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Marnetmar

Confessions of a Free-to-Play Producer

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http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/

And if you are a whale, we take Facebook stalking to a whole new level. You spend enough money, we will friend you. Not officially, but with a fake account. Maybe it’s a hot girl who shows too much cleavage? That’s us. We learned as much before friending you, but once you let us in, we have the keys to the kingdom. We will use everything to figure out how to sell to you. I remember we had a whale in one game that loved American Football despite living in Saudi Arabia. We built several custom virtual items in both his favorite team colors and their opponents, just to sell to this one guy. You better believe he bought them. And these are just vanity items. We will flat out adjust a game to make it behave just like it did last time the person bought IAP. Was a level too hard? Well now they are all that same difficulty.

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So do they have expensive items or do they pay their employees minimum wage? It sounds expensive to exploit people so personally.

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The average person sinking piles of money into F2P has piles of disposable income, so I see it as exploiting the right people.

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I'm so immune to those kinds of "games," they hold zero interest for me. I think of them like that game on an episode of Star Trek TNG that brainwashed everybody into a bunch of zombies and they tried to hold down Wesley and make him play it after he was the only one smart enough to not do it.

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Quasar said:

an episode of Star Trek TNG that brainwashed everybody into a bunch of zombies and they tried to hold down Wesley and make him play it after he was the only one smart enough to not do it.

If you're thinking of the episode "The Game", it was actually Wesley that brought the game on the ship and got everybody else playing it.

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Moriarti said:

If you're thinking of the episode "The Game", it was actually Wesley that brought the game on the ship and got everybody else playing it.

Er, no, unless there's another TNG episode with an evil mind-control game, it was Riker who brought the game onto the ship. Wesley and Ashley Judd teamed up to save the day by fixing Data (who had been shut down because he could not be affected by the game).

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geekmarine said:

Er, no, unless there's another TNG episode with an evil mind-control game, it was Riker who brought the game onto the ship. Wesley and Ashley Judd teamed up to save the day by fixing Data (who had been shut down because he could not be affected by the game).

You're correct. The scene near the end where they try to force Wesley to play the game is way too memorable for me to have gotten it wrong (plus, I looked it up anyway :P )

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Honestly, I'm not surprised. If an employer can check your facebook to learn about you, even before you get to an interview, then surely a corporation can do the same in order to keep you coming back, spending more money on their shitty game. Social media leaves you so "exposed" to anyone and everyone. It's terrifying how easily you can get tracked through your posts and likes on social media.

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That's true, but the end user has the choice on who they friend, what they make public and whether they like or comment on a page which is public. Exposure is relative to how large they choose to make their attack surface. Whether it's weeding out the stupid or capitalizing on them the principle remains the same.

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I remember this same article or a similar one years ago. Maybe this producer just gets around.

Funny thing is they spend so much time stalking and yet they realize "cleavage photos" are what the whales really want.

I always wonder what type of people really spend the money on free-to-play games. If its adults with jobs or if its kids or stolen credit cards.

Jaxxoon R said:

Didn't Facebook gaming implode long ago anyways?


Yeah I think Facebook wanted a bigger cut so a lot of developers jumped ship, but a smaller slice of the pie is bigger than no pie at all.

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