These "techniques" are incredibly frustrating to discover for all the gamers who are not likely to fall into these traps. Granted, those are the ones being actively filtered out of the user base for the most part, be it through choice of subject matter or game mechanics - but since these things have become so widespread I became wary of trying out new games in the App Store in general.

The last time I made an in-app purchase was for Elder Sign: Omens, a very simple game of chance that I like primarily because it reminds me so much of the fun I had playing the Arkham Asylum board game. Anyway, they offer a straight deal: a fixed sum (no intermediate currency) for additional content. That's it and I feel comfortable and justified buying that even though it's not a challenging or elaborate game.

I would never buy stuff if a game uses any of the shady tricks described in the article, but what's really poisoning the pool for all game developers is my increasing unwillingness to invest time into games that I don't already know in order to avoid that sort of disappointment. So what they're really doing is ruining it for everyone in the long run.

Maybe straight-up, no-tricks games should have a seal or something ;)

This whole 'pay-to-win' thing has made the free to play games go downhill in quality so much in the app store. I don't download free games anymore because I know the majority of them will bombard me with push notifications and 'incentives' to get me to cough up £19.99 for some magic keys.

Here's a novel idea: Charge me £4.99 for the game and let me play it. I don't mind paying for a decent quality game. I would rather pay for a game than download a free one that's unplayable without a tonne of in app purchases.

What's interesting and gruesome about the "free-to-play" (F2P) game market is this:

Game companies can extract the most money from players if they exploit patterns of human dependence and addiction. An understanding of techniques for creating addiction is---in fact---a competitive advantage.

Required reading for anyone who has children and indeed for anyone making purchases of any kind, anywhere.

The Behavioural economics page on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_economics is a little dry but a good source of references. I can only claim to be somewhat (vaguely) aware of the subject but having a good introduction from TFA certainly kicked my critical thinking skills out of their complacency.

Interesting stuff. Everything there is straight out of basic behavioural economics. One technique I didn't see mentioned is intermittent rewards. Basically, if you are only rewarded some of the time for performing an action you're more likely to repeat than if you're rewarded every time. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Intermittent_rein... It's the basic mechanism that drives grinding in games like WoW.

Now the big question is, how better games ("skill games") be monetised? Nobody really wants to play manipulative games, but it's not clear to me how you can effectively monetise free-to-play. Any ideas?

The kind of techniques described in the article are horrible indeed.

But there's a good kind of F2P. There are games that you download for free, which are essentially a demo. Once you finished that, you can buy the full game via IAP, this is pretty brilliant from a player's perspective. It's a shame that we use the same term for that.

I suppose the good thing about F2P in general is that it might just bring a very important message across to the general public: There is no such thing as a free lunch.

This is a great list of all the things I never want to have in any of the games I work in. Otherwise I would feel as a slimy cheat.

> This is my favorite coercive monetization technique, because it is just so powerful. The technique involves giving the player some really huge reward, that makes them really happy, and then threatening to take it away if they do not spend. Research has shown that humans like getting rewards, but they hate losing what they already have much more than they value the same item as a reward.

Eechh...I would hate to play a game like this. It's not just the money factor, but the feeling that I'm being extorted, and that paying is the only way to succeed in the "life" inside this gameworld. This kind of decision would immediately make me ask existential questions like, "Why do I care so much about my status in this virtual world?" and then quit playing.

Then again, I'm someone who is a complete sucker for "Show your appreciation by tipping the creator" type of pitches, maybe even giving more than I would pay for the game's upfront price (in terms of dollars, for mobile games). There's the "reward" of "I'm being such a good gamer, recognizing the hard work of this developer"

Some of the tricks in the article are unbelievable.

>At this point the user must choose to either spend about $1 or lose their rewards, lose their stamina (which they could get back for another $1), and lose their progress.

I can't imagine playing a game that threatened to take away my items if I didn't give them money.

I'm not a fan of these tactics at all as a developer or a consumer. The simplest way I've found to avoid these games is to cross reference the "Top Free" and "Highest Grossing" lists on the play store.

Under-developed "rational" brain before 25 years of age is a funny meme. Most readers should stop here.)

Difference in spending between cach and credit card attributed to "layering" is another meme. Correlation is not causation. The effect is, probably, based on the fact that there almost always bigger sum of money on the card than in cash in a pocket, so, the loss seemed less significant.

As for monetization strategies, it seems that nothing can beat "status items" (same as in so-called real life) such as "armors", "cloches" and all those "things" one could display and compare with others.

But so many papers..)

wow, there's some really subtly evil techniques in there...and yet, these techniques are netting the business owner millions in revenue.

I really wish its possible to earn similar revuenu, but with "clean" tactics (i.e., making a really fun game that also has artistic value). Unfortunately, it seems reality isn't so.