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Actual F2P developer here. I've spent countless hours interviewing payers. Vast majority of people are normal, hardworking people who just genuinely enjoy games

Actual F2P developer here. I've spent countless hours interviewing payers. Vast majority of people are normal, hardworking people who just genuinely enjoy games. You're focused on a problem that doesn't affect 99.964% of people playing the game (Math: Avg 3% of people are payers, 4% of those payers are whales, and a small fraction of those big payers could be recognized as people with issues). Moreover, even if this problem existed, that doesn't make these games inherently bad. People can develop addictions to whole gamut of things: alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, porn, Facebook, relationships, food, etc. But none of those things are inherently ban. Why is gaming any different? Yes, F2P games optimize for retention/monetization, but how is this any different from any other product in the market?

tjradcliffe 11y ago
Other products don't aren't optimized by their creators to extract the maximum revenue from the 0.046% of their market that the creators have determined are vulnerable to remarkably effective psychological manipulation techiniques, and upon whom the creators are dependent for the majority of their revenue. Next question? And the next question really shouldn't be "Oh but aren't they really? Other products use advertising too!" If it is, please refer to the answer above, and add reading comprehension.
- toyg 11y ago
  You don't know much about other industries then. Both gambling, food and drink sectors are optimized to build addiction and maintain it over the longest possible period. They call it "fidelity" but it's the same thing. I personally think f2p is essentially a branch of the gambling industry and will eventually be recognised as such in law. After all, it was the case for coin-ops (at least here in Europe), which had basically the same business model.
  - cactusface 11y ago
    His point was that in other industries they don't optimize their products for a tiny percentage of their clients.
    - toyg 11y ago
      In Las Vegas, they certainly optimize their "products" for big spenders.
      - jsight 11y ago
        Yes, and there are plenty of people who would argue that is a bad thing.

tjradcliffe 11y ago

Other products don't aren't optimized by their creators to extract the maximum revenue from the 0.046% of their market that the creators have determined are vulnerable to remarkably effective psychological manipulation techiniques, and upon whom the creators are dependent for the majority of their revenue. Next question? And the next question really shouldn't be "Oh but aren't they really? Other products use advertising too!" If it is, please refer to the answer above, and add reading comprehension.

toyg 11y ago
You don't know much about other industries then. Both gambling, food and drink sectors are optimized to build addiction and maintain it over the longest possible period. They call it "fidelity" but it's the same thing. I personally think f2p is essentially a branch of the gambling industry and will eventually be recognised as such in law. After all, it was the case for coin-ops (at least here in Europe), which had basically the same business model.
- cactusface 11y ago
  His point was that in other industries they don't optimize their products for a tiny percentage of their clients.
  - toyg 11y ago
    In Las Vegas, they certainly optimize their "products" for big spenders.
    - jsight 11y ago
      Yes, and there are plenty of people who would argue that is a bad thing.