191–200 of 340 posts
When the choice is either be out of business or homeless, what would you do?
Every game should have to display a "Maximum cost of online play" on the cover with ESRB rating and on the app store listing. If not limited just show ($10,000+). Would give parents a rough idea of how exploitive a game's online currency system is.
Instead of these or really any other sane constraints, we’ve somehow made it worse by now preferring subscriptions!!! And even more offensive, these recurring charges are allowed to be very high. And as if that weren’t rewarding enough for scammers, it can be far more frequent than one would normally expect (e.g. weekly instead of monthly). Like, REALLY!?!?
Mobile free to play games now make up the majority of money made in video games today. It's strange then that most of these games aren't that interesting. Who are the players of these that make up the new class of gamers? It would seem that the payers are the exploitable - those able to be swindled with casino mechanisms. As an ex- free-to-play game developer and one who believes regulation often does more harm to co…
How about the app stores classifying them? I've tried looking for games I could buy outright. Try finding a game without ads or in app purchases. It is extremely difficult to search by those criteria.
Indiscriminate third party advertising and freemium games are going to cause significant long-term harm to mobile gaming, and possibly also to society as a whole.
There's still some games out there that use IAP in small doses ((My own device operates on the same rules as my kids - no third party advertising, no freemium IAP stuff. There's really nothing to miss in that space anyway…)
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How about a state regulation prohibiting stores to sell anything with real money procurement and trading mechanisms inside as games? Anything that allows in-app purchases or trade should be re-classified, a "trading platform," perhaps or, indeed, a casino? But then it would be up to society whether to allow their kids to play in a casino, or draw in a trading platform - where brushes have to be purchased. Squeeze tho…
Most of these apps exist because consumers expect them to be free and refuse to pay even a little bit up front. This "freemium casino" model of monetizing games and other apps arose out of the feedback loop that started with cheap consumer driven development. The consumer is not always right....
I don't agree though that there's only up-front payment or freemium options on the table, nor do I agree that consumers wouldn't accept up-front payment if that was really on the table.
Consumers paid up front for games on the Gameboy and other handheld devices, and they paid enough to keep that industry alive right up until mobile games took over.
Any expectations consumers have right now that mobile games should be free is on the publishers, not the consumers - and while consumers are enabling and supporting the freemium casino model, I don't think that us humans in aggregate have as much freedom of choice as we like to believe.
Regulation is the only way out of this bind, but with the continued rise of neoliberalism that's just not going to happen.
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I disable in app purchases in their entirety on my own personal iOS devices. Mainly cause I’m paranoid that I’ll accidentally tap something and then accidentally approve it when trying to hit the home button. I’ve had apple devices for years , and I’ve gone in and manually enabled the ability to in-app purchase less than a half a dozen times. (This, and similar restrictions are buried in the screen time settings, in…
Ironically the majority of purchases I make on iOS are in Audible, for which Amazon refuses to pay App Store fees so I have to do it all in a browser. I guess that’s one case in which I wish it was simpler to spend my money/credits.
Every game should have to display a "Maximum cost of online play" on the cover with ESRB rating and on the app store listing. If not limited just show ($10,000+). Would give parents a rough idea of how exploitive a game's online currency system is.
On android I believe there's a metadata piece for in-game purchases. I just avoid those entirely :)
I'm fine with having a free game using an IAP to unlock full functionality, or to have a small! series of IAPs for it.
I think there's also a viable model for subscription gaming, mobile MMOs are plausible.
Requiring that all apps indicate their (enforced) maximum monthly and lifetime spend limits would work very well for me. An app with a $20 lifetime limit is a try-before-you-buy app, and one with a $20 monthly limit is a subscription app. One with "Unlimited" for monthly is a freemium casino, and is much more easily avoided.
Every game should have to display a "Maximum cost of online play" on the cover with ESRB rating and on the app store listing. If not limited just show ($10,000+). Would give parents a rough idea of how exploitive a game's online currency system is.
Wouldn’t they all say “$10,000+” in that case? Are there really any games out there that stop you before you make a purchase saying “You already spent $100 this month. Please don’t give us any more of your money!”
There really should be freemium games that advertise a monthly ceiling on possible spend as a feature to attract customers who are wary of pay-to-win gaming or exploitative models.