
ASA Adjudication on EA Dungeon Keeper - DanBC
http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2014/7/Electronic-Arts-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_258907.aspx#.U7cpMnu9LTo
======
scrollaway
Nice to see sanity once in a while.

When did gaming become a chore? I know it has been asked to death, but I
cannot for the life of me figure this disgusting logic out: People play a game
that is _not_ enjoyable, and then pay extra to skip the unenjoyable parts and
basically win the game, henceforth skipping the enjoyable parts of the game
along with it!

It's disgusting. A money grab, pure and simple. You shoot people who don't
know better, then sell them the bandaids at premium prices. In this process,
you add zero value. You trap people who are likely to be trapped (most often
parents of the healthy non-helicopter kind) and squeeze them. This money at
the end of the chain most often comes off our various governments as these
people end up running into debt.

There is nothing that describes this better as the words "predatory
behaviour".

~~~
fidotron
You're dangerously close to making the leap I made a while ago which is
horrifically un-PC. I'm going to say this and hope HN can appreciate the point
of view even if they don't agree.

A fundamental problem with wealth redistribution as practised by governments
(and credit card companies) is it makes the easiest route to riches taking
advantage of people of . . . not necessarily the greatest ability to manage
their finances responsibly. This means an enormous proportion of the smartest
people in the western world are engaged in attempting to extract cash from
people they are essentially exploiting, which ends up costing society as a
whole since those people should be actively employed doing things which are
more valuable.

You can't regulate taking advantage of stupidity out of the market, so the
only answer is to come up with a redistribution mechanism that doesn't create
such giant holes.

~~~
scrollaway
> You can't regulate taking advantage of stupidity out of the market, so the
> only answer is to come up with a redistribution mechanism that doesn't
> create such giant holes.

But what do you propose for that? Because in the world we live in, all
attempts at some form of "wealth equality" led to either disaster or
technological crippling.

Maybe there's an ideal solution. It's probably something you could even prove
mathematically. But even then, it is not a solution that will happen in at
least several generations; and in the mean time, behaviour like EA's is doing
nothing but steal opportunities (when you indebt someone, you can ruin or
severely cripple their entire life and sometimes their families') in order to
pay for the CEOs' jacuzzis.

~~~
fidotron
Well, indeed. I'm far from convinced there are easy solutions to the problem,
and in my more conservative moments I can entertain the idea of abolishing
even pretences at welfare aimed redistribution on this basis, but ultimately
it's very hard to stomach. Credit should probably be harder to obtain,
regardless of the position I'm feeling in at the time!

Ironically the better approach may be fairly close to what's in the games, and
that is to expand the scope of food stamps (or similar) to create a sort of
two tiered currency setup, where one currency is only legally usable for basic
needs. Unfortunately that's likely to have exactly the same consequences as
exists in the games.

~~~
waps
Give it a year or so, and credit will be much harder to obtain. Problem will
solve itself, with massive consequences for the rest of us.

Problem is that we simply don't have economically useful things for people to
do. This problem is hitting China. Unemployment is hitting people who are
willing to tolerate this quality of life :

[http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/...](http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/51.jpg)

It's being caused partially by the energy crunch (even with the US shale boom,
net oil available to the world to use has been declining since 2005) and the
lack of solutions (note that solar panels need ... a lot of oil to get
produced, wind turbines need massive amounts of oil for their production, so
so far the whole "renewable" energy thing has increased, not decreased, our
reliance on oil. Hopefully that'll reverse in a decade or so, question is will
it still matter by then ? Also global warming policies have basically moved a
lot of factories which were in the west (where they were powered by mostly
oil, some nuclear, little bit of gas), to China (where they are powered by
coal). Coal is about 10x worse for the environment than coal).

But fixing the oil problem (e.g. there are massive methane deposits along
continental edges that could replace natural gas. They're big enough that they
put the total amount of oil available in 1950 to shame. We don't currently
know how to extract them, but loads (as in dozens) of research programs are in
progress to fix that) would not bring a permanent solution.

What we need is something useful for unskilled workers to do that is
reasonably well-paid, can use any amount of unskilled workers, is spread about
the country, and ideally cheaper than bailing out banks. Maybe we ought to
take a page out of the Roman empire's book and start building cathedrals in
every city in America ? Worked for Europe for several hundred years ...

~~~
joosters
Why do you think that people should have to do 'economically useful' things?

Surely it is one of the goals of technology and progress that we free people
from the need to work. As such, any step towards this 'leisure economy' should
be celebrated, rather than thinking up pointless labour for people to do.

~~~
gaius
I suspect that, without some sort of direction, many people would go mad. It
would be nice if people used their leisure time to create art or pursue
research of some sort and so on, but people generally don't. You see it all
the time, lottery winners who are miserable, some of them even going back to
their ordinary jobs, because they miss them. For every JK Rowling who spent a
period of unemployment writing a book, there are a million who won't even
_read_ a book. There's no easy way around this, it needs a fairly basic shift
in human nature.

~~~
pessimizer
I'd be just fine. The natural state of man isn't a 40-hour workweek, and it
wasn't even common until the industrial revolution. Hunter-gatherers worked
less than we do.

If people still feel too idle and can't come up with something to do on their
own, they can share a 40hr job with 4 or 5 other people. I am fully confident,
though, that everyone will find something they like to do to occupy their
time.

~~~
ljf
I can't reply to gaius for some reason but:

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society)
Quote: studies show that hunter-gatherers need only work about fifteen to
twenty hours a week in order to survive and may devote the rest of their time
to leisure

[http://condensedscience.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/life-
expect...](http://condensedscience.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/life-expectancy-
in-hunter-gatherers-and-other-groups/)

Quote:life expectancy at age 15 is 48 years for Aborigines, 52 and 51 for
settled Ache and !Kung, yet 31 and 36 for peas- ant and transitional Agta.
Survival to age 45 varies between 19 and 54 percent, and those aged 45 live an
average of 12–24 additional years The modal age of mortality in hunter-
gatherers can range from 68 in the Hiwi to 78 in the Tsimane.

------
DanBC
The Advertising Standards Agency is the English regulator for advertising.

This case is about EA advertising Dungeon Keeper as free to play without being
clear about IAP.

> _The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Electronic Arts
> Ltd to ensure that future ads made clear the limitations of free gameplay
> and role of in-app purchasing with regard to speeding up gameplay._

~~~
wbillingsley
The ASA is an industry body -- it's not a government regulator. Which gives it
much greater freedom to rule on this. (It's harder to sue, as it's a body that
the industry signs up to in order to protect the reputation of the advertising
industry in the UK.)

~~~
DanBC
Sorry for the late reply.

> The ASA is an industry body -- it's not a government regulator.

I was surprised by this. I thought they were a stronger regulator. But a
simple bit of reading of their website shows that while they have some teeth
for broadcast adverts (because they cooperate with OFCOM and various Trading
Standards organisations) they lack teeth for anything else, even though they
claim to cover online ads. Thus, they have a list of non-compliant websites
who continue to make misleading claims.

Thank you for pointing that out!

------
nasmorn
Free room in Hotel California. In the morning the normal exit is closed but
you can leave free of charge through the complementary layrinth. At some dead
ends there are credit card terminals where you can pay to have a door open.

------
mcintyre1994
I'm interested in EA's claim that data for mid and late game players showed
"non-spenders did not reach these points substantially slower than spenders"
given that the entire judgement seems to suggest it'd be impossible to
progress remotely quickly. How could they have that data, assuming it's not
possible to just make up data and have the ASA ignore that, and how come it
was never discussed in the upholding?

~~~
abcd_f
My kid is a non-spender. He has, maybe, 20-30 games on his iPad that are all
pay-to-accelerate, so he plays them in turns and ends up playing all the time.
So he makes a steady progress even with some most greedy of the games, of
which DK is indeed the crown jewel.

~~~
Tepix
P2A - Pay-to-accelerate - I love it!

------
johnvschmitt
With millions of games released, we've essentially been conducting a wide
experiment into what methods (free, IAP, free/pro) is effective (at getting in
the top categories for revenue & downloads).

Now, we see that the top charts are dominated by games like this. Free, with
IAP to accelerate. That's what the market evolution bore.

If we don't like it, we can try to ban practices, but unless Apple (as a
gatekeeper) bans these things, they will persist, as that's what millions of
apps across billions of downloads/players have evolved to, & will evolve back
to.

To change the dominant business model, we'd need some new mechanic to supplant
it, not just trying to tilt at windmills & complain.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Yep. Liberal helpings of "if you don't like it don't p(l)ay it" should be
applied here. No body is forcing anybody to p(l)ay. There will be a few very
vocal people complain about the model, and then there will the be balance
sheet. Which speaks louder?

To change the dominant business model, you need to come up with a new model
that generates _more_ profit. That is exactly what has happened here.

A thing is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I'm less
concerned about expensive IAP than I am about the people who pay for them. But
then I think: So what? People will pay too much for all sorts of things. Who
am I to judge.

~~~
drdaeman
<rant>

I'm willing to pay for a good games that don't annoy me asking for more money,
but see almost nothing to pay for. (I'm only talking about mobile here,
desktop games market is totally different.)

That is, when I got bored I had browsed Play Market for a while and I'd say -
subjectively - options where you buy a game and that's it - you enjoy the
whole thing, as advertised, right to a solid logical ending, without anyone
persistently asking you to take your wallet out again (to remove ads, to buy
some in-game advantage or to access further gameplay) are astonishingly rare.

Crap, even Baldur's Gate is now with in-app purchases and DLCs. (But, again,
not on desktop!) Guess, that _must_ be something related to stereotypes and
cliches, not real business models.

</rant>

------
crazy1van
Time for EA to put a fast talking voiceover and some tiny text at the end of
the ad.

In my opinion, rulings like this will only lead to minimum required
compliance. A lack of paying customers will lead to real behavior changes.

------
kabdib
Wonder how much money EA is making off of Dungeon Keeper now.

They could do worse than to NOT change the ads, but update the game so that
it's actually free to play. "Sorry people, we screwed up. Here, have a game.
We won't do that again."

But EA, being EA, would never do that.

~~~
tormeh
Games with in-app purchases are the single mobile app category making the most
money. Why would you think Dungeon Keeper is doing badly? If it is, it's
probably because it's to complex to play on the bus or something.

------
SippinLean
This wouldn't be such a travesty if the original Dungeon Keeper wasn't so much
fun. There are plenty of play to win games out now, but rarely do they
disgrace the legacy of a game like this.

~~~
stonewhite
Except EA is really notorious for desecrating whatever franchises they have.
They fund a game/chore like Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, yet
Warhammer: Age of Heroes shuts down in a very short time.

------
funkyy
The business model is not bad. Its the greed of those companies and CEOs that
are hurting the business. I think they watched to much Gordon Gekko movies
when they were young and they still believe in his strategy like its a fast
track to fame and glory.

------
gcb0
what's next? they will tell me I won't get a girl if I buy a bmw?

I'm pretty sure the ad told me that.

~~~
gcb0
lol. 4 people that now have buyers remorse on their bmw down voted me.

