Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it all started with a Horse Armor.
Yep the industry took an arrow to the knee.
You were downvoted because you referenced the wrong game. ;P
Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#22How can a game developer ethically justify a $4500 price tag for a game? Yes, we can put in limits on spending, but let’s say we didn’t, does that mean a game could be worth that much money? Ever?
No one putting gun to their head to cough up $4500. They are paying because of their own weakness or maybe because of market forces as they can't get their fix elsewhere.
I can easily justify it ethically as "it's what my offering is valued by market". All my engineering education skills have not gone waste, those sleepless nights, missed dates - all paid off finally!
Revs up Lamborghini bought on installment paid with $4500 check
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#23How can a game developer ethically justify a $4500 price tag for a game? Yes, we can put in limits on spending, but let’s say we didn’t, does that mean a game could be worth that much money? Ever?
No one putting gun to their head to cough up $4500. They are paying because of their own weakness or maybe because of market forces as they can't get their fix elsewhere. I can easily justify it ethically as "it's what my offering is valued by market". All my engineering education skills have not gone waste, those sleepless nights, missed dates - all paid off finally! Revs up Lamborghini bought on installment paid wi…
They are paying because app stores are allowing "authorize one payment" to mean "unlimited transactions are authorized". This is fraud, which is why Apple had to settle a class action for the exact same problem. Relying on a password, pin or parental control to prevent unauthorized purchases is irrelevant since in their absence, fraud is still illegal.
https://www.macworld.com/article/2029384/apple-to-settle-law...
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#24Maybe require all apps to have a built in spending limit and an affirmative act per app to raise it with a mandatory password prompt and click on an emailed link to verify. Make it up to $50 one time or greater than $100 in one calendar month. Given how people actually spend 99% of people will never see such a prompt and virtually everyone that hits it will be one of these people who is being scammed out of their mon…
While that's a good idea it will never happen, since it's diametral to the interest of the app stores, which is to make as much money as possible. Of course, if the abuse gets too bad there will be regulatory backlash.
Which of course is the same reason why android and ios will never show you data on how often you use your phone and allow you to send less time on your phone...
They don't want kids sending thousands of dollars. It is bad PR for pocket change for them. They already have options in the OS to prevent this. They just need to change the defaults and a few additional features.
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
While that's a good idea it will never happen, since it's diametral to the interest of the app stores, which is to make as much money as possible. Of course, if the abuse gets too bad there will be regulatory backlash.
Which of course is the same reason why android and ios will never show you data on how often you use your phone and allow you to send less time on your phone... They don't want kids sending thousands of dollars. It is bad PR for pocket change for them. They already have options in the OS to prevent this. They just need to change the defaults and a few additional features.
Both iOS(Screen Time)[1] and Android(Digital Wellbeing)[2] show how much you use your phone and let you set limits for smartphone usage.
1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208982
2. https://wellbeing.google/
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#26> But he says he's amazed that in a game designed to be played by children it would even be possible to spend thousands of pounds across a thousand transactions over the course of just a few weeks. These games are designed around this. The dark patterns are intentional. > "We encourage parents to review their payment settings on third-party services, such as Google Play, as they typically have an option to require a…
How is that not the parent fault ?
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#27How can a game developer ethically justify a $4500 price tag for a game? Yes, we can put in limits on spending, but let’s say we didn’t, does that mean a game could be worth that much money? Ever?
No one putting gun to their head to cough up $4500. They are paying because of their own weakness or maybe because of market forces as they can't get their fix elsewhere. I can easily justify it ethically as "it's what my offering is valued by market". All my engineering education skills have not gone waste, those sleepless nights, missed dates - all paid off finally! Revs up Lamborghini bought on installment paid wi…
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or serious.
I’ll just leave this here: https://youtu.be/2luhwy3KAE0
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#28> But he says he's amazed that in a game designed to be played by children it would even be possible to spend thousands of pounds across a thousand transactions over the course of just a few weeks. These games are designed around this. The dark patterns are intentional. > "We encourage parents to review their payment settings on third-party services, such as Google Play, as they typically have an option to require a…
A friend, who worked at a famous mobile/Fb gaming company, once told me his company would, sometimes, assign an engineer for an individual user or just few users. High spending users.
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#29> But he says he's amazed that in a game designed to be played by children it would even be possible to spend thousands of pounds across a thousand transactions over the course of just a few weeks. These games are designed around this. The dark patterns are intentional. > "We encourage parents to review their payment settings on third-party services, such as Google Play, as they typically have an option to require a…
A friend, who worked at a famous mobile/Fb gaming company, once told me his company would, sometimes, assign an engineer for an individual user or just few users. High spending users.
[deleted]
Re: Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill
#30Maybe require all apps to have a built in spending limit and an affirmative act per app to raise it with a mandatory password prompt and click on an emailed link to verify. Make it up to $50 one time or greater than $100 in one calendar month. Given how people actually spend 99% of people will never see such a prompt and virtually everyone that hits it will be one of these people who is being scammed out of their mon…
While that's a good idea it will never happen, since it's diametral to the interest of the app stores, which is to make as much money as possible. Of course, if the abuse gets too bad there will be regulatory backlash.
It's not just the app stores. Facebook used to call it "friendly fraud" when they billed someone thousands because an obfuscated transaction occurred each time a kid pressed a button.
> One deposition shows Facebook employees were reluctant to reduce this "friendly fraud" because it would likely also reduce the company's overall revenue.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2019/01/25/facebook-tu...