11 ms·

Do you feel it's ethical to take $30k a year from 'the whales'?

PakG1 13y ago
It's the exact same question whether it's ethical to take that amount of money from the whales in casinos. Because that's where the term whale comes from, synonymous with high rollers. It's the exact same scenario, except that in casinos, whales have a chance to make it back. But even in casinos, the rich people who can afford to be whales know that they're just throwing away their money. They're not like the poor stupid ones who go bankrupt with gambling debt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_roller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_roller
ANTSANTS 13y ago
As I understand it, "whales" tend to be less "poor gullible fools maxing out their credit cards" and more "extraordinarily wealthy people that enjoy wasting amounts that seem ridiculous to us but are truly nothing but a drop in the bucket to them." The term "oil prince" is trotted out sometimes, and people like that really do exist: I don't remember his name, but there is a very real "oil prince" who likes to go on twitch.tv and shower random (mostly female) streamers with thousands of dollars. It is an utterly bizarre experience seeing screenshots of these events, where, say, a teenaged girl is playing a game in her parent's kitchen with a webcam trained on her, the caption is something like, "wow, $person just donated $20,000 to me! thanks!", and the entire family is in the background with their mouths agape in shock. I hate these glorified slot machines, I hate the companies that make them, and I do think it's unethical to prey upon children and regular people with bad judgment, but my guess is that the average "whale" is far too wealthy to deserve your sympathy. As a different example of the same idea, do you feel bad for the celebrities that spend hundreds of dollars for a drink at an exclusive club?
- patio11 13y ago
  Talk to people in the social games industry privately.
  - mattmaroon 13y ago
    I run one. When I've done cursory searches on our whales, I find people who appear (at least from LinkedIn/Facebook) to have great jobs. I don't get the impression the large guys can't afford it, generally speaking. I am sure it happens.
    - patio11 13y ago
      I trust that what you are saying is accurate for your company. (And, thanks for saying it. That's one data point I hadn't heard before.) It is at variance with things I have heard about other companies. I am, unfortunately, not able to elaborate.
      - krisgee 13y ago
        http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-30-core-gamers-can-be-whales-too http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-30-core-gamers... Good article that got passed around in my office on Friday. People who are 'gamers' and by extension people who make games tend to look at "whales" as gullible stupid people but a lot of us tend to exhibit the same behaviour about other things all while congratulating ourselves for not pay 5 bucks to support a game we've played for 50 hours. That said I think there is a really really fine line you have to walk to keep your IAPs "ethical" and it's very temping (and profitable) to fall on the Candy Crush side of things.
        xerophtye 13y ago
        Oh, Candy Crush does this too? (I have honestly never played it so i don't know). Well apparently there was a little exploit to bypass the wait (without paying). My GF told me about it (yes, she's addicted). You can just change you local clock and the game thinks a day has passed and tada! free lives.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      Why aren't HN readers outraged by this blatant privacy violation?
- mattmaroon 13y ago
  My question is: why is it unsavory when a game developer tries to get a customer to pay more, but not for any other startup? If Amazon improves its recommendation service, or another etailer a/b tests checkout flows, they're a genius. When a game developer does it, they're evil.
  - ANTSANTS 13y ago
    There are all kinds of ethical ways to get your most dedicated customers to "pay more" (what's the MBA-speak term for "trying to get everyone to pay exactly as much as they're comfortable with"? I can't remember). There are pre-order bonuses, special editions, purely cosmetic items that don't change the gameplay, mission packs, "mission pack sequels," actual sequels, "pay what you want," donations... It gets "unsavory" when you're focusing more on designing the perfect skinner box than actually creating a game. I think games are all about the feelings and mental states you get into when you play them. An action game gets your adrenaline pumping, competitive ones especially so. Strategy games require incredibly deep thought to stay one step ahead of the enemy. Puzzle games really stretch your brain to the limits of logic (or maybe they're just bullshit). From my experience, the games that people malign when they talk about mobile games and "social games," on the other hand, promote nothing but anxiety, and use it as a tool to wedge themselves into your subconscious so that you will fork over more cash into their creator's pockets. See the common practice of games based around waiting for something to happen, and bugging you with an alert whenever it does. I don't think very well of people that create things (I won't dignify them by calling them games) that do nothing but prey on anxiety, compulsion, and our attractions to flashing lights. It's the difference between creating something that people will pay $50 to experience, and creating something that is engineered to repeatedly exploit our basest negative emotions. These games are in some senses worse than heroin, because at least heroin is fun while it lasts. Jonathan Blow does the topic far more justice than I can at the moment (what am I doing, it's way too late to be drink posting on HN...) in his talk "Video Games and the Human Condition"[1], if you're interested. It's nearly two hours long, but I believe it's very much worth your time. As for "why do other startups not get shit for this," I think there's a big difference between A/B testing different versions of your game's site to see which version results in more "conversions" or whatever it's called, and designing your entire "game" around frisking people at every turn and being the best darn frisker you can. Not to mention the ones obviously marketed to children, which reasonable people agree is one step removed from turning up at your local elementary school with a trenchcoat full of free samples. (I have no idea who you are or what games you make, so don't take these comments personally, this is just my general opinion of the mobile games I've tried. If it (or especially Jonathan Blow's talk, because he's much more eloquent than tired, drunken me) rings close to home, however, it might not be a bad idea to download a pack of the 1000+ NES games and try a few at random for a reminder of what playing a real game is like) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU
- JabavuAdams 13y ago
  I spent over $400 on a certain free-to-play stronghold-building game, over a few weeks, after intending to spend only about $5 or so testing it. It was very interesting to introspect on the self-rationalization, etc, all the while understanding that I was BS'ing myself and also understanding the tricks they were using. It was addiction, pure and simple. Now, part of the reason I didn't stop sooner was that I can afford that, although it's not a good use of my funds. That was actually built into the rationalizations: Oh, if I'd taken the car to work today I'd have spent $20 on parking, and $15 on lunch, so I'll just take the subway and bring my lunch tomorrow ...
  - Lionga 13y ago
    So spending 20$ on parking instead of taking the subway is better use of your funds?
    - JabavuAdams 13y ago
      I don't understand your question. This seems to be the opposite of what I said.
  - kubiiii 13y ago
    Would you do that again? (If $400 is a non negligible amount of money for you). Or would you rather avoid temptation by not installing such games in the first place?
    - JabavuAdams 13y ago
      I wouldn't do it again, and I now avoid such games. Since that game, I've spent about $50 on another iOS game, before tiring of it. In both cases, I initially considered the games vapid, but my friends got into it, and I wanted to have stuff that was as good / better.
- felipeerias 13y ago
  Profiting from ludopathy is ethical if the other person is rich?
sneak 13y ago
All consensual and non-coercive transactions are ethical. It is simply not your place to decide for others how they should get their dopamine, or how much they should be paying for it.
- throwaway7808 13y ago
  Nope. Think British selling opium in India, ethical? And notably, selling a variety of addictive dopamine stimulants [including cocaine and methamphetamine] other than games is considered to be unethical.
- zorpner 13y ago
  What do you think "consensual and non-coercive" means in the context of addictive behavior?
  - sneak 13y ago
    It is everyone's individual right to have and maintain whatever addictions they choose.
    - chilldream 13y ago
      "addictions they choose"
    - DanBC 13y ago
      What makes you think that addiction is a choice?
      - sneak 13y ago
        Because almost no-one is born with them, and many choose to end them. It is clear that they are undertaken with free will, and ended similarly thereby. All of AA and everyone who's ever quit smoking stand as evidence.
        prawn 13y ago
mattmaroon 13y ago
Sure. The games (generally) aren't doing anything illegal or unethical. If someone has the spare money and the inclination, why would it be unethical to allow them to spend it? Remember that there is a lot of money out there. If you're a millionaire, a billionare has 1000x more money than you. His $30,000 is your $30.
sitkack 13y ago
I worked on a system where we could see these people's behavior. I recommended that we take the top X and refund their money. They had problems, and it was unethical for us to continue to bill them. Senior management said, "No." Which was appalling to me. It would cost us nothing, all virtual bits anyway. To see the greed of taking a sick persons money is kinda depressing.
- eru 13y ago
  > I recommended that we take the top X and refund their money. > It would cost us nothing, all virtual bits anyway. I see a contradiction here.
  - sitkack 13y ago
    The system I worked on did 40M in revenue. We are talking about 10 people spending 5k a year (ish). So 0.5% of revenue for product that never even got activated? Refunding is the only correct response.
    - eru 13y ago
      Thanks for the details. I wonder, what do you mean by "never even got activated"?
      - sitkack 13y ago
        Yes we would have "lost money", if that is the contraction you are seeing. But it is money we shouldn't have rightly had in the first place.
Goladus 13y ago
> Do you feel it's ethical to take $30k a year from 'the whales'? I don't have any essential ethical problems with the question. I have two concerns. (1) They're called "games" when they're not really "games." (2) The socio-economic implications of a system where it's easier and more profitable to sell to 50 people willing to pay $30,000+ than to 1.5 million people willing to pay $2.
brc 13y ago
Would you think it is unethical for iTunes to take $30k from someone who purchased a large amount of music, tv and movies? What about someone who spends $30k to get their Aston Martin repainted in chrome paint? People have to be careful here - this is clearly consensual behaviour as long as they know how much they are spending as they purchase. Everyone wants to compare to gambling - I detest gambling and never do it - I would cautiously support moves to rein in an ever-expanding gambling industry - but at the same time if people want to spend money on entertainment, even all of their money, I find it hard to come up with a suitable argument. People can spend all their money on all sorts of weird obsessions, but these shouldn't be reasons for outlawing the behaviour for the majority of people who get along just fine.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >People have to be careful here - this is clearly consensual behaviour [...] // Right. Many apps are designed to be effective Skinner boxes bypassing the brains logic to push at the base responses in order to initiate a "player" to want to continue without engaging their executive functions. Games like Candy Crush and Bejeweled play ever trick possible to part users from their cash. It's more like having a bar and when the mark is drunk you waft a cheeseburger under their nose, flash subliminal messages on the video screens, pay beautiful people to sit eating cheeseburgers, tell them all their friends ordered one and finally selling it for 3 tokens [$1000] because you know they won't then notice the cost. Oh plus wash that burger down with a beer that's suddenly $500 because arbitraryTimeLimit just ran out. Most obsessions that people spend silly money on aren't carefully designed to be obsessions. Those that are - smoking, gambling, drinking - are often tightly controlled. Nightclubs, so far as I know, don't have systems of their own currency specially designed to hide the dollar amounts of their drinks, for example. They also, where I am at least, have to post prices and are by law required to stop serving people who're drunk [though I hesitate to guess how often that law is flouted]. Your position on gambling seems contrary to your position on other for money gaming.

PakG1 13y ago

It's the exact same question whether it's ethical to take that amount of money from the whales in casinos. Because that's where the term whale comes from, synonymous with high rollers. It's the exact same scenario, except that in casinos, whales have a chance to make it back. But even in casinos, the rich people who can afford to be whales know that they're just throwing away their money. They're not like the poor stupid ones who go bankrupt with gambling debt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_roller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_roller

ANTSANTS 13y ago

As I understand it, "whales" tend to be less "poor gullible fools maxing out their credit cards" and more "extraordinarily wealthy people that enjoy wasting amounts that seem ridiculous to us but are truly nothing but a drop in the bucket to them." The term "oil prince" is trotted out sometimes, and people like that really do exist: I don't remember his name, but there is a very real "oil prince" who likes to go on twitch.tv and shower random (mostly female) streamers with thousands of dollars. It is an utterly bizarre experience seeing screenshots of these events, where, say, a teenaged girl is playing a game in her parent's kitchen with a webcam trained on her, the caption is something like, "wow, $person just donated $20,000 to me! thanks!", and the entire family is in the background with their mouths agape in shock. I hate these glorified slot machines, I hate the companies that make them, and I do think it's unethical to prey upon children and regular people with bad judgment, but my guess is that the average "whale" is far too wealthy to deserve your sympathy. As a different example of the same idea, do you feel bad for the celebrities that spend hundreds of dollars for a drink at an exclusive club?

patio11 13y ago
Talk to people in the social games industry privately.
- mattmaroon 13y ago
  I run one. When I've done cursory searches on our whales, I find people who appear (at least from LinkedIn/Facebook) to have great jobs. I don't get the impression the large guys can't afford it, generally speaking. I am sure it happens.
  - patio11 13y ago
    I trust that what you are saying is accurate for your company. (And, thanks for saying it. That's one data point I hadn't heard before.) It is at variance with things I have heard about other companies. I am, unfortunately, not able to elaborate.
    - krisgee 13y ago
      http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-30-core-gamers-can-be-whales-too http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-30-core-gamers... Good article that got passed around in my office on Friday. People who are 'gamers' and by extension people who make games tend to look at "whales" as gullible stupid people but a lot of us tend to exhibit the same behaviour about other things all while congratulating ourselves for not pay 5 bucks to support a game we've played for 50 hours. That said I think there is a really really fine line you have to walk to keep your IAPs "ethical" and it's very temping (and profitable) to fall on the Candy Crush side of things.
      - xerophtye 13y ago
        Oh, Candy Crush does this too? (I have honestly never played it so i don't know). Well apparently there was a little exploit to bypass the wait (without paying). My GF told me about it (yes, she's addicted). You can just change you local clock and the game thinks a day has passed and tada! free lives.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Why aren't HN readers outraged by this blatant privacy violation?
mattmaroon 13y ago
My question is: why is it unsavory when a game developer tries to get a customer to pay more, but not for any other startup? If Amazon improves its recommendation service, or another etailer a/b tests checkout flows, they're a genius. When a game developer does it, they're evil.
- ANTSANTS 13y ago
  There are all kinds of ethical ways to get your most dedicated customers to "pay more" (what's the MBA-speak term for "trying to get everyone to pay exactly as much as they're comfortable with"? I can't remember). There are pre-order bonuses, special editions, purely cosmetic items that don't change the gameplay, mission packs, "mission pack sequels," actual sequels, "pay what you want," donations... It gets "unsavory" when you're focusing more on designing the perfect skinner box than actually creating a game. I think games are all about the feelings and mental states you get into when you play them. An action game gets your adrenaline pumping, competitive ones especially so. Strategy games require incredibly deep thought to stay one step ahead of the enemy. Puzzle games really stretch your brain to the limits of logic (or maybe they're just bullshit). From my experience, the games that people malign when they talk about mobile games and "social games," on the other hand, promote nothing but anxiety, and use it as a tool to wedge themselves into your subconscious so that you will fork over more cash into their creator's pockets. See the common practice of games based around waiting for something to happen, and bugging you with an alert whenever it does. I don't think very well of people that create things (I won't dignify them by calling them games) that do nothing but prey on anxiety, compulsion, and our attractions to flashing lights. It's the difference between creating something that people will pay $50 to experience, and creating something that is engineered to repeatedly exploit our basest negative emotions. These games are in some senses worse than heroin, because at least heroin is fun while it lasts. Jonathan Blow does the topic far more justice than I can at the moment (what am I doing, it's way too late to be drink posting on HN...) in his talk "Video Games and the Human Condition"[1], if you're interested. It's nearly two hours long, but I believe it's very much worth your time. As for "why do other startups not get shit for this," I think there's a big difference between A/B testing different versions of your game's site to see which version results in more "conversions" or whatever it's called, and designing your entire "game" around frisking people at every turn and being the best darn frisker you can. Not to mention the ones obviously marketed to children, which reasonable people agree is one step removed from turning up at your local elementary school with a trenchcoat full of free samples. (I have no idea who you are or what games you make, so don't take these comments personally, this is just my general opinion of the mobile games I've tried. If it (or especially Jonathan Blow's talk, because he's much more eloquent than tired, drunken me) rings close to home, however, it might not be a bad idea to download a pack of the 1000+ NES games and try a few at random for a reminder of what playing a real game is like) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU
JabavuAdams 13y ago
I spent over $400 on a certain free-to-play stronghold-building game, over a few weeks, after intending to spend only about $5 or so testing it. It was very interesting to introspect on the self-rationalization, etc, all the while understanding that I was BS'ing myself and also understanding the tricks they were using. It was addiction, pure and simple. Now, part of the reason I didn't stop sooner was that I can afford that, although it's not a good use of my funds. That was actually built into the rationalizations: Oh, if I'd taken the car to work today I'd have spent $20 on parking, and $15 on lunch, so I'll just take the subway and bring my lunch tomorrow ...
- Lionga 13y ago
  So spending 20$ on parking instead of taking the subway is better use of your funds?
  - JabavuAdams 13y ago
    I don't understand your question. This seems to be the opposite of what I said.
- kubiiii 13y ago
  Would you do that again? (If $400 is a non negligible amount of money for you). Or would you rather avoid temptation by not installing such games in the first place?
  - JabavuAdams 13y ago
    I wouldn't do it again, and I now avoid such games. Since that game, I've spent about $50 on another iOS game, before tiring of it. In both cases, I initially considered the games vapid, but my friends got into it, and I wanted to have stuff that was as good / better.
felipeerias 13y ago
Profiting from ludopathy is ethical if the other person is rich?

sneak 13y ago

All consensual and non-coercive transactions are ethical. It is simply not your place to decide for others how they should get their dopamine, or how much they should be paying for it.

throwaway7808 13y ago
Nope. Think British selling opium in India, ethical? And notably, selling a variety of addictive dopamine stimulants [including cocaine and methamphetamine] other than games is considered to be unethical.
zorpner 13y ago
What do you think "consensual and non-coercive" means in the context of addictive behavior?
- sneak 13y ago
  It is everyone's individual right to have and maintain whatever addictions they choose.
  - chilldream 13y ago
    "addictions they choose"
  - DanBC 13y ago
    What makes you think that addiction is a choice?
    - sneak 13y ago
      Because almost no-one is born with them, and many choose to end them. It is clear that they are undertaken with free will, and ended similarly thereby. All of AA and everyone who's ever quit smoking stand as evidence.
      - prawn 13y ago

mattmaroon 13y ago

Sure. The games (generally) aren't doing anything illegal or unethical. If someone has the spare money and the inclination, why would it be unethical to allow them to spend it? Remember that there is a lot of money out there. If you're a millionaire, a billionare has 1000x more money than you. His $30,000 is your $30.

sitkack 13y ago

I worked on a system where we could see these people's behavior. I recommended that we take the top X and refund their money. They had problems, and it was unethical for us to continue to bill them. Senior management said, "No." Which was appalling to me. It would cost us nothing, all virtual bits anyway. To see the greed of taking a sick persons money is kinda depressing.

eru 13y ago
> I recommended that we take the top X and refund their money. > It would cost us nothing, all virtual bits anyway. I see a contradiction here.
- sitkack 13y ago
  The system I worked on did 40M in revenue. We are talking about 10 people spending 5k a year (ish). So 0.5% of revenue for product that never even got activated? Refunding is the only correct response.
  - eru 13y ago
    Thanks for the details. I wonder, what do you mean by "never even got activated"?
    - sitkack 13y ago
      Yes we would have "lost money", if that is the contraction you are seeing. But it is money we shouldn't have rightly had in the first place.

Goladus 13y ago

> Do you feel it's ethical to take $30k a year from 'the whales'? I don't have any essential ethical problems with the question. I have two concerns. (1) They're called "games" when they're not really "games." (2) The socio-economic implications of a system where it's easier and more profitable to sell to 50 people willing to pay $30,000+ than to 1.5 million people willing to pay $2.

brc 13y ago

Would you think it is unethical for iTunes to take $30k from someone who purchased a large amount of music, tv and movies? What about someone who spends $30k to get their Aston Martin repainted in chrome paint? People have to be careful here - this is clearly consensual behaviour as long as they know how much they are spending as they purchase. Everyone wants to compare to gambling - I detest gambling and never do it - I would cautiously support moves to rein in an ever-expanding gambling industry - but at the same time if people want to spend money on entertainment, even all of their money, I find it hard to come up with a suitable argument. People can spend all their money on all sorts of weird obsessions, but these shouldn't be reasons for outlawing the behaviour for the majority of people who get along just fine.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>People have to be careful here - this is clearly consensual behaviour [...] // Right. Many apps are designed to be effective Skinner boxes bypassing the brains logic to push at the base responses in order to initiate a "player" to want to continue without engaging their executive functions. Games like Candy Crush and Bejeweled play ever trick possible to part users from their cash. It's more like having a bar and when the mark is drunk you waft a cheeseburger under their nose, flash subliminal messages on the video screens, pay beautiful people to sit eating cheeseburgers, tell them all their friends ordered one and finally selling it for 3 tokens [$1000] because you know they won't then notice the cost. Oh plus wash that burger down with a beer that's suddenly $500 because arbitraryTimeLimit just ran out. Most obsessions that people spend silly money on aren't carefully designed to be obsessions. Those that are - smoking, gambling, drinking - are often tightly controlled. Nightclubs, so far as I know, don't have systems of their own currency specially designed to hide the dollar amounts of their drinks, for example. They also, where I am at least, have to post prices and are by law required to stop serving people who're drunk [though I hesitate to guess how often that law is flouted]. Your position on gambling seems contrary to your position on other for money gaming.