The original game had a donate button on it. Maybe the more "altruistic" way would have been to make a "donate" in app purchase, but is that actually allowed by app store rules? I could see Apple at least blocking it on the grounds that then anybody could put in a cleverly worded in app purchase that actually did nothing.
What exactly is your ethical basis for the expectation of altruism? I'm just not seeing it. The original post never mentioned the word, he simply said he never expected to make money off of it and felt ambivalent about the possibility after he saw the reaction of the Threes creators. Indeed, given the stated motivation that he originally posted it hoping for feedback on the design, I can't see how altruism ever figured into Cirulli's motivation.
The article has an entire section (Changing my mind) dedicated to the topic whereby the OP admits that for the most part he has been espousing that he is not motivated by $ and does not want to "profit" from 2048. If he was really ONLY motivated by getting his mobile version out there, as the original author of the game, why not just release a free version?
Again, I am not against him monetizing his app. Go for it, I say. What I commented on is that he's seemingly not being entirely honest with himself about his motivations.
I already quoted the key phrase, but here it is again:
Thanks to the help of my parents and my friends, I realized that the only way to get over this without feeling like I had missed an opportunity would be to embrace it and produce an app. I wouldn’t be doing it for profit, though. In fact, that is not what matters to me. All that matters is knowing that I didn’t waste a chance, no matter if I’m going to succeed or fail.
This is the paragraph in the Changing my mind section where he reveals the reasoning to release an app that includes monetization. Yet, in the same breath, he says he's not motivated by profit. Hence the confusion.
What exactly is your ethical basis for the expectation of altruism? I'm just not seeing it. The original post never mentioned the word, he simply said he never expected to make money off of it and felt ambivalent about the possibility after he saw the reaction of the Threes creators. Indeed, given the stated motivation that he originally posted it hoping for feedback on the design, I can't see how altruism ever figured into Cirulli's motivation.