Why Microtransactions In Games Are Amoral

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

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10 [penny-arcade.com]

Re:What are "Zynga-style microtransactions"?

[robthebloke]

The basic premise for all Zynga games is something like this:

* 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.