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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!'"
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10
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.
To put it in D&D terms:
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Good => Moral
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Neutral => Amoral
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Evil => Immoral
Ahh, that explains everything in an easy to understand, nerd approved format. I approve.
The basic premise for all Zynga games is something like this:
* Game is free to play
* Game lets you click on something (to buy, attack, build, whatever) once every N minutes of hours.
* After a number of days of clicking, you win some new item
* You can bypass the whole thing by simply coffing up some cash in the ingame shop.
Zynga games are really not games. They're Skinner boxes. You unlock more stuff by performing many repetitive actions (clicking different areas on the areas for 5 minutes, for example). The more repetitive actions you perform, the more pictures and widgets you unlock. Nothing of what you unlock changes the game in any significant fashion. But people keep clicking, because that's how we work. And Zynga has figured out that some people are willing to pay money to not have to click so much, and still unlock stuff. So they have many, many things that can be unlocked for just a few dollars here and there; none of which changes the game, but just lets you get stuff faster.
In essence, Zynga games ask you to pay to not play them. The author of this article argues that that's just one way of doing microtransactions, and that there are many other ways: TF2-style cosmetic changes, BF Heroes-style game-breaking changes, etc.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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!
People spend money on all kinds of things that don't result in getting something "real" in return. Many of these things do give us something intangible in return though: entertainment.
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.
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.
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.