Why Microtransactions In Games Are Amoral 209
Sludge writes "Graham Jans, a founder of the Vancouver Design Dojo and designer of Zombie Minesweeper, provides well-thought-out reasons why microtransactions in games are an amoral concept that can be used for good or evil, defying the typical knee-jerk reaction to Zynga-style use of microtransactions as a cynical tool designed to siphon the maximum amount of money from your wallet. Quoting: 'As well, such a thing could be a tool for benevolence. A developer could tune the length between releases to offer just a little more content for the same price, if they felt that was the right thing to do. In fact, most of the factors in microtransactions work this way. The negative reputation these systems have comes from factors that are tuned to maximize profit and abuse players for their money. But that's not an inherent trait in the system; you could just as easily use it to ensure your own bankruptcy!'"
Obligatory (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10 [penny-arcade.com]
EA sells you an advantage... (Score:2)
You can buy yourself superior firepower, but most times it doesn't even last. Often you just rent it for a day, week, month...
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That's even worse, you are 'renting' items that expire, where the only work associated is an hour creating the small 3d model and modifying a few lines of text in a config file somewhere that states fire rate, damage, reload time. Its not a Picasso painting or an intensive programming mod. Its a way to siphon money out of people, when its the people themselves that are essentially creating the valuable 'content' of BF Heroes (multiplayer servers require players for the real content of interaction and game
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I never really got the idea why I should bother to play such a game altogether.
If I do not insert money, I play an extra, a mobile, player controlled target for someone who did.
If I do insert money, I get to shoot sitting ducks without a challenge. If I want that, I could just as well play any shooter on lowest level without continuously throwing money at them.
Why the heck should I play that game at all?
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Dogpile on the premium guy (Score:2)
If I do not insert money, I play an extra, a mobile, player controlled target for someone who did.
In a 1 paid hero vs. 100 free mooks situation, you and your free teammates need to think like Tucker's guerrilla kobolds [tuckerskobolds.com].
Football Superstars (Score:2)
Football Superstars [footballsuperstars.com] did that nicely for microtransactions, you can buy XP directly, going from level 1 to level 100 cost may be a little bit less than $300.
Microtransactions are... (Score:2)
... not amoral since the money you spend is gone and the game company still owns the game. All that money you invest is meaningless the second the one of the higher ups in the game company decides to shut-down the game or it goes out of business. This is the problem with game companies who try to sell 'games as a service'.
This also happens with games that are locked down to a service like Xbox live or their own service (steam sdk multiplayer lockdown some games have - see: supreme commander 2) and certain
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In the end it's just a neo-feudal model of extracting money from people without giving anything real back in return.
If you don't count actually making the game as 'anything real'.
I'm not a fan of microtransactions, and if they're poorly implemented they can really harm a game, but ultimately the people who spend that money are the ones paying for the game to exist.
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When I rent my house, people pay me and I still own the house. Is renting immoral?
If not, what's the difference?
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I spent a few pounds sterling on some in-game items for Team Fortress 2; some gifts that could be dished out to random players on the community server I play at. It was an event night, lots of people spread across the multiple servers, lots of gifts flying around, lots of fun and enjoyment being had. The small amount
Not abuse (Score:2)
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What planet are you living in? There's no real free market, because free markets work on a number of premisses which are unrealistic.
According to wikipedia - Zynga, which is famous for these microtranscations...made $850 million last year and has ~250 million users. That's the free market for you eh.
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What planet are you living in? There's no real free market, because free markets work on a number of premisses which are unrealistic.
The free market is just what people do when no-one is holding a gun to their head forcing them to do something different.
Unfortunately we live in a world where there are millions of people with guns telling others what to do all the time.
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Not really, not just. Free market depends on the concept of "Perfect Competition".
To give a good example - assume I dislike car company's lack of care for the enivornment. The free market would tell me that I should enter the market myself, and my superior ways will draw others away and the problem will be solved. I can't however realistically pull a car factory, and all the technology to compete out of thin air. Free market works when you have a bunch of farmers selling produce and there's no communication
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Not really, not just. Free market depends on the concept of "Perfect Competition".
No it doesn't. It just depends on you and me being able to freely agree on what price we sell to each other for (or whether we refuse to sell).
The free market says nothing about whether anyone will give a crap about your environmental views; merely that if people do want to 'save then environment' then they'll choose to do so, and if they don't then they won't. In the real world very few people give a crap about 'the environment' in the abstract, and most would rather save $10,000 next time they buy a car t
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Perfect competition is just one type of market in a free market economy. Many industries naturally have imperfect competition under free markets. Economies of scale and networking effects can create barriers of entry making it harder for new competition to emerge.
If you really think you can build better cars for cheaper, you can go to Wall Street and convince people to give you the capital needed to do so. There are less barriers to entry in game development, so it shouldn't be an issue there.
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Free Market: an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.
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"defying the typical knee-jerk reaction to Zynga-style use of microtransactions as a cynical tool designed to siphon the maximum amount of money from your wallet"
This is a negative thing. In the free market (TM) negative things are solved through boycott. Boycotts result in companies suffering until they improve.
Zynga isn't suffering. Zynga isn't improving. .: The free market doesn't exist, through contradiction.
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Zynga isn't improving. .: The free market doesn't exist, through contradiction.
Zynga is selling things that hundreds of millions of people want and making a lot of money. That you don't like the things they do is irrelevant.
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At the same time, this kind of behavior needs to be nipped in the bud, otherwise it will spread. Cell phone providers used to not charge for text messages. Now they all do. They also used to not have restrictions on data plan usage. Now they all do, in some form or another. Saying "You don't have to play the game!" doesn't work once the vast majority of games are engaging in that behavior.
I disagree (Score:2)
I find them immoral for most cases. I don't know whether DLC counts as microtransactions or not, so I'll leave it out.
The problem is that they are common in multiplayer games. Most multiplayer games involve some sort of competition between players. People play games to 'win', and to feel good about it. Now most multiplayer games I saw which have MT end up letting people who buy MT get a huge advantage. Then its not fun for the other players, because you can just buy victory.
Now some games DO keep it down lo
*facepalm* (Score:2)
You mean to tell me that selling stuff is neither inherently moral nor inherently immoral but it can be used for either purpose?
No fucking way...
EVE? (Score:2)
Ensure your own bankruptcy
Leave the $70 monocle alone!
LEAVE IT ALONE!
*Emoweep*
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What are "Zynga-style microtransactions"? (Score:2)
I'm one of those luddites whose cell phones makes phone calls, and I'm antisocial, so I'm kind of behind the curve here. Zynga's the guys behind Farmville, right? How do microtransactions come into it?
Are they basically trying to rent you the game by the minute? Or is it that they're trying to actually sell you in-game stuff with real money? I've never understood the point of their games. It's no worse than Solitaire in terms of pointlessness, I suppose, but I'm not exactly excited about Solitaire.
Re:What are "Zynga-style microtransactions"? (Score:4, Informative)
* Game is free to play
* Game lets you click on something (to buy, attack, build, whatever) once every N minutes of hours.
* After a number of days of clicking, you win some new item
* You can bypass the whole thing by simply coffing up some cash in the ingame shop.
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Zynga is definitely one of those companies I would label immoral, for a variety of reasons.
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Zynga games are really not games. They're Skinner boxes. You unlock more stuff by performing many repetitive actions (clicking different areas on the areas for 5 minutes, for example). The more repetitive actions you perform, the more pictures and widgets you unlock. Nothing of what you unlock changes the game in any significant fashion. But people keep clicking, because that's how we work. And Zynga has figured out that some people are willing to pay money to not have to click so much, and still unlock stu
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Zynga games are really not games. They're Skinner boxes. You unlock more stuff by performing many repetitive actions (clicking different areas on the areas for 5 minutes, for example). The more repetitive actions you perform, the more pictures and widgets you unlock. Nothing of what you unlock changes the game in any significant fashion.
You just described pretty much every MMOG I've ever tried.
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Kinda. But at least MMOGs provide fun ways to hang out with friends, and game mechanics similar to regular single-player games. The good ones even have a good story. Zynga games have none of that.
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Micro Transactions are OK... when micro... (Score:2)
I hated when they brought "micro-transaction" to Everquest. I wouldn't mind paying a dollar here or 50 cents there... but they offered $10 items from day one... and the prices only went higher. Sure, there were deals, promotions, and the like, but I resented it.
And then I learned that the EQ engine is SO old and cobbled together that they would need extra revenue to justify the expense of creating newer prettier items. I began to accept it then, but would only actively participate in their micro-transaction
What's the problem? (Score:2)
I don't have an inherent problem with games that feature microtransactions. Provided, however, that the core game is free and that the game isn't specifically designed to be so tedious as to require those purchases to make the game playable.
I personally can't stand games with microtransactions. That's why I don't play them. I don't really understand what's so difficult to figure out here... A game is not a necessity. It's not like food, insurance or fossil fuels. Don't like it, don't play the damn game. If
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What do you mean 'forced'? A game is not a necessity. It's not like food, insurance or fossil fu
Whatever happened to shareware? (Score:2)
Twenty years ago, this was a major paradigm in PC gaming. You get the introductory set of levels free, you get the rest when you cough up the dough.
What happened? Why is this paradigm now evil?
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because nobody wants to spend anything when the economy is in trouble.
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What happened? Why is this paradigm now evil?
Originally, you got the promo version that ended at level 2. It was clearly labeled "promo version" or "demo" or something like that. You played up to level 2 and decided whether or not you wanted to continue by purchasing the rest of the game for $39.
Now, you get the whole game. All 37 levels. Absolutely free! But what happens is that when you get to the end of level 2, there's a giant wall which is impossible to climb unless you buy the $35 super-jump shoes. But there's a free pair of super-jump sho
Locked content (Score:2)
In MMOs, it's really annoying when they actually lock content.
What that means is that if you want to play a certain area with your friends and one of you doesn't own that area, he will be left out unless he buys it.
Makes a game become the lowest common denominator.
Aka, boring.
Correct, but (Score:2)
Morality isn't the only issue. (Score:2)
Micro-transactions are bad.
I'm not talking about bad in the moral sense, rather, bad in the efficiency sense.
There's a cost associated with every transaction.
That cost includes the cost of deciding to make the transaction.
More transactions, more cost of deciding.
To put it another way, the smaller the cost of the other things, the greater the percentage cost of making the decision to pay.
-- ABH
How about... (Score:2)
You grow two brain cells and don't put all the money that you own into a stupid game?
If, as a result, you do get bankrupt, can't buy perty clothes and nobody wants to mate with you? I'd say let evolution sort 'em out... That way the problem will take care of its own...
Hell... the avarage IQ will go up. I bet we're totaly screwed if that happens...
Why micro-transactions are immoral. (Score:2)
Micro-transactions are a tool, a method of payment.
Can we reasonably assign a moral value to something that can be used for either good or evil?
Well, yes we can. In fact, the courts have already done just that when they ruled against Napster, and in favor of video taping.
We look at what the tool is primarily used for, and what other uses it has.
The thing about micro-transactions is that they work on scale which humans have difficulty making rational decision in.
Deciding if, for example, 1/10 of cent is a g
So? (Score:2)
Sophomoric philosophy is still sophomoric when spouted by a game designer.
Microtransaction systems are morally wrong? Who even suggested such a thing? It's like suggesting a hammer is morally wrong, or the idea of barter is morally wrong.
My goodness, I guess when I wasn't looking, computer games became "srs bznss"?
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So essentially, making money is immoral?
No - amoral. That is, neither right nor wrong inherently.
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Amoral = doesn't affect morality
Bullshit (Score:2)
Reducing any moral problem to just whether making money is right or wrong, is, sad to say, bullshit. In fact if that's the only thing that you see relevant in such a discussion, congrats, you might be a sociopath. You may have a successful career in upper management ahead of you.
While nobody says that making money itself is immoral, certain ways of making them ARE. E.g., if you found out that your mayor or the local judge makes some extra money by taking bribes, well, I don't know about you personally, but
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Pedantic point: I don't think using a tennis racket in place of a baseball bat would actually lead to any kind of advantage. In fact, I'd probably lean the other way, that using one would make things harder.
The rest of your post is quite spot on. Even if the game is free, it's not going to be any fun if your opponent can just dump a bunch of cash into the machine at the end in order to win. Imagine if Arcade games had this: You're playing Street Fighter against someone, and right as you're about to beat the
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Those examples are a little extreme. Micro transactions can just be the equivalent of paying for an expensive set of golf clubs to improve your game. It could allow you to hit the ball longer and more accurate giving you an advantage, but the game still relies mostly on the skill of the player.
Actually, some are worse (Score:2)
In a few games, yes, they're cosmetic or offer negligible advantages. E.g., the jet pack in COH is fully equivalent to something you can buy in game from level 1 for 10,000 inf (think about the equivalent of 10,000 copper coins in WoW) and will last you longer, so, yeah, not much of an advantage.
In others it can get even more extreme than my analogies.
E.g., I remember a web game based on Battletech where
A) fights were at best limited by tonnage, not by points, and you could even spend on blowing that limit
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So essentially, making money is immoral?
Making money, just by itself, is not. However, the ways in which you make money definitely can be. If you are grossly overcharging in the face of no competition, then that is immoral. If you are charging outrageous amounts of interest (usury), then that is immoral.
Microtransactions by themselves are not good or bad. It's how they are used. If you offer some small bits of content, that don't completely alter the way the game is played or balanced, then that's fine. Even things like offering new maps is fine.
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You didn't really expect that to help, did you?
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Amoral may or may not conform to accepted standards of morality. An amoral act may be either moral or immoral, the point is you don't care either way.
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accepted standards of morality
The Romans already knew that there really was no point arguing [wikipedia.org] about subjective things. Yet here we are 2000 years later doing the same damned thing.
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accepted standards of morality
The Romans already knew that there really was no point arguing [wikipedia.org] about subjective things. Yet here we are 2000 years later doing the same damned thing.
Tell me about it. I almost wish our species had some kind of ancestral memory that was an easily-accessible part of our everyday waking consciousness. Then maybe, just maybe we could actually learn from the past instead of repeating the same mistakes and the same useless tendencies.
Of course the only bad thing is, you'd have no privacy at all. At least not from your offspring. They'd know all about that dishonest thing you did 3 years before they were born. It'd be interesting, to say the least.
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Re:They're not? (Score:5, Insightful)
To put it in D&D terms:
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Good => Moral
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Neutral => Amoral
Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Evil => Immoral
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You might be on to something... perhaps all journalism should be expressed in D&D terms.
Weather: there is a 2d6 chance of rain today...
Traffic: looks like a car had an unfortunate random encounter with tractor trailer on the...
Sports: X clearly has an advantage in Strength, but Y has a full three points higher Dexterity, which...
The possibilities are limitless!
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However, when applied to actual actions, there is a world of difference between amoral and immoral. An immoral action is always morally wrong, no matter what the context. An amoral action is neither morally right nor
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A person who chooses their actions without concern as to whether or not they are moral (an amoral person), is unlikely to behave significantly better than a person who conciously chooses immoral actions.
If one interprets Morality as done for the right reasons without sound ethical argument, then you are flat out wrong. One extracts much more material benefit from others by treating them well than they do from a one time robbery. Very rarely does one go down an unethical path and prosper, long term. I do nothing out of morality, as I define it, because I believe the right (ethically) are the correct actions (logically beneficial). I am amoral, however I would contend that I behave significantly better
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think of it this way.
immoral - "bad"
amoral - don't give a shit.
Re:Botulism doesn't give a shit (Score:4, Interesting)
It is safe to say that botulism doesn't have an opinion. However, it can be used for either evil (infecting people) or good (genetics research, developing cures). That is what "amoral" means.
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Botulism isn't capable of abstract thought.
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Amoral:
amoral/môrl/
Adjective: Lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.
Immoral:
immoral/imôrl/
Adjective: Not conforming to accepted standards of morality.
What exactly am I missing here?
The difference is that one of them (amoral) refers to a lack of interest in the other (namely the question whether a particular act is moral or not).
It seems though that the original poster is using the word amoral in an extremely non-standard way. I think he is trying to say that providing for in-game transactions is not in and of itself moral or immoral. In other words, the concept is morally neutral.
In standard usage of the word in-game transactions would not be described as amoral because they are not r
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moral:
if (option1.morality > option2.morality) choose(option1); else choose(option2);
immoral:
if(option1.morality > option2.morality) choose(option2); else choose(option1);
amoral:
choose(option1);
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Agnostic vs Atheist. Same idea.
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Chaotic Neutral
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CHAR != INT
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In short, Zynga can do whatever they want. I simply choose not to play their shitty games or give them any money. Same for console DLC that doesn't deliver significant value in addition to what I already bought.
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Well, except that it's wholly voluntary. I don't see a problem with it really, though I usually choose not to get in to things utilizing that model. With the genuinely nasty drugs, otoh, the seller leverages your addiction... where the buyer has less of a choice in the matter.
Is there any adult person who doesn't realize things like crack and heroin are addictive? I consider that voluntary too. You choose to put yourself into a position where you have a weakness that can so easily be leveraged. It really gets old watching people play the victim when they do things like this. You really don't want the kind of society and government they would create. Openly stated evil is much easier to recognize and correct than misguided good intentions.
From the summary:
The negative reputation these systems have comes from factors that are tuned to maximize profit and abuse players for their money. But that's not an inherent trait in the system; you could just as easily use it to ensure your own bankruptcy!
You could say th
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Is there any adult person who doesn't realize things like crack and heroin are addictive? I consider that voluntary too.
Well, there's your first and second problem with this theory. Not everyone that uses drugs is an adult, nor are they usually properly functioning, healthy individuals capable of good decision making. There in-lies the whole business model. Not the same as offering to sell you a $1 hat in a game because you like the color pink.
You could say that the formation of plutocracies and the concentration of wealth and political influence is not an inherent trait in the system of unregulated or poorly regulated (think: regulatory capture) capitalism. [blah, blah blah]
It's farmville, dude.
The problem with microtransactions in games is they provide so many different ways to milk the customers. There are many more opportunities to do that with this arrangement than there would be with a flat monthly fee.
How does any of this have anything to do with what we're talking about? I still don't think microtransactions in shitty games are the same as dealing drugs.
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Well, there's your first and second problem with this theory.
The problem with yours is that drugs are here to stay and planned, coordinated, well-funded large-scale efforts to eradicate them measure their progress in terms of reducing their growth. Since they aren't going away we need a different plan. What do you do with a situation you cannot stop? You find responsible ways to manage it instead.
Not everyone that uses drugs is an adult
For that reason the legal drug, alcohol, is age-restricted. Do those who are underage still obtain and consume it? You bet. There is not and has never been a substitut
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Well, except that it's wholly voluntary.
So's drug dealing.
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The idea that they're the same seems absurd to me.
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I was referring to the buying part. There are lots of reasons people turn to addictive drugs, even beside addiction itself. Drug dealers prey on serious physiological and mental weaknesses.
You only feel that way because those drugs are illegal, therefore only those willing to become branded as "criminals" use them. The only ones you know about are the ones who either get caught or have to do crazy things to feed their addiction. The responsible drug users look just like people who don't do drugs at all. You won't see them high in public for the same reason you won't see a responsible drinker drunk in public.
Lots of people are addicted to alcohol; we call them alcoholics. This doesn't m
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Eh, it doesn't bother me. If anything, I like the current trend towards Free to Play in MMO's supplemented with a cash store. If a game is horribly crippled without a cash purchase, I delete the game and move on. If it's worth playing and I enjoy the game, I have no problem throwing a few dollars at it if it results in the game being more enjoyable to me.
Case in point, Lord of the Rings: Online. It was a cool game, I played the beta years ago, but it just wasn't worth $15 a month to me. They moved to F
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My favourite to date is Age of Empires Online. Shows you all this "great" content you're missing (forcing some of it to stay in your few inventory slots) and tells you exactly which thing you need to buy to "unlock" it. Better yet, they create achievements which require the purchase of this content to provide further "incentive" to purchase.
When looking at the content provided vs previous AoEs, AoE:O will actually cost about $400 for the same content and all the content will disappear once the servers are
What about outside of gaming? Or multiplayer? (Score:2)
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"This shit is like drug dealing."
Addicts choose to be addicted. Tough shit.
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1. I think you are talking about publicly traded corporations. There are also a lot of large Private corporations, that are not covered by such regulation.
2. The rule is in general to show that they are maximizing share holder equity. Or in general if the company goes down the tubes the share holders who have invested their money will get something back. Vs. Running the company with no profit and the investors (who are also anyone who owns stock including average Joe who has a work retirement plan) will
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Corporations may have to work to maximise profits,
They mostly don't even have to do that, if that's not what their shareholders want. Even in purely economic terms, some shareholders want growth over profit. Some want to stay in a particular location rather than make more money offshore. Some want to address social or environmental concerns. Corporations have to look after the interests of their owners, but that doesn't mean the owner's interests are always "maximize profit".
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Corporations have to look after the interests of their owners, but that doesn't mean the owner's interests are always "maximize profit".
The cases you mentioned are extremely rare. The biggest shareholders in general are banks, hedge funds, and pension funds. They want maximum profit, period. And they hold several dozen orders of magnitude more shares than anyone after what you mentioned.
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The point remains though that the corporations are not remotely required "by law" to maximize profits.
At corporation does what their OWNERS want them to do.
While it may be true that most owners want to maximize profits there is no law anywhere to the effect that this must be the case.
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@0123456 & @MightyYar
I can't believe people still try to argue this point. Here's your citations:
General Rule: Fiduciary Duties owed to Corporation and Shareholders Directors of financially healthy corporations owe fiduciary duties to the corporation itself and its shareholders. See, e.g., Revlon v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., 506 A.2d 173, 179 (Del. 1986). Courts have generally held that directors of such corporations do not owe fiduciary duties to other constituencies, such as creditors, whose rights are purely contractual. See, e.g., Katz v. Oak Indus., 508 A.2d 873, 879 (Del. Ch. 1986). Some states have adopted “other constituencies” statutes which permit directors to consider the interests of non-shareholder constituencies, including creditors, in making corporate decisions. In general, however, these statutes are permissive5 and do not appear to create new fiduciary obligations for directors but merely allow them to consider other constituencies as a factor in determining the best interests of the shareholders; directors of a solvent corporation who favor another constituency over its shareholders may violate their duty of loyalty.
and
CORPORATIONS ACT 2001 - SECT 53 (a) the promotion, formation, membership, control, business, trading, transactions and dealings (whether alone or jointly with any other person or persons and including transactions and dealings as agent, bailee or trustee), property (whether held alone or jointly with any other person or persons and including property held as agent, bailee or trustee), liabilities (including liabilities owed jointly with any other person or persons and liabilities as trustee), profits and other income, receipts, losses, outgoings and expenditure of the body; and
At this point, I'm tired of searching legalese just to prove my point. If you care, you can Google more. Really, you don't have to look any farther than recent events involving GE's international tax evasion strategy (many other companies as well), BP cutting corners leading to plant explosions and multiple major oil leaks, all the patent trolls, the mobile patent wars in general; the list goes on
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So where does that show:
What they are failing to take into account is that corporations, by law, have to abuse people for profit
Ah, it doesn't, does it?
Are you seriously claiming that there's a law requiring BP to cause oil leaks?
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The fact that those laws aren't enforced means that they are free to abuse customers all they want, in the name of maximizing profit.
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The fact that those laws aren't enforced means that they are free to abuse customers all they want, in the name of maximizing profit.
The original quote claimed that there's a law forcing companies to abuse customers, not that some companies will do so in the belief that it will increase profits. The government is apparently holding a gun to their heads saying 'YOU WILL ABUSE YOUR CUSTOMERS OR ELSE!'
Except no-one has actually managed to show such a law because it doesn't exist.
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You could make a hotel where everything cost a tiny bit of money but the average expenditure for the basics added up to the average cost of a room. You could then charge for things like: taking a shower, having hot water in the shower, access to toiletries, access to towels, heating the room at night, watching TV, etc. You could do this with some kind of swipe card system. Would people enjoy staying in a hotel like that? Probably not.
Apparently some Retirement homes work that way in this country. Just wanted to point that out.