“我花了生日礼金，只能吃更廉价的午餐，还要求老婆付晚餐饭钱，好让我省下10-20美元的游戏零用钱。我想，我甚至没坐在游戏前都在想这回事。

Chris刚开始在《军团要塞2》（以下简称TF2）中花上几美元时正值20多岁的年龄。他所有的好友最近都搬离小镇，妻子的工作要上夜班，他不得不从TF2网络社区中寻找慰藉。

一开始他只是买了TF2中的“钥匙”，用它们打开一些道具板条箱，然后自己留下好东西，将其他内容分发给在线玩家。他喜欢这种赠予形式的社交互动，他所花的钱也看似非常值当。

但Chris很快就发现了他的首个“非常”道具（带有紫色烙印），他回忆称：“当时我简直欣喜若狂，从那时候开始一切开始改变了——我开始追求更高的目标。”

游戏成瘾

在这次发现的6个月之后，Chris发现自己的银行帐户已经分文不剩——所有的钱都被他用来寻找那些带有紫光的道具了。

“我的存款很快就花光了——虽然说我刚开始的时候也没有多少存款。真正麻烦的问题并不是它让我银行帐户空空，而是它让我陷入一个非常棘手的处境。因为没有钱买食物、交 房租和水电，任何意外的开销对我来说都是一件大事。”

Chris在此过程中甚至还出现了一些健康问题，却发现自己无力支付医疗费用，因为他的存款都被TF2掏空了。

“事情甚至恶化到了Steam甚至拒绝我的信用卡帐户，认为我是盗了别人的帐号，我不得不通过客服告诉他们‘没错，这真的是我在花钱购买游戏中的帽子’，与其他上瘾的玩家一 样，我的社交关系并没有派上任何用场—–我多数非工作交往的人脉都是在TF2上认识的人。在上班的时候我只想着打开箱子，而打开箱子时我就只想看到更好的结果。”

当他这种不可抑制的花钱开始影响到夫妻关系时，他才终于认识到应该来一个了断了。

“我从未对其他任何事情如此痴迷，所以我不能肯定地说一种‘真正的’上瘾是否会比这更强烈。我觉得这就像是一种强迫性的赌博瘾——社会压力迫使我去寻找自己无法重复获 得的兴奋感，尽管它导致我的生活停滞不前。

“有些晚上我熬夜到凌晨3点，一边喝酒一边玩《军团要塞》，执拗地寻找那些带有紫色文本的帽子，忽略了赌徒谬论并发誓我再花50美元这次一定会赢。第二天早上醒来只发现我 又为这些虚拟帽子花了100多美元，但却并没有达成自己的目标。”

有些早晨的感觉更加糟糕——自己的所做所为让Chris深恶痛绝。他会觉得极其沮丧和无助，并且发誓再也不回重蹈覆辙了……可一到发薪的时候，这些誓言又被抛到九宵云外了。

Chris此时的行为正是电子游戏行业称之为“鲸鱼”（在F2P游戏中大手笔地消费）用户的特点，他们实际上通过为99%一文不花的非付费用户平衡了F2P游戏的商业模式，使之具有 持续可行性。

Chris虽然坦承这种成瘾行为部分要归咎于自己的错误行为，但也拷问：“难道建立于剥削像我这种‘鲸鱼’玩家的商业模式就没有一点责任吗。F2P游戏瞄准的并非手上有点闲钱 的群体——而是意在让那些自控力差的人掏出上百美元。”

鲸鱼玩家

这正是我最近开始追踪F2P“鲸鱼”玩家，倾听他们的故事而开始进行的思考。我发现自己也在拷问究竟有多少F2P游戏开发者是围绕吸引意志薄弱者，并迫使他们对其成瘾，觉得 有必要在其中投入大笔资金这一理念来设计游戏。

我着重思考的是这些“鲸鱼”玩家是否真的完全赞成为游戏投入成百上千美元，或者说他们是被那些意在令其觉得别无选择而不得不花钱的隐秘设计所操纵和剥削了。

这正是我在过去几个月开始搜索游戏论坛和社交媒体，询问玩家在F2P游戏中投入情况，以及他们为何做此选择的原因。

这里需要注意的是，有相当比例的“鲸鱼”玩家认为尽管自己投入成百上千美元，但这些钱花得很值当。有许多玩家花钱只是因为觉得自己可以拥有很多乐趣，并且也乐于向开发 者付费。

其他玩家则告诉我，他们喜欢F2P模式，并且如果发现自己在游戏中投入过多，他们就会适时收手，及时退出。在这些受访者当中，消费意愿较高的用户占多数比例，而前文提到的 Chris只是一小部分特例。

但我们在此关注的并非感觉被剥削与非被剥削用户的比例——而是假如一个商业模式会令最小部分的玩家失控并搞砸自己生活，那它就是一个必须面对（无论是行业还是政府干预 ）审查的商业模式。

虽然许多受访“鲸鱼”用户认为TF2是一款杀手级游戏，但Valve这款团队射击游戏却并非唯一被点名的F2P游戏。

Kyle将《Planetside 2》描述为“危险的游戏”，因为他深陷该游戏导致生活捉襟见肘。

他表示，“我现在的情况就是一发薪就去游戏中花钱，导致拖欠房租（今年1月开始已经连续好几个朋没交租）。”

“有些时候我发现自己居然还没钱吃饭，不得不连续一周吃拉面，吃不起正餐。”

他称这种即时满足的感觉令自己不断购买武器和装饰性道具，从而不知不觉中花费成百上千美元。

他补充表示，“如果你的装备即时到位了，你就可以马上启用。我不认为自己处于一种‘我非要这样东西不可，即使它令我拖欠房租’的情况——这是一种可以让我承受结果，其 中的一点困难甚至会让我更感激之前所做所为的情况。”

Kyle并不后悔自己在《PlanetSide 2》中的投入，甚至认为：“我从不认为这些道具是一种投入，而更像是一种一性次娱乐产品，就好像电影票或者在一家精致餐馆的美妙晚餐， 谁知道游戏能持续运营半年还是一年呢？”

他称“我认为这种消费方式让我觉得自己比实际情况更富有一些。在现实生活中我可能只有一辆破车和一间破旧的公寓，但在网络上我却拥有许多人都舍不得花钱买的华丽装备。 这真是一种让你自我感觉良好的方式。”

战地英雄

《战地英雄》是另一款我采访鲸鱼玩家的过程中被提及的F2P游戏。与Kyle不同的是，John非常后悔自己在F2P游戏中的消费行为——他为这款游戏所着迷之时正做着一份兼职，后 来在游戏中花掉了大部分薪水，总计超过2000美元。

他表示“我认为付费获胜是一种诱惑”。

我的调查并不仅局限于AAA级PC游戏——许多Nexo的F2P游戏的出现率也很高。有名玩家告诉我，他在《枫之谷》中消费约3000美元，其中有500美元用于创造游戏中的单件武器。但 他认为自己不过是一个低端玩家，因为他认识不少在游戏中投入高达1万美元的玩家。

他现在还没有停手的意思，“装备磨损是无止境的，我现在暂时不玩游戏并不是因为钱的问题，而是要等待升级以及增加耗损上限，因为这是在韩国服务器中的情况。”

另一名玩家发现自己在《Mabinogi》这款Nexon游戏中投入超过5000美元，其中多用于购买装饰性道具。他表示，“有许多时候因为我在游戏中花钱，导致拖欠房租。但我也不知道 这该不该怪游戏，如果我不在这款游戏中花钱，可能也会在其他东西上花钱。”

他称“也不能说我很后悔为游戏花钱。我很喜欢这款游戏，也很想念其中一起玩游戏的伙伴。五六千块钱买到这些乐趣也不算太奢侈。”

但他也承认这就像是上瘾一样。“购买点数，并将这些点数押在随机掉落道具上可以让我兴奋。”

我还遇到不少更耸人听闻的故事。有名自称Gladoscc的玩家告诉我，他曾经玩过一款网页MMO游戏《eRepublik》（要求玩家向他人发动战争），在其中花费超过3万美元。他称“这 款游戏最邪恶的地方就在于，你得花钱来抵消敌人的花费。它是一款PVP游戏，其中的社交元素令我在游戏中逗留。”

就在他终于成功戒掉这个毛病的时候，有名随机陌生人在数周后加了他的Skype，这名陌生人居然就是《eRepublik》的开发者，他追踪了Gladoscc的详细信息，以便询问他为何退 出游戏，并打算将其劝回游戏。

目前我听到的最糟糕的消息是，有名沉陷Facebook游戏《Mafia Wars》的妈妈玩家在其中投入了成千上万美元。她在游戏中越是投入，就越无法抽身退出，并且无心理会自己周围 的生活。

她儿子的一名老友表示，“我记得最后一次去她家时，她整个房间堆满了成百上千个比萨盒、麦当劳的袋子。你一进门，就有恶臭扑鼻，虽然她一直呆在房间中。”

这名朋友甚至声称由于这名母亲一直在游戏中花钱，她儿子不得不去贩毒来支付房租和伙食费。

前F2P游戏公司员工的反馈

还有些自称曾经在F2P游戏公司就职，他们告诉我自己原先的雇主通常是以引诱这些“鲸鱼”为目的来设计游戏。

有一名曾是某F2P游戏公司的员工向我透露了一些惊人的幕后消息（在此我要隐去该公司名称，因为我认为这适用于许多游戏工作室）：“我曾经在X公司就职，我在那里薪水丰厚 并获得了升迁。但我发现这家公司的游戏对人们的生活造成了极大的伤害。他们是为成瘾而设计游戏。公司会根据能够最大化玩家投入的时间和金钱的参数来设计游戏。这些游戏 会找到并剥削合适的用户，然后将他们一点不剩地榨干。这与烟草行业并没有什么不同。”

该员工最终离开了这家公司，因为他为自己的所作所为而内疚——这种工作让他觉得自己的谋生基础是牺牲部分玩家的生活。

他们持续表示，“为了大众的福祉，应该停止创造成瘾导向的游戏。如果这种游戏公司拒绝改变其运营方式，那么就只有等到它们破产了才能解决这个问题。虽然看到大家失业是 件不幸的事，但这可能是清除游戏行业劣根性的一个痛苦的必要之举。”

我向该员工说明了我调查过程中所听到的消息，他表示对此非常不安。“人们玩游戏的时候，实际上是将自己的时间和金钱托付给开发者。作为开发者，我们有责任确保我们给予 玩家等值的回报。”

这名前游戏公司员工总结了一个要点：“激发人们自我毁灭的行为是错误的。”

“烟草和赌博行业的这一行为就是如此，有相当部分的游戏公司的类似行为同样令人遗憾。”

尽管如此，该员工表示他们并不认为政府干预会是解决问题的好方法。他指出，这类游戏使用的某些机制能够以更积极的方式运用于其他地方，“所以政府规范可能会给整个游戏 行业带来附带损害。”

他补充表示，“根据他们过去的情况来看，我当然不相信国会通过处理电子游戏的相关立法提案。”

但这一问题仍然存在：当游戏找到和剥削鲸鱼用户时，F2P模式才最为管用。

他指出，“如果玩家没有在游戏中花钱，就几乎无法在游戏中获得进展，那说明这款F2P游戏明显是针对鲸鱼用户而设计。允许玩家在不花钱的情况下继续向最高级的关卡挑战的游 戏，比较不具有剥削性。至少他们并没有积极鼓励成瘾行为。”

现在他已经不在F2P游戏领域工作，也乐于制作不会剥削玩家的游戏。“我现在正开发严肃游戏，也就是那种可能对世界产生实际积极效应的游戏。我很抱歉自己过去的作做作为， 但我保证用未来的行动弥补过去所做的一切。”

F2P开发者的观点

很显然，虽然大部分F2P付费用户推动了这一商业模式的发展，但也有不少人的生活因为这些游戏而被搞得一团糟。鉴于这一看法，我选择了那些与开发者直接相关的言论，试图查 明为何这些人会在游戏中如此挥霍。

《战地英雄》就是开发者强调鼓励玩家花钱的一个活生生的教材。该游戏最初发布时是一款真正的F2P游戏。玩家可以直接进入游戏，试玩任何内容，通过刷任务获得特定道具，一 般都能免费获得不少乐趣。

不幸的是，花钱所投入的钱并不足以支撑游戏运营，所以游戏进行了大规模的价格调整。这样玩家在游戏中能看到和操作的内容进一步受限，并且需要刷更多任务才可能解琐道具 ——当然，除非他们花钱。

在前文提到的John开始对游戏成瘾时，Ben Cousins是当时的《战地英雄》高级制作人。Cousins现在为DeNA开发F2P游戏，并且是F2P模式的坚定支持者。

在看过John的故事后，Cousins想起当初游戏进行价格调整时，有无数玩家为此不满。导致游戏的官方论坛出现了诸多消极评价，以及类似John的这种案例。

但Cousins也指出，价格调整带来了游戏收益，它保住了该游戏开发团队许多人的饭碗。实际上，由于迫使玩家为道具刷更多任务，以及引进那些能够给付费玩家带来优势的道具， 这个EA开发团队引起了粉丝间的骚动——但与此同时却保证了游戏的长期收益，因为有许多这种玩家一直在游戏中逗留并服从了这种新的价格制度。

Cousins表示“我认为控制产品或服务的开销是用户的责任，除非有科学证据表明他们对产品和服务的成瘾就像酒精和赌博一样严重。如果能够证实游戏与成瘾存在关系，我认为游 戏行业应该首先进行自律，如果他们无法对此负责，那就要服从政府调控。”

他补充表示，目前尚无明显证据表明F2P“鲸鱼”与成瘾性之间存在直接关系，“我个人希望，在我们做出任何有关消极心理效应的结论之前，有广泛的独立工作室来证明这一点。
”

Cousins还热衷于强调我所收到的过于消极的反馈也许只能代表一小撮“鲸鱼”用户的情况。

他称“调查一小部分样本，通常很难得到由此推及更大范围群体的准确数据。我认为如果我们发现有大量付费用户声称自己出现这一症状，那么我们才能够说开发者发现了一种极 具破坏性的用户心理操纵方式。”

“如果只有非常非常小部分的用户有此反应，那就很遗憾了，我们只能认为是这些用户的个人问题，他们的消极情况可能不仅仅是出现于在F2P游戏上花钱。我相信几乎任何产品或 服务也可能发现这种极少部分的消极成瘾案例。”

他对此澄清道：“我并不是这就一定是对的，而是说我们要搜集更广泛的数据才能下此结论。”

我询问Cousins他在DeNA的团队采用了什么系统来减少可能被F2P游戏剥削的玩家数量。

他答曰：“我们所采用的系统就只是团队游戏开发者自己的道德判断。我们通常会拒绝那些我们自认为存在剥削性的理念。我也建议其他开发者这么做，但每款游戏都有自身独特 性，这里并没有什么通用的金律玉律。”

有一名主流社交游戏公司的业内人士告诉我，我所获得的案例是“非常极端，非常规的情况”。

这位人士指出游戏公司已经在服从诸多行业规范——消费者保护法要求游戏公司公平对待玩家。他引据我收到的案例指出，“我们并不希望玩家这么没有节制地玩游戏，因为这一 点也不好玩，这也不是我们游戏的本意。”

“我们游戏的设计旨在让玩家享受短时间而非长期的体验，”——这位人士引据前文提及的《Mafia Wars》妈妈用户的行为指出，“这并非我们设计游戏的初衷。”

他还表示，自己所在公司的游戏回合都很短——其最热门的游戏回合一般为10分钟。公司有意设计短时间的游戏回合，这样玩家可以同他人联系。与多数F2P公司一样，游戏中的付 费用户比例也相当之低。

我联系了其他F2P开发者，其中包括Nexon北美PR总监Mike Crouch，他很有兴趣回答我的问题，但在几周的接触之后却不再提及这一话题。

与此同时，Valve的Doug Lombardi却并不发表对这些玩家反馈的看法，不过他之后却有再同我联系谈论与此不相关的话题。

虽然最初索尼在线娱乐似乎有意同我讨论《PlanetSide 2》这款游戏，但最后却告知公司无意对此做出回应。

更大的益处

并非每个F2P工作室都瞄准“鲸鱼”玩家。在我执行调查过程中，《坦克世界》开发商Wargaming.net调整了其F2P战略，移除了所有的“付费获胜”选项，确保玩家无法花钱获得战 斗优势。

Wargaming.net发行副总裁Andrei Yarantsau表示，“我们并不想压榨玩家，我们只想在公平对待玩家的基础上传送游戏体验和服务，无论他们是否在游戏中花钱。”

他补充表示，“F2P游戏有时候会被视为低质量的产品，我们希望通过《坦克世界》证实F2P游戏也有可能是高质量和平衡的游戏。

Wargaming.net并非唯一信奉这一原则的公司。Hi-Rez Studios发布了一系列F2P游戏，其中包括《Global Agenda》以及更受赞誉的《Tribes:Ascend》。

这两者的F2P模式都受到了玩家的欢迎：你可以免费下载游戏，尽情体验游戏，可以花钱购买其中的炫耀性道具，但不会获得战斗优势。

Hi-Rez首席运营官Todd Harris表示，他的公司所奉行的F2P哲学很简单：玩家会记得哪款游戏和哪家公司具有剥削性，并逐渐退也这些吸金工具，转向那些尊重玩家的游戏。

他称“你所提到的案例中的玩家很可能不会再去玩出自该发行商和开发者的游戏，我们要目光长远，维护工作室的品牌。我认为有些游戏有可能短期内能够获得商业成功，但我们 工作室的品牌和定位不一样，我们瞄准的是那些希望在公平的战场上玩游戏的用户，我们希望他们通过以往的经历，认识到未来的Hi-Rez游戏会提供公平的战场而非剥削性的体验 。”你可能会认为Hi-Rez的收益并不像更具剥削性的工作室那么可观，但需要注意的是，约有10%的《Tribes:Ascend》玩家会在游戏中花钱——这一数据远高于我所听闻的其他F2P开发 高1%、3%、5%的付费比例。Harris称这就是信任的力量，玩家觉得自己所花的钱值当。

“我并不能预言未来，但我们工作室认为有相当部分的玩家希望体验更多公平的游戏。我们所开发的正是这类产品。无论‘花钱买地位’的玩家数量会增长还是缩水……工作室都 应该有所准备。”

“我个人认为剥削性的游戏会随着时间发展逐渐减少，如果你看看那些当前最为成功的游戏，例如《英雄联盟2》、《Dota 2》，以及我们自己的游戏，就会知道它们并不奉行付费 获胜的理念。所以这些游戏会更有吸引力。”

我询问Harris他是否建议其他F2P工作室采用与Hi-Rez和Wargaming.net目前所运用的方法，他的回答很简单：“亡羊补牢为时未晚。”

Harris也认为政府干预并不是个好主意——事实上，他认为这是“游戏行业最不需要的东西”。

“但游戏记者和评论员可以发挥很大作用——他们可以报道游戏究竟有无‘剥削性’，我不认为游戏评论员为某款游戏贴上‘画面质量卓越’或‘音效出众’有多大用处——现在 有这么多F2P游戏，大家自己试玩一下就知道质量如何了。即便是付费游戏，玩家也可以通过YouTube上的画面和玩法视频了解其质量。但‘剥削性机制’则难以通过一个预告视频 中看出来，所以游戏评论员应该在这方面多出点力。”

去年Griffiths发表了一篇论文，即讨论了社交游戏带有博彩元素，并且未涉及到任何有关钱的内容，只是通过应用内部购买引进了博彩的原则。

他说道：“第一眼看来，像《FarmVille》这样的游戏与博彩并没有多少联系，但这些活动背后的心里元素却非常相近。甚至当游戏并未包含钱时，它们也有可能将玩家带到博彩的 原则与乐趣中。像Zynga等公司便因为利用博彩机制去创建游戏世界而遭到指责。”

Griffiths发现免费游戏中鼓励博彩行为的一个关键元素便是随机强化内容——也就是赢得或获得其它间歇性奖励的不可预知性。

他说道：“较小的不可预知奖励将创造较高的用户粘性和反复行为。在少数情况下这也将导致瘾性。”

Griffiths同样指出了“越来越多研究”表明那些面对着虚拟货币的玩家将发现消费这些虚假的金钱非常有趣。

在这些例子中，当不再有钱消费时，玩家“便会发现博彩机制，并思考一个严肃的问题，即关于使用虚拟金钱的博彩是否会鼓励他们对博彩采取一种积极的态度。”

在有关应用内部购买的主题中，Griffiths说道：“游戏内部虚拟商品和配饰的引进（即人们用真钱购买的）是一种心理主线。”

“这变得更加接近博彩了，就像社交游戏玩家知道自己在花钱并且未获得足够的收益回报。经常有人问我，为什么人们要在《FarmVille》等游戏中支付真钱去购买虚拟道具。作为 研究了老虎机玩家25年多的人，我发现这其中的相似处多得惊人。”

Griffiths认为纯粹的博彩游戏与一些免费游戏的真正区别在于博彩游戏允许你赢回自己的钱，添加一个额外的维度而进一步驱动收益的发展。这也是为什么像Zynga等免费游戏工 作室现在逐渐转向纯粹的博彩游戏市场的主要原因。

Griffiths继续阐述免费社交游戏与博彩游戏间界限逐渐模糊，并因此伴随着“各种道德，伦理，法律和社交问题”的出现。

在年初与同事Michael Auer共同发表的另外一篇论文中，Griffiths说道：“伴随着独立博彩玩家的个体敏感性与风险元素的最重要元素是与游戏的速度和频率相关的结构特性，而 不是游戏类型。”

他补充道：“这里存在的一般规则在于，事件频率越高，博彩活动就越能引起个体问题（特别是当个体是敏感且脆弱的时候）的出现。问题和病态博彩从本质上看来是关于奖励， 以及这些奖励出现的速度与频率。几乎任何游戏都可以设计为带有高事件频率或低事件频率。”

结果便是，他认为如果提供给玩家的奖励更具有潜能，那么活动将变得更具有问题且更让人上瘾。

Griffiths认为这对于获得“安全”情节具有潜在的可能性，因为基于游戏设计，玩家的消费不能超过一个强制的结构限制——这将保证玩家不会犯一个博彩问题，不管他们的敏感 性。

Griffiths强调，游戏领域其实刚刚开始研究免费游戏中的心理影响。

他补充道：“从经验来看，通过社交网站我们几乎不能了解有关博彩游戏的心理影响，尽管有研究认为，青少年玩免费游戏是摄取真正的博彩与问题博彩的一大冒险元素。不管做 了怎样的研究，我们都需要确保游戏产业始终比研究者和立法者快两步。”

争锋相对

最近，两个关于免费游戏消费强迫性vs付费游戏消费强迫性的分析在社交媒体上传开了。

产业顾问Ramin Shokrizade写了许多有关免费游戏盈利的论文，详细描述了自己关于社交游戏如何通过不完整的信息与虚拟货币欺骗玩家进行应用内部消费的研究。

部分方法包含提供给玩家“有趣的痛苦”——这是Zynga 的Roger Dickey在描述玩家进入一个不舒服的位置，然后能够通过花钱删除这种“痛苦”的情况所创造的术语。

也存在一些与之相反的盈利方法，Shokrizade将其称为“奖励删除”。即免费游戏提供给玩家巨大的奖励，而如果玩家不花钱的话便威胁他们要没收奖励。

他说道：“为了有效使用这一技巧，你必须告诉玩家他们已经获得了某些内容，然后再告诉他们这一内容没了。在剥夺玩家的奖励前允许他们拥有该奖励越久，这一方法效果便越 大。”

Shokrizade说道，而虚拟货币的使用是当强制性真正发挥作用时。在Griffiths陈述虚拟货币教授玩家博彩机制前，Shokrizade抢先一步讨论了当玩家将现实货币当成虚拟货币时， 他们的忧患意识便会降低，从而不会因为自己花太多钱而忧虑。

此外，Shokrizade还详细描述了他所谓的“赌注游戏”——当你一开始接触这些游戏时，它们扮演的是免费游戏，但逐渐地它们将演变成基于金钱的游戏，即更有经验的玩家将投 入真钱去打败其他玩家。

在那之后几天，Spry Fox的Daniel Cook发表了一篇名为“Coercive Pay-2-Play techniques”的博文，在文章中他带着一种半玩笑式口吻反驳了免费游戏。

他强调付费游戏会邀请玩家在还未开始游戏前投入大量的金钱，而一些公司还使用了视频，广告以及预告片去提高用户对于他们即将问世的游戏的好奇度。

Cook补充道，事先的“宣传”意味着开发者不需要担心真正的游戏设计，可以简单地通过“设置一个吸引人的主题，华丽的图像以及能力去快速呈现出较短的序列游戏”而进行销 售。

他也瞄准了斯金纳箱的游戏设计，像捆绑销售和限时折扣等各种销售方式。最后他开玩笑地说着付费游戏正在伤害产业，并且是一种不道德的实践。

当然，Cook有点轻视免费游戏参数，尽管整篇文章的要点是比较免费游戏模式到底有多“强制”——特别是当用这些最糟糕的情节与付费游戏的最糟糕情节相比较时。

其它观点

Laralyn McWilliams是电子游戏设计师兼制作人，曾经作为SOE的免费儿童游戏《Free Realms》的创意总监。她也曾就免费游戏模式的优势与劣势做出了详细描述。

我将自己在写这篇文章时所找到的许多信息发送给McWilliams，她告诉我：“从实践角度来看，人们总是会选择那个能够让自己抛弃其它活动的活动。”

她强调，不管我们是受到鼓励还是阻止，这一场景的人类行为都会归根为两个主要元素：

1.不管所包含的活动是被当成“有价值的”或者“值得做的”，不管被排除的活动是否是“必要的”。

2.像食物，睡觉，健康，卫生，维持收入来源以及支付重要费用等普遍元素。

她说道：“第一个标准是主观的，基于不同人的评估会出现不同的结果。大多数人同意当在赌场花钱时，如果你不去支付自己的账单便会被驱逐出去是一种不受鼓励的行为。大多 数人也同意一天花许多时间，不睡觉或不吃饭而沉迷于游戏中，搞垮自己的身体也是不受鼓励的行为。”

McWilliams认为，当你开始比较免费游戏消费与传统零售电子游戏消费时，交谈将变得混乱。她还说到，当我们不能理解那种长达一年往一款免费游戏中投入数千美元的人时，却 为许多在同样时间短购买了主机和PC游戏的用户辩护。

她在谈及我所收集的一个故事时说道：“我猜，如果他是花钱购买一款零售游戏，他便会离开并说道‘因为每个月都在购买一款新游戏，我都没钱交房租了。我必须回头。”

她继续说道：“他可能不会从客观角度上思考游戏是否值得这些钱——只是考虑到自己是否太过频繁地为游戏花钱了。在免费游戏中有些内容会阻止他花钱，尽管这会让他质疑自 己的钱是否花得对。当然，从社交角度来看这些免费游戏以及虚拟商品的价值与我们对于其它兴趣（包括零售哟徐i）费用的价值评估是不同的，但我猜他是基于同样的方式进行思 考，甚至未考虑到任何社交元素。”

记着这一点，McWilliams认为免费游戏开发者应该问自己两个基本的问题：

1.我们是否该尝试着看清楚玩家的不健康消费模式并想办法限制他们？

2.我们是否该为消费提供有效的机制，如果我们已经这么做了，为什么许多玩家不能感受到这点？

McWilliams说道：“当你着眼于数据时（游戏邦注：如将其与博彩游戏中不健康瘾性行为模式进行比较），当发现第一类别的玩家数量很少，我们就应该意识到公众（甚至是我们 自己的玩家）将更多玩家归类到‘不健康消费’类别中，因为他们认为不管往游戏中投入多少钱都不会创造出有意义的价值。”

简单地来说：“如果你现在坐下并在《勿忘我》中投入60美元，并且游戏质量就是你所期待的那样，那么你的想法是否与投入60美元与《Clash of Clans》一样？许多人不会这么 想，即使他们是基于同样的时间长短在玩游戏。”

她继续说道：“虚拟商品是否是无形的？实际上当你购买了《勿忘我》后，当你下一周再打开游戏时它并不会要你再支付同样的费用。”

国际社交游戏联盟（ISGC）是年初所成立的一个组织，其目标是帮助他们了解社交游戏业务的内部运行。我与该组织的首席执行官Luc Delany分享了我的发现。

（需要说明的是，ISGC是由Zynga以及一些社交博彩游戏公司所设立的，与我进行交谈的是来自Zynga的代表。）

他告诉我：“许多人都认为社交游戏中消费与真钱博彩行为是一样的。但是玩博彩游戏与任何其它游戏，或者其它类型娱乐的动机却是不同的。”

他继续说道：“从历史上来看，人们总是会在电子游戏和其它娱乐形式中上瘾。就像我花了很多钱在iTunes上以及一些甚至从未看过的电影中，只是因为之前一时的冲动购买了它 们。人们会花许多钱购买手提包，去高尔夫球俱乐部，或者其它形式的娱乐，但博彩却是明确被定义为存在投机，机会，与胜负的游戏。”

关于Chris购买了《军团要塞2》的钥匙并洗凭借“不寻常的”道具获得奖励，然后便继续购买钥匙直到发现这样的道具，我问他在这中间是否存在机会元素？

他回答道：“我不会将其当成是与博彩一样的问题。在这样的情境下，你会如何将其与基于相同本质的电视节目进行比较？人们会输入文本去玩游戏，尝试着在盒子里找钱—-然而 这并不是一种常规博彩服务。作为一个社会，我们认为这具有花费动机，并在玩家间创造了一定的风险。因此我们认为这种标准的管理是必要的。”

Delany还强调社交游戏已经受到了严格的管理—-这里存在消费者权利，数据保护法，不公平的商业行为指令等等，他还问道：“是否有证据能够证明这种娱乐形式比其它娱乐形式 更有害或更让人上瘾？”

这时候，我突然好奇，在我们认真看待这一问题时前，免费游戏到底是具有怎样的危害性或上瘾性？

Delany回答道：“我也不知道。如果你着眼于有关人们对某些事上瘾的故事，那么不管是怎样的娱乐形式都会被戴上这一徽章。在90年代是游戏主机，80年代是电视机，更早之前 是收音机—-之前甚至有人说收音机将摧毁我们的文化呢。所以这并不是一个新的话题，人们总是会在新时代中仔细考察一种全新的娱乐形式。这是社会健康发展的一环。”

他继续说道：“但在今天却不存在任何证据能够说明这是一种特别危险的娱乐形式，即不同于人们花钱所进行的其它娱乐形式。我们知道人们花了很多钱在所有的娱乐形式上面。
”

未来之路

这里还存在许多可挖掘的内容，而我所讨论的有关免费游戏的内容却只是冰山一角。不管怎样我们仍需要大量的研究去填充这一领域发展的背后宏图。

很显然，没有一个人的理念涉及到政府机构，不管它是否受益于免费游戏玩家。但是为了对本篇文章负责，我联系了联邦贸易委员会以及英国公平交易局的相关人士，并追问了他 们的看法。不过考虑到他们每天都会收到大量信件，我并不期待能够听到回应，但一旦我收到了回应，我一定会与大家分享的！

我希望在我继续研究免费游戏设计的潜在心理元素的同时，免费游戏工作室至少能够着眼于当下传播的设计理念，并考虑它们是如何影响玩家的生活。

相关拓展：篇目1，篇目2，篇目3 （本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信号zhengjintiao ）

Chasing the Whale: Examining the ethics of free-to-play games

by Mike Rose

July 9, 2013

This story is being highlighted as one of Gamasutra’s best stories of 2013.

“I’d use birthday money, I’d eat cheaper lunches, I’d ask my wife to pay for dinner so I’d have a spare $10-$20 to spend in the store. Which does mean, I guess, that I was thinking about it even away from the game.”

Chris was in his mid-20s when he began spending a few dollars here and there on Team Fortress 2. All of his friends had recently moved out of town, and his wife was now working a nighttime job, leading him to take solace in an online TF2 community.

At first he’d simply buy some TF2 “keys”, use them to open some item crates, then dish some of the contents out to players online and keep the good stuff for himself. He enjoyed the social interactions that came with these giveaways, and it seemed worth it for the money he was paying.

But soon Chris discovered his first “unusual” item, marked with a purple seal. “I had this unbeatable rush of adulation and excitement,” he says. “For someone who didn’t get out much I was on cloud nine. And at that point things changed — I started chasing that high.”

Addict-to-play

For around six months following this discovery, Chris found himself draining his bank account until he didn’t have a spare dollar to his name — all for a selection of pixels that would hopefully be wrapped in a purple glow.

“My savings got wiped out pretty quickly — although it should be noted that at the time I didn’t have much put away to begin with,” he explains. “The real trouble wasn’t that it cleaned out my bank account, but that it put me in a really delicate situation. With no savings and every dollar not spent on food, shelter, or utilities going to digital hats, any unexpected expense became a really big deal.”

Chris even had a few health scares along the way, and found that he couldn’t afford to pay the medical bills because his savings account had been stripped for TF2 money.

“It got so bad that at one point Steam actually blocked my credit card, thinking I was some sort of account scammer, and I had to open a support ticket to tell them, ‘No, that really is me spending whatever savings I have on this stupid game with fake hats.’” he says. “And like any addicted user, my social element didn’t help — most of my outside-of-work contacts were people I just played TF2 with. At work I just wanted to be uncrating things, and when I was uncrating things I just wanted to see better results.”

It was when his out-of-control spending began to have an effect on his relationship with his wife, that Chris finally realized that this needed to stop.

“I’ve never really been addicted to anything else, so I can’t say for certain whether a ‘real’ addiction would be stronger,” he notes. “I would say that it felt akin to what I’d expect a compulsive gambling addiction would feel like — social pressures reinforced a behavior that kept me searching for an adrenaline rush I’d never be able to recapture, even as it kept me from making progress in life.”

“There were nights where I’d be up until 3 am drinking beer and playing Team Fortress and chasing those silly hats with purple text, ignoring the gambler’ s fallacy and swearing that if I dropped another $50 I’d be sure to win this time,” he adds. “Then I’d wake up the next morning and see that I’d not only spent over a hundred dollars on digital hats, but failed my only objective by uncrating a bunch of junk.”

Those were the mornings that felt the worst — when the reality of what Chris was doing hit home the hardest. He’d feel hugely depressed and worthless, and swear to himself that he wouldn’t be back again… and yet, the moment another paycheck came through, it was gone as quickly as it came.

Chris’ behavior during this time is how people in the video game industry would describe a “whale”– someone who spends large amounts on free-to-play games, and essentially makes the business model viable by balancing out the 99 percent of players who don’t ever fork out a dime.

And while Chris is happy to admit that a portion of his addiction was no doubt down to his own silly mistakes, he reasons, “I have to question whether a business model built on exploiting ‘whales’ like me isn’t somewhat to blame. Free-to-play games aren’t after everyone for a few dollars — they’re after weak people in vulnerable states for hundreds, if not thousands.”

Whales in the woodwork

This exact musing is why I recently began tracking down free-to-play “whales” to hear their stories. I found myself questioning just how many free-to-play game developers are building their games around the concept of pulling vulnerable players in, and rendering them addicted to some banal yet compelling activity that they feel they must spend large portions of their money on.

In particular, I pondered whether these “whale” players are fully consenting to the hundreds and thousands of dollars that they are spending, or whether they are being manipulated and exploited by underhanded design that purposely aims to make the player feel like they simply have no choice.

That’s why I began trawling game forums and social media over the last couple of months, asking players how much they spent on free-to-play games, and why they chose to do so.

It must be noted at this point that a good portion of the “whale” correspondence I received was from players who felt that, despite spending in the thousands, they had got their money’s worth. To many players, they had simply spent a lot of money because they were having lots of fun, and felt that they were happy to throw cash at the developer.

Other players also told me that they loved the free-to-play model, and that if they ever did feel like they were spending too much on these games, they could easily stop any time they wanted. There are plenty of happy free-to-play customers out there, and the aforementioned story from Chris only makes up a very tiny portion of the tales I received.

But it could be argued that to focus on the ratio of exploited to non-exploited customers is to completely miss the point — that a business model where even the smallest portion of players can find themselves losing control and essentially ruining their lives, is a model that must surely face scrutiny, whether on a industry or governmental level.

Although Team Fortress 2 was brought up by many of my “whale” respondents as a real killer, Valve’s team-based shooter was far from the only title named.

Kyle describes PlanetSide 2 as his “danger game,” thanks to the financial situations his obsession with the game put him in.

“I’m in a position where I’m living paycheck to paycheck for the moment as the result of that spending — beyond incurring overdraft for my rent (for a few months in a row starting in January this year and a couple other scattered times),” he says.

“There were a few times I found I ran short for food budget and had to eat ramen for a week instead of something decent,” he adds.

He says that the feeling of instant gratification, allowing him to purchase weapons and cosmetic items with a couple of clicks, is what lead him to spend in the hundreds.

“You know you’re getting your stuff right there on the spot, and you can do whatever you want with it right away,” he says, adding, “I don’t think I ever found myself in a position where I said ‘I really need to have this one thing, even though it will put me over for rent’ — it was more a case of deciding I could ride out the consequences and that a mild amount of hardship might even make me appreciate what I obtained even more.”

Kyle doesn’t regret his PlanetSide 2 spending, however: “I never thought of the items as investments, more like disposable entertainment, like movie tickets or a night at a nice restaurant, because when it comes to free-to-play, who knows if the game is going to be around in six months or a year?”

He adds, “Now that I think about it a bit, it’s almost a way for me personally to feel a bit richer than I really am. I might have an older car and a bit of a run down apartment, but online I’ve got all this nice swag that lots of people aren’t willing to spend on. It’s a nice way to make yourself feel special.”

Heroes of spending

Battlefield Heroes was another free-to-play game brought up on my journey to find big spenders. Unlike Kyle, John hugely regrets his free-to-play spending — he was working a part-time job at the time that he became addicted to Heroes, and he ended up splashing out the majority of his paychecks on the game, spending over $2,000 in total.

“I would call it the creme of the crop in terms of pay-to-win,” he says.

My research didn’t just focus on triple-A PC games either — many of Nexon’s free-to-play titles came up numerous times. One player told me that he has spent around $3,000 on MapleStory, including dropping a whole $500 in an attempt to create a single weapon in the game. But he says that he is easily one of the lower-end players, and that he regularly talks to people who have spent upwards of $10,000 on the game.

“It’s pretty much for more numbers, if I had a gun put to my head,” he says — and he’s not done yet. “The gear grind is pretty much infinite, and the only reason I’m not playing right now isn’t because of the money, but because I’m waiting for the level expansion as well as a raised damage cap, which are out in the Korean server but not the global one.”

Another player I talked to found themselves spending more than $5,000 on a Nexon game called Mabinogi, mainly on cosmetic items. “There were plenty of times when the rent would go unpaid because I had spent the money on the game instead,” he says. “However, I don’t know if I can blame the game for that. If I hadn’t spent the money on Mabinogi, I would have spent it on something else.”

“I can’t say I really regret the spending,” he says. “I loved the game, and I still miss the friends I played with. Five or six grand isn’t too much to pay for the amount of happiness I got out of it.”

However, he admits that it definitely felt like an addiction. “Both buying the points, and gambling those points on random drops would give me a rush,” he says.

I also came across numerous far more outlandish stories. One player, who called himself Gladoscc, told me that he used to play a web-based MMO called eRepublik, in which players waged wars against each other.

In total, Gladoscc spent more than $30,000 on the game. “The geniusly evil part about eRepublik is that you have to spend money in order to neutralize the enemy’s money,” he says. “It’s spreadsheet PVP, though. The social aspect is what kept me in.”

When he managed to finally kick the habit, a random stranger added him veryon Skype weeks later, only to discover that it was the creator of eRepublik. He had hunted down Gladoscc’s details so he could ask him why he had quit, and try to entice him back.

By far the worst story I discovered was that of a mother who became addicted to Mafia Wars on Facebook, and ended up sinking tens of thousands of dollars into it. As her obsession grew, she began to withdraw into the game and care little about the life going on around her.

“The last time I can remember going over, her entire room was filled with just hundreds of pizza boxes and McDonalds bags,” says an old friend of her son. “When you enter the house, the smell just smacks you in the face, even though she basically just stays in her room.”

The friend even alleges that as a direct result of the mother succumbing to the allure of spending more and more on the game, her son ended up dealing drugs simply so he could afford to keep payments up on the house and keep food on the table.

Ex-free-to-play

I also received messages from people who claimed to be ex-employees at free-to-play companies, and who told me that their respective employers would often build games purposely to entrap these “whales.”

One such response in particular (for which I was able to verify the respondent as having worked at the company he named) gave a stark picture of what’s going on behind the scenes. I’ve chosen to blank out the name of the company as I see this as being able to apply to multiple game studios, rather than just the one discussed.

“I used to work at [company], and it paid well and advanced my career,” the person told me. “But I recognize that [company]‘s games cause great harm to people’s lives. They are designed for addiction. [company] chooses what to add to their games based on metrics that maximize players’ investments of time and money. [company]‘s games find and exploit the right people, and then suck everything they can out of them, without giving much in return. It’s not hard
to see the parallels to the tobacco industry.

This employee chose to leave the company as a direct result of feeling dishonest due to the work being done — feeling like they were making the lives of a select few players worse.

“The creation of addiction-driven games needs to stop, for the sake of everyone those games take advantage of,” they continued. “If companies like [that company] refuse to change how they conduct business, then the problem will only be solved if they go out of business. While it is unfortunate that people are losing their jobs, that may be a necessary, painful step in ridding the world of one of the harmful aspects of gaming.”

I showed the stories I had found to the employee, who found them upsetting. “When people play games, they are entrusting the developers with their time and money,” they told me. “As developers, we have a responsibility to make sure that we give them something equally valuable in return.”

The ex-employee says that it all comes down to one main point: “Enabling self-destructive behavior is wrong.”

“It’s wrong when the tobacco and gambling industries do it, and it’s a shame that portions of the game industry do it too,” they added.

Despite this, the former free-to-play employee says that they don’t believe government regulation would be a good way to fix the issue. As they point, some of the mechanics utilized in these games are used elsewhere in a more positive way, “so regulation could cause collateral damage across the games industry.
”

They added, “Based on their track record, I certainly don’t trust Congress to pass responsible legislation dealing with video games.”

And yet, the trouble still remains: The free-to-play model has been proven to work best when games find and exploit whales.

“Any [free-to-play] game that makes it virtually impossible to advance beyond a certain point without spending money was almost certainly designed with whales in mind,” the employee notes.

“Games that allow players to advance to the highest level without spending anything are less exploitative. At least they don’t actively encourage addiction.”

Now that my source is out of the free-to-play space, they are happy to be making games that don’t exploit players anymore. “I’m now working on serious games, which have the potential to produce a substantial, positive effect on the world,” they tell me. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but I promise to more than make up for it in the future.”
Free-to-play developers speak.

It’s clear, then, that while a large portion of free-to-play consumers are able to take business model in stride, there are also those whose lives are being strained and, in some cases, even ruined by a number of these games. With this in mind, I took the commentary I had found straight to the developers, to gauge what exactly is going on, and why these people are spending as much as they do.

Battlefield Heroes is an instructive example of a developer moving toward an emphasis on incentivizing players to pay. When the game originally launched, it was a true free-to-play game.

Players could jump into the game, sample everything it had to offer, grind a bit to unlock specific elements, but generally get plenty of enjoyment out of it for free.

Unfortunately, the amount of money coming in wasn’t good enough to keep the game afloat, and so a large-scale price restructuring was developed, as detailed in this article. With this in place, players were now a lot more restricted in what they could see and do, and had far more grinding to go through to unlock items — unless, of course, they chose to pay real money.

Ben Cousins was the senior producer on Battlefield Heroes back at the time when John (whose story is told above) found himself addicted to the game. Cousins now works on free-to-play games for DeNA, and is an outspoken proponent of the free-to-play model.

Upon reading John’s story, Cousins remarked that numerous Heroes players were upset when the price restructuring occurred within the game. This led to lots of negative comments on the official forums, and stories such as John’s.

However, Cousins notes that the restructuring led to an influx of revenue, it had the effect of safeguarding of many jobs on the Heroes team. Essentially, by forcing players to grind just that little bit more for items in the game, and by introducing weapons that gave paying players an advantage, the development team at EA caused an uproar among fans — yet suddenly its long-term revenue was assured, as many of these very same players stuck around and submitted to
the new pricing regime.

“I believe that the responsibility to control spending on any product or service lies with the consumer, unless there is some scientifically proven link to addiction as is the case with products and services like alcohol and gambling,” Cousins tells me. “When these links are established, I feel industries should self-govern first and if they fail to act responsibly, be subject to governmental control.”

He adds that there is currently no proven link between free-to-play “whales” and addiction. “I would personally like to see wide-ranging independent studies done before we jump to any conclusions about any negative psychological effects.”

Cousins is also keen to stress that the overly negative responses that I received may well only represent a very small proportion of “whales.”

“When looking at a small sample size there is always going to be a lack of certainty in extrapolating that data to a larger population,” he says. “I think if we see a broad proportion of the spending userbase reacting as they claim to have in these accounts, it’s easier to read this as the developers having discovered a damaging method of psychological consumer manipulation.”

“When a very, very small proportion of the userbase react in this manner, while sad, it’s easier to read this as perhaps individual issues with those people which may be expressed in any number of negative ways, not just with spending in free-to-play games. I’m sure small numbers of very negative stories could be found for spending on almost any product or service.”

He clarifies: “I’m not suggesting either is true, just that we would need to do a broader set of data gathering before I’m comfortable reaching any conclusions.”

I ask Cousins what systems his team at DeNA has in place to reduce the number of players who can potentially be exploited in its free-to-play games.

“The systems we have in place are simply our own moral judgment as a team of game developers,” he answers. “We regularly reject ideas out of hand because we feel they are potentially exploitative. I suggest other developers do the same, but individual games are unique and there are no hard-and-fast rules.”

An industry source at one major social game company told me that the stories I received are “pretty extreme, and definitely not the norm.”

The source noted that game companies are already subject to a number of regulations — consumer protection laws that require companies to treat players fairly. Citing the stories I received, the source said, “We wouldn’t want our players to be playing like this, because it’s just not fun, and it’s not what the purpose of our games is.”

“Our games are made so that you have short play sessions,” the source added. “Our games aren’t meant for these long play sessions where” — the source references the story of the mother playing Mafia Wars — “those are not what [our] games are about.”

The source said the company’s game sessions are short — about 10 minutes for some of its most popular games. The company purposely makes game sessions short, such that players will connect with others, the source said. Like most free-to-play businesses, very low percentages of customers pay any money at all.

I also got in contact with other free-to-play developers, including those mentioned in the stories I received. Nexon’s North American director of PR, Mike Crouch, appeared to be interested in providing me with answers, but after weeks of correspondence went quiet on the topic.

Meanwhile, Valve’s Doug Lombardi chose not to respond to my multiple requests for comment, even though he did get back to me on an unrelated topic in the meanwhile.

And while it at first appeared that Sony Online Entertainment might talk to me about PlanetSide 2, I was eventually told that the company wasn’t interested in responding.

For the greater good

Not every free-to-play studio is gunning for the “whales.” While I was conducting my research, World of Tanks developer Wargaming.net revealed to Gamasutra that it is changing up its free-to-play strategy, removing all “pay-to-win” options and making sure that players cannot pay money to gain an advantage in battle.

“We don’t want to nickel and dime our players,” Wargaming.net’s VP of publishing Andrei Yarantsau told us. “We want to deliver gaming experiences and services that are based on the fair treatment of our players, whether they spend money in-game or not.”

“Free-to-play games have the challenge of being sometimes viewed as low quality, and we want World of Tanks to serve as proof that a quality and balanced free-to-play game is possible,” he added.

Wargaming.net isn’t the only company that feels this way. Hi-Rez Studios has released a string of free-to-play titles, including Global Agenda and the more widely acclaimed Tribes: Ascend.

Both are notable in that players are very accepting of these versions of “free-to-play”: You can download the game for free, and then play for as long as you want, with no advantages given to those people who choose to purchase vanity items and the like.

Todd Harris, COO at Hi-Rez, tells me that his company’s free-to-play philosophy is simple: Players will remember which games and companies are exploitative, and gradually over time, we’ll see a shift away from these money-grabbers, to the games that treat the players with respect.

“The players in the stories [you've related] are likely to not play a game from that publisher or developer again,” he reasons. “Our perspective is a long-term thing, thinking about the studio brand.”

“I think there’s cases where it financially works in the short-term for that title,” he continues. “In our case, our studio brand and positioning is different, and we are particularly looking for gamers that expect a fair battlefield, and we want them to know that in a future Hi-Rez game, from past experiences, that they should get a fair battlefield and not get an exploitive feeling.”

While you might guess that Hi-Rez doesn’t make as much money as some of these more exploitative studios, it’s notable that around 10 percent of Tribes: Ascend players choose to pay money — a figure that is much larger than the 1, 3, and 5 percents that I’ve heard from the majority of other free-to-play developers. Harris reasons that this is down to trust, and players feeling like they are getting their money’s worth.

“I don’t have a crystal ball, but our studio thinks that there are enough players that want more of a sports-like fair game,” he says. “That’s the type of titles that we are developing. Whether the audience of the other type — ‘pay for status’ — whether that is growing or shrinking… you know, studios have to place their bets.”

“I personally think that it’s going to go down over time,” he adds, “because if you look at the games that are having the most success — League of Legends, Dota 2, as well as our own titles — they are not perceived that way, not perceived to be pay-to-win as much. So those games seem to be having more traction.”

I asked Harris whether he would advise other free-to-play studios to consider taking the approach that both Hi-Rez and Wargaming.net are currently running with. His response was simply, “Better late than never.”

Harris is also of the view that government regulation would not be a good idea — in fact, he describes it as “the last thing gaming needs.”

“But game journalists and reviewers could play a valuable role — in reporting how ‘exploitive’ specific titles are or are not,” he says. “I don’t think a game critic’s rating of ‘Graphics Quality’ or ‘Audio Quality’ is all that important anymore — now that so many games are free-to-play, people can try for themselves. And even with buy-to-play, potential buyers can see graphics and gameplay on YouTube or via live streaming.”

“But ‘exploitive mechanics’ could be harder to detect in a single ‘Let’s Play’ video, so game critics could help a lot in that area,” he adds.

Dr. Mark D. Griffiths is a psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit in the psychology department at Nottingham Trent University. The professor is well known for his research in the field of video game addiction and gambling.

Griffiths published a paper last year in which he argued that social games have gambling-like elements, even when there is no money involved whatsoever — rather, they introduce the principles of gambling through in-app purchases.

“On first look, games like FarmVille may not seem to have much connection to gambling, but the psychology behind such activities is very similar,” he argues. “Even when games do not involve money, they introduce players to the principles and excitement of gambling. Companies like Zynga have been accused of leveraging the mechanics of gambling to build their empire.”

One element that Griffiths has found to be particularly key in encouraging gambling-like behavior in free-to-play games is the act of random reinforcement — that is, the unpredictability of winning or getting other types of intermittent rewards.

“Small unpredictable rewards lead to highly engaged and repetitive behavior,” he says. “In a minority of cases, this may lead to addiction.”

Griffiths also points to a “growing body of research” that indicates that players who are presented with virtual representations of money (virtual currency) will find that spending and gambling with this fake cash is hugely exciting.

In those instances when there is no money changing hands, players “are learning the mechanics of gambling and there are serious questions about whether gambling with virtual money encourages positive attitudes towards gambling.”

On the topic of in-app purchases, Griffiths says, “The introduction of in-game virtual goods and accessories (that people pay real money for) was a psychological masterstroke.”

“It becomes more akin to gambling, as social gamers know that they are spending money as they play with little or no financial return,” he continues. “The one question I am constantly asked is why people pay real money for virtual items in games like FarmVille. As someone who has studied slot machine players for over 25 years, the similarities are striking.”

Griffiths argues that the real difference between pure gambling games and some free-to-play games is the fact that gambling games allow you to win your money back, adding an extra dimension that can potentially drive revenues even further. This, he says, is why some free-to-play game studios like Zynga are currently moving into the pure gambling market.

Griffiths goes on to reason that the lines between social free-to-play games and gambling is beginning to blur, bringing along with them “various moral, ethical, legal, and social issues.”

In another paper published earlier this year with his colleague Michael Auer, Griffiths argues that “the most important factors along with individual susceptibility and risk factors of the individual gambler are the structural characteristics relating to the speed and frequency of the game rather than the type of game.”

“The general rule is that the higher the event frequency, the more likely it is that the gambling activity will cause problems for the individual (particularly if the individual is susceptible and vulnerable),” he adds. “Problem and pathological gambling are essentially about rewards, and the speed and frequency of those rewards. Almost any game could be designed to either have high event frequencies or low event frequencies.”

As a result, he argues that the more potential rewards that are offered to the player, the more problematic and addictive an activity can become.

Griffiths goes on to argue that it would be potentially possible for a “safe” scenario to be achieved, by which a game is designed such that players cannot spend money past a enforced structural limit — this would ensure that players were not able to develop a gambling problem, regardless of their susceptibility.

Griffiths is keen to stress that, as of yet, the psychosocial impact of free-to-play games are only just beginning to be investigated by people in the field of games.

“Empirically, we know almost nothing about the psychosocial impact of gambling via social networking sites, although research suggests the playing of free games among adolescents is one of the risk factors for both the uptake of real gambling and problem gambling,” he adds. “Whatever research is done, we can always be sure that the gaming industry will be two steps ahead of both researchers and legislators.”

Tit for tat

Most recently, a pair of analyses on the topic of free-to-play spending coercion versus pay-to-play spending coercion was spread far and wide via social media.

Ramin Shokrizade, an industry consultant who has written numerous papers on the topic of free-to-play monetization, detailed his research into how social games will trick players into making in-app purchases through incomplete information and virtual currency.

Part of this method involves providing the player with “fun pain” — a term coined by Zynga’s Roger Dickey to denote the situation in which a player is put into an uncomfortable position, and then offered the chance to remove the “pain” by spending real money.

There’s also a sort of opposite monetization method to this, which Shokrizade calls “Reward Removal.” A free-to-play game offers the play a huge reward, and then subsequently threatens to take away the reward if the player doesn’t fork out cash.

“To be effective with this technique, you have to tell the player they have earned something, and then later tell them that they did not,” he says. “The longer you allow the player to have the reward before you take it away, the more powerful is the effect.”

But the use of virtual currency is where the coercion really takes off, says Shokrizade. Griffiths stated before that spending virtual currency teaches players the mechanics of gambling, but Shokrizade goes a step further and argues that when players see their real-world cash in terms of virtual currency, it lowers the sense of anxiety and allows them to be less apprehensive about spending larger amounts.

Elsewhere, Shokrizade details what he calls “Ante Games” — those free-to-play titles that appear to be games based on skill when you first boot them up, but gradually turn into a money game, as the more experienced players put real money in to beat other players. It’s worth reading Shokrizade’s entire article on the topic, which also delves into “Progress Gates” and sales boosts.

Though there’s no reference to Shokrizade’s piece in it, Spry Fox’s Daniel Cook posted a blog a few days later titled “Coercive Pay-2-Play techniques,” in which he takes to task many of the arguments against free-to-play with a tongue-in-cheek rebuttal of his own.

He notes that pay-to-play games invite players to spend large amounts of money without ever having played the game first, while some companies purposely use videos, adverts and previews to artificially increase excitement for upcoming and released games.

Cook adds that this pre-release “propaganda” means that developers don’t need to worry as much about the actual game design, and can simply make the sell by “having a catchy theme, pretty graphics and the ability to turn out short sequential games rapidly.”

He also targets Skinner Box game design, the various methods of sale such as bundles and time-limited discounts, and other forms of manipulation in free-to- play games. He closes by jokingly suggesting that pay-to-play games are hurting the industry, and are an immoral practice.

Cook is, of course, is making light of the free-to-play arguments a fair bit, although the overall point of the article is to compare just how “coercive” the free-to-play model actually is — especially when these worst-case scenarios are compared to the worst-case scenarios for pay-to-play games. Cook’s blog is well worth a read.

Other perspectives

Laralyn McWilliams is a video game designer and producer who has previously worked on SOE’s free-to-play kids’ game Free Realms as creative director. She has written at length about the strengths and weaknesses of the free-to-play model.

I sent McWilliams much of the information I had uncovered while researching this article, and she told me, “From a practical perspective, people will always find an activity that attracts them to the exclusion of many other activities.”

She notes that whether we should be encouraging or discouraging this common human behavior comes down to two main factors:

1. Whether the activities being included are considered “valuable” or “worthwhile,” and whether the activities being excluded are (or are considered) “essential.”

2. Universal elements like food, sleep, health, hygiene, maintaining a source of income, and paying important bills.

“The first criteria is largely subjective and varies tremendously based on who’s doing the evaluation,” she notes. “Most people would agree that spending money at the casino to the extent that your bills go unpaid and you get evicted is a behavior we shouldn’t encourage. Most people would also agree that playing a game so many hours in the day that you don’t sleep or eat and your health deteriorates is also something we shouldn’t encourage.”

Where the conversation gets muddy, McWilliams argues, is when you begin to compare free-to-play spending with traditional retail video game spending. She notes that while we might pull a face at someone spending thousands of dollars on a single free-to-play over a year or so, you could argue that many players who purchase console and PC games may spend just as much over the same period of time.

“I suspect that if he’d spent the money on retail games, he’d walk away saying, ‘I keep having trouble making rent because I’m buying a new game every month. I have to figure out a way to cut back,” she says of one of the stories I collected.

“He probably wouldn’t question too much whether games in general are worth the money from the objective perspective — just about whether he’s buying them too frequently,” she continues. “There’s something in the way he spent money in the free-to-play game, though, that made him question on a fundamental level whether his money was well spent. Sure, some of that’s probably the social perspective right now that free-to-play games in general and virtual goods in particular are not expenses we value as much as expenses for other hobbies (including retail games), but I suspect he might still feel the same way even without that social input.”

With this in mind, McWilliams believes that are two fundamental questions that free-to-play developers should be asking themselves:

1. Should we try to be aware of unhealthy spend patterns in players and find ways to limit/discourage them?

2. Are we providing good value for money spent, and if we are, why doesn’t it feel that way to many players?

Says McWilliams, “Even if the percentage of players who fit in the first category is very small when you look at actual data (and compare it to the behavior patterns recognized as unhealthy addiction in gambling, for example), we should be concerned about the fact that public perception — even from our own players — would put far, far more people into the ‘unhealthy spend’ category, because there’s a fundamental feeling that any significant amount of money spent in the game is money that didn’t result in meaningful value.”

To put it simply: “If you sat down right now and dropped $60 on Remember Me, and the quality of the game was what you expected, would you feel the same about that as if you sat down right now and dropped $60 on Clash of Clans? A lot of people wouldn’t, even if they play the games for the same length of time.”

She continues, “Is it the intangibility of virtual goods? The fact that once you buy Remember Me, it doesn’t ask you to spend that same amount again next week?”

The International Social Games Coalition is a group that was set up earlier this year, with the aim to better educate people about the inner-workings of the social games business. I spoke with the group’s CEO Luc Delany regarding my findings.

(I should note at this point that the ISGC was set up by Zynga alongside a variety of social casino game companies, and it was a Zynga representative that suggested I talk to Delany. I say this not to undermine any of Delany’s points, but rather to give you the full picture when reading his views, and to explain why much of the discussion is focused around comparing free-to-play “whale” spending with “whale” spending in the gambling industry.)

“Lots of people have tried to draw the parallel between people spending money in social games, and real-money gambling,” he tells me. “However, the motivations for playing a gambling game versus any other game, or any other type of entertainment, are very different.”

He notes that in gambling games, there is a risk of loss, and the opportunity of winning — therefore the addiction that players have to free-to-play games is very different.

“There is a documented history of people being addicted to video games, and other forms of entertainment,” he adds. “I spend too much money on iTunes, and films I’ll never watch, just because I make an impulsive buy. People spend so much money on handbags, on golf clubs, on all kinds of other forms of entertainment, but gambling is very clearly defined as games where there is a stake, a chance, and a win or loss.”

I ask him about the example of Chris purchasing Team Fortress 2 “keys” in the hope that he will be rewarded with an “unusual” item, and then continuing to purchase keys until he found such an item. Isn’t there an element of stake and chance there?

“I don’t see it as the same issue as gambling,” he answers. “Under that scenario, how do you compare it to certain TV shows that are essentially the same thing? People text in to play along with a game, trying to find the money in the box — yet that’s not a regulated gambling service. As a society, we’ve judged that to be the motivation of a payout, that creates a certain risk amongst players. Therefore we’ve decided that this level of regulation is necessary.”

Delany is keen to stress that social games are already heavily regulated — there are consumer rights, data protection acts, unfair commercial practice directives, and more — and he questions, “Is there proof that this form of entertainment is more harmful or addictive than other forms of entertainment?”

At this point, I questioned how harmful or addictive a free-to-play game would have to be before we, as an industry, should have to take it seriously.

“I don’t have an answer for that,” answers Delany. “If you look at stories about people being addicted to things, whatever is the latest form of entertainment gets hit with that badge. In the ’90s it was games consoles, in the ’80s it was television, before then it was radio — radio was going to destroy culture etc. So it’s not a new discussion, that people scrutinize new forms of entertainment. It’s a healthy part of society.”

“However,” he adds, “today there is no evidence to suggest that this is a particularly dangerous form of entertainment, as opposed to any other form of entertainment that people spend money on. We know that people spend too much money is all forms of entertainment.”

The road ahead

There’s a lot to take in here, and clearly my delving into the underbelly of free-to-play is just the tip of the iceberg. Whichever way the signs appear to point, a hell of a lot more research is needed to truly paint the full picture of what is going on behind the scenes.

It’s clear that no-one’s idea of a good step forward is to get government bodies involved in the process, regardless of whether it would benefit free-to- play players or not. As part of my due diligence for this article, I did get in touch with both the Federal Trade Commission and the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, to assess their views. I don’t expect to hear back from them for a while, given the volume of correspondence they no doubt receive, but I plan to relay any response to do receive.

In the meantime, it would seem foolish to let the topic lie, especially while the conversation is well and truly flowing. While research into the potential psychological elements of free-to-play game design continues, it’s my hope that free-to-play studios will at least take a hard look at the current design manifestos being carted around, and consider how they may be affecting the lives of their players.