This type of game monetization essentially equates to slot machines with no monetary reward possible -- but it's otherwise nearly the exact same thing, and it's intentionally engineered to be that way. I'm an indie game dev and I really hate that the industry has become this way.
I also am upset that nearly all sports franchise games have become solely micro-transaction driven (ie Madden, Nascar, etc).
I definitely will do everything I can to prevent my kids from falling into games with these types of 'reward' systems -- and I'll personally only be making games if I'm able to do so without resorting to slot machine monetization tactics. Once it gets to the point that there's no other way to monetize, then even [the 'bad'] big tech starts looking like the lesser of the evils. =\
Government regulation is absolutely needed IMO, and I'm generally not a "regulate it" type guy.
Yup agree 100%. I don't see how this is ANY different from gambling. It needs to be regulated as such. Although isn't most gambling regulation more about avoiding cheating, rather than actually reducing addiction?
It is in fact fundamentally different from gambling. In Vegas, there’s a non-zero chance of recouping your “investment” or even to make money. Not even a possibility here.
My kids get a weekly allowance, however, they’re not allowed to spend it on in-game transactions. Once a year, on Christmas, they get $40 they are allowed to spend on digital rewards - Fortnite vbucks are their typical choice. I see the manipulation happening to these kids, and the bad habits it forms. Not to mention how it’s destroying gaming. I’m sentimental for the days when you could drop $60 on a game with a great offline experience, and a online multiplayer world, without additional pay to play.
> I’m sentimental for the days when you could drop $60 on a game with a great offline experience, and a online multiplayer world, without additional pay to play.
I'd posit the of issue is wanting both an online world and offline game as is the problem. There are still non-world online included with games with significant offline content that have no MTX (although some does have MTX too).
And there is still plenty of offline only games not infested with MTX, often with no paid DLC, or only sensible expansions that are very much optional purchases.
But online worlds that are not designed to continuously extract money from people seem to have become pretty infrequent, whether shipped with an offline game or not. And to be honest, I'm not surprised. Unlike matchmaking and the like, the online world type multiplayer tend to require a lot more server resources.
Without MTX or subscriptions, I bet a lot of online worlds would get shut down by 24 months after game release, simply due to exhausting the portion of the game sales allocated to running the servers by that point.
While there is a large catalog of such games that exist historically, I feel like mainstream AAA and nearly AAA developers have largely abandoned this model. Good standalone experiences do come out, but they're the exception at this point and I imagine their marketshare is declining. They're just less profitable (and probably harder to make) than live service games.
It's even worse than slot machines, as the games are engineered and tweaked around statistical analysis of the players, ensuring that they get the lowest rewards possible that still make them come back. No one can beat the house in that casino.
These games have replaced game mechanics with charged dice.
Fat and sugar together in a food is hard for the brain to stop eating. We are wired to want it (high energy content). To say it can be like a drug, I would say yes. Looking at the stats 2/3 Americans are overweight or obese. I think the stats speak for themselves. Source: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
Maybe? If they are using unethical means to make junk food more appealing, maybe you could argue that. You’re relying on the same addiction to sell your product.
My 7 year old son started playing Tom Hero (and Tom Gold Run) since his friend plays it on her Fire Tablet. I installed it and agreed to let him play it before I realized the sheer number of ads and psychological manipulation in it. Want a power up? Watch this ad. Want to continue? Watch this other ad. Seriously f-ck these game companies that prey on mental weakness, especially those of children, for a quick buck. I have had numerous arguments with my son, so he's very aware of the ads and that they're trying to trick him, but not all parents will even know what's going on with these games. And he still falls for them. How can he not?
For the record, I would've been more than happy to pay Outfit7, the racket behind this game, a sum of money to just play the game without ads. That's entirely reasonable to just allow me to buy the game. But nope. I haven't seen that option.
Apple Arcade, which is the antidote and claims to not have any ads or in-app purchases, is like a cigarette company selling nicotine patches to get you off your smoking addiction. Every time Apple claims to give a sh-t about addiction, you can see how manipulative and scammy the top 100 games are on the App Store. Curation, my ass.
How are more Apple employees not put off by this stuff?
I disagree with your metaphor. Apple is less like a cigarette company making nicotine patches and more like a pharmacy selling cigarettes with warnings on the labels _and_ offering store-brand nicotine patches. A related note: it was only recently that CVS stopped selling cigarettes.
Does that distinction make Apple less ethically problematic? Heck yeah. And I imagine many people, myself included, are okay with where it lies on the gray line.
I think that Apple is aware of how this has turned out and wants to change course. This is probably why in-app purchases are not allowed in the games in their new game subscription service.
I had a problem like this a while back. My son was making purchases on an ipod game without knowing what he was doing. They kept putting popups on the screen. He wanted to keep playing, so he closed the popup. What he didn't realize was that it was costing an average of $25 every time he closed the popup. It took about 30 minutes to rack up $200 in charges.
It's impossible to put together a reasonable defense for this. What really pissed me off was that even though Apple eventually refunded the money, they kept making it sound like it was my fault. "You need to turn on this setting in this menu." Nope. Not my fault at all. The setting was turned on but it failed. And even if I hadn't turned it on, why on earth should you need to opt out rather than opt in?
Maybe it doesn't have much of an impact on the industry as a whole. My response has been simple. I've not given my credit card number to any device since. I just don't buy that stuff from anyone.
You can setup family accounts in iOS and anything your children want to purchase is done via request to the parent account. The parent then has to approve the purchase and the purchase is done using the parent's account details.
It's not that difficult to understand. Some people really are unaware of the risks of handing their child an iPad to play a Sonic game. They're unaware of features like family accounts or app store controls to prevent payments.
An argument to this I keep seeing is "well if the parent doesn't understand it then the kid shouldn't be using it." Heck, if my parents only allowed me to play with things they understood, I'd never be in a software engineering career. Parents should be able to make a mistake with a video game an not have to pay _16 thousand dollars_ to recover from it.
I would never use a real credit card for in app purchases. Call me paranoid, I always use generated cards by my bank service with a fixed amount. It's annoying but I never have surprises.
> The mother then went on to accuse the games of being "completely predatory" in encouraging spending by younger users. "What grown-up would spend $100 on a chest of virtual gold coins?"
Don't know about Sonic Forces but a friend of mine in her early thirties has dumped north of $2k into skins in a mobile game. The difference is she has a lucrative job so she can easily afford that. I'm as baffled as the next guy and personally stay the hell away from microtransactions, but if she's happy and doesn't feel ripped off who am I to stop her. It's no secret that F2P, microtransaction-driven games are mostly funded by whales, and I suspect the vast majority of whales are like my friend here, or at least wasting their parents' money with approval.
IMO the more conservative and likely more effective solution is better parental control, requiring approval for IAP by default (not sure how you implement that on devices not specifically set up as kids’ devices though).
From another point of view, some people are happy to support the devs of the game with IAPs, what is not cool is tricking people to spend money to play the game (eg. 1 coin to continue) or to progress in the game (eg. 100 gems to upgrade to a better weapon so you don't have to farm for 30 days).
> IMO the more conservative and likely more effective solution is better parental control, requiring approval for IAP by default (not sure how you implement that on devices not specifically set up as kids’ devices though).
If I’m remembering correctly, that is the default if you properly set it up as a kids account. Better literature is definitely needed about setting up an account for kids, perhaps a registration step that just asks “is this a kid or adult account.”
That's still not enough. Devices like iPads and iPhones aren't multi-user. So, if Mom or Dad are going to be using it, they're not going to set it up as a kids account.
> "What grown-up would spend $100 on a chest of virtual gold coins?"
I'm extremely curious about whether this mother has an equally meaningless but less ethically sourced >$1K diamond and gold ring on her finger. Statistically, one should bet that she does.
At least that's a tangible good worth the money it costs (ethics and cultural norms aside.) Her point still stands, that most functioning adults would not spend $100 on something like that without at least thinking it through. But a kid with zero concept of earning income would certainly click that button with no extra thought.
Shines a light on whose side apple is on. They are on the side of the money. I don't know anything about the law but on any moral basis this is fraud. There simply isn't informed consent on the part of the person paying. Apple support the fraud to detriment of their "customer" who they have sold to the fraudsters.
There are still some people about who don't think that apple are horrendous but it's a less common view than it was.
It doesnt matter that this was a kid. We dont like to admit it, but the mental trickery used on kids works equally well on adults. Should this article be any different if the kid was 16? 26? 68? We are all animals that react to stimulus.
That stimulus-reward trickery is the real evil that needs to be addressed.
I think if this is the parents' responsibility, we should allow e-cig companies the ability to hand out free samples of fruit vapors at elementary schools. The way these game companies are targeting kids is criminal.
There's one multi-player mobile game i play somewhat regularly. It's full of so much nonsense that can only be described as gambling. This is putting aside the direct skin purchases that range from $5-$20 that have no effect other than to change in game appearance. The gambling though.
Regular events, most of which which are draws, with skins as prizes, where the odds of winning, as stated in game, are at times lower than 1%. These draws will tend to give the first few free or winnable through in game tasks, but inevitably end up costing actual money if you actually want even the slightest chance of winning.
The costs for this to actually win a prize i imagine could easily end up being pretty significant.
It's constant though, every day, every week, every month. New draws and prizes for people to buy with rewards that are essentially completely pointless.
It's a free game, so i'm pretty sure this is where the majority of the games profits come from and it seems like an extremely profitable game.
It all does seem to be things that would be primarily appealing to kids though. Things to make the characters look cool and let you brag. Then again, there's plenty of adults susceptible to that kind of thing.
I don’t know if any Apple engineers are around here, but an option for restrictions in iOS where you can block applications from appearing in the App Store that include in-app purchases would be a good solution to this problem. Then even if you let your kid download apps on their own they can’t fall into this trap. And if they were in an app and accidentally clicked on an ad for another app it wouldn’t resolve.
(Family Sharing and Ask to Buy are supposed to fix this by sending the request to the parent’s Apple ID, but I don’t know anyone who uses that feature with young kids. And it’s not easy to set up, since the kid needs an email address AFAIK).
This really needs to happen. You spend time downloading an app only to find that it wants a monthly £6.99 subscription or some nonsense. What a waste of time.
I’m willing to do a one-off £5 payment for a game, let me filter on that.
> Over the month of July, George bought add-on boosters — starting with $1.99 red rings and moving up to $99.99 gold rings — that allowed him to access new characters and more speed, spending hundreds of bucks at a time
oh to be a fly on the wall in the kickoff meeting where the gold ring was explained by the revenue team. I'll bet you a 99.99 gold ring that more than one person in the room was like wtf wtf wtf.
Not saying this is wrong or bad, certainly not saying this is illegal, but I certainly would think about my life choices were I in this room.
also better receipt technology would help with this, receipts are somehow in the stone age
It's not qualitatively different from a software engineer spending their time helping a FAANG increase their hold over people's habits. It's just more explicit.
different in that engagement patterns are developed by dopamine experts who know the deal, whereas the $99 ring is just dropped in the lap of someone who until that point has had the privilege of believing they're a good person
I would bet my life savings that most of the people concerned easily rationalized it, just like the FAANG engineers do it here along different arguments.
> "what grown-up would spend $100 on a chest of virtual gold coins?"
Oh, man, sad to say that they are certainly out there. And it just seems terribly unlikely for an app developer to put resources into applying the brakes on in app purchases. Not a horrible idea if Apple put in some smarts to this, though. Comparing against previous months/weeks could probably reveal problematic purchases. They could call you like the credit card company does when they suspect fraud.
This is crazy, I used to run analytics in game apps and we have super clear categories for kids games. Age, within age age ranges, etc. Any decent PM should enable a default checkbox to limit chargers to 100 dollars and in order to enable more, call a number.
It's totally the mother's fault.
You get notified for each transaction immediately, and even if you didn't see the mail you would investigate after the first month when you get billed.
You should also disable/restrict payments on devices used by your kids.
p.s. Just to be clear, I'm not defending these crappy games and monetization tactics. I agree that they suck and ruin a lot of games.
I agree it's the mother's fault, but I disagree it's "totally" her fault.
These games are created and finely tuned to addict people into playing but even more so into spending, and a lot of them - including this one by the looks of it - are specifically targeting kids. The microtransactions scheme is designed to make it harder for people to track how much they are actually spending.
To me, this isn't any different then cigarette companies marketing to children. Sonic is the Joe Camel of today, but even more nefarious it seems.
The fault here is surely the fault of the mother, being inattentive to what her kid was doing and inattentive to her finances at least for some time, but it's also the fault of game companies promoting virtual drugs to kids in the first place and a fault of Apple (and Google and other supposedly "curated" stores) acting as a middle man for these drug pushers, proving them financial services and taking their own cut, of course. This game, which is basically digital crack, is on Apple's App Store rated "9+". Right...
Not everyone reviews their credit card statement every month. I'm sure they should, but you may have a situation where 1) almost all (legit) purchases are put on a credit card, 2) fraudulent charges are almost never put on, 3) multiple adults share a credit card, and 4) credit card description lines are...not descriptive(this is getting better), it seems possible to miss charges.
My wife and I put ~$6k/mo on our shared CC over hundreds of transactions. I do review the charges, but it is extremely tiring going through every single one, trying to puzzle out what it was for, and then bringing in my wife to see if she knows what it was for.
The only saving grace is that Chase lets me get an email for every transaction >$0, so I review purchases approximately immediately after they are made, and not once at the end of the month. But, I can understand why that might slip past a lot of people.
The transactions were initially thought to be fraud or a mistake by Johnson, who found it hard "almost impossible" to figure out they stemmed from in-app purchases due to how they were bundled. After filing a fraud claim with Chase, she was then informed the charges were genuine, and to contact Apple.
Once she contacted Apple and was talked through a "buried running list of all the charges" and seeing the Sonic icon, she realized it was her son's fault...
Apple refused to refund her money, as she didn't call within 60 days of the charges, which Johnson said was because Chase told her it was likely to be fraud in the first place. Apple Support was also apparently cold to Johnson admitting she wouldn't have been able to make a mortgage payment, telling her "There's a setting, you should have known," the mother claimed.
While I don't think it should be possible to spend so much on a mobile game, I believe some responsibility lands on the parents.
I'm sure my kids would have done this already, just by the sheer number of pop-ups and garbage in some games. But purchases require a password each time, so nothing happens.
Look at it this way: it's probably better to keep to a mindset aiming at a society where people don't get nickel-and-dimed every second of every day. In-app purchases are just one of many traps; they are obvious but they compensate for that by sheer numbers. There is only so much willpower to check every incoming scam.
It's tempting to blame individuals and they certainly do deserve it like in this case but the general worldview spawned by that only increases the control of large multinationals on our lives.
> Apple Support was also apparently cold to when Johnson admitted she wouldn't have been able to make a mortgage payment. The support person reportedly told her that "there's a setting, you should have known."
the article talks about a setting to lock down a child’s ability to charge the credit card on file. Anyone else wondering why this ‘setting’ is opt-in instead of opt-out?
It’s default on kids accounts on iOS. This sounds more like she let her kid use her own iPad on her own account, not her kids account.
Also when you use the App Store the first time on a fresh device it asks if you want to use a password (or Face ID etc) on each purchase, where she chose not to.
I’ve recently set up an iPad for my kid and any purchase needs a password entered into her device then also gets sent for manual approval to our phones, and my wife and I have password/face protection for every purchase on the App Store including free apps.
I despise the predatory methods used by apps to tempt kids into IAPs but also in this case the mum specifically chose to disable passwords on purchased and let her kid use her iPad with her adult account without monitoring her.
You really have to go out of your way to even set up an iDevice without any passcode protection in the first place, and you have to go out of your way to set it up without any protection for app store purchases, so this is a customer who went through multiple opt-in screens to let anybody with physical access to the device buy anything on the app store they wanted, and then handed off the device to their kid...
I hate predatory apps as much as the next person, and there is a lot of garbage out there, but at some point, the customer also bears responsibility for their actions.
I'd like to see this tested in court. You can't enter into a contract without knowing you're entering into a contract. Opt-out vs opt-in is a big red flag.
Totally agree. Plus most purchases in the physical are returnable, even after some use. There's no way to argue that it's technically infeasible to "return" digital points or whatever. That's just apple and devs just being dicks saying "sorry we have your money now and there's nothing we can do..."
I thought it was opt in. And has been did several years. I remember seeing up my recent iPad having to deal with it.
Want apple sued a while back for the same thing?
“There is a setting, you should have known”
Ok clearly that is paraphrasing what the support worker had said but here’s my problem with such an attitude. Smart Devices are complex things, who knows about every option and setting there is on an iPad? I would like to think I’m rather clued up on such things but I’ll be the first to admit I’m not aware of every option or settings there is on one.
I know the payment controls exist, you reading this probably know these controls exist, but because this type of story (inadvertently spent X on app/play store) pops up so often it tells me that not everyone is aware of such a feature. (A client who I know is tech savvy was not aware about the parental control options in iOS where he and his wife could control their child’s access limits from their phones. If he wasn’t aware of the feature then to me that’s a pointer that such features are not talked about enough)
I don’t think that a single message during on boarding is enough, it might not seem needed at the time, situations change, the user think “I’ll do that later” but forget. So I would like to see more reminders about the feature. (but I do understand that there is a fine line between reminding and annoying, I’m looking at you iPlayer)
How is anyone surprised? Parent bought iPad, parent linked card, child uses payment method they are not authorised to use, app or not doesn't make a difference.
It could be more like: (1) ten years ago, parent made an icloud account, (2) six years ago, child is born, (3) five years ago, credit card is added to icloud account to buy music or movies, (4) six months ago ipad is purchased, (5) child uses a game ....
I think it's fair for the parent to be surprised. I think it's fair for them to ask apple and/or the app developer to refund it.
Apple's app store monopoly requires that they be a better steward for their users. If regulation leverage were applied, app stores could compete in fraud detection algorithms. Instead, they're motivated to look the other way.
At that point, even though it’ll probably lock you out of your account indefinitely, the best option probably is a chargeback through the credit card issuer
I'm surprised how many of the comments on that page blame the parent. I think Apple should issue refunds for people who just change their mind about if a purchase is worth it or not.
They do allow that, just not after 60 days, on consumables no less. Taking months after your initial credit card bill to find out your damn kid is spending thousands (which you can’t afford) through frictionless IAP you set up is just stupid. Not saying the microtransactions aren’t scummy though.
The story says that Chase ultimately decided that the charges were legitimate and would not issue a chargeback. Because that decision didn't come in until 60 days after the purchase, Apple refused to issue a refund and blamed the victim. What part is missing?
It might not, depending on how or when they found out about the charges. If she didn't learn about them until she saw her credit card statement, it could have been almost 30 says before she even knew to start a dispute. The story does not establish a concrete timeline, but I definitely don't think it beggars belief.
How did it take her 2 months to notice? Also, it gives you a notification on the iPad. It's obviously her fault, though I do feel for her, it's an unfortunate situation.
The transactions were initially thought to be fraud or a mistake by Johnson, who found it hard "almost impossible" to figure out they stemmed from in-app purchases due to how they were bundled. After filing a fraud claim with Chase, she was then informed the charges were genuine, and to contact Apple.
Once she contacted Apple and was talked through a "buried running list of all the charges" and seeing the Sonic icon, she realized it was her son's fault....
Apple refused to refund her money, as she didn't call within 60 days of the charges, which Johnson said was because Chase told her it was likely to be fraud in the first place.
100% there's lots of issues with the game, apple, game industry chasing micro transactions, $99 bundles for a bunch of gems that barely gets you 3 days of action. That sentence where a mom is now juggling mortgage payments vs a $16k credit card debt saddens me.
More than half of Americans have less than $5,000 in savings. HN is a place where most of the participants are wealthy, and your worldview is skewed by that. An unexpected $16,000 cost would totally blindside most families, and they shouldn't have to "manage their finances" to avoid predatory businesses.
That it's even possible to spend $16K on predatory micro-transactions - for a child OR an adult - is absolutely sickening. I hope Apple gets their ass handed to them in the current round of antitrust lawsuits.
I agree. They have such a rigorously vetted store which is fully under their control, they should be held accountable for downright criminal business practices (gambling apps aimed at children, that is).
And honestly, that's just the tip of the iceberg with Apple. It is long overdue that we break that company up -- together with Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
You forgot to ask: if you are powerful organization that cuts politicans big checks or equally rich donor.
In these days politicians, being right or even being on people sides means nothing - its all about who has louder tube to scream stronger that the other candidate, thats all. Its been long since politicans represented or cared about little people calling with their problems. Heck, a friend of mine worked for very popular politican as his assistant and was told to just tell people you write their problems down but dont even bother anymore. I believe its the truth about the whole US politics system at this point. Its all about who donate more bc that the only way you can get elected and then stay in power.
I told Sen. Feinstein she was the most disappointing politician to ever represent me and the first I regretted voting for, after pointing out she's been in the Senate longer than I have been alive. She actually did what I asked and stepped down from the minority leadership in the Senate Judiciary committee. I wasn't the only one who said something.
SOPA is an older example, politicians do actually listen. Defeatism will not get you anything you want.
You can buy a couch or fridge, or clothes or a TV and still return it after trying it out, and that includes massive re-packaging / shipping costs. There's no way in hell it's impossible to return digital points!
The mother then went on to accuse the games of being "completely predatory" in encouraging spending by younger users. "What grown-up would spend $100 on a chest of virtual gold coins?"
looks around nervously. But, in all seriousness, I've spent thousands probably in online purchases (skins, ccg cards, gems, battle passes, etc) and I'm an adult (supposedly). Most of my friends do too (though I'm perhaps an outlier in how thoughtlessly I spend money), so I don't think this is a good argument.
I also am upset that nearly all sports franchise games have become solely micro-transaction driven (ie Madden, Nascar, etc).
I definitely will do everything I can to prevent my kids from falling into games with these types of 'reward' systems -- and I'll personally only be making games if I'm able to do so without resorting to slot machine monetization tactics. Once it gets to the point that there's no other way to monetize, then even [the 'bad'] big tech starts looking like the lesser of the evils. =\
Government regulation is absolutely needed IMO, and I'm generally not a "regulate it" type guy.