[Release Date: January 3, 2023] When it comes to monetization in games, what do players see as misleading, unfair, or aggressive? Elena Petrovskaya asked this question to over 1000 players and organized their complaints to create a taxonomy of 35 potentially predatory monetization techniques organized under 8 different domains. There was so much here to talk about, we ended up with our first two-parter episode. So, in this episode (part 1), we go over each of these monetization tactics from unfair matches to how in-game currency can disguise real prices, to the use of aggressive advertising, and much more. Then in our next episode (part 2), we’ll explore whether these tactics are actually immoral and the potential consequences of predatory monetization on the gaming world.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: Welcome everybody we here today. Oh, sorry. Let me, for before I start uh uh
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Shlomo Sher: Petrovskaya.
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Shlomo Sher: Yes, That’s
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Shlomo Sher: Petrol sky. Okay. But you Sky Bye,
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Elena Petrovskaya: I I mess with people’s names all the time, you know. I get my name. I’ve just given up on
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Shlomo Sher: there. There’s a point where I gave up on my name and life went much better after that. Um, alright. Hello! Welcome, everybody. We’re here today with Thelena Purchasekaya. She’s a Phd researcher at the center for intelligent games and game, the intelligence
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Shlomo Sher: that is right, right, the center for a thousand games and game intelligence in the Uk. She specializes in predatory monetization and digital games and its consequences, and is particularly interested in the links of game design to gaming disorders. Uh, she uses her background in psychology and human computer interaction uh to take player centric perspective
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Shlomo Sher: uh developing knowledge bottom up and working directly with players as the primary stakeholder. So she’s looking out for players. Here um.
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Shlomo Sher: Her work spans ethics well being and the lived experience of technology in its use. Uh Elena’s work has been published in high impact venues. She’s been giving invited talks contributed to written evidence, calls of by the Uk Gate Uk Government, and engage with the public through media outlets such as the conversation I love me. The conversation
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Shlomo Sher: All right. I’ll let the Portuguese guy welcome to the show. Yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: all right. So we’re here to really talk about uh the study that you’ve done uh that really looked at um uh monetization issues. We’re going to talk about You’re calling this a predator ofonization, and we’ll talk about them. But the idea essentially is. You did a study where you were looking at monetization issues that the players you survey described as misleading, unfair, or aggressive Right?
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Shlomo Sher: I’m. Assuming these are choices that you did, you ask them Uh, what was uh give me things that you think are misleading on far aggressive.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah, that’s exactly it. So. Um! We had to figure out a way that we could conceptualize predatory for the purposes of this study, because the term itself. Well, i’m sure we’ll get into that later, but it can be quite a tricky term, and people have different understandings of it. So the angle that we took was looking specifically at consumer protection in Uk and um. So we looked at,
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Elena Petrovskaya: as far as i’m aware of one of the only two protection laws that is applicable in this context of gaming, and they focus specifically on these three terms and firmness leading and aggressive. So we structured the survey in that way. We asked, what you know, What micro transactions have you encountered that could be conceptualized as and fair as misleading? Um, And we gave them this specifically where the terms from the regulations as well, so that we had this justification for our method.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, you know it. It seems to me that a aggressive really differs from the first two Right? I mean, it’s not necessarily bad to be aggressive. Uh, it’s wrong to mislead me or to treat me unfairly. But uh,
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Shlomo Sher: what does it mean to be aggressive at this context? Uh: So we’re talking about micro transactions. What are we talking about? And how is it also supposed to be bad. A bad way to treat players if you’re treating them aggressively.
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Elena Petrovskaya: I’m just curious, actually, before I give you my answer, why do you not think that aggressive is bad, because to me, aggressive in itself, as a word, has quite negative connotations, because it implies the use of force in a way which may influence the other person’s behavior.
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Shlomo Sher: Um, yeah, Interesting um
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Shlomo Sher: to me. Aggressive doesn’t necessarily imply It’s interesting. It It seems to imply the use of force. But i’m thinking about how a game could be aggressive. Um, And i’m thinking about, Let’s say a game like American football, where aggression could be part of the game.
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Shlomo Sher: Um. And
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Shlomo Sher: yeah to me, aggression in a game context can be fun,
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Shlomo Sher: you know. But that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate and fun in other contexts, too. So when we thinking of aggressive marketing, for example, Right? Um a lot of times. So what what comes to my mind is, for example, marketing that’s really in your face
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Shlomo Sher: now is in your face the same thing as forcing you.
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Shlomo Sher: That depends, maybe, on the context. And i’m not saying, and i’m not taking a position on it, you know. I’m I’m not really sure what I think about uh about the aggressiveness. But that’s why that’s why I asked. But the assumption is that aggressive marketing is bad marketing. Is that the idea or aggressive monetization is
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Shlomo Sher: a bad amount of monetization.
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Elena Petrovskaya: So actually, yeah, interestingly like that’s maybe the distinction is, you see, said aggression within a game context might be good. It might be fun. I think this
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Elena Petrovskaya: this definition here is when we’re looking at the game itself, or elements of design relating to the game are aggressive towards the play, which then becomes a different dynamic.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Um, because the play it might just be trying to play the game, whether or not it’s single thing or multiplayer, and they’re experiencing these pressures from the game environment itself. Um, I think yeah, China, back to what we’re talking about with aggressive marketing. That is one of the forms of promoting monetization. We found aggressive advertising where it’s players described it as being harassed by these adverts when they were trying to make their way through these through the game, and they’re just constantly seeing these ads popping up, and it was just interfere with that gaming experience to the point where they
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Elena Petrovskaya: felt like actively uncomfortable by this advertising um. But ultimately this will again ties back to the wording from these regulations that we based this on, and the exact definition is an aggressive tactic as well, which significantly, in pairs
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Elena Petrovskaya: the average consumers freedom of choice uh, through these of harassment, coercion, or undue influence, and may force them to make a transaction decision they would not make otherwise. So again, it’s. It’s about these ideas of harassment and pressure and coercion like they feel always bullied into making these purchases
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A Ashcraft: Right? That’s interesting in the in the context of advertising, which is specifically designed to persuade and coerce. Right? Yeah, Because the idea, if it works, then it’s illegal.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Hmm.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Well, good good advertising, I think, works in A. It’s an interesting question, because, you know, like, where is the line? But good advertising makes you think that you want to do something rather than like almost bullying you into doing this thing. I think if you
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Elena Petrovskaya: yeah, you still have the freedom of choice. Ultimately, you know, if you see, like a really good advert, and it’s really highlighted the qualities of this thing, and you really want to buy it. That’s at the end of the day. No one’s like interfering with your experience of watching Tv and cost like, Let me just. But the best advertising just tells me that something’s available.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, Some people have argued that any advertising that is not just informational the way you you put it. Andy right is manipulative, right? So most ads focus mostly on emotion, Right? Uh, you know, rather than information.
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Shlomo Sher: Right? Um. And uh, you know, because of that, Some people have said that all advertising is is manipulative uh that doesn’t just give you the straightforward information. Um! The most people don’t take that kind of situation, right? It. The situation is more complicated, You know you’re watching an ad. You know there’s a certain there are contextual elements involved here, but I think it’s really interesting. How uh the Government? Um, The uh the Uk Government specifically defined, aggressive in this way.
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Shlomo Sher: So let’s let’s use. Let’s use it the way that uh that they defined it, uh, which really makes sense as coercive.
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Shlomo Sher: I’m not. You know. I’m not sure I would. I would agree with that particular definition, but it makes sense that if that’s what they want to highlight right? Coercion a fair like You’re You’re unfair like you’re being forced to do something. Okay, So let’s let’s think about that as we keep going and look at these micro transaction. Um
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types.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Sorry. Can I just add one more thing. I think um is so. Someone mentioned expectations earlier and like. I think that’s partly what this whole framework is actually based on is player expectations from the the,
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Elena Petrovskaya: from what from the game, from the game they experience. If they expectations to involve this type of advertising, then they might see it as aggressive; whereas in other contexts you might expect advertising, and therefore it’s fine, So that might be one thing to think about as to how we differentiate between the two, and we might also think of different games right? So you know where you might accept some sort of monetization scheme and a free to play game you might not in, you know, in your
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Shlomo Sher: you know, e a battlefront, too.
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Shlomo Sher: Right? Um: So yeah, those those contexts, I think also really really matter. All right, so can’t wait to get in these. But before we do uh so
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Shlomo Sher: you can. You took all these complaints and you categorize them, and you made this incredibly incredibly useful taxonomy right of uh, you know. Um Andy is showing it in the video. If you’re watching it in the video, we kind of put this taxonomy up there but uh into
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Shlomo Sher: thirty-five different issues categorize under eight different domains. Um! Can we go? Oh, I mean thirty-five different issues is a lot. But can we
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Shlomo Sher: but can we go over each domain to get an idea of the sort of things that we’re talking about.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Sure, uh! Do you want me to let you just run through them?
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Shlomo Sher: Uh what? Why, don’t you introduce them to us?
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Elena Petrovskaya: Okay, Yeah. So first we have um game dynamics designed to drive spending, which may seem like quite a nebulous concept. But you gotta remember that these this is based on what the play is perceived to be distinct categories, and that refers to situations where players literally feel like the whole game, the game environment. And
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Elena Petrovskaya: you know the game mechanics and dynamics, and where you do things evolve over time into into trying to.
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Elena Petrovskaya: They engage players with spending money on the game rather than for a progressively good player experience
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Shlomo Sher: that we have. So can you give us a a couple of examples from uh, from that one from that category.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Sure. So um, So the most prominent from that category are so. We have. First, we have pale grind, which is where the game essentially offers the favorite choice between either playing to achieve a certain objective for what some may consider to be an overly long length of time, or alternatively, they can spend an amount of money and skip this granting period, and just achieve this objective by doing so.
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Elena Petrovskaya: And then another example could be Pay, wait, and that’s things like energy. Time is, for example, in things like candy crash, where you maybe have, like a certain amount of goes on a level, and then, if you run out goes you can either wait like twenty-four hours, or you can pay, and you can keep playing there. And then,
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, yeah, And I can add, I can add to this category that um in the industry.
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A Ashcraft: Um, there there is a philosophy, and it seems true on its face that that if you’re going to build, you know this, if this is what you’re going to monetize your game. Um, you have to build your game from the ground up this way
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A Ashcraft: like this is a core principle for the game design.
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A Ashcraft: Okay, all right. And I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s true, necessarily true or not, but it seems like it seems like something that you would. As a game designer, you’d be like, Oh, right! This is an important. This is part of the business model. I need to build this in
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Shlomo Sher: right. So you you build a game around that business model, right. We would like you any idea, right? Right?
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Shlomo Sher: Really, really quick to to add uh other things in there, because it’s interesting, because pay a grind or pay a weight or things that I think everybody’s familiar with. Uh. The third thing you have in there I got to ask is the nerve cycle, because I have no idea what the nerve cycle is. What is the nerve cycle?
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah. So the life cycle Um, us plays described. It was when you might buy like an item in the game which is meant to be really high powered, or like a new character, or, you know, something like that. And then in the next game. Update this item or characters rendered essentially worthless, and as a new character or item that becomes the top of the food chain. And you. If you want to stay on the same level, you have to, then buy this new thing as well. So this is essentially just buying these hyp out things that are no longer high pound after quite a short amount.
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Okay,
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A Ashcraft: Okay, this can happen slowly, too. There’s a uh, now that I understand uh more hammer, which is a tabletop. Game, is frequently uh accused of of this sort of inflation, right? Or they they’re not, is, since it’s a tabletop game. They can’t go and and
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A Ashcraft: and, you know, give you an update and and lower the the values of of things. But what they can do is the new thing is just slightly about more powerful
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A Ashcraft: and over time. You can’t compete anymore, right unless you’re constantly buying the new thing.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay and late, I I know. I just ask you to give me two examples, but i’m looking down the list, and i’m like these are also interesting. Okay. So we got the nerve cycle. The next one is game Bills dependency on micro transactions. So what do you mean here by building a dependency on micro transactions?
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Elena Petrovskaya: So this one’s a little harder to explain, because i’m again, mostly going off like play. A player accounts and play perceptions. But it’s when players feel like once they spend once that micro transactions gradually sort of introduce the game like they might be able to play
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Elena Petrovskaya: without spending. We’ll be spending very little, and then somehow, suddenly, when they’re in the latest stages we gave like constantly having to spend money to do this this or otherwise, then it choose can’t play to some extent anymore. Oh, so it’s a slow on ramp. It gets you hooked in right?
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Shlomo Sher: Right? I Okay, Yeah, I I feel that I’m: I’m: I’m all i’m all thinking about my class Royale game that you know that I’ve been into heavily for the last couple of months, and you know, and how much money i’m spending at this point.
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A Ashcraft: Um! And again I’ve seen. I’ve seen talks where where people have said that, you know you can.
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A Ashcraft: Once you know that a player will spend a dollar. You know that they’ll spend twenty dollars.
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A Ashcraft: Okay, And so you can.
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A Ashcraft: You know There, there is some pressure then to to like,
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A Ashcraft: like, all right, classify people, and as into into two groups people who are willing to pay, and people who are not willing to pay. And this is in the free to play model of of games.
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Mhm
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Shlomo Sher: uh, Okay. So to keep going, the next one is seems really simple. Unfair matchups right there. I’m. Assuming this just means they’re matching you up with someone that you just can’t beat unless you uh pay some money to upgrade your uh uh upgrade yourself.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah, That’s exactly it. Yeah, some of the time, and you know a lot of the time. It’s probably someone who has spent money to get this thing that You also need to spend money to get so,
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Shlomo Sher: and you and you get Sun can cost here as well, Right? I’ve already spent money, and now I can’t even, you know I can’t even win these matchups. I got to spend more uh then the free game experiences in the powered uh I’m, assuming the free game experience. You just can’t get anywhere with it.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Not pretty much. Yeah, it’s just not. No point playing the game, Really, It’s just not the same game if you’re not spending money,
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A Ashcraft: and that’s and that seems just like bad game design. Honestly to me, because, like your free game is meant to be the attraction to playing the
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A Ashcraft: the other game. But if the free game is not fun, you quit It’s going to play the right, you quickly.
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Elena Petrovskaya: That’s the thing. I think some of these games are just buying designs, because they just designed as money making mechanisms. And people know that so some games actually are not successful, because they’re not that clever with this kind of thing, right? So the the idea is, you know, uh create a You know, a tricky design that the player would not be aware of.
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Shlomo Sher: You know one of the players aware the gig is up.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah, not to give, not to give anyone tips here. But yeah, the the more dangerous games do that, I think.
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Shlomo Sher: But the last one seems the worst payment needed to avoid negative consequences. I’ve never actually seen them again, does what? How does that happen? So if you don’t buy something, something bad is going to happen to you.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah, pretty much. I think this was quite red. To be honest, I only saw it pop up in like a pretty small fraction of the. But it seems to be the case that some games you periodically have a situation where you might, you risk losing certain things you’ve accrued in the game, or
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Elena Petrovskaya: maybe paid for already, unless you make a further payment, and i’m sure that’s integrated into design somehow, as in like into the storyline in some way. But yeah, that is essentially the gist of it.
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A Ashcraft: So I I have an interesting story about this, because this was there was a um.
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A Ashcraft: There’s an app um uh, basically a choose your adventure style uh called choices. I and I can actually, I think there are several of them. I don’t remember exactly which one we were talking about specifically. But Um, we’re writing the um The ethical monetization pay for at uh. That came out five six years ago. Now,
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A Ashcraft: um! We were talking about this, and it was one of these. Choose your own adventures. So you’re you’re following the story about these two characters, and they’re and they’re you know they’re they’re in a relationship, but they’re also spies. And so it’s all very exciting. And then you get to a point, and and frequently the choices are You get an
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A Ashcraft: you you read through, and it’s basically read through the story, and then you get a choice um, and frequently the choices are A: You can do this. B: you can do this or see you can pay a dollar and do this other thing
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A Ashcraft: right
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A Ashcraft: in one in one case. So you’re following along. You’ve got these these two, these two lovers, and who are also spies, and then the choices are Um,
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A Ashcraft: you know somebody comes in and fires a gun, but you get to pick who dies choice A, She dies Choice B. He dies, or
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A Ashcraft: I see for a dollar they can both survive. Oh, I had no sorry. What in the story, can’t they? So we can’t continue without the without both of them. Right, right? It seems so awful. And we were. We were just so enraged at this, I at the idea of this of this thing.
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A Ashcraft: But then I was talking to one of my colleagues of uh, one of one of my former bosses, and she was she was. I’ve told her this story, and she was She was like, Oh, my gosh! That sounds so great! Because then I have the power to save them. It It only cost me a dollar
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A Ashcraft: like her Reaction to it was so totally different.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, I don’t think many players would see it that way. It sounds like like there’s a there’s
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A Ashcraft: there is attachment right uh as you play a game, you become attached to things in the game. It might be your character. It might be that the character other characters in the game, and then, like, be so callous about
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A Ashcraft: about like like, because there’s that. That attachment is something that can be harmed
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Shlomo Sher: right right. It’s just cruel. It’s cruel at that point. It that that’s a great example, Andy, I love that. Uh, Okay. So let’s so notice all these are game dynamics designed to drive spending. I think it’s pretty easy to see how these are supposed to go right. Okay, Um.
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Shlomo Sher: I thought that was everything. But no, there’s seven more categories. Alright. So What’s our second category? Lena:
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Elena Petrovskaya: The second is the products, not meeting expectations. This one so essentially just refers to situations where a player is expecting to buy something in the game, or in some cases again, self, maybe, and they just get something that’s not quite what they would promised or not quite what they rel it to believe that they would be getting in this purchase. So um couple of examples. So
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Elena Petrovskaya: one is maybe where you buy something in the game, say a skin, and you have no kind of warning that you actually already have this item. Um, and you just make the purchase again, and it’s just essentially use this to at that point, because you already own it, and you’re still allowed to make the purchase, and people feel that this is really unfair or misleading.
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Shlomo Sher: So the idea is that they’re leaving it up to you to make that determination, or they’re hiding your inventory so you can’t check
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Elena Petrovskaya: um. I mean, I don’t think that it’s probably maybe not games an explicitly hiding inventory. But please just feel like they should be told if they
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A Ashcraft: already have this thing that would actually wouldn’t render the purchase useless to them. If they’re about to spend money, and they and they might not have tried to hide, they might. They might not be trying to hide the inventory, but by the fact that they haven’t a a purchase screen up, it probably means that you can’t actually go back and look at your inventory.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, do do do things like loot boxes that tend to give you the same damn cards uh as part of this.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Well, so we actually explicitly avoided um us like we actually come up exactly how we phrase it. What we explicitly said we didn’t want to know about loop boxes in this, because because we wanted to know about all other micro transactions that might cause there’s already been so much talk about new boxes, so I think they would, to an extent, and you know there’s a whole other conversation, but we don’t know for sure from this
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A Ashcraft: right in that situation. You know that you’re getting something random. You might be getting something, but it’s more like like, you know. When I go to my local comic shop
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A Ashcraft: I will sometimes accidentally purchase a copy of a of, especially if it’s got a new cover and a lot of comics now have multiple covers, so I might get a a duplicate comic that I already have. They have a list of all the comics that I bought from them ever
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A Ashcraft: um, because they keep they track all this and so they could.
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Shlomo Sher: I’ll tell you or they could, but they but they choose. They need to right okay to be extra work. And whatever
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Elena Petrovskaya: yeah, interesting cause that one seems like an easy fix. If you’re looking to buy something, you might look to buy another thing instead, though maybe not right now. The good enough to where, like, I can take it back next week. And I say, Oh, I got a duplicate. No, I Okay. And I just refund it, and it’s fine. Yeah, I think that’s it. I think it may be. I mean, I don’t know how the refund system works in those games. That is what I was talking about this talks about, but maybe in some case you just can’t get refund in the same way that you might get refund for physical thing, and That’s why it feels more mistaging.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, okay, we’re going very slowly through this. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But let’s keep going. Alright. So the the second one here seems pretty simple product doesn’t incorporate everything. The player believes it to be. Uh you think you’re getting X. But really you’re getting
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Shlomo Sher: um, then early access content. You end up with something different. Can you explain what the early access content issue is?
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah. So like this relates to the whole games, I think, where people have to pay a certain amount of money to.
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Elena Petrovskaya: I think I think it on my. I might scroll up in the paper and double check, because I don’t want to mislead. Yes, um. So they purchase early access content, and when it comes to the full version they
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Elena Petrovskaya: end up with, you know, something completely different to what they might be expecting, or the full version just never comes, and they feel a little bit betrayed by it. Um. But yeah, So that’s refer to the whole game more so than a specific micro transaction.
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Shlomo Sher: And then the next one is also pretty simple buying something you don’t want to get something you do want. Do you have an example of this? Where?
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Elena Petrovskaya: Um, Again, i’m gonna i’m gonna refer to the paper here, because I think there might be examples here if if now, we could just move on, because there’s a million other things to talk about. Yes, I think um
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Elena Petrovskaya: one second.
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A Ashcraft: On one hand, it just feels like bad game design, like if they could sell me the thing that I want, Why are they bothering.
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A Ashcraft: I mean, all of these things are virtual, right? So they’re they’re We’re talking about virtual goods, right? So because if we can get you to take that one more step we could sell you yet another thing, right? Right? It’s not like They’re just trying to like liquidate their inventory. It’s a virtual item, right.
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Elena Petrovskaya: So this, this, this example that the the person in the paper used um is basically like in terms of leveling up characters. They might have one character that they by what to level up. But first they have to pay to level up a bunch of other characters for something which they just don’t see the reason. For.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay. Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s that’s an interesting example. Can’t pay until you’ve level up. Bc: and D: Exactly. Right. Right. Then we have a separate uh re-release of product as free, cheaper, or easier to get.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, So you’ve already paid for the product and then it gets to re-release that’s exactly, and it’s great. Yeah, yeah, like I said that on on Kickstarter um in the board game. There’s Kickstarter’s got all kinds of great board game stuff on it. But the people who buy
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A Ashcraft: board games on Kickstarter, or or you know, fund them on Kickstarter. They really really want their thing to be exclusive,
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A Ashcraft: like when it comes out in retail. They want whatever they bought on Kickstarter to be special in some way, because because then then the they want it to be first. They want it to have better, You know, whatever these things, and they get really, really been out of shape when it’s not
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Shlomo Sher: interesting. Okay, Yeah, that is interesting. Even though they they funded it. They actually made it happen. But they still want theirs to be special. That’s right, right. Okay. Alright, and last one uh monetization strategy change part way through game life cycle. Uh, i’m thinking here of games that sell cosmetic items as micro transactions, and then switch to pay to win
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Shlomo Sher: in the you know, in the middle of the games life cycle.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah, or even things like the game might have been free to begin with, and then they introduce micro transactions the game. I’ve been a one time purchase price and then introduce micro transactions. Things like that.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, cool. That’s our second one, the third one. My: okay, tell us about the third category.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah. So this one Um: a monetization of basic quality of life. This one becomes a little bit trickier in terms of you know. Is it actually predatory? Is this like
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Elena Petrovskaya: this? Is depend on the situation and the person that specific expectations, because you know what is basic quality of life, like sort of that various game to gain person to person. But essentially it’s when the player believes that what is meant to be, You know the core aspect of the game. The core game play is in some way get kept by payment.
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Elena Petrovskaya: So um. First one is basically that core aspects of the game are monetized when people think that, like core aspects of the story or the map that should be available in either the free or the upfront price uh which is aren’t available with that further payment, and then um
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Elena Petrovskaya: same thing with like parts of the game, not behind payrolls and additional content, not accessible with that payments, but it again, it depends on what you think it should. You’re entitled to. It’s public or game, because some some Dlcs are seen as fine, and I think there’s just almost like a line there as to how much content you can get in the game itself before you start having to pay for additional content.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, it’s. It’s interesting. What counts as fair as enough for the game that you buy, and of course a lot of that is uh, really constituted by our previous experiences and assumptions about how
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A Ashcraft: how games are supposed to be, and and also the marketing for that game like What do you expect? This game to have is based on your prior game experiences the marketing of this game,
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Shlomo Sher: right. So right. So if I saw battlefront two, and I saw you know all my favorite characters in the Commercial and the game doesn’t come with them right. I feel cheated right in terms of the game that I that I thought I could expect to get right,
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Elena Petrovskaya: so I just wanted to say, I think a lot of this is what does just depend on your kind of your preconceptions of what games are, and your context that you’ve been playing games in, and also just who you are, and like your community, because there are kind of a lot of biases and norms around these games. And what is, you know the core aspect of one game, isn’t the same as the prospect of another game, and it also depends on your perception of the developers, and
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Elena Petrovskaya: like whether or not you think a game can have monetization in it, to begin with, because to some people that’s it like when they’re playing games, they don’t want to think about economic concerns at all, but to others that don’t have experience playing games in quite the same context, it would be fine.
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense back in the nineties. Um, It was sort of expected that computer games Pc: games would give you a hundred hours of gameplay
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A Ashcraft: a hundred hours. That was the the of the expectation, and any game that didn’t was considered short and in a bad way right. But it turns out that the market is actually bigger for games that don’t actually require you to play one hundred hours.
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A Ashcraft: And yeah, and it was very painful for for the core gamer community in the nineties to sort of get on board with the idea that games could be short could be Yeah, good games could be, you know, a twenty hour game, or even a five hour game,
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Shlomo Sher: right? But that’s that’s really interesting, right? I feel like you deprived me because I paid for a game. But your game is only twenty hours. But I was expecting one hundred, because that’s what games are supposed to have. Yeah, it’s really interesting how much, And you know part of uh to to me in terms of uh,
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Shlomo Sher: whether there’s anything predatory about this or what that is, whether there’s anything wrong about this um does seem to involve what um
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Shlomo Sher: what the the company selling the game understands about how the game will be received by you know, players in general right. I mean, if you do know that there is an expectation, and you know an implicit understanding of what the product would be
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Shlomo Sher: on both sides. But you’re using that in some way to take advantage of of the other side. That seems that seems to be a problem.
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Shlomo Sher: Um, Okay, uh, let’s move on to next one in game in game currency.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Mhm Yeah. So that’s the true. It says on the ten it’s um broadly. If she’s relating to Indian currency. Not so. Some people just don’t like and get currency that they have like
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Elena Petrovskaya: personal issues with it. Jen: So that’s general existing again. Currency? Um, they think that, you know paying for in game money is with, or the it brings in all these money issues into games that shouldn’t be there. But the ones that I find really interesting are um.
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Elena Petrovskaya: So multiple currency types cause confusion, because with that, when you can always see that, like. There is something going on there, because there’s no reason that you should have to
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Elena Petrovskaya: buy a pack of gems for five pounds, and then you use these gems to buy. I don’t know gold, and then use this gold to buy something else like this, just like what is this adding to the gameplay that is clearly designed to get people lost in this purchase process, and for lose sight of how much they actually spending. And then another fascinating one to me is the fixed purchase rates, because in quite a lot of games you, if you want to buy like a hundred gold coins, you can only buy a pack of like
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Shlomo Sher: fifty-nine or something ridiculous, and then you have to buy another fifty-nine and you end up spending way, more, and then you have some currency left over, and you maybe want to buy more to use that. Yeah, that’s that’s devious. So the so the packs and and you know, uh class for yeah has that with, uh, you know, when uh Andy and I did a a review of what was that game? Uh, Andy, Do you remember dragging something.
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Shlomo Sher: We we did an episode where we took this game that was kind of an average of free to play again, and we we looked at things like this, and we talked about the two different currencies, and how it intentionally
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Shlomo Sher: drag not dragon age, but dragging something right. It’s one of our previous episodes. Uh? And we looked at how they were trying to essentially make the math really difficult for you, right? But then you also have things. So in class for yeah, right. A dollar will buy you eighty gems and eighty gems will buy you a thousand gold.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, and you know there are things that you need essentially a hundred gems. But then that means you gotta buy eighty gems twice, Right? Uh, yeah, uh,
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A Ashcraft: uh, okay. But in some cases this is because you know, marketing is said that these are These are price points that people will pay.
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A Ashcraft: So whatever whatever you know. And you’ve got some calculations for, like what the values of these things should be, and they’re not necessarily even to the to the dollar value. Price points. That marketing is said, These are the these are the price points that people enjoy paying.
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A Ashcraft: Okay, Yes, yeah, that’s. Why, you see, you know. Uh, you know, ninety-nine cents four hundred and ninety-nine right? Right? Right? Right? Right? That’s why, when you buy things at Target or Walmart, you’re almost never going to see anything That’s that’s cost more than
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A Ashcraft: okay target. Just knows their audience doesn’t like to
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A Ashcraft: pay more than thirty, nine ninety-nine for anything.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, Yeah, it’s interesting. Uh okay. So We got the currency part uh though, that mind you, that still is not going to explain things like fifty-five when you need one hundred. Right? That’s that’s super dodgy. All right, okay, Uh-huh. Pay to win.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah, so it paid when Um. So I mean the encompasses sort of ways in which payment can give you advantage over other players. Um, in some cases as let you just that you have, you’re more likely to be other players. You more likely to do well. If you spend money on certain items like
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Elena Petrovskaya: better powered weapons. Things like that. Um, In some cases that’s sort of encompassed in the subscription feature, where you pay more routinely to be better um, or to that to progress it again better. And in some cases you are actually almost You’re not.
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Elena Petrovskaya: You don’t feel like you’re able to play game competitivity at all. Unless you’ve been spending, you might be able to play on like an amateur fun level. But if you want to actually compete, and like on a ranking and some games. Then you’re you basically just can’t unless you spend money
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A Ashcraft: right? So in that last one the pay to play competitively that I thought that they were talking about, so I I think I misunderstood that one, because I thought that they were talking about like tournaments that you would have to pay an entry fee to join.
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A Ashcraft: I I kind of think that that’s important, because it allows people who want to play at at a certain level to not have to wade through the people who
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah,
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A Ashcraft: Yeah. And this is why I mean, this is very common in in sports. Um: yeah, tournaments are either invitational.
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A Ashcraft: You’ve been invited to to play in this tournament because you’re at a certain level, or they are, or they cost money to join. And you know, and it keeps. It keeps the people who are just starting to play out of these super competitive situations where they’re not going to do well, and they’re not going to have a good time anyway, unless they’re wealthy enough to pay for it
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A Ashcraft: right. And if they are then
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Shlomo Sher: right, or or they think that it their skill is is so developed enough. So it’s worth paying for. Right? Right? Okay, pay to win. I think we’re familiar with. Okay, now we get to predatory advertising.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yes, uh, This was kind of crazy because some of the others are going on in the mobile games. It’s just insane. Um. So quite a lot of the time like you have these completely like these advers that are just
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Elena Petrovskaya: they. They not show they shouldn’t completely different day. Play to the game they’re advertising, and this is something that you’re seeing. There’s not seeing this in games, but it’s something that maybe they see an advert for what they think is a cool game. They download the game, and it’s been completely different. And people who are very cheated by that Yeah. And Facebook ads for games tend to be incredibly
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A Ashcraft: misleading. But in terms of what the game actually is, it’s a huge problem, and that’s been the case for a very, very long time. It’s shocking that it’s even a like legal. I’m surprised that nobody’s been taken to court over these because it seems like it’s advertising.
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Elena Petrovskaya: It’s insane. There has actually been one incident in the Uk. Where um two games called homescapes and gardenscapes were forced to remove the change. Their adverts because they were just deemed so unrealistic concern representative of the call gameplay. But that’s quite an isolated incident, as far as i’m aware, like they because it was on the news. So it doesn’t happen often that they get regulated in this way. That’s a very popular game. So it’s had those millions of players really? Yeah, yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: And even though they’re advertising was so off the so so off the mark, you, you know it’s interesting. My guess is that they they had grown to all the people who are going to enjoy the kind of gameplay that they already had because they were big games. People People love these games
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A Ashcraft: um, and they were trying to grow past that into a market that
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Shlomo Sher: that they weren’t already
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Shlomo Sher: less likely to regulate uh game advertising than other product advertising right. And i’m dying to know Why is this? Because the you know people who regulate these things uh
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Shlomo Sher: are less likely to play games. Is this because these are games, so they’re meant to be fun and entertaining. And so, you know, you know they’re not expecting very much from them in terms of a serious product that needs to be regulated.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, is this Because the game is gonna not gonna cost all that much, So they’re not going to be worried about that, as they’ll be worried about a, you know, like a one thousand dollar product that is, uh false, that it’s engage in false advertising. We need to have an episode on advertising. I I think I think I think that’s that. That’s a really, really
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A Ashcraft: well interesting. Interestingly, the the ads that i’m thinking about that have been so false have all been for free to play games,
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A Ashcraft: so I guess they they’re getting around the this. They’re getting around the legal part of it, because there’s no monetary loss,
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A Ashcraft: like if you download a game, and it’s not the game that you thought you were downloading
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Shlomo Sher: right, because you didn’t spend any money on it, but that undervalues our attention and our time right. But yeah, it’s interesting. Legal Legally, you can’t say you’ve been financially harmed. If you haven’t paid anything. So you can’t. Sue. Yeah, that’s a really good point, Andy. Um,
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Shlomo Sher: Okay. So let’s uh, though. By the way, I mean, I’m thinking about uh, so many trailers that, uh, you know, the the entire trailer, except for like five seconds, you know, is graphics and not the actual game.
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Shlomo Sher: And that’s kind of classic, and you have that for tons and tons of games right for a very, very long time. Now, again, some of the stuff, with unrealistic presentation is, I I think the viewer is supposed to understand that you’re just hyping up the game. But this isn’t the real gain.
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Shlomo Sher: But you know there’s a question a lot of times with the
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Shlomo Sher: uh with the idea of deception. It’s not deception. If you know that you know you’re not being told the truth, right? So that yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: we we gotta do an episode about this, But it’s definitely a definitely a great topic. Okay, Um, okay. So keep on going. Um the what’s What’s that one?
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Elena Petrovskaya: Um. So I think that one is more um. We debated where to put this one, and I think that one’s more like
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Elena Petrovskaya: it’s. It’s about the transactions in the game like how clearly they’re expressed in terms of what you’re spending and what you’re getting out of it. It’s sort of ties in into the product, not meeting expectation section as well. It was kind of a close call which section to put into. But we landed on this one, because sometimes it refers to like how items are presented in the store or things like that as well.
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Shlomo Sher: Hmm. Okay,
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Shlomo Sher: uh. And then we get back to aggressive. So yeah, all right. So what’s aggressive advertising here?
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Elena Petrovskaya: So aggressive advertising isn’t it you like, adds that interfere with you playing the game. They are everywhere. They are in your way. You can’t progress through the game without without apps. They are literally obstacles to to you, playing the game. They
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A Ashcraft: right. I think we’re all just a jigsaw puzzle game on our ipad
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A Ashcraft: that is aggressively like I advertises aggressively to her like,
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A Ashcraft: and I don’t understand. Like Mom, you know, there are other jigsaw puzzle games out there. You could just get another one that doesn’t annoy you with all the advertising, and but she’s already built up this catalog of puzzles. She’s built, and she doesn’t want to change. So you know. At what point do there is that
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A Ashcraft: that feels like it’s predatory at this point where they’re they’re they’re banking on my mom not wanting to change, because she has all this built up,
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Shlomo Sher: and and I’m. Assuming that either she’s going to stay with it this way and uh or she’s going to pay if they give her an option to pay to get rid of those uh. So it’s like we’re gonna bug, You bug, you bug, you bug, you bug, you bug, you bug! You You got a free game Right Buggy, Bug, you bug you! You! You can leave the game. If you want buggy. Bug, you bug, you bug! You. You can leave the game If you want buggy bug, you bug, you bug you. You can leave the game if you want buggy, bug it until you pay
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Elena Petrovskaya: to remove the advertisers. Right? Right? Yeah. Do you know, I would love? I would love to do research on why people continue to play these games, even though they know that the like in the might be unfair or predatory in some way, because it, you know you have people who are so attached to these games for whatever reason, and that’s something that shouldn’t be considered lightly. Because that’s how people make it full power with these practices.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, to me, sunken costs is just the explanation for for so much here.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Uh: okay, uh, we only have two more categories uh general presence of micro transactions. Okay, so nicely, well listen easy That one, although so that one’s kind of like Again, it’s so very perception and
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Elena Petrovskaya: of expectation based because some people just don’t like the idea of micro transactions,
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Elena Petrovskaya: and um, especially so like a transactions and games that you already pay a fee for upfront for the game. Um, And also some people believe micro transactions to be, in some cases quite a good price, which is true, I think, sometimes like. Why is it skin like five pounds, or whatever? But I think this category can be explained by
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Elena Petrovskaya: you know people thinking that game should be made in this traditional way where you pay for you pay upfront, and then you have the game, and you can play as many times as you want. I don’t. I think it’s harder to categorize this as predatory as a whole, because,
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Elena Petrovskaya: you know, all my good transactions are bad, like you have games like League of legends, which traditionally haven’t been perceived as negatively as a lot of mobile free to play games because they monetize largely through cosmetics, and the cosmetics are really good example of what isn’t a printer in micro transaction because they’re so
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Elena Petrovskaya: choice-based they don’t affect the gameplay. They just their way for you to express yourself. Should you want it? So
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Yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: Okay,
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A Ashcraft: for Any right thing of being over priced is still something that you know. From my point of point of view, the general presence of micro transactions is, it’s just another business model, you know it’s not. It’s not unlike having to put another quarter into the machine when you’ve run out of lives.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yeah, have a bad name. They have a bad name, but and it’s not fully unjustified. But not all my questions like She’s about right, right? Agreed. Uh, okay. And then then you have a uh a catch all category of other. Okay. So what’s what’s our final five final things in here?
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yes, so um teases. That’s when initial part the game is free, and you might even think that the whole game is free. But you cannot
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Elena Petrovskaya: play. You get to some point in the game where you can no longer play it, even though it’s no longer free. Um, Then Sorry I seem to have lost my time, and i’m assuming the problem here would be that you’re under the You’re under the conception that it is free.
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Shlomo Sher: And then you find out No, no, no, it’s only a teacher right? Right? And in a way, but also people get invested in the game in the free part, and then they feel almost like
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A Ashcraft: like they have to keep it. Some cost policy, right? They They want to see what happens more in the game because of this free T. So I think I think that that investment is like It was key to the story about the about the choices, game, play about the the spies. It’s key to my mom, and what’s happening with her in her jigsaw puzzle game at some point we have to as game designers. We have to value
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A Ashcraft: people’s investment, and you know, when we’re talking about investment, we’re talking about like a personal emotional investment like uh, not just time and money, but something else, too. There’s something
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Shlomo Sher: you you you know. It is interesting, and Andy, that you know. Andy brought the attention. Economy. Right idea here, right that your attention itself is valuable, right, and important to you. Right? Uh, and it’s interesting. How much of
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Shlomo Sher: you know. One view here can be like you. Look, Your attention is your
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Shlomo Sher: you know, is your deal. It’s up to you. You make choices about your attention. Why am I responsible as the game company for, uh, deciding how you manage your attention? Right? I’m presenting you with options. Those options might tempt you,
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Shlomo Sher: and maybe I can tempt you. There’s nothing wrong with tempting you, I you know. I mean, I think there can be wrong things with tempting you. But you know certainly this, this, this this tone could say, Look, I can tempt you. But ultimately you’re making choices right, and I think that. Uh, you know, in the back of our minds, when we
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Shlomo Sher: criticize these things, we also always need to respond to this very kind of straightforward, libertarian voice here.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yes, but uh, people see them as predatory, because they think that in some cases uh the designers prey on your like fear missing out for not getting the specific thing that you can only get in ten hours, and they end up
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Elena Petrovskaya: sacrificing the caution, and just, you know, paying to complete if you. If that is the option, we’ll spend more money in this period of time. So we see this. We see this all the time in the real world right. But in the real world we can always justify. Why,
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A Ashcraft: something might be a a have a limited time offer. You know they’re trying to get rid of inventory. They’re trying to bring people into stores for a certain weekend, or when we’re talking about the real world.
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A Ashcraft: Uh,
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A Ashcraft: but I mean it. It’s all based on fomo. This fear of missing out right right right. And the I think the real danger here is that
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A Ashcraft: there are people, children particularly, who don’t have the the defenses
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A Ashcraft: against this, and and it’s about the
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A Ashcraft: and the real risk is that in a video game we can make it almost seamless. We can make the moment of thought of like the Oh, I need to. I need to do this, and and the purchase itself. A single button, a single tap.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, you know, Andy, there is. Uh the Mcgrib is back right? So you know. Uh Lena, do they have? I don’t think they have the Mcgrib in Mcdonald’s in the Uk. Do they? I don’t think so. No, i’m not so. Okay. It’s a a fake pork rib.
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A Ashcraft: It’s been it’s pork that’s been shaped into the shape of pork ribs. It’s a sandwich,
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Shlomo Sher: and but the that the whole marketing thing behind it is that it’s a product that comes every once in a while, and then goes away, and then comes back. So you know It’s a limited time only product, and that’s that’s the whole marketability of it
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Shlomo Sher: right that they made it special by doing that, and they made it also kind of fun by doing that right now.
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Shlomo Sher: I Yeah, I think it’s fun, I think you know, if it wasn’t for the fact that it tasted like crap uh I would. You know it’s fun to have things go and come back. And but that’s also really different from again playing on our desire not to miss out so right.
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Shlomo Sher: Part of manipulation is you’re playing in the psychological vulnerabilities of of people. And in this case, right, if you’re particularly playing um with the vulnerability of not wanting to miss out on something by putting a lit on the time offer on it. That is, I want to say, disingenuous in some way right? So compared to the the the examples that Andy came from where you know we’re running out. Do you know virtual goods? How can they possibly be running out? Yeah, right? Right? So instead, they’re
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Shlomo Sher: they’re creating artificial scarcity, and they’re trying to raise the expected value of something in a way that might undermine your basic ability to make good decisions for yourself, right.
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Shlomo Sher: Oh, but but but those are seasonal, seasonal. What’s I mean, how is that different? Um. Good question. I don’t know. But yes, I can season yeah when it is October or November, and and pumpkin flavored stuff come in. I love it,
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Shlomo Sher: you know, uh it fits in with the season. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, It’s interesting. Why are certain colors seasonal? What you know? Uh yeah, that’s a good question, Andy. I I don’t have a great response to that.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Can I just add something, as all on in the into Time Office? I think so. This didn’t come up in this uh taxonomy, but it’s come up in a couple of my latest studies that with things like limited time offers as well, People really feel the social pressure, like if they’re playing with their friends, or if they’re playing in a team in the game, they want to be included in this stuff that comes from these limited time offers. If there’s like certain rewards, so access to different game content things like that. So even if they might on their own, not necessarily want to be part of this, or can’t afford it, whatever. They’ll still end up
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Shlomo Sher: doing it if they are surrounded by people also doing it
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Shlomo Sher: uh queuing them, so that other people are getting these things right, and children again, are much more susceptible to this than adults. Adults are very susceptible to this as well,
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A Ashcraft: right, but definitely our ability to control their cells is better than those of kids, and and the and the desire to be part of the group is so much stronger for kids, and particularly teenagers. Yeah, uh, okay, uh battle passes.
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Shlomo Sher: How do battle passes fit into this?
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Elena Petrovskaya: So Bell passes? Are this some additional set of content that’s
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Elena Petrovskaya: generally involve paying for, like a time-specific set of content as well, and within itself it has additional rewards that can be acquired by playing the game, or by paying additional money, or in some cases a free upfront for this purchase. But players link this to um. Sometimes they think that their time and money is being exploited. So this is something I noticed in in do to um in a different study that I did where you pay a pro for the about a past, but then you have to spend loads and loads of time playing it to actually get to the higher levels, to acquire these
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Elena Petrovskaya: awards that you promised in the battle pass, or you know you can pay a hundred pounds upfront, and then you get straight to level forty. Um! But obviously Nobel can afford that. And so you have people that are one thing all these rewards because they’re being marketed as being packaged in this shiny battle pass, and they end up
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Elena Petrovskaya: playing lots and lots, or, you know, in some cases people give it and just pay an additional amount. And actually, like somebody else, has have loop boxes in them as well. So you know there’s a lot of different things that package it to this additional set of content.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay. Hence the need for an episode on this that that separates these things all right. And finally, we get to dark patterns.
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Elena Petrovskaya: Yes, so um! That pattern is so forward from. That’s not access to games. They they happen across all types of tech and interfaces, but in games can also be implemented. So an example that someone gave was, If you hide a button below another bus, and so if you click like, okay, and then you’re accidentally buying something in this case it’s just explicit like it’s explicit dark design. They’re not even trying to like tap into your psychology or anything that lets you just put things that we accidentally click them, or hiding things that
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A Ashcraft: we’ll let you not make the purchase or cancel things, or anything like that.
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A Ashcraft: A certain place on the screen to say no, and then they swap. Yeah, you have a choice. Yes or no uh it gets. You used to like where where the things are is on the screen is the No, no, no, no. I knew you just pressed. Yes, right right right,
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Shlomo Sher: or or the Dx to close the window that actually doesn’t close the window, but instead takes you to the purchasing screen. Right? So yeah, And so any of this stuff.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, look at that. We managed to get through all of them. Okay, there’s so much here. Okay, got. So let me. So let me pause for a minute. Uh, Andy, Do you know how long we’ve been? We’ve been going on how long we we we’re about uh fifty-five minutes in.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay here’s here’s What I was thinking, You know, I I was thinking about how to do this episode, and I was thinking about maybe glossing in. But the the more we got into this the more i’m like no, we got it. Each one of these really deserves its attention. What i’d like to do with this, if that would be okay with you guys,
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Shlomo Sher: is to make this a double episode. Um, and you know, because if we’re fifty-five minutes in that’s a that’s done that’s an episode right right uh and then spend and then you know whether Um,
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Shlomo Sher: whether you guys have the time now, or whether we want to reschedule, do everything else as as a follow up that deep, deep dive into a few of these. Well, right so I mean literally, Andy, like we got up to question two,
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Shlomo Sher: you know, out of, you know, out of out of ten Right? Right? So I mean the other ones are more. We actually look at the idea of what is predator monization, you know. Uh, you know. Um,
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Shlomo Sher: we We get more into discussing these in terms of
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Shlomo Sher: uh, Are they actually bad? I? You know we we can. We can get into some of these, uh, which ones do we think are responsible, are particularly responsible in the moral um which ones really might not be uh so bad. Uh, we talk about the effect. Uh, I have this comparison. Um of predatory loans. The idea of, you know, does
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Shlomo Sher: does the predatory itself essentially uh harm uh harm communities the way predatory loans, uh, you know, uh created a bubble in two thousand and eight um
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Shlomo Sher: regulations consumer, you know. It’s interesting, you know, in the consumer protections. The Uk has really different consumer protections than the Us. Especially for kids
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, where the Us. Has virtually no, I mean virtually none in terms of consumer protection for kids. Um, I mean there are some, but not for advertising,
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Shlomo Sher: or virtually none for advertising. I mean you. You can’t do smoking. As for advertising, but I mean the I I remember I looked into this probably about sixteen years ago, so it’s a little outdated. But um! I was writing a paper on manipulation and marketing.
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Shlomo Sher: And uh, there was just a a really like huge difference in the regulation for kids in the Uk versus the the us. Uh. So the regulations thing, I think, is also. It’s also kind of interesting, and I think a part of that was the
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Shlomo Sher: I. I don’t know if you know this, for example, Lena um in the Us. Uh, you’re not The Supreme Court said that you’re not allowed to. The Government is not allowed to make uh, uh, cigarette manufacturers put pictures of. You know those discussing pictures you see all over Europe. Yeah. So you’re the Government can’t force companies to do that in the Us.
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Shlomo Sher: The Supreme Court said that that was essentially. You’re asking tobacco companies to emotionally manipulate their customers. The idea is that customers should have the agency to the side by themselves. You could ask them to put on the truth
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A Ashcraft: information, but not to use scare tactics. Right? Okay. So there’s There’s a big on the cigarette packs in the Us. There’s big white block of you know, black and white text that says, you know this is harmful, I would say, relatively small, Andy compared. I mean you’ve seen them elsewhere size of the pack,
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Shlomo Sher: sure, except a fair bit of space on the on the back, sure, you know. But again, if you’re talking about buying cigarettes, packs in Europe, where the entire pack is like disgusting, disgusting, and disgusting things, right? So you know, it shows just the kind of uh, you know, a difference in kind of in kind of outlook.
