of directors being sued for not taking positive actions in the course of regular trading to improve the value of their companies, so please point me to one.)
Really, you don't have to look any farther than recent events involving GE's international tax evasion strategy (many other companies as well), BP cutting corners leading to plant explosions and multiple major oil leaks, all the patent trolls, the mobile patent wars in general; the list goes on and on.
This is irrelevant to the point at hand. The simple fact is that the directors of these businesses are paid at least partially in ways that are related to how much profit the company makes (whether in shares or simply in performance-related bonuses) and therefore have a personal interest in improving the companies' profitability at any cost to others. I doubt their fiduciary duties ever entered their minds in making these decisions (BP, at least, is a UK registered company where the fiduciary duty I can categorically state does not extend to positive actions in most cases).
There is a skill in playing a Zynga game: remembering to come back regularly to click everything you're allowed to click once more...
If you are grossly overcharging in the face of no competition, then that is immoral.
No, if you are grossly overcharging at any time, that's immoral. That's a tautology due to the use of the terms "gross" and "immoral".
If you are charging outrageous amounts of interest (usury), then that is immoral.
Here we have a bit of help from the legal system which defines maximum limits for interest for commercial transactions, and thus "usury" isn't a tautology for "outrageous" or "immoral". However, you may consider a 25% interest rate for a loan to an extremely bad risk "outrageous"; a mathematician may realize that the 25% rate is necessary for loans to such persons in order to cover the expected losses from failures to repay, and the borrower may accept such terms because he needs the money and nobody else will loan it to him at a better rate.
However, if you use microtransactions for things that completely alter the balance of the game, and essentially allow someone to pay to win, then that is immoral.
Why? If you know ahead of time that things that will alter the balance of the game are for sale and you choose to play the game anyway, why is that sale "immoral"? It may be immoral to make such sales secretly, but if the rules are clear that you can buy what you want, how can that be immoral?
I don't understand how any reasonably intelligent person would play a game where one player can gain an advantage simply by paying more. Note this is different from games that charge a small monthly fee just to play. Myself, and everyone I know refuse to play (or admit when I asked) games with in game bonuses purchasable with real cash.
>>Is there any adult person who doesn't realize things like crack and heroin are addictive?
Sure, and microtransactions are at the point that I now actively avoid F2P microtransaction-based games. Maybe it's unfair. Maybe there's some that do microtransactions in a reasonably ethical manner.
Maybe there's some forms of crack that are totally healthy for you and cure cancer.
But it doesn't matter. The reputation of crack and microtrannies are tainted beyond redemption now.
What they are failing to take into account is that corporations, by law, have to abuse people for profit for their shareholders or face financial and/or legal consequences
That is a God damned lie told by psychopaths to excuse their inexcusable behavior. Don't enslave yourself to psychopaths by repeating it.
Corporations are bound by law to exist only when their existence is in the best interests of the public. Within that limitation (which implicitly invokes ethics), they are then duty bound to make a best effort at a reasonable profit.
Traditional retail bombards a player with inscrutable advertising, senseless review scores, and non-interactive game media, and then demands that they fork over a large portion of money for a non-returnable box which may or may not contain a game that they actually enjoy.
Back in the day, going right back upto Doom, you could download a totally free demo version of the game with a few limited levels/weapons, and if you liked it you could buy the full version. At least you knew what you were getting. Game demos have totally vanished ever since the focus shifted to consoles, so someone would obviously balk at paying $40 to $60 for a title.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
Why? If you know ahead of time that things that will alter the balance of the game are for sale and you choose to play the game anyway, why is that sale "immoral"? It may be immoral to make such sales secretly, but if the rules are clear that you can buy what you want, how can that be immoral?
Very easily, once you realize that just because you can buy something, doesn't make it right. It is completely fucking immoral, as the entire game basically breaks down into who's willing to spend the most.
Very easily, once you realize that just because you can buy something, doesn't make it right.
"It is immoral to buy things because buying things is immoral" is a tautology. And an opinion. Why is it immoral? I can grow cotton plants in my backyard, harvest, spin, weave, and sew myself a shirt. Or I can buy one. Why is buying a shirt instead of growing it myself immoral?
It is completely fucking immoral,
Yes, you said that. Why is it immoral?
as the entire game basically breaks down into who's willing to spend the most.
Ok. So I'll ask again, why is this immoral? The game was written by and belongs to someone else, so why do you think you get to define what the "good" rules are? The rules are known up-front. You know ahead of time what those rules are. If you don't like the rules, don't play. It really is that simple.
Is this a case of "I want to play that game by the rules I want to play them by, I don't care what the game authors want, and any rule I don't like is immoral?" (Ok, "unethical", but you get the idea.)