These games take money out of the pockets of kids that can usually ill afford it and are typically not aware of the consequences of their addiction until it is much too late.
And that addiction is there by design, not by accident.
Chalk it up to bad parenting or whatever you want but in the end this is still a scam delivered in the form of a game, aimed squarely at a vulnerable group, one that by law can not enter into binding contracts.
The fact that it brings in an insane amount of money is not an excuse, though I'm sure that there are enough people to who this kind of income is enough to throw away all their ethics and start raking it in.
In-app purchases work because they defer the visualization of the amount actually spent until the phone bill comes in.
Kids literally have no idea how much they're spending on these things (in fact, most adults don't realize it either).
I see enough young kids in my surroundings getting into trouble with parents, debt collectors and all kinds of other nastiness just because games like these cause them to overspend due to the addictive elements embedded purposely in the game.
Apple, for all their oversight on the appstore is 100% complicit in this, apps are routinely thrown out for trivial reasons but mixing teenagers (a vulnerable group if there ever was one) and impulse buys at exorbitant prices is A-ok with them.
And no, this is not a 'blame the computer games for kids behaviors' argument, it is a blame the makers of addictions for the problems stemming from those addictions.
The argument seems to be that if they don't screw them someone else will. But that's nonsense and one of the reasons why marketing stuff directly to kids is illegal in many places.
> I see enough young kids in my surroundings getting into trouble with parents, debt collectors and all kinds of other nastiness
I suspect you are embellishing your story a bit to rile people up. You can easily complain to Apple, Facebook, or any platform that has these games, if your child spends a huge amount of money on the game. It's called a "chargeback", and is very easy to do. The game developers have to return the funds by contract, and the user is typically banned as a result.
My understanding is (from personal work on social games) that the highest-monetizing users, across the board, are the older users. Even if the game looks like a cutesy kid's game, it's normally the case that it wasn't really designed for children. It only looks that way to hardcore gamers.
For the most part, children that unwittingly spend a bunch of money make up a very tiny fraction of revenue for these companies. Any of them that spend a huge sum normally end up receiving a refund a month later when their parents find out.
> You can easily complain to Apple, Facebook, or any platform that has these games, if your child spends a huge amount of money on the game. It's called a "chargeback", and is very easy to do. The game developers have to return the funds by contract, and the user is typically banned as a result.
Yes, and these rules are of course clearly advertised when you start a game like that.
I watched a kid aged 8 playing with a smartphone rack up 10 euros in charges in about 5 minutes while on the train on Saturday, nobody around had any idea what was going on.
Parents will typically be honorable to the extent that if their kid did this that they will not charge back if they perceive their kid is at fault by buying these scam products. What they don't realize is the cunning and the guile that go into designing these and I'm fairly sure that if they did that it would be a completely different picture.
> My understanding is (from personal work on social games) that the highest-monetizing users, across the board, are the older users.
Ah ok, so that makes it ok to take money from the kids as collateral damage, after all they're not the big spenders.
The basic idea in a transaction is that you do what you can as the seller to give the other party something of value in return. The idea is not to see for how much you can 'take' a party in an a-symmetrical set-up where you have all the data and they have none. That's very much like taking candy from a baby.
These are not 'social games' they're anti-social games.
> Even if the game looks like a cutesy kid's game, it's normally the case that it wasn't really designed for children.
Oh that must be my impression then. And that explains all the pre-teens that I see hooked on such games. It wasn't designed for them. And they shouldn't be playing with those smartphones to begin with.
> For the most part, children that unwittingly spend a bunch of money make up a very tiny fraction of revenue for these companies.
Feel free to support that with evidence, I suspect that the large majority of the customers are technically adults (because an adult has signed for the contract) but the consumers are kids and their parents are too honorable or not informed enough to make use of the charge-back options provided. And I'm sure you'll blame them for that. Typically those options are not listed up-front and the practice with charge-backs is that even on outright scams the percentages are low enough that they persist. Most people don't even know about the possibility to do charge backs on their credit card ('card not present') charges when not using 3D.
> Any of them that spend a huge sum normally end up receiving a refund a month later when their parents find out.
Yes, a huge sum would set off alarm bells. But $50 would likely be absorbed even if it came out of the family telco budget, or if it causes a kid to get into trouble otherwise.
I'm quite surprised that you would defend these practices, but given that you work on 'social games' I guess that you're just trying to rationalize your complicity.
I'm quite surprised that you would defend these
practices, but given that you work on 'social
games' I guess that you're just trying to
rationalize your complicity.
I agree with your comments (and up-voted them), but I see no reason to assume that this isn't fragsworth's actual opinion and instead a manifestation of a some nefarious hidden agenda.
> In-app purchases work because they defer the visualization of the amount actually spent until the phone bill comes in.
But let's not gather the posse on all in-app purchases.
Non-game iOS apps with no consumable items can't help but go freemium in the absence of a time-trial mode (as in e.g. WP7), and Apple's discouragement of separate lite/pro versions.
And that addiction is there by design, not by accident.
Chalk it up to bad parenting or whatever you want but in the end this is still a scam delivered in the form of a game, aimed squarely at a vulnerable group, one that by law can not enter into binding contracts.
The fact that it brings in an insane amount of money is not an excuse, though I'm sure that there are enough people to who this kind of income is enough to throw away all their ethics and start raking it in.
In-app purchases work because they defer the visualization of the amount actually spent until the phone bill comes in.
Kids literally have no idea how much they're spending on these things (in fact, most adults don't realize it either).
I see enough young kids in my surroundings getting into trouble with parents, debt collectors and all kinds of other nastiness just because games like these cause them to overspend due to the addictive elements embedded purposely in the game.
Apple, for all their oversight on the appstore is 100% complicit in this, apps are routinely thrown out for trivial reasons but mixing teenagers (a vulnerable group if there ever was one) and impulse buys at exorbitant prices is A-ok with them.
And no, this is not a 'blame the computer games for kids behaviors' argument, it is a blame the makers of addictions for the problems stemming from those addictions.
The argument seems to be that if they don't screw them someone else will. But that's nonsense and one of the reasons why marketing stuff directly to kids is illegal in many places.