
Jon Stewart skewers Freemium iOS Games [video] - iamclovin
http://getdenso.com/videos/2711806-december-08-2011-ed-gillespie-part-3
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potatolicious
Forget the "targeted at our kids!" or "$99 fishies!" thing for a moment, those
are IMO red herrings (no pun intended).

The real issue with freemium is that I've yet to see a single example that's
actually a _game_ , as opposed to one armed bandits masquerading as games.

Of all the examples I've played, none are any _fun_. They are simply designed
to trap you into a treadmill, cough up some dollars, and hopefully run this
cycle a few times before you brain kicks in and realize you haven't had any
fun the entire time.

I love mobile games. Angry Birds is a great time waster, Cut the Rope actually
has a surprising amount of strategy behind it. Neither of these are freemium.
Thank God. Hell, I don't even mind the idea of episodic gaming - I will gladly
cough up a few dollars now and again to see the next chapter of a story or
play a few more levels.

Maybe I'm just being an old curmudgeon, but there was a time when "gaming"
actually meant "fun", not "psycho-manipulative casino trap".

~~~
matwood
_The real issue with freemium is that I've yet to see a single example that's
actually a game, as opposed to one armed bandits masquerading as games._

I consider those _games_ to be a type of psychological malware that spreads
through social obligations.

[http://www.thepensiveprogrammer.com/2010/05/are-social-
oblig...](http://www.thepensiveprogrammer.com/2010/05/are-social-obligation-
games.html)

~~~
danssig
Ack, accidental downvote. Sorry about that, I'd take it back if I could.

~~~
StavrosK
Don't worry, I upvoted it to offset your downvote.

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Luc
Tap Fish CEO points out how far Daily Show strayed from reality:
[http://zenentrepreneur.blogspot.com/2011/12/top-10-things-
da...](http://zenentrepreneur.blogspot.com/2011/12/top-10-things-daily-show-
with-jon.html)

~~~
betageek
I love the Daily Show but this made me think twice about it's content. There's
some extreme trolling going on here that will make me look at their skewering
of the right in a different way - which is probably a good thing.

With all the real crazy stuff going on, I'd expect The Daily Show not to have
to invent fake stories, but I guess even they have airtime to fill.

~~~
andrewfelix
I think the issue of kids being manipulated by mobile games is a legitimate
issue.

That aside, the Daily Show is comedy. It's astonishing that people are
surprised that their sketches aren't factually accurate. They have 'live'
reports from heaven and hell for f __ks sake. Enjoy it, try not to form
opinions based on it.

~~~
betageek
People keep using the "it's a fake news show" as a defense but I don't buy
into that. I've always thought of the Daily Show as satire, holding up real
news stories to ridicule has a long and glowing history of influencing the
public - once you start twisting stories to fit in with a joke you've lost the
high ground.

The fact that gamification's effect on kids is a legitimate issue makes it
worse - there's enough real craziness around to make fun of without inventing
some.

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VonLipwig
I was under the impression you needed to enter your app store password to make
a digital purchase.

The vulnerability _i thought_ was that the iPad remembered the password for a
short amount of time, if you handed your iPad to a kid in that time they could
fire up the app and make a purchase without needing to re-enter the password.
Typically though, the kid would be unable to make purchases without a
password.

I lesson I learned quickly on the iPad was that few applications were really
free. Either the ad's were intrusive or the majority of the content had to be
purchased. I typically do not bother with free app's any more and just look
for a high rated paid version.

~~~
masklinn
> I was under the impression you needed to enter your app store password to
> make a digital purchase.

That is correct.

> The vulnerability i thought was that the iPad remembered the password for a
> short amount of time, if you handed your iPad to a kid in that time they
> could fire up the app and make a purchase without needing to re-enter the
> password

That is also correct, but can be fixed via parental restrictions: the default
configuration allows in-app purchases, mandates password entry and remembers
the password for fifteen (15) minutes, it's possible to disable in-app
purchase altogether (independently from AppStore purchases) and to not
remember the password at all.

~~~
ugh
One problem might be that many kids know their parents' password – they mght
even be the ones who created the account for their parents.

~~~
VonLipwig
Many parents hide behind a wall of ignorance. That looks technical so I will
get my kid to do it. Maybe when I get a bit older I will be the same.
However... as soon as my kid asks for my credit card details I will be like
'hang on.. whats this for?'

I remember the first purchase I made on Amazon. I was like 13 and I needed my
mum's card to make it. She knew nothing about computers and almost nothing
about the internet. It took her 2 weeks to look into it before giving me the
OK. She then struggled through the Amazon website to get what I wanted. Spent
a large amount of time making sure she was only getting one, the item was
correct and it was being delivered to the right address. She then pressed the
purchased button.

That is parenting. That is common sense. I have no idea when it became the
norm to trust teen and preteen kids with parents passwords and access to
credit card linked accounts.

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josephcooney
Sounds like you've got this parenting thing sorted out. Do you have any kids?

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pyoung
I have a hard time imagining how the CEO did't see this coming. He either must
not be familiar with the show at all, or must have some serious cognitive
dissonance going on.

Also, I think it is good to see Stewart and co. cash in on some of the
ridiculousness of SV. I thoroughly enjoy video games on a limited basis, and
gladly pay for the experience, but never quite understood how anyone could
consider the freemium game model anything but a boderline scam.

~~~
iamclovin
> I have a hard time imagining how the CEO did't see this coming. He either
> must not be familiar with the show at all, or must have some serious
> cognitive dissonance going on.

I think this applies to most interviewees on the Daily Show.

~~~
doktrin
It's worth pointing out that The Daily Show has always employed a modest
amount of creative editing during their interviews.

To my knowledge it's just to accentuate the comedic effect and not to the
point of actually manufacturing any portion of the interview, but it's no
coincidence their interviewees routinely come across like complete buffoons.

~~~
pyoung
Stumbled across this. Sounds like the original pitch was that it was going to
be a segment on the economy. It makes it slightly more understandable (how one
can get duped into this), but unless you are an author or a Nobel prize winner
getting interviewed live by JS, it would be wise to stay away from the show.

<http://zenentrepreneur.blogspot.com/>

~~~
doktrin
Good find, and definitely worth a read! 4 hours is certainly ample time to
slip up and make a mistake.

The live interviews seem to be a safe bet. It would reflect poorly on them if
they routinely skewered their guests.

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ryanmolden
I think he is skewering games that smell very much like manipulative scams. A
"game" that targets children, is initially free and then asks them to pay $100
(by clicking a button in game) for some virtual fish? What?

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danso
So to view this video on "denso", video that they've appropriated from another
content creator, all I have to do is download the denso app?

Gee, that sounds so much less sketchier than the free mum thing.

*Edit: I was using my iPad. I understand that the Daily Show site doesn't support iOS. Still, this is kind of annoying.

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iamclovin
You can view the video from the browser and it doesn't require an app download
- if you can't, its probably a bug. Please email us at hello@getdenso.com with
your browser/OS details and we'd love to figure out the root cause. Thanks!

~~~
danso
My apologies. I forgot to include that I was viewing this from my iPad. You
can see how this is kind of annoying, right?

~~~
iamclovin
Apologies for this, there was a bug in our player which didn't enable HTML5
mode. It should work now - do let us know if it doesn't, thanks!

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officemonkey
If this was iamclovin's way of showing us "Denso," the splash page didn't
impress. The video took forever to load, stuttered continually, and basically
failed to get me to explore farther. I also particularly dislike video players
where I can't go "full screen" (Apple trailers I'm looking at you.)

Oh, and it's not even 0800 EST.

~~~
iamclovin
Well, promotion is obviously a welcome benefit of sharing something I thought
was a very interesting take on the world of social/freemium gaming.

I apologize for the bad experience though - we're still a young service
constantly looking to improve and we definitely welcome more feedback -
thanks!

edit: You can now enable fullscreen on the player.

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pluies
Checking on the App Store (<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tap-
fish-2/id443891725?mt=8>), you can buy less than $99 worth of "FishBucks".
Most in-app purchases are between $1 and $10. It's just a freemium as any
other.

You can disable in-app purchases with Parental Controls, which should be used
by, you know, parents, to, err, control.

Of course, being The Daily Show (or should I say "American TV"?), it's
completely one-sided and exaggerated. That gets the message across, I guess.

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earthboundkid
Disabling in-app purchase is something new that was added to the App Store
because of complaints by parents whose kids ran up huge bills.

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johnbatch
Parental restrictions allowing you to disable in-app purchase were released
the same time in-app purchase was released with IOS 3.0.

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ck2
Too bad Jon Stewart's writers didn't bother to "skewer" unsupervised pre-
teens.

There is a balance here - the same kids will also run out into busy streets.

Handing your kids an iphone or ipad with an attached credit card is insane.

~~~
waitwhat
_Too bad Jon Stewart's writers didn't bother to "skewer" unsupervised pre-
teens._

The writers simply don't have time to skewer everything that might deserve it
in a single 4-minute spot. I'm sure that they aren't particularly in favour of
unsupervised pre-teens, and are probably able to find a gag or two there if
needed, so they might get around to addressing that in time.

 _Handing your kids an iphone or ipad with an attached credit card is insane._

My father's iphone has two apps on it: some golf thing, and Angry Birds. He
played the latter for two minutes because he was curious. I certainly wouldn't
brand him "insane" for not knowing about the Mighty Eagle and handing his
phone to a six year-old.

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sriram_sun
Worth watching. Asif Mandvi (Daily Show) did a really nice piece on that. They
"featured" one software company that peddles this kind of slimeware. It
actually tricks kids into buying stuff like digital fish for $99 in the middle
of a game! Most parents don't realize this and one guy's kids ended up
spending $1500 or so.

This is worse than penny auctions as they are stealing from kids here. True,
people who actually participate in penny auctions probably have IQs worse than
7 yr olds. But stupidity is not an excuse.

~~~
Animus7
> This is worse than penny auctions as they are stealing from kids here.

They're not stealing from kids. Kids don't have anything worth stealing. They
are using psychology to entice kids to spend their parents' money when they're
not looking; that's different.

> True, people who actually participate in penny auctions probably have IQs
> worse than 7 yr olds.

This is an outrageous statement and I'm sure you realize this. These
strategies are profitable precisely _because_ you don't have to be
ridiculously stupid to be fooled. It's the same reason casinos work.

Everything these companies are doing is legal and whether we morally agree or
not, this is how the business game is played: you find (hopefully legal) ways
to get people to give you money.

If one of those ways is enticing people to _voluntarily_ agree to pay app
store fees that they incur through their use, and then enticing them (or
someone else on their behalf) to incur those fees, you've won the business
game and you deserve the profits. Let customers vote with their money
elsewhere if they disagree. Welcome to the free market.

Every time you walk into a store, you are being manipulated with psychological
tricks centuries in the making. And any parent has paid far more for useless
stuff they were psychologically coaxed into getting than their kids will ever
spend on the app store.

Yet whenever children are involved, the slightest sign of "sleaze" triggers
rage -- a deliciously ironic example of the same psychology these business
people use to get your money :).

~~~
sriram_sun
> This is an outrageous statement and I'm sure you realize this.

Outrage aside, please log in to a penny auction site and observe for a while.
You'll see people spending hundreds of dollars for $25 gift cards. In effect
they are buying $25 for $50 or so :). Usually the bid process lasts for a few
hours (The pennies do have to add up). So this lack of judgement on the
bidder's part is not momentary. It lasts at least for a couple of hours, time
enough to think about your actions and do some basic math.

> If one of those ways is enticing people to voluntarily agree to pay app
> store fees..

That's a bit of a stretch in this particular case. It was advertised as a free
game. These people didn't voluntarily sign up to pay $1500. The amount charged
goes beyond all reasonable expectations.

> you've won the business game and you deserve the profits.

Well, you've to be careful about entitlement there. In this case, all you've
managed to do is rope in a number of clueless parents.

> Let customers vote with their money elsewhere if they disagree. Welcome to
> the free market.

Yes I welcome the free market. You are seeing the free market in action. Just
because you used the phrase "free market" does not justify the seller's
actions. People like Stewart have picked it up because there is something
fundamentally wrong with this kind of behavior. There is no reason to be smug
about fundamentally making people part with money they would never have if
they knew the fine print ahead of time. This is dishonesty and will always be
punished eventually.

In a free market someone could sell you asbestos fortified lead paint infused
toys to your kids a lot cheaper than market price. Maybe you didn't buy it,
but someone dropped it off at a day care somewhere. This product should never
have entered the market or been manufactured in the first place. In a free
market, you could also have credit card companies arbitrarily change your APR
or change their rules on you any time. If a telemarketer gets hold of your
number in a free market and calls you in the middle of the night, are you ok
with that? Even a "free" market has rules. Granted, it takes time for the free
market to realize these shenanigans and react. To this particular product, we,
the market is reacting :)

> Yet whenever children are involved, the slightest sign of "sleaze" triggers
> rage

No. Children are being used as mere accessories or tools. Again, this
particular case exhibits a great degree of sleaze!

> a deliciously ironic example of the same psychology these business people
> use to get your money :)

True. Again, that doesn't justify the business's behavior. In the same
segment, they also interview a child psychologist who argues that children's
brains are not fully developed that they appreciate the nature of their
actions.

I guess what I'm getting at is this whole business idea is based on the fact
that children would buy digital fish for $99 without their parent's knowledge
in the middle of a game. This model will not last long. They've made their
money like a pretty good fly by night operator who hides behind platitudes
like the "free market." So don't try to justify their actions using creative
word play.

Edit: I just read the CEO's take on the whole deal. Sounds like Aasif did go
overboard with a lot of creative editing. However, he does dodge the issue of
$99 fish. Looks like that is indeed an option, but reserved for very special
kids :).

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ajhit406
Reminded me of this article: "S Korean dies after games session"

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm>

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nextparadigms
Is that how all videos and movies look on an iPad? That letterbox is huge.
Seems distracting.

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megablast
Have you really never used an iPad?

